An understated powerhouse. April 7, 2012

Reviewer:  Ashton P. Johnson "Zepaw"  (Minneapolis, MN) -

HTC's slogan of "quietly brilliant" really applies to this phone. The Razr and Nexus have been all over in advertising yet I barely knew this phone exists.

This phone is extrodinarily reliable. Every things runs at top speed with no troubles. The screen is better than the Retina display of the iPhone and a gorgeous 4.3in. This phone is thicker than most of the competition but it does not feel bulky. It is light and the weight is distributed well. The earbuds and beats software work well.

As with almost every Android phone the battery leaves somethong to be desired. I largely solved this problem by getting an external battery charger with two batteries on Amazon for just $23.

This is a solid phone I can fully recommend.

Excellent SmartPhone!!! March 27, 2012

Reviewer:  Kenneth Robinson 

I have been a smartphone user for 3 years now starting with the original Droid 1 phone. I got used to being able to modify my phone with fantastic code from developers all around the world. I "upgraded" to a Droid 2 Global phone and found the manufacturer of that phone decided to lock MY phone so I could not update the phone like I was used to with the original Droid 1.

Enter HTC!! While looking around for my next smartphone I read the reviews of the HTC Rezound and I was VERY impressed, AND I can update my phone with custom ROMs (I know most won't want to do this, but if you do like tinkering with your phone and NOT having to wait for the manufacturer to do the updating, then this is another reason this is a very good phone.)

The stock phone is fantastic, fabulous, and FAST! The HD screen is amazing, the sound is superb, and the camera quality is crystal clear. Throw in Beats audio and earbuds and how can anyone go wrong with this phone? YOU CAN'T!!!

So, you say, "But, I've never heard of this phone." Yup, Verizon didn't push this phone, didn't advertise much at all which makes this phone now one of the fastest, loaded with goodies, and inexpensive phones out today. YEAH! I got this phone about 3 months ago and have never regretted this decision, AND my phone is STILL fresh and a BEAST OF A PHONE.

And if you like putting on custom ROMs there is a very strong group of developers out with the latest, greatest android system (Ice Cream Sandwich), and lots of tweaks. Oh, and HTC still supports this phone very well and will be coming out with Ice Cream Sandwich for this phone soon unlike the manufacturer of my last two smartphones which were no longer supported almost the day I bought them.

Thank you HTC for the Rezound!!!

Great phone but one major glitch February 8, 2012

Reviewer:  Willie 

the phone as a phone 9
speeker phone and speeker 5
they put the speaker to close to the mic which creates distortion sometimes
camera is fast but i expected better from an 8 meg cam/pics are grainy 6
User interface and ease of use 9
prcessor fast 9
4g speeds in the 20's down and 13's up 10
display awesome but who really need a full hd phone screen? I don't. 9
the feel of the phone 8
that is the weight a testure and just the overall feel. I will say that if your hands are not large that this will not be a one hand phone for you.

lastly the con....

the physical volume and display on and off buttons are soooooooo flush with the edge of the phone that it is really really really hard to tell if your touching a button. honestly i am surprised their aren't more people taking issue with it. I had the phone for a month and just couldn't live with it. Waiting on the razr max to ship now. Hope this helps.

Best phone out right now November 28, 2011

Reviewer:  DaMaDo "DaMaDo"  (Miami, FL) -

All around it's the best phone out there right now.

My dad has a T-mo Samsung Galaxy S2 and putting them next to each other, the Rezound's screen is MUCH better. I have my screen set to 25% brightness all the time and it's plenty no matter where I am. The Rezound also feels much better in the hand. It might be thicker and heavier, but it feels better. Don't go by specs, go by real world feel. Try it out at your local shop.

Battery life can be an issue until you drain it and fully charge it about 3-5 times. I got 30 hours of it last charge cycle with about 10 phone calls of 5-10 minutes each, about 30 minutes of music, about 30 minutes of web surfing, a few downloads from the app store, and about 100 texts. Maybe some other stuff. This is light use. With heavy use, you're charging within 12 hours.

The Galaxy Nexus is what I was waiting for, but I'm glad I got this one. The GN sounds less tempting each day. No SD card, no USB mode etc. It will have better battery supposedly though.

Also, if you're coming from another network. You might be surprised to see 2 bars as your signal strength most of the time. I had T-mobile and always had full bars in Miami. I just downloaded some signal strength apps (opensignal, network signal info, and mobile signal widget) and they actually both have almost identical dbm values (my t-mo phone is still active for another week). So Verizon is just more conservative with their signal bar estimate.

