Ok so right now am looking for a phone to buy.
And had the droid x
And droid charge.
So my question is would anybody recommend the d3?
And how is the development for the d3 look in the future?
I heard about motorola unlocking the bootloader but when the day comes, will they only provide it with the new phones? Or would it be like an update?
Absolutely would recommend!
I wholeheartedly recommend the D3 - especially if you are looking for a physical keyboard.
Development is well under way and there are now at least 2 full working ROMs. I've tried both Steel Droid and Monster and both are great - i find monster to be faster and thats my preference.
When I first got the phone, I was pretty bummed that the locked bootloader had put a huge damper on development. Ever since root has been acheived, however, things have been much better and you could not pry my D3 from my cold dead hands.
I hear that Blur is much better than previous iterations, but I use launcher pro so I don't use blur at all.
heres a link to the ROM, Mods and Themes thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1289611
As much as I like my D3, I would not recommend it to anyone looking to get a new phone. unless you absolutely need a keyboard, I would wait for either the Droid Razr or Galaxy Nexus. Both will have better hardware and FAR better screens and will be LTE.
I got a D3 yesterday, after having the D1 the last two years. After about 20 hours using it, I love it. I really dig how fast it is, and the larger screen is nice too.
As soon as I got it home, I rooted it and ran the scripts to remove the VZW apps. I really don't see a need to flash a ROM since this D3 runs so smoothly already. I'd like to edit some PNG files here and there, and that will probably be about it for me. I remember the constant flashing of ROM's, SBF files, and themes on my D1. This time around, I'm really not looking forward to that. It feels to me like VZW and Motorola did a great job with the device as is once you skim off the bloatware.
Like SrulDog, I switched to LP immediately. I've been using LP since about the time it was released, so I am very comfortable with it. It runs great on the D3 too.
I say go for it. I don't know how it compares to the Droids you have owned, but I know it is much better than the D1.
-Mike
kishin14 said:
As much as I like my D3, I would not recommend it to anyone looking to get a new phone. unless you absolutely need a keyboard, I would wait for either the Droid Razr or Galaxy Nexus. Both will have better hardware and FAR better screens and will be LTE.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sure the screen looks crap sometimes. But I'm standing in direct sunlight in 100 degree weather right now and I can see every detail on it. Try that on an AMOLED.
Sent from my DROID3 using xda premium
I have had this phone for a couple weeks and I am enjoying it. I had an OG Droid that the screen crapped out on me so this was nice because it works! I am used to the hardware keyboard on a Blackberry Tour/Bold 9650 but that's personal preference. I am getting used to this one though and I can fly on it so I guess it's pretty good for a keyboard.
A couple things I have done are root, freeze a few apps like VCast and run Autokiller at Strict, and the phone is as smooth as butter now. It has the same hardware as the Bionic really so I mean it's as high end as you can get. If you want 4G then as mentioned you should wait, but I have been getting great 3G speeds and yes I have to wait for the Market apps to download a little but it's a lot faster than it has been in the past with my OG Droid.
Well 4g isent really a biggy for me.
More like.batterry life and great rom features really
Androidsims said:
Sure the screen looks crap sometimes. But I'm standing in direct sunlight in 100 degree weather right now and I can see every detail on it. Try that on an AMOLED.
Sent from my DROID3 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1
/droid3
Great responses here! This is why I love XDA! To answer the question…yes, I would definitely recommend getting a DVD for all the reasons given above. Dev work is going well, CM7 is on the way, and we MAY have an AOSP rom by the weekend (permissions to port pending). The physical keyboard is outstanding, and the screen is good. Even though colors are a bit washed out, being able to view the screen in direct sunlight, with no issues, is a massive bonus. If you don't need the keyboard, and can wait a little while, I would jump all over the Nexus Prime/ galaxy Nexus/ whatever they're calling that 4.65" piece of sexiness! Either way, you'll end up satisfied imo.
Sent from my DROID3 using xda premium
The biggest bugger for me is the lack of RAM. Phone would have been a whole lot better if it had 1GB ram instead 512MB only. The screen is a letdown IMO, but indeed is great in the sun and also better on the battery.
Sent from my DROID2 GLOBAL using Tapatalk
Aside from the occasional issues from being in Australia, I must say I recommend the Droid 3. It's excellent!
I still fail to see what the lack of ram is holding us back from. But I've already convinced pne person to buy this phone, and they text me damn near everyday to thank me.
sent from my MONSTERDroid3 from the XDA app
Two years ago the Milestone was an awesome terminal for its time.
Nice design, perfect size, one of the best display ever seen, incredibly good audio quality and decent CPU power.
The only drawbacks were the horrible battery life, the cheap keyboard and the crap camera.
The D3, although can't be considered a bad phone, is the shadow of what the MS1 was.
The performances (I mean the real ones, not the benchmarks) aren't on par with one years old phones, the crap camera and the poor battery life are still there, the keyboard is improved but is still built like a toy, while the phone grown more than the display, the display went from the best available to the worst ever seen, the signal sensitivity went from the top to the "below the average". The audio quality, while better than the HTC phones is not on par with the motorola ancestors.
As I already said, my Desire Z (aka G2) was a better phone in any area, excluding the audio level and the lack of the numeric ROW.
From my point of view was a boring phone, everything worked from the beginning, good battery life, great photos, super stable system, good keyboard, and fantastic tethering capabilities.
The display was also good, not as the one on the Milestone 1, but light years better than the Droid 3's one.
All in all I suggest to buy the D3 only if you can get a very good deal.
