22:58
htc
HTC Inspire 4G Report
AT&T has been broadening its hemispheres with power packed Android models for 2011, and the HTC Inspire 4G is one of its primary contenders within the carrier-wide Wireless Battle Royale to the death. The phone is not only capable of AT&T's latest HSPA+ speeds, but its HTC Sense UI and Android 2.2 interface ranks on the top of the totem pole at this point on smartphone timeline. It also flaunts an 8-megapixel camera with 720p HD video recording, and rocks a generous 4.3-inch WVGA capacitive touchscreen. The latest HTC high-end Android phone is an architectural divergence from the sheep herd of mundane smartphones on the market today, and is stocked with lots of memory for games or applications from the Android Market. The HTC Inspire 4G is one of the premiere options on the market today, and its $99/two-year contract price tag is worthy of a double take. Lookout Apple, and prepare to be Inspired.
Design
The Inspire 4G's massive 800 x 480-pixel 4.3-inch WVGA screen engulfs a majority of real estate up front, assaulting the user with ample capacitive goodness. The phone's screen is so sleek that we felt as if we were swiping on fresh silk. Four haptic feedback buttons (Home, Menu, Back, and Search) reside along a minute strip on the bottom of the screen in order to preserve maximum viewing space. It became obvious early on that it was bred for high quality entertainment. Just like the HTC Surround, the Inspire 4G is equipped with Dolby Surround and SRS WOW sound playback, which made movie screenings with headphones a highly enjoyable experience.
The back of the phone gave us hope for the future of monotonous and uninspiring smartphone designs that seem to be strewn about the market these days. HTC crafted the rear of the Inspire 4G using Terminator blueprints, infusing rubberized removable panels in place of one solid removable phone back plate. This way, we could access the included 8GB MicroSD card and SIM card by sliding the bottom panel off, and the battery could be popped out with ease by removing the side panel. The large 8-megapixel camera lens featured its own rubberized panel with the dual LED flash located next door. It's also worth noting that the Inspire has 4GB of built-in storage and its Micro SD card can house up to 32GB.
External controls are significantly minimized on the Inspire 4G, which suggests that HTC wants users to focus on a touchscreen-oriented experience. We do get a Volume control, Power/Lock button, 3.5mm Audio jack, and USB terminal. We would have liked a camera button, but the phone's touch focus and large virtual shutter button did the trick. The Inspire 4G may not provide an HDMI terminal, front-facing camera, or kickstand, but the phone can still hang with the HTC EVO 4G and Motorola Droid X when it comes down to design and interface.
Software and Interface
The Inspire 4G is equipped with one of the most advanced interfaces on the market, most notably the latest iteration of HTC Sense coupled with Android 2.2. It supports Flash 10.1, which enabled us to play our YouTube review videos directly from within the browser, and the phone's second generation 1GHz Snapdragon processor allowed us to fly through the beautiful UI effortlessly. The phone is one of the few chosen AT&T phones able to offer a complete Flash experience in the browser, and the phone also excels in the connectivity arena, offering Mobile Hotspots for up to 5 devices, DLNA for streaming multimedia to other devices, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1, GPS, and full HTC cloud support.
That's right - AT&T is the first carrier to take advantage of the htcsense.com cloud service, which offers the ability to forward calls and messages, make the phone ring at full volume, and lock or erase the phone remotely from any computer by logging into your HTC Sense account. Speaking of Sense, let's talk about the refined Sense experience we get on the Inspire. Not only is the UI smoother than room temperature butter, but it's insanely easy to navigate. There are the usual widgets like the social networking-geared Friend Stream and the famous HTC Weather widget, but this time the sun glistens on a sunny day when the phone is unlocked. On a rainy day, the weather widget will animate a downpour from an unlocked state.
The Inspire 4G also offers the ability to customize its Sense appearance, courtesy of the Personalize icon in the Launch menu. Here, we could not only select the classic live wallpapers, but Sense gave us Skins and Scenes. Scenes were divided into several different profiles such as Work and HTC, enabling us to switch from multiple setups, much like Sprint IDs, but highly more refined. Skins were backgrounds that could be downloaded in addition to the preloaded ones, and catered to particular users like Music Lover and Chinese New Year. We could link our Google contacts to other accounts like Facebook or MySpace, and their conjoined information would appear in the Contacts list. It was insanely easy to get a hold of anyone using this phone.
