HTC Droid Incredible 2 Review

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• VivekGowri - Tuesday, July 5, 2011 - link

  The optical trackpad was a bit worthless to me, but I agree with everything else about the G2. Unfortunately, the hinge made it so impossible to carry after the first 6 months....man, the hinge just felt like it was going to break within the next few weeks, so I had to sell mine. I really liked it otherwise, I wouldn't have sold it. Maybe mine was one of the early build models with that problem, so I don't know.
  
  I dunno though, have you played with the Sensation? It's a very, very well designed and well built handset, so I wouldn't write HTC off yet.

• makken - Wednesday, July 6, 2011 - link

  I have not had a chance to play with the sensation yet; I will have to go check it out at some point.
  
  I might have been one of the lucky ones with the hinge. I got my DZ around Christmas 2010, and, although the hinge is loose (i.e. it will automatically close if you hold it upside down while open), the mechanism is solid and doesn't feel like its on the verge of breaking.
  
  I admit, I had my concerns initially about the hinge. I almost decided on the droid 2 instead of it because of all the horror stories I've read; but I'm glad I didn't.

• RaistlinZ - Monday, July 4, 2011 - link

  Pretty nice smartphone.....if this were 2010. This phone brings nothing new or exciting or different unfortunately.

• deadsix - Monday, July 4, 2011 - link

  The original incredible supports Wireless N. At launch it did not but an OTA update unlocked it.
  
  http://www.androidcentral.com/htc-droid-incredible...
  
  I've personally own an HTC Incredible 1 and I can connect to N wifi.

• ol1bit - Monday, July 4, 2011 - link

  I think companies are trying to use old products now days. I'm, not sure how much development time leads up to a release, but at some point someone should say, "ok, let's can it".
  
  The Droid x2 with only 3g, and the Droid 3 with only 3g. Great on dual core, but missed the tech 100%!
  
  I will not buy a 3G phone, or a single core 4g LTE phone. I know there are millions like me. I want a significant upgrade for my hard earned cash.

• lament - Monday, July 4, 2011 - link

  "I will not buy a 3G phone, or a single core 4g LTE phone. I know there are millions like me. I want a significant upgrade for my hard earned cash."
  
  You must be holding out for the Droid Bionic like me and everyone else.
  
  As for this phone, here's the market they were aiming for:
  
  - people who don't need a monster display
  - people who want something fast, but not dual-core fast because they don't even know what dual core means
  - people who don't need 4G (they either don't need it or don't live in a 4G area)
  - people who want something inexpensive (this phone is 1 cent on Amazon Wireless for new or current individual accounts, or $79 for current customers on a family plan).
  
  In other words, my wife.. I bought one for her for Mother's day. She had an old Samsung flip phone before this. I've played around with this phone a lot (I'm still rocking an OG Droid on its last legs.. currently rocking MIUI ROM) and it gets the job done.. and quickly.
  
  The display is gorgeous and bright as hell. Even with a gel case, it's slim and light. It flips through apps without any hesitation. Battery life is excellent.
  
  It's a great value.

• JasonInofuentes - Monday, July 4, 2011 - link

  @lament Let me know how you're wife likes the Incredible 2. My wife hardly users apps at all and her Droid Eris just kicked the big one and I've got her running a Palm Pre Plus for now.
  
  I too am rocking my OG Droid, on CM7 but having some bugs that really make me wish I'd stuck with CM6. The email address is my name with a . in between first and last at gmail. Thanks!
  
  Jason

• lefenzy - Monday, July 4, 2011 - link

  On the other hand, you have consumers like me who also are interested in getting a good deal for their money but find that the cutting edge is simply too raw. I will not notice the incredible 2's shortcomings in hardware. I want a phone for email, phone calls, and light internet browsing. What's great about this phone is that it does everything relatively well: it's appropriately sized, battery life is sufficient, and performance is satisfactory. The three LTE phones are all too big right now.

• lefenzy - Monday, July 4, 2011 - link

  If only there existed an HTC sensation with LTE, a four inch screen, and enough battery life to get through the day. I would jump for that.

• JasonInofuentes - Monday, July 4, 2011 - link

  This is, unfortunately, a classic 'have your cake and eat it too' problem. In CPU reviews Anand likes to discuss TDP as basically the processors power envelope. You can fill that envelope using various components including # of cores, clock speed and feature silicon (AES-NI, HD decoders, GPUs, etc). But to meet a power envelope you have to limit the number of components.
  
  The same thing applies to cellphones. Say you want a thin light phone with 10 hours of battery life (these figures are all arbitrary, just an example). Your battery will be x volume of your phones space, and can be no larger or smaller. If you add a big screen, that will ruin your battery life. If you add LTE that will require a thicker phone and might limit your battery size. If you want dual-core you're going to ruin your battery life. So, you start remeasuring and reconfiguring till you've got a phone that isn't, hopefully, awful and meets your intended design target.
  
  So why can't you have you're cake and eat it too? An LTE Sensation would have to be thicker, would have to have a bigger battery and would have to use some sort of magic to squeeze all it's components into a chassis designed for a 4" screen. And we call that magic MSM8960. 28 nm, dual-core, OoO, 3G, LTE, GPS, BT, FM, Adreno 3xx GPU in one chip with significant power savings over its predecessor.