If you like a ready to go smartphone, a DZ/G2 is still a way better choice, especially considering its today average price.
gravenimage said:
I still fail to see what the lack of ram is holding us back from.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
x2.
i think people come from older phones and get hung up on the numbers when with a better processor and other amenities a 'low' RAM really isn't a factor and can actually make the phone faster with everything cached and saved to the system memory. I don't even check the RAM since i've never had an issue with slow or choppy speed.
Also i go a whole day with my phone and end with 30% battery at the end of the day. i use it heavy while im out, not as much when home from work but even then i come home with 50-40% battery. I'm not sure what you guys are doing to get poor battery life.
kern417 said:
x2.
I'm not sure what you guys are doing to get poor battery life.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Usually just using it on modern networks.
The motorola basebands are usually poor (especially on the erly releases), and the power drain has a lot of variation depending on the generation and the make of the BTS/node-b, whatever.
Just for example when I got the milestone 1, with the initial firmware tha battery lasted less than six hour with a vodafone SIM, and almost a day with a three SIM.
The Solutor said:
Usually just using it on modern networks.
The motorola basebands are usually poor (especially on the erly releases), and the power drain has a lot of variation depending on the generation and the make of the BTS/node-b, whatever.
Just for example when I got the milestone 1, with the initial firmware tha battery lasted less than six hour with a vodafone SIM, and almost a day with a three SIM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Idk I hear people on Verizon say the same thing and we get pretty good service just about everywhere. sure at my old job where I was tucked in the basement my phone would die quickly but I couldnt blame that on the phone or the software, like you said it's the radio trying to get signal. I think it more depends on the user and how they use the phone/what services they run.
I had installed Juice Defender originally because i thought it would increase battery life, but i turn my screen on and off so much that it actually drained more battery from turning data off and on all the time, so now i only use it to automatically enable wifi when i'm home and turn off data while i'm asleep. maybe something like that could help you out?
All in all I think the D3 is one of the best Android options out. Plus i'm petty and like the fact that not everyone around here has one since it didn't seem to get a bunch of publicity...people still ask me 'What phone is that???"
kern417 said:
I had installed Juice Defender originally because i thought it would increase battery life, but i turn my screen on and off so much that it actually drained more battery from turning data off and on all the time, so now i only use it to automatically enable wifi when i'm home and turn off data while i'm asleep. maybe something like that could help you out?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When I bought the MS1 "wi sync plus" was the program that saved the ms1 form a jump out of the window.
Btw i never tried any wi sync+ clone, like juice defender.
I'm about to purchased D3 today. Too bad it's hard to find one here. Already ask the seller to check with the supplier if there is any. I only found Motorola Atrix at one single shop here.
This is definitely my choice right now. In my opinion, 512MB RAM is enough for a dual core 1 GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 SoC processor. PowerVR SGX540 is just nice, too bad that it only support OpenGL 2.0 and not DirectX as in Playstation Vita with PowerVR SGX543.
QWERTY keyboard has improved a lot this time. It had HDMI Type-D, Physical Button for Camera & Sound Volume & Micro-USB. I really hope it will get ICS update when it release and capable of USB Host. Another thing is that Motorola had been bought by Google, I believe Motorola will have latest update every time new Android version released. I hope so
One thing that make me stay away from Samsung Galaxy S2 is that it had one single port Micro USB for everything(HDMI through MHL, USB data, USB Charging, USB Host)
If i use HDMI output, then I cannot use USB Host at the same time. I wonder if the USB Host adapter connected to USB Hub, can it handle and recognize multiple device such as keyboard, mouse,game controller,USB Pendrive etc?
Yeah, but the way I understand it, even the phones that have 1gb of RAM right now (Atrix, Bionic) dont really have 1gb because 512mb is locked to be used with Webtop. And so far as I have been able to find, no other phone has more than 512mb right now. Can anyone confirm?
This mattered to me because I have an Atrix right now on AT&T and I absolutely love the phone, but can't take the ****ty service everywhere anymore, have to switch to Verizon. I had basically three phones I was looking at in the Amazon penny sale, D3, Bionic and the new Samsung qwerty, Supernova or something. So, if the above is right, the D3 I'm getting is essentially the same phone as my Atrix now without Webtop (don't care) or 4g (not here for years, boucou wifi) but with a physical kb, which actually makes it way better. I actually really, really like Gingerblur, and if it's slow I dig Launcherpro, so I should be good, yeah?
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
This. Coming from an Atrix getting HDMI mirroring will be a big deal to me; I didn't buy any docks and haven't rooted or reflashed other than official 2.3 update, so the only thing I ever get over HDMI is the media player interface. Which is cool, but I want something else.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
Related
So I started my android life with a G1, then eventually got a Mytouch. Now I am considering getting a Nexus one, I have the money saved up but I am not 100% sure... I want some experienced users (mainly the people who's root) and tell me, does the battery last good? And are you truly happy with it? Because I can't make up my mind rather to get the Nexus, or the Droid..Or some other new android phones coming to t-mobile soon..(rumors)
But then again I hate the fact that every time I buy a phone a new one comes out.. lol.
Side note: If anyone is selling a nexus, let me know.
G1-evolve said:
So I started my android life with a G1, then eventually got a Mytouch. Now I am considering getting a Nexus one, I have the money saved up but I am not 100% sure... I want some experienced users (mainly the people who's root) and tell me, does the battery last good? And are you truly happy with it? Because I can't make up my mind rather to get the Nexus, or the Droid..Or some other new android phones coming to t-mobile soon..(rumors)
But then again I hate the fact that every time I buy a phone a new one comes out.. lol.
Side note: If anyone is selling a nexus, let me know.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tough situation. You have to realize that at some point, the trigger has to be pulled and when it is, another device will be coming out. That is just how it works. Look at Apple users...they buy a laptop to find out 6 months later something even better is arriving. Technology never waits, so when you want something, jump on it.
