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
Battery Life
The Incredible 2's battery life is a mixed bag. Our 3G web browsing test paints the new Incredible as being decidedly middle-of-the-pack. At barely over 4 hours of continuous usage this is unfortunately average when it comes to modern Android smartphones. Some of the higher end Android phones like the Sensation and Atrix 4G are able to boast much better scores here but they are physically bigger.
Our talk time test actually has the new Incredible doing worse than its predecessor, although obviously we're comparing results across vastly different versions of Android. If you're the type to talk on the phone for hours in a day, the Incredible 2 may not be for you.
Turn off the 3G radio and transact data over WiFi and the Incredible 2 does much better. At 9.61 hours of continuous battery life the Incredible 2 is second only to Motorola's Atrix 4G in our tests, at least as far as Android phones are concerned. I have a number of friends that hardly use data on 3G because they're always using their phone at work over WiFi - they would be just fine with the Incredible 2.
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Chaser - Tuesday, July 5, 2011 - link
After owning a 3G, Droid, EVO, Galaxy, and G2X the Sensation is the sweetest spot ever for a phone and I'll tell you why:LTE (and Wimax for that matter) is for practical purposes more a battery killer than a monumental feature Verizon and Sprint would like you to believe. Unless you are connected charging using LTE as a hotspot you will use LTE very sparingly while the phone is in your pocket. Who really needs 15mbps on a 4inch display? The point being T-Mobile's "4G" at 4-6mbps is more than fast enough even for occasional tethering like at an airport. But the Sensation's battery life is absolutely superb compared to LTE and Wimax. I can leave 4G on all day without a consideration.
I wont write a new review on the Sensation. But with this phone, it's specs, battery and T-Mobile's very competitive everything plan, world phone capability, and simultaneous voice/data (GSM folks) T-Mobile knocked this out of the park. Now that's Incredible.
Penti - Tuesday, July 5, 2011 - link
It's already running Gingerbread Android 2.3 here in Sweden. Too bad about Verizon's model. Not a phone that fits in with HTC though.peldor - Tuesday, July 5, 2011 - link
At $199 or $149 this phone doesn't stand out at all. On the other hand, Costco has it for $80 as an upgrade or $50 for new Verizon customers.mikehawk51 - Wednesday, July 6, 2011 - link
Cmon, enough with this dual core nonsense. Get some apples/apples comparisons here and show me the difference. None of these benchmark scores, I mean actual user experience. Here's one;I own both an HTC Sensation 4G (dual core @ 1.2 ghz) and a HTC Thunderbolt (single core @ 1ghz)
Guess which one performs better in real world use? THE THUNDERBOLT. The overhead of Gingerbread+Sense3 actually taxes the system to the point where homescreen framerates are actually worse than my thunderbolt. I can flick through pages on my thunderbolt as smoothely as an iphone, however on my Senseation there is a noticeable drop in framerate. It doesnt hinder use at all, but I notice it nonetheless, and it bugs the hell out of me. I feel like I have a substandard piece of hardware which cant keep up with the big boys, even though it is technically superior.
Guys, we're talking CELLPHONES here. The PC industry still hasnt caught up with multi-threading yet, but at least they have the reason to try. Threading out GPU rendering and physics pipelines at the same time can yield better performance in theory. But exactly what are we going to be threading on a platform which consists of side scrolling games no greater than mario bros? Or ultra pixelated low poly 3d golfing sims, or 1st person shooters on rails? Even if you could squeeze a quad core xeon into a cellphone with 16GB of ram, the platform just doesnt offer a venue for using this kind of horsepower. People dont want to play Crysis on their cellphones, they want to play Soduku and Penguins.
Dual core processors were developed for phones just because they could, not because there was any need or even demand for it. Dont knock a phone due to white paper specs, especially when older phones may in fact perform better.
strikeback03 - Wednesday, July 6, 2011 - link
check the comparisons on androidcentral between the Sensation and the Evo3D. Apparently there is a software update coming to help the Sensation as something causes the lag that they fixed in the Evo3Dnitink - Monday, August 1, 2011 - link
this phone have a great potential unleach its power get full hd games with sd card data..at:http://nitin-xyz.blogspot.com/2011/07/free-and-ful...
jjizzle - Thursday, December 15, 2011 - link
I'm running android 2.3.4 with sense 3.5 on the original incredible I'm pretty sure the S can manage just fine. The phone to get right now for HTC would probably be the rezound. That is my favorite.