Product At-a-Glance

For the past two weeks, I’ve had the pleasure of playing with HTC’s latest Android slider phone, the myTouch 4G Slide. I feel that to be entirely forthcoming, I must prefix this review by saying that this is not an advertisement for the myTouch 4G. In the time that I’ve had to test it out, I’ve just thoroughly enjoyed it.

As a quick overview, the myTouch 4G Slide sports a 1.2 GHz Snapdragon processor, a beautiful 3.7” display, a stunning 8 MP camera, and a full QWERTY keyboard. All of these features are tied together well by HTC’s Sense UI on top of Android 2.3.4, making for a great mobile experience.

Hardware

As mentioned above, the hardware specs of the myTouch 4G Slide are impressive.

• 3.7” Super LCD Screen
• 1.2 GHz Snapdragon Processor with 768 MB of RAM
• 1 GB ROM and 8 GB MicroSD card included
• 8 Megapixel rear-facing camera with dual LED flash
• VGA front-facing camera for video chat
• Full physical QWERTY keyboard
• 4G capable radio

The full QWERTY keyboard is definitely an attractive feature of the phone, as it appeals to those who are still in love with physical, tangible keys. I’ve never been a huge fan, but this phone’s execution of the feature is excellent with very usable keys that are perfectly sized, even for those of us with relatively large fingers. Similarly, the keyboard has a LED indicator for CAPS lock which is a nice touch.

The rear-facing camera will be dealt with separately below, but the front-facing camera is just as you’d expect. Low quality VGA that gets the job done. Nothing to write home about.

The phone’s construction feels solid in your hand, and has a nice weight at 6.5 oz, and a very respectable depth of .54 inches, making the Slide very pocket friendly. You get the typical power, home, menu and back buttons, a volume rocker, and a power button in the top left corner. You also get both a dedicated camera button, and replacing the typical search button is a genius button which allows for voice activated actions.

In addition to these buttons, there’s a button in the center of the phone’s row of buttons that seems like it would perform actions similar to the iPhone’s home button. However, it’s actually a sort of nub mouse (similar to those on laptops of a few years ago), designed to help with navigating menus. However, it is a bit superfluous, as I found it more difficult to use than simply tapping the screen.

Battery life on the device was entirely acceptable, scoring a solid 9 hours of typical usage, including watching videos, making calls, and browsing the web.

Camera

Few phones deserve a dedicated section to their camera, but the myTouch 4G slide is most certainly an exception. Beyond it’s 8 Megapixel sensor with dual LED flash, the camera features an extensive set of features and shooting modes. As I did with the specs of the phone, it might be easier just to list off some of them.

• Auto
  Picks a usually optimal setting for the photo
• SweepShot
  Creates automatically stitched panoramic images by simply holding the camera button while sweeping the phone. It works great, albeit the stitching can get a bit goofy at times. All in all, a great feature.
• ClearShot HDR
  Similar to the iPhone, it takes three photos in rapid succession and creates an HDR photo. They look fantastic in well lit situations, and provide a certain halo-esque glow to your pictures.
• BurstShot
  This mode takes multiple photos in a quick burst to capture every second of the action. Sadly, they end up a bit blurry because of the camera’s inability to expose them quickly enough. It does work, but you won’t get crystal clear images.
• Night, Action, Macro, and Portrait
  Your typical point-and-shoot settings. They work well and create good color balancing and exposure timings.
• Manual
  Control all sorts of fancy camera features like white balancing and ISO settings. While not entirely powerful, it helps when none of the presets work quite how you’d like.

Tie all of these features together with tap-to-focus and easy zooming, and you have a powerful camera that produces gorgeous photos for a camera phone (or even a point-and-shoot). The dual LED flash is powerful, and HTC even includes a built in flashlight application. There’s even a dedicated camera button that helps when you’re trying to get a shot off in a hurry.All things considered, the myTouch 4G Slide has one of the best cameras on a phone that we’ve tested for both the number of features, and the quality of the photos themselves.

SweepShot Test

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Software and Performance

As I mentioned earlier, the Slide runs Android 2.3.4 with a HTC Sense UI. Replacing the typical lock screen with horizontal tabs that are slid across the screen is a ring that you pull from the bottom of the screen. Other than some aesthetic changes, the phone runs a pretty basic Android setup that seems unobtrusive and resource-friendly.With the combination of a powerful 1.2 GHz Snapdragon, 768 MB of RAM, and a bare-bones UI, the myTouch 4G Slide feels quick and nimble. Also of note is the 4G performance, which I clocked at 8 Mbps at times. I was very impressed with T-Mobile’s growing 4G network which has surprisingly expanded from big cities.

As you can see, the myTouch 4G Slide is one of the top performing phones (trailing behind two tablets) that we have Vellamo test results for. While this is just a benchmark, it well represents how quick the device is while browsing the web and doing day to day tasks.

Similarly, it passed the Quadrant Pro test with flying colors scoring a 1733, which is up there with the most powerful smartphones.

Wrap Up

So if it’s not immediately obvious, I’ve grown quite fond of the HTC myTouch 4G Slide from T-Mobile. It’s a well constructed phone that comes with the latest Android OS, one of the fastest dual core processors, and the best camera we’ve tested. There’s nothing not to like about this phone. Looking for the best Android device right now on T-Mobile? Look no further. Unless you need the thinnest phone money can buy or you despise full QWERTY keyboards, there’s no reason to not consider the myTouch 4G Slide.

If you really feel you won’t use the camera much and you don’t like full keyboards, take a look at the Sensation 4G which gives you virtually the same phone without those features. However, I’m a strong proponent that you stick with the myTouch 4G Slide. The camera, regardless of how often you use it, should justify your purchase. If it doesn’t, everything else about the phone should. The myTouch 4G Slide is available from T-Mobile for $199.99 with a new two-year contract and qualifying plan.

Product At-a-Glance

Place the new Samsung Nexus S 4G next to its predecessor, the Nexus One, and you won’t be able to tell much of a difference. Therefore, immediately the Nexus S 4G is off to a good start. Taking a good design, and updating its feature set, Samsung and Google have teamed up to update the Android purist’s phone, complete with support for Sprint’s 4G network.

Sitting in the palm of your hand, the phone is light and comfortable. Nothing seems obtrusive or poorly designed. Similarly, it’s incredibly thin making it a godsend for those of you whose jeans are a bit too tight.

That being said, the Nexus S 4G‘s incredibly light weight makes it feel a bit cheaply made when you’re holding it. The device is constructed almost entirely from plastic, which doesn’t help its case much. Also, the phone is lacking an LED notification light and ability for external storage, which is a bit disappointing.

While these small design-oriented qualms may take a bit of the shine away from the Nexus S 4G, it most certainly doesn’t hold back in its feature set. Samsung packed in a NFC chip, 5 megapixel rear camera, VGA front-facing camera, USB tethering, and a WiFi Hotspot feature, along with all the other typical smartphone features (ie: b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1, etc.).

For those of you who are not entirely familiar with NFC, or Near Field Communication, the premise is simple: close-proximity data transfer. How could you use this? So far, the most common proposed use are wireless payments. That means that instead of swiping a card, you could place your phone on a card reader (similar to Visa’s Paywave), and manage the payment through your phone. While it’s not widely supported yet, you can expect more hype over NFC coming soon. Similarly, the technology can be used for a variety of other exchanges of personal information, including contact sharing, and even acting as a digital key to your car or house. Ultimately, it’s a good feature to have in a phone that will most likely see use soon.

