I'm probably not the first to 'complain' about this... but I thought I'd put it all together in one post and see if anyone was having the same issues, or same results...
So...
Trying to 'Sync' Facebook contact pics with my x10 contact pics - tried a few apps, and while most of them did the job to some degree, with varying results, but mainly the same level of disappointment, one thing I found with all of them was that the resolution was abysmal to say the least...
I found also that if I opened Facebook, I could view any of my own profile pics, and I was given the option to assign them to a contact – great (sort of) providing the only people I know are myself. Friends pictures were ‘locked’ such that the assign to contact option did not exist - silly, really.
Now, while fiddling with my phone, I discovered that the some of the Facebook contact syncing apps actually downloaded a full quality pic to my device – perfect – now let me see if I can open them and assign them to a contact... nope, no luck – interestingly, they were ‘locked’ just like they were when I opened them through Facebook – no option to assign them to a contact.
Now, I move them to another folder (one which had pics that I could assign) and all of a sudden, they were unlocked... funniest thing was that pics left in the original folder I took them from were also unlocked... odd... good too, but odd.
So happily assigning all these full definition contact pics, I then had a look at them, and the resolution was again abysmal... WTF...! Anyway, one last go, and instead of going via the picture to assign it to a contact, I went through the contact then assigned a picture to it... Success...! this time proper resolution...!
So from this I assume that going through the picture, or any syncing apps, you’re only getting a contact pic as good a quality as the Android system expects. However, if you go through the contact, the x10 is getting a contact pic at the full quality it knows it needs to display...
Anyway, take what you will from this, but I thought it was interesting...
same over here, the pictures I assigned to my contacts are very high quality and they all look like sh#t on the phone when some one calls me.
It is full of noise and extremely blurry. Really don't understand why...They can't be made this for such a low quality so I assume we do something wrong, but I can't figure it out. Do we need very big resolution pictures to get them proper on this phone? But thanks for the tip, working the other way around does work good, but it keeps being strange...
Cheers.
Arnold
Consider that a phone call needs to pop-up right away. Why waste the processing speed to show a full resolution image?
Note: I think an update that went around to some regions cleaned up the resolution a bit.
iead1 said:
Consider that a phone call needs to pop-up right away. Why waste the processing speed to show a full resolution image?
Note: I think an update that went around to some regions cleaned up the resolution a bit.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not the brazilian update.
I'm willing to swear that it's a donut issue... mainly because going the Android way in is ugly, and the SE way in is on the money...
You'll also notice the Android way gives you a square pic, and the SE way gives you an elongated pic to fit with their interface...
iead1 said:
Consider that a phone call needs to pop-up right away. Why waste the processing speed to show a full resolution image?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agreed that it might be low res for this reason, but the x10 can handle the hi res just as good - and considering the contact pics are so large, you definitely want them full res.
Hopefully SE do some updates to improve this... Hopefully...
k1sr said:
You'll also notice the Android way gives you a square pic, and the SE way gives you an elongated pic to fit with their interface...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Problem is, I don't wan't the elongated pic or the square pic.
With WinMo I could put any pic format.
Why should I be restricted in Android?
Related
Coming from the fuze with the people tab i could update new people, remote people and change the picture for a person. With the htc pure and the new people tab it does not give me the update picture option.
as well when i put a new person without a picture it only lets me crop the picture and not use the entire picture. the only way around both issues was to change the pic using the windows mobile contacts tab and change the picture however it is not high resolution.
aside from deleting the contact and redoing it is there another way?
xboxhaxorz said:
Coming from the fuze with the people tab i could update new people, remote people and change the picture for a person. With the htc pure and the new people tab it does not give me the update picture option.
as well when i put a new person without a picture it only lets me crop the picture and not use the entire picture. the only way around both issues was to change the pic using the windows mobile contacts tab and change the picture however it is not high resolution.
aside from deleting the contact and redoing it is there another way?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You should be able to delete or change your contact photo in "edit contact".
That does allow me to remove it appreciate that. Still though i would have hoped there was a way to use the full picture in manilla instead of cropping.
This is my second post as a new Android and Epic user. As my first post, I suggested a new name to a ROM developer here!
