The HTC Incredible S is HTC’s latest and greatest, But, does it really fit that mark? Lets find out.
HARDWARE AND BUILD QUALITY
The device features one of the most robust constructions yet, a rubberized body , is not only rugged but also the new in-thing. The device is great to hold in the hand and feels really good thanks again to the rubber grip backing. It also sheds some of the added weight that the Desire HD has. No squeaks or rattling from the device. Better buttons in comparison to the Desire HD and a nicer looking display with rotating menu buttons. The build quality is surprisingly good and we were happy with it.
Tech Specs
Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8255 1GHZ
768 MB RAM
Android 2.2
8 megapixel camera with Autofocus, Dual LED Flash and 720p video recording
1.3 megapixel front facing camera
1450 mAh Battery
480 x 800 pixels Capacitive multitouch SLCD display 4.0 Inch
The display on the Incredible S is simply stunning, the comparatively high resolution along with the SLCD screen just do wonders for the device. The colors are deep and the text crisp. The Processor may also play a role in the responsiveness of the device, but the basic functionality of the display and touchscreen is simply great.
The speaker on the device is slightly louder than its cousins ( the Desire HD/Mozart etc). But still not up to the mark from a device in this range. The video playback is smooth with zero lag and the fact that almost all formats can be played or play on the device thanks to Android is an added bonus.
The camera is no-where near where we want it to be, the images were bad, and we fail to see what dumping megapixels in a camera would do if the sensor is basically a dud. The camera is a big disappointment, although in crisp clear daylight , you may even get impressive shots, indoor and low light images are just very very poor. HTC should work on the Hardware instead of cramming specs in their devices. The 5MP backlit sensor on my personal iPhone 4 is far superior than this 8MP one from HTC.
PERFORMANCE, PHONE and MESSAGING
The device is a performer when comparing it to earlier versions of HTC devices and even some competition from Samsung. We ran Quadrant and Neocore on the device and we were quite pleased with what we saw. The scores ranged from
Quadrant : 1550-1600 (Highest Rank in the Stats)
Neocore : 56.5-57.0 FPS
The phone call capability of this device sets it apart, we cant stress enough on the crispness of the earpiece or the sensitivity of the microphone, the call quality was just brilliant. We did several hours of testing on the device and we got (get this) NO DROPPED CALLS in areas where we usually get several call drops within a couple of hours.
The messaging is similar to HTC Desire HD with the sense keyboard, the keyboard has navigation keys at the bottom which make it a lot more easy to navigate while in a text compose screen. The typing experience is much better on the Incredible S simply because of the improved responsiveness of the display and the processing capabilities of the device.
CONCLUSION
The Incredible S is a abandoned phone, it comes at a time where devices of its kind are becoming obsolete. The SE Xperia Arc, Nexus S and OPTIMUS 2x are already here and in the market. So a single core processor based device at this price point seems worthless to us. The Incredible S is truly incredible in performance and its built it also has a good set of specs, But its a little too late for the party. The camera is a disappointment, and the price point of 27-28000 makes us reject the device and look at dual core alternatives.
Spice was one of the first Indian companies to launch an Android OS based handset in the Indian Market, The Spice Mi 300. Now the successor of the very popular Mi 300 – the new Mi 310 is here it promises a lot more functionality at a lower price and a better build.
We will be reviewing this device in-depth and giving you a full run down soon.
Right now, we go hands on with the device, so check out the full specifications along with Hands on Pictures. The unboxing video will be up shortly.
We have had this device for quite some time, and we are now ready to tell you how this device fares in the market.
Lets start with the usual suspects
BUILD QUALITY and HARDWARE
The Galaxy Ace is possibly the best built Samsung Galaxy phone in India, till date. We feel, that the device is better built than the Galaxy S /Sl and all the lower end Galaxys put together (3,5, pop, etc). The back panel of the Galaxy Ace is the best texture we have seen on any device and the chrome metal side bezel squares off the phones looks with the likes of the iPhone 4. Solid and rigid, beautiful glass front and great styling.
In terms of Hardware the device features a whole bunch of interesting specs including a 320 x 480 pixels, 3.5 inches Capacitive touch screen which is very-very responsive. A snappy 800 MHz ARM 11 processor, Adreno 200 GPU, Qualcomm MSM7227 chipset which is quite capable of handling the phones processing and delivers good gaming and graphic performance. A 1350 mAh which despite its size fared out well.
The device is missing the standard Android search button like the FIT and the POP.
