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Ive had the Motorola razr for a couple of days and after frequenting these forums I wanted to sort of write a review, from my perspective.
I was split between the resound and razr, it was the rezounds glitchy feel, htc sense and tiny battery and odd exterior that pushed me to get the razr. I got it at best buy, this way I had a month to swap it for the nexus as soon as it was released.
When I layed eyes on its packaging I was floored. I know it sounds kinda dumb. But damn it, the packaging was sweet! Nice low profile, menacing flat black, it was gorgeaous. I was immediately disappointed that it lacked an hdmi cable and earphones. Seriously, it was 300 $. My atrix came with a bloody hdmi cable atleast.
First time I held it I couldn’t believe how light n slim it was. Although shes packing Kevlar and a gorilla glass display, its so thin it makes u feel as if she were fragile. Not a bad thing, I enjoy slim. The side port can be a beyatch to manipulate, getting my 4g sim in there was a hassle. But thats because I bite my nails, if u don’t share this bad habit u wont have a problem at all. As soon as I fired her up the first time I wanted to shut it down immediately just so I can see the boot animation again! Very very cool. I was also glad to see that it doesn’t use motorolas blur services. And although it isn’t vanilla android, I feel motorolas touches were very welcomed. People here have complained about the camera, and yes it isn’t as great as my nokia n8. But its way better then my nexus s. I discovered, the secret to taking a great shot on this phone, is patience. Phone takes longer then it should to focus. Video recording at 720p is outstanding. 1080p is fine, but it has an odd stutter. It just doesn’t feel as fluid as 720p. many have complained about the pentile screen. And before booting the phone I expected an atrix/bionic like experience. Lemme tell u something. I have perfect vision and I am but a youngin. I don’t see jagged edges, artifacts during scrolling or the pin dots unless the phone is 3 inches from my face!!!!! The screen is beautiful, it over saturates the right colors and provides deep blacks. But it’s not as good as sammys super amoled plus. Either way its an outstanding screen. Motorola added a few things into this rom that I love. The ability to resize a widget. Smart actions. And the way qhd was used to fit more of an email on screen, makes zooming in and out of web pages ALMOST a thing of the past too. I have had zero ghasty reboots, she is very stable. The screen is very responsive, as good as it gets really. Battery life on 3g is super, but on 4g its not so hot. Luckily I can go from 50% battery to about 90% with just an hours charge. Im glad the volume buttons and power button are on the same side. I can imagine how it would suck for leftys though.
Calls were crystal clear, typical Motorola. My bathroom is a dead zone. Sprint tmo att Verizon whatever. U go in there u will lose service. The second I walk in my bathroom I was surprised to see that I was still on 4g. I speedtested and pulled in 3mp DL. Impressive considering my bathroom is a bermuda triangle. Texts come in quick and go out as fast too. So does mms. Indoors I fluctuate between 16mb and 20mb DL. Outside im killing at a steady 22mb. I have yet to drop a 4g signal. My friend with a droid charge cant say the same.
I hate the stock pic gallery and music app. I use quickpic and the google music app. Sounds through my cheapo skull candys (the one that costs more then 15 less then 20$) sound great. I do wish we had more equalizer control, but no biggie.
In conclusion, this phones got me spoiled. I really do like it. I hate the fact that I almost didn’t buy it cuz of people on this forum that over exaggerated the pentile screen. Im glad the rezound sucked hard enough to convince me to get the razr. And to tell u the truth, I doubt I will swap it for the nexus. I like it that much.
If ur on the fence feel free to ask a question on the thread, hijacking is welcomed.
Happy thanksgiving all!
Just remember:
Much more people will come on here to ***** and nitpick over something than the ones who are satisfied. The screen is just fine, some people just have way too much time on their hands.
sheek360 said:
I was immediately disappointed that it lacked an hdmi cable and earphones.
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What? really? This sucks, I am in Canada and we do have an HDMI Cable and earphones with it... Maybe you should double-check if it is included or not, was maybe a mistake somehow.. Especially since here, with a 3-year contract, we get it @ 149$... Besides very nice review, I think like you, she is such a hot girl haha
robstunner said:
Just remember:
Much more people will come on here to ***** and nitpick over something than the ones who are satisfied. The screen is just fine, some people just have way too much time on their hands.
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Should add that those people who're lurkin in our forums and moaning about the razr, doesn't even own the phone.
Nice review btw.
Thanks for the review Sheek. I just switched from t-mobile to verizon, taking advantage of the 1 cent RAZR deal on amazon as well as the "double data" packages on Verizon. You just made me even more excited to receive my new phone!
brianbrain said:
Thanks for the review Sheek. I just switched from t-mobile to verizon, taking advantage of the 1 cent RAZR deal on amazon as well as the "double data" packages on Verizon. You just made me even more excited to receive my new phone!
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I was too impatient for the one cent sale. I promise u, ur gonna fall in love!
Btw I called big v. No HDMI cable or earphones for Americans.
Dang this sucks for you guys
dgiaffe said:
Dang this sucks for you guys
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Yeah..we seem to be getting the short end of the stick these days..thankfully I already have a mini-hdmi cable from my G2X days and some JLab earbuds I doubt I'd replace anyway...still annoying though - earbuds and a cable can't cost more than $10 - that and it's on a device that Verizon is selling for $799 off contract..sheesh.
Don't forget that us poor British get no hdmi and no 16GB microsd!
But we do get some crap looking headphones for our £450
I rate it quite highly a well. I have used many of the motorola phones
Sent from my XT910 using XDA App
brianbrain said:
Thanks for the review Sheek. I just switched from t-mobile to verizon, taking advantage of the 1 cent RAZR deal on amazon as well as the "double data" packages on Verizon. You just made me even more excited to receive my new phone!
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That is exactly what I did...from TMO to Verizon with the penny deal. My Razr is on the UPS truck for delivery tonight. So anxiously waiting....
Yes IMO Pentile is extremely overblown, on the RAZR anyway.
Over saturated colors are overblown. Seeing the 2 screen technologies side by side, I might actually prefer Amoled now, and I used to love LCD's last year.
All the screens have pros n cons. Anyone who complains about the RAZR screen and claim the screen on whatever phone they or want have is perfect or better...is biased. It may be better to them, but its not better overall. None are.
The perfect screen has yet to be invented.
What type of earphones you guys get in UK or Europe? Here in Asia we got the Rokr brand. No hdmi and sdcard though
Great real world review! I've been reading reviews like a mad man but since you said you have had an N8 and an Atrix...and as I'm currently using an Atrix now and had an N8 before that it only seems logical you would be best the best person to ask a few few questions lol. You touched on my main concerns a little but I'm still hesitant for two reasons. 1.Build quality and 2.Battery life. The N8 to atrix jump left me loathing plastic phones and wishing someone out there was smart enough to shoehorn android onto an N8! My bigger concern is battery. 1930 mah + CM7 + faux's enhanced stock kernel = 30 plus hours of light to moderate use. Now I'm not expecting that but comparatively...What can I expect with say 200 or so texts sent and received, a few 5-10 minute calls, about an hour and a half of music and 15-20 minutes web browsing? I will be using the phone on AT&T so no LTE for me. As long as I can go AT LEAST 12 hours with that kind of usage on a stock rom Expansys has my $624.99. I'm not sure but I believe the unlocked model ships with an unlocked bootloader (correct me if I'm wrong) so it's only a matter of time before the roms start pouring down from the devs and this phone gets even better. Thanks again for posting your review. Any and all feedback is appreciated.
filthyfnj24 said:
Great real world review! I've been reading reviews like a mad man but since you said you have had an N8 and an Atrix...and as I'm currently using an Atrix now and had an N8 before that it only seems logical you would be best the best person to ask a few few questions lol. You touched on my main concerns a little but I'm still hesitant for two reasons. 1.Build quality and 2.Battery life. The N8 to atrix jump left me loathing plastic phones and wishing someone out there was smart enough to shoehorn android onto an N8! My bigger concern is battery. 1930 mah + CM7 + faux's enhanced stock kernel = 30 plus hours of light to moderate use. Now I'm not expecting that but comparatively...What can I expect with say 200 or so texts sent and received, a few 5-10 minute calls, about an hour and a half of music and 15-20 minutes web browsing? I will be using the phone on AT&T so no LTE for me. As long as I can go AT LEAST 12 hours with that kind of usage on a stock rom Expansys has my $624.99. I'm not sure but I believe the unlocked model ships with an unlocked bootloader (correct me if I'm wrong) so it's only a matter of time before the roms start pouring down from the devs and this phone gets even better. Thanks again for posting your review. Any and all feedback is appreciated.
