To get the M or not get the M?

[jam3s121]

I currently have a galaxy s1 (samsung fascinate) one of the first phones that really helped android get huge.

Anyways my phone barely works, sometimes people call me and the phone actually dials but on my end the phone never lights up or even rings. I end up with a voicemail or the caller calling me until it goes through. Sometimes my girlfriend tells me she has to call 3 or 4 times until I notice. I think this is only in weak signal areas but still very annoying. I believe its from me updating to a different OTA baseband when rooting. The lock button doesn't always work, and to get it to work I need to use the back button on the phone. I think its a software/root issue but I lost my micro usb cable that worked on my pc. The cheapo cable I got won't let me mount to pc. It's also just plain old with a really spent battery IMO. If I'm browsing the web I can literally watch the battery % go down 1-2% each minute.

With that being said, is the Razr M signal strength truly not as good as some other 4g LTE verizon phones?

 

[TisMyDroid]

Welcome to Droid Forum jam3s. I have the razr M and love it. I also had the og Razr Maxx and actually chose the M over my Maxx. Some people have complained about the data signal but I have not had any problems with my data signal and I am often in weak 3g areas. The phone signal is excellent. I do believe that the gs3's signal is as good or almost as good as the Razr M...and the camera on the gs3 is much better than the cameras on all the Razr phones. I think the phones with the best signals for phone calls and data are the og Razr, og Razr Maxx, the Razr HD, and the Razr Maxx HD.

 

[Nyguy7]

I've owned the S3 for about a week and half, and now have owned the Razr M, for almost 2 months.. I have found the data signal on the M to be around
average, and the phone signal to be a bit below average, especially compared to other motorola phones which seem to have excellent wireless radios.. I am
dropping more calls with my Razr M, now then i have been dropping with my old HTC evo 3d on the sprint network, in the NYC area.. However the call quality, when I'm connected is excellent..

 

[feenix]

Hi All. I'm new here as well. My hesitation on the Razr M is it has 8 gigs of storage. Is that enough to hold all the apps I need? I have allot of apps for business purposes, and just a few games like angry birds. What do you all think??

 

[TisMyDroid]

Hi All. I'm new here as well. My hesitation on the Razr M is it has 8 gigs of storage. Is that enough to hold all the apps I need? I have allot of apps for business purposes, and just a few games like angry birds. What do you all think??

Welcome to DF feenix! I came from the og Razr Maxx with 16 gb of storage and worried that only 8 would be a problem. I have the same # of apps that I had on my og Razr and notice no problems.

Currently I have 101 apps installed. Of the 8 gb internal storage, almost 4 gb is devoted to app storage. I am using only 1.1 gb for my apps and have 3.5 gb free for more apps. Of the remaining 4 gb of internal storage, I have 3.2 gb of free storage...giving me a total of 6.7gb free internal storage.

I store all pics, video, music, docs, (and everything where I'm given that choice) to my external 32gb sd card and have 20.43gb free on my sd card.

 

[jam3s121]

I wouldn't worry to much about the internal memory because you throw a micro sd card into the phone and the cards are pretty cheap, for me it would be free since my older android phone came with one that i would just transfer over. Some android phones are getting rid of this nice feature though but not letting the user add memory.

 

[ThatDroidGuyInJax]

I wouldn't worry to much about the internal memory because you throw a micro sd card into the phone and the cards are pretty cheap, for me it would be free since my older android phone came with one that i would just transfer over. Some android phones are getting rid of this nice feature though but not letting the user add memory.

I'm in the same boat trying to decide about switching from my Thunderbolt. jam, it's my understanding that Moto locks down copying apps to the SD card which is an issue for me.

I'm running a rooted Thunderbolt (SkyRaider 1.3) at the moment. For the longest time the phone sucked a double s. However, after rooting it's smooth and clean. Battery life isn't great but it's not horrible.

There are a few of things I don't like about the M.

1) Locked bootloader so development of custom ROMs may be limited. Of course it seems that Verizon is forcing everyone to lock the bootloader so that might be moot.
2) Non-removable battery. I do extended hikes and carry 4 batteries. I never worry about having power if I need it. I do have a Powermonkey Discovery that I could get 1-2 charges out of if necessary but it's not as fast as doing a battery swap.
3) Moto provides a SD card but doesn't let you move apps to it. I'm worried that my GPS topo apps (maps take up a lot of space) and Dropbox (almost 1GB) will suck up a lot of internal storage if I can't at a minimum point the data to the SD.

