Help me decide between verizon g2 and droid maxx

munkle

[H]F Junkie
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So I am deciding between the verizon g2 and the droid maxx. Note 3 is out because its too big, I have a note 2 and its a nice phone but just too big. I would hop all over the verizon g2 if they hadn't changed the back buttons, I can never find the power button on the back of the verizon version with out mashing the volume buttons.

The g2 supposedly gets better batter life than the maxx as well. Anyone know if there is a way to force the home/back buttons on the g2 to stay on the screen in every app? I really like the knock on, but the knock off I found to be a pain to use since I can only seem to get it to work on the home screen where there are no apps, coupled with the hard to find power button its quite a bit more difficult to turn off than the maxx.

I thought the active notifications were pretty sweet on the maxx, you just pull it out of your pocket and the screen will show the time and any notifications and when you put it back down or in your pocket the screen turns off. The maxx is quite a bit more expensive as well, i'm looking at $300 for the maxx or $160 for the g2. It's not a huge deal, but I do kind of feel like i'm getting ripped on the maxx.

From what I have read is that the cameras equally suck on both. It would be nice to have expandable storage as my note 2 has a 64gb micro sd card but honestly I don't ever really use more than 10gb so both phones should be fine.

The g2 seems to get quite a bit more attention on the rom front, but the maxx honestly there isn't much I would want to change. Maybe better toggles in the notifcation panel and possibly a different lock screen and that's about it.

So help me decide.
 
For the G2, I'm not sure what you're talking about with the buttons. The G2 has touchscreen buttons, otherwise it works like normal. The buttons stay up in every app by default. Knock OFF only works on the launcher by design. When in an app, you can hit the home button and then knock off, or you can directly turn off the G2 from any app if you knock off on the status bar on the top of the screen.

I can turn off my phone faster with knock off than physical buttons so I'ver never had a problem there.

I was choosing between those phones and I'm very happy with the G2. I concede that Active Notifications is cool, as is the OK Google Now, but I think the G2 is more well-rounded.

Incorrect on camera, G2 is best-in-class, close with the S4. The OIS makes a huge difference. Only issue with the camera is nightime video shooting having a bug in the software, but that will be fixed. Otherwise there are a majority of reviews that hail the camera so not sure where you got that conclusion.

The Moto X and Maxx share the same camera and camera software. They were all universally panned as bad cameras when they came out. However, Motorola has been patching the camera software carrier-by-carrier on the Moto X which has already proven to substantially improve the camera's quality. It stands to reason the Maxx will also get this patch--but no ETA.

G2 has plenty of development so no worries there, and the LG skin isn't a problem. I agree that the Maxx not having development isn't a big deal, because the whole point of it is that Moto went with a mostly AOSP skin + 3 useful moto features, so no need to tinker.
 
I'd go with the G2 simply because the Droid brand needs to die and I would be ROMing the phone anyways.

But the G2 is actually the better phone overall. The only thing the Maxx has going for it is its stockish Android UI and larger battery, but the G2 should be pretty close to it in battery life. The G2 has considerably better specs/longevity, better camera, and a significantly better display. As much as LG has turned me off with all their previous smart phones, the G2 seems to be an exeptional phone and will be a sleeper hit among the phone/tech geeks, I think.
 
I'd take the G2 over the Maxx personally. I probably would have bought a G2 if not for the ridiculous rear buttons (ended up with a used S4 off eBay).
 
I'm referring to you asking how to have the back/home buttons stay on the screen while in apps. That is the default behavior... it is a navbar.

Except they don't always stay on screen, for example in youtube if you go fullscreen or the gallery if you click on a photo to view, the buttons disappear. Basically its harder to turn the screen off when you are in these places or go to the home screen because the the verizon model has worthless buttons on the back, so you have to tap more to turn the screen off where with the maxx you just press the power button.

I went and played with them some more and I'm still stuck between the two, the lg definitely has crappy pictures, I would wager the maxx is better from the pictures I was taking in store. From what I have read its the filters LG applies to the photos that makes them look blurry, text wasn't as legible in pictures, compared to the maxx, of signs I took in stores. I even made sure there were no finger prints on the lenses. The lg feels cheap in comparison and the display model was actually separating at the seem.

I love the knock on of the G2, I love the active notifications of the maxx. The maxx feels better in hand and I prefer the actual hardware buttons for home and back. The g2 gets better battery life from everything I have read. I like the fancy ui of the g2, asop is nice but its kind of bland. I much prefer the g2's lock screen because I like being able to launch my most frequent apps from it. The maxx you can't really do that.

I guess its good time to buy a phone with all the competition, when I got my note there were pretty much no contenders. I walked in and I said I want the note 2, now I'm stuck deciding. I could get both at upgrade prices since I'm on a family plan and use upgrades my family never uses, but that seems kind of like a waste of an upgrade.
 
Buttons:

That's how all soft buttons work. Why would you not want a youtube video to show in fullscreen? If you want to shut off the phone you have 2 choices: (1) tap the screen, hit home and knock off; (2) hit the power button. If I am turning off the phone because I am going to put it into my pocket quickly, I have no problem hitting the power button as its exactly where my index finger is when I'm sliding the phone into my pocket.

