Related
I got my Vibrant yesterday and (of course) had to use it right away. The battery went down to the point of getting the popup notification (that is at 15% i believe?) and after that, I tried to open/play with the camera -- but instead was greeted with a prompt informing me my battery was low and my only option was "close" - there was no way to just say YEAH, I KNOW, LET ME USE MY [email protected][email protected] CAMERA!
..... any way to disable this? get around it somehow? Sorry Samsung, but if I want to use my camera, I WANT TO USE MY CAMERA. I don't care that the battery is low!
Every smartphone I've ever used for the past 7 years won't allow you to use certain functions if the battery is too low, to allot resources to more important processes.
Never had this problem on any other device (including G1). :\
I can't reproduce it right now, but it has a power saving mode. Go to Settings > Sound and Display, then scroll all the way down. It's the second last item. Uncheck it and see if that fixes it.
Just test on low battery and no the power saving mode doesn't let you take pictures.
Nope, I turned Power Saving off when I was going through settings yesterday, so that isn't what is causing me to get locked out of the camera.
Semi-solution: downloaded a 3rd party camera app from market (snapphoto pro which i had already purchased on my old phone anyways) which will let me use it, so at least i have camera functionality even if battery is low, but i'd still prefer to turn that.... um... "feature" off.
+1 on this "feature" its pretty crippling, not only does the camera not work but it also seems to turn your brightness down, also I don't think it will let you watch videos. C'mon samsung.
I understand the feature of it popping up a warning like "hey, maybe you should rethink this... " but to actually completely disable it is annoying. :\
Indeed, hopefully Sammy will 'fix' this with the 2.2 update.
-bZj
I agree it ridiculous, we should have the option to continue rather than lock us out. I tried watching a video and its not letting me.
Indeed, if I'm on a flight and want to burn my battery completely, I want that option.
-bZj
_____
-sent from my Samsung Vibrant via XDAapp
It won't let you watch a movie on low battery either. I ran into that yesterday.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
What a crock... I am trying to run out my battery and video, which sucks battery nicely, is denied.
t1n0m3n said:
What a crock... I am trying to run out my battery and video, which sucks battery nicely, is denied.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's exactly what I was trying to do...
Doesn't play music either. That's ridiculous.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
I was trying to drain the battery as well, like someone said before 3rd party apps will work. I installed the RockPlayerBase Beta to burn my battery to 0 by playing videos . . .
Btt.
I'd really love to see a fix for this. Anybody have anything?
Thanks
This isn't anything new from Samsung or many other phone manufacturers. My current G600 slider that is 3 years old does the same thing. Better to still have basic phone functions and SOS for the remaining battery than to end up taking a few snapshots and find a dead phone seconds later. It may seem like they are locking you out of your phone, but in reality the lashback from average joes complaining about their phone dying when they were trying to call 911 after a hit and run accident in the middle of nowhere can justify this "feature".
silverwolf0 said:
This isn't anything new from Samsung or many other phone manufacturers. My current G600 slider that is 3 years old does the same thing. Better to still have basic phone functions and SOS for the remaining battery than to end up taking a few snapshots and find a dead phone seconds later. It may seem like they are locking you out of your phone, but in reality the lashback from average joes complaining about their phone dying when they were trying to call 911 after a hit and run accident in the middle of nowhere can justify this "feature".
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I understand your argument, but the entire focus of these forums is to change things we don't like or add new things on our phones.
You could extend the argument that "lots of other phones do this" to any number of annoying "features" that have been modded or hacked.
silverwolf0 said:
This isn't anything new from Samsung or many other phone manufacturers. My current G600 slider that is 3 years old does the same thing. Better to still have basic phone functions and SOS for the remaining battery than to end up taking a few snapshots and find a dead phone seconds later. It may seem like they are locking you out of your phone, but in reality the lashback from average joes complaining about their phone dying when they were trying to call 911 after a hit and run accident in the middle of nowhere can justify this "feature".
