Hands on with the HTC Rezound

HTC today announced the Rezound for Verizon Wireless, the first smartphone in the U.S. to feature HTC's strategic partnership with Beats Audio technology.

PCMag got to take a look at the Rezound, as well as a listen, at HTC's event in New York this afternoon.

Before we get to how it sounds, let's first concentrate on the look. Nowhere near as thin as Verizon's forthcoming Motorola Droid RAZR, the Rezound nevertheless feels like a well-built, substantial device. It's almost entirely black, save for red accents on the touch keys, speaker, camera lens, and Beats logo. It's an attractive phone, and feels lighter than the 6.2-ounce HTC Thunderbolt. The 4.3-inch 720p HD touch screen is beautiful.

The HTC Rezound is powered by a 1.5-GHz dual-core processor and runs Android 2.3.4 "Gingerbread," along with the latest version of HTC's Sense UI. HTC said the Rezound is Ice Cream Sandwich ready, and will likely receive an update early next year. There's an 8-megapixel camera that records 1080p video, along with 16GB of internal memory and a preinstalled 16GB microSD card. Those are impressive specs, to be certain, but they're quickly becoming standard alongside other comparable, high-end Android devices.

Of course, the big draw here is the integration of Beats Audio. The Rezound comes bundled with a pair of custom Beats headphones that feature a remote control that lets you answer calls, as well as control the music player in your phone. You can swap out those headphones, as you can with most any other smartphone.

So how does it sound? Let's just put it this way: Compared to the tinny white earbuds that come bundled with the iPhone 4S (and the many iPhones before it), the Rezound sounds fantastic. The super-rich bass may not fly with audiophiles, but casual listeners and bass fiends will be pleased.

We can't be certain how much different it sounds than listening to music on an iPhone with a pair of good headphones.

The HTC Rezound will be available from Verizon Wireless and Best Buy starting November 14 for $299.99 with a two-year service agreement.