Camera:

Agree to disagree. A vast majority of G2 reviews (even those that advise not getting it merely because of the button design) hail the camera as best in class. This is mainly due to the fact that it has optical image stabilization. It will always be better than Maxx's camera, even if it gets software improvements. I'm not here to persuade you but I suggest you do more research on this point.

Battery:

One of G2's features is a killer battery. Maxx is probably slightly better but the point is the G2 was never advertised solely for its battery which is what makes it so nice. The reason the battery is important here for the G2 is that the G2 also has a best-in-class display, is 1080p, and you'd normally have a situation where you are merely trading one feature (battery) for another (great display) like the HTC One. Here you don't, and its very nice, and perhaps a first.

Skins:

I don't think the LG skin is bad at all. The only in-your-face feature is the QSlide stuff in the notification panel. I time and time again see this panned as evidence of a shit skin, but please know that you can TURN IT ALL OFF. So, the LG skin is good in the sense that it does not slow anything down, some of the features are quite nice (Knock On, Knock Off, Camera App), and the rest of the stuff in it is a lot of customizations that are similar to what ROMs offer. I'd rate the skins as follows: Moto > LG = HTC = Sony >>> Samsung.

Hope that helps.
 
G2 is a better phone in every way (except maybe the skin) and knock on/off needs to be standard in Android.
 
G2, almost the same battery life and absolutely better in every other way.
 
Well I got the g2 and have had it a week and I am returning it tomorrow. The knock on doesn't work as well as it should. I would wager 50% of the time I have to tap the screen twice a second time to get it to turn on. The buttons on the back are useless (the non verizon version is probably better). Battery life is all over the place, it was great the first time I used it. Today it was only off the charger 5 hours, 1m 37s (1 minute 37 seconds) screen time, no calls, no texting and I was already at 85%.

Going to go with the droid maxx instead, actual power button and I loved the active notifications. My biggest complaint is just turning it on and off. I check my phone all the time for the time, and with the maxx it just turns on when you pull it out. The g2 makes it a pain.
 
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Well I got the g2 and have had it a week and I am returning it tomorrow. The knock on doesn't work as well as it should. I would wager 50% of the time I have to tap the screen twice a second time to get it to turn on. The buttons on the back are useless (the non verizon version is probably better). Battery life is all over the place, it was great the first time I used it. Today it was only off the charger 5 hours, 1m 37s (1 minute 37 seconds) screen time, no calls, no texting and I was already at 85%.

Going to go with the droid maxx instead, actual power button and I loved the active notifications. My biggest complaint is just turning it on and off. I check my phone all the time for the time, and with the maxx it just turns on when you pull it out. The g2 makes it a pain.

Interesting. I was pretty close to getting a G2 and I still consider it one of the top 3 android phones right now. Thats not actually that great battery life considering the 1 m 37s screen time. I got 2% drain on my new Note 3 watching a 20 minute video streamed off the web, 16hrs of standby only drains 10-15% depending on emails that day. The G2 was supposed to be quite a bit better.
 
Interesting. I was pretty close to getting a G2 and I still consider it one of the top 3 android phones right now. Thats not actually that great battery life considering the 1 m 37s screen time. I got 2% drain on my new Note 3 watching a 20 minute video streamed off the web, 16hrs of standby only drains 10-15% depending on emails that day. The G2 was supposed to be quite a bit better.
There could be a problem with a service, I noticed an issue with LG's media sharing service being active all the time after testing DNLA where it stopped the phone from deep-sleeping properly. I needed to disable it to fix it.

Without that problem, it does have excellent battery life. My most recent run was 47.5 hours off the charger, 4:37 hours of screen time, wi-fi always on, running on LTE data for about 20 hours and a reported battery remaining of 39%. This is with a Canadian G2 that runs on HSPA/LTE networks.
 
I picked up the maxx, and oh man.... This thing is awesome. The knock on is a gimmick compared to the maxx. You just pick the maxx up and it will turn on. I am loving it so much.
 
I picked up the maxx, and oh man.... This thing is awesome. The knock on is a gimmick compared to the maxx. You just pick the maxx up and it will turn on. I am loving it so much.

Don't even have to pick it up, it's always listening just like the moto x.
 
Yeah I don't use the speak stuff, I don't like it, I feel like I'm a crazy person talking to my phone.

Crazy... for talking at a phone?


Isn't that what phones are designed for? ;)

Almost makes me feel crazy for staring at my monitor
 
I just picked up a Maxx Developer Edition. Unlocked it, nuked the bloat from orbit, and am loving every second of it.

Active Notifications have changed the way I do business. I don't think I could live without them now.
 
I have had pretty much every Verizon smart phone, and I went back to the Maxx. Note 3 too big, S4 was ok but all the extras makes it feel gimmicky, maxx is just right..
 
Loving this phone so far. I just got 3 days 7 hours out of the battery with 4.5 hours screen time. I don't think I can get a phone without active notifications ever again.

Only complaint is that the home button is capacitive and not an actual button some times I hit when going for the space bar.
 
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