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On the otherside, as someone mentioned if I'm on a flight watching a movie, I want to burn out the battery. Or I'm in a car accident and I need to quickly take pictures for insurance, I'd rather use that battery power. Basically, it's a nanny feature that many of us don't want. That's pretty much the point of these forums.
This is my attempt to review the phone after a year (and a bit) of use. It may seem pointless to review a phone that is at least a generation old, but I think what I have to say gives some insight into HTC as a manufacturer, and Android as a whole. These are also the sorts of things that can't be understood from using a phone for a few hours. I'll also cover Sense in part.
I'll start by listing everything that has annoyed or just disappointed me over the last 13 months.
Battery life
One of my major worries with Android as a whole (and by extension, all smartphones and the direction the market is heading): it is just not acceptable for a phone to not last a whole working day on moderate use (which for me is: about 2 hours web browsing and listening to music, a few text messages and emails). There are ways to avoid this happening (and the question should be, if users can do things to improve the battery, why don't they come out of the
factory that way?) but the fact is that a phone that requires the user to tinker extensively to get a day's reasonable use is not well designed. The trade-off is a thinner, lighter phone. Well, it's not worth it. Consumers are being hoodwinked into desiring crazy thin handsets before the technology is really there to support them. Ever-faster specs are the other side of this sorry tale. Phone software shouldn't need dual-core phones running at above 1Ghz, with 1gig of RAM. WP7 and iOS show this.
Build quality: I've had several serious problems caused by the hardware:
The battery cover - everyone knows about this. It is possible to remove it, and reinstall it, but it's difficult - and it just shouldn't be. That's all there is to it.
Volume rocker - the poor arrangement of the battery cover and the volume rocker meant that when I tried to pull off the battery cover, I broke off the top half of volume rocker. Luckily it still holds on and the volume control still works, but again - not good enough. The fact that there are packages of replacement volume rockers complete with the needed tools on Ebay show this is not limited to me and my clumsiness.
USB port - for no obvious reason, and very suddenly, the USB/charger port stopped working properly - no power was going to the phone. The main board and so the whole until had to be replaced. I'd not been rough with the connection. Which lead to...
GPS. One of my biggest disappointments. Although it worked reasonably well to begin with, when my internals were replaced because of the USB port failure, the internals must have been from the batch with the poorly connected GPS module. Everyone knows about this issue by now. I never ever ever get any GPS signal, no matter where I am or what the weather's like. Yes there are solutions, none of which worked for me, and I couldn't bare to be without my handset for another 7-14 days to get it repaired. Very poor.
HTC Sense
I've not found Sense to have any additional functionality that make it worth the resource overhead on top of Android. Really the only useful thing it does is linking contacts between my contacts and Facebook and Twitter (though this brings it's own problems, for instance forcefully importing a friend's outdated phone number from Facebook without giving me the option to choose the stored number instead). I've never been able to use the default Android calendar app because the Sense one replaces it, and I don't like the Sense one at all, it's quite unintuitive.
I find the extra chrome is not especially attractive, and doesn't make efficient use of space. It looks very mid-late 00s. So dumping Sense was one of the first things I did, first in favour of ADW Launcher and lately GO Launcher, for it's superb and beautiful widgets.
HTCSense.com - I've nearly forgotten what it did. Suffice to say, none of the services were useful enough or reliable (they didn't work at all for the first few months) to keep me coming back.
General Android issues
Music playing
There are many brilliant music-playing programs for Android. I've happily paid for two that I love using (PowerAmp and PlayerPro). Sadly, four years in, the experience of getting music onto an Android phone lags behind iPhone fundamentally. Spotify subscribers will call me a dinosaur for caring about this, but for those of us with large mp3 collections that they like to change up on their phones regularly, it's an unhappy experience. Technology
blogs would have you believe the iTunes/iPhone experience can be replicated, but my experience is that this just isn't true.
To give an overview of the problem (for anyone thinking of coming to Android and hoping to use their phone for playing music), here's my experience of using several Windows music management apps, and their limitations as a solution for managing Android devices.
