HTC - DROID Incredible Mobile Phone - Black (Verizon Wireless)

I bought this on Black Friday for a dollar, and now its free! There's no excuse not to get it now, the phone is really that good. It can multitask, take great pics and vids with BRIGHT flash, and has built in GPS. It pretty much makes most of your small electronics obsolete, since you get everything you need in a small, sleek, lightweight package. A lot of people are griping about the battery, but there is a very simple solution. I use my Incredible pretty heavily, but I keep a widget on one of my screens that allows you to turn various things on and off. This is NOT a task killer; task killers are bad, but I'll explain later. The widget is called "power control" and it comes with the phone. Just put it on one of your screens and turn OFF wifi, gps, and blue tooth. When you need one of them, just turn it on. It takes a couple of seconds to do, but it will do a LOT for your battery. GPS is the biggest drain, so you definitely want it off, except when navigating (and google has a great free app for that!). I mentioned task killers. Well, they are good for saving battery on a windows mobile phone, but not android. Androids will preload apps and such to your memory so that in the case you need to use them, it instantly switches to it. This is why this phone is FAST. If you keep killing the apps, not only will it be slower, you'll drain battery too. The battery is drained when the CPU works, and the CPU works when the app is being loaded to the memory. If you keep killing tasks, the phone will keep loading apps to memory. The more you kill tasks, the bigger the drain. So just use the power control, and NO task killer. I can testify to this; I used a task killer when I first got my Incredible, but after learning about it, I've stopped killing them and now I have MORE than half charge at the end of the day. There are also some great free apps by Google that all android users should get! Just check out the market. I personally recommend Shopper. I also love the optical joystick. I guess I love everything about this phone....

Having grown tired of AT&T's horrible service, I decided to test the cell phone waters here in Nashville. I've had the iPhone 3G for about 2 yrs now and overall liked many of the features and Apple's famed usability. I used my iPhone for the same thing everyone else does; making calls, texting, listening to music, surfing the web, and downloading apps. For months the service and usability of the phone had been going downhill fast but I had been reluctant to move off the iPhone out of fear of the unknown. Was there a cooler phone out there? A faster one? One with more relevant features for me? Could I get apps anywhere else? Now I had heard people claim that Droid has done a decent job with their app development and it was beginning to rival Apple. So I took inventory of the apps I used and were must haves and did some research. Turns out Droid, too, has an app for that. So I decided to cut bait. Fast forward to hours of research between HTC devices(Incredible and Evo) and Samsung devices(Galaxy S phones like Fascinate) and everything kept coming back to the Incredible. The look and feel, smaller than my iPhone but same size screen, the speed of the OS, and the HTC Sense software is definitely a key differentiator. And there are apps! Thousands of them. Every one I used before and even some new ones. In fact some of the same apps are even better on the Droid platform. Who knew? So super long story short, this phone is truly Incredible and I feel certain that I will gain months if not years back on my life by just the sheer speed of everything. It's almost comical how fast this thing is.

