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RAZR MAXX 16GB SCAM - DONT BE FOOLED

JP1964

I have had an iPhone for the last 6 years. I wanted to try something new. I decided on the RAZR MAXX. The RAZR MAXX advertises in BIG BOLD letters that it has 16GB internal storage and comes with a 16GB SD card giving the user 32GB of storage. I traded in a 32GB iPhone for this phone. The RAZR MAXX DOES NOT HAVE 16GB of 'usable' internal storage. 6GB of the internal storage is used for the OS and the other crap apps that Verizon puts on there...and another 2 GB is set aside for whatever leaving the user with 8GB of internal storage. This is sooo wrong its not even funny. The 32GB iPhone had 32GB of storage(or very close to it). To claim 16 GB of internal storage but only have 8 available to the user is almost criminal. I am not going to be quiet about this either...I feel absolutely deceived. So the 32GB phone they are selling you only has 24GB of 'usable' storage. And if I add a 32GB SD card I will still only have 40GB of storage not 48GB as one would expect when adding 32GB to 16GB...TOTAL SCAM and Verizon should be ashamed. I would have NEVER given up 32GB for 24GB.

I wont even get into the 3 factory resets(done by Verizon) that have had to be done to this phone now resulting in the Bluletooth not connecting.

The battery life is NO WHERE near the claims that they are making. I was even given the line by 2nd tier tech support - 'Now sir, you have to understand 21 hours of talk time was acheived in a lab under ideal circumstances. You wont get that under normal use'...OMG I have the 4G off, the GPS off, the WIFI off, the screen dim and I am lucky to get a 14 hours out of it total with maybe an hour of talk time and a some downloading.

Overall I am not very happy with Verizon and the RAZR MAXX. I only hope it lasts the two years that I am now contracted for,,,

Comments

rcschnoor

From the phone description on Verizon's website:

"The Droid Razr MAXX by Motorola is configured with 16GB of internal flash memory. Of this memory, 8GB is available for general storage. An additional 2GB is available for application download and application data. The balance of the memory is reserved for the operating system, user interface, and native applications."

Sounds pretty straightforward.

JP1964

Oh my bad...I didnt have the website up when I was in the store and asked the salesman how much internal storage is in the phone...I will definitely know better next time when I switch back to ATT.

Ann154

Good luck with ATT. Their android phones are configured similarly and oftentimes don't come with the external SD card included.

JP1964

Thanks Ann I understand they all have their faults. I was with ATT for the past 6 years and wanted to try something new...we will see how it goes.

JP1964

Oh and one more thing...the salesman who sold me my phone was totally SHOCKED that it only showed 8GB of internal storage when I showed it to him this morning. He had to jump on his computer and found the same 'hidden at the bottom in really light text' disclaimer that Schnoor found.

It is definitely saying something about the Verizon marketing approach when the sales people in their stores are selling this as 16 GB of internal storage and dont know how to answer the question of why it only shows 8GB. I still say its not right..I dare anyone to walk into a Verizon store and ask how much internal storage comes with the RAZR MAXX. I gaurantee the answer will be 16GB which technically is correct but ethically is just so wrong...especially when the sales people dont even know any better and look like fools when asked why it only shows 8GB of internal storage.

Ok my rant is over.

Ann154

I would also say that I am glad that they have that disclaimer there. Previous phones didn't spell out how the storage was formatted and partitioned. See the story of the Thunderbolt above.

JP1964

I agree Ann its nice they have it there but I think they need to do a better job of training their sales people to atleast mention it when someone specifically asks about the internal storage. It kind of makes you think they are even hiding it from their own sales force. I am totally serious that my salesman had no idea why it only showed 8GB of internal storage this morning. Maybe if they broke it out on the Storage page to show 16GB total with 6GB for OS and 2 for whatever leaving...atleast it would alleviate some questions and make it a little clearer. The current Storage page shows Internal Memory - 8GB.total. I am sure I will not be the only one who misses the disclaimer and is not properly informed when actually in the store.

JP1964

DroidCzar

iPhone has only 28GB of usable memory on the 32 GB version. Have you ever bought a computer? You get a 500GB hard drive and by the time the OS is done, it's down to 450GB or less. What are you doing that you need that extra 4 GB of space on your phone? If music is your thing, look at Google Music instead of putting everything on your SD card. You can then make available offline for those times that you don't have a data connection.

Seriously you buy a phone with the power and abilities of the Droid Razr Maxx and you complain about this? And I have this phone and can go 24 hours easy with regular to heavy usage. And this is 4G, something the iPhone doesn't think is necessary. If I use this phone like a phone without using apps, games, etc. I can go without charging for over a few days (I ran that test when I got the phone).

