The Droid DNA is HTC's most feature-rich smartphone ever, boasting a mind boggling 5-inch, 1920 x 1080 screen, along with a quad-core processor and very reasonable price tag. Can it dethrone Samsung as King of the Droids?
Build & Design
My first impression on pulling the DNA out of its box was that it felt huge, yet amazingly thin. Although one of those feelings turned out to be a bit misleading. When you take a closer look at it, you realize that the DNA is actually thicker than your average high-end smartphone, thicker even than the Motorola Droid RAZR MAXX HD which sports a much larger battery. But it doesn't feel like it in the hand, because the edges are tapered down to extremely narrow point. That tends to make it feel slimmer than it really is, as well as making it disappear fairly easily in a pocket.
The build quality of the DNA seems excellent, and the engineering is pretty nice, giving it good looks and good durability. But I do have to take issue with some of the ergonomics. This is not always a smartphone that's comfortable to use. A 5-inch screen is not just large, it's very large, and it gets to the point where even stretching your hand to hit the upper parts of the screen doesn't really allow you to use it one-handed.
The second point has to do with the power button, for similar reasons. The DNA's power button is mounted on the top of the device, in the center, making it very hard to hit while you have the phone in anything like a natural grip. Even with fairly large hands, I would almost always have to contort my hands in order to press it. It doesn't help of course that the button itself is fairly flat and doesn't have a lot of response.
The front of the device is Gorilla Glass, the back is a smooth touch plastic that feels pretty good. It's a little smudgy, but I've seen worse, and it feels pretty good.
Overall, the design of the Droid DNA is sexy on the first impression, but a bit awkward when you try to use it practically in day-to-day situations.
Screen
This is one of the very first Android smartphones to push its screen resolution all the way up to 1920 x 1080 pixels -- also known as "1080P," which is the highest resolution in current use for HDTV. That gives it more than double the raw number of pixels as a 1280 x 720 (720P) screen, and a whopping 440 dots-per-inch of pixel density.
There's no question that the Droid DNA's screen is beautiful. And at 5 inches, it offers measurably more area (about 10-15% more) than even the 4.8-inch Galaxy S III or 4.7 inches of Motorola's RAZR HD models. However, the simple fact is that side by side, you may not really be able to notice much of a difference, and here's why.
Apple calls their 300+ DPI screens "Retina" displays for a reason: 300 dots per inch is roughly the effective resolution of the human eye. Studies have shown that beyond that level, people can't really perceive increased quality to an image, or distinguish more detail. Consequently, while the 440 DPI of the DNA looks great, it's hard bordering on almost impossible to see a real world difference between it and a screen like the 1280 x 720, 312 DPI Droid RAZR MAXX HD. Even with 20/20 vision and DNA and MAXX HD side by side, I couldn't perceive any real improvement in quality or crispness in the Droid DNA. In fact, looking at the two that way, the RAZR MAXX HD's display looks better simply because of the higher contrast AMOLED panel.
There's certainly no drawbacks to the Droid DNA's screen -- it looks beautiful at all times, and can can wow with the best of them. But it's also mostly an "on paper" advantage over its competitors, not one that you'll really feel using it day to day.
Other Buttons & Ports
The connectors and buttons are fairly straightforward. The power button and headphone jack share the top of the device with the SIM card tray, which requires a special tool to open.
Volume keys on the side, and there's a little plastic "door" on the bottom of the device to protect the micro-USB port, but at least on my review unit, it was kind of mangled straight out of the box. Maybe it's there to cover up the fact that the micro-USB port is backward, for unexplained reasons.
The nav buttons are directly on the glass, so you won't have virtual buttons taking up actual screen space.
Performance
The DNA launched with last summer's Android 4.1 "Jellybean" out of the box, one of the few smartphones to do so. Given how new the device is it's a safe bet that there's an update in the pipeline to bring it up to the more recent 4.2 version, but currently it's anyone's guess when that will happen, since many devices are just now getting 4.1. It also features HTC Sense 4.1, which is HTC's special overlay to the normal Android interface. Each manufacturer has their own "secret sauce" of changes to Android, but Sense is substantially more invasive than either Motorola or Samsung's alterations. As a result, there's a higher learning curve, and it's much less like a stock Android device. I have to admit, I did not enjoy using Sense -- while both Motorola's Motoblur and Samsung's TouchWiz have gradually turned into mature and sensible modifications that make the device better, Sense seems more like it's there for the sake of being there.
Unlike the quad-core LG Optimus G I recently tested, the HTC Droid DNA had no trouble maintaining consistently high benchmark scores using its own quad-core processor. In four run throughs of Quadrant benchmark, the DNA scored an average of a whopping 8129. Compared to the already very fast performance of the RAZRs and the Galaxy S III, each of which score around 5000, that's pretty impressive. I frankly would have a hard time imagining an app or movie which would choke even the high-end dual cores mentioned, but if you can find one, the DNA will burn through it like a blowtorch through paper.
