Got my Today

[mikeyonline]

Holy Smokes this phone is thin and light. Coming from a Droid Inc. with the extended battery. Not much bigger then my old DInc. Screen is awesome. Colors are really nice.

Letting it charge up right now. One thing I noticed is that I changed the networks from Global to CDMA/LTE and it wouldn't connect to any towers....Had to switch it back to Global.

 

[phositadc]

Is this by doing *#*#4636#*#*?

If you switch LTE off by choosing CDMA only, does that work? Or are you literally forced to leave the LTE and HSPA radios on permanently?

 

[mikeyonline]

No option for CDMA only under data networks. LTE stays on all the time.

 

[Scout_313]

Is this by doing *#*#4636#*#*?

You can also download an app called Phone Info to get into that menu and change the network connection. I used it on my former Galaxy S III and it worked well.

 

[phositadc]

Oh wow that's pretty bad if you are in an area that switches back and forth a lot. I assume the app "LTE OnOff" doesn't work either?

Btw unrelated but can you confirm whether the notification led blinks for email, messages, missed calls, etc? I saw a video review that said it only blinks for low battery which seems wrong, but I want to confirm.

 

[mikeyonline]

It blinks for for notifications. Nice bright Green led.

 

[phositadc]

Great thanks. Btw I was just at a vzw store and I think you can turn LTE off. Hit *#*#4636#*#* then go into info and scroll down a bit. I had the option of setting to CDMA only. I assume it actually works but the store I was at wasn't getting LTE anyways so I can't confirm, but please somebody give it a try and report back!

 

[Scout_313]

That does work, and the app I mentioned in my previous post gets you to that menu without having to dial the number.

Link: https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...Im15Yy5waG9uZS5QaG9uZUluZm8iXQ&token=rvcky-_f..

 

[phositadc]

That does work, and the app I mentioned in my previous post gets you to that menu without having to dial the number.

Link: https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...Im15Yy5waG9uZS5QaG9uZUluZm8iXQ&token=wfSes0W1..

Cool. I wonder how much better the already-good battery life will be with lte turned off...

 

[Scout_313]

I was at 9:43:00 of time off the battery with 2:10:00 of screen on time running on LTE. I've had the original Droid RAZR, Galaxy S III, and Galaxy Nexus and can say that this phone has better battery life than all 3 of them thus far. With that kind of usage, the Galaxy Nexus would have shut itself off.

 

[keewee10]

It blinks for for notifications. Nice bright Green led.

The color can actually be customized... (I set up custom colors using Handcent)

I haven't done a ton with the phone yet, but the camera is giving me serious pause... it's just THAT bad... I'm not someone who needs the best of the best, but I was playing with the Incredible 4g in the store (trying to make my decision between the two) and it has a fantastic camera! It's my only complaint, thusfar, but it's a big one...

However, the screen on the razr m won me over... I pulled up pioneer woman (food blog - very very picture & text heavy) on both phones and held them next to eachother... The razr m won by a landslide...

For the person asking about covers - I got the typical rubberized cover... came in purple and black... Seems to fit mostly ok - i'm not 100% sure about the top edge though - it doesnt seem to grip quite enough... The screen protectors they've branded for this phone are a joke though... its just a rectangle which is slightly smaller than the screen - no cutout for the moto logo, etc and its too small from side to side... might as well be a generic from amazon... however, my phone lives in my bag and gets banged around by keys and loose change on a regular basis, so i couldnt go without...

 

[WAldenIV]

I haven't done a ton with the phone yet, but the camera is giving me serious pause... it's just THAT bad... I'm not someone who needs the best of the best, but I was playing with the Incredible 4g in the store (trying to make my decision between the two) and it has a fantastic camera! It's my only complaint, thusfar, but it's a big one...

This may sound stupid, but I wonder how the camera would perform for light Instagram use. If the photo is merely decent, slapping a filter on it might improve it. The reviews I've seen indicate that outdoor or brightly lit scenes are pretty good but low light shots are weak. Maybe the JB update will tweak the camera settings for better performance. I believe some early Moto Droid cameras got better with OS updates.

