Not all mobile news is destined for the front page, but if you’re like us and really want to know what’s going on, then you’ve come to the right place. This past week, the HTC One V marked its debut at US Cellular and Verizon announced a dumb phone with a surprisingly handy feature. These stories and more await after the break. So buy the ticket and take the ride as we explore the “best of the rest” for this week of July 2nd, 2012.
It’s hard to underestimate the value of brand loyalty. Just ask Verizon Wireless. It’s with satisfied Incredible and Incredible 2 owners in mind that the carrier is promoting the Droid Incredible 4G LTE, a 4-inch, $149 device that — as you may have guessed — rides along VZW’s fast LTE network.
Interestingly, the Incredible 4G LTE is landing at a time when many consumers might have preferred, say, the HTC One X. In fact, though, Verizon’s decision to instead update the Incredible (also made by HTC) introduces a rather enviable proposition to Verizon customers. Remember that in a short matter of time, the Samsung Galaxy S III will soon make its debut at Verizon, at which point, it’s expected to become the network’s premiere smartphone. Still, its large size will deter many shoppers, and when viewed through this lens, the Droid Incredible 4G LTE begins to make sense. Put simply, it’s a compact handset that stands as the antithesis to the assumption that size equals power. While the handset doesn’t quite approach the capabilities or elegance of the One X (or the One S, for that matter), the latest Incredible is a worthy successor and deserves consideration as your next smartphone — regardless of your current provider. Read on to learn why.
While Samsung is currently enjoying a steady flow of cash from its Galaxy smartphone series, Taiwanese tech giant that is HTC is reportedly struggling, with profits expected to drop by as much as 57 percent to $247.7 million this quarter. HTC noted that poor sales in Europe combined with Apple’s injunction spree on its devices are the reasons for the steep decline. But the Taiwanese tech giant is putting its bet on its One series, which includes the well-loved One X Android smartphone, to regain market share lost.
Additionally, HTC Chief Executive Peter Chou reportedly said that the company will be launching new models in the second half of this year. But a few analysts are saying that HTC’s new line of devices will be clouded by the strong sales of Samsung’s Galaxy S3 as well as Apple’s upcoming next-generation iPhone. “HTC’s scale and margin are a lot lower compared to Samsung and Apple. It will see much pressure in the short to medium term,” KGI Securities analyst Richard Ko commented.
You’ll be interested to know that the box floating around your Piccsy screen is not a gigantic USB stick, it’s a Ouya Android device, made to be a game streaming box for just $99 on kickstarter – see it soon! Watch out for the framers out there looking to make Android look bad with Malware Botnet like you’ve never seen before.
You will also be having a fabulous time working with the Quad GeForce GTX 690 server – a blast of power from all sides! Microsoft has confirmed that there will be no Windows Home Server for the Windows 8 generation.
Samsung is doing quite a bit better this past quarter than HTC has done.
NASA is showing off some brand new images of Mars. The folks at Blue have released a brand new Tiki USB mic that’s out at Best Buy today – and be sure to check out their new setup at the big box stores that are left as well! Nokia has released their until-now-secretive Batman: Dark Knight Rises 3D Gotham map. And of course, don’t forget the Amazon Kindle Phone – also very possibly coming soon, too.
BONUS: keep up to date on the newest blockbuster action, adventure, super-hero film on the block: The Amazing Spider-Man with our interviews and features galore – check em all in the timeline below and stay tuned for more this and next week!
Seldom has the smartphone divide looked so broad. HTC‘s financial results for the last quarter, revealed earlier today, puts the company in with struggling Nokia and RIM, an ocean away from the cash-stacked Apple and Samsung. Having already posted one appalling quarter this year, HTC missed market expectations and posted another year-on-year slump in profit, as the One Series failed to set consumers alight in the way the company had hoped.
HTC hasn’t confirmed specific sales performance for each of the One Series models – and it’s unlikely to, for that matter – but with the bulk of consumer attention seemingly taken by the Samsung Galaxy S III and the whispers of Apple’s iPhone 5, it’s clear the trio didn’t do enough to tun the firm around in the way it was predicted to. Apple can share some of the blame there, though we don’t imagine the company will be feeling particularly contrite; an import ban in the US kept key HTC phones from shelves, until it could hurriedly rework software to suit.