This phone... a heavenly work of art! November 23, 2011

Reviewer:  Ming Chen "shooter"  (CA USA) -

The good: sharp and bright screen, refined sound, speed, the feel in my hand, and... the screen! This phone is just beautiful!! Especially comparing to others (can't remember their names, samsung?). Sense presentation is totally amazing: flawless animation, artsy, yet practical with numerous brilliant little ideas. No other launcher comes close. Having using it for a week now, this phone totally grows on me. Plus, the battery life is fair (7am - 11pm daily, med usage).

The bad: Not a world phone. Could use a larger battery (more is better).

Edit 11/24/11: Root! :)
Edit 12/10/11: Sorry, no root yet... the battery performance is getting better. greater than 24hrs per charge with med-low usages.

Returning Rezound, replacing with Galaxy Nexus December 17, 2011

Reviewer:  Jason Rene "Jason"  (Somewhere out there, USA) -

After a week of using the Rezound and trying, trying, trying to like it, I have given up. I am returning my Rezound and replacing it with the Galaxy Nexus. The Rezound is a good phone, but compared to the Galaxy Nexus and and the Droid RAZR, it's in last place. Now, I'm an Android newbie -- I'm switching from the iPhone / iOS world, so some of my challenges involved the transition to a new mobile OS. But being somewhat technically proficient, I hope that I will be able to relay some important details to help others who may be debating whether to get the Rezound or not.

*** The Good: ***

- Sound while playing music via stock music player:

This elicited a WOW response, and much of the credit goes to the stock Monster / Beats by Dr Dre earbuds. When I played the same song on my iPhone 3GS using my BOSE buds versus the Beats buds, the Beats were somewhat better. But when I played the same song on my Rezound using my BOSE buds versus the Beats buds, the Beats were downright INCREDIBLE. Some people downplay this, by saying it's only marginally better, or by saying that you can achieve similar quality using a good equalizer app. Maybe. All I can say is, using the stock music player (and that's an important caveat), the sound was good. (But, heads up, look for remarks on the Sound when I get to "The Bad").

- Camera:

The camera is great. This is the one feature I will miss when I switch to the Galaxy Nexus, I suspect.

- The Specs:

No phone on the market has better specs, in terms of processor, memory, resolution, etc. The screen itself has some remarks in "The Bad", but the specs make this phone an impressive toy.

*** The Bad: ***

Let's just jump into this part. There are enough fanboy reviews out there who believe the phone does no wrong. I personally found it more helpful to find the reviews that focused on what would potentially bother me.

- Sound (and the earbuds), period:

See, on the Rezound, no one should be complaining about the sound. But I am. And so are many, many others if you browse the web long enough. This may be the fault of the stock Monster / Beats by Dr Dre earbuds, but there is definitely a problem with static with the sound. I've noticed it in small amounts while listening to music and watching videos, and you definitely notice it while using the phone (and yes, some of it is Verizon's sub-par call quality compared to AT&T [in the Chicago market], but I believe this is also a problem with the phone or the buds as well.) Even worse, several times I encountered a rather shocking problem: I literally was shocked. While listening to music, I would feel small electric shocks from time to time in my ears. (Yes, this means they're defective in some way. It's part of the reason I'm returning the phone.) Finally, the placement of the microphone / playback controls on the buds is annoying. Instead of being somewhat near your head, it hangs near the middle of your chest. This makes you intuitively raise the wire to your face when someone can't hear you - which is often. Overall, I had way too many complaints about the sound and specifically about the earbuds, and on the Rezound, this is a dealbreaker.

- Screen:

The screen resolution is good, sure, but the screen itself is just plain dim. I've read this has to do with the screen being LCD as opposed to the RAZR's and the Nexus's AmoLED screen. Whatever. Part of the reason I chose the Rezound over the RAZR back in November was because the RAZR got trashed in the reviews for its screen resolution and people raved about the Rezound's resolution. Well, my friend got a RAZR, and I promise you, the RAZR looks better. I'm hoping the Nexus looks better too, and from what I can tell from the in-store demo's, I think it will.

