The HTC Droid Incredible Review, Clearly Better than the Nexus One
by Anand Lal Shimpi on May 10, 2010 1:27 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Snapdragon
- Droid Incredible
- HTC
- Android
- Mobile
Flash, Why are We Fighting for this Again?
The Apple v. Adobe debate is a great exercise in hypocrisy, but the end solution here isn’t to just enable Flash on all smartphones. The experience is miserable.
HTC ships the Incredible with Flash Lite installed, which will fully load most Flash advertisements. Great for websites, not necessarily great for consumers. Flash Lite does support FLV, but sites like Hulu still don’t work. To make matters worse, the inclusion of Flash Lite appears to make web page loading slower on the Incredible than on the Nexus One.
Connecting via WiFi to a local access point and loading pages with the majority of their content stored locally on my server, I compared the HTC Incredible and Google Nexus One:
| Average Web Page Performance over WiFi | |||||
| Apple iPhone 3GS | HTC Droid Incredible | Google Nexus One | |||
| Average Load Time over 6 Tests | 10.1 seconds | 12.2 seconds | 9.1 seconds | ||
In every single test the Incredible took longer to load the pages, despite having the same underlying hardware and a slight edge in Javascript performance (I'll go into greater detail on the tests later in the review). The point is that whatever HTC has done to its browser or its modifications to Android make pages load slower than compared to the Nexus One. Take a smoother UI, pair it with a slower web browser, and you’ve got a recipe for frustration. I will say that although it’s measurably slower than the Nexus One, the Incredible doesn’t feel slow by any means while loading web pages. Instead the browsing experience feels iPhone-speed with a higher resolution display.
Bring the network into play and it’s a totally different story. Now this will vary from one location to the next, but at my office loading pages on the Incredible over Verizon’s 3G was faster than on the Nexus One over AT&T’s 3G.
The Network: Verizon vs. AT&T
Other than my basement, I get great AT&T 3G reception at my house. I’ve never had a Verizon phone at my current house so the HTC Incredible was a nice experiment. While the signal strength indicator on the Incredible was never that good, 3G performance was better on the Incredible than on the AT&T Nexus One.
As I’m writing this paragraph I’m actually in a car on my way up to DC. Whenever I was near a major city I’d get 3G on both AT&T and Verizon, but in between AT&T would kick me down to Edge while I’d usually stay on 3G with Verizon. It’s a horribly unscientific test but it seems that if I were doing a lot of traveling between cities that I’d pick Verizon over AT&T. However around major cities (very large cities excluded, e.g. NYC, SF), AT&T’s 3G does just fine.
I will say that I have been noticing AT&T dropping more of my calls over the past couple of years but it hasn’t been enough for me to want to jump ship just yet
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rcc - Monday, May 10, 2010 - link
As I read the review, the commercial that came to mind was "it's just like a xerox" from back in the 80s.and then, but not quite as good........
Anyway, I'm looking for a smartphone update, but a clean sync with Outlook is still a requirement. Who does it other than WinMo so far??
xenon2009 - Monday, May 10, 2010 - link
I believe HTC does have an app called HTC Sync which does do Outlook syncing. I am not sure if it is available for the Droid Incredible but it is worth a shot. You should be able to get from HTC's website.cfaalm - Tuesday, May 11, 2010 - link
That works. I was able to sync my Legend with Outlook. You can download the app or even pull it from the SD-card that came with the phone (it should be on there). See website for instructions. It's really easy.gregounech - Monday, May 10, 2010 - link
Hey anand guys!I'm front France and typing this message from.my HTC desire.
I saw It's going to be out this summer only in usa, however it is already out in Europe. It adds HTC sense to the same hardware base of the nexus one and addingvsome other things.
Some websites loved it and I'd love to see you guys review it comparing to those two Android based smartphones.
Please.review it...
Regards, Gregounech a French addict to anandtech!
cgalyon - Monday, May 10, 2010 - link
Not sure if this is what you meant, but you can copy/paste in e-mails using the default mail client. I didn't try from the widget (removed that widget in fact), but if you enter an e-mail, just press and hold and it will highlight. You can move around to extend the highlight and when you release you'll have three context buttons. The first of these allows you to "copy" (later to paste). Also you enter the "expose" view by pressing the home button when on the home screen: at least my optical button doesn't pull it up...GlobleWarmingisbunk - Monday, May 10, 2010 - link
Anand,How Does the HTC Incredible compare to the Eris as far as performance.
I noticed that you did not review Eris, like you did with the Nexus One.
Thanks.
GregANDTCH - Tuesday, May 11, 2010 - link
How well does this one do on App space? Friend of mine had (I believe) the Nexus One and they reached a point where they couldn't put any more Apps on it. They were told you couldn't run them from the msdcard. It was only for Music & Pictures.safcman84 - Tuesday, May 11, 2010 - link
or can we expect a a new HTC phone in Europe as well?Cheers
IKeelU - Tuesday, May 11, 2010 - link
Is there anything stopping the N1 from eventually including the improvements made by HTC? As an N1 owner, I'm a little disapppointed that my device is "almost there" in several key areas, notably the touch screen, keyboard input and overall smoothness. Enough to make me consider hoccing it on ebay and picking up the incredible once it supports GSM in Canada.It seems a lot of what differentiates the inredible from the N1 could technically run on the N1 (besides the improved touchscreen, if there is indeed a hardware difference there).
Impulses - Wednesday, May 12, 2010 - link
If you don't mind rooting it and voiding the warranty, you can flash a Sense ROM unto it (visit MoDaCo) which basically gives you all of HTC's software improvements... The touch sensor on the Incredible and Droid are still better than the N1's tho (when it comes to multi-touch anyway, which I don't think has much to do w/any of Anand's issues which he usually described a issues of responsiveness or accuracy).I doubt there's gonna be a GSM Incredible, the Desire would be it's GSM equivalent, basically a Nexus One with Sense, an extra hole for the speakerphone, and a touchpad instead of a trackball.