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What are your impressions of your new Droid 4?
- Thread starter AZClimber
- Start date
I don't have one but just stopped by VZW to play with one. Gotta say I am pretty impressed. It is very light in the hands but does not feel cheap. Keyboard is awesome and very easy to type on without error. Screen is crisp and the phone is very snappy. I am sure everyone who gets one will not be disappointed.
Tap'd from my G'Nex
Tap'd from my G'Nex
The screen is definitely not my favorite part of the phone... That said, it's livable, and the homescreen blurring seems to be Blur doing some not so great looking animations. The phone is very quick compared to my OG Droid, so I'm happy. I don't seem to get 4G signal at my house, but everywhere else I get good signal. I seem to be able to get about 20mbps down and 15mbps up. Sweet. I'm seriously impressed by the keyboard, and the general feel of the hardware is fantastic. The slider is really nice and snug, no wobbles.
droidbound
Member
It's fast, baby! It's fast!
Opening up Maps now is like opening an email! No lag, no wait - sweet!
I love the keyboard, what an improvement to my good old D1!
I don't agree with some here reg the screen. To me it's clear and gorgeous.
Haven't found much I don't like so far. Except for bloatware. Plenty of that shi...
Sent from my DROID4 using DroidForums
Opening up Maps now is like opening an email! No lag, no wait - sweet!
I love the keyboard, what an improvement to my good old D1!
I don't agree with some here reg the screen. To me it's clear and gorgeous.
Haven't found much I don't like so far. Except for bloatware. Plenty of that shi...
Sent from my DROID4 using DroidForums
Other thoughts after a couple hours of setup and playing around:
1. The bloatware isn't actually as bad as I thought it'd be. I've simply hid the icons I don't care about for now and once this phone is rooted (praise any developers who help that cause, btw) then they'll get removed. I didn't see too many processes running in the background so I don't think it's a killer right now. As well, a couple of the apps I might actually use for the time being. The "Smart Actions" app seems pretty cool actually and I've already setup a couple actions for low-battery and nighttime power savings. I actually might get into Madden and the golf game they put on there in due time to test out the sweet graphs. I like that Swype comes preinstalled - even though I'll predominantly use the physical keyboard, I figure I should ease myself into the soft keyboard over time since this might be the last slider we ever see (You better enjoy it fellas).
2. I had to download a separate APK to get the default "Google News and Weather" widget which I loved from the web. Works great.
3. Downloaded the latest APK for N64oid and it runs incredibly smooth for an N64 emulator on a damn phone. Way more stable than on the OG (of course, I did notice the app has been significantly upgraded since I last played with it on OG)
4. I was really scared when I first ran the "Slingbox" icon that was installed on the phone and it came up with some nonsense about VCast. I feared that maybe Verizon was limiting that application on 4G unless you paid more money. It was OK though. I immediately went to the Market to download the actual version and got in to my home TV with no problem and great video quality over 4G.
5. Miss some feature of Cyanogen already like the multi-colored/sound notifications (maybe there's another app for that but I don't know). Can't wait for CM to get the hotspot feature without additional charges.
6. The camera and video quality is OK after a quick couple tests in a living room with horrible lighting. Some pics were super crisp and had correct focus depths. Some didn't and had some extra noise in there. Video was kind of the same. Still a significant improvement over the OG from what I can tell. NOTE: I'm in no way a "camera guy" like some people I know and can't speak intelligently to camera quality, so maybe this is the best or worst camera of all time, I really wouldn't know from a pure tech standpoint. From a camera tech layman, it looks good but not great.
7. I can't get over how fast the phone is CPU/memory/4G wise coming from a D1. Re-installing apps and syncing data is incredibly fast.
8. Keyboard is excellent. Still don't know why they removed the '@' key though - already got me a couple times looking for it.
9. Speaker is great, similar to D1.
10. On the screen: I think it's just great - no problem here. One comment I made earlier in another thread I think was that I wish Motorola would reduce the bezel width around the screen and make it more flush to the edge. I feel like they could have got a 4.3 in here without increasing the physical width.
11. Overall feel and weight of the phone is great. When I go back to my D1 now it seems so ancient, tiny, and heavy.
12. In general blown away with ease of backup/restore of my various apps to the new phone - nothing to credit the D4 but just android in general and how awesome cell phones are in general these days.
... I probably forgot something, more to come
1. The bloatware isn't actually as bad as I thought it'd be. I've simply hid the icons I don't care about for now and once this phone is rooted (praise any developers who help that cause, btw) then they'll get removed. I didn't see too many processes running in the background so I don't think it's a killer right now. As well, a couple of the apps I might actually use for the time being. The "Smart Actions" app seems pretty cool actually and I've already setup a couple actions for low-battery and nighttime power savings. I actually might get into Madden and the golf game they put on there in due time to test out the sweet graphs. I like that Swype comes preinstalled - even though I'll predominantly use the physical keyboard, I figure I should ease myself into the soft keyboard over time since this might be the last slider we ever see (You better enjoy it fellas).
2. I had to download a separate APK to get the default "Google News and Weather" widget which I loved from the web. Works great.
