Android Phone

[P-Dub]

So I am going to do it. Looking to get this phone in the next week. And will be going for an Android phone. My work phone has been an iPhone for the past 3 years or so, had a 3GS and currently using a 4S. This is going to be my personal phone and I want to try the Android OS and see all that it has to offer.

I was pretty much set to get this unit.

Samsung Galaxy Nexus


I know it is last year's phone, but the price is right, $0 on a 2 year contract. However there is a $150 BestBuy GC tied to it, so I think it's a good deal.

The plan is a promo plan from our local carrier Fido. As plans go, this is a pretty good deal right now.

$56/mth unlimited calling and texting with 2 Gb of data


But I just saw this..

Motorola Razr HD LTE




It's a $50 phone on a 2 year contract. I'm wondering if I should go for this one instead? I don't think this one comes with a $150 GC. So in fact it would be $50 out of pocket and I'd lose out on the $150 GC.

The Nexus is limited to 16Gb of internal ram, while the Motorola has 16G internal and a micro sd slot for expansion.

Nexus has Jelly Bean, Moto Ice Cream Sandwich for now, but should get the update.

Nexus feels nice in my hand, a friend of mine has been using it for the past year and I've played with it a bit. I have not held the Moto yet.

Moto has LTE the Nexus is only 3G.
Moto has 8MP camera vs 5Mp
Moto and Nexus same resolution 1280x720, and essintially the same screen size, Moto 4.7" vs 4.65" for Nexus. But there looks to be some wasted space at the bottom of the Moto.

Moto has a larger battery and better battery life.

I was really going to ask, what cool Android apps should I be looking to download. But I'd like to hear some thoughts on the handsets.

I'm going to be googling various reviews of the phones over the next day or so to see which unit I might prefer.

Based on specs the Moto is the one to get, but losing out on the $150GC is kinda painful. I may wait a week to see if it will be part of a deal next week.

[Hdale85]

When shopping for an Android phone it's quite important to use it first and also what CPU/GPU it uses and what not. Some of them aren't all that smooth in operations while others are pretty good. It's all about how well Android has been optimized for the device basically.

[madmac]

So I am going to do it. Looking to get this phone in the next week. And will be going for an Android phone. My work phone has been an iPhone for the past 3 years or so, had a 3GS and currently using a 4S. This is going to be my personal phone and I want to try the Android OS and see all that it has to offer.

I was pretty much set to get this unit.

Samsung Galaxy Nexus



I know it is last year's phone, but the price is right, $0 on a 2 year contract. However there is a $150 BestBuy GC tied to it, so I think it's a good deal.

The plan is a promo plan from our local carrier Fido. As plans go, this is a pretty good deal right now.

$56/mth unlimited calling and texting with 2 Gb of data

But I just saw this..

Motorola Razr HD LTE



It's a $50 phone on a 2 year contract. I'm wondering if I should go for this one instead? I don't think this one comes with a $150 GC. So in fact it would be $50 out of pocket and I'd lose out on the $150 GC.

The Nexus is limited to 16Gb of internal ram, while the Motorola has 16G internal and a micro sd slot for expansion.

Nexus has Jelly Bean, Moto Ice Cream Sandwich for now, but should get the update.

Nexus feels nice in my hand, a friend of mine has been using it for the past year and I've played with it a bit. I have not held the Moto yet.

Moto has LTE the Nexus is only 3G.
Moto has 8MP camera vs 5Mp
Moto and Nexus same resolution 1280x720, and essintially the same screen size, Moto 4.7" vs 4.65" for Nexus. But there looks to be some wasted space at the bottom of the Moto.

Moto has a larger battery and better battery life.

I was really going to ask, what cool Android apps should I be looking to download. But I'd like to hear some thoughts on the handsets.

I'm going to be googling various reviews of the phones over the next day or so to see which unit I might prefer.

Based on specs the Moto is the one to get, but losing out on the $150GC is kinda painful. I may wait a week to see if it will be part of a deal next week.

I'm pretty trained in Android at this point. My phone is the HTC Sensation, which is even older than the one your thinking of getting and it's incredibly fast!!. Must get apps will be google maps.....Google Earth.....Google sky map (Incredible!!) gstrings if you play guitar.......Sky FM radio.....Skype (Of course)..........recipes(If you like to cook)..........Sound meter (Which is a really cool SPL meter!!). There are of course many, many more which may interest you. With Android, you will get notifications when updates to any of these apps are available. You will also on occasion get a complete firmware update which will update the whole operating system of the phone.

I personally would go with the Samsung. I find it hard to believe that you cannot insert a SD micro card in it. These apps chew a lot of data and all mine are on the card. The phone's memory is used only for the operating systems on mine. But then again, my internal memory is not 16 gigs!.