Still, apathetic consumers and litigious rivals don’t give HTC a pass on what it might have done to better position itself in the cut-throat mobile marketplace. From being the poster-child of Android innovation to seeing its phones described as the “you might also consider” option, HTC could’ve turned the tide if it had wised up to what it could change and been realistic about what it couldn’t.
Samsung and Apple – the two companies really succeeding today – have something in common: each has a strong hand on the hardware supply chain. Apple does that by collaborating with suppliers and hurling fistfuls of cash; Samsung pretty much owns its own supply chain (and is in some cases the supplier being showered with Cupertino dollars) and has first pick of the innovation spoils.
“HTC is reliant on other for key parts of its range”
In contrast, HTC is reliant on others for most key parts of its range. Its chipsets and displays are made by third-parties; Windows Phone and Android are controlled by Microsoft and Google respectively. Unlike Samsung, which took a stand in the US with the Galaxy S III and said “no more needless customization” to the carriers, HTC hasn’t quite been able to break free from the (expensive and time consuming) obligations of creating needless differences in models for different networks.
Meanwhile, HTC has neglected many of the areas in which it could have seized control. It sensibly pared back the aesthetic overload of Sense, its customized Android skin, but shuttered the companion cloud service just as rivals were building out their online backbone. Back in March, HTC said its newly renovated HTCSense.com would be along soon to replace the closed service, but three months on there’s still not a whisper of what the company intends.
What it does have still active, meanwhile, is under-utilized. HTC Watch, the streaming movie service, could’ve been HTC’s answer to iTunes, but it’s little more than another app on the launcher; there’s no “three free rentals!” promo to lure users into signing up, and the potential integration between it and HTC’s Media Link HD has been ignored in retail. HTC pushed ahead with Beats headphones bundles (while failing to do the obvious there, too, and use the music focus to push downloads from the preloaded MP3 store) when it could have paired its phones with the Media Link HD and encouraged buyers to spend on video content too.
Meanwhile, although Sony is grabbing headlines in the past week with its Gaikai buy, HTC could’ve been driving mobile gaming courtesy of its OnLive investment since last year. The HTC Flyer arrived with an OnLive app, for cloud gaming, but since then has singularly failed to do anything meaningful with it. At the same time, Apple has seen exponential growth in iPhone gaming; now HTC has apparently given in on OnLive altogether, and thrown in with Sony and PlayStation Certification.
“There’s a glaring omission in HTC’s line-up: tablets”
Finally, there’s the glaring omission in HTC’s product line-up: any sort of legitimate tablet competition to the iPad. The Flyer flopped; the larger Jetstream that followed it proved simply too expensive, despite looking prescient today given its pen input option. Since those two devices, however, HTC tablet development has apparently gone dry. Mutterings of a Windows model persist, but right now there’s an entire segment of the mobile ecosystem that HTC has no footprint in.
Still, there are glimmers of hope. HTC’s image processing technology – something the company has taken a hand in developing for the One Series – has rightly been praised, and the company is at least avoiding the scattershot range of screen sizes that it desperately fired out in 2011. The HTC Connect system looks like a step in the right direction too. What we’ve seen of Sense 4.0 so far is certainly the best its been in a few generations, and HTC already has many of the key user-experience elements to-hand; now it needs to tie them together.
Unlike others, HTC’s Q2 results at least showed movement in the right direction. The most recent quarter was bad, sure, but not as bad as the three months before it. Now, HTC needs to double-down on another small clutch of well-crated handsets, preferably getting them to market before the iPhone 5 arrives. Turning the company around won’t be easy, but as Nokia and RIM have discovered, there’s little room for second-chances in today’s mobile world.
