What's your overall opinion?

[aldrichg9]

I guess I feel very different from most who have replied.

My wife and I upgraded from OG droids and we are not impressed with D3
Hers goes from 100% battery to 0% in five hours with ZERO usage. Something is making the radio work all the time ( I deleted every app I could)

My browser is slow - loads about as fast as my D1
My battery life is better than hers but not as good as the D1
The messaging app (which is almost identical to iphone) is horrible. no enter to send and I can't stand any of the other messaging apps
The gallery sucks - wish the old one was back
Cellular reception is awful - I have a network extender and neither of our D3's will stay on 3G even right next to it
About 3 times per day while trying to look at web pages I get a 'no connection' error.

Really wish we had returned them within the 14 days instead of trying to tough it out...

 

[BenLand150]

Overall, I love this phone. What I love most about it is the spacious keyboard which motorola has finally perfected. I can't imagine them finding a way to improve the keyboard.

Sent from my DROID3 using DroidForums

Oh I can.. change it so you don't need to use alt for the "?"! I use it so much more then "/". But other than that, I completely agree. This phone is amazing.

I guess I feel very different from most who have replied.

My wife and I upgraded from OG droids and we are not impressed with D3
Hers goes from 100% battery to 0% in five hours with ZERO usage. Something is making the radio work all the time ( I deleted every app I could)

My browser is slow - loads about as fast as my D1
My battery life is better than hers but not as good as the D1
The messaging app (which is almost identical to iphone) is horrible. no enter to send and I can't stand any of the other messaging apps
The gallery sucks - wish the old one was back
Cellular reception is awful - I have a network extender and neither of our D3's will stay on 3G even right next to it
About 3 times per day while trying to look at web pages I get a 'no connection' error.

Really wish we had returned them within the 14 days instead of trying to tough it out...

Wow.. even with the update? Really should have returned it back for either a new set of the same phones and see how that works, or different phones. Sounds like you got a bad poor?
Coming from the D1, the web browser is much faster with duel core.
Battery lasts at least 2days now with light-mod use after the update
The messaging app.. not even close to the iPhone one. Blue and gray with squared bubbles? iPhone is white and green with rounded boxes.. lots of phones have this style, the D1 was about the same too.
Gallery looks better, but the D1 was easier to get to so I agree with that. But I downloaded the Atrix one so I'm good now.
Cell reception is great here.
No problems with connection.

If you have warranty, I'd get that checked out. Or, try and see if custom Roms help out with those issues.

 

[random190user44]

The droid 3, in my opinion, is just a droid bionic with no 4g and a keyboard

Sent from my DROID3 using DroidForums

And half the ram

Sent from my DROID3 using DroidForums

 

[kashmir728]

Oh its most definitely faster than the droid x. Id even put it above the x2. Id go as far as saying the droid 3 is the best 3g phone on the market

Sent from my DROID3 using DroidForums

 

[REMilk]

I guess I feel very different from most who have replied.

My wife and I upgraded from OG droids and we are not impressed with D3
Hers goes from 100% battery to 0% in five hours with ZERO usage. Something is making the radio work all the time ( I deleted every app I could)

My browser is slow - loads about as fast as my D1
My battery life is better than hers but not as good as the D1
The messaging app (which is almost identical to iphone) is horrible. no enter to send and I can't stand any of the other messaging apps
The gallery sucks - wish the old one was back
Cellular reception is awful - I have a network extender and neither of our D3's will stay on 3G even right next to it
About 3 times per day while trying to look at web pages I get a 'no connection' error.

Really wish we had returned them within the 14 days instead of trying to tough it out...

I agree that there is something amiss.

My wife and I both have Droid 3. It took a little work, but we both charge our Droid 3s once a day, nightly and my wife always makes it through the entire day and usually I do.

1. Turn your screen brightness way down when indoors. The default is set to automatic. Menu/Settings/Display/Screen Brightness. Uncheck automatic brightness and move the slider far to the left. The times you wish to use it in bright light and need the brightness increased, you can change it this way or use a 'Brightness Control Widget', that contains a slider. There are several in the App Market. We use our Droids 75%+ of the time indoors.