Quadrant Score : 595
DISPLAY and MULTIMEDIA
Although 320 x 480 is no Retina display and is nowhere near high resolution, the display is simply stunning and the less pixel count is actually no problem, the text is clear and vivid the 16m color resolution does the display justice and in this price bracket, delivers a whole lot more than one can expect. The touch screen is also super smooth and performs excellently. Kinetic scrolling and pinch to zoom in and out, all of which are displayed in the video review, work great.
The sound quality from the loudspeaker is not as great as the sound volume. You can really blast the audio from the speaker. The speakers are great if the volume is moderately controlled.
The bass is well matched along with mids, but, start to clip at high volumes and you are left with a squeaking sound. This will also only happen on audio files which are tweaked to sound louder, regular music plays fine. Video quality is excellent, with a tiny bit of shuttering when the video clip loads, everything after that is as smooth as butter.
Video looks good and there is no denying the fact that every Android user will watch atleast a video per week on his phone, and you will love it on the Samsung Galaxy Ace.
CAMERA
The Device is missing a dedicated camera shutter button! Why Samsung? why is it so difficult?
The camera is a performance star, the auto focus is good and the light density on the sensor is excellent. Low light compositions are pretty decent, not as great as they could have been if Samsung had placed the flash a little further away from the camera, a surge of white crosses the camera , and the pictures come out faded when the led is on. When its offa low light compositions look passable. So either way the pictures are average in low light, Impressive in daylight / Apt lighting.
Video however is poor and HD video is missing from the whole circuit. 320×240 (QVGA) (20 fps) video is just as bad as the numbers look, and we are sorry to say you will not be making any videos with the camera. We also tried several other Camera apps from the Android marketplace, but to no avail video quality was poor throughout. we will soon have a sample video up.
PHONE, MESSAGING and BATTERY
The Samsung Galaxy Ace handles Cellular networks beautifully and with 3G connectivity we got good download speeds up to 2.5Mbps (network constrained) in prime areas of Delhi. No relative call drops , actually one in about 3 weeks of testing. The call quality was superb, a whole lot more than we expected this device to deliver. Earpiece and mic are well balanced and perform brilliantly.
Messaging is fast with the built in Swype Keyboard, If you don’t like it well you can download literally a dozen other keyboards from the marketplace and test them. Choose the one you like and keep it. The key factor however here lies in the touch sensitivity of the screen. The accuracy with which the device handles touch inputs is far superior than the likes of HTC wildfire and Dell XCD 35. But, those are last gen phones anyway. Keyboard performance is excellent mainly because of the touchscreen.
Battery life on the Galaxy Ace was also shocking, with tweaked performance the device gives about
4 Hours Talk time 3G
5.5 Hours on 2G
Audio Playback (screen off) 12 hours
Video Streaming – 2 hours
Video Playback (offline) 4 Hours
Internet Wifi/3G 4-5 Hours
Conclusion
With the market flooded with Android devices we are yet to see a device in the 15k bracket that will live up to our expectations. But, then again our expectations are ever increasing and the market always fails to deliver. The Samsung Galaxy Ace however comes pretty close, and then falls back. The lack of a simple dedicated camera button, no HD video, a missing dedicated search button are simple things that could have been included.
Price : INR 15, 499/-
In an ideal scenario this device would have all the above and a bit more juice.
Here is the Unboxing Video of the HTC Incredible S, The video also contains a comparison of the device with the Desire HD. Check it out and stay tuned for the Full Review.
Sony Ericsson has just announced the Yendo for the Indian market, we decided not to bother with the news and straight roll out the full review of the Device.
Lets start with BUILD QUALITY
The Yendo is essentially or completely made out of plastic, the back, front, top and bottom is made out of plastic, it squeaks rattles and bothers us with its cheapness. Throwing it around on the other hand dint affect the phone much and seems like a good option for somebody who drops their phone a lot. So we have mixed views about the build, but styling was poor and it actually just looks like a toy.
Multimedia and Camera
The camera on the device is a decent 2MP fixed focus camera, that may solve emergency needs. But cannot be considered for day to day usage. The picture quality was OK, but lack of focus and poor low light composition was a let down for us.
The audio on the other hand was solid and the sound quality was loud and impressive. The sound was crisp and bass and mid were quite accurate. Video on the other hand played slow and lag after lag during the playback made us nauseous.
Another thing worth mentioning are the included Earphones on the handsfree kit. One word “brilliant” , you possibly can’t find better bundled earphones.
