HTC is no stranger to the limelight as they have been one of the few phone companies that have been able to rival Apple in design esthetics. With the launch of the Vivid, exclusively on AT&T’s network, HTC hopes to bring the LTE packing offspring to a ring that is ready for fighters.

What does the HTC Vivid bring to the equation is a question many will ask. Is it packing anything that makes it stand out from the competition and if so, is it worth the price? These are some of the questions we will answer.  Learning where to buy the HTC Vivid 4G at a lower rate than AT&T’s unappealing price tag is also a priority.

Design and Features

Hold the HTC Vivid in your hand and the first words that come to mind are bulky, chunky and maybe a little fat. It’s not an overall bad thing but with Samsung proving you can pack a WiMAX or LTE radio into a phone without giving it extra girth or considerably more weight, we’re wondering what prompted HTC to take this design direction.

On the inside, you get a true understanding of what the Vivid is capable of, at least from the spec sheets alone. Running the phone is Android 2.3.4 which is powered by a dual-core 1.2GHz Qualcomm processor with a dedicated GPU, 1GB of system RAM and 16GB of internal storage.

Moving along, we have a 4.5-inch qHD touchscreen display, one that is bound to challenge the Galaxy S II Skyrocket. This display of the Vivid pumps out 540 x 960 pixels onto an S-LCD panel with 262,144 colors. An 8 megapixel camera is included in the Vivid package with a 1.3 megapixel module doing the front end work of video chatting and self-portraits. The rear facing unit will shoot 1080p content at 30fps.

Connectivity options include quad-band GSM, triband UMTS, monoband LTE, A-GPS and support for HSPA, UMTS, HSUPA, EDGE, GPRS and LTE data. Moving along, there is a Bluetooth 3.0 on board, Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n, microUSB 2.0, HDMI, tethering and MHL.

Performance

For a dual-core phone, the HTC Vivid is acceptable. In our tests, we did notice it lagged behind the likes of the Skyrocket and Droid RAZR and Epic 4G. This could be due to its software configurations or the pixel density of the screen. That being said, real world performance was good however. On average we noticed little to no issues carrying out daily to more advanced tasks and with Sense UI on board, we are happy to say that it was a breath of fresh air over the other UI skins we have been subjected to recently.

The camera takes beautiful photos, however the video qualities leave a little to be desired as the quality was not up to par. That being said, it should do fine for normal situations but just don’t expect to catch every single detail.

Battery life will be an issue to heavy users as the phone averages 5 hours of usage on a single charge. It does make up for it’s less than perfect battery life in standby time which should be able to last a full day. If you keep your LTE, Wi-Fi and GPS radios off, you can extend the battery life will into the next day on minimal usage.

Unlike many other Android skins that seem to detract from Android, Sense UI, now in version 3 is beautiful. It does come at a cost though as we noted a bit slower performance than when Sense was not running.

This being an LTE phone, we were able to average download speeds of 20MBps in areas such as Dallas and Houston. We even had spikes in the 50Mbps range, though we doubt those will last as the network gets more saturated.  Read on to find out where to purchase the HTC Vivid.

Conclusion

The HTC Vivid is a nice phone, and it should definitely be considered if you are thinking of getting an LTE phone on AT&T’s network. With the addition of HTC Sense UI, a beautiful screen, stellar 4G performance (in applicable areas), and a robust feature set, there are more than a few reasons that the HTC Vivid would provide you with a suitable smartphone experience.