My thoughts on ICS is "Heres to hoping" to fix the data dropping issues that I, my wife and a friend all have.
I have another phone (Nexus) for work with ICS and I have to say, I'm not overly impressed... but the phone is stable.
So I'm with you on this... give me stability over ICS...
I'm running ICS on my BIONIC via being rooted and safestrapped, and let me tell you this: this unofficial, beta (really alpha) build of ICS for the BIONIC developed by Cyanogen and ported over to he BIONIC by DHacker29 is more stable than GB is on the non safe side. Stock is not stable for a number of reason,s but the main being that GB, in and of itself, does not support multiple processors, so it's squirrelly at best when it comes to really grinding your processor.
ICS stock is pretty neat, definitely could be better, but the back end is overhauled to make things work much more seamlessly than in previous versions of Android. As a result, several things have changed and there was a flurry of activity by app devs to make their apps ICS compatible b/c of those changes - and not all issues have still been fixed in all apps. It's really no different than the major overhaul from XP to Vista, with the exception that ICS doesn't kill your resources like Vista does. From a developer's POV, though, the change does warrant a good opportunity to go back and improve your code tremendously, which, a lot of developers are simply not putting enough time into.
This is another reason why I hate Motorola phones: because they release a better one every month. My next upgrade, which will be in 2013 (again I hate you Motorola), I'm getting a Samsung. They had the Galaxy S, Galaxy S2, and Galaxy Nexus releases 1 year apart. IMO, they spend more time and care perfecting each phone before release.
They really don't. Our BIONICs were delayed over 9 months, and ended up using the platform that was already slated to be released as the RAZR. otherwise it would have been more like 6-8 months difference between the two phones.
That is true. Don't get me wrong, I love the Bionic and would not trade it for the Razr or Razr Maxx, but they do give the perception that once the new product hits, the old is forgotten. Not saying that perception is true, only how it feels.
Is this the perception you get from Motorola, or from
VZW? I see it more as a VZW thing - they are the ones promoting the phones, they are the ones that are advertising, etc. Your perception, I think, is spot on - after all, perception is highly subjective, so I can't say it's wrong - but I think your analysis of the
source of your perception may be a bit off.
part of this is because of limited inventory - or, I should say, because they make more money off of newer phones, being able to charge premium prices, than off older phones. Part of this is because marketing. And part of it is because they want to remain competitive with the other carriers.
Well the Razr is so much better than the Bionic. The Bionic feels like a prototype phone in comparison. It's fine but the Razr is well put together like the X. My Bionic still rarely has data in Los Angeles but I'm on wifi alot which is lucky.
ICS sounds nice. I'd like chrome for the sync capabilities.
To each their own. The only real problem I have with the BIONIC is the plastic back cover - if it were metal, I'd like it even better. In contrast, to me the RAZR feels like a toy, and flimsy as well. I can't make my BIONIC flex in my hands, but playing with the RAZR in the store, I could - and that made me very leery of it.
If i was moto i would have keeped the droid line modeled after the original droid. With that said i am on battery three now on the bionic and second bionic, in 2 yrs with the original droid i never had to replace a battery or phone so i am for one gratefull for a removable battery.
Removable batts *are* good.
Surprised you've had issues with batts though, b/c I have both originals (CostCo purchase so I got heaps of extras), plus I bought 2 extended batts. All 4 are working perfectly fine here. Also on the same phone I originally bought. Sorry to hear you've been having hardware issues....
The original DROID was really well built. The x was a good phone too. Motorola builds good stuff. The battery in the razrs are replaceable like in the iphone. Not simple but not often needed.
True enough - not *easily* replaceable, but replaceable nonetheless.
The RAZR, though, forces me to either 1) keep a charger with me at all times in case my battery starts to go low, or 2) purchase an external battery that I can hook up to the phone to charge the battery if I am in an area where there is no convenient way to charge the phone.
With my BIONIC, having 2 stock and 2 extended batteries, plus an external battery charger, I can easily keep a spare battery with me to swap and go - it's smaller than the charger, and no worries to worry about either. When I start to go down, I power off, swap, power on, and in less than 2 minutes I;m back up and running. With a full battery.
Again, it is to each his/her own, but to *me* this is much more convenient. I can even stagger batteries - the extended batteries will give me a minimum of 20+ hours of use, so I can put in a stock in the morning and if it turns out that I am using the phone a lot, I can swap over to an extended. If I know the entire day is going to be on the phone for extensive use, I have one extended in the phone and the other with me.
...)
