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Confessions of a Razr owner: After the Honeymoon

rushmore

Extreme Android User
Nov 13, 2008
8,256
1,355
Kentucky
This the fast forward, late night Cinemax version:

Good!

Display/Touch: So ironic that I trashed the Razr display during initial comparison posts, only to prefer the display after actually USING the device beyond lunch time demo tests. Yes, the display on the Rez is higher res, but the Razr is better overall and better touch response.

Performance: Best device/phone I have used or tested so far. Stunning how much better than my already decent performing Droid 3.

Battery life: Very good battery life and due in part to the display tech chosen and the chipset. I was WRONG with earlier posts asserting it would be a battery hog. The catch here for me at least, the Razr needed tweaking to get the maximum battery life.

Call quality & reception: Great 4G reception in the big cement and steel building where I work and fantastic call quality. 3G is great too.


Bad!

Battery life needed tweaking: A contradiction, but in order for me to get very good battery life was to root and freeze tasks that were hogging. Key number one with a bullet offender was the stock Music app. An ABSOLUTE battery hog and pure evil, IMO. Most of my odd 1.2ghz spikes and media usage issues was due to the Music app- even when not using it. Once I froze it, no more funky spikes and battery use issues. I use LePlayer since low resource use, free and has a folder browse option- nice.

Audio output 3.5mm: Though the actual quality is good, the volume output is weak compared to the Rez and iPod4/iPhone. Motorola has no apparent clue about correlating gain and volume output, since ALL devices since the Droid 1 have the issue from the 3.5mm jack. Getting a decent balance for output in a car or other auxilary options is futile for me. My iPod 4 is far better. No contest. AVOID any headphones higher than 16 ohms, since will only make the output less. Edit: Please read Szadzik's post for more clarification.

Random Reboots:

The only times I have so far gotten "random" reboots is when using the HDMI function. Does not matter: Streaming, browsing or games, the Razr display will freeze for a few seconds and then red Moto icon and reboot time. Does not happen all the time, but enough to make not want to use HDMI out.

Conclusion!

In spite of the bad, the overall experience has been GREAT and I am hoping the HDMI issue is fixed (or I may have a defective Razr?). I can deal with the audio, since okay with buds and use my iPod in cars anyway.

:)
 
I KNEW the stock music player was a villian! What were you using to track CPU usage? Even after I removed all music folders from Motocast sync, media server was still moving MB of data. I actually am getting ready to use the 2.3.4 music player from my DX and see if that works better. I'll also have to check out Leplayer. Meridian is a bit heavy (but allows playlist export, sort of), and Winamp is a complete hog.

I agree on the media audio output, unless I have my Bose IE2s or better in, the audio is kind of quiet. Moto has fixed problems like this in the past through updates. Of note, call audio through headphones seems fine; in fact I have the volume set about 30% lower than I did when using headphones on the DX.
 
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I noticed that I would get quite a few times stuck at 1.2GHz and the Razr was very warm. Go into battery use and it will show the offender. Every time for me was media or the music app, even when not using for hours. I would force stop the task in the battery use settings area and the device would settle down.

Since freezing the music app, no more issues. Not sure what the issue is, but I do not use the remote feature, so froze it.

None the less, the stock music app for me was a resource hog.
 
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AVOID any headphones higher than 16 ohms, since will only make the output less.

Just wanted to make sure people do not misunderstand.

It is not all about impedance. When it comes to volume achieved you should be looking at sensitivity and not impedance. If you get 32 ohm headphones with sensitivity at 120 dbm, volume will be high.
 
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I KNEW the stock music player was a villian! What were you using to track CPU usage? Even after I removed all music folders from Motocast sync, media server was still moving MB of data. I actually am getting ready to use the 2.3.4 music player from my DX and see if that works better. I'll also have to check out Leplayer. Meridian is a bit heavy (but allows playlist export, sort of), and Winamp is a complete hog.

Please update with your findings on using the DX media player. While I am not seeing the issues with CPU usage ((that I know of)) it is crashing on me. I have removed all MotoCast sync folders as of this morning to see if this will help. I've moved a large portion of my music to Google Music and will plan to use that versus MotoCast since I don't stream non-music content.

On that note, is there a way to delete or disable the MotoCast account on the RAZR? It is locked when I look in the accounts section of settings application. At this point I have no use for MotoCast, at least until it provides more pros then cons for my usage, and would like to just remove the associated account.
 
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Just wanted to make sure people do not misunderstand.

It is not all about impedance. When it comes to volume achieved you should be looking at sensitivity and not impedance. If you get 32 ohm headphones with sensitivity at 120 dbm, volume will be high.

Good point, but most folks are not spending the money needed to go there ;) At least for the buds that give that result.

I did not freeze Motocast, since the root of all evil for me appears to have been the stock music app. There are demons in that there app! ;) I do not use Motocast since IMO also a hog. Zumocast IMO is better, since less intrusive.

Issue of keeping the Razr is total "cost"and my wife not killing me. I paid full price.

Device is a keeper, but I fear the wife....

Added....... Christmas gift??
 
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Good point, but most folks are not spending the money needed to go there ;) At least for the buds that give that result.

I did not freeze Motocast, since the root of all evil for me appears to have been the stock music app. There are demons in that there app! ;) I do not use Motocast since IMO also a hog. Zumocast IMO is better, since less intrusive.
You were able to get Zumo up and running? I'll have to give that a shot--especially since Motocast is built on Zumocast, why have the resource hog running?

