Samsung Galaxy Nexus Review

The Samsung Galaxy Nexus isn’t just another Android phone, this is the standard by which all Ice Cream Sandwich phones will be judged. An example to every Android manufacturer out there, and every Android fan, this is the basic foundation of what you should expect in an Android smartphone. Is that setting the bar too high, though? The Samsung Galaxy Nexus is the third addition to Google’s Nexus family, and second built by Samsung. It offers competitive specifications, innovative hardware, and it is the first phone to show off Google’s brand new OS, Android 4.0. Can Google and Samsung make the best Android device in the world together? Is Android 4.0 just another dessert-themed mess? I break it down like Jet Li in Chinatown after the break.

Hardware/Design/Display

The Samsung Galaxy Nexus absolutely feels like the evolution of the Google Nexus family. In fact, the phone’s identity is almost a perfect mashup of the original Nexus One and the Nexus S. It’s flattened, a mix of black and medium gray, has a slight curved display, feels sturdy and strong, and even features the charging and syncing contact points that the original Nexus One touted.
While the phone’s exterior is made entirely out of plastic, what seems like the only material Samsung will ever use in its smartphone cases, there’s a metal chassis inside giving the device strength and a creak-free build. Looking at the Galaxy Nexus from an angle, you’ll see a symmetrical curves that taper down to incredibly thin edges on the top and bottom. The phone follows these lines until around three quarters of the way down, then the infamous reverse chin rears its ugly head — the Galaxy Nexus is thinnest at the top and thickest at the bottom, much like the Samsung Nexus S or a giraffe.

Google’s latest reference handset introduces one of the first 720p HD displays ever to hit a smartphone, coming just after the HTC Rezound became the first smartphone in the United States with a 720p screen. In addition to the super high resolution 4.65-inch display, the Galaxy Nexus also features a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, a 5-megapixel camera with no shutter lag, a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera, 16GB of storage, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0, NFC and a 1,750 mAh battery.
While I’m used to carrying an iPhone 4S, I’ve also used countless larger displayed devices on and off for the last year or so, and even still, the display here is a bit too large for my liking. It’s not the case of the bezel being too thick like on the Motorola DROID RAZR — in fact, with the 720p resolution, the display is much taller and less wide than the DROID RAZR — but it’s still impossible to comfortably use the phone with one hand without constantly repositioning it.
I’m not someone with small hands either, so I have no doubt that this device is simply too big to be used comfortably by a pretty large segment of the population. The phone’s thin fram and nice tapered edges help the situation slightly, but its footprint is almost unforgivably large because of the massive display. My sweet spot for screen size is probably about 4-inches, and this is out of bounds to me. The Galaxy Nexus feels very well manufactured, but the plastic case and terrible, terrible cheap plastic battery cover really take away from a lot of the phone’s hardware advantages. I’m used to precision laser-cut stainless steel and glass like the materials used on Apple’s iPhone and HTC’s unibody devices, so Samsung’s plastics just can’t cut it.

The personality the Galaxy Nexus has is quite interesting. The design of the front of the phone is incredibly symmetrical its face gives you a window into the app or experience you’re engaging with. Especially with the navigational keys now being soft keys on the display rather than separate buttons beneath it, the phone itself just seems to melt away and serve up Android. In the past this might not have been that smart, but Android 4.0 is a huge step forward that I’ll go into in more depth in a little bit.
The power/unlock button is located on the right side with volume rocker key positioned on the left, and you’ll find the phone’s microUSB port and 3.5mm headset jack located on the bottom of the phone. Around back there is a second microphone for noise cancellation, the 5-megapixel camera, an LED flash and a speaker towards the bottom of the device.
While a 720p HD display might not make sense to some people, it’s absolutely beautiful on the Galaxy Nexus. The 1280 x 720-pixel resolution on Samsung’s 4.65-inch Super AMOLED screen is the most beautiful display I have seen on a mobile device besides the panel on the iPhone 4S. The whites are white, the blacks are black, and colors pop. The viewing angle is amazing, giving you superior viewing from any angle on the phone until it’s practically turned around. The panel is extremely bright, though I was annoyed at how aggressive the auto-brightness worked in Android. In a dark setting it was fine, but in bright areas the screen was always too dim for my taste. Once I manually set the brightness, however, I was in love.