The little things were probably the best part of our experience. For instance, the Inspire 4G utilizes its accelerometer for numerous tasks. We could turn our phone over to activate speakerphone, and various 3D games and applications took advantage of the phone's ability to orient itself. The HTC Sense graphics also resembled polished retro switches, and access to the Android Market on a device like this was priceless. We were completely satisfied with the magnitude of the Inspire 4G's capabilities when it came to the equipment under the hood. This phone can play with any of the big guns.
Call Quality/Battery Life
For some odd reason, our HTC Inspire 4G review unit did not give us a solid call quality performance, and the main culprit was blanketing background noise. This was more of a discernable white noise that we experienced on multiple calls. Not that it's a major deterrent to any calling, for the phone did not exhibit any static, echoes, or other sound misfortunes.
Battery life was about what we expected on this phone. Like most major Android phones, the Inspire 4G lapses into the frenzied world of overbearing applications that run in the background and suck battery life and memory like parasitic organisms. Fortunately, the phone has a Manage Applications hub that allowed us to view the frightening number of running applications on the phone. We could kill them by selecting Force Stop, which led to heightened longevity. Either way, the phone will need a serious application diet in order to get anything close to impressive for a battery life. Until then, expect to bust out the charger at least once a day.
Camera
The Inspire 4G is one of the rare behemoths to feature an 8-megapixel camera with 720p HD video recording, though we expect to see more powerful digital imaging phones crop up throughout the course of this year. In addition to Auto Focus, the camera on the phone has touch focus, which can be accessed while recording videos. Hallelujah! We could also toggle the dual LED flash/video light on and off while recording videos, so right off the bat, it offers camera features that rival the iPhone 4.
However, the phone cranked out a hit or miss performance. The hit happened in bright light, as the camera produced one of the best sets of exposures we've seen on a phone to date. After digital imaging success with the Motorola Cliq 2 and HTC EVO Shift 4G, it is quite apparent that the cameras are getting better within the phone world. Back to the task at hand, some of the phone's images in optimal lighting rivaled a great deal of point-and-shoot cameras far and wide. We were taken aback by the video quality in bright light as well, though we weren't too keen on the audio recording—that's something that HTC needs to improve upon.
Colors popped, Focus was predictable and sharp when done correctly, and the phone offered a slew of image effects and controls for us to play with. Now, it's time for the miss—low light. Yes, we do not live in a perfect world, and the phone's digital imaging Achilles Heel was nighttime. Low lux levels plus no flash equaled droves of red and green noise, though exposure was still attainable. To remedy this, we threw the flash on and found that every image appeared yellow. Since the Auto White Balance was not doing its job, we tried to find a WB setting that would, and the closest one was Fluorescent, which still left a greenish haze throughout the image. So, the Inspire 4G is excellent in bright light, but mediocre to poor in low light. We wanted to eat our cake, too.
Ads by Google
Samsung Galaxy S2
Super AMOLED 4.27" Screen, Slim panel & more. Prebook Now. Visit
www.Samsung.com/in/GalaxyS2
The HTC Inspire 4G is the first to use the HTC Sense cloud. See what else AT&T's 4G behemoth is capable of in our comprehensive review.
HTC Inspire 4G Report
AT&T has been broadening its hemispheres with power packed Android models for 2011, and the HTC Inspire 4G is one of its primary contenders within the carrier-wide Wireless Battle Royale to the death. The phone is not only capable of AT&T's latest HSPA+ speeds, but its HTC Sense UI and Android 2.2 interface ranks on the top of the totem pole at this point on smartphone timeline. It also flaunts an 8-megapixel camera with 720p HD video recording, and rocks a generous 4.3-inch WVGA capacitive touchscreen. The latest HTC high-end Android phone is an architectural divergence from the sheep herd of mundane smartphones on the market today, and is stocked with lots of memory for games or applications from the Android Market. The HTC Inspire 4G is one of the premiere options on the market today, and its $99/two-year contract price tag is worthy of a double take. Lookout Apple, and prepare to be Inspired.
