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What do you fellow bionic owners think of this?

About the RAZR being offical annouced so shortly after the "king of machines" was released. I know there are other better phones being thrown out in the open, but I'm talking about the moto realm strictly. Makes you wonder since the Bionic was so delayed already, why not beef up the specs even more? Not trying to start a flame/troll war, just want to see other people's opinions. Thanks .

Well my opinion on this is simple.... there will always be something better coming out... regardless of what specs a certain phone has.. the next one will have something more... personally I love my Bionic... and I would like to see an ota or two out before I get another phone... but the Razr is something I think is being released to compete with the nexus prime or galaxy nexus or whatever its going to be called... its all marketing IMO. I just hope that the Bionic isn't forgotten or written off just because all these other devices are coming out.
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Yeah I understand their need to "compete" with the nexus prime it is a beast of a phone. I mean they could of just bumped the Bionic up a bit more since it wa s already so delayed. I'm sure the Bionic could of handled the extra 200 mhz base and the superamoled vs pentile. Regarldess I still think the Bionic is nice, but it feels like another "place holder" phone for moto. Feels like they just did it to do it, and get over with.

There probabily is a reason such as an example is the targa version went into production a long time ago there were problems with somthing maybe hardware maybe softare but than you start to develope the razer but have a bunch invested in the bionic and a lot made. I just mean the bionic was meant to probably just be the first lte duel core. I teally think they did not mean to do that but couldnt delay the razer because tech gets old fast. And compitition is fearce. I think right now as soon as they can come up with the nitch phone with the best specs and put it together it goes to market. Htc is worse at it. Motorola is jyst evolving the droid x seris. What is missing is the droid with keyboard series. There my faverite phone for battery life nut like back to the bionic and razer i am thinking the razer is going to have battery drain issues worse than the bionic. I think the nexus prime is gona be worse on battery. With the htc being the worst battery hog as usuall
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phullofphil said:
There probabily is a reason such as an example is the targa version went into production a long time ago there were problems with somthing maybe hardware maybe softare but than you start to develope the razer but have a bunch invested in the bionic and a lot made. I just mean the bionic was meant to probably just be the first lte duel core. I teally think they did not mean to do that but couldnt delay the razer because tech gets old fast. And compitition is fearce. I think right now as soon as they can come up with the nitch phone with the best specs and put it together it goes to market. Htc is worse at it. Motorola is jyst evolving the droid x seris. What is missing is the droid with keyboard series. There my faverite phone for battery life nut like back to the bionic and razer i am thinking the razer is going to have battery drain issues worse than the bionic. I think the nexus prime is gona be worse on battery. With the htc being the worst battery hog as usuall
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Yeah Bionic was meant to just be the first dual core/LTE phone. The market is evolving too fast to the point where "offical" shelf life is like 6 months now. Wonder what it will be in a few years. They probably could of bumped the core speed of the processor to 1.2 for the Bionic before release. Oh well it is what it is I suppose.

For anyone that has purchased one for full contract/upgrade pricing ($200), I feel kind of bad. Sure there's always something new coming, but if it's being announced in a week and likely to come out in the next few weeks, the wait is probably worth it. At the very least, there's a chance to get the same phone (bionic) for cheaper, once the newest phone is released. That said, I'm getting my bionic tomorrow and I picked it up with the amazon deal for $0.01. If I had waited, I basically would have needed to pay $200 more (at least) for the razr or any of the other upcoming devices, so I don't really feel bad about my purchase. It was absolutely the best deal I think I'll see for a while.
If the production device looks like the pictures, I do envy the look and casing. It's definitely a beautiful device... very sleek and the fact that it's slightly thinner does have a bit of an appeal. In terms of actual specs and features? It's slightly better, but I wouldn't have paid an additional $200 for it. ICS would be the biggest appeal for me, and there's a decent chance that might make it to the bionic anyways. For those with a bionic already, it's probably not worth it. Once it comes out, depending on the pricing, the bionic will probably still be the better value and have more appeal for those that are value-oriented while the razr will be close enough in price to appeal to those that need the latest and greatest.
The one thing I'm curious about will be the pricing... it seems quick for them to be dropping the price on the bionic, but not impossible. Will the razr be slightly more expensive? Or will the razr cause a nice price drop on the bionic?
I think these few devices coming up are only being pushed out so soon to compete with the new iphone, especially with the holiday sales coming up. Phones like the bionic and galaxy S2 are kind of considered "on par" with the iphone, so the slight improvements to these phones will create more of an appeal. The release does seem to be very close to the bionic, so I'd guess they intended the bionic to be released quite a bit earlier.