Android 4.0

Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich finally bridges the gap between a tablet OS and smartphone OS, and it absolutely looks a marriage Honeycomb and Gingerbread, with a few dashes of TRON and Daft Punk. It’s a much more cohesive OS and it’s the first release from Google that feels like it’s actually one thought-out product.
One of the immediately noticeable updates are the navigation buttons. No longer physical keys that sit beneath the display, these soft keys have been reduced from four to three, though two buttons disappeared. How is this possible? Gone are the search button and menu button, and what’s left is the home button, back button, and and recent apps button. Android 3.0 Honeycomb users will be used to this layout for the most part, and the recent apps button is a dedicated app switcher that lets you easily bounce between your recent apps. It even shows you a visual preview of the last app you were looking at instead of giving you a list of eight icons that didn’t tell you much.
Ice Cream Sandwich is a drastic departure from Android versions past, and every app, widget and graphic seems to have been redone to fit a single unified identity. Super smooth transitions and scrolling, multi-dimensional interface elements, and of course, heavy black and neon blue make up the Ice Cream Sandwich user interface. I love the new typeface, Roboto, on the Galaxy Nexus in most apps, though in some apps like email it appears bold for unread messages, and this contrasts with the delicate base font that I like so much.
While most of the OS is one piece, I do find it odd that something like a menu option isn’t uniform across every app, including Google’s own apps. For instance, the menu key (overflow button) is now contextual, but it sits in the top navigation bar at times, and at others it’s buried at the bottom of an app.
The notification drawer has been refreshed to show thumbnails of different activities like the contact image of the person who is emailing you. It’s a small change but it really gives you the feeling this isn’t just another robotic OS from Google. It’s something more. Instead of only having the option to clear all your notifications, you’re now able to swipe away individual notifications, in addition to hitting an X at the top to clear all of them.

Android 4.0 is fast. Extremely fast. Scrolling between the five home screens (please, please let me customize the number of home screens) was silky smooth with practically no lag whatsoever. I love how the same animation when you get to the end of the home screens has carried over from Honeycomb, too. Google’s search box is now not a widget but it’s baked right into your home screens, and sitting on the opposite end of that search box is your collection of four customizable app icons and your apps drawer button. You can now also make app folders very easily, and while this feature existed previously in Android, it plays to the entire theme of Android 4.0 — we finally know what we’re doing, and we’re making something that’s worth using.

Bouncing into the app drawer, you’ll find the insanely frustrating app library of Android 2.3 Gingerbread completely revamped to now appear as sliding horizontal panels that stack over each other. If you keep swiping, you’ll get into the widgets section which is now seamlessly integrated into this one location.
A feature we exclusive reported on, in addition to full specifications of the Galaxy Nexus, of course, was that Android 4.0 will give users complete control over their data usage, at both the phone and app level. This includes going as far as blocking background data on specific apps, setting a warning level to let you know when you’re approaching your monthly data plan limit, and also the option of completely disabling data when you get to that point. While some might think this relates to how much of a bandwidth hog Android is (it is), I’d look at this more as a feature that will let Android start to move into more emerging markets, in addition to possibly swaying some parents to upgrade their kids’ phones to a smartphone from a feature phone. There should be a parental restriction option on data limits, though (through the whole phone, too), so you can set it to disable data when a cap has been reached.
Keyboard input has been dramatically improved. While I never got used to the default Android Gingerbread keyboard, Ice Cream Sandwich makes me love it. It seems as if the keys are the same size, or maybe just a tiny, tiny bit larger, but text input is a completely different world. I’d say it’s almost, if not on par with iOS right now. Microsoft’s Windows Phone keyboard still schools both OSes like a 3PM playground meetup, though. Voice input has also improved greatly, with words being recognized and displayed on the screen much faster than ever before.
I love Android’s People app, a new take on how to look at and keep up with your contacts. It’s very similar in concept to Window Phone’s People hub in that you can see updates from your friends on their social networks like Twitter and of course, Google+. By tapping on a photo of your contact from anywhere in the OS (wherever there is an email address or notification from a friend, you’ll see their thumbnail), a People view will pop up and give you access to their contact information in addition to social statuses. Facebook is the big glaring omission here, but we know that’s not an omission, rather a strategic move on Google’s end. There is a third party API here, however, so developers will be able to link into the experience.
While Android 4.0 feels like the most amazing OS release from Google yet in practically every way — speed, personality, cohesiveness and fluidity — it doesn’t do much to make the experience less intimidating for potential customers, and that’s sadly one of the reason’s we’re still going to have third party manufacturer skins on Android (obviously not the main reason). In fact, I’d say that Android 4.0 is actually more confusing at first than previous versions of the OS. I found myself diving through so many different menus, trying to remember where different options were, how to get to this app, how to remember to navigate the app drawer, where the menu key was in this app… you just find yourself under an avalanche of crap sometimes, and it’s frustrating.