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Click to collapse
Battery should give you nice results, especially if you set up "Smart Actions." I usually turn off mobile data (3G/4G) when I'm not using it, because you can still send/receive texts, as well as calls. This makes your battery last a lot longer, so just put a widget somewhere so it's an easy toggle. It's almost a 1,800mAH battery, which is way better than what you'd get on a Rezound (1,600mAH). Build quality is great, so don't be fooled by it's thin profile and think it's a cheap phone. They also sealed the battery for a reason... there are a lot of people complaining about this, but they sealed it to protect against water splashes, as well as the internals. Overall it's a great phone, just sucks that when I received mine it didn't come with the micro SIM card, so now I need to go back to Verizon.
filthyfnj24 said:
Great real world review! I've been reading reviews like a mad man but since you said you have had an N8 and an Atrix...and as I'm currently using an Atrix now and had an N8 before that it only seems logical you would be best the best person to ask a few few questions lol. You touched on my main concerns a little but I'm still hesitant for two reasons. 1.Build quality and 2.Battery life. The N8 to atrix jump left me loathing plastic phones and wishing someone out there was smart enough to shoehorn android onto an N8! My bigger concern is battery. 1930 mah + CM7 + faux's enhanced stock kernel = 30 plus hours of light to moderate use. Now I'm not expecting that but comparatively...What can I expect with say 200 or so texts sent and received, a few 5-10 minute calls, about an hour and a half of music and 15-20 minutes web browsing? I will be using the phone on AT&T so no LTE for me. As long as I can go AT LEAST 12 hours with that kind of usage on a stock rom Expansys has my $624.99. I'm not sure but I believe the unlocked model ships with an unlocked bootloader (correct me if I'm wrong) so it's only a matter of time before the roms start pouring down from the devs and this phone gets even better. Thanks again for posting your review. Any and all feedback is appreciated.
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Don't worry about the build quality. Although its a bit on the light side she feels premium as hell and well balanced.
If the GSM version is identical to the let version I can imagine that your battery life will be better then mine. Hspa battery life is typically better then lte battery life.
how's the battery life? considering is a non-removable battery
jl1030 said:
how's the battery life? considering is a non-removable battery
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If 4g is disabled its outstanding! When on wifi I set my smart action to disable 3g n 4g it yields great results. Sadly, 4g will run this bad boy down.
sheek360 said:
Ive had the Motorola razr for a couple of days and after frequenting these forums I wanted to sort of write a review, from my perspective.
I was split between the resound and razr, it was the rezounds glitchy feel, htc sense and tiny battery and odd exterior that pushed me to get the razr. I got it at best buy, this way I had a month to swap it for the nexus as soon as it was released.
When I layed eyes on its packaging I was floored. I know it sounds kinda dumb. But damn it, the packaging was sweet! Nice low profile, menacing flat black, it was gorgeaous. I was immediately disappointed that it lacked an hdmi cable and earphones. Seriously, it was 300 $. My atrix came with a bloody hdmi cable atleast.
First time I held it I couldn’t believe how light n slim it was. Although shes packing Kevlar and a gorilla glass display, its so thin it makes u feel as if she were fragile. Not a bad thing, I enjoy slim. The side port can be a beyatch to manipulate, getting my 4g sim in there was a hassle. But thats because I bite my nails, if u don’t share this bad habit u wont have a problem at all. As soon as I fired her up the first time I wanted to shut it down immediately just so I can see the boot animation again! Very very cool. I was also glad to see that it doesn’t use motorolas blur services. And although it isn’t vanilla android, I feel motorolas touches were very welcomed. People here have complained about the camera, and yes it isn’t as great as my nokia n8. But its way better then my nexus s. I discovered, the secret to taking a great shot on this phone, is patience. Phone takes longer then it should to focus. Video recording at 720p is outstanding. 1080p is fine, but it has an odd stutter. It just doesn’t feel as fluid as 720p. many have complained about the pentile screen. And before booting the phone I expected an atrix/bionic like experience. Lemme tell u something. I have perfect vision and I am but a youngin. I don’t see jagged edges, artifacts during scrolling or the pin dots unless the phone is 3 inches from my face!!!!! The screen is beautiful, it over saturates the right colors and provides deep blacks. But it’s not as good as sammys super amoled plus. Either way its an outstanding screen. Motorola added a few things into this rom that I love. The ability to resize a widget. Smart actions. And the way qhd was used to fit more of an email on screen, makes zooming in and out of web pages ALMOST a thing of the past too. I have had zero ghasty reboots, she is very stable. The screen is very responsive, as good as it gets really. Battery life on 3g is super, but on 4g its not so hot. Luckily I can go from 50% battery to about 90% with just an hours charge. Im glad the volume buttons and power button are on the same side. I can imagine how it would suck for leftys though.
Calls were crystal clear, typical Motorola. My bathroom is a dead zone. Sprint tmo att Verizon whatever. U go in there u will lose service. The second I walk in my bathroom I was surprised to see that I was still on 4g. I speedtested and pulled in 3mp DL. Impressive considering my bathroom is a bermuda triangle. Texts come in quick and go out as fast too. So does mms. Indoors I fluctuate between 16mb and 20mb DL. Outside im killing at a steady 22mb. I have yet to drop a 4g signal. My friend with a droid charge cant say the same.
I hate the stock pic gallery and music app. I use quickpic and the google music app. Sounds through my cheapo skull candys (the one that costs more then 15 less then 20$) sound great. I do wish we had more equalizer control, but no biggie.
In conclusion, this phones got me spoiled. I really do like it. I hate the fact that I almost didn’t buy it cuz of people on this forum that over exaggerated the pentile screen. Im glad the rezound sucked hard enough to convince me to get the razr. And to tell u the truth, I doubt I will swap it for the nexus. I like it that much.
If ur on the fence feel free to ask a question on the thread, hijacking is welcomed.
Happy thanksgiving all!
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Click to collapse
Great job, I am a very happy Thunderbolt owner, S-Off, rooted and running a custom rom of course. Your break down was very good but you left out the most complained about thing on the forums, battery time. I am seriously thinking about picking up this phone but the locked down battery is my only concern. How has it been throughout the day? I am not very happy with the new Nexus hardware, no sd card and coming with only 16 mb of interior memory just isn't going to cut it for me. I think the new Razr with ICS on it would be one hell of a phone.
Thanks,
Go Patriots.
vinnyjr said:
Great job, I am a very happy Thunderbolt owner, S-Off, rooted and running a custom rom of course. Your break down was very good but you left out the most complained about thing on the forums, battery time. I am seriously thinking about picking up this phone but the locked down battery is my only concern. How has it been throughout the day? I am not very happy with the new Nexus hardware, no sd card and coming with only 16 mb of interior memory just isn't going to cut it for me. I think the new Razr with ICS on it would be one hell of a phone.
Thanks,
Go Patriots.
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Click to collapse
I consider myself a very heavy user. My day consists of 20 - 30 minutes wasted on calls. Maybe 15 minutes worth of xxx browsing (lol). Refreshing Google reader every 3 hours and reading my feeds like a fiend. I fb n tweet like crazy. I video chat about 5 minutes a day too. I send maybe 10 mms n a trillion texts. I also IM too much. And I occasionally take the opportunity to Google something.
Oh I have a smurf ville and angry birds obsession.
My wifi is on at all times. But my 4g is off. I remove the phone from the charger at 6am. By lunch I'm already sitting on 80%. My battery hits about 30% or 40% by 8pm.
Because of the screen the battery dips quickly. I refuse to set brightness to 0% dammit!
When I leave the house I turn off wifi n turn on 4g. The phone sips battery very lightly no matter if your on wifi on 4g, it idles very generously.
But once u stomp on it, u can burn 10% battery on 4g in a matter of 30 - 45 minutes.
PS I YouTube a lot too. Maybe 20 minutes a day.
I was waiting for months for the Galaxy Nexus to come out.
I was using a Droid Charge that was all tweaked out (custom ROM, imoseyon 4.0 kernel, fuju tweaks, Launcher Pro Plus, etc etc etc) that I absolutely LOVED but my Wife wanted that phone and I had at least two lines with upgrades available.
I originally bought the Rezound with the full intention of returning it as soon as the Nexus came out. I have until January 15th to return it and I figured for sure the GN would be out by then. I had a RAZR briefly and absolutely hated it, so I passed it on to a coworker. She uses a phone for more of a cosmetic accessory than an actual tool, so the RAZR was perfect for her but I can't own a phone with four hour battery life and no removable battery.
