The HTC Rezound is one of the three powerhouse devices heading to Verizon’s store shelves in the next couple of weeks, and with its specifications and good looks, it’s a handset that’s obviously on folks’ wish list this holiday season. It’s the first US-bound device with Beats Audio Technology, which means that the Rezound will have some pretty amazing sounds coming out of it (through its hardware speaker, and the included Beats ear buds). I’m sure there are a few of you out there who use your Android-powered smartphone to listen to music, especially if you’re currently using Google Music, but there’s one more thing that the Rezound has that the other two high-end devices don’t have: the least powerful battery.
Talking about battery life isn’t something that we just do for fun; we’ve seen it time and time again that a smartphone is hindered by its limited battery life. And that makes perfect sense. We can only use our phone if it powers on, and if it stays powered on. With the other two phones that are releasing this month, they’ve got batteries that should help the phone last throughout a day, even with plenty of usage. But the Rezound’s battery, measured in at 1,620mAh, may not be worth it in the long run.
Now, that’s not saying that a 1,620mAh battery isn’t good enough in and of itself. No, the battery life should be fine for normal use, like texting, emails, and a few Web pages browsed throughout the day – but with all of the background tasks behind handled every day, and on a set plan (unless you’re someone who likes to pull from the cloud every second of every day), that battery’s life can be eaten up pretty quickly. And now HTC has decided to throw in a feature that means people will be using the media player more than ever, which has me thinking people won’t actually be able to utilize that new feature all that often.
So is the Rezound’s battery too small? Should HTC have tried harder to get a bigger battery in there? I imagine that it would have been assumed at some point, before the launch of the DROID RAZR from Motorola, that the thickness of the Rezound may have been in question with a thicker battery. We know that can’t possibly be the case now, so it has to be something else. Unfortunately, we may never know why exactly HTC decided to go with a 1,620mAh battery instead of, say, a 1,780mAh one, and I’m seriously wondering if that may not come back to bite them.
If you’re someone who can’t be around a wall charger, or even a car charger, throughout the day, then you know how important your battery is. You know that, the more you use your phone, the better your chances are of killing that battery even faster. And that’s the point here. We’ve got Beats Audio Technology on the Rezound, and why wouldn’t you want to use it? In fact, the Beats technology is one of the selling points of the phone, so why wouldn’t you use it? They are even throwing in a pair of Beats ear buds to entice you to use it.
It looks to me like we’re faced with a curious situation. On the one hand we’ve got a feature that is as cool as it sounds (no pun intended), and should be one of the most top-rated reasons as to why you’d want to pick up this phone. On the other hand we’ve got the worst battery being offered of the three major high-end devices being launched by Big Red this November (unless the Galaxy Nexus doesn’t manage to make it to shelves until December). And I know how serious we all take battery life. With that in mind, like I said just a bit ago, I’m wondering if HTC won’t move forward almost regretting that decision.
I guess we’ll have to wait and see. Are you getting the Rezound? Or have you decided to go with another one of the high-end devices launching this month? And if you are going for one of those other phones, is it due to the battery life at all? Let me know in the comments below.
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