Hands-On: Verizon’s Droid DNA Wows With High-Def Display

Verizon's Droid DNA

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The brand-new HTC Droid DNA smartphone for Verizon, which was unveiled on Tuesday in New York City, has a laundry list of cutting-edge specs -- not only is it the most high-definition smartphone yet, it runs lightning fast.

Mashable snagged some hands-on time with the latest HTC smartphone, which runs on Android 4.1 Jellybean, to see if the promised features translated well to the real world. And upon first impression, the answer is yes. Oh, yes.

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Despite its 5-inch screen, the Droid DNA fits comfortably in your hand, even if they are on the smaller side. At 0.38 of an inch thick and weighing in at about 4.8 ounces, it doesn't feel as bulky as the Samsung Note II. Speaking of design, the black body with a slight red trim nicely echoes the look of the Android brand.

But the real game-changer is its stunning Super LCD3 display, which is the first phone display capable of showing 1080p video at full resolution. Its pixel density (440ppi) blows away the rest of the competition by a long shot -- the iPhone 5 has 326 ppi. When watching movie trailers on the Droid DNA, checking out photos or even surfing the web, the resolution was crisp, bright and colors popped in ways we didn't even know they could on a small device.

The Droid DNA packs a powerful punch, thanks to its quad-core 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 processor. Navigating through the hardware and software was intuitive too. It didn't take long to figure out holding the home button down launches Google in a web browser as a short cut.

There are also lots of newly-added camera perks. If you're taking pictures on the go and the lock screen pops up after being temporarily dormant, you don't have to re-enter your password to log back in -- you can bypass the lock screen entirely, so you don't miss the shot you want. Another sweet perk is the countdown timer, which gives you a few seconds to prep before the picture is taken.

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Hands-On: Verizon's Droid DNA Wows With High-Def Display