HTC DROID DNA

HTC DROID DNA REVIEW

The HTC DROID DNA was first announced in November 2012 and to date, it is one of the best built smartphones to come into our possession here at mobiles phone arena. It is the first 1080p smartphone to grace the U.S. market and it packs a serious wallop in terms of performance and topnotch specifications. The feature that makes it stand out above the rest of the quad-core crowd: that 5-inch, 1080p (1,920 x 1,080) display. More specifically, this IPS panel -- also known as the Super LCD3 -- is an evolution of the SLCD2 you can find on the One X. If you recall, we declared that device's display to be the best we'd ever laid eyes on; the DNA, however, easily steals that title away. Granted, it's an iterative bump in resolution: the Super LCD2 panel on the One X had packed more pixels than the naked eye could discern, so pushing the density by over 100ppi merely makes the DNA screen sharper and clearer. How good is it? Images appear to just float above the screen. The font rendering is crisper than anything we've ever seen, and 1080p movies look simply stunning. Colors seem to appear more natural (without being overly saturated), the darks are darker and whites are not as harsh to our eyes as they were on the One X. Viewing angles are just as stellar, and you will love to use this phone in direct sunlight because even at 50 percent brightness you can see everything without straining your eyes -- something that we can only say about a select few devices. We give the Super LCD3 display all the praise in the world, because it's the current undisputed champion in the mobile industry. It can't be argued that the 1080p screen is the most beautiful we've laid eyes on to date, but don't go giving your current 720p display the heave-ho just for that single reason. It's an iterative improvement to be sure, and it's love at first sight, but it's a bit more nuanced than any previous bump in resolution. To put it more succinctly: it's difficult to go back to a qHD screen after using 720p for an extended period of time, but we don't have the same reservations going back to the One X+ display after using the DNA. Let's begin our discussion of the DNA camera by stating that we set our expectations to the same level as the One X and X+, since it sports a very similar camera module. Inside that red-rimmed contraption on the back is an 8MP camera with f/2.0 aperture, 3.63mm focal length (28mm equiv.) wide-angle lens, BSI sensor, AF and HTC's special Image Chip. Flip over the phone and you'll come face-to-face with a 2.1MP front-facing camera with BSI sensor and 88-degree ultra-wide-angle lens. The usual litany of adjustable settings is here. ISO can be manually set to a max of 800, but we noticed that rating jump up to over 1400 when we took low-light shots on auto or low-light mode. You can also adjust white balance manually, which unfortunately you will want to do more often on the DNA since the auto white balance is a little too warm. You can also choose to use HDR, macro mode or low-light mode and you can also adjust exposure / contrast settings. Since the DNA doesn't offer the ability to lock exposure, adjustments will be needed more often than not. When using the front-facing camera, you can tap the viewfinder to start a three-second timer to get that perfect Facebook profile shot. It's the end of 2012 and quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro is the name of the game for top-end flagship products like the Droid DNA. Specifically, you can expect to enjoy a 1.5GHz APQ8064 paired with an MDM9615m modem, Adreno 320 GPU and 2GB RAM. This thing is as powerful as they come right now, and power users won't be disappointed with its performance. It trucks along swiftly; the speed of the processor, complemented by the efficiency of Jelly Bean, make for a killer combination that certainly kept us happy the entire time we used the phone. To be fair, there are a few more demands on the processor thanks to the higher-res display, but the hiccups this factor caused are the exception rather than the rule. As always, we ran our standard suite of benchmark tests in the hopes of quantifying the performance of the Droid DNA over some of the other quad-core powerhouses we've used recently. Speaking of, the battery life of the DROID DNA is … a letdown. Integrated into the phone is a non-removable 2,020mAh battery. Plain and simple, in a market where many manufacturers are breaching the 3,000mAh threshold, the 2,020mAh battery in the DROID DNA is meager, at best. The most impressive performance I was able to get out of the DNA was 16 hours and nine minutes on fairly light usage. Days where I used the phone more heavily, I was forced to plug into the my Charge Peak 6000 to give the phone a midday boost. Without a midday boost, LEDs and pop-up notifications began telling me it was time to plug in around 5:00 or 6:00 PM. The DROID DNA may not be the perfect smartphone, but it's a sign for better things to come from both HTC and its biggest competitors. It is a new level of design and attention to detail. If display quality is your primary concern, the DROID DNA is likely your best choice.

SPECIFICATION & FEATURES

HTC DROID DNA PRICE

Price in USA $621

Price in UK £360

Price in EURO €450

Price in PAK Rs.67,500

Price in INDIA Rs.49,990