Getting my Razr Maxx HD today, what should I do?

[jdguay]

Ok, I am new to this forum, and more importantly new to the world of smartphones. I threw my four year old LG ENVY2 out the window and order a Razr Maxx HD. It gets delivered today. I got it from Best Buy's Reward Zone Mobile, which had it for $99 with 2 year extension on my Verizon family plan.

Anyways, I am sort of tech savy but never with phones. I want to be able to root it and set up wifi tethering. I am just not sure what to do when this thing gets here. I know there was a recent OTA update to Jelly Bean. Will this update be loaded when I turn on the phone? Will it be forced to download when I activate? Do I want to stay away from JB till a root is available? Are there older updates that I should allow?

Lots of questions I know.

Now for the Verizon experts out there, when I went through Rewardzonemobile's site it did not make me choose a new data plan. It asked if I wanted to keep my existing plan, I said yes. I do not have unlimited data on my old Envy2, it is actually pay per use $1.99/Mb which I know I don't want. I just thought that maybe there was a way to finesse unlimited if I didn't choose a new plan. My daughter's iphone on this family plan does still have unlimited. (and she doesn't use any real amount of data either) Any advice on how to handle the coversation with Verizon? I know I need to pick another plan, just want to do it right.

Thanks for your help and I'm sure I'll be back for more.

Jeff

 

[jntdroid]

Welcome to the forum.

With regard to Verizon, I hate to say it, but it sounds to me like you're going to be forced into one of their tiered plans. However, that actually makes one of your other questions (wireless tethering) a little easier. When you're on their tiered plans, you can use the phone as a hotspot, it's enabled by default.

With regard to what to do - well first off, $99 for the Maxx HD is a great deal! It's a crapshoot as to whether or not it has JB on there already, but I would definitely let it download / install if it doesn't. Do that first, and factory reset it after it installs to make sure you're starting from a clean slate. I believe most of the issues people are having with the JB update (which aren't a ton) would be solved with a factory reset - not that they should have to do that, but since you're starting from scratch anyway, it would be good to do it with a clean slate.

With regard to root, etc, here are a couple of good resources - assuming you still want to do that since I doubt you'll need to for wifi tethering:

• RAZR HD/MAXX HD Development and Hacking
• ROOT for Razr HD - xda-developers
• DROID RAZR HD Utility 1.10 [Windows] - xda-developers

Anything you see for the Razr HD will also work for the Maxx HD, and vice versa.

Hopefully that helps!

 

[jdguay]

With regard to Verizon, I hate to say it, but it sounds to me like you're going to be forced into one of their tiered plans. However, that actually makes one of your other questions (wireless tethering) a little easier. When you're on their tiered plans, you can use the phone as a hotspot, it's enabled by default.

I do not have to take a shared data plan do I? I can still keep the unlimited on the other phone, right? I thought you had to pay for hotspot on the tiered plans.


Thanks for the help

 

[jntdroid]

On the tiered plans you don't have to pay for the hotspot - they limit your data, so they don't care any more.

I *think* on your line you'll have to take a tiered plan, but since you have another line that's unlimited, I'm not 100% sure on that the more I think about it. Hopefully someone else can chime in to help with that detail. I also *think* you can keep unlimited on the other line.

 

[itznfb]

If you're upgrading the line you'll be using the phone on then you will lose unlimited data and be dropped to a 2GB shared plan. If you're upgrading a line and then moving the phone over to another line you have that is unlimited you should be able to keep unlimited.

Avoid the JB OTA update until you root.
Here is a video on how to root.
[video=youtube;a85FEjGPw1E]http://youtu.be/a85FEjGPw1E[/video]

Basically you need to accept the 0.7.2 update if you're not already on it. It's a 6.0mb update.
Then you'll apply Root for ICS with the Droid RAZR HD Utility 1.10.
Then you'll apply Voodoo's OTA Rootkeeper and make a backup of your root config/app.
Then you'll temp unroot via OTA Rootkeeper.
Then take the OTA JB update.
Then restore the root config/app via OTA Rootkeeper.

 

[jdguay]

...
Avoid the JB OTA update until you root.
...
Basically you need to accept the 0.7.2 update if you're not already on it. It's a 6.0mb update.

The phone is here now. I have it charging and have not turned it on. Should I do all this before I even activate the phone? Or do I have to activate to get the 0.7.2 update? Are the updates automatic or do you get to choose which updates to run? Sorry for being such a newb.

 

[jdguay]

On the tiered plans you don't have to pay for the hotspot - they limit your data, so they don't care any more.

I *think* on your line you'll have to take a tiered plan, but since you have another line that's unlimited, I'm not 100% sure on that the more I think about it. Hopefully someone else can chime in to help with that detail. I also *think* you can keep unlimited on the other line.

I spoke with a verizon wireless customer service rep and he said that you do still pay extra for hot spot on the tiered plans. However on the shared data plans there is no charge for hotspot.

Also, he has no way to keep the unlimited plan on an upgrade phone. He says he has tried work arounds but none of them work, once upgrade is put in, the system rejects the unlimited plan.