Alright, I have the Epic in my hands now and I am really enjoying it, especially after being on a small and not-very-user-friendly-and-slow touch screen on HTC Fuze (HTC Touch Pro) from AT&T. As I mentioned, I am new to Android and new to Epic, and I am facing the following issues, which could very well be user errors:
- I had seen several reviews on YouTube noting how good the camera on Epic was, but the pictures I have taken on Epic seem to me like they are from a 1.x megapixel camera!
I recently took a pic in a dimly lit restaurant and I was absolutely appalled by the quality of that pic. I couldn't even send it out to folks in the pic due to the low quality of the pic. The Fuze has a 3.2 megapixel camera and the pics on that phone are WAY better than the pics on the Epic with a 5 megapixel camera (I am aware megapixels are not everything, but still).
I took a few pics in my house, with more light, and the quality didn't improve at all. I couldn't find any posts related to low-quality pics on Epic. I installed Camera 360; the pics taken using 360 are 30% better than those taken with the default camera application on Epic. So, the hardware can do much better.
I was expecting the pics on the Epic to be really crisp and clear, but they are not, by miles. Am I doing something wrong?
- I changed the volume levels in "Sound and Display," but that's the only change in settings I have made. Now, I don't hear the sound that we hear after unlocking the phone by dragging the lock icon upward. What could be wrong?
- In Swype, I changed the setting to disable the haptic feedback, but enabled the tapping sounds. But I don't hear any tapping sounds when I tap on the keys. I am completely lost on this one.
- This is more of an issue due to my newness to Android and TouchWhiz. When I receive a notification about a new e-mail(s), and I click on the e-mail icon at the bottom of the screen, I see a list of all my e-mail accounts. How do I know which account received the new e-mail (out of the five accounts I have configured)?
- I have configured a default Gmail account for my Epic. I tried to send some pictures by using the "Share" feature and selecting my default Gmail account as the "sending" account. A small and short-lived pop-up said "sending message" but the "receiver" account received nothing, even after several tries. Although, I was able to send the same pics using other Gmail accounts on my phone. What could I be missing with the default Gmail account?
Sorry for such a long post, but I would really appreciate your help on the issues (or user errors) I am facing. Thanks!
P.S.: I am not planning to root my Epic just yet, as I would like to experience the phone as is for a month or so.
For the camera problem make sure you have the size set to 5 megapixels and the quality to superfine.
When you get an email slide down the notification bar and click on the alert, it will take you straight to the emails.
When I turned off the noise for selecting things on the screen it also stopped the lock screen noise.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
tatoniss said:
For the camera problem make sure you have the size set to 5 megapixels and the quality to superfine.
When you get an email slide down the notification bar and click on the alert, it will take you straight to the emails.
When I turned off the noise for selecting things on the screen it also stopped the lock screen noise.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your reply. I have already set the resolution to 5 megapixels and the quality to superfine, but the pics still are subpar.
I am aware of the sliding down the notification curtain to go to the e-mails directly, but I was wondering if there was a setting or mod to indicate which account had new e-mails.
It explains that the turning off the tab sounds for the screen would also disable any tap sounds for the unlocking screen.
I am still open to input for my other issues, if someone knows how to solve them. Thanks.
why don't u take a pic of something and post it here so we can tell u if something is wrong?
here is a pic I took few days ago with max settings, what do you think of the quality?
if the quality isn't like this, then perhaps u need a new epic. if the quality is around that, then that's how epic takes pics
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
razorseal said:
why don't u take a pic of something and post it here so we can tell u if something is wrong?
here is a pic I took few days ago with max settings, what do you think of the quality?
if the quality isn't like this, then perhaps u need a new epic. if the quality is around that, then that's how epic takes pics
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, I was initially planning to take a picture and post it for other members' review, but when I posted my first post, it was around 4 a.m. in the morning, so I couldn't find enough daylight to take some pics.
I am linking to a picture I took a few minutes ago, in low sunlight. The quality of this picture of outdoors is acceptable. I am also attaching a picture that I took at a restaurant; this picture - a cropped part of the pic with no modification to the quality of the pic - is just to show how grainy and washed out the picture is.
I understand the lighting in the restaurant was low, but still, even with the flash, the quality of the image leaves a lot to be desired. I took that pic with all the default settings, meaning I had not selected the "Indoor" scene mode (I am not sure if that would have improved the picture vastly). Correct me if I am wrong. Thanks.
Edit: I just took another pic of the outdoors using Camera 360 to compare the quality of the default camera application on the Epic to that of Camera 360's. This pic is sharper than the one taken by the default camera application on the Epic.