Now that I have been using the Rezound for a while, I cant see any way I'm returning it. I absolutely love the thing. It's not perfect, I absolutely hate the
flush power button and like everyone else I would like to flash a custom ROM but the phone runs well enough stock that I can live with the stock ROM.
My Charge was almost as fast as the Rezound (mid 2000 quadrant scores) totally lag free and has a screen to die for. I was afraid I might be disappointed with the Rezound as it actually has a slightly smaller screen than the Charge and I do wish it was a little wider, but the Rezound kicks butt in every other way.
Comparing to the Charge, the Rezound GPS locks WAY faster and the radio is way better. The Charge swapped from 4g to 3g so often I had to leave it locked in 3G 99% of the time so it wouldn't kill the battery. I stream audio all day at work using either iheart radio or sirius online and the Charge could not make it through an entire workday on one battery even using the 3500 batteries.
The Rezound has been making it all day plus, doing the exact same things using a 2750 battery and leaving it in 4g all day. I also like the way HTC did the extended battery much better than the Charge setup. The curved back and a silicone cover make it seem like it came from the factory that way.
I have always liked Sense (except it annoys the hell out of me that landscape doesn't work with the home screen) and it runs great in this phone. I also installed Launcher Pro Plus and that REALLY runs well. I swap back and forth between the two when I get tired of one or the other.
After watching all the reviews of the GN and playing with a coworkers Galaxy I don't even want that phone anymore. I will still check it out if VZ ever actually releases it, but I can't imagine switching at this point.
~John
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I just finished playing with the Galaxy Nexus today and I wouldnt trade my rezound for it either. The Gnex is nice, has a nice screen but not as nice as the rezound. Overall feel I like the rezound although I will say the Gnex is a much lighter phone and that is one things i liked about it. I am not a fan of vanilla android though.
I came from a totally tweaked out charge too. But I am a teckie junkie. Got my rezound and I am loving it! Don't get me wrong...I loved the charge too, but the GPS and the camera really are awesome on the rezound. That right there had me sold. I actually like the crisp screen. Hubby has the continuum, I still find myself checking out his screen once in a while.
No regrets here whatsoever. The only thing I never really thought about was having to wait to root and customize this. I got the fascinate after it was out a few months, root access already gained. I got my charge in aug, and had it rooted within 2 days.
But the way this is running stock....personally, I feel that it is faster than the charge running stock.
Now if I could just change the fonts LOL
Quadrant scores mean nothing in terms of performance imo. I don't know why people/reviewers even bother to run it. The scores are easily manipulated and it's not an accurate gauge on how well a phone can run. I can agree running it for fun, but definately not as a "this score means this is how fast your phone will run". You must of have had a good Charge, I returned mine after using it for a few days. Only good thing about that phone was the screen, AMOLED is nice yes, but I feel the colors are too saturated and cartoony. I love the screen on this phone, and the Gnex doesn't have anything on it. The screen on Gnex has been reported as grainy and pixelated for text/browsing. Media they stated not so much of an issue. Now if the Gnex had Super AMOLED + HD instead of some pentile submatrix then it would be in business. But overall I feel this phone is higher quality than the Gnex.
I know that quadrant means little, I just post it because everyone else seems to.
When I say the Charge was damn near as fast as the Rezound that is after comparing the two side by side. I obviously got a good Charge and I'm sure there are some bad ones out there (name a phone that you can't say that about)
What is most important to me is camera quality, sound quality and screen quality. I'm sure the GN will have a nice screen but everything else seems like it will be second rate in the GN.
~John
I came from a "totally tweaked out" Thunderbolt and absolutely hated the thing a side from all the roms available(I enjoyed switching from rom to rom almost every day).
this Rezound is really nice, I just wish it was a bit bigger & didn't have sync issues playing 720P .mkv files.
p.s. I always hated Sense & hope to allah/god/supreme deity/etc that CM9 will come soon.
voxigenboy said:
I came from a "totally tweaked out" Thunderbolt and absolutely hated the thing a side from all the roms available(I enjoyed switching from rom to rom almost every day).
this Rezound is really nice, I just wish it was a bit bigger & didn't have sync issues playing 720P .mkv files.
p.s. I always hated Sense & hope to allah/god/supreme deity/etc that CM9 will come soon.
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You have issues playing 720p .mkv files? I had no synching issues while playing a 1280 x 720p mkv.
I had been watching the Nexus for some time before it's launch. My Droid X in all honesty was probably fine - it was overclocked, undervolted and running the latest MIUI built on ICS - but I had my mind set on the GN as the next big thing. I was travelling for work on launch day, but was able to swing by a Verizon store and pick one up late in the afternoon.
First impressions after getting a chance to check it out in my hotel room were extremely positive. The 4.65" display is immediately eye-catching. Colors just pop off the screen, and some of the more colorful icons against a black app drawer background were really great looking. This was my first 4g phone, and the speeds were pretty amazing too. Driving back from our meetings, I was playing with the phone (I wasn't the one driving!) and downloading apps off the market. I lost 4g a couple times, but I was in a mid sized city with lots of surrounding rural area. I live in DFW, so I wasn't too worried about the ability to hold a 4g connection there.
Now, I had seen the Rezound prior to the GN coming out. I can remember reading about it before it's release and thinking 'Oh great, another HTC phone that looks like every other HTC phone, but slightly faster'. I wasn't interested at all. But after going to see it in person, I really liked the phone. Comparing it to the then newly released RAZR, it was much nicer to hold. Phone felt solid, not as chunky as I had thought, and overall impressed me. But I was set on the GN!
Preamble out of the way, the GN had some flaws that I soon noticed. Nothing huge at first, but they became more apparent as time went on. Ultimately the reception or signal strength killed it for me, and I made the switch to the Rezound. I'll break it down into a comparison below to give you guys my take:
Form factor and physical
There has been a lot of talk about the GN's cheap build quality. I would disagree. The phone was plastic, yes, and it was really light, but to me it felt solid enough. There is also a lot of talk about the battery door, but again while it is flimsy on it's own, it snaps into the phone well. The door has 10+ points it snaps into, and once it's in it feels like a smooth, seamless part of the back of the phone. Especially with the extended battery. The downside is this is a pretty slick surface to hold a phone. Add in the width of the phone, which was slightly too big for me to hold one handed comfortably, and I was constantly worried I'd drop it.
The Rezound does feel a little more solid. It has a nice heft to it. With the extended battery, it has a significant heft to it. To me, the Rezound is easier to hold with either battery. The buttons are more flush with the phone and mounted in the traditional places, which I think I prefer. You don't accidentally hit them, but they're not hard to hit either. The downside, the big downside, is the creaking! Both my battery doors creak. For all the crap I've seen people give the GN for the battery door, at least it didn't creak every time I hit the left side of my keyboard.
The final decision here really comes up to screen size imo. The physical dimensions look close on paper, but the extra width and height are extremely noticeable when actually using the phone.
Screen
I talked about how the GN has that 'wow' factor. And it does. Some people call it over saturation, but man it looks good. Well, it looks good until you play with a Rezound for 10 minutes. When I was at the VZW store thinking about switching my GN for a Rezound, I was not as impressed by the screen on the Rezound at first. And I think the reason why is Sense or Gingerbread. The UI, wallpapers, notification bar, font, etc. all are much more professional and attractive on the GN. The Rezound looked terrible in stock form IMO. Giant ugly fonts, widgets with cartoonish graphics, nothing took advantage of or looked good on the Rezound screen. But comparing the same websites and applications side by side, and the Rezound quickly became the clear winner. Colors are much more clear and natural looking. On a forum app I use often, I could not tell the difference in alternating dark blues used on alternating posts. On the Rezound it was clear as day. And after getting the Rezound setup by removing Sense and getting Go Launcher, it eliminates a lot of my initial distaste. I have the Rezound as the clear winner here. However, the difference between 4.65" and 4.3" is big. If you don't mind the AMOLED tech, the bigger screen might win you over. I did find it funny though that with the on screen buttons, I could see a good bit more vertically of every web page on the Rezound.
One last thought, I read on my phone a lot. Kindle app using white text on a black background. The blacks of the AMOLED are amazing, but text is not as crisp as on the LCD.
