HTC Droid DNA review

Verizon and 'quietly brilliant' HTC get big and flashy

Droid DNA
Droid DNA joins the HTC gene pool

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Battery life

Battery life can be problematic with HTC devices, like the HTC One X+. Thankfully, the Droid DNA offers better battery life than previous HTC phones, but it's still not fantastic.

HTC Droid DNA review

On a day of average usage, meaning web browsing, checking email, Google mapping and some game playing, it barely made it to the end of the day with much charge left.

When we really put it to the test with lots of YouTube, Netflix, playing games and other streaming services, it needed a midday charge.

On the TechRadar battery test, it played an HD video for ninety minutes, with push notification on and WiFi on, LTE enabled, and brightness maxed, and ended up with a 71 percent charge left. That's a very average score.

Overall, we'd say that power comes at the price of battery life with the Droid DNA, but you won't be tethered to your charger like with past HTC phones.

Connectivity

As a Droid Device, the Droid DNA is exclusive to Verizon Wireless. Not only do those red racing stripes make it fit right in with the big red carrier, Verizon's fast LTE network is perfect compliment to the phone's sharp screen.

HTC Droid DNA review

Streaming video is fast and gorgeous on the DNA. While you need to keep an eye on that data plan, it's the perfect phone for streaming Netflix or renting movies from Google Play.

Download speeds were outrageously fast, averaging around 20 Mbps. Occasionally they were over 30 Mbps. Upload speeds were impressive as well, usually coming in around 10 Mbps.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, we did encounter areas with 3G rather 4G service, but we were still able to maintain a reliable data connection as well as place calls.