CC Lemon said:
For anyone that has purchased one for full contract/upgrade pricing ($200), I feel kind of bad. Sure there's always something new coming, but if it's being announced in a week and likely to come out in the next few weeks, the wait is probably worth it. At the very least, there's a chance to get the same phone (bionic) for cheaper, once the newest phone is released. That said, I'm getting my bionic tomorrow and I picked it up with the amazon deal for $0.01. If I had waited, I basically would have needed to pay $200 more (at least) for the razr or any of the other upcoming devices, so I don't really feel bad about my purchase. It was absolutely the best deal I think I'll see for a while.
If the production device looks like the pictures, I do envy the look and casing. It's definitely a beautiful device... very sleek and the fact that it's slightly thinner does have a bit of an appeal. In terms of actual specs and features? It's slightly better, but I wouldn't have paid an additional $200 for it. ICS would be the biggest appeal for me, and there's a decent chance that might make it to the bionic anyways. For those with a bionic already, it's probably not worth it. Once it comes out, depending on the pricing, the bionic will probably still be the better value and have more appeal for those that are value-oriented while the razr will be close enough in price to appeal to those that need the latest and greatest.
The one thing I'm curious about will be the pricing... it seems quick for them to be dropping the price on the bionic, but not impossible. Will the razr be slightly more expensive? Or will the razr cause a nice price drop on the bionic?
I think these few devices coming up are only being pushed out so soon to compete with the new iphone, especially with the holiday sales coming up. Phones like the bionic and galaxy S2 are kind of considered "on par" with the iphone, so the slight improvements to these phones will create more of an appeal. The release does seem to be very close to the bionic, so I'd guess they intended the bionic to be released quite a bit earlier.
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I got the Bionic through a fluke got some e-mail saying that I was eligible to upgrade. Called in vzw they had no records, rep asked me to forward (since they didn't see the offer in their system) so I did and they're like okay we'll honor it, but you should do it now just in case. So I did and sold my D3 for like 350 so pretty much no cost Bionic for me. Hell I paid like 100 for my x2,which got turned into a D3 (brand new not clnr)via warranty, cause of all the stupid music skipping which pissed me off. Then today I got an email which made me lol, vzw was like whoops we f'ed up you're not eligible for any type of upgrade. I was like too late already got my upgrade pznerd. So for "free" it's definately not bad, I do have the 14 days if I do find out one of those devices are coming out fairly soon idk if I want to go through all that hassle though. Or if I return the Bionic if my upgrade date will be reversed cause of this special circumstance.
Edit: I'm sure both devices will be $299.99. The prime is pretty damn sexy curved glass, and the Razr being thin w/ a super amoled on moto. My main concern for both of those devices would be battery life. I also do feel that the Bionic is better than the iPhone for the most part. iPhone 4s for sure, iPhone 5 no clue, but it'll be atleast another 6 months I'd think before we see the iPhone 5 launched.

zetsumeikuro said:
About the RAZR being offical annouced so shortly after the "king of machines" was released. I know there are other better phones being thrown out in the open, but I'm talking about the moto realm strictly. Makes you wonder since the Bionic was so delayed already, why not beef up the specs even more? Not trying to start a flame/troll war, just want to see other people's opinions. Thanks .
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I think that the phone manufacturers have very long product design, development and manufacturing cycles. The Bionic's delays probably screwed up what was expected to be the release difference between the Bionic and Razr, but it would be dumb on Moto's part to delay the Razr just for that reason.
But, how much could the Bionic's specs have been beefed up? Faster clock speed on the dual-core processor? I think that Bionic has pretty high-end hardware already.
We'll see later today, but there will probably be specific reasons why some people would want a Razr over a Bionic, and vice versa for other people.

Motorola really dropped the ball with the bionic. Don't get me wrong, its an awesome phone, but with how long it took them to bring it to the market, it shouldn't have the bugs that it does have.
Also, with how long it took them to bring it out let the competition outdo them. They did announce this phone 10 months before it came out. If they could have gotten it out by May, this phone may have been a huge success for them, but since they didnt, competition had the time to outdo them. But that's the life of an android owner, something better always around the corner. Unfortunately, Motorola allowed that corner to be too close when if they released it during late spring/early summer, they would have gave themselves time before that corner came.
I will say that if your waiting for the next batch of high quality Androids to be released, that there will be something better following them so you will still feel like you should have waited. The technology is moving faster than the wallet can afford.
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People tend to forget that the original Bionic was a Tegra-powered device with 512MB of RAM and running Froyo. It wasn't even a ground up redesign, they just slapped the Bionic name on the Targa, a phone which I suspect was originally intended to be the Droid X2.
The only thing that really impresses me about the Razr is the chassis- but I suspect the Bionic will hold up just fine. I'm more interested in the possibility of Ice Cream Sandwich, as many of the issues I have with the Bionic have been shared with every Froyo or GB device I've owned, and it would be nice to see a few of them fixed.

The Motorola RAZR event just concluded and frankly I'm not seeing any differentiating factors between the Bionic and the RAZR apart from form factor. The rumored NFC wasn't announced, and nothing about ICS was mentioned. The screen is supposedly different, with Super AMOLED, but if memory serves me, that's STILL a PenTile display, just a different pixel arrangement. This may in fact end up being a non-event.
Specs:
4.3″ Super AMOLED Advanced qHD display.
Dual-core 1.2GHz processor
1GB RAM
Gorilla Glass
weighs very little
1800mAh battery

TempestDash said:
The Motorola RAZR event just concluded and frankly I'm not seeing any differentiating factors between the Bionic and the RAZR apart from form factor. The rumored NFC wasn't announced, and nothing about ICS was mentioned. The screen is supposedly different, with Super AMOLED, but if memory serves me, that's STILL a PenTile display, just a different pixel arrangement. This may in fact end up being a non-event.
Specs:
4.3″ Super AMOLED Advanced qHD display.
Dual-core 1.2GHz processor
1GB RAM
Gorilla Glass
weighs very little
1800mAh battery
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It's GB 2.3.5 vs. 2.3.4, for what that's worth. The battery is 1780, not 1800, to be specific - so, close to the Bionic. They apparently have some battery usage tweaks that could easily be done on the Bionic as well. It's quite a bit thinner and lighter, but it is also longer and wider. Why are these guys doing this?
It'll be interesting to see how the super AMOLED display does outdoors. That is one thing that the Bionic's display does very well.

