Successfully launching an iconic smartphone is a daunting task, and following up a blockbuster flagship phone launch is even more difficult. Apple and Samsung might make it look easy, but companies like Motorola, Nokia and RIM have shown us that the success of one phone is anything but a guarantee that sequels will be met with the same fanfare. Perhaps no recent smartphone launch better embodies that notion than the HTC EVO 4G, a smartphone that gave Sprint a much-needed smash hit when it launched in 2010, and its successor the EVO 3D, which is now all but forgotten less than a year after its debut. Now, Sprint and HTC are back again with the HTC EVO 4G LTE, a smartphone that is more than worthy of its “flagship” designation. Impressive though it may be on paper, can Sprint score an EVO 4G-sized hit with this upcoming superphone or is it destined to meet the same fate as the EVO 3D? My full review follows below.

The Inside

HTC’s business exploded beginning in early 2011, and the company went on a run that saw it post record revenue for six consecutive months. The vendor’s growth came to a screeching halt in the fourth quarter, however, thanks to the launch of Apple’s iPhone 4S and increased competition from Samsung. HTC is well aware that it fell behind, and it is also well aware that a window may have opened; the company’s direct response to a BGR article on the matter suggests HTC is ready for battle, and on paper, the HTC EVO 4G LTE — Sprint’s branded and redesigned version of the HTC One X — is a very powerful weapon.

As is the case with AT&T’s One X, the HTC EVO 4G LTE loses NVIDIA’s quad-core Tegra 3 chipset in favor of the LTE-compatible Qualcomm Snapdragon S4, which includes a 1.5GHz dual-core Krait CPU and an Adreno225 GPU. Performance and responsiveness may or may not take a hit as a result of the change, but I did experience the same performance hiccups covered in my review of the HTC One S.

HTC’s Sense 4 UI and service layer sits atop Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich, and it is most definitely a step in the right direction compared to previous versions of Sense. As discussed in BGR’s review of HTC’s One S for T-Mobile, Sense 4 goes back to the basics for HTC. It focuses more on adding value for the end user and less on differentiation for the sake of differentiation.

Beyond the processor and operating system, this smartphone is packed to the brim with cutting-edge technology. In terms of connectivity it includes CDMA, EV-DO, LTE, Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n with DLNA and mobile hotspot support, Bluetooth 3.0, USB 2.0 and near-field communication (NFC) support. It also features 16GB of internal storage, a microSD slot for up to 32GB of additional memory, 1GB of RAM, an accelerometer, a gyroscope, a proximity sensor, a compass and plenty more.

Though the EVO 4G LTE is only 8.9 millimeters thick, HTC managed to squeeze in a 2,000 mAh battery. While I couldn’t test the device’s battery performance on Sprint’s 4G LTE network since such a thing does not exist, battery life on Wi-Fi and 2G/3G was more than ample. I was able to easily make it through a full day of moderate usage on a single charge, and after charging the phone early in the morning, I often didn’t have to plug the EVO back in until mid-way through the following day.

Typical usage during my testing included streaming music via Pandora, regularly interacting with Twitter, monitoring Reddit with Baconreader, staying on top of the news with gReader and News360, capturing a bunch of photos and some video, browsing the Web in Chrome and sending and receiving more email than any man should ever have to deal with.

The Outside

As is the case with most modern flagship phones from HTC, the EVO 4G LTE’s build is second to none. Barring one area that I will soon cover at length, HTC used top-notch materials on the EVO and the result is a solid smartphone that feels like a premium product should.

The display and capacitive navigation buttons on the HTC EVO 4G LTE are covered with Gorilla Glass by Corning, and a front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera sits above the top of the screen alongside the ear speaker. Calls on the EVO were loud and clear, and people I spoke to during my tests had no complaints whatsoever regarding call quality.

The display on this smartphone is very impressive. HTC opted for a Super LCD2 panel that squeezes high-definition 720 x 1,280-pixel resolution into display that measures 4.7-inches diagonally, and the result is a pixel density of 312 ppi. It’s a beautiful display.

While the clarity isn’t on par with the likes of Apple’s Retina display on the iPhone, it is certainly among the most impressive I’ve seen on a smartphone. Images and high-definition video look fantastic on the EVO 4G LTE’s screen, and UI elements are impressive as well. Colors aren’t quite as deep as they are on the Super AMOLED panel HTC used in the One S, but the higher resolution is well worth the trade off.

The right side of the phone contains a volume rocker and a dedicated two-stage camera shutter button — something that is noticeably absent from AT&T’s version of the One X — and the left edge of the phone is home only to a microUSB port. The top of the new EVO includes a power button, a secondary microphone for noise cancellation and a standard audio jack, while the bottom contains the primary mic. On the back of the smartphone sits a loudspeaker, a camera, a single LED flash and a red aluminum kickstand.

The bulk of the case is made of anodized aluminum, but HTC added a twist to its design that we have not seen before on any smartphone. The unibody aluminum part of the case is anodized in black across the entirety of its exterior surface, but then the anodized layer is ground away in a thin strip around the outer edge of the phone. The result is a sleek black case with red accents on the back, and then a brushed aluminum band around the outer edge of the phone.

It’s an interesting idea that might have made for a fantastic looking smartphone had HTC not used a glossy black plastic piece to cover the top half of the back of the EVO 4G LTE.

The Upside

I had a great deal of praise for HTC’s fourth major iteration of Sense when I reviewed the One S for T-Mobile recently, and Sprint’s EVO 4G LTE keeps the experience surprisingly pure.

“Sprint Zone” is the only carrier-branded application you’ll find on this smartphone out of the box, and it can hardly be categorized as annoying, intrusive or “bloatware.” Quite to the contrary, the app offers a single hub through which users can access account management features, app recommendations, a Sprint store locator and plenty more. In theory, this is great. In practice, the first time I tried to access anything through Sprint Zone (the Manage Your Account link), the app froze, couldn’t be killed using the EVO’s built-in task manager, and remained useless until I rebooted.

Beyond Sprint Zone and a visual voicemail app, the EVO 4G LTE experience is essentially exactly as HTC intended it. HTC dialed Sense 4 back a bit after taking user feedback to heart. The result is an attractive user interface that adds unique visual elements to Google’s Android 4 Ice Cream Sandwich UI, a suite of custom apps and a series of great features that enhance Android.

Samsung will push the envelope further with the launch of the Galaxy S III this summer, but HTC’s subtle functionality automation tweaks really add to the overall user experience where daily operation is concerned. The examples I mentioned in my One S review are still among my favorite: a simple setting has Sense greet users with the weather forecast each morning on the lock screen, another setting that automatically enables speakerphone mode when the phone is placed face-down on a table during a call and disables it when the phone is picked back up, and so on.

Moving past the software, the display on the EVO 4G LTE is another bright spot for this flagship phone.

In the television industry, display quality is everything. Vendors strive to outdo each other, and later this year we will see Samsung and LG push things to the next level when they release their debut 55-inch OLED TVs. Of course display quality will never be as important to smartphones as it is to TVs, for obvious reasons, but I believe we are quickly approaching a time when picture quality will be regularly named among users’ top priorities when choosing a device.

Samsung and Apple are clear leaders in this space right now. Apple’s Retina display on the iPhone 4S offers unrivaled clarity and Samsung’s Super AMOLED panels feature vivid colors that no other screen even approaches. Competitors are regularly narrowing the gap, however, and HTC can certainly be counted among the smartphone players that have recognized the importance of display quality on phones.

HTC’s One S utilized a Super AMOLED display panel on while the color reproduction is definitely more impressive, the Super LCD2 panel on the EVO is outstanding. Colors are often a bit more faint compared to AMOLED displays, but the clarity is where this screen shines. Compared to panels on HTC’s previous-generation smartphones, the EVO 4G LTE’s 720p high-definition display is clearer and brighter, and it really does have a significant impact on the user experience.

The camera and Beats Audio are two more big check marks in the plus column for this phone. The EVO 4G LTE sports an 8-megapixel camera with an f/2.0 wide-angle lens, and it is powered by a dedicated chip. It can capture 8-megapixel still images while recording 1080p HD video at 60 frames per second, and it can also shoot multiple full-resolution images per second in burst mode.

HTC’s camera on the new EVO can capture an 8-megapixel image and then return to a ready state in less than a second. The camera app in Sense also includes a number of Instagram-like photo filters that can be previewed in real-time, and having a dedicated two-stage shutter button makes the camera experience even better than it is on AT&T’s version of the One X.

Beats Audio works across all music apps on the EVO 4G LTE, as it does on all One-series phones, and it may very well offer the most impressive listening experience among all smartphones on the market. Beats tuning enhanced sound quality across every genre I played from my own catalog during testing, and it dramatically improves the listening experience with streaming apps like Pandora and Spotify as well.

The Downside

As impressed as I have been with the overall user experience offered by the HTC EVO 4G LTE, two gigantic road blocks lie between me and any possibility of an enthusiastic recommendation to run out and buy this phone when Sprint releases it in the near future.

First things first: it’s hideous.

I’ll elaborate — from the front, the new EVO is a great looking phone. It basically looks like any other full touchscreen handset. Tilting the device to its side exposes the brushed metal detailing that surrounds the outer edge of the phone, which is a unique feature that might help separate this phone from the pack. Flip the phone over to expose its back, however, and the fun is over.

HTC uses various plastics on the exterior casing that surrounds its many phone models. AT&T’s One X utilizes a sleek polycarbonate, and a number of other devices feature a soft-touch rubbery finish that feels great in the hand. I enjoy either of those options.

The EVO 4G LTE includes two plastics on the exterior of the device. Near the bottom of the back, there is a narrow hard plastic area near the speaker that nearly matches the aluminum finish above it. It breaks up the lines a bit, but it works. Above the aluminum region that sits near the middle of the back of the phone lies a red aluminum strip that houses the device’s kickstand. It’s not my cup of tea but there are definitely people who will enjoy this design element.

Then comes the cheap, glossy, flimsy, grease magnet of a plastic cover that houses the antennas and covers the microSD card slot.

During the week I have spent with the EVO 4G LTE, I asked more than a dozen friends, family and random people of varying ages for their initial impressions of this smartphone. Without exception, a complaint about the appearance of the handset was among the first few comments made, and it was often accompanied by an expression that might involuntarily cross one’s face after taking a big swig of milk that spoiled a month earlier.

I honestly have no idea who the look of the EVO 4G LTE might appeal to.

Why HTC chose this finish is beyond me, because the soft-touch finish found on other HTC models would have looked great here. I sincerely hope Sprint enlists the help of some top-notch protective case designers and offers a wide variety of high-quality third-party cases in its stores across the country, because something needs to be done to cover the back of this phone.

My other major qualm with this smartphone involves data speeds. Painfully slow data speeds.

T-Mobile and AT&T get jabbed constantly for marketing their HSPA+ networks as “4G.” In these cases, a matter of marketing is at the root of the debate and data speeds are typically more than adequate.

In the case of the EVO 4G LTE, Sprint is actually selling a device with “4G LTE” in its name and no 4G LTE network to support it. Sprint will roll out its LTE network over the next 18 months or so, but in the meantime, I spent a week testing a “4G LTE” phone with download speeds that averaged less than 1Mbps.

And as an aside, that name — ”HTC EVO 4G LTE” — is a horrible one. Enough with “4G” and “LTE” in phone names, carriers.

The Bottom Line

When it launches in the near future — the phone was supposed to be released on May 18th but a delay caused by a patent spat between HTC and Apple has left things up in the air — the HTC EVO 4G LTE will easily be one of the most impressive flagship smartphones Sprint has ever released. And one of the ugliest. And one of the slowest.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I truly have no idea who might look at the back of the HTC EVO 4G LTE and think to him or herself, “now this is one gorgeous smartphone.” In my unscientific study, I did not find a single person who liked the look of this phone. Instead, each and every person I handed the device to said it was “ugly,” “gross,” “nasty,” or “hideous” without any provocation.

Aesthetics are open to discussion but performance is not. This smartphone, which includes the term “4G LTE” in its name, is the slowest flagship device I have tested in recent memory. Compared to Verizon Wireless and AT&T’s LTE networks or even T-Mobile and AT&T’s HSPA networks, the data speeds I experienced while testing the EVO 4G LTE were simply pathetic.

Of course this phone is slow, you might say to yourself. Sprint hasn’t yet begun to roll out its next-generation 4G LTE network!

This is indeed the case, and while Sprint is under immense pressure to catch up in terms of network technology, launching the EVO 4G LTE without any 4G LTE network to support it — and having the audacity to include “4G LTE” in the device’s name — is putting the cart before the horse at best. At worst, it’s disingenuous.

The simple truth is that most customers who consider purchasing the “EVO 4G LTE” will do so with the belief that the phone will come alongside “4G LTE” service. For early adopters, this will not be the case. In fact, even months from now as 2012 rolls into 2013, a huge chunk of Sprint’s nationwide network will still not support LTE service.

At $199.99 on contract, the EVO 4G LTE offers a user experience that is second to none… as long as you cover it with a third-party case and stay within range of a Wi-Fi network. If you would prefer to roam about freely and maintain fast data speeds, or if you shudder at the thought of ruining the handset’s 8.9-millimeter thick profile with a bulky case, looking elsewhere might be the best option.

How many times have you or someone you know lost a pet? I’ve been looking for something I can use to keep track of my dog, Moto, when we take him out of the house — you know, in case he starts to chase a squirrel and gets off leash. The Pet Tracker is the best thing I’ve found so far. It’s a reasonably small puck (with wings) that securely attaches to your dog’s leash, and it features a cellular connection to provide data on your pet’s whereabouts. It will also provide information about the device itself. The Pet Tracker charges on an included charging base in under a few hours, and in normal usage with Moto in the house most of the time, and the Pet Tracker reasonably close to the charging base, I’ve seen it last upwards of one week.

The concept isn’t new, but it’s done in a way that completely takes the frustration out of using something to track your pets. After you set up and register your Pet Tracker through their website, you’re able to define geo-fences that will alert you whenever the device is outside of that zone (from 75 to around 1,000 yards). This includes push notifications on your iPhone through the company’s iPhone app, text messages, and emails that even include a snapshot of a map with your pet’s location. You can also get alerts when the battery on the unit is low to remind you to charge it, too.

While the features of the Pet Tracker are impressive, they aren’t always completely accurate, and don’t offer 100% perfect real-time information about your pet all of the time. Additionally, the web site interface could be simplified and could be a bit faster to load and navigate.

Even so, having something that combines an always-on connection with GPS into a small and compact package is refreshing when other options are bulky and incredibly expensive. That’s not to say that the Pet Tracker is totally inexpensive — it’s $99.95 for the package with one month of monitoring service, and $7.95 a month after that. Compared to other alternatives though, this is easily the best all-in-one solution by far. Make sure to check out all of the photos in the gallery.

HTC is in a bind, too. Not a Nokia-sized bind, perhaps, but a tough situation nonetheless. The Taiwan-based vendor has been making terrific smartphones for a number of years now, but it really saw its business take off in 2011 with six consecutive months of record revenue. That impressive streak came to an abrupt end thanks to the launch of the iPhone 4S and increased competition from Samsung, however, and the company’s new One-series smartphones are the first collective step toward regaining an edge in the competitive smartphone market. Two One-series smartphones are set to launch in the United States this month, and here, I take a look at T-Mobile’s upcoming flagship One S to see if it may indeed position HTC for a comeback.

The Inside

HTC’s One-series smartphones are all impressive, and I’ve spent some time with each of the three handsets the company unveiled in Barcelona this past February. The One V was a surprisingly capable entry-level smartphone, and the One X is a tremendous high-end device. For my money, however, the One S is the star of the show.

The One X garnered the lion’s share of attention when these devices were unveiled, and the fanfare for this impressive device started even before then in November when BGR exclusively detailed the phone ahead of its announcement. The One X deserves all of the attention it is getting, but the One S absolutely shouldn’t be lost in the shuffle.

HTC’s One S is a marvel of modern design and engineering. In a case that is just 7.95 millimeters thick, HTC packed an array of cutting-edge technology that couldn’t fit into a smartphone three times its thickness even a year ago.

A Qualcomm MSM8260A Snapdragon S4 processor, which combines a dual-core 1.5GHz Krait CPU and an Adreno 225 GPU, powers the One S, and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich is very responsive as a result. Responsiveness aside, I have noticed some slight hiccups here and there under heavy use, but we’ll cover that a bit later.

The One S also houses GSM, WCDMA, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth radios, as well as 16GB of internal storage that is not expandable and 1GB of RAM. This is T-Mobile’s fourth cell phone and sixth device overall to support the carrier’s HSPA+ 42 network technology, and I found data speeds to be a bit faster than other previous-generation 4G networks.

I saw very slow data speeds of less than 1Mbps in and around BGR’s offices in the heart of midtown Manhattan — this is on par with AT&T’s HSPA service and Verizon’s EV-DO network in midtown — but things definitely picked up as I moved away from the chaos. Download speeds averaged between 6.5Mbps and 7Mbps, peaking at about 9Mbps, and upload speeds hovered between 1 and 2Mbps. This smartphone is more than fast enough to accommodate users’ needs, especially in less densely populated regions, but according to T-Mobile, speeds will be even more impressive at launch. The carrier provided BGR with the following statement via email:

During your review of the HTC One S, you may have noticed speeds inconsistent with your past experience on our HSPA+ 42 network. These are not the speeds consumers will experience – your pre-launch device needs to be provisioned today to provide access to T-Mobile’s HSPA+ 42 network. This provision will be active on consumer devices at launch.