Phone and Messaging
The performance of the device during phone calls was best in class, sound was super-crisp on either end with no network issues what-so-ever. Messaging is also fast and simple, We do miss a full qwerty keyboard as the device only has a standard num-pad style keyboard. Overall impressive.
Conclusion
The device is capable of offering a lot more than it does, and leaves you asking why wasn’t it done? The Ui is slow, unresponsive and has poor color integration. The phones crashes and lags, is poorly designed inside and out. Our recommendation is stay as far away as you can from this phone unless you really-really like how this device looks (i don’t know how you can).
Samsung has bombarded us with a bundle of Galaxy Phones this season, they are not stopping anytime soon. with several devices to come, we review the cheapest in the line up of Galaxy Phones the Galaxy POP.
Lets start with the Unboxing video.
Hardware
The device packs a semi decent set of Specifications
3.14” capacitive touch screen
1200 mAh Battery
3.15 MP fixed focus camera
Android 2.2
600 MHZ processor
Wifi, bluetooth
Proximity/ ambient sensors
Accelerometer
AGPS
Hardware navigation buttons on the bottom of the display
For an entry level Android phone thats quite a lot of specs, At the price bracket this device is in you can only expect dunb-phones. This device promises and delivers a lot more than you bargain for.
Display and Touchscreen
The Galaxy Pop features a 3.14 inch capacitive touchscreen LCD display, that has a native resolution of 240 x 320 px. While on the outset the device is fully capable and display is good while navigating through menus and using the phone in its basic functions.
The quality of the Display really shines( or blackens) when you actually put it to test while browsing the internet, or watching videos. The display has a poor case of pixel love. The website text is highly unreadable and you need to zoom in to high levels to get basic text to readable state. There is no auto reformatting of text , so you will constantly be panning and rotating your device to get one article or basic letter read in the browser.
Lets just say the Display on the Galaxy POP = FAIL
The touchscreen on the other hand is a marvel. Samsung has made an overall improvement in how the touch digitizer reads the input, thereby making the touchscreen technology used in their devices a brilliant aspect of their lineup. The new Galaxy POP is not left behind and utilizes the same new touch technology along with the optimized Android 2.2 makes using the phone a bit more cheerful.
Camera and Multimedia
The Camera on the Galaxy Pop stands at a semi decent 3.15 MP , the disappointing bit is that its fixed focus. The picutre quality is only decent and you will find yourself struggling to get the right focus even in the brightest of light conditions. The camera is a complete failure in low light situations due to lack of flash LED. You will also find that the video quality is as you would expect from a VGA video capable camera, half decent.
You do however get a huge array of selectable features in the Camera APP and thus letting you select b/ Several shooting modes, scene modes, it lets you add effects and choose resolution etc. Making the Camera app a “princess designed for a pauper”( camera hardware).
Multimedia features are let down by the overly poor (as mentioned earlier) low res display, video just does not cut it on this screen and is just a poor feeling once you get down to watching videos. Audio however is a story told differently , and throughout the new Galaxy series you will see that the audio quality goes from good to excellent as you progress up in the chain. The speakerphone on the Galaxy POP is very impressive and will not be a let down. The phone features an FM radio and thanks to android is capable of playing almost any file format under the sun thanks to its impressive array of Apps.
The included earphones also provide good isolated audio, with a little tweaking from a good equalizer,
Phone and Messaging
Every phone need to be good at one thing, “being a phone”. The Galaxy Pop does just that with the ability to impressively make phone calls the earpiece, microphone and loudspeaker do their job well and promise good conversation abilities. In our tests we found that the device had close to none calls dropped and almost full network bars throughout.
The swpe keyboard makes messaging and emailing on this a breeze, with a bit of learning curve you will find yourself texting away in a marathon. Although, if like us you prefer the normal keyboard, that option is available too.
Conclusion
The Galaxy POP is a semi decent low price entry level Android 2.2 device from samsung. But , we think you deserve better, the display quality is just not acceptable and lets you down on several levels. The phone is plasticy in build and looks like a toy at the end of it. It performs all the functions it intends to do, But makes you fell let down all the way. gaming performance is also average with several games blocked from the marketplace.
Battery Life
3.5 – 4 hours talktime (2g)
2 hours on 3G
4 hours of browsing the internet (3g)
5.5 hours of browsing the internet (Wifi)
9 hours of audio playback
2.5 hours of video
Quadrant benchmark score : 530-540
Price : downwards of INR 9,000/-
Overall we would recommend that you look at other options if display and gaming performance is your main criteria. Save your money for the time being or change your budget (if you can).