- Battery:

The absolute worst battery experience I've ever had. I enjoy watching videos downloaded from my Tivo on my way to and from work each day. On my iPhone, this was no problem. I charged every night, but I expected to do so. The Rezound would lose 30% of its battery within an hour. By 2 pm, my battery would be dead. Yes, I learned to employ little widgets and toggles that would allow me to manage the power more effectively, and there were a couple of days the battery almost lasted until the end of the work day. But it was a lot of work. I don't want to super-manage what my phone does, I want it to do everything it can whenever it has the need to do it, and I want to be able to go home at the end of the day with enough of a charge to make at least one phone call, even if I forget to charge the phone during the day. (I'm aware the Nexus may be no better in the battery department. We'll see. In any case, the extended battery for the Rezound is laughably big. That is not the case for the Nexus's extended battery. So again, the Rezound loses on this one.)

- HTC Sense 3.0:

Despite HTC putting an admirable effort into making a unique interface, I had a lot of frustrations with it. This is not the Rezound's fault, and Android know-it-all's would perhaps mock me for pointing this out. But the "All Apps / Phone / Personalize" buttons on the bottom are obnoxious. The People / Contacts organization is ridiculous (a failing of both HTC and Android as a whole, from what I understand.) The inability to resize widgets is annoying. Overall, I liked the RAZR's custom interface better, and I like the Nexus's ICS interface the best. It will be interesting to see how HTC changes things when the Rezound gets the ICS upgrade.

- Syncing:

Coming from the iTunes world, this is downright maddening. I am astounded that Google hasn't built an iTunes clone for Android. The hodge-podge of syncing apps and software; I've tried them all this week - including HTC's custom sync software. They all pretty much sucked. I finally found that the best solution was to drag and drop files manually from Windows to the Android phone. (Now, the Nexus won't mount as a USB drive due to the fact that it's got a single, unexpandable amount of storage on it (boo, Samsung & Google! I would have liked the option.) It will be interesting to see whether Syncing is any better with the Nexus.)

- The Specs:

Finally, back to one of the aspects from "The Good". Yes, the specs are good, but they're meaningless to real-world users. In fact, the Rezound is noticeably slower than both the RAZR and the Nexus, from what I have personally seen. Some may claim I'm imagining it, some may throw performance reports out there to disprove me, some may say I clearly received a defective phone. I don't care. What I saw was, the Rezound - while being a good phone - wasn't anywhere near as impressive as the RAZR wound up being, and it doesn't seem to be as well made as the Galaxy Nexus.

Buy it if you want. But make sure you understand the return policy.

-----

And speaking of which, one final note: So far, Amazon Wireless has proven to employ the absolute best customer service representatives with which I have ever dealt. No one else even comes close. I have had to put together a very complex order and exchange scenario with my situation, and the Amazon Wireless reps have been simply amazing. Kudos to them and to Amazon. And Amazon Corporate -- you're doing this right, with the Wireless department. Please always remember, while we will buy your products for their prices, we're going to tell everyone we know to buy from you because of your representatives. Keep these people employed, and keep up the good work!

This phone screams November 18, 2011

Reviewer:  Snowdog 

My contract expired when the Bionic debuted and though I really wanted another HTC phone (my Eris took a hell of a beating without complaint), I wanted to take advantage of my unlimited data plan with the 4G LTE service that recently arrived to my neck of the woods.

I'm glad I was patient and waited for the Rezound (which was still being referred to as the Thunderbolt II and Vigor). It really screams and now I can finally watch streaming Netflix and between the 4G and the phones sweet display, the video quality is amazing.

My only concern is the battery life. This phone devours batteries much faster than my old Eris and my wife's HTC Thunderbolt. I'm considering either purchasing an extended battery or a couple 1700 mAh batteries.

Overall, I am absolutely impressed with this phone, as is a jealous coworker who just compared it to his Motorola Droid 3 and had my Rezound steal all of its thunder.

Pretty but does not work. September 16, 2012

Reviewer:  C. Shepard  (San Diego, CA) -

Phone has issues, even with ICS. Specifically:

1) Screen goes blank on call...it is supposed to in order to save battery...but it is supposed to come back on when you hold phone horizontal so you can key voice mail passwords, turn on the speaker, etc. It is REALLY finicky and will stay blank. Touching the screen does not wake it up. Pressing the top button will, but then the phone is locked and you have to slide the ring up...and the screen winks out again! Changing the display settings does not help.

2) Data goes out. Just goes out. I'm in the middle of San Diego. Happens anywhere. No voice commands, no email, nothing. Verizon said to turn off WiFi because phone is not smart enough to "switch" to mobile data on its own when you are out of range. I turn it off, and it improves, but still is not reliable.