If you are on T-Mobile, you can look at the Desire. If you are interested in Verizon, the Incredible is landing soon which is basically a Desire with a boost.
The Nexus is a very open platform with amazing community support and having owned two, I regret nothing. This phone is amazing.
deprecate said:
Tough situation. You have to realize that at some point, the trigger has to be pulled and when it is, another device will be coming out. That is just how it works. Look at Apple users...they buy a laptop to find out 6 months later something even better is arriving. Technology never waits, so when you want something, jump on it.
If you are on T-Mobile, you can look at the Desire. If you are interested in Verizon, the Incredible is landing soon which is basically a Desire with a boost.
The Nexus is a very open platform with amazing community support and having owned two, I regret nothing. This phone is amazing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+infinity!!!!
I have good battery life now with some setting changes in custom rom I run. I have the extended battery so the feeling is comfortable for 1 hand texting. I still have and toy with my G1 but when I leave the house the I have the N1. I wouldn't trade my N1 for any phone out. It took me a few days to get adjusted to not having the physical keyboard but the size of the screen really make it easy. I just didn't get it when I had a mytouch. These are just a few of my options.
Definitely get a Nexus. Like deprecate said, technology will keep moving. You just gotta take the plunge. Battery life has been decent for me but that is most probably cause mine is still a brand new battery. Once it's broken in a little, it should be good.
The processor is ridiculously amazing. Things just work, and work very fast. Trust me, once you use the Nexus for a day and try to go back to G1/Dream, you will wonder how you lived all this time. The HTC Desire Rom for Nexus is actually very good if you like Sense. It also has Flash Player Lite if you're into that. Cyan's Rom, of course, gets better all the time. Honestly there aren't a lot of Rom options yet but that's because there isn't very much that could be improved at this point. Everything just works.
All in all, I say go for it.
the desire seems ok, idk I really might get a nexus I just don't want the battery to suck for a $500+ phone.
Well you gotta be reasonable. It has a 1ghz processor. The thing is gonna be a bit of a juice monkey no matter what. There are undervolted kernels available that help with battery life though.
After a month playing with my rooted N1 (previously had a iphone 3g) i can only say: Wow, this beast is fast. You can multi-task, load custom ROMs, browse fast and soon we will have flash support. Battery life is accetable, so great performance with a so thin design is acceptable. And android is a powerfull and flexible OS. Im very happy with my nexus1.
Sent from my Nexus One using the XDA mobile application powered by Tapatalk
I went through the same thought process as well before buying my Nexus One. The thing that really sold me was the fact that I have a few friends with Android phones and they all seem pretty frustrated that they see all these new Android releases coming out and their phones remain stuck at 1.5. Since the N1 is Google's showcase phone it's pretty much a given that it will always get timely updates to the latest version of Android. I don't think you can say the same for ANY other Android phone (a lot even have boot loaders that can't be unlocked like the Milestone and Rogers HTC Magic) and I doubt any that might come out in the next few months will be that lucky either. Plus this thing is just mind blowing fast.
I came from an iPhone 3G so initially I was slightly disappointed with the touchscreen (it doesn't reject spurious input from fingers and palms that might wrap around the phone) and the less than stellar reception. Every time I put my hand on lower part of the phone and see 2-3 bars of reception disappear I feel shame.
Coming from a Magic I doubt I would ever notice this because these problems exist in those phones too as I believe it uses the same touchscreen and the radio placement is identical.
As for battery life, I actually get pretty good life now that my usage has settled down.
For the Battery if you run one of the UV kernels as well as setcpu with profiles. Also do some of the main things you do with your Mytouch like turn off wifi, GPS, screen brightness to low, only use 3G when you need it other wise leave it on Edge, as well as the many other battery saving ideas. You should should get great battery life. I can go about 16 hours of ok usage and have about 50 to 60% battery life left. Check my Sig for what i am running. Over all i paid full price for my N1 and i am love with phone in every way.
im debating switching to the D3 from my Inc2. i love the devlopment of the Inc2, but i miss a Physical keyboard...allot...
do you still love/hate yours? looking for opinions on D3 owners...
Thanks
dvigue said:
im debating switching to the D3 from my Inc2. i love the devlopment of the Inc2, but i miss a Physical keyboard...allot...
do you still love/hate yours? looking for opinions on D3 owners...
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I still love my D3 despite the "sticking" keys, finicky battery life, and failed Alt key presses that cause me to type things like "dualvcore processor." From what I've read, a leaked update fixed all of these issue and that leak may be released shortly.
Sent from my DROID3 using xda premium
i also was a little concered with the low RAM..is that an issue for anyone?
I like it a lot better now than when I first got it. The screen will always suck, but I'll live.
why does it suck? the pentile display you mean?
Silly question.
-smc
Yes, enjoying my D3 tremendously. I still have my old Droid and that phone now frustrates me with how slow (even overclocked) it is in overall use.
As for the screen, love the screen. I can actually use my phone outside in full sunlight/daylight conditions.
I came from my old Droid as well. I agree even overclocked, it just didn't have the hardware to run 2.3 very well. I love my new Droid 3, its got everything I liked about the original only better. The few quirks in the phone now I don't worry about, they'll all hopefully be fixed via updates. The only thing that has me concerned at this point is the whether we'll be able to get what we need to unlock this thing to get custom rom's going. After running Cyanogen and cyanogen based roms for years, going to any stock phone just seems bland. I've made my decision to stick with the D3 and see were it goes (if they unlock it like they alluded that they would), but for me it'll be a deciding factor as to whether I buy a Moto phone in the future or not.