I just hope that Google taking over Motorola that they help clear up the mistakes Motorola has made. While the bionic is a beast, i have to say that the thunderbolt would have to be the winner up to this point with the Verizon LTE phones due to the fact it didn't have to worry about rumors of it being outdated within 2 months of being released like the bionic has. When people bought the thunderbolt, they knew it would be a while before something better would be released. I never imagined Motorola was going to release a somewhat better phone right after they released one of the most anticipated phones of the year. If Motorola would have got the bionic right, they would have buried htc, lg, and samsung already and wouldn't need to release another super phone until the spring. Unfortunately Motorola fumbled the bionic and feel they have to release another super phone to make up for their mistake. Maybe they need to stop focusing on releasing so many different phones and concentrate on a select few phones and get it right and release them across multiple networks.
I know for as long as I waited for the bionic, i shouldn't have issues with my data going out and having to reboot the phone. They had plenty of time to work the bugs out and didnt. It's not like this phone wasn't pushed back, but if its going to get pushed back, fix the bugs while your at it.
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I dont WANT a super thin phone, I'm a tall guy in the Navy, we break things left and right! Now the water repellent, meh. Spills. Again though, NAVY. My spill is the ocean haha.
Now the Nexus prime on the other hand. We shall see... Either way however, I LOVE my liberated Bionic, and now that the kernal source code has been released (See: Android Development) Ill be happy at least for the next few months *depending on development*

Just saw the the info for the RAZR. Gotta admit it's one sexy ass beast as in terms of how it looks. But in the end it's still the same processor bumped up 200mhz? It probably will be pentile for the subpixel display I believe? Friend trolling saying zomg its kevlar and corning and faster makes it only a "bit better". He's pretty much stating that it blows the bionic out of the water. Oh well I have my 14 days and pre-orders for the RAZR start on the 27th. But I'm not sure if I want to try to push returning it cause of the fluke w/ the email and vzw support that gave me a free upgrade on the spot. Since the center was the one that honored that E-mail even with no records on their part derp. The world of Android outdated the minute you're out the door.

smokedkill said:
I just hope that Google taking over Motorola that they help clear up the mistakes Motorola has made. While the bionic is a beast, i have to say that the thunderbolt would have to be the winner up to this point with the Verizon LTE phones due to the fact it didn't have to worry about rumors of it being outdated within 2 months of being released like the bionic has. When people bought the thunderbolt, they knew it would be a while before something better would be released. I never imagined Motorola was going to release a somewhat better phone right after they released one of the most anticipated phones of the year. If Motorola would have got the bionic right, they would have buried htc, lg, and samsung already and wouldn't need to release another super phone until the spring. Unfortunately Motorola fumbled the bionic and feel they have to release another super phone to make up for their mistake. Maybe they need to stop focusing on releasing so many different phones and concentrate on a select few phones and get it right and release them across multiple networks.
I know for as long as I waited for the bionic, i shouldn't have issues with my data going out and having to reboot the phone. They had plenty of time to work the bugs out and didnt. It's not like this phone wasn't pushed back, but if its going to get pushed back, fix the bugs while your at it.
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The t bolt was delayed a good but also and released with many bugs (which still haven't been fixed) the hardware of the bolt was also crap, its the reason I have a bionic now. I agree that if its going to get pushed back this much it shouldn't have many bugs, I guess I got luck cause I don't have many (far less than I did with the t bolt). As far ar I'm concerned the bolt was outdated by my old X, it ran just as good with liberty froyo as my t bolt ever did, and it had far superior call quality and build quality.

One more thing: I hope that Moto solved the BSOD, because good luck pulling the battery out of the Razr. (I assume it will have some sort of iPhone-ish like key combos to power it down if it hangs, though.)

zetsumeikuro said:
The market is evolving too fast to the point where "offical" shelf life is like 6 months now. Wonder what it will be in a few years. They probably could of bumped the core speed of the processor to 1.2 for the Bionic before release. Oh well it is what it is I suppose.
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Exactly the reason why I don't understand the decision carriers made to eliminate the "new after one" options for existing customers. I guess it makes sense to keep existing customers locked in while they entice new customers.

eraursls1984 said:
The t bolt was delayed a good but also and released with many bugs (which still haven't been fixed) the hardware of the bolt was also crap, its the reason I have a bionic now. I agree that if its going to get pushed back this much it shouldn't have many bugs, I guess I got luck cause I don't have many (far less than I did with the t bolt). As far ar I'm concerned the bolt was outdated by my old X, it ran just as good with liberty froyo as my t bolt ever did, and it had far superior call quality and build quality.
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Most of the bugs i had with the thunderbolt were eliminated when i installed a custom rom, other than the random reboots. I ended up trading it in within 2 weeks for the lg revolution because it had an unlocked bootloader. Big mistake. The revolution is one of the most unusual androids that i've seen (ive had 5 of them now myself, plus my girl had 2 different ones than me). It's almost as lg through a bunch of garbage files in it to throw off the development community.
Ive never owned a samsung, but the type of plastic they use is a turnoff for me.
I am intrigued by a Nexus coming to Verizon though. Didn't think i would see that happen.
Back to what I was saying earlier though. I feel that up to this point, that the thunderbolt is the biggest winner of the LTE phones on Verizon. I believe it is the only 1 that didn't get followed up by a superior product. It was followed by the revolution, which isnt as good. The revolution was followed by the charge, which was an improvement. In my opinion, the bionic is better than the charge. While the thumderbolt isn't the best 1, it is the only 1 that didn't get surpassed the very next time Verizon released a LTE phone.
While the razr looks nice, i don't regret buying the bionic at all. Unless the razr has a built in fm modulator, i don't think i ever will. Maybe add a solar panel to help with battery life would be nice also.
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How much faster can the Razor really be? Until either phone gets ICS we won't know how much a difference it'll make. The screen and weight are the only differences. The Bionic is already a light phone so I'm not really bothered. I did buy from Costco though so I could throw a fit over the bugs this phone has and get a different phone.