If I chose to use the Galaxy Nexus as my main phone for weeks, would I get used to it? Of course, and a big part of me really loves the amount of control you have in Android. From the home screen to apps, you can adjust your phone to the point where it almost seems like it was made just for you. I love having my calendar, Gmail, and Exchange widgets on the home screen. I love how I organize apps on the home screen, how my folders are constructed, and so on. But, I found myself jumping through so many panels, screens, pages, widgets and menus that I literally put the phone down and laughed. Add that to the very heavy Armin van Buren playground-like user interface, and it’s almost overwhelming at times.

Browser

The entire browser has been redone for Android 4.0 and it shows. There’s finally hardware acceleration that gives you much faster page loads, chrome bookmark sync, the ability to request the desktop version of a site. Although there’s no Adobe Flash support at the moment, but that should be available before the end of the year.
Browsing various sites with the Galaxy Nexus was almost effortless as I zipped around the web hopping from one image and javascript heavy site to the next. Android is Google’s OS play for the next generation of computing, not their Chrome OS, and you can start to see the pieces come together, especially in the browser. With support for up to 16 open tabs, this is starting to be positioned as a desktop-class browser that happens to be available on smartphones and tablets. Other little enhancements are the ability to save a page for offline reading (why does everyone want to hurt Marco Arment?) in addition to setting your homepage to your most visited sites.
I did notice some software glitches in the browser, mainly in how the OS handles animations into and out of the browser, and sometimes on first load of a webpage, but since this phone isn’t running final software, I’ll throw that into the probably-getting-fixed-before-release hat.

Camera

I usually don’t review the cameras on many smartphones. Why? Because they are usually the same, terrible camera optics that I come across weekly on every phone that crosses my desk. Sure, they can take 8-megapixel photos and 1080p HD video, but the fact is that very few cameras are worth even talking about. The camera on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus does offer a few unique features, though.
First off, even though this is a 5-megapixel camera, it takes insanely fast photos with what Google and Samsung are calling zero shutter lag. As soon as you press the capture button, the photo is taken, assuming the photo is focused first. This is a great compromise between something like an EDoF lens that Nokia has used in the past which give you an instant photo, but no auto-focus, and a traditional camera sensor which can take quite a few seconds to snap the picture. In daily use, this worked very well and taking photos one after another was incredibly speedy and impressive.
The actual photos the phone takes are decent. With great lighting, especially outside with the sun out, photos are great. In decently-lit lighting environments, or low light situations, the camera is not so great. Add flash into the mix, and it’s not really worth talking about.
Video performance was the same, with great lighting offering up awesome results and moderate or low light situations affecting both frame rate, quality, and noise. Google’s real-time video effects are fun, though. They use face tracking to adjust different elements of your face, just like how Apple uses tracking to pull off these effects in Photo Booth. Apple stole the notifications drawer from Android, so it’s only right Google stole something as important as face tracking with real-time image manipulation from Apple.