Having said that, I've been reading the forums and folks say the battery life is excellent and it's a superfast phone. They also say not to let things like the bootloader be a deal breaker. There is a root method and Cyanogen is working on an alpha release for the M. There is also a way (jumping through hoops) to run link2sd to address the third issue but it isn't without its own issues.

I like the idea of having a new phone. We waited for a long time for ICS to come out for the Thunderbolt and it never did. I've tried the ICS leaks and switched back to GB due to data drops. The M has already received the Jellybean update which looks very nice.

Is it worth the upgrade? I guess worst case I can try it and take it back if I don't like it.

 

[Nyguy7]

The main things I do not like about the M are:

1. The screen is not HD,
2. The phone signal strength seems to be on the weak side,,
3. battery that isnt removable
4. The capacitive buttons cut into the screen realstate (most of the time)

Now the things i do like about it.,.

1, the screen's dark levels are awesome, and the colors and the brightness are insane.
2. its the perfect size,
3. its build quality is great, this phone will not fall apart if you drop it..
4. its performance is lightening quick
5 battery life is way above the average smartphone,, I get about 9 hrs with extremely heavy usage., with the S3 i was only getting 6 at best..
6. The google now features on it, works flawlessly,, It always understands my commands,
7 call quality is great, the other person sounds very loud and clear and very true to what their real voice sounds like in person (much better than on the S3)
8 Speaker phone works pretty well, and the speakers are a decent loudness for a small compact phone..
I had the razr m and the S3 next to each other,, both on the same wifi, and i was pulling up pages on both at the same time, and every single time, the M was pulling up pages quicker..

 

[ThatDroidGuyInJax]

Thanks. The signal issues have me concerned now. I'm headed to the store when they open. I guess I'll try to see how the phones perform side-by-side. I might try it for a month and return it if I don't like it. I'm just thinking there are too many possible issues that I might be better off sticking with the Thunderbolt for now.

I guess nothing's going to be perfect (I've read issues with the S3 also) but basic functionality should be good.

 

[Bribri79]

my wife and i just switched to Verizon and i got her the M. After about 2 weeks im really impressed with this phone. I've had an S3 for about 5months and when i grab her phone to mess with it i love it. Its screen is really nice and bright. Colors are really vibrant, and its already been mentioned, but the battery life is INSANE!! She is a heavy user and never plugs it in during the day at all, and almost always still has more than 50% by the end of the day. that is great to me. Im a big fan of my s3 but if i needed to pick another phone i'd get the M in a heartbeat. Also the jellybean update is really nice. I have AOKP M1 on mine and its great, but the stock JB is really smooth on this phone. Blah blah blah, sorry for rambling. hope you can make a decision. laters!

 

[ThatDroidGuyInJax]

Just got from Verizon. Good thing I left my wallet at home. :biggrin:

The guy was good. Answered all of my questions. He was surprised that the new Motos block app to SD since his older Droid doesn't. We checked a couple of the phones and they were all blocked out of the box. The 4g signal on all of them were comparable to my Thunderbolt in the store. I meant to make some calls to check sound quality but forgot.

He said he's not a Samsung fan (though he loves the Note that's being released tomorrow...just too big for me). He said the bulk of the phones they get back are the S3. I also looked at the DNA. It's slightly larger but considerably lighter than the TBolt and it was screaming fast with the quad-core processor. I can see how the battery life is so much better. I believe the M is a 2400 mAh batt and the DNA is 2040 or something compared to the 1400 on the TBolt. He also said the newer phones are more efficient which isn't hard to believe.

So the long and the short of it is that I think I've swung away from the M but the journey continues.

ETA: Crud. The salesman was wrong about the DNA. No SD card and only 16GB internal. My TBold SD is filled to 29GB. Back to the drawing board.

 

[Nyguy7]

Just got from Verizon. Good thing I left my wallet at home. :biggrin:

The guy was good. Answered all of my questions. He was surprised that the new Motos block app to SD since his older Droid doesn't. We checked a couple of the phones and they were all blocked out of the box. The 4g signal on all of them were comparable to my Thunderbolt in the store. I meant to make some calls to check sound quality but forgot.