[impala454]

Not sure how the LTE networks are over there, but it's insane over here. I've gotten as high as 50Mbps down and 15Mbps up on my phone here on LTE. To me that alone was worth the upgrade.

[P-Dub]

Not sure how the LTE networks are over there, but it's insane over here. I've gotten as high as 50Mbps down and 15Mbps up on my phone here on LTE. To me that alone was worth the upgrade.

From a local reviewer..

http://www.androidincanada.ca/reviews/motorola-razr-hd-lte-review/

The LTE speeds on this device are amazing. In Port Moody, I was able to pull a consistent >30Mbps with uploads >15Mbps, and have seen speeds up to >60Mbps. I can definitely see myself getting spoiled on LTE. It connects well, where there is coverage, and does not take a huge hit to the battery, especially with Smart Actions on.

Dan - Was all set on the Samsung, but this Moto is really looking good. The no microSD expansion is probably my biggest concern. I have almost filled my 64G iPhone with apps and music and podcasts. I did read somewhere because it is all internal ram, it is quite fast as the expansion slot take a bit of resources.

[madmac]

From a local reviewer..

http://www.androidincanada.ca/reviews/motorola-razr-hd-lte-review/

Dan - Was all set on the Samsung, but this Moto is really looking good. The no microSD expansion is probably my biggest concern. I have almost filled my 64G iPhone with apps and music and podcasts. I did read somewhere because it is all internal ram, it is quite fast as the expansion slot take a bit of resources.

I can appreciate your concerns in that case. Sounds like you are going to need a lot of memory. My phone easy runs at 54mbps consistently!! 8O

I'm just a little worried about Motorola and thier recent issues. There could be a potential support issue in the future possibly ??!!.

[Hdale85]

Was that phone made pre Google buyout, or post? If I remember correctly Google bought Motorola so they should be pretty decent devices I'd imagine. Not really sure what recent issues you're talking about though?

[P-Dub]

Well I jumped on the Moto phone. Going to be a bit of a learning curve.

This is post Google buyout and that is one of the things I am hoping that the support and updates will come faster.

I'm going to try to just use the built in 16G first. Looks like just over 11G is available for apps and stuff.

Haven't tried LTE yet, though it looks like it may not be available in my neighbourhood.

So far I like the build quality. Very solid build and quality materials.

Some basic questions. Is there a way to set the syncing of emails? Right now it looks to be setup as push, but sometimes I like to save battery and just pull every hour.

I'm going to leave things as is for now to check on the battery life.

[Hdale85]

In the mail settings you can set how often you want it to pull your emails.

[Glen B]

Not sure how the LTE networks are over there, but it's insane over here. I've gotten as high as 50Mbps down and 15Mbps up on my phone here on LTE. To me that alone was worth the upgrade.

Dang! What provider ? My carrier is Verizon. The highest LTE network speed I've gotten is 30Mbps/6Mbps on my iPhone 5.

[P-Dub]

Hmm, looks like they put in the wrong sim card. The LTE sim looks slightly different. Will have to get that fixed tonight.

The mail piece is not where I would expect it to be, or more correctly where it was on the iPhone.

[Hdale85]

You can hold those icons down and move them. Almost everything can be customized.

[impala454]

Yeah Paul you can also long press the icons in the app drawer and drag them out to the home pages. Not to mention long press in an empty area on a home page and you'll see a multitude of widgets you can put on there. To me the widgets is what really sets android apart from iOS big time.

Dang! What provider ? My carrier is Verizon. The highest LTE network speed I've gotten is 30Mbps/6Mbps on my iPhone 5.

I'm on Verizon in Houston with the new Droid DNA. Here's one I did the other day (and this was in Seabrook, TX, a good ways outside Houston proper

[P-Dub]

After 2 weeks I am pretty happy with my Moto Razr.

I'll start with some weaknesses that are more device specific than O/S.

The camera is not that good. Hard to describe, but I think some of the other reviewers have pointed it out. I much prefer the quality of the pics out of my 4s.

I miss the hard home button and a hard volume switch. This will just take some getting used to only use the one side power button to turn on the phone.

Now some cool things is the ability to use widgets on the various home screens. This is by far the coolest feature. I've got 2 email widgets, calendar, weather, battery indicator, 3 time zones, a couple of shortcuts to apps and I have adjusted my dock bar to show 7 icons instead of the stock 5.

I recently discovered Nova Launcher, this app replaces the stock Moto home screen. There's a free version and then a paid version. I've been playing with the free version for the past few days and that allows home screen resizing from the stock homescreen grid from 5x4 to 7x6. It also allows widget overlapping.

