Just bought an HTC Droid Incredible

[medion]

Yea, I gave in. I realized that by the time I want a new phone (December/January-ish), it looks like the only two phones that would interest me are the Dinc/Fascinate (anything not on Verizon isn't an option for me). I had already made up my mind to go with the Dinc over the Fascinate, should these be my two options, so I'm good with my decision to get it now.

In addition to the phone, I've ordered the multi-battery charger and an active case (black) from Seidio. I also ordered a 2nd battery, a 1500mAh for the HTC Touch Pro 2. Offers 200 mAh more than the stock battery at the same price, and is confirmed to fit in the Dinc. Wasn't interested in the Seidio "1750mAh" battery due to some interesting test results; http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=649770

Basically, I can expect 1269 mAh (actual) from the OEM battery in the Dinc. I can expect about 1414 actual from the TP2 OEM battery I bought. For the same price, I could have bought the Seidio, but even though it claims to get 1750, it's actual is 1383. Also, the OEM batteries, based on many posts, tend to be more reliable long term. All 3 batteries would have been $40 to purchase, so I bought what I considered to be the best one.

Ordered everything last night. Verizon claimed a ship-by date of the 6th, but it shipped today and will be delivered tomorrow. The case and battery charger will get here whenever Seidio decides to ship it, but I can live with those coming in a few days later.

[CrowdAds]

[Curiouss]

nice. pics pls when it arrives

[Jack4L]

Nice, the incredible was roughly the target I wanted to get when I started looking for a new phone this summer. Went with the Desire as its the closest thing, but they are roughly the same device. As I understood it was just a CDMA version with a better camera? I do prefer the look of the Incredible over the Desire though, but eh it does have that usb port on the side instead of the bottom... Kinda got really annoyed with that on my Omnia so I'll just selfishly count that as a benefit on the desire.

Still waiting on my Desire, although I am extremely hopeful that I will finally get it this week, as my service provider recently got a large shipment in and there are people who technically ordered the phone after I did that have already received theirs >:/

In any case, you think your going to just remove sense and go with stock android or?

[kasrhp]

You will have to give us your impressions. Oh, I have Seidio case for the N1 and absolutely love it. It feels very high end and is very protective. I actually had it come in real handy one time when biking. It fell out of my backpack pocket while going down a hill about 25mph and hit the ground and went a tumbling. Well, the bottom half popped off after a couple tumbles at the end, but the phone only received a little gash on the bottom. Works perfectly and it would have been torn to pieces in anything else.

Glad to see ya pull the trigger though. Now-a-days a new phone comes out every couple months that is theoretically better than the current offerings. You just have to get the best one you can and realize it should be pretty future proof (yours will) and roll with it.

[medion]

Originally Posted by Jack4L

Nice, the incredible was roughly the target I wanted to get when I started looking for a new phone this summer. Went with the Desire as its the closest thing, but they are roughly the same device. As I understood it was just a CDMA version with a better camera? I do prefer the look of the Incredible over the Desire though, but eh it does have that usb port on the side instead of the bottom... Kinda got really annoyed with that on my Omnia so I'll just selfishly count that as a benefit on the desire.

The Desire/N1/Incredible are all built off the same platform. However, the Incredible does come with a few benefits. First, as you stated, an 8MP camera (though it's nowhere near as good as the 5MP on the Iphone 4 and Samsung Galaxy S). Also, the Incredible has a better multi-touch sensor. The Synaptics sensor used in the N1/Desire has difficulty with multiple touches on the same axis. While that sensor has rudimentary multi-touch support, it wasn't designed with multi-touch in mind. It's the same sensor used in the original T-Mobile G1.

The upgraded sensor on the Incredible doesn't have this issue. Watch this video for an example of the issue.

http://www.neowin.net/news/htc-incre...ne-multi-touch

It sucks, but this is a real issue with the N1 and desire. I'm glad they fixed it for the Incredible. You can think of the N1/Desire as the "model" phones for 2010 (as they were released in the very beginning). The Incredible is more like the 6-month refresh of that product before we see the real 2011 model.