DoubleTwist - marketed as iTunes for Android - laughable, and crushingly disappointing: ignoring slow performance and instability, not finding all files, misreading mp3 tags, all DoubleTwist does is sync a playlist to the phone (over Wi-Fi if you pay the upgrade). If you use iTunes, it will sync any playlist that you create in iTunes - but does anyone want to install iTunes if it's just to transfer music? I hate having it on my system. The main failing is that it has no easy way to select tracks to be transferred - they have to be added to a playlist. Unlike iTunes, you cannot tick or untick songs from the main library. If you want to remove a song from your phone, you have to find and then remove it from the appropriate playlist. Which is far more time consuming. No developers of music management software for Windows seem to understand this. The same problem applies to Winamp, Songbird, MediaMonkey, all of which I've tried and none of which work as well as iTunes does for iPods. All have various bugs or limitations (Winamp won't let you browse the syncing playlist by artist/album, only letting you edit the sync list as a great big long list, does a really poor job of finding artwork and lyrics. But the wifi sync option is very cool, if slightly pointless. Songbird is still unstable after years of development and has enduring problems with recognising tags.)
So far the best option is MediaMonkey, which is fast, stable and has some brilliant additional functions even in it's free version. It does allow you to browse tracks stored on the phone by artist and album which makes it easier to remove tracks, but doesn't give the selecting tracks from the main library option that iTunes has. Also, CD-ripping is only available in the paid version ($40).
Ideally I'd like to see Google develop or encourage the development of an iTunes equivalent media manager for Android phones on Windows that would do the simple job of syncing music easily, effectively, and without bugs! However this would go against their ambitions for getting everyone to to everything (including music) through the cloud, so I don't have much hope.
Another small issue I've got with music on Android is that the system's music management library doesn't recognise the album artist tag on music files. This means that when browsing music in any application by artist, compilations are split out into each artist. This makes for a messy library. I want the option to have all compilations combined under the 'Various Artists' name - simple to implement, but only possible by recognising the album artist tag.
Android Market
A constant source of irritation to me is a couple of bugs in the Market. The first of these is automatically starting updates which stall before downloading starts, requiring you to long-press and cancel, and then manually re-start each of the updates. Tedious. The other major problem is that about 1/3 to 1/2 the time, completed downloads will fail to install, often repeatedly. No idea. It works eventually, so it's not an issue of compatibility. Aggravating.
In progress...
I have had the DHD for a year too and came from a Iphone and I agree with some of your issues.
Battery life: For me at first I was having to charge at sometimes 1 or 2 in the afternoon >< but now I get to midnight often with 50% charge if i have been using lightly, a day with some gaming music and calls its 15% 20% left this is around 11 when i normally goto bed and put it on charge so battery life is ok for me now (I am on stock sense rom 2.3 something, the latest one)
The GPS been flaky really annoys me sometimes taking 3 4 minutes to get one Sat, makes hoping in the car and getting directions something you have to add 5 minutes to your journey for.
Build Quality has been fine for me, but I have not opened really since i put in my SD card and it's been in a clear gel case with protector since day 1 so looks immaculate. I think the GPS issue is a design flaw.
HTC sense is ok, I only use a couple of their widgets but yea it's not really that useful and can be replicated with many things often free from the market.
Android music players: At first coming from Itunes I liked the fact I could add a new song with drag and drop but in retrospect its better to have a database driven system like itunes for organizing music and playlists means you end up with your music nicely organised tagged and searchable.
The market i have had no issues with really (Though IOS apps are overall slicker than Android still, though Android has caught up in a few now)
I think Android looks really promising with ICS and will finally root and put a Rom on once one is hacked on the Desire HD.
Overall the handset has been nice and I like been able have live wallpapers and change themes with things with different launchers, the Iphone got boring from a OS perspective whereas Android you can change everything and seem like you have a new phone.
Now for the gotcha...I solved all my Android & HTC problems by getting a Samsung Omnia 7 16gb WP7 I have had both phones now concurrently for 8 months and the WP7 is my everyday phone since about 3 weeks into buying it, but I have the desire HD with a backup sim in it and carry that too.
