HTC Vivid With Reliable Interiorand Plasticky Exterior

The HTC Vivid runs the Android 2.3 operating system (dubbed Gingerbread) the fastest version of Android available for smartphones yet. I nearly did a double take when lifting AT&T's HTC Vivid out of its cardboard box. It's one of the first HTC phones in a long time whose form looked cheap to my eyes. It features a cleaner, more refined interface with new icons, improved top notification bar, and more intuitive navigation.

Shiny black plastic all around with just a thin metal plate on the battery cover, the handset lacks the thoughtful build quality typical of most HTC phones, and very unlike recent phones like the HTC Rhyme, the Evo Design 4G, the Amaze 4G, and so on. Multitasking in Gingerbread allows you the ability to run more than one app at a time. If you're playing a game, you can easily switch to an incoming e-mail and then switch back to the game without losing your place. And like the previous version of Android ("Froyo"), Gingerbread provides support for Adobe Flash Player 10.1 for access to the full Web.

The onscreen keyboard makes it easier to type thanks to additional spacing between the keys and larger font sizes.. And doesn't the Vivid have high-end hardware and software specs that deliver 4G LTE (in available cities), zippy dual-core processing, a good 8-megapixel camera, a front-facing camera, and so on? All with Android 2.3 Gingerbread and with HTC Sense 3.0. And the more you use the keyboard, the easier typing will be as the enhanced suggest feature records previous input history to make better suggestions.

The Vivid also brings one-touch access to the popular Google mobile services you use every day. It also provides easy access to both personal and corporate e-mail, calendars, and contacts supported by Exchange Server and Gmail. The heavy use of glossy black plastic likely reduces the phone's cost, my brain told my gut, helping keep the cost pinned to the reasonable $200 mark. Indeed, if it's a good phone that's reasonably priced for its features, and there are plenty of other high-end handsets that have rarely ventured into HTC's usual aesthetic territory and do more than fine.

Android Market, you'll get access to thousands of useful applications, widgets, and feel you're looking for, don't be surprised if that's the mark where the Vivid falls short. See video, photos, and learn about the pros and cons in the full HTC Vivid review.