Your point of the Verizon reps needing to be better versed is valid to a point. With all of the phones on the market and variants of each, it's a lot to memorize, but I do agree that they should have a basic knowledge of memory allocation. Either way, if you're an educated consumer, you should know about research and also know that reps at any company are often ignorant of many ideas and facts. At Best Buy, a rep told me that there is not such thing as a Class 10 microSD card.

Erik_MAXX

Relax friend. Just install a 32gb micro SD card.$24 and free shipping on Amazon, and you have yourself 40gb of storage, more than any iPhone, plus you have 35 hours of battery life, and 4g LTE and a bigger screen...No need to worry about their storage marketing gimic...

rcschnoor

Erik_MAXX wrote:
Relax friend. Just install a 32gb micro SD card.$24 and free shipping on Amazon, and you have yourself 40gb of storage, more than any iPhone, plus you have 35 hours of battery life, and 4g LTE and a bigger screen...No need to worry about their storage marketing gimic...

I guess you are not aware of the 64GB iPhone!!!

B33

Click on this Link to read on SD Card Sally Had some Good Insight on them an Opened my Eyes on the Vast new styles of them that are out there an are Available:: Click on the Blue Area B33

Different classes of Micro-SD cards for Motorola Razor (16g)

Erik_MAXX

I am aware of it, I just don't count a phone that costs $400.00 WITH a 2 year contract.

<personal information (email address) deleted per TOS and extra text removed for clarity>

Message was edited by: Verizon Moderator

Torgo

Wow, it's too bad this upsets you so much. I'm not surprised, because this is how the specs of most Android devices are reported. For example, my 8 GB Acer Iconia Tab A100 only has about 5 GB of usable internal memory, but of course it can be expanded with 32 GB more with a microSD. My 32 GB Acer Iconia Tab A500 lists about 28 GB of usable internal memory. For both devices, I am nowhere near approaching my storage limit, mostly because I don't have to store my music onboard, thanks to Google Play Music.

So the Maxx has only 8 GB of usable internal memory--I say, so what? They were nice enough to include a whole 16 GB microSD card at no extra cost, which is a pretty nice deal, in my opinion. What's more crucial, though, is that the Maxx has around 3 GB of application memory. This is 3 times more than my old HTC Droid Incredible, and 6 times more than the Sony Xperia Play. Remember that what limits how many apps you can install is the app memory, not the storage memory. So with those old phones, I would hit the low memory warning pretty easily after installing a few large apps. Sure, you can move apps to the SD, but that makes them run a little slower, and you can't move bloatware apps to the SD, so those are permanent app memory suckers. With the Maxx, I'm using about 750 MB of app memory, so I still have over 2 GB left to install apps, and that's huge.

As for clueless VZW sales reps, are you really that surprised? I take everything those guys say with a huge shaker of salt. I find better information on web forums, but of course you need to read everything on the web with a critical eye as well.

My battery life has been pretty awesome. I don't measure things in talk time, because I don't really gab on the phone that much. I'm also not the type who has to keep 4G and/or WiFi on all of the time so that I can get up to the second Facebook updates--I keep all of that stuff off until I want to access it. I'm getting at least 2 full days out of a charge, and could get 3 with the 40% battery I have left, but start recharging at that level out of habit.

So anyway, I hope you're able to warm up to the phone in time. Obviously, Android isn't for everybody, and you may just have to go back to the iPhone. But hopefully, people who are reading this thread due to the sensationalistic headline will understand that it's not really scandal-worthy!

B33

Well for me the Maxx is doing a fine Job An yes with a Added punch of Memory like from one of those New HDSD'S Cards that can handle the Higher Recordings & Picture Taking an other things like that. To me that's well over enough to be Happy.

JP1964

The 'everyone else does it too' defense makes me chuckle...for some reason I still dont think that makes it right. I truly hope 'everyone else' doesnt jump off the bridge...I would hate to think what some of you would do then...lol....and now you are telling me I spent $300 on a phone but have to buy a 'better' SD card to 'handle the higher recordings and picture taking'...sheesh when will it end.

