HTC "DLX" - 5" 1080p screen, 1.5GHz Quadcore Krait, Adreno320 GPU

[Scougar]

So what's the DLX called now? Is it the same phone as the DNA and the Deluxe?

 

[Nexus18]

Yup.



Reviews are up and it sounds ****ing amazing, especially the display!

http://www.theverge.com/2012/11/16/3653508/htc-droid-dna-review

They say the battery life is awful, however, you look at the GS 3 for verizon review, the DNA actually lasted longer than the GS 3 in their battery test.....

http://reviews.cnet.com/smartphones/htc-droid-dna-verizon/4505-6452_7-35536642.html

http://www.phonearena.com/reviews/HTC-DROID-DNA-Review_id3191

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/phones/mobile-phones/htc-droid-dna-1112302/review

The 1080P recording looks outstanding, much much smoother

This could be my next device if the battery is actually pretty good in real world use amongst the other wee things, doesn't seem too big (one site said roughly the same feel/size as the one X in the hand). Shame it isn't as good looking as the S/X though and it isn't a uni-body chassis nor aluminium though

 

[m4rk84]

The Verge review doesn't sound all that convincing :s

 

[Azza]

That battery life in The Verge review!

 

[Nexus18]

I am not keen on the verge reviews personally as they do seem to have opinions out of line compared to other review sites.


Regarding battery they said this about the DNA:

The DNA lasted a meager four hours and 25 minutes in the Verge Battery Test, which cycles through a series of websites and high-res images with the screen at 65 percent brightness

And this about the GS 3 on verizon:

On the Verge Battery Test, which cycles through a series of websites and high-res images at 65 percent brightness, the Galaxy S III lasted four hours and 12 minutes

Plus iirc they say the nexus 4 battery life is great yet all the other review sites have slated it and users first impressions are pretty poor so far.



And cnet says:

I was surprised by the HTC Droid DNA's battery performance, as well. Despite the phone's large screen and swift performance, the handset's embedded 2,020mAh battery lasted for a long 8 hours and 43 minutes in the CNET Labs video battery drain test. By comparison, the Samsung Galaxy S3 offered an even longer 9 hours and 24 minutes on the same benchmark, whereas the Motorola Droid Razr Maxx HD kept going for an unbelievable 14 hours and 53 minutes.

phonearena:

We were desperately hoping for the best with battery life, but alas, it puts out nothing more than average results. Charging its 2,020 mAh battery, we’re able to fly by the 10 hour mark before it’s completely depleted – thus hitting the tally we’re normally accustomed to seeing with most Verizon 4G LTE smartphones.

Not too bad considering it has a 1080P display compared to the 720P display on the other phones.

As usual always best to wait for users thoughts.

Plus I think the battery life will improve on all handsets that use the S4 pro quad chipset as time goes on, as sarge pointed out before, new hardware, which needs to be fine tuned and software needs to be better optimized for it. The LG optimus G, nexus 4 should be getting much better battery life than what they currently are.


I watched the videos for some reviews and personally couldn't see any slow down at all, everything was instant and smooth, one guy said the performance was impacted when using a live wallpaper so that might be why?



Apart from the battery and performance hiccups (which will probably be fixed in an update) everything seems very good, audio is mixed opinions as usual (need to wait for gsmarena), camera looks very good, even better than the X and S surprisingly, since they have the same camera hardware , nice design and supposedly feels very good in the hand and the display just sounds out of this world.

HTC should have put a much bigger battery in this though, however, no doubt they will be releasing a deluxe + or whatever in 3 months time, which will have 64GB internal storage or a SD slot along with a 2600mAh or bigger battery

Can't wait for gsmarena's and anandtech's review on this.

 

[Rich_L]

Lol at that battery life with a non–removable battery Only a third of the Maxx HD

 

[Nexus18]

Much better looking battery stats now!

http://www.androidpolice.com/2012/1...y-as-bad-as-you-think-with-stats-methodology/

I have, however, had it off the charger since about 7:30AM yesterday, and it's 10:30AM today, and I still have 9% battery remaining. First, let's look at HTC's battery history chart.

