Upgrade from Maxx to Maxx HD - My thoughts

[McIrish]

I just got the Razr Maxx HD this afternoon. I've been pretty happy with my older Maxx but being a phone guy at a company, I just felt like I needed to try the newer model>
In many ways they are similar. The size is nearly the same. i was super impressed by the brightness of the screen till I realized they had it set from the factory at 100% brightness. Even so, the screen it better than on the Maxx. Small text is clearer and easier to read. They did do some changes that I'm not so sure about yet.

Pages
They made the home page the left most page instead of the center page.
If you scroll left of the home page, you get to Quick Settings. That's kind of nice
It appears you can add as many pages as you want and remove any unused ones too. I like that
They took away the animation of the wallpaper as you scroll through screens. It now is static/the same on all pages; I'm not sure how I feel about that.

SD Card
The removable SD card is now under a door like the iPhone has. It looks nicer and won't pop open accidentally. I was able to use my 64GB card, even though they said it can only use a 32GB SD card. I formated it on my computer for Fat32 and I'm fine.

Notification LED
At first I wondered if they took it away, then it went off. Can't miss it now. It's a whole section right under the speaker. I like it. Easy to see from across the room. ` Used it overnight, and it is pretty bright. I put a sock over the top of it to prevent it from waking me. I wish Android had the ability to create profiles like a Blackberry does. That way, I could have all notifications turned off while I sleep. Yes, I know about light flow. It just never worked as well as I wanted it to.

Gallery
The new gallery app loads up instantly and is very smooth, unlike the one on my Maxx. I'm liking that a lot.

Call Quality
It seems to be clearer and a bit louder than the Maxx. maybe its just my settings but I sometimes had a hard time hearing on the Maxx. The Maxx HD seems better in that regard too.

more to come......

And more:
Email
The email client is better. It now shows different colored icons in the notification bar so I can instantly see which of my email accounts has a new message. (I have 4)
I can now have different ring tones and the ability to have it vibrate only on some accounts and not globally

Next day update:
The installed clock app is worthless. It no longer allows you to use music as the alarm. That's pretty odd. I can't understand why they would change that, but it was a simple fix by downloading one of 10,000 alarm clock apps.

Battery life:
I don't have any facts about that yet. It seemed about normal compared to my Maxx. I should know more today.

 

[sicario666]

Thanks for the review. Id like to stay up to date on this thread. I love my maxx but I'm also looking at the maxx HD.

Transmitted from the cutting edge of my electronic shaving device

 

[revtech]

Ugh, yes, I want to follow this too. I'm due for an upgrade and thought I wanted the M, but my son has the maxx and given that the screen sizes are the same I think I'd rather have a little bezel to hang onto (maxx) . . . and given that is the maxx hd enough of an upgrade to warrant the extra $?

So now that I know someone who has seen the maxx hd I have a question; the screen is supposedly bigger (4.7 vs 4.3) but the physical dimensions of the device are the same. It looks to me like all they did is put the back/home/etc keys on the bottom of the larger screen as opposed to on the device like the maxx . . . So . . . is the actual screen real estate any bigger on the maxx hd?

Thanks for your reply =)

 

[revtech]

Ugh, yes, I want to follow this too. I'm due for an upgrade and thought I wanted the M, but my son has the maxx and given that the screen sizes are the same I think I'd rather have a little bezel to hang onto (maxx) . . . and given that is the maxx hd enough of an upgrade to warrant the extra $?

So now that I know someone who has seen the maxx hd I have a question; the screen is supposedly bigger (4.7 vs 4.3) but the physical dimensions of the device are the same. It looks to me like all they did is put the back/home/etc keys on the bottom of the larger screen as opposed to on the device like the maxx . . . So . . . is the actual screen real estate any bigger on the maxx hd?

Thanks for your reply =)

 

[McIrish]

Ugh, yes, I want to follow this too. I'm due for an upgrade and thought I wanted the M, but my son has the maxx and given that the screen sizes are the same I think I'd rather have a little bezel to hang onto (maxx) . . . and given that is the maxx hd enough of an upgrade to warrant the extra $?

So now that I know someone who has seen the maxx hd I have a question; the screen is supposedly bigger (4.7 vs 4.3) but the physical dimensions of the device are the same. It looks to me like all they did is put the back/home/etc keys on the bottom of the larger screen as opposed to on the device like the maxx . . . So . . . is the actual screen real estate any bigger on the maxx hd?

