So I went into my store right when they opened and now I'm sitting here with my Maxx HD. Anybody have any questions about it? I'm going to post a small writeup on my first day with the phone later as I have classes, but I'm willing to answer anything anybody wants to know about it. Just throwing it out there.

 

Alright sorry I took so long, just made it home. So here's the deal.

Just FYI I'm moving up from a Droid X, so this is indeed a big upgrade. This phone is fan-freaking-tastic. Bottom line. Also the alternate upgrade deal works to keep unlimited just so you guys know.

The build quality, absolute top notch. The Verizon guy who activated it for me was even surprised. There's a few small things though. The Kevlar back is superb. Love it. Not as grippy as I imagined though to be honest, but it feels great. The button on the side are also aluminum, machined or brushed not really sure. The power button has grooves cut into it so you can grip it just fine. Volume rocker has notches on the end so you know the limits of it when reaching blindly. Really a nice touch in my opinion. The placement is a bit off from my Droid X though so it's taking a big of getting used to, but that's just a personal thing. Easily accessible when the phone is gripped in your hand.

This phone is also very smooth. Few and rare jitters, but it only happened to me when the phone was coming from the screen off mode. That's understandable. But again, few and rare, it happened twice.

I know people are concerned about the reception, it's damn near perfect. Never had a signal issue with my DX but this is even better. Full bars everywhere except at home (is this normal? Happened with my DX too). 4G speeds are exceptional too.

This was my download speed at school: http://i.imgur.com/cp8Am.jpg

At home it's still very quick but like I said, the bars are low at home. Averages 9mb/s down and 12 up.

Call quality is exceptional. This thing sounds clear as hell. Both on the receiving and sending end (so I've been told on the sending end, my friend said it sounded great, better than the DX). I've only had 1 dropped call in my 2 and a half years with my DX so I'll assume at this point the radio is just as good if not better. No issues yet.

No death grip as well. I wrapped both my hands around the unit to test the signal loss, only dropped one bar. I'm not sure how the dBm stuff works so if someone would explain it to me, I'll be more than glad to test it out.

Someone asked about the memory allocated to apps. I can ballpark it at 26GB available after activating it. Thing is, all my apps started downloading as soon as I put my google account on so I can't say with complete certainty, sorry about that.

Okay for the camera, I was unfortunately unable to take a lot of pictures. I was running late to class so I grabbed a quick picture of my bike while it was warming up in my garage. When the light is low, it tells you to shoot an HDR pic. So I tested it out, along with normal shots. I didn't upload them to an album sorry, I'm running on a tight schedule now so seperate links.

http://i.imgur.com/1afBs.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/lCyEp.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/wbDoZ.jpg

Didn't move an inch, so you guys be the judge of that. First one is the HDR pic.

As for indoor camera shots, I grabbed another shot of my helmet.

http://i.imgur.com/IEp5V.jpg

Personally I think the camera is just fine. I'll get more pictures tomorrow though. Didn't get too indepth in the software though so I can't test it.

Think that covers it. Had one random reboot though. I'll be back to comment more 5ish hours if I missed anything. Sorry I wrote this in a rush. Any more questions, ask away.

 

Alright I'm back. Had a few things I wanted to mention in that writeup that I didn't have time to. Bear with me, this will be a bit long.

Addressing jroc: I just put my fingers all over the seperations and no real signal loss. Had a bar drop at a point but I'm not sure if thats because I moved the phone a bit or my finger. Couldn't recreate it though. As for the screen, I can see why people say it's a bit oversaturated. Personally I like it, makes the colors more vibrant. The DX looks washed out compared to it. That's all preference though. No PenTile pixelation issues either. Couldn't notice anything of the sort. Brightness is great, I love it. I didn't get much outdoors use though because as I said earlier I was running late to class. Will reply again tomorrow concerning that, along with daylight pictures for people to see.

So it's time for the battery results. I didn't want to do it earlier because my day technically wasn't over and Moto claims it an all day phone. Put it simply, it sure as hell is.

Upon getting my phone I brought it home and charged it from it's stock 40ish charge to 72 before heading to school. I was amazed every time I checked the battery. I had my bright on about 75% and burned through data like mad for 2 hours. I really didn't hold back, I had my phone in my hand not even setting it down or turning the screen off. Few 1 or 2 minute phone calls, text messages, streaming music, etc. It was at 60 percent or so after those 2 hours. I was impressed coming from my DX, which might have been down to 40. Along with streaming music. I downloaded an album and listened to that for about 3.5 hours while still picking up my phone every 10 minutes or so and doing stuff. Had a genuine hard time killing this battery. When I got home I had just about 40 percent left, and thats when I wrote that earlier bit. Went back out without charging, lots more data burned through, youtube videos, shazam'ing songs, usual stuff. I came in at 20 percent left. All in all, excellent battery life.