HTC somehow managed to include a 1,650 mAh battery in the ultra-slim One S, and while I haven’t had the T-Mobile-branded version of this handset for long enough to comment on battery life, I have been using the international version of the phone for several weeks and the battery has been surprisingly solid. HTC took a lot of time picking components and tweaking software in order to squeeze as much life as possible out of the battery, and the company has done a tremendous job.

I am able to get well over 24 hours of use out of the One S on a single charge, and that typically includes sending and receiving dozens of emails, streaming about 90 minutes of music through Pandora each day when I commute, regularly checking social networks like Twitter, browsing the Web with Google’s Chrome beta, making a few phone calls throughout the day, regularly checking Reddit and Google Reader, reading up on the news using News360 and other apps, making notes in Evernote and more. Streaming video using Netflix and talking excessively can hurt battery life of course, but users can expect to charge the device once a day or even less frequently with typical moderate usage.

The Outside

T-Mobile’s One S features build quality that is second to none. The phone sports a unibody aluminum case with a unique anodized finish that includes a gradient on the back. The finish is dark gray toward the bottom of the phone and it fades to light gray at the top, and the rubber-finish plastic pieces at the top and bottom continue the fade, creating an interesting overall look.

The face of HTC’s One S is comprised mainly of Corning Gorilla Glass that covers a 4.3-inch, 540 x 960-pixel (qHD), Super AMOLED display with a rating of 256 pixels per inch. It’s gorgeous. The screen is on par with some of Samsung’s recent Super AMOLED displays, and the colors are deep and vivid. Its oleophobic coating also does an even better job of repelling oils than Apple’s iPhone 4S, with is a huge feat that does not go unnoticed.

A T-Mobile logo is the only branding on the face of the phone, and it is located between the top of the display and the ear speaker. A front-facing VGA camera is positioned to the right of the speaker, and the three on-screen Ice Cream Sandwich navigation buttons are replaced by capacitive buttons beneath the display. I found the quality of audio from the ear speaker to be somewhat lacking during voice calls. The volume is adequate but sound is a bit tinny and a faint hissing sound accompanied the audio on several test calls.

The bottom of the phone houses only a small opening for the main microphone and the top is home to a standard 3.5-millimeter audio jack, a secondary microphone for noise cancellation and a power button. A volume rocker sits on the right edge of the phone while microUSB port is included on the left side. A speaker sits near the bottom on the back of the One S and branding occupies the middle area. At the top sits a large camera lens surrounding by a blue aluminum enclosure, and a multi-stage LED flash is located off to the right of the lens.

Overall, the phone measures 130.9 x 65 x 7.8 millimeters and weighs 119.5 grams.

The Upside

I am absolutely blown away by the One S in terms of design and build. This smartphone sets the bar for flagship devices in 2012, and I doubt many phones will even approach the One S this year.

At 7.95 millimeters, this smartphone is one of the thinnest handsets that has ever been produced. At the same time, the phone is extremely solid and it has a terrific feel in the hand. The anodized coating has a smooth feel as opposed to the ceramic feel of the micro-arc oxidized version, but it does not feel cheap at all like many plastics do.

The phone also includes fantastic detailing on the sides. Instead of being flat or smooth and rounded, the case features edges that come to a point that curves down both sides. Beyond adding to the unique look of the phone, it creates the illusion that the whole handset is concave when in fact the face is perfectly flat and the back is slightly convex. It’s a small detail, but one that doesn’t go unappreciated.

Moving past the hardware, the real story here is Sense 4.

I have historically been a fan of HTC Sense, but to call Sense 4 a huge improvement is an understatement. HTC saw a good amount of backlash following the launch of Sense 3 as users began to complain quite loudly that HTC’s UI and services layer was becoming far too cumbersome and complex. The vendor took that criticism to heart and Sense 4 is a reimagining of HTC’s software that lets Android 4.0 shine but enhances the experience in a number of key areas.

The overall look of HTC’s UI elements is softer in this iteration of Sense. It uses more light elements and fewer dark colors, and several animations have been refined as well. Starting with the weather widget that greets users on the center home screen, HTC’s widgets are still my favorite among all of the various vendor interfaces and they match the look of the UI perfectly.

Even more appealing than the look itself is the added personalization and functionality Sense 4 affords. A few quick examples:

Sense’s weather feature includes a setting that is so simple and so useful it pains me that it doesn’t exist on every smartphone. With the check of a box — and it is checked by default — the One S will display a large graphic on the lock screen with the current temperature and the current day’s forecast the first time a user wakes the phone up each day. The next time the users wakes up his or her phone, the regular lock screen will be present.

Another example is HTC’s smart use of the accelerometer and other sensors. Using simple settings available in the Sound menu, the One S can immediately decrease the ringer volume when a phone is picked up while ringing to alert the user of an incoming call. There is also a “Pocket mode” feature that instructs the phone to automatically increase the ringer volume when a phone is tucked away in a pocket or purse, and another feature that will automatically enable the device’s speakerphone mode when it is flipped over and placed face-down. Speakerphone is then automatically disabled when the phone is lifted back up.

Smart little details like these combine to create an overall experience that is a cut above the competition where customization is concerned.

The camera hardware and software are also areas where the One S really shines. HTC’s One-series smartphones feature camera technology that has never been included in a smartphone before, and it allows users to take mobile photography to the next level.

The One S features an 8-megapixel camera with an f/2.0 wide-angle lens. It can capture 1080p HD video at 60 fps and snap 8-megapixel stills as it does. It can shoot multiple images per second in burst mode and then allow the user to flip through them and pick the best photo to save. Images are actually captured in RAW format, converted to JPG and saved, and then the camera returns to a ready state — all within the span of 0.7 seconds.

The quality of the images the One S captures is among the best I’ve seen on a smartphone. Colors can sometimes appear a bit washed out in certain lighting, but the clarity of the shots is very impressive for a smartphone. The camera UI includes a number of great new features as well, ranging from HDR and a special low-light mode to integrated Instagram-like retro filters.

Finally, Beats Audio is a feature I really do enjoy on the One S and HTC’s other recent smartphones.

In Sense 4, Beats Audio tuning is available not just for the device’s integrated music player, but for all audio. Whether the user plays music through Google Play Music, Pandora, Slacker, iHeartRadio, the in-built music player or any other apps, Beats signal processing has a dramatic impact on sound quality; more so than equalizer functions on any other smartphone, in my opinion.

The Beats Audio equalization makes sound much fuller. Bass is deeper, mids are more clear and highs are cleaner. The feature is tuned for optimal performance with Beats headphones — which, by the way, will be on sale in T-Mobile stores across the country along with HTC’s MediaLink accessory — but it has a dramatic impact on audio quality regardless of what brand headset or speakers are being used.

The Downside

As much praise as I gave the design and materials found on the One S, I far prefer the micro-arc oxidized aluminum finish on the international version of the phone.

Micro-arc oxidation refers to a process where aluminum is treated by blasting it with plasma at extremely high temperatures. The result is a silky finish similar to ceramic that is soft to the touch but incredibly solid thanks to the aluminum that lies beneath. HTC has confirmed that there are chipping issues with this finish however, and I have experienced them myself with the demo unit I have. As such, T-Mobile may have dodged a bullet by opting for the anodized version of this phone.

Beyond the phone’s feel and finish, which are largely matters of opinion, the performance issues I mentioned previously are the only significant drawback with this handset in my eyes.

While I found overall performance to be very impressive, the phone has a tendency to hiccup in certain instances. For example, any time I exit an app and go to the phone’s home screen, the live wallpaper I use (Phase Beam) stutters and the animation jumps backward a bit. It’s quite bizarre and while it may not seem like a major issue, it’s very annoying to see dozens of times each day, every single time I leave an app.

There are other hiccups as well, mostly when the device is running a number of processes simultaneously and available memory gets low. Sometimes a scroll skips, sometimes an app lags when it’s opened, and so on. These issues don’t harm the user experience irreparably, but smartphones running Windows Phone or iOS do not have these problems and neither do a number of recent flagship Android devices. I’m not sure if Sense is the culprit, but I sincerely hope that a future software update irons out these kinks.

The Bottom Line

I won’t beat around the bush: when the HTC One S launches on April 25th for $199.99, it will be one of the best smartphones T-Mobile has ever launched. In fact, it might be the best.

HTC had a lot to prove with its One-series smartphones, and in terms of hardware and software, it delivered. There are some issues that need to be ironed out, as there are with all smartphones, but the company did a tremendous job marrying Google’s latest Android operating system with its own unique features and UI elements. T-Mobile’s network offers very solid performance in my area, and the fast speeds I experienced will be even faster when the One S launches next week with HSPA+ 42 provisioned.

HTC’s One S features an outstanding design that is both unique and elegant, solid construction, an amazing camera, a terrific user interface and outstanding all-around performance. Samsung’s Galaxy S III could pose a serious threat to HTC in the near-term, but I’m confident that the One S will hold its own against Samsung’s new flagship in terms of hardware and software. I’m also confident that the overwhelming majority of T-Mobile subscribers who choose to take a look at this sleek smartphone will be very impressed.

Nokia is in a bind. The company announced more than a year ago that it planned to abandon both Symbian and MeeGo in favor of Windows Phone, the emerging mobile Microsoft platform that is currently still emerging more than two years after it was introduced as “Windows Phone 7 Series” in February 2010. Nokia and Microsoft had a lot in common, of course. Beyond an executive who ran Microsoft’s business division before joining Nokia as its CEO, both companies were once giants in the smartphone space. Microsoft had long since toppled, and Nokia’s market share was plummeting as its products continued to struggle against Android and the iPhone. Just two smartphones have emerged so far from Nokia and Microsoft’s deal since it was announced more than a year ago, and only one launched with carrier support in the United States. Now, Nokia is preparing to release its first flagship Windows Phone for the U.S. market — the Lumia 900 — and I spent the past week testing the handset in order to determine whether or not this might finally be the device that puts both Nokia and Microsoft back on the map.

The Inside

In a world where smartphones are judged on paper long before they find their way to consumers’ hands, the Lumia 900 is a tough pony to bet on.

Several smartphones with quad-core processors will launch in the coming months and the Lumia 900 has a single-core 1.4GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU. We already have phones with giant qHD and 720p HD displays on the market — Samsung is even prepping its first smartphone with a 1080p HD display according to BGR’s sources — and the Lumia 900 has a 4.3-inch ClearBlack AMOLED display with 480 x 800-pixel resolution. Apple’s iPhone 4S includes as much as 64GB of internal memory and numerous Android handsets come with 32GB of internal storage expandable to 64GB thanks to microSDHC support, but the Lumia 900 comes with 16GB and no memory card slot.

Nokia itself doesn’t quite know how to position its new flagship smartphone on paper. Case in point: “Bing,” Internet Explorer 9″ and “HTML5″ are three of the first six items Nokia lists at the top of the Lumia 900′s specs page.

Lucky for Nokia, this “world” of specs and paper champions is a relatively small one that is generally confined to gadget reviewers, tech bloggers and smartphone enthusiasts. While the spec-head mentality sometimes trickles out into the mass market, consumers by and large don’t care about the technology that powers their gadgets. Even if they toss out the term “dual-core,” they typically have no idea why a dual-core chipset may or may not be better than a single-core processor. Instead, they simply want their gadgets to perform well.

The Lumia 900 is a remarkably smooth smartphone, thanks in no small part to Microsoft’s mobile platform. The user is greeted on the home screen by two columns of brightly colored tiles that make up the most recognizable part of Microsoft’s “Metro” user interface. Each tile represents a different application, for the most part, and tiles configured to do so can display live information such as unread message counts, current weather conditions or top headlines. A swipe to the left reveals the full list of apps installed on the phone, and those are the only two screens on the device that aren’t inside an app.

Of course bad apps are bad apps regardless of a device’s platform or specs, and some third-party apps I tested had a very difficult time running on the Lumia 900. Interestingly, I find that the worst offenders among my regularly used apps — that is, the apps I use that have trouble running on every Windows Phone I’ve tested — seem to have even more trouble on the Lumia 900 than they do on other devices. So, where an app might take occasionally get stuck refreshing a screen for a second or two on the HTC Titan, that same app might get stuck for three seconds on the Lumia 900.

Nokia’s new smartphone also features 16GB of internal memory that is not expandable, and 512MB of RAM. Local connectivity options include Wi-Fi, USB 2.0 and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, and the Lumia 900 features compatibility with 10 different cellular bands — GSM 850/900/1800/1900, WCDMA 850/900/1900 and LTE 700/1700/2100.

This will be the first Windows Phone to launch in the U.S. with 4G LTE support and while AT&T’s LTE network is still quite young, users with coverage will notice the speed boost immediately; during my tests, I saw download speeds that averaged more than 15Mbps and upload speeds in excess of 5Mbps. Unlike Verizon and Sprint, however, AT&T subscribers also have a speedy previous-generation network to fall back on. I experienced download speeds in excess of 6Mbps on the Lumia 900 in and around New York City on AT&T’s HSPA network, while Verizon and Sprint’s 3G networks typically deliver download speeds in the 1Mbps to 1.5Mbps range in my region.

An 1,830 mAh battery powers the device and while it certainly doesn’t last as long on a single charge as some other modern handsets, I found that the Lumia 900 could easily power through a full day of moderate usage that consisted of sending and receiving dozens of emails, taking a few phone calls, various sporadic app usage, snapping a number of photos and uploading them to Dropbox, streaming some music using a third-party Pandora app and more. Wi-Fi seemed to have a big negative impact on battery life, and streaming video for even 20 minutes over Wi-Fi one morning made it difficult for the battery to make it all the way to the end of my work day.

As is common among Nokia smartphones, I found reception on the Lumia 900 to be very solid. The fact that the phone includes an “LTE” indicator for 4G LTE signal and a “4G” indicator for HSPA signal is horribly confusing and more than a little disturbing, but I found that the Lumia 900 consistently showed more bars than other AT&T smartphones in the same room. Voice calls were loud and clear on the ear speaker, the quality of the speakerphone was above average, and I didn’t drop a single call during a week of testing the device.

The Outside

Full-touch smartphones are a dime a dozen right now, and to say smartphone designs are beginning to blend together is putting it mildly. Nokia’s Lumia 900, however, does not blend.

Even without the phone’s unique color choices, the Lumia 900 features a fantastic design that is unlike any other smartphone. Aside from the Lumia 800. And the N9. Nokia’s manufacturing process transforms a single piece of polycorbonate into a stunning unibody smartphone case, and the result may be one of my favorite smartphone designs in recent history. The Lumia 900 is gorgeous.

A large panel of Gorilla Glass covers the phone’s 4.3-inch AMOLED ClearBlack display along with a front-facing camera and Windows Phone’s three mandatory hardware buttons, taking up most of the Lumia 900′s face. The display, I should note, is very competitive with leading smartphones — color are vivid and I found visibility in sunlight to be much better than on a number of rival phones with AMOLED displays.

The bottom of the handset is home to a microphone and loudspeaker, while the top of the device includes a standard 3.5-millimeter audio port, a secondary microphone for noise cancellation, a microUSB port and a microSIM slot.

The smooth, curved right edge of the Lumia 900 includes plastic volume rocker, power and camera buttons, and the left side is completely bare. The back of the phone is home to a dual-LED flash and a small chrome insert featuring Carl Zeiss and Tessar branding along with the rear camera lens. Overall, the smartphone is 5.03 x 2.7 x 0.45 inches in size and it weighs a hefty 5.6 ounces. It does feel a bit large and heavy in the hand, but it’s no larger than other phones with similar display sizes and I like the weight — it makes the phone feel substantial.

The clean lines on this remarkable design are largely uninterrupted, and it really pops in cyan and white, though the white version of the Lumia 900 will not be available until later this month. In black, the smartphone is much more understated but still a sight to behold. And it’s not just the overall look of the phone that separates it from the pack, it’s the minor details as well. Things like the tapering of the ends of the curved case that lead to the perfectly flat top and bottom, or the 1-millimeter raised glass edge that surrounds the display add unique touches that come together to further separate this smartphone from the pack.

The Upside

The overall user experience offered by the Nokia Lumia 900 is fantastic. This stems from Microsoft’s mobile platform which, despite being praised regularly by gadget reviewers, has failed to gain widespread adoption. Despite Microsoft’s muscle and support from several big-name vendors such as Samsung and HTC, Windows Phone has been ignored by end-users for the most part.

In the United States, industry watchers tend to place a good deal of blame on carriers for Windows Phone’s slow adoption — Android and iOS are currently the darlings of U.S. carriers, and little effort is made on the part of sales associates to push devices running Microsoft’s Windows Phone OS to end-users. While it is true that Android devices and Apple’s iPhone are pushed much harder than other platforms, we’ll soon find out what kind of impact real carrier support will have on Windows Phone sales.

Windows Phones are incredibly responsive in most cases, and Nokia’s Lumia 900 is no exception. The interface on this phone is glued to the user’s finger during operation, and scrolling is nice and smooth. Animations are fluid and like other Windows Phones, multitasking is a breeze on this device. A one-second tap on the capacitive back button brings up the task switcher, which automatically displays the user’s most recently-used apps. This makes flipping back and forth between the email composition screen and a web page, for example, an absolute breeze.