Design
The Inspire 4G's massive 800 x 480-pixel 4.3-inch WVGA screen engulfs a majority of real estate up front, assaulting the user with ample capacitive goodness. The phone's screen is so sleek that we felt as if we were swiping on fresh silk. Four haptic feedback buttons (Home, Menu, Back, and Search) reside along a minute strip on the bottom of the screen in order to preserve maximum viewing space. It became obvious early on that it was bred for high quality entertainment. Just like the HTC Surround, the Inspire 4G is equipped with Dolby Surround and SRS WOW sound playback, which made movie screenings with headphones a highly enjoyable experience.
The back of the phone gave us hope for the future of monotonous and uninspiring smartphone designs that seem to be strewn about the market these days. HTC crafted the rear of the Inspire 4G using Terminator blueprints, infusing rubberized removable panels in place of one solid removable phone back plate. This way, we could access the included 8GB MicroSD card and SIM card by sliding the bottom panel off, and the battery could be popped out with ease by removing the side panel. The large 8-megapixel camera lens featured its own rubberized panel with the dual LED flash located next door. It's also worth noting that the Inspire has 4GB of built-in storage and its Micro SD card can house up to 32GB.
External controls are significantly minimized on the Inspire 4G, which suggests that HTC wants users to focus on a touchscreen-oriented experience. We do get a Volume control, Power/Lock button, 3.5mm Audio jack, and USB terminal. We would have liked a camera button, but the phone's touch focus and large virtual shutter button did the trick. The Inspire 4G may not provide an HDMI terminal, front-facing camera, or kickstand, but the phone can still hang with the HTC EVO 4G and Motorola Droid X when it comes down to design and interface.
Software and Interface
The Inspire 4G is equipped with one of the most advanced interfaces on the market, most notably the latest iteration of HTC Sense coupled with Android 2.2. It supports Flash 10.1, which enabled us to play our YouTube review videos directly from within the browser, and the phone's second generation 1GHz Snapdragon processor allowed us to fly through the beautiful UI effortlessly. The phone is one of the few chosen AT&T phones able to offer a complete Flash experience in the browser, and the phone also excels in the connectivity arena, offering Mobile Hotspots for up to 5 devices, DLNA for streaming multimedia to other devices, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1, GPS, and full HTC cloud support.
That's right - AT&T is the first carrier to take advantage of the htcsense.com cloud service, which offers the ability to forward calls and messages, make the phone ring at full volume, and lock or erase the phone remotely from any computer by logging into your HTC Sense account. Speaking of Sense, let's talk about the refined Sense experience we get on the Inspire. Not only is the UI smoother than room temperature butter, but it's insanely easy to navigate. There are the usual widgets like the social networking-geared Friend Stream and the famous HTC Weather widget, but this time the sun glistens on a sunny day when the phone is unlocked. On a rainy day, the weather widget will animate a downpour from an unlocked state.
The Inspire 4G also offers the ability to customize its Sense appearance, courtesy of the Personalize icon in the Launch menu. Here, we could not only select the classic live wallpapers, but Sense gave us Skins and Scenes. Scenes were divided into several different profiles such as Work and HTC, enabling us to switch from multiple setups, much like Sprint IDs, but highly more refined. Skins were backgrounds that could be downloaded in addition to the preloaded ones, and catered to particular users like Music Lover and Chinese New Year. We could link our Google contacts to other accounts like Facebook or MySpace, and their conjoined information would appear in the Contacts list. It was insanely easy to get a hold of anyone using this phone.
The little things were probably the best part of our experience. For instance, the Inspire 4G utilizes its accelerometer for numerous tasks. We could turn our phone over to activate speakerphone, and various 3D games and applications took advantage of the phone's ability to orient itself. The HTC Sense graphics also resembled polished retro switches, and access to the Android Market on a device like this was priceless. We were completely satisfied with the magnitude of the Inspire 4G's capabilities when it came to the equipment under the hood. This phone can play with any of the big guns.