In any case, you think your going to just remove sense and go with stock android or?

I'll have my phone for roughly 2 weeks before I head back to Iraq, so I don't see myself doing anything funky with it. I don't need it to tether, and the phone doesn't need to be rooted to side-load. However, after Android 3 releases, all bets are off. I don't see HTC upgrading the Incredible past 2.2.

Rumors are that Android 3 will finally support a hardware accelerated UI (like the Iphone, Zune HD, and upcoming Nokia N8). The benefits of hardware acceleration for the UI is a much smoother response to touch (anyone who owns a Zune HD can attest to this). Where this becomes a problem is that the GPU bundled with the Snapdragon CPU is inferior to the Iphone...from 2007. It's a capable GPU, just not very modern. It's called the Adreno 200. Now, the Adreno 205 (bundled with the upcoming Snapdragon 1.3ghz) is supposedly on par with the PVR SGX 530 (Iphone 3GS, original Moto Droid, Droid X, Droid 2). The Adreno 220 (dual-core Snapdragon) is within striking distance of the PVR SGX 540 (Iphone 4, Samsung Galaxy S, and upcoming OMAP 4 CPUs).

Anyway, the point of that was, the current Snapdragon may or may not be sufficient for the new Android 3 UI (with or without Sense), and if it comes up short, HTC may elect to not port it to this year's phones. So yea, in that case, I'll root.

Glad to see ya pull the trigger though. Now-a-days a new phone comes out every couple months that is theoretically better than the current offerings. You just have to get the best one you can and realize it should be pretty future proof (yours will) and roll with it.

I care less about the hardware and more about the form. And I don't mean that in the sense of "I want a better looking phone" but rather, I want a phone that conforms to my tastes. I didn't want the Droid X because it was too big. I didn't want the Eris because it's too large. I like the size and shape of the Iphone. For Verizon, that's the Incredible and the soon to be released Fascinate. There are other phones with a similar form factor, but I don't care for the Storm or any WinMo phones.

So while there may be better Androids out today or in the coming months, the only one in the same class for my needs would be the Fascinate. I don't see a truly upgraded phone in the same form factor as the Incredible on Verizon until at least April. I'm not waiting that long

[Jack4L]

Yeah, I've known about the Desire touch screen problems for as long as I've been considering it and you asked in a PM that would I consider changing to another phone and the answer is yes, but: I got the desire for a really low, unsubsidised price basically 360€ ($475) is all I am ever going to pay for it. The phone retails for 480€ at cheapest currently. However beside that the real deal with it was the contract, which I can easily see myself grandfathering for the data it promises alone. Unlimited data is something that might not be here in 2 years time, I know atleast 1 carrier (one out of 4, basically the one that has the iPhone, go figure) has switched to offering only 1gb at max speed (its "best" data plan), which itself costs twice as much as this deal I got. I've probably detailed the contract a few times on this forum already so thats all I'll say about that :P

If I was paying arround the same price for the 3 phones you sugested (Milestone, Desire, GalaxyS) I would defineatly go with the Galaxy S, however for me at the moment the Desire is a high end phone at a low to midrange price. Which is great for me, as there still isn't any MUST HAVE thing with current generation phones, especially not with multi touch. Surfing the net is pretty much my must have feature for both and the Desire does it as well as I expect a modern day phone to do it.

Just today got the tracking code for my phone, so will find out soon enough if I keep it or just sell it off for the next best thing and keep the contract for a possible 3G tablet or computer

[rickysio]

Hmm, Froyo is already GPU accelerated as far as I can tell, since the build on the N900 sped up by LEAPS and BOUNDS (actually becoming useable) after GPU acceleration was built in.

[medion]

Originally Posted by rickysio

Hmm, Froyo is already GPU accelerated as far as I can tell, since the build on the N900 sped up by LEAPS and BOUNDS (actually becoming useable) after GPU acceleration was built in.

The speed gains are from the JIT compiler. They weren't kidding when they claimed a 2-5x performance boost. The UI itself still isn't GPU accelerated, yet. However, the only elements that truly need it are the transitions (which HTC removed from their latest Sense builds, to hide their lagginess).