Thanks for your reply =)

I was wondering the same thing before I bought it. I do think it was a good upgrade. The screen is larger. When you play back a movie, the bottom buttons disappear so the movie can take up the whole screen. With the battery life, the screen, the improved apps, the better signal (than SG3), I think this may be the best phone available right now. At least for me. I did take a long look at the SG3. Its pretty slick looking, but it feels a bit fragile. the guy at the store said he would not recommend it in our area as they are getting a lot of returns due to dropped calls and signal just disappearing. I can't take a chance as this phone is vital to my job. So far, I'm very happy with the Razr Maxx HD.

 

[HES]

Got mine and so far so good. I came from a Rezound. While I was happy with it, I was unhappy with the fact that if you have the extended battery you wind up not having any choices for a durable case like an Otterbox Defender. My kids had the MAXX but I wasn't thrilled with the screen. So when this came out I bought one to try it out and am very happy. One thing that I now realize I was missing out on with with the Rezound is the speaker. Holy Moley the speaker on my MAXX HD is a lot louder than what I had on the Rez. Now I just need to find a few things like:

A flashlight app.

Calculator widget. I can't believe there isn't one right off the bat.

Emergency Contact on lock screen. Something that my daughter has on her MAXX but I cant find here. On the lock screen it provides the ability for a first responder to instantly access her emergency contact info. Any idea how to accomplish this with the HD?

 

[Eclipse2K]

I was using Battery Indicator Pro but now with the exact percentage shown on the home screen clock I'm so happy!

Sent from my DROID RAZR HD using Tapatalk 2

 

[jroc]

Yea I noticed in a video review the Gallery app seems alot smoother than on any Motorola Android phone before. Thats a plus.

Nice write up. I will be coming from a regular RAZR.

 

[techgeek32#WN]

Picked one up this morning. Comparing to Nexus and SGIII. Screen is brighter than both of them. Much brighter than Nexus, slightly more than yhe SGIII. Not as bright as the original Maxx. Bluetooth connects quicker and more reliably with car kit and HTC bluetooth media adapter than SGIII (have to connect the stereo manually every time), but about the same as Nexus. Call quality through car kit is slightly better than the Nexus and much better than SGIII with my 2011 Nissan Maxima. Not crystal clear. Signal decibals about the same as Nexus and slightly better than SGIII. Speaker is loud! Twice as loud as the SGIII and about 5 times louder than Nexus. Streaming music with Slacker and Rhapsody through car bluetooth is louder and more base than the other two. SGIII is slightly better than the Nexus. Build quality is solid and better than the Nexus and SGIII. Heavier than both. About the same width as Nexus, but not as wide as SGIII. Much easier to use with one hand due to the grippy feel of the kevlar back over the slippery Nexus. The Maxx has some lag compared to Nexus with JB and the SGIII. Should be smoother after JB update. Blur is close to stock Android, but syncs Facebook contacts and uses the stock Android calendar app. Smart Actions is more valuable to me than the SGIII gimmicks and the Email blows away the others. Select all and delete all options. Has the black background option and different color alerts on screen for different email accounts. Has a bunch of bloatware that cant be disabled, comes with Quick Office.

Speedtest.net scores averaged 25-32MB down and 15MB up. Wifi signal seems ok and slightly better than the others. Music through wired and bluetooth headphones is loud and has good bass. I purchased the car dock. It fits both the razr hd and maxx hd. Excellent quality, but I hate the new Motorola car dock software. The old Maxx was better. You cant replace any of the home screen apps, so you have to make several taps to get to music or other apps. The screens dont scroll left and right and the Maps icon does not have the voice search mode front and center. You haveto tap 3 times to get to it. Not efficient or safe while driving. Hopefully JB will change that. I have the Nexus and Maxx both active and will test a few more days. Have had some signal handoff issues when switching from Global to LTE. I have had to reboot the Maxx every time in order for 4G to connect. It is nice not having the hardware button like the SGIII, but the camera is inferior to the SGIII by a large margin. It is only slightly better than the Nexus which is not saying much. I dont take many pix so not a big deal for me. I dont know if the pluses over the Nexus are enough to spend the $649 in order to keep my unlimited data. I will provide some more feedback in the coming days.

