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Opinion on Motorola Admiral

zeda

Newbie
Jan 6, 2012
18
3
I would like to hear others opinions on this phone as well.

Well, I've had this phone for 3 months and I've discovered it's nothing but a flop. I should have listened when I was told this phone would be a complete waste of time and money. I'm sure many users had to buy this phone purely for DC or something, so I feel bad for you.

I think Motorola fails completely at phones (especially Android). The whole Motoblur experience makes anyone want to throw their phone in line of an oncoming car. It's buggy, UGLY as hell, extremely limited, and underdeveloped.

Functionality: The phone itself sucks. The keyboard does not make up for the constant self-reboots each and every day, the silencing and sound problems, the lack of development and support. There have been no updates for this phone and no updates (or ICS) ever again for the foreseeable future.

Apps: I could never get some of my major favorite apps on this phone, even with USB transfer. They just didn't work and crashed if they even opened. I thought they would be supported after a few months but I never saw them appear in the Market. I'm left with the 3rd party apps and a couple good ones.

Root: Rooting this phone made it perform much worse and encouraged the reboots, I think. There's not much I can do with it now that it's rooted. I just hope it never reboots and goes through an endless bootloop or something, as there is no way to restore this phone back to factory settings.

Camera: "720p" camcorder is an absolute joke. It just looks terrible. Pics are subpar quality at this point.

Extra buttons: I thought the shortcut button would be awesome and I liked the speaker button on top but that's all useless too. I turned the shortcut button off because I kept accidentally hitting it and ending up in a diff app. Speaker button is a gimmick and I think it screws up my sound settings for things such as the alarm.

Sorry for the rant but I'm completely disappointed in my opinion to ever buy this worthless pile of garbage. I'm upset that I supported Motorola twice and now have such a terrible opinion of Android in general. I'm heavily considering dumping the horribly fragmented, buggy, malware-infested, battery sucking waste of OS that is Android. Through the endless pumping out of phones, I can admit that Google is just a giant, "evil" ad-revenue corporation that couldn't care less about its devoted consumers. So much for the Update Alliance garbage they loosely promised. Buyer beware, I guess.

I'm definitely considering switching to Windows Phone 8 very very soon when it comes out, as they at least seem to care about their consumers' opinions at this point (they have a recommendations/features page on their website that users can post concerns to) especially as the OS is so new.

If anyone else cares to comment about this phone or Android in general, please go ahead.
 
Well I have had this device since the day it was released and it works better then any IDEN device I have ever owned. And for updates good news this phone known issues have been fixed and a software maintance release is due next month. If you have had the crappy phone as you call it for so long why did you not replace it? Sounds like you got a lemon or ROOTING it might have caused more problems. This phone is my work phone I would never own a 3g for for anything else but work. Also Motorola makes the best rugged devices IMHO. Also for the version of Andriod on this device it is made from scratch for DC and it is not a MULTI MEDIA DEVICE. I wish you all the best of luck with your Windows 8 phone. BTW it is new and will be buggy too it's the price we pay for wanting whats new and not whats used and tested. And the shortcut key problem is not the phones fault you keep hitting the wrong button. and Malware what malware? battery problems what kind of 3rd party apps are you running I have no 3rd party apps just a stock Motorol Admiral and use it all day long for email DC and calls no battery problems I even run live wall paper. I say move on and get over the busted up phone that you hate so much. Good Luck and next time if you have problems in the first 30days not 90days return your phone if my phone rebooted even 1 time I would have returned it no questions asked. Good Luck
 
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Yikes, sorry to hear about your bad experiences with this phone.


