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Samsung has taken pride in the crowd favorite Samsung Galaxy S II and the brilliance of this phone has put pressure on other phone makers to come with their very own ‘superphone’. HTC have done just that with their HTC Amaze 4G which truly is meant to amaze as it sports extraordinary specs and a pretty good design to go with it. So let’s see if it’s capable of matching or maybe better its competition.
Design
You can tell even from a distance that the HTC Amaze 4G is an HTC phone as it just oozes with the HTC look. For starters it has a battery door that has two tones and this definitely brings back the likes of HTC Sensation and HTC Desire to mind. Another thing that you find with most HTC phones is the rounded corners and on this one the design has softer corners. It measures 5.12 x 2.58 x 0.46 inches and with those measurements, it is definitely bigger –by quite a bit too- than its biggest rival the Samsung Galaxy S II. It is also pretty heavy but it’s still comfortable to be held in the hand although people with smaller hands might not like the size and weight. It may not have a 4.52 inch screen like its rival, but the HTC Amaze 4G comes with a 4.3 inch qHD Super LCD display that we feel really did a great job.
Flip the phone around and you will find yourself looking at the 8MP camera that offers dual LED flash. The battery door reminds you of HTC Sensation 4G as it also wraps around the sides and to the front. Don’t get fooled by the aluminum-like battery door as it is actually made of high quality plastic and it also has got soft touch material on the black region of the door. The HTC Amaze 4G also interestingly has a dedicated button for its camcorder apart from a button for the camera. All these buttons are responsive although they could have had a better click to them. In terms of design, the HTC Amaze 4G is impressive with its build quality.
Features
This powerhouse is running on the dual core 1.5GHz Snapdragon S3 CPU which does great as everything done on this phone is a really smooth ride. Also thanks to the 1GB of RAM, the HTC Amaze 4G truly has some amazing speeds. To give you a picture in numbers, the HTC Amaze 4G scored 2514 when tested on Quadrant which is just shy of Samsung Galaxy S II’s scores proving that this phone means serious business when it comes to speed.
HTC Sense 3.0 runs on the Android v2.3.4 Gingerbread so we don’t blame you if you didn’t at first think that the HTC Amaze 4G is running on Android OS since HTC Sense really takes over with its brilliant UI. Thanks to the juice provided by the 1.5GHz dual-core CPU and RAM, this phone blazes through all the tasks you put forward. We really mean that as moving between homescreens was so smooth we could not feel any lag. We also liked the screenshot function which can be done by pressing the power button followed by pressing the home button.
HTC Amaze 4G also has a keyboard that supports trace writing which means there’s no Swipe feature on this one. However it is sad to say that there is a list of bloatware on the phone that we really could have done without. However, there are some good apps that are preinstalled like the Adobe Reader, Lookout Security, 411 and More, Polaris Office and Oik Video Chat. These are all handy apps, but then again, we have our own preference for apps and don’t like being told what to use. This phone also comes with a really good music player app which comes with SRS enhancement although without Beats Audio acquisition.
The HTC Amaze 4G is blessed with a 4.3 inch qHD Super LCD screen and that really shows as it is better than the plain qHD screen on the HTC EVO 3D for instance. It also trounces the Samsung Galaxy S II when it comes to color production as it is not oversaturated but instead bright and vivid. The screen was bright enough for most situations although it does fade away a little under direct sunlight.
HTC Amaze 4G offers a pretty good 8MP camera which is backed by the dual LED flash. The photos taken outside had some issues with detail but when it color production the camera excels as the colors were natural. Taking macro shots are not advisable on this phone but it does provide great focus on pictures that are in the range of focus. Adding on to that, the panorama mode gave some nice results and was easy to use too. We also loved the dual LED flash as it does an amazing job as it covers a good distance but sadly that distance is not translated to results as pictures taken in the dark turned out very noisy. HTC seems to have a habit of ignoring video capabilities on its phones and the same goes with HTC Amaze 4G as the video turns out choppy albeit having a recording rate of 30fps at 1080p resolutions. The audio in your videos also lack quality.
Connectivity on the HTC Amaze 4G can be done on T-Mobile’s HSPA+ network and that means we get some good speeds. Other connectivity options are Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, GPS and Bluetooth 3.0. The browser is the same HTC browser that has become famous for providing a nice web browsing experience with its fluidity and control. It also takes on the battle with Flash head to head and wins it impressively. Navigational tools like pinch-to-zoom were extremely responsive and worked so well.
Moving on to the call quality, there are some issues here as you will have a tough time trying to hear what your friend is telling you as the earpiece is soft even with the volume at maximum. However, things were different on the other end as we were told our voices sounded clear. Also the loudspeakers do well with their robust performance. The HTC Amaze 4G also is not so good in terms of battery life as you can only get up to three to four hours if you constantly use the 4G network. Average use gives you about six hours which really is a cause for concern.
Pros and Cons
The HTC Amaze 4G is well built and it also has a brilliant new qHD Super LCD screen. It is also a wonder in terms of speed.
The camera on this phone is a real downer. HTC Amaze 4G’s battery life was also poor.
Conclusion
HTC Amaze 4G definitely manages to place itself at the top of the Android phones category with mind blowing speeds for starters. A better camera would have made it perfect, but either way you get a phone true to its name, amazing.
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