.:Official Review And Impressions Thread:.

[DroidAV8R]

Hi all, I haven't been around as much as I would like because of work, but I think I have that under control now...

Just an update on the hot pink soft keys I talked about the other day. I called VZW after I read the responses on this board. They marked it DOA and told me to go back to the store and exchange it. I did, and the new one had pink keys too. I got the manager and walked over to the display phone and we compared them. Sure enough, the display phone definitely had red soft keys, and in comparison, mine definitely had hot pink soft keys- like when they lit up, they looked like a hot pink highlighter! I told the manager I wanted another Rezound and he actually said "is that such a big deal? I mean, I hope you didn't return the last one just for this."

After staring at him for about 10 seconds without saying anything, the manager said "well, we got another batch in today. Let me pull one of those for you." Sure enough, the keys on that one were dark red, as advertised, and that phone is mine now. Anyone else heard of anything like this with the Rezound?

Also, is anyone else pleasantly surprised with the battery life on this phone? With moderate use, the battery life rocks, even with spending most of the day on LTE! I have plenty of life left after I get home, and even with heavy use for another few hours after that, I still have 40% left.

 

[Deleted User]

Also, is anyone else pleasantly surprised with the battery life on this phone? With moderate use, the battery life rocks, even with spending most of the day on LTE! I have plenty of life left after I get home, and even with heavy use for another few hours after that, I still have 40% left.

I know I am. I think the battery should be a selling point on this phone. It is really great. Each day I press it pretty hard and I have yet to charge it during the day. I am very satisfied.

 

[DroidAV8R]

I know I am. I think the battery should be a selling point on this phone. It is really great. Each day I press it pretty hard and I have yet to charge it during the day. I am very satisfied.

I was very nervous about this after reading about the issues with the TB, but I can honestly say that I am absolutely thrilled with the battery life. Frankly, this is the best phone I have ever used, bar none.

HTC and VZW really dotted all "I's" and crossed all "T's" with this one. Way to go!

 

[olbriar]

Hi all, I haven't been around as much as I would like because of work, but I think I have that under control now...

Just an update on the hot pink soft keys I talked about the other day. I called VZW after I read the responses on this board. They marked it DOA and told me to go back to the store and exchange it. I did, and the new one had pink keys too. I got the manager and walked over to the display phone and we compared them. Sure enough, the display phone definitely had red soft keys, and in comparison, mine definitely had hot pink soft keys- like when they lit up, they looked like a hot pink highlighter! I told the manager I wanted another Rezound and he actually said "is that such a big deal? I mean, I hope you didn't return the last one just for this."

After staring at him for about 10 seconds without saying anything, the manager said "well, we got another batch in today. Let me pull one of those for you." Sure enough, the keys on that one were dark red, as advertised, and that phone is mine now. Anyone else heard of anything like this with the Rezound?

Also, is anyone else pleasantly surprised with the battery life on this phone? With moderate use, the battery life rocks, even with spending most of the day on LTE! I have plenty of life left after I get home, and even with heavy use for another few hours after that, I still have 40% left.

I'm glad you stuck to your guns. Pink is NOT red and red they should be. You know if it's spilling light it isn't going to get any better. It's odd that you had one and was about to have another with the problem. I've not seen anyone else report it. Anyway.. I'm glad you have it resolved. Now you are ready to rock.

Speaking of rock.. yes the battery does rock.. WoW. It is far better than my original Dinc and I thought it was pretty good. I'm more than happy.
I'm flat elated!

 

[misan23]

I'm glad you stuck to your guns. Pink is NOT red and red they should be. You know if it's spilling light it isn't going to get any better. It's odd that you had one and was about to have another with the problem. I've not seen anyone else report it. Anyway.. I'm glad you have it resolved. Now you are ready to rock.

Speaking of rock.. yes the battery does rock.. WoW. It is far better than my original Dinc and I thought it was pretty good. I'm more than happy.
I'm flat elated!

Looking closely at mine, they are somewhat pink and light DOES bleed onto the bottom 2% of my screen and in pitch black, around the rim of where the softkeys are. I don't notice pretty much ever, so I don't think I am going to bother exchanging mine for now. I have had horrible luck with the Moto refurb roulette, I don't want to play with fire.