3) Voice commands. They don't work when data is unavailable. Why not??? They did on my old ClamShell phones in hands free mode! Furthermore, my old clamshell did not confuse calling a contact with calling someplace across the world. I'm convinced Google has some priority logrhythm for ad revenue...and it interferes with calling your contacts. So probably not a phone issue. Tried a friends Iphone...it doesn't work much better. Stick to ClamShell phones?????

Very close to perfect December 18, 2011

Reviewer:  Dominika Lepak "nikatoo"  (Bakersfield, CA USA) -

I got tired of waiting for the Samsung Galaxy Nexus to come out, with all the uncertainty on price, features and release date. On top of that, the 4.5"+ screen phones end up being just a touch too wide to hold comfortably, and some of the other Samsung phones felt cheap in the hand. RAZR also felt uncomfortable to hold, and as much as I tried to like that phone, I just couldn't get on board with it. All that to say, I'm happy with my decision to get the Rezound as my upgrade from my original Droid Moto slider. This phone is fast, the touch screen works beautifully and looks great. As far as the hand feel, which I'm obviously fussy about, this phone just feels high-end and well made. The back is swathed in rubberized type coating that provides grip, and it doesn't feel flimsy like the afore-mentioned Samsungs. Unlike the RAZR, the back of the phone has a gentle curve both directions, making it comfortalbe and well-balanced as it cradles in your palm. The blacks aren't as deep and the display as dazzling with some of the AMOLED screens, but I have no problem seeing it in bright daylight, and don't really need to be dazzled constantly, anyway. I'm giving this phone 4 stars because it is just a bit flabby in terms of thickness and weight. It would have been nice if they could have shaved an ounce off of the weight and a tenth of an inch or so off the thickness. Hopefully more accessories for this phone will come out soon; it would be nice to have a dock available, as it does need to be charged daily if you're using data services much. I was dubious about the Beats earbuds that came with it, but they are actually really nice, and block out distractions when I'm trying to work in my cube farm so much better than my Skull Candy ever did, so that takes a bit of the sting out of the cost of this phone. Do get a screen cover; I have two tiny dings in mine after two weeks of tossing it in my purse, so the Gorilla Glass isn't truly scratch proof. Overall, I think this phone is right at the top of what's available right now, especially if your storage capacity needs exceed the fixed onboard storage of the Galaxy Nexus.

Rezound = Best Android Phone as of Nov 2011 December 2, 2011

Reviewer:  Jimbo Baloba "Non-biased Reviewer"  (Cowabungaville, United States) -

UPDATE: 30-JAN-2012: After 2 months of use, I feel compelled to warn anyone wanting to switch from an iPhone 4 to this device: DONT DO IT. You dont know what you have till it's gone, to put it simply. As a med student I use my mobile for many tasks and this phone has absolutely fallen flat on its face in so many ways it's impractical to list in an update of a review; let me just say that this phone tends to crash in situations which an iphone handles flawlessly. Also, the battery..let's not even go there. In summary, keep the iPhone 4 or treat yourself to a 4S if you can spare the extra bucks (the camera upgrade is totally worth it, I have one now)...You can also experience the Rezound for yourself and obtain a newfound appreciation for your iPhone ;)

-------------------------------------original review 4 stars-------------------------------------------------

PROS
Screen - 720p display lives up to expectations. Not as a great as the SGS2's screen but very nice overall. Videos and pics look great although Netflix does looks pixelated even on a good wifi connection.

Audio - Beats audio and the included earphones truly give you premium sound with your music and videos. I'm not an audiophile but I can recognize great audio.

Speed - apps/webpages open quickly and multitasking is smooth. Seems like these new mobile chips are finally living up to the multicore hype.

Camera - very nice 8MP camera. The camera's UI is intuitively designed and the auto-enhance option yields excellent photos. Both picture and video quality can get iffy in low light, though. Front 2MP camera does a nice job as well on Tango.

Storage - 32GB of space to start is a thoughtful move on HTC's behalf.

CONS
Battery - battery life is terrible. Although it can be greatly improved by killing certain tasks, it's unacceptable that the power management of the Rezound is so poor out of the box. A typical charge lasted me about 5hours at first.

HTC Sense - this proprietary HTC UI is dated, ugly and takes away from the premium feeling of the phone, in my opinion. Hopefully with ICS will come a new and improved Sense.