There are still a number of apps that aren’t compatible with the “tombstoning” feature introduced with Windows Phone 7.5 Mango, however, and waiting for those apps to start up again after having switched back from another app is a hassle. Tombstoning is simply Microsoft’s terminology for the process that pauses an app when it is sent to the background and allows it to restart from its paused state when the user opens it again.

Another one of my favorite Windows Phone features, and therefore Lumia 900 features, is the implementation of “live tiles.” A quick glance at Windows Phone’s home screen reveals that the OS makes use of a terrific variation on the concept of app icons. While Windows Phone uses a grid of images to represent applications on a device just like any other OS, Microsoft’s platform transforms these icons from static graphics to living entities that exist somewhere between icons and widgets.

Live tiles can display a wide variety of information immediately as it becomes available, and the live tile system’s utility is limited only by developers’ creativity. Messaging apps can display unread message counts. Weather apps can display forecasts and snow alerts, news apps can display headlines and sports apps can display scores. Some live tiles can also utilize basic animation, so Microsoft’s Pictures tile is an ongoing slide show and the People tile flips through images of a user’s contacts.

As has likely been made clear, I am also a huge fan of the Lumia 900′s design. The hardware has a terrific weight and the shape is outstanding, with well-placed curves that manage to look fantastic and fit perfectly in the hand.

The unit I reviewed is cyan, and I have yet to come across a person who had something bad to say about the color. It catches the eye immediately and yet still manages to maintain a level of sophistication that pink phones and other crazy colors quickly lose. It does attract a fair amount of attention, though — people were constantly checking out the Lumia 900 any time I pulled it out in public — so users who don’t want the added attention may want to stick with black.

The Downside

Considering Nokia’s pedigree, I was absolutely shocked the first time I used the camera on the Lumia 900. To put it plainly, as good as the hardware design is on the Lumia 900 is as bad as I found the camera to be.

In a world that was once dominated by Nokia, the Finnish vendor’s competitors have made huge strides in recent years with regard to camera phones. Apple’s iPhone features one of the most impressive smartphone cameras on the market, and HTC just set the bar several steps higher with the cameras on its new One-series smartphones. These cameras, which are driven by a dedicated microprocessor, are capable of capturing a RAW 5- or 8-megapixel image, converting it to JPG, saving it, and returning to a ready state in 0.7 seconds.

Meanwhile, I found that the Lumia 900′s camera takes very poor images compared to these market leaders. Colors were washed out and didn’t pop at all like they do on the iPhone. The edges of objects were extremely blurry rather than sharp and clear like they are on the HTC One S I have been testing.

I also had a great deal of trouble focusing on objects at close range. Even when I tapped on an item to focus on it and snap a picture, the phone still focused on something in the background instead. Macro mode did nothing to resolve the issue.

I’m hoping some of these issues will be fixed in upcoming software updates. Considering the quality of images taken using other Nokia handsets, I have to imagine these are not problems with the optics or other camera hardware Nokia used in the Lumia 900.

Outside of the camera, apps are one of this phone’s biggest barriers. This is hardly a new issue, and it is certainly not one that only impacts the Lumia 900 or even just Windows Phone. Mobile developers, for the most part, focus their attention on iOS and Android for obvious reasons.

Nokia and Microsoft have not been shy in recognizing this issue, and the companies are both throwing money at it. Also, I think we’ll see some interesting integration with both Xbox and Windows 8 in future versions of Windows Phone that will make the mobile platform even more attractive to developers. If they can continue to woo big-name developers — and maybe even get a few exciting exclusive titles on the platform — it should help draw more attention and ensure Windows Phone can remain competitive. In the meantime, users looking for popular titles like Words With Friends, Draw Something, Temple Run and Instagram will have to look elsewhere.

Selling users on a platform where they’ll have to ditch several of their favorite apps will never be an easy task, regardless of how much incentive AT&T sales representatives are given and regardless of how gorgeous a device might be.

Beyond those major qualms, my remaining issues with this handset are relatively minor. The phone’s oleophobic coating, for example, is not on par with many rival devices. All touchscreen phones gather oils from the hand, but Nokia’s Lumia 900 seems to gather more grease than other phones. This handset also seems to hold onto oil a bit more than other devices, and I found a mobile cloth worked much better than a t-shirt to clean the display. Also, it would be nice to see this flagship phone ship with a pair of earbuds like most comparable devices do.

The Bottom Line

If the Lumia 900 fails to gain traction in the U.S. market, it will pose a huge problem for Nokia and for Microsoft. It won’t signal the immediate end for either company in America, of course, but will leave both companies in a very difficult spot.

Nokia’s Lumia 900 on AT&T is the total package in every sense of the term. It is a phone with gorgeous hardware that manages to be both classic and unique. It will launch alongside a massive marketing and advertising effort. AT&T’s retail staff is being given Lumia 900 handsets and extensive training, and the device will have prime positioning in the carrier’s stores. And on top of everything else, this flagship 4G smartphone is just $99.99 or even less on contract.

This is Windows Phone’s shot.

If the Lumia 900 cannot succeed in the U.S. under these conditions, it begs the obvious question: what else can be done? The biggest barrier, beyond the established positions and momentum currently enjoyed by iOS and Android, is likely apps.

The absence of popular apps certainly won’t be a deal breaker for everyone, however, and as someone who regularly uses all mobile platforms, I have personally been able to fill most gaps on Windows Phone with somewhat comparable apps. WhatsApp is a perfectly suitable alternative to iMessage and BBM, for example, and while there is no official Pandora app for Windows Phone, there are several third-party options such as MetroRadio. GoVoice fills in for an official Google Voice app on my Windows Phones, and there are plenty of high-quality mobile games to replace missing titles that are popular on Android and iOS.

Windows Phone is smart, fast, responsive and very well-designed, though its UI tends to be polarizing. Most people I have come across offer praise for the Metro UI in general, though some suggest that they miss a more graphics-heavy interface. I enjoy the Metro UI a great deal, though I find that there are some apps that would be better off with a more traditional interface. From what I understand, the next major version of Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform will offer a host of new options to developers that should bring immediate improvements to the quality and variety of apps on the platform.

Nokia’s Lumia 900 is a terrific smartphone that gives Windows Phone its best shot yet to succeed. The hardware is well-designed and unique, the software is intelligent and smooth, the price is right, and the 4G data speeds along with excellent reception and call quality seal the deal. AT&T’s new flagship phone is not without its faults, of course, but this handset can most certainly go head to head with the best devices on the market when it launches on April 8th.

It almost feels like we’ve been here before. Apple launched a new product with almost the exact same exterior look and feel as the previous model, and almost all of the upgrades are buried deep within the device. Why can’t Apple make a brand new game-changing form factor every year?! Steve Jobs was the best (even though the people who say this now used to talk shit about him all the time on forums and in blog comments when he was alive) and now that he is gone, Apple is done!

Well, we have been here before — just a few months ago, in fact. But the disappointment from people who get paid to write about tiny spec upgrades in Android tablets and smartphones didn’t translate to the consumer as a whole. In fact, Apple’s iPhone 4S is the company’s fastest-selling smartphone ever, and its launch quarter was the most profitable quarter in history for a technology company. How does the iPhone 4S compare to the company’s new iPad?

Apple invented the entire tablet category. I realize there were “tablets” before the iPad, I owned and used practically every single one of them. They were an embarrassment, mostly because of Microsoft’s inability to customize Windows to take advantage of a new user input mechanism — a pen/stylus at the time — but also because Windows was constrained and forced to run on these pieces of junk with one-and-a-half hour batteries, fans, heat, and not a single application optimized for a tablet.

Since Apple has introduced the iPad, we have seen only one real competitor, and that competitor isn’t even a competitor at this point. Think about this: people are so interested in tablets right now that Amazon has been able to sell a reused hardware design that previously failed in RIM’s hands, just because Amazon understands Apple’s success and was able to make an entire end-to-end ecosystem, and price it well below the iPad at $199.

The new iPad is not a radical departure from the iPad 2. It would be difficult for most people to tell them apart by looking at them next to each other. Why is that a bad thing? The iPad 2 is the most successful tablet on the planet, introduced just one year ago in a category that did not exist just a year before that. Here’s another way to look at it: the picture frame hasn’t changed, but the painting is positively stunning.

As soon as you power on the new iPad, you’re greeted by the most beautiful display you have ever seen. It’s almost humbling, to be honest. It’s the future, lovingly wrapped in a black or white frame with aluminum accents. I have never seen a display so clear, so bright and rich, so print-like. I actually think Apple was able to increase the color reproduction with the iPad’s Retina Display compared to the iPhone’s. Colors look ever more natural and real — look at the blue highlight color in a row in mail, for instance, and compare that to the same selection on your iPhone and you’ll see what I mean.

The Retina Display continues what Apple set out to do with iOS, and that is to let any app transform your device into something completely different, and something you didn’t expect. Yes, this includes ridiculous skeuomorphisms like the robot-inspired world in something like Tweetbot, hand-crafted bookshelves in iBooks, and even the tanned cow hide that’s stitched together in Find My Friends. This is the essence of the world of iOS that Apple has envisioned ever since the beginning, and the one thing that all of the company’s competitors constantly miss — people just want to dive in and go for a swim, they don’t want to fiddle with snorkels and fins.

What’s so impressive, technically, about the new iPad’s display, is that Apple has been able to pack more pixels and a higher resolution than practically any display or TV you’ve ever used — there are over 3 million pixels in the new iPad’s display, and its resolution is 2048 x 1536 pixels — into a screen that measures just 9.7 inches diagonally. To put that into perspective, if you have a 1080p TV in your home, its resolution is 1920 x 1080 pixels. Jumping back, a DVD’s resolution is just 720 x 480.

I honestly didn’t use the first iPad much at all. I absolutely loathed the iPad case Apple sold. It was impossible to take the tablet in and out of it, but more important, it was just a terrible material and I opted to not use it. This led me to not use my iPad much because I didn’t ever have something to help it rest on so I could type. That changed with the iPad 2 and the Smart Cover. With the Smart Cover, I was able to fold it up and type, fold it back, or just rip it off and use the iPad how it’s meant to be used — caseless, just in your hands.

After receiving the new iPad, it took me a couple hours to actually get over the tiny weight and thickness trade-offs. I mean, the iPad 2 was perfect! It was thin! It wasn’t heavy! And I was a little bit disappointed when I noticed the thickness and weight increase in the new iPad. After not using my iPad 2 and only using the new iPad though, I can’t tell that this is a different tablet anymore. The craziest part is that if you look at the technical differences between the two, it’s almost comical — the new model is 0.6 millimeters thicker, and 51 grams heavier. Putting both on a flat surface and looking at them from the side, it puts into perspective how negligible this really is.

While the Retina Display is a huge selling point, 4G LTE and the global aspect of the new iPad is definitely another. For the first time ever, Apple has introduced a device with 4G LTE, and it’s a screamer. Thanks in large part to Verizon and AT&T, the new iPad chews up and spits out data faster than most of the world’s broadband internet connections.

I have been testing both Verizon Wireless and AT&T LTE iPads, and have seen speeds as fast as 40Mbps on AT&T, and almost 25Mbps on Verizon. I’d recommend going with the Verizon variant because of the carrier’s huge lead in terms of LTE coverage, but all new iPads are unlocked and equipped with cellular radios that support all 3G bands.

To clarify, the Verizon and AT&T iPads are mostly identical. Even though the Verizon iPad supports LTE and CDMA, it’s also a global device, and it supports all standard WCDMA and GSM bands as well. This means you can put an AT&T microSIM card in the Verizon iPad, and use AT&T’s 3G network without a problem since all iPads are unlocked.

Additionally, the Verizon iPad lets you connect up to five Wi-Fi devices to it so you can share that insanely fast LTE connection. AT&T’s iPad does not support the personal hotspot feature yet, though we assume the carrier will eventually offer it, possibly for a fee.

The new iPad sports the best display in the world and it supports one of the fastest wireless connections available, but there’s also a brand new camera. Well, it’s not brand new — it’s the same exact camera that is found on the iPhone 4. Even though it is more than a year old now, it’s actually better than most smartphone cameras due to the optics and software Apple has included. Then again, are you going to be using a 10-inch tablet as a camera regularly? Although, with 1080p HD video capture, I do think we’ll start to see more iPads being used to film videos, especially with that big beautiful viewfinder (the display), and the fact that the iPad is larger than an iPhone, and is more easily mountable on a tripod or similar mount.

Another new feature in the new iPad is dictation. Dictation isn’t a full-blown Siri experience, it’s simply the ability to dictate words and punctuation, and have the iPad translate that into written text. This is available on the iPhone 4S, but guess what? It’s even more impressive on the iPad for a number of reasons.

First off, you don’t hold the iPad like a phone, speaking into it a few inches from you. This means the microphone and background noise-canceling plus processing the iPad has to do is nothing short of incredible. It has to listen to what you’re saying from around a foot away. The most impressive part of dictation is how accurate it is, though. I’d even say it’s more accurate than on the iPhone 4S. It makes talking to your iPad an almost fool-proof experience. The times you don’t want to type, dictation will work, and that’s nothing short of amazing.

Battery life on the new iPad is unbeatable. There isn’t a single tablet on the market that can rival the iPad 2 or new iPad in this department, and there probably won’t be any time soon. Due to the 70% increase in battery capacity, the new iPad will match the iPad 2 in usage and battery life even with four times the graphics processing, a much higher resolution display and 4G LTE. In fact, the majority of time I’ve used the new iPad has been in a Wi-Fi signal area, so I have seen better performance with this iPad over the iPad 2 — even with this mind-blowing display, faster graphics processor and more RAM.

Something the new iPad allows because of the increased amount of built-in memory (this isn’t storage space, the amount of RAM all new iPad’s have is the same regardless of 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB model) is the ability to leave more apps in memory, and more tabs in Safari open. It’s just another small touch that makes the iPad not just feel like a secondary product as many people view tablets, but in most scenarios, the iPad is the only option you want, even over your laptop.

Rounding out the new iPad’s features are other software pieces like iPhoto and an upgraded iMovie app. These are available for $4.99 each in the App Store and also available on the iPad 2 and iPhone, though they won’t run on the original iPad.

Apple’s iPhoto software has long been a popular app on the company’s computers, though iPhoto has been completely rethought for the iPad, and it makes editing your photos, creating albums and even ordering prints and sharing photos absolutely a breeze. There is a lot in iPhoto, and at first, it can be a bit overwhelming. But after you jump in, there’s a good chance you’ve never been able to edit your photos with this kind of accuracy and detail in so few steps. From little things like changing brightness, saturation, colors, effects, crops and resizing, to a breakthrough new sharing feature called photo journals, iPhoto is my favorite photo editing and management app, period.

I have been a little misleading, though. At the end of the day, there is a competitor to the iPad. What you might not have expected is that it’s not a tablet from Samsung, from HTC, from Motorola, or some waterproof tablet from Pantech. It’s the iPad 2. Apple now has two tablets on the market that are best-in-class, and one of them is even less expensive. Starting at $399, the iPad 2 is an excellent choice for someone who wants to take advantage of Apple’s incredible library of apps and have the best tablet on the market for web browsing, music playback, video consumption, and much more, but save a little money in the process. Then, starting at $499, the new iPad improves upon the iPad 2 in almost every way, and keeps the iPad family not just one step ahead of every single competitor, but two.

Apple’s iOS platform seemed to come out of nowhere and take the world by storm in 2007. The introduction of the first-generation iPhone set in motion a chain of events that lead up to the holiday quarter in 2011, when Apple recorded the most profitable quarter in technology history thanks mainly to unbelievable iPhone, iPod touch and iPad sales. No platform is selling as quickly as Apple’s mobile platform right now, but iOS is still in its infancy and the fact remains: as hot as iOS is right now, and as popular as smartphones and media tablets are, no platform installed base on the planet even comes close to approaching the size of Windows right now.

The Future

Microsoft said this past December that there are now more than 1.25 billion PCs running the Windows operating system. Billion, with a “B.” Smartphones are the hottest segment in consumer electronics right now and people are buying Apple’s iPad in droves, but even still, more people around the world rely on Windows than ever before. This is because the software that powers countless businesses from the ground up is built on Windows. From web browsers to accounting software to point-of-sale systems to 3D animation software to word processors to custom proprietary solutions and far, far beyond… Entire industries are built on Windows.

The future is anything but “post-PC.”

We are now entering the post-post-PC era, and its focus is the PC. A new, smarter, more versatile PC. A PC that lets users browse the web casually in bed and work with massive databases in SQL Server. A PC that can run a $0.99 news reader as well as it can run proprietary $99,000 CRM software. A PC that is as ideal for playing Angry Birds as it is for running a modeling environment that allows its user to build schematics for a skyscraper. This is the future of computing.

That is not to say Windows 8 is an “iPad killer” or that media tablets are going away. Far from it. While their functionality may overlap in a number of areas, light-duty tablets and full-fledged PCs serve different purposes and will continue to coexist for some time. What we will see, however, is media tablets becoming more capable and more powerful as PCs become better suited for touch input. At some point down the road the two categories may merge, but neither will “win” or “lose.”

The OS

I’ve spent the past week playing with and working on a Samsung tablet powered by Microsoft’s new operating system. It’s nice to be able to work and play on the same tablet.

