HTC Incredible S review

HTC Incredible S review: HTC Sense.com

The HTC Incredible S allows connection to HTCSense.com, a portal that allows you to control your phone from afar.

Initially, it looks like the main reason for this portal is to deal with the issue of leaving your phone at home or even worse: losing it.

You can perform basic tasks like forwarding all your calls to another number and messages too - it works nicely and makes the hassle of people not being able to get hold of you a distant memory.

Another neat feature for the lonely and friendless among us is the ability to ring the phone as loud as possible - it overrides silent mode as well, so even if you've turned the ringer off you can still hear where you've left your precious device.

But there's a lot more to this portal than just that - being able to send a message to your phone or lock it remotely means that if you think you're going to get it back you can protect it or entice someone to return it.

You can also see roughly where your phone is - handy if you think you might have left it at that restaurant across town but don't want to go over there on a wild goose chase.

A word of warning with that last element: our phone is continually stuck off the coast of Madagascar, according to the map - we've definitely been spotted on Google Maps in our home town, so we've no idea what's going on here.

And of course there's the remote wipe option, allowing you to protect any data that might fall into the wrong hands.

The service has picked up from its early days, with the connection to the phone always stable and strong, and the backup storage bringing comfort should you find your handset hits that dreaded terminal error.

We like another feature from HTC with the new Sense account - you can add friends also on the service and recommend things to each other, or see what they're downloading.

HTCSense.com is a great addition to the party - we doubt most people picking up an HTC phone will use it, but should you decide to get to grips with the system, it certainly provides a cost effective way to get peace of mind (especially if you live off the coast of Africa).

Connectivity

There are a number of connectivity options on the HTC Incredible S, and mostly they work better than other smartphone contenders on the market at the moment.

For instance, Wi-Fi, which was a slight issue with some Android phones, seems to be a nice and strong on the Incredible S than other top end phones - it's as good as Apple's iPhone offerings, which we think has the most stable connection.

Bluetooth music connection has FINALLY been fixed too - no more crappy and choppy music for use when we're trying to do the Electric Boogaloo on the morning commute sans wires.

Bluetooth was fine in other instances too, making it easy to transfer and connect between devices, so it's nice to see HTC has finally fixed this little niggle.

Calendar

We're big fans of the calendars on HTC phones in general, as they offer up integrated functionality as you'd hope it would work - seamlessly taking information from your Google or Exchange account with no issues at all, and using colour coded labels to let you know which account the meetings are from.

And a superb touch - telling you the weather in the region you're going to be in on that day. It's not pivotal but it's another one of those cool moments that makes you realise how hard HTC is thinking about the user.

Wi-Fi hotspot

The use of Android 2.2 on the HTC Incredible S means it also comes with a few built-in bells and whistles, and one of those is the Wi-Fi hotspot.

All you need to do is turn this on and fire up your internet device - the phone will be pumping out a name of your choosing, and you simply input a password that again you can choose.

It works nicely, eats as much data as you choose and as you can imagine, vaporises your battery in a heartbeat - it might be a good idea to have a charger handy with this one.