The camera on the Nexus S 4G performs roughly as well as almost every other smartphone we’ve tested. It produces promising photos in daylight, but begins to struggle in lower light situations. It does have a usable LED flash, however, making those low light photos a little more bearable.

Most prominently, however, the phone leads the way with access to Sprint’s upcoming 4G network. Don’t expect coverage if you’re out in the suburbs, but for those of you in the select cities blanketed with glorious 4G goodness, the Nexus S 4G might be for you.

The battery in the Nexus S 4G performs decently well, getting roughly the same sort of battery life we saw with the original Nexus One. The battery is rated for 6 hours of talk time.

Beyond the hardware design, the software on the Nexus S 4G will be the major draw for many potential buyers. The Nexus line of phones is known for its barebones, stock Android experience. That means you won’t be stuck uninstalling ridiculous applications that you don’t actually want on your device, which is always a plus. A clean Android experience is incredibly refreshing after using many devices littered with useless and unwanted applications and skins.

Moreover, announced earlier this year at CTIA, Sprint slipped in one extra feature to the Nexus S 4G: Google Voice integration. This means that you can link your Nexus S 4G’s phone number to your Google Voice account, allowing you to check voicemail on either your phone or online, as well as manage your call forwarding from either portal. We didn’t get a chance to test the feature, but from what we hear, when it works, it works well. Limited reports of some issues with users not being able to take advantage of this new linking feature. Google is known to occasionally hit small speed bumps scaling features to release status, so it’s likely that these problems are just temporary. All things considered, this feature is a great addition for those Android users who are looking for even more integration with Google’s offered services.

In our testing, call quality was on par with most phones we’ve tested on Sprint, which is very good. The phone was a bit difficult to hear in very noisy environments, but the speaker is more than acceptable for most situations. As a phone, the Nexus S 4G met our expectations. Sadly, the Nexus S 4G is still constrained by Sprint’s slower 3G data network. If you can get on their 4G network, however, its smooth sailing. Our WiMax connections were snappy in the city, but sometimes a bit unreliable. There have been many reports of users receiving minimal 4G connectivity in areas that have heavy 4G coverage. We didn’t get to extensively test the 4G capability, but in our brief outing, we connected successfully, and managed to load a few sites, including NYTimes.com, in under 20 seconds.

The screen on the Nexus S 4G is vibrant and crisp. Brighter colors are slightly dull, but darks are deep and rich. Performance wise, the stripped down Android core runs without a hitch, which is a nice change from bloated custom Android outfits.

The best way to describe the Nexus S 4G is refreshing. It updates the great feature set of the original Nexus One with more modern technologies, and gives Android users looking for a respite from bloatware a device to call their own. If you consider yourself an Android purist in the slightest, give the Nexus S 4G your consideration. It’s a great device on a solid carrier, running a gorgeous version of Android’s latest Gingerbread operating system. It’s as simple as that.

Product At-a-Glance

Announced all the way back in late 2010 (yes, it’s been awhile), the HTC Arrive made its way to Sprint late last month. Touted as the first, and currently only, Windows Phone 7 smartphone on the Sprint network, the Arrive is the de facto option for those who are disenchanted with the smartphone software leader, Android. Featuring a unique slider design that reveals a full QWERTY keyboard, the Arrive is sure to win the hearts of those who are die-hard keyboard texters.

Is it a good offering in the way of a departure from the typical? Absolutely. The phone’s unique hinge system tilts the screen up at roughly a 30 degree angle when the keyboard is open, making for a comfortable screen position while texting with the keyboard, a fun toy when bored and playing with your phone, and a nice topic for discussion when someone asks “What kind of goofy phone is that?”

Is it a perfect phone? Not by any stretch of the imagination. The hardware is a bit bulky, the physical buttons seem out-of-place and difficult to live with, and Windows 7 as a phone operating system has a bit of maturing to do.

But is it the right phone for you? You can decide for yourself as we dig a bit deeper into the HTC Arrive on Sprint.

Hardware

In the box, you get your typical smartphone setup. A surprisingly attractive charger, a pair of black earbuds, a bundle of literature, and the Arrive. No flashy packaging involved with this product’s release. If this is how you judge a phone, however, I suggest you look elsewhere.

Assuming your interest in your choice of phone is more than packaging-deep, holding the HTC Arrive for the first time will feel very solid. At 184 grams (compared to the iPhone 4’s 137 grams), the Arrive has an attractive heft to it. The thickness of the phone is pretty significant, coming in at .61 inches. If you typically wear tighter jeans and expect to carry this phone in your front pocket, expect it to stick out a bit.

The device feels rigid, with the obvious exception of the sliding screen which has a tendency to feel a bit flimsy while sliding in and out. As a note, we thoroughly tested the screen with extensive periods of forceful sliding, and the Arrive passed with flying colors.

The hinge on the phone has a very mechanical feel to it which adds a certain level of attractiveness to the design of the phone. All in all, the basic mechanics of the phone are solid besides one element–the buttons. The volume rocker on the left side of the phone is wildly large and easy to press. That means that when you inevitably accidentally press it, a bar drops down on the top of the screen informing you of the current volume, song playing, and ring status. This can grow particularly annoying if you have a tendency to press these hard to miss buttons often.

The power button is also a bit awkwardly placed, set about one centimeter to the right of the phone on the top. This means you have to wrap your index finger around the phone a bit to press it, which can grow frustrating if you don’t have larger hands. Also, it’s not embossed from the phone casing much, making it relatively difficult to find without looking at first.

You get a dedicated camera button that, for whatever reason, will put the phone into camera mode after a long press even if the phone’s screen is locked. This is handy for quickly accessing the camera application, but I can imagine it eventually getting pressed accidentally, and a large number of pictures of the inside of one’s pocket being taken.

The back, home, and search buttons on the device are capacitive, and work well. The search button brings up a Bing search application unless the application you’re in supports a native search.

During use, the device becomes a bit warm under typical stress. The 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor seems to put out a bit of heat that isn’t managed very well. Nothing to worry much about, but it is something to take into consideration as far as the design of the phone is concerned.

There might be a few small issues and quirks with the mechanical workings of the Arrive, but when you start using the device, they grow less obtrusive. The display on the device looks great. It sports a 3.6-inch 480×800 pixel resolution which makes Windows Phone 7’s minimalistic interface look crisp and vibrant.

The slide-out keyboard is just as expected, with an almost chiclet style button feel. It’s a matte rubber material, but the keys are still nicely embossed and usable. A fair warning to those with big fingers; the keys are small and it’s a bit easy to press multiple at once. All in all though, the physical keyboard is well done.

The camera is a 5-megapixel shooter with an LED flash with support for 720p video. It’s not anything to write home about and is very mediocre indoors (as expected). If you’re looking for a phone with an outstanding camera, the Arrive isn’t for you. Similarly, if you want a front-facing camera for video chat, look elsewhere as the Arrive only has a single camera on the back.

Battery life on the Arrive was commendable, easily getting us through the day and beyond. With typical usage, we had upwards of 40% of the battery left after 8 hours, and with intensive usage, we drained the phone in those same 8 hours. The phone is touted with 6 hours of talk time, which is a bit below the industry average of 8, but we managed to squeeze out a bit more in our testing.

The device is fast and usable with no noticeable slowdowns in the operating system. When loading web pages side by side with a Droid X and iPhone 4 (all on WiFi), the Arrive was noticeably slower at downloading and rendering. To the best of my knowledge, it’s running roughly the same processor as the Droid X, so I’ll chalk these slowdowns up to Mobile Internet Explorer.

All things said and done, the Arrive is pretty solid from a physical standpoint. While some things leave more to be desired, it makes up for it with a great screen and good battery life.

