Ive had the Razr Maxx HD for over a week now and have been putting it through some pretty heavy use and felt like sharing my thoughts on the phone.
Build
The most striking first impression the phone gives is the build quality and design. The front is glass with a very thin hardened plastic bezel. Below that is a ring of aluminum that encircles the entire phone. Theres a Kevlar backing that is about as thick as the aluminum band on the Maxx. The non Maxx Kevlar is a bit thinner but otherwise the two phones are identical.
The phone feels extremely solid and dense. It gives an impression almost like an expensive watch; not unlike the iPhone 4S. Theres no creaking or give. Its clear that Moto paid a great attention to detail when building this phone. Its a very boxy design that seems to have made no effort to be ergonomic. I would describe this phone as feeling similar to what an iPhone 4S would feel like if it were the size of the Galaxy S3.
The front of the phone has a Motorola logo at the top and a Verizon logo at the bottom. The microphone is on the front of the phone at the edge of the bezel slightly to the right of the Verizon logo. I like that the microphone is on the front of the phone instead of the bottom. Right below the Motorola logo is the LED notification light(which is shaped very much like the earpiece) and the earpiece. Slightly to the right is the front facing camera. The right side of the phone has the sleep key and the volume rocker. Both of these keys are made of metal and feel very industrial. The sleep key is grooved like a rumble strip on a highway so you cant possibly confuse It by feel with the volume rocker and the volume rocker has raised points on the end so its easy to feel where it ends on either side. The top of the phone has the typical 3.5mm headphone jack. On the left is the micro sim and microSD card tray(which requires the included tool or a paper clip to open). This tray does not feel at all wobbly or cheap(it does not move at all without using the tool) like it could break like the one on the Droid Razr did. Below the tray are the micro HDMI and micro USB ports. Theres nothing on the bottom of the phone except two exposed hex screws.
On the back of the phone at the top from left to right youll find the LED flash. Below that is the rear microphone. The 8 megapixel camera is in the center and the speaker is on the right. In the center is the Motorola logo and below that the 4G LTE and Verizon branding. At the very bottom youll find some fine print wording including the model number, FCC information, and the phrase designed by Motorola assembled in China.
The phone gives a very good impression that its a high quality premium device. Its a pretty far cry from the plastic phones of HTC and Samsung that have been common place most of this year.
Good set of pictures of the phone from Moto: http://www.motorola.com/us/consumer...html?selectedTab=tab-4&cgid=mobile-phones#tab
Screen
The screen is a 4.7 inch 1280x720 Super AMOLED HD display that uses Gorilla Glass. Im not sure if it uses GG 1 or 2 but Id imagine it is probably 1 since they arent advertising it as using 2 anywhere. Coming from a Galaxy Nexus the display is noticeably nicer looking than what was in the Nexus. The improvement in viewing angle is the main thing Im noticing. With the screen on auto brightness I am having no difficulty using the phone outdoors in direct sunlight here in Florida.
Camera
The camera on the phone is pretty good. Id describe it as above average and definitely a competitive a camera performance and feature set wise with the One X and Galaxy S3 although Id definitely give the nod to those two. The camera is very fast, has a burst shot mode, and the image quality is significantly better than the Galaxy Nexus(the phone Im coming from). The software detects low light conditions and gives you a suggestion to enable HDR mode which dramatically improves the quality of low light photos. This is a really, really nice touch.
Battery Life
Battery life on this phone is very solid to put it lightly. 9 hours of Pandora streaming on 4G LTE and the phone has over 60% left. This phone will make it through a day with the heaviest usage I can throw at it with the screen on auto brightness(That kind of use does require nightly charging however). For normal everyday use one could definitely get away with charging this once every other night or maybe even every three nights. This is the first phone I have ever had where 4G LTE battery life was so good that I would never consider turning 4G off.
Software
The software on the phone is very close to stock Android. It has all of the Galaxy Nexus notification sounds and ringtones and almost all of the settings and menus are exactly the same. All of the vanilla Android widgets are there as well.
