[Droid RAZR M General] phositadc:
About 2 weeks ago I posted my impressions of the Razr M (http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1900089). I loved the phone, but unfortunately I was getting delays of anywhere from 3-20 minutes on receiving push notifications of Gmail and Gtalk messages while connected to wifi. I tried 2 different phones and 3 different wifi networks, and all exhibited the same delays. I loved the form factor of the phone so much though, that I was not willing to give up. So I decided to try a Razr i. I'm not going to post a full review of the Razr i because it is remarkably similar to the M. However, given that the Razr i is running a new Intel processor, I wanted to test a few things. Obviously performance would be affected by the new processor, and reviews have covered that pretty well. But what the reviews haven't covered so well is what effect, if any, does the Intel chip have on wifi, GPS, and cell signal. I'm going to cover that and a few other things here.

Wifi

Overall, I have to give a slight edge to the M's wifi. Both are perfectly fine and I have no complaints, but--at least on my router--the M gets slightly higher speeds. Below I've posted screenshots of wifi signal strength on the Razr i (left) and Razr M (right).

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The Razr i might have a slightly stronger wifi signal, but as shown in the pictures below, the M actually gets slightly higher throughput. Razr i (left), Razr M (right).

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The one other comment I have is that both the Razr i and the M exhibit wifi "death grip." I might be getting a signal of -60 dBm with either phone sitting on my table, but as soon as I picked it up, it would drop to -70 or even -80 dBm. I've read reports on other forums of people completely losing their wifi signal when they pick up their Razr M. So I think there's definitely a death grip issue. Be careful how you hold your phone!

GPS

The M has a better GPS. I think the M has GLONASS support, whereas the Razr i does not. Both the M and the Razr i pick up a GPS lock extremely quickly (within 2 or 3 seconds, if not faster). But the M consistently sees more satellites, and it consistently gets a more accurate lock. If the Razr i was locked to 5 meters, the M would usually be locked to 3 meters. If the Razr i was at 10 meters, the M would usually be at 5 or 6 meters. So yeah, both are fine, but the M gets a higher score here due to GLONASS. See screenshots below. Razr i (left), Razr M (right).

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Cell Signal

I could not get my M to connect to AT&T, so I compared the Razr i's HSPA signal to that of a Galaxy Nexus. My conclusion is that the Razr i has a good HSPA radio. It's signal strength measured in dBm was always equal to or slightly better than that of the Galaxy Nexus. And, as the screenshots below show, speed tests between the two were extremely similar. And yes, these speeds are typical of AT&T in the metro DC area. Overall, I'm satisfied with the Razr i's HSPA radio. Again, Razr i (left), Galaxy Nexus (right).

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Camera

The Razr i's camera is slightly better than the Razr M's camera. It's faster, and it has a dedicated camera button. I think the pictures are also slightly better. Below I've attached a couple. All were taken in low-light environments that would be a challenge for any phone's camera. I've only posted a couple of representative samples, but I think they demonstrate that, although similar, the Razr i takes slightly better phones in low light. Razr i (left), Razr M (right).

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Battery Life

I can't fully comment on this yet, but both have great battery life. On the M I was getting about 6 hours of screen on time combined with 30 hours of standby (mostly on wifi. LTE would obviously reduce that.). I haven't had the Razr i long enough to test. However, one thing I will note is that the Razr M got lots of random wakelocks. The Razr i seems to have fewer random wakelocks. As you can see in the screenshots below, the Razr i (left) is usually not awake unless the screen is on. The Razr M (right) seems to have lots of tiny wakelocks even when the screen is off.

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I'm not sure if those wakelocks actually have any practical ramifications (because the battery life on the M is quite good), but I prefer the way the Razr i seems to behave when the screen is off. And yes, both phones are setup identically -- same accounts syncing, same widgets, same apps installed. So the wakelocks cannot be attributed to different setups.

A couple of other points worth noting. First, the Razr M would lose 5-6% battery overnight. Last night was the only night I've had the Razr i, but it only lost 3%. The Verge also reported that the Razr i gets much better standby battery time than does the Razr M, which is consistent with my initial impressions, but it's too early for me to tell. The Razr i probably gets a slight nod in the battery life department, but probably not by enough to make it a factor in anybody's purchasing decision.

10/6/12 noon update: I've run the Razr i through a full charge cycle, and here are the results:

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For comparison, here's a result from the Razr M:

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That had a screen on time of exactly 6 hours. (I can't attach any more pictures to this post -- I've hit the limit of 20 attachments).

I will also note that the RAZR i had GPS on and in use for 1 hour 45 minutes in its battery cycle. The M had no GPS use. But the i still beat the M pretty handily. Overall, based on these very preliminary results, I'd say it appears the i will get about 10-20% more battery life than the M... maybe even more.

Screen

I believe the screens use exactly the same panel, so you'd expect them to be about the same. And they are. To my eyes they look nearly identical. The Razr M might be a tiny bit brighter at a given setting, but for the most part, they look the same to me. I'm no videophile, but I think most people would agree.

Other thoughts

In day to day use, the phones pretty much feel exactly the same. Speed wise, they are indistinguishable to me. I do not play games, and I know that the Razr M benchmarks higher for games than does the Razr i, but for my day to day use (browsing, messaging, emails, maps, navigation, etc.) there's no noticeable performance difference at all.

Conclusion

As you would expect, these phones are extremely similar. It's hard to really give an edge to either. If you have the option to get either device, I would say it comes down to whether you want LTE or not. That's obviously the single biggest difference between the two. Although I was concerned that the Razr i, with its new Intel processor, might have issues with wifi, GPS, signal strength, etc., that does not appear to be the case at all. As far as I can tell, it performs just as well in those areas as do the more established SoCs like the Snapdragon S4.

If any of my thoughts change or develop as I continue to use the Razr i over the next few days, I'll update this post. For the time being though, I'm planning to return the M and keep the Razr i. Not because of any performance differences, but because for me, the Razr M had delayed push notifications on wifi, and the Razr i does not. After my first 24 hours with the Razr i, I have no complaints about the phone. But of course, complaints usually take longer than 24 hours to develop :p