Droid Razr Review from a Droid x owner / fan = Disappointment

[PaceJer]

SO, i have spent hours trying to find a good read on razr reviews and i have only been able to find a few real world reviewers with a few liners discussing their thoughts. I wanted to put something in front of those of you who are DX users and thinking about the upgrade. I am passionate enough about the dx and my disappointment for the razr that i actually registered to give you guys the heads up that i was looking for.

ABOUT ME: Im not a veteran of sbf'ing or rom'ing by any means, but I understand it and have executed it and even bricked and brought it back on multiple phones. So i kinda know how it works. I have DX since it came out and have transitioned from froyo to gb to vortex 2.7-2.8 and about to go to lastest update (FYI deVortex is GOOD, REAL GOOD!) Enough so that I am putting this razr back in the box until his ROM is rzr ready (crossing my fingers)

Review: Dont beat me up guys, this is just my opinion- and FYI, I REALLY REALLY REALLY wanted to like this phone (Razr)! SO, Got it on 11/11. Out of box its about 30-40 charged. Killed this in no time downloading/customizing themeing with go launcher ex. It killed it in what seemed like less than an hour. NOTE: it does charge from 30% to 100% in just over 1 and half hours. I really like the phone, the feel, the speed, its smooth! I have 600 pics on sd card (6mp setting) and hi res vids and it loaded them first time a viewed in a snappy matter. You can tell this thing has some horsepower. Which takes me back to the battery. So i charged it over night. Went to work at 7am. Sent 3 text/made 4 phone calls less than 5 mins each(4G area with 2-3 bars) and by 12-1pm when i was leaving work i was at 60% and went to 50% pretty quickly there after (this was with all social apps not linked) Did have Facebook app loaded and it kept showing in running programs, however it was not linked to social settings on phone so it was not updating constantly. I came home downloaded a few battery manager apps (battery defender, Juice defender, and powermax) and didnt see that they were helping. power max did log battery % every 20-30 mins or so and showed that battery was discharging at a rate of 10% every 25 mins on average. This was with LTE radio off and battery managers set to extreme settings. I have lost 20% from my battery while creating my pacejer username and typing this review. Its a kick in the nuts! It hurts my heart that it is sucking wind this bad.

As a review with my dx (vortex rom) under the same circumstances, with a whole lot more stuff running in the background- i would be at 40% by 10:30 at night. Its 10:30 now and I have charged my razr twice today and am at 40%. I left it on charge the whole time i was manipulating apps and making adjustments from 3pm to 6pm, so 2-3 hours of today doesnt even count against it because it was not operating on battery since it was plugged in. Im not a big data guy (average 2-3gb per month) i talk about 800 mins per month and send about 800 text messages.

OK, ENOUGH BEATING THE PHONE UP, HERES THE GOOD:
The screen is fantastic. My old pics and vids look amazing (takin with DX) The camera takes almost a 1 second count to load when it hasnt been recently loaded ( it loads faster if it is in recent app tray) My Dx takes about 2.5 seconds. The colors are WAY better. The Flash is Significantly better, I dont know if its brighter or if the camera is more efficient, but none the less the picture quality in very low lighting situations are substantially better, even at a distance of 10 feet. My dx wont take a pic that far with flash, at 8 ft the quality is really grainy with my dx, with the razr it is extremely better. The lag when you take pic is pretty good in comparison and the dx, but it does seem to have more of a process when focusing- you can see it focusing (the picture goes blurry/focus/blurry/focus then pic takes). You are immediately ready to snag another picture as well if you wanted. Video pics up WAY better in low light as well. video quality is definately mo betta too.

The buttons are good, took me a min to get use to power button on side, but if you have habit of holdin phone in left hand while text/browsing, the button is in a good spot.