While Windows 8 is not quite in a state where it is ready to be released to the public, it is a completely different beast than the Developer Preview Microsoft released more than five months ago. During a meeting with Microsoft executives, I was told that the Consumer Preview version of Windows 8 includes tens of thousands of changes compared to the version that was released to developers in September. Thousands of changes are system-level items that I’m sure I didn’t notice, but thousands more are user-facing changes that have helped improve the user experience dramatically.

One of my favorite features is the implementation of swipe gestures. As can be seen in the second and third images within our Windows 8 screenshot gallery, Microsoft has tweaked the main menus used to navigate the OS and perform a variety of key functions. While using a touchscreen to interface with Windows 8, these menus are opened using gestures.

A swipe from the bezel around the screen in from the right opens the start menu, which includes a search button to search for files and apps, a share button to share the current page via email or using other services, a start button, a devices button that lists devices connected to your PC, and a settings button that provides quick access to basic settings such as brightness and speaker volume, as well as a link to more system settings. A swipe in from the left switches between open apps, and a swipe in from the left and back out to the edge of the display opens the app-switcher. Within an app, a swipe down from the top or up from the bottom opens app-specific menus.

While using a keyboard and mouse, gestures from the sides are replaced by keyboard shortcuts or mouse touches to the corners of the screen. A touch to the top-right or bottom-right corner mimics a swipe in from the right and opens the start menu while a touch to the top-left or bottom-left corners opens the app-switcher.

There are countless other great features new Windows 8 Consumer Preview; from picture password, an enhanced security feature that lets the user unlock a PC by tracing preset patterns on an image of his or her choosing instead of using a simple alphanumeric password, to “roaming,” which automatically syncs settings, apps and other data between different Windows 8 computers. While one convertible slate can handle duties as a tablet, notebook and desktop computer, Windows 8 is all about choice. Some users may opt for a single device while others will want a lightweight 7-inch ARM-based tablet in addition to an eight-core beast of a desktop PC.

In terms of performance, Windows 8 exhibited the smoothness and stability we’ve come to expect in a post-Vista world, and this is just a preview version. There were hiccups, of course, but overall the experience was vastly superior than it has been with any other version of Windows. The setup is remarkably fast and easy, touch responsiveness is iPad-like and I was quite impressed with the versatility of this platform. To understand the concept of one device for work and for play is one thing. To sit in bed hopping around lightweight apps and then walk over to your desk, dock your tablet, and have desktop-grade productivity software running on the same device is something else entirely.

The machine I tested Windows 8 on is a pre-release dockable Samsung tablet with a 1.6GHz Intel Core i5 processor and 4GB of RAM. Yes, it’s a tablet with a fan. It’s also a tablet that can run your existing desktop-grade enterprise software, consumer software and lightweight Metro-style apps. Get over it.

The Endgame

Windows 8 gives us a glimpse at the future of computing, but it’s not quite there yet. While the version I spent time with is merely the Consumer Preview and not the release build of Windows 8, it gives us a very good idea of what Microsoft’s new operating system will look like when it launches. The concept is fantastic and I very much like Microsoft’s execution thus far, but it still feels like a marriage of two completely different operating systems rather than a fusion of two experiences.

This is by design, in part. Because the function of a true PC varies so greatly from the function of a media tablet (as we know this category of devices today), Microsoft has created separate experiences for each category. There is a tablet experience with the fantastic Metro UI, a desktop experience reminiscent of Windows 7, and a bit of overlap with each, intended to create some amount of cohesiveness. The end result, however, is not a consistent experience.

There is a disconnect that can be felt across Windows 8. Again, this is mostly by design. In what I call “tablet mode,” the user is presented with an interface that is quite clearly built to be touched. It is characterized by a cascade of large tiles that display live data and can be poked to open apps. The Metro-style apps that are revealed house nice big buttons and a touch-friendly design. Metro-style apps also take up every last pixel of the display, which is a fantastic canvas on which developers can paint terrific experiences.

In “desktop mode,” Windows 8 has the look and feel of Windows 7. In fact, it basically is Windows 7. There are some elements of Metro that spill over into desktop mode — such as the app-switcher and Windows Phone-like lock screen, which displays notifications from up to five apps — but they are effectively completely separate platforms.

Desktop mode has not been optimized for touch at all. In fact, tapping in a text field while no physical keyboard is attached to the tablet doesn’t even bring up the virtual keyboard. Instead, the user must tap on a small keyboard icon in the task bar to open the keyboard, and then he or she must tap another two buttons to close the keyboard once finished typing. And while in desktop mode, by the way, I found that the keyboard often obscured the text field in which I was typing.

Perhaps I can better illustrate my point about the disconnect with this simple example:

Windows 8 ships with two completely separate web browsers. One is called “Internet Explorer”. The other is called “Internet Explorer.”

Internet Explorer is a fantastic Metro-style browser that is designed with touch in mind. Controls are large and easy to poke, menus retract and let web pages occupy every inch of the display, and pages load lightning-fast in this lightweight tablet browser. Then, in desktop mode, users can browse the web using Internet Explorer, the same robust web browser hundreds of millions of people currently use around the world on their Windows PCs.

Confused yet?

Microsoft’s inclusion of two completely different web browsers that share the exact same name is indicative of the separation present in Windows 8. One tablet OS and one desktop OS, together on the same machine.

In the end, this disconnect is probably a good thing for now. Windows users come in all shapes and sizes, and millions of people who will upgrade to Windows 8 in the coming years will be terrified of doing so. They are used to Windows as we know it today, and the look and feel of Metro is a complete departure from the Windows they currently rely on day in and day out. After the initial shock wears off, these people who are so scared of change will find themselves eased into the new Windows because desktop mode is so familiar, and because “tablet mode” is so separate from it.

But this is not the future of post-post-PCs.

Windows 8 is the tip of the iceberg. The start of a shift that will eventually see the “tablet” UI and the “desktop” UI merge into one comprehensive user experience. Apple is taking a different approach; as we’re seeing in OS X Mountain Lion, Apple is slowly readying its desktop user interface for a touch environment by taking some of the elements from its gorgeous mobile UI and adapting them for desktop computers. This varies dramatically from the path Microsoft is taking with Windows 8, but the endgame is the same: one experience that is as capable as it is versatile, and as user-friendly as it is beautiful.

This is the future of computing.

Microsoft’s Windows 8 Consumer Preview will become available to the general public on Wednesday as a free download with an initial cache of more than 100 apps in the Store, all of which will be free during the preview period.

You know what they say about guys with huge phones… They’re compensating for tiny data plans. Samsung’s Galaxy Note is a giant smartphone. Or a teeny tablet. After using AT&T’s version of this device for several days now, I’m still not quite sure which is the case. It handles voice calls like a cell phone and it runs Google’s Android 2.3.6 Gingerbread smartphone operating system, but it feels very much like a tablet and it includes a stylus, which hasn’t been seen alongside a smartphone in this hemisphere for quite some time. Somehow, however, Samsung manages to pull it all together into one interesting package that might not have been worth the $10 million introduction, but it could certainly find a niche in today’s supersized smartphone market. Maybe.

The Inside

Samsung’s Galaxy Note has plenty of room for cutting-edge technology within its cavernous case, and though we are on the verge of seeing the first crop of quad-core smartphones unveiled next week at the annual Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona, Spain, the Galaxy Note has specs that will still pack a punch once the dust from MWC clears.

A dual-core 1.5GHz processor powers the Galaxy Note and it does a fantastic job of allowing the user to dart around Android 2.3.6 with ease. Scrolling in several apps that are notoriously problematic on Android devices seemed noticeably smoother on this handset than on other Gingerbread phones, and I haven’t really managed to trip up the Galaxy Note even with a number of apps running in the background. Of course there are exceptions thanks to poorly made applications like the official Twitter app, but issues that lie in the hands of developers certainly can’t be blamed on the Note.

The Galaxy Note includes 16GB of internal storage and another 32GB can be added thanks to microSDHC support. And that external storage might come in handy considering all the extra apps and services that come pre-installed on this device. Beyond the AllShare DLNA sharing app, City ID, Amazon Kindle, Facebook, Samsung Social Hub and qik Video Chat, there are a number of AT&T-brand apps that come on the Galaxy Note. Included among them are AT&T Navigator, AT&T FamilyMap, AT&T U-verse Live TV, YPmobile, AT&T Address Book, AT&T Messages, myAT&T and AT&T Code Scanner.

I’m not quite sure how this happened, but the Galaxy Note only has a 2,500 mAh battery. “Only” is an odd word to be using in reference to a 2,500 mAh smartphone battery, but Motorola managed to squeeze a 3,300 mAh power pack into the significantly smaller DROID RAZR MAXX. The Note’s big beautiful display could’ve used a bit more juice than is currently afforded by the 2,500 mAh battery pack, and I was able to get about a day of usage out of a single charge. Compared to the 60 hours I was getting out of the RAZR MAXX, the Note was a bit disappointing.

An embedded 4G LTE radio is also found within Samsung’s Galaxy Note, and it too could have used some extra juice. AT&T’s LTE service is plenty fast — I saw speeds in and around New York City that reached as high as 18Mbps down and 5Mbps up — but 4G connectivity is another feature that takes a toll on battery life.

UPDATE: A typo in the paragraph above was fixed to reflect peak download speeds of 18Mbps, rather than 8Mbps as previously stated.

The Outside

The Galaxy Note isn’t just the largest smartphone Samsung has ever made, it’s also the most solid. In fact, it’s not even close.

I regularly take Samsung to task with regard to the quality of its hardware, which has historically been sub par compared to rival devices. I often call Samsung phones “diamonds in the rough” because the displays are always so fantastically vivid while the hardware that encases them is typically reminiscent of a $10 Playskool toy. I probably explained my position best in my Galaxy S II review this past October: “Mounting Samsung displays in the cases that often surround them is akin to mounting a flawless 4-carat diamond on the base of a ring pop.”

The Galaxy S II improved matters a bit and the Galaxy Nexus is a marginal improvement as well, but the unibody aluminum cases on some HTC smartphones or the glass and the brushed aluminum construction of the iPhone 4S puts this South Korea-based vendor’s hardware to shame.

Samsung’s Galaxy Note is a different beast. The company still opted for plastics over more desirable materials for the exterior construction of the handset, but the result is infinitely more solid than other Galaxy phones.

The Note has a good weight to it. It’s light for its size, thankfully, and the back of the device is made of solid glossy plastic as opposed to the flimsy textured plastic Samsung has been using in a number of its smartphones recently. I generally prefer a soft-touch feel on smartphones but the solid hard plastic works well on this particular device. The bezel around the edges of the phone is hard plastic as well, and the face is glass.

The top edge of the Galaxy Note is home to a standard 3.5-millimeter audio jack as well as a small secondary microphone for noise cancellation. The right edge holds only the power/lock/unlock button and the left edge has the device’s volume rocker. The bottom of phone includes a microUSB port, the device’s main microphone and a slot in which the “S Pen” stylus sits securely. On the back of the Note lies the camera lens and LED flash, as well as a small opening near the bottom for the speaker. Like so many other Samsung smartphones, the Note does not take great still images despite its 8-megapixel sensor. They’re adequate as long as lighting is decent, but I found 1080p HD videos captured by the Galaxy Note to be far more impressive than photographs.

On the front of Samsung’s Galaxy Note sits a massive 5.3-inch Super AMOLED display with 1,280 x 800-pixel HD resolution. A thin slot for the ear speaker is positioned above an AT&T logo to the north of the display, and sensors are positioned to the right of the speaker along with a front-facing camera for video chats and self portraits. Beneath the screen, there is a Samsung logo along with the four standard Android navigation buttons.

A side note regarding this phone’s display: in 2012, there is just no excuse for launching a new smartphone without an effective oleophobic coating on the screen. The Galaxy Nexus picks up far less grease than the Galaxy Note, so it is quite clear that Samsung and its manufacturing partners are capable of making a handset that doesn’t look like its owner used it to fry bacon after just a few minutes of tapping and swiping.

The Upside

The high definition Super AMOLED display on Samsung’s Galaxy Note is absolutely breathtaking.

Samsung smartphones are known for their stunning screens and the Note is no exception. And although the display on this handset is a “Super AMOLED” and not a “Super AMOLED Plus,” it is easily one of the most gorgeous displays I have ever seen on a smartphone.

The Galaxy Note’s 1,280 x 800-pixel HD resolution gives remarkable clarity to images and videos, and the colors shown off by Samsung’s AMOLED panel are nothing short of jaw-dropping. Combined with the massive size of the 5.3-inch display, the Galaxy Note affords a viewing experience unlike any other smartphone in the world. Watching streaming video is an absolute joy on the Note, and flipping through high resolution images is a pleasure as well. I also enjoyed reading books on the Galaxy Note using the Kobo app and Amazon’s Kindle app. While I find most phones far too small to be used as an eReader, this handset is a different story.

Most reviewers may disagree with me, but I also found Samsung’s S Pen stylus to be a great distinguishing feature on the Galaxy Note. Bear with me.

In Samsung’s booth at the Consumer Electronics Show last month, the company had a station set up where artists equipped with nothing more than a Galaxy Note and an S Pen would draw show-goers who were willing to sit and pose for a few minutes. The resulting drawings were often phenomenal, and I couldn’t believe anyone was able to create them on a smartphone, by hand, with nothing more than a stylus. Even still, it was probably the most ridiculous things I saw at CES this year, and I saw more dumb gadgets than I care to recount.

Artists are not going to buy the Galaxy Note to create digital masterpieces on the go because there are much, much better tools for the job. But even though the advent of capacitive smartphone touchscreens placed the mobile stylus on the endangered species list, there are still some great uses for a digital pen on a smartphone.

For one thing, handwriting recognition is still a big deal in several regions with complex written languages. Note-taking in any language is an enjoyable experience with the S Pen as well, and there is something to be said for owning a device where you (or your child) can draw pictures or add a personal touch to photos that can then immediately be emailed or delivered via MMS to friends and loved ones.

Samsung did a great job with its implementation of the smartphone stylus. For one thing, the S Pen has a unique feature that allows it to easily switch back and forth between duties as a writing implement and duties as a tool for navigation. A single button is all the S Pen needs — hold the button and swipe to perform a number of gesture-based controls, or release the button and use the stylus like a pen to draw or write. Users can also hold the button on the S Pen and tap twice on any screen to open a new blank note, or hold the button and long-tap on any screen to take a screenshot. That’s right, the Galaxy Nexus is a Gingerbread phone that can capture screenshots without the need for an SDK and a 37-step how-to guide.

The Downside

There is really no way to sugarcoat this and even if there was, I wouldn’t want to. You need to be warned: the Galaxy Note is too big.

This gargantuan handset cannot be comfortably operated with one hand by a normal-sized person or even a fairly large person. Not even close. I have dropped the phone at least half a dozen times just trying to scroll through a Web page with one hand. It’s also too big to comfortably type while holding the phone in landscape orientation. I asked several people to try and no one who did enjoyed the typing experience while in landscape orientation at all. Several people also complained that the phone was too top-heavy while typing in portrait orientation, though I personally didn’t find that to be the case.

Not everyone cares about how the world views them, but I have never seen a smartphone that draws peculiar stares and full fledged laughter like the Galaxy Note. Holding this beast to your face while on a phone call in public will result in awkward stares. Not “maybe” or “might,” but “will.” It just looks silly.

When I showed the phone to my wife and to friends, the reaction was always the same. First, confusion… What is it? Next, disbelief… You’re kidding. This is a phone? Finally, laughter… Ha! There’s no way I could ever carry this thing.

The Galaxy Note does not fit into the pockets of an average sized woman’s jeans. Considering the current state of fashion — Skinny jeans? Really, guys? — it probably wouldn’t fit into some pockets of an average sized man’s jeans either. I even found a few clutches in my wife’s closet that wouldn’t house the Note, and I have a couple pairs pants that just barely could contain this smartphone’s massive frame.

If you’re in the NBA, this is the perfect phone for you. If you rarely use your phone as a phone and you would rather carry a (barely) pocketable tablet than a puny smartphone, you’ve met your next handset. If you’re taking a trip to Brobdingnag and you want to show off some modern tech to the natives, the Galaxy Note should be your device of choice.

If you’re an average sized human looking for a smartphone, you should probably look elsewhere.

The Bottom Line

Android fans looking to turn heads should look no further. Short of luxury brands like Vertu and handsets encrusted with gems by third parties, there probably isn’t a cell phone on the planet that will attract more attention than the Galaxy Note. During my time with the device, I was approached by a number of people eager to figure out exactly what I was tapping away on. Most of them, however, seemed to walk away more confused than they were to begin with.

Samsung basically just “Samsunged” itself.

My sincere hope is that this is the turning point in the giant smartphone trend, and that we will now see smartphones shrink back down to manageable sizes. Having a handful of plus-sized handsets on the market is a good thing. Choice is a good thing. Smartphones like the Galaxy Note and LG Vu have taken things too far though, and they are well-suited to such a small subset of smartphone users that they likely need not exist.

If the Galaxy Note was about 20% smaller, it would be a fantastic smartphone. If it was 20% larger, it would be a terrific little tablet. At 5.78 x 3.27 x 0.38 inches, however, it’s an answer without a question.