Lemme break it down, moto cliq robbed me of the android Xperience, ran like crap, was promised and update that never appeared, and overheated like a mother! So I upgrade to Mytouch slide for a couple days, felt cheap, screen sucked, and wasn't much of an upgrade to my cliq as the cliq felt more solid and ran just as good when deblurred and Overclocked. So finally I upgraded to SGS Vibrant. I loved it! It was practically unbrickable! Unfortunately Samsung was slow to give updates or support. To have upgrades or updates of merit came with a heavy cost of potentially killing the phone. RFS filesystem sucked and made it run way slow compared to EXT3/4 filesystem phones and required a filesystem conversion (dangerous) ! And of course swype is nice, but in my hands a hardware keyboard is better.
Now for the D3, THE ONLY DUAL-CORE TI-ARM proc, with KEYBOARD, Front Facing Camera, 8MP 1080p Rear Camera with LED flash, mini-HDMI port, SGX540 video card (same as SGS Vibrant, but evidently better scores), great battery life (after update), with guarantees of updates and upgrades on the best service provider in the US! And Moto has given promise to unlock bootloaders.
Needless to say, I love my D3. Its the best phone I have EVAR had and it has crazy potential. Can't wait to OC this thing, deblur it and turn it into the android power hungry demon that it was meant to be!
Great posts guys...Keep em coming!!!!
Darksurf said:
Needless to say, I love my D3. Its the best phone I have EVAR had and it has crazy potential.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Indeed.
Can't wait to OC this thing, deblur it and turn it into the android power hungry demon that it was meant to be!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I cannot wait for the day that we can run vanilla android! I'm already tired of moto blurs Grey-blue, blueish-grey, grey, cyan colored theme.
The Droid 3 exceeds on almost every one of my criteria. I love everything about it except for two things. The awful screen and the Motorola crud. Thankfully there's something that can be done about the later. The former is just a sad decision on Motorola's part. It would have been absolutely wonderful if they just increased the size because even though it has a higher resolution, the droid 2 and 1 still beat it out in terms of clarity. Pathetic. Everything else is upgraded but the screen is downgraded. That's all I have to say.
I love my D3, and I work hard every day to make it even better.
I came from the OG Droid, which I loved dearly until it started to physically fall apart (battery door started getting loose, USB jack was almost unusable, headphone jack started shorting out), at which point I then reimaged my wife's OG Droid (that she retired for an iPhone 4) with my nand backup, thus successfully performing the proverbial "brain transplant". I used that phone for a few months, just long enough to get me to the D3 release.
I was originally waiting on the Bionic, but (a) I got tired of waiting, (b) I didn't want to put up with the notorious LTE battery life issues that were seen on other devices and (c) I wasn't too keen on the $100 premium I was sure would be included in the Bionic price tag (as will all the other newly-launched VZW LTE devices). So, I came to love the D3 and picked one up at lauch via web order.
I LOVE this phone. The keyboard is clearly in a class of its own (better than my old Blackberries, which are generally considered the "gold standard" of mobile keyboards). I'm OK with the Moto BLUR (or whatever they call it now) stuff on there, but I really don't use it. I gave the homescreen a try for a while, but missed the scrolling dock from Laucher Pro+, so I went back to LP+ recently.
The phone has always been fast enough for me (no more disappointment from my overclocked, overly-warm, OG Droid that still can't run heavy stuff smoothly). I was never really concerned about the RAM size, and it hasn't been a problem for me. Now that my D3 is rooted and I've frozen on the bloatware, even more RAM stays available, the phone runs even faster and the battery life improved, marginally.
Ultimately, battery life was the only thing I was a bit disappointed about on this phone. I instaleld the leaked update and now that has been fixed to my satisfaction. So, overall, I am quite happy with this phone. As long as the hardware holds up, I'll likely be keeping this one full-term.
-SR-
PS: I even like the floppy plastic battery cover that some people complain about. I just enjoy messing with it, for some reason. I think I like how it fits so well when I snap it back on, and the texture is good in the hand. Call me crazy (you wouldn't be the first).
dvigue said:
im debating switching to the D3 from my Inc2. i love the devlopment of the Inc2, but i miss a Physical keyboard...allot...
do you still love/hate yours? looking for opinions on D3 owners...
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My DROID3 seems more awesome everytime I use it. GO PENS!
Yes, I very much love my Droid 3. The keyboard is out standing and I have not had any problems with sticking keys or missed alt presses whatsoever. The screen can look **** some times but as stated before it does view well in sunlight so I guess it's a trade off. The phone is very fast and responsive. Stock launcher looks awesome and has great widgets, but it's laggy. It flies with ADW. All in all, I just want AOSP Gingerbread/Ice Cream Sandwich and I'm good to go.
I'm getting bionic envy with the larger screen and LTE but in the end, I like the keyboard so I know the D3 is the right phone for me.
Before root and OTA? No
After root and OTA? Yes
Why? Purely because of the obvious bugs that went out that weren't properly QC'ed (serious, serious problem with almost all carriers and mfg's these days), poor battery life, and too much of Verizon's forced bloat that should be uninstallable.
Post OTA,battery life is great, performance is snappier and even better when rooted and freezing the bulk of bloat ware.
I started on the OG Droid the day it was released. Then when the Droid 2 came out, I upgraded to that. I now own the Droid 3, and I can honestly say that they pretty much got it right this time. If it was Blur-less, it would be the perfect phone.
I've since rooted to remove all the crap, and put Go Launcher on it. Now it really performs the way it should, and the battery performance has been night and day since I made those changes.
