It's been less than two years, but we've already got a dizzying number of cell phones that run Google's Android operating system.
But unlike the iPhone, not all Android phones are created equal — many run on older versions of Android, some have better hardware than others, and the manufacturers all put different stamps on the open-source system. Trying to pick out just one from this pile is enough to lock up your brain. Now comes the just-released Droid Incredible from HTC, available from Verizon. It's the perfect solution to any buyer confusion, since it's the best Android phone I've encountered yet. Though the phone looks like your everyday touch-screen on the front, with the usual assortment of four buttons, the back has strange ridges like the bottom three layers of an oddly-shaped pyramid. Don't let them scare you; the Droid Incredible is surprisingly comfortable to hold. As with other Android phones, the main screens, which scroll to either side, can be filled with any combinations of applications, folders and widgets you please. Though the arrangement can be more cluttered than the clean and minimalistic groups of icons used by other smart phones, it's nice to be able to glance at the weather or the latest tweet in your Twitter feed without having to open up the application. Speaking of widgets — mini-apps that are always on — HTC's included some nice ones. Their music player is especially well-organized, and People nicely organizes people by groups and integrates all their contact info, including phone numbers and Facebook pages. The phone's processor kept up with numerous apps and widgets operating at once with only minimal hitches, though a large number of widgets frequently snorking up data drains the battery faster. Another plus is the touch-screen. So many phones still have trouble making their screens sensitive enough to register all the touches and swipes, even some Android ones. The Droid Incredible has ironed out all the bugs and only rarely misinterpreted what I wanted to do. Then there's the Web browser. After Apple's loud attacks on Flash, the animation program used by millions of websites, it was nice to see it intelligently integrated into a smart phone. Flash objects do take quite a while to boot up though, and the browser did crash on me a few times. Other than minor nits like the virtual keyboard taking a little time to get used to and a limited number of home screens to personalize, I don't have much to gripe about. And I haven't even mentioned numerous features like the sharp camera or Android's app store, which is growing at a fast clip. "Incredible" may give the phone a lofty set of expectations, but all in all the phone nearly lives up to its moniker. By ROBERT EVATT World Staff Writer Read more from this Tulsa World article at http://www.tulsaworld.com/business/article.aspx?subjectid=52&articleid=20100516_46_E1_Itsbee659720 -- Salam, Agus Hamonangan http://groups.google.com/group/id-android http://groups.google.com/group/id-gtug Gtalk : agus.hamonangan Follow : @agushamonangan E-mail : [email protected] -- "Indonesian Android Community [id-android]" Join: http://groups.google.com/group/id-android/subscribe?hl=en-GB Moderator: [email protected] ID Android Developer: http://groups.google.com/group/id-android-dev ID Android Surabaya: http://groups.google.com/group/id-android-sby ID Android on FB: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=112207700729