After years of trying to build a smartphone worthy of reinventing the world famous RAZR brand, Motorola finally launched a handset it deemed to be deserving of the moniker last November. The DROID RAZR was released on November 11th and was a marvel compared to the flip phone it modernized. At $500 on contract, the original RAZR touted a 176 x 220-pixel display, 5.5MB of internal storage, a VGA camera and support for data speeds up to 48Kbps. This new version of the iconic handset packed a 4.3-inch AMOLED display, a dual-core 1.2GHz processor, an 8-megapixel camera, 16GB of internal storage and blazing fast 4G LTE connectivity into a slender case only 7.1 millimeters thick. While the new RAZR was well received by consumers, a few complaints surfaced following the smartphone’s launch and poor battery life was among them. For users willing to trade the RAZR’s slim profile in exchange for a bigger battery, however, Motorola and Verizon Wireless launched the DROID RAZR MAXX earlier this month. There is no question that the MAXX version of Motorola’s sleek handset took care of battery life, but is the giant 3,300 mAh power pack enough to make Motorola’s DROID RAZR MAXX one of the best Android phones on the market?

The Inside

We reviewed the Motorola DROID RAZR three months ago and while this new version of the phone does include some hardware changes, the software is the same. Exactly the same. That realization has led a number of early adopters to experience buyer’s remorse following their RAZR purchases last year, but I’m not sure that remorse is entirely warranted. The nature of the smartphone business as it exists today involves seeing newer versions of similar smartphones launch every other month anyway. The DROID RAZR is still a fine device that should stand the test of time nicely.

A dual-core 1.2GHz processor powers the customized Motorola user interface that sits atop Android 2.3.6 Gingerbread on the DROID RAZR MAXX. Though quad-core smartphones are just around the corner now that the annual Mobile World Congress is only a week away, the dual-core chipset in this handset provides more than enough juice to multitask and navigate the UI with a minimal amount of bogging. The device is remarkably smooth compared to rival handsets, though I did experience some seemingly unavoidable stuttering when scrolling in a few apps.

Motorola’s new RAZR features 1GB of dual-channel RAM and 16GB of internal storage expandable to a total of 48GB thanks to microSDHC support. Local storage shouldn’t be much of an issue, however, because embedded 4G LTE connectivity means this smartphone can stream music, movies and TV shows as smoothly as a home Internet connection. Then again, unless you’re lucky enough to be on a grandfathered unlimited data plan, 4G makes it remarkably easy to hit Verizon Wireless’s data ceilings. So, it looks like all that storage might come in handy after all.

Of course one of the most notable items within the DROID RAZR MAXX is the humongous 3,300 mAh battery. For comparison, the original DROID RAZR includes a 1,780 mAh battery, the DROID 3 sports a 1,500 mAh battery and the iPhone 4S packs a 1,432 mAh battery. The power pack in the MAXX is bigger than the batteries found in any two of the aforementioned smartphones combined.

The Outside

The Motorola DROID RAZR MAXX’s name is a mouthful and the device itself is a handful. Despite having a now-average sized 4.3-inch display, this smartphone is nearly as tall and wide as the HTC Titan, a monster device with a 4.7-inch screen. The RAZR MAXX stands 5.16 inches tall compared to the 5.18-inch Titan, and its width comes in at 2.72 inches while the Titan is 2.78 inches wide. Because the MAXX is just 9 millimeters thin and weighs just 145 grams, however, it feels much more manageable than the Titan.

The display on the DROID RAZR MAXX is not great. Motorola bills it as a “Super AMOLED Advanced” panel and it features 540 x 960-pixel qHD resolution, but I find that colors look washed out on the screen. It doesn’t even come close to approaching the quality of Samsung’s Super AMOLED or Super AMOLED Plus displays in terms of color reproduction and brightness, and the clarity of Apple’s Retina Display puts the RAZR’s panel to shame. I even prefer the Super LCD panels in recent HTC devices to the MAXX’s screen.

Above the display on the face of this phone lies a Motorola logo and a small slot for the ear speaker, and beneath that sits a front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera capable of facilitating 720p HD video chats. The four capacitive Android navigation buttons lie beneath a Verizon logo under the display, and a small hole for the handset’s primary microphone sits off-center below the buttons. Voice calls made with the RAZR MAXX were quite clear on the other party’s end, and I found the ear speaker to be about average. Audio quality gets a bit shaky at higher volumes using either the ear speaker or the speakerphone speaker.

A dedicated HDMI port and a microUSB port are centered on the top edge of the phone, and a standard 3.5-millimeter audio jack sits off to the right. The left edge of the phone is home to a microSD slot and a microSIM slot, both hidden beneath and hinged door, and the right edge contains the power/lock button as well as a volume rocker. The back of the RAZR MAXX is home to a soft-touch Kevlar panel that takes up most of the rear surface, and an 8-megapixel camera sits near the top along with an LED flash and a speaker.

The camera on this slim smartphone does not take great pictures. They are fairly clear compared to other recent Motorola phones, but I found the colors to be very washed out even when photos were taken in well-lit areas. In dim lighting, performance was not great compared to class-leading camera phones like Nokia smartphones and the iPhone 4S, but perhaps on par with some recent Samsung and HTC devices.

The Upside

The most obvious benefit of the DROID RAZR MAXX compared to similar smartphones is the battery. It is nothing short of an engineering feat that Motorola managed to pack a 3,300 mAh battery into this fantastically slim smartphone. To stress just how remarkable this accomplishment is, consider this: the battery in the RAZR MAXX is 32% larger than the battery in Samsung’s humongous Galaxy Note smartphone, which is significantly larger than the RAZR at 5.78 x 3.27 x 0.38-inches.

I have roughly 20 cell phones in my possession right now, and I have likely tested more than 100 over the past 18-24 months alone. I can’t remember the last time I used a phone with battery life that came anywhere close to approaching this handset.

Battery performance on the RAZR MAXX is much more like that of a feature phone than a smartphone. With moderate usage that included sending and receiving emails, constantly monitoring Google Reader, checking the news with News360, streaming music using Google Music or Pandora, browsing the Web, making a few phone calls each day, streaming some video using the Netflix and Sling Player apps, and checking in with Twitter far too many times to be considered healthy, the RAZR MAXX lasted nearly 2.5 days on a single charge. That’s about 60 hours. For the sake of comparison, I can’t get through 24 hours on a single charge with an iPhone 4S or with Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus with the same type of usage.

I should mention, however, that the DROID RAZR MAXX doesn’t handle Wi-Fi connectivity well at all where power management is concerned. Some phones do better than others with Wi-Fi — the iPhone, for example, lasts nearly twice as long for me on a single charge when constantly connected to a Wi-Fi network compared to when Wi-Fi is not in range. With the RAZR MAXX, it’s just the opposite.

I found that the battery drains much faster when the device is connected to Wi-Fi. Using the handset’s battery monitoring feature, I could see that Wi-Fi was always the No.1 drain on the RAZR’s battery when I left it enabled. When I disabled Wi-Fi and relied on Verizon’s 4G LTE network for connectivity, the display became the No.1 drain on the phone’s battery, as it should be.

Verizon’s 4G LTE service, I should mention, is still blistering fast. A series of speed tests using the Speedtest.net application in and around New York City topped out at just over 20Mbps down — no, that’s not a typo — and 13Mbps up, and I averaged about 15Mbps down and 11Mbps up. If you live in an area covered by Verizon’s LTE network, prepare to take full advantage of it with the RAZR MAXX.

Beyond battery life and speed, there is one feature of the RAZR MAXX in particular that makes it one of the smartest smartphones I’ve ever tested: Smart Actions.

It is borderline criminal that most smartphones on the market don’t include native functionality similar to that of Motorola’s Smart Actions. Many platforms over time — Windows Mobile, Symbian, UIQ, Android and more — have had third-party solutions that perform similar functions, but nothing I have seen even comes close to approaching Smart Actions in terms of utility and user friendliness.

In a nutshell, Smart Actions allows you to configure your MAXX to perform any number of functions automatically based on variables such as time, location and so much more. So for example, at night every day between Sunday and Thursday, my review unit from Verizon Wireless is set to disable all services that synchronize data in the background, turn my ringer to silent, disable GPS and auto-reply to every SMS I receive with “I’ll get back to you in the morning.” But it’s not just the time of day that triggers this state, I have also configured the phone to only change the aforementioned settings between the hours of 11:30 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. when the display is off and when the phone is not in motion. So, if I happen to be out late one night or up early one morning, the handset’s accelerometer will detect motion and Smart Actions will not enable my “Nighttime Battery Saver” configuration.

There are tons of other scenarios where the Smart Actions app comes in handy. I have it set to automatically dim my MAXX’s display and silence all ringtones and alerts whenever the phone detects my GPS position at my local movie theater. The phone also mutes my ringers during meetings listed in my calendar, and it disables a number of battery-draining services whenever my remaining charge reaches 10%. Smart Actions includes a number of templates as well, so users new to the feature can start with some suggested configurations while they get the hang of this great capability.

Thanks to Smart Actions, the DROID RAZR MAXX is absolutely one of the smartest smartphones on the market.

The Downside

I won’t mince words here: I don’t like Motorola’s Android UI at all.

One of several benefits the Android platform has over rivals such as iOS, BlackBerry OS and Windows Phone is choice. Whereas users of each of the aforementioned operating systems will see nearly identical user experiences regardless of which handset they choose, Android fans enjoy a number of options. There are pure Google phones like the Nexus S and Galaxy Nexus, several HTC devices utilize the firm’s Sense UI, Samsung phones often use TouchWiz and many LG handsets feature the Optimus UI.

Motorola’s Android user interface is called MOTOBLUR, and we have seen a number of different versions of the UI over time. Personally, I haven’t cared for any of them.

The latest iteration of Motorola’s Blur UI is likely the least offensive so far, but it is also bland and extremely boring. I far prefer HTC’s Sense UI and Samsung’s TouchWiz to Motorola’s interface, which I would likely put on par with LG’s older UI. Transitions are dull and icons are anything but eye-catching, and then there is the issue of Motorola’s widgets. Plainly put, they’re ugly. Users who rely on widgets for quick access to real-time information will likely want to find a nice third-party widget pack for the MAXX.

Beyond the graphical elements in Motorola’s interface, which are of course a matter of taste, there are also UX missteps that get in the way of an otherwise decent user experience. One of many examples is the simple act of adding an application shortcut to a home screen. On most Android devices, the user finds the desired app, long-taps the app’s icon and then the icon sticks to the user’s finger as the last visited home screen pops up for placement. On the RAZR MAXX, that same long-tap on an app icon pops up a new menu where the user must choose “Add to Home” from a list of options. The app is then added to the last visited home screen in the first available slot, and the user must long-tap the icon again to move it to the desired location.

These little inconveniences are somewhat trivial on their own, but they add up to an experience that leaves much to be desired.

The Bottom Line

The DROID RAZR MAXX features solid, attractive hardware and Motorola’s Smart Actions feature makes it one of the smartest smartphones I’ve ever used. Even still, I can’t in good conscience recommend this device when Verizon Wireless offers the Samsung Galaxy Nexus at the same $299.99 price point.

The display is one of the most important hardware features of a smartphone, and now that we’re in the midst of a bigger is better trend with no end in sight, display quality is more important than it ever has been before. In this regard, the MAXX just can’t compete. Samsung’s Super AMOLED display on the Galaxy Nexus is breathtaking and competitors like Apple and HTC are inching ever closer to matching the Samsung’s stunning display quality. Motorola is not, however, and the matter is compounded by a bland user interface and a flawed user experience.

The Motorola DROID RAZR MAXX runs Android 2.3.6 Gingerbread but an update to Ice Cream Sandwich has been promised. Depending on what Motorola does with Google’s much improved Android 4.0 UI, the RAZR MAXX could be a completely different story when Motorola releases its ICS update. A sleek, slim smartphone running Android 4.0 with a 3,300 mAh battery could be a real winner, and the inevitable drop to $199.99 could make this phone too good to be true. Sadly, it may indeed be too good to be true unless Motorola decides to take its UI in a completely different direction.

Nokia proved it was back in the smartphone game when it launched the Lumia 800 last year. But can its Lumia 710 gain the attention of U.S. consumers? Many would argue that Nokia should have decided to launch the Lumia 800 to make a bigger splash in a market that has long forgotten the Finnish smartphone maker. But the Lumia 710 is affordable — it only costs $50 with a new two-year contract — and it’s also powerful. It’s not as feature-rich as the Lumia 800, but can it still compete with other smartphones in its price range? My full review follows after the break.

Hardware

The Lumia 710 looks and feels like a decent device. The back cover is plastic but it has a nice soft-touch rubber feel and the entire face is glossy black, although a white version is also available from T-Mobile. There are three hardware buttons below the phone’s 3.7-inch display, which actually isn’t that impressive. While the curved glass AMOLED ClearBlack display on the Lumia 800 was very impressive, the standard ClearBlack display on T-Mobile’s Lumia 710 is not. Colors are washed out and the brightness is not where it needs to be, but this was likely required in order to keep the cost of the phone down.

The volume controls and a camera quick-launch key are in easy reach on the right side of the phone and there is a power button, a microUSB port and a 3.5mm headphone jack on the top of the device. The back is home to a 5-megapixel camera and a single LED flash.

Under its hood, the Lumia 710 is powered by a 1.4GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor and is equipped with 512MB of RAM, a 1,300 mAh battery and 8GB of storage. As is typical with other Windows Phone 7.5 devices, you can’t add more storage using a microSD card, which is unfortunate if you’re like me and prefer a phone with a bit more memory.

Like the iPhone 4S and the Lumia 800, the Lumia 710 uses a microSIM card that pops in under the battery as opposed to on the top of the device, as it does on the Lumia 800.

While it’s far from a deal-breaker, the most upsetting point about the hardware is that T-Mobile decided not to offer the device in the various colors that are available on international carriers. I think Nokia really could have turned heads if it launched a yellow, pink, green or blue Lumia 710 in the United States, but instead the Lumia 710 will sit camouflaged on store shelves next to other black and white smartphones.

Software

The Lumia 710 runs Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango), Microsoft’s latest mobile operating system. I wrote about Windows Phone 7.5 in great detail in September when it launched, so we’ll stick to discussing what Nokia has done to the phone.

Nokia, unlike other manufacturers, has an agreement with Microsoft that allows it to customize the phone in a number of ways. You won’t find anything intrusive, but Nokia did add its own free GPS navigation software and its own Nokia Maps application, which I like better than Bing Maps. It’s not incredibly accurate, however. A search by name for a bar a block away from me didn’t turn up any results, for example.

As I said in my aforementioned overview of Windows Phone 7.5, I really, really love the Windows Phone 7.5 operating system. It’s one of the cleanest and most intuitive mobile operating systems on the market today, and for that reason it should be a top choice for first-time smartphone buyers or anyone who wants the functionality of a smartphone without complicated menus or settings.

I love the live tiles on the home screen as well, specifically how foursquare shows the leaderboard and how my avatar jumps around the Xbox Live tile. I also enjoy the fluidity and speed of the entire OS. My biggest gripe overall is that there’s a lack of applications for Windows Phone right now, but the Windows Phone Marketplace is growing every day and recently just surpassed the 50,000-app milestone.

Camera

The Lumia 710 packs a 5-megapixel camera and it’s not the greatest sensor I’ve used. The pictures were mediocre at best and not near as good as the shots we snapped with the Lumia 800, which has an 8-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics. The camera is capable of recording 720p HD video and it was satisfactory. There was a bit of blurriness from time to time, but otherwise it was OK. The device also lacks a front-facing camera for video chat, which is supported on other Windows Phone 7.5 phones such as the Samsung Focus S, Samsung Focus Flash and HTC Titan.

Call Quality / Data

The Lumia 710 supports T-Mobile’s 14.4Mbps HSPA+ “4G” network in the United States. Data speeds were decent in New York City, but they were nothing compared to AT&T or Verizon’s 4G LTE networks. Using the http://dslreports.com/mspeed speed test, my download speeds averaged between 1.1 Mbps and 1.26 Mbps with the device reporting a full signal. That’s on a par with most 3G networks.

Calls placed on the Lumia 710 were pretty solid in New York City. I wasn’t blown away by the call quality, but I didn’t have any real problems with it either. The speakers were satisfactory during a phone call with the speakerphone turned on, but my caller could easily tell when I was using speakerphone.

Battery

Windows Phone 7.5 has been praised for its solid battery life in the past and the Lumia 710 wasn’t an exception. It’s equipped with a 1,300 mAh battery, which is a bit smaller than the 1,450 mAh battery inside the Lumia 800, but it lasted two full days with moderate usage and was able to idle for many more. Overall, I’m impressed with the battery life and think it’s better than most smartphones on the market today.

Conclusion

The Lumia 710 isn’t as exciting as its big brother, the Lumia 800. Nokia announced a flagship device that is, in many ways, a game changer for the company moving forward. And yet even still, T-Mobile decided to launch the company’s lower end device, which surely won’t turn as many heads. Worse, it decided to launch the phone without a wide color selection that could have made the device stand out more in public. It just seems like Nokia and T-Mobile missed an opportunity to really hit the U.S. market with a bang, but perhaps Verizon Wireless or AT&T will do that with Nokia’s expected 4G LTE device.