Call Quality/Battery Life
For some odd reason, our HTC Inspire 4G review unit did not give us a solid call quality performance, and the main culprit was blanketing background noise. This was more of a discernable white noise that we experienced on multiple calls. Not that it's a major deterrent to any calling, for the phone did not exhibit any static, echoes, or other sound misfortunes.
Battery life was about what we expected on this phone. Like most major Android phones, the Inspire 4G lapses into the frenzied world of overbearing applications that run in the background and suck battery life and memory like parasitic organisms. Fortunately, the phone has a Manage Applications hub that allowed us to view the frightening number of running applications on the phone. We could kill them by selecting Force Stop, which led to heightened longevity. Either way, the phone will need a serious application diet in order to get anything close to impressive for a battery life. Until then, expect to bust out the charger at least once a day.
Camera
The Inspire 4G is one of the rare behemoths to feature an 8-megapixel camera with 720p HD video recording, though we expect to see more powerful digital imaging phones crop up throughout the course of this year. In addition to Auto Focus, the camera on the phone has touch focus, which can be accessed while recording videos. Hallelujah! We could also toggle the dual LED flash/video light on and off while recording videos, so right off the bat, it offers camera features that rival the iPhone 4.
However, the phone cranked out a hit or miss performance. The hit happened in bright light, as the camera produced one of the best sets of exposures we've seen on a phone to date. After digital imaging success with the Motorola Cliq 2 and HTC EVO Shift 4G, it is quite apparent that the cameras are getting better within the phone world. Back to the task at hand, some of the phone's images in optimal lighting rivaled a great deal of point-and-shoot cameras far and wide. We were taken aback by the video quality in bright light as well, though we weren't too keen on the audio recording—that's something that HTC needs to improve upon.
Colors popped, Focus was predictable and sharp when done correctly, and the phone offered a slew of image effects and controls for us to play with. Now, it's time for the miss—low light. Yes, we do not live in a perfect world, and the phone's digital imaging Achilles Heel was nighttime. Low lux levels plus no flash equaled droves of red and green noise, though exposure was still attainable. To remedy this, we threw the flash on and found that every image appeared yellow. Since the Auto White Balance was not doing its job, we tried to find a WB setting that would, and the closest one was Fluorescent, which still left a greenish haze throughout the image. So, the Inspire 4G is excellent in bright light, but mediocre to poor in low light. We wanted to eat our cake, too.
Luigi Macro
Color Creatures
Color Creatures with Contrast Boost
Color Creatures with Negative Saturation
A Rogue Tea Party
Lucy in the Path
Bow to Anubis
Lucy Lounging
Tape Library in Negative Mode
Ren and Stimpy in Distortion Mode
Emerald Jewel in Depth of Field Mode
Michael in Vignette Mode
Jewlry in Vintage Mode
Lucy in Vintage Mode
Jack and Friends in Solarize Mode
Coaster in Posterize Mode
Low Light Gang Sans Flash
Low Light Gang with Flash and Terrible Auto White Balance
Sandy
Lucy Lowlight
HTC Inspire 4G – infoSync Diagnosis
At the close of our action packed quest with the Inspire 4G, we were steeped in thought, one to be exact: Apple is heading up a creek without a paddle. Well, they actually have one very popular paddle. However, it's going to be phones like the Inspire 4G with $100 price tags that are going to sway users away from Jobs' looming Death Star.
The phone proved itself as a lightning quick roadwarrior with top-notch hardware and a highly attractive Sense UI that rivaled iOS 4. Its giant 4.3-inch screen, unconventional panel construction, and connectivity options make it a true catch. Plus, when we were in range of HSPA+ speeds, the phone was just as quick as a decent Wi-Fi connection.
Yes, the phone's camera was hit or miss, and the call sound quality could have used some refinement. However, the Inspire 4G's overall package was one well worth its insanely low price tag. 4G phones at this ability level for near pocket change are going to send the iPhone packing. Now that's truly Inspiring.
