I think 3D is hilarious. It’s cute, really. I take my little ones to the theater and they enjoy putting the glasses on, jumping from left to right when it seems that the thing on the screen will jump right out and snatch them up. It’s a generally fun experience, a terrific diversion, but then we take the glasses off and return to our normal optical experience until our next trip to the theater.
When 3D TV’s became commonplace at tech events, I was less amused. The idea that I would sit with those glasses on in my own home and watch TV was not the same. For starters, who is ever watching TV and not doing something else? I almost always have a laptop, a book, a tablet, or my phone in front of my when TV is on. With that, I’m sure you can imagine my opinion of 3D tablets or phones that offered the same simple experience was less than positive. So, when I was handed a pair of 3D glasses at the Sprint CTIA event, my mind drifted to a happy place where I wouldn’t simply get up an leave at the notion that the phone I was about to be shown would be “3D”. Please let the record firmly state that when it comes to the Evo View 3D and the Evo 3D from Sprint, I was dead wrong.
For starters, it’s not a persistent 3D experience. The 3D is in reference only to consuming 3D media or recording 3D content using the dual 5MP cameras, which can be activated or deactivated at the flick of a switch. So, if you are truly put off on the whole 3D thing, the phone and tablet are both still really great devices. Should you choose to venture into the brave new world of autostereoscopic visual experiences, you are in for a real treat.
I sat and played the 3D trailer for The Green Hornet about half a dozen times from a multitude of viewing angles and was pleased to find that, unlike the 3DS from Nintendo, which also sports “glasses free 3D”, the 3D experience on these devices was really quite good from most angles. Since we were not permitted to see the camera or camcorder in action, the PR people citing “poor lighting” which I translated to “incomplete software”, the 3D part of the tour ended, and I began to explore the really important parts of the devices.
The Evo 3D
At CTIA, as Dan Hesse of Sprint spun his silky weave of pleasing tones about the history of the Evo and Sprint’s eagerness to be at the front line of technological innovation and whatnot, I made sure to give an original HTC Evo a good once over and flipped through some of the more recent reviews of the device for reference.
When I was finally shown the Evo 3D, I wanted to know what exactly had changed besides the camera. Here we have a 1.2GHz dual-core Snapdragon processor, 1.3 megapixel front facing camera, 1750 mAH battery, and the latest Sense UI trimmings on Android 2.3. Not bad on its own, but the Evo already had that same front facing camera a year ago, the kickstand has been removed, and WiMax hasn’t changed much recently. The only significant differences appears to be the processor and the battery.
The battery is probably a really good thing, since one of the nicer things said about the Evo’s battery life was calling it “abysmal”. However, an HTC rep was cited today as saying that the battery life was similar to that of ”the average Android phone”. Naturally, I am inclined to compare it to the Evo, the Thunderbolt, and the Droid X. Unfortunately, what none of those three devices have is a dual-core processor. We’ve been assured countless times that dual core chips will prolong battery life and increase performance, yet it seems to fall a little short on delivering that with the current offerings of dual core phones.
All in all, when combined with the new SenseUI, the Evo 3D is a powerhouse in a pretty box, and had plenty of extra buttons for everyone.
The Evo View 4G
The irony of the Evo, at one time called a “clown phone” and ridiculed for its girthy display, having a “big brother” is not lost on me. Especially when, compared to current tablet offerings, it’s one of the little guys. This 7-inch thin slab of Android is truly in a league of its own. I appreciated the size of the Galaxy Tab in terms of its size and pocketability, but the “big phone” effect of Touchwiz over Android 2.2 made it difficult to use. Since the user experience of Sense UI is already a pleasant one, it came as no surprise that the Evo View’s variant of Sense was quite optimized for the screen size.
Sporting a dual core 1.2GHz Snapdragon, the tablet will be able to drive any app you can throw at it, and very fast. The 1.3 megapixel front facing camera, dual microphones and dual speakers lend themselves nicely to it being a portable video communication device.
What really sets the device apart, however, is the stylus. Tablets are cool, but they fail pretty miserably at replacing a pen for jotting down that quick note, highlighting text in a book, or just plain doodling. The Scribe Pen captures these abilities and more in a slick little pencil-shaped stylus. Students in class, teachers grading papers, or me drawing stick figures instead of working can all be done very well. Its only foreseeable downside is that, inexplicably, the pen cannot be used to navigate the operating system. The Evo View 4G is light, sleek, and extremely portable, and by far a worthy big brother to the Evo line.
The HTC Flyer (top image)
The View 3D is based on a tablet we saw unveiled at Mobile World Congress, the HTC Flyer. Coming “soon” through Best Buy Mobile, the HTC Flyer is a WiFi-only View 3D without the 3D camera. Instead it’s packing a single 5MP camera and sports a white interior, instead of red.
The WiFi Flyer’s pricing has yet to be revealed, but it’s useability is identical to the View 3D in every way, and will no doubt be cheaper once Best Buy is able to carry it.
Posted in: HTC
0 comments:
Post a Comment