It lasted all day from day one on a charge and I found the OS to do everything I needed without any tweaking, that been social networking, syncing with google calendar, making calls, listening to my music and surfing the web on the go. (I am not really a phone gamer, maybe play the odd puzzle game like jems or something.)
It's a bit like the iphone I guess everything just kind of works with no tweaking but it looks different and you can actually make your home screen look really nice and personal with live tiles of your photos news feeds etc. And Zune I love its a really cool looking desktop client, it checkerboards album art when you play music and my phone wirelessly syncs any new music when its on charge over night (though PC has to be on ofc) I would never go back to drag and drop into folders now. WP7 has its quirks and annoyances too but I think it does the things I need better.
I still love Android though and may get the Galaxy Nexus, However will wait and see the reviews, if Android still has jerky lag scrolling and the random stutters on the homescreens and in browser will wait until next gen, hopefully though they have got the accelerated GUI working well enough, and it looks a lot nicer seems much more integrated from the demos I have seen less hodgepodge than it currently is.
It's great to have three different phone OSes to be able to choose from, currently its not looking like one will get a monopoly like MS did with windows so hopefully we can continue to have some choice and variety for years to come which also drives innovation which means better experiences for us the users!
I gave up with it
I eventually gave up with my HD a couple of weeks ago. The phone, as you wrote, has some strengths and some (serious) weaknesses.
The battery is awful. I stated that the first week I got it -- and the deniers said it was fine. It's not. It's crap. And seriously harms the device.
The phone is also heavy. If that sounds dumb, it's not when your hand is tired holding the damn thing for 45 minutes.
And, after a while, the phone lags badly. Only a complete reset fixes this.
The camera is also so-so, and slow as Hell. Video recording is poor and jerky.
Fortunately, there is a cure to all of these problems -- the Samsung Galaxy S2.
bobbyelliott said:
I eventually gave up with my HD a couple of weeks ago. The phone, as you wrote, has some strengths and some (serious) weaknesses.
The battery is awful. I stated that the first week I got it -- and the deniers said it was fine. It's not. It's crap. And seriously harms the device.
The phone is also heavy. If that sounds dumb, it's not when your hand is tired holding the damn thing for 45 minutes.
And, after a while, the phone lags badly. Only a complete reset fixes this.
The camera is also so-so, and slow as Hell. Video recording is poor and jerky.
Fortunately, there is a cure to all of these problems -- the Samsung Galaxy S2.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Bye Bye....
I've had my DHD for about 6 months now coming from a TyTN II on WinMob 6.0 which I still have. This one is miiiiiiiiles ahead. I agree that the major put-off with the DHD is the battery and I don't care how much freaking tweaking one does, it SUX!!!! I don't get a full day of moderate use at all. I am constantly plugging it in to charge. This seems to be a common Android device problem. Battery technology just has not kept up with the rest.
That being said, I am happy with most everything else. I love my music and I use Mortplayer. I love to be able to just plug my phone into my laptop via USB and just copy and delete music at my leisure. This goes for videos, series, movies etc.
I have the best apps I believe for my various needs. I will elaborate on this a little later.
I dumped SENSE!!! I have been using GO Launcher for the last 3 or 4 months. I love it! I also only use Live Wallpaper.
My GPS is great. I have had no issues at all. I get a lock indoors in an average of about 20 seconds flat. I have made no alterations or mods whatsoever. My phone is stock, unrooted etc. Don't fix it if it aint broke!
The apps I mostly use:
OfficeSuite Pro
Sygic Navigation
Perfect Viewer for comics
QuickPic gallery
Total Commander
Moboplayer for movies
Mortplayer for music
GO Keyboard (THE best Android keyboard after having tried seven or eight different ones)
Vlingo
Camera ZoomFX Pro
Photaf
PicSayPro
I hardly play games.
