Like all corporations, Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC has seen its share of ups and downs; this year, it's mostly faced the latter. The company's financials continue to tumble as it struggles to recover from a rough 2011, when it pushed out a bevy of mediocre smartphones instead of honing its focus on one flagship line. HTC executed something of a reboot earlier this year, pushing out the One X to generally favorable reviews, but then found itself almost immediately steamrolled by Samsung with that company's much-better-publicized Galaxy S III launch.

Fortunately, HTC still isn't through "try, trying again," and certainly isn't ready to throw in the towel. While we were briefly worried that the company would rely on the incremental One X+ to carry it through 2012, rumors and murmurs soon arose to provide hope for something more spectacular. Those rumors blossomed into reality at a NYC press event last week, where HTC and Verizon jointly announced their latest and greatest: their "ultimate" Android offering, the Droid DNA. It combines the highest-resolution display ever to hit American shores -the largest HTC has ever built into a smartphone- with a powerful processor and LTE connectivity, along with some of the same innovations that helped propel HTC's Windows Phone 8X into the spotlight.

The combination of class-leading display, impressive spec sheet, and well-crafted hardware sounds promising, but will it do well enough for HTC to steal some limelight from its entrenched rivals? More importantly, is it a device you should consider carrying? Watch for our full review playlist. less