First Impressions/Review Thread

[Cory Streater]

Howdy everyone,

The purpose of this thread, is to hear members thoughts & opinions on how the Motorola Bionic stacks up amongst a suggested list of attributes

• Aesthetics
• Screen
• Hardware
• Phone - including bluetooth & speakerphone usage
• Overall User Interface (including Motoblur)
• Widgets
• Signal quality (Compared to other devices)
• GPS
• Social Networking
• Email/Calendar
• Battery Life
• Performance
• Media (music, movies, DLNA)
• Keyboard's
• Camera (both still & video)
• How the RAZR compares to your previous smartphone (if applicable)
• Disappointments (if any)

Feel free to provide as little or as much detail as possible, while trying to make it as useful as possible. Hopefully this will help others who are considering the RAZR, but would like to hear some user feedback first.

And if you read a review that you found helpful, please use the Thanks button to show them your appreciation!

[kilofox]

Still putting the phone thru its paces. But I can make one observation:

I haven't had a phone this well built since my beloved Nokia N71.

[aweber1nj]

First Impressions:

• Build quality is superb. Nothing feels cheap or weak. As Phil mentioned, I would've liked the side-buttons to be more pronounced too.
• Screen is awesome. Performance is awesome.
• Battery Life concerns me. I came from a D2G, and kept all radios off unless I needed them, even using SetCPU and Tasker to reduce battery usage. I was hoping this phone would let me run for a day with them on. With light/moderate usage yesterday, it was at 20% by 6PM, WiFi enabled all day, BT used sporadically (Smart Action) and SetCPU installed to underclock when display is off, etc. Jury is out on the battery, IMHO. Time will tell.
• Smart Actions are nice. They're like "Tasker Lite", but if you own Tasker, you'll likely want to stick with it for additional control/options.

It's early yet. I think it's an awesome phone, and only the battery really concerns me at this point. Will check-back later this week.

[Cory Streater]

Thanks guys. I'm particularly interested in how the battery life is since it is not accessible to those who would normally want to swap it out.

[No_Smoking]

I don't have a lot of personal experience with smart phones... in fact the Razr is my first smartphone.

Battery life... from what I can tell, if I use it non-stop (downloading apps, email and browsing over wifi, texting and a few calls) Mostly couldn't set it down the first day cause it was just so dang cool! It "should" last the whole day with moderate use.
I'm not a super heavy phone user, so I'm sure others will get a bit less time out of a full charge.

I haven't really anything bad to say about the RAZR. Maybe a few small things that bug me maybe, but that's just personal preference.

I have to say I'm sort of bummed that the USB and HDMI ports are right smack in the top center of the phone. I'm used to having them down at the bottom of the phone. Its understandable its where it has to be though, given that's where "bump" is. It makes taking a call while charging sort of a pain. Also the case I bought with the phone (Otterbox Defender Series) has a belt clip.. there is a small "lip" at the top which covers the ports. Obviously not a huge deal, but something that might annoy some.

The phone is a bit wider than I would like.. I have Arthritis and it tends to be slightly uncomfortable in one hand. Adding a phone case only compounds this issue.
The Menu/Home/Back/Search buttons down at the bottom are a slight annoyance as well. I tend to place my thumb down on the lower right side when I hold it. So the search feature pops up a lot. = /

But again that's personal issues, if one has a large hand, I'm sure you wouldn't run into any of these problems.

Overall, I really like the phone. I foresee using it for a very long time.

[copr165]

Got it a 11:11 am on 11/11/11 because that it when the store opened for the special launch. That very night I was out and was paying for something and had the Razr laying on the counter when the lady said what is that, never saw a phone like that before.

I am not a big Motorola fan and have not had much luck with them. Prefer HTC and was interested in the Rezound, however, I have not had one lag and have put a lot of apps on this phone and put it through it's paces. It it fast, and I mean fast, light, thin and the screen is very clear. Battery seems to be little better than the other 4g phones and as good or better than my iPhone 4S which is 3g.

When I got it I had originally thought about taking it back Monday and maybe swapping for the Rezound because I liked the rounded looks of it but the more I use the Razr I really, really like it although it is so thin I feel like I am going to break it. I have had many, and I mean many, smartphones to the point I am almost smartphone poor but I think this one is one of the best that I have had in a very long time in performance and construction.

I think it is a keeper.

[paul-c]

Battery life has been better than expected, but I came in not expecting the world because it's LTE. Those smart actions do help out the situation. The hardware is great and I really like the screen, it looks beautiful. The black themes throughout Motoblur are cool, and I'm finding myself liking the UI alot. The call quality and radios are excellent, it's really nice to have a Motorola phone again. It's a wider phone, so typing one handed is a little trying. Holding it during calls is nice, though. Overall, it's a stellar phone and I'm happy with my decision.

[xoomer1]

one good thing about the battery, it charges quicker then other phones it seems...I ran it down quick the other day using google maps for navigation, put it on charge when I got home and it seemed to take no time to fully charge

[mule0331]

Ok, After a couple of days with it, here's my 2 cents.

First thing I have noticed is that I have full signal bars in my basement, where I only had 1 bar if I was lucky with my TBolt, so radios get a BIG thumbs up. The screen is nice, but my only gripe is that unless your looking directly at it, the colors seem a little off. I still get data interruption when bouncing between 3 and 4g areas. The phone weights absolutely nothing, and is incredibly thin. I haven't taken too many pics with the cam, but the ones I have taken have come out great. Call quality is what I would have expected from a Moto phone, its great. I've noticed that a couple times I have tried to open an app, but it didn't open. I saw the icon light up, but app didn't open. 1 HUGE flaw I have found, and it might cause me to take it back for an exchange is that while setting up playlists in the music app, the screen starts randomly flashing on and off, and takes a reboot to get it to stop. It's nothing thats going to cause me to run away from the phone, because I dont mess with the playlists enough to really worry about it. I havent set up any smart actions yet and still the battery life has been a lot better than my TBolt. Overall I like the phone and do not regret getting it at all, and would do it all over.

[Liberati0n]

Everything is great my biggest complaint quite literally is the stupidity of the capacitive buttons.

If you put capacitive buttons on a phone, they should be invisible, no point to do anything else.