GO Contacts and Dialer
GO SMS Pro
Whatsapp
Black Facebook
Google+
LinkedIn for Android
Agile Locker
Animated Weather Pro
Weather Bug
Sense Analog Clock (The best one imho) Lots of skins available
GMail
Pocket Informant (Calendar)
Lookout Security
Equalizer
Volume Ace
Whiteboard Pro
Lots of dictionaries
Aldiko Book reader (The best for Android imho)
Camcard
Barcode Scanner
Camscan
Barcode Generator
Neocalc
Opera Mobile
...And various other tools and utilities.
well what i say m my sig tells everything about it . its just the worst decision of my life to buy it and even bad thing is that no one want to buy this kind of bulky phone here so i m kind of stuck with this phone still.
when i see ics boot up and running on dhd but not sgs2 well first time this phone give me some happiness .
I must say i haven't had many if any of the above issues, build quality is solid as a rock for me, phone been dropped a few times works perfectly well...
Sim cover did tend to be a pain to get off when i first got the phone, but i learned to pull it off by holding the sides of the cover and just gently pulling down.
The Volume rocker does suck, i don't think there's any debate here. You actually have to physically see the screen in order to know you've changed the volume level because it's not tactile whatsoever.
Battery life isn't as bad as people make out. Especially with custom roms, i can have 3 hours screen time and still last the full day in standby without my battery dying.
Camera performs quite well with the right settings as hamdir has demonstrated in his guide.
Overall i'm pleased with the DHD it's not perfect no, but for a year old smartphone it's got plenty of life left in it.
Ok... let's start with Music. The desire hd audio chip sucks. Period. My HD2 kicks its ass all over the place. Still... what you describe as a DHD problem with music sync etc, is present on most if not all Android devices. We only have mass storage.
Now, i do use MediaMonkey... but not the Free or Paid version. I downloaded the latest Beta4 and it manages my 180gb of mp3/ogg/flac/wav/ape whatevah. It syncs what i want and converts on the fly (why would i use FLAC on a cellphone?)
As for battery, with my DHD it lasts 2 days with very moderate use, but 3G always on, 2 google acounts, facebook, etc etc. Wifi is kept on, and when i arrive home, it connects to my wifi at it's own pleasure.
Battery door: Battery is not mean to be removed/inserted all that much. My DHD lasts months without a restart, so i don't see why you should need to remove that as often.
Volume rocker: Due to the above probably, it's still in it's place.
GPS: On this one i'll have to agree... it sucks. That plastic cover on the back is a issue, so much that a homemade fix is necessary.
As for the necessity of dual cores and so what... There really no NEED. We don't NEED this. We were fine with those dumb phones back in the Nokia Black/Green day.
As we want more, we need more... more processing power.
Now, i've used WP7 and iPhone. Lets not compare. WP7 is limited has hell. What it does, it does well. But it suffers for the same as iPhone. It need Zune to make it worth it. iPhone need iTunes. Who the hell designs a cellphone that requires a computer ?
So... please drop the comparision between WP7/iOS with Android. Yes, what they do, they do better than Android. But they do so little.. so so little..
Wrong thread
Black1982 said:
Bye Bye....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You write in the wrong thread br0. Go and cry on Samsung threads. It's not me it's DHD community which says this. Bye! Bye!
You understand Black1982: I'm with you.
Hello
I too use HTC Desire HD only problem is battery
Nice Thread.....
For me 1st year is just getting over today. This phone is awesome, I came from Symbian UIQ3 (W960i) phone. Actually I blindly chosen this phone due to Android+Dolby+HTC. But now am very happy with this decision. I had battery issues and GPS problems, but thanks to XDA devs all these gone over time. I will keep this phone till it dies.
Samsung Galaxy S2......
....is a very fast piece of plastic!
My brother has one and frankly I wouldn't swop my DHD for it ......EVER!!!!
After the DHD I will get another HTC. I am on my third HTC now.
I have seen Sony-Fricssions, Samdungs, (actually the proper name is SAMpple), and frankly HTC is still tops as far as build quality, etc. goes.