That's 27 hours so far. As you can see, the phone has been awake for pretty big chunks of time, and I've been using it full-bore this morning.

The key stats you want to look at here are "Screen On" and "Awake." Right now, I'm pushing nearly 3.75 hours of screen on time, which is pretty damn impressive for a phone with a 5", 1080p display. In fact, it's actually quite good for any high-end phone. That's coupled with nearly 7 hours of awake time, which is also admirable. This is nowhere near what I'd call "bad." I'd actually call it above average - we're pretty squarely in Galaxy S III / One X territory here - if not slightly better. A big part of this is the S-LCD3 display panel, which is a lot more power-efficient than the S-LCD2 of the One X / X+. It also doesn't get as bright, and colors aren't quite as good - so there are tradeoffs to be had, for sure.

As a final note on my results, you may have noticed in the HTC battery history chart that there's a long dead period overnight. That's actually HTC's intelligent sleep behavior, which automatically turns off sync from 11PM to 7AM (alarms, calls, SMS still work fine), something I really do like about Sense. Either way, even without the sleep behavior, the DNA receives my preliminary "battery life seal of approval." This phone has exceed my expectations, for sure.

What have we learned here? Milliamp hours will never tell the whole story. It's a flawed metric. The DROID DNA seems to have perfectly adequate battery life for moderate users, and even a little more than some other high-end phones may provide. Heavy users, well, there's not a phone on the market that isn't a RAZR MAXX (battery capacity is important - not an end-all) that will please everyone. I just wanted to clear the air of some of the more misguided notions that this phone has "horrible" battery life, when it pretty clearly does not.

http://gizmodo.com/5961246/htc-droid-dna-review-verizons-big-beautiful-beast

That big screen is paired with LTE and a relatively modest 2020 mAh Li-Ion battery, but the Droid DNA still lasted until 10pm every night with moderately heavy usage. It's certainly nowhere near the marathon levels of the Droid RAZR MAXX HD, but it outlasts the Galaxy S III.

I am sold.......





EDIT:

Hmm, they now mention that the colours aren't as good as SLCD 2 on the X!!!! Although it still looks very good in the videos and photos.

EDIT 2:

also a round of applause goes to android police





for being the first to actually do a good section on battery life, this actually gives us an idea as to real world usage, unlike nearly every other review site....... hopefully these other review sites will take note of this and do something similar from now on.

EDIT 3:

The guy who did the battery impressions for android police also had poor signal for most of the time and pretty much never used wifi but had mobile data on for the entire time, so he would get even better battery life with good signal and wifi on all the time instead. He was also using auto brightness, which I have found to be too bright for every condition and have got about an extra 15-25 minutes on screen time when manually controlling the brightness (unless it has improved with sense V4+/DNA?)



SLCD 3 must be very very very power efficient and sense V4+/jellybean must be really well optimised with the hardware.

 

[jubei]

Is there any indication of all if this is going to be released in europe and roughly when?

 

[Nexus18]

Yup, the phone is coming out here as well but known as the Deluxe:

http://www.gsminsider.com/2012/11/first-look-of-htc-deluxe-leaks-global.html

No date as to when afaik, but I imagine before xmas.



The performance of this thing is really good, beating the nexus 4 and optimus G in benchmarks despite having the 1080P screen.

 

[Nexus18]

Engadget review up now:

http://www.engadget.com/2012/11/16/htc-droid-dna-review/

That is, unless you're an avid gamer. Sad to say, our gaming experience was a mixed bag -- some of our favorite titles worked flawlessly and games like Riptide and Reign of Amira looked amazing with the Adreno 320 pushing the graphics behind the scenes, as well as the high-res screen. But it's that fantastic display that will be the thorn in early adopters' sides for a little while, we're afraid; it seems that some games don't play well with the higher resolution. To offer an example or two, Angry Birds Star Wars crashed every time we tried starting a level, and Need for Speed: Most Wanted displayed a black screen instead of a racetrack -- even though all of the controls, car positions and damage notifications showed up without a problem (shown below).

That just sounds like a software problem. If the HTC desire and even worse phones can play angry birds star wars perfectly well then I think this phone should be able to

Battery comments:

How does the 2,020mAh battery hold up to a screen that's constantly pushing more pixels? Our standard rundown, which involves running a video on an endless loop, resulted in the phone holding out for six hours and 38 minutes, which isn't quite as good a showing as we saw from the One X+ and Optimus G on the same test. In terms of real-life usage, the DNA got us through a full day on moderate use, but it's quite apparent that the screen will drain the battery much faster, so frequent users will need to keep that in mind before heading off on the daily commute. There's a good chance you'll make it through a regular eight-hour workday if you're constantly using your phone, but you'll be cutting it pretty close. If you haven't already done so, it may be worth investing in a Qi pad for the office.

android police battery write up will be the best to use as their way of testing is more relevant and give more accurate results for day to day usage.

 

[m4rk84]

Logic says to me (similar hardware, though the HTC has higher res screen and smaller battery) once all is said and done and any software issues are sorted it should have slightly worse battery then the Optimus G and Nexus 4.

Nexus 4 will probably have the mod community in it's favour though with developers quickly juicing the battery for every optimization they can to eek what they can from it.

 

[Nexus18]

True, however, the SLCD 3 screen is suppose to be extremely power efficient (there is more to power efficiency than just what res. is being used) and the screen is the biggest drainers on phones and from the android police review on battery, it is coming out really well and states that it is possibly slightly better than the GS 3 (a few other sites have said the same) and the GS 3 is regarded as having very good battery life yet the screen is 4.8" 720P and it has a 2100mAh battery.

Plus as said, in the android police review for battery:

- the guy pretty much never used wifi, only a 4G connection (wifi is much more friendly towards battery)
- screen on auto brightness (from my experience with the X and S it was too bright and got worse battery life with it on)
- had poor signal (plays a massive part in battery life) i.e. you turn of all signal/data connection, in other words airplane mode you will get days out of any android smartphone

Maybe HTC are using a next gen battery or something similar to or better than the LG and nexus 4 next-gen battery.....

EDIT:

True about the XDA community, but I think the DNA/deluxe will also have a very large community behind it due to it being the first phone with a 1080P screen. Although HTC's poor support with regards to providing sod off etc. and limited storage could scare a lot of people of

 

[m4rk84]

Bare in mind the LG supposedly (according to LG mind ) has an extremely power efficient screen and 'next gen' battery tech.

 

[Nexus18]

I am betting the nexus 4 and LG optimus G will get better battery life with some updates They have to!

 

[Nexus18]

Size comparison to the note II:

Makes me sad seeing how rough he is with the phones

 

[Oxide™]

Nexus18 you seem to be the man with the info - Could you perhaps give a quick comparison between this phone and the N4 please?

I like the N4 but there's some things I'm not sure on:

1: People say the phone speaker is soft when put on it's back - I use my phone as my talking alarm so that concerns me

2: I'm not sure I'm ready for stock Android coming from Sense

3: I almost feel like I want the Deluxe/DNA innards with the N4 build quality and exterior - and possibly it's screen?

Again, would the Deluxe/DNA be better than a DHD?

As Natalie Imbruglia would say - I'm torn

 

[m4rk84]

My name isn't Nexus18 but Ill give my imput anyway!

Firstly both the N4 and the DNA will smash your DHD into orbit, seriously if your only experience with Android thus far is the DHD prepare to be impressed.