Physical Buttons - external power and volume rocker buttons are flush with the frame which becomes annoying after a while. Sounds like a non-issue at first but you'll see with time.

Size - feels bulky and heavy at times

Great upgrade!!!! November 16, 2011

Reviewer:  Darla Perry "timdarla"  (Sun Prairie, WI United States) -

Upgraded from a Droid 1, this is far surpassing my expectations. Scree, is the best to this point of all Verizon phones. Talk quality was great both incoming and outgoing. Beats headphones, meh. But I didn't get it for the headphones. I got it cause it has a GREAT screen, HTC's sense 3.5, dual core 1.5Ghz processor, etc.

Ice Cream Sandwich at Last!!! August 6, 2012

Reviewer:  KO  (Valencia, CA) -

I wanted to wait until Verizon and HTC released the OS update before writing this review. I'm one of the lucky ones: I've been waiting six weeks, not close to a year like the people that first made the move to the Rezound.

First impression of the phone is that it is big. It isn't uncomfortable to carry around without a case, but if you decide to protect it with a premium case like the Defender series... it's a beast. My girlfriend calls my phone an iPad.

It actually seems that big sometimes.

I'm not knocking a star for the size: I knew how big this was going in and judged a few others to be too big (the Rezound was definitely not my first choice in terms of upgrades).

Here's what I don't like:

1) Battery life. Yes, this is a 4G phone and it is media-heavy in terms of capability. Still, I would have liked a bigger battery, especially given how much of a pain it is to change out with my case.

2) The screen really could be quite a bit better. It doesn't use Gorilla Glass, which seems to be a major oversight for a $700 phone. The screen also washes out unless you're viewing it head on. This is a problem exaggerated in total darkness because the contrast on the screen is actually somewhat disappointing. My old LG Ally had comparable black-contrast, and that screen wasn't that great.

3) There is no cover for the USB/charging port. While minor because I'm using a beefy case, it still seems like an oversight.

4) The location of the SD card sucks and makes swapping them out on the fly impossible because you have to pull the battery to get at it. Lame.

5) No pinning the phone to your ear with your shoulder when your headset dies: this causes the microphone, which is located on the bottom of the phone, and consequently your voice, to be muffled. This is an industrial design compromise, and one that is fairly minor.

That's the problem you pay when idiotically-priced $500 vacuum cleaners are popular enough wastes of money to be advertised during the Super Bowl.

6) Sense. I don't like it. While the update that comes with the ICS OTA package is a substatial improvement, I still don't like it when companies overlay their own interface. The stock setup is fine, and if phone manufacturers would just let Google run the ball in this department, there would be some standardized elements to the non-iPhone market.

7) Speaking of standardized elements, the mini-USB/HDMI port is neither mini USB or HDMI. It is a specific proprietary port. Now I have to repurchase all my interface cables (extra in the car, in my pack so that I can charge things with my solar panel, etc). It seems like a true waste of the customer's money.

Which brings me to a feature that I don't like, and won't be knocking any points off the phone for since I don't use it.

Beats audio. Seriously lame stuff. Remember the "LOUD" button on your old Walkman (if you're old enough), Discman (if you're still old enough), or the "LOUD" button that doesn't come on an iPod (if you're dumb enough to buy one)? That's all Beats audio is: a loud button that is automatically pressed when you jack in proprietary over-priced cables.

This is portable audio, people: it's either highly compressed to stream for internet radio applications or as MP4 files. There isn't enough fidelity in the signal to actually benefit from a studio headphone... which the buds that are included definitely are not.

The coding from Beats is a preamp, very similar to a number of premium audio applications at the Google store. This is nothing but Monster hype using the branded name of an out-of-work rapper turned producer. Don't get me wrong: I'm a hiphop fan of his all the way back to NWA (only because I'm not old enough to have been around for his Cru' work), but this is merchandising people... and it's unsubstantial merchandising.

I've compared the sound quality of the premium studio headphones sold by Beats and others: they're comparable when doing studio work. And nobody is going to notice the difference between any of the freeware music players with preamps and a good set of corded headphones.

Another reason I don't like this phone that I'm not going to knock it for: bloatware. The Verizon apps SUCK! If I didn't like their network so much, I'd dump Big Red for the amount of crap they ship their phones with... but now that I have the official ICS, I'm going to root the phone and let Titanium Backup do the talking so I can reclaim a little dignity.