 

[techgeek32#WN]

Picked one up this morning. Comparing to Nexus and SGIII. Screen is brighter than both of them. Much brighter than Nexus, slightly more than yhe SGIII. Not as bright as the original Maxx. Bluetooth connects quicker and more reliably with car kit and HTC bluetooth media adapter than SGIII (have to connect the stereo manually every time), but about the same as Nexus. Call quality through car kit is slightly better than the Nexus and much better than SGIII with my 2011 Nissan Maxima. Not crystal clear. Signal decibals about the same as Nexus and slightly better than SGIII. Speaker is loud! Twice as loud as the SGIII and about 5 times louder than Nexus. Streaming music with Slacker and Rhapsody through car bluetooth is louder and more base than the other two. SGIII is slightly better than the Nexus. Build quality is solid and better than the Nexus and SGIII. Heavier than both. About the same width as Nexus, but not as wide as SGIII. Much easier to use with one hand due to the grippy feel of the kevlar back over the slippery Nexus. The Maxx has some lag compared to Nexus with JB and the SGIII. Should be smoother after JB update. Blur is close to stock Android, but syncs Facebook contacts and uses the stock Android calendar app. Smart Actions is more valuable to me than the SGIII gimmicks and the Email blows away the others. Select all and delete all options. Has the black background option and different color alerts on screen for different email accounts. Has a bunch of bloatware that cant be disabled, comes with Quick Office.

Speedtest.net scores averaged 25-32MB down and 15MB up. Wifi signal seems ok and slightly better than the others. Music through wired and bluetooth headphones is loud and has good bass. I purchased the car dock. It fits both the razr hd and maxx hd. Excellent quality, but I hate the new Motorola car dock software. The old Maxx was better. You cant replace any of the home screen apps, so you have to make several taps to get to music or other apps. The screens dont scroll left and right and the Maps icon does not have the voice search mode front and center. You haveto tap 3 times to get to it. Not efficient or safe while driving. Hopefully JB will change that. I have the Nexus and Maxx both active and will test a few more days. Have had some signal handoff issues when switching from Global to LTE. I have had to reboot the Maxx every time in order for 4G to connect. It is nice not having the hardware button like the SGIII, but the camera is inferior to the SGIII by a large margin. It is only slightly better than the Nexus which is not saying much. I dont take many pix so not a big deal for me. I dont know if the pluses over the Nexus are enough to spend the $649 in order to keep my unlimited data. I will provide some more feedback in the coming days.

Update: I am having serious battery issues on standby. Fully charged at 6am and down to 64% at 8:30am with no use. This is not good. I have the same apps loaded as my Nexus and it is at 96% at he same time. Probablyly some type of software
Glitch. I really dislike the notification light. Way too big, it will light up your bedroom while sleeping. I love everything else about his phone but the batter is a deal breaker if Motorola doesn't fit it.

 

[jneusch]

Picked one up this morning. Comparing to Nexus and SGIII. Screen is brighter than both of them. Much brighter than Nexus, slightly more than yhe SGIII. Not as bright as the original Maxx. Bluetooth connects quicker and more reliably with car kit and HTC bluetooth media adapter than SGIII (have to connect the stereo manually every time), but about the same as Nexus. Call quality through car kit is slightly better than the Nexus and much better than SGIII with my 2011 Nissan Maxima. Not crystal clear. Signal decibals about the same as Nexus and slightly better than SGIII. Speaker is loud! Twice as loud as the SGIII and about 5 times louder than Nexus. Streaming music with Slacker and Rhapsody through car bluetooth is louder and more base than the other two. SGIII is slightly better than the Nexus. Build quality is solid and better than the Nexus and SGIII. Heavier than both. About the same width as Nexus, but not as wide as SGIII. Much easier to use with one hand due to the grippy feel of the kevlar back over the slippery Nexus. The Maxx has some lag compared to Nexus with JB and the SGIII. Should be smoother after JB update. Blur is close to stock Android, but syncs Facebook contacts and uses the stock Android calendar app. Smart Actions is more valuable to me than the SGIII gimmicks and the Email blows away the others. Select all and delete all options. Has the black background option and different color alerts on screen for different email accounts. Has a bunch of bloatware that cant be disabled, comes with Quick Office.

