Isthmus
Android Expert
Just got back from one of the local verizon wireless corporate stores. I went there hoping to play with an HTC Droid Incredible and compare it to my Moto Droid. Imagine my surprise when I saw that they were also carrying Microsoft's 2 new Kin devices.
First, the Incredible. All I can say is WOW! What an impressive machine. My Droid felt downright clunky by comparison. It's not a slick as the Nexus one, but it has much cleaner styling than the Droid. It wa sthe only machine on display and apparently everyone and their mother had played with it, so the power cord was slightly damaged and it was running our of power. I was able to use it, but kept getting interrupted by the low power warning. Other than that the machine was impressive. It took a little getting used to as I use stock android (as opposed to sense), and the touch buttons on the incredible are arranged differently. What impressed me the most was the phone's responsiveness. since this was the display phone, as you can imagine, just about every single app was turned on. rather than lag, the phone was snappy as can be, even while running a fishtank lave wall paper. My droid felt clunky by comparison. The other thing that impressed me was the pinch and zoom. the droid has it too, but it is FAR more responsive on the incredible and I swear it felt more accurate. I didn't get to play long enough to really explore, but I noticed that there were additional sense related settings that one could play with, as well as preloaded appas and widgets. a nice feature was the pinch desk top preview that allows you to see all 7 screens and jump to the one you want. nice, effective, but not terribly cool. Helicopter view, as I saw used in a Nexus 1, is much cooler. The HTC keyboard has bigger buttons on portrait mode which made it easy to use than the standard android one, and the touch pad was great. All I can say is that if this is what a six month difference in development has produced, come christmas time, there are going to be some Incredible devices (pun intended) out there. The Droid is a really nice phone, but by comparison the incredible is much more impressive. Sense UI on the other hand, I'm not too keen on.
No for the disappointment, yep, you guessed it, the Microsoft kins. I only played with the bigger of the two devices, but I figured that since that was supposed to be the higher end one, there was no need to dumb it down further with the other one. when you turn it on you are taken to a home page that is a series of live tiles that take up the entire screen. some of these tiles give you feeds of whatever they are covering, while others appear to just be links that take you to a feature of the phone. That's the home screen. from what I could see, you cant change it, all you can do is change the appearance of the tiles (this means no wallpapers and no widgets that I could see). One of the tiles (to left) did say Apps in a corner of it, but the word was greyed out and pressing the tile did nothing, so I'm guessing the phone didn't have third party apps installed, so I can't comment on that other that I couldn't access it. I quickly went through some of the things offered and there was a nice consistency of design on everything you touched. Every menu seems to have been patterned after the Zune's UI in look and feel (not a bad thing I guess). However, the system was no particularly smooth. Pressing a tile made the system hesitate for a sec, then the screen would seem to slightly freeze before the gui would react and the transition took place. this happened every single time I went from one screen to another. I didn't play with the phone enough to know for sure, but It seemed to me like you had no option but to work through that tile UI which to me is a HUGE deal breaker. I guess for someone who is new to smart phones and doesn't want to do any modification, this UI is simple and to the point (perfect for the led pencil club members). That said, if you like any kind of flexibility, even the Iphone seems more flexible than this. As long as Microsoft has been doing mobile OSs I really hoped that they did a better job, but from a pure user experience POV (not a technical one), the kin was an enormous disappointment.
Anyhow, That's what I saw today during lunch time.
First, the Incredible. All I can say is WOW! What an impressive machine. My Droid felt downright clunky by comparison. It's not a slick as the Nexus one, but it has much cleaner styling than the Droid. It wa sthe only machine on display and apparently everyone and their mother had played with it, so the power cord was slightly damaged and it was running our of power. I was able to use it, but kept getting interrupted by the low power warning. Other than that the machine was impressive. It took a little getting used to as I use stock android (as opposed to sense), and the touch buttons on the incredible are arranged differently. What impressed me the most was the phone's responsiveness. since this was the display phone, as you can imagine, just about every single app was turned on. rather than lag, the phone was snappy as can be, even while running a fishtank lave wall paper. My droid felt clunky by comparison. The other thing that impressed me was the pinch and zoom. the droid has it too, but it is FAR more responsive on the incredible and I swear it felt more accurate. I didn't get to play long enough to really explore, but I noticed that there were additional sense related settings that one could play with, as well as preloaded appas and widgets. a nice feature was the pinch desk top preview that allows you to see all 7 screens and jump to the one you want. nice, effective, but not terribly cool. Helicopter view, as I saw used in a Nexus 1, is much cooler. The HTC keyboard has bigger buttons on portrait mode which made it easy to use than the standard android one, and the touch pad was great. All I can say is that if this is what a six month difference in development has produced, come christmas time, there are going to be some Incredible devices (pun intended) out there. The Droid is a really nice phone, but by comparison the incredible is much more impressive. Sense UI on the other hand, I'm not too keen on.
No for the disappointment, yep, you guessed it, the Microsoft kins. I only played with the bigger of the two devices, but I figured that since that was supposed to be the higher end one, there was no need to dumb it down further with the other one. when you turn it on you are taken to a home page that is a series of live tiles that take up the entire screen. some of these tiles give you feeds of whatever they are covering, while others appear to just be links that take you to a feature of the phone. That's the home screen. from what I could see, you cant change it, all you can do is change the appearance of the tiles (this means no wallpapers and no widgets that I could see). One of the tiles (to left) did say Apps in a corner of it, but the word was greyed out and pressing the tile did nothing, so I'm guessing the phone didn't have third party apps installed, so I can't comment on that other that I couldn't access it. I quickly went through some of the things offered and there was a nice consistency of design on everything you touched. Every menu seems to have been patterned after the Zune's UI in look and feel (not a bad thing I guess). However, the system was no particularly smooth. Pressing a tile made the system hesitate for a sec, then the screen would seem to slightly freeze before the gui would react and the transition took place. this happened every single time I went from one screen to another. I didn't play with the phone enough to know for sure, but It seemed to me like you had no option but to work through that tile UI which to me is a HUGE deal breaker. I guess for someone who is new to smart phones and doesn't want to do any modification, this UI is simple and to the point (perfect for the led pencil club members). That said, if you like any kind of flexibility, even the Iphone seems more flexible than this. As long as Microsoft has been doing mobile OSs I really hoped that they did a better job, but from a pure user experience POV (not a technical one), the kin was an enormous disappointment.
Anyhow, That's what I saw today during lunch time.