Do you think the there are too many android phones

I really like my d3 but I feel like its old already with rumors of the d4 so quick and the samsung nexus coming out. It seems that the market is flooded with android phones. Even my friends that have the iphone ask " why are there so many android phones that come so quickly" and I agree with them. I love android and will always have one. When I read things that say android has the market share I can't but wonder if its do the the huge number of android phones. I wish google would grow a pair and stop this. I would love to see just a few android phones " all stock " come out and show people that don't reallly know what a stock android phone is. I think its moto and htc, and samsung messing it all up with there ui's. And because of this is why the d3 will get lost. And its a great phone. Their are a lot of great phones but you buy one and a month later 3 more that are faster bigger come out. The only good thing about all the phones is that they all try to out do the other. So the technology gets better faster. But I would love to see less and more stock phones. Im tiered of explaining moto blur to people. My friends that have the iphone are right when they say what's wrong with stock android that the manfactures have to hide it. They have a good point. But anyway I just thought this needed to be said and now I wait 8 months till my upgrade and then I will get my samsung nexus and im back on stock forever. Also I know that we have roms and your phone can be stock with these but its still not the same.
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Google has little control over whether an OEM skins Android or not - Android is open source, and whuile I believe that they have specific requirements to get the Google market and apps, the OEMs are free to alter the framework. Of course, it is not the OEMs who simply make the phones - they are trying to sell to carriers, who also have specific demands for specific features (i.e., locked down bootloaders, so users will not be able to install apps that do things like offer hotspot service for free, plus carriers get money from software companies to pre-load specific software on the phones.) It is surely not Google who is controlling when specific makers are offering specific models (with the exception of the Nexus models.)
Google does contract with OEMs roughly once per year to make the Nexus devices, which are pure Android phones (Nexus One January 2010; Nexus S in December 2010; Nexus Prime November 2011.)
Are there too many phones? I would rather have too many great phones coming out frequently than too few phones coming out less frequently. Seriously, even with a Droid 4 coming out 6 months after a Droid 3 (if the release is indeed that tight), the Droid 3 hasn't suddenly become a terrible phone. It's a dual-core OMAP 1 GHz phone with 512 MB of RAM and a very high dpi high resolution display with reasonable battery life. This phone will remain usable for all of a typical 20 month Verizon contract commitment, just as the Droid Incredible remains entirely usable now 18 months or so after its first release.
That's my opinion, anyway. I think it's healthier to be happy that there are so many great phones pushing the envelope so frequently than the alternative - having to wait and try to guess the perfect time to upgrade to a new device. Choice can be hard, but I'd rather be able to choose between many, many models of cars than have Chevy, Ford, Toyota, etc. come out with a single model each every year.
Apple's way is very smart for them, but they do not have to compete with other OEMs making iOS phones. Android OEMs do need to be mindful of each other, and I think both ways are fine. If you are worried that too many phones are being released too fast, then by all means, switch to an iPhone and you'll be able to relax more, or simply buy whichever Nexus device is available at the time you are able or want to upgrade, as they are also now on an approximate yearly cycle. If you have to switch to another carrier to do so, that will surely send a message to the carrier that you are using that if they wanted to keep your business, they should have offered a Nexus device of their own.

Very good points. Just makes me a little mad that I get a phone and and one that I would rather have comes out a few months later. But then again I did not know that at the time. I just nee to maybe wait before jumping in. I do think that the samsung nexus will be the best selling phone of all time. I think that will send a measage to the carriers that stock it always better. I would like to think that stock it better now that 4.0 is out.
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This is the point that technology is at man. Every company is going to make devices that cater to each type of person. These smartphones really haven't been out long if you think about it in relative terms. I wouldn't be surprised if in a few years we start seeing the smartphones get narrowed down into a few types of droids and of course 1 or 2 ugly step cousins made by that Apple company.
So to answer your question, yea, there may be a big selection of phones out there and by the time you get used to using one it is already outdated, but that's part of the fun of being at the edge of how far technology has gotten us.

I don't think the problem lies with too many phones but personally I think the carriers and OEMs are taking way too much advantage over the position that they are in.
When I bought my OG Droid, I went with a one year contract because I knew that soon enough a new phone would be out to replace it. This turned out to be incorrect as that was when Android phones were still in their adolescence.
In July, when I finally decided it was time to upgrade to the Droid 3, Verizon no longer offered a one-year contract and there was no sign of a QWERTY slider coming out for awhile. So I felt confident in choosing the Droid 3...
Here I sit, 4 months into a 2-year contract, the Droid 4 is on the horizon and my only option when it comes out is to buy it at full non-subsidized price. Which brings me to my next point...
Why are the non-contract prices SO high for these devices?! The cost of production and materials cannot be THAT high to warrant such a price. Add in the fact that the Operating System (Minus Blur/Sense/Etc) is "free" (to an extent).
To me it just seems like if we want to go with a prepaid, non-contract carrier we have to pay a really high price for a good phone. But when we go to a contract carrier, we are stuck for two years (unless you pay $300+ to cancel the contract) and when a new device comes out we must simply ignore it or cough up $600-700.
Am I wrong or is this the truth? Pardon my rant.

