- Jun 24, 2013
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So normally, I dropped my Icon about once every month. But a couple weeks ago, I was a total klutz and dropped my phone like 10 times that week. And one of those drops was with the phone vertical and landing right on the corner, causing the glass to crack significantly. So I bring in my phone to the Microsoft Store (because I still had the complete plan) to swap it for another Icon. And they don't carry the Icon anymore. So all they could offer was the HTC phone.
Now after using the HTC for over a week now with the exact same workflow as my Icon, I can give a better impression of it. I miss my Icon...
Now, the great things about the HTC phone: body feels lighter and thinner, the speakers (plural!) are better, the power button is on top, double tap is much more responsive and actually useful, it has a MicroSD card slot (sporting a 128 GB card now), better battery life. And I have 8.1 Update 2 (actually started downloading at the store while I was getting the phone set up on May 30).
The look of the HTC phone grew on me. Love the front of the phone now. The back is still ugly. The thinness is really great.
The battery life deserves praise. Sometimes, there's not a huge gap between the phones. At the end of a work day with the Icon, I would be scraping by with maybe 10% left. The worst the HTC has ever been with the same workflow was 35% but it was on occasion higher than that.
Now for the "push": It has onscreen buttons instead of the Icon's capacitive buttons. In some ways, this is fantastic because it was way too easy to hit the capacitive buttons on the Icon and that was a big complaint for me because it always came at inopportune times. Why it's a "push" is because sometimes having a pop-up button bar interferes with some apps' design. You can tap to hide the buttons but some apps don't respond correctly.
I think I have to consider the MicroSD card a push because I've had weird problems with it. I was always bumping heads with the Icon because of the lack of storage (forcing me to skip many apps and be restrictive of how I film video and take pictures). So I put a Lexar 128GB card that's speed rated for 4K video. But sometimes music playback is a little funky. Some apps act a little weird at random times. I actually moved Xbox Music back to the onboard storage because the MicroSD card seemed a bit unreliable.
Performance is about equal. Sometimes the HTC seems much more responsive. Other times you can't tell the difference. It is noticeable. Just not significantly different.
Now the negatives...
The camera is terrible. It's almost worse than terrible. I thought that since it was a 5MP camera, it would at least take super fast pictures but that's not the case either. I guess it's because both cameras are shooting at the same time (which is how they achieve that post-focusing effect.
There's no shutter button. Now, I don't use the 2-stage shutter button much on the Icon for picture taking because of the way they designed it, it introduces too much shakiness into the picture. It's not at all like the shutter button of a DSLR. I believe it's because the travel of the button is too long. However, where the shutter button is incredibly useful is it can load the camera app. I have to waste screen space to have a camera tile (I have my important tiles on the screen that can be seen without scrolling the screen).
My eyes have gotten used to the HTC screen now. But when I first got it, I thought the colors were so garish. That it was almost cartoonish and there were no color settings at all like with the Lumia Icon. I still think the Icon screen is better (even though Denim messed up the Icon screen). The HTC may be a tad sharper.
No Lumia apps. I didn't use the Lumia apps a whole lot but when I wanted to use them, they were there. Now all gone.
No wireless charging. This has turned out to be a huge negative for the HTC. I sooooo miss being able to reach my arm out in the dark and put the Icon on the plate to charge it. Plus, HTC made the microUSB port so tight! You have to apply considerable force to plug and unplug. I've tried multiple cables and it's still a tight fit!
Anyway, I'm starting to love my HTC. But I'll always miss my Icon...
Now after using the HTC for over a week now with the exact same workflow as my Icon, I can give a better impression of it. I miss my Icon...
Now, the great things about the HTC phone: body feels lighter and thinner, the speakers (plural!) are better, the power button is on top, double tap is much more responsive and actually useful, it has a MicroSD card slot (sporting a 128 GB card now), better battery life. And I have 8.1 Update 2 (actually started downloading at the store while I was getting the phone set up on May 30).
The look of the HTC phone grew on me. Love the front of the phone now. The back is still ugly. The thinness is really great.
The battery life deserves praise. Sometimes, there's not a huge gap between the phones. At the end of a work day with the Icon, I would be scraping by with maybe 10% left. The worst the HTC has ever been with the same workflow was 35% but it was on occasion higher than that.
Now for the "push": It has onscreen buttons instead of the Icon's capacitive buttons. In some ways, this is fantastic because it was way too easy to hit the capacitive buttons on the Icon and that was a big complaint for me because it always came at inopportune times. Why it's a "push" is because sometimes having a pop-up button bar interferes with some apps' design. You can tap to hide the buttons but some apps don't respond correctly.
I think I have to consider the MicroSD card a push because I've had weird problems with it. I was always bumping heads with the Icon because of the lack of storage (forcing me to skip many apps and be restrictive of how I film video and take pictures). So I put a Lexar 128GB card that's speed rated for 4K video. But sometimes music playback is a little funky. Some apps act a little weird at random times. I actually moved Xbox Music back to the onboard storage because the MicroSD card seemed a bit unreliable.
Performance is about equal. Sometimes the HTC seems much more responsive. Other times you can't tell the difference. It is noticeable. Just not significantly different.
Now the negatives...
The camera is terrible. It's almost worse than terrible. I thought that since it was a 5MP camera, it would at least take super fast pictures but that's not the case either. I guess it's because both cameras are shooting at the same time (which is how they achieve that post-focusing effect.
There's no shutter button. Now, I don't use the 2-stage shutter button much on the Icon for picture taking because of the way they designed it, it introduces too much shakiness into the picture. It's not at all like the shutter button of a DSLR. I believe it's because the travel of the button is too long. However, where the shutter button is incredibly useful is it can load the camera app. I have to waste screen space to have a camera tile (I have my important tiles on the screen that can be seen without scrolling the screen).
My eyes have gotten used to the HTC screen now. But when I first got it, I thought the colors were so garish. That it was almost cartoonish and there were no color settings at all like with the Lumia Icon. I still think the Icon screen is better (even though Denim messed up the Icon screen). The HTC may be a tad sharper.
No Lumia apps. I didn't use the Lumia apps a whole lot but when I wanted to use them, they were there. Now all gone.
No wireless charging. This has turned out to be a huge negative for the HTC. I sooooo miss being able to reach my arm out in the dark and put the Icon on the plate to charge it. Plus, HTC made the microUSB port so tight! You have to apply considerable force to plug and unplug. I've tried multiple cables and it's still a tight fit!
Anyway, I'm starting to love my HTC. But I'll always miss my Icon...
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