The Droid Incredible is the best phone I've ever owned. I've had the original iPhone (great phone, but I never want to deal with AT&T again because of reception issues), several Blackberries on T-Mo (which I really liked, but BB software is more dated than I can bear to look at), an HTC Hero (Sprint is a terrible company overall, in my experience). Of all of the phones I have owned, the Droid Incredible is by far the best! Pros: -Excellent call quality. I’ve used it quite a bit in Denver and LA, and callers sound loud and clear. -Android platform is easy to use and customize. Plenty of apps. Many cool widgets. -Screen is bright, clear, and easy to read in most conditions. Video and movies look great. -Google integration cannot be beat! Calendars and addresses are always in sync, email comes to the phone instantly. Works especially well with multiple calendars. -Form factor is about right for a phone. Droid X and EVO seem like dinner trays in comparison- their screen size is larger, but the resolution is about the same. Incredible adds the optical joystick instead. I'd take the smaller screen because it fits better in the hand and in the pocket. -Web browser is every bit as good as iPhone's. If you zoom in, the browser resizes the text and makes it fit onto the screen, so mostly you will only scroll up and down, you won't have to scroll side-to-side very often if you are looking at web pages. -You can tether to your computer for an extra monthly fee. Very useful if you need internet access on your computer when you travel, if you don’t mind carrying the MicroUSB cable around. -Verizon doesn't preload all the bloatware that other providers do (you can download the Verizon apps from the Android Market, but they do not come pre-installed, which I really like). -Lots of nice little touches, like Live Wallpapers, an FM Radio app, Google Navigation (which rocks!), better than average camera/camcorder, and the "Car Panel." The Sense UI is a great improvement over stock Android, with its slick animations and screen transitions. Also, the Clock widget illustrates the current weather on the screen when the phone is unlocked. Cons: -Battery life could definitely be improved. -Months later, still no word on when it will be upgraded to Android 2.2 (Froyo). -Wish it had WiFi tethering like the EVO. -Verizon service is pricier than other carriers, but you get what you pay for, and I have had far fewer service and billing issues than with the others. -Older consumers don’t find Android OS particularly easy to use (my parents still prefer their feature phones). -Forget about reading the screen in bright sunlight. -Manufacturing delays have made the Incredible harder to buy than it should be. Hopefully this will be fixed in the next few weeks, but Incredibles still seem hard to come by.

OMG--love this phone! A huge leap forward from my previous Blackberry. The touch keyboard is excellent--almost good enough to forget it doesn't have a real keyboard. The HTC version of Android 2.1 is fabulous and glitch-free. I had a small learning curve but now get around great. Sound quality is very good (you do make calls don't you?)--earpiece, speaker and bluetooth, as well as the music through a headset. The camera is killer good. Remember all those times you wished you had a real camera instead of taking a lousy cell-phone camera picture--not now! The phone is way fast and cool looking. The display is gorgeous. Most of the apps from the Google Market have been very good and getting better. Also, you can do multiple things at one time--very cool. Battery life isn't spectacular but you can make it better by making sure nothing extraneous is running. Use appkiller (free) from the market to see what's running and turn off what you don't need. You'll want to be charging if you need more than a few minutes of wi-fi time as that seriously drains the battery.

First off if you're looking for the nest offering on Verizon right now, this is it. It has a butiful screen, the fastest mobile processor out currently, a great camera, and a large app store. It really lives up to its name, which is something considering they call it the Incredible. Here's a quick summery - First of all, as with all VZW smartphones it will cost you an additional $30/month. - It has the largest app store outside of Apple. - The app store has a 24 hour return period. So unlike the iPhone store, you always have a day to see if you like an app or not. - The processor is the fastest mobile processor you can buy right now. - The camera is pretty good, on par with some lower and medium end stand alone cameras. - The Android OS is great, and HTC added their Sense UI to it which makes it even better. The only downside being that if you like the stock Android, like what the Motorola Droid uses, you can’t have that. - Only Gmail accounts get push support. But other e-mail accounts can be updated as frequently as 5 min. - The screen can be hard to see in direct sunlight, a flaw found in all AMOLED screens, but worth mentioning. IMO it was not bad enough to sway my opinion.Its not good to have your phone in direct sunlight too long anyway. - No physical keyboard. But the virtual keyboard is easy enough to use once you get use to it. HTC added a nice spell checker/corrector that makes it easier to use the virtual keyboard. - Unlike other android phones it doesn’t come with an SD card. It has built in memory, but because that’s a new feature many apps don’t yet recognize it as useable memory, thus requiring you to get an SD card anyway. - The battery life is on par with most smartphones, using a process manager to kill background programs greatly increases the battery life. There are many free process managers in the Market. -Because HTC customized the OS, it’s possible updates will take longer to be released compared to phones using the stock Android OS. - It has a but of a learning curve, especially if you haven’t used a smartphone before. It come with virtually no documentation, so you’re on your own to find out how to use it to its fullest. That said it’s well worth taking the time to learn.

