Earlier this year, the mobile world went abuzz when HTC, the Taiwanese phone manufacturer, purchased Beats Audio for over $300 million. It didn’t take long to find out what the company planned to do with their new acquisition as we now have the HTC Rezound, the first phone with Beats Audio. According to HTC, this is the phone to beat, but before the Rezound can take the belt, it of course has to challenge the current heavy weight champions, some of which include the likes of Samsung and Motorola. Read on to find out when and where to buy the HTC Rezound 4G, including which authorized retailers provide you with the most reliable customer service.
Design and Features
The design of the Rezound is not radically different from what we have come to expect from HTC’s Android line. In of itself, it’s not a bad thing seeing that the company has been able to push millions of these units from their warehouses and into the hands of eager customers.
In keeping with the color scheme of Beats Audio and Verizon, HTC has added many red accents to the device from the backlight of the touch sensitive buttons to the speakers and covers.
To start off the feature list, we have a powerful Qualcomm sourced 1.5GHz dual-core chip with a full 1GB of system RAM as well as 16GB of built in storage. Those who require more space are welcomed to increase the storage via a microSD card slot that will hold cards of up to 32GB in size.
When it comes to visuals, we have a 4.3-inch screen that boasts 720p x 1280 pixels with S-LCD technology. The rear facing 8 megapixel camera will shoot full 1080p video clips at 30fps and 720p video clips at 60fs. The front facing camera is rated at 2 megapixels and is suitable for video calling.
Other than the dual band CDMA radio as well as LTE radio, other connectivity options include Bluetooth 3.0, 802.11b/g/n/a, microUSB 2.0, MHL, OTA Sync, A-GPS and S-GPS.
HTC’s innovative move of adding teh Beats Audio integration delivers an audio experience exclusive to the Rezound. You are able to hear music the way that it was intended thanks to the high quality and unique turning by Beats which delivers powerful bass, impressive midrange, and super crisp highs. The brand new and very light-weight Beats headphones come with the Rezound. These headphones were developed solely for integration of the Beats’ audio profile on the phone.
Performance
Up until recently, the iPhone 4 and 4S held the crown for most pixel dense mobile screen. That all changes with the HTC Rezound which carries a 720 x 1280 resolution and 342ppi. Colors look surprisingly crisp with extreme clarity and detail. Unfortunately, the viewing angles are not as good as the Samsung Galaxy S II, but with this much clarity and detail, we wouldn’t mind trading the viewing angles for better image quality.
The Rezound is definitely a phone to be contended with. Although benchmarks don’t tell the full story mainly because the screen of the Rezound is brighter and more pixel dense then the competition, not to mention the renowned HTC Sense UI, we are very impressed with the overall performance of the device.
Our only major gripe with the Rezound, other than its lack of GSM radios is the battery life. Thankfully, the Rezound has a removable battery, but that being said, you will need to charge this phone on a daily basis with average usage and up to twice a day with heavy usage.
HTC has included the same camera that is found on the Vivid and Titan. That being said, we were happy with the images we got from the camera and overall there was little color distortion in low light. Video quality is excellent as well and while not the best camera we have tested, it sure ranks up there with the likes of the Nokia N9.
Last but not least, call quality was good. We had no issues receiving or making calls and even when service reception was not the greatest, calls were crisp and clean
Conclusion
Picking the Rezound over the competition might be harder than originally thought. HTC has put a lot into this phone and it is definitely a major contender. Their Beats ‘extra’s’ give this phone an audio experience that no other smartphone is offering. The two things that stand out most is its processor and screen. If you can get past the sub-par battery life and the extra thickness of the phone, this could very well be one of the best phones you ever purchased. Verizon is coming in with a price tag of $299 (ouch!!), but you can buy the HTC Rezound 4G at select Verizon authorized retailers for as little as $199.99.