The HTC Rhyme is one of the newest additions to the Verizon wireless line-up, setting itself apart from the rest of the family since it's specifically for women -- or hipsters who like purple. This time around, the company decided to focus on the accessories, leading its marketing campaign with a glowing purse charm to avoid missing calls -- a fate all too familiar for gals whose phone is oftentimes buried at the bottom of a Louis Vuitton.
Unfortunately, we've been skipped over when it comes to some of the features popular with higher-end, more macho phones like the Droid RAZR or the Galaxy Nexus. Sorry, ladies, no 4- or 4.3-inch touchscreen, no 4G LTE and certainly no dual-core processor. Instead, this phone is pretty run-of-the-mill, with a 3.7-inch capacitive touchscreen, single-core, 1GHz processor, a WVGA display, a 5MP rear-facing and VGA front-facing camera, as well as an 8GB microSD card. Running the newest Sense 3.5 UI atop Gingerbread, the Rhyme offers a unique user experience for those who like HTC's custom UI and, of course, the color purple. But is this phone powerful enough to keep up with the multitasking mayhem that is a day in the life of a modern woman? Jump past the break to find out.
The featherweight candybar-style phone looks almost as delicious as it sounds with a pearlized grape-colored border peeking out from behind the WVGA touchscreen. That accent extends around the display, cutting across the back of the phone, much like a piece of ribbon would wrap around a present -- almost identical to the Status or Flyer tablet, only with a dose of Dimetapp purple. A more subdued shade of plum makes up the rest of the back, which is constructed out of HTC's signature soft-touch plastic.
Turn the phone over and you'll find a single LED flash, 5 MP camera, a speaker and some electrical charging points -- not to be confused with the inductive variety on the Droid Incredible 2. By popping off the battery cover, users will see a 1600mAh battery along with an 8GB pre-installed microSD card. Embedded into the back, there's the phone's antenna. You'll get a sneak peek of what's inside the phone through the translucent casing, but that's about all you'll be able to see as the battery is non-removable, much to our disappointment.
Although rather petite, the 4.58-ounce (130g) phone felt solid, similar to some other HTC phones. Unlike slick plastic handsets and the shatter-prone iPhone 4, the soft material used here makes the Rhyme easy to grip, and inspires some confidence in its durability. Oddly, though, this petite phone wasn't any more unwieldy than the 4- and 4.3-inch handsets we've tested recently, so we're not really sure why HTC skimped on screen. Maybe the company assumed our manicured mitts couldn't handle something larger.
The phone measures 4.69 x 2.39 x .43 inches (119.13 x 60.7 x 10.9 mm) with a similar, but not identical layout to the Droid Incredible 2. Along the top, you'll find the power button coupled with a noise-canceling microphone and headphone jack. The right edge houses a volume rocker, with a micro-USB socket and charging port tucked on the left. The micro-USB port is protected by a thin piece of plastic so precarious, we're surprised we didn't break it in half already. Lastly, the bottom of the phone rocks a secondary mic, helping to make calls sound reasonably crisp.
The 3.7-inch WVGA touchscreen features the VGA front-facing camera, flashing LED notification light and Verizon logo. At the bottom of the screen you'll find your requisite haptic touch controls, including home, menu, back and search buttons. On the backside of the camera there's an LED flash, 5 megapixel autofocus camera, a low powered speaker and the aforementioned electrical charging points.
The WVGA display is bright and sharp, offering generally impressive viewing angles from far left or far right -- although, the quality was impeded in strong sunlight. As far as clarity goes, the Rhyme boasts a 252ppi screen compared to the iPhone 4's 325ppi, making it lower-end, but no slouch as far as screen clarity goes -- doing the photos we snapped in Central Park justice.
Software
Like HTC's other phones, the Rhyme runs the company's custom Sense UI on top of Google's ubiquitous OS. This is the first phone to offer Sense 3.5, complete with new animations and a revised look and feel. One of the things you'll notice right off the bat is the home screen, which has widgets placed neatly to the side rather than under the clock. The clock and weather widgets have moved to the bottom right corner, and though they remain the focus of the home screen, they're markedly less in-your-face. Aside from the tweaked home layout, one of the main differences is the ability to remove panels on the screens, decluttering the sometimes chockablock feel of Sense when compared to previous versions.
This particular flavor of Sense is a bit different from the company's previous offerings, although it still has all the signature features that make Sense Sense. One of the major things we noticed about the latest version is the omission of the Verizon bloatware tab in the apps section. Unfortunately, this doesn't mean the phone is free from crapware, but at least there will not be a signature Verizon tab reminding you that it exists. You'll still have to deal with V CAST Music, VZ Navigator, V CAST Videos and other miscellaneous apps that we really have no use for. The amount of unnecessary apps and widgets like FriendStream clutter the phone and almost cheapen its Android integrity.