Android, Android and more Android! Are you already sick of it? We sure are not!
The latest flagship Android smartphone from Dell’s stable is less of a shocker. Check out our Review
The Build Quality
For the Dell Venue , we have two independent views when it comes to build. The front of the device is this shiny, rugged and curved gorilla glass. The chrome trim and good tactile buttons make it an added bonus. But, the poorly designed back cover and cheap plastic utilization suddenly turns our view around.
The overall construction of the device is pretty solid and delivers where most leave off squeaking and rattling. The Dell Venue seems really bulky in the hand and not as refined as the Desire HD when you hold it in your hand.
Hardware Specs
The Dell Venue like others in this price range comes with a whole set of Top notch hardware, But in this age of technology, what was top notch yesterday is a poor mans tale today.
8 MP, 3264×2448 pixels, autofocus, LED flash(Bah!)
4.1 inches, 480 x 800 pixels, AMOLED, 16M Colors capacitive touchcreen.
(Now this is wow! resolution still a tad low if you ask us)
Android 2.2 (why not 2.3, why, why ?)
Those are the only specs worth talking about the rest comes down to the usual WiFi, BLuetooth, MicroUSB, MicroSd- upto 32Gb.
Overall hardware is good and the performance of the device is also good. But, the Quadrant Score shows a whole new story, averaging from 600-700 on the scorecard. The result is simply pathetic!
Multimedia and Camera
Now this is where the Dell Venue raked up on the Points. The Amoled screen is simply superb! The Blacks are so deep that you don’t see the difference between the screen and the surrounding bezel.
The video performance is extraordinary thanks to the display, and possibly the curved glass front. The display makes video on this almost lifelike –
Now, if only we could stretch the display (rolls eyes)
The Loudspeaker is best in class period, Dell has somehow managed to stuff their Android lineup with superior quality speakers. Surprisingly, no one seems to talk about them, But, how could they not? These Phones have possible the best in device speaker we have heard ever. The bass is so good it makes you want to play he song over and over again. The speaker delivers quality sound with high volume, great bass and mid, trebles can be tweaked.
Camera on the Dell Venue is an 8 Megapixel snapper which has autofocus, touch to focus, macro mode and the works when it comes to effects/ brightness settings and timer etc. Images look not so great on the device but great on a computer screen. This may be due to a mis-calibration between the Amoled screen (which displays colors differently) and the Camera, who knows? This however didnt bother us much, and we were happy as long as the images were the way they should be.
Video on the device is also good and smooth – 720p HD video with a whole flurry of effects and settings makes the video mode a lot of fun to use. The 1Ghz chip allows for fast processing and you can download several apps from the marketplace and do your editing right on the device.
Phone and Messaging
We always stress that a smart phone should at first be a smart – PHONE. The Dell venue was a bit of a let down in performing that, we got frequent signal drops and connection failures. It even failed to get a proper signal at times. The “no service” signal bothered us for quite some time, a couple of reboots and it was gone.
3G Connectivity was (the best word for it ) a “Bi$%h” we couldn’t get the damn thing to connect to 3G.
Messaging on the other hand was a breeze the onboard keyboard comes with swype and a bunch of other input options, The reponsiveness of the touchscreen along with clear letters makes typing fairly simple and quick. This makes emailing and sms on the Dell Venue a fun exercise.
Gaming and Internet
We never talk about gaming in our reviews, But, this time we just had to make an exception. The Screen (have we mentioned before how much we love it) makes gaming so much fun with the deep colors, it almost makes you never want to stop, become game playing zombies tilting the device and driving your car, shooting the other zombies or blowing up those crazy “egg stealin” Pigs.
Uhhhhh. Brains!!!!
Internet browsing is a breeze, kinetic scrolling, accelerometer, pinch to zoom and slide to scroll work brilliantly without showing any form of LAG. Did we mention the greatness of the Amoled display? makes browsing and reading on websites atleast 4x better. The Venue comes preloaded with flash for the browser so seamless internet for all the folks.
Battery Life
The Venue had a phenomenal battery life in our tests.
Phone Calls : 5.5 hours
Web browsing 8 – 9 hours
We couldn’t test web browsing over 3G because well the damn device wouldn’t get a connection. piff!
Video Review
Conclusion
A strong device from Dell, in terms of build and hardware capability, Beautiful screen, great battery life.
But it all boils down to poor connectivity and phone call ability and that has let us down a lot. Unless phone calls is not your main criteria for buying a “Phone”,
