[Review] HTC Inspire 4G

As AT&T continues to step up its Android game with offerings from both Samsung and Motorola, HTC has decided to join the fray with its new high-end smartphone, the HTC Inspire 4G. As a “4G” capable phone on AT&T’s “backhauled” HSPA+ network, the Inspire qualifies as one of the “next generation” of smartphones. Compared to the other new phones of the upcoming generation, however, how will it stack up? And can it compete with its immediate competitor on AT&T’s network, the Motorola ATRIX 4G? Find out in our review!

Hardware:

            The HTC Inspire 4G sports a beautiful 4.3” S-LCD capacitive touchscreen display on the front, being rather striking due to its size, especially in comparison to display sizes common for most phones on the rest of AT&T’s network. It does have a drawback in that the resolution is onlya standard 800x480, which is rather weak in comparison to Apple’s “Retina Display”, the ATRIX’s qHD display, or Samsung’s AMOLED line of displays. This does not mean it looks “bad”, but typical low resolution drawbacks exist and the screen seems somewhat dimmer than the aforementioned displays when compared side-by-side. Despite the size of the screen, the phone is relatively thin at 12mm thick, featuring a uni-body aluminum design that feels very solidly constructed and is easy to grasp.

            The battery, a rather significant point of contention amongst Inspire 4G fans, is only rated at 1230 mAh. This does allow for the slimness of the phone, as mentioned before, and the battery slides in-and-out of the uni-body case with much ease. However, battery life is significantly impaired by the size of the battery, with reports of many users needing to recharge before a full day’s use is finished, though this is also largely dependent upon how heavy of a user each person is. For a phone that sports such a large display and fast processor, however, one would expect that most of those who purchase this phone would be relatively heavy users. The phone also comes equipped with a fairly small amount of internal storage at 4GB, but features a microSD slot capable of supporting a card of up to 32GB.

            The processor, as mentioned above, is a speedy Snapdragon 1GHz single-core processor, backed up by a fairly healthy 768 MB of RAM. While this does not live up entirely to the “next generation” of smartphones with dual-core processors and up to 1GB of RAM in some instances, it is still far more than adequate for most current applications. It is also more than enough for the phone, which seems to perform on par with the current next-gen phone on AT&T’s network, the Motorola ATRIX 4G, possibly performing even better and with less lag issues in some instances.

            While the Inspire 4G lacks a front-facing camera, it makes up for that shortcoming with a sharp 8MP, Dual LED flash camera on the back, capable of shooting video and images at 720p, with a 1080p update likely to follow. This creates beautiful pictures and video, almost eliminating the need for a point-and-shoot camera outside of this phone. Other hardware features include an Accelerometer, Compass, FM radio, A-GPS, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1, microUSB, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. 

Software:

            The HTC Inspire 4G comes loaded with Android 2.2 “FroYo”, featuring HTC’s own customization of the OS known as “HTC Sense”. HTC Sense is a very fluid and intuitive version of the famous Android OS, and is often envied by users of other brand-name customized Android operating systems, being valued for its speed and beautiful design. Little word of updates to Android 2.3 or 2.4 has been of heard from HTC, but it is very likely that sometime across the course of 2011 an update will appear, and will probably bring with it features such as 1080p support.

            As typical of Android 2.2, the phone comes installed with a browser capable of supporting Adobe Flash Player, and hands-on testing revealed Flash to be very smooth and create very little lag in browsing, being comparable or even slightly better than it’s direct competitor, the ATRIX 4G. As stated in its name, the Inspire is a “4G” capable device, though the 4G relies on AT&T’s backhauled 3G network, reaching speeds comparable to the LTE 4G network to be rolled out either later this year or in 2012. A benefit of this, however, is that the device still uses the same 3G cards, so those who are upgrading can continue to use the same SIM card they have been using. Wi-Fi tethering is also supported by the phone and the network, though an additional $20-per-month tethering plan is required by AT&T, which gives users an extra 2GB or data to work with.

            The Inspire 4G comes preloaded with a variety of HTC and AT&T applications, some of which may be more or less useful to different users. Most users, however, will likely find that these simply consume space on the phone’s limited internal storage without offering much benefit.

Overall:

            Overall, the HTC Inspire 4G is an excellent Android smartphone that seems to “bridge” the divide between the previous and next generations of smartphones. While lacking a dual-core processor or front-facing camera, it does feature the next standard in display sizes at 4.3”, has 4G capabilities, and performs more smoothly than the only other “next-gen” smartphone currently on the market, the ATRIX 4G. Battery life is a significant issue for this phone, but others features such as the 8MP camera offer incentive to purchase it despite these drawbacks. In the end, the device is slick, solidly built, runs smoothly and efficiently, and is very pleasing to the eye. ModernTechnologyUpdate is more than happy to award the HTC Inspire 4G an 8.5/10.