Here's a screen cap of my 'old' Moto home screen:



And here is the new modified home screen with Nova:



With the Nova app, I can toggle the notification bar and the dock off and could have just an empty screen showing my live wallpaper.



The update to Jelly Bean is now expected sometime in Q1 of 2013.

I have found some strange wifi issues, it will lose connection at times.

I'm finding 16G is fine for the moment, I think I just accumulated a lot of apps and stuff on my 4s. Starting fresh will allow me to only install apps that I actually use.

The carrier voice mail program is crap and I have disabled it. For the time being it won't matter as I call forward my number anyway.

LTE is pretty fast best is 42 down and 22 up. I'd say average is in the mid 20's down and around 20 for up.

[impala454]

Very nice Paul! :T

[P-Dub]

Just thought I'd update a little on my experience with this phone.

I've updated to Jelly Bean, 4.1. It was pretty simple, did notice some changes, but since the upgrade I've forgotten some of the little details. I can't say that I notice any increase smoothness.

The WiFi issue seems to have sorted itself out. Haven't lost connection. I have also added a 32GB microsd card to store some movies and music.

So far I've kept the installed programs to a minimum so I've been fine with the stock 16GB of internal memory. I think I have about 9 GB of free storage.

I'm somewhat vague with my numbers as now my wife is using my phone. She's been on it for the past few months.

One concerning issue is that at times when she puts the phone in her purse, it gets real hot and the battery drains pretty fast. I'm assuming that the phone is trying to lock onto a signal but can't, but it doesn't seem to happen all the time. I'm going to have to test it some more.

Unfortunately it doesn't seem like this phone is selling in any great numbers up here. It is off most of the carriers list of available phones. I'm not sure if I can get a replacement.

I think if I get a replacement phone to this one, I'd probably try the HTC One or the Galaxy S4.

[madmac]

I believe at this point, having used both, that Samsung is better than HTC.......

[P-Dub]

Just bringing this back to the top.

My 1 year anniversary is coming up, but I haven't really had a full year of use. Since my last update, my wife has really been the main user. For her purpose it has just been to use Whatsapp and to use the phone as a hotspot.

When I get to use it on the weekends, it has mainly been just some Facebook, foursquare, twitter type stuff, and of course to tether.

Battery life, this isn't the Max version but I have been quite happy with how long the battery life lasts. We have not run into the previous issue where the unit would get hot and drain the battery. Not sure why it did that previously. Or my wife hasn't mentioned it being a problem lately.

LTE, loving the speed around here. Has dropped some, but much faster than the 3G, naturally.

Web browsing, I find the stock Chrome to be slow at times. It could be the number of tabs, but sometimes I've only got 2 open and it seems to take forever for it to load.

Application switching, there are times it seems like I've used up all my Ram and going from one to the other is slow.

I am looking forward to the next update of Android 4.4 as my device is on the scheduled for the upgrade. The system requirements are supposed to be lower for 4.4 than previous versions of Android.

I'm wondering, in the Google Play store, before you could update your apps remotely when a new version came out. Now I can't see that function in the Play store. Is it hidden or was it removed? Was I dreaming that it ever existed? I know I can still install new apps.

The camera has hardly been used. I just don't like the colour balance and also when I'm carrying two phones, I just default to my iPhone and take the pic and move on.

I still love the build quality and the feel. Have not put a case or screen protector on it and it still looks great.

This coming year I may put my work SIM and live with this phone for a month or two. I have it unlocked so that I can use it in the US as well as with any local carrier.

[impala454]

I don't ever recall there being an update function on the play store.

My DNA just got updated with 4.3 yesterday, seems like a nice change. Also worthy of note, I saw there was an update to Google Hangouts which now lets it be the primary SMS/MMS app as well. It is SO much nicer than the stock SMS app IMO.

[P-Dub]

Hmm, maybe I was dreaming, or mixing up the ability to install from the Play store on the PC to my device.

[audioqueso]

Ability to install apps from the Play Store from the pc to your phone.
Sign in to Google using the same account that you have on your phone (Gmail, Maps, whatever)
Click on the little 9-square icon on the top right corner
Click on Play.

To Install: Click on any app, and click install. If you have more than one Android device with the same Google account, it will ask you which device you want to install it on.

To Confirm your apps:
Inside the Play store, click on Apps on the left hand side.
Click on My Apps.
That will show your phone's install history.

[audioqueso]

I know you use to be able to check for updates from a pc, but I haven't seen that option in a long time. I'm not sure when that went away.

[Finleyville]

Just saw this thread. Wu, I LOVE your live wallpaper! IWC for the win!

[PewterTA]

See... no need to buy an IWC... can have it on your phone. BAM!