Since you said you want to hear from others as well:
  • I dont use DC, so cant comment on that.
  • The interface (motoblur) doesn't bother me at all. In fact I'm not really sure why people hate it so much.
  • Keyboard is great.
  • Sound is great.
  • I've had self-reboots maybe once or twice a month since I've had it. Certainly not once a day.
  • Sure there's been no updates yet, but what makes you think it will never get ICS?
  • Lack of a large development community is sad, I will agree there.
  • Every app I've wanted installs and works fine. I've only had to side-load 1 app.
  • I rooted my phone as soon as I could and have not noticed any issues.
  • That's too bad that there's no factory restore. Maybe a Sprint store can do it?
  • Haven't recorded video yet. but stills look decent in good light I think.
  • It does have a lot of buttons, but I've found it to be a minor issue.
I hope you have beter luck with WP8!
 
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Well the bad news is this device like other DC devices will never see ICS. The custom Android OS ROM is made from scratch at Motorola. To support Direct Connect and I'm ok with that. Others may want ICS on a Direct connect device but I don't think you will ever see that. To much work for to little reward for Motorola. Now Maybe and I say maybe Moto and Google might make the new Jelly Bean OS a little more direct connect friendly. Let's just cross our fingers and hope for better things :)
 
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Well the bad news is this device like other DC devices will never see ICS. The custom Android OS ROM is made from scratch at Motorola. To support Direct Connect and I'm ok with that. Others may want ICS on a Direct connect device but I don't think you will ever see that. To much work for to little reward for Motorola. Now Maybe and I say maybe Moto and Google might make the new Jelly Bean OS a little more direct connect friendly. Let's just cross our fingers and hope for better things :)

Interesting. Thanks. I did not realize.

Do you think Google buyong Motorola's cell phone dept. will have any effect?
 
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it's hard to say... What Google says is one thing and what goes on in the R/D dept at Motorola after the Android team moves in is another thing. My thinking is that it's about the mass market in the end. And Direct Connect is such a small slice of the pie in the overall picture that if the Android team even explores direct connect I would be very surprised. We will see how the new (Goomoto)company does. If you are a die hard Android fan like me :) This has got to be a good thing it will just take time to sort out.
 
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OK, the battery life is horrible. I take about 15 to 20 calls a day and about the same for e-mails. I seldom use the web, but my battery and those of co-workers dies within 4 to 6 hours. If I'm on the road, driving truck or calling on customers or vendors this is a major issue. (yes, this may be related to the direct connect)

The keypad is ok, the screen is small, but bigger then the blackberry I was used to.

The intelligent assistant recommended by our rep (Vlingo) was terrible. Kept locking up, and got over half my requests wrong. I tried re-install but that didn't help. while driving you are better off with the built in voice recognition to make calls. None of the apps that I've found so far allow me to put reminders in my calendar.

Of the six admiral phones we got in, 3 have died or have had issues in the first week requiring replacement.

We have a microsoft server and I'm not sure it was the phones fault, but something scrambled my contacts, putting last name first and such, shortly after syncing the phone.

Lastly, several co-workers complained of the phone locking up, or the black screen of death. Our rep said the phone required a daily reboot like the blackberry, but at this time there was no app to perform this task like the blackberry had.

For the good points, the web is fast if you use it. The touch screen is sensitive and crisp. It takes high quality pictures and sound over the speaker isn't bad.

I would NOT recommend this phone. I've tried several different smart phones over the past few weeks, and this phone seriously lacks important items like battery life, and better voice recognition.

 
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I'm in and out of weak signal areas all day and make 6 or 8 short calls and a few text/gmails and I get 20 + hours out of the battery, only charge about 2 hours a day and I have never run out of battery. I also carry a high end Samsung and that dies on power in 6 or 8 hours so it stays clipped to dash and plugged in all the time and use bluetooth while driving.
 
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I have had the xt603 since it first came out, about a year now. I had numerous complaints before the first update, since install the admdiral has functioned perfectly. Despite the slow sprint 3g data speeds, low battery life, this phone is the best android Ive owned (previously owned a i1). The design of form w/function could not be better exemplified. The durability for a smart phone is unmatched plus I enjoy being obnoxious in public and using the direct connect is the perfect flair for such occasions.
 
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