There are a handful of changes and tweaks to the UI. A few apps have different icons and a different color scheme. One nice touch that non stock Android phones tend to have but vanilla Android does not have is notifications on the app icon itself such as a number telling you how many new texts you have received. That kind of stuff is present here. I dont remember if the stock Android calendar app did this or not but the calendar app on here changes the app icon to show you the appropriate number for the day of the month each day. The new Motorola circle widget is pretty solid.
The home screen works more like iOS than Android. Your home screen is the left most screen here. Moving to the right gives you a screen that asks if youd like to add another screen(You can have a maximum of 7 home screens just like most modern Android phones). Moving to the left from the home screen brings up the quick settings screen that lets you toggle ringtone, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, mobile data, and airplane mode. While different I dont feel like any of these changes hurt the experience in any way. I rather like the quick settings menu.
The phone uses the on screen buttons just like the Nexus phones. They behave the same as on the Nexus in that they move around depending on which way the phone is oriented and they go away completely when doing certain full screen things like YouTube.
The phone comes with a pretty large number of Verizon apps preinstalled. Most of them can not be disabled or uninstalled. That said I haven't really found them to get in the way or be like some bloatware of the past has been.
The stock keyboard is virtually identical to the stock ICS keyboard. It could be placebo or because of the minutely larger screen or maybe even a better digitizer but I find my typing to be noticeably better on this than on the Galaxy Nexus.
General usage performance is a whole lot faster than the Galaxy Nexus on ICS but not as smooth as the Nexus on Jellybean. Web browsing performance in Chrome is significantly smoother than on the Nexus regardless of Jellybean. General usage performance is more or less exactly what is expected from the Snapdragon S4 and a next gen phone; very, very good.
I have not been able to get my photos in the gallery to be able to upload to Picasa using the share button in the gallery even though there is a Picasa option in there. Other forums have told me that Verizon is blocking it but other people have reported that it works fine on their phone. I havent spent a lot of time trying to troubleshoot it so I couldnt say for sure yet.
General Stuff
The 32GB of onboard storage is not partitioned; it behaves as one big contiguous block. Every bit of it is available for apps or for files just like with the Galaxy Nexus. When plugging into the PC it asks if youd like to install some Motorola connectivity software. I did install it but havent played with it any. Moving files to and from the phones internal storage when connected to a PC works exactly the same as on the Galaxy Nexus; just drag and drop with no need to switch to mass storage mode. I do not have a MicroSD card to test how that works but I would imagine for that mass storage mode would be required.
The vibrate motor is very soft. Depending on how tight your pockets are its possible to not notice the phone vibrating for a text or an email.
The speaker I would describe as average in volume compared to other phones I have had. It is louder than the Galaxy Nexus but not as loud as other Motorola phones in recent memory. I would subjectively describe the sound quality of the speaker as above average; listening to music through it is not painful but its still a phone speaker.
The notification light is very bright and pulses often enough that theres no way you can miss it unlike the Galaxy Nexus which was ~7 seconds between pulses. I really like the way the notification light on this phone looks. Photo of the notification light courtesy of droidlife: http://www.droid-life.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/razr-hd-light2.jpg
Reception has been fantastic for me in the week+ I have used the phone. 3G, 4G, Wifi doesnt matter. The handoff is quicker than any Verizon 4G phone Ive had (and Ive had quite a few). I have never had the data connection get frozen and require an airplane mode toggle to be fixed; an issue that happened with the Galaxy Nexus and many Verizon phones I have had.
Calls have all connected reliably and everything was loud and clear. None have dropped and I have received no complaints on the other end from people about my call quality.
Wrap Up
Its a good phone. Walking into the Verizon store it was either this or the Galaxy S3 and after a week of using this(and having played with the S3 plenty due to many acquaintances having it) there is no way Id consider the S3. Hopes this sheds a little light on what the phone is like.