Software

I’ll put this out there first–I’m not sold on Windows Phone 7 yet. Being a new phone operating system, bits and pieces still feel a bit poorly engineered, similar to the beginnings of Android. Using Android as a bellwether for the situation, it’s likely that Microsoft will sort out these small issues in time, but at the moment, not everything feels entirely put together. That being said, it’s still an entirely usable operating system that seems stable and easy to navigate. Things are where you’d expect them and typical tasks are dealt with ease.

You’ll first notice that the lock screen on the device is a bit different from other smartphones. Instead of swiping a bar across, you swipe the entire lock screen image upwards. On the lock screen, the time, date, and pertinent messages and calls are displayed without detail.

Once unlocked, the home screen is made up of widgets in the form of square boxes that can either display static content (typically a link to an application), or dynamically update (for example, weather apps). You can rearrange these in one long two columned grid. You only get one page for all of the “tiles” you wish to place. After that, all of your applications are listed in alphabetical order on the second page that you can swipe to. If you’re wondering about folders for apps, Windows Phone 7 doesn’t offer support for the time being.

You can customize the color scheme to suit your mood, but in doing so, you change virtually every application’s primary color. This unified simplistic theme is appealing to many, but I personally grew tired of the monotony of uniform colors and boring design.

To facilitate ease of social networking in the phone, the “People” application integrates with Facebook to import all of your friends’ contact information and status updates. This eliminates the need for a separate Facebook application, as you can tackle most features of the social network from within the phone’s native features. For most intents and purposes, this worked out great in our testing.

Now is a great time to note that the onscreen keyboard on the Arrive is absolutely excellent. It feels very natural, and key spacing is spot-on. I ended up using it more than the built-in keyboard.

Copy and paste on Windows Phone is dealt with by a seemingly hastily designed system. It seems to not work in every application, and is harder to use than other systems we’ve used (ex: iOS).

The Marketplace is a bit hard to navigate, but is populated with a good number of applications. You can rest easy knowing that you can get your Angry Birds fix on your new Windows Phone 7.

With most of the major points covered, I’ll avoid reviewing every aspect of the software, and will instead turn my focus to the key apps: browsing, email, SMS, and phone.

Starting with the browser, it’s a relatively good experience. Internet Explorer manages to keep the clutter out of the browser window by showing only the address bar and a small bar for bookmarking and accessing other open windows.

As I mentioned earlier, Internet Explorer on the phone proved a bit slower than Apple’s Safari or Android’s browser, but it renders pages roughly well. Similar to its competitors, the Arrive expectantly lacks Adobe Flash for the time being.

Email on the device is dealt with through one of multiple applications. You can use the “Google Mail” app, the “Hotmail App” or the more generic “Mail” app. They all lead to a similar mail experience which feels comfortable and easy to use. I was a bit frustrated with the “add attachment” button residing immediately below the space bar, but I suppose that’s my fault for not using the physical keyboard. I might also be crazy, but it felt like the mail applications took longer to sync than on other devices. All in all, however, very easy to use.

SMS is as simple as can be. Elegant threaded conversations, with the ability to attach pictures. Not much more to be said. If you’ve used SMS on a smartphone before, don’t expect much of a departure here.

The phone application is much of the same. It’s not quite as elegant as other OSes, but it works. During a call, the end call button is notoriously small which does make it hard to accidentally press, but at the same time, hard to press quickly. Additionally, the phone application lacks visual voicemail which is a bit off-putting.

It’s important to note that the call quality on the phone is excellent. The speaker is incredibly loud which is a welcome change from the typically small and quiet headsets of other smartphones. For individuals looking for a phone above all else, the Arrive is an excellent option.

The Wrap Up

Is it perfect? No. Is it good? Yes. Should you buy it? Maybe. Here’s a quick checklist to consider if you’re looking at the HTC Arrive:

1. Are you a Sprint customer? If not, there’s not reason to switch solely for this phone. There are other equally useful Windows 7 phones and keyboard phones on other carriers already.
2. Are you a heavy texter / keyboard user? The Arrive appeals to those who really want a dedicated keyboard. It’s a thick phone, so if you don’t think you’re going to be using the keyboard, there’s not much of a reason to solely consider the Arrive, unless…
3. Are you averse to Android? Android is a more developed platform with more available applications. Similarly, it’s a bit easier to live with as it has a more diverse interface design and feature set.
4. Do you care about weight or thickness? The Arrive is both heavy and thick, so if these are deciding factors for you, you might want to look elsewhere.
5. Do you hate Bing search? If you answered “yes”, you might want to reconsider the Arrive, as Bing is the only search engine you can use natively.

If those questions made the decision for you, great! If not, hopefully the rest of this review did. All things considered, the Arrive is a good phone, but is somewhat hampered by the beta nature of Windows Phone 7. Similarly, not everything is perfect about the hardware, as it’s a bit thick and the buttons aren’t the most well designed of any phone we’ve ever seen.

It’s good to see a rival to the competition, and a lot of improvements are sure to come in coming software updates. If you want to take a walk on the wild side, check out the HTC Arrive. It’s sure to surprise, intrigue, and take you a bit off the beaten path.

Product At-a-Glance

The history of slate computing is a bit brief. In 2010, Apple launched the iPad with overwhelming success, setting the consumer electronics industry into motion to compete with the so-called “revolutionary” device. A year later, new devices have entered (or are soon entering) the tablet realm including the iPad 2, Blackberry Playbook, Samsung Galaxy Tab, and the a slew of other options.

Most recently, the release of the Motorola Xoom has stirred a bit of dust, as it’s the first tablet released to be running Android 3.0 Honeycomb, Google’s first tablet-oriented operating system. It’s fast, and for all practical purposes, has all the features of the industry-leading iPad and then some.

However, it feels a bit undercooked. The hardware is solid, albeit it feels a bit heavy and oddly designed at times. But the software is where the device feels the most underdeveloped and in dire need for improvement.

In this breakdown of the Xoom, we’ll take a look at the hardware, the Honeycomb experience, and the state of the Android Market for tablets.

Hardware Specs

On straight up power, the Xoom destroys its competition. Powered by an NVIDIA Tegra 2 chip, the Xoom runs at a snappy 1 GHz and sports 1 GB of RAM.

The screen on the Xoom is a 10.1-inch capacitive multi-touch LCD that runs at the 16:10 resolution of 1200 x 800 pixels. Internal storage is provided by 32 GB of flash memory. As far as sensors are concerned, the Xoom leads the pack with a gyroscope, ambient light sensor, accelerometer, compass, GPS, and, get this, a barometer. Is the barometer just a shot at Apple’s iPad? Or is Motorola really interested in meteorology? Either way, the list of sensors is what is expected… and then some.

On the Xoom, you’ll also find two cameras. A 2 megapixel front-facing camera for video chat and a rear-facing 5 megapixel shooter (with dual-LED flash) for more impressive photos. The batteries on the device are claimed by Motorola to last 9 hours with intensive web browsing. However, when we tested the device, we got a mere 7 hours before the Xoom called it quits.

Per the usual, the Xoom comes with both WiFi (802.11b/g/n) and Bluetooth support. As far as mobile chips are concerned, the Xoom runs on Verizon’s CDMA network via a EVDO-enabled radio. Xoom owners will also be treated to an upgrade to 4G when available, providing that the owner ships the device to Verizon to be given a new radio chipset that supports the faster network. It’s unknown at the moment when the upgrades will be available, but it will be free for Xoom owners, and take a whopping 6 business days.