Targo, unfortunately, for me, the phone is more than some vanity item I carry around to show my friends how cool I am when I play that 7 letter word. The fact that you admit you dont actually use your phone as a phone precludes you from having any meaningful input into a discussion about talk time(I could leave my phone on the nightstand and I bet I could get 5 days out of it). You see, some of us actually have jobs, and some of those jobs require us to actually use our PHONE as a PHONE....OMG...one of the HUGE selling points of this phone was the 21 hours of talk time. I couldnt turn the TV on without seeing one of those commercials...speaking of which has anyone seen a 21 hour talk time commercial recently???...I didnt think so...I bought this phone with high expectations for the talk time. I am not sure if you saw my other thread with my battery breakdown for just one days usage but I will list it here again. Maybe I have a dud. I am asking for anyone who has acheived more than 10 hours of talk time to show me their battery usage info so I can determine if it is just my battery.

And B33 I appreciate your input on the apps but I have this phone so 'dumbed down' trying to save the battery I think my old RAZR flip phone back in the day had more features...lol...I have 4G off(which kills me since I bought a 4G phone), GPS off, wifi off, the screen dimmed into battery saver mode, every app(other than the cr-ap apps Verizon loaded) removed. The guy at the store even told me to remove the Battery Defender app saying that could be killing my battery...really???...

Here is my usage for just one day...I dont consider 4 hours of talk time on a 21 hour talk time phone to be excessive 'gabbing'...somebody please show me a phone that gets 10 hours of talk time. I am figuring Verizon is into doubling everything for their marketing schemes...16GB is really 8GB so maybe 21 hours of talk time is supposed to be 10.5??? So all I am asking is somebody show me a phone with 10 hours of talk time

100% charge at 6AM

Down to 40% by 2PM

Bumped the battery back up to 70% between 2PM and 4PM

Battery at 10% by 9PM

Time since last full charge - 14 hours 40 minutes(with a 30% bump in the afternoon)

Current battery reading - 10%

Calls - 61% of battery usage 4 hours 3 minutes

Operating System - 16% of battery usage 2 hr 37min 20 kb sent 97 kb received

Display 14% of battery usage 3 hrs 59 mins

Angry Birds 3% 15 minutes

Idle 2% 10 hr 40 min

Standby 2%

I am not making this up. This is directly from the Battery Usage page on the phone. The phone was idle for over 10 hours of the 14 it was off the charger and it is completely dead in one day with just 4 hours of talk time and that was with a 30% bump in the afternoon. Do I have a dud? I cant turn anything else off on this phone and still call it a phone. Can someone with the _VZW after their name possibly have some input into this???

rcschnoor

JP1964 wrote:
Targo, unfortunately, for me, the phone is more than some vanity item I carry around to show my friends how cool I am when I play that 7 letter word. The fact that you admit you dont actually use your phone as a phone precludes you from having any meaningful input into a discussion about talk time(I could leave my phone on the nightstand and I bet I could get 5 days out of it). You see, some of us actually have jobs, and some of those jobs require us to actually use our PHONE as a PHONE....OMG100% charge at 6AM

Down to 40% by 2PM
Bumped the battery back up to 70% between 2PM and 4PM
Battery at 10% by 9PM
Time since last full charge - 14 hours 40 minutes(with a 30% bump in the afternoon)
Current battery reading - 10%
Calls - 61% of battery usage 4 hours 3 minutes
Operating System - 16% of battery usage 2 hr 37min 20 kb sent 97 kb received
Display 14% of battery usage 3 hrs 59 mins
Angry Birds 3% 15 minutes
Idle 2% 10 hr 40 min
Standby 2%
I am not making this up. This is directly from the Battery Usage page on the phone. The phone was idle for over 10 hours of the 14 it was off the charger and it is completely dead in one day with just 4 hours of talk time and that was with a 30% bump in the afternoon. Do I have a dud? I cant turn anything else off on this phone and still call it a phone. Can someone with the _VZW after their name possibly have some input into this???

I find it curious you are belittling people who do not use their smartphone to make hours upon hours of phone calls. One could look at your usage stats and ask the question "Why do you have a smartphone? It seems you could just use a basic phone!" One of the main reasons people get "smartphones" instead of "basic phones" is so that they can use the other features, such as email, internet access, use of apps, and texting. When you say things such as "some of us actually have jobs..." makes one think that if you don't use your cellphone to make hours of calls, you must not have a job!

Well I do have a job, and I speak very little on the phone. I do, however send/receive SEVERAL emails/day, view documents within those emails, text, and perform research. I cannot do these things on a basic phone. Of course, looking at your usage stats, you can do everything you have listed except play "Angry Birds" on a basic phone and I would never be so demeaning to imply you have a smartphone only "to show my friends how cool I am."

