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
Seeing The Future with Better Goggles
In my Nexus One review I mentioned an Android specific app called Goggles. Point your cameraphone at anything, take a photo and the app will use Google’s own libraries to recognize the image and search for similar images around the web.
The latest update to Goggles made things even better. Now you can use Goggles to take a photo of any block of text and the app will perform OCR on the text and translate it into any language supported by Google translate. In theory, you could use it to understand what various street or warning signs meant in foreign languages. It works relatively well, although it’s still limited by the accuracy of Google translate.
Another great feature of Goggles is the ability to identify buildings and landmarks just by pointing your camera at them. Fire up the Goggles app and point the Incredible’s camera at a building and you’ll get a real time listing of what it is you’re looking at. This worked well walking around Washington, DC. I’d walk by a building that looked interesting, my parents would ask me what it was, I’d pull out the phone and point it at the building and sometimes I’d get a little label at the bottom of the screen telling me what I was looking at (Update: Apparently this works using location data, for landmark recognition you need to actually hit the shutter button). The few times that it worked was enough to make my dad ask for an Incredible, telling me that he wasn’t impressed by his iPhone.
Like Goggles before the update, the feature is more neat than absolutely functional at this point. It turns out that most buildings look alike and thus you need to point the camera at distinctive features in order for it to work. The feature also doesn’t seem to work in portrait mode, only landscape. Other limitations include available light (it’s still a camera after all) and other objects in the photo, but you see where things are headed.
We’re not too far away from Goggles (or a similar app), being able to do real time detection of anything you point your camera at. It completely changes the way being a tourist works. It could permanently put an end to the “what’s that?” question.
This actually highlights a major difference between the Google and Apple approach to their respective smartphone platforms. While Google is fine releasing something early, slapping a beta label on it and shipping it, Apple wants to keep its sandbox a lot neater. Today Goggles doesn’t work in more situations than it does. Apple’s approach promotes a more consistent, clean, everything just works as you’d expect it to experience, but in doing so you miss out on some potentially cool apps on the way.
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Loser - Monday, May 10, 2010 - link
There is something wrong with the weight you have noted there130 g (3.6 oz) 130 g (4.6 oz)
Both 130g? :)
Anand Lal Shimpi - Monday, May 10, 2010 - link
Woops, fixed. Thank you :)puffpio - Monday, May 10, 2010 - link
I was reading your article, and one part that is slightly incorrect:When you use Goggles and look at buildings, but do not actually take the picture...the tags you see at the bottom of the screen are based off your GPS position and compass..it's not doing any image recognition of the scene until you take the pic...
But it's still cool nonetheless
The0ne - Monday, May 10, 2010 - link
"I honestly doubt if there are many folks who are on the fence between the two."Consumers respond very well to marketing and if the comparison of Incredible to iPhone came down to what you've stated,
1. UI
2. Flexibility
3. Apps
Then it's great. However, your review of the iPhone, in comparison to this review, has all the "ooohh.....aahhhh" associated with it. Little as it may seem, not to Apples awesome marketing team mind you, your review will persuade some consumers to go for the iPhone instead of others regardless of the factors listed.
Please do a respectable tech review and leave your personal opinions and comments for a section dedicated to that purpose. Judging by this review I say the phone stinks mainly because there's not cheering from you. We do respect you, I've followed you since you started the site. I don't like the bias "ohh...ahhs" that comes with the reviews.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Monday, May 10, 2010 - link
A lot of my excitement over the original iPhone has to do with the fact that it was first to deliver the things that made me go ooh and ahh. I'd argue the same is true about Android with features like Goggles. Only Palm has really impressed me in the same manner since then.What I was trying to say with that statement is that if a user plays with both devices they'll quickly figure out which type of person they. The two platforms are very polarizing it seems. As I mentioned in the Nexus One Review, there are folks who are totally unimpressed by the iPhone and others who are very disappointed by Android. It largely has to do with the differing approaches to UI design and role the smartphone plays in their respective corporate strategies.
I stand by my original statement. I believe those who like the iPhone won't find any Android device a suitable replacement. While those who are frustrated by the iPhone's limitations wouldn't dream of anything other than an Android.
Take care,
Anand
teohhanhui - Monday, May 10, 2010 - link
"While those who are frustrated by the iPhone's limitations wouldn't dream of anything other than an Android."There are those who are looking forward to MeeGo...
Anand Lal Shimpi - Monday, May 10, 2010 - link
I'm holding back excitement on that one until we see the right combination of hardware/software. But yes, MeeGo could be very good (not to mention forthcoming Palm/HP stuff).Take care,
Anand
T2k - Thursday, May 13, 2010 - link
MeeGooo? Pleahhhhse.Nokia so far managed to blew everything it's got including the super-widespread, #1 OS of the world Symbian - years after years of clueless mismanagement and still nothing from Nokia.
Nokia is a mess, they just started the third reorganization in 12 months or so... completely clueless MESS and their main dev head just left them recently.
It's Android, people, nothing else - Symbian is waaay behind especially if you consider the breakneck speed Google is developing Android, iPhone and Apple in general is rapidly becoming completely irrelevant especially when Flash won't even work in it.
The only question is WebOS - now that HP is behind Palm we might get some surprise competition for Android: real innovation instead of fake re-badging efforts at ripoff prices a' la Apple.
The0ne - Monday, May 10, 2010 - link
Well said.sebmel - Tuesday, May 11, 2010 - link
Hi Anand, thanks for a great review and contrary to the opinion of 'TheOne' please feel free to express your feelings regarding products. I have read your site for many years, just like 'TheOne' but unlike him I have come to recognise you as someone with intelligence and a good eye for design flair who understands that sometimes the best expression of recognition of design excellence is exactly an ooh or ah.I'm a fan of TopGear, the UK car program. I can just imagine the Soviet dullness that would ensue were 'TheOne' to exercise an editorial veto. The show would flounder in a morass of directives on equal time, exactly duplicated lighting and monotone intonation of spec sheets. I also found his request that you do a 'respectable' review an uncalled for snipe.
It was obvious to any reader that you were enthused about the iPhone because it pushed forward mobile phone OS design significantly. It is also obvious that AnandTech has a number of readers that have difficulty coming to terms with a revitalised Apple corporation and respond to any positive comment with partisan angst. The DailyTech news site you link to unfortunately still thinks its 1990 and regularly trolls for clicks with headlines designed to bait flaming. The result is all to obvious in the ensuing comments.
So, please don't make your reviews lifelessly unemotional. Express pleasure... express surprise. It means something to your readers that someone who spends so much time using the latest products is occasionally moved to pleasure by the competence of designers or developers. Product designers are not driven to greatness by spec. sheet competition. They only achieve it when they attempt to delight. Jonathan Ive, Apple's designer, regularly repeats that he is as proud of what he leaves out of products as what he has included. It is something that you, Anand, obviously understand. I suspect Ive repeats it as often as he does because there are still so many, raised in the Windows 'just add a buggy new feature, break the old format, and call it a new version' years who do not.
We are in a new era in which design excellence and not the politics and skulduggery of format wars is becoming essential. Reviews expressing sincere pleasure or disappointment are entirely appropriate to such a market and provide the kind of feedback that manufacturers and developers need in recognition of their efforts. How on earth can one quantify elegance in terms of grams or bytes? I felt the need to confirm to you that you do have readers who understand your emoting such things.
Keep up the good work.