I got my Droid Incredible in the mail on Tuesday even though the release date is today (4/29).

The phone is stunning…With all the simplicity you’d expect out of a new smartphone and all the fun you’d expect out of a Google phone.

Pros:

Android OS and Sense

Customizable

Beautiful Screen

Android Market

8MP camera (shoots well in low light don’t let anyone tell you different)

Super fast processor

7 home screens that you can view by pinching. You don’t have to swipe through all 7. Makes my friends jealous.

The browser is smooth and fast.

  Auto aligns text when you zoom. Uses multi-touch to pinch and zoom. Smooth scrolling and fast, fast load times.

Cons

Hard to sync any e-mail other than a gmail account

Facebook app sucks, but i just made a bookmark to the full site, since the internet is super fast

Optical trackpad is glitchy but i only use it for the camera

Battery life…But Seidio is coming out with an extended battery so thats not going to be a problem soon

Bottom Line:

Honestly, I have been waiting for a phone like this every since the iPhone. I don’t have AT&T and to be honest I just don’t like Apple as a company.

  They make cool stuff, but they rip their customers off. This phone is an iPhone killer. Compare them on all levels of performance, looks, functionality, customization, and speed and you’ll find that the Droid Incredible is the same if not better.

  Also, Verizon’s coverage is fantastic, so don’t be fooled by 4G. I’m sure its great if you live somewhere where you get service.

EDIT: (4/30) This phone eats RAM like crazy. I installed “Advanced Task Killer” but I was still down to only 42M after a few days. I would suggest downloading either “Task Manager” or “TaskPanel” (I have Task Manager and my boyfriend has TaskPanel on his Moto Droid and both work quite well). I also suggest restarting the phone every few days just like you would a real computer.

Other than that still no complaints

I had been an iPhone/AT&T customer for the past couple of years, since the first 3G release.

  The iPhone is a great device, but hampered by the poor AT&T voice network, and the spotty 3G coverage.

  As a former Verizon customer for years prior to that, I knew the voice quality and coverage was superior, but their smartphone selection really didn’t rival the iPhone, and I was stuck with the 2 year contract. I’m glad to say that dumping that contract early to jump back to VZW and the Incredible was well worth the penalty!

The Incredible is fast – almost too fast as it responds quickly to short flicks of my thumb.

  The optical joystick option for navigation works nicely, especially to avoid extra smudges to the touch screen.

  The seven page HTC Sense display is unique and has unlimited options for customization – the ability to have functional “widgets” vs. Just application launch icons vs.

  The iPhone make this stand out – as well as the several default configurations to help guide you towards customizing your own configuration.

  The display itself is bright, sharp, and the higher resolution (compared to the 3G) makes everything pop out, making you “wow” when you first look at it. Customization options are abundant, further allowing you to customize to your heart’s content.

  The seamless integration with Google mail/calendar, Facebook and Twitter, and well as the ability to sync Outlook Calendar and contacts provides a novel method of linking various contacts together for streamlined management of your contacts – for example, if I had you in my Outlook contacts, and also as a friend in Facebook, and followed you in Twitter, the HTC allows me to link those together, so your contact info on the phone allows me to interact with you without having to actually go to those various applications. I even like the fit of the phone in my hands – an iPhone (without a case) always feels like it’s going to slip right out of my grasp, but the case of the Incredible seems to “stick” to my fingers, and I never feel like it’s going to slip through.

The camera is worlds better than that of the iPhone 3G. Photos are clear, and colors are true to life.

  The led flashes work well.

  The only drawback is pushing the optical joystick to take a picture – same problem as with the iPhone.

  A button on the side of the phone would be preferable.

If you are worried about apps, there’s no need to. Just about every app I had on the iPhone has a version in the Android Marketplace, or at least another app that is of equal quality/function.

  The Marketplace is more cumbersome to use as it’s only available through the phone interface – a store to browse and shop via the web on my computer, similar to how the iTunes apps store functions, would be a great addition and make finding apps much easier.

  The phone interface is quite functional, but trying to compare and select between similar apps would work better on the computer. **Update** Thanks to a comment, I’ve found Appbrain, which looks like a good solution for this!

If you are tired of AT&T’s network and/or the iPhone, the Incredible on VZW is certainly a prospect to investigate. I give it a hearty thumbs up! 4 stars for the Incredible itself, as it can use some software improvements, especially to the Marketplace, and 5 stars for the VZW voice and data network (but 1 star for VZW’s continual poor documentation of the phones they provide).

Pros:

Fast processor

Beautiful display

Great camera quality

Wealth of applications through Marketplace

Fit and feel

VZW Network quality

Highly customizable interface

Integration of contact data

Cons:

Marketplace apps only through phone interface*(see update above)

Not many accessories available yet

Touch screen smudges quickly, and smudges are quite noticeable

Poorly documented by VZW

Some of you might be wondering what is the difference between the HTC Incredible (Verizon) and Nexus One (T-mobile) other than the obvious difference in the mobile phone carriers network. I just bought my HTC Incredible from the Verizon store and will try to explain the differences and similarities (My friend has the Nexus One).