What I was asking earlier is what app are you using to track CPU? does it keep historical logs? The battery usage give total CPU time, but not specific speed spikes.
 
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What I was asking earlier is what app are you using to track CPU? does it keep historical logs? The battery usage give total CPU time, but not specific speed spikes.

I've used the app called SystemPanel in the past to monitor CPU, memory, etc. usage. Worked fairly well and didn't appear to be bogging my phone down when I set to run in background for a day or two to collect data.
 
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You were able to get Zumo up and running? I'll have to give that a shot--especially since Motocast is built on Zumocast, why have the resource hog running?

What I was asking earlier is what app are you using to track CPU? does it keep historical logs? The battery usage give total CPU time, but not specific speed spikes.

Yep, it was linked at XDA and works great on the Razr and only runs when you want it to and no integration that seems to cause more harm than good. Phandroid had a link to the XDA, but a simple search will peg it.


BTW, the Razr is not bad for audio output, but must admit the iPod 4 has spoiled me in that regard. I agree that the issue can be fixed via a firmware update. Moto seems to need to increase the gain value. Zumocast desktop app needs to be installed on your computer, since does not use the Motocast software.
 
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This the fast forward, late night Cinemax version:

Good!

Display/Touch: So ironic that I trashed the Razr display during initial comparison posts, only to prefer the display after actually USING the device beyond lunch time demo tests. Yes, the display on the Rez is higher res, but the Razr is better overall and better touch response.

Performance: Best device/phone I have used or tested so far. Stunning how much better than my already decent performing Droid 3.

Battery life: Very good battery life and due in part to the display tech chosen and the chipset. I was WRONG with earlier posts asserting it would be a battery hog. The catch here for me at least, the Razr needed tweaking to get the maximum battery life.

Call quality & reception: Great 4G reception in the big cement and steel building where I work and fantastic call quality. 3G is great too.


Bad!

Battery life needed tweaking: A contradiction, but in order for me to get very good battery life was to root and freeze tasks that were hogging. Key number one with a bullet offender was the stock Music app. An ABSOLUTE battery hog and pure evil, IMO. Most of my odd 1.2ghz spikes and media usage issues was due to the Music app- even when not using it. Once I froze it, no more funky spikes and battery use issues. I use LePlayer since low resource use, free and has a folder browse option- nice.

Audio output 3.5mm: Though the actual quality is good, the volume output is weak compared to the Rez and iPod4/iPhone. Motorola has no apparent clue about correlating gain and volume output, since ALL devices since the Droid 1 have the issue from the 3.5mm jack. Getting a decent balance for output in a car or other auxilary options is futile. My iPod 4 is far better. No contest. AVOID any headphones higher than 16 ohms, since will only make the output less. Edit: Please read Szadzik's post for more clarification.

Random Reboots:

The only times I have so far gotten "random" reboots is when using the HDMI function. Does not matter: Streaming, browsing or games, the Razr display will freeze for a few seconds and then red Moto icon and reboot time. Does not happen all the time, but enough to make not want to use HDMI out.

Conclusion!

In spite of the bad, the overall experience has been GREAT and I am hoping the HDMI issue is fixed (or I may have a defective Razr?). I can deal with the audio, since okay with buds and use my iPod in cars anyway.

:)

great post! can you elaborate a little on the stock music app issue? i use it a lot. i just checked and it's only using 4% of my battery life right now, but if it's going to become problematic, i'll switch to using something else.
 
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great post! can you elaborate a little on the stock music app issue? i use it a lot. i just checked and it's only using 4% of my battery life right now, but if it's going to become problematic, i'll switch to using something else.


I kept noticing the Razr would stay locked into 1.2ghz at random times and stay there unless I either went into the battery use settings and stopped the media or music app (was both task ID's, different times). The thing that got me was not using the app within any stretch of hours when it happened. Seemed random. I think it has something to do with the media integration, so am cutting all ties to it, as best as possible.

LePlayer is nice, since cpu runs at 300mhz while using the app. Nice sign only the hardware decoder is being used and no app funny bidness' :) For me, the stock app would spike up usage and not stay fixed at 300mhz.
 
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I would also like to know if this is a hardware issue or a firmware deal.

I'm looking to get a new head unit for my car and would love to have bluetooth pairing instead of a plug.

Since the discussion is about audio, Does the RAZR have any ability to output audio via USB? I would like to run it into a Fiio E7 DAC.

Not until we get working OTA solutions (1 user reported to have it working at XDA) and ICS. ICS is the key here.
 
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That did the trick! Poweramp has a preamp function that helps to make a significant difference in the output and quality.

Based on the CPU load and preamp function, the app is using the hardware, since no CPU jump from 300mhz and hard to fake a preamp function.

Sound is now on par with the Rezound, which is a compliment.


Added:

Works wonders for 3.5mm and will test car output later.

Sweet app and though plenty of trial time, went ahead and paid the five bucks.
 
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One thing that is still a bummer is having to redo all your playlists with each new phone, etc. A lot of that has to do with where the media is on the SD card. If you use Titanium and have the media in the same place as when you backed up the app, I believe the playlists should be valid with the path they look for the mp3's. But still, and better playlist backup option on these music apps would be welcome.
 
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