HTC Rezound Release Thread

**jss52** · 11-22-2011, 07:44 AM

Originally Posted by jeffro01

I got mine last Tuesday, switched to Verizon, wife got the iPhone 4S to replace her iPhone 4 from AT&T.

In any case, aside from battery life which is easily the worst I can recall going back for some time now, I have no complaints. Service is great, LTE is wicked fast, I'm adjusting to Android, and call quality has been really solid.

Will probably root it and go with stock Ice Cream Sandwich when that time comes, so far I just haven't been impressed with "sense" it has taken me a lot of time to get things to work the way I want it.

That being said, the screen really is amazing, looks better than my wifes iPhone 4 (4S is on order).

Having nothing to compare it to other than my Blackberry Bold 9700 any real review I could give wouldn't have the proper perspective so I leave it at this...

Jeff

PS: I was holding out for the Galaxy Nexus but got tired of waiting and as more and more little things came out I was less and less impressed, other than Ice Cream Sandwich I think what I have will do just fine.

Can you give some example of the poor battery life you're getting?

**RYOBI** · 11-22-2011, 10:08 AM

How would you guys rate the battery life compared to say the iPhone 4? In 4G and 3G mode.

**phoenix9** · 11-22-2011, 09:21 PM

My Daughter has an iPhone 4, and she gets better battery life than I expect I will see with the Rezound. Thats 3G only of course, iPhones don't do LTE. I play with my phone lots because its still new, but maybe tomorrow I'll use it more like a normal day. But, I would be surprised if my battery life beats hers.

**FAUguy** · 11-23-2011, 07:41 AM

Originally Posted by LTE Fever

I have noticed it during silence and it turned down when my phone is using data. In my case its the actually sound of LTE or EVDO, it sounds like its being transmitted through the wire but its not that noticeable most of the time. Try airplane mode and see what that does?

I tried your suggestion of turning on the Airplane Mode to kill data while using the music player, and I can still hear the backgtound whining interference sound.
Even with a song playing, and turning the music volume all the way down to mute, I can still hear it in the background. But once I pause the song, the whinging stops a few seconds later.
This happens while using any brand of wiered earbuds or headphones, not just the red ones that come included.

Since I also just got the Droid Razr, I tried music playback on it, and it doesn't have any backgroud interference sounds, though the actual music quality still sounds better on the Rezound.
Hopefully its an issue that can be resolved with a future software upgrade, but it might be a hardware issue that can't be fixed.

**jeffro01** · 11-23-2011, 09:35 AM

Originally Posted by jss52

Can you give some example of the poor battery life you're getting?

The worst I have had on a device since I can remember. I have to put it on the charger at least once a day. I'd say when I'm really using it i get between 5-10hrs of life. With that said, I have 4 email accounts all setup to "push", twitter that checks every 15min, google voice for all my txting and my voicemail is routed there, and I'm using the live wallpaper features. I do keep wifi and bluetooth off when I'm not using them. Granted most people probably don't have so many things constantly going on in the background. My wifes iPhone 4 on AT&T 3G gets about two days of battery life for comparison.

No matter how you try and spin it though the battery life just sucks. I've gotten used to it though so it's become something that doesn't bother me and doesn't detract from the other positives of the device. I wouldn't exchange it for the Galaxy Nexus for instance based on what I have seen thus far.

Regarding the background noise on headphones, I tried to pick it up on mine but I can't. Now I have hearing damage in both ears from some things so certain things I simply can't hear so I'm not saying mine's not doing it I'm just saying I can't hear it.

Like I said so far so good, I'm ordering the desktop dock so it can sit in the charger when I'm in my home office and I have a car charger for the road so I'm sure that'll work. The device is fast, the 4G is wicked, and the screen is awesome. Makes for a pretty dandy device. Oh and for those of you who use push email a lot don't use the built in HTC Mail, go and spend the $10 on "Enhanced Email" it'll save you a lot of time and trouble that I waisted trying to get it all to work...

