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HTC Droid DNA packs 1080p display, costs $199 on Verizon

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On November 13, 2012, 5:00 PM

HTC is looking to regain some lost ground in the U.S. smartphone market this holiday season with the release of a seriously spec’d up device on the nation’s largest carrier. Announced in a joint press event this morning, the Droid DNA’s standout feature is a five-inch Super LCD 3 screen boasting a 1920 x 1080 resolution. That’s a massive pixel density of 440 PPI, the highest on any mobile on the market.

HTC says they’ve made the screen brighter and faster than on the already impressive One X -- which uses a Super LCD 2 screen -- and also improved the viewing angles to 80 degrees. By comparison, the company says the Samsung Galaxy S III offers a 30 degree viewing angle.

The device runs on a 1.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro chip from Qualcomm with integrated LTE connectivity and paired with 2GB of RAM. It packs an 8 megapixel camera with the same f/2.0 aperture and ImageChip processor as on the One X, 16GB of built-in storage (no microSD), Beats Audio, and NFC. The DNA features a 2,020mAh battery and is also among the first phones to support the Qi wireless charging standard.

On the software side, the device runs Android 4.1 Jelly Bean with HTC’s Sense 4+ layered on top. Despite the large display HTC insists that the Droid DNA is a phone, not a “phablet”. It’s slimmer than both the Galaxy III and Galaxy Note II at 9.73mm thick and doesn’t come with a stylus.

The Droid DNA will go on sale November 21st for $200 with a two-year contract from Verizon.

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User Comments: 17

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  1. I wasn't expecting to see my Lumia 920's display beaten so quickly after launch. I just got the thing on friday

  2. That thing looks absolutely stunning. On paper, and in picture. 5inches is pretty good too, considering the very minimal bezels.

  3. I wouldnt buy this alone because of the beats-crap logo on the back

  4. Because your going to be looking at the back that much...

  5. I do agree that the beats logo is a huge turnoff - I'd have to put a case on that thing right away.

  6. I like it! It's definitely a little quicker/nicer then my Droid 4 which has a 1.2Ghz dual core/1GB RAM/16GB storage/edge-lit full keyboard and runs gingerbread. The 1080p display is nice, my 4" 960 x 540 qHD leaves a little to be desired...would it have killed them to make it 1366 X 768 (720p)?

    Anyways, should be interesting to see the Droid 5 talk now....

    People saying 1080p is too much should go buy new composite cables for their VCR as well.

  7. No micro SD option?? Muy Malo!

  8. Please use this exact same phone and put windows phone 8 on it. IMO, the windows 8 phone options are way too few and far between. Btw, Guest with the Lumia, how are you finding the phone? Is it really unbearably heavy?

  9. Like I've said before, I don't need more PPI and resolution. I need better batteries and more power efficient components for a longer time between having to find a power socket. All this resolution bumping is just one up manship between Apple and other phone makers.

  10. Like I've said before, I don't need more PPI and resolution. I need better batteries and more power efficient components for a longer time between having to find a power socket. All this resolution bumping is just one up manship between Apple and other phone makers.

    Agree fully. 1080p on a smarthone is overkill IMO.

  11. Powered by another crappy htc battery

  12. This phone sounds amazing but there is one flaw... it's owned by HTC.... Remember the Thunderbolt? >.>

  13. captainawesome said:

    Like I've said before, I don't need more PPI and resolution. I need better batteries and more power efficient components for a longer time between having to find a power socket. All this resolution bumping is just one up manship between Apple and other phone makers.

    Agree fully. 1080p on a smarthone is overkill IMO.

    yeah, me too. 300dpi is enough, unless they can make a 450dpi screen use less power than a 300dpi one.

  14. If they go any higher than 1920x1080, it's just going to be ridiculous. There's a point when "better" becomes unobservable. Give me better battery performance, and faster GPUs.

  15. This phone sounds amazing but there is one flaw... it's owned by HTC.... Remember the Thunderbolt? >.>

    yep I have a thunderbolt and cant wait to upgrade in 3 weeks. trying to decide between the razr maxx hd, galaxy s3 and the note 2

  16. There aren't any breakthroughs in batteries yet, apparently. So if it's really easy to keep pushing the resolution, they will happily do that.

    Makes the customer think they are getting an upgrade.

  17. If I'm buying this phone, I'll gonna get pneumatic grinders and soft sandpaper to polish off the "4G-beats-audio-crap" logo ... oh, wait, it seems the back cover is made from plastic.. err, I'll think another tools and method then

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