Interesting. RAZR w/BLURry ICS leak...

[revelated]

works better than the Galaxy Nexus with a "clean" ICS version. Smoother, more efficient, generally superior to what Gingerbread did or what the clean ICS on the Nexus did. I'm not sure why that is. Simple things like scrolling through the app screens is a lot more fluid and less jerky than the Nexus. The annoying vibration on unlock is also a lot tamer. On the Nexus, apps would crash on the regular, and I got tired of games Force Closing the first time every time, too. Now the only negative of the RAZR MAXX is the dpi of the screen.

I only ran into three issues with the ICS upgrade.

• Wallpaper Wizardri (which I depend on to make my non-landscape wallpapers cooperate) freaks out every time I leave an application.

• Memory consumption was at least double what it was on Gingerbread. I think this is because of the active task feature of ICS, which while helpful, doesn't need to keep so many activities. I dealt with this by enabling the destroy after exiting and capped background processes to 2 in the Developer Options. Doesn't seem to negatively affect the phone, but now my free memory stays well above 300MB.

• Mobile Hotspot required me to reboot the first time I enabled it. Not sure what happened there. It had forgotten my Hotspot settings even though everything else was kept.

Overall I'm satisfied. I didn't keep it rooted, but at this point it's not a priority. The only benefit to rooting this would be to remove some of the nonsense apps like VCast Tones, but none of them are running anyway. On a side, the reason I even did it was I was tired of Motorola/Verizon's games with the update, especially given it appears to be functioning quite well.

 

[Apex89]

So what are the major differences between naked ICS on the Nexus and the Motoblur version of ICS? Other than the fact that it feels smoother, which is good to know!

Thanks for the information/insight!

 

[revelated]

Differences?

• Lock Screen
  • Nexus: Slide right to unlock, slide left to use camera
  • BLURry ICS: Slide right to unlock, down to use Messaging, up to use phone, left to use camera, plus a vibrate/sound switch slider (choice)
• Search
  • ​Nexus: Google Search bar at top of every home screen, cannot be removed
  • BLURry ICS: No Google Search bar, but you can add it as a widget (choice)
• Keyboard
  • Nexus: defaults to Android ICS keyboard, no Swype
  • BLURry ICS: defaults to last keyboard you had enabled, Swype included as an option but Swype does not use Google's new Voice Search app which is superior to the old voice engine. Have to use Motorola keyboard or SwiftKey to use Google's Voice Search. Motorola's keyboard is terrible.
• Screen
  • ​Nexus: constant stuttering and lagging when scrolling through apps and widgets. Once you're in an app it's fine (weird).
  • BLURry ICS: Smooth as butter. There is a little lag scrolling through homescreens but not nearly as bad as on the Nexus for some reason.
• Bloat/Built-In Apps
  • ​Nexus: There are NO bloat apps on the Nexus that cannot be removed. There's a few games but you can remove them fairly easily.
  • BLURry ICS: There are a few bloat apps, you can disable them but not remove them. Some apps can't even be disabled, only hidden from view.
• Other
  • Nexus: For some reason some apps like to crash without reason. Not everyone might experience this but mine happens frequently.
  • BLURry ICS: The same apps that crash on Nexus run perfectly fine on the RAZR.

Other than those the two are mostly identical in appearance and function. Nexus uses different icons and a few select menu options but BLUR feels like a slightly modified ICS UI, not heavy, never clunky. The only way you'd know it was BLUR was if you did WebTop. Very impressive.

 

[Dave12308]

• Memory consumption was at least double what it was on Gingerbread. I think this is because of the active task feature of ICS, which while helpful, doesn't need to keep so many activities. I dealt with this by enabling the destroy after exiting and capped background processes to 2 in the Developer Options. Doesn't seem to negatively affect the phone, but now my free memory stays well above 300MB.

Exactly how it should work. Idle memory is wasted memory. There is no reason on earth a device running a Linux OS needs to have a bunch of "free" RAM on hand. If Linux can handle memory management for a whole slew of users at one time, it can handle one Android system.

 

[revelated]

Idle memory is wasted memory.

Incorrect. You must not let the memory you see cloud your judgment on memory handling.

If I have 2GB of RAM and I run a 1GB VM, I expect my RAM to go down to 1GB plus a few. When the VM is closed, I expect that RAM to be released for another application to use it. The problem is that ICS, at least the early builds, doesn't properly release memory for other apps to use, which is what is likely causing the force closures on certain apps that are picky about available RAM. At no time should an OS be using all of the RAM when nothing is running; in my day we called that a memory leak.

 

[mbell75]

I agree that this leaked build (4.0.3) is fantastic and a huge upgrade from GB. No real issues being reported either, I have no clue whats taking so long for them to officially release it. To add to your keyboard comparison, I like the way that anytime you are in a typing field, you will get the keyboard icon in the notification bar. A swipe down and click on it will give you quick access to your other keyboards. So many new features I love and Motorola did an excellent job by balancing their UI with ICS and not going overboard like ooooohhhh I dunno....HTC and Sense?

 

[wolstonc]

This has to be one of the least accurate threads I've read. Have you even touched a nexus? It doesn't come with any pre installed games. Maybe someone played with yours before you got it. It only has Google apps pre installed, and then my vzw and also backup assistant both of which cannot be removed but can be disabled via ics. Also the nexus only has those issues if you put a bad rom and kernel on it. I'm running stock and never had those issues

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using DroidForums

 

[jeff70]

I agree that this leaked build (4.0.3) is fantastic and a huge upgrade from GB. No real issues being reported either, I have no clue whats taking so long for them to officially release it. To add to your keyboard comparison, I like the way that anytime you are in a typing field, you will get the keyboard icon in the notification bar. A swipe down and click on it will give you quick access to your other keyboards. So many new features I love and Motorola did an excellent job by balancing their UI with ICS and not going overboard like ooooohhhh I dunno....HTC and Sense?

the reason it is taking so long to release it is Verizon

I would say it is a Motorola problem but since the Nexus with vanilla ICS is still waiting for updates to the latest version of ICS the common factor with both phones is the carrier

If I owned a Nexus and the Razr got 4.0.3/4.0.4 before them I think I would be quite

 

[jroc]

This has to be one of the least accurate threads I've read.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using DroidForums

Even the 2nd post? I had a G Nex. Take away whet he said about Screen, Other and the pre installed games and its pretty accurate.