Of course, I cannot show any usage statistics with 10+ hours of talk time. However, Consumer Reports and Cnet have BOTH reported exactly this. Maybe they are just being "shills" for Verizon??? As to the 21 hours of talk time, you do realize that these are MAXIMUM values? Are you using bluetooth? Bluetooth is a battery drain. Verizon does not claim 21 hours of Bluetooth talk time, or even speakerphone talk time for that matter. Are you surfing the web? Another battery drain. If you look at the claims on the Razr Maxx specs, you are right in that it says 21.5 hours of talk time. But in actuality, it says 21.5 hours of talk time OR 15.8 days of standby time. This means it is not BOTH. So everything you have running whether it is standby(very low battery drain), some of that 4 hours of display time(very high battery drain, probably more than making a call) or even Bluetooth use(another high battery drain) takes away from the available talk time.

Now, chuckle away!!!

JP1964

<< Please keep your posts courteous >>

So they advertise 21 hours of talk time OR 15.8 stand by... not BOTH. I got 4 hours talk time and 10 hours stand by...that is about as far from BOTH as you can get in my book

<< Content removed to comply with Verizon Community ToS>>

Message was edited by: Verizon Moderator

B33

Well JP if you think you need to pursue getting another Unit do so before your 14 day return is Up. The thing on here JP you have to remember what we post in response to your Issue is just mere suggestion's things we have tried ourselves. I am no computer expertise some on here Maybe but i have had my Droids long enough i know what works for it an what can't. So we say give it a try an see if it Works. But in the respect of time you don't have much of it to make your decision to keep it or Not. I was on the Fence with Maxx as well because of the Speaker making it's little snapping sound it's not there all the time but it does come an goes. But i weighed in on the things that mine not any one else Razr Maxx does for Me. An that's why i kept it but i will say this the 14 day return need's to be extended back to 30. Not trying to rub it in but ol Maxx went 3days 8Hours 56mins on The ol Batry an that's some to be happy about..

Torgo

FYI JP1964, I do have a job. I've been a physician at an academic hospital for 12 years, and I'm pretty busy each day trying to heal sick people, so I don't have time to talk nonstop on my phone. I do, however, use it quite often to access medical databases, either in my phone's memory or via the web. This vanity item, as you describe it, works quite well for me and my patients, thanks very much.

In my post, I was responding to the meat of your original post, which was a complaint about the advertised memory. I was also taking great pains not to sound preachy, defensive, snarky, sarcastic, or otherwise a-hole-ish. I just thought the big all caps header of your post was a little misleading, calling the issue "a scam" and such. Your dismissive and belittling response was a little dismaying, but I guess not all that unexpected, given the usual character of posts on this forum and on internet forums in general. I refuse to respond with a flame war, because I prefer to be more civilized on the web.

If you're having so many issues with your phone, call VZW support and demand a replacement phone. From the fervor of your posts, I'm guessing it wouldn't be too hard for you to show the same passion talking to a rep. If they say no at first, keep at it. From my experience (with my previous Droid Incredible) and from what others post on forums, this approach does work. Good luck.

JP1964

Torgo, please accept my sincere apology. I appreciate your civilized tone and I am sorry I took out some of my frustrations on you. I think when you insinuated I used my phone just to gab it hit a nerve since I too need my phone for work.

If I had a dollar for every phone call to a VZW rep I made and everytime I stopped into the store I could probably pay this months bill. I am unfortuantely on my 3rd phone. The first one was replaced after day 1 by the VZW store. The second phone could not hold a network I was getting a 1x network...I was in and out of the store numerous times. They could not figure it out. By the time they told me just to call for a replacement I was past my 14 day period so they sent me a 'Certified like new used' phone with a scratch on the Kevlar backing to replace the new phone I paid $300 for just 16 days before.

Needless to say my Verizon experience has not been very enjoyable but I will try to take a page from your book and not let my frustrations come through so blatantly. I am just so over this whole thing. I will just have to carry a charger around with me if I plan on making calls...not what I was hoping for when I bought this phone...

Lifter5

Uhm, yeah. AT&T... Well, if you don't mind not having coverage in out of the way places like- your own home, right down the street from AT&T, Apple Store, etc, every three feet in any direction around my condo, and NOT getting unbelievable 26+ Mbps on 4gLTE then... Go for it!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking AT&T. I know they do the best they can with what they have. I just think they could learn a bit from a carrier with real countrywide 4GLTE coverage like Verizon. You have to ask yourself, Why is it that most interstate truck drivers use Verizon exclusively? These people need their phones to connect and work, no matter what or where they are. Period. Their lives and livelihoods are on the line.