I think Android phones are being released insanely fast. There was a time when I'd read about all of them but now it seems like 3-4 new phones are announced every damn day. And they're ALL the same. Dual-Core, 4G, Gingerbread.

Ya they are all the same for the most part. That's what I don't like. Just wish the carriers would slow down, and focuse on one or two phones. Just can't wait till my upgrade comes. Just afraid that the different ui's will be not be good for android. People need to know what android looks like. Its not blur or sense and those ui's slow phones down a bit aswell.
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spacecasespiff said:
Ya they are all the same for the most part. That's what I don't like. Just wish the carriers would slow down, and focuse on one or two phones. Just can't wait till my upgrade comes. Just afraid that the different ui's will be not be good for android. People need to know what android looks like. Its not blur or sense and those ui's slow phones down a bit aswell.
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Google needs to put it's foot down and say no more skins. Skins should come as flashable roms from Moto or HTC, etc.
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Androidsims said:
Google needs to put it's foot down and say no more skins. Skins should come as flashable roms from Moto or HTC, etc.
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No it doesn't. It completely goes against what makes Android so good. Developers like being able to brand their phones, something they can't do under Windows Phone and obviously IOS. Flashable roms would just be confusing and potentially unstable for the average consumer.

Ya but people don't know what android looks like because of these skins. People think that blur is android and its not. Goggle should at least tell then to have more phones that are stock. Why hide android? Most people put roms on there phones to get rid of the skins. I know that's what I do.
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spacecasespiff said:
Most people put roms on there phones to get rid of the skins.
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This is probably true of people who mod their phone, but definitely not true of Android users as a whole. I would guess that less then 10% of Android users actually mod their phones. While it's a small sample, out of the 9 people I know personally that own Android phones, only 2 of them have modded it, and they only did it because I did it for them because they complained of the phone being too slow (Droid 1's). Although both recently upgraded to iphones.
The bottom line is the majority of Android users don't care about what their phone looks like or what Android truly looks like. The same way I don't care about whats under the hood of my car. A car gets me from point A to point B, what makes that happen is irrelevant to me. All I care is if the car is visually appealing to me. And maybe more recently MPG, because of the cost of gas is so god damn high.

Well the nice thing is, as long as XDA exists then we will always have a more current phone. If my Droid 3 would have not crapped out on me because of the screen I would still be using it at 1 GHz with the latest Gingerbread. Once we figure out how to mod the D3 better and better and if we do ever get the unlocked bootloader then our phones will still be just as current as the Nexus Prime or whatever is newer and better.
The specs of this phone despite not being 4G are good because the CPU and RAM are up there with the currently released high end phones (except the RAZR). We already have some good custom ROMs out there and I'm sure we will get ICS soon enough thanks to Hash.
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MrObvious said:
Well the nice thing is, as long as XDA exists then we will always have a more current phone. If my Droid 3 would have not crapped out on me because of the screen I would still be using it at 1 GHz with the latest Gingerbread. Once we figure out how to mod the D3 better and better and if we do ever get the unlocked bootloader then our phones will still be just as current as the Nexus Prime or whatever is newer and better.
The specs of this phone despite not being 4G are good because the CPU and RAM are up there with the currently released high end phones (except the RAZR). We already have some good custom ROMs out there and I'm sure we will get ICS soon enough thanks to Hash.
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The processor is good but the RAM is definitely lacking. 512MB is just not enough, the phone with stock stuff installed has a pretty terrible multi-tasking experience. Honestly I think the 512 is the reason why Motorola hasn't flagged it for an ICS update yet, because other than that it's basically the same phone as the Bionic/Razr and probably wouldn't be too hard to port.

i4mt3hwin said:
The processor is good but the RAM is definitely lacking. 512MB is just not enough, the phone with stock stuff installed has a pretty terrible multi-tasking experience. Honestly I think the 512 is the reason why Motorola hasn't flagged it for an ICS update yet, because other than that it's basically the same phone as the Bionic/Razr and probably wouldn't be too hard to port.
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No the software is just that bad.

i4mt3hwin said:
The processor is good but the RAM is definitely lacking. 512MB is just not enough, the phone with stock stuff installed has a pretty terrible multi-tasking experience. Honestly I think the 512 is the reason why Motorola hasn't flagged it for an ICS update yet, because other than that it's basically the same phone as the Bionic/Razr and probably wouldn't be too hard to port.
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512 MB will be fine for ICS, I am sure, as the Nexus S will be getting ICS with worse specs than the D3 (i.e., single-core CPU).
It's very possible that Moto and/or VZW will not want to take the time to develop ICS for the D3, or push it out, but it won't be because it has "only" 512 MB of RAM.

doogald said:
512 MB will be fine for ICS, I am sure, as the Nexus S will be getting ICS with worse specs than the D3 (i.e., single-core CPU).
It's very possible that Moto and/or VZW will not want to take the time to develop ICS for the D3, or push it out, but it won't be because it has "only" 512 MB of RAM.
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The Nexus S doesn't have a ton of bloatware on it. Verizon will have to port all the applications that are stock loaded with the Droid 3 2.3.4 build over to ICS. I'm going to go ahead and assume that ICS probably uses more RAM than gingerbread. Couple that with the crap software Verizon loads on the phone and there is definitely a case for ram being an issue. I mean the stock phone blows as is, run maps and music and it slows to a crawl.

