During development, the device was codenamed Vivo and little was known about it before release. It is available as a CDMA variant on the US network Verizon as of May 2011 under the name Droid Incredible 2, and it is a world phone able to access both GSM and CDMA networks.
Hardware
The HTC Incredible S is the latest of a long line of smartphones based around the 1 GHz Snapdragon chipset made by Qualcomm. In terms of hardware, it is very similar to the Desire HD with a few notable differences:
Smaller screen: 4.0" compared to 4.3"
Larger Battery: 1,450 mAh compared to 1230mAh
Screen technology: An S-LCD screen compared to the original Desire's AMOLED display. However, the Desire's screen was replaced with an S-LCD on later versions.
In a move seen as a new trend for HTC, the antenna for the phone is built into the back cover of the case. A unique feature of the Incredible S is the auto-rotating nature of the capacitive buttons below the screen. Despite HTC recent design trend, the back is made of a rubberised plastic instead an aluminium body, presumably to help improve signal reception. The front is mainly covered by a sheet of gorilla glass, with a thin aluminium surround. In addition to the specification already mentioned, the Incredible S houses dual microphones for noise cancellation.
Regional variations
The version that has been made available in Canada for reviewers has been seen to have chrome accents around the screen, speaker grill, camera lens, LED flash bulbs and loudspeaker which the European and Asian version do not have. A red version is in production and has been spotted in Hong Kong and Singapore. As of November 24, 2011, the HTC Droid Incredible 2 has been available in a limited edition red color, instead of the usual black.
Software
HTC announced that the Incredible S will be upgradable to the Android 4.0 ICS, though the software update still hasn't been released for its U.S. counterpart, the Droid Incredible 2, more than two years later. The device was shipped with the second version of HTC's Sense, which includes satellite navigation software developed by TomTom using maps from Route66 and a digital bookstore from Kobo fully integrated into the system. For the UK release, the UK & Northern Ireland maps are pre-loaded onto the bundled 8 GB microSD card. The device is a part of the new generation of HTC phones that have a signed bootloader. As a consequence, the phone cannot be easily rooted, and the user is denied administrative rights to the phone. However, users have achieved root despite the signed bootloader.