You also get a MicroSD card reader. However, due to some issues with Honeycomb, it is non-operational. It’s expected to be fixed with a software update in the not too distant future, but, it’s a missing feature at the moment.

As far as ports are concerned, you get a mini-USB port for syncing with your computer. The power adapter seems proprietary (a 1 mm circular plug attached to a large power brick). You also get mini-HDMI out for HD streaming to your TV and the de facto 3.5mm audio jack.

Hardware Usability and Design

Now that the specs have been clearly laid out, it’s time to take a look at the usability and comfort of the device. What immediately strikes you with this device is the 16:10 wide-screen proportions. While this dimension makes watching HD movies a joy, it makes holding the device a bit awkward compared to the 4:3 aspect ratio of the iPad and iPad 2.

Honeycomb seems undeniably landscape orientation biased. This means that most everything you do on the device (web browsing, calendars, email, etc.) feels much more natural when the device is oriented in a landscape position. This doesn’t seem like much of a problem until you use the device for an extended period.

The Xoom weighs in at 730 grams (1.61 pounds). The first generation iPad weighed in at 680 grams (1.50 pounds) and its successor, the iPad 2, a mere 601 grams (1.33 pounds). While these minuscule differences might not seem important, the combination of this added weight, and the wide-screen form factor means that there is a greater center of mass located further away from your hand, thus requiring more torque to hold the device. For the non-engineers in the room, that means that you’ll be fighting the device more to hold it with one hand in the landscape position.

When in the portrait orientation, this problem disappears, but nothing seems to work as well. Additionally, the device simply feels strange to hold vertically due to its wide-screen orientation. This might be a bit of personal preference, but I found anything besides reading books to be a bit odd in portrait mode.

Beyond the first impressions of the Xoom’s proportions, when you get your Xoom and unbox it, you’ll begin the hunt for how to turn the device on. I’ve never seen someone struggle for more than 10 seconds trying to figure out how to turn on an iPad, phone, or virtually any other consumer electronic device before. However, after letting multiple people try to figure out how to power on the device, the average was well over 10 seconds. The power button is located on the back of the device in the same area as the camera and the dual-LED flash, camouflaging the all-important button well. This means that the button is not only difficult to find for those who aren’t familiar with the device, but it also means that it is completely inaccessible when the device is laying flat on a table.

In addition, the volume control buttons are incredibly small and difficult to press. Another similarly poor design choice involves the headphone jack. It is located at the top of the device when held in landscape orientation. That means that when you are watching a movie, your headphone cables will undeniably fall over the screen if you don’t invert the device. We would’ve rather seen the port on the sides, or at least offset from the very center of the screen.

While there are clearly bits about the Xoom’s hardware that we aren’t very fond of, for a first generation device, it feels very solid. The back is coated in the now ubiquitous soft-touch finish, making it feel very natural and grippy. The screen produces brilliant colors at a currently unrivaled resolution. A subtle and elegant white notification light appears when you have a new email, similar to the sleep indicator on Apple’s MacBook line of notebooks. The cameras even perform well, albeit, at the end of the day, they are very similar to the cameras on any other modern smartphone. Don’t expect to take the Xoom out for your photography class anytime soon.

All in all, the Xoom’s hardware feels a bit underdeveloped, but overall, it is a very solid platform for Honeycomb. Construction is solid, but some design choices are inevitably interesting.

Android 3.0 Honeycomb

What really sets the Xoom apart from its competition is its use Android 3.0 Honeycomb. This new version of Android was designed almost entirely for tablet devices. Almost every element of Honeycomb has been reworked specifically for tablet devices, making for a usable and comfortable experience.

The lock screen features a digital clock, information regarding your current wireless or cell phone internet connection, and notifications from any applications (ie: mail, weather, calendars). The unlock slider is replaced with an unlock circle. Simply drag the lock icon outside of a circle, and the device is ready for use.

For those familiar with Android, the home screen works much in the same way. You can add widgets for a slew of applications, or you can create shortcuts to applications. By default, newly installed applications create shortcuts that get placed on your main home screen. Folders don’t exist, so application organization can only be managed by the devices 5 different home screens.

The settings panel is very usable, and is always accessible by tapping the clock that resides in the lower right hand corner. In addition to a permanent clock fixture, you get information about the state of your battery and wireless reception. In the lower right, you are prompted with three or four software buttons — back, home, fast application switching, and options. The options key only appears in certain applications which require it.

These buttons act just like typical Android device hardware keys. Being accustomed to an iDevice, it doesn’t feel quite natural not having a physical “home” button, but with time with the device, it grows to be natural. The buttons follow the orientation of the screen, making them always accessible without thought.

Included Applications

Browser

The experience with the Honeycomb native applications is spot-on. If you are a Google Chrome user, you will be at home with the browser application on Honeycomb. Tabbed browsing feels very natural, and the experience is as close to a desktop browser as possible without a keyboard or mouse. Copying and pasting text isn’t quite as natural as with iOS, but it grows on you quickly. Similarly, tapping to zoom is a bit slow compared to iOS, but to someone without familiarity with tablets, it would be quite natural.

As an important note, the user agent on the Xoom registers as an Android device. This means that many sites think it’s an Android phone, and display a slimmed down mobile version instead of the full glory of the typical site. While on some sites, this can be disabled, many lack that option, and you are stuck reading incredibly small text on a large device. There should be a setting in Honeycomb to disable the user agent HTTP header, but at the moment, there isn’t.

Email

The built-in email and Gmail apps work well. The Gmail application takes advantage of all native Gmail features, including multiple accounts, labels, etc. Composing emails using the Honeycomb interface is as natural as using any other device. Tablet keyboards are intrinsically a bit hard to type on, as your hands inevitably obscure your vision of what keys your hands are hovering over. However, the Honeycomb spelling suggestions are always relatively good.

eBooks

The eBook reader included with Honeycomb is very well done. Books are presented in an attractive array, and purchasing books through the Android Market is incredibly simple. When reading you can quickly scroll through pages using a slider at the bottom, or flip the page using a horizontal swipe. Images are pristine and in-line, and the text size and line spacing is fully configurable for ease of reading. The original scans of many classic books are even included for those who would prefer to see how the original book was laid out. Also, to help not burn your retinas while reading at night, a night mode is available which places white text on a black background. This is much better for reading in dimmer settings. The books application is very well done, and easily rivals the iBooks application on iOS.

Calendar

The calendar application is very well designed, and acts as a nice companion to Google Calendar. Calendars are fully searchable, and creating events is dealt with quickly and easily. Basically, if you enjoy Google Calendar on your desktop, you’ll find it equally, if not more enjoyable on Honeycomb.

Music Player

Playing music in Honeycomb is done well through the music player. Albums are displayed in an attractive 3D array, or whatever other display method you choose. Regardless of your choice, everything is smooth and offers fluid transitions. Tapping an album shows a list of tracks, and tapping a song starts playing it. You can also add the song to a playlist using a simple drop-down menu located next to the song.

While this all might be an upgrade from the typical Android music player, getting music on the device isn’t quite as straight forward. You can’t just mount the Xoom’s file system as a mass storage device, and because you can’t use a MicroSD card yet, you’ll have to use an external tool to load music on the Xoom. On Windows, this tends to be taken care of out the box, but on Mac, you’ll have to install a utility (Android File Transfer) to move your music to the device.

Movie Studio

Honeycomb also comes with a movie studio application that intends to rival iMovie on the iOS devices. It is relatively basic, and offers the ability to edit and splice together videos and pictures as well as add backing audio tracks, titles, and transitions. For a free included app, it most certainly does its job and is a nice addition to Honeycomb.

