A few quick questions on the droid 4

[lshall]

Coming from a Droid 2 Global, I just have a few questions.

1) Is there going to be another qwerty keyboard droid phone released soon? I love these keyboards and cannot stand texting on the touch screen like on the Razr.

2) Best time to purchase? Sales/Discounts? Amazon sells it for $150 with an upgrade.

3) My current phone constantly restarts, freezes, crashes, etc. I don't always receive texts until I restart my phone. There are so many bugs and problems on the Droid 2...I was wondering if they fixed everything and the Droid 4 is worry free.

4) Ice Cream Sandwich?

Thanks in advance for answering these... I am eligible for an upgrade starting tomorrow and want to make sure the Droid 4 is best for me.

 

[R2D|2OID]

1. I'm not expecting another high end slider to end up on VZW until the Droid 5.

2. I believe there are places that you can get it for 99.99 with a contract extension. Don't pay $149.

3. I came from a Droid R2D2, and that thing sucked. It rebooted constantly since the very first day I bought it. It had some serious hardware issues. HOWEVER - When I installed an ICS rom, the phone went from trash to class - it runs flawlessly with CM9.

4. ICS.. the big question. If we start seeing OTA upgrades to Razr and Rezound this week, the Droid 4 and Bionic won't be far behind. But don't hold your breath.

 

[Quicksilver7714]

1. The DROID 5 should not be out until late fall, early winter this year.

2. Any where from 100-150 is a good price for a D4 when signing a new contract. Plus there are some places that will give you money for your old phone.

3. All phones will have some problems as no software is perfect. But most, if not all of the issues have been fixed from the D2.

4. ICS is expected to come out some time this summer but don't hold your breath for anything sooner.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2 Beta-5

 

[LordKastle]

Motorola screwed up when they released Droid3/Droid4 in under 5 months apart. Then they delayed Droid 4 until February to lessen the public relations blow that could have ensued. Its still unacceptable.

Motorola recently said they were going to slow down phone releases. Most likely this means you won't be seeing Droid 5 until after 2013. Its beyond me why they would want to lose sales and hurt the brand of the "Droid" (physical keyboard) model. If they continue to push out phone incarnations of the same model in under a year, they will destroy the brand for petty and scattered/irrelevant sales. If you think about it, they actually will lose sales long term doing this. They run the risk of users who can upgrade hopping to another device or manufacturer because their upgrades lies in between bunched releases. If people buy a phone now and then in November they announced the release of the Droid 5, they may get a few scattered sales, but there would be no momentum for them to capitalize on. Then when others are ready to upgrade from Droid 4, they will see that Droid 5 has been already out and will buy the "newest" device. This means a loss of sales for Motorola. You have to realize that the Droid brand (physical keyboard) has a certain kind of cliental. For example, most people will opt for the lack of physical keyboard. So why would Motorola want to keep pumping out incarnations of a device that will only sell moderately, therefore losing profit potential. They will also be losing money on production costs, making twice as money phones (example), only to sell a combined one generation of sales. It doesn't make financial sense.

What they should be doing is building the brand. They should be building excitement towards the next model and gathering momentum so when the phone is released, it can actually have an impact. Releasing an upgraded phone model in under a year just shows a lack of quality and of vision.

I personally see Motorola learning from their mistakes the past two years. Too many phones just makes everything a scatter-fest and then good luck getting updates (see the Ice Cream Sandwich mess already?). They will be cutting down the amount of phones released and even if that is a stretch it certainly means of the same model (in the least).

 

[R2D|2OID]

I disagree, I would like to see Motorola release phones more often. I love my D4, but I can't wait for the D5. I will have another upgrade on my account and I will buy the next one on release day, like I did with my Droid 4.

 

[LordKastle]

They have publicly announced they are slowing the amount of device releases down. It also benefits customers as they can get swifter updates, unless of course people enjoy waiting 10 months to get something like Ice Cream Sandwich. Rapid releases just infer poor quality, lack of vision, and ineptitude. There is a reason why Apple doesn't release a new iphone every 8 months.

R2D, you prove my point...scattered sales will hurt the company financially. They have to manufacture more phones than the demand in most cases. So if they produce 1 million phones and sell 500K for one generation and then 8 months later produce 1 million phones and sell 500K, they are left with a million overstocked phones not moving. With the Droid model in question having a keyboard, the cliental is more select so it becomes a lot more apparent and obvious compared to releasing X2, Bionic, Razr, Fighter, etc. Its not like Motorola is releasing other keyboard phones...so if they keep manufacturing much more than they sell, thats throwing money into a pit.

The negative is already apparent specifically in this thread. They just released the Droid 4 and Ishall is already wondering about the Droid 5. Thats borderline an embarrassment on Motorola's part.

I can't wait for the Droid 8.