I'm pretty happy with it right now.
dvigue said:
i also was a little concered with the low RAM..is that an issue for anyone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tiny ram is a pain only because the bloatware fills it up. If the phone were running AOSP, it would fly.
Hi all,
I finally got a chance to go to the store to check one of these out. I wanted to see what all the hype was about and if I could justify spending the money to upgrade my D2G (not elligible for upgrade yet).
First Impressions:
- Screen: I read all the hysteria about how bad a pixelated screen looks etc. Some people said that you could barely see the difference unless youre holding the right up to your eye holes.. They are wrong. You can easily see the difference holding it at normal viewing distance. If you like the screen on the D2G it will take some serious adjusting to. It simply 'seems' like outdated tech and looks cheap.
-4G: This is the first 4G device I have ever used. It is shockingly quick (had 2 bars in Central NJ). I download a few apps (dolphin browser) and went to a couple of web pages. I also ran the speed test 19.6mb down // 3.99 upload. I went to youtube and loaded an HD video and the video never stuttered once (video time never caught up to buffering). I was very impressed with 4G and that is mainly the reason I wanted to take a look at the Droid Bionic.
- Stress testing:? Not sure what to call this but I wanted to see if I could make the phone hang up. Im not even sure if these are applicable to the hardware, but I ran 2 apps. The first of which was Google Maps, it didnt seem to be any faster than on my D2G. Scrolling isnt any more impressive neither is zooming in, I felt like the rendering speed was the same.
- Moto BLUR/UI whatever its called these days: Its still sucky you will want to root and change it.
I also downloaded a PDF and scrolled around that. Same issue, rendering doesnt seem any faster.
Im not even sure if something like this can be critiqued because these things arent even smooth on a regular PC.
Its clearly a good phone if you can deal with the screen thing. Once roms and stuff are developed for it, it will be even better. I would probably pull the trigger if i was elligible for an upgrade.
Just my 2 cents.
I personally wouldn't recommend the Bionic. I'm currently using one, as it "fell into my hands". There are many more options coming VERY soon which will have greater specs than the Bionic and won't have the terrible display.
I can't believe how much denial the people are in when they say that the screen is fine. If you say the screen is fine you're lying to yourself and everyone else, but whatever makes you feel better about your $300+ purchase I guess.
I will say that the Bionic has a leg up on my Incredible as far as outdoor viewing goes.
BerkleyJ said:
I personally wouldn't recommend the Bionic. I'm currently using one, as it "fell into my hands". There are many more options coming VERY soon which will have greater specs than the Bionic and won't have the terrible display.
I can't believe how much denial the people are in when they say that the screen is fine. If you say the screen is fine you're lying to yourself and everyone else, but whatever makes you feel better about your $300+ purchase I guess.
I will say that the Bionic has a leg up on my Incredible as far as outdoor viewing goes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Then I'm in denial and deny it! lol.. its not the best screen, but its not horrible! I think its quite ok.. the pixels don't bother me much, my battery life kicks butt compared to tbolt! Then again, im not one for watching movies on my phone I got a Sammy LED at home for that...
For those of us who:
-would rather watch a movie on something larger than a 4 inch screen.
-would rather fap to pr0n from a pc
-would rather play games on a pc, xbox 360 or ps3
-care about performance of the best 4g radio and so far the best processor/ram combo
OR have a connection for incredibly good deals on phones and don't really care...
Yeah, denial is the right term.
Like i've been saying - Rendering performance will not be hardly any different until Icecream comes out. Gingerbread is singlethreaded.. you're not going to see the OS take any advantage over dual core for a while.
The good news is that it's still just as fast as any other single core phone. If any app is coded to take advantage of dual core, it will shine in those but in average usage - you're not seeing any performance advantage here.
The pentile screen doesn't bother me. I can tell at times but still doesn't impact me. I would rather have better battery life than a non-pentile screen. I don't want the Thunderbolt battery issues.
After removing a bunch of bloatware, I kinda dig the new Blur. I was using CM7 with ADW Ex on top. It is running so butter smooth! I will probably go back to ADW Ex when a ROM comes out without Blur.
I got 30 days to try it out but I might exchange it for the HTC Vigor. Depends on what happens the next 30 days.
Diversion said:
Like i've been saying - Rendering performance will not be hardly any different until Icecream comes out. Gingerbread is singlethreaded.. you're not going to see the OS take any advantage over dual core for a while.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
While it's true it's barely worth mentioning. "YET" or "UNTIL" are key vocabulary for this CPU.
Coming from a droidx here... the screen looks a-ok to me on the bionic.
Sent from my DROID BIONIC using xda premium
I've been using htc phones since the ppc6600. Battery life has been terrible since then, and I don't see it getting any better, unless they do something magical. 6600:terrible battery life. 6700 terrible battery life. 6800: terrible battery life. Incredible : incredibly terrible battery life.
There seems to be a trend here. I do believe I am done with htc.
The battery life alone, to me, is worth the money.
No doubt that the screen is disappointing, but LTE is absolutely insane, and the phone is noticeably faster than the Sensation running a Sense ROM. Overall, I'm very pleased with my first Motorola device, and it was a steal at $179 from Amazon.
--
Sent from my Droid Bionic.
I think that people are being to anal about the screen. I use the phone in direct sunlight now and it looks incredible. The text looks super sharp and you dont have to put your hand on top of the screen to block sun light. this phone is amazing. and yes better phones will be out and when you get that awesome phone that will come out in a few months another better phone will be out after that. is a never ending cycle. I love the bionic and i dont regret buying it. When i want to watch porn I use my computer or my galaxy 10.1 tablet. If you really really need a porn fix the bionic could take care of it too.