Everything Else

The remainder of the applications on the device are nothing spectacular. The camera application offers what is expected, along with basic filters and white balancing for different settings. Similarly, the contacts application is just that; a simple Rolodex of your Google contacts.

The included applications clearly show Google’s experience in creating applications that richly tie in with their online services, as well as their experience in creating intuitive apps for earlier versions of Android. They are all perfectly usable, and very stable for day to day use.

Third Party Applications

To be entirely honest, this segment of this review will be utterly short. At the time of this writing, there are 48 featured Android tablet applications. While I’m sure there are many more on the way, the Android Market seems devoid of applications designed specifically for Honeycomb. All Android applications work on Honeycomb, but if they aren’t designed for tablets, they take up an incredibly small portion of the device’s 10.1 inch screen.

We did enjoy some of the available applications, however. Angry Birds is, of course, available for free and runs well as expected. The Pulse news application is great for browsing news without opening 20 browser tabs. Similarly, CNN has produced a great application that showcases their content in an attractive manner, complete with constantly updating video clips of unfolding situations. Also, we grew quite fond of the Weatherbug application which provided a very usable source for weather, including notifications about severe weather right in your task bar.

The YouTube application doesn’t come installed by default (if we remember correctly), but it is very well designed and provides an attractive interface to the world’s most popular video website.

Adobe Flash

One important recent addition to the Android Market is Adobe Flash. With a recent system update, the Motorola Xoom can now run a version of Flash that is available in the Market. A painless installation later, and you have Flash support in the browser. Don’t get too excited, however, as Hulu displays a message when you attempt to play their content that reads “This video is not available for your device.” While it works for many other situations, Flash is a bit buggy, and, we have to agree with Steve Jobs, not meant for multi-touch devices. Even trying to play simple flash games proves a bit difficult and cumbersome, and more often than not, ends up crashing the browser.

The one unfortunate side effect to installing Flash, however, is that you get bombarded by advertisements that you wouldn’t otherwise see. We all know how frustrating they can be, and they’re even worse when they have a tendency to slow down the entire browser environment.

The current app market isn’t anything to write home about. If you need an endless stream of applications for your device, don’t go for a Xoom (yet). The market is expanding, albeit at a slower rate than Apple’s, for tablets. Just don’t expect to be blown away by the number of apps available.

Performance

With a dual-core 1 GHz processor, the Xoom is… well… zooming fast (yes, we were contractually obligated to use a terrible pun). Honeycomb animations and transitions are snappy, and navigating through the device is quick and responsive. We rarely experienced any sorts of slowdowns.

Occasionally, the performance was hindered by applications that stopped responding, and locked up the application until Android realized something had gone awry and offered the option to force close. In Honeycomb’s defense, we never had to shut down the device as a solution to a problem.

Quadrant Performance Test

In our test using the Quadrant performance test, the Xoom scored 1917 points in a test of CPU, file system usage, 2D and 3D performance. To quantify that, the Droid X scored just over 1250, with the original Droid scoring around 350. As expected, the Xoom is the fastest Android device that is publicly available thus far.

The Xoom definitely lives up to its name performance-wise, and creates a standard for other tablets to live up to. Comparatively speaking, however, the iPad 2 handily outperforms the Xoom’s processor in graphics (albeit it is working at a lower resolution). So if you are concerned with mobile gaming more so than processing power, the Xoom might not be your first choice.

However, the Xoom is quick and agile with very limited performance issues, making for a great device experience.

Conclusion

The Xoom’s set of features is unrivaled on paper. The processing power is overwhelming, the screen leads the field, and the construction quality of the device is spot-on. Similarly, Honeycomb offers a great user experience transition from their phone OS to their tablet OS. However, the device feels a bit incomplete and rushed. With features such as MicroSD not working, user agent issues in the browser, and a lack of 4G support out of the box, the Xoom falls short on the long list of features they promised.

Does this make it a bad tablet? Not by any sense of the word. Most all the problems will be sorted out by a matter of software fixes, and the 4G support will be added after you send your Xoom in in the coming weeks. But the fact that it wasn’t quite all together in the first place will linger with you, as if you bought a device that was still a bit in the beta stage.

Compared to its competition, the Xoom doesn’t have much of a case for itself at the moment. The iPad 2 is faster in some cases, lighter, more comfortable to hold, and, with equal specifications, cheaper. Not to mention the Apple App Store, which has orders of magnitude more tablet apps than the Android Market. For these reasons, the Xoom doesn’t offer up much that swings the decision in favor of the Android platform yet.

So if you’re looking for the leader in the tablet world at the moment, consider the iPad 2. It’s the veteran tablet with the experience and fine-tuning the Xoom is lacking. Not to mention the Xoom feels a bit undercooked to begin with.

If you’re an Android fan who wants a device with a similar experience to your phone, the Xoom might be for you. Our suggestion is to wait until summer for the bugs to be worked out of the operating system, and for 4G support to ship with the device.

All things considered, the $800 price tag on the device is steep. Sure, you can get it discounted by signing a two-year service agreement with Verizon, but being locked into yet another contract is the last thing most people want. For a product that feels like more of a beta testing device than a full-fledged product launch, I would greatly struggle to justify purchasing the Xoom as it stands today.

Yes, there are many flaws with the Xoom, but I don’t intend to completely dissuade consumers from considering the Xoom. Honeycomb shows a great amount of promise as a tablet operating system, and if you want to stay on the cutting edge of Google’s beloved mobile platform, the Xoom is the best, and only option for the time being. At the end of the day, you’ll be able to do just about everything an iPad can do. You’ll have just paid a bit more for it.

Early Tuesday morning Apple announced in partnership with Verizon Wireless that it would bring the iPhone 4 to Verizon’s 3G CDMA network starting in early February. No standout new features except for the 3G Mobile Hotspot functionality have been announced and the phone will not be compatible with Verizon’s 4G LTE network as some had hoped. More details including the full press release after the break.

Existing Verizon Wireless customers will be able to order their iPhone 4s on February 3rd while new customers will have to wait until February 10th to get theirs. The same pricing structure will make its way to Verizon with the 16GB model selling for $199.99 and the 32GB model selling for $299.99. More information is available at their Verizon Wireless website including a link to sign up for an email notification when the product is available.

Verizon Wireless & Apple Team Up to Deliver iPhone 4 on Verizon

BASKING RIDGE, New Jersey and CUPERTINO, California—January 11, 2011—Verizon Wireless and Apple® today announced that the iPhone® 4 will be available on the Verizon Wireless network beginning on Thursday, February 10. Qualified Verizon Wireless customers will be given the exclusive opportunity to pre-order iPhone 4 online on February 3, ahead of general availability.

iPhone 4 is the most innovative phone in the world, featuring Apple’s stunning Retina™ display, the highest resolution display ever built into a phone resulting in super crisp text, images and video, and FaceTime®, which makes video calling a reality. iPhone 4 on Verizon Wireless will also include new Personal Hotspot capabilities allowing customers to use iPhone 4 to connect up to five Wi-Fi enabled devices.

“We are pleased to introduce millions of wireless users to the industry leading iPhone 4 on the nation’s most reliable network,” said Lowell McAdam, president and chief operating officer of Verizon. “This is an important step for the industry as two great companies join forces to give wireless customers one of the most important technological additions to the mobile landscape this century.”