The phone was incredibly fickle when it came to email, forcing us to continually set up our mail time and time again, oftentimes giving us the error message "getting token failed." For the most part, we had trouble accessing our mail reliably through the Gmail app, although we were able to access it through the notifications bar upon occasion. When searching for a solution, we found that other people were having the exact same problem, to which the major recommendation was to remove mail settings and start again -- what a pain.
Unfortunately, we've been skipped over when it comes to some of the features popular with higher-end, more macho phones like the Droid RAZR or the Galaxy Nexus. Sorry, ladies, no 4- or 4.3-inch touchscreen, no 4G LTE and certainly no dual-core processor. Instead, this phone is pretty run-of-the-mill, with a 3.7-inch capacitive touchscreen, single-core, 1GHz processor, a WVGA display, a 5MP rear-facing and VGA front-facing camera, as well as an 8GB microSD card. Running the newest Sense 3.5 UI atop Gingerbread, the Rhyme offers a unique user experience for those who like HTC's custom UI and, of course, the color purple. But is this phone powerful enough to keep up with the multitasking mayhem that is a day in the life of a modern woman? Jump past the break to find out.
Hardware
The featherweight candybar-style phone looks almost as delicious as it sounds with a pearlized grape-colored border peeking out from behind the WVGA touchscreen. That accent extends around the display, cutting across the back of the phone, much like a piece of ribbon would wrap around a present -- almost identical to the Status or Flyer tablet, only with a dose of Dimetapp purple. A more subdued shade of plum makes up the rest of the back, which is constructed out of HTC's signature soft-touch plastic.
Turn the phone over and you'll find a single LED flash, 5 MP camera, a speaker and some electrical charging points -- not to be confused with the inductive variety on the Droid Incredible 2. By popping off the battery cover, users will see a 1600mAh battery along with an 8GB pre-installed microSD card. Embedded into the back, there's the phone's antenna. You'll get a sneak peek of what's inside the phone through the translucent casing, but that's about all you'll be able to see as the battery is non-removable, much to our disappointment.
Although rather petite, the 4.58-ounce (130g) phone felt solid, similar to some other HTC phones. Unlike slick plastic handsets and the shatter-prone iPhone 4, the soft material used here makes the Rhyme easy to grip, and inspires some confidence in its durability. Oddly, though, this petite phone wasn't any more unwieldy than the 4- and 4.3-inch handsets we've tested recently, so we're not really sure why HTC skimped on screen. Maybe the company assumed our manicured mitts couldn't handle something larger.
The phone measures 4.69 x 2.39 x .43 inches (119.13 x 60.7 x 10.9 mm) with a similar, but not identical layout to the Droid Incredible 2. Along the top, you'll find the power button coupled with a noise-canceling microphone and headphone jack. The right edge houses a volume rocker, with a micro-USB socket and charging port tucked on the left. The micro-USB port is protected by a thin piece of plastic so precarious, we're surprised we didn't break it in half already. Lastly, the bottom of the phone rocks a secondary mic, helping to make calls sound reasonably crisp.
The 3.7-inch WVGA touchscreen features the VGA front-facing camera, flashing LED notification light and Verizon logo. At the bottom of the screen you'll find your requisite haptic touch controls, including home, menu, back and search buttons. On the backside of the camera there's an LED flash, 5 megapixel autofocus camera, a low powered speaker and the aforementioned electrical charging points.
The WVGA display is bright and sharp, offering generally impressive viewing angles from far left or far right -- although, the quality was impeded in strong sunlight. As far as clarity goes, the Rhyme boasts a 252ppi screen compared to the iPhone 4's 325ppi, making it lower-end, but no slouch as far as screen clarity goes -- doing the photos we snapped in Central Park justice.
Software
This particular flavor of Sense is a bit different from the company's previous offerings, although it still has all the signature features that make Sense Sense. One of the major things we noticed about the latest version is the omission of the Verizon bloatware tab in the apps section. Unfortunately, this doesn't mean the phone is free from crapware, but at least there will not be a signature Verizon tab reminding you that it exists. You'll still have to deal with V CAST Music, VZ Navigator, V CAST Videos and other miscellaneous apps that we really have no use for. The amount of unnecessary apps and widgets like FriendStream clutter the phone and almost cheapen its Android integrity.
The phone was incredibly fickle when it came to email, forcing us to continually set up our mail time and time again, oftentimes giving us the error message "getting token failed." For the most part, we had trouble accessing our mail reliably through the Gmail app, although we were able to access it through the notifications bar upon occasion. When searching for a solution, we found that other people were having the exact same problem, to which the major recommendation was to remove mail settings and start again -- what a pain.
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