HTC Vivid Smartphone Review

The HTC Vivid comes with a 4.5" touch screen, a 960x540 resolution, a 1.2 GHz processor and Android's Ice Cream Sandwich OS. So does the $199 smartphone live up to its name? Matt Mira and Kevin Pereira take a look on Gadget Pr0n.

What You Need To know

• The HTC Vivid is 5" tall and measures little over 2.5" wide.
• The design is interesting with a high gloss border around the phone.
• The phone does feel a bit heavy and as a result, it's very solid.
• The speaker grill on the back is incorporated nicely in the back plate.
• The speakerphone is actually pretty loud.
• The back plate itself is metal, which you have to remove with the battery to access the micro SD slot.
• The phone's unique shape made for a somewhat uncomfortable feel in the hands.
• The 4.5" QHD display has a resolution of 960x540, which is pretty good by today's standards.
• The screen lived up to its name, which is the first thing we noticed about the phone, especially compared to the Droid 4.
• Colors popped and media looked sharp.
• There was a little bit of a problem with the display appearing washed out in sunlight.
• The 8 megapixel camera can shoot 1080p video and works great.
• Shutter speeds were excellent and performance was good in all light conditions.
• Colors were vibrant and noise performance was excellent.
• The video quality was good as well.
• A lot of camera phones have trouble with the shutter and adjusting to different light qualities while trying to find focus, but the Vivid had no such problems.
• The Ice Cream Sandwich update was pretty good during daily use.
• Navigating through websites and apps were a breeze.
• The LTE network was pretty reliable throughout our testing period.
• We will say that the call quality wasn't the best with calls sounding a little more muffled from the receiver than we would like to hear.
• We compared the Vivid with the Galaxy Nexus found that the apps opened at roughly the same speed, if occasionally a little slower.

Price

• $199 with an AT&T contract.

Rating

• 4 Seals of Approval out of 5. (How do we rate gadgets?)
• The phone is very capable once the ICS update was performed.
• The camera is one of the better cameras in the smartphone category.
• The form is uncomfortable and the call quality is below average, which holds the Vivid back from a higher rating.

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