What can I say.....I luv me DHD!!!!
BTW, how on earth do people get 2 days without charging? Maybe flashing roms? but I don't want to do this.
The audio on my DHD is actually quite good. I use Equalizer and Volume Ace with Moboplayer and Mortplayer. I have an in-ear Phillips headset and the sound is maybe not the best but it is certainly good. Bass and loudness & clarity is actually quite good on mine. My family complains that my phone is too loud! hehehehehehe
Why do people keep whingeing about the battery life...its a smartphone...what more do you need to know...I've had a few of them...they are ****e,the galaxy s lasts about an he longer,look at this way,if your on the laptop plug it in...you got a sky hd box..plug it ...any device with a USB stick it in ..if your battery goes down to quick you can tweak it to be fair,in general though it just is accepted...the iPhones are even worse!
Htc sense is quality in my opinion,I've tried roms without and didn't gel,I like the DHd it still isn't old in my eyes
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App
Nice review there. Honestly, I agree with the first few points of TS regarding the battery, Sense and GPS.
For the battery, its also the major setback I noticed when I got this phone. It's not crappy, its utter bulldung. But hey, due to the battery prob forces me to snoop around and found my love, ROM flashing! It's a mixed blessing I guess. Without the battery prob, I wouldn't stubble upon the amazing devs at XDA. as for the battery prob, it lasts for me through the day, an hour of music, Bluetooth headphone connected, a little mail, text and 10 minutes call max got me through the whole day.. all that is possible with a little thing called flashing. It does improve battery life. Period.
Sense.. hmm.. no idea, skipped the whole marketing thing.. sense location and what not. What ONLY like about sense is that u call silence a call by flipping it over, or turn into a blowhorn during a conversation with the same method. Lol. But other then that, its not much about to bother look let alone try.
GPS... Hmmm... First few locks are slow.. sure. But hey, nothing like rooting, flashing CWM GPS.zip can't handle..
Finally.. its a beautiful phone.. albeit its weakness in some areas. It's like a classic car, few chinks here and there, but with a little personalized tweaking, it'll be your phone indeed. I cherish it more than any other phones I had cause its me in an aluminum shell... It's a great phone. And I'm a happy owner.
Ps: want a phone that last a week? Get a Nokia 3210. Lol.
sent from Borneo
What with the obsession with itunes, googlemusic works just fine for me, with a couple of hundred random tracks synced via banshee for offline appreciation
Sent from my Desire HD using Tapatalk
What with the obsession with itunes, googlemusic works just fine for me, with a couple of hundred random tracks synced via banshee for offline appreciation
Sent from my Desire HD using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well... Google Music works fine. I bet it does, i can't have it yet. Not here on my country anyway. But i can have iTunes.
I don't like iTunes. To be honest, iTunes is everything i HATE on a media manager.
But, it has a advantage that GMusic does not. iTunes does not store your entire collection on the cloud. I have 180gb+ of media... this makes Google Music a "no no" for me.
In just about two weeks, it'd be our anniversary
With DHD being my first smartphone, I really didn't have much expectations of it. I just bought it then because the HD7 was still unavailable. Sense rocks. Sure the stock eventually grew very laggy, Messages does not send messages.. But hey, that's what Android Market is for.
Eventually tried rooting and flashing custom ROMs, and hell yeah, I think I may well use it for, if time allows, still another year. In the internal side, I find nothing wrong with it. It's not like it's gonna replace my computer or anything. At this point, I kinda appreciate Sense, especially Sense 3.5, the UI is just perfect, and the Beats Audio works well at default compared to how PowerAMP does. Equalizer app makes it more perfect.
The build quality for me is kinda mixed. We gotta love the metal casing. But the detachable plastic parts, they're questionable. I also bought the phone with the power keys in a deeper position than advertised out of the box, which at the time I was unaware, so it's kinda takes more effort to press it.