“Verizon Wireless customers have told us they can’t wait to get their hands on iPhone 4, and we think they are going to love it,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s chief operating officer. “We have enormous respect for the company Verizon has built and the loyalty they have earned from their customers.”

iPhone 4 features a 5 megapixel camera with LED flash, HD video recording, Apple’s A4 chip, a 3-axis gyro and a beautiful glass and stainless steel design like no other mobile phone. iPhone 4 also comes with iOS 4, the world’s most advanced mobile operating system, which includes multitasking, folders, Game Center, AirPlay® and AirPrint wireless printing. iPhone 4 customers have access to the world’s most popular App Store℠ with more than 300,000 apps available in an incredible range of 20 categories, including games, business, news, sports, health and reference.

Pricing & Availability
iPhone 4 will be available on the Verizon Wireless network beginning Thursday, February 10 for a suggested retail price of $199.99 for the 16GB model and $299.99 for the 32GB model with a new two year customer agreement. iPhone 4 will be available at more than 2,000 Verizon Wireless Communications Stores nationwide, online at www.verizonwireless.com/iphone, at Apple Retail Stores, at the Apple Store® (www.apple.com), at Apple Authorized Resellers, and by calling 1-800-2 JOIN IN.

Check out the full product page.

As far as size is concerned, if you have an EVO 4G, this will probably be in the same ballpark. In addition, the phone is incredibly thin, comparable to an EVO 4G as well.

The Infuse 4G sports a 1.2 GHz Hummingbird processor, an 8 megapixel camera on the back, and a 1.3 megapixel on the front. Yes, this thing has video chat. Don’t get too excited about the 4G tag though. There’s no LTE here, only HSPA+ which is the same route that T-Mobile has been taking for increasing their network speeds.

Look for it coming soon.

Check it out.

Check out the full press release and get the app here.

Product At-a-Glance

Full Review

Following in the footsteps of its predecessor, the original Motorola Droid, and attempting to one-up its competition, the iPhone 4, Droid Incredible, and HTC Evo, the new Motorola Droid X has quite a standard to live up to. The question at hand is, of course, does it live up to this standard?

It depends. The new Droid X features a lot of the same technical specifications as other phones on the market currently. But all in all, Motorola took the biggest and best of each of those specifications, and used most of them in their latest creation.

Hardware

The Evo 4G surprised many with a massive 4.3” screen. The Droid X now similarly sports a 4.3” TFT at 480×854. All of the top smartphones on the market currently have 1 GHz processors, and the Droid X is no exception featuring a 1GHz TI OMAP 3630 processor. The processor is supported by 512 MB of RAM, keeping things, for the most part, quite snappy.

The end product is a unique blend of hardware, weighing in at 155 grams (5.47 ounces) which in comparison to the iPhone 4’s 137 gram weight seems a bit hefty. However, the phone’s overall size makes it feel relatively light in your hand.

The Droid X doesn’t feel as solid as the iPhone 4, but that’s most likely due to the large form factor of the Droid. And when I say large form factor, I mean large. While nearly as thin as the newest iPhone, its massive screen pushes the dimensions of the phone to a whopping 2.6” x 5.0” x .4”. With pocket real estate at a prime these days, the Droid X certainly doesn’t hold back in taking up as much as possible.

The screen on the Droid X responds accurately to touch, as expected, but isn’t quite as clear as other displays we’ve seen. While the Droid Incredible uses an AMOLED screen to produce incredibly vivid images, the Droid X relies on a TFT screen which pales in comparison. Obviously the pixel density of the Droid X is no where near the iPhone 4’s 326 ppi. The Droid comes in at a respectable 240 ppi, however.

Some other hardware features worth mentioning include a mini-HDMI port for streaming HD video to a TV, a dedicated camera button, wireless b/g, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, and a 8 MP camera with auto-focus and dual-flash (which is covered further below).

Software

Now I won’t spend too much time talking about Android, but I’ll just make mention of a few things. First, the Droid X comes pre-installed with Motoblur 2. While attempting to make Android look a little better and add usability, the battery life seems to take a bit of a hit from it.

Second, it obviously ships with Android 2.1. This means no Adobe Flash support until later this year when 2.2 (named “Froyo”) launches. Not a complaint, but a mere note for those of you who want to get your mobile Flash gaming on.

The Droid X also comes with the ability to create a WiFi hotspot that allows you to share your Droid’s mobile internet with WiFi equipped devices around it, similar to MiFi devices which sell independently for around $50. In our testing, this drained the battery incredibly quickly, but worked well. If you’re travelling and have a car charger, this would be an excellent way to share internet with other devices. If you need to hop on WiFi on your laptop for a few minutes, this is a very viable option as well. Definitely a useful addition to the Droid’s feature set.

Performance

With a 1 GHz processor and 512 MB of RAM, the Droid X performs just as well as any other Android phone on the market. However, it doesn’t necessarily improve anything. Scrolling through long menus is still slightly laggy. Open a few too many apps / widgets, and your performance will come to a grinding halt (I learned this the hard way). Other than these potential slowdowns, the Droid X is snappy as expected under normal use.

As far as battery life is concerned, we weren’t impressed. With moderate usage and plenty of apps and widgets running, we got about six hours of battery life (including stand by time). After trimming down our running processes, we managed to get through a full day with about twenty percent battery remaining.

The below-par battery life can be traced back to the massive screen on the Droid X, which consistently uses the most battery of any part of the device. It’s a simple TFT display, so battery life is not necessarily its strong point.

As a side note, the Droid X has a tendency to get very warm during extended use. Not a real problem, but simply an observation.

Overall, the performance of the phone is as expected. It most certainly rivals the current offerings with its TI OMAP processor which is currently unique to the Droid X. While it has its downfalls, they’re nothing that can’t be overcome with a bit of tweaking.

Camera

Unlike some of its competitors, the Droid X only has a back-mounted camera. Sadly, no video chatting in the world of the Droid X. However, it makes up for this in the form of a rear mounted 8 MP camera with auto-focus and dual flash.

The colors on the Droid X seem to be a bit more muted than other phones we’ve tested. In addition, its low light performance without a flash isn’t quite up to par.

However, in optimal lighting conditions, the sheer clarity of the 8 MP camera on the Droid X shines through brilliantly. Images are almost never over-exposed, even in bright environments. In comparison to the iPhone 4’s 5 MP camera, pictures are more crisp and more accurately exposed.

The Droid X also captures 720p video at 24 frames per second, slightly below the iPhone 4’s 30 fps. The quality does slightly suffer from this, making the Droid X’s video camera slightly lacking. With such a powerful processor and camera, it’s a surprise the Droid X doesn’t shoot at 30 fps.

Conclusion

The Droid X is an excellent addition to the current smartphone market. Priced at the typical $199 after $100 rebate, the Droid X is a viable competitor to existing options. If you’re on Verizon, the Droid X or the Droid Incredible are two very good options. Personally, we’d stick with the Droid Incredible, but if you like the larger screen and don’t mind having a larger phone in your pocket, by all means, the Droid X is a great option.

If you’re on AT&T and don’t mind fighting the poor service, the Droid X is nothing to jump ship about. Unless you’re tired of holding your new iPhone 4 in funny ways to keep your calls connected, in which case a switch to the HTC Droid Incredible or Motorola Droid X is more than likely in order.

As with the iPad, Apple sent out review units of the new iPhone 4 to valued members of the press and the early reviews of the new smartphone are appearing. The phone is scheduled to arrive on customers’ doorsteps either tomorrow or on Thursday (depending if yours got shipped in time). We’ve got all the reviews thus far linked after the break with a summary of the verdict from each.

The Engadget review by Joshua Topolsky:

“…it’s tough to deny that Apple has moved one step past the competition with this phone. Of course, in the hyper-accelerated smartphone market where the Next Big Thing seems to always be just around the corner, it’s anyone’s guess how long they keep that edge.”

