HTC Inspire 4g, the good and the bad a short review.
AT&T rolled out the HTC inspire 4g Feb 13th at a price of 99$ per unit, I'd dealt with some HTC devices before so I held off on this one until I had read some of what other people had written and said about the device before I bought one. Then a few months ago I couldn't hold off any longer and finally bought one.
The Inspire comes shipped with Android 2.2, and has a 4'3" screen. Which is one of the bigger HTC phones, it ships with the Sense interface and various AT&T apps preloaded as well as the Android marketplace.
The camera on the phone is capable of 8MP, EIGHT! That's the highest capable megapixel enabled phone I'd heard of until now, even the iPhone is capable of less than that. The unit weights about 5oz, in my own hand it feels pretty heavy compared to other phones, but I've only handled a couple other phones outside of HTC.
The interface and phone is pretty speedy, clocking in at 1000Mhz. Speed enough to run a couple apps at once without any noticable lag or slow down. It has bluetooth, and GPS capabilities as most smartphones do as well these days, as well as the ability to email and sync from your phone. Warning: syncing IS a power drain on this phone, I don't know if it's like this on other phones but this will drain your battery.
The phone is social network friendly with a Facebook app and a Twitter app, which both have the ability to sync your contacts, making it easier to get in touch with someone say on Facebook who's number you don't have.
The Inspire is a fast little phone, and is supposed to carry a charge of about 6 hours talk time. I'm guessing that's talking, texting or surfing the internet. Something which from day one hasn't lived up to expectations. On my phone fully charged to nearly dead hits just about under 5 hours. And that's if I'm lucky, most of the time I have to keep the phone plugged in until I'm just about to head out somewhere, to save battery life.
The interface on the phone is a little difficult to grasp at first, the buttons on screen from left to right on the first homepage would be better placed if you knew a little more about what they did before you hit them. Your best bet is to test them out accordingly, you won't do any permanent damage but it's better to get a feel for the phone first.
The phone also supports flash in browser, and can play mp3 files as well as a few others. It's nice compared to the iPhone that won't (and doesn't) play flash to be able to, but for security reasons I'd just as much not be able to. The browser is pretty stock, you can download Opera mini or the Firefox mobile beta from the Android Market for free, as well as a few other browsers but if you aren't going for flashy stick with the stock browser.
The wifi on the phone is, well it's wifi. For starters I live in a 1300 square foot house and my router is in the front living room, if I move into the back area of the house towards the back yard there is almost no reception at all. If I move 2 feet forward I have 3 bars. I don't know if it's a radio problem, or the way my wifi is set up. It's disappointing when you have a fast enough connection and can't connect cause you almost literally have to be on top of the router to use it.
The sound on the Inspire is, well pretty awful. You almost have to be in an empty silent room to hear it, and that's not including if it's in your pocket. Boosting the sound to the highest ring/tone doesn't help either. The only way I've found to produce any louder sounds out of it is to root the phone and install a fix, which is beyond the scope of this Hub. Needless to say, I won't be using this phone as an mp3 player.
Overall I give the phone on a scale of 1-5 a 4. Wifi and Sound could be a little better, but HTC has always had problems with sound quality on their phones and it doesn't look like they'll improve it anytime soon. Needing to resort to hacks in order to make anything listenable is ridiculous, especially if you are buying an expensive smartphone.
The wifi is probably a coverage problem in my own house, YMMV. At best spotty, but it flies when it does connect, and it's better than using the 3g network right now until AT&T rolls out whatever it's going to to play in the 4g world.So in conclusion
Pros:
Snappy, fast interface
8mp camera
Fast processor speed
Able to play many formats and Flash in browser
Attractive interface
Cons:
Sound
Wifi
Flash in browser (for security reasons)
This is a great phone, if HTC would just make tiny little tweaks to it, it would be a near perfect phone. I haven't been able to put it down since I got it, and I've raved to many friends about it to the point they've also ordered/bought one. If I were you, I would buy the phone but be weary of the things I listed. And with Android becoming more and more popular and common place only look for bigger and better things from these phones/platform.
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