Apple iPhone 4 vs. HTC Droid Incredible

Introduction:

Verizon customers have been feeding off the Motorola DROID for an extended amount of time to get their fix of Android – despite having other options such as the Motorola DEVOUR, LG Ally, and HTC Droid Eris. Fortunately for them, HTC came to the rescue with the HTC Droid Incredible as a healthy alternative to the "aging" DROID. Not only does it come packing some heat under its hood, but it has been the steady flavor of the last couple of months as consumers have been attracted to the handset thanks to its appeal and marketing campaign. As of right now, the HTC Droid Incredible is Verizon's main driving force which can attempt to hold its own ground against the Apple iPhone 4. Seeing that these are two of the best smartphones currently available to customers from their prospective carriers, it would only be fitting to stack them up side-by-side to see how they perform against one another.

Design:

The HTC Droid Incredible's overall look clearly sits at the opposite end of the spectrum when compared to the nostalgic industrial design of the iPhone 4. Although the Incredible might not exude a level of premium quality in its choice of materials, the mostly plastic handset feels extremely light weight over the heavier iPhone 4, but we'd like to point out the durable and sturdy materials used for the iPhone 4 would substantially fare better in the long haul. If there is one thing we like about both handsets equally, it has to be their overall perfect size which doesn't seem too small or large for most people to hold in the hand. Plus they're both quite thin as the iPhone 4 stands in at 0.37” thick while the Incredible tallies in at 0.47”. It's not to say that the uninspired design in play with the Incredible isn't a bad thing, but there is no denying that the iPhone 4 has more of an appeal from a quick first glance.


Some speculated that Apple was going to look at AMOLED technology for the iPhone 4, but as it turned out, the company opted to employ an LED backlit IPS LCD display which looks to be in healthy supply versus Samsung's AMOLED displays. One advantage that goes to the HTC Droid Incredible is that it has some high contrast ratios thanks to AMOLED technology – which makes for things like true black colors. Overall, the Incredible's WVGA display (480x800) looks extremely crisp thanks to its 3.7” size with plenty of lush colors that can vividly display a wide array of gradual tones.  On the other hand, the iPhone 4's Retina Display does have a slight edge with detail which is partly due to its smaller sized 3.5” display, which has a resolution of 640x960 – so the smallest of text are more visible as opposed to the slightly fuzzy looking ones seen on the Incredible. Additionally the oleophobic coating does make the iPhone 4's display look cleaner every time we take it out of our pockets as opposed to the Incredible. When setting both handsets to their brightest levels, the iPhone 4 definitely had more luminance when viewed at all angles, but both had pretty good viewing angles so you don't lose focus of what's on screen. However, the iPhone 4 performed much better in outdoor conditions with direct sunlight while the Incredible was somewhat unusable in that situation. When there's so much praise to the iPhone 4's Retina Display, you really can't tell how much better it is over the Incredible unless you actually look really up close to the screen. If there is one thing we can agree with is that both handsets have wonderful displays that are highly prized.


When it comes to the rest of the handsets, both follow each other very carefully as the placement of the buttons and other items are nearly exact. The iPhone 4 has a very springy home button while the Incredible has the usual touch sensitive ones which are supplemented with an optical pad that also acts as a button. The dedicated power and volume buttons are all decently sized with some good feedback when pressed down. No one can deny that the Incredible's microUSB port is a welcomed sight over the traditional proprietary one that Apple employs on all of its devices. We adore the soft touch feeling rear cover of the HTC Droid Incredible which does well in repelling scratches and dirt, but the iPhone 4 manages to handle well too as it has an oleophobic coating over the glass like material found on its rear. Placed towards the upper left corner of the back of the phones, you can find the cameras, but the Incredible packs a dual LED flash. Finally, much like some of its other brothers and sisters.

