The HTC Droid DNA Announced: 5-inch, 1080p, S4 Pro
by Jason Inofuentes on November 13, 2012 6:34 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- HTC
- Mobile
- APQ8064
- droid dna
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You've seen the leaks, but now it's real. HTC and Verizon have just announced the Droid DNA, a 5-inch behemoth sporting an incredible 1080p Super LCD3 display. Powering those pixels is the capable Snapdragon S4 Pro SoC, familiar to us as the APQ8064 with 4 Krait cores running at 1.5GHz and last seen in the Nexus 4. For modem, the Droid DNA is using MDM9615 which makes this HTC's first Qualcomm Fusion 3 based device. The Droid DNA also includes ImageChip and the usual ImageSense features, and brings the 2.1 MP F/2.0 camera we saw on the HTC 8X as well. There's 2 GB of RAM onboard as well.
The style of the phone alludes to its Incredible forebears, but only in the bright red accents. The design is sleeker, with a smooth back and thin profile. On the long edges of the phone are large red grills, though stereo speakers are not in order. What is available to audiophiles, is a 2.55v built-in headphone amp, not a common find in a smartphone but something that will go a long way to improving the listening experience.
Wireless charging is also being introduced to the Droid line for the first time. It's unclear whether this will be on the increasingly common Qi standard, but if Brian's growing enthusiasm for the technology is any indication, this could be a popular feature.
As is the norm, the HTC Droid DNA will be available on-contract for $199, and pre-orders start today with shipments expected by November 21st. We'll be hands-on shortly, and give some impressions of the device.
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Super56K - Tuesday, November 13, 2012 - link
You can get 1080p if you're willing to spend more than $600, probably closer to $700 or more depending on the rest of the specs. Or, don't get hosed on the upgrade premium and replace the screen yourself if you're a DIY type. That price, coincidentally, is in the ballpark of what a high end phone like that HTC costs unsubsudized.All that said I agree whole-heartedly with your sentiment. 1366x768 is awful to look at on a 15" laptop. Compounding it is the trend to use the worst quality screens imaginable. I know because I put up with it for months and months until I bought a 1080p replacement screen. My lesson was learned.
tipoo - Tuesday, November 13, 2012 - link
It makes sense from a manufacturing cost point of view, even with much higher PPIs small screens are cheaper to produce, similar to smaller CPUs.blackbrrd - Tuesday, November 13, 2012 - link
A 15" at 1366x768 or 1920x1080 is ... exactly the same size and probably the same amount of materials. As we can see, it's obviously not hard to get higher ppi, since they have 3-4x the ppi on this 5" screen.Peskarik - Tuesday, November 13, 2012 - link
Wow, 5 inch 1080p screen! Wow! Wow!And what is the point of this?
And in traditional HTC fashion - no card slot and subpar battery.
tipoo - Tuesday, November 13, 2012 - link
Are the differences anything more than paper specs now?Impulses - Tuesday, November 13, 2012 - link
I imagine Verizon passed on a One variant in order to score this? I love my EVO LTE's display, but I'm not sure I'd ever wanna go any larger... In fact, given the option of a 16:9 720p 4.3" I'd probably opt for a slight downsize. 5" & 1080p seems like total overkill, specially without any extra functionality like the Note.Wonder who makes the display though and why Samsung wasn't able to source it for the Note 2... I guess they'll probably sell a lot more Note 2's worldwide so logistics might've been the issue.
The headphone amp part is curious, the S4 One/EVO phones are already amongst the best sounding out there (though apparently the Tegra 3 versions are pretty mediocre)... At the very least it should be a better step than gimmicks like the Beats EQ.
Johnmcl7 - Tuesday, November 13, 2012 - link
I can see a lot of reasons for not choosing it for the Note 2, to make use of it needs a beefier GPU and in turn more power as well as the screen itself possibly using more power, on the Note power consumption is already an issue.More simply though I have to wonder if it's worth having such an ultra high resolution display? I've always been a fan of high resolution displays but they seem to be getting into more of a spec war, 1080p seems great on an 11in screen and I've been happy with 1280x720 on the Note 1, I can't see the big jump in resolution being that much of an advantage.
John
sharath.naik - Wednesday, November 14, 2012 - link
It would make sense for me. I have been looking for a pocketable device to read PDF documents in portrait mode. I have tried it in note 2 and you cannot, as 720 PX width smudges the fonts,which at that size is unreadable, same for websites. If I have to go to landscape mode to be able to read these pages, why would I need a 5 inch phone when a 4.5 inch phone would be sufficient. So if a phone is 5 inchs or more it has got to have at least a 1000px across the shorter side.Same applies to any tablets.
agent2099 - Tuesday, November 13, 2012 - link
release date?EnsilZah - Tuesday, November 13, 2012 - link
A 5" phone has more resolution than my 22" monitor, great, thank you monitor manufacturers.