86shelby said:
I've been using htc phones since the ppc6600. Battery life has been terrible since then, and I don't see it getting any better, unless they do something magical. 6600:terrible battery life. 6700 terrible battery life. 6800: terrible battery life. Incredible : incredibly terrible battery life.
There seems to be a trend here. I do believe I am done with htc.
The battery life alone, to me, is worth the money.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's Sense. Put CyanogenMod on any HTC device, and you get amazing battery life. Can't wait for it on the Bionic.
--
Sent from my Droid Bionic.
TheBiles said:
It's Sense. Put CyanogenMod on any HTC device, and you get amazing battery life. Can't wait for it on the Bionic.
--
Sent from my Droid Bionic.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sense didn't exist until after the 6800. I had cm7 on my DInc, it still sucked, battery wise anyway.
The hate for the screen is warranted, and not warranted. I don't know how to put that. I was adamantly against a PenTile screen and it was almost enough to put me off on this phone. I had seen it in store and focused on the screen, and it just annoyed me. Then I got some real time with it and it's seriously a bunch of nonsense. The screen is sharp, great colors, great in daylight. It's not AMOLED level there but it's a do-it-all screen.
The 4G is super fast, and the battery life is amazing. I came from a Droid X and it's an impressive phone. Suck it up on the screen and you'll forget about it in a day.
Vexorg said:
Hi all,
I finally got a chance to go to the store to check one of these out. I wanted to see what all the hype was about and if I could justify spending the money to upgrade my D2G (not elligible for upgrade yet).
First Impressions:
- Screen: I read all the hysteria about how bad a pixelated screen looks etc. Some people said that you could barely see the difference unless youre holding the right up to your eye holes.. They are wrong. You can easily see the difference holding it at normal viewing distance. If you like the screen on the D2G it will take some serious adjusting to. It simply 'seems' like outdated tech and looks cheap.
-4G: This is the first 4G device I have ever used. It is shockingly quick (had 2 bars in Central NJ). I download a few apps (dolphin browser) and went to a couple of web pages. I also ran the speed test 19.6mb down // 3.99 upload. I went to youtube and loaded an HD video and the video never stuttered once (video time never caught up to buffering). I was very impressed with 4G and that is mainly the reason I wanted to take a look at the Droid Bionic.
- Stress testing:? Not sure what to call this but I wanted to see if I could make the phone hang up. Im not even sure if these are applicable to the hardware, but I ran 2 apps. The first of which was Google Maps, it didnt seem to be any faster than on my D2G. Scrolling isnt any more impressive neither is zooming in, I felt like the rendering speed was the same.
- Moto BLUR/UI whatever its called these days: Its still sucky you will want to root and change it.
I also downloaded a PDF and scrolled around that. Same issue, rendering doesnt seem any faster.
Im not even sure if something like this can be critiqued because these things arent even smooth on a regular PC.
Its clearly a good phone if you can deal with the screen thing. Once roms and stuff are developed for it, it will be even better. I would probably pull the trigger if i was elligible for an upgrade.
Just my 2 cents.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your comparing a Droid 2 Global to a Bionic .... Bionic>"D2G"
---------- Post added at 04:06 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:54 AM ----------
The "VERY" part of your statement, stands out as if you know something the rest of "non" Verizon Wireless employee's would know... if you dont work for verizon wireless please share what these options are..if you do work for vzw i can understand if you dont because you dont want to get a lawsuit.
Thx for the detailed review while playing with a demo model in-store for how long?
*crack me up!
manolith2011 said:
I think that people are being to anal about the screen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If I'm spending $200 to $300 on an smartphone it better have a damn good screen. No offense but the Bionic does not have a good screen. Yeah at times it can look good but anything with green for instance suddenly brings out the crap factor. If it doesn't bother you then enjoy it. As for me I'll wait until either the HTC or Samsung offerings are out both of which will have a better screen over the Bionic.
For those of you who have purchased the Vivid, any regrets? Why?
None so far for me. I switched from an Inspire and it is a nice improvement in all areas except for development, for now at least.
The screen and improved camera were enough to make it an easy decision for me to switch.
I exchanged from the SGS2 to the Vivid. Wasn't sure which LTE device I wanted. I went with the qHD display because I liked it more so than the SA+. The one thing I regret at the moment is the lack of development so far. The Skyrocket being so close to T-Mobile's version is off to a great start in that department. I had an Atrix before, so I'm used to waiting anyway. With other carriers releasing HTC devices with 1.5ghz makes me feel like there will be a new HTC LTE device being rolled out shortly.
none yet.
I broke the screen on my Dell Streak back in March.
Heard about the HTC Holiday 2 days later.
Waited months for it to come to the US... all the while using a phone with a broken screen.
Became upgrade eligible in August...
I finally gave up waiting and bought the SGSII...
12 hours later (no, i'm not joking.) AT&T announced the Vivid(Holiday)...
I kept the SGSII for a week, seeing if it's annoying over-saturation and ultra light weight would grow on me...
Bought the Vivid on Launch Day.
---------- Post added at 01:38 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:35 PM ----------
GTTG_Atomik said:
With other carriers releasing HTC devices with 1.5ghz makes me feel like there will be a new HTC LTE device being rolled out shortly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I wouldn't worry about it...
It appears our phone has the 1.5 in it as well, just underclocked to save battery life.
See Here
Skyrocket
PROCESSOR
Manufacturer: Qualcomm
Model: APQ 8060
Clock speed: 1.5 GHz
Number of cores: 2
Vivid
PROCESSOR
Manufacturer: Qualcomm
Model: APQ 8060
Clock speed: 1.2 GHz
Number of cores: 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
HTC has done that before, underclock to save battery.
