Unboxing of Android Incredible and Initial Impressions

After several months with the latest Blackberry device (Tour) it was time to move on, and yesterday the Android Incredible by HTC and Verizon arrived at the home office.  I decided to turn on the camera and unbox it with you, and after a few hours of use, share my initial impressions of this powerful device.  I’m going briefly cover the screen, input (including voice to text), social web, mobile marketing potential, navigation, and the android marketplace apps installed.

Unboxing of Android Incredible and Initial Impressions

The battery wasn’t even fully charged as I headed out the door to a social media meet up, I had just enough time to activate it, and get down the road

1.) It’s all Screen

iPhone users already know this, but if you are like me, this is quite a departure from the Blackberry.  As a result there is more space to feed me information about what is going on, either with the weather, emails, or my social circle.

2.) Input… eh

Blackberry’s have been on my hip for roughly 3 years.  Having a physical keyboard on my phone for writing messages made it easy.  Now I have slowed down a bit as I figure out the Incredible’s implementation of a touch keyboard.  I’m hopeful that in 30 days, I’ll be humming along faster than I am currently.  I do like the way it guesses what I’m typing and fills it in when I hit the space bar.

Voice to Text. This is an alternative to poking the screen-based keyboard.  Press a button, speak what you want to type, and it turns it into text.  Nice, and I would say 80% accurate in my initial testing. I just wish they made navigating typed text easier so I can make corrections faster.

Here is a video of the unboxing, if you cannot see it find the Android Incredible unboxing here.

3.) Social Web

HTC includes their “sense” software that allows you to keep tabs on what is going on for the social sites you have configured on the device.  It’s nice because it is a single view.  I found replying to tweets, Google buzz, pretty easy.  I have yet to get Foursquare loaded up.

4.) Navigation – Car Panel

There is even an app that comes on the phone called “Car Panel”.  It is point to point navigation.  Used it on the 20 minute ride home in tandem with the Tomtom device I already had in the car, and it did an exceptional job.

5.) Mobile Marketing Goldmine

The potential is pretty impressive.  For example Google maps allows you to drop a “Buzz” layer.  This allowed me to see what other people were buzzing about nearby when I was downtown Denver last night.  If it catches on, it could give Foursquare and others a run for their money.  There are many other mobile marketing possibilities, which I hope to share with customers and in some posts here.  Not sure mobile marketing is for your business? See 7 Reasons to Use Mobile Marketing in Your Business.

6.) Android Marketplace

My wife has an Apple iTouch, and I found the Android Marketplace to have comparable features and apps.  I have downloaded a Delicious social bookmarking tool, Roboform (who can live without Roboform?), Skype, and a unified instant messenger called eBuddy.

Thoughts? Feedback? Chime in below.