 

[keewee10]

This may sound stupid, but I wonder how the camera would perform for light Instagram use. If the photo is merely decent, slapping a filter on it might improve it. The reviews I've seen indicate that outdoor or brightly lit scenes are pretty good but low light shots are weak. Maybe the JB update will tweak the camera settings for better performance. I believe some early Moto Droid cameras got better with OS updates.

Planning to play with sunlight/instagram later today and will report back...

As for the JB update, I honestly dont know - Camera360 tells me that my phone doesnt support light sensitivity or metering. No idea if that's something that can change with an OS update or not...

***ETA*** played around outside and with Instagram & Camera360... The stock camera seems fine outside, but the low light was just awful - i was finding that the phone cant really focus properly in low/artifical light... However, I started using Camera360 and found SIGNIFICANT improvement in the low-light pictures - both in how they look and in focus... Throwing an instagram filter over anything makes it look different, so there is always that option too... I think i'm going to try using Camera360 to take all of my pictures and go from there... However, it seems like enough of an improvement that barring any issues, i'll probably keep the phone rather than return it for the dinc4g...

 

[mikeyonline]

Been running on LTE all day boat 7 hours and battery is still showing about 88% life left

Sent from my XT907 using Android Central Forums

 

[Notrega]

I have been running 9+ hours, 4G on all the time and just dropped below 15%.

Screen has been on 3 hours and 38 minutes...

Bunch of email, texts, light web surfing, and pretty heavy RSS reading.

I am using the smart actions and it seems to help.

Pretty satisfied so far. Leaps and bounds over the Thunderbolt.

Sent from my XT907 using Android Central Forums

 

[mikeyonline]

13 hours and still going strong

Sent from my XT907 using Android Central Forums

 

[Notrega]

13 hours and still going strong

Sent from my XT907 using Android Central Forums

:what:

:beer::thumbup:

Sent from my XT907 using Android Central Forums

 

[Scout_313]

Here's today's usage. Pretty darn good if I may say so.

 

[WAldenIV]

I received my M's in the mail yesterday. I got the black one and my wife got the white one. Overall, I love the phone so far. It's so much snappier than my Droid X. The screen is bright and the colors pop. I now understand the conflicted statements in reviews that said the screen was great but pentile sucks. If I hold it up to my face, I see the crappy pentile. Normal use I don't even notice or care.

Here are a few random observations and questions that I need to dig more into.

1. The white and black phones had different default wallpapers.

2. The white phone makes a little sound when you turn the screen off. The black one doesn't. I've enabled the "lock screen sound" and it didn't do anything.

3. The default volume settings were very different.

4. My phone automatically connected to my secure wifi network at home. I have no idea how it knew the password. It must have synced somehow. My wife's phone required me to enter the password.

5. The phone seems to automatically turn on wifi and connect to available networks. I don't really have a problem with this behavior since I more or less would do it manually. My only concern is that the battery might be taking a hit if the phone is essentially "pinging" for wifi all the time.

6. Does turning on NFC drain the battery, or is it a passive technology?

7. Chrome is slightly different on my Razr M than on my GTab 8.9. I'm going to need to get used to the differences.

8. My phone immediately detected the 4G network with a good signal, even when I was on wifi at home. My wife's phone was on 3G with the occasional bounce to low signal strength 4G until I rebooted the phone. Now her signal strength is the same.

9. So far "Light Flow" has worked to control the LED notification. It will take a little time to test each configured setting, but I haven't run into any problems yet. EDIT: Can't do yellow light. Magenta and Green work so far.

10. I love the Smart Actions concept. I'm going to need to dig deeper into customization and configuration options. I wonder if enabling them has any impact on battery life. Much like my wifi concern (#5) I don't want the phone "pinging" for location settings all the time if it will impact the battery life.

11. Last night I only managed to drain the battery to ~62% with several hours of playing around. I know the screen on time was slightly over 2 hours.

 

[Gdwheel]

I have literally owned about every phone on ATT and VZW and this phone is great -- very underrated. It has some limitations and it might not be for everyone (particularly those who fixate on how a smartphone looks on paper), but it works great for me. It is fast, light, great screen, it works great as a phone and unlike just about every android phone I have had, it has great battery life (at least so far). I do not use phone cameras very much, but will try some photos and video. Moto cameras always have disappointed. Again, it works great for me.