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
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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
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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
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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?
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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
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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.
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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.
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.
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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.
I love my omnia 7 but I have noticed if someone rings me and I have their picture on my phone it shows up blurry on the ringing screen
I used a picture this evening which was stored on my phone on someones contact (took with camera) and it still shows blurry
anyone any idea's have to solve this ?? I know its only cosmetic but its damn annoying
i have this problem too. my contacts have pictures from windows live and facebook account and they allways show up blurry, when taking a call.
Are you sure the facebook photos show up blurry too? The main problem here is because of Gmail, which uses a pathetic resolution for the contacts (96x96?) and therefore, when you have GMail sync enabled, all the photos are replaced with lousy low-res versions, immaterial of whether you uploaded a hi-res version in the first place.
This has been discussed on several threads in GMail support, *WITHOUT* a solution:
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/gmail/thread?tid=166e27ae27e71c7a&hl=en
Are you sure your WL and FB contacts are not showing their GMail pics? (I think WP7 defaults to facebook when available).
If GMail is not your problem, you might want to just do some removal/addition of the FB/WL accounts to see if it by chance fixes the problem.
i don't use gmail, so the issue is caused by something else.
I have noticed that images from facebook are displayed at decent (sharp) quality but if I allocate my own custom photos from the phone or taken by the phone camera, they appear blurry if a Google Contacts account is used.
If you use the Windows Live option, the image appears a lot nicer. In fact, I only did this test after reading this post and i'm going to deviate from using Google Contact and instead move them to Windows Live! Pictures are very nice.
Also, this affects the tiles if you pin the contact to the home screen.
Vozdra phobius
I previously had a LG Optimus 7 and this issue was there too--so unlike the Wiki states, this doesn't look to be an Omnia 7-only problem.
Anyway, I'll consider moving my contacts to Windows Live and see if that makes a difference.
EDIT: I recently updated to Mango--the pictures were still blurry. I re-added the contact pictures from photo albums (still saving them as Google contacts) and now the pictures are sharp! So it looks the this problem was fixed in Mango?
BakedGoodsX said:
I previously had a LG Optimus 7 and this issue was there too--so unlike the Wiki states, this doesn't look to be an Omnia 7-only problem.
Anyway, I'll consider moving my contacts to Windows Live and see if that makes a difference.
EDIT: I recently updated to Mango--the pictures were still blurry. I re-added the contact pictures from photo albums (still saving them as Google contacts) and now the pictures are sharp! So it looks the this problem was fixed in Mango?
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I have seen that even if you choose a photo you shot from your Omnia, because of the google sync, it gets downscaled. I have heard that people have succeeded by disabling the photo sync on google (don't recall how), but it did not work for me.
BTW, have you updated to Mango beta or the RTM? And, is it worth the effort (assuming it's not too easy to apply the official update after this upgrade).
Thanks!
karthikraman said:
I have seen that even if you choose a photo you shot from your Omnia, because of the google sync, it gets downscaled. I have heard that people have succeeded by disabling the photo sync on google (don't recall how), but it did not work for me.
BTW, have you updated to Mango beta or the RTM? And, is it worth the effort (assuming it's not too easy to apply the official update after this upgrade).
Thanks!
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Yes you're totally right, Google Sync downscaled it. Damn.
I'm not sure the difference between the Mango beta and the RTM (I bought my Omnia unlocked and unbranded). I followed Duck's instructions in this thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1203948
Personally, I didn't have to do the firmware flash so it was very painless. In fact, it was no harder than running "update.bat" then updating the phone threw Zune. Considering almost no effort it's definitely worth it. Mango is faster, IE9 is much better, some of the additional features are nice (some multitasking, alphabet app-menu, etc).
I'd say, if you don't need to flash the firmware it's totally worth it (only took me 10 minutes). If you have to flash, I might reconsider (I have a lot of game saves, etc. that would be annoying to lose).
I have had my Galaxy S2 for about a month now and all is well in Galaxy land.
However there is one thing that really boggles my mind and that is the appearance of the call screen. Whenever making or receiving a call the phone displays a small thumbnail of the caller (if present). Almost all of my contacts has a Facebook account and therefore also a profile picture synced from their Facebook profile.
However the caller picture that is displayed is minuscule in size and of a very poor quality (see attached image). I can't for the life of me comprehend how this made it past QA.
If they had just downloaded the facebook profile pictures without compression and put it full-screen with buttons/text on-top, problem solve :/
I haven't stumbled on any similar treads which I think is weird..
Am I the only one that have had similar thoughts? And if not, has anyone "solved/changed" this and how?
Sidenote: The "logs" tab should have a "all calls" options instead of showing both SMS and calls.. However this is a big deal..
I think it is related to the Facebook API. It does the same on the iPhone.
@thebrave - I'm not so sure.. On my previous phone, HTC Desire, the picture was twice the size and in much better quality.
It's because pictures were donwloaded with "Facebook For HTC Sense" and not with the app from the market.
pUrebloodXP said:
@thebrave - I'm not so sure.. On my previous phone, HTC Desire, the picture was twice the size and in much better quality.
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On my Htc it was good aswell. On the sgs2 it ugly as hell.
I have seen the app called "Full Screen Caller ID" in Android Market but that app just seems bloated and it's just not "quite there"... Try it and you will see what I mean.. :/
I would much rather prefer that Samsung made their own version of a fullscreen caller id facebook integation for the Galaxy S2 phone
that issue was present on the HD2 (running Android) as well after people synced their contacts with FB, all the picture where looking like the one in your screenshot.
All my contacts are only synced with google and all my picture look great.
Anybody else think Stephan looks like a Swedish rockstar?
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App
FIXED (the picture quality but not the size)
Back to what "513" said about HTC phones using Facebook for HTC Sense I found out that the SG2 also has two different Facebook accounts that can be synced.. "Facebook" and "Facebook for Social Hub"..
By using the "Facebook for Social Hub" account, instead of the standard one, my phone downloads the profile pictures in better quality (see attachment)..
However the size of the picture during a call doesn't change. It is still a very small thumbnail, as a matter of fact in most cases it's a little smaller because Facebook for Social Hub uses the images with the correct aspect ratio, but still restricted to the same max height/width..
- However this is still an improvement
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?
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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?
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I'm having the same problem
subhani said:
I'm having the same problem
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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!