The crisp, bright 4-inch display (bumped up from the original Incredible's 3.7-incher) showcases HTC's Sense custom UI overlay nicely, and the UI moved fluidly throughout the phone. The display, with an 800-by-480 pixel resolution is marketed as a "super LCD display," which means that it provides an 800:1 contrast ratio and a viewing angle of up to 160 degrees. We've seen this technology in other HTC phones before, like the Thunderbolt. The display performs very well indoors, but once you get it outside in bright sunlight, it completely disappears. To be fair, however, most smartphone displays we've tested have this problem.

Android 2.2 With HTC Sense

Like many new phones we've seen this year, like the T-Mobile G2X for example, the Incredible 2 will ship with Froyo (2.2)--not Gingerbread (2.3). HTC promised an upgrade to 2.3, but hasn't given a solid date as to when that will actually happen. We've covered and extensively in the past so check out our hands-on review of both versions (linked).

HTC's Sense overlay adds some pretty aesthetics to Android, including a dynamic, playful Weather app, a social network aggregator, called Friend Stream, and a revamped Contacts system. My favorite feature, called Leap, is an elegant way of navigating through your homescreens. Pinch anywhere on any home screen, and you'll jump to thumbnail versions of your screens. From there, you can go to any of them by simply tapping on it.

Some people really love HTC Sense, while others prefer the plain Android experience. My advice to anyone shopping for an Android phone is to try three different phones: Two with overlays (like Sense or Samsung's TouchWiz) and one with vanilla Android. You should be able to get a pretty good idea of how they differ and which you like best.