Gmail

Another app that has received a complete overhaul is Gmail, giving you the best Gmail experience on the planet on a mobile device, and it looks better than it ever has before. It feels like Gmail was designed for this phone, and you finally have quick and responsive access to your email, in addition to managing your messages with labels and organization.
Google has introduced offline search as well, so you’re able to search your email even if you’re not connected to the network. Here is one of the apps where most commonly accessed options aren’t hidden behind layers of menus; almost everything you need is present on one screen. You can delete messages, mark messages as read or unread, swipe back and forth through emails and more without leaving the regular app view. Unfortunately however, you still can’t pinch to zoom.

Phone/Speakerphone

Voice calling on the Galaxy Nexus was decent. The actual phone performed well, with calls being generally clear most of the time, but occasionally the caller on the other end said I sounded very… robotic. Surely not an intended effect, right? Reception was on par with other top smartphones, though AT&T in midtown New York City at 4:47 p.m. is still AT&T in midtown New York City at 4:47 p.m. One issue I had with the phone is that the ear speaker has to be positioned just right for you to hear the call clearly. Just picking up the phone and putting it to my ear wasn’t enough, but it’s a minor annoyance that you’ll most likely get used to.
The speakerphone on the Galaxy Nexus wasn’t all that great. It didn’t get nearly as loud as I needed it to on various occasions in different noise settings, and it distorted audio past a certain volume level. Playback for music and audio was more of the same, with volume, projection and distortion all a minor concern.

Battery

I have been using the Samsung Galaxy Nexus for around a week, and I have a very good feel for the battery life on the HSPA+ version of the phone. Standby time has been excellent, and with Gmail and Exchange accounts running Twitter in the background along with other background apps, the phone has lasted for days. Under heavy usage, like Google Navigation, the phone starts to show a little weakness, even with a 1,750 mAh battery.
Using the phone as my primary device and leaving the house with a full charge in the morning, I got a little more than halfway through the day before the phone started to warn me that the battery life was getting low after heavy emailing, browsing and using Google Navigation for around an hour. While the LTE version of the device will offer up an 1,850 mAh battery, LTE might take a toll, so we’ll have to see if battery life is better or worse once I get an LTE version in my pocket.

Conclusion

This is almost comical at this point, but the Samsung Galaxy Nexus is my favorite Android device in the world. Easily replacing the HTC Rezound, the Motorola DROID RAZR, and Samsung Galaxy S II, the Galaxy Nexus champions in a brand new version of Android that pushes itself further than almost any other mobile OS in the industry.
While there were some hardware complaints, and even though Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich isn’t the most intuitive or user friendly operating system, it’s absolutely one of the most powerful. Android 4.0 is coupled with the best smartphone Samsung has ever produced and easily leapfrogs any other competitor’s device.
Unfortunately in the Android world, this hardly lasts a long time, and as we have started to see in various leaks, there’s going to be some serious competition for the best Android smartphone in the world over the next few months. For now, though, this marriage of hardware and software, under Google and Samsung’s direction, is an absolute winner.

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HTC Rezound Review

Verizon Wireless has not one but three powerhouse 4G LTE smartphones lined up for the holidays, and the HTC Rezound is one of them. Launching right after the , the HTC Rezound takes things to another dimension, both visually and sonically. With an amazing 4.3-inch 720p HD display, a fast 1.5GHz dual-core processor, Beats-enhanced audio and other competitive specs in a solid package, is the HTC Rezound the 4G smartphone to beat this holiday season? Read on to find out how this phone shapes up against the DROID RAZR and Galaxy Nexus.

Hardware / Design / Display

The HTC Rezound features all the latest lust-worthy pieces that fit together to make up any smartphone-lover’s ideal puzzle: specs include one of the first 720p HD displays, a fantastic 8-megapixel backside-illuminated camera complete with support for full 1080p HD video capture, a 720p HD front facing camera, an incredibly powerful 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon processor, and of course, support for Verizon’s 4G LTE network.
I love the HTC Rezound’s identity and personality. It’s a perfect complement to the red and black branding shared by both Verizon Wireless and Beats. Underneath the battery cover, the phone’s internals are displayed in, you guessed it, a translucent red plastic case, giving the phone an extra detail that only HTC devices have.