Software:

We've already gone over the experience between iOS 4 and Android 2.1 with Sense in our Apple iPhone 4 vs. HTC EVO 4G comparison. The only difference that we experienced this time around was how much faster the Droid Incredible acted versus the HTC EVO 4G. While the A4 processor inside the iPhone 4 does allow Apple's pride and joy to run very fluidly, with no presence of any lag, we have to admit the 1GHz Snapdragon processor powering the Incredible does the same for its overall performance. Moving about the Incredible's seven home screens does not pose any issues as everything moves relatively smoothly, so we find the experience to be extremely uplifting.



The notification system with the HTC Droid Incredible is still painfully ahead of what the iPhone 4 presents as you can simply use the pull down the menu to glance at all of the notifications – from updates, messages, and email. This is one aspect where iOS 4 needs some polishing up to do as text message notifications just appear on top of whatever you're doing.

With social networking becoming increasingly popular, we had to go ahead and compare the two in how they offer people the best experience in this category. First and foremost, the HTC Droid Incredible's Sense UI perfectly integrates Facebook from the home screen without having to launch a dedicated application. However, we feel that the iPhone 4's Facebook app is better in terms of presentation and functionality as it meshes well with some of the phone's native apps – like viewing photos and videos. Android's Facebook app is almost a direct port of the site's mobile friendly version and doesn't feel as in-depth as the one on the iPhone 4. Still, you have to hand it to Sense for tightly integrating Facebook into the phone.

People love watching YouTube, and that's the reason why the HTC Droid Incredible shines in this regard seeing that it offers users an app that follows closely to what you experience on a desktop. There are a wealth of sub-menus and options to get you down to all the various aspects we love about YouTube. Additionally you can turn on high quality video streams on the HTC Droid Incredible through any kind of data connection as opposed to the iPhone 4's requirement of connecting to Wi-Fi to experience better quality videos.


The iPhone 4's included front facing camera does offer iPhone 4 owners the option of doing video chat via FaceTime which can be seen as a novelty thing right now, but unfortunately you can only do one-way video chat on the Incredible through Fring. The quality we experienced with FaceTime was far superior to Fring on the HTC Droid Incredible as voices were clearer and in-sync.

There's no arguing that Android's Google Maps experience is far superior to anything else out there – even on the iPhone 4. Not only can you find directions to specific locations, but it aptly integrates some of Google's popular services – like Buzz and Latitude. Unfortunately the iPhone 4 still offers the same exact experience that we have witnessed on the previous versions.


Typing away messages is of little concern to these touchscreen only devices as they tack on some of the most responsive on-screen keyboards around to make the experience satisfying and seamless. The iPhone 4 continues to push the envelope as we find it to be a bit more responsive to the touch, plus add in one of the best predictive text options, there is no reason why it doesn't continue to enthrall us. On the flip side, the HTC Droid Incredible's on-screen keyboard is also quite responsive. After some playing around, both handsets proved to be very good in dishing out a mean text message.




Data and Connectivity:

Seeing that the HTC Droid Incredible just feels a tad faster in almost every aspect versus the HTC EVO 4G, the scrolling experience was close to the level of performance seen with the iPhone 4. On one side we like how text is automatically re-sized for each zoom level on the Incredible, but the Retina Display with the iPhone 4 makes the tiniest of text look extremely detailed. Even though the speed category goes to the iPhone 4 as scrolling and navigating around a page was still smoother, the HTC Droid Incredible does offer a closer desktop experience as it allows for some Flash content to load. Eventually we'll see Flash and all of its glory with Froyo being distributed down the road – hopefully making the HTC Droid Incredible one of the handsets to truly deliver that true to life web browsing experience.



World users will gravitate towards the iPhone 4 just because it's a global enabled phone, whereas the HTC Droid Incredible runs on Verizon's CDMA network and will only work domestically. Even though if you do plan on traveling, both handset are equipped with Wi-Fi to enable you data usage – plus you can use Skype to make phone calls when you're abroad.