Now for the reasons I really like this phone:

1) ICS. I felt the Rezound was a mediocre over-hyped phone until I got the official update... and ICS makes this phone rezoundingly good. Everything is more smooth (no doubt to a better Sense package, also included), plus the voice recognition of Google Voice is absurd! They have done so much work to the voice interface for the new OS and it makes Siri seem like yesterday's pastrami sandwich forgotten on the dashboard.

2) The speed of the processing. This is something new with ICS as well: Gingerbread didn't handle dual-core processors very well. ICS is MADE for dual-core devices, and it shows. Boot times are significantly less and everything works better (even 3G streaming, which surprised me).

3) 4G LTE. I'm not a huge fan of the network, yet, because it's still a little spotty around my area with frequent data drops. However, when I'm in an area where 4G is mature, the speeds are high enough to stream HD video from my phone via Netflix to the 40" TV in the living room! 4G isn't so much about what you can do from the palm of your hand, but rather how much you can do when integrating into your other, increasingly smart, appliances.

4) It's a pretty phone with a lot of attention to detail (outside of durability, memory access, and basic environmental protections as discussed earlier). Most of these things are not appreciated frequently since they're covered by the case, but I really did have one of those "sweet fancy Moses" moments when opening the box for the first time.

5) Onboard memory. This thing is LOADED with RAM!!! I'm packing quite a few apps (I'm not much of a phone gamer outside of basic logic and puzzle stuff) and I still have about 50% of what was available from the box. Coming from my old phone, which was regularly having low memory panic attacks, this is a huge relief. I'll regain so much more memory, too, when I integrate the ROM updates with Titanium Backup after rooting.

6) Generous SD card storage from the factory. 16GB may not seem like a lot, but it is a massive amount of storage. I'll be upgrading to 32GB so I can keep a system image of my laptop for backing it up, but there is a ton of room.

7) The included headphones. Yeah: I don't like the Beats Audio gimick, but these are great headphones for free. Granted, they're engineered to break and are definitely not the $120 version sold at your big box rip off center, but they're FREE and really good.

8) Price. My upgrade price, including premium case, was under $100! I absolutely cannot believe the amount of power in easily-accessible technology.

9) Build quality. While it is not rugged by any stretch of the imagination, this is a very substantially-built phone. On its own, it carries easily in a pocket, I've just had enough cheating girlfriends to know that inconvenient levels of protection are always worth the hassel and discomfort.

10) For my issues with the screen, 95% of the time it is a great step up. Yeah, some of the newer technology would have been a good incorporation into the basic design to allow better viewing angles and contrast, but it works well enough to make me smile when streaming videos when I'm waiting around or doing research on the fly.

11) The front facing camera, at 2MP, is great. I've been able to have face-to-face conversations with people I haven't seen in a decade and have even managed a couple of long-distance if-you-can't-bang-it-beat-it conversations with the significant other.

This is a 4.5 star phone executed at the 90% level. It has over-hyped technology (which is anything but revolutionary) and way too much crap installed from the factory, but you'll be hard-pressed to find any carrier that doesn't do the same thing. While not perfect, the capabilities exposed with ICS make this a podium finisher among the most recent hardware on the market for a fraction of the price.

I recommend the HTC Rezound without hesitation.

I wanted to love it but... July 3, 2012

Reviewer:  A. Jennerjahn "follower of Jesus"  (Long Island, NY USA) -

I really wanted to love it. I tried to love it. But there were three deal-breakers for me:
1) the font is too small, and cannot be adjusted. I didn't know I needed a phone with a special feature for this, since my 4 year old basic phone can adjust the font with no problem. IF YOU ARE OVER 50 be sure to consider how small the font is. I'm sure this is no worse than many other phones, it just happens to be the one I tried. I swapped it for an iphone 4S and it took about one minute to adjust the font so it was comfortable.
2) the virtual keyboard is difficult. I don't really know why -- the iphone keyboard is about the same size, but I got way more typos on this one.
3) the battery life seems peculiarly short. The battery totally ran out one day when I made 1 phone call (about 15 minutes), exchanged about 5 texts, spent about 30 min total on Facebook and email. It did last longer when I changed the configurations to be power saving, but I found it unacceptable that minimal use ran out the battery unless I tweaked stuff.

PROS:
the camera was amazing - got some nice effects at a concert.
The physical feel of the phone during a phone call was comfortable

So I gave up and got an iphone instead. I did not want to jump on the iphone bandwagon but the font issue was critical for me. The shape of the iphone is not as comfortable on my ear, but the other features fit my needs better.