* Side-by-side, both color saturation, clarity and contrast are great on both HTC smartphones since they are equipped the same excellent 3.7-inch AMOLED capacitive touchscreen display with a native resolution of 480×800.

  If I have to pick a winner, I believe the Incredible is slightly better, probably because it is brand new and free of fingerprints and dust.

* The Incredible uses optical trackpad for navigation, whereas the Nexus One uses the trackball (like the older Blackberrys).

  The trackpad on the Incredible seems to be more responsive and can scroll quicker, however, I have to say the trackball on the Nexus One seems to be more precise and easier to control while not overshooting the target.

  But I think I can master the trackpad with a bit more practice and getting used to how much pressure to use to control it precisely.

* The Nexus One and Incredible both have 4 capacitive buttons for Home, Menu, Search and Back below the screen. Both devices’ buttons are very sensitive to touch, no difference

* The Nexus One has 5MP cameras with a single LED flash, whereas the Incredible has a better 8MP sensor with dual-LED flash. Both cameras have auto-focus.

* In terms of raw processing speed, both smartphones run on a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU, which is the state-of-art and both phones can open/close and switch between apps quickly without any noticeable delay.

* For system memory, the Nexus One has 512MB of RAM while the Incredible has 64MB more (total of 576MB).

  Another hardware difference is the Nexus One has a unique dual mic system for ambient noise cancellation. This feature is unique to the Nexus one and is not available on the Incredible. I am not sure how effective it really is, but I use my Plantronics 975 Bluetooth headset with arguable the best noise cancellation system so it is not a big deal for me.

* You will notice the UI software is different when you turn the phones on,.

  The Nexus One uses the standard Android 2.1 OS (Eclair) home page UI, whereas the Incredible and Desire run the proprietary HTC Sense UI . I really like the Sense Inteface better than the basic Android 2.1 standard UI.

  It is more than skin-deep; it replaced and refined much of the standard (boring) interface for most of the Android operating system experience.

  There are more usable space on the home screen, better media apps and a sleeker number dialer.

  The visual appearance is amazing (Incredible!).

  It is very attractive and stunning and best of all, none of the eye-candies seemed to affect or slow down the performance of the Incredible when comparing with the Nexus One.

* Yes, the Nexus One does have an advantage due to the T-Mobile 3G network, which is you can use voice and data at the same time. Being on the Verizon network, the HTC Incredible can’t. Is it a big deal? I think only you can answer that question, but for me, I can honestly say I can’t remember a time why I would really need/use this `feature’. I have Pandora and it stopped streaming when I am on a call, but I don’t want to listen to my music anyway when I am on a call.

  And if I have to look up something why I am taking to someone, I can always call them back. I guess if I am using the Android Google Maps Navigation while talking, I might have a problem, but my car has built-in navigation so it is not an issue for me.

Since I just got my Incredible today, I can’t comment on battery life or reliability, but since HTC already made similar phones (Nexus One, HTC Desire, etc.) I believe battery life shouldn’t be an issue.

  So far the call quality over my Plantronics 975 bluetooth headset is great and no drop call when I was driving to work for an hour on the phone. I will append my reviews in a few months if I discover any significant issues. For now, I am very happy with my HTC Incredible.

Basically, if you can live without a keyboard, this is the best android out t 2.1 OS with the HTC Sense UI.

  It is an experience that I would call good.

If you used the Motorolla Droid (Milestone) you have an idea of what you get Really slick interface, lots of fun apps, integrated navigation, the list is endless.

Specs:

-a 1GHZ processor, I think it is downclocked to around 700 MHZ but there is no slowing or wait time like you get from the Hero.

- built in 8 GB flash storage.

  Also ships with a 2GB card.

  Annoying that you can’t install apps onto this 8GB space, but it works fine for videos and music.

- half a gig of ROM and RAM.

  All you really need for speed and applications.

-800×480 AMOLED capacitive touch screen 3.7″. This comes out as twice the resolution of the iPhone. Same screen as the Motorola one and same resolution as the EVO coming to sprint in a bit.

-8 Mpx camera with 480p video recording, dual flash. Better than many cameras out there, minus the optical zoom.

-Video out via an HDMI propriatary connector.

The OS itself is amazing. Last night I installed my SNES emulator and was rocking some old games. Deposited a check to my bank using the camera scan function (this depends on your bank). Scanned a barcode on a store and did a price comparison, then had a map drawn to the best place close by. Took a picture of a book cover and found it online. Really amazing stuff. With open development, you get great apps that are not pulled just because any company doesn’t like the competiton (i.E. Google Voice on the iPhone).