I think the over abundance of Android phones can be disheartening at first glance, but when you think about it, remember back a few years to when the original razr was the hot phone. After owning it for two years, you go in to get an upgrade to find that the best phone on the market is still a razr, but now it can play mp3s. If you use your head, you realize that all of these people who are worried about having the latest and greatest phone and go out to buy it as it is released still have a perfectly good "last month" phone. Hello Ebay. I saved my upgrade and bought a one month old D3 off ebay for $300. Use your upgrades when the RIGHT phone comes out, until then pick up the scraps from ebay at half price. Remember, even a used phone from ebay still carries a mfg warranty.
Sent from my DROID3 using XDA App

I agree with OP that there are too many Android phones and not enough variety. i think the main difference is that while the iPhone was originally locked to one market, Android phones were everywhere. Each carrier had their own version of each phone made by each manufacturer, not to mention their individual contracts for certain phones that ended up getting out to other carriers eventually (i.e. Evo). My issue is there isn't much variety, yeah they have small upgrades here and there and small differences but the main thing is once a 1ghz 4.3" screen came out, every company made one. Once dual core came out, every company made one. Not much innovation imo, just keeping up with the competition. And I still don't understand why there are barely any QWERTY keyboards, another reason why it seems like most of the phones coming out are the same.
For me it all has began to come down to the looks department. I know I want a QWERTY so i had limited options, but even if it was an all touch screen you look for one that you can live with looking at every day and bite the bullet. Chances are everyone else will have one with similar specs just different body design.

Vivid... or a next-gen 2012 phone?

Since I have to stick with my choice for the next 2years. I want some "promise" that it will last until then...
Vivid, is still using S3, a 2011's technology which probably become "too old" already by the end of 2012.
Quad-core isnt necessary for me, a powerful dual-core like "Krait" is enough, 4.5" screen and SD slot is a must. I don't care much about battery life, since I always close to the power sources, but having more battery as reserve is better.
Is there any chance for Vivid after upgraded to ICS to boost itself? and how much is it?
Could it compete with HTC one X, XL, Huawei Ascend D quad, D1...?
These devices will ship within 2-3months and if it cost not more than 600$, i would grab one.
so, the question is...
Can Vivid still compete with other next-gen phone (One X,S, Huawei D1, Dquad....) or I should wait for those next-gen phone?

If in the states and on at&t,htc one...not your cup of tea,no sdcard,screen is big enough,internal battery(1800mAh) I really dont see the need to upgrade if not needed,vivid is a solid device with imo more options,sdcard slot,marginal screen difference(.2 dif) a1.5 processor...ics should vamp up the vivid considerably after all the bloatware,ciq and other loggers are removed oh and hopefully the update doesnt relock the bootloader...not sure if it could but that would just blow chunks if it does....just my opinion....but ultimately its your money and your decision
beam408 said:
Since I have to stick with my choice for the next 2years. I want some "promise" that it will last until then...
Vivid, is still using S3, a 2011's technology which probably become "too old" already by the end of 2012.
Quad-core isnt necessary for me, a powerful dual-core like "Krait" is enough, 4.5" screen and SD slot is a must. I don't care much about battery life, since I always close to the power sources, but having more battery as reserve is better.
Is there any chance for Vivid after upgraded to ICS to boost itself? and how much is it?
Could it compete with HTC one X, XL, Huawei Ascend D quad, D1...?
These devices will ship within 2-3months and if it cost not more than 600$, i would grab one.
so, the question is...
Can Vivid still compete with other next-gen phone (One X,S, Huawei D1, Dquad....) or I should wait for those next-gen phone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

I think the vivid could still compete with some of those newer phones if it keeps being supported. The HTC One line isn't going to have any expandable memory so thats one advantage the vivid has over those for what you need. Not to sure about the Huawei phones. I think this is their first time trying to push a more high end phone so might wanna wait till they come out and get a chance to hear some feedback on them. They do look pretty decent though.

forgot to mention that i'm outside US and still using blessed Milestone1.
beside of extremely lacking of memory storage, it's still very useful with lastest custom rom .

Wild Child said:
If in the states and on at&t,htc one...not your cup of tea,no sdcard,screen is big enough,internal battery(1800mAh) I really dont see the need to upgrade if not needed,vivid is a solid device with imo more options,sdcard slot,marginal screen difference(.2 dif) a1.5 processor...ics should vamp up the vivid considerably after all the bloatware,ciq and other loggers are removed oh and hopefully the update doesnt relock the bootloader...not sure if it could but that would just blow chunks if it does....just my opinion....but ultimately its your money and your decision
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was honestly thinking about getting the one X but different processor for the AT&T version means that we won't be able to use the International ROMs, correct? There are great devs here in the USA, quoted company included , but that was one thing I really loved about having the Inspire. The development section for the DHD was huge and still is actually. I'm fairly certain I'm going to stick with the Vivid for awhile, unless my company lets me upgrade early again, like I did to get the Vivid.

