[Herky151]

Well the Droid DNA came out the other day and I am contemplating getting it for my next phone. I usually don't use my phones for music, but I thought I would ask how the beats audio is in HTC phones. They claim the amplifier in the phone will put out a peak of 2.55V (they didn't specify if it was the headphone jack or the amp for the built in speaker), but it doesn't matter how much power it has, if beats ruined the equalization/ sound quality then I don't care. So does anyone have the HTC One X or One X+ that can attest to the beats audio aspect?

 

[headfinoob]

Beats is disabled if you are not using Beats headphones. The gray icon will likely persist without a custom ROM though.
If they are marketing the voltage, then there is a good chance that the rest of the specs are decent. I am curious to see the software implementation, as this could be a nice phone. The display is tempting me.
Hopefully USB audio is supported out of the box.

Sent from my ADR6425LVW using Tapatalk 2

 

[NZtechfreak]

Very much doubt it will have usable USB audio out of the box (it'll have Jelly Bean USB audio, but that is basically useless since it only works with devices made specifically to interoperate with it and will NOT work with any existing USB DACs).
 
What I have seen of the display doesn't sway me particularly. The resolution and density are impressive, however it won't look any sharper than lots of present displays which already exceed the limits of human visual acuity, so from a PPI point of view the gains are largely irrelevant. Because of the very small pixels the display seems to lack in the brightness department compared to other current displays, which will make for worse sunlight visibility too. Finally, the colour balance is very titled towards blue, so it has lost the benefits of colour reproduction accuracy that LCD/IPS displays usually benefit from in comparison to AMOLED. If you see it side by side with other displays these defects are very obvious (can't remember who had a picture of it with i5/One X/S3 etc, but the differences weren't particularly subtle).
 
All of which is not to say it may not be a very fine phone, only that the OMG 1080p! screen isn't a completely unalloyed good, and I don't think it should be an overriding influence in decision making in terms of this phone Vs others.
 
Oh, and should mention that Paul Obrien from Modaco says the international one will have a micro SD slot.

 

[Nuukeer]

Quote:

Very much doubt it will have usable USB audio out of the box (it'll have Jelly Bean USB audio, but that is basically useless since it only works with devices made specifically to interoperate with it and will NOT work with any existing USB DACs).
 
What I have seen of the display doesn't sway me particularly. The resolution and density are impressive, however it won't look any sharper than lots of present displays which already exceed the limits of human visual acuity, so from a PPI point of view the gains are largely irrelevant. Because of the very small pixels the display seems to lack in the brightness department compared to other current displays, which will make for worse sunlight visibility too. Finally, the colour balance is very titled towards blue, so it has lost the benefits of colour reproduction accuracy that LCD/IPS displays usually benefit from in comparison to AMOLED. If you see it side by side with other displays these defects are very obvious (can't remember who had a picture of it with i5/One X/S3 etc, but the differences weren't particularly subtle).
 
All of which is not to say it may not be a very fine phone, only that the OMG 1080p! screen isn't a completely unalloyed good, and I don't think it should be an overriding influence in decision making in terms of this phone Vs others.
 
Oh, and should mention that Paul Obrien from Modaco says the international one will have a micro SD slot.

 
It is incorrect that the human eye cannot distinguish more than 300 dpi at normal distances. Close to the area of focus, you need more like 1000 dpi at 12 inches (I commonly use my phone at even closer distances, further increasing the limit). The visual acuity of the human eye is about 0.3 arc minutes. Here is an interesting article: http://www.cultofmac.com/173702/why-retina-isnt-enough-feature/.
It would be nice if I could read more sites zoomed out than on my Galaxy S3, for me this proves that 300 dpi is not enough (even if you factor in Pentile it does not change this fact).
 
Also, AMOLED displays are quite superior to LCD's when it comes to color gamut and contrast, important metrics if you are picky about screens.
 
Does anyone know which DAC this phone will have? I want to see some sound tests.

