HTC Droid Incredible 2 Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on July 3, 2011 11:44 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- HTC
- Verizon
- Droid Incredible 2
- Mobile
Network & WiFi Performance
The Incredible 2 comes with single stream 72Mbps 802.11n support. In our standard test however the best we ever saw was 16Mbps to the phone over WiFi (5 feet away from the AP):
The Incredible 2 uses the same BCM4329 WiFi radio as the Sensation despite posting much lower performance.
I've never characterized Verizon's network performance in Raleigh before but it's generally pretty similar to other EVDO charts we've shown in the past:
There's a lot of clustering around 0.5 - 0.8Mbps and then again around 1.2 - 1.3Mbps. I rarely saw speeds of 2Mbps around town, my experience with the Incredible 2 (and other Verizon phones) in Raleigh had downstream performance around 0.9Mbps.
Upstream performance varies a lot more. Often times I'd see great consistency with downstream speeds only to have completely unpredictable upstream performance. I don't believe this is an issue with the Incredible 2, just how Verizon behaves in Raleigh, NC.
Signal attentuation due to normal use isn't a problem with the Incredible 2. Like all other smartphones you do attenuate the cellular signal by just holding the phone but the drop is similar to other modern phones and obviously not as bad as the AT&T iPhone 4.
| Signal Attenuation Comparison in dB - Lower is Better | ||||||||
| Cupping Tightly | Holding Naturally | Holding in Case | On an Open Palm | |||||
| HTC Droid Incredible 2 | 14.0 | 12.0 | - | 0.0 | ||||
| HTC Sensation | 15.0 | 10.0 | 8.0 | 0.0 | ||||
| Samsung Droid Charge | 10.0 | 10.0 | 5.0 | 0.0 | ||||
| HTC Thunderbolt - LTE | 5.3 | 2.5 | - | 4.4 | ||||
| HTC THunderbolt - EVDO | 6.5 | 0.8 | - | 7.2 | ||||
| Verizon iPhone 4 | 16.5 | 15.5 | 9.0 | 7.9 | ||||
| LG Optimus 2X | 13.7 | 9.3 | - | 5.9 | ||||
| Nexus S | 13.3 | 6.1 | - | 4.3 | ||||
| Droid 2 | 11.5 | 5.1 | - | 4.5 | ||||
| BlackBerry Torch | 15.9 | 7.1 | - | 3.7 | ||||
| Dell Streak | 14.0 | 8.7 | - | 4.0 | ||||
| Droid X | 15.0 | 5.1 | - | 4.5 | ||||
| AT&T iPhone 4 | 24.6 | 19.8 | 7.2 | 9.2 | ||||
| iPhone 3GS | 14.3 | 1.9 | 3.2 | 0.2 | ||||
| HTC Nexus One | 17.7 | 10.7 | 7.7 | 6.7 | ||||
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poohbear - Monday, July 4, 2011 - link
hey, the majority of Anandtechs new reviews are smartphone or tablet related, and yet there's no smartphone/tablet sub-forum for us to discuss this? when will you create one? seems your reporting is ahead of your site.A5 - Monday, July 4, 2011 - link
What are you talking about?http://forums.anandtech.com/forumdisplay.php?f=37
rs2 - Monday, July 4, 2011 - link
Love all the griping about the phone shipping with Froyo. You'd think that Froyo was the Vista of Android OS's, judging by the tone of the opening paragraphs. Nevermind that fact that Froyo was getting rave reviews on this very site not so long ago.Is it really so terrible that the device ships with Froyo? You can always upgrade, and a good OS doesn't become a crappy OS just because the current version was bumped from 2.2.x to 2.3.x a few months ago. Look at how long people continued running Windows XP.
clarkn0va - Monday, July 4, 2011 - link
I updated my Desire and wife's Galaxy S both from Froyo to CM7 for one simple reason: ingegrated voip. I tried a bunch of voip apps from the market and none of them worked to my satisfaction. In 2.3 it just works.Other than that, I can't name a single difference between Froyo and Gingerbread (accounting for the differences between Sense and CM7, anyway).
strikeback03 - Wednesday, July 6, 2011 - link
If nothing else, the security patches that arrived in later versions of FroYo and in Gingerbread would be nice. Otherwise, it is just the fact that everyone who knows wants the latest version of the OS, and Gingerbread has been available for months.Anubis - Monday, July 4, 2011 - link
I really think everyone who bitches about phones not having LTE are forgetting that LTE coverage currently flat out sucks. a huge number of VZW subscribers don't live anywhere near LTE networks. They currently offer 2 levels of phones. More expensive flagship models that do have LTE for those that want it and then cheaper general 3G models for everyone else.I am in the everyone else category. my next phone will NOT be an LTE phone as i wont see it where i live for years
strikeback03 - Wednesday, July 6, 2011 - link
I forget if they said it would be by the end of 2012 or 2013 that they would have LTE coverage to match their 3G coverage. Either way, assuming they actually pull that off your location might well have LTE before you are ready to replace your next phone.deputc26 - Monday, July 4, 2011 - link
Anand,In your conclusion you state that the Droid X2 is bigger than the inc 2 but on the first page the dimensions for the two appear to be almost identical, only .1mm off.
orizaba - Monday, July 4, 2011 - link
Body is not all plastic, BTW. Front bezel is brushed black aluminum all around which largely makes for the solid feel. Came from a Droid1 since release day and have had this phone a month. Love the speed, stability, form factor. No 4G in my area and the no battery sucking dual core (which isn't necessary for the purpose of this phone). Best 3G phone on the market IMO. Froyo has become a solid reliable OS. Will wait for 2.3 until it is well implemented without issues seen today on many phones.dtomilson - Monday, July 4, 2011 - link
Where are you mentioning the updates of Mango? All I see are the same slow Android phones with no hardware acceleration on a dualcore system where it is still _slow_.Let's hear some real news regarding mobile platforms and how they benefit the user.