wipes brown spot off psides nose...lol...we wont know till we get the devices on whats able to be used etc....
pside15 said:
I was honestly thinking about getting the one X but different processor for the AT&T version means that we won't be able to use the International ROMs, correct? There are great devs here in the USA, quoted company included , but that was one thing I really loved about having the Inspire. The development section for the DHD was huge and still is actually. I'm fairly certain I'm going to stick with the Vivid for awhile, unless my company lets me upgrade early again, like I did to get the Vivid.
Click to expand...
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Wild Child said:
wipes brown spot off psides nose...lol...we wont know till we get the devices on whats able to be used etc....
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Click to collapse
LOL, just calling it like I see it.
Gotcha. I just assumed the different CPUs would kill any chance of cross development on the 2 devices. I'll probably still check to see if I can upgrade or not. My company has strange policies on upgrading. I got the Captivate in Aug. 2010, upgraded to the Inspire in Feb. 2011, and was able to upgrade again to the Vivid on launch weekend. But some people have to wait a full 18 months or 2 years. I'm not complaining, I just don't understand it.

beam408 said:
forgot to mention that i'm outside US and still using blessed Milestone1.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The international One X comes with 32gb of storage, now if it does indeed has all 32gb available, then the lack of external sd might not be as big of an issue. However, that is a different story for the US 16gb pos...
Wild Child said:
wipes brown spot off psides nose...lol...we wont know till we get the devices on whats able to be used etc....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hahahah, give the guy a break, the WCX Illuminati series does ridiculously quick bug fixes and excellent performance, the praise is well deserved

In terms of software, I don't see any reason not to keep using Vivid for awhile longer. The hardware is also powerful enough to handle most anything for the immediate future.
The top of the line phones aren't going to be that much of an upgrade at the moment, especially considering almost no mobile software is optimized for quad-core processors.
Until optimized software is released, you may actually see a performance hit on some of these upcoming quad-core phones, and there's also the power consumption issue if you're running demanding apps.

I'm looking forward to HTC one It looks so cool.

Phone's been out almost 5 months and I'm noy bored yet. ICS coming in about a month, so it shoud be good for another 6 months, right on time for the next upgrade on my second line. By then shoud have some quadcore jelly bean, 2500mah, >4.5" goodness...
Sent from my HTC Vivid via Tapatalk

Sprint gets the Droid 4 variant, the Photon Q, with upgrades

http://www.motorola.com/us/consumer...,pd.html?selectedTab=tab-2&cgid=mobile-phones
At first glance, I thought this was a Droid 4. But then I saw that Moto took off the capacitive buttons on the bottom of the front of the phone. The Photon Q gets an upgraded 1.5gz dual core processor, and the display apparently has ColorBoost technology (resolution is the same, however).
I always wondered what Moto would do as a one-up on the droid 4. Looks like we have an answer

Motorola has stated that it'll have an unlockable bootloader. Also i think someone said that it has an s4, srsly the only real drawback so far to this phone is Sprint and that qhd display. Still very nice though

* raises fist * Damn you, Motorola! I just got the Droid 4!
* settles down * I still prefer a menu button though
* enables puppy-eyes * Please release an unlocked version in Europe?

I think the SIM card of the photon Q is not removable, so don't worry about getting it.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

If it'll be non-removable SIM card, it's dead phone

danifunker said:
I think the SIM card of the photon Q is not removable, so don't worry about getting it.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It sure is not removable. I hope this is not going to be a new trend. Does not bode well for the Droid 5 on Verizon whenever it will be out.
From the Spec sheets:
Frequency: LTE, CDMA 800/1900 EVDO Rev A, World Phone - GSM 850/1900/1800/900, UMTS 850/1900/2100 (SIM is embedded in the phone, GSM SIM is locked and not removable)

hey all i care about is the fact that they will let you unlock the bootloader, they better do it for the Droid 4 and RAZR too!

Fat chance of that. Verizon thinks that rooted phones can impair the quality of the service they provide. /:

maddeath said:
Fat chance of that. Verizon thinks that rooted phones can impair the quality of the service they provide. /:
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Click to collapse
**** Verizon, all they do is pack their phones with bull**** bloatware, delay OTAs by months, overprice, and all that. the only good thing they've ever done for me is not get rid of my unlimited data plan yet. ....yet.... *knocks on wood*

@sjaakbaanan i had the same reaction when reading OP

rubixcube said:
@sjaakbaanan i had the same reaction when reading OP
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Click to collapse
Haha, good to see I'm not the only one!
I'm still keeping my hopes up that one day they'll release this or a newer QWERTY over here too, with unlocked SIM. If not this phone, then the next.. and I'll buy it right away!
Maybe we should start some kind of internet petition to bring Motorola QWERTY phones than Europe and see if more than 5 people sign it

Didn't Samsung succumb to internet users when it offered a "developer version" (unlocked bootloader) of the GS3 on verizon (for way more money, of course)? If I'm correct, then it can be done

alex94kumar said:
Didn't Samsung succumb to internet users when it offered a "developer version" (unlocked bootloader) of the GS3 on verizon (for way more money, of course)? If I'm correct, then it can be done
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, and they offered it for 600 USD I believe, which is actually still cheaper than the S3's unsubsidized price over here. So I'm already taking into account that I need to spend that amount of money, as long as they give me the chance
But I think more people want an unlocked S3 (which already existed for Europe anyway) than an unlocked Photon Q, so the power of the internet may be smaller here. Ah well, if I get data to work, I'm fully happy with my Droid 4!