 

[TxGoat]

For those with the "hot pink" issue, let me ask you is it hot pink when the screen is turned off or when it's turned on? I've noticed mine aren't exactly "retina piercing" red when I turn it on, but when the screen is dim the keys are red. As far as the light leak, I'm pretty much used to it and considering the other troubles I've had with HTC, Verizon, and their Refurb hell. You'd think as much profit as Verizon makes they'd have a better system in place since apparently Motorola refurbs have the same issues as HTC so I'm thinking it's a Verizon issue at this point.

 

[kishin14]

For those with the "hot pink" issue, let me ask you is it hot pink when the screen is turned off or when it's turned on? I've noticed mine aren't exactly "retina piercing" red when I turn it on, but when the screen is dim the keys are red. As far as the light leak, I'm pretty much used to it and considering the other troubles I've had with HTC, Verizon, and their Refurb hell. You'd think as much profit as Verizon makes they'd have a better system in place since apparently Motorola refurbs have the same issues as HTC so I'm thinking it's a Verizon issue at this point.

I don't think the red/pink issue is defect. I think it means your LED lights may be a bit brighter than those on another rezound. Or the red overlay they used for your soft keys were less red than someone else's (since the red seems coated on). My guess would be the former. I too noticed some bleeding around the bottom edge in complete darkness (and I mean complete darkness). It doesn't impact the screen, just the bottom edge and surrounding corners of the bezel.

The only way I can see any bleeding on the actual screen is if I hold the phone directly in front of me, tilt the top of the phone towards me, and look at the bottom edge of the screen (right above where the LED light are). Then I can see the light shining from the 4 LED lights. But again, I don't think this is a defect. After all, who ever holds their phones that way? When you order a bunch of LEDs like I'm sure HTC does, some are probably bound to be brighter than the others. To be honest, I never even noticed until I read this.

Edit: If it is due to brighter LEDs, it could be fixed with a software update. This happened to my DX, only in the opposite way. It's soft keys (actually hard keys) were not bright at all, but after the GB update they could guide a ship to harbor. There were a lot of complaints about it but moto never fixed the issue. I finally had to download an app that allowed me to turn of the soft keys completely.

Oh, and to answer your question TXGoat, my keys are red, not pink when the LEDs are off. That's another reason why I believe it has to do with brighter LEDs.

 

[trophynuts]

+1 to the good battery life. It really surprised me.

 

[kishin14]

Last week I gave my impressions of the rezound after having it for just a day. Now that I’ve had it for a week, there a few other things I’ve noticed. I didn’t want to start a whole new thread about it so I decided to post my impressions here. Most if it has to do with battery life since that was really the only thing I couldn’t tell after having had it just one day. Anyway, here is its:

--Battery life (when not using 4G a lot) is better than I thought it would be. This is especially apparent when playing media files stored locally. Even with the higher rez screen it lasts longer that my D3 during media playback. As I wrote in another post, I think it may have to do with the qualcomm chipset, which runs the cores independently of each other unlike the OMAPs. I think most of my media files probably don’t use more than one core while the D3 likely did. Just a hunch.

--4G works great but really, really sucks battery. While I have a Netflix account I really don’t use it on my phone because the quality leaves something to be desired. However, streaming Superman (the original movie) for 30 minutes on Netflix over 4G sucked my battery from 83% to 58%. Local video files, even in full 720p, sucked about half that juice during the same amount of playback time.

--I have not experienced any heat issues that would cause me concern. It’s never gotten noticeably hot. Warm, sure, but never hot. Also, the reason I even streamed the Netflix movie I mentioned was because I wanted to see if it would have a major impact on heat due to all the posts I’ve read on overheating. However, according to spare parts, it started at 27.6C (81.7F) and was at 40.3C (104.5F) after the 30 minute streaming test. Maybe that’s bad, I don’t have another 4G phone to compare it to so I can’t say. But it’s definitely not anywhere near what some have seen during the same 30 minute streaming test.

--The phone is fast but does lag at times, especially when opening/closing the app drawer and notification bar. I also notice that the Sense launcher will restart itself when I load a new live wallpaper. It has to reload all of the stuff on the Sense widgets as well, such as the messages on FriendStream. That can be a little annoying at times when I’m trying out different LWPs that I downloaded from the market. But none of this really bothers me that much. Besides, it's wicked quick when handling other tasks, such as installing/removing apps, opening apps, accessing the gallery, and playing games.

--The camera continues to blow my expectations away. Coming from the really poor cameras on the DX and D3, my expectations were low. But my pictures look so much better. And the shutter lag is almost nonexistent. This really was a nice surprise.

