HTC Incredible Joins Droid, Droid Eris, Devour in Verizons Android Lineup

by Clint Boulton

It’s Incredible!The HTC Incredible landing Web page touts the devices features.

A serious looking smartphone, the Incredible is the first high-end Android smartphone based from Verizon since its November 2009 launch of the Motorola Droid. The Droid sold well. Backed by Verizon’s $100 million marketing campaign, the Incredible should do well, too.

The Incredible is the first Verizon phone ever to carry an 8-megapixel camera.

With the 3.7-inch screen and super-powered camera, the Incredible is very much a media-savvy device, capable of taking great pictures and video. HTC Sense provides a nice user experience, allowing users to flit back and forth from one widget to the next with one touch.

Pinch-to-zoom multitouch comes standard on the device thanks to Android 2.1. There’s also the full Google complement of apps such as Gmail, YouTube, Google Maps Navigation and other perks.

Verizon began letting users preorder the Incredible on April 19.

The Incredible may actually out-super Verizon’s existing Motorola Droid superphone, which sold more than one million units through the holidays backed by the massive robot-intensive marketing campaign. Its interesting that the Droid just got upgraded to Android 2.1, which sets up a little competition with the Incredible.

This Droid “lite” is a lower-end model, but still quite speedy and responsive in tests at eWEEK. The Droid Eris runs Android 1.6 and doesn’t have the 1GHz processor its Google Nexus One or Incredible brothers have. But it’s still a bargain smartphone for $79.

Verizon’s other Android device, the Devour, is another Android 1.6 device, which may make it tough to fathom as a purchase option for $249 when the more powerful Android 2.1 operating system lives on the Droid and the Incredible. But it does use MotoBlur, which customizes a device by syncing contact information and updates from various sources, from Facebook to Gmail to corporate e-mail accounts, and streaming them to the device’s home screen.