Jeff

**phoenix9** · 11-23-2011, 11:37 AM

So on the noise, it seems there are a few that do not have that issue (like mine) and a few that do (two for FAUGuy). If that's true its probably a hardware issue.

I turned my phone on a little over 30 minutes ago and its down to 95%. We'll see how it goes. At least for this phone, there is an extended battery available, although that would make thing thing a tank.

**FAUguy** · 11-23-2011, 01:10 PM

I've got a few standard email accounts setup on the Rezound, all with the same send/receive settings for it to check messages ever hour during peak and off-peak times. But I've noticed that its only reliably checking one of those accounts every hour. The other 3 it will only check when I go to their inbox.

Anyone else notice emails not being checked according to their set schedule?

**phoenix9** · 11-23-2011, 05:02 PM

Okay I have been watching the battery life pretty closely today, and even installed a monitoring app for it. For me it was a fairly typical day, with K9 updating email every 15 minutes, slight use of Twitter, 50 minutes of streaming audio using IHeartRadio on wifi, a little 3G and a little 4G (as I drove around). A few minutes of web surfing. One brief phone conversation. Most of my talking is in the car, and in that case the phone is usually plugged in to the charger.

So its been 6 hours and I have 38% remaining. In fact all day its been pretty consistently draining at about 10% per hour. So, that implies a 10 hour life.

I guess for an LTE phone with a big, bright display and a fair amount of data moved that's not all that bad. But I have had a Verizon phone of some type for nearly 17 years now. I recall that even the old analog phones that were built like a tank would do better. Then came digital, and "feature phones" that got several days of life (and still do). So I guess battery life is the price we pay for all the crap these things do.

I guess the extended battery for this phone is 50% bigger, I think? So I guess I could get 15 hours out of that. Heck, that's nearly an entire day of being awake.

I doubt the Razr or the Bionic or the Nexus would do better than 10 hours. Why would they? They have more or less the same radios and displays. No company yet has discovered and deployed a super technology that will make the display (the main power sucker) draw less. Although, if someone would make one, I would buy a phone with a color eInk display.

**lazarus** · 11-23-2011, 06:25 PM

I am actually getting good battery life and I am comparing it to the Razr which i had for like 5 days. I have my google account only sync contacts and calendar not gmail. I check it every couple of hours. The only other thing i leave syncing in the "accounts" menu is the weather app. I leave standalone GPS and google services on pretty much all the time. Just yesterday I got almost 18 hours before the phone shut off, that is with 4G on, but to be honest it was very light usage, but that is still pretty good IMO.. With my normal use I am getting over 12 hours easy. I have no battery saving, or task killer apps, and only use wifi at home. I was not getting anywhere close to that battery life on the Razr.

I really like sense and this newest version is pretty nice i love the lockscreen and lockscreen wallpapers. I haven't had one single real "freeze" issue, or the "hissing" noise.

The only issues i have are the light leakage from the edge of the bottom bezel (only seen in a dark room), and I am getting a distorted "busted speaker" sound on calls, not all but enough that it's bothersome, it happens mostly with IVR's and certain vocal tones.. I might get it exchanged for the latter issue.. As i have asked on other forums about his issue and it doesn't seem to be wide spread..

Like I said I returned the razr for this and other than then "coolness" of having the razr I am very happy with my rezound, that's not to say if the nexus is released within my return period i won't give it a good look.. but it would have to really impress for me to switch.

**FAUguy** · 11-23-2011, 11:16 PM

Originally Posted by lazarus

I am actually getting good battery life and I am comparing it to the Razr which i had for like 5 days. I have my google account only sync contacts and calendar not gmail. I check it every couple of hours. The only other thing i leave syncing in the "accounts" menu is the weather app. I leave standalone GPS and google services on pretty much all the time. Just yesterday I got almost 18 hours before the phone shut off, that is with 4G on, but to be honest it was very light usage, but that is still pretty good IMO.. With my normal use I am getting over 12 hours easy. I have no battery saving, or task killer apps, and only use wifi at home. I was not getting anywhere close to that battery life on the Razr.