Hopefully GPU acceleration is added in 3.0.

[Jack4L]

Heh, well they JUST released a Galaxy S deal (Like right after my last post) on the carrier that I have my desire on for a comparable price, unfortunately they dont offer as good a contract. Giving only unlimited 384kb/s data and no "free" minutes or texts.

[rickysio]

Originally Posted by medion

The speed gains are from the JIT compiler. They weren't kidding when they claimed a 2-5x performance boost. The UI itself still isn't GPU accelerated, yet. However, the only elements that truly need it are the transitions (which HTC removed from their latest Sense builds, to hide their lagginess).

Hopefully GPU acceleration is added in 3.0.

NITDroid builds were based on FroYo for quite a while.

0.5.4 was sluggish and laggy - even opening the menu was choppy.

Originally Posted by http://nitdroid.com/index.php?title=Changelog

Version 0.0.6

• 3D and partial 2D graphic acceleration!!!
• Live wallpaper working
• Nitdroid kernel 2.6.28.NIT.05 is now required

Unless dj_steve did something before the google devs actually could...

[medion]

Wouldn't be the first time, as Dalvik's JIT compiler was added to custom ROMS before Froyo existed.

And FROYO was already released. If Steve is still adding features, than they are just that, added custom features. GPU acceleration isn't in the official build...yet.

[rickysio]

Steve's more of getting things to work with the N900...

Phone isn't working, GPS isn't working, etc.

[kasrhp]

Originally Posted by Jack4L

Heh, well they JUST released a Galaxy S deal (Like right after my last post) on the carrier that I have my desire on for a comparable price, unfortunately they dont offer as good a contract. Giving only unlimited 384kb/s data and no "free" minutes or texts.

I dont think you are missing anything with the Desire. I like Sense better than Touchwiz anyhow, plus you know that HTC has a closer relationship with Google than Samsung......better future fw releases hopefully.

The Synaptics sensor used in the N1/Desire has difficulty with multiple touches on the same axis.

@medion,
Trust me, it never comes into play. I have yet to encounter this with normal use or any games I have played on my N1. I did try the app to see what the fuss was all about though

[medion]

I'm loving this thing, will post something (maybe not a full review, but we'll see) soon.

[medion]

I'm currently working on the review, and hope to have it up before I leave (so aiming for the 17th-18th, ish). In the meantime, I've reviewed a few of the addons I'm using. All 3 of these accessories can be purchased for a variety of devices.

Seidio Innocase Active

Seidio Multi-Function Battery charger

Steinheil SGP Anti-Fingerprint screen protector

[medion]

I've finished the writeup on my review (not going to win any awards though, I'm not the best reviewer). Tomorrow's my last full day in the states, so I'll get some pictures to go with the review, and should have it up in the evening.

In the meantime, anyone have any questions they'd like addressed in the review? If so, post here or PM me, and I'll try to address it. Just keep in mind that my review is on the device itself, and not to much the OS. There are certainly areas of the OS that I touch upon, but it's not in depth.

[medion]

Just a preview. Here's the data speeds I got with the Incredible.

3G in house:



Home wifi:

[rickysio]

That's a biiig time gap of 3 days.

Interesting to see 3G speeds - how about 4G?

[medion]

Originally Posted by rickysio

That's a biiig time gap of 3 days.

Interesting to see 3G speeds - how about 4G?

Yea, I didn't switch it to my wifi network for a few days. I was mainly playing with Verizon's network the first few days I owned it (got the phone on the 5th).

4G? I'm on Verizon, not Sprint. Verizon doesn't start pushing LTE until November, with the first LTE phones expected around May.

[rickysio]

Not talking about you testing it, just wondering if 4G does make a definite, observable difference in your area (NA is big). Because (speed) is what 4G is being pushed for, but so far as I've heard it's more useful in draining the crap out of your battery.

That, and too many N.A. only HTC models, so I guess I could have been confused at that time (confused your D.I. with the 4G HTC for Sprint.) :X I tend to be easily confused with handphone names, but much less confused when they just use numbers.