No, there’s nothing inherently wrong with the Lumia 710. It offers decent battery life, fair data speeds and a really solid hardware design. In fact, even its letdowns are justified by its affordable $50 price point, and the Lumia 710 is absolutely not aimed at seasoned smartphone users. Instead, this phone is aimed squarely at feature phone users that T-Mobile hopes to turn into smartphone owners. The handset is reliable and easy-to-use, and I highly recommend the Lumia 710 to first-time smartphone buyers.

Amazon has been a leader in the eBook reader space since it first introduced the Kindle eReader in November 2007. At that point in time, the Kindle had a 6-inch E Ink display that supported just four shades of gray, it included 250MB of storage that could accommodate about 200 eBooks, and it retailed for $399. For the first six months or so, Amazon couldn’t keep the device in stock — it was a smash hit.

Since then, Kindles have gotten thinner and lighter, and the current-generation model features a dramatically improved E Ink Pearl display and 2GB of storage. Amazon’s Kindle can now be had for as little as $79. A second model with a touchscreen display and twice the memory starts at just $99, and its battery lasts for up to two months on a single charge. Amazon doesn’t share sales volumes of its Kindle devices but the company is widely believed to be among the top eReader vendors in the world as it teeters between the No.1 and No.2 spots alongside Barnes & Noble.

But eReaders will only take Amazon so far.

Amazon has been a leader in the online retail space for quite some time, and its line of Kindle eReaders represents its first foray into the hardware game. EBooks are big business for Amazon, but its more recent service additions have also been gaining traction. With new options for purchasing and streaming music and movies, customers had to rely on third party devices — computers, connected TVs, set top boxes and smartphones — to consume this new wave of Amazon content. But why not make it all available on a single Amazon-branded device that picks up where the Kindle left off?

The tablet market posed an amazing opportunity for Amazon. I can’t even recall the last time a market segment saw so much hype and so few success stories, and Amazon identified an opportunity to succeed where others were failing. Instead of building hardware that merely acted as a platter on which to serve the same software countless other vendors were unsuccessfully banking on, Amazon would build an end-to-end experience that covered hardware, software and content. After all, the only other vendor whose tablet offering addresses all three of these crucial areas of the user experience seems to be doing pretty well in the tablet space it redefined in early 2010.

Instead of setting out to build an iPad killer, Amazon set out to build a Kindle Fire.

The term “iPad killer” seems to describe any tablet launched by a popular vendor that cannot draw traffic to a news site unless said site includes a mention of Apple’s iPad in the headlines of stories written about said tablet. That’s really the only discernable link I’ve found between all of the slates that have been deemed iPad killers thus far. Another attribute most of them share, unfortunate though it may be, is that they don’t sell particularly well. There have been a few notable exceptions but in general, it seems these tablets are not well received by consumers or by enterprise customers.

If an iPad killer is a tablet that doesn’t grab people’s attention and often doesn’t sell particularly well, then the Kindle Fire is most certainly not an iPad killer.

Leading up to Amazon’s Kindle Fire, media tablets had for the most part been ill-conceived devices that were seemingly rushed out the door in an effort to capitalize on the hype surrounding the iPad. This strategy is not uncommon in business but in this particular case, companies forgot a key ingredient that drives competition: differentiation. With high price points, similar hardware and lackluster first-generation software (Honeycomb was Google’s first attempt at a tablet OS), the bulk of the iPad’s competition had very little to offer the common consumer that might distinguish it from the iPad in a positive way.

The Kindle Fire is a different beast.

Amazon attacked the tablet market on two fronts. First, it offered differentiation. Google’s Android operating system powers the Fire, but one wouldn’t know it to look at the device. Amazon used the open source Android OS as the framework on which it built its own unique user experience. It will continue its own development of the platform independent of Google’s future builds, and it maintains its own ecosystem outside of Google’s. Amazon has its own app store and its own suite of services.

The other piece to the Kindle Fire puzzle is pricing. At $199, Amazon’s tablet is $300 cheaper than the entry-level iPad and $630 less expensive than the 64GB model with embedded 3G. This was a very smart move by Amazon. The company will release more expensive models in the future — BGR exclusively reported preliminary details surrounding a 10-inch model due to be released next year — but Amazon’s first effort hits an amazing price point that creates a new space in the tablet market. It doesn’t compete with the iPad any more than a 32-inch flat panel Vizio TV competes with a 60-inch Samsung model. It’s a completely different animal.

I have read a number of Kindle Fire reviews — and there were plenty to choose from — that went to great lengths to compare Amazon’s tablet to the iPad. While these comparisons sometimes made for compelling reads and even more compelling headlines, they were not very useful. These devices are both tablets, yes, but to liken one to the other is as useful as likening a Mercedes S Class to a Hyundai Sonata. Both vehicles will get you from A to B, but in reality they serve very different purposes.

The S Class is designed to attract a certain type of customer. It offers utility, luxury and a driving experience that is the result of decades of evolution and many tens of millions of dollars in research and development. The S Class is designed to be seen. It outclasses and outperforms much of the competition, but it is about form as much as it is function. It is also assembled from high-end parts and materials, and it carries a relatively steep price tag to match. You see hundreds of them everywhere you go in metropolitan areas, but unless you have expendable income to throw around, you probably won’t buy one yourself.

The Sonata is designed to make a well-styled, capable sedan accessible to the masses. It looks more refined and performs better than other cars in its price range, and it also offers standard features that competing models do not. Even still, it doesn’t pretend to be an S Class and it most certainly doesn’t set out to kill the S Class.

The Sonata’s body isn’t quite as sleek and sophisticated as the Mercedes sedan, and it doesn’t come with nearly as many standard features. Its interior is also much more modest, forgoing supple leather and expensive woods in favor of more pedestrian materials. It won’t accelerate as quickly, it won’t corner as surely and it probably won’t turn any heads. It is a phenomenal value, however, and it touts a build quality and features that are anything but common on such an affordable car.

After using the device for about a week and a half now, I believe Amazon’s Kindle Fire will succeed where others have failed. The hardware is good but not great. The soft-touch materials are comfortable in the hand but the 4,400 mAh battery that hides within the device makes it a bit too heavy for prolonged reading without resting the tablet on a table or leg. The software is good but not great. It has a nice, simple interface that a wide range of users will be able to navigate easily, but it is not refined. The performance is good but not great. Many functions are fluid, as is game play and video playback, but there are often of hiccups and stutters while opening certain apps and performing other functions.

What did you expect? It’s a Sonata.

At $200, the Kindle Fire is a fantastic buy. It is intuitive and capable, and the integration with Amazon services is well-done. The home screen is divided into four sections: first is a status pane across the top that displays notifications, the time, Wi-Fi status and battery charge, and it provides access to settings. A menu section follows beneath, allowing users to navigation between different core features such as the book reader, music player, apps menu and video player. Next is a large area that lists all recent apps and books in a cover flow-like stream. Finally, there is a favorites section near the bottom where users can pin their most frequently accessed apps and books.

Each integrated app — Books, Music, Video and so on — is split into two sections that can be toggled at the top of the screen. The first is “Cloud,” which displays a list of icons on the shelves beneath it that represent all of the user’s content stored on Amazon’s servers. The second is “Device,” which lists locally stored content. There is also a link to Amazon’s store in the top right corner of each page. While it is all too easy to spend money on the Kindle Fire, I love how well Amazon’s services are integrated into each app.

While on the front page of the Books app, a single tap on an icon opens the book of my choice while a tap on the always-visible store link lets me search, browse and purchase books with ease. The Music app lists all of my content available for playback, and then another Store link takes me to Amazon’s music shop where I can purchase albums or individual tracks. The Video app offers a similar experience, but it also offers integration with Amazon Prime video streaming, Amazon’s Netflix-like service that provides unlimited access to streaming movies and TV shows. Don’t expect to find many new blockbuster movies in there, but the catalog is deep enough to provide a decent range of content.

Amazon’s apps page adheres to the same intuitive format. Apps are organized across wood shelves and a link to the Amazon Appstore can be found in the top right corner. Users won’t have access to all of the content found in Google’s Android Marketplace, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Like Apple’s iOS App Store, the Marketplace is packed with garbage. Amazon’s curated approach is appreciated and there is more than enough great content available. I also love that Amazon offers one new paid app for free each day. It makes checking the app store on a daily basis habitual, thus encouraging browsing and ultimately benefiting developers.

The web browser is another bright spot for the Kindle Fire. Amazon’s Silk browser is impressively quick thanks to technology that offloads much of the grunt work to remote servers. Heavy pages seem to take a moment to begin loading as a result, but once the cloud-based portion begins pushing content to the tablet, I find pages load faster than they do on other comparable devices.

The Kindle Fire is not an iPad killer. It doesn’t kill anything, in fact. What it does, however, is offer users a solid experience and a comprehensive catalog of services that make it easy to access existing content and to find new content. It is very, very easy to use, which is something that cannot be said of some other tablets. A young child will be flying around the UI in no time, and his or her grandparents likely won’t take long to figure it out either. Operation is relatively smooth for the most part, but prospective buyers should expect the occasional hiccup from first-generation software running on $200 hardware. Every computer, smartphone and tablet on the planet stutters from time to time, so this is hardly a big deal.

Amazon took its time with the Kindle Fire and it shows. There is plenty of room for improvement, but this first-generation tablet is an intuitive, functional tablet that is as cohesive as it is affordable. It was built as a gateway into the many web-based services Amazon now offers and it succeeds in its mission. It might not kill any Apple products on its way to your door, but I’m sure the media will find plenty more Apple killers in the new year to draw your clicks. In the meantime, the Kindle Fire is a clear winner that will likely find itself atop Amazon’s list of best-sellers for quite some time.

The Samsung Galaxy Nexus isn’t just another Android phone, this is the standard by which all Ice Cream Sandwich phones will be judged. An example to every Android manufacturer out there, and every Android fan, this is the basic foundation of what you should expect in an Android smartphone. Is that setting the bar too high, though? The Samsung Galaxy Nexus is the third addition to Google’s Nexus family, and second built by Samsung. It offers competitive specifications, innovative hardware, and it is the first phone to show off Google’s brand new OS, Android 4.0. Can Google and Samsung make the best Android device in the world together? Is Android 4.0 just another dessert-themed mess? I break it down like Jet Li in Chinatown after the break.

Hardware/Design/Display

The Samsung Galaxy Nexus absolutely feels like the evolution of the Google Nexus family. In fact, the phone’s identity is almost a perfect mashup of the original Nexus One and the Nexus S. It’s flattened, a mix of black and medium gray, has a slight curved display, feels sturdy and strong, and even features the charging and syncing contact points that the original Nexus One touted.

While the phone’s exterior is made entirely out of plastic, what seems like the only material Samsung will ever use in its smartphone cases, there’s a metal chassis inside giving the device strength and a creak-free build. Looking at the Galaxy Nexus from an angle, you’ll see a symmetrical curves that taper down to incredibly thin edges on the top and bottom. The phone follows these lines until around three quarters of the way down, then the infamous reverse chin rears its ugly head — the Galaxy Nexus is thinnest at the top and thickest at the bottom, much like the Samsung Nexus S or a giraffe.

Google’s latest reference handset introduces one of the first 720p HD displays ever to hit a smartphone, coming just after the HTC Rezound became the first smartphone in the United States with a 720p screen. In addition to the super high resolution 4.65-inch display, the Galaxy Nexus also features a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, a 5-megapixel camera with no shutter lag, a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera, 16GB of storage, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0, NFC and a 1,750 mAh battery.

While I’m used to carrying an iPhone 4S, I’ve also used countless larger displayed devices on and off for the last year or so, and even still, the display here is a bit too large for my liking. It’s not the case of the bezel being too thick like on the Motorola DROID RAZR — in fact, with the 720p resolution, the display is much taller and less wide than the DROID RAZR — but it’s still impossible to comfortably use the phone with one hand without constantly repositioning it.

I’m not someone with small hands either, so I have no doubt that this device is simply too big to be used comfortably by a pretty large segment of the population. The phone’s thin fram and nice tapered edges help the situation slightly, but its footprint is almost unforgivably large because of the massive display. My sweet spot for screen size is probably about 4-inches, and this is out of bounds to me. The Galaxy Nexus feels very well manufactured, but the plastic case and terrible, terrible cheap plastic battery cover really take away from a lot of the phone’s hardware advantages. I’m used to precision laser-cut stainless steel and glass like the materials used on Apple’s iPhone and HTC’s unibody devices, so Samsung’s plastics just can’t cut it.

The personality the Galaxy Nexus has is quite interesting. The design of the front of the phone is incredibly symmetrical its face gives you a window into the app or experience you’re engaging with. Especially with the navigational keys now being soft keys on the display rather than separate buttons beneath it, the phone itself just seems to melt away and serve up Android. In the past this might not have been that smart, but Android 4.0 is a huge step forward that I’ll go into in more depth in a little bit.

The power/unlock button is located on the right side with volume rocker key positioned on the left, and you’ll find the phone’s microUSB port and 3.5mm headset jack located on the bottom of the phone. Around back there is a second microphone for noise cancellation, the 5-megapixel camera, an LED flash and a speaker towards the bottom of the device.

While a 720p HD display might not make sense to some people, it’s absolutely beautiful on the Galaxy Nexus. The 1280 x 720-pixel resolution on Samsung’s 4.65-inch Super AMOLED screen is the most beautiful display I have seen on a mobile device besides the panel on the iPhone 4S. The whites are white, the blacks are black, and colors pop. The viewing angle is amazing, giving you superior viewing from any angle on the phone until it’s practically turned around. The panel is extremely bright, though I was annoyed at how aggressive the auto-brightness worked in Android. In a dark setting it was fine, but in bright areas the screen was always too dim for my taste. Once I manually set the brightness, however, I was in love.

Android 4.0

Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich finally bridges the gap between a tablet OS and smartphone OS, and it absolutely looks a marriage Honeycomb and Gingerbread, with a few dashes of TRON and Daft Punk. It’s a much more cohesive OS and it’s the first release from Google that feels like it’s actually one thought-out product.

One of the immediately noticeable updates are the navigation buttons. No longer physical keys that sit beneath the display, these soft keys have been reduced from four to three, though two buttons disappeared. How is this possible? Gone are the search button and menu button, and what’s left is the home button, back button, and and recent apps button. Android 3.0 Honeycomb users will be used to this layout for the most part, and the recent apps button is a dedicated app switcher that lets you easily bounce between your recent apps. It even shows you a visual preview of the last app you were looking at instead of giving you a list of eight icons that didn’t tell you much.

Ice Cream Sandwich is a drastic departure from Android versions past, and every app, widget and graphic seems to have been redone to fit a single unified identity. Super smooth transitions and scrolling, multi-dimensional interface elements, and of course, heavy black and neon blue make up the Ice Cream Sandwich user interface. I love the new typeface, Roboto, on the Galaxy Nexus in most apps, though in some apps like email it appears bold for unread messages, and this contrasts with the delicate base font that I like so much.

While most of the OS is one piece, I do find it odd that something like a menu option isn’t uniform across every app, including Google’s own apps. For instance, the menu key (overflow button) is now contextual, but it sits in the top navigation bar at times, and at others it’s buried at the bottom of an app.

The notification drawer has been refreshed to show thumbnails of different activities like the contact image of the person who is emailing you. It’s a small change but it really gives you the feeling this isn’t just another robotic OS from Google. It’s something more. Instead of only having the option to clear all your notifications, you’re now able to swipe away individual notifications, in addition to hitting an X at the top to clear all of them.

Android 4.0 is fast. Extremely fast. Scrolling between the five home screens (please, please let me customize the number of home screens) was silky smooth with practically no lag whatsoever. I love how the same animation when you get to the end of the home screens has carried over from Honeycomb, too. Google’s search box is now not a widget but it’s baked right into your home screens, and sitting on the opposite end of that search box is your collection of four customizable app icons and your apps drawer button. You can now also make app folders very easily, and while this feature existed previously in Android, it plays to the entire theme of Android 4.0 — we finally know what we’re doing, and we’re making something that’s worth using.

Bouncing into the app drawer, you’ll find the insanely frustrating app library of Android 2.3 Gingerbread completely revamped to now appear as sliding horizontal panels that stack over each other. If you keep swiping, you’ll get into the widgets section which is now seamlessly integrated into this one location.

A feature we exclusive reported on, in addition to full specifications of the Galaxy Nexus, of course, was that Android 4.0 will give users complete control over their data usage, at both the phone and app level. This includes going as far as blocking background data on specific apps, setting a warning level to let you know when you’re approaching your monthly data plan limit, and also the option of completely disabling data when you get to that point. While some might think this relates to how much of a bandwidth hog Android is (it is), I’d look at this more as a feature that will let Android start to move into more emerging markets, in addition to possibly swaying some parents to upgrade their kids’ phones to a smartphone from a feature phone. There should be a parental restriction option on data limits, though (through the whole phone, too), so you can set it to disable data when a cap has been reached.

Keyboard input has been dramatically improved. While I never got used to the default Android Gingerbread keyboard, Ice Cream Sandwich makes me love it. It seems as if the keys are the same size, or maybe just a tiny, tiny bit larger, but text input is a completely different world. I’d say it’s almost, if not on par with iOS right now. Microsoft’s Windows Phone keyboard still schools both OSes like a 3PM playground meetup, though. Voice input has also improved greatly, with words being recognized and displayed on the screen much faster than ever before.