Unfortunately, there is one huge drawback to the Droid DNA's specs: storage capacity. Out of the 16 GB of internal memory that the DNA has, 11.3 GB of it is free out of the box. That wouldn't be so bad, except for this: it's all the memory you'll ever have. The DNA doesn't have a microSD expansion slot, meaning that you can't upgrade it, ever. Usually, when devices drop the microSD slot (like the Optimus G, or the Galaxy Nexus) they make sure to pack in 32 GB of memory so that the user isn't too pinched. The DNA doesn't do that. To illustrate why that's a big problem, let's look at what the average user might want to do.
Let's assume that part of what you want to do is carry around your music. For me, that means about 5.5 GB off the top. Also, my music library grows at about 500 megs a year, at the end of a two year contract that'll be up to 6.5 GB. Figure another 500 megs that you want to reserve for apps, downloaded files, documents, books, etcetera. The most recent few hundred photos you took on your phone, that's another gigabyte. Of course, some of the games that will really show off that 5-inch screen are up to 2 gigabytes each. If you want to load up an HD movie for during your airline flight, that'll probably be 2 gigs at least. And just like that, you're out of memory. Music, your photos, one movie, one game, and you've hit bust, trying to decide what to delete so that you can do what you need to do. Maybe the math is a little different for other people -- maybe no games, but two movies. Maybe they have a little more music. Maybe they want to record more than 20 minutes or so of HD video. Whatever way you hit the limit, you hit it much too soon.
If the DNA were more of a business-oriented device, or targeted at less demanding users, I would tend to be more forgiving on this count, but it's not. Multimedia and gaming are what's front and center for it, and yet it doesn't pack enough memory to handle more than the basics at any one time. That's just unreasonable.
Communication
The overall communications suite of the Droid DNA is fairly unremarkable. It stocks the standard Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, as well as the increasingly-common Near Field Communication. CDMA and LTE capabilities keep you fully connected with Verizon's 3G and 4G networks. The signal strength I've seen out of it over the course of this review isn't anything to write home about, but it's also no slouch. Like basically all of Verizon's recent smartphones, the DNA is also equipped with a GSM/HSPA radio for international roaming.
Slightly off topic -- it's also not strictly a form of communication, but it IS wireless -- we have one little note. The Droid DNA also happens to support inductive charging, which lets you recharge the battery wirelessly just by setting the device on a charging "pad," like the models sold by Energizer. Just set the phone on the pad, and it charges, no cables needed. A pretty cool feature, especially if you don't want to be constantly plugging and unplugging your phone every time you take it off your desk.
Productivity
The Droid DNA is rather remarkable in this category, for one simple reason: it doesn't stock even a single additional productivity app beyond the ones that are part of Android. Not even a basic Microsoft Office-compatible suite, not even just to view documents. That's something that almost every other smartphone, including low-end ones, makes sure to include. Sure, you can download one through Google Play, but you can look forward to paying extra for what's basic functionality on other devices.
Entertainment
There's a few more options here: beyond the usual Google Music, Books, TV & Movies, etcetera, it also has Kindle, Audible, and a game demo or two. Still nothing that you couldn't download for yourself from Google Play, so it's still pretty much just taking up space, but it's there.
Camera
The DNA's camera is pretty much typical for an 8 megapixel phone camera, to possibly a little below typical. Even in good light, it doesn't have a lot of crispness in detail. I have to admit that I'm disappointed manufacturers haven't done more to move cameras forward in the last 12-18 months; while we now have phones with HD screens and have gone from single-core to quad-core processors, we're still stuck with the same basic camera quality that we had before.
Battery Life
Although the battery capacity on the Droid DNA is "only" 2020 mAh, less than any of Verizon's other recent high-end phones, it doesn't do too badly -- at least, depending on how you use it. The big battery drain isn't, as you might expect, the 5-inch screen, but rather the quad-core processor.
With a lot of low impact use -- web browsing, texting, light YouTube type video -- you can reasonably expect it to go a full day to even a day and a half depending on how much time you put in on it. If, on the other hand, you're using it for heavier duty things like streaming high-quality video, or playing a lot of games (even light games like Words With Friends), you can probably count on having to recharge well before your day is done. The display is power hungry, but it's nothing set beside the massive horsepower that drives the DNA. So expect your mileage to vary significantly.
Conclusion
On paper, the HTC Droid DNA has some spectacular specs. The 1080P screen certainly is pretty, even if it doesn't improve that much on 1280 x 720, and the quad-core processor provides a huge amount of push no matter what you decide to do. I'm not wild about the ergonomics, but it's something that you can learn to live with, especially given the drawbacks inherent in any device with a 5+ inch screen. And it does have the notable advantage of coming in $100 below the flagship Motorola Droid RAZR MAXX HD, which is a pretty significant savings.
When it comes down to it though, the biggest weakness of the DNA is its memory configuration. For such a high-end device, particularly one which goes out of its way to show off its media capabilities, having only 11 GB of storage capacity and no possibility for expansion is pretty much an unforgivable sin. A decent music collection and a few large apps would leave the DNA with precious little available memory, and the cost of data makes cloud storage or media streaming a not so great alternative. Having so little memory makes it very hard to recommend the DNA to anyone really looking to harness the power of a very high-end device.
Pros:
Cons:
Bottom Line:
The Droid DNA is a sexy and high-powered device, but is inexplicably hamstrung by its limited memory.