AWESOME PHONE!! April 12, 2012

Reviewer:  TommyP 

Love this phone and heres why
Camera...great picture quality if you know how to setup the shots..night time and daytime come out fantastic

Video camera...smooth as butter as long as you go 720p(60 frames per second)...1080p is nice but @30 fps I can still see some slight blurring to a degree

Call quality... is a tiny bit muffled on my end..the voices are clear but slighlty mellow..people who hear me say I am crystal clear

Display...can you say SWEET!..not as deep in blacks as the top tier phone like the galaxy nexus but for $49.99 vs $299..I can accept that slight flaw..colors are vibrant and detailed..small text is no problem to read

Surfing...WOW..when you pick up a 4G signal this things just FLIES!!...the webpages pop up faster than my DSL ever could..I choose not to use flash so that could be why.scrolling is smooth

Audio Music Quality...the Beats br Dre. earbuds that come bundled are a great gimmick to sell the phone..they tend to be a bit more bass heavy but then again look who is endorsing them..Dr.Dre...so this is to be expected..they sound very good like a pair of SkullCandy do but the quality needs to be tested by me so time will tell..I use earbuds 6-8 Hrs a day 5 days a week so these will be tested HARDCORE...

Battery life..takes 3.5HRS to charge fully...wears down in roughly 6 hrs while streaming Pandora and Slacker and Tune In Pro and Stitcher Radio.....playing you tube clips and making a few calls....so overall pretty impressed....you can tweak the performance of the phone to gain more battery life with the built in Power Options so i encourage you to look at them

Build Quality...solid but lightweight..not too heavy but is thicker than the avg..

Overall a sweet phone 8 out of 10 in my opinion..but my opinion is just that..my opinion..yours may vary but I just wanted to share my personal impression of the HTC Rezound..enjoy

Next to perfect!! April 8, 2012

Reviewer:  Mike 

OK, so I've had a ton of smart phones. IPhones blackberrys and androids. All have come and gone. But now I'm on android again and using the HtC Rezound.. first off. Its an amazing phone. From download speeds to screen display to responds opening apps and running them.. It would be the perfect phone if the battery was stronger. That's the only flaw I have came across. And I am a full time user. I'm always on my phone watching vids, googleing, face booking, playing games, downloading music, u name it.... I can't get over how amazing the screen looks. It has one of the best resolutions out... If they made a Rezound with a better batter like Motorola did to Razr with the Maxx.. Well then u have a perfect phone!!! Either way.. its still my fav its phone. And even tho the battery lacks a little. Its still a 5* phone..

Best smartphone in my entire life (so far :) January 8, 2012

Reviewer:  O. Maksymenko 

I had tons of smartphones, but this one is a dream. Excellent RGB (not pentile!) screen, awesome 4G reception, clear audio with nice basses, superb HTC UI. When Samsung Nexus came out, I thought it should be a good replacement for my Droid Bionic and came to a local Verizon store. I was really disappointed looking at the pentile matrix on Nexus' screen that I already got tired to see every day on my Bionic. Some people just cannot spot the difference, but for those with eyes not only size matters, but quality too. I haven't played with ICS UI much, but my impression about Sense - it's coolest easiest feature richest UI ever made, thanks HTC. Motoblur is a total garbage, thanks Motorola! I didn't buy Nexus and started googling for a device made buy a less greedy manufacturer that doesn't try to reduce costs putting crappy screens and not reliable 4G radios into their phones... and I found HTC Rezound. The Dre headphones are good add-on to the mobile multimedia machine, i didn't expect to have a decent sound quality from any earbuds, but these are fantastic! I would give the phone 6 stars of 5, but Amazon doesn't allow it.

Transition from my Lg EnV3 and Palm TX pda to a HTC Rezound December 23, 2011

Reviewer:  Mark Schwiderson  (Detroit, MI) -

This is a review of my transition from my Lg EnV3 and Palm TX pda to a HTC Rezound

A lot of other people have said this is a great media phone and they are right. The Sense interface is smooth and friendly. What this review is going to focus on is my transition from my `dumb' Lg EnV3 and Palm TX pda. I also listen to many podcast from my phone so I will cover that later.

Easy one first I used this Companion Link software: Sync Android with Palm Desktop - Sync contacts, calendar and tasks -- CompanionLink Software. You can get a 14 day trial version. That worked well for the calendar, even the repeat items. The contacts not so well. Everybody I had ever sent an email to became a new entry. So then I went into Google contacts selected all and unchecked the ones I recognized. So 325 contacts to 100, not bad. Time spent: 60 mins.

