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
Software - Android 2.2.1 & Sense 2.0
Sense 3.0 appears to be limited to HTC devices that ship with Gingerbread at this point. It's unclear whether or not we'll see an update to the Incredible 2's Sense UI alongside Gingerbread.
The software supports seven home screens, each can be home to a single large widget or multiple smaller ones. HTC offers preconfigured groups of home screens called Scenes for quickly switching between usage models. If nothing HTC supplies suits your fancy you are free to customize all of the home screens to your liking and save the configuration as a custom scene. In my opinion one of the biggest advantages of HTC's scenes is the ability to quickly switch the layout of your widgets when you travel. I find that when I travel I typically use a different set of apps than I do when I'm at home. I can definitely see the usefulness in being able to quickly change the configuration of shortcuts and widgets. HTC does make switching between scenes pretty easy. There's a permanent link to Personalize at the bottom of every home screen (along with all apps and the dialer).
The notification shade does feature a scrollable list of recently used apps, however there is no quick settings tab as there is in Sense 3.0.
The thing I miss the most about not having Sense 3.0 is the lock screen shortcuts that let you fire up apps and unlock the phone with a single gesture. It's honestly one of only a handful of OEM features that I do believe actually improves productivity.
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The other Sense customizations are pretty standard. There's widespread integration of Facebook if you provide the Incredible 2 with your login information. The level of integration ranges from cool (automatically populating your address book with Facebook contacts) to frustrating (not delivering as good of a News Feed browsing experience as the dedicated Facebook app).
The UI in general is snappy and maintains a relatively high, but sub-60 fps frame rate. The apps launcher is split up into four screens: all apps, an automatically populated (and very useful) grid of frequent apps, downloaded apps and finally the Verizon preloaded apps.
Verizon puts a ton of preloaded apps on the Incredible 2, unfortunately you can't move them to the SD card or remove them entirely.
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HTC's web browser is pretty quick and provides relatively smooth scrolling - it's definitely not perfect but not frustrating either. Flash is supported and surprisingly enough it doesn't bog down the browsing experience all that much. Pages are loaded first, followed by flash elements. My biggest complaint about the browser is that tapping on the search/URL bar defaults to URL entry (as in you get a prefilled http://www.). I'm used to Chrome on the desktop which defaults to search instead.
The last thing I'd like to comment on is HTC's Sense keyboard. I was pleased with it in the original Incredible and am still generally happy with it. It's still a bit busier than I'd like but it's functional, the keys are well spaced and I can type quickly on it.
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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.