Build
The most striking first impression the phone gives is the build quality and design. The front is glass with a very thin hardened plastic bezel. Below that is a ring of aluminum that encircles the entire phone. Theres a Kevlar backing that is about as thick as the aluminum band on the Maxx. The non Maxx Kevlar is a bit thinner but otherwise the two phones are identical.
The phone feels extremely solid and dense. It gives an impression almost like an expensive watch; not unlike the iPhone 4S. Theres no creaking or give. Its clear that Moto paid a great attention to detail when building this phone. Its a very boxy design that seems to have made no effort to be ergonomic. I would describe this phone as feeling similar to what an iPhone 4S would feel like if it were the size of the Galaxy S3.
The front of the phone has a Motorola logo at the top and a Verizon logo at the bottom. The microphone is on the front of the phone at the edge of the bezel slightly to the right of the Verizon logo. I like that the microphone is on the front of the phone instead of the bottom. Right below the Motorola logo is the LED notification light(which is shaped very much like the earpiece) and the earpiece. Slightly to the right is the front facing camera. The right side of the phone has the sleep key and the volume rocker. Both of these keys are made of metal and feel very industrial. The sleep key is grooved like a rumble strip on a highway so you cant possibly confuse It by feel with the volume rocker and the volume rocker has raised points on the end so its easy to feel where it ends on either side. The top of the phone has the typical 3.5mm headphone jack. On the left is the micro sim and microSD card tray(which requires the included tool or a paper clip to open). This tray does not feel at all wobbly or cheap(it does not move at all without using the tool) like it could break like the one on the Droid Razr did. Below the tray are the micro HDMI and micro USB ports. Theres nothing on the bottom of the phone except two exposed hex screws.
On the back of the phone at the top from left to right youll find the LED flash. Below that is the rear microphone. The 8 megapixel camera is in the center and the speaker is on the right. In the center is the Motorola logo and below that the 4G LTE and Verizon branding. At the very bottom youll find some fine print wording including the model number, FCC information, and the phrase designed by Motorola assembled in China.
The phone gives a very good impression that its a high quality premium device. Its a pretty far cry from the plastic phones of HTC and Samsung that have been common place most of this year.
Good set of pictures of the phone from Moto: http://www.motorola.com/us/consumer...html?selectedTab=tab-4&cgid=mobile-phones#tab
Screen
The screen is a 4.7 inch 1280x720 Super AMOLED HD display that uses Gorilla Glass. Im not sure if it uses GG 1 or 2 but Id imagine it is probably 1 since they arent advertising it as using 2 anywhere. Coming from a Galaxy Nexus the display is noticeably nicer looking than what was in the Nexus. The improvement in viewing angle is the main thing Im noticing. With the screen on auto brightness I am having no difficulty using the phone outdoors in direct sunlight here in Florida.
Camera
The camera on the phone is pretty good. Id describe it as above average and definitely a competitive a camera performance and feature set wise with the One X and Galaxy S3 although Id definitely give the nod to those two. The camera is very fast, has a burst shot mode, and the image quality is significantly better than the Galaxy Nexus(the phone Im coming from). The software detects low light conditions and gives you a suggestion to enable HDR mode which dramatically improves the quality of low light photos. This is a really, really nice touch.
Battery Life
Battery life on this phone is very solid to put it lightly. 9 hours of Pandora streaming on 4G LTE and the phone has over 60% left. This phone will make it through a day with the heaviest usage I can throw at it with the screen on auto brightness(That kind of use does require nightly charging however). For normal everyday use one could definitely get away with charging this once every other night or maybe even every three nights. This is the first phone I have ever had where 4G LTE battery life was so good that I would never consider turning 4G off.
Software
The software on the phone is very close to stock Android. It has all of the Galaxy Nexus notification sounds and ringtones and almost all of the settings and menus are exactly the same. All of the vanilla Android widgets are there as well.