The Wall Street Journal review by Walt Mossberg:

“Just as with its predecessors, I can’t recommend this new iPhone for voice calling for people who experience poor AT&T reception, unless they are willing to carry a second phone on a network that works better for them.

For everyone else, however, I’d say that Apple has built a beautiful smartphone that works well, adds impressive new features and is still, overall, the best device in its class.”

The New York Times review by David Pogue:

“Now, the iPhone is no longer the undisputed king of app phones. In particular, the technically inclined may find greater flexibility and choice among its Android rivals, like the HTC Incredible and Evo. They’re more complicated, and their app store not as good, but they’re loaded with droolworthy features like turn-by-turn GPS instructions, speech recognition that saves you typing, removable batteries and a choice of cell networks.

If what you care about, however, is size and shape, beauty and battery life, polish and pleasure, then the iPhone 4 is calling your name.”

The USA Today review by Ed Baig:

“As with previous iPhones, the latest model breaks new ground. FaceTime video calling on the iPhone 4 is one of those cool “seeing is believing” features, and it arrives on top of several across-the-board enhancements. And iOS 4 is a mostly terrific software upgrade.

Cutting through the hype, Apple has given longtime diehards, and first-time iPhone owners, plenty to cheer about.”

BoingBoing.net review by Xeni Jardin:

“Would I buy it? Yes.”

We will update this post with more reviews as they are posted.

The world of mobile phones is constantly evolving. With the average contract commitment being 2 years, most smart phones are considered to be obsolete by the end of their initial contract. Today we look at another phone to further the continual upgrade cycle, the HTC Droid Incredible on Verizon Wireless.

Intro

The HTC Droid Incredible has the same internals as both the Google Nexus One, and the HTC Desire (In Europe). However, HTC has made some tweaks, such as the addition of the Sense UI, and the expansion of internal flash memory capacity to 8GB from 512MB. Can these changes oust the Nexus One from the top Android phone slot?

Hardware

As I mentioned before, the basic hardware of the HTC Droid Incredible is based on the same platform as the Google Nexus One, also built by HTC. The most stunning feature of the Droid Incredible is the 3.7″, 800 x 480 pixel AMOLED (define?) touchscreen. The AMOLED screen provides for a more vibrant display, without the need of a backlight. This screen uses more power than a traditional LCD when displaying a white background, but saves power when displaying blacks and other dark colors. The dark tint to the HTC Sense interface helps makes this less of an issue.

Overall, the basic design feel of the Incredible is very industrial. Like the recently leaked iPhone prototype, this Verizon color scheme phone features hard lines and edges throughout most of the device. However, the back battery cover is a unique part entirely. Instead of just sitting flat, it has several areas where it is raised above its surroundings, creating more grip, and makes for a more visually interesting design.

The Incredible features an ARM-based, 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, currently the fastest mobile phone processor in use. Along with the 1GHz processor, HTC has equipped this phone with 512MB RAM, doubling the RAM of the Motorola Droid.  This may be due in part to the fact that Android apps run in the background, and for most apps, you need to terminate them manually using a task killer. While it is nice to have applications running in the background, having to use a task killer makes it a kludgy implementation. As this is an issue with Android in general, HTC did all they could by adding more RAM. Having a fast processor also makes tasks like dynamically animated wallpapers possible, something that we wouldn’t have dreamed about in mobile phone computing just years ago.

An upgrade from the 5 Megapixel camera of the Nexus One, the Incredible features an impressive auto focusing, 8 Megapixel camera with a dual LED flash. The quality of this camera is more comparable to dedicated point and shoot cameras than 99% of camera phones now on the market.  The video features of this camera are disappointing however, since video is only shot at a resolution of 800 x 480. While the video still looks good, it seems there is wasted potential with the camera having such a high-resolution sensor, and we would have liked to see 720p video capabilities. Scroll through the gallery below for sample photos.

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Usability

Along the bottom of the screen are the four main navigational buttons, and an optical trackpad. The Home, Menu, Back, and Search buttons are used fairly regularly in navigating the Android OS, but the optical trackpad seems fairly useless. Instead of swiping left and right on the track pad, the majority of the time, it is just easier to swipe left or right on the large touchscreen instead of the tiny trackpad. This trackpad also functions as a button, allowing you to hit enter on certain fields, which is definitely more useful.

One major caveat I have run into with the Incredible however, is the battery life. Like most current smart phones, charging this phone at the end of the day is absolutely necessary. From a full charge, I have had the battery wear down to about half capacity by the end of the day without even using the phone. While some background actions like fetching email were going on in the background, this is still unacceptable. As most people would have these features enabled by default, and on top of using the phone all day, the Incredible may require you to top off the battery in the late afternoon to power through the rest of the day. This is disappointing personally since I am coming from the iPhone 3G, where I can survive at least an entire day with one battery charge.

Coming from using the iPhone as my main phone for the past serveral years, typing on the HTC Incredible has been a challenge for me. While I would consider myself to be used to most touch screen phones, something about the default Android keyboard in portrait mode tends to throw off my accuracy. It may be a subtle difference in the size of the virtual keys, or maybe a less responsive touch screen, but it is something for potential buyers to be aware about. Landscape mode however, I have found to be a much more pleasant experience, and orders of magnitude more accurate. One nice thing about Android is that replacement keyboards can be downloaded, such as the Swype Keyboard , so you should be able to find something that fits your style.

The Incredible also features Haptic Feedback for certain key presses. When using the keyboard, and when you use the navigational buttons, every keystroke makes the device send out a small vibration. This is supposed to create more of a tactile feedback, but whether people find it annoying seems to be a very polarizing issue. This feature can be disabled in the settings though, so it is not a deal breaker if you do not like it.

Of course, the function that still matters the most is actually making phone calls. HTC manages to accomplish this well with the Incredible. Audio quality on both ends of the call seem to be above par, and an all around pleasant experience. The speakerphone is also extremely loud compared to other phones I have used over the years. When playing back audio from the music app, both the 3.5mm headphone output, and the speaker both seemed to be clear, although the speaker seems to lack bass a bit. This isn’t a surprise for a mobile phone, but I found it to be worse than my iPhone 3G, and other phones I have used.

HTC Sense

From the start, one of the most differentiating features of the Incredible from phones like the Motorola Droid and Google Nexus One is the addition of the HTC Sense UI. Sense is a custom interface that HTC has chosen to implement on all of its Android and Windows Mobile phones, over the standard Google interface. It is obvious that HTC tried to pack as much information as possible into this new UI. Gone is the home page full application icons, and in its place we get room for 6 apps and large stylized clock which also displays the Weather. When you swipe the home page left or right, you have options for pages such as Mail, Contact Speed dial, SMS, Social network updates, and more. All of these can be customized and even deleted to create whatever configuration you desire.

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Among these customized home screen options, HTC also ships some customized apps with Sense:

Peep: A simple Twitter client which features notifications for @ replies and Direct Messages, along with a home screen widget that allows you to update your status without actually launching the app.

An improved Music app: One of my major qualms with the Motorola Droid was the default Android music player was very barebones and basic. The HTC Music app turns out to be a much nicer experience, with an easy to use and quick interface for navigating your music library. HTC’s offering also adds options like sharing music over Bluetooth, and the ability to view the properties and ID3 tags of a mp3 file, which is a nice touch if you are trying to tell two similar tracks apart.