I noticed something about the signatures for the e-mail accounts. I changed my signature on one gmail account and it changed my signature on all my gmail accounts and my Exchange account. Shouldn't I be able to change the signatures individually?
For camera quality: are u tapping the screen and letting the little box turn green to focus?
Sent from my Epic 4G
ravizzle said:
For camera quality: are u tapping the screen and letting the little box turn green to focus?
Sent from my Epic 4G
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, I am focusing before taking pictures. I got my phone swapped today and the new one's camera looks better. Although, how true is the notion that installation of apps can slow down the phone (quite natural) and this can affect the quality of the pictures because of the delay?
incisivekeith said:
Yes, I am focusing before taking pictures. I got my phone swapped today and the new one's camera looks better. Although, how true is the notion that installation of apps can slow down the phone (quite natural) and this can affect the quality of the pictures because of the delay?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not true at all. If u have many process intensive apps running I can see some some lag, but just installation of apps won't do anything.
Sent from my Epic 4G
ravizzle said:
Not true at all. If u have many process intensive apps running I can see some some lag, but just installation of apps won't do anything.
Sent from my Epic 4G
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is what I thought. It doesn't fit that the lag on the phone can actually reduce the quality of the pictures taken by the camera.
On another note, I have imported contacts to my phone via a vCard file. I also have a default Gmail account configured on my phone. Can I sync the contacts on my phone with the Gmail account? And, can I sync contacts from my phone with Outlook Express or Outlook on my PC? I have been reading a lot of opinions on this, but none has had a definitive answer.
To sync the contacts stored on the phone to your gmail account, first you need to export your phones contacts to your sd card, then you import them right back in, but when given the choice, choose to import them to gmail account (all done through Settings->More->Import/Export, even if you already know some future reader may not )
When you have accomplished this, you will have multiple entries for each of your contacts, so you will want to go and either go to Settings->Display and deselect either the phone or gmail contacts, but I would suggest hiding the gmail, then deleting the (now duplicate) ones stored on the phone, then of course unhiding the gmail contacts. If you somehow delete one that didnt get uploaded to google properly or something, at least you already have a full backup on your sd card that you can reimport.
[Q] A few questions about and issues with the Epic from a new Android user
Koadic said:
To sync the contacts stored on the phone to your gmail account, first you need to export your phones contacts to your sd card, then you import them right back in, but when given the choice, choose to import them to gmail account (all done through Settings->More->Import/Export, even if you already know some future reader may not )
When you have accomplished this, you will have multiple entries for each of your contacts, so you will want to go and either go to Settings->Display and deselect either the phone or gmail contacts, but I would suggest hiding the gmail, then deleting the (now duplicate) ones stored on the phone, then of course unhiding the gmail contacts. If you somehow delete one that didn't get uploaded to google properly or something, at least you already have a full backup on your sd card that you can reimport.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your response. I haven't had the time to apply the workaround for the contacts, but I will certainly post the result here.
On another note, I was wondering about the following:
- Why doesn't the voice activated action take place automatically? When I say a voice command, instead of just performing the command, the device pops up a list of options (including an exact match of my voice command) matching my voice command. If I am required to select what I want to do from the pop-up list, what's the purpose of the voice commands?
Edit: The above functionality works that way, it seems.
- My battery indicator (and GPS Status app) shows the batter level at 97% when I receive a message on the device that the battery is full. How come? I read about this on the forum, but didn't find a solution or the cause for this. And interestingly, if I keep the phone plugged in a little longer, the indicator shows a charge of 100%, but as soon as I unplug the phone, it reverts to 97%.
I miss little things on Stock Android on the Epic such as the option to see the duration of calls. Shouldn't Stock Android (not the apps) have widgets similar to those on the Today Screen in Windows Mobile?
Any thoughts from the community? Thanks.
Edit: I just found out the the in-line controls for the headset for the Epic don't work reliably at all. I am not able to end a call when the screen is off. A couple of days ago, I was at least able to press the in-line control button and bring up Call Log on the phone; I am not able to do that today. Also, is it true that the in-line mic is faulty, too? I found some comments regarding the in-line controls and issues similar to mine in these threads (thread1, thread2), but no solution. Why are such basic functionality missing from such a good phone? Is there a solution to this?