HTC’s fortunes aren’t going so well. At the start of the year, the company announced a 22 percent decline in operating income, year-on-year. Today, it’s had the misfortune to announce that its second quarter net profits for 2012 are down a hideous 57 percent compared to the year before. More »
HTC‘s financial results for Q2 2012 are out, and it’s undoubtedly been another dire quarter for the company with a slump to $NT$7.4bn (US$248m) in net profit. That’s down in excess of 57-percent year-on-year, though better than HTC’s appalling Q1 2012 figures where the company saw net income of just NT$5.1bn ($173m).
Total revenues for the three month period of April to June 2012 amounted to NT$91.0bn ($3.05bn) while unaudited operating income was NT$8.2 billion ($274m). Pre-tax net income was NT$8.9 billion, and HTC says overall earnings per share come to NT$8.90 based on 831,227 thousand weighted average number of shares.
HTC has not had an easy time of 2012. The company has faced a strong challenge in the European smartphone market from the Samsung Galaxy S III, though its own HTC One X was well received by reviewers, and it still struggles to find a place in the growing tablet market.
Meanwhile, HTC has come under fire in the US from Apple, with the Cupertino company managing to secure a temporary sales ban preventing the One X and EVO 4G LTE from being brought into the country. That ban was only lifted after HTC tweaked the relevant software to bypass Apple’s patented technology, with sales gradually resuming in May.
Last quarter, HTC described its previously sluggish performance as a side-effect of a “rebuilding period” in which it readied its One Series line-up. The company is yet to comment officially on the Q2 results.
HTC has reported a substantial drop in its quarterly profits, with unaudited results for Q2 2012 totaling T$7.4 billion ($250 million), down from T$17.52 billion this time last year. While it marks an improvement compared to the company’s dire first quarter of this year, HTC’s been troubled by weaker-than-expected European sales, while customs issues have hampered US sales for high-end devices like the One X. Despite the continued global roll-out of the One series, sales continue to stall, with consolidated sales for last month totaled T$30 billion, unchanged from May and 33.4 percent less than June 2011.
If you’re willing to embrace its mouthful of a name, the HTC Droid Incredible 4G LTE has at last reached shops. The sequel to one of Verizon’s most enduring brands will, as promised, set you back $150 on contract once you’ve taken advantage of that $50 rebate. Its name already reinforces what’s new in data speeds, but if the heat of summer has left your memory hazy about everything else, just remember that it’s the closest the carrier will get in the near future to having a One series phone. The most incredible of Droids has a Snapdragon S4, 960 x 540 screen, 8-megapixel camera and Sense 4.0 like the One S over at T-Mobile. What’s lost in the lower 1.2GHz clock speed and dropping the speedy ImageSense chip is gained through a more pleasing Super LCD, a removable battery and a micro-SD slot. Sound off on any initial impressions of your own purchases in the comments, and hit the store link below to buy one if the upcoming Verizon Galaxy S III just leaves you feeling cold.
This week we’ve gotten the chance to take a peek at the next in a line of rather popular conservatively sized powerhouses from HTC, this time called the DROID Incredible 4G LTE. We’ve had a look at the Incredible 2 as well as the original DROID Incredible, now it’s time to decide if this HTC One-era device is up to the task of bringing the DROID brand name back up to snuff. As Verizon has no other HTC One device, with T-Mobile and AT&T getting the prizes this time around from that manufacturer, it might be high time Big Red gets its own taste of the Sense (4.0, as seen in this hands-on with the HTC One S) we’ve been using for weeks.
Hardware
Though this device is being released at the same time as the HTC One series is on the market and does indeed use essentially the same software as those devices do, it’s the HTC Rezound that matches this device’s hardware best. Have a peek at our full review of the HTC Rezound to see what I mean. Compared to the HTC One series, you’ll think these devices were born of different mothers:
The Incredible 4G LTE has a 4-inch super LCD qHD display which gets brighter than you could possibly need it to be, that also being 275ppi dense – not quite as good as the Galaxy S III at 306ppi or the One X at 312ppi, but beating out the 256ppi of the One S by just a tiny notch.
You’ve also got a microUSB port on this device that’s also MHL, this meaning that if you’ve got the right converter, you’ll be able to watch 1080p video via HDMI. In the past we’ve not had the best luck with MHL from HTC – in regards to the HTC Jetstream specifically (though technically it wasn’t listed as MHL compliant), but this time around the manufacturer has done quite well – the picture and sound quality are fabulous.
