Random Obsessions

My old Droid 1 was showing it’s age. While it mostly worked it wasn’t able to keep up, the BlueTooth crapped out, the factory battery didn’t hold much of a charge (but the hi-cap replacement rocked) and the phone as a whole only worked well if I was running a stripped down ROM (anyone who still has a rooted Droid 1 I highly recommend the SKNBitten ROM, not sure if it works on other models). With holiday money burning a hole in my bank account I decided it was time to upgrade.

I was originally looking at the new Galaxy Nexus as that would’ve seemed to be the be-all-end-all phone (until Spring anyway) but the lack of a removable SD card and battery were not ideal and adding the fact that Verizon was loading it with their usual bloatware made it a deal breaker. So, will full understanding that I was getting something loaded with a whole crapload of shit I didn’t want I went for the HTC Rezound (after swearing to never get another Motorola).

There were a few things about the phone I figured I’d hate and a few things I figured I’d love, hoping that the overall asskickability of the device would win out, figuring that I could find some way around the shit I didn’t like. I knew I’d love the screen, the processing power, the immense space provided from an internal 16 gigs of storage plus the 32 gig card and just the over all flashy upgradyness.

I figured all I would truly hate would be HTC’s Sense, the unthinkable bloatware, and the lack of keyboard. All but the keyboard could eventually be fixed with a rooting and maybe a new ROM down the road. I was also very skeptical about the Beats Audio (as an audiophile douchebag). As it turns out, I don’t really hate Sense, I took out the bloatware with a quick temp rood and flush with CleanTOOL (I’ll perm root after ICS comes out) and the size of the screen is easy to text on with my sausage like fingers.

Beats seems like an overhyped, nonadjustable EQ setting. I compared some tunes between the standard setting and then with Beats enabled and it sounded louder and well equalized. I did a side by side with my iPod and the phone, even without Beats was adequate enough to be a replacement for the iPod down the road in my never ending quest to rid myself of iTunes. I also played music through PowerAMP which has an actual, adjustable EQ (with enough settings to make pure shite out of your music) which sounded just as good as the standard player with Beats if not better. PowerAMP also allows the playback of FLAC which gives it another notch against my iPod. I’ve been looking for a FLAC player since my old RockBoxed iPod burned out. The Dr. Dre Beats headphones were nice, but they don’t stay in my ears well and I actually like the Sennheiser ones I spent 1/3 of the Beats listed price on better. I would have preferred a discount on the phone with no hyped up headphones.

Overall I love the phone, the display rises well above anything else on the market with it’s 1280×720 screen, it’s fast as hell with it’s dual core goodness and it has just about every feature I want.  There are a couple of little things in Sense I don’t like, but they’re not that big of an issue. I fixed the ones I could and I could fix the rest with a new ROM or it might all fix itself when ICS hits.

Lastly, some of the knocks this phone was getting in the reviews were just fucking stupid. “The Nexus and RAZR are better because they’re an asshair thinner and the Rezound weight almost an ounce more, that makes it buly and unwieldy”. No….not really. I’m betting that unwieldy bulk will run better, faster, longer than any cheap, superthin crap that Motorola sells.

PLUS….it’s red and black…so, there.