Software
I'll be brief here. ICS has some bugs or kinks to work out. This should be expected with it's first release. It's got a lot of good things going for it too though. If it were an option on the Rezound, I'd take it. Sense it's too invasive for me, and part of me buying the Rezound was due to my research here knowing that I could easily remove Sense (thanks Scott's Roms!). The Rezound does have some nice touches though. I like the lock screen more. The camera software is great and the shutter lag is close to the GN's. Dismissing or going into calendar reminders from the lockscreen is really good too. Overall the GN wins, but the Rezound with a little tweaking beats the GN in some areas while falling short in others. This was closer than I would have first guessed.
Battery
I didn't test either phone extensively with the stock batteries. With my short use on the Rezound's stock battery, I was impressed it was able to seemingly last a good amount of time with only 1650 mah. That battery size is too small for a LTE phone IMO, and with the physical size of the battery I think HTC could have given us something better.
The GN with the 2100 mah extended battery lasts all day. At 24 hours off the charger, I would typically be between 10 and 20% battery life left. Not too bad for an LTE phone, but I think software hurts it here. Looking at my battery usage graph, there is a lot of 'awake' time where my screen is off. This seems to be somewhat common with the GN, so there may be some process keeping the phone awake. Lots of people suggests disabling some sound options (sound on keypress and something else I think), which I did, but did not notice an impact.
The Rezound, with the 2750 mah extended battery kicks the crap out of the GN. Not really apples to apples due to the larger size, but I unplugged 31 hours ago and have 58% battery left. The awake time and screen time match up almost perfectly, which is also probably giving the Rezound a healthy edge here.
Camera
I'm not much of a camera person, just not that good at it and I don't know how to adjust ISO and other camera settings to make the shot better. With everything set to auto, the Rezound takes better looking pictures, at least in the situations I was snapping photos in. Pretty much 100% in doors. With a pro behind the lense, I'm not sure how that would change.
Reception
This is the big one for me, the one that made me spending several days reading about these phones and ultimately trading the GN in. Once I got the GN home to DFW, I was a little surprised at the reception. Just going by the bars at first, it seemed low at my house and 'okay' at work. While at my house, I booted up my Droid X and did some side by side testing. The DX was hitting -88 to -93 on average, while the GN was above -100 everywhere, at times hitting -113!
Now, after some reading online, I discovered that the GN was giving me the LTE signal, while the DX was giving me the CDMA signal. But by setting the GN to CDMA only, it would report the CDMA signal to me, giving me a better comparison. After doing this, the GN range dropped down to -93 to -103. Not great at all, but enough to hold a signal in 3g. The problem though was how slow the phone switched radios. Going from 4g to 3g would take up to a minute. Further testing lead to some cases of dropping a 3g signal, altough surprisingly it did hold onto the 4g signal despite the worse signal strength. I ran the SpeedTest app multiple times every night for 10 day, and the highest speed I saw was 8,200 kbps down, 4,400 up.
An even bigger shocker though was the wifi performance. I have a weight bench in my garage, and like to listen to Pandora on my phone while working out. The GN had zero bars of wifi (but would stay connected...mostly) and would take 10 seconds between tracks to buffer. My DX had 3 bars of wifi (I know, bars are not apples to apples and sucks as a measurement) and would play Pandora seamlessly. My house is small, the router is pretty high end and not that far away. Bad 3g, bad 4g and bad wifi had me feeling pretty bummed about the phone. To be fair, I never had a great signal on the DX at my house either, but as the above numbers show, it was better than the GN.
To sum up the GN, I travelled for Christmas and visited some areas with marginal service and some areas that should have had good service, according the VZW's coverage map. I had my brother's cheap-o Samsung Android Sprint phone to test side by side. The GN lost or tied every time. The kicker was when we were in downtown Bryan, TX, which is right next door to College Station and should have had great coverage. I had no signal at all the entire time we were in Bryan. This was not during VZW's 4g outage. My brother had a signal in the -80's on his Samsung.
That was what sent me to the VZW store Christmas eve to check out the Rezound. They had it right next to a display GN. I tested all three phones in terms of signal. They would fluctuat slightly, but the high/low for both my GN and the display model were the same. -78 to -83. The Rezound was -66 to -72. Both GNs were set to CDMA only. At this point I'm thinking 'Okay, the Rezound is better. It's only 10 or 12 db, but that would put me in a much better spot with the numbers I was getting at my house.' Then I decided to run the SpeedTest app. I used both display models for this, and made sure they were hitting the same server. The results were consistent between runs. The Rezound hit 24,000 down and 11,000 up. The GN hit 14,000 down and 6,000 up. I repeated this again and again. Obviously both phones were switched to 4g for this test. I then repeated the GN results with my phone, and walked over to the VZW rep and said 'Hi I'd like to return my GN for a Rezound please'.
I haven't done extensive testing on the Rezound since being back home (unpacking, catching up with friends... you understand). But I ran SpeedTest right when I got home. 30,600 down and 9,900 up. After that I just smiled and felt fine about doing more testing later. What I can't make out though, is why so many online reviews and articles seem to thing there isn't a problem with the GN. Maybe it's a problem with only some GNs? Anandtech articles I respect very highly. They know their stuff, and always have a great technical analysis. Their article on GN signal issues just confused me, because it seemed to say there was no problem. I don't know, I did a lot of testing with the GN. I wanted to keep it! I won't bore you with all the details, but I lost signal five miles from DFW airport in a busy shopping center. I did many, many side by side SpeedTest runs with my buddy and his Bionic. I feel like I gave the GN every chance to perform. I will say that at work my GN was -93 to -100 on 4g signal, and at times I'd hit 24,00 down, which was very close to what the Bionic was pulling.
My take-away was that with a great signal, the GN will perform. With a poor signal, the GN does a good job of holding on to that signal. But the GN radio just can't get a signal as well as some other phones, and the Rezound gets a great signal in comparison.
Miscellaneous
The GN is quick. Transitions are seamless, apps open fast and market downloads install in no time. The Rezound is also quick. As quick? Not really. There's still some slight hesitation here or there. I'd say it's more software than hardware. If you put any stock into benchmarks, the GN did 5,850 in Antutu and the Rezound did 5,640.
The Rezound is chunky with the extended battery. But I like it better than the GN in terms of feel in the hand.
Um...if you made it this far, anything else you want to know?
Cliff Notes:GN and Rezound are both good devices. The GN had signal issues that prevented it from being something I'd want to own and use. The Rezound is better than it looks on paper and as a whole package works really well.
Wow, you really put a lot into this. Good read.
Sent from my R800x using Tapatalk
I noticed the same thing about the graphics and text in the status bar and other areas of the OS. When you view something that really takes advantage of the screen it's quite impressive, yet HTC didn't put much thought into really exploiting one of the phone's main selling points. It seems like an odd oversight. The colors don't even look subdued to me when you view something that actually has bright colors in it, and that's after using a Droid Charge for awhile which is heavily over-saturated. Most of the included wallpapers are pretty dull with the exception of one or two, and a few of them aren't even sharp.
jasoncd said:
I didn't test either phone extensively with the stock batteries. With my short use on the Rezound's stock battery, I was impressed it was able to seemingly last a good amount of time with only 1650 mah. That battery size is too small for a LTE phone IMO, and with the physical size of the battery I think HTC could have given us something better.
...
That was what sent me to the VZW store Christmas eve to check out the Rezound. They had it right next to a display GN. I tested all three phones in terms of signal. They would fluctuat slightly, but the high/low for both my GN and the display model were the same. -78 to -83. The Rezound was -66 to -72. Both GNs were set to CDMA only. At this point I'm thinking 'Okay, the Rezound is better. It's only 10 or 12 db, but that would put me in a much better spot with the numbers I was getting at my house.'
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Click to collapse
Fantastic review, thanks Jason!
So the dB numbers and speedtests above were all captured w/the Rezound's extended battery? Were you able to perceive any change in behavior (esp. w/3G) when you replaced the stock battery?
jasoncd said:
Miscellaneous
The GN is quick. Transitions are seamless, apps open fast and market downloads install in no time. The Rezound is also quick. As quick? Not really. There's still some slight hesitation here or there. I'd say it's more software than hardware. If you put any stock into benchmarks, the GN did 5,850 in Antutu and the Rezound did 5,640.
The Rezound is chunky with the extended battery. But I like it better than the GN in terms of feel in the hand.
Um...if you made it this far, anything else you want to know?
Cliff Notes:GN and Rezound are both good devices. The GN had signal issues that prevented it from being something I'd want to own and use. The Rezound is better than it looks on paper and as a whole package works really well.