There are a handful of changes and tweaks to the UI. A few apps have different icons and a different color scheme. One nice touch that non stock Android phones tend to have but vanilla Android does not have is notifications on the app icon itself such as a number telling you how many new texts you have received. That kind of stuff is present here. I dont remember if the stock Android calendar app did this or not but the calendar app on here changes the app icon to show you the appropriate number for the day of the month each day. The new Motorola circle widget is pretty solid.
The home screen works more like iOS than Android. Your home screen is the left most screen here. Moving to the right gives you a screen that asks if youd like to add another screen(You can have a maximum of 7 home screens just like most modern Android phones). Moving to the left from the home screen brings up the quick settings screen that lets you toggle ringtone, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, mobile data, and airplane mode. While different I dont feel like any of these changes hurt the experience in any way. I rather like the quick settings menu.
The phone uses the on screen buttons just like the Nexus phones. They behave the same as on the Nexus in that they move around depending on which way the phone is oriented and they go away completely when doing certain full screen things like YouTube.
The phone comes with a pretty large number of Verizon apps preinstalled. Most of them can not be disabled or uninstalled. That said I haven't really found them to get in the way or be like some bloatware of the past has been.
The stock keyboard is virtually identical to the stock ICS keyboard. It could be placebo or because of the minutely larger screen or maybe even a better digitizer but I find my typing to be noticeably better on this than on the Galaxy Nexus.
General usage performance is a whole lot faster than the Galaxy Nexus on ICS but not as smooth as the Nexus on Jellybean. Web browsing performance in Chrome is significantly smoother than on the Nexus regardless of Jellybean. General usage performance is more or less exactly what is expected from the Snapdragon S4 and a next gen phone; very, very good.
I have not been able to get my photos in the gallery to be able to upload to Picasa using the share button in the gallery even though there is a Picasa option in there. Other forums have told me that Verizon is blocking it but other people have reported that it works fine on their phone. I havent spent a lot of time trying to troubleshoot it so I couldnt say for sure yet.
General Stuff
The 32GB of onboard storage is not partitioned; it behaves as one big contiguous block. Every bit of it is available for apps or for files just like with the Galaxy Nexus. When plugging into the PC it asks if youd like to install some Motorola connectivity software. I did install it but havent played with it any. Moving files to and from the phones internal storage when connected to a PC works exactly the same as on the Galaxy Nexus; just drag and drop with no need to switch to mass storage mode. I do not have a MicroSD card to test how that works but I would imagine for that mass storage mode would be required.
The vibrate motor is very soft. Depending on how tight your pockets are its possible to not notice the phone vibrating for a text or an email.
The speaker I would describe as average in volume compared to other phones I have had. It is louder than the Galaxy Nexus but not as loud as other Motorola phones in recent memory. I would subjectively describe the sound quality of the speaker as above average; listening to music through it is not painful but its still a phone speaker.
The notification light is very bright and pulses often enough that theres no way you can miss it unlike the Galaxy Nexus which was ~7 seconds between pulses. I really like the way the notification light on this phone looks. Photo of the notification light courtesy of droidlife: http://www.droid-life.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/razr-hd-light2.jpg
Reception has been fantastic for me in the week+ I have used the phone. 3G, 4G, Wifi doesnt matter. The handoff is quicker than any Verizon 4G phone Ive had (and Ive had quite a few). I have never had the data connection get frozen and require an airplane mode toggle to be fixed; an issue that happened with the Galaxy Nexus and many Verizon phones I have had.
Calls have all connected reliably and everything was loud and clear. None have dropped and I have received no complaints on the other end from people about my call quality.
Wrap Up
Its a good phone. Walking into the Verizon store it was either this or the Galaxy S3 and after a week of using this(and having played with the S3 plenty due to many acquaintances having it) there is no way Id consider the S3. Hopes this sheds a little light on what the phone is like.
Pleasently surprised by Moto & Verizon on this one . . . I thought it'd be in the closing days of 2012, if Moto kept their word of launching before 2013. Not too shabby. 
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