Just around five months ago, the volume rocker somehow broke off and fell somewhere while I was walking home. I usually joke with my friends that DHD comes with a stylus.. a toothpick for pressing the volume lol. The h and t in the htc logo behind the phone got lost as well. I can only see the shining c with holes on the h and t lol.
But, given that the phone fell on the road with a strong impact once, fell in a pail full of water once while having a call, and ran against the rain with it once, and that my phone is still alive, I guess I like it. The mic's busted though.
I think I gotta bring this baby to the hospital, er the service centre one of these days. I still love it today. Custom ROMs rejuvenate it. )
Almost all the issues are caused by the alluminum body. You can't have a handheld radio device with metal casing that doesn't have some plastic parts to embed the antenna. Well, actually you can, but then you'll have to expose the antenna and explain to the users that they are holding the device the "wrong" way. But having the metal body has one great advantage over plastic - with proper care it still looks as good as new. I have mine DHD for little over a year and it's like brand new. And the only protection it has against the elements (including my two kids) is just the stock screen protector. I love that feature so much that it was one of the two things that drove me in the direction of choosing acer a500 for a tablet. And I seriously can't understand all the people complaining about the battery life. Mine lasts two days with normal usage and can easily last a workday with moderate to heavy usage. And if you don't have any access to a power source / usb plug near your workplace, I somehow doubt that your work requirements involve spending 8 hours playing with your phone . And I'm on a rooted stock 2.3.3 ROM with no battery tweaks whatsoever. Actually I pluged my phone yesterday for an hour while having lunch (that could not charge the battery completely) and 30 hours later I'm on 20%. True - I didn't use it that much (maybe 20 minutes talking on the phone) but it's still what should be expected of a smartphone. BTW iPhone4 battery life is worse despite it's tiny screen and limited functionality and I hear 4s is even worse.
Sent from my A500 using XDA Premium App
daedric said:
Well... Google Music works fine. I bet it does, i can't have it yet. Not here on my country anyway. But i can have iTunes.
I don't like iTunes. To be honest, iTunes is everything i HATE on a media manager.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not available here officially either, but hey us XDA'ers aren't going to let that stop us are we?
Sent from my Desire HD using Tapatalk
snowpatrol1702 said:
Why do people keep whingeing about the battery life...its a smartphone...what more do you need to know...I've had a few of them...they are ****e,the galaxy s lasts about an he longer,look at this way,if your on the laptop plug it in...you got a sky hd box..plug it ...any device with a USB stick it in ..if your battery goes down to quick you can tweak it to be fair,in general though it just is accepted...the iPhones are even worse!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why? Because it's not satisfactory, that's why. Do you not understand the concept of a review?
Why do you even have a mobile phone if you never leave the house/office? If you're happy to stay plugged in all the time, why not just use your laptop for computing etc and a landline for phone calls? You do realise that smartphones are meant to be mobile too, don't you?
tkolev said:
I seriously can't understand all the people complaining about the battery life. Mine lasts two days with normal usage and can easily last a workday with moderate to heavy usage.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Seriously? Seriously, try reading my post again. As I described, I don't get the same performance as you. Clearly lots of other people have the same problem. I don't know why this is, but it doesn't stop it being a fact. What's not to understand? Do you think I'm making up my experience for fun, or something?
ghostofcain said:
What with the obsession with itunes, googlemusic works just fine for me, with a couple of hundred random tracks synced via banshee for offline appreciation
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I didn't realise there was anyway to access Google Music in the UK yet - I'm going to give it a try out of curiosity, but... continuously drain my battery and be dependent on a decent signal? No thanks. I'm really still not convinced cloud storage of music and video is the way forward at present in general. Plus the Google Music app is pretty bare bones and it doesn't seem possible to play music downloaded from Google Music in other music apps.
I'm not obsessed with iTunes, it's just really good for syncing music to portables. My point was that there's no decent equivalent for Android phones.
I see people are complaining about the same things, and every now and then a new topic is opened with similar questions and concerns. Therefore, I thought I would make this topic where anyone has question or concern could come and get advice such as better way to get nigh shots or how to improve battery life ...etc. Some of the ideas in this topic will be from me and some others would be referring to other topics in this form so it gets easier for new owners to find answers to their questions and concerns and it will make the forum cleaner from the repetition. This will be quite a lot of work which would take couple of days so please be patient while I am working on it.