If you're a media buff, you may want to chuck the 2GB microSD card that comes preloaded with the HTC Droid Incredible with something more ample – say a 32GB one. On top of that, you can't forget about the extra 8GB of internal storage on-board with the Incredible (of which 6.6GB are available to the user). As much as removable storage can come in handy in certain situations like transferring files, the iPhone 4's choice of either 16GB or 32GB capacities should suffice most people, but you'll always be required to tether it with the USB cable to extract files.

Multimedia:

Looking down into its  music playback capabilities, even after all these years, the iPhone's visually stunning music interface is still regarded as the premier offering. Cover flow continues to be the standard that's always going to be compared to the competition as it makes moving your albums such a breeze to not only your finger, but your eyes as well. While not as spectacular and intuitive, we can't help but notice that HTC Sense's music player also looks pretty good and does a god job in challenging Cover Flow.





Video playback is little of concern to either handsets as test videos ran smoothly with no evidence of any lag. At the same time, there was plenty of lush colors and detail to complete the overall experience – plus the screen sizes are definitely manageable for just about anyone.

The iPhone 4 was the clear choice when it comes to taking photos as they were sharper and filled with natural looking colors. You'd imagine that the Incredible's 8-megapixel shooter might have the edge over the 5-megapixel camera on the iPhone 4, but images were more overcast in most lighting conditions we put it through. In addition, the Incredible's dual LED flash made images look more over-exposed and looked extremely muddy in low lighting conditions.






The iPhone 4's able to shoot video in 720p, while the Incredible is capable of recording in 800x480 – which is still pretty good, of course. Both produced some smooth looking videos, but the iPhone 4's 30fps had a slight edge over the Incredible's 27fps rate. Still, you can't argue that either handsets excel handsomely in this arena.

Apple iPhone 4 sample video at 1280x720 pixels
HTC Droid Incredible sample video at 800x480 pixels

Performance:

Calling quality on the HTC Droid Incredible was more audible thanks to its louder speaker which made for some clearer voices. The iPhone 4 did not perform as satisfactorily, because of the static noise lurking in the background. Since the Incredible also had a louder speaker phone, voices did sound a little bit more muffled, but it's the trade-off you receive when you hear the lower tones emitted by the iPhone 4.

During our time testing out both handsets, we consistently found the Incredible to have a solid connection to the network over the iPhone 4. At certain times, we would see bars on the iPhone 4 fluctuate while surfing the web – which is somewhat disheartening when you're trying to do something.

Manually setting both phones to 25 percent brightness, we found the battery life out of the iPhone 4 performed better than the Droid Incredible. We were able to obtain 1 ½ days on normal usage before requiring a recharge for the iPhone 4. Conversely, the HTC Droid Incredible tapped out after a single day.

Conclusion:

These two smartphones are currently the premier offerings from both carriers. You've got the HTC Droid Incredible on Verizon's network which does offer a humbling experience that stands at the top of HTC's long list of quality smartphones. Aside from its uninspiring design that doesn't compete head-on to the iPhone 4's industrial look and solid construction, we were very pleased by its overall functionality. It offers a truly compelling experience in terms of customization and social integration, as well as web browsing and multimedia playback. On the other hand, the Apple iPhone 4 holds its ground firmly with its prowess in almost all of the mentioned categories, plus it outperforms the Droid Incredible in the photo and video capturing department. We should also mention that the iPhone 4 is still in a class of its own when it comes to apps and games. 

It's a tough sell seeing that both devices are available for $199.99 on-contract, but it may as well come down to which carrier can offer you the best service in your exact location – so you can't go wrong with either handsets. Needless to say that the next couple of weeks might prove to be heart wrenching as the Motorola DROID X will make its presence across the country, but in the mean time, the HTC Droid Incredible looks to be Verizon's best weapon against the iPhone 4.

Apple iPhone 4 vs. HTC Droid Incredible Video Comparison: