The good: The HTC Rezound
has a gorgeous 4.3-inch 720p HD display, a 1.5GHz dual-core processor,
an 8-megapixel rear camera with dual-LED flash, a 2-megapixel
front-facing camera, and Verizon's 4G/LTE speeds. It ships with a pair
of Beats earbuds along with a Beats Audio algorithm designed to enhance
audio quality.
The bad: The HTC Rezound is quite bulky and call quality could be better. The Beats Audio software can only be toggled in the Music app.
The bottom line: While
it may have a hefty build, the HTC Rezound's beautiful display,
commendable performance, and multimedia-rich features make it a top
phone for Verizon customers.
The HTC Rezound is one of three hot new Android handsets headed to
Verizon this holiday season--the other two are the superskinny
Motorola Droid Razr and the Google-approved
Samsung Galaxy Nexus.
It's an embarrassment of riches for Verizon customers: they're all
top-of-the-line phones with dual-core processors, support for Verizon's
4G LTE network, and features galore.
What sets the Rezound apart from its brethren, however, is that it is
the first U.S.-bound handset with Beats Audio Technology, which HTC
developed after it bought a majority stake in Dr. Dre's Beats
Electronics. The phone ships with a pair of Beats Audio earbuds that are
supposedly worth around $100 on their own. When they are plugged into
the Rezound, the phone will instantly recognize them as Beats earbuds
and the user will then be able to boost the sound via a special Beats
Audio algorithm.
The Rezound is a rather hefty phone, but it's also blessed with
an amazing 720p HD display that showcases HTC's attractive Sense 3.5
user interface. It sits atop the Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread OS, but HTC
has promised that Ice Cream Sandwich will be available for the Rezound
"early next year." It also boasts an impressive 8-megapixel camera with
an f/2.2 sensor, a 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon dual-core processor, 1080p
HD video capture, a 2-megapixel front-facing camera, and of course
support for Verizon's 4G LTE network.
Design
Out of all the 4G LTE handsets we've handled, the Rezound is probably
the bulkiest. At 5.08 inches tall by 2.58 inches wide by 0.54 inch
thick, the Rezound is undeniably beefy, and at 5.78 ounces, it's not
that light either. The flip side to such heft is that it feels fairly
solid in the hand. Clad in a matte soft-touch material similar to the
coating on the
Incredible and the
Incredible 2,
the Rezound has rounded corners and a topographic back cover that adds
character to an otherwise simple slab. There's a wide island of ridges
on the back to help with grip. The narrow bezel and tapered edges helped
our small hands hold the phone without much discomfort.
The HTC Rezound has a gorgeous 4.3-inch Super LCD display with 720p HD resolution.
Similarly to the first Droid Incredible, the insides of
the phone are red, which complements the phone's red and black
coloring. Sure, no one will notice it unless the cover is taken off, but
we appreciate HTC's attempt at making the phone beautiful inside and
out. HTC carries the touch of red to other parts of the phone, like the
ring around the camera lens, the speaker grille, the touch sensor
lights, and the wired cord of the Beats earbuds. Perhaps not
coincidentally, the Beats logo has the same color scheme as well, and is
prominently placed on the battery cover.
All eyes will likely
focus on the Rezound's stunning 4.3-inch Super LCD display instead,
however. The display boasts 1,280x720-pixel resolution, which places it
at 720p HD quality. Frankly, it's simply gorgeous. Images and text are
buttery-smooth, with amazing clarity and vivid colors to boot. The
colors look almost painted on. Video looks luscious on such a generous
screen size, and browsing the Web is a treat.
The capacitive
touch screen felt very responsive, thanks to the Rezound's 1.5GHz
Qualcomm Snapdragon dual-core processor. There's a slight lag when
scrolling through the browser, but on the whole, we were pleased with
the snappiness we experienced when swiping and tapping. It offers
pinch-to-zoom as well as a built-in accelerometer, light sensor, and
proximity sensor. The LCD display does wash out slightly under the
bright sunlight.
Like the
HTC Rhyme,
the HTC Rezound runs HTC Sense 3.5. This includes a new lock screen
that provides instant access to four of your favorite apps--simply slide
the appropriate shortcut over the metal ring and it'll launch
immediately. Other welcome improvements include a three-dimensional home
screen carousel, refined widgets, and the ability to add and remove
home screen panels--you can have up to seven home screens overall. The
main menu is divided into all apps, frequently used apps, downloaded
apps, and Verizon apps.
Beneath the display are the usual four
touch-sensitive controls for the home, menu, back, and search functions.
On the right spine is the volume rocker, while the Micro-USB charging
port is on the left. The Micro-USB port doubles as an MHL (Mobile
High-definition Link) port that you can hook up to an HDMI adapter. The
3.5mm headset jack sits on top. The front-facing 2-megapixel camera is
located on the upper-right corner of the display and the rear
8-megapixel sits on the back along with the LED flash.
Beats Audio experience
The Monster Beats brand has found its way into this phone in two ways.
First, there's the included pair of Monster Beats in-ear headphones.
These headphones come with all the expected Beats branding, red cable,
and multiple ear fittings, as well as on-cable track control buttons and
a microphone for taking calls. They sound great, though we wouldn't
confuse their flimsy design with Monster's more durable $149 Dr. Dre
Tour in-ear headphones.
The HTC Rezound ships with Beats Audio earbuds along with special software that helps boost the audio.
The second part of HTC's Beats infusion is a software
button that toggles a sound enhancement effect on and off. The
enhancement boosts the audio's volume, the bass is deepened, and the
audio simply sounds rounder and fuller. This button is accessible from
the notifications pull-down while you're playing music in the stock
Music app, but, oddly, the button isn't available in other multimedia
apps, including Google's own Music app (a separate but worthwhile
download). Still, the Beats enhancements seem to carry over sonically to
any running multimedia app, but only the stock Music player will afford
you the displeasure of hearing the enhancement disengaged.
If you're buying this phone strictly on the basis of its
superior sound quality, you may want to reconsider. Any comparable
smartphone will be able to step up to this same sound quality with an
investment in some
high-grade headphones, which you'll probably end up buying anyhow, since the included headphones use a cable design that seems designed to fail.
Features
The HTC Rezound ships with Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread, which brings
plenty of user interface improvements to Android 2.2 Froyo before it. As
with all Android phones, the Rezound has support for Google's array of
apps and services, many of which are preinstalled on the phone. They
include Gmail, Google Talk, Google Search with Voice, Google Maps with
Navigation, Google Books, Places, Latitude, and YouTube. Essential
smartphone tools are also present, such as the usual phone and PIM tools
like a calendar, an alarm clock, a calculator, a task manager, a to-do
list, voice command support, and a speakerphone.
In addition to
the Rezound's support for 4G LTE (which we'll get to in the Performance
section), the phone has other connectivity features like Bluetooth 3.0,
GPS, and Wi-Fi. You can use the Rezound as a mobile hot spot for up to
10 Wi-Fi enabled devices, but bear in mind that the mobile hot-spot
option costs around $20 extra per month. As we mentioned earlier, you
can use an MHL-to-HDMI adapter to hook the phone up to an HD television.
The Rezound also supports 5.1 surround sound and SRS Wow HD surround
when hooked up to your home theater. You can also send your media
wirelessly to a DLNA-compatible television.
HTC and Verizon have
packed the Rezound with plenty of preinstalled apps, which some might
characterize as bloatware. They include Amazon.com's Kindle app,
Blockbuster, Facebook, Footprints, Friend Stream, Hot Pursuit, Let's
Golf 2, Polaris Office, Scan (a QR code scanner), Slacker radio, Video
Surf, NFL Mobile, My Verizon Mobile, Mobile IM, V Cast Music, V Cast
Videos, and VZ Navigator. There's also Visual Voicemail, which costs
$2.99 a month. Unfortunately there's no option to uninstall these apps.
Like other HTC smartphones, the Rezound ships with HTC Watch, HTC's
video download and rental service. You can rent or purchase TV shows and
movies. Rental prices range from $2.99 to $3.99, while purchase prices
range from around $8.99 to $14.99 for movies. We weren't able to check
TV show prices with our review unit.
The HTC Rezound ships with
the standard Android music player, which isn't a bad thing. The music is
sorted via artist, album, and genre, and you can create and edit your
own playlists. The phone comes with 16GB of onboard memory along with a
16GB preinstalled microSD card for you to store your music on. It
supports up to 32GB cards if you want even more space.
Another notable feature of the Rezound is its 8-megapixel camera. It inherits the camera of the
T-Mobile MyTouch 4G Slide,
with its f/2.2 and 28mm wide-angle lens with a BSI
(backside-illuminated) sensor. The BSI sensor is there to improve the
camera's performance in low-light conditions, and purports to improve
the image's dynamic range. There's also a dual-LED flash for the darkest
conditions. The camera has tons of features like automatic face
detection, panorama mode, and burst shot. You can read our review of the
T-Mobile MyTouch 4G Slide for more on the camera's features.
The HTC Rezound takes good pictures overall, but low-light photos were a touch dimmer than we would like.
Picture quality
on the whole was very good. Images of the great outdoors were crisp and
bright, with vibrant colors. Low-light photos were sharp enough, but
they seemed a little dimmer than we would like. Shutter speed was a bit
inconsistent--at times we would get no shutter lag, while there were
times when it would hesitate a little before snapping a photo. The
camera can also record 1080p HD video. We weren't able to give the
camcorder a full spin, but the short video clips that we captured looked
good--we noticed very little blur or pixelation.
Performance
We
tested
the HTC Rezound in San Francisco using Verizon Wireless. Call quality
was average. On our end, callers sounded decent enough, with good volume
and clear voice quality. We did detect the occasional static hiccup in
the background, but it was not distracting.
Callers could hear
us loud and clear as well, but they said our voice quality was heavily
distorted, and did not sound natural at all. They also heard odd audio
fluctuations in the background at times. In speakerphone mode, callers
said we sounded distant and soft, and we had to speak up more often than
not.
HTC Rezound call quality sample
Listen now:
We were very impressed with the data speeds exhibited on the HTC
Rezound. Using Ookla's Speedtest.net app, we averaged download speeds
of around 18Mbps and upload speeds of around 9Mbps. We loaded CNET's
mobile page in 6 seconds and the full CNET home page in 14 seconds. We
streamed YouTube videos in high quality with almost no buffering. The
1.5GHz dual-core processor resulted in zippy navigation, and we launched
most apps without lag. The accelerometer took barely a second to kick
in, and multitasking felt seamless.
The HTC Rezound has a 1,620mAH battery. We'll have to run more tests to judge its actual
talk time.
Anecdotally, however, the battery seems to drain fairly quickly after a
solid few hours of playing music, surfing the Web, and streaming video.
According to the FCC, the HTC Rezound has a digital
SAR of 0.427 watt per kilogra
No 
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