I would appreciate some input on the issues I am facing, either saying there is no solution to some of them, or point me in the right direction. Thanks.
i get the same charging thing it will only charge to 97%. i bought two extra batteries and also came with an external battery charger, if i charge with the external charger and pop in the batteries they show 100% so it must be the phone isnt charging it to 100.
As far as the charging goes, I find that if I have it plugged into a lower power charger, like charging from a usb port on my computer, sometimes it will charge all the way to 100% and stay there when unplugged. Otherwise, I can get my phone to charge to 100% if I have the screen on full brightness while charging. I dont know if it is because it stops charging when it reaches a certain voltage or what, and if the screen is drawing power while charging, it isnt getting charged as fast, so it wont 'trip' the sensor saying the battery has a full charge as soon because the power draw keeping the voltage a little lower. Of course this is just speculation on my part.
if i hold the camera vertical and take pics, then email or post them, the top of the pic is now on the left side and it is a horizontal picture. (sure hope i am explaining this properly). if i take a picture horizontally, it will remain as it should.
this is default on most phones i think. wifes iPhone 4 does the same thing.
is there a way to make the camera app know that i am taking a pic a certain way and it saves them accordingly?
if i take a picture horizontally, it will look correct and i will not have to rotate the picture. this is just confusing to me that the phone doesnt know that i am taking a picture vertically and saves if horizontally.
any explanation?
Just curious, have you tried changing the pic resolution? Its set to widescreen by default. With camera open, open the menu, pick settings and top choice is resolution.
when changed i am sure it will work but then the quality is downgraded, correct?
i am in the middle of an SBF and 6.5 install right now or i would check. but i defiantly will once it is up.
i take a lot of pics of my 7 month old and want the best quality possible, ya know?
The first choice below widescreen is 5mp so probably not downgraded much.
changing the resolution doesn't change the horizontal issue...I would like to find a fix for this also.
Thx.
Ron
rpolansky said:
changing the resolution doesn't change the horizontal issue...I would like to find a fix for this also.
Thx.
Ron
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
same here. this drives me nuts. especially when I am sending a MMS
Not really a solution but you can easily turn them to the left, or right, in the Gallery-app and email them from there!
co.ag.2005 said:
same here. this drives me nuts. especially when I am sending a MMS
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
or posting to Facebook
and i can also confirm that the change of settings do nothing. only makes it a more square picture and not widescreen. . .
jange said:
Not really a solution but you can easily turn them to the left, or right, in the Gallery-app and email them from there!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
needs to be automatic but good idea.
jange said:
Not really a solution but you can easily turn them to the left, or right, in the Gallery-app and email them from there!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
good to know. I assume gallery "saves" the new orientation? now that I think about it, the pictures always look correct in the gallery app but are sideways when posting to facebook or sending an MMS
Vignette?
I saw somewhere that using Vignette fixed the prob on other android models. Not free..
I tried the demo version and it does seem to work for me so I a probably going to buy the app.
is there any other reason to switch to this application, vs the stock? i dont mind switching but would like to know more information you know?
not that you have it, just saying... i wonder what other perks there are..
I just tried out the demo version of Vignette. I does fix the locked in landscape issue, however, it seemed quite slow. I took a picture, then it had to make a preview (took several seconds) and then I had to click an option to "Save & Close" the preview. And then I was back to a position to be able to take another picture.
I'm not sure if the paid version is faster or not. I guess I could spend the ~$4.00 and return/refund within 15 minutes if I don't like it. Does anyone else know of any other 3rd party camera apps? I did a quick search in Android Market and didn't find anything promising. (I'll have to do more digging.)
EDIT: There is an autosave setting that I checked on that took some time and work out of what I mentioned earlier. This app is promising, but isn't very polished... especially for ~$4.00 USD.
dont pay.. i uhm. i have it. i will let you know. but i think that it is slow. i am sure you can change the auto preview though and just snap and go and review later.
I need to play with a little more, also. I only tried it for a few minutes. I didn't notice it being that slow but it may be because I didn't spend enough time. I may have to try the full version and return it if I don't like it. There is another camera app on android that is highly rated-Camera Zoom FX. I don't know if it fixes the problem and there wasn't a demo....
ok...
there is an auto save option. but when checked, it still shows the picture for 2 seconds. so i am thinking vs the stock camera app, it takes 4 seconds more to take another picture.
obviously this app has other options like effects or what not. but when taking a picture, i dont want to go through all of them and choose and then take the picture. i would rather just edit them later on photoshop or something similar.
so i am going to stick with the stock camera app and just deal with taking them horizontally until this is resolved, or not.
