:'(
Maybe I am a little more picky than others. Maybe I have just used the phone more in the last 24 hours. I have to say that I am really disappointed in the phone. I am coming from a Droid X, which has its own set of issues, but I think that this phone was actually a step backwards. So, here is my list. I doubt it will make a difference that I post it here, but maybe it will help some of you out. The phone is running version 4.0.2.
First, the Pros:
- Screen looks great
- For the most part, I like ICS. There are some funky things like the menus turn to .'s sometimes, sometimes they are vertical ...'s. I don't know if I like the fact that you never know where the menu will be or what it will look like.
- 4G LTE rocks. I have gotten transfers in both directions at over 20Mb/s. (unfortunately these are not consistent. I have gotten as low as 3Mb/s while standing in the same spot and re-running the test).
- No bloatware on the phone. I can delete everything I want (my X prevents some apps from being deleted, and, forces my top 4 favorites for my browser to be hard coded to Verizon's / Google's links. I can't stand that).
- Integration with Exchange appears to work very well...finally!
Now...the cons... Unfortunately this list is way too long for a phone I have only had 24 hours. Let me say that I don't root the phone and I use as many stock apps as I can. At this point I think it is likely that I will return the phone within my wonderful 14 day window that Verizon gives us. If anyone else has seen any of these issues or has workarounds for something I may have missed, I would love to hear from you!
- Signal Strength
This is not one of the big deals, but it still concerns me. My signal strength is far lower than the Droid X phone sitting right next to it. Thus far I do not think it is causing problems as I have not dropped a call, but I feel like I am right on that edge. Case and point, had 1 bar on the Nexus and 4 on my X.
- Text Messaging
Went to send a text message by hitting the text message Icon at the bottom of the home screen. Brought up the browser. Went back to the home screen, hit it again, brought up email. Went to the Text Message Icon in my list of apps. Hit it, got the browser again. Hit it again and got the camera. Rebooted the phone and it worked perfectly.
- Inconsistent LED for notifications
Sometimes these do not show up at all. When the LED does come on, it blinks very slowly. Slow enough for me to give up and think that I have no messages.
- Gets very hot
This phone gets warm enough that putting it up to your face can be uncomfortable. Fortunately, I rarely do that, but holding it, the phone feels very warm.
- Rebooted
I had the phone for less than an hour. I hooked it up to my bluetooth and was talking. I then went back to the home screen. The call stopped, the phone locked up. After pressing the power button a couple of times it simply rebooted.
- Bricked
Put the phone on the charger at midnight. Checked my calendar, put the phone back to sleep. When I woke up it was dead. No combination of pressing power and volume keys helped. Holding the power button down did not help. I finally had to pull the battery and the phone restarted. Phone appears to work fine, with the exception that it feels sluggish.
- Many times Initial caps does not work
I have had many situations where I have to enter text, so, I click in the edit box and the keyboard comes up. The initial letter is not capitalized. If I hit backspace to erase this letter caps will come back on.
- Volume issues
The speaker is too quiet. While I do not use speakerphone very often, I do use the GPS. The voice for GPS is so quiet you cannot hear it unless the radio is off and the windows are up. I have NEVER had that problem with my Droid I, or my Droid X. Verizon suggested I use a cable and plug it into my radio in the car via the AUX port. When I said then I can't listen to the radio if I do that he said I have to choose. Sorry, not a solution.
- Deletion of mail (especially POP email) is slow, and, painful
The Droid I had this problem. At first you could not delete your email on the server when you delete it on your phone. That was finally fixed, then it took forever to delete POP items. They fixed this on the X, but now there are two design flaws that I have noticed. Mind you, these work perfect on my X. First, deletion is very slow. In the morning I may have 20 spams I need to kill (let's not get into the spam conversation). I select all 20 items and hit delete. I can literally watch them get deleted one or two at a time. Each one takes about 1/2 to 1 second, so, this takes about 10 - 20 seconds to complete. At that time I cannot use my email app at all. This is terrible. Secondly, and probably one of the major reasons the phone goes back, all the items that are deleted end up in my deleted items folder. At this point I have maybe 40 items in the folder. There is NO empty deleted items folder menu choice, NO select all menu choice. So basically, I have to (for the second time) select each email I just deleted, click in the check box (which is a very tiny area), and then hit delete again. More often than not you accidentally click on the mail item itself (because the check box is small), and you end up bringing up the email. Very frustrating and amazing that nobody thought about clearing out your deleted items.
- Very slow at times
There have been times that the phone is just out-to-lunch for a few seconds at a time. Clicking on an app, moving between home screens, etc. The phone with a dual core 1.2GHz processor should always be snappy
- Scrolling not as smooth as on the X
Scrolling feels like someone left the breaks on. On my X I can flick a page and it will scroll several screens full. On the Nexus, it slows down and stops too quickly. This is not at all a showstopper, but I feel the implementation could have been done better.
- "Now where did the menu go?"
Not a big fan of the ICS moving menus. Sometimes the menu button is gone, sometimes it is on the bottom right, and sometimes it is at the top, almost to the right. This all depends on what app you are running. Sometimes the menus shrink to a simple . to save space (I kind of am okay with this since they don't move). Again, not a showstopper, just not sure I am a fan.
- Power button
Okay, this is a nit. I think the positioning is wrong. When you hit the power button you almost always press one of the volume buttons. Simply put, for me to comfortably hold the phone, I put my thumb on the power button and my pointer finger naturally rests on the volume up button. Pressing in the power button pushes the phone toward my pointer finger, which, pushes in the volume up button. Not sure I like the design.
So, there you have it. Not sure I am going to keep the phone, but it does not appear likely. I would love to hear from others to see if they have experienced the same issue.
Thanks!
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