The Incredible is a great phone. I am happy I went with this phone. I contemplated the Droid X, Incredible, Droid Global, and Samsung Fascinate. I chose the Incredible after comparing functions and seeing working samples side by side. Well that and the fact that I only paid a buck for it on Black Friday too. This phone does everything I need. The battery initially was a problem for me, but I have since turned off the things I don't use frequently and I am now getting great battery life. The extended battery is an option but for now it is doing just fine and lasts all day for me. The camera is great for a phone. I have posted pics to the web and they have looked great without any adjustments. This was definitely the right choice for me. I was on AT&T for many years but got tired of the dropped calls all the time. I tried the Iphone for two weeks but could never get a signal at my home. What good is a phone if it isn't going to work in the place you spend most of your time. Besides, it has now become my only phone since I dumped my landline. If you are on the fence about any of the phones I mentioned, you won't go wrong getting the Incredible.

The Good: The HTC Incredible is my second smartphone but the first with a virtual keyboard. Having used my wife's iPhone quite a bit, I was expecting to not like a virtual keyboard. However within just a few hours of use, I was completely converted. The camera is as good as could be expected. Fast, non-grainy shots. The flash is VERY good. The display is bright and usable up to but not including bright sunlight conditions. The variety and strength of the Droid Marketplace is second only to iTunes. I don't expect much disparity to remain that matters by the end of the year. Contributions to it flow daily. Within days of purchase I realized I was cramming the 8gig of RAM built into the camera, so I added a 16gig card. A little pricey but now I have no worries about taking hundreds of camera shots or putting a dozen movies on it. The lack of lag and overall speed is impressive, especially when put up against the iPhone. Best of all, it brings this in a package that Apple has no influence over. The mildly disappointing: Verizon lies. Their 3g cell coverage is no match for ATT in West Virginia, Virginia or North Carolina. Over a thousand miles of travel in these 3 states, whenever I could not use my phone at all, which is admittedly rare, my wifes iPhone almost always had a usable connection. And if she could not connect, then for sure I could not either. The trackball is the strangest variety of sensitive. Sometimes it wildly detects the movement of my palm over the phone. When it does that, I have to exit from whatever app I am in before it returns to normal. This happens rarely but it is easy to see when it does. I have dropped my phone about 3 times already. Yes, that is clumsy but hey, the phone is in my hand at almost every opportunity! The case I was using was not a true shock protector but instead a Verizon branded type that coupled with a belt clip. Two of the phone's falls are attributed to my somehow bumping it out of the clip. The third fall damaged a corner of the phone, cracking the plastic a little. After that I got a much more protection oriented, semi-hard full case. I also added insurance to my account for the first time ever. And I have owned cellphones for a long time, literally since they were car only. The device is battery hungry, but it feels reasonable since it's a fast machine with a bright display. A task manager/killer reduces active RAM load and extends battery life. I felt happier once I got spare chargers for my work and car. Without question, this phone is amazing. The interface is strong and it zips through everything. Best phone yet and a contender to the iPhone crown.

I'm used to having a touch screen phone with a full keyboard, so It will take me sometime to get use to this phone. I just got this phone a few days ago and I'm loving all the free apps. The camera and video recorder, seems to work well. The download speed on this phone is super fast. You tube videos are nice and clear. I love the cool home page animated weather forecast by Weather Bug, and the animated wallpapers. The speaker is loud and clear, I can actually hear my phone ring in my purse. The cons: I'm having a hard time ending my calls through the touch screen. I wish the phone had an end or cancel button to close out all the applications. You will have to install a task killer, and manually end the apps, otherwise the apps will keep running all the time. I'm not liking all the pop-ups and spam that comes with the free apps. Also, this phone won't work for you if you have long fingernails. Had to cut off all my finger nails. It is a heat sensitive touch screen, so if your fingers are cold then your phone doesn't work.