Motorola DROID RAZR MAXX HD

Finally got my smart phone. I decided to go with the Motorola RAZR MAXX HD for a number of reasons. Great camera, high quality construction, and long long battery life.

Long battery life was number one in my book. The DROID MAXX HD had the longest battery life of the phones I was looking at. The choice in the phone came down to the Samsung S3 and the RAZR MAXX HD. Both phones had great reviews, and most all the specs were very close, however there was the aspect of battery life that set it over the top. Read all the RAZR MAXX HD specs here. By the way, my wife and daughter got the DROID RAZR M models. They were looking for something a bit smaller but still with full performance features.

By the way, we got the phones at Costco, for the Verizon network. Costco had some great deals on two for one phones. Actually, it was too good to pass up. It ended up being the best price around, along with many accessories for free, and full rebates for all the Verizon startup fees for all the phones.

Now, I consider myself a Mac, PC, iPad, and Android person. I guess I am quite the button pusher. You know, the guy that just has to push all the buttons on everything he sees.

Another thought for anyone looking at getting one of these Android phones, remember the cord that comes in the phone box is actually the data cable, and not just a charging cable. I wanted to transfer some files to my phone directly using a USB data cable. I did not know at first that my other USB cables were charging cables only. Don’t make the mistake I made. If you try to use a charging cable and hook it up to your computer, the phone will never show up on the desktop or using one of the programs on the Mac to transfer files between the two. Costco provided an accessory pack, with a couple of cases, a mobile plug, and USB cords; but these were just charging cords inside the packs.

I also have DropBox on all my devices and can easily sync files between each of the devices. However, I wanted to make sure that I could simply upload directly with the USB cable. There are also some other WiFi programs available from the Google Play Store to transfer files using your private WiFi network and a browser. It looks like those could come in very handy.

When I am writing this, my current battery specs are as follows:

Current charge: 4303 mAh
Maximum charge: 4464 mMh
96%

Battery capacity: 4464 mAh
Design capacity: 5450 mAH
81%

Mac model: MacBookPro5,5
Age of your Mac: 36 Months
Battery loadcycles: 344
Battery temperature: 30.8 C
Battery power usage: 13.2 Watt

So, when do you call a battery bad? How many battery load cycles are left on my battery pack?

MacBook Battery Chart

Consult the table below to see the maximum cycle count for your computer’s battery before it is considered consumed:

Obviously if you want to have a fresh battery to extend your usage regardless of how many battery cycles are left then go for it.

The weekend started off with a boom. Heard the garage door start to open then with a loud crash heard it fall with a loud boom. Sectional two car wood garage door dropped about three feet after one of the main coiled springs busted. This caused the garage door opener slide gear to strip out also. So, we decided to keep our cars in the garage over the weekend, until we got it fixed on Monday. However, the extent of repairs included 10 new nylon roller guide roller bearings to replace the falling apart steel (very noisy) ball bearings, two new cables to replace the frayed stainless steel cables (which were ready to break themselves) which are attached to each side bottom section and wraps around the top pulley assemblies, replacement of two new coil springs for lifting and balancing the door, and one new carriage slide for the garage door opener assembly. Well, now all is quiet on the western front (front of the house faces west).

So, Tuesday rolls around. The wife calls me, “Jim the dryer stopped working!” Oh boy, just what I wanted to hear on a Tuesday morning. The symptom was that the dryer stopped turning. So, I decide to pull it apart, (what a pain)!

However, I found a Repair Clinic website that provides videos on how to disassemble all types of dryers (both electric and natural gas) that was quite helpful. But, it still did not help me figure out what the problem was. Our dryer is a natural gas dryer. All switches checked out okay, drum belt was also okay, and yes, I had AC power to the dryer. In my mind, it was either the timer or the drive motor itself. However, it could have been something else that I might have overlooked. No matter now, since the dryer was a number of years old, we decided to get another one for delivery tomorrow on Wednesday. I put everything back together (somewhat). The drum is now filled with spare parts.

Now, Tuesday evening rolls along, and I sit in my favorite swivel rocking chair, and I hear a loud spring pop. Oh boy, now the spring swivel assembly needs to be replaced. What a pain in the rear.

One thing that is certain in life is that everything wears out. Hopefully that is all for now, since everything seems to happen in threes. However, I am not sure when the first of three happened. Was it the redwood trees (my how fast redwoods grow from 6 feet to 70 ft tall with 3 foot diameter trunks) with roots that cracked the pool plumbing lines? Was it the cost of cutting these redwoods down, not to mention the cost of fixing the pool? Was it the wind storm that blew the fence down? Was it the broken windshield from a rock coming off that dump truck? Was it when I tripped up the step, and skinned my shin? Oh boy, it’s a good thing I lost count.