Let’s focus on the central feature of the HTC Rezound, and as much as Jimmy or Andre would want you to believe it’s the Beats audio processing features, it’s actually the display. The 4.3-inch 720p display on the Rezound is nothing short of stunning. It’s easily the best display I have ever seen on a mobile device besides the iPhone 4/4S. The screen on the HTC Rezound is the best screen on any current Android device, and completely annihilates the Motorola DROID RAZR’s PenTile display, though I’m interested to see how the Rezound lines up against the Galaxy Nexus.

Looking at the phone, you’ll see the sinister red-tinted Android menu keys sitting right below that gorgeous display. While it’s a bit unsettling at first, that vivid red color shining through the buttons lets you know that this isn’t just a Verizon device, but a Beats device as well.
There’s a gun metal polished bezel around the entire phone that’s cradled in a soft-touch rubber back casing. On the right side you’ll find a volume rocker button, and on the left side you’ll find the phone’s MHL port that lets you use a microUSB connector or mini-HDMI out cable, along with a secondary microphone for noise cancellation. On top is a 3.5mm headset jack and a power/lock/unlock button. Around back is a dual-LED flash, the 8-megapixel camera sensor and a speaker etched out perfectly amid the ridged design of the back battery cover.
As far as the feel of the device goes, it’s much more thoughtfully designed than the Motorola DROID RAZR. The phone fits very well in the hand, and even though it’s almost twice as thick as the RAZR, it’s still infinitely more comfortable to hold and use thanks to the tapered edges and narrower case.

Software

The HTC Rezound runs HTC’s latest Sense 3.5 user interface, layered on top of Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread. While HTC announced that the Rezound would be getting an upgrade to Android 4.0, it’s a pretty tough sell thrown up against the Samsung Galaxy Nexus that should launch within a week or so.
HTC Sense 3.5 is almost identical to HTC Sense 3.0, adding minor enhancements to the interface like the addition of an “All apps” label now included on the home screen at the bottom of the display as part of the arc. I go back and forth on HTC Sense and for the most part, and I appreciate a lot of the innovation from HTC in the early days of Android, especially starting with the HTC Hero. Sense now introduces more problems that it solves for me, though. While it is cohesive and very well designed, it almost offers too much customization now — so much so that the user may not even discover much of its capabilities because it takes so long to dig through everything. I’d run with a stock Android interface any day of the week.

I have also noticed many, many icons, and images that haven’t been updated to support the new HD resolution of the display. That’s an attention to detail that shouldn’t have been skipped over. If you’re going to customize the Android interface and modify stock elements of the operating system, it’s only right that you do this throughout the entire phone, and HTC didn’t do that. The status bar, for instance, is a mashup of high resolution and low resolution graphics. The battery icon is crisp but the signal bars aren’t. The silent ringer icon looks great but the GPS icon does not. Also, due to the fact that almost no app developers planned on a display of this resolution being released at this time, most app icons from apps you download look pixelated and blurry.
Another irritating thing about HTC’s Sense interface is the 3D carousel of app home screens. The phone comes with seven home screens, way more than I’d like. While HTC finally includes the ability to delete and reorder them, when you flick through your homescreens, the phone still displays them in a carousel as if there were seven. So, if you have two or three home screens, the phone will spin in a circle that’s only 25% full. It’s just odd, and it wasn’t well thought out at all.

Beats Audio / Headphones

The Beats headphones that the HTC Rezound ships with are very good. In fact, they are probably the best bundled headphones I’ve ever used. Music sounds full, heavy on the low end, and clear on the top end even when disabling the Beats audio mode on the handset or using the headphones with other devices.
I’m just not sold on this Beats thing, in terms of the software. If Beats as a product existed solely as hardware, and now is coupled with software processing (EQ) as a selling point, well, I’m not sure I see the advantage of a small increase in audio reproduction. If anything, the Beats software processing amplifies audio, and adds a present equalization that’s meant to make the track sound louder, knockier and fuller. This is artificial, though, and something audio purists won’t appreciate.
Another issue? Beats audio just flat out doesn’t work with many third party music apps, so it becomes a non-factor in many cases.