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Click to collapse
If you were using the Rezound stock there are two well three factors here that would make it hesitate/lag. #1.) Sense - I'm not sure if it's just this release but yeah it's nowhere near as smooth as it should be for the hardware on this device. #2.) GB - The device is still on Gingerbread and I think the transitions/animations do not properly utilize the GPU, that and there's the lack of overall HW acceleration. #3.) Store demos are always laggy due to all the crap it probably goes through at the store. Yes it is just the software in this case and I can attest to that. I put ICS on my old Droid 3 and that sucker flew. No transitional/animation lag thanks to the proper GPU utilization + HW acceleration. I've gotten 6k on my Rezound on Antutu before, so I really wouldn't use a benchmark to gauge performance here.
Thanks for the feedback guys. This was a big purchase for me, so I did a ton a research. I really went from GN all the way, to loving the Rezound and respecting the GN for what it is. It's just too flawed to be the game changer I thought it would be.
kgbeezr1 said:
I noticed the same thing about the graphics and text in the status bar and other areas of the OS. When you view something that really takes advantage of the screen it's quite impressive, yet HTC didn't put much thought into really exploiting one of the phone's main selling points. It seems like an odd oversight. The colors don't even look subdued to me when you view something that actually has bright colors in it, and that's after using a Droid Charge for awhile which is heavily over-saturated. Most of the included wallpapers are pretty dull with the exception of one or two, and a few of them aren't even sharp.
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You hit it with the status bar comment. The blue icons of ICS might not be for everyone, but they're a damn sight better than what HTC/GB gives us. They're just...overblown? Comical? Meh, I don't know, it's fine just a little more attention to detail here could have helped push the Rezound up in reviewers minds imo.
Blue Biker said:
Fantastic review, thanks Jason!
So the dB numbers and speedtests above were all captured w/the Rezound's extended battery? Were you able to perceive any change in behavior (esp. w/3G) when you replaced the stock battery?
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Thanks man! You are correct, all of the numbers I posted were with the Rezounds extended battery. I almost thought your question could be answered with 'No way, they perform the same!'. Which is what I've been reading.
But I decided to take a slow walk around the house with both the extended and standard batteries in. This included going in bathrooms, closets, the garage, etc. Basically every part of my house.
The extended battery was between -85 and -95 db. The living room was the worst at -95. I changed out for the standard battery, and right off the numbers were a little better. It was -81 to -90. What's funny is with the extended battery the garage was a solid -90. Every part of it. With the standard, it was the same solid number but -85 instead of -90.
I will note that when I put the standard cover back on, there was very very little creak to it. It fit very flush. My extended battery cover have a fairly large creak on one side. Maybe it's not making the best contact? Or maybe it's just not as good?
I might order a new extended cover from HTCpedia and see if that fits any better, and if it has an impact compared to the one I have now.
Sigh, I was afraid you were going to come up with results like that. I've been chasing this down here in XDA (and also in AF) with several people claiming plenty of antenna material on the extended cover, just that it's covered up instead of visibly copper on the standard cover. They probably are correct, but it also seems to be true that there is some level of signal sacrificed by the extended cover.
So will I accept a 5dB signal loss to achieve 70% more battery? Going from an excellent connection to very good? It feels dumb to admit, but my answer's probably yes.
Thanks again for all of your legwork and analysis. I was also obsessively following the GNex for many months and only hopped on the Rez at the last minute. Hope I can share what I've learned as well.
BTW, creaking covers seems to be common w/Rezounds (although not mine), so others may have suggestions for how to reduce it.
Blue Biker said:
Sigh, I was afraid you were going to come up with results like that. I've been chasing this down here in XDA (and also in AF) with several people claiming plenty of antenna material on the extended cover, just that it's covered up instead of visibly copper on the standard cover. They probably are correct, but it also seems to be true that there is some level of signal sacrificed by the extended cover.
So will I accept a 5dB signal loss to achieve 70% more battery? Going from an excellent connection to very good? It feels dumb to admit, but my answer's probably yes.
Thanks again for all of your legwork and analysis. I was also obsessively following the GNex for many months and only hopped on the Rez at the last minute. Hope I can share what I've learned as well.
BTW, creaking covers seems to be common w/Rezounds (although not mine), so others may have suggestions for how to reduce it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Both my original and extended battery cover creaks pretty bad. HTC sent me a new back cover and it didn't change a thing. The only way I found to reduce it was fold a piece of paper a couple of times and lay in on the battery before you put the cover on it. It does not completely get rid of it but it did reduce it.
yeah, the creaky battery door definitely sucks. mine just started creeking more on the left side from taking the back cover off a lot, but with a TPU, i don't notice it that much. oh well; i should try to complain to get another door out of them lol
Thanks for this GREAT review. It really solidifies my decision on whether to let my Rezound go for Gnex.
Because I promised
Quick background: I've had iPhones until earlier this year when i took the plunge and nabbed an Unlocked Galaxy Nexus GSM, Great phone, but some things with it I just couldnt get past (16gb of storage and the EH audio amplification...Also i want fond of 4.2 on it) which lead me to search for another phone, Tried the Galaxy S3 but was disappointed and returned it, And now about a weekish or so ago I got myself the One X+, So lets delve into my opinion on the device for anyone on the fence
First Impressions, Build, Ergonomics and Screen
The build of the One X+ is fantastic, Far better than the S3 or Galaxy Nexus, it feels nice solid and most importantly for a $200-on-contract smartphone, premium, The grippy texture to the finish makes it a delight to hold and I never feel like im going to drop the bloody thing at the drop of a hat, The Capacitive buttons are also in my opinion much nicer than the hard button on the S3 (One of the major stumbling blocks with the S3 was the fact i found that button WAY too hard to work) Though I think the Galaxy Nexus' on screen buttons are still the most elegant solution... If I had one little complaint in regards to the ergonomics its that the volume buttons sit flush and undefined on the chassis of the phone, which has taken me a bit to get used to, Id prefer them to be raised a bit, but its a minor complaint. Overall the fit and finish of the phone is the best of any other phone I've ever owned, it feels solid and like its going to hold up to 2 years of use
Moving on, the screen is one of the most important bits of ANY smartphone and the One X+ doesnt disappoint, its easily got the nicest screen I've ever seen on a smartphone (And i did LOVE the AMOLED on my GNex so thats high praise!) its big, its bright, colors are saturated and the black level is nothing to scoff at, Albeit not as inky black as an AMOLED, Text is sharp and easily readable as well, and unlike the AMOLED screen on my GNex it doesnt chug my battery flat, it also stays looking nice even at lower brightness levels, The multitouch on it works well and accurately... Other nice things are the nicely beveled edges at the screen which makes swiping, say to another page of the homescreen or to move icons from one screen to another, a real treat and the fact it stays pretty clean and comes clean easily (Its not a fingerprint magnet the way my iphone or the S3 was, The S3 was actually terrible because i couldnt clean the fingerprints off worth a darn...)
Sense/Software
This is my first experience with Sense and only the second Skinned android version I've used and I gotta say I'm in the group that likes Sense, I get the reasons folks dislike it, but I'm finding I actually prefer many aspects of it over stock Android, in particular I do like the messaging app on it which just seems to work a bit better than the one on my GNex, and I do rather like more than one of the widgets it comes with (The small 4x1 Weather + Clock widget for instance) but I do see how these things could drain the battery or processor... I like how it asked me after dismissing one tutorial if i wanted it to keep bringing tutorials up and when i said no it never brought up another one (Unlike Touchwiz which would NOT stop bringing up tutorials even after i told it to knock it off)
The music app has rapidly become my favorite music app, I just like it, I dont like Google Play Music and Doubletwist had its problems in my opinion (Namely it tended to mess up if someone sent me a text or called me and wouldnt resume playing until i completely exited it and reloaded it, Not to mention it did NOT play well with 4.2, also the random thing i had to toggle on and off a few times everytime i started played music or it just continued the same "random" assortment of songs from the last play through..) by comparison the Sense music app just works better, looks pretty attractive and is easy for me to navigate, Also the included ringtone maker is a VERY nice touch that removed the need to install an app to do so...
The phone and Calendar apps are also very very nice, far better than the stock Android counterparts.. I love how the lock screen works as well with only ONE complaint, I dont think theres a way to launch Google Now from the lock screen... (If you know a way please tell me)
Google Now is better than it was on the GNexus shockingly, it transcribes my voice a lot quicker and more accurately than my GNex ever did..