2. If you are running an 'active' task manager/killer (runs in the backgroud). Remove it as these seem to use a lot of resources. Only use a task manager to stop runaway tasks.

3. For social media apps, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc. Set the sync interval to NEVER! I think the defult may have been 15 minutes. Manually sync when you want updated. (This is potentially a major user of your radio).

4. News and Sports widgets. Set the sync interval to NEVER! Do you really need continual, instantaneous updates? Manually sync when you want updates. Caveat, there are times when I change my sync for news to more frequently, when there is major news story that I feel I must follow.

5. Weather widgets. Change the sync cycle to something more realistic as 2 or 3 hours. These are usually set to 15 minutes. Again, depending on the weather forecast, such as hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzard, I will change the sync for these events. Also, you may not even know it, but you might have more than 1 weather widget running. (This is potentially a major user of your radio).

6, Turn off services when you are not suing them. Example, Bluetooth, I turn it on, when I am traveling (and I remember my Bluetooth device). The remainder of the time it is turned off.

7. Use Wifi rather than 3G for data. Yes, the WiFi radio uses a little more power than 3G, but the Wifi signal usually travels less far than the 3G signal (in reality WiFi is using less power) and the transmission speeds are far greater resulting in less time using the WiFi radio over 3G radio.

8. Battery monitors. These also use cycles reducing battery life (time between recharge)

9. All other 'active' type widgets, evaluate the need to have these sync or update frequently. If possible, change these to sync manually or at least at a greater interval.

10. If you are not using Verizon apps (VNavigator for example), then uncheck Verizon location services. Menu/Settings/Location & Security). No need to poll Verizon, if you are not using their services.

Now, all this being said, I have the following active widgets and apps and services I usually get a full day.
Fancy Widgets Pro (Weather syncs every 2 hours)
WeatherBug (syncs every 2 hours)
Touchdown Service (corp email and calendar (auto-sync))
Go Widget Calendar (auto-sync)
Astrid task (auto sync)
Go Facebook Widget (Manual sync)
Go Twitter Widget (Manual sync)
Google+ Widget (seems to be Manual sync)
Tiny Battery Widget (constant).

Just my opinions and experience, your most likely will differ.

Bob

 

[allikanbe]

Original Droid was great. Droid 3 is greater. I have no complaints at all. After the recent update, the battery really lasts a long time.

 

[aldrichg9]

Thanks Bob for your input and for taking the time to help

I have already done most of what you said - I even when as far as deleting what apps I could, even though I had set sync to Never.

I don't use task killers.

I have bluetooth and wireless services turned off (not typically in a place where she can use them)

Here is what I think is an interesting observation.
We have a baby monitor next to our bed where the wife charges her phone every night.
When any phone is with 6 inche sof the monitor it creates interference that is heard through the monitor whenever the phone contacts verizon towers.
My wifes D3 creates continuous interference all night long - enough so that she throws the monitor on the floor.
My D3 however creates a few seconds of noise on the monitor when it is plugged in then is quiet the rest of the night.

I think this means that her phone is continuously using the radio.

Whenever I click on battery usage:
As the screen comes up there is an item that is momentarily at the top of the list called wakelock.
This item is only there for approx 1/2 second then Motorola Services is at the top of the list with 66% battery usage.
I think that whatever Motorola Services is could be burning up her battery.

Thanks for any more ideas....

 

[Johnnyb]

You have an argument for getting these phones replaced. You should contact support (again and again if necessary) until they make it right.

Sent from my SteelDroid D3 (2.0) and TapaTalk

 

[NoBloatware]

I think that whatever Motorola Services is could be burning up her battery.

Thanks for any more ideas....

It sounds like you are in a poor coverage area and that always sucks the battery down. There are lots of ways to save battery power though. One big thing that I think is more or less a bug is that when you open the DLNA app for the first time it pops up a dialog box. If you just hit "OK" without reading it, you don't realize that it does something that'll really drain your battery: it sets your WIFI sleep policy to never. I have my WIFI toggled on all the time but I have the WIFI sleep policy set to turn off when the screen turns off. There are a lot of suggestions for battery life listed here: http://www.droidforums.net/forum/droid-3/172871-another-battery-llife-issue.html