Clock and Weather apps: Beyond possessing some nice interface eye candy, these apps provide pretty much the same functionality as you would expect. Some nice features would be the “desk” mode for the clock app which is perfect for a night stand or other times when you just want to be able to glance at it and see the time without hitting any buttons. The Weather app provides some nice graphical touches, such as an animated depiction of the current weather when you unlock the phone. Although it doesn’t really add any functionality, seeing clouds drift across the screen, or raindrops falling is a nice touch and allows you to see a visual representation of the weather without you even realizing it. These animations are interrupted as soon as you start to use the phone so it does not impede the user experience at all.

Overall, the small interface adjustments that Sense makes over the default Android OS help make the user experience on the HTC Incredible better than other phones on the market, and on par with universally acclaimed phones such as the iPhone and Palm Pre.

Wrapup

From the initial launch of the Android Operating system on the HTC Desire (known as the T-mobile G1 in America), about 18 months ago, it is apparent that both HTC and Google have come far. Android has become a major player in the mobile phone space, with about 60,000 activations of Android devices per day as of February 2010 according to Google.

In the runup to the release of this phone, Google has announced that it no longer plans to bring the Nexus One to Verizon, and that this is the phone that is taking its place in their lineup. After using this phone, it is obvious why Google has made this decision. Building off of the strong foundation that Google and HTC created with the Nexus One, the HTC Droid Incredible is the best Android phone on the market, and one of the best smart phones I have used.

That being said, if you are carrier agnostic, it would be beneficial to wait for the launch of the HTC Evo 4G phone on Sprint this summer. The Evo is poised to take the specs of the Incredible even further, with a 4.3″ LCD and 720p video recording. Along with the 4G data network, it will certainly be a phone to watch. Look for our review coming up this summer.

However, if want to stick with the Verizon Wireless network, then the HTC Droid Incredible the definitive smart phone to buy.

Ever find yourself looking for a little more power when it comes to the iPhone OS clipboard? Users were pleased when Apple built in copy & paste functionality, but many users were still looking for more. Now, with the power of a third-party app, you can. Our full review of Pastebot from Tapbots after the break.

Pastebot isn’t just any clipboard manager, and that was my initial reaction. “No one will need to copy and paste something more than once.” But I quickly took all of that back after installing it. Not only can you manage multiple clippings, but you can organize them into folders, search through them, and apply filters to them.

Filters range from a simple “find and replace” feature, to converting a photo to black and white. This feature alone shows how powerful the app really is. You can even rotate and crop a photo from within Pastebot and paste it back into another app. Coders will enjoy the filter that allows you to convert text to HTML and vice-versa.

The only downside of a clipboard manager on the iPhone OS is that it does not run in the background. You have to launch Pastebot everytime you copy something for it to be stored as a clipping. In a perfect world, it would be running in the background, capturing everything you copy and paste, as you do it. Alas, Apple does not allow developers to do this. Even with a jailbroken iPhone and Backgrounder installed, it simply does not work.

Clippings can be sent back to the pasteboard for further pasting, Google searched, sent via e-mail, moved to another folder, or if it’s a photo, saved to the camera roll in the Photos app.

My favorite feature of Pastebot is using it with Pastebot Sync, it’s free companion application for OS X. Here you can link your iPhone or iPod touch to the preference pane using a simple 4-digit passcode. Anything you copy on your Mac will be synced to the Pastebot app on your device the next time you launch it. Perfect for copying email addresses and phone numbers for later reference.

Pastebot is clearly an application that has more than one use case, from storing bits of text, to converting images and syncing them back to the camera roll. Pastebot is available in the Apple App Store for $2.99. We can’t wait to hopefully see an iPad-native version of the app hit the virtual shelves soon.

Pros

• Organize and store multiple clippings.
• Run filters on images and text.
• Syncs between Mac and iPhone or iPod touch.

Cons

• Will not “grab” clipboard data in the background.

Mobile broadband is becoming increasingly popular for road warriors who need an always accessible internet connection to check their latest email messages and stay up to date with the latest from their companies. We reviewed the Sprint MiFi 2200 in August of last year, but how does the Verizon Wireless iteration compare? Find out after the break.

If you aren’t familiar with the MiFi, Novatel Wireless, the creators, call it an “intelligent mobile hotspot”. In short, the MiFi allows you to connect your WiFi-capable devices to the internet through the Verizon Wireless high-speed EVDO network. As some of you may know, before the MiFi, USB and ExpressCard mobile broadband cards were ubiquitous. We especially liked them for live-blogging tech conferences like Macworld and WWDC.

However, if you wanted to share that single connection, you most likely needed a Cradlepoint router, which cost an extra $100-150 dollars depending on what you need. The MiFi 2200 solves all of this in a credit-card sized device, albeit with only five users at a time.

The MiFi is fairly easy to set up. Once it’s activated by plugging it into your computer through the included USB cable, just hold down the power button and connect to the WiFi network listed on the bottom of the device. It works just like a normal hotspot you would find in a hotel or internet café. Since the MiFi is essentially a mini wireless router, it also has a web administration interface for changing the name of the network and setting a password. It offers such fine-grain control that you would normally find on a consumer-grade router like the Netgear WNDR3700 minus a few hardcore features.

There’s no power brick to carry around except when the battery runs low and you need to charge the device. Inside is a removable battery just like a cell phone. When we tested the device for a few days with intermittent use, it lasted around eight or nine hours on a full charge. On heavy use you can expect to receive around 4 hours of battery life.

In terms of the speeds you’ll receive using the hotspot, you can expect to receive around 1 to 2Mbps download and 300 to 400Kbps upload depending on where you’re using it and the strength of the signal.

There are a variety of data plans for the Verizon Wireless MiFi that range from $59.99 a month for 5GB of data transfer to $15 a day for 75MB of data transfer. The MiFi 2200 itself costs $49.99 at press time with a two-year agreement and online discount through the Verizon Wireless website.

Pros

• Allows access of high-speed internet wherever.
• Excellent battery life.
• Eliminates the need for a second “mobile broadband router”.

Cons

• Limited to five users or devices connected at a time.

If you’re looking for the slimmest case for your iPhone 3GS, look no further than the Incipio Feather case. It comes in a variety of colors and doesn’t add too much bulk to your phone like other cases on the market. Does it sacrifice protection for style? Is it worth the cost? Read on after the break.

Sure, there are many cases out there that snap on the back of your phone, whether they’re silicone skins or hard cases, but our latest favorite of the mix is the Feather case from Incipio. It’s a 1mm thick soft-touch plastic shell that comes in thirteen different colors, ranging from black to magenta. It’s the only one we’ve seen this simple that offers nearly complete bezel protection, keeping your bezel scratch free. The only fully exposed area of the iPhone with the case attached is the dock connector, speaker and microphone. As with many cases, you have access to the volume rocker, vibrate switch, headphone jack and sleep/wake button.

There isn’t a lot to say about such a simple case, but it protects and does the job well. You also won’t be disappointed with the extras included: two screen protectors and a cleaning cloth. In our tests, the screen protector went on fairly easy and without air pockets visible. Installation also goes smoother if you use the included squeegee.

Nevertheless, there are a few trade-offs by using such a simple case. You’re not going to get as much shock protection as you would with something like the Speck CandyShell which uses both a plastic and soft rubber layer. An added bonus however is that the cases come with a lifetime warranty, so if yours breaks, you’re in good luck.

Overall though, if you’re looking for a slim and nearly unnoticeable case for your brand new iPhone 3G or 3GS, the Incipio Feather is perfect for you.

Pros

• Slim design.
• Soft-touch material adds grip.

Cons

• No substantial shock protection.
• Lifetime warranty.