I pretty much disabled all the AT&T crapware on my One X+ as soon as I got it, and I recommend you do as well, I know from many reports here one of the apps will chew up your battery if you dont disable it so yeah, The only ATT App I have on there and use is the Visual Voicemail one, Beyond that theres a demo of Mass Effect Infiltrator installed which is actually nice, its a game I bought on a friend's iPad and while I liked the concept, their old iPad ran it like junk and i felt the game was more suited to a phone screen over a tablet, Im not sure I'll drop $3.99 to unlock the full version, but as a demonstration of what the Tegra 3 could do in terms of graphics I found it a lovely demonstration
The stock browser is pretty nice as well and supports flash, Performance on it is VERY good, Seems on par with my Flash-browser of choice on my GNex (Dolphin) theres a really stupid and annoying toolbar enabled by default but 5 seconds in the settings menu banishes it to nothingness, Of course for non-flash sites I use Chrome, but the stock browser is the nicest stock browser I've ever used
About the only complaint i can throw at Sense is the keyboard, Which is pretty bad for me personally, Lots of typing errors and problems... But to be honest thats a minor complaint given how many alternate keyboards there are for Android
Performance
Performance wise this phone is a powerhouse, I have not had any issues with it stuttering, slowing down or anything no matter how hard i push it, No games have had noticable framerate problems (The GNex had problems with a couple games I played) the interface works smooth and buttery and it definitely feels like the most powerful Android device I've owned, Flash works smooth and buttery and gives me no issues as well which is VERY nice
Gaming I havnt found a single game it cant run perfectly(Albeit, i havnt done TOO much gaming on it)
As for other performance, the radio and antenna seem to be excellent, Unlike the S3 my One X+ doesnt hop on and off between HSPA+ and LTE every 2 seconds schizophrenically (Which made my S3 lose 20% of its battery in a 20 minute long errand and signalled the final nail in the coffin that lead me to return it), My One X+ hasnt lost connection even when I've taken it to the places I know have poor coverage so I'm quite happy with that bit of it
LTE performance will vary on your area but I get around 8mbps in my house (Which is 2-bar bordering the edge of LTE territory) to a high of 36mbps i got when i was out of the house at a 4-bar LTE location, Which is certainly nothing to scoff about, Wi-Fi works well for me, and I've yet to notice any problems with my Wi-Fi dropping at night or when its been locked for a long time like other users have reported...
Call quality is excellent, People are loud and clear, The speakerphone is also the first one i've found i can actually USE in a car and hear the person...
Camera
I'm the worst person to ask about camera quality on smartphones, For what I use them for even the "Bad" Galaxy Nexus camera was great for me, I carry my EOS 7D with me just about everywhere so if I want to take a nice picture I will pull that out instead..
That said, the cameras are very nice, I love how responsive it is with pretty much no shutter lag, it focuses quickly and very accurately and tends to do a good job with exposure as well, Photos have a good amount of detail to them and skintones are rendered pleasingly, Theres plenty of artsy filters if thats your thing as well, Only complaint is the focal length of the front facing camera seems a bit long for a self portrait, i have more problems framing it than with other smartphones I've owned, But the quality is also far superior to the other phones I've had
The stock sound effects for it are REALLY FREAKING ANNOYING however
Audio Quality
Obviously one big reason I picked up the One X+ was to get something with better audio quality than the GNex, The GNex isnt THAT shabby, but it does lack "oomph" and struggled to drive even my mobile headphones (I had to have it cranked to 100% all the time to get them decently audible and even then it was eh...) Volume+ helped a bit but 4.2 broke Volume+ leaving me in a bit of a rut...I also personally felt it made the phone sound "Strained" at times to deliver the volume i desired... The external speaker was also frequently barely audible, I usually heard the phone vibrating over the actual ringer...
Thankfully the One X+ is worlds apart from the GNex in that department, The external speaker is LOUD and easily heard, its also of surprisingly good quality and is actually one of the best little built in speakers I've heard, it also has a good amount of "depth" to it and renders low frequencies admirably for what it is, Overall the external speaker impressed me
But that pales in comparison to the headphone output, Which has simply left my jaw on the floor and exceeded my expectations, the headphone output is easily the best I've heard of any smartphone or MP3 player I've owned, it has exceptional clarity and detail to it with or without the Beats optimizations on... Speaking of those optimizations I was actually shocked I liked them and I did find they made a very noticeable difference in the output quality, Now note... they are simply a set of equalization curves they may not work for everyone due to differences in music and headphones... but in my case they've worked well and further enhance the music and video watching experience
For the record I've tried my One X+ with three sets of headphones, a set of Shure IEMs, a pair of Klipsch Image Ones and a pair of Sennheiser HD280s, Only the HD280s gave it a bit of trouble... they still sounded good, albeit not to their full potential (For the record the HD280s are a set of cans that REALLY need something meatier than a smartphone to drive them..) My primary music listening is Rock and Metal, with a bit of electronic, pop and other things thrown in there for good measure, So far I havnt found anything that the One X+ doesnt excel at playing back
Oh and the headphone output will also go VERY loud, I dont even turn it up past halfway except with a couple very low volume songs i have...
Battery Life
And now onto the massive elephant in the room whenever folks talk about the One X+... Battery life... The best way I've found it is "Jekyll and Hyde"... Let me explain
Use the phone normally, for phone calls, text messaging, maybe reading a webpage or checking email and the battery life is superb, Even some light gaming, like a little Cut The Rope or some such and the battery is VERY good and should easily get most folks through a day, Even watching a youtube video or two, either using the Youtube app or the stock browser and desktop youtube website doesnt excessively drain the battery...
....But fire up say, Mass Effect Infiltrator and watch your battery life burn...
Which seems very "No crumb sherlock" but it was definitely surprising to me after coming from the Galaxy Nexus where the screen, not the processor, was the worst offender to my battery life, Which simply means it didnt much matter what i did on the GNex if it involved the screen, the battery was going to drain at the same rate
Truthfully in my experience, the One X+ is as good as the S3 I had, Primarily because of that aforementioned issue the S3 had with staying connected to a tower, Its actually equal to my GNex's stock battery as well, which is very impressive considering this phone is packing LTE and a Quad Core processor in its svelte package
In terms of numbers, according to GSam my average battery life is 14h 40m, The most I've run it for was 16h with almost 3 hours of screen on time, To me, this is perfectly fine considering the rest of the phone and for most folks, you should easily be able to get through the day without a problem, I am connected to Wi-Fi pretty much all day, but even using LTE didnt seem to impact the battery life all that much...
Now a note, I dont really try for battery saving either... I have my phone syncing to gmail, syncing to google now, location services on, GPS on, i have that little weather widget thingy i mentioned up above on too which uses battery.. Screen is fixed at 33% brightness.. I just use it, like i usually use it, so a mixture of a bunch of things depending on what im doing that day...
One nice thing I also noticed is unlike the GNex, when the battery hits 20% its not a panic moment, 20% on my GNex meant "Find a charger in 20 minutes or im dead, Jim", on my One X+ 20% means i still have a few hours left and theres no need to rush... Which is nice, I had to buy an extended battery for my GNex, for this? I dont really feel I need one (I might get a battery case however)
Do I wish it had a 3500mah battery? Of course, But it doesnt, and thats fine, For me its an acceptable sacrifice
Quick Comparison To Other Phones For AT&T and Why I Didnt Buy Them
Galaxy S3, I technically actually bought one of these and returned it, theoretically it has better battery life, but only a dual core phone, also it runs TouchWiz which i found naggy annoying and way too like iOS for my tastes, it has a MicroSD slot, but that just adds an extra $20 to the price tag to get a 32gb card (and if you want 64gb you're looking at an extra $60 to that price tag) , not built as well and ergonomically it was a pain in my hand and i constantly felt i was about to drop the dumb thing when i was using it, in my case the battery life was completely atrocious because it could NOT hang onto a signal and would scizophrenically bop between HSPA and LTE every 2 seconds which made doing things on it virtually impossible, I also didnt feel it was all that fast over the GNex running 4.1 (At the time however, the S3 only had 4.0 so.. I guess this isnt entirely fair) Also I feel the blue color looks like someone colored it with a Bic pen... Really my ownership of the S3 went from initial jubilation over a brand new shiny smartphone to finding problem after problem before i even got home with the darned thing...
