The only market ready smartphone OS (apart from the iOS) to make good use of full touchscreens in Google’s Android. And one of the latest high-end Android powered devices to land on our desk is the HTC Incredible-S. Successor to the original Incredible that made its debut in US last year, the Incredible ‘S’ has landed in India. Priced at Rs 27000, the IncredibleS isn’t the most expensive device around and given the features it packs in, it has the potential to be a bestseller. So is this the ultimate Android phone that you have been waiting for? Lets find out.
Features / Design:
The Incredible S adds to the respectable Android lineup that HTC has in place. The Desire HD, Desire S and Incredible S are the most promoted Android phones at the store we picked up our Incredible S from. HTC has packed in a 1GHz processor, 768MB RAM and a powerful 8MP camera in here (with dual LED flash). The 4.0″ screen sports a 480×800 resolution and on first looks we loved the output. This sure is right up there when it comes to display quality.
When we talk of a HTC phone, the first thing we notice is the build quality. This thing is rock solid in your hand. Though its all plastic, the feel is very very rich (matte finish). Something we missed on the Samsung Galaxy S. The Incredible S is a tad heavy at 135 gms and we didn’t really see ourselves complaining about that until we consciously compared it with a Galaxy S side by side.
HTC has kept the buttons on this thing to minimum. On the sides there is just the volume toggle and a Micro USB port (both on the left side). The 3.5mm audio jack finds a place on the top. The capacitive control buttons on the bottom have 2 different alignments, one for the portrait mode, other for landscape mode. A small observation, but the icons on these buttons turn along with the screen.
Performance:
The Incredible S has a 1.1GB ROM to save apps, but no internal storage for media or other files. This is another place where the Galaxy S scores with a 8GB internal storage (come-on its 2011, a device without a good internal storage is unacceptable). I have spent little time with Android myself and two die-hard Android fans @android_ajit and @mehulved (also known as @techyourfuture) are watching over my shoulders as I type this down. They might have their comments flowing in, but I would stick to my arrogance at no internal storage on this thing.
The first thing we did with the Incredible S is try the camera. And that naturally took us to the gallery app. Now I very well remember an evening in Delhi when one of my friends was showing the N8’s media capabilities, we did a side by side comparison with the iPhone on how fast do these devices let you browse through an album. You will get this better in one of our video reviews of the device, but the point is that Incredible S is even slower than the Nexus One when it comes to flipping images in the gallery.
HTC has its own Sense UI on the Incredible S (which is visually a delight, not heavy on our eyes), but the stock Android gallery app seems to be better than what they have got here. I am stressing on this more than a heavy game or GPU intensive app for a simple reason. Its no point having a 1GHz CPU/GPU when the basic experience on the device is going to be slow. No matter how well the games work. The only defense for HTC here is Froyo. The device that they have in India still runs Froyo (Gingerbread is already rolling out) and perhaps the situation improves with Gingerbread.
The dual noise cancellation mics on the Incredible S seem to be doing a good job. The test call we placed from Xperia Play and Incredible S showed a significant difference on the amount of background noise (roadside, SV road Mumbai if you can relate to it).
We ran the Standard Quadrant benchmark test on the Incredible S and it performs well there. Quadrant result:
With the same benchmark on the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play (v2.3.2) we got a figure or 1388, on the Galaxy S (v2.3.3) we are seeing 1023 (we have a feeling that the unofficial Gingerbread here is playing bad, will update). Incredible S’ figure stands at 1516, which is respectable.
HTC Sense is a pleasant UI, doesn’t lag, but it lacks the fast navigation. It leaves us with a mixed feeling. On one side its visually appealing but on the other side it isn’t the fastest to navigate around. We would wait for HTC to rollout the Sense 3.0 with a firmware upgrade before judging this one. The onscreen keyboard that HTC packs in is good and the 4.0″ real estate helps that. The Email/FriendStream and other widgets are pretty, but heavy users can’t do without a dedicated app for twitter / Facebook and email.
Browser:
The default browser that HTC packs isn’t the best. To our relief, the Flash performance on this is workable, would lag if you get something heavy, but for most times its works just fine. Overall on the browser coming from an iOS experience, we aren’t very pleased.
Apart from the lag in pinch to zoom the SunSpider Java benchmark on this thing isn’t encouraging either. The Incredible S gave us a SunSpider JavaScript (v 0.9.1) benchmark score of 8529.7 ms. Compare that with the Galaxy S (running Android 2.3.3) which is 6055.6 ms, where as the iPod touch 4G (iOS 4.3.1) does 4191.1 ms. That sure isn’t impressive again. On the flip side, the Opera Mini on Incredible S does a better on pinch to zoom as well as the JavaScript score. The JavaScript score was 3454.9 ms on Opera Mini. Another clear indication that HTC has a lot of software work to do.
Battery Life
HTC Incredible S has a 1450 mAh battery, which looks capable to handle this thing. We did a battery test and after 150 minutes of video playback (at full brightness and 50% volume), the battery indicator flashed 54%. We guess this should do the standard 1 day that we are used to with our smartphones. I would skip my rant on smartphone battery life at the moment, but our wait for a super battery performance remains.
Camera:
The most impressive attraction of the Incredible S is the camera. An 8MP shooter that does 720p recording add to that a 1.3MP front camera. Incredible S offers digital zoom for both photos and videos. The Dual LED flash is good, but isn’t of much use if the subject is too close. There isn’t much to judge for us, let your eyes decide. Here are the photo and video samples:
Front Camera
Our video sample is on Youtube
Conclusion:
Incredible S has arrived in India and you should be able to get your hands on one for roughly Rs 26500. The hardware and built quality is top notch and the wonderful display adds to the feel. A superb camera and a visually appealing UI is welcome. But the performance here isn’t what we expected. If you are a power user our recommendation would be to wait and watch for the Gingerbread release on this. But if you want a solid Android device today and don’t mind the experience improving over time with updates, you might well go for the Incredible S, its a good bet!
Inputs from Mehul Ved and Ajit Pillai
whichi shop is that guy standing in , where is it ?