Phone / Battery / Speaker

Voice calling on the HTC Rezound is reasonably good. Callers sounded a little robotic to me, and would sometimes cut in and out. Noise cancellation worked very well though, with background noise almost completely eliminated and unnoticeable to callers on the other end of the line. The speaker on the Rezound projects nicely, especially when on a flat surface like a desk or coffee table. I’m still not a fan of the actual phone app on HTC Sense devices, however.

As far as the battery, standby mode has been excellent. With normal usage on and off throughout the day, the phone and its 1,620 mAh battery seemed to make it just fine as long as I remembered to recharge when I got home. Even when putting the phone under pressure with constant 4G LTE web browsing, email, video playback and continuous music in the background, the Rezound held up very well.

Conclusion

I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. On one hand, this is practically the same phone I’ve reviewed countless times, in a different shell, with slightly improved specs. On the other, it feels like a completely different animal.
The red and black color scheme, an amazing 720p HD display, Beats audio and extremely fast performance come together in an ergonomic design to create a fantastic finished product. While almost comical at this point, the HTC Rezound is now my favorite Android device in the world, besting the Motorola DROID RAZR, which bested the Galaxy S II. That might be short lived, though, as the Samsung Galaxy Nexus — the first Android 4.0 smartphone — is slated to hit shelves in the next week or two. In the meantime, the HTC Rezound offers up some of the best specs and one of the most complete smartphone packages I have ever seen.

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HTC Vivid Review

Late last month, AT&T unveiled the first two smartphones that would launch with the ability to access its brand new 4G network (not to be confused with its old 4G network). The Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket was a mouthful and a pocketful, identical to T-Mobile’s Galaxy S II save for the addition of an LTE radio. The other device was a brand new handset from HTC dubbed “Vivid.” In terms of hardware, the Vivid is a fairly substantial departure from other recent HTC phones. It is built with different materials and its shape is unlike any other handset from the vendor. Are its unique design, high-end specs and 4G LTE compatibility enough to make this smartphone worthy of your consideration? My full review follows below.

The Inside

 Like every high-end smartphone released these days, the Vivid is packed to the brim with cutting-edge technology. At the heart of the handset is a 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset that powers Android 2.3.4 and HTC Sense 3.0. The Vivid touts 1GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage, microSDHC support up to an additional 32GB, a 1,620 mAh battery and all the trimmings.
More important than the specs is the device’s performance, of course, and the Vivid most certainly performs. Gingerbread is as smooth as I have even seen it on the Vivid. HTC’s Sense UI is very heavy when it comes to animations, and the Vivid displays them all in stride. Multitasking is a breeze for this phone and I had a tremendous amount of trouble trying to trip it up. In fact, it’s easily one of the smoothest Android phones I’ve used.
Couple the Vivid’s silky smooth performance with well-made apps, and you’ve got yourself one of the most enjoyable smartphone experiences on the planet. The Android Market is rife with garbage, as are all mobile app stores, but the gems buried within the Market shine even brighter on the Vivid. One example is Seesmic.

  I’m not a big fan of Seesmic in my browser or on my iPhone, but I’m a huge fan of the company’s Android app. It is well designed and on most Android smartphones, it’s among the fastest Twitter clients available. On the Vivid, Seesmic is a scorcher. Android is typically not thought of as the quickest platform on the market, but even the fastest Twitter apps I’ve tested on iOS seem slow compared to Seesmic on the Vivid. And forget about Windows Phone; while the OS itself is smooth and fluid, apps take forever to refresh with new data. And again, Seesmic is just one example. All well-made apps seem to fly faster on HTC’s Vivid.
Also inside the Vivid is an 8-megapixel camera with auto focus, a dual-LED flash and an f/2.2, 28mm lens. It’s capable of recording full HD 1080p videos, and those 1080p HD videos are made infinitely more accessible than they are on some other modern smartphones thanks to the Vivid’s HDMI-out and integrated DLNA support, which allows users to display content from the phone wirelessly on compatible TV sets and other devices.
There’s support for AT&T’s 4G networks buried in there as well. That’s plural, by the way — “4G networks” — so the Vivid features support for AT&T’s next-generation 4G network based on LTE technology, and the carrier’s previous-generation next-generation 4G network based on HSPA+ technology.

