Gadgetory

at last week's launch event in New York City HTC and Verizon said they'd crafted the ultimate Droid does the brand-new Droid DNA live up to that lofty assertion let's find out I'm Michael Fisher this is PocketNow and this is our full review of the HTC Droid DNA the Droid DNA is standout feature is of course it's 1080p display first for the United States but in most media that spec has been overshadowing the beauty of the rest of the device HTC said they designed this phone to resemble a muscle car and that's apparent in its perforated red accented side panels clean lines and aggressive styling overall as we've mentioned in some earlier comparison videos it doesn't have a hint of phablet in its nature this is very much a smart phone and it feels like it in the hand the weight is perfect and the build is slim and clean with a boat shaped Crescent design making it sit very nicely in the palm the size does create a problem or two notably in one-handed use we like that HTC has gone taller without going wider but that creates a real challenge in thumb swiping the notification bar pressing the top mounted power standby button also isn't the easiest of tasks given its awkward positioning and almost non-existent physical feedback we wish HTC had placed it off to the side on the back is the typically understated HTC branding dead center of the non removable back cover above which is the prominent 8 megapixel camera lens with flash as well as a nice surprise a rear mounted LED notification light so you don't miss out on notifications if you put your phone face down on a table down below there's Verizon's 4G LTE branding reminding us of the 1.5 gigahertz Qualcomm Snapdragon s4 pro humming along inside and the Beats Audio logo above the speakerphone which has its own dedicated amplifier back around front the curved Gorilla Glass 2 of the phone's face is actually very beautiful the edges are so smooth they make the glass look a lot like a puddle of water about to spill over the edge and it almost feels that way to a thumb as well down below the display are the three HTC capacitive buttons for home back and multitasking up above is the wide angle 88 degree lens for the front-facing 2.1 megapixel camera the earpiece and the Verizon Wireless branding dead center powering on the display reveals the real crown jewel of this handset the five inch 1080p Super LCD 3 panel delivering 440 PPI and some insane viewing angles its laminated like on the older 1x so the graphics appear to float right on the surface of the glass and HTC claims it's 50 percent brighter than the galaxy s3s display it's hard to tell on camera but the display really is incredible but once again check our other videos for side-by-side display comparisons with the Galaxy Note 2 and the lg optimus G to our surprise though science tells us we shouldn't be able to see much difference the screen just takes it to a whole new level in normal navigation in video and in reading ebooks in in every usage mode it's absolutely beautiful it's the best screen we've ever seen on a smartphone what's running on that screen is Android jellybean 4.1.1 with HTC Sense 4 plus running on top in the past we weren't huge fans of the Sense layer because of its impact on androids performance historically it's been a very heavy UI on the Droid DNA though since is very smooth we're not sure whether we have the s4 pro jelly bean or Sense optimizations to thank it's probably a mix of all three but whatever the reason we're very happy it's still possible to bog Sense down if you try it's not as smooth as naked jelly bean or even TouchWiz but all but the most anal UI enthusiasts will find it very serviceable visually since fourplus isn't all that different from the earlier 4.0 there's still a ton of widgets available and the skin still retains that grey somewhat understated look compared to the more cartoony TouchWiz HTC is also built in new functionality to many of its stock apps most prominently the gallery which now allows you to group photos by event in addition to the standard album you can even view your photos in map view if you want which is a nice touch the camera software features some nice customizations as well including sightseeing mode which lets you bypass the lockscreen and jump right into the camera viewfinder if the camera was the last thing you were using when you lock the phone burst shot is back as well as the unified viewfinder and there's some handy UI customizations to make using the new front-facing camera easier in all since 4 + is more of what we're used to from HTC it just happens to run without a lot of lag on this hardware which is a great thing lag was a big source of heartburn for us with earlier versions of sense and it's nice to see it fixed now all HTC needs to do is build in some of the handy utilities other companies have adopted like the function toggles in the notification bar which we miss dearly from our time with Samsung and LG devices during our test period the droid DNA delivered solid performance in terms of day to day responsiveness data speeds over LTE voice clarity and general utility most of the things you need a smart phone to do the Droid DNA does very well and of course it looks amazing on this display speed wise Verizon's network was a little inconsistent in the Greater Boston area but we averaged a very respectable 11 megabits down and almost 5 megabits up during our test period reception was good both in cellular and Wi-Fi modes and the software kept up with the connection speed the stock browser rendering pages quite quickly and rendering Andry flowing text beautifully the gaming was predictably just fine the full benchmark scores can be viewed in our full review at pocketnow.com but they back that performance up voice calls were clear and crisp and the stretched body of the device made talking quite comfortable we're not sure if the Beats speakerphone amplifier engages during voice calls but the speaker delivered one of the loudest and clearest calling experiences we've had since our days with Nextel phones we were frankly disappointed in the Droid DNA's camera quality HTC told us at the launch event that the optics were the same as those in the 1x but that tuning had been improved on the software side well we can confirm half that the optics do look to be the same pictures in good lighting outdoors actually come out pretty nice but the device in mediocre lighting conditions and that quality just evaporates jagged edges washed out color a high susceptibility to flare and glare it's not a great experience video is pretty solid with excellent macro performance though the audio is somewhat tinny and the white balance auto correct timing is about average we've definitely used worse smartphone cameras but we were hoping for more given the caliber of this device on the other side of the equation the front-facing camera which I'm using to shoot this segment delivers on its promise to bring a best-in-class experience may not be the highest bar to clear but it's seriously many folks expressed concern about a 2020 milliamp hour battery powering a 1080p display and that's valid the Droid DNA does better in this regard than we expected it to but considering the battery isn't removable power users unwilling to carry a spare charger will want to take care when considering the DNA we were able to get a cell a day and a half of usage out of the device but that's with light use the general rule is that the more time the screen spends powered on the worse the battery life gets and that's especially true for the DNA it's a champ in standby but the screen on time is a real drainer with light to moderate use you should expect the phone to get you through the day anything more than that and you're gonna want to carry a spare charger to replenish that embedded battery speaking of embedded components the memory on the droid DNA is limited to 16 gigabytes and there's no expandability so if you have plans to carry your entire music or movies library with you this is not the device for you but if you make use of online media options like Netflix and Spotify or you don't otherwise need a lot of on-board storage then you're in the clear as usual it all depends on your usage so the Droid DNA isn't quite the ultimate smartphone it's makers claim like all handhelds it had to make its fair share of compromises to see the light of day the limited storage and battery life will immediately disqualify it for some power users but it's 1080p display and beautiful hardware we'll make it nigh irresistible to others if you can live with its limitations this is a beautiful piece of technology that feels amazing in the hand includes the best display ever on a mobile phone and provides a solid software experience delivering on all those fronts while also pioneering the 1080p smartphone revolution can't have been easy but HTC has done a solid job of it we give the HTC Droid DNA an 8 out of 10 folks that's going to do it for our full review of the HTC Droid DNA for Verizon Wireless for much more read the full review at pocketnow.com you can also listen to our podcast every week the PocketNow weekly where we discussed the Droid DNA and other Android iOS and Windows Phone smartphones and be sure and check out our comparison videos between the Droid DNA and the galaxy note 2 the Galaxy s3 coming soon and the Optimus G from LG in the meantime follow us on Twitter pocket now tweets is the official account you can follow me on twitter i'm at captain two phones and throw us a thumbs up here on youtube if you like the video if you want to leave a comment do so on the full review at pocketnow.com and thanks for watching we'll see you next time