HTC just unveiled to the world their new lineup of Android phones, and we’re at Mobile World Congress 2011 to check out the new wares – stuff like the just-announced HTC Incredible S, the successor to the wildly popular HTC Incredible smartphone. We had a chance to check out the Incredible S at the HTC press conference this morning, and we walked away impressed. With Android navigation buttons that rotate when you rotate the phone, an improved display, and Android Gingerbread running under HTC’s Sense 2.1 UI, the Incredible S is, well, pretty darn incredible.
The Incredible S sports a 1GHz second-generation Snapdragon processor, a larger 4-inch WVGA capacitive touchscreen (with rotating navigation buttons), an 8-megapixel camera with dual-LED flash, a front-facing 1.3MP camera for video calls, WiFi (B/G/N), 3G data connectivity, GPS (with compass), Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR and A2DP, microSD card slot (hot-swappable), 720p HD video recording, 3.5mm headphone jack, and runs on Android Gingerbread with HTC’s Sense 2.1 UI customizing the user experience as only HTC can do. HTC also showed off the integrated video-chat feature as part of the new Sense 2.1 UI.
The handset looks and feels a lot like the original Incredible. The beveled battery cover is finished in a soft-touch matte paint that makes the Incredible S feel stable in your hand. Despite the larger display, which offers a wider viewing experience that makes typing out messages easier and browsing webpages more convenient, the device feels as comfortable and pocketable as its predecessor.
The stand-out new feature in the Incredible S, aside from the fact that it sports a larger display and upgraded CPU, is the Incredible S ability to rotate the Home, Search, Menu, and Back Android navigation buttons. When you’re in an app, simply rotate the phone and you’ll see the screen rotate to match your new orientation — nothing new here — but you’ll also notice that the navigation buttons that sit under the screen (when in portrait mode) actually rotate to match your new view. That’s pretty trick. HTC pulls this off by replacing the capacitive touch buttons with a tiny secondary display that’s used to show the navigation buttons.
Overall, the phone is an impressive evolutionary upgrade from the original. We had expected a little more out of HTC, to be honest, but the Incredible S is no slouch by any means.
According to HTC, the Incredible S will be broadly available to customers across major European and Asian markets during Q2 2011. No word on pricing. We’re expecting to see this phone hit T-Mobile USA, given its support for the the carrier’s AWS 1700MHz 3G band.
As you wait to learn more, hit up our hands-on gallery and HD video below!