Nothing so far, everything work as expected, Wifi, GPS, call quality is great. I like the weight on the thing, don't really like litght phones, it's just me.
Sent from my HTC Vivid via Tapatalk
i switched from the iphone 4 and im kinda wanting to go back to it, but i think its just that im not use to android and im gonna give it time. the phone though i like a lot, its the browser and mail apps that bug me.
I wholeheartedly regret my decision, for now anyways....see the data connection problems thread.
Sent from my HTC PH39100 using Tapatalk
This year I've had iPhone 4, inspire, galaxy SII and now the vivid.Every phone has its issues just be patient when they get a perm root and devs get on it , its going to be amazing.
Sent from my HTC PH39100 using xda premium
None, somehow the Vivid feels more complete for me as a phone, maybe i am one of those few who love sense. i dont really care much of development, to me the phone works
Switch from crappy since launch day,love the sense. Always wanted a HTC,and it's as good as expected.
As for development,it's only out for a week. HTC is known to be the fastest mgf to release update,no worry. Not to mention HTC already already announce we will have ICS January.
Sent from my HTC PH39100 using XDA App
Yeah I have to say I love this phone! Came from an atrixand wow, what an improvement. I know we get lower benchmarks but honestly its way better IMO, fast UI and smoother... Can't wait for Roms oh baby
Sent from my HTC PH39100 using xda premium
A benchmark to make ppl happy
Also battery life
Sent from my HTC PH39100 using xda premium
The phone's great for me so far. The only regret I have is the audio quality recorded from the camcorder, it's bad... I thought I'd be able to make it sound better by turning stereo recording off like I did on my Sensation, but unfortunately I was wrong. Hopefully this will be fixed in the future by HTC or developers. :l
So far I love the phone. My only complaint is the less than stellar battery life, but everything else is good, and my battery life seems to be getting better now that it's gone through a few charge cycles & I'm starting to return to using it as a normal phone and not a new gadget! I don't seem to have any of the connectivity problem others complain about, but I'm pretty sure at this point that's a network thing, because the Skyrocket experiences the same issues sometimes. The screen is nice and bright as far as I'm concerned (dare I say it's rather vivid?), and I like the qHD resolution. I think the speaker's plenty loud enough & call quality's pretty good. And overall I'm just a fan of HTC's Sense over Samsung's TouchWiz. Now if only we could manage to unlock the bootloader!
bjg222 said:
So far I love the phone. My only complaint is the less than stellar battery life, but everything else is good, and my battery life seems to be getting better now that it's gone through a few charge cycles & I'm starting to return to using it as a normal phone and not a new gadget! I don't seem to have any of the connectivity problem others complain about, but I'm pretty sure at this point that's a network thing, because the Skyrocket experiences the same issues sometimes. The screen is nice and bright as far as I'm concerned (dare I say it's rather vivid?), and I like the qHD resolution. I think the speaker's plenty loud enough & call quality's pretty good. And overall I'm just a fan of HTC's Sense over Samsung's TouchWiz. Now if only we could manage to unlock the bootloader!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep... what he said! Word for word, that's exactly how I feel about the phone too. Thanks for typing that up for me
SnoopHogg said:
Yep... what he said! Word for word, that's exactly how I feel about the phone too. Thanks for typing that up for me
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Haha, glad I could save your fingers some effort!
Coming from a Tilt 2, this phone is amazing! No more worrying about running out of memory. No more watching the battery guage go from 100% to 70% just by sitting on my nightstand overnight! No more typing and watching the letters show up on the screen 5 seconds later! Also, I love the qHD screen.
For my first Android phone, I think I made a wise choice!
I have no regrets about the phone, but getting angrier by the day about the bootloader. Seems absurd that htcdev doesn't have the unlock tool on day 1, let alone day 10, especially since its brother models are up there. Grumble, grumble...
I went to the Vivid from my trusty Inspire. The Vivid doesn't seem to be as sturdy as the Inspire, but still a nice phone. The 1.2 GHz dual core proc keeps everything running slick and smooth, but all that power sure generates some heat! This thing gets super hot when I run GPS, Bluetooth Audio, and other stuff at the same time. As soon as this thing gets an AOSP rom... it will be great!
-TH
I regret getting this phone, but I couldn't tell you a better option it's so hard to tell with phones without living with one for a week beforehand, and I don't have that luxury. I am displeased with some things within this phone to the point where I would move if I was given the option. I look at other phones and really I couldn't tell if I would actually like them once I had them.
If I could get an android from Telstra with a full slide out keyboard, that wasn't a low/mid range 450Mhtz snooze fest, I would jump ship so very quickly, I'm a fan of physical keyboards. Next time around though I think my main guiding factor will be stock android (ie a Nexus of some variety, or a phone that gets stock android asap)
Pro's
1. Camera is pretty nice, microphone is rubbish for vid, but the picture quality is very nice
2. Battery is pretty good under ICS, no android has awesome battery, but this I am finding pleasantly surprising.
3. Lots of internal space for apps and media
4. microSD card slot.
5. LTE, in Australia this is the only LTE handset currently available.
6. MHL compatibility is pretty nice with video output to HDMI via the adaptor.
7. Cheap accessories from ebay, covers and stuff are common, they are however unheard-of in shops in Australia, cant even get a screen protector or a cover from Telstra themselves, and they offer no solution beyond ebay
Con's
1. This is the first "sense" android I have used long term, and I gave it a good run but I hate sense so very much, and the ICS update to sense 3.6 made sense worse for me, sure its lighter and faster now, but features I want are now gone. I came from mostly using GB MIUI on a HTC HD2 to this phone with sense, and sense is just so far behind MIUI it's not even funny, sense feels like winmo 6.5, I was so disappointed.