AT&T has been broadening its hemispheres with power packed Android models for 2011, and the HTC Inspire 4G is one of its primary contenders within the carrier-wide Wireless Battle Royale to the death. The phone is not only capable of AT&T's latest HSPA+ speeds, but its HTC Sense UI and Android 2.2 interface ranks on the top of the totem pole at this point on smartphone timeline. It also flaunts an 8-megapixel camera with 720p HD video recording, and rocks a generous 4.3-inch WVGA capacitive touchscreen. The latest HTC high-end Android phone is an architectural divergence from the sheep herd of mundane smartphones on the market today, and is stocked with lots of memory for games or applications from the Android Market. The HTC Inspire 4G is one of the premiere options on the market today, and its $99/two-year contract price tag is worthy of a double take. Lookout Apple, and prepare to be Inspired.
Design
The Inspire 4G's massive 800 x 480-pixel 4.3-inch WVGA screen engulfs a majority of real estate up front, assaulting the user with ample capacitive goodness. The phone's screen is so sleek that we felt as if we were swiping on fresh silk. Four haptic feedback buttons (Home, Menu, Back, and Search) reside along a minute strip on the bottom of the screen in order to preserve maximum viewing space. It became obvious early on that it was bred for high quality entertainment. Just like the HTC Surround, the Inspire 4G is equipped with Dolby Surround and SRS WOW sound playback, which made movie screenings with headphones a highly enjoyable experience.
The back of the phone gave us hope for the future of monotonous and uninspiring smartphone designs that seem to be strewn about the market these days. HTC crafted the rear of the Inspire 4G using Terminator blueprints, infusing rubberized removable panels in place of one solid removable phone back plate. This way, we could access the included 8GB MicroSD card and SIM card by sliding the bottom panel off, and the battery could be popped out with ease by removing the side panel. The large 8-megapixel camera lens featured its own rubberized panel with the dual LED flash located next door. It's also worth noting that the Inspire has 4GB of built-in storage and its Micro SD card can house up to 32GB.
External controls are significantly minimized on the Inspire 4G, which suggests that HTC wants users to focus on a touchscreen-oriented experience. We do get a Volume control, Power/Lock button, 3.5mm Audio jack, and USB terminal. We would have liked a camera button, but the phone's touch focus and large virtual shutter button did the trick. The Inspire 4G may not provide an HDMI terminal, front-facing camera, or kickstand, but the phone can still hang with the HTC EVO 4G and Motorola Droid X when it comes down to design and interface.
Software and Interface
The Inspire 4G is equipped with one of the most advanced interfaces on the market, most notably the latest iteration of HTC Sense coupled with Android 2.2. It supports Flash 10.1, which enabled us to play our YouTube review videos directly from within the browser, and the phone's second generation 1GHz Snapdragon processor allowed us to fly through the beautiful UI effortlessly. The phone is one of the few chosen AT&T phones able to offer a complete Flash experience in the browser, and the phone also excels in the connectivity arena, offering Mobile Hotspots for up to 5 devices, DLNA for streaming multimedia to other devices, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1, GPS, and full HTC cloud support.
That's right - AT&T is the first carrier to take advantage of the htcsense.com cloud service, which offers the ability to forward calls and messages, make the phone ring at full volume, and lock or erase the phone remotely from any computer by logging into your HTC Sense account. Speaking of Sense, let's talk about the refined Sense experience we get on the Inspire. Not only is the UI smoother than room temperature butter, but it's insanely easy to navigate. There are the usual widgets like the social networking-geared Friend Stream and the famous HTC Weather widget, but this time the sun glistens on a sunny day when the phone is unlocked. On a rainy day, the weather widget will animate a downpour from an unlocked state.
The Inspire 4G also offers the ability to customize its Sense appearance, courtesy of the Personalize icon in the Launch menu. Here, we could not only select the classic live wallpapers, but Sense gave us Skins and Scenes. Scenes were divided into several different profiles such as Work and HTC, enabling us to switch from multiple setups, much like Sprint IDs, but highly more refined. Skins were backgrounds that could be downloaded in addition to the preloaded ones, and catered to particular users like Music Lover and Chinese New Year. We could link our Google contacts to other accounts like Facebook or MySpace, and their conjoined information would appear in the Contacts list. It was insanely easy to get a hold of anyone using this phone.