Speedtest.net scores averaged 25-32MB down and 15MB up. Wifi signal seems ok and slightly better than the others. Music through wired and bluetooth headphones is loud and has good bass. I purchased the car dock. It fits both the razr hd and maxx hd. Excellent quality, but I hate the new Motorola car dock software. The old Maxx was better. You cant replace any of the home screen apps, so you have to make several taps to get to music or other apps. The screens dont scroll left and right and the Maps icon does not have the voice search mode front and center. You haveto tap 3 times to get to it. Not efficient or safe while driving. Hopefully JB will change that. I have the Nexus and Maxx both active and will test a few more days. Have had some signal handoff issues when switching from Global to LTE. I have had to reboot the Maxx every time in order for 4G to connect. It is nice not having the hardware button like the SGIII, but the camera is inferior to the SGIII by a large margin. It is only slightly better than the Nexus which is not saying much. I dont take many pix so not a big deal for me. I dont know if the pluses over the Nexus are enough to spend the $649 in order to keep my unlimited data. I will provide some more feedback in the coming days.

I have a GS3 and I am considering changing. Can you tell me if the Maxx HD has any problems with calls via BT with something plugged into the aux port like the GS3? Also, do voice commands go through BT or through the phone mic when BT is connected? These are two big gripes I have with the GS3. I'm interested to find out the story on your battery issue as well. Battery life is my main reason for considering a switch. I bought a bigger battery, but I hate how big it makes my phone.



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[HES]

Update: I am having serious battery issues on standby. Fully charged at 6am and down to 64% at 8:30am with no use. This is not good. I have the same apps loaded as my Nexus and it is at 96% at he same time. Probablyly some type of software
Glitch. I really dislike the notification light. Way too big, it will light up your bedroom while sleeping. I love everything else about his phone but the batter is a deal breaker if Motorola doesn't fit it.

Yeah I am running into the same thing this morning. I ran into a similar situation with my Galaxy. In that case and apparently in this case, the screen is not going completely to sleep.

I have a GS3 and I am considering changing. Can you tell me if the Maxx HD has any problems with calls via BT with something plugged into the aux port like the GS3? Also, do voice commands go through BT or through the phone mic when BT is connected? These are two big gripes I have with the GS3. I'm interested to find out the story on your battery issue as well. Battery life is my main reason for considering a switch. I bought a bigger battery, but I hate how big it makes my phone.

With my Plantronics Voyager Pro BT headset I am not experiencing any problems.

One nice thing that Moto did, they separated the ringer volume controls from the notification volume controls. Remember under ICS they are actually controlled by the same setting. So it makes silencing the notifications when you are asleep but leaving the ringer alone a pain in the butt.

 

[0x04A]

but the camera is inferior to the SGIII by a large margin. It is only slightly better than the Nexus which is not saying much.

Hearing stuff like this in other reviews as well is what makes me wary of picking a Maxx HD up. For the most part I really like what Motorola has done with the Razr line - just wished the camera's were on par with the GS3 or One X.

 

[EnergyPlus]

I think I want this phone badly, but not yet certain. Unfortunately, I home recovering from major heart surgery so my transport opportunities are limited, though that will change the beginning of the week. I've been forced to just keep reading and rereading all the reviews. Like many, I have concerns that temper my desire. First, I'd have to give up my grandfathered data plan or, pay full price for the phone....ouch. Second, until I see the phone, I have MAJOR concerns about the so-called "Super" AMOLED display, I've yet to see one I like. I detest the muted, over-saturated colors with the heavy, yellow-green tint. As a professional photographer of over 30 years, my eyes are "calibrated" as I often say to folks and these things are so obvious to me. I am currently using a Bionic and while the Pentile display is not perfect, the color, gamma/contrast is, next to the iPhone, some of the best out there and I have done side by side comparisons of images from my website on most all the devices. So, we'll see. Next week is my big "graduation" in terms of having limited mobility ("Light, recreational driving"as they put it) and back to living in my own place, which I crave!

 

[CharlieL3]

Here's wishing you a full and speedy recovery!

 

[pblakk]

I think I want this phone badly, but not yet certain. Unfortunately, I home recovering from major heart surgery so my transport opportunities are limited, though that will change the beginning of the week. I've been forced to just keep reading and rereading all the reviews. Like many, I have concerns that temper my desire. First, I'd have to give up my grandfathered data plan or, pay full price for the phone....ouch. Second, until I see the phone, I have MAJOR concerns about the so-called "Super" AMOLED display, I've yet to see one I like. I detest the muted, over-saturated colors with the heavy, yellow-green tint. As a professional photographer of over 30 years, my eyes are "calibrated" as I often say to folks and these things are so obvious to me. I am currently using a Bionic and while the Pentile display is not perfect, the color, gamma/contrast is, next to the iPhone, some of the best out there and I have done side by side comparisons of images from my website on most all the devices. So, we'll see. Next week is my big "graduation" in terms of having limited mobility ("Light, recreational driving"as they put it) and back to living in my own place, which I crave!