--I know many of you think the ibeats tech is a gimmick, but I’ve gotten so used to this gimmick that I found myself missing it when using apps that don’t advantage of it.

--The headphones are great too and having the play/pause/skip buttons are really convenient. However, I noticed those buttons are a little jiggly. When I’m talking to someone using the headphones the mic picks up the jiggle if I’m moving. It’s a little annoying to be honest. I find myself having to hold the buttons in place during a call to not hear the rattling.

--I found myself more impressed with how solid the build quality of the handset is. Nothing is loose or creaks. No noticeable sloppiness in the way the pieces were put together. The weight adds to this overall impression.

--I hate, and I mean hate, how hard it is to get the back cover off. I only had to do it twice. Once when I wanted to see what voltage my battery was and again because my phone froze when trying to play a corrupted media file (my fault for not encoding it correctly). But both times I had to pry it so hard that I thought I was going to break it. If anyone knows an easy way to do this, please let me know.

Overall, I still love this phone and would not exchange for any other phone currently out on any network. Nor would I change it for the GNex. I know better phones will come along, and probably sooner rather than later. But if this phone works as well a year from now as it does now, I don’t think I’ll care much.

 

[TxGoat]

--I found myself more impressed with how solid the build quality of the handset is. Nothing is loose or creaks. No noticeable sloppiness in the way the pieces were put together. The weight adds to this overall impression.

One thing I'll say in regard to build quality, the finish near the bottom of the phone, where you have the slot to pry the back off I noticed that the finish is a little ragged and not as clean as it is on other parts of the phone. That being said, I've learned to let stuff like that generally slide, especially considering how big a PITA it is to sometimes just get a device that works right. Once someone gains permanent root access on the phone, I think I'll enjoy it more than I was my rooted Thunderbolt (that had screen issues btw).

 

[ChiTownJim]

I bought this phone to do a test run before the Nexus came out since I was so on the fence about it ... Well the first night with the phone had me frustrated but now about a week in I frickin love this phone it blew me away in almost every aspect . The screen is amazing , the camera is PHEMONINAL , it's fast and the battery life is on par to my rooted CM7 Tbolt but blows away the battery life stock to stock , it will be interesting to see how this phone does once rooted with cm7 /cm9 I think the battery life will be GREAT . The build quality is very very good , I'm going naked with just a verizon screen protector I've dropped it once from 5ft on to concrete and not even a nick and my GF walked past the cord and ripped it out of the wall it had a 2 ft drop on to hardwood floor then slid about 12ft across the room till it hit a wall again no damage. The 4g is much more reliable and faster then my Thundedrbolt . Did I say the camera was phenomenal? The Headphones are a very nice touch as well and even when using Pandora the phone sounds better then my Thunderbolt without any DSP adjustments .
GPS Locks quick , Bluetooth is very good even when paring a OBDII Dung and T505 for phone and music .. I can't think of anything else

For a $195 this phone has me blown away

I only have a couple complaints

The power and volume buttons are way to hard to use and I'm not a fan of HTC Sense also the phone tends to get hot really quick. Ohh also the teather block is a pain I can't even use easy tether so I've had to relay on my work EVO as my hotspot SPRINT BLOWS !!!
also the looks while a solid build is a little boring I prefer the look of the silver and grey on the Thunderbolt
Will I still buy the Nexus ?? yes I have a few extra upgrade so I will be buying the nexus when it comes out and using them side by side for 1-2 weeks . The Nexus will have to really blow me away to make me Sell the Rezound especially since the Nexus would be able to return for a refund where the Rezound will be out of the return date so I'd have to keep or sell it .

 

[DroidAV8R]

I'm glad you stuck to your guns. Pink is NOT red and red they should be. You know if it's spilling light it isn't going to get any better. It's odd that you had one and was about to have another with the problem. I've not seen anyone else report it. Anyway.. I'm glad you have it resolved. Now you are ready to rock.

Speaking of rock.. yes the battery does rock.. WoW. It is far better than my original Dinc and I thought it was pretty good. I'm more than happy.
I'm flat elated!

There was no way I was going to walk out of there with more pink keys. The best part was watching the manager's face as he finally figured out that I knew a lot about this phone and wasn't going to be deterred, all while I said nothing.