-Mike

victoriak68

Wow, picky aren't we? The advertised battery life is an estimate and doesn't take into account actual usage of phone. "This is how much time you can talk on phone before battery dies" kind of thing. Combine phone use, music, videos, web-browsing, apps, etc. Of course it's going to drain the battery faster. If you're constantly on your phone that will drain your battery faster as well. But the Razr and the Razr maxx include the Smart Actions app where you can set your Razr to perform certain actions automatically. I use the preset Battery Extender and it has helped a great deal in extending the life of my battery. Do I get 12 hours of battery life out of my phone (I have the first edition Razr btw)? No I don't and given the amount of time I spend on my phone, I don't expect to. That is why they came out with the Maxx. It says 21 hours, but again that is only an estimate. Are you forced to charge your Razr Maxx several times throughout the day? If not then quit complaining. As for memory, OMG! Only someone who's extremely uneducated about phones would not realize how internal memory is used on a phone. But of course you're a longtime iPhone owner, it's a given you wouldn't know anything about phones. Someone willing to spend $300 for a 32g iPhone isn't very bright in my opinion anyway. You spent $199.99 on a maxx and with a 32g sd card you'll have 40g of usable memory. That's 8 extra gigs for $100 less than what you paid for your iPhone.

I do agree with you on one thing though. Verizon needs to stop bogging down the memory on our phones with crappy bloated apps we don't get a choice in. To me that's just really bad business.

Oh by the way, I don't know what you're doing to your phone that's causing you to need to reset your phone so often. If you're doing nothing, use your warranty and get your maxx replaced with a new one. It's possible that you have downloaded some apps that are conflicting with one another. Have you made sure all your apps are updated? Oh and free apps, beware of free apps always because of advertisements. Ads always seems to screw with phones.

B33

My Battery Life on my Maxx is almost 4 Days when i lightly use it.. Up to 20 hours if i Stream non stop Wi-Fi From Winamp My Maxx has impressed me more than once..As for the Memory there's allot there an if needed i'll just bump up to a 32Gig..:smileyhappy: b33

unknown

I just installed a 64 GB SD card.

B33

Cool! is it working Ok.. did you get the I.C.S. notice yet

commonsense101

file structer, how does it work?? welcome to every harddrive ever sold in the past decade

SpectroVue

I recently upgraded my DROID X to a RAZR MAXX and yes, I saw the same thing in the store. The sign right next to the MAXX said 32GB. The rep said the MicroSD was 16GB and the internal memory was 16GB. Since I was planning to switch out the 32GB MicroSD in my DX, my first thought was wow - 48GB. But, being a bit of a cynic, I decided to look under the hood. Sure enough, it does show Total Space for phone storage as 16GB, But, Internal Media Area Storage is 8GB, and Application Storage is about 2.3GB. With my 32GB MicroSD installed, I have 40GB for general storage (not 48GB).

So while I agree that the sign is misleading, it is technically accurate. It's not a scam. A quick check would have revealed the system was consuming a lot of that 16GB, which is what I would expect of any Android device. The sales rep should have known (and not misled you), but you could have checked it yourself, too. This is also a good example of why it's important to check Verizon's Web site to compare device features, and also check online reviews. 20 minutes with Google would have made you a much more savvy shopper. <Comment deleted to comply with the .>

As for battery life, compared to my DX (or any other phone I've had) the MAXX is fantastic. I would certain choose it over Apple. My DX was solid for 2 years, and so far the MAXX has proven to be a fantastic device. Now if VZW would just push ICS out to all of us RAZR owners, I'd be even happier.

Message was edited by: Verizon Moderator

victoriak68

They keep promising ICS. I even received a text notififcation from VZW saying to prepare to lose the IM app, that if I want to continue using hotmail and yahoo IM that I will have to download another app from the store. Yet, no ICS. I have mixed feelings about the OS though. My misgiving about ICS is that Flash will no longer be supported on Android devices. This is the message from Adobe. I like flash (sue me lol) I like having unlimited access to everything I want while on the go without having to splurge on a tablet. If html5 were better supported by websites and apps then it wouldn't be an issue, but pulling flash at this point is just too premature. On the other hand, with ICS I will finally be able to take screenshots once again. I miss being able to do that. <Comment deleted to comply with the .> I think running flash is about as daring as I'm capable of.

Message was edited by: Verizon Moderator

DroidCzar

ICS became available on Saturday. Settings, About Phone, Check for Updates. You can pull it, otherwise they will push it OTA to you within a few weeks.

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