No microSD cards, non-removable batteries and now embedded SIM cards. Are we noticing a trend yet?
Tappin' and talkin' with Tapatalk.

This one takes a microsd, but yeah there's definitely a trend...

my guess is the trend is actually carriers trying to hold on to the old way of doing things. they don't like device hopping and by forcing you to buy a new phone, they are able to bring in additional revenue.
I hate how we're basically the only market that's this way. meanwhile the rest of the world is "free to roam" and prices remain competitive.

Me too
640k said:
my guess is the trend is actually carriers trying to hold on to the old way of doing things. they don't like device hopping and by forcing you to buy a new phone, they are able to bring in additional revenue.
I hate how we're basically the only market that's this way. meanwhile the rest of the world is "free to roam" and prices remain competitive.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I hate how the phones seem to be built to break after 2 years. My mom got a phone 13 years ago that is still kicking..its even been dropped in a drink cup....6 years after the cup incident the pixels in the display are finally going out. She loves that thing and is very upset that she has to get a new phone, I am very surprised it's still working. She's even using the original battery! As for me, I love the keyboard on my D4, and now that I have my much-beloved FM radio on it, I probably won't upgrade again, it's just too expensive to. I will just surf ebay and get other D4s. :silly: Anyone else notice that as Verizon gets bigger, the more expensive, dumber and ruder they become? I wish we had more competition.
I have noticed that trend too, and I don't like it. If they wanted to keep things like they were, they would still be making indestructible bricks like what my mom is using. I like the thinner phones, yet I want to be able to rip out the battery if I get frustrated, and I hate needing a SIM card
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Rooted Moto Droid 4 with Spirit FM
Stock Samsung Galaxy S (Samsung Facinate)....Why does it have 2 names?

KrellaKrentoshi said:
I hate how the phones seem to be built to break after 2 years. My mom got a phone 13 years ago that is still kicking..its even been dropped in a drink cup....6 years after the cup incident the pixels in the display are finally going out. She loves that thing and is very upset that she has to get a new phone, I am very surprised it's still working. She's even using the original battery! As for me, I love the keyboard on my D4, and now that I have my much-beloved FM radio on it, I probably won't upgrade again, it's just too expensive to. I will just surf ebay and get other D4s. :silly: Anyone else notice that as Verizon gets bigger, the more expensive, dumber and ruder they become? I wish we had more competition.
I have noticed that trend too, and I don't like it. If they wanted to keep things like they were, they would still be making indestructible bricks like what my mom is using. I like the thinner phones, yet I want to be able to rip out the battery if I get frustrated, and I hate needing a SIM card
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Rooted Moto Droid 4 with Spirit FM
Stock Samsung Galaxy S (Samsung Facinate)....Why does it have 2 names?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+10
I have been trying to point this out to eveyone I work with especially with all of the HTC devices every time a new ver of the evo is coming out all of sudden the old ver starts to fall apart physically and software !! coincident? i dont think so!!!

I do like my D4. Its been the first DROID phone I've been happy with since the 1. Some other slider is going to have to have some prett decent features to get me to switch. Like a better screen and battery life that lasts days.

What should I do now?
Am one of those who'll want a physical keyboard on Android for sure.
Last year waited so much for Droid 3, but bad reviews didn't let me go for it. Early this year got Xperia Pro, which was working very much fine, and then few weeks ago, STOLEN.
Now on a prowl for another Android + keyboard handset. Found Droid 4, but thanks to GSM radio still off (am from India and on GSM) have been more than eagerly waiting for ICS on Droid 4. Now that it is just rolling out, come across Photon Q.
Very much confused which one to go for, Droid 4 or Photon Q?
# Droid 4 has higher battery life among the two (of the data in hand at present), with ICS so late, Jelly Bean would be light years away.
# Photon Q will launch with ICS, so have a chance for Jelly Bean. But battery life doesn't look promising (reviews after the launch will give exact idea). Apart from that, Photon Q looks better with better processor and bigger screen.
Please advice which one should I really go with.
Thanks!

[Q] Upgrade or not

Hi Guys
Been using my D3 with minimoto for close to an year now and like most people I love it, specially the keyboard. However I would really like to move to Jelly Bean now and experience the goodies that come with it. Something that seems difficult if not impossible with the D3. Before you comment yes I have tried the various JB custom roms here and found them slow and unstable, not to mention the camera thing. Not saying this is in any way the fault of Devs here who should be paid by motorola to make this device usable especially HashCode. Its entirely Motorola's fault for bundling only 512 MB RAM with a nice device like this.
Anyway now I am set on a upgrade in a few months. The question I have is how much RAM should a phone have? or does it even matter?
Given that D3 was left behind for ICS upgrades and the multitude of phones coming out with 2 Gig RAM I am wondering whether I should go with a 1 Gig phone and risk getting left behind again or have I fallen pray to the latest and greatest race?
Could not find any good info on google and so your inputs would be greatly appreciated..
Thanks
Atin

I'd say 2 GB minimum. That seems to be the standard for mid-range to high-end phones right now. I upgraded to the Droid Maxx last week and my phone uses 1.1 GB RAM, with 656 MB free, basically running the same apps I ran on the Droid 3, with the additional stuff on the Maxx (touchless control, etc.)

Probably 2-4GB is good enough. Most new phones should be fine. The Nexus 4 is a cheap deal now so that would be a cheap upgrade if you wanted to.

Thanks for your inputs. Will go for a 2 Gig phone then. Should be good enough for me