Software
Though the software on this device is essentially the same as we’ve seen on the HTC One S and HTC One X, it seems just a bit slower here on the Incredible 4G LTE. Perhaps it’s the smaller physical size of the screen, maybe it’s just the expectation that a slightly less expensive device without the HTC One branding on it will be less impressive, but there’s something about it that doesn’t ring the same bell as the S and the X. Have a peek at the following benchmarks and you’ll see a slightly different story, however.
This device runs a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 1.2GHz dual-core processor, not unlike the HTC One S (USA and International), HTC One X (USA version), and Samsung Galaxy S III (USA). The difference between them is the S4 on the latter three devices is clocked at a higher 1.5GHz instead of 1.2 – not much of a difference in everyday use, but for you hackers and testers out there, that factor is in play.
Next you’ll want to take a peek at the device’s inner workings in this hands-on and rapid unboxing we filmed earlier this week. This device has no giant surprises if you’ve had your hands on the HTC One S or X, but if you’re coming up from the Incredible 2, you’re in for a wallop of excellence. HTC presents not just Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich here, but their own Sense 4.0 user interface as well. This is HTC at its best.
This device, again, feels a lot more like the HTC Rezound than it does the HTC One series. The camera is quite a bit better than that device though – almost as if this Incredible has a bit more power behind the scenes in the processor architecture? In fact Qualcomm does have dedicated hardware in this machine inside their Snapdragon S4 chip that’s made specifically to work with photography – this same hardware exists in all S4 processor-toting smartphones on the market thus far as well.
Camera
Though this camera doesn’t have the same ImageSense chip we’ve been loving ever since it was introduced on the HTC One S and X, it does have the same ImageSense software. This means you’ve got to rely on the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor for all your camera action – this being more than enough, of course – and you’ve got all the same effects and shooting modes you had before as well. The hands-on video above should also show you that the shooting speed is as undeniably amazing as it was on the HTC One series as well.
Have a peek at several examples of this camera’s finess below:
Battery and Data Speed
It seems that the brain-sucking madness that ensued with the battery life on the HTC Thunderbolt back when 4G LTE was a brand new baby is now essentially gone entirely. Thank the Snapdragon S4 processor for that, and be sure to note that you’ll just be charging this device once a day almost no matter what – of course if you’re the kind of person who streams video all day every day, you might have a different situation on your hands. If you’re a normal user, you’ll have at least a day’s worth of use with no charges needed.
This device’s connection to Verizon’s 4G LTE network is fabulous. The following example is essentially the average of what we’ve been getting all over Minnesota, with the closest ping point here being Saint Cloud (my home town!) just about an hour away from the Twin Cities where we’re prone to test most often. You’re going to be downloading and uploading as fast or faster than you’ve ever done on a smartphone before – without a doubt. Supposing you’re in a 4g LTE area, of course.
Wrap-Up
It’s a real toss-up right now on Verizon whether you’re going to want to hit up the HTC Rezound or the Incredible 4G LTE if you do indeed want 4G LTE connectivity on an HTC device. They’re both essentially the same in many ways – though for the most advanced vision of an Android device on Verizon as presented by HTC, you’ll probably have to default to the Incredible simply because it’s got Android 4.0 and Sense 4.0 right out of the box while the Rezound still might need an update to Ice Cream Sandwich when you open it up.
This device is not made to be the most powerful smartphone on the market, nor is it made to look the most impressive in the hand. Instead it’s made to attack the market for 4-inch screen lovers with no less than one of the most powerful mobile processors on the market and Verizon’s 4G LTE. This device is not made to be flashy, instead it’s made for people who want long battery life on a 4G LTE smartphone that’s also got HTC’s lovely user interface on a reasonably sized – not to big, not too small – handheld display.
This device is available starting today (July 5th) online with in-store sales starting immediately if not soon across the nation as well. Grab it!
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While Samsung is currently enjoying a 