3. Downloaded the latest APK for N64oid and it runs incredibly smooth for an N64 emulator on a damn phone. Way more stable than on the OG (of course, I did notice the app has been significantly upgraded since I last played with it on OG)
4. I was really scared when I first ran the "Slingbox" icon that was installed on the phone and it came up with some nonsense about VCast. I feared that maybe Verizon was limiting that application on 4G unless you paid more money. It was OK though. I immediately went to the Market to download the actual version and got in to my home TV with no problem and great video quality over 4G.
5. Miss some feature of Cyanogen already like the multi-colored/sound notifications (maybe there's another app for that but I don't know). Can't wait for CM to get the hotspot feature without additional charges.
6. The camera and video quality is OK after a quick couple tests in a living room with horrible lighting. Some pics were super crisp and had correct focus depths. Some didn't and had some extra noise in there. Video was kind of the same. Still a significant improvement over the OG from what I can tell. NOTE: I'm in no way a "camera guy" like some people I know and can't speak intelligently to camera quality, so maybe this is the best or worst camera of all time, I really wouldn't know from a pure tech standpoint. From a camera tech layman, it looks good but not great.
7. I can't get over how fast the phone is CPU/memory/4G wise coming from a D1. Re-installing apps and syncing data is incredibly fast.
8. Keyboard is excellent. Still don't know why they removed the '@' key though - already got me a couple times looking for it.
9. Speaker is great, similar to D1.
10. On the screen: I think it's just great - no problem here. One comment I made earlier in another thread I think was that I wish Motorola would reduce the bezel width around the screen and make it more flush to the edge. I feel like they could have got a 4.3 in here without increasing the physical width.
11. Overall feel and weight of the phone is great. When I go back to my D1 now it seems so ancient, tiny, and heavy.
12. In general blown away with ease of backup/restore of my various apps to the new phone - nothing to credit the D4 but just android in general and how awesome cell phones are in general these days.
... I probably forgot something, more to come
Last edited:
Other thoughts after a couple hours of setup and playing around
Nice write up, thank you. I ordered next-day mine at 7:00am EST, figuring it would get here today. The delivery date shows Monday though so I have to wait a few extra days :frown:.
Got my Droid 4 at Best Buy. Used the $50 coupon so price was the same as it would have been for me at Verizon but you get a longer exchange policy. I am comming from Droid 1 so this phone is crazy fast compared to that. I like the screen just fine but again, I am comming from Droid 1 so it is a major improvement. Lots more internal storage which is nice. I kept my 16 GB Micro SD card and did not upgrade to the 32 GB one. I barely used any of my 16 GB so did not see any reason to upgrade.
Old chargers still work but have to get a new car mount and dock. I used my droid as my clock and alarm so now I don't have a clock by my bed anymore. Keyboard and speaker are very nice. Amazing the difference between downloading on 3g vs 4g. My Driod 1 batteries did not last a day so I got used to car charger, USB charger at work and I have a mobile charger as well.
Only problem is all my game data was lost. My 9-innnings baseball, Home Run 3d and all my angry birds data is gone. Have to start over. I thought that was stored on SD card but I guess not. It is also loaded with tons of apps. Not as big a deal because of the increased storage but wow.
Old chargers still work but have to get a new car mount and dock. I used my droid as my clock and alarm so now I don't have a clock by my bed anymore. Keyboard and speaker are very nice. Amazing the difference between downloading on 3g vs 4g. My Driod 1 batteries did not last a day so I got used to car charger, USB charger at work and I have a mobile charger as well.
Only problem is all my game data was lost. My 9-innnings baseball, Home Run 3d and all my angry birds data is gone. Have to start over. I thought that was stored on SD card but I guess not. It is also loaded with tons of apps. Not as big a deal because of the increased storage but wow.
OUTthaWAZOO
New Member
-It's super fast. Like ridiculously fast coming from my OG.
-The keyboard is incredibly good. The keys are big and spaced. The back lighting is about the coolest looking thing I've ever seen.
-That said, it's a little difficult to slide it out.
-The bloat ware is pretty bad. A couple of the apps are able to be removed, though.
-The screen is beautiful. The only thing I dislike about it is that the whites aren't exactly white, but have a bluish tint.
-And the one thing I just don't like about it is the vibrate in it. The vibrator on the OG was loud and strong, this one sounds weak and it sounds like it's rubbing up against something it shouldn't be when it goes off.
-I have nothing to say about "Blur" since I use GO Launcher Ex.
-Oh, and its fast!
Coming from an OG, this is two giant leaps forward in terms of the speed and the keyboard. I haven't used it enough to comment on the battery life, though. And one more thing, I've had one data drop so far, but it only lasted for a few seconds.
Sent from my DROID4 using DroidForums
-The keyboard is incredibly good. The keys are big and spaced. The back lighting is about the coolest looking thing I've ever seen.
-That said, it's a little difficult to slide it out.
-The bloat ware is pretty bad. A couple of the apps are able to be removed, though.
-The screen is beautiful. The only thing I dislike about it is that the whites aren't exactly white, but have a bluish tint.
-And the one thing I just don't like about it is the vibrate in it. The vibrator on the OG was loud and strong, this one sounds weak and it sounds like it's rubbing up against something it shouldn't be when it goes off.
-I have nothing to say about "Blur" since I use GO Launcher Ex.
-Oh, and its fast!
Coming from an OG, this is two giant leaps forward in terms of the speed and the keyboard. I haven't used it enough to comment on the battery life, though. And one more thing, I've had one data drop so far, but it only lasted for a few seconds.
Sent from my DROID4 using DroidForums
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