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My lunch with the Verizon Incredible... //Q&A

w0rdie

Member
Apr 1, 2010
97
274
I spent some time with the Incredible today at lunch and tried to get the remaining questions about the device answered as best I could... here is what I found... answers in bold.

Snapped a pic... http://pic0.picsorlinks.com/ph_or_15708_b34d081.jpg

1. Keyboard and Multi-touch - if you hold down the shift key WHILE using your other hand to touch a letter...will you get a capital letter? Like a real keyboard (that's true multitouch)

Yes.

2. The Dots from the multi-touch - does it really look that bad?!?!?!

I couldn't see them at all. The screen is very very crisp and does not seem 'dot-matrixy'.

3. Signal Strength - It seems to fluctuate - is it just notifying you of that or is it really happening

I noticed no fluctuation, I didn't move around with it but the 4 bars it had, stayed.

4. Is it wireless N? (I realize you can't test this unless you have an N wireless router around and no G device is on it)

Didn't get to test this.

5. Does it come with a MicroSD?

No. No. No. It's been beaten to death, no the 8GB is on-board.

6. Can app use the 8gb onboard (we have seen review saying no....like can Raging Thunder 2 use it as an example...after you have the app it downloads about 20 meg to your microsd card...can it do that to the nand?)

No, this is a limitation of Android rumored to be a way to discourage piracy, though I'm not sure how.

7. Is it really plasticy? Does it really feel cheap?

Feel, the front of the phone feels flawless. It's a high quality a feel as any iPhone/Nexus/BB I've ever used, it actually reminded me a bit in terms of the feel of the Zune HD, very very solid.

The back/side with the battery cover is a slightly different story, there are some areas that have what I can only describe as 'flex' which is just a little give in a few weaker spots (without support from the device itself behind the cover) that you can notice a bit of 'give' that isn't present on Unibody devices.

Its really a very minor thing that would be easily overlooked -- if you've ever used an HTC Imagio it's no where NEAR that bad.


8. Someone mentioned in this thread that it does not have a Video player...can you confirm that?

The only built in (local) video player is the video portion of the HTC Album App, but it does that very well.

9. Hard to test this one...but if you can I haven't seen it anywhere....does the music player notice the compilation tag (grouping dj mixes and compilation albums together so the artists don't show up in your artist list)

Didn't notice.

10. Can you do that screen responsiveness test?

Outrageously responsive, I even tested it with the back of my nail (GF worried about being able to use her nails with the capacitive screen, and it worked fine. I'm impressed.

11. Is it possible to blue tooth dial with just my ear piece?

Didn't connect any BT devices.

12. Landscape mode, how does it fare?

Landscape switch and operation is blindingly fast and works just as you would expect it (ala iPhone but without the transition animations). It should be noted however that while using the Sense UI on the home screen(s) landscape is NOT supported, you must enter into an app to use it. Which is totally fine and even desired in my opinion.

13.) Nexus MultiTouch Bug

Nonexistent. It works flawlessly.
 
I spent some time with the Incredible today at lunch and tried to get the remaining questions about the device answered as best I could... here is what I found... answers in bold.

2. The Dots from the multi-touch - does it really look that bad?!?!?!

I couldn't see them at all. The screen is very very crisp and does not seem 'dot-matrixy'.

Curse that Boy Genius...always a hater...iPhone fanboy...i knew he was a biased reviewer.
 
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I must have been too late with my question, but were you able to test any streaming video through youtube, Hulu, Vimeo, etc.?
Streaming video on Youtube will use the H.264 stream that is available for iPhone/HTML5 users, not Flash.

As for Flash-only video streaming sites, you're better off waiting for Flash 10.1 to be released since it includes hardware video decoding. Flash Lite is purely software based, and is far from optimal.
 
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I know it's too late for this, but any issues with the proximity sensor? I am worried because I had major problems with the Droid hanging up and going on mute accidentally. The screen would light back up while I was talking on the phone and buttons could get pressed.

I have not noticed this problem with any of my friends who have the iphone, so I know it's not an issue with ALL proximity sensors. Thanks!!!
 
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Seriously, I've got nothing against him but I would love for him or anyone to look at the Incredible's screen with me and tell me there is a dot-matrix effect going on.
I mentioned this earlier, but this kind of effect is only noticeable when the phone is held at an extreme angle in relation to a light source. BGR was looking for a downside.
 
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Where you able to see if you can turn off Sense UI and return to Stock Android?

What Live wallpapers are there? Is the Nexus Wallpaper there?
Sense is a UI skin that INCLUDES a bunch of homescreen widgets, you can disable around 85% of the Sense skinned elements, including the homescreen stuff (clock, etc) without issue. The other 15% is cooked in and staying put.

I mentioned this earlier, but this kind of effect is only noticeable when the phone is held at an extreme angle in relation to a light source. BGR was looking for a downside.
I tried to find them, viewed at all angles; nothing but crisp sharp renders.
 
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10. Can you do that screen responsiveness test?

Outrageously responsive, I even tested it with the back of my nail (GF worried about being able to use her nails with the resistive screen, and it worked fine. I'm impressed.

You say resistive... I thought the Droid Incredible was a glass capacitive screen. Mind clarifying please?

Thanks for answering those questions!
 
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Sense is a UI skin that INCLUDES a bunch of homescreen widgets, you can disable around 85% of the Sense skinned elements, including the homescreen stuff (clock, etc) without issue. The other 15% is cooked in and staying put.


I tried to find them, viewed at all angles; nothing but crisp sharp renders.

it's not in the pixels themselves...the dots are in the glass, they should be easily noticeable when the display is turned off actually. hmmm, still wondering on this now! :(
 
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Further Impressions

I'd still rather have the Nexus full time. But I am buying an Incredible.

The Unibody look/feel is appealing to me.

Also, the trackball (as lightly as it will be used) still feels like a better way to move a cursor or what have you than the optical pad... when trying to rapidly move right from left with the optical pad it often backed up (3 steps forward, one step back sort of thing) because of the natural motion of your thumb when 'flicking' to navigate rapidly.

I do like that the status LED on the Inc is up at the top of the device (butted right up next to the VZW logo actually) rather than down at the bottom like the N1 but it's also much more noticeable at a glance with the N1's large trackball glowing versus the tiny little LED.

It should be noted too that the HTC Keyboard does work better on the Incredible than it does when loaded in to the Nexus one, the haptic feedback is smoother and the whole typing experience is better with it being part of the over all Sense versus dropped in on top of the stock Android setup.
 
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it's not in the pixels themselves...the dots are in the glass, they should be easily noticeable when the display is turned off actually. hmmm, still wondering on this now! :(

Same thing on the blackberry storm, which I have...you cant see them at all with the screen on or off.

I have posted this before but in my 17 months of constant use on the storm i have seen them twice when the light hit them just right.
 
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Does the Incredible have a multi-colored LED for notifications? For example, on my Droid I use Handcent SMS and I've set texts to have a BLUE LED while emails is set to GREEN. Is this possible on the Incredible?

You know it wasn't that this slipped my mind, I did try to test it but just didn't have the time to get really into it.

I can say for sure that a text message and a missed call both result in a green flashing LED. Beyond that, like email or other SMS app notification, I can not say one way or the other.
 
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