Galaxy Note II, Bigger screen, bigger battery, cool S Pen features, but it runs TouchWiz which I consider worse than Sense and the ergonomic problems I had with the S3 are even worse because of it, its also a bit too big to fit in my pocket comfortably and I was way too worried Id end up dropping it, I tried it out in the store even and it just wasnt comfortable for me, and a bunch of the things i just rattled off about the S3 are likely true about the Note as well... So yeah
LG Nexus 4, Better processor, stock Android 4.2, better battery life (I think?) and a great price ($350 no contract) however it only has, at best, 16gb of storage and that just wasnt working for me as it was, Plus theres no LTE on it as well which is a negative when you have LTE available where you live
Summary/TL;DR
Overall the One X+ is easily my favorite smartphone on the market right now, I'm immensely happy with my purchase and I dont see another phone I'd rather have right now, it would be my number one recommendation to anyone looking at a phone on AT&T, it just has a great combination of features and in my opinion the only real big drawback is the so-so battery life, But even then I'd call the battery life "Average" and not bad, The only phone I've seen with truely spectacular battery life is the Droid Razr Maxx HD.. Which isnt available on AT&T... Personally I can live with the battery life, Im never too far from an outlet and even if i was, the phone seems to do just as good as most of the other smartphones I've owned, I've tried so hard to find little problems with it and honestly, I gave up, I'm really not having problems with it (Well except the bloody keyboard..) and just constantly finding new things to love about it...
The only reason I'd caution against it for some folks would be if they were really intending to play intense 3D games on the thing constantly, Because thats going to murder your battery stupidly fast... And people who do need VERY good battery life are best looking at a different phone as well, or considering a battery case for it...
I gotta give it to you, Kenji, that's like one of those high-end-in-depth reviews one would read from many of tech sites...nicely approached and couldn't find many typos I'm sure people looking to buy 1X+ Will find it helpful, thanks, as you promised
Sent from my HTC One X+ using Tapatalk 2
Dottcent said:
I gotta give it to you, Kenji, that's like one of those high-end-in-depth reviews one would read from many of tech sites...nicely approached and couldn't find many typos I'm sure people looking to buy 1X+ Will find it helpful, thanks, as you promised
Sent from my HTC One X+ using Tapatalk 2
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Click to collapse
Thank you, I do my best, I was worried it was WAY too long but I wanted to be as complete as possible and make sure I mentioned everything I could think of
I was also concerned I was going to catch flak for railing on the S3 and Galaxy Nexus
KenjiS said:
Thank you, I do my best, I was worried it was WAY too long but I wanted to be as complete as possible and make sure I mentioned everything I could think of
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I'd say 99% of us enjoy reading positive reviews of our fave devices, so the longer the read and more in-depth info the better.
KenjiS said:
I was also concerned I was going to catch flak for railing on the S3 and Galaxy Nexus
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Click to collapse
You posted in the right device thread so you'll only get positive criticism here
Sent from my HTC One X+ using xda premium
I found the radio in the SGS3 to be pretty poor myself. HTC seems to make phones that can catch and hold a signal when you're out in the boonies and I've only found Motorola radios to be better. And the better it can keep a signal, the less battery you loose so all the better!
As for dumping on the SGS3 and the Note 2, you are preaching to the choir here Kenji, but your review puts it through the same paces as the bigger tech blogs. We like our HOX+ here and, while you can always argue for the Samsung phones because they are good in many ways, they're just not "right" for folks like me.
Thanks guys
I'm kinda regretting not applying when one of the Android blogs recently put up a Google+ Post saying they were looking for writers
As a side note, I installed Swiftkey, I'm enjoying it, though im really not used to auto correction (It DOES work very well in this instance because its learning some of the stuff i type)
Second note is that today's battery life is currently at 2.5 hours screen on, 13 hours 18 minutes total, 17% left (Roughly another 2-3 hours standby/light usage for me) I really have to say the battery life is not atrocious and thats more than enough to last me the day obviously (Took it off the plug at 9:30 this morning, its now almost 11 at night..) That included some Radiant Defense in there (Not the most demanding game, but i enjoy it! Its a shame Neon Defense which was my favorite now doesn't function 100% right because OpenFeint is no more... At least thats what im assuming is the problem...)
I wonder if my lack of using Facebook/Twitter on my phone is why im getting such great battery life..
Anyways, my only debate is to sell my Galaxy Nexus (Which likely will cover what i paid for my One X+) or keep it around as a modding toy...
Now this is me being VERY bad with my battery:
Basically nothing but Youtube and PlagueInc for 3.75 hours.. Not really sure how many other phones would beat this (Even my GNex with the extended battery might, MIGHT have gone to 5 or 6 doing this, but still, Thats with a 3500mah extended..)
I'm mostly excited about the screen. Hoping for the best with the battery.
On a side note: I'm tired of fake bidders on ebay bidding my S5 up to silly high prices.
J3ff said:
I'm mostly excited about the screen. Hoping for the best with the battery.
On a side note: I'm tired of fake bidders on ebay bidding my S5 up to silly high prices.
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Well the section seems pretty nice so far. Not a lot of posts though. I hope it gets better over time.
It will. Especially since only a handful of people have the device. When everyone gets it this place will blow up
Sent from my VS985 4G using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
jreed2560 said:
It will. Especially since only a handful of people have the device. When everyone gets it this place will blow up
Sent from my VS985 4G using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
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Just thinking about tomorrow...
Mine just delivered to my company!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
mediumraresteak said:
Mine just delivered to my company!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
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Nice - be sure and come back and tell us about it!
J3ff said:
I'm mostly excited about the screen. Hoping for the best with the battery.
On a side note: I'm tired of fake bidders on ebay bidding my S5 up to silly high prices.
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I actually find the display on the S5 a lot better. More contrast and brightness with less battery use compared to the G3. G3 display looks dim unless cranked above 80% brightness. S5 only needs 40% to look the same and this is due to the power need of Qhd.
One big trump though is the G3 has twice the app storage. If "forced" to pick, the storage has the edge for me on the G3, but I do not find the Qhd display as a positive reason to buy. Would have preferred a great 1080p display for better contrast, brightness and more battery life.
Spent three hours with the G3 and besides the design, the biggest thing for me is the full screen mode and how it manages the display nav bar. MUCH better than any previous device besides the similar UI design of the G2. LG did a GREAT job mitigating Google's stupid display nav bar from taking space.
rushless said:
I actually find the display on the S5 a lot better. More contrast and brightness with less battery use compared to the G3. G3 display looks dim unless cranked above 80% brightness. S5 only needs 40% to look the same and this is due to the power need of Qhd.
One big trump though is the G3 has twice the app storage. If "forced" to pick, the storage has the edge for me on the G3, but I do not find the Qhd display as a positive reason to buy. Would have preferred a great 1080p display for better contrast, brightness and more battery life.
Spent three hours with the G3 and besides the design, the biggest thing for me is the full screen mode and how it manages the display nav bar. MUCH better than any previous device besides the similar UI design of the G2. LG did a GREAT job mitigating Google's stupid display nav bar from taking space.
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Meh, I run mine at 100% all the time.. as long as it charges wireless we'll be all good.
So far really liking it :good:
Very light, screen brightness is not an issue indoors next to a large sliding glass door, haven't tried direct sunlight yet. Battery drained pretty quickly from from 50% to 10% but I was on the phone for about an hour and installing a bunch of apps over wi-fi, hopefully that improves with a few battery cycles.
phone is much nicer and smoother then I thought it would be. these forums made me very nervous to get it but i am glad i made the jump. I love the bigger screen compared to my m8. i can even see the screen outside. lol
How would you say the sound compares shawnten to your M8? Good to know you can see outside, alot of reviews had me nervous about getting.
tia
So I've been playing with the phone for a good 4 hours or so. Let me tell you this screen will spoil your eyes (in a good way). I'm upgrading from a GS3 so I don't know if it is as big a jump for those of you with a 1080p screen, but I just happened to turn on my old phone and man what a difference!
For those of you who have been playing with your G3's for a while, go back and take a look at your old phone really quick. it will really make you appreciate this screen.
I remember getting the same feeling with my retina macbook pro. yeah it looks pretty nice when you start using it, not a huge deal. But after using it for a week and getting used to it, if you go back to 1440x900 laptop it hurts to look at something so low res.
I preordered this phone and then began regretting it after reading people's issues with the screen, battery life, hissing noises through headphones, and auxiliary problems.
I'm glad I didn't back out. I've been constantly playing with this thing and I'm over 8 hours from a full charge and am at 35%. Coming from a pitiful gnex battery life, I'm thrilled.
The screen is gorgeous. No halo effect like others have said. Brightness is not an issue at all.
The sound through my headphones is really good. I wish it had a better built in equalizer, but I can deal with that. Absolutely no hissing sound in the left channel as others noted. I used the Bluetooth through a vehicle with no hitch and tried and aux cable I had without any problems either.