The voice part for text messaging works GREAT. (tested with handcent too) The swype is definately an improvement from the dx and the screen seems like it is almost anticipating your touch. it is that responsive. It ready to go when you are. I have lagged the phone just a bit, but i was really really trying to lag it. Had go launcher Ex and a whole lot of animations in screen scrolling and was able to lag it just a bit while going in and out, in and out of menu's 5 times in a row real fast. Truely nothing to complain about, because it wasnt bad- i was just surprised i was able to lag it, with everything else being SO SMOOTH.

DOWN TO 30% now (not even 20 mins later) from 9:45pm to 10:47 pm, i went from 60% to 30% with no more use than just checking the battery percentage to make note.

ALL in ALL, phone may be good with a quality ROM (VORTEX!!! He increased my battery by 30-35%- THANKS deVortex) The phone is going back But i want it to be good, and I WISH, OH I WISH it would be better. Maybe ics will help? who knows, but for now my DX serves me better than this glitz n glamour. Sorry to have cheated on you DX, WILL YOU TAKE ME BACK?

Disclaimer: I have not proof read this, and dont have time too.. The GF hates when i spend time on this stuff, so take it for what it was and if i rambled a bit- sorry, dont flame me. I just wanted to give some real feedback on the phone.

EVERYTHING ROCKS, but the battery life is an absolute deal breaker for me

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[PaceJer]

Also note, tommorrow- Im going to factory reset to out of box status. Delete downloaded apps and do some note taking on battery life. i am going to try to give best benchmark review i can. As i do currently have about 10 apps downloaded and themed the phone

[DirtyDroid]

well thats a nice point of view..and def. thanks for sharing it. I know that when first saw the specs for that i was like Snap its mine....things happend..then the specs for the nexus came out...blew it away, mainly for two things, which almost everyone can agree on, unlocked, and removable battery..I actaully got a chance to play with a razr at VZW today, and while the things really is a remarkable peice of technology...it just didn't feel right..not really sure what it was about it..but who knows...what i know for myself is that I'm glad I didn't jump on my X and blow my upgrade for the Razr, (just yet atleast) my .02

[skooter16]

Maybe the galaxy nexus (I believe that's the name) would be a better fit. Maybe you can make a review for that .

Overall good job on the review, it was very informative. It seems hard for anything to compete with Vortex at the moment.

Sent from my DROIDX using Droid X Forums

[PaceJer]

Yea, I definately have my eye on the nex. Kinda iffy about the 5mp cam ( i know MP is irrelevant if the lense/exposure/software behind the mp is crap) I use my camera quite a bit, outside of battery life, its on the top priority list for me. DO you guys have any concerns about bat life on nex? whats their reputation? I have always been moto guy. the wifey has htc (battery life is horrible on incredable, better on the incred 2- but the camera on the incred 2 is amazing in low light settings)

per stats, i see nex has lower amp battery- i know in general its all about whats pulling on the battery. And nex being an open platform, no bloat pullin on resources, should be alot better... FINGERS CROSSED

[Bkdodger]

I didn't like the feel of the Razr. Although its a nice phone. It didn't jump out to me ...not over my DX..
Camera you wont beat the Nexus especially. If you use it...that and video will be great on phone you can count in it ..battery we shall see but at least you can carry a spare ...

Sent from elGato's X..
thru tapatalk...

[skooter16]

Yea I am surprised it only has 5mp. I thought it would have 8-10 since technology is suppose to I crease over time Haha

Sent from my DROIDX using Droid X Forums

[NITRO2]

The GF hates when i spend time on this stuff

the wifey has htc

Hahaha, sorry, just had to quote it :P but anyways, nice review, i too am a little concerned about the 5mp camera, but besides that i think i am going for the nexus

[Bkdodger]

You will see that 5 take better pics than Razr. And our X ..

Sent from elGato's X..
thru tapatalk...

[dracon6ai]

Don't sweat the 5mp, and Samsung usually puts awesome hardware and software for there cameras. My old Samsung Omnia (windows mobile 6.1) took amazing pictures that still blow my DX away, and that was only 5mp and about 3 years ago. Can't wait to get the nexus. Although I'm tempted to wait till a Tegra 3 phone comes out now.

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