The little things were probably the best part of our experience. For instance, the Inspire 4G utilizes its accelerometer for numerous tasks. We could turn our phone over to activate speakerphone, and various 3D games and applications took advantage of the phone's ability to orient itself. The HTC Sense graphics also resembled polished retro switches, and access to the Android Market on a device like this was priceless. We were completely satisfied with the magnitude of the Inspire 4G's capabilities when it came to the equipment under the hood. This phone can play with any of the big guns.
Call Quality/Battery Life
For some odd reason, our HTC Inspire 4G review unit did not give us a solid call quality performance, and the main culprit was blanketing background noise. This was more of a discernable white noise that we experienced on multiple calls. Not that it's a major deterrent to any calling, for the phone did not exhibit any static, echoes, or other sound misfortunes.
Battery life was about what we expected on this phone. Like most major Android phones, the Inspire 4G lapses into the frenzied world of overbearing applications that run in the background and suck battery life and memory like parasitic organisms. Fortunately, the phone has a Manage Applications hub that allowed us to view the frightening number of running applications on the phone. We could kill them by selecting Force Stop, which led to heightened longevity. Either way, the phone will need a serious application diet in order to get anything close to impressive for a battery life. Until then, expect to bust out the charger at least once a day.
Camera
The Inspire 4G is one of the rare behemoths to feature an 8-megapixel camera with 720p HD video recording, though we expect to see more powerful digital imaging phones crop up throughout the course of this year. In addition to Auto Focus, the camera on the phone has touch focus, which can be accessed while recording videos. Hallelujah! We could also toggle the dual LED flash/video light on and off while recording videos, so right off the bat, it offers camera features that rival the iPhone 4.
However, the phone cranked out a hit or miss performance. The hit happened in bright light, as the camera produced one of the best sets of exposures we've seen on a phone to date. After digital imaging success with the Motorola Cliq 2 and HTC EVO Shift 4G, it is quite apparent that the cameras are getting better within the phone world. Back to the task at hand, some of the phone's images in optimal lighting rivaled a great deal of point-and-shoot cameras far and wide. We were taken aback by the video quality in bright light as well, though we weren't too keen on the audio recording—that's something that HTC needs to improve upon.
Colors popped, Focus was predictable and sharp when done correctly, and the phone offered a slew of image effects and controls for us to play with. Now, it's time for the miss—low light. Yes, we do not live in a perfect world, and the phone's digital imaging Achilles Heel was nighttime. Low lux levels plus no flash equaled droves of red and green noise, though exposure was still attainable. To remedy this, we threw the flash on and found that every image appeared yellow. Since the Auto White Balance was not doing its job, we tried to find a WB setting that would, and the closest one was Fluorescent, which still left a greenish haze throughout the image. So, the Inspire 4G is excellent in bright light, but mediocre to poor in low light. We wanted to eat our cake, too.
Ads by Google
Samsung Galaxy S2
Super AMOLED 4.27" Screen, Slim panel & more. Prebook Now. Visit
www.Samsung.com/in/GalaxyS2
The HTC Inspire 4G is the first to use the HTC Sense cloud. See what else AT&T's 4G behemoth is capable of in our comprehensive review.
HTC Inspire 4G Report
AT&T has been broadening its hemispheres with power packed Android models for 2011, and the HTC Inspire 4G is one of its primary contenders within the carrier-wide Wireless Battle Royale to the death. The phone is not only capable of AT&T's latest HSPA+ speeds, but its HTC Sense UI and Android 2.2 interface ranks on the top of the totem pole at this point on smartphone timeline. It also flaunts an 8-megapixel camera with 720p HD video recording, and rocks a generous 4.3-inch WVGA capacitive touchscreen. The latest HTC high-end Android phone is an architectural divergence from the sheep herd of mundane smartphones on the market today, and is stocked with lots of memory for games or applications from the Android Market. The HTC Inspire 4G is one of the premiere options on the market today, and its $99/two-year contract price tag is worthy of a double take. Lookout Apple, and prepare to be Inspired.
