A review of Verizon’s HTC Rezound

When I recently switched to Verizon I wanted the yet to be released and long delayed Samsung Galaxy Nexus to be my end state phone but started with the HTC Rezound and a 30 day exchange policy that offered flexibility for acquiring the Nexus at a later time. My two previous devices had been HTC phones, I was very happy with both my EVO and EVO 3D but had always wanted the very vibrant Samsung AMOLED screen technology. After having the Rezound and being very satisfied with it for two weeks, the Nexus finally launched and I was at Best Buy on release day to exchange for my Rezound. The lure of the new Android Ice Cream Sandwich OS, the screen, NFC technology, and speed of the Nexus were very nice but I was experiencing horrible battery life and the signal quality did not seem to be on par with the Rezound. So, I went back to the Rezound after only two days and have not looked back.

Build Quality
The Rezound is a solid phone as I would expect from HTC. It feels very good in my hand and is weighted nicely.

HTC Beats
I looked at the Beats headphones as a bonus item just like I did with the 3D feature on my EVO 3D. After trying them a few times, I have really grown to enjoy having them for listening to music and for conference calls. I was very impressed a few weeks ago in the airport as I was able to walk around a loud and busy concourse without having problems hearing the call because of the way that they act as ear plugs and block out the other noise. The earplug design works well on the airplane and are much more portable than my Panasonic noise cancelling headphones. I would say that the only downfall here is that the Beats equalizer only works on the default HTC music app and not third party music players such as Google Music, Pandora, or Slacker.

Performance
This phone has performed very well. I am not a big gamer but I do watch movies when traveling and this phone never misses a beat no matter what I am doing in the background. I hope that the Rezound performs well once upgraded to Android 4.0. A bonus feature on the Rezound is simultaneous 3G voice and data which will come in handy up at the lake when I need to work. From what I understand, this functionality is pretty limited on Verizon to only the Thunderbolt and Rezound.

HTC Sense
While I am not the biggest HTC Sense launcher fan and favor Launcher Pro and Go Launcher, I do like the contact linking, camera software, and overall integration that HTC Sense offers. The gallery software includes my Flickr account and I can easily browse Facebook albums. The music player has some added functionality of importing album art and offers some music shopping capabilities.

For some reason, Verizon crippled the themes and scenes downloads offered on the EVO 3D. It was fun mixing it up a bit once in a while.

Camera
The 8MP camera on the Rezound is the best that I have used on a phone and was another reason that I went back to the Rezound over the Nexus. The pictures from this device are crisp and the customization that HTC put in their camera software is great. There is a timer mode, panorama shots, full 1080P video recording, and fun effects that can be added to photographs. There is also a feature that allows auto uploading to Facebook or Flickr (for some this will be a duplicate effort when using Google+). The Galaxy Nexus does have zero lag picture taking and the Rezound is not far behind. The pictures snap much faster than either of my EVO’s.

Screen
The screen is full 720P and looks beautiful. Compared to the Nexus, the colors look very natural and do not have the blue hue of the AMOLED screens. The screen can be seen in the sunlight but like any LCD screen, the brightness has to be turned up. Reading text on this device is awesome and there is no problems with pentile technology that plagues the Bionic and RAZR.

Battery Life
As I have done for all of my Android devices, I went out and purchased the extended battery for this phone. This battery is offered by Verizon at 2750 Mah which is not quite double the capacity of the original battery. It does add some bulk to the Rezound but it is a small price to pay to get me through a work day with email, SMS, phone calls, and 4G on full time.

Conclusion
All around, the Rezound it is a great phone that gets me through a day of heavy work and travel, it is reliable, and fun to use. The Beats earbuds are a bonus that I have enjoyed very much. The camera is great for capturing memories and the multimedia performance is wonderful. I really like this phone and think that it is a keeper (until the next great thing comes along). 🙂