ICS and Droid 4

[ColoradoJack]

Hi All

I'm new to the forum and relatively new to the Smartphone scene.

I purchased a Samsung Stratosphere 90 days ago and on the advice of Verizon personal was going to exchange it at Costco for a Droid 4. I really like and want the physical keyboard so my choices are narrowed down for me.

The Strat is a nice phone when it works correctly, the main issue I've had with it is call quality. 80% of the time it's good, the rest of the time the signal is weak, drops or the call is warbled. Verizon staff replaced the SM card and suggested that if I want the best call quality with a physical keyboard to go with the Droid 4.

Last night I had my mind made up to go forward with the Droid 4 replacement at Costco (90 days to return) and at the last minute I thought I'd check one last time about Droid 4 reviews and I found out about the ICS update and what appears to be many unpleasant issues...so my question is should I stick with the Strat?

Are the ICS issues being overblown?

It seems that if one does the factory reset the ICS update is a non issue? Is this correct?

We will be getting two phones, another for the wife, who has much less patience with dealing with technical stuff then me.

Even though Costco will probably allow me an extra day or two to make the switch to another phone I don't want to push my luck if I want to make the no cost switch to a Droid 4.

 

[Psxmoe]

Its not that bad after you update to 4.0.4 > factory reset > Root > Freeze all the Bo Dangus Apps and its actually like having a competent phone again!

 

[cthunder]

"Last night I had my mind made up to go forward with the Droid 4 replacement at Costco (90 days to return) and at the last minute I thought I'd check one last time about Droid 4 reviews and I found out about the ICS update and what appears to be many unpleasant issues...so my question is should I stick with the Strat?" No, The Droid 4 is an awesome phone. My only complaint is battery life. But I downloaded toggle on/off switch for 4g and that helps.

"Are the ICS issues being overblown?"
Yes, while there are some issues. The majority of us aren't having the issues others are.

"It seems that if one does the factory reset the ICS update is a non issue? Is this correct?"
For the most part yes. I am fortunate that I didn't have to do a factory reset. I haven't had any problems with the ICS update.

See if Costco or Verizon has floor model with ICS already installed and play around with the phone if at all possible.

And you don't NEED to root (unless you want to) your phone to get it to work. Like I said my works fine and I am not rooted.

 

[Quick]

I just went to ICS (OTA) on my Droid 4 last week. I'm still getting acclimated but overall I think it's a huge improvement over GB.
(I did do a factory reset to clear up whatever I had done rooted in order to get the OTA from the server).
Things do seem to run and load much faster and battery usage seems to be the same for me.
Biggest thing (for me) is that I MUCH prefer the look and feel, organization, settings, etc.
I have always used 3rd party email, txting and pda type apps so I can't comment on those changes.
I don't use the camera (ok, on rare occassions I do remember the phone has one).
The screen does seem greatly improved... I guess it's the Robo font (or whatever it's called).
Seems to be a pretty sure thing that the Droid 4 will be getting JB in the future so there is that as well.

 

[Twisted4u]

Droid 4 is great ics runs smooth for me no probs. but even if it was crashing every min i would still much rather have the droid 4 then the cheaply made infents toy called the stratospere.

 

[ColoradoJack]

Thanks guys, that's kind of what I was hoping to hear.

Like I said I'm new at this and not sure of some of the lingo, like rooting and OTA.

The wife and I just want a solid reliable phone that, #1 works well as a phone, then has email and IM capability, GPS Navigation is a biggie for me and I'm doing well with the free Google Navigation system. Good internet capability is important too, we are in Metro Denver so it's mostly 4G coverage...which of course is sweet. While at the house it connects to my wireless system and the Strat has been good so far for the limited internet use while at home.

I haven't bothered with the camera....and don't know if I ever will.

I think I'll go ahead and make the plunge to the D4 either later today or first thing tomorrow.

Costco is telling me they have to mail mine to me since it's an exchange and it will take 3-5 business days, I'm not sure about the wife's new one? And they are going to setup my old flip phone to get me through the interim.

I'll report back in when I get and let you know how I think it compares to the Strat.

 

[ColoradoJack]

The two Droid 4's arrived yesterday. So far so good, there are some learning curve differences between it and the Stratosphere.

So far I'm thinking the phone/people interface in the Strat was easier, cleaner and simpler.

For some reason the Droid 4's are not getting the same signal strength (amount of bars) from the Network Extender that I got on the Strat, I'm not sure what's up with that. I do notice that when I make a call I get more bars and then bars drop again when I disconnect? I don't know what's up with that, but it seems to work and the call quality is good so far.

We did receive these with the ICS update installed and they seem to be working fine out of the box...

 

[Quick]

Good internet capability is important too, we are in Metro Denver so it's mostly 4G coverage...which of course is sweet. While at the house it connects to my wireless system and the Strat has been good so far for the limited internet use while at home.

I did that until I got my Droid 4 with LTE. Unless the amount of data is a constraint you will probably find yourself using 4G at home too instead of the WiFi.

I subscribe to the 12? Mbps u-verse service which usually measures somewhere around 9 - 11 Mbps download and 1.3 Mbps upload.
Right now I'm on a free 6 month 18? Mbps U-verse promotion which usually measures somewhere around 14 - 17 Mbps download and 1.5 Mbps upload.
4G LTE is comparable to my WiFi on download (lol, right now I'm measuring 21 Mbps download) but it's always at least 4 times better on upload. Occasionally up to the high teens. and leaving the WiFi off saves battery. Normally upload isn't really a factor for most people but I do stuff like a nightly backup of my phone to dropbox and it's much faster over 4G.