  The store may be lacking right now, but I found everything I wanted. Tethering applications, apps to track hiking progress, fist bump for some crazy reason, all of it great.

HTC did some nice stuff here with the UI, the addition of some on screen buttons to turn bluetooth and WiFi on and off rather than scrolling through menus. That lovely weather and clock on the main page, and 7 home screens (if I recall the Droid only had 3 or 4). I also noticed that the built in browser supports pinch zoon unlike the Motorola one. No need for Dolphin browser for me now.

Engadget had an amazing review on this, and I agree with their thoughts for the most part. This is the best android OS phone on the market today.

  It is so good that Google has decided not to release the Nexus one to Verizon.

  If you can live without a keyboard (I havent decided on that yet) then this is the phone for you.

I give 4 of 5 for the hardrive flash install issue and some other strangeness. Having to rip the phone in half to get to me SD card is scary. Seroiusly, you don’t slide the back plate off, you rip the phone in half. I didn’t like this and I hope not to do it often. No landscape keyboard in some places is annoying. Messaging and internet stuff you get it, but entering contacts was a chore with the upright keys. I see great things for this phone, need to check out the video out function, but this looks like the big open source phone that I have been waiting for.

I’ve waited for this phone for months. First I thought the Moto Droid would be my LG Dare’s successor.

  Then I saw the leaked photos of the Nexus One and finally the Incredible.

  After all this time, it has finally arrived and I’ve spent the last few days playing with it.

The number one question everyone will ask is “How does it compare to the iPhone?” and I think possibly for the first time ever, the answer is that it is *better* in many (or most) ways.

First, the hardware. In person this thing looks like a murdered out (black) version of the iPhone, with a few catchy red accents and a unique faschia around the back.

  It looks very cool and feels great in your hand.

  Some places have reported that the backside feels “cheap” and I’ll agree — when the back panel is removed, it feels cheap.

  But when it’s on the phone (99.99% of the time), it feels quite solid and the whole package feels balanced and complete. I like the soft-touch backing because it doesn’t show fingerprints. Nice. Yes, the screen will show fingerprints, especially if you run greasy.

Next, the interface. I had never used the Android OS before and wasn’t sure what to expect in terms of simplicity, layout, and general elegance. In my opinion, Android nails it. No, this phone doesn’t have the sheer simplicity of the iPhones interface. Instead, it gives you something that the iPhone doesn’t: control. You get to decide where your icons are. You get to add widgets to your home screen(s). You get folders, program shortcuts, and various wallpaper choices (including animated wallpapers, if you’re into that).

  The interface and customization options are really excellent. This is great if you have even a little bit of tech-geek in you, and it’s still intuitive. Everything runs smooth and responsive.

  And it does multi-tasking, without breaking a sweat.

The external speaker (for music/speakerphone) is excellent for a cell phone; one of the best I’ve heard with little or no distortion. Of course it doesn’t have any bass, but that’s to be expected. Multi-touch works perfectly (there were some known issues with the Nexus One because it used an inferior touch processor that has been upgraded in the Incredible).

  There are all kinds of widgets and programs that come standard so you can get a good jump on customizing your experience. Camera is fine. Sure, it’s 8mp (I’d rather have a 3mp with excellent picture quality). No, it is nowhere near a dedicated point and shoot camera.

  Above average for a cell phone, but don’t expect miracles

I do have a few gripes so far, and some of them are more of an HTC/Google software thing and not a direct issue with this particular phone. First, the widgets, while nice, are limited in their customization. You often have a choice of 2-3 display styles for a widget, but aside from that there are very few “widget options”.

  They each work pretty well but are limited in their individual flexibility.

Another small annoyance is in some landscape mode keyboards (like when writing a text or filling out a form) you have to hide the keyboard before accepting what you’ve typed; you can’t just hit enter to accept or continue.

  Sounds small but at times it can be kind of annoying. In portrait mode this problem doesn’t really exist, because either there’s a button present or you can scroll through content to find it. (Landscape mode overwrites the page content with your text editing area.)

Random note in the middle of my review: the Android Marketplace does not have as many apps as the iPhone. Personally, I don’t care. IDon’t need a million apps to make my phone useful.

  The ones that are available in Android have provided everything I’ve needed (so far).

Finally, there are going to be a lot of people disappointed in battery life. I’ve only charged mine a few times so far, but this is definitely a phone you’re going to need to charge at the end of the day with moderate use, or possibly even sooner with heavy-duty use. I wish they would have packed in a higher-capacity battery, but then at the same time with all of the features on these types of high-end smartphones, I can’t expect the battery to do the impossible.

Overall this is THE best phone on Verizon and quite possibly ANY carrier, at least until the Evo 4g and next iPhone. Since Verizon is the best network, though, I give the Droid Incredible 4.5 stars and three big thumbs up. That’s right, three.