2. Due to many reasons, not necessarily the handsets fault, the development options and ROM selection is quite limited, I came from a HTC HD2, which could run anything under the sun, and had developers coming out of the wazoo, even supported dual-booting and running ROM's from the SD card, including full desktop operating systems, I miss that hack-ability of the HD2.
3. The back cover falls off all the damn time, I can't get the damn thing to stick. Even if under another cover, it slides up and interferes with the speaker and the flash/lens of the camera, all of a sudden my photos are darker and I'll be like, wait not again, YES THE DAMNED BACK COVER AGAIN! This is a retarded design.
4. HTC's version of exchange email support is rubbish, the stock android app is miles ahead of it, I don't know why they feel they need to rewrite it because they replace awesome with mediocre.
5. USB mounting of the drives are hit and miss, sometimes both volumes don't mount, or none mount, other times they are good for 50 disconnection/reconnection in a row.
6. on the stock OTA update for ICS, issues with the screen remaining dull/not adjusting properly and all of the missing options that GB had are driving me nuts.
7. if I roll back to GB and attach my phone to exchange using the same account, I can install APK's still, under ICS with the same account, the security option is hidden from me... I can no longer install APK's under ICS.
8. whilst streaming music to my A2DP car adapter, I cannot find any way to get the email notifications to NOT interfere with the music, even if I remove all notifications it still makes the music "skip" slightly when an email comes in... this is frustrating, thought I feel it is an ICS issue as this wasn't a problem with GB.
Just my experience, if someone offered to swap a galaxy nexus I'd probably jump at the opportunity, and I'm kicking myself that I didn't take it (it was an option available at the time I needed a new phone).
I currently have a Charge and I love every aspect of it... except for the connectivity. I have a friend with a Droid X and he consistently gets better signal with it... when I have nothing he has 3g 2 bars, when I have 1x 1 bar he has 3g 3 bars etc. Also, the gps is absolute crap. I would look at the DX2 but its a derp... and I would be paying full retail so no bionic or razr for me.
Would the D3 be worth my time? All I know about it is that motorola makes superior antennas and such but the screen sucks compared to the charge.
YEs
I went from an Epic to the Droid 3, I would have to saw the Droid 3 was a worthwhile upgrade. Make sure you play with it at the store to confirm you dont mind the UI, I much prefer it over Touchwiz 3.0. Unless you use GoLauncher or ADW then that doesnt matter. Also check it out at the store to see if you dont mind the screen, if they dont have a droid 3 on display, the bionics is very similiar. Its all up to preference on some of that. (typed this in a hurry so I hope it makes sense)
anarchy4sale said:
I went from an Epic to the Droid 3, I would have to saw the Droid 3 was a worthwhile upgrade. Make sure you play with it at the store to confirm you dont mind the UI, I much prefer it over Touchwiz 3.0. Unless you use GoLauncher or ADW then that doesnt matter. Also check it out at the store to see if you dont mind the screen, if they dont have a droid 3 on display, the bionics is very similiar. Its all up to preference on some of that. (typed this in a hurry so I hope it makes sense)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks. I HATE touchwiz and from what I've seen, Motoblur or whatever they call it would be a significant improvement. I personally use go launcher. Also Ive seen my friends' droid 1 and 2s and i think I would be fine with those. I will assume the D3 is very similar but larger (I like the size of my charge).
Okay I came from tbolt...but I love this phone the keyboard is so nice. Im a die hard aosp guy and I love the new motoblur the virtual keyboard is awesome...the battery life is decent on this phone too unlike all htc phones.
Sent from my DROID3 using Tapatalk
I have a droid 3 coming from a nexus one and despite the lag in speed, the return of the qwerty keyboard was a major plus for me. I can live with the touch screen only but its does not replace a tangible keyboard.
I have been using the DROID 3 for a few months now and I love it. Many people have complained about the screen and while it is not the best I've seen, it isn't as bad as it has been made out to be. I guess I figured if I wanted to watch a video in HD, why use a 4 inch screen? There were battery and data connectivity issues initially, but these have both seemingly been resolved with the last OTA update. The keyboard is fantastic, mostly because I can't stand using a virtual keyboard. As far as UI goes, the stock one isn't terrible, but I still am using A DW. That is until Hashcode finalizes his CM7 build (very close now).
Side note: The radio hack that they have for it making wired tethering and wireless hotspot work for free are also fantastic!
Sent from my DROID3 using XDA App
For those of you stating decent battery life, are you turning off the GSM radio? I know that was a problem on my friends D2 where it wouldn't last a day because the GSM radio kept searching for a signal. I don't know if its on by default or if he managed to turn it on.
I don't like "decent" battery, seeing as its a 3g phone and 4g on the Charge sucks the battery hard, with a "decent" rating also.
...
I go 33 hours, and still had 34% left, with average usage.
512MB RAM sucks, but others are very good.
Root it and Rom it.
MavRom has the best battery life I've seen, I've had this phone since launch day. The keyboard is incredible and you can actually get REAL work done with it. I typed up a 200+ serial number spreadsheet the other day at work and only lost maybe 20% battery over the course of 4 hours, this was with MavRom.
As for the screen, you can't even see the pentile when playing videos and honestly I'm used to it already. 512MB of RAM hasn't been an issue for me, at all.
I got the D3 as a replacement for my D2. Only two complaints: increased size, and increased weight.
Other than that, this phone is AMAZING. Operating speed is faster, I believe the screen looks nicer (which may be because it is bigger), and my battery life has been much better than on my D2. I went to work today at 8am and came home at 9pm with battery still around 90%. Can't complain at all!!!