Design
The Inspire 4G's massive 800 x 480-pixel 4.3-inch WVGA screen engulfs a majority of real estate up front, assaulting the user with ample capacitive goodness. The phone's screen is so sleek that we felt as if we were swiping on fresh silk. Four haptic feedback buttons (Home, Menu, Back, and Search) reside along a minute strip on the bottom of the screen in order to preserve maximum viewing space. It became obvious early on that it was bred for high quality entertainment. Just like the HTC Surround, the Inspire 4G is equipped with Dolby Surround and SRS WOW sound playback, which made movie screenings with headphones a highly enjoyable experience.
The back of the phone gave us hope for the future of monotonous and uninspiring smartphone designs that seem to be strewn about the market these days. HTC crafted the rear of the Inspire 4G using Terminator blueprints, infusing rubberized removable panels in place of one solid removable phone back plate. This way, we could access the included 8GB MicroSD card and SIM card by sliding the bottom panel off, and the battery could be popped out with ease by removing the side panel. The large 8-megapixel camera lens featured its own rubberized panel with the dual LED flash located next door. It's also worth noting that the Inspire has 4GB of built-in storage and its Micro SD card can house up to 32GB.
External controls are significantly minimized on the Inspire 4G, which suggests that HTC wants users to focus on a touchscreen-oriented experience. We do get a Volume control, Power/Lock button, 3.5mm Audio jack, and USB terminal. We would have liked a camera button, but the phone's touch focus and large virtual shutter button did the trick. The Inspire 4G may not provide an HDMI terminal, front-facing camera, or kickstand, but the phone can still hang with the HTC EVO 4G and Motorola Droid X when it comes down to design and interface.
Software and Interface
The Inspire 4G is equipped with one of the most advanced interfaces on the market, most notably the latest iteration of HTC Sense coupled with Android 2.2. It supports Flash 10.1, which enabled us to play our YouTube review videos directly from within the browser, and the phone's second generation 1GHz Snapdragon processor allowed us to fly through the beautiful UI effortlessly. The phone is one of the few chosen AT&T phones able to offer a complete Flash experience in the browser, and the phone also excels in the connectivity arena, offering Mobile Hotspots for up to 5 devices, DLNA for streaming multimedia to other devices, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1, GPS, and full HTC cloud support.
That's right - AT&T is the first carrier to take advantage of the htcsense.com cloud service, which offers the ability to forward calls and messages, make the phone ring at full volume, and lock or erase the phone remotely from any computer by logging into your HTC Sense account. Speaking of Sense, let's talk about the refined Sense experience we get on the Inspire. Not only is the UI smoother than room temperature butter, but it's insanely easy to navigate. There are the usual widgets like the social networking-geared Friend Stream and the famous HTC Weather widget, but this time the sun glistens on a sunny day when the phone is unlocked. On a rainy day, the weather widget will animate a downpour from an unlocked state.
The Inspire 4G also offers the ability to customize its Sense appearance, courtesy of the Personalize icon in the Launch menu. Here, we could not only select the classic live wallpapers, but Sense gave us Skins and Scenes. Scenes were divided into several different profiles such as Work and HTC, enabling us to switch from multiple setups, much like Sprint IDs, but highly more refined. Skins were backgrounds that could be downloaded in addition to the preloaded ones, and catered to particular users like Music Lover and Chinese New Year. We could link our Google contacts to other accounts like Facebook or MySpace, and their conjoined information would appear in the Contacts list. It was insanely easy to get a hold of anyone using this phone.
The little things were probably the best part of our experience. For instance, the Inspire 4G utilizes its accelerometer for numerous tasks. We could turn our phone over to activate speakerphone, and various 3D games and applications took advantage of the phone's ability to orient itself. The HTC Sense graphics also resembled polished retro switches, and access to the Android Market on a device like this was priceless. We were completely satisfied with the magnitude of the Inspire 4G's capabilities when it came to the equipment under the hood. This phone can play with any of the big guns.