 

[Quicksilver7714]

Motorola screwed up when they released Droid3/Droid4 in under 5 months apart. Then they delayed Droid 4 until February to lessen the public relations blow that could have ensued. Its still unacceptable.

Motorola recently said they were going to slow down phone releases. Most likely this means you won't be seeing Droid 5 until after 2013. Its beyond me why they would want to lose sales and hurt the brand of the "Droid" (physical keyboard) model. If they continue to push out phone incarnations of the same model in under a year, they will destroy the brand for petty and scattered/irrelevant sales. If you think about it, they actually will lose sales long term doing this. They run the risk of users who can upgrade hopping to another device or manufacturer because their upgrades lies in between bunched releases. If people buy a phone now and then in November they announced the release of the Droid 5, they may get a few scattered sales, but there would be no momentum for them to capitalize on. Then when others are ready to upgrade from Droid 4, they will see that Droid 5 has been already out and will buy the "newest" device. This means a loss of sales for Motorola. You have to realize that the Droid brand (physical keyboard) has a certain kind of cliental. For example, most people will opt for the lack of physical keyboard. So why would Motorola want to keep pumping out incarnations of a device that will only sell moderately, therefore losing profit potential. They will also be losing money on production costs, making twice as money phones (example), only to sell a combined one generation of sales. It doesn't make financial sense.

What they should be doing is building the brand. They should be building excitement towards the next model and gathering momentum so when the phone is released, it can actually have an impact. Releasing an upgraded phone model in under a year just shows a lack of quality and of vision.

I personally see Motorola learning from their mistakes the past two years. Too many phones just makes everything a scatter-fest and then good luck getting updates (see the Ice Cream Sandwich mess already?). They will be cutting down the amount of phones released and even if that is a stretch it certainly means of the same model (in the least).

I am just giving an estimate. Which would probably be the earliest they release the phone.

On average the D1, 2, 3 and 4 were released about 9 months apart.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2 Beta-5

 

[R2D|2OID]

Okay.. it seems like you're taking the perspective of Motorola.. sure, its a bad business decision to pump out phones. Do I, as a consumer, give a damn? Not at all. I love the hype of new phones and couldn't care less about Motorola's sales figures.

 

[LordKastle]

What hype? There has been minimal hype for any model of the Droid (keyboard) since the Droid 1 when it launched Android into the consciousness of the mainstream consumer. Motorola views the keyboard model as more of a niche (I happen to love the keyboard as it saves screen real-estate when performing any activity). As I said, most people opt for a phone without a keyboard. This was my point about over-saturating the market to the point of being detrimental (of one single model). It's one thing to pump out different phones under different lines, its another to pump out upgraded models of the same phone in such a short time period. By putting two and two together, if you take into account Motorola saying they will be slowing device releases down (not surprising considering Google now runs Mobility), then in the least one can infer that means of the same model.

Do "you as a consumer" give a damn? I think you may be speaking for yourself, but not consumers in general. I don't think most consumers like waiting 10 months to get an OS update like Ice Cream Sandwich because the team at Motorola is stressed out working on 40 projects. Gingerbread is plenty efficient as is, so personally, I am not living and dying by the day waiting for the update, but its the principle of the matter that counts. So in reality it actually becomes a detriment to the user because we lose out on the experience. You realize Motorola has basically admitted that the reason why there is a delay in updating the OS is because of the amount of phones that get bombarded in the market (along with the complexity of nailing the update properly on each device)? We are lucky Verizon has had a good relationship with Motorola...thats due to Verizon basically pushing a Motorola device as a flagship for the past 3 years. We don't have to worry about NOT getting the update.

Okay.. it seems like you're taking the perspective of Motorola.. sure, its a bad business decision to pump out phones. Do I, as a consumer, give a damn? Not at all. I love the hype of new phones and couldn't care less about Motorola's sales figures.

 

[MrGelowe]

The negative is already apparent specifically in this thread. They just released the Droid 4 and Ishall is already wondering about the Droid 5. Thats borderline an embarrassment on Motorola's part.

I can't wait for the Droid 8.

To be fair, I am in the same boat as he is. I current have Droid 2 and I have a month before I can upgrade my phone with a renewal. I am seriously disappointed with Droid 2, specifically the battery life. When I got Droid 2, I also bought the extended better which is at 1800 mAH. That is a better life than of Droid 4 1785 mAH. This is with consideration that 4G uses up more battery life.

I love having full keyboard and now my only option is worse than what I have now. Honestly I do not care how fast a device is. All I want is full keyboard and battery life that would let me get through the day. Heck I still get nightmares I had with BB Storm. I was getting 4-6 hour battery life before I finally got Droid 2.

Now my only option is Droid Razr Maxx. Was it really so damn hard to give Droid 4 same battery treatment as Razr Maxx?