Honest opinions needed on dna...

[phoneman95]

Got my DNA last week. Battery life is 100% adequate for my needs and that's the worst thing I have to say about this phone... LOL. The Snapdragon S4 Pro screams. The 1080p screen is as crisp as they come! Jelly Bean, 2 GB RAM, this thing is a beast!! dancedroid I love this phone! The fact that it's months old already just makes it that much more amazing that (IMO) it still competes with all the new phones out there. Also build quality and design are outstanding as well. Highly recommended!!! dancedroid

Totally agree. I got this phone 7/26/13 at Best Buy for free and I love this phone as well. Battery life is perfect for what I do and this dinosaur competes with the latest and greatest. I use to feel that if you get an old phone, your not doing yourself justice but the DNA isn't even a yr yet and the new HTC one is not all that different. See youtube reviews. I agree with most on this board, just be content. I learned my lesson trying to keep up with phones. They all do the same, especially if there only within months of each other, see the galaxy S phones. The radio strength on this phone is what really surprised me. I'm still on trial and I could trade in for the S4 but then I will have to pay lol but I wouldn't switch anyways, tired of the Samsung experience. Droid DNA is a beast and for free?, I couldn't ignore that. The fact that this phone compares to the S4 says a lot.

 

[alanb4130]

Had my DNA since the end of May. Absolutely love it. Have not had any of the Sim card errors. This phone is fast. The video is incredible. The Camera is excellent. Only paid 30 dollars for it on an upgrade. Would buy this phone again. I am using the cloud and I am also using Dropbox and have 3.9 gigs of storage available to me for free because I have uploaded to it a few times. It is a wonderful phone. Remember they are still selling dual core phones. This is a quad core with 2 gigs of ram. This will last a contract period.

 

[billcows]

I have had this phone since launch. Still love it. The new phones barely out do this but not enough to justify spending money when the DNA is now free. So far the best phone I ever had.

 

[JeffreyDeutsch]

CharliesTheMan, tyvin and phoneman95 all have excellent points.

I got my DNA at the end of November '12.

Starting February '11 up to then I'd been making do with a Motorola Pro...about mid-level when it came out in November '10 and by the summer of '12 Verizon was giving those out for free with a new contract. Mine had been slow as molasses...and I wasn't even watching videos or streaming music on it.

I knew the DNA was quad-core, and I took that as an indicator of its general technical level. I wanted top-of-the-line because it'll have to see me through roughly two years and I didn't want to be stuck with a POS. (It's not just a matter of envying everyone else's phone; apps and software in general tend to get top-heavy over time under the assumption that you're regularly upgrading.)

In general, it works great for what I do, which is pictures, videos, email [often pictures and videos], texting [including pictures*], voice [kind of weird on a smartphone these days, but what can you do? ], very occasional brief Internet browsing and an app or two like Speaktoit Assistant and Buddhist Meditation. For my main computing, my laptop does perfectly well.

Now, the other phone I was considering was, not surprisingly perhaps, Samsung's Galaxy S3. However, unlike the DNA, the S3 can be Liquipeled (in fact, Liquipel now even offers pretreated S3s). For that matter, the S4 can also be Liquipeled.

Also, my understanding is that the S3 (not to mention the S4) is going to get Android upgrades before the DNA.

Last but not least, Samsung has a much better reputation right now than HTC.

But these are all top-of-the-heap issues. For a super duper phone, I'm lovin' my blazin'-fast DNA.


[*] SAHD...Need I say more?

Jeff Deutsch

 

[JeffreyDeutsch]

A couple of updates.

The call-blocking app PrivacyStar does not work well on the DNA. PrivacyStar says that the issue lies with HTC's recent firmware release (which, PrivacyStar says, applies to any HTC phone running Jelly Bean). I've been told on good authority that HTC and Verizon are not going to fix this problem in the foreseeable future.

So, if you're considering getting the DNA, know that you're not going to get good results with PrivacyStar on it anytime soon.

And yes, the DNA's battery is non-removable. In some ways that stinks. On the other hand, depending on how important security is to you, this cloud [no pun intended] may have a silver lining. If someone steals your phone, turning it off and/or removing the battery are good strategies for evading Android Device Manager and other cool security apps. However, you can't turn off the DNA without logging in*...and you can't remove its battery at all. So you can keep tracking and doing other stuff with your phone -- at least as long as your battery lasts.


[*] If you haven't set up your phone to require logging in with a password, pattern or PIN, it's a safe bet security's not a consideration for you anyway.

Jeff Deutsch