Call Quality/Battery Life
For some odd reason, our HTC Inspire 4G review unit did not give us a solid call quality performance, and the main culprit was blanketing background noise. This was more of a discernable white noise that we experienced on multiple calls. Not that it's a major deterrent to any calling, for the phone did not exhibit any static, echoes, or other sound misfortunes.
Battery life was about what we expected on this phone. Like most major Android phones, the Inspire 4G lapses into the frenzied world of overbearing applications that run in the background and suck battery life and memory like parasitic organisms. Fortunately, the phone has a Manage Applications hub that allowed us to view the frightening number of running applications on the phone. We could kill them by selecting Force Stop, which led to heightened longevity. Either way, the phone will need a serious application diet in order to get anything close to impressive for a battery life. Until then, expect to bust out the charger at least once a day.
Camera
The Inspire 4G is one of the rare behemoths to feature an 8-megapixel camera with 720p HD video recording, though we expect to see more powerful digital imaging phones crop up throughout the course of this year. In addition to Auto Focus, the camera on the phone has touch focus, which can be accessed while recording videos. Hallelujah! We could also toggle the dual LED flash/video light on and off while recording videos, so right off the bat, it offers camera features that rival the iPhone 4.
However, the phone cranked out a hit or miss performance. The hit happened in bright light, as the camera produced one of the best sets of exposures we've seen on a phone to date. After digital imaging success with the Motorola Cliq 2 and HTC EVO Shift 4G, it is quite apparent that the cameras are getting better within the phone world. Back to the task at hand, some of the phone's images in optimal lighting rivaled a great deal of point-and-shoot cameras far and wide. We were taken aback by the video quality in bright light as well, though we weren't too keen on the audio recording—that's something that HTC needs to improve upon.
Colors popped, Focus was predictable and sharp when done correctly, and the phone offered a slew of image effects and controls for us to play with. Now, it's time for the miss—low light. Yes, we do not live in a perfect world, and the phone's digital imaging Achilles Heel was nighttime. Low lux levels plus no flash equaled droves of red and green noise, though exposure was still attainable. To remedy this, we threw the flash on and found that every image appeared yellow. Since the Auto White Balance was not doing its job, we tried to find a WB setting that would, and the closest one was Fluorescent, which still left a greenish haze throughout the image. So, the Inspire 4G is excellent in bright light, but mediocre to poor in low light. We wanted to eat our cake, too.
Luigi Macro
Color Creatures
Color Creatures with Contrast Boost
Color Creatures with Negative Saturation
A Rogue Tea Party
Lucy in the Path
Bow to Anubis
Lucy Lounging
Tape Library in Negative Mode
Ren and Stimpy in Distortion Mode
Emerald Jewel in Depth of Field Mode
Michael in Vignette Mode
Jewlry in Vintage Mode
Lucy in Vintage Mode
Jack and Friends in Solarize Mode
Coaster in Posterize Mode
Low Light Gang Sans Flash
Low Light Gang with Flash and Terrible Auto White Balance
Sandy
Lucy Lowlight
HTC Inspire 4G – infoSync Diagnosis
At the close of our action packed quest with the Inspire 4G, we were steeped in thought, one to be exact: Apple is heading up a creek without a paddle. Well, they actually have one very popular paddle. However, it's going to be phones like the Inspire 4G with $100 price tags that are going to sway users away from Jobs' looming Death Star.
The phone proved itself as a lightning quick roadwarrior with top-notch hardware and a highly attractive Sense UI that rivaled iOS 4. Its giant 4.3-inch screen, unconventional panel construction, and connectivity options make it a true catch. Plus, when we were in range of HSPA+ speeds, the phone was just as quick as a decent Wi-Fi connection.
Yes, the phone's camera was hit or miss, and the call sound quality could have used some refinement. However, the Inspire 4G's overall package was one well worth its insanely low price tag. 4G phones at this ability level for near pocket change are going to send the iPhone packing. Now that's truly Inspiring.
2 comments:
Great post enough to think that whether to buy this phone or not. Thanks for your admirable work over the review of HTC Inspire 4G. I want to buy this phone. After reading your post, I am able to take positive decision towards the phone. Thanks once again.
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