Mine has a fair amount of blue-ish tint, mostly when tilting, but it's definitely not like the samsungs I've seen with the muted and yellow-ish green going on, which I do not like. The S3 is pretty nice, but the razr HD is definitely clearer, sharper, and brighter. Just my comparison.

 

[techgeek32#WN]

When using with a Bluetooth carkit, like my nissan Maxima, the voice commands run through the phone speaker, not the car blutooth. When using my Bose earpiece, the voice commands work through it and not the phone speaker.

I removed the Blur Launcher and started using Nova. My battery life has greatly improved. I think some of the problems are coming from that circle clock, weather widget. The screen is the big culprit. LIke the previous poster indicated. The screen is not going to sleep in the background like it should. I will leave it off the charger tonight and see what I have in the morning. If I lose 40-50% again I am taking it back. I am tired of being a guinea pig for these manufacturers.

The display is slightly brigher than the SGIII and looks more like an IPS display than a Super Amoled. The colors are not as saturated as the SGIII, but still not as accurate as the IPS display on the iPhone or LG models. It is not as bright as the original Maxx, but the higher resolution helps. I do like it much more than the Nexus or SGIII. Just wish they could have kicked up the brightness as high as the original Maxx, so it could be used outside.

 

[Eclipse2K]

When using with a Bluetooth carkit, like my nissan Maxima, the voice commands run through the phone speaker, not the car blutooth. When using my Bose earpiece, the voice commands work through it and not the phone speaker.

I removed the Blur Launcher and started using Nova. My battery life has greatly improved. I think some of the problems are coming from that circle clock, weather widget. The screen is the big culprit. LIke the previous poster indicated. The screen is not going to sleep in the background like it should. I will leave it off the charger tonight and see what I have in the morning. If I lose 40-50% again I am taking it back. I am tired of being a guinea pig for these manufacturers.

The display is slightly brigher than the SGIII and looks more like an IPS display than a Super Amoled. The colors are not as saturated as the SGIII, but still not as accurate as the IPS display on the iPhone or LG models. It is not as bright as the original Maxx, but the higher resolution helps. I do like it much more than the Nexus or SGIII. Just wish they could have kicked up the brightness as high as the original Maxx, so it could be used outside.

I removed that widget because its way to big and I feel it has to drain battery.

Sent from my DROID RAZR HD using Tapatalk 2

 

[HES]

Not even 12 hours and I'm down to about 38% power. Not happy. I'm gonna give it a run over the weekend and see if the system finds its "happy place" power wise. Do you think it was disabling have blur or the clock widget that resulted in your power savings?

About the Guinea pig thing, I can see where folks can get that feeling. This is how Iook at it: quality control sucks across the industry. Some folks get phones that never give them a problem. Others get phones that are snake bit from the get go. There is often no logical rhyme or reason to it and it winds up being a crap shoot. It's not just the mobile phone industry either. I and am amertuer competitive shooter and the same exact problem is common with firearms manufacturers. One guy get a Glock or S&W M&P that runs flawlessly and another guy gets one that malfunctions or can't hit the broad side of the barn.

 

[Eclipse2K]

Not even 12 hours and I'm down to about 38% power. Not happy. I'm gonna give it a run over the weekend and see if the system finds its "happy place" power wise. Do you think it was disabling have blur or the clock widget that resulted in your power savings?

About the Guinea pig thing, I can see where folks can get that feeling. This is how Iook at it: quality control sucks across the industry. Some folks get phones that never give them a problem. Others get phones that are snake bit from the get go. There is often no logical rhyme or reason to it and it winds up being a crap shoot. It's not just the mobile phone industry either. I and am amertuer competitive shooter and the same exact problem is common with firearms manufacturers. One guy get a Glock or S&W M&P that runs flawlessly and another guy gets one that malfunctions or can't hit the broad side of the barn.

It should get better but also depends on several factors. Signal being 3G or 4G, is it searching constantly, refresh of applications such as Facebook in the background, screen brightness, internet usage, talk time, screen on time, etc.

I'm at 8 hours and 12 minutes with 51% battery left. My talk time is 35 minutes and 2 hours and 35 minutes of screen time. I've been using the internet and Tapatalk nearly all day when the screen was on and fluctuating between 4G and 3G. Auto screen brightness has been at a high level because I'm constantly in a bright room. This battery has lasted a long time for what I'm doing.

Sent from my DROID RAZR HD using Tapatalk 2