The truth is, while I didn't like the look of the pink keys and wanted red for aesthetic reasons, the bright pink in contrast to a dimmed screen in low/zero lighting was making it so my eyes were having a problem adjusting, and I couldn't see the screen as well. This, IMHO, was a usability issue too.

Either way, I'm thrilled. Other people may have a different opinion, and they are certainly entitled to it, but I think that this is by far the best phone offered on Verizon right now.

Looking closely at mine, they are somewhat pink and light DOES bleed onto the bottom 2% of my screen and in pitch black, around the rim of where the softkeys are. I don't notice pretty much ever, so I don't think I am going to bother exchanging mine for now. I have had horrible luck with the Moto refurb roulette, I don't want to play with fire.

I certainly understand, and if it's not a big deal to you, you might be better off leaving well enough alone. If it is a big deal and you're concerned about a refurb, don't be. If you're within your first 14 days (which everyone with this phone is), they will consider the phone DOA and give you a new one.

Does your light bleed only onto the screen, or are you talking about the area where the screen meets the bezel? If the later, I would be concerned that area between the screen and bezel is not sealed, and that you might have a problem with dust under your screen in the future. By that time, you will be outside your 14 days, and your only option will be to exchange for a refurb.

For those with the "hot pink" issue, let me ask you is it hot pink when the screen is turned off or when it's turned on? I've noticed mine aren't exactly "retina piercing" red when I turn it on, but when the screen is dim the keys are red. As far as the light leak, I'm pretty much used to it and considering the other troubles I've had with HTC, Verizon, and their Refurb hell. You'd think as much profit as Verizon makes they'd have a better system in place since apparently Motorola refurbs have the same issues as HTC so I'm thinking it's a Verizon issue at this point.

My soft keys were red when NOT illuminated, and hot pink when illuminated.

 

[Blackthanos]

+1 to the good battery life. It really surprised me.

I know right! Remember when we first found out what size battery was going to be in the ReZound? We just knew it was suck so bad that you'd be lucky to get 4 hours out of it and now it's the exact opposite. I wonder how they gave it a smaller battery than the TB but improved the battery life so drastically?

 

[trophynuts]

I know right! Remember when we first found out what size battery was going to be in the ReZound? We just knew it was suck so bad that you'd be lucky to get 4 hours out of it and now it's the exact opposite. I wonder how they gave it a smaller battery than the TB but improved the battery life so drastically?

only thing i can think of is this

1. They've done something right with Sense 3.5
2. All of the extra stuff in the battery cover for radio performance is probably a huge factor
3. The new processor is really playing nice for this phone. (efficiency wise)

 

[TxGoat]

I know right! Remember when we first found out what size battery was going to be in the ReZound? We just knew it was suck so bad that you'd be lucky to get 4 hours out of it and now it's the exact opposite. I wonder how they gave it a smaller battery than the TB but improved the battery life so drastically?

I'm betting a lot has to do with the dual core setup. I'd equal it to Displacement on Demand for big cars that go down to 4-cylinder mode when you're driving on the highway or aren't sitting on the throttle and in 8-cylinder-I'm-A-Beat mode when you're trying to pass that slow car (or run that huge app). You don't need much to run some of the simple apps and I'm glad that HTC has it working correctly for now and hope it runs like a champ for awhile. I agree that the battery life is a nice improvement over the Thunderbolt.

 

[ChiTownJim]

I wonder how they gave it a smaller battery than the TB but improved the battery life so drastically?

The Thunderbolt is actually a smaller battery at only 1400mah

I think if you put a Rezound battery in a Thunderbolt you'd see pretty similar Battery Life

 

[TxGoat]

The Thunderbolt is actually a smaller battery at only 1400mah

I think if you put a Rezound battery in a Thunderbolt you'd see pretty similar Battery Life

I saw a few hours of extra battery life, but that was with a 3.8V replacement battery. I'm almost curious enough to throw in the 3.7V battery into the Thunderbolt, but I've already activated this phone.

 

[zazan]

I should not have been reading this thread. OK, my buttons appear to be hot pink too. Does this mean that I need to be depressed or dejected or contemplate suicide?

Nah, I'll just have to learn to like hot pink buttons now that they were brought to my attention. Nothing is getting this phone out of my possession unless it just dies.

 

[kishin14]

I should not have been reading this thread. OK, my buttons appear to be hot pink too. Does this mean that I need to be depressed or dejected or contemplate suicide?