If you have any ideas, suggestions, things to add, remove or modify, please let me know. everything in here isn't mine, its from everyone in this forum.
I won't mention names because I don't want to forget anyone and because I don't remember from where I got some information but thanks for everyone contributed and if you need your name in, please PM me.
Battery
You need to understand few things to squeeze the most out of your battery. the basic answer is to monitor your battery and avoid things that drain your battery. so what uses more battery, I will put list of things that use the most battery in order (what use the most to the least). The list came from me monitoring every single one alone (it might not be accurate though)
1- Processor
2- screen
now people would say that screen uses more than processor. In order to test this, charge your phone to 100% unplug it and directly play heavy HD game for 30-60 min and go and check battery stats, you will see the game no.1 then screen no.2. the problem with the processor is that when it heats up, it wastes ALOT of battery as the heat is just energy came from the battery. if you want to extend you battery life, you should start with these two as they use more battery than everything else. To make it simpler I would say 1 hour of screen on uses battery enough to keep your wifi on for >1day (and I mean wifi not the whole phone with wifi on)
Recommendations:
a- Avoid using apps/games that heat your phone (most games does, but try to avoid when possible)
b- Avoid using your phone while hot (this will degrade the battery and the screen and will hurt other internals such as processor in the long run and will also waste too much battery)
c- If you are a heavy gamer you might need to underclock your processor (to protect your phone from heat and extend battery life), I would say 1.5-1.7Ghz is good. Here is topic about underclocking
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2467743&highlight=tips
d- Reduce the brightness will save you good few hours of use
3- auto sync
4- 3G/4G
5- wifi
6- GPS
I put auto sync first because in order to have working auto sync, you will need wifi or data + processor to process what are you syncing
GPS actually consume more battery than wifi when both are working, but the good thing about GPS is that if it is not in use even if it is on, it doesn't use battery unless it was needed to locate the phone.
Recommendation
Turn them off when not needed. There are certain apps in the play store that turn off wifi, data and auto sync when screen off then turn them back on when screen is turned on. I use tasker which does this and check for downloads before turning off wifi or data.
Additional recommendations
Uninstall/disable apps that you don't use, especially the ones that are running in the background but don't overuse this and disable everything because you are better off having an old nokia that will last longer than any smartphone currently available.
here is topic about disabling apps
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2510774
And unistaling them
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2520764
Performance
Although I don't have any issue with regard to the performance of my Z1. But here are couple of suggestions to improve the performance even further.
1- Disable/Uninstall apps not in use and working in the background (more details in previous post about Battery)
2- Use various Karnels or ROMs available (you need to be rooted or have unlocked bootloader, I am not responsible about anything)
3- One guy suggested the use of Seeder.apk which was useful (I haven't tried it though, but if you want to, go ahead), here is the link
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2507537
Camera
Before going into more details on how to get better shots, you need to know that the camera in the Z1 is like Pro camera compared to some other smartphones where the camera is more like point and shoot camera. What I mean by this is that the Z1 provides lots of setting which you can play with to get better shots. There is auto mode but it doesn't give the best results, just like pro camera, all professional users use manual modes to get the best shots and they change the settings according to the picture they want to take. This is the case with the Z1, you need to know few things and play with the settings to know how to get the best results. What I will provide here is just a guideline that isn't necessarily going to give the best results everytime and certainly not to for every taste.
Things you need to consider
in most cases:
1- 8mp images are better than 20mp images.
2- 4:3 gives better results than 16:9 because it uses the whole sensor.
3- Manual gives better results than iAuto even though all other settings were auto.
4- The new .257 gives better results the previous versions
5- Turning on HDR or Timeshift burst improve the images sometimes
Good lightening situations
you probably don't need to play much with the settings if you are capturing images in good lights.
However, few people