He said he's not a Samsung fan (though he loves the Note that's being released tomorrow...just too big for me). He said the bulk of the phones they get back are the S3. I also looked at the DNA. It's slightly larger but considerably lighter than the TBolt and it was screaming fast with the quad-core processor. I can see how the battery life is so much better. I believe the M is a 2400 mAh batt and the DNA is 2040 or something compared to the 1400 on the TBolt. He also said the newer phones are more efficient which isn't hard to believe.

So the long and the short of it is that I think I've swung away from the M but the journey continues.

ETA: Crud. The salesman was wrong about the DNA. No SD card and only 16GB internal. My TBold SD is filled to 29GB. Back to the drawing board.

Just so you know, i was having issues with the S3, part of which was the reason I returned it.. The text messaging would completely crash about about 3 or 4 times per day, I would have to reboot the phone at least once a day in order to text,, I'm not sure how widespread that problem is, but I checked online,
and I wasn't the only one having that problem..

 

[Spey]

Just got from Verizon. Good thing I left my wallet at home. :biggrin:

The 4g signal on all of them were comparable to my Thunderbolt in the store.

I also looked at the DNA. It's slightly larger but considerably lighter than the TBolt and it was screaming fast with the quad-core processor. I can see how the battery life is so much better. I believe the M is a 2400 mAh batt and the DNA is 2040 or something compared to the 1400 on the TBolt. He also said the newer phones are more efficient which isn't hard to believe.

So the long and the short of it is that I think I've swung away from the M but the journey continues.

ETA: Crud. The salesman was wrong about the DNA. No SD card and only 16GB internal. My TBold SD is filled to 29GB. Back to the drawing board.

Razr M spec battery is 2000mAh (does a very good job paired with this battery). With similar usage, I would expect 3x the in field battery life with Razr M vs. T.Bolt (longer than T.Bolt on Extended Battery too). After the push OTA of JB the battery life has gotten noticeably better than when running ICS. Worst thing about the Razr M has been reported lower radios signal quality than folks previous phone (I have had good experience with my device - there's a lot of radio and camera stuff packed into the small form factor of the M, also including DLA & NFC too).
DNA looks like an awesome device and seems natural progression coming from a T.Bolt. (Except: SD-Card support was one of those things on my NEEDs To Have List).
The second device I would assume would be on my a list (for a previous T.Bolt super-user) would be any of the Razr line (Razr, Maxx, HD, HD Maxx). The size profile L X W is comparable to you T.bolt & the significant weight & thickness reduction would have you feeling dancedroid about your upgrade.

Also, on your radar should be:
Razr M Developer (unlocked Bootloader from Motorola).
Razr-i (similar to Razr M running Dual Thread 2.0ghz Intel Atom Z2480 processor - not sure about US release availability)
64gb+ SD possibly USC-I technology (4x the spec-speed of Class 10 that I bought a couple months ago for Razr M - personally gonna wait on the USC card till value point is better)

 

[ThatDroidGuyInJax]

Yeah, the SD support is an issue for me. I think I'm going to upgrade my wife's phone and keep looking. She's been ok with a basic phone but wants a smartphone now. The TBolt is a lot better since I flashed SkyRaider so I'm not in a huge rush on my end.

The salesman thought I'd outgrow the M fairly quickly but that could be to up-sell me on a more expensive device. It looks like locked bootloaders are the wave of future with Verizon. :-(

Sent from my SkyRaider Thunderbolt.

 

[Spey]

The TBolt is a lot better since I flashed SkyRaider so I'm not in a huge rush on my end.

The salesman thought I'd outgrow the M fairly quickly but that could be to up-sell me on a more expensive device. It looks like locked bootloaders are the wave of future with Verizon. :-(

Sent from my SkyRaider Thunderbolt.

Can you provide link info on SkyRaider (I'll search on my own, but interested to see first couple links that come from long-term superuser ...).

RE: looks like locked bootloaders are the wave of future with Verizon. :-(
Motorola has been rolling our "open bootloader" phones for a little while now (ATRIX HD, RAZR M, RAZR HD - all available with unlocked bootloaders)