Brents IT Blog

Random thoughts by an IT GOAT

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HTC Incredible... its Incredible.

UPDATE: Battery life on the default battery is horrible.  I barely get a day out of it if i take two calls.  Its on red by the time i get home.   See the end for some battery tips that might help you get till 8pm from 9am.

UPDATE 2: Battery life is much better now.  I am not sure what happened in the last month or so, but i get about a day and a half now with general use( 5-6 phone calls and app use about 1/3 the day ). 

Ok, so i have been holding out for a phone that matched the iphones usability and features but lacked that thing called AT&Tingular( Credit BinRev for that one ).  I know AT&T is good in FL, but why pay for another phone and service when my company pays for mine and allows me unlimited talk/text/whatever?

So it arrived today, my secretary forced me to do the new phone dance ( formally new shoes dance <see boondocks for reference> ).  I plugged it in after unwrapping it from its rather small and very utilitarian packaging( guess they are going green? ).  Then of course with any new phone, you have to charge it up all the way before use.  So suffice to say, three hours later, bam green light.  At this point anything i was doing became a secondary priority.  Its like christmas at the office... but earlier.  

So here are the specs if you havent seen them anywhere:
1Ghz snapdrag processor  ( great for gaming appz and faster than the current iphone )
OLED Screen ( Nice! ) 
8GB onboard storage ( awesome! )
Built in RADIO ( yes radio, plug your ear phones in and bam local radio.. though i dont think its HD )
Some basic APPZ but no games ( WTF!  i guess that what the app store is for? )
Micro USB port for charging ( love this feature, no more expensive accessories )
Multi-Home screen slider ( i love this feature, drag and drop appz, shortcuts, whatever, just make sure to save it )
8Megapixel camera with HD video 720p
1.3 pounds ( ? )
Supports up to 32GB micro SD ( HC? )
GPS ( works directly with google maps! )

Needless to say it puts my old samsung i760 to shame.  The camera/Camcorder app opens in 2 seconds!  Onboard raido picks up tunes and is easy to use.  Plenty of starter storage for MP3's, which should suffice until my 16GB micro sd chip arrives from ebay ( 35 bucks with free shipping! ).  The 32GB was tempting, but at 200 bucks, i am going to pass for now.  Not because i cant afford it, but because i can't rationalize the benefit. 

The phone boots quick... about 20 seconds( yay linux or some form of it!? ).  The apps and interface are very snappy.  I am not happy that activesync does not sync tasks, but i can live without that, everything else with active sync works.  Pictures look amazing on there, taking pictures is easy and those also look nice.  The video is another impressive part, very clear, does lack somewhat in the auto-zoom department, but i give it slack since its a phone.

So here i am at home, dumping a bunch of mp3s to it getting ready to use this sucker for an mp3 player/usb stick( i can fit windows 7 on it lol, but i wont ). 

The one thing i am leary of is the battery life.  From full charge and me messing with it all afternoon, i had to charge it the minute i got home.  Verizon is selling an extended battery for it which i might buy, i just have to see with normal use, what the battery life really is.  I know that most phones back in the day had battery for days, but they also didnt do what this does, so i guess we will see.  My hold back on the extended battery is the fact that most accessories that wrap around the phone wont work with it in the phone.  So there will be a trade off.. course i could just buy it and use it for business trips...   The phone is awesome.

But all in all, with my upgrade from verizon, company discount and incentive rebate, the phone was a whopping 75 bucks!  Add another 35 for the memory stick and i am at $110 total cost( iphone eat your parts out! ).

In parting... there was a bit of an interesting tidbit.  My secretary was setting up five of these phones besides mine and she accidentally put the phone in some sort of boot mode that used the power button and volume keys.  I wish i had taken a picture, i was too busy trying to get out of the screen before the CEO picked it up.  I asked her why we bought so many phones.. her response: "well i told everyone you were upgrading and they asked to what, next thing i know, all of them wanted it( which also included her ).  They are making me feel like Warren Buffet.... just waiting to see what i do and before they move on something!

BATTERY TIP UPDATE:
1. Disable all the haptic feedback
2. Disable alerts for emails if you use active sync.
3. Disable any vibration feedback.  One note here, there are many places for the vibration feedback and just when you think you got them all, a new one will find you.  Be dilligent!
4. Set the screen timer to 1 minute or less, i have mine on 30 seconds.
5. Download and use the advanced application killer program from the market.  Use it each time you are getting ready to put the phone down for a while.
6. Disable GPS, Bluetooth, and use wifi whenever possible since it seems 3G kills the phone.  ( i really hate this tip, but it works!  I think i should be able to use all the functions and still have a battery that works all day! )
7. When it comes out, buy the seiko 3500mAH battery and ignore the tips above! :)

UPDATE:  I thought i would include some awesome applications i use.

USEFUL Applications:
1. Advanced Task Kill ( free ):  Great app for keeping your battery life and applications under control.
2. Google Maps: While it comes with the phone, make sure to play around with it as much as possible, it has more features than you think!
3. Notes:  Very useful app for taping in a quick note about something.
4. MortPlayer:  Very easy to use MP3 player app.  It can play folders directly off the memory stick.  If you are like me and hate play list management, this is the player for you.  Also, seems to not have problems with strangely formatted songs.
5. Cherry RPlayer: Nice stream player.  Easy to use and very reliable.  I use it to stream di.fm
6. RingDroid: Awesome ring tone creator, easy to use and free.
7. Ping:  Useful tool for figuring out if your phone is working on the wifi.
8. Yelp or Layer or urbanspoon:  I have all three apps loaded, they are somewhat useful for finding stuff around you to do.  Note:  Information depends on area population, less populated equals little info.
9. Dolphin Browser:  I like this thing.  Its good for when you dont want google tracking your searches.  It also has more features than the default browser.
10. ShopSavvy: Great app for quick price checking.  Obviously use with a grain of salt and know that online doesnt mean in your hands.
11. Astro file manager: Very useful app for dealing with file management.  Advanced user stuff though.