For Screen....I cant compare it to the RAZR ICS leak but when I had a G Nex it was pretty smooth to me.

Since I never really installed many apps on my G Nex (was trying to test it as stock as possible to see if I was gonna keep it) and never used ICS on the RAZR, cant really comment on that. The Search bar on the G Nex probably needs root and/or a custom ROM to be removed.

 

[revelated]

This has to be one of the least accurate threads I've read. Have you even touched a nexus? It doesn't come with any pre installed games. Maybe someone played with yours before you got it. It only has Google apps pre installed, and then my vzw and also backup assistant both of which cannot be removed but can be disabled via ics. Also the nexus only has those issues if you put a bad rom and kernel on it. I'm running stock and never had those issues

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using DroidForums

So in other words you questioned accuracy because of the games but didn't comment on the rest which was fully accurate. If I put that into percentages that makes it 90% accurate. So how is it "least accurate"?

The Nexus' lag issue when scrolling is documented. Numerous videos about it, including my own. I also have a video showing it on the RAZR where it doesn't lag. That's stock dude. I don't use custom ROMs unless the phone sucks without it, i.e. Thunderbolt.

 

[thaDroidz]

the reason it is taking so long to release it is Verizon

I would say it is a Motorola problem but since the Nexus with vanilla ICS is still waiting for updates to the latest version of ICS the common factor with both phones is the carrier

If I owned a Nexus and the Razr got 4.0.3/4.0.4 before them I think I would be quite

I bet Verizon doesn't like the idea of disabling the bloat...

----posted MAXXED OUT WITH dessert----

 

[Caesars]

Can you disable bloat on ics leak? Would be a reason to get it lol

 

[skipbl92]

Differences?

[*]Lock Screen

[*]Nexus: Slide right to unlock, slide left to use camera
[*]BLURry ICS: Slide right to unlock, down to use Messaging, up to use phone, left to use camera, plus a vibrate/sound switch slider (choice)

[*]Search

[*]​Nexus: Google Search bar at top of every home screen, cannot be removed
[*]BLURry ICS: No Google Search bar, but you can add it as a widget (choice)

[*]Keyboard

[*]Nexus: defaults to Android ICS keyboard, no Swype
[*]BLURry ICS: defaults to last keyboard you had enabled, Swype included as an option but Swype does not use Google's new Voice Search app which is superior to the old voice engine. Have to use Motorola keyboard or SwiftKey to use Google's Voice Search. Motorola's keyboard is terrible.

[*]Screen

[*]​Nexus: constant stuttering and lagging when scrolling through apps and widgets. Once you're in an app it's fine (weird).
[*]BLURry ICS: Smooth as butter. There is a little lag scrolling through homescreens but not nearly as bad as on the Nexus for some reason.

[*]Bloat/Built-In Apps

[*]​Nexus: There are NO bloat apps on the Nexus that cannot be removed. There's a few games but you can remove them fairly easily.
[*]BLURry ICS: There are a few bloat apps, you can disable them but not remove them. Some apps can't even be disabled, only hidden from view.

[*]Other

[*]Nexus: For some reason some apps like to crash without reason. Not everyone might experience this but mine happens frequently.
[*]BLURry ICS: The same apps that crash on Nexus run perfectly fine on the RAZR.

Other than those the two are mostly identical in appearance and function. Nexus uses different icons and a few select menu options but BLUR feels like a slightly modified ICS UI, not heavy, never clunky. The only way you'd know it was BLUR was if you did WebTop. Very impressive.

Very nice compare/contrast - very detailed. Makes me really look forward to the official ICS build that gets released for my Droid Razr Maxx.

 

[thaDroidz]

Can you disable bloat on ics leak? Would be a reason to get it lol

Can't get all of them but yes, kinda like on gingerbread's app menu "hide" option.

----posted MAXXED OUT WITH dessert----

 

[Dave12308]

Incorrect. You must not let the memory you see cloud your judgment on memory handling.

If I have 2GB of RAM and I run a 1GB VM, I expect my RAM to go down to 1GB plus a few. When the VM is closed, I expect that RAM to be released for another application to use it. The problem is that ICS, at least the early builds, doesn't properly release memory for other apps to use, which is what is likely causing the force closures on certain apps that are picky about available RAM. At no time should an OS be using all of the RAM when nothing is running; in my day we called that a memory leak.

You're not looking at this from a Linux perspective, though; which is the way Android needs to be looked at. You are never supposed to see a large amount of free memory on a Linux system. If you do, something isn't working correctly.

What is supposed to happen in, as an app or process demands more memory, the Linux kernel is supposed to kill off the least-used nonessential processes first. Now, if the Linux kernel on the early ICS builds is not doing this, even based on demand from an application, then yes; I agree there is a problem.

But to use your example, if I have 2GB of RAM on a Linux machine which is running a 1GB VM on VMWare Workstation, my available RAM should NOT increase by 1GB when I stop that virtual machine. What is SHOULD do is allocate most of it to "cached" (you can see this using the top command), where it is essentially free to be used by whatever grabs it up.

Linux Howtos: System -> Linux Memory Management