I love Android’s People app, a new take on how to look at and keep up with your contacts. It’s very similar in concept to Window Phone’s People hub in that you can see updates from your friends on their social networks like Twitter and of course, Google+. By tapping on a photo of your contact from anywhere in the OS (wherever there is an email address or notification from a friend, you’ll see their thumbnail), a People view will pop up and give you access to their contact information in addition to social statuses. Facebook is the big glaring omission here, but we know that’s not an omission, rather a strategic move on Google’s end. There is a third party API here, however, so developers will be able to link into the experience.

While Android 4.0 feels like the most amazing OS release from Google yet in practically every way — speed, personality, cohesiveness and fluidity — it doesn’t do much to make the experience less intimidating for potential customers, and that’s sadly one of the reason’s we’re still going to have third party manufacturer skins on Android (obviously not the main reason). In fact, I’d say that Android 4.0 is actually more confusing at first than previous versions of the OS. I found myself diving through so many different menus, trying to remember where different options were, how to get to this app, how to remember to navigate the app drawer, where the menu key was in this app… you just find yourself under an avalanche of crap sometimes, and it’s frustrating.

If I chose to use the Galaxy Nexus as my main phone for weeks, would I get used to it? Of course, and a big part of me really loves the amount of control you have in Android. From the home screen to apps, you can adjust your phone to the point where it almost seems like it was made just for you. I love having my calendar, Gmail, and Exchange widgets on the home screen. I love how I organize apps on the home screen, how my folders are constructed, and so on. But, I found myself jumping through so many panels, screens, pages, widgets and menus that I literally put the phone down and laughed. Add that to the very heavy Armin van Buren playground-like user interface, and it’s almost overwhelming at times.

Browser

The entire browser has been redone for Android 4.0 and it shows. There’s finally hardware acceleration that gives you much faster page loads, chrome bookmark sync, the ability to request the desktop version of a site. Although there’s no Adobe Flash support at the moment, but that should be available before the end of the year.

Browsing various sites with the Galaxy Nexus was almost effortless as I zipped around the web hopping from one image and javascript heavy site to the next. Android is Google’s OS play for the next generation of computing, not their Chrome OS, and you can start to see the pieces come together, especially in the browser. With support for up to 16 open tabs, this is starting to be positioned as a desktop-class browser that happens to be available on smartphones and tablets. Other little enhancements are the ability to save a page for offline reading (why does everyone want to hurt Marco Arment?) in addition to setting your homepage to your most visited sites.

I did notice some software glitches in the browser, mainly in how the OS handles animations into and out of the browser, and sometimes on first load of a webpage, but since this phone isn’t running final software, I’ll throw that into the probably-getting-fixed-before-release hat.

Camera

I usually don’t review the cameras on many smartphones. Why? Because they are usually the same, terrible camera optics that I come across weekly on every phone that crosses my desk. Sure, they can take 8-megapixel photos and 1080p HD video, but the fact is that very few cameras are worth even talking about. The camera on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus does offer a few unique features, though.

First off, even though this is a 5-megapixel camera, it takes insanely fast photos with what Google and Samsung are calling zero shutter lag. As soon as you press the capture button, the photo is taken, assuming the photo is focused first. This is a great compromise between something like an EDoF lens that Nokia has used in the past which give you an instant photo, but no auto-focus, and a traditional camera sensor which can take quite a few seconds to snap the picture. In daily use, this worked very well and taking photos one after another was incredibly speedy and impressive.

The actual photos the phone takes are decent. With great lighting, especially outside with the sun out, photos are great. In decently-lit lighting environments, or low light situations, the camera is not so great. Add flash into the mix, and it’s not really worth talking about.

Video performance was the same, with great lighting offering up awesome results and moderate or low light situations affecting both frame rate, quality, and noise. Google’s real-time video effects are fun, though. They use face tracking to adjust different elements of your face, just like how Apple uses tracking to pull off these effects in Photo Booth. Apple stole the notifications drawer from Android, so it’s only right Google stole something as important as face tracking with real-time image manipulation from Apple.

Gmail

Another app that has received a complete overhaul is Gmail, giving you the best Gmail experience on the planet on a mobile device, and it looks better than it ever has before. It feels like Gmail was designed for this phone, and you finally have quick and responsive access to your email, in addition to managing your messages with labels and organization.

Google has introduced offline search as well, so you’re able to search your email even if you’re not connected to the network. Here is one of the apps where most commonly accessed options aren’t hidden behind layers of menus; almost everything you need is present on one screen. You can delete messages, mark messages as read or unread, swipe back and forth through emails and more without leaving the regular app view. Unfortunately however, you still can’t pinch to zoom.

Phone/Speakerphone

Voice calling on the Galaxy Nexus was decent. The actual phone performed well, with calls being generally clear most of the time, but occasionally the caller on the other end said I sounded very… robotic. Surely not an intended effect, right? Reception was on par with other top smartphones, though AT&T in midtown New York City at 4:47 p.m. is still AT&T in midtown New York City at 4:47 p.m. One issue I had with the phone is that the ear speaker has to be positioned just right for you to hear the call clearly. Just picking up the phone and putting it to my ear wasn’t enough, but it’s a minor annoyance that you’ll most likely get used to.

The speakerphone on the Galaxy Nexus wasn’t all that great. It didn’t get nearly as loud as I needed it to on various occasions in different noise settings, and it distorted audio past a certain volume level. Playback for music and audio was more of the same, with volume, projection and distortion all a minor concern.

Battery

I have been using the Samsung Galaxy Nexus for around a week, and I have a very good feel for the battery life on the HSPA+ version of the phone. Standby time has been excellent, and with Gmail and Exchange accounts running Twitter in the background along with other background apps, the phone has lasted for days. Under heavy usage, like Google Navigation, the phone starts to show a little weakness, even with a 1,750 mAh battery.

Using the phone as my primary device and leaving the house with a full charge in the morning, I got a little more than halfway through the day before the phone started to warn me that the battery life was getting low after heavy emailing, browsing and using Google Navigation for around an hour. While the LTE version of the device will offer up an 1,850 mAh battery, LTE might take a toll, so we’ll have to see if battery life is better or worse once I get an LTE version in my pocket.

Conclusion

This is almost comical at this point, but the Samsung Galaxy Nexus is my favorite Android device in the world. Easily replacing the HTC Rezound, the Motorola DROID RAZR, and Samsung Galaxy S II, the Galaxy Nexus champions in a brand new version of Android that pushes itself further than almost any other mobile OS in the industry.

While there were some hardware complaints, and even though Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich isn’t the most intuitive or user friendly operating system, it’s absolutely one of the most powerful. Android 4.0 is coupled with the best smartphone Samsung has ever produced and easily leapfrogs any other competitor’s device.

Unfortunately in the Android world, this hardly lasts a long time, and as we have started to see in various leaks, there’s going to be some serious competition for the best Android smartphone in the world over the next few months. For now, though, this marriage of hardware and software, under Google and Samsung’s direction, is an absolute winner.

Nokia once had a big stake in the U.S. smartphone market. I remember being jealous in high school that I couldn’t tell anyone my Snake high score because I carried a Motorola phone. I seemed to be the only kid without a Nokia device so, when I went to college, I picked up the Nokia 6010. I was drawn to the color screen and interchangeable face plates, and I carried it through all four years of college, preferring its durability to the Motorola RAZR that all of my friends had bought. The iPhone was announced in 2007 and, seemingly almost overnight, Nokia was completely gone from the hands of U.S. wireless subscribers. Sure, there were a few flip phones from Verizon Wireless over the years and a handful of Symbian devices from AT&T and T-Mobile, but none of those phones had the power to bring Nokia back into the spotlight. The Lumia 800 does. It isn’t just a phone, it symbolizes Nokia’s efforts to re-enter the global wireless market with a unique point of view and a fresh portfolio. It’s not available here in the U.S. yet, but a variant almost certainly will be early next year. Does the Lumia 800 push boundaries? Is it the best Windows Phone out there? Are the hardware and software married so perfectly that the competition might be looking on with envy? My full review follows below.

Hardware

Not since the Galaxy S II have I been so excited for the FedEx person to buzz my apartment and drop off a new review unit. There was a ton of hype coming out of Nokia World surrounding the Nokia Lumia 800; it is Nokia’s flagship Windows Phone for 2011 and we loved it during our initial hands-on. Plus, I was secretly hoping that I’d receive a cyan-colored review unit. As luck would have it though, I received a matte black one.

The Lumia 800 has a beautiful face, just like the N9, and it feels heavy and solid in the hand. I love its contoured screen, which looks almost like lacquer was poured into a basin and left to harden with a nice, curved, top. The ClearBlack AMOLED screen is bright and colorful, but side by side with the Samsung Focus Flash I found myself preferring Samsung’s more vibrant Super AMOLED screen, which also had brighter whites.

The buttons on the right side of the phone for volume up/down, power and the camera appear to be faux chrome plastic and, while I like the soft finish, the back is simple and a bit boring save for its 8-megapixel camera. There’s a small metal piece surrounding the camera that identifies the Carl Zeiss lens, but I wish the back had etching, more accents or anything that really screamed “I’m a Nokia flagship phone!” Plus, it really attracts fingerprints and my Lumia 800 often looked grimy.

Nokia included a plastic hatch for the microUSB port and a second hatch for a microSIM card slot. You have to open the microUSB port to access the microSIM and if you close the microSIM before the microUSB, the two get caught and you’ll need a paper clip to re-open them. I like that the hatch hides the ugly ports, but it was also a bit annoying considering that I frequently hook my phones up to a computer for charging or file transfers.

I usually keep all of my videos and photos on a single microSD card that I move from phone to phone. Most of the latest Windows Phone 7.5 devices lack a microSD port though, which is frustrating. It’s not the Lumia 800’s fault, though, so I won’t harp on it too much.

Software

Nokia recently adopted Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango) operating system just like a number of other manufacturers, including LG, HTC and Samsung to name a few. However, it differentiates itself by adding a few of its own applications that truly add value to the phone. There’s Nokia Maps, Nokia Music and Nokia Drive for turn-by-turn directions installed out of the box.

First, a bit of background: If you’re unfamiliar with Windows Phone, it offers one of the most intuitive user interfaces available on a mobile phone today. The home screen is populated with a number of tiles that can be customized and that can present “live” information, if a developer so pleases. A swipe to the left reveals a full menu of all the applications installed on your phone.

Microsoft maintains a tight ship when it comes to customizations, so there aren’t different user interfaces to get used to, as is the case with Android. Microsoft does allow Nokia certain liberties with its devices, but the Finnish vendor has not strayed strayed much thus far. So in terms of software, the only differentiation on the Lumia 800 is the free navigation, music store and mapping applications.

A few years back before we all had Google Maps or Bing or any other mapping software on our smartphones, there was Nokia Maps. OK, there was BlackBerry Maps, too, but it wasn’t nearly as powerful. Nokia Maps was beautiful and it worked well. Today, it still works quite well, although I prefer the cleaner user interface in Google Maps. A search for “bar” near my apartment in New York revealed several nearby pubs, but failed to locate a bar just a block away that has existed for the past several years. Zooming is fluid, however, and there are several views available including a satellite image option. Overall, I preferred to use it over Bing, which never seems to find what I’m looking for.

Unlike most Windows Phones, the Lumia 800 provides two options for purchasing new music out of the box: Microsoft’s default Zune Marketplace and its own Nokia Music store. Nokia Music allows you to access your music, purchase songs, find local “gigs” and more. The shop also lists top songs, a welcome feature that is lacking in Microsoft’s own Marketplace.

I loved the Gigs feature of Nokia Music. It brings up a list of local concerts by date and provides the addresses. Nokia could have built on this feature by allowing users to purchase tickets directly, or allowing users to tap the address for driving directions using Nokia Drive.

I live in New York City and don’t own a car, but I enjoyed Nokia Drive for what it’s worth. The software provides free turn-by-turn directions and allows you to download street maps by continent, country and state. I downloaded a 102MB New York map in a few minutes and it’s just as easy to add more, should you be preparing for a trip. There are also tons of different voice options. The UI isn’t too crowded and there are both 2D and 3D map modes. I won’t know how well Nokia Drive stacks up to Google Navigation, my current favorite GPS client, until I have to drive out of the city but it’s definitely a solid free application that other Windows Phone devices don’t have right now.

Call Quality / Data

Call quality with the Lumia 800 was pretty run of the mill; the audio quality hardly knocked my socks off, but I didn’t experience any major issues, either. The Lumia 800 supports AT&T’s 3G network in the United States and, using http://dslreports.com/mspeed as a speed test benchmark, I averaged around 700Kbps using an AT&T SIM card. That’s pretty awful, considering most of AT&T’s own 3G smartphones easily exceed 1Mbps.

The phone comes with its own headset with a built-in microphone. It works perfectly fine during phone calls, but the team here at BGR discovered a weird issue thanks to a tip from a friend of the site: if you connect the original Nokia headset and place a call, it works just fine. You can then use any third-party headset with a microphone as you wish. However, if you try to use a third-party headset from the get-go, or before you use Nokia’s headset, it won’t work. So basically, as it stands, you can really only use Nokia’s headset unless you opt for a Bluetooth headset.

Camera

I’ve always looked forward to using the Carl Zeiss cameras on high-end Nokia phones, but I wasn’t blown away by the quality of the pictures taken with the Lumia 800. They offered a sharper picture, had a warmer white balance and were more colorful than those shot with my iPhone 4, but not by much. As I’ve said in other recent reviews, I recently bought a relatively budget-friendly point and shoot and it still blows away any smartphone I’ve used. While other reviewers may make arguments that it’s time to leave the point and shoot at home, I disagree.

The Nokia Lumia 800 video automatically defaults to shooting in a VGA resolution, but there’s also a 720p HD video option. 720p HD video shot in my apartment wasn’t that amazing. The camera is slow at adjusting to to new lighting and its auto-focus is just as sluggish. Unlike many Android smartphones, the Lumia 800 doesn’t offer an HDMI port, so you can’t hook it up to your HDTV to watch videos. The only way to get content off of the phone is to either send it over a Wi-Fi or 3G network, which isn’t really optimal with a large HD video, or connect it up to a computer with Microsoft’s Zune client installed. I really, really, wish it had a microSD card for this purpose.

Battery

Windows Phone devices typically offer above-average battery life and the Lumia 800 proved no different. I was easily able to milk a full day’s worth of battery life from the Nokia Lumia 800′s 1,450 mAh battery. Users can’t access the battery, however, so you might run into some issues if you ever run have a problem that would normally require a battery pull. The first review unit I got was a bit buggy and a battery pull might have helped in a few cases, but I had to perform a hard reset on the phone instead and eventually I had to request a new unit from Nokia. This was apparently an isolated software issue though, and I don’t think it will impact launch units.

Conclusion

As I said at the beginning of this review, I couldn’t wait for the Lumia 800 to arrive so that I could finally see just how well Nokia was able to marry Windows Phone 7.5, an operating system I already love, with the Finnish phone maker’s incredible hardware. I like the AMOLED display, but it doesn’t blow me away like the Super AMOLED Plus screens on Samsung’s devices. I’m not a huge fan of the polycorbonate build (it feels like any other plastic to me) and think there are definitely some weak hardware design points, such as the microUSB and miniSIM card hatch. I know I’m alone here, though, as there are tons of people who love the hardware design.

On the software side, the phone is fantastic. I prefer Nokia Maps to Bing, which I’ve personally told Microsoft just never works well for what I need a mapping app for. Windows Phone 7.5 is beautiful and efficient, it just needs more great apps. And while the Lumia 800 camera didn’t blow me away like I was hoping it would, it was satisfactory and better than the camera my iPhone 4.

The Lumia 800 left a lot to be desired in the data throughput department, but rumor has it Nokia is working with AT&T on a 4G LTE device that could be unveiled during CES in January. For now, I think most U.S. Windows Phone lovers should check out the HTC Titan, the Samsung Focus S or the Samsung Focus Flash, which will be much more affordable with a subsidy. If price doesn’t concern you, however, the Lumia 800 should be at the top of that list. The day Nokia launches a Windows Phone on a U.S. carrier with faster data, an aluminum body, and perhaps a few color choices, I’ll no doubt be impatiently waiting for my FedEx delivery person all over again.

Late last month, AT&T unveiled the first two smartphones that would launch with the ability to access its brand new 4G network (not to be confused with its old 4G network). The Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket was a mouthful and a pocketful, identical to T-Mobile’s Galaxy S II save for the addition of an LTE radio. The other device was a brand new handset from HTC dubbed “Vivid.” In terms of hardware, the Vivid is a fairly substantial departure from other recent HTC phones. It is built with different materials and its shape is unlike any other handset from the vendor. Are its unique design, high-end specs and 4G LTE compatibility enough to make this smartphone worthy of your consideration? My full review follows below.

The Inside

Like every high-end smartphone released these days, the Vivid is packed to the brim with cutting-edge technology. At the heart of the handset is a 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset that powers Android 2.3.4 and HTC Sense 3.0. The Vivid touts 1GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage, microSDHC support up to an additional 32GB, a 1,620 mAh battery and all the trimmings.

More important than the specs is the device’s performance, of course, and the Vivid most certainly performs. Gingerbread is as smooth as I have even seen it on the Vivid. HTC’s Sense UI is very heavy when it comes to animations, and the Vivid displays them all in stride. Multitasking is a breeze for this phone and I had a tremendous amount of trouble trying to trip it up. In fact, it’s easily one of the smoothest Android phones I’ve used.