The Outside

 HTC’s Vivid is a very solid smartphone. Less so than some of the vendor’s other phones like the Titan and Legend, but it is without question a sturdy handset. The face of this full touch smartphone is glass that offers very little in the way of resistance to oils. This is very annoying. There are simply no excuses in this day and age for omitting an effective oil-resistant coating on a touchscreen smartphone. Especially one that costs up to $200 on contract.
A thick plastic surrounds the sides of the Vivid and continues to the back of the device, sloping as it moves toward the center of the case. On the top of the phone lies a lock button and a 3.5-millimeter audio jack, and the bottom is home to a lone microphone. A chrome-look plastic volume rocker sits on the right side of the phone and a microUSB port is included on the left. Beyond the plastic on the back of the device is a solid metal plate that covers the battery, a SIM card slot and a microSD card slot. The camera lens and dual-LED flash sit near the top of the metal plate, and above the plate lies a narrow opening for the speaker.

 Circling back to the front of the phone, HTC included a terrific display panel on the Vivid. The 4.5-inch super LCD display features qHD resolution, or 540 pixels by 960 pixels, and it reproduces colors very well. Picky people with 20/20 vision may complain that some edges can appear jagged on the Vivid thanks to the display’s PenTile sub-pixel arrangement, but it really didn’t bother me at all. Images are crisp, colors are vivid — no pun intended — and the display gets remarkably bright.
Worth noting is the fact that HTC managed to keep the Vivid at a fairly reasonable size for a phone with such a large display. While the 4.5-inch panel is among the largest available on supersized smartphones, the footprint is significantly smaller than the Samsung Galaxy S II or the HTC Titan. In fact, when using the phone with one hand I can almost reach every corner of the display and all four of the capacitive Android buttons without striking a yoga pose. Almost.

The Upside

People seem to be less enthusiastic these days when it comes to HTC’s Sense UI, but I am still a big fan. It is my clear favorite among Android skins, though it is becoming increasingly complex. I carry an Android phone with me most days, and I switch phones on a near-weekly basis. Every time I get a new Sense-equipped phone to test and I begin configuring it to my liking, I find new settings, widgets or other features that I didn’t know about before. While this makes HTC’s Sense phones remarkably customizable, it also brings a seemingly endless number of variables that will be appealing to some users but overwhelming to others. The majority of users, however, will probably never explore all of Sense’s capabilities.
Sense’s transition animations, 3D effects and other visual elements are terrific. There are dozens of gorgeous and functional home screen widgets to choose from, and seven home screens to spread them out across. Seven home screens is a bit excessive, but tapping the home button on any one of them will take the user straight back to the middle home screen. Tapping the home button while on the middle home screen will then spread out thumbnails of all seven, and tapping on any thumbnail will take you right to that home screen.

 I also like the look of apps skinned to match the Sense UI. In particular, the email app on HTC’s Sense phones is one element that I have always loved. HTC has added much more than just graphical elements to the app, allowing users to drill down to unread items, flagged items and more by sliding a selector across the bottom of the screen. It makes it all too easy to be productive and next to Windows Phone’s email client, HTC’s is likely my favorite.
Another bright spot on the Vivid is the camera. We don’t need to dig up the past, but cameras have historically been a very weak area for HTC. This is clearly not the case any more. The past few HTC smartphones BGR reviewed have been equipped with fantastic cameras that can go head to head with the Nokias and Apples of the world. The Vivid is no exception. The camera takes very impressive images in adequate lighting, but I did find low-light performance to be a bit lacking compared to other phones I have tested recently. I’m not sure if this is a software issue, but images often appear excessively grainy in dim lighting.