I really like sense and this newest version is pretty nice i love the lockscreen and lockscreen wallpapers. I haven't had one single real "freeze" issue, or the "hissing" noise.

The only issues i have are the light leakage from the edge of the bottom bezel (only seen in a dark room), and I am getting a distorted "busted speaker" sound on calls, not all but enough that it's bothersome, it happens mostly with IVR's and certain vocal tones.. I might get it exchanged for the latter issue.. As i have asked on other forums about his issue and it doesn't seem to be wide spread..

Like I said I returned the razr for this and other than then "coolness" of having the razr I am very happy with my rezound, that's not to say if the nexus is released within my return period i won't give it a good look.. but it would have to really impress for me to switch.

Battery life on the Rezound seems much better than with the Bionic, but since I've only had the Razr here for a day, I can't say yet which one lasts me longer.

On the Thunderbolt, I could hear a background "hiss" during all of the calls, but don't get it on the Rezound or Razr. With the call volume all the way up, the Rezound still sounds clear, but the Razr is making that "crackling" sound like the earpiece speaker is damaged. It is a comon problem, as I've experienced it on many of the phones I've tested over the past 5 years. My advice is that if you're getting that crackling sound in the spearker with the Rezound, you should exchange it for another unit. Best thing to do is test it out in the store by calling 611 and turn the volume all the way up. If you don't hear the crackling, then the speaker is OK.

**RYOBI** · 11-24-2011, 11:53 AM

Droid life did a review on both the razr and the rezound. According to the review, battery life is significantly better on the rezound.

**phoenix9** · 11-25-2011, 05:33 AM

Today I either have to bring it back or live with it for the next two years. The only other phone I would probably consider is the nexus. Its about a quarter inch bigger, has a bigger screen, and I'd thinner. Both have the same ram, don't know about internal storage or sd card on nexus yet. Speed should be computable. Rezound will do ics early next year if the marketing can be believed.

Is there a compelling reason to wait for the nexus?

**FAUguy** · 11-25-2011, 07:21 AM

Originally Posted by phoenix9

Today I either have to bring it back or live with it for the next two years. The only other phone I would probably consider is the nexus. Its about a quarter inch bigger, has a bigger screen, and I'd thinner. Both have the same ram, don't know about internal storage or sd card on nexus yet. Speed should be computable. Rezound will do ics early next year if the marketing can be believed.

Is there a compelling reason to wait for the nexus?

Nexus does not have a memory card, but should come with 32GB of internal storage.

**phoenix9** · 11-30-2011, 12:09 AM

I spent a lot of the day in Providence, where there is solid LTE service. I noticed that the battery life seemed to be significantly better than at home, where there is no LTE but I occasionally get it from the next town. Perhaps I should lock my phone on 3G only.

Using LTE is Providence, the speed in was 47 Mb/s, and 7 Mb/s out.

**phoenix9** · 12-08-2011, 07:44 PM

Now that I have had my Rezound a while, I have really come to like it. I would still prefer the power and volume buttons be easier to feel, but I am getting used to them. I also wish it was a bit smaller. Other than that, I have no complaints. The battery life is just fine, getting me through a day of normal use easily. I may get the bigger battery for just-in-case but I doubt I will. Still, its nice to know that I can. The display quality is outstanding. The performance is very snappy. I have been using Google music and the audio sounds great.

Perhaps best of all, its great to use as a phone. No one complains about my voice quality anymore. It seems to work well everywhere I go that the Droid sometimes gave me issues. And, I can check my calendar and send email while I am using the speaker phone, even in 3G areas!

I don't hear much about this phone, so I think its the most under-rated phone Verizon currently offers. All the hype is on the RAZR and the yet to be released Nexus. I like the Rezound just fine.