Couple the Vivid’s silky smooth performance with well-made apps, and you’ve got yourself one of the most enjoyable smartphone experiences on the planet. The Android Market is rife with garbage, as are all mobile app stores, but the gems buried within the Market shine even brighter on the Vivid. One example is Seesmic.

I’m not a big fan of Seesmic in my browser or on my iPhone, but I’m a huge fan of the company’s Android app. It is well designed and on most Android smartphones, it’s among the fastest Twitter clients available. On the Vivid, Seesmic is a scorcher. Android is typically not thought of as the quickest platform on the market, but even the fastest Twitter apps I’ve tested on iOS seem slow compared to Seesmic on the Vivid. And forget about Windows Phone; while the OS itself is smooth and fluid, apps take forever to refresh with new data. And again, Seesmic is just one example. All well-made apps seem to fly faster on HTC’s Vivid.

Also inside the Vivid is an 8-megapixel camera with auto focus, a dual-LED flash and an f/2.2, 28mm lens. It’s capable of recording full HD 1080p videos, and those 1080p HD videos are made infinitely more accessible than they are on some other modern smartphones thanks to the Vivid’s HDMI-out and integrated DLNA support, which allows users to display content from the phone wirelessly on compatible TV sets and other devices.

There’s support for AT&T’s 4G networks buried in there as well. That’s plural, by the way — “4G networks” — so the Vivid features support for AT&T’s next-generation 4G network based on LTE technology, and the carrier’s previous-generation next-generation 4G network based on HSPA+ technology.

The Outside

HTC’s Vivid is a very solid smartphone. Less so than some of the vendor’s other phones like the Titan and Legend, but it is without question a sturdy handset. The face of this full touch smartphone is glass that offers very little in the way of resistance to oils. This is very annoying. There are simply no excuses in this day and age for omitting an effective oil-resistant coating on a touchscreen smartphone. Especially one that costs up to $200 on contract.

A thick plastic surrounds the sides of the Vivid and continues to the back of the device, sloping as it moves toward the center of the case. On the top of the phone lies a lock button and a 3.5-millimeter audio jack, and the bottom is home to a lone microphone. A chrome-look plastic volume rocker sits on the right side of the phone and a microUSB port is included on the left. Beyond the plastic on the back of the device is a solid metal plate that covers the battery, a SIM card slot and a microSD card slot. The camera lens and dual-LED flash sit near the top of the metal plate, and above the plate lies a narrow opening for the speaker.

Circling back to the front of the phone, HTC included a terrific display panel on the Vivid. The 4.5-inch super LCD display features qHD resolution, or 540 pixels by 960 pixels, and it reproduces colors very well. Picky people with 20/20 vision may complain that some edges can appear jagged on the Vivid thanks to the display’s PenTile sub-pixel arrangement, but it really didn’t bother me at all. Images are crisp, colors are vivid — no pun intended — and the display gets remarkably bright.

Worth noting is the fact that HTC managed to keep the Vivid at a fairly reasonable size for a phone with such a large display. While the 4.5-inch panel is among the largest available on supersized smartphones, the footprint is significantly smaller than the Samsung Galaxy S II or the HTC Titan. In fact, when using the phone with one hand I can almost reach every corner of the display and all four of the capacitive Android buttons without striking a yoga pose. Almost.

The Upside

People seem to be less enthusiastic these days when it comes to HTC’s Sense UI, but I am still a big fan. It is my clear favorite among Android skins, though it is becoming increasingly complex. I carry an Android phone with me most days, and I switch phones on a near-weekly basis. Every time I get a new Sense-equipped phone to test and I begin configuring it to my liking, I find new settings, widgets or other features that I didn’t know about before. While this makes HTC’s Sense phones remarkably customizable, it also brings a seemingly endless number of variables that will be appealing to some users but overwhelming to others. The majority of users, however, will probably never explore all of Sense’s capabilities.

Sense’s transition animations, 3D effects and other visual elements are terrific. There are dozens of gorgeous and functional home screen widgets to choose from, and seven home screens to spread them out across. Seven home screens is a bit excessive, but tapping the home button on any one of them will take the user straight back to the middle home screen. Tapping the home button while on the middle home screen will then spread out thumbnails of all seven, and tapping on any thumbnail will take you right to that home screen.

I also like the look of apps skinned to match the Sense UI. In particular, the email app on HTC’s Sense phones is one element that I have always loved. HTC has added much more than just graphical elements to the app, allowing users to drill down to unread items, flagged items and more by sliding a selector across the bottom of the screen. It makes it all too easy to be productive and next to Windows Phone’s email client, HTC’s is likely my favorite.

Another bright spot on the Vivid is the camera. We don’t need to dig up the past, but cameras have historically been a very weak area for HTC. This is clearly not the case any more. The past few HTC smartphones BGR reviewed have been equipped with fantastic cameras that can go head to head with the Nokias and Apples of the world. The Vivid is no exception. The camera takes very impressive images in adequate lighting, but I did find low-light performance to be a bit lacking compared to other phones I have tested recently. I’m not sure if this is a software issue, but images often appear excessively grainy in dim lighting.

Voice calling is crystal clear on the Vivid, but beyond all else, performance is the star of the show. It is absolutely among the most responsive Android phones I’ve used, and I’ve used plenty. Even scrolling in apps that have been nightmarish for me on lesser phones is almost always smooth and free of stutters. I can’t emphasize it enough: this is how Android should work on a smartphone.

The Downside

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This is fortunate in the case of the HTC Vivid, because I am not a fan of the handset’s look at all. The face is fine; it looks just like every other full touch smartphone on the planet. Issues arise when the phone is turned around, however, and I personally couldn’t get past the design.

HTC used a thick glossy plastic for much of this smartphone’s case and I don’t care for it at all. First, it somehow collects oil and dust even more aggressively than the phone’s glass screen, which is quite a site to behold. As a matter of fact, the Vivid might pick up dust better than a Swiffer. You can see it in the images peppered throughout this review. As a borderline mysophobe, my hands are always dry from being washed 20 times each day and Purelled even more frequently. And yet after just a few minutes of using the Vivid, there are finger prints, dust and oil smudges all over it. It’s very unbecoming.

The plastic also feels quite cheap. It’s not light or flimsy like the plastic is on so many Samsung phones, but it falls well below the standard HTC has set with other devices like the Titan, with its unibody aluminum construction, or even the soft-touch plastic material it uses on many of the vendor’s phones. This plastic is also incredibly slippery, no doubt helped by the oils it collects, and I’ve had a number of close calls and bobbles while handling the Vivid. It comes close to feeling like a toy instead of a high-end smartphone, but its weight is likely its saving grace in this department.

The first thing I noticed about this phone beyond its physical appearance, in fact, was how unbelievably heavy it is. The larger Galaxy S II version (T-Mobile) weighs 4.77 ounces, the metal and glass iPhone 4S weighs 4.9 ounces and the massive HTC Titan — with its 4.7-inch display and aluminum case — weighs 5.6 ounces. Despite being shorter and narrower than the Titan, the Vivid weighs in at a hefty 6.24 ounces. I can’t think of a heavier smartphone I have held in recent history. I do like a smartphone with a bit of heft to it, but the Vivid tips the scales a bit too far for my taste.

Finally, battery life is not great on the Vivid. Less is the new more, and the phrase “it should last a day on a full charge with moderate usage” is anything but obligatory now that 4G radios and gigantic displays are making their way into many smartphones. The Vivid is not among the worst smartphones I’ve tested recently, but users should expect to charge the phone more frequently than once every 24 hours. It also seems to shed a charge faster than most phones while sitting idle, so definitely purchase an extra wall charger and maybe even a car charger if you plan on buying a Vivid.

The Bottom Line

If I didn’t mind the look of the Vivid, it would be a phone I could carry regularly. As it stands, unfortunately, HTC designed this phone right out of the running for me.

The HTC Vivid is a remarkable, modern smartphone with performance that matches or bests any Android phone I’ve used. It’s fast, it’s smooth, it’s capable and HTC’s Sense UI wraps it all in a gorgeous package. Battery life is a sore spot but smartphones across several platforms seem to be headed south in that area. Users who take particular care may be able to get from one day to the next on a single charge, but I wasn’t able to with regular usage.

Since I work in Manhattan and live just outside the city, I was not able to test the Vivid on AT&T’s young LTE network. On HSPA+, I regularly saw speeds between 2Mbps and 3Mbps down, and 1Mbps up. The Vivid won’t be setting any speed records on AT&T’s previous-generation 4G network, but it’s plenty fast enough to suit the needs of most users. And circling back to battery life, I should note that the phone does not allow users to disable LTE out of the box. Third party switches I’ve tested are not yet compatible with the Vivid but once they are, users unhappy with the phone’s battery performance will likely see the situation improved by disabling LTE when the added speed isn’t a necessity.

I highly recommend that prospective smartphone buyers on AT&T head to a local store to check out the Vivid before buying another phone. The look and feel of the phone were issues for me but they certainly won’t be for everyone. Those who enjoy the Vivid’s style will find themselves with a future-proofed 4G phone that performs as well as any other Android phone on the market.

The HTC Vivid is available immediately from AT&T starting at $99.99 in select markets when purchased online.

Verizon Wireless has not one but three powerhouse 4G LTE smartphones lined up for the holidays, and the HTC Rezound is one of them. Launching right after the Motorola DROID RAZR, the HTC Rezound takes things to another dimension, both visually and sonically. With an amazing 4.3-inch 720p HD display, a fast 1.5GHz dual-core processor, Beats-enhanced audio and other competitive specs in a solid package, is the HTC Rezound the 4G smartphone to beat this holiday season? Read on to find out how this phone shapes up against the DROID RAZR and Galaxy Nexus.

Hardware / Design / Display

The HTC Rezound features all the latest lust-worthy pieces that fit together to make up any smartphone-lover’s ideal puzzle: specs include one of the first 720p HD displays, a fantastic 8-megapixel backside-illuminated camera complete with support for full 1080p HD video capture, a 720p HD front facing camera, an incredibly powerful 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon processor, and of course, support for Verizon’s 4G LTE network.

I love the HTC Rezound’s identity and personality. It’s a perfect complement to the red and black branding shared by both Verizon Wireless and Beats. Underneath the battery cover, the phone’s internals are displayed in, you guessed it, a translucent red plastic case, giving the phone an extra detail that only HTC devices have.

Let’s focus on the central feature of the HTC Rezound, and as much as Jimmy or Andre would want you to believe it’s the Beats audio processing features, it’s actually the display. The 4.3-inch 720p display on the Rezound is nothing short of stunning. It’s easily the best display I have ever seen on a mobile device besides the iPhone 4/4S. The screen on the HTC Rezound is the best screen on any current Android device, and completely annihilates the Motorola DROID RAZR’s PenTile display, though I’m interested to see how the Rezound lines up against the Galaxy Nexus.

Looking at the phone, you’ll see the sinister red-tinted Android menu keys sitting right below that gorgeous display. While it’s a bit unsettling at first, that vivid red color shining through the buttons lets you know that this isn’t just a Verizon device, but a Beats device as well.

There’s a gun metal polished bezel around the entire phone that’s cradled in a soft-touch rubber back casing. On the right side you’ll find a volume rocker button, and on the left side you’ll find the phone’s MHL port that lets you use a microUSB connector or mini-HDMI out cable, along with a secondary microphone for noise cancellation. On top is a 3.5mm headset jack and a power/lock/unlock button. Around back is a dual-LED flash, the 8-megapixel camera sensor and a speaker etched out perfectly amid the ridged design of the back battery cover.

As far as the feel of the device goes, it’s much more thoughtfully designed than the Motorola DROID RAZR. The phone fits very well in the hand, and even though it’s almost twice as thick as the RAZR, it’s still infinitely more comfortable to hold and use thanks to the tapered edges and narrower case.

Software

The HTC Rezound runs HTC’s latest Sense 3.5 user interface, layered on top of Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread. While HTC announced that the Rezound would be getting an upgrade to Android 4.0, it’s a pretty tough sell thrown up against the Samsung Galaxy Nexus that should launch within a week or so.

HTC Sense 3.5 is almost identical to HTC Sense 3.0, adding minor enhancements to the interface like the addition of an “All apps” label now included on the home screen at the bottom of the display as part of the arc. I go back and forth on HTC Sense and for the most part, and I appreciate a lot of the innovation from HTC in the early days of Android, especially starting with the HTC Hero. Sense now introduces more problems that it solves for me, though. While it is cohesive and very well designed, it almost offers too much customization now — so much so that the user may not even discover much of its capabilities because it takes so long to dig through everything. I’d run with a stock Android interface any day of the week.

I have also noticed many, many icons, and images that haven’t been updated to support the new HD resolution of the display. That’s an attention to detail that shouldn’t have been skipped over. If you’re going to customize the Android interface and modify stock elements of the operating system, it’s only right that you do this throughout the entire phone, and HTC didn’t do that. The status bar, for instance, is a mashup of high resolution and low resolution graphics. The battery icon is crisp but the signal bars aren’t. The silent ringer icon looks great but the GPS icon does not. Also, due to the fact that almost no app developers planned on a display of this resolution being released at this time, most app icons from apps you download look pixelated and blurry.

Another irritating thing about HTC’s Sense interface is the 3D carousel of app home screens. The phone comes with seven home screens, way more than I’d like. While HTC finally includes the ability to delete and reorder them, when you flick through your homescreens, the phone still displays them in a carousel as if there were seven. So, if you have two or three home screens, the phone will spin in a circle that’s only 25% full. It’s just odd, and it wasn’t well thought out at all.

Beats Audio / Headphones

The Beats headphones that the HTC Rezound ships with are very good. In fact, they are probably the best bundled headphones I’ve ever used. Music sounds full, heavy on the low end, and clear on the top end even when disabling the Beats audio mode on the handset or using the headphones with other devices.

I’m just not sold on this Beats thing, in terms of the software. If Beats as a product existed solely as hardware, and now is coupled with software processing (EQ) as a selling point, well, I’m not sure I see the advantage of a small increase in audio reproduction. If anything, the Beats software processing amplifies audio, and adds a present equalization that’s meant to make the track sound louder, knockier and fuller. This is artificial, though, and something audio purists won’t appreciate.

Another issue? Beats audio just flat out doesn’t work with many third party music apps, so it becomes a non-factor in many cases.

Phone / Battery / Speaker

Voice calling on the HTC Rezound is reasonably good. Callers sounded a little robotic to me, and would sometimes cut in and out. Noise cancellation worked very well though, with background noise almost completely eliminated and unnoticeable to callers on the other end of the line. The speaker on the Rezound projects nicely, especially when on a flat surface like a desk or coffee table. I’m still not a fan of the actual phone app on HTC Sense devices, however.

As far as the battery, standby mode has been excellent. With normal usage on and off throughout the day, the phone and its 1,620 mAh battery seemed to make it just fine as long as I remembered to recharge when I got home. Even when putting the phone under pressure with constant 4G LTE web browsing, email, video playback and continuous music in the background, the Rezound held up very well.

Conclusion

I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. On one hand, this is practically the same phone I’ve reviewed countless times, in a different shell, with slightly improved specs. On the other, it feels like a completely different animal.

The red and black color scheme, an amazing 720p HD display, Beats audio and extremely fast performance come together in an ergonomic design to create a fantastic finished product. While almost comical at this point, the HTC Rezound is now my favorite Android device in the world, besting the Motorola DROID RAZR, which bested the Galaxy S II. That might be short lived, though, as the Samsung Galaxy Nexus — the first Android 4.0 smartphone — is slated to hit shelves in the next week or two. In the meantime, the HTC Rezound offers up some of the best specs and one of the most complete smartphone packages I have ever seen.

I haven’t turned on my Xbox 360 in almost a year. I did to play Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, though.

Modern Warfare 3 doesn’t differ greatly from previous editions of the game, though that’s not always a bad thing. The story events pick up right where Modern Warfare 2’s storyboard ended and you’re plopped right in the middle of downtown New York City, which is under siege and swarming with Ruskies. The storyline itself doesn’t have much depth, but for something you can get through in around five to six hours, it doesn’t exactly need to. Besides, the gameplay and graphics surely pull the weight here.

As far as multiplayer mode, it’s more focused than ever before but there are a few additions to multiplayer like Team Defender and Kill Confirmed. Team Defender is a version of capture the flag, except, you know, with grenades going off and buildings crumbling around you. Kill Confirmed is based around a quest to retrieve dog tags of your friends and enemies, and just as you can collect them from fallen players around you, your opponents can try to grab them before you can. There are other new additions like killstreak rewards that are now baked into Strike Packages, allowing you to customize them, and there are new customizable weapons as well.

I didn’t play co-op mode that much, though, but the new survival mode was insanely difficult. You basically stand there while an endless surge of enemies come at you, but each wave gets harder and harder for you and the other players.

Infinity Ward and Activision’s Call of Duty and Modern Warfare titles have consistently pushed the boundaries of what a first-person shooter can be, and I don’t think Modern Warfare 3 is any different. I’m not a serious gamer, but I couldn’t resist the temptation to pick up a copy and review this game. Multiplayer mode is obviously the big draw here, and for good reason — it’s excellent. While single-player mode is fun, the story definitely isn’t going to win any Oscars. But the gameplay and the graphics are incredible, and this is probably my favorite first-person shooter ever.