 Voice calling is crystal clear on the Vivid, but beyond all else, performance is the star of the show. It is absolutely among the most responsive Android phones I’ve used, and I’ve used plenty. Even scrolling in apps that have been nightmarish for me on lesser phones is almost always smooth and free of stutters. I can’t emphasize it enough: this is how Android should work on a smartphone.

The Downside

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This is fortunate in the case of the HTC Vivid, because I am not a fan of the handset’s look at all. The face is fine; it looks just like every other full touch smartphone on the planet. Issues arise when the phone is turned around, however, and I personally couldn’t get past the design.
HTC used a thick glossy plastic for much of this smartphone’s case and I don’t care for it at all. First, it somehow collects oil and dust even more aggressively than the phone’s glass screen, which is quite a site to behold. As a matter of fact, the Vivid might pick up dust better than a Swiffer. You can see it in the images peppered throughout this review. As a borderline mysophobe, my hands are always dry from being washed 20 times each day and Purelled even more frequently. And yet after just a few minutes of using the Vivid, there are finger prints, dust and oil smudges all over it. It’s very unbecoming.
The plastic also feels quite cheap. It’s not light or flimsy like the plastic is on so many Samsung phones, but it falls well below the standard HTC has set with other devices like the Titan, with its unibody aluminum construction, or even the soft-touch plastic material it uses on many of the vendor’s phones. This plastic is also incredibly slippery, no doubt helped by the oils it collects, and I’ve had a number of close calls and bobbles while handling the Vivid. It comes close to feeling like a toy instead of a high-end smartphone, but its weight is likely its saving grace in this department.

The first thing I noticed about this phone beyond its physical appearance, in fact, was how unbelievably heavy it is. The larger Galaxy S II version (T-Mobile) weighs 4.77 ounces, the metal and glass iPhone 4S weighs 4.9 ounces and the massive HTC Titan — with its 4.7-inch display and aluminum case — weighs 5.6 ounces. Despite being shorter and narrower than the Titan, the Vivid weighs in at a hefty 6.24 ounces. I can’t think of a heavier smartphone I have held in recent history. I do like a smartphone with a bit of heft to it, but the Vivid tips the scales a bit too far for my taste.
Finally, battery life is not great on the Vivid. Less is the new more, and the phrase “it should last a day on a full charge with moderate usage” is anything but obligatory now that 4G radios and gigantic displays are making their way into many smartphones. The Vivid is not among the worst smartphones I’ve tested recently, but users should expect to charge the phone more frequently than once every 24 hours. It also seems to shed a charge faster than most phones while sitting idle, so definitely purchase an extra wall charger and maybe even a car charger if you plan on buying a Vivid.

The Bottom Line

If I didn’t mind the look of the Vivid, it would be a phone I could carry regularly. As it stands, unfortunately, HTC designed this phone right out of the running for me.
The HTC Vivid is a remarkable, modern smartphone with performance that matches or bests any Android phone I’ve used. It’s fast, it’s smooth, it’s capable and HTC’s Sense UI wraps it all in a gorgeous package. Battery life is a sore spot but smartphones across several platforms seem to be headed south in that area. Users who take particular care may be able to get from one day to the next on a single charge, but I wasn’t able to with regular usage.
Since I work in Manhattan and live just outside the city, I was not able to test the Vivid on AT&T’s young LTE network. On HSPA+, I regularly saw speeds between 2Mbps and 3Mbps down, and 1Mbps up. The Vivid won’t be setting any speed records on AT&T’s previous-generation 4G network, but it’s plenty fast enough to suit the needs of most users. And circling back to battery life, I should note that the phone does not allow users to disable LTE out of the box. Third party switches I’ve tested are not yet compatible with the Vivid but once they are, users unhappy with the phone’s battery performance will likely see the situation improved by disabling LTE when the added speed isn’t a necessity.


I highly recommend that prospective smartphone buyers on AT&T head to a local store to check out the Vivid before buying another phone. The look and feel of the phone were issues for me but they certainly won’t be for everyone. Those who enjoy the Vivid’s style will find themselves with a future-proofed 4G phone that performs as well as any other Android phone on the market.
The HTC Vivid is available immediately from AT&T starting at $99.99 in select markets when purchased online.

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