The HTC Droid Incredible Review, Clearly Better than the Nexus One
by Anand Lal Shimpi on May 10, 2010 1:27 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Snapdragon
- Droid Incredible
- HTC
- Android
- Mobile
Verizon/HTC: Not Treating Tetherers Like Criminals
Sandwiched in between a manual about your phone and one about Verizon is a curious little sheet of paper. On it there are instructions telling you how to download the Verizon Wireless Access Manager. Using that utility you can, with the blessing of both HTC and Verizon, tether your phone to your PC over USB and use your smartphone data plan as your mobile broadband connection:
The process requires you first selecting the device you own and second typing in your Verizon phone number. There is of course an additional charge for tethering and you're limited to 5GB of transfers per month, but this is much, much better than the alternative from the iPhone world. There you either get to choose to participate in a constant game of cat and mouse by jailbreaking your phone and waiting for Apple to introduce a spicy new update that breaks your jailbroken phone, or you get to cling longingly to AT&T's empty promise that iPhone tethering would be coming sometime soon. In fact, while Verizon is encouraging you to tether from the moment you open the box, AT&T is shipping another Apple device with absolutely zero official tethering support. I'm not even arguing that tethering should be free or cost less (which it should), I'm just saying that it's ridiculous to not give customers the option to pay more to use the data connection they're already paying for on another device without forcing a SIM swap.
With that off my chest, it's on to the way the Incredible tethers. Plug in your USB cable, fire up the Verizon Access Manager software, type in your information and you're good to go. HTC has an option to enable Mobile Broadband Connect directly on the phone. Verizon makes it ultra not clear that you need to have a $30 ($25 for a limited time) Mobile Broadband Connect plan to take advantage of this, but you do. Now in terms of making your money back, that's not too difficult. It usually costs $10 - $15 to get internet access at a hotel with a dubious amount of security. Just three days of remote WiFi pays for itself if you've got MBC, not to mention that you can use it anywhere.
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rcc - Monday, May 10, 2010 - link
As I read the review, the commercial that came to mind was "it's just like a xerox" from back in the 80s.and then, but not quite as good........
Anyway, I'm looking for a smartphone update, but a clean sync with Outlook is still a requirement. Who does it other than WinMo so far??
xenon2009 - Monday, May 10, 2010 - link
I believe HTC does have an app called HTC Sync which does do Outlook syncing. I am not sure if it is available for the Droid Incredible but it is worth a shot. You should be able to get from HTC's website.cfaalm - Tuesday, May 11, 2010 - link
That works. I was able to sync my Legend with Outlook. You can download the app or even pull it from the SD-card that came with the phone (it should be on there). See website for instructions. It's really easy.gregounech - Monday, May 10, 2010 - link
Hey anand guys!I'm front France and typing this message from.my HTC desire.
I saw It's going to be out this summer only in usa, however it is already out in Europe. It adds HTC sense to the same hardware base of the nexus one and addingvsome other things.
Some websites loved it and I'd love to see you guys review it comparing to those two Android based smartphones.
Please.review it...
Regards, Gregounech a French addict to anandtech!
cgalyon - Monday, May 10, 2010 - link
Not sure if this is what you meant, but you can copy/paste in e-mails using the default mail client. I didn't try from the widget (removed that widget in fact), but if you enter an e-mail, just press and hold and it will highlight. You can move around to extend the highlight and when you release you'll have three context buttons. The first of these allows you to "copy" (later to paste). Also you enter the "expose" view by pressing the home button when on the home screen: at least my optical button doesn't pull it up...GlobleWarmingisbunk - Monday, May 10, 2010 - link
Anand,How Does the HTC Incredible compare to the Eris as far as performance.
I noticed that you did not review Eris, like you did with the Nexus One.
Thanks.
GregANDTCH - Tuesday, May 11, 2010 - link
How well does this one do on App space? Friend of mine had (I believe) the Nexus One and they reached a point where they couldn't put any more Apps on it. They were told you couldn't run them from the msdcard. It was only for Music & Pictures.safcman84 - Tuesday, May 11, 2010 - link
or can we expect a a new HTC phone in Europe as well?Cheers
IKeelU - Tuesday, May 11, 2010 - link
Is there anything stopping the N1 from eventually including the improvements made by HTC? As an N1 owner, I'm a little disapppointed that my device is "almost there" in several key areas, notably the touch screen, keyboard input and overall smoothness. Enough to make me consider hoccing it on ebay and picking up the incredible once it supports GSM in Canada.It seems a lot of what differentiates the inredible from the N1 could technically run on the N1 (besides the improved touchscreen, if there is indeed a hardware difference there).
Impulses - Wednesday, May 12, 2010 - link
If you don't mind rooting it and voiding the warranty, you can flash a Sense ROM unto it (visit MoDaCo) which basically gives you all of HTC's software improvements... The touch sensor on the Incredible and Droid are still better than the N1's tho (when it comes to multi-touch anyway, which I don't think has much to do w/any of Anand's issues which he usually described a issues of responsiveness or accuracy).I doubt there's gonna be a GSM Incredible, the Desire would be it's GSM equivalent, basically a Nexus One with Sense, an extra hole for the speakerphone, and a touchpad instead of a trackball.