I took a pic of my battery results here. Thankfully I can extend this battery life even more by not using the screen so heavily. I think it's exceptional considering how heavily I tasked the phone today.

Now for the things I don't like.

Okay so to start off, the metal banding around the phone. It's nice. It has a great look, great feel, etc. The issue I have is the corner pieces. Take a look at this picture. They aren't completely flush with the band. Not such a big deal I mean, I personally don't care. But as a premium device, maybe that should have been addressed? I dunno, just my opinion. It's not that its completely off, they're close to being flush though. Again let me reiterate it's not a huge issue, it's just something I noticed.

The SIM tray removal tool you get with it, keep it for sure. I havent attempted a paper clip or anything but I'm sure they'll work. Still, if you need to change your microSD card, you'll need something like it. Not just to open the tray, but to get the card out. It's seated in an ejector slot, the push in to insert, push in to eject thing. The problem is the push in to insert is a far travel from the outer body of the phone. This makes the push in to eject a bit more difficult. I couldn't do it with my nails although girl nails could definitely do it lol. Nitpicky issue, but I think it's good for you guys to know.

Regarding the random reboot issue I mentioned, it happened when I uninstalled lightflow. So maybe thats app related? Didn't have an issue since. Definitely will look into it for sure though.

Here's another. When I'm playing music and the screen is off, if I hit the wake button, the sound will be replaced by a buzz lasting maybe a tenth or two tenths of a second. Might be a software issue, the jack is solid from what I can tell. Best quality jack I've seen atleast haha.

Googlerola also includes a sound effect/EQ thats preset on for some unforsaken reason. It was driving me nuts. I listen to death metal and what was happening was the music would sound fine until the low vocal growls kicked in, which were not completely inaudible, but they were difficult to hear. It's in the sound options in the settings, its the 3D sound effect.

Also I could NOT plug in my old SD card and be on my merry way. Not sure if this is common with all android phones that are newer, but there you have it. My 16gb from my DX wouldn't particularly be read. The folders that existed would show up, but they'd be fileless. I also transferred my library over to my 32gb and when I inserted that, same issue. Maybe its a format thing? I dunno. I'm transferring all my music over again via USB than a card reader this time, I'll be back to mention the results.

Another thing is, I'm not really sure how this phone handles microSD cards. My card keeps showing up empty, 29.something GB free out of the same amount. I even downloaded an album on my card and had it running. It worked, but the storage option would still say the max amount free was the size of the volume. Weird issue. But again, I'm transferring my entire collection over so we'll see. The card is not the issue I know this for fact, it works on my brother's GS3.

Here's another thing. The notification LED has a half-assed pulse. I'm not really sure how to describe this but here's my best shot. From full light the LED starts to fade out slowly but rather than actually fade till it's out, it fades like 25% and then goes out. I can tell by reading it over that this doesn't make a lot of sense, but that's really the best I can do haha. Sorry.

Also FoxFi activates the network with no issues. Whether it actually works I can't test it yet sorry. But it doesn't give me any specific errors.

All in all, minor nitpicks (other than the microSD but we'll see about that). I still say the phone was worth it though.

Again if I've missed anything anybody has asked please do let me know, I'm willing to answer your questions.

EDIT: Tested FoxFi. Network launches but can't use it. So that's a no go.

Also the front facing camera is okay. I'm not really sure what the standards are for this these days, but it looks better than my netbook. If that means anything.

Another thing I just remembered, the phone hit about 43C internal temperature. By no means was it hot to the touch. It was warm, but I didn't realize it was that high until my widget told me. Thought you guys would like to know.

 

Thank you.

Yeah I won't be throwing my phone haha, but just by feel, it feels tough. I know that doesn't mean a whole lot in terms of actual durability, but atleast it inspires confidence, you know?

Ok so I think I get this sd card thing now. So the phone classifies the internal storage as "sd card". Is this something that's new? It sounds strange to me. I used AndroZip to search directories and found that the sd card is called external1. So all my music is indeed on there. Now to find out how to get apps to access it.

EDIT: Sidenote, that root by Dan Rosenburg? Works just fine. Had to run it 4 or 5 times but its working now!