This is only day 1, but I'm seriously impressed by how simple this thing works.
Wife went into the Verizon store while I was at work, and picked up two LG G3s to replace our Galaxy S 3's.
Just finished rooting with IO Root, installing Titanium, and giving this thing a whirl.
So far, I'm really loving the screen and the feel and size of the phone. No heat issues here. I've seen a little UI lag here and there, but that's only because I'm LOOKING for it. Intend to throw on Nova Launcher anyway, so that doesn't bother me.
Looking forward to spending the rest of the evening, getting this bugger set up. No regrets so far!
I ordered mine Monday. Got an email Tuesday afternoon saying they were shipped (1 each for the wife & I). Verizon shipped them earlier than the 7/17 date they had advertised AND upgraded everyone to next day, instead of 2 day shipping(supposedly). Got it at 6pm yesterday(Wednesday). Worked night shift last night so I was tinkering with it all night and all I can say is WOW! Amazing phone. Haven't experienced any lag or the other issues that have been reported. Screen is brilliant. I watched this week's episode of Last Ship and it's night and day compared to my former Note 2. Crisp resolution, brilliant colors. Just perfect.
The camera's pictures come out as if you were looking at the actual scene with your own eyes.
Love the form factor. It's screen is as big as the Note 2 yet it's nearly a 1/4" smaller on all 4 sides. Can't wait to get it in a case though. I'm babying it like it were a crystal vase. When you work in a plant environment, double layer protection is a necessity.
Lastly... Verizon's network is STRONG! Never had speeds like this on Sprint 4G (Sprint let us out of our contract because the new house I moved to 6 months ago is in what Sprint calls a "fringe zone" between two towers and I couldn't get reliable service at all) . First thing I did was run some speed tests in my house. Got anywhere from 36-48mbps in 5 tests in a 10 minutes window. My charter Internet wifi was averaging 15-22mbps in that same time. The last tests I ran on my Sprint service yesterday was . 09mbps. Unreal!
Very happy with my choice of the G3.
First Impressions...
Due to the larger size, it feels immensely lighter than the S4 I am coming from. However, I thought the same thing when I moved from my Bionic to the S4, so no big deal. As someone stated earlier, after playing with it for a few hours, a quick glance back to my S4 is amusing. The difference in size, especially in terms of text, is painfully obvious. While the screen is not as bright as my old device, I appreciate the relatively natural color representation as opposed to Samsung's general explosion of color. Dropped all the animations down to .5x and switched over to ART. So far I'm only noticing a little lag here and there, but nothing different from the S4 I am leaving behind before I slapped Hyperdrive on it.
Speaker sounds pretty good for a mobile device (thankfully I've not had the chance to be spoiled by the HTC One), though I need to test both my headphones and my aux jack before I know for sure. I'm already in love with having the headphone jack on the bottom of the device. Reminds me of my old Zune HD. As Kellex over on Droid-Life is so fond of saying, I really don't see why all manufacturers haven't adopted this yet. It makes so much sense.
The camera appears to be much more responsive than I've become used to. As far as how the pictures come out, I'll have to take a few side by side shots with my S4 and load them on to my laptop to get a better idea of accurate color reproduction. Something tells me the G3 will win out all day long.
One odd thing that is bugging me: The WiFi connection seems to be slower than my S4 when it comes to downloading/updating apps. Hopefully this is just a quirk with it being a new, never used device that will settle down in a day or two.
Call quality/Cell Reception cannot be tested for another 12 hours or so unfortunately. That's when I'll head to Verizon and have them move the device to my line. I'm hopeful though, given the rather abysmal signal I seemed to have with my S4 at times. Granted, I was rocking a Motorola before the Samsung, and I still swear by their radios above all other manufacturers.
Also, as someone else mentioned on the general forum: Leo's Fortune looks absolutely amazing on this device.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS (M8 user)
I picked mine up last night after trading in my M8(Edge). First thing I noticed was the build quality and weight of the G3. It doesn't have that premium heft I've grown accustomed to, but it doe have a very nice fit and finish despite having a faux aluminum backplate. Its light weight is a nice plus when compared to the M8 though.
One thing I will miss are the front facing speakers of the M8. Those puppies are LOUD and they made quite a difference when playing games or watching something on YouTube. Not a deal breaker by any means, but you'll definitely notice it. The G3 speaker isn't bad by any stretch and unless you're coming from a One, it'll sound clear and crisp.
The screen is PHENOMENAL to say the least. While there isn't much in the way of 2k content yet, the resolution is definitely appealing. Words, pictures, videos, everything is SHARP and vibrant. The colors have a more natural tone and aren't as warm as the M8; neither a good nor bad thing unless you prefer slightly saturated tones.
The camera is another area where the differences become more apparent! The G3 camera is better in EVERY possible way you can imagine. I didn't know what I was missing out on until this morning when I took my first few snaps. Seriously, not even a close race here. I know some of the review sites will say that isn't true and the UltraPixel camera is fine, but believe me when I say that it's WEAK. Pictures on the M8, come out nicely outside or in well lit areas, but those 4mp just don't do it justice. The G3 autofocus is insanely quick, probably the fastest I've seen to date. Being able to tap anywhere on the screen to take a picture is also a nice touch as well.
One problem I've noticed it that there is a little lag with animations. Not sure why that is, but it doesn't feel as fluid as the M8(stock or GPE). Slides, the keyboard, animations, just feels slightly off. Could just be my imagination, but it does seem that way.
All in all you WON'T be disappointed in the phone! It's a great device and improves on the G2 in every single way.
Sent from my VS985 4G using XDA Free mobile app
Ok so here goes. Most recently using M8, S5(which up for sale).
Build:
Device has a pretty decent build and falls somewhere in between the M8 and S5. Not as heavy and premium feeling as the M8, but is more balanced in the hand.
Screen:
Looks great--not as bright as M8 or S5, but I don't think it needs to burn my retina with brightness. Looks crisp and sharp and is completely visible this morning in the bright direct sun of Colorado(very bright and close). I'll pay close attention to this later when I'm outside.
Performance:
This is where it's letting me down so far. Jittery, stuttery and not fluid. I see it in the apps, menus and homescreens. To me this is even worse than the S5 was out of the box and isn't even in the league of the smoothness of the m8 or iPhone 5s. I've disabled a lot of bloat already and it looks like it'll need to be rooted much like the s5 to reach potential unless it's purely due to pushing the extra pixels. I enabled ART and that was even worse so I'm back to Dalvik runtime.
Camera:
Only taken a handful of photos, but they look pretty great and should be on par with the better camera phones. Not sure if it'll top the s5, but maybe it will.
Speakers:
Loud and clear--easily hear alerts/ringtones.
Hopefully some of the fluidity issues can be addressed via dev or by LG because clearly this device has a lot of potential.
cdd543 said:
Ok so here goes. Most recently using M8, S5(which up for sale).
Build:
Device has a pretty decent build and falls somewhere in between the M8 and S5. Not as heavy and premium feeling as the M8, but is more balanced in the hand.
Screen:
Looks great--not as bright as M8 or S5, but I don't think it needs to burn my retina with brightness. Looks crisp and sharp and is completely visible this morning in the bright direct sun of Colorado(very bright and close). I'll pay close attention to this later when I'm outside.
Performance:
This is where it's letting me down so far. Jittery, stuttery and not fluid. I see it in the apps, menus and homescreens. To me this is even worse than the S5 was out of the box and isn't even in the league of the smoothness of the m8 or iPhone 5s. I've disabled a lot of bloat already and it looks like it'll need to be rooted much like the s5 to reach potential unless it's purely due to pushing the extra pixels. I enabled ART and that was even worse so I'm back to Dalvik runtime.
Camera:
Only taken a handful of photos, but they look pretty great and should be on par with the better camera phones. Not sure if it'll top the s5, but maybe it will.
Speakers:
Loud and clear--easily hear alerts/ringtones.
Hopefully some of the fluidity issues can be addressed via dev or by LG because clearly this device has a lot of potential.
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I'm also coming from an S5.
The screen def did NOT blow me away like I was hoping.. I don't get it... the icons are HUGE, why have such a high res screen if they arent going to take advantage of it..
It's also not as BRIGHT as the S5 and I feel like the blacks are blacker on the S5..
I'm already missing the side keys for volume.
I sure hope that the phone gets its act together and cuts out the choppiness, it's very noticable and I'm not really impressed with how fast it is either. I guess this completely needs to be rooted and rommed. I sold my S5, so I'll be sticking with this one for a while.
The size is perfect though. Exactly what I wanted!