Nah, I'll just have to learn to like hot pink buttons now that they were brought to my attention. Nothing is getting this phone out of my possession unless it just dies.

It seem like many of us have hot pink buttons when lit. I don't think it's a real issue but for those have a problem with it, just be a little patient. There's a post over on xda from someone who also doesn't like the bright pink and asked if software tweaks can lower the LED brightness. The overwhelming response seems to be that it shouldn't be a problem once the phone is rooted. Personally, I wouldn't mind a tweak that cuts the brightness in half.

 

[tehknics]

Ohh also the teather block is a pain I can't even use easy tether so I've had to relay on my work EVO as my hotspot SPRINT BLOWS !!!

Do you mean "tether block" as in you can't download the app from the market or that tether apps don't work in general (ie APK's of ET/PDAnet installed from "other sources")?

Over on XDA a member posted about using his Rezound with PDAnet, "I downloaded and installed it and it works great. Immediately went and purchased a license for it. Thanks!"

I tether quite often with my Incredible and the simultaneous voice/data on the Rezound would make tethering so much more flexible (almost bought a thunderbolt a while back for this exact reason).

Getting close to pulling the trigger on a Rezound, but this kinda caught my attention =)

BTW, I thought my Incredible had a fairly nice screen until I put it next to a Rezound =/

 

[TxGoat]

I should not have been reading this thread. OK, my buttons appear to be hot pink too. Does this mean that I need to be depressed or dejected or contemplate suicide?

Nah, I'll just have to learn to like hot pink buttons now that they were brought to my attention. Nothing is getting this phone out of my possession unless it just dies.

Once you've learned to "like" hot pink then I'll have to post the pic below, but only AFTER you've learned to like it....

 

[olbriar]

I should not have been reading this thread. OK, my buttons appear to be hot pink too. Does this mean that I need to be depressed or dejected or contemplate suicide?

Nah, I'll just have to learn to like hot pink buttons now that they were brought to my attention. Nothing is getting this phone out of my possession unless it just dies.

I can't see why hot pink wouldn't be just fine by me as well. Mine are deep red and I like that as well. I would be concerned red or pink if the light was spilling onto the bottom of my screen. Beyond that.. what difference does it make as to the color? Both colors are kewl compared to boring white.

 

[RottnJP]

Well, you can add me to the list of happy owners.

If you like Sense, this is the phone for you. It's only gotten better from the DInc. I like the unlock scheme, the fact that you can now use HTC's weather app for something more than a pretty picture... Speaking of pretty pictures, we finally have a phone camera that works, instead of mis-focusing, or missing the picture due to shutter lag...

I'd say my only complaint so far is the small buttons...

Well, and the Beats implementation... The fact that only works with limited selected apps is just... Kind of mind-boggling, actually. It's like HTC couldn't predict at least *certain* apps would like to be used with Beats- If they couldn't get *all* streaming or A/V apps dialed in, you'd think Slacker, Pandora, Doubletwist, MoboPlayer, Netflix, etc.- Makes me wonder how Beats is hooked in... Like it maybe isn't well-enough integrated into the phone's architecture. I sure hope this is an area that gets improved in a follow-on upgrade.

 

[vzwuser76]

Well, you can add me to the list of happy owners.

If you like Sense, this is the phone for you. It's only gotten better from the DInc. I like the unlock scheme, the fact that you can now use HTC's weather app for something more than a pretty picture... Speaking of pretty pictures, we finally have a phone camera that works, instead of mis-focusing, or missing the picture due to shutter lag...

I'd say my only complaint so far is the small buttons...

Well, and the Beats implementation... The fact that only works with limited selected apps is just... Kind of mind-boggling, actually. It's like HTC couldn't predict at least *certain* apps would like to be used with Beats- If they couldn't get *all* streaming or A/V apps dialed in, you'd think Slacker, Pandora, Doubletwist, MoboPlayer, Netflix, etc.- Makes me wonder how Beats is hooked in... Like it maybe isn't well-enough integrated into the phone's architecture. I sure hope this is an area that gets improved in a follow-on upgrade.

I read somewhere that they're going to be adding not only more headphone profiles so the Beats processing will be more tailored to different kinds of headphones, but also making the processing available to more apps. Even if they don't do it stock, I'd bet that some devs will get their hands on it and make it available for other apps. Time will tell though.

 

[zazan]

Actually, it didn't take long to like it. Now I couldn't live without it.

Can't wait to see the picture!