I have noticed the same thing, it seems pretty clear that the orientation EXIF flag is saved correctly with the picture since the gallery displays the picture correctly, and the EXIF auto-rotate feature on software like digikam seems to operate correctly.
This is how most digital cameras operate and should make it irrelevant how the images are actually stored.
Unfortunately a lot of the other android software doesn't seem to be aware of this flag. And there doesn't seem to be a setting to make the camera save the picture in it's correct orientation directly.
Oh and as far as the resolution settings goes, the widescreen setting is actually a lower resolution than the 5MP setting.
vignette has a " auto detect orientation" feature too
tha5150 said:
ok...
there is an auto save option. but when checked, it still shows the picture for 2 seconds. so i am thinking vs the stock camera app, it takes 4 seconds more to take another picture.
obviously this app has other options like effects or what not. but when taking a picture, i dont want to go through all of them and choose and then take the picture. i would rather just edit them later on photoshop or something similar.
so i am going to stick with the stock camera app and just deal with taking them horizontally until this is resolved, or not.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was playing with it at lunch. Click on the options (normal) and change to "fast shot". I was able to take a number of pics quickly. Doing this auto saves the pics....
Hi all
Just needed a little help with the above.
i have my phone (and contacts) synced with my google account for my phone numbers etc. I have noticed however that all my contact pictures blur when either i call someone or they call me.
Anyway around this?
Is it because all of the images have been pulled down by google?
Am i going to have to load images onto the phone from my computer and re-assign them to my contacts? bit of a pain if thats the case.
Bump!
60+ views and nobody any ideas
chances are it's because the images you have in google are low res/ small size, and therefore look crappy when blown up on the screen.. try putting a high res/ large image onto google and see how that looks once it's synced to your phone..
hpsauce37 said:
Hi all
Just needed a little help with the above.
i have my phone (and contacts) synced with my google account for my phone numbers etc. I have noticed however that all my contact pictures blur when either i call someone or they call me.
Anyway around this?
Is it because all of the images have been pulled down by google?
Am i going to have to load images onto the phone from my computer and re-assign them to my contacts? bit of a pain if thats the case.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is because SE Xperia X10 and now Arc support higher resolution pictures than what Google stores for contacts. So, you have reassign them on your phone and it makes you crop the photos as Arc and X10 use a rectangular shaped photo while Google uses square shaped.
With X10, at least the facebook contact photos showed with higher resolution but ugly aspect ratio that made photos look squeezed. With Arc they look blurry just like Google contacts.
It's a painful job but makes sense to feel good about your phone.
Some come out clear and HD and more than half are so blurry. Anybody know how to fix this?
j86gon said:
Some come out clear and HD and more than half are so blurry. Anybody know how to fix this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you haven't already, go into Google+ settings, and check "keep contacts up to date." It can take several hours for the photos to go to good resolution. Aside from that, you may need a third party app.
Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk
j86gon said:
Some come out clear and HD and more than half are so blurry. Anybody know how to fix this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm having the same problem
subhani said:
I'm having the same problem
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Contact photos are the bane of my existence. I have a touch of OCD with my contacts and have figured out a lot of things as I have experimented with why quality (and actual pictures) vary so much.
First, much of the problem with poor photos comes from the fact that at some point in the past gmail did not support high res photos. I do not know when the change happened, but it was at least a few years ago. So anyone that has not updated their profile photo in over a few years will probably come across as low resolution.
Second, Google Apps does not support high res photos to this day. So, those of us that have apps for our work accounts (tons of government employees) end up with low res photos that show up as people's contacts.
Third, Google + makes a mess of contact photos. Some google apps automatically will use the G+ picture over anything else (apps like hangouts and gmail). I have not totally figured this one out yet, some G+ profile pictures just don't show up as a contact photo even though they are put in on a persons page, the result is a blank profile photo in Hangouts and Gmail.
The fix, I have found, is to put in my own profile pictures for the people I communicate with the most. It is a bit labor intensive, but I just make a "profile pictures" folder in my Google Drive and put the photos in there that I want and set them to their contacts from my phone. The only downside is that my work account (google apps for gov't) still does not support high res photos so every time I get a new phone I have to update the contact photos again to keep the blurry pictures away.
Good Luck!