 

[milan03]

I'd love to know more about DAC. I bought DNA, and the screen is insanely good, especially if you get to see 1080p content at a high bitrate. The issue is the storage, although USB flash drives work just fine. Wireless Charging is something I can't live without now that I use it...
I'm using it with my UE-18's but I'm not necessarily noticing any difference. It does drive my P5's better than anything else...

 

[harrinj]

I would really like to know which one is better the DNA or the Note 2. I've read the Note 2 is ok all the way to great but no real answer. I like the DNA but the lack of storage kills it (you can use an OTG cable and a flash drive but who is going to carry that around?). my 32GB Galaxy Nexus is filled with FLAC files not even half would fit on the DNA (what in the world were they thinking????) and all Beats is is an EQ in the HTC Music app only (I use JetAudio Pus 1000 times better and a hell of a lot of options). when I had my Incredible 2 and had a ROM with Beats audio it sounded WAY better OFF. all Beats did was color the sound a bit I mean its great for teeny weeny earbuds like that skull candy crap or the apple ones people seem to love O so much but not real or higher quality headphones. the DNA's DAC is built into the Qualcomm S4 Pro's SoC so how does it sound is it better than the Note 2's Wolfson DAC??? someone please respond 

 

[milan03]

Yeah, well on DNA you don't have to use "beats" moniker at all, and you still get the 2.55V amplifier for your cans. On UE-18 is not as noticeable or needed as much.

 

[Herky151]

After thinking about it a bit, I feel for the general public, it was a bad idea of HTC to make it have that high of an output. All it means is people are going to kill their ibuds/ whatevers that much quicker by playing them at max volume. (Not to mention their ears also 

)

 

[milan03]

Quote:

After thinking about it a bit, I feel for the general public, it was a bad idea of HTC to make it have that high of an output. All it means is people are going to kill their ibuds/ whatevers that much quicker by playing them at max volume. (Not to mention their ears also 

)

Not really unless they're dumb. It's there to drive bigger cans. Why would anyone suffer through extreme noise just because their phone can drive it?

 

[Herky151]

Obviously you haven't been to a high school in the past couple of years when quality/anything < volume because they use open ear air ibuds and are compensating the outside noise by playing them as loud as possible. 

 

[milan03]

Quote:

Obviously you haven't been to a high school in the past couple of years when quality/anything < volume because they use open ear air ibuds and are compensating the outside noise by playing them as loud as possible. 

Ya high school isn't really my thing. 

 

[dosley01]

Any new DNA users?  I'm considering this phone, it has everything I want except for the lousy 16GB of storage.  I would get a S3 but with the US version not having the Wolfson DAC, that's out and the Note II is just too big, as much as I want it I don't think I would be happy in the long run.  It's starting to look like I will have to wait for the S4 or next iPhone.  I hated switching from my old Sony X DAP to the iPhone and don't want to make any backward steps in SQ.  If only Sony would make a CDMA version of the Xperia Z I would be all set.

 

[Herky151]

I got the Note II and I don't find it to be that big really. If you wait for a phone, and commonly use a amp or DAC, I would suggest getting a samsung phone so you can do USB audio out and USB host, that way you can actually bypass the dac in the phone. So even though the S3 US model doesn't have a high quality DAC, you can bypass it to instead use a way better one. 

 

[NZtechfreak]

I have an S3/Note 2 and now an HTC Butterfly (international Droid DNA equivalent).
 
It actually does USB audio, although support is not as wide as Samsungs. Would not recommend it nevertheless as battery life doesn't stand up as well as most comparable handsets. Also, the M7 (the One X successor, this years flagship) is now very close to being announced and soon after released, it will have a number of improvements over the DNA/Butterfly and I'd wait and see what happens there (also all the other manufacturers are releasing 1080p handsets any time now).

 

[dosley01]

I decided to wait it out, I just can't find the "Perfect" phone so I'll stick with my iPhone 4 until there is something the checks off all the marks.