1. The speaker volume is cut by about 50% when the N4 is lying face up.
2. Stock or sense is completely down to user opinion, someone like Nexus18 seems to really enjoy sense whereas I just prefer stock Android, not really possible to know until you have tried both.
3. The N4 and the DNA innards are very similar, same CPU, same 2GB of ram, same amount of storage. Main difference is that the DNA has a higher res screen (best screen on any smartphone from what I read) and the N4 has the larger battery.
4. Camera is probably better on the DNA.

 

[Oxide™]

Thanks m4rk84

Just been reading reviews on the DNA and I'm really impressed - I have a good feeling about this phone except...

Engadget review says the usb port is covered by a flap - I rather like my phone charging next to my monitor with a usb desktop cradle (I'm not bothered about wireless charging) so this would be a pain (maybe the UK version won't have it or I can break it off, who knows)

Also it should use at least a 2100mah battery - hopefully it should still give a full days moderate use but still, surely it wouldn't have been hard to include a larger battery unless it's really cramped in there.

Lastly, it only has JB 4.1, would 4.2 be available for it soon?

 

[m4rk84]

One of the major benefits of buying into the Nexus brand is your always guarenteed the latest version of Android, how much value you put on that is down to user opinion, some people buy the Nexus literally just because they always want to be on the latest version.

Best guess at an upgrade date from HTC is first half of 2013, it can take a while for HTC to get updates out, by that time you will probably looking at version 5 of Android (Key-Lime-Pie) depending on what features it implements you then maybe in for another 6 month wait for that. Whereas the N4 will happily receive it within the first week of it being announced...

Both phones look great though, go with your gut.

 

[Nexus18]

Late to the party .... Sorry!

m4rk84 pretty much summed it up.


Unfortunately anandtech and gsmarena haven't got their review up yet, once they do we will have a much better idea of the DNA. Also HTC could change a few things for the model here (called deluxe), for all we know they could add SD slot and/or bigger battery.

The DHD IMO is one of the worse phones ever so as said, prepare to have it nuked from orbit

Regarding the speaker, that is due to the speaker being on the back (pretty much all phones do the same stupid thing ) but from reading around so far, the speaker sounds like it will be very loud on the DNA so I imagine that the DNA will excel in this area as well as quality.

As said, skins personal preference, you just need to play with both yourself and decide.

The DNA will has 4.1, however, the deluxe could have 4.2 (very minor update especially for sense as most of the new features are already there) as it might not be released for another month. But as m4rk said again, if you want updates then get the nexus, HTC have been very poor recently with their support and updates for the one series phones and it has somewhat put me of them.

Battery life wise, don't be too worried as android police review on the battery (the best method I have seen yet) looks very promising especially due to the following:

Plus as said, in the android police review for battery:

- the guy pretty much never used wifi, only a 4G connection (wifi is much more friendly towards battery)
- screen on auto brightness (from my experience with the X and S it was too bright and got worse battery life with it on)
- had poor signal (plays a massive part in battery life) i.e. you turn of all signal/data connection, in other words airplane mode you will get days out of any android smartphone

If he hadn't done the above he would have got even better battery life.

Going by that and what some people are getting from the N4 so far, I would say that the DNA has the better battery life But this could very easily change as I think there is something wrong with the current 4.2 software that is draining the battery.


So, from what we have so far, this is how I look at both phones;

Pro's of N4 over DNA/deluxe:

- nexus phone so you get updates fast and will be guaranteed to get them
- better NLED although the DNA has a NLED on the back


Pro's of DNA/deluxe over N4:

- screen
- audio
- camera overall


I haven't listed performance for either one as I imagine both will be more or less the same once they get some updates (currently the DNA is holding up very well compared to the other top phones and even beating most of them, even the optimus G and N4 with the same hardware, despite having the 1080P screen [in benchmarks), also haven't listed battery yet as we need to see more user thoughts on both. Build/quality and design is up to you as well as the software skin.



BTW, the DNA is a uni-body design!!! One of the review sites got that wrong, either the verge or techradar I think........