The Pocket Informant program is good replacement for the Palm calendar. It interacts with native calendar seamlessly.

The next one was to link LG contacts to Google. When I added Verizon backup assistant; I had now sometimes up to 3 of the same person now in the phone. Contacts now totaled over 150. Now log into Verizon backup assistant and cross reference the entry's to the Google contacts list. This was painful; the backup assistant only had about 70% of the contacts in the phone. So then I had to go into the phone itself and cross reference the entry's. This probably took 4 hours a course of a week. Now I have 127 accurate contacts with no duplicates.

Pictures were easy, just cut and paste them to the new picture folder. Videos were converted to a MP4 format, with the help of a free converter. The voice memos were able to be read by the Rezound. [On a side note I found a program convert them to a wav format vs a qcp format, I will do this later.]

Next was what to do with the Memos, I researched different programs. Then it hit me, just use Google Docs. It worked great. Able to edit on a computer and able to also sync and read/modify from the phone. Time spent: 60 mins to copy them all over.

Next was music and podcasts. I set up Google Music for cloud storage of music. The only problem with Google Music is that I have had a lot of buffering or unable to play issues. I am going to call that one Google growing pains and temporary. Google Listen was a new pod-catcher that you can set up with Google reader. Listen lets you stream the shows to the phone without copying the files first to a SD card. [What I did for years] Time spent: 60 mins to set up Google reader.

As for the battery life; I have found turning off 3/4G and using Wi-Fi when available makes a huge difference in battery life. If you have to use 3/4G, use only 4G when necessary. I installed a program called LTE switch to toggle 3/4G. With 4G off that also makes big difference in life. Most of the time Wi-Fi is as fast as 4G, so with the much greater battery life makes it an easy decision which one to use.

SwiftKey X is quite helpful for typing on the phone. Electrodroid is a neat electronics guide. It has info on resistors, LEDs, pin outs and the like. Rainy days is a great app for Radar and the weather. As for games Train connector 2, Where's the water, Reckless getaway, and Alchemy classic are good for a look.

It took a week but now everything is all linked together.

Better then expected December 13, 2011

Reviewer:  Hao C. Quach 

I was holding out for the GNEX, but after so many delays & all the positive reviews on the Rezound, I decided to buy this. Plus the GNEX's hardware is nothing spectacular, especially the 5mp camera, except for the ICS software. But according to Verizon & HTC, the Rezound will be getting the ICS upgrade early 12'. This phone actually feels heavy(in a good way) & well made compared to the Moto Razr. Its also don't feel cheap like the GNEX, according to expert reviews. The 1.5 gh processor is very snappy & smooth, when switching from diff apps. The display is crazy sharp & the camera is just as good as the iphone 4S if not better. The Beats audio feature is very noticeable & very good & going from 3G to 4G LTE is like going from day to night.

Pros: Outstanding 720p screen
Camera
1.5 ghz Powerful processor
4G LTE
Beats Audio & headphones

Cons: Poor batt, poor batt & poor batt. $300/on contract

Purely Delighted December 7, 2011

Reviewer:  CrownHillKat 

I've had my Rezound for about a week now and this phone is amazing. I work at the 3rd largest National Cemetery in the US and often time more than not, it's a requirement to take a photo of a marker or monument. This phone has so far filled the ticket on every task I've asked of it. The photo's are clean, when it takes a picture of a shadow you get a shadow, not noise like most phones do. The battery life is great full day no charges, however I'm going to buy another to keep just incase. The sound on it is so much better, most songs you just listen too with the Rezound you can actually feel it. Haven't tried the ear buds that came with it, but I'm a headphones gal never did like ear buds much. Easy to setup and personalize, love the animated weather and of course the big display clock. This is a great phone, if your looking for a touchscreen with Droid OS and a hearty dual processor... Rezounf is for you!

HTC Rezound 4G Android Phone (Verizon Wireless) May 16, 2013

Reviewer:  Joe Szaldobagyi "joroof"  (THOUSAND OAKS, CA USA) -

I had cell phones for almost 30 years, all makes and carriers and had this one for over a year, (since it was released)

please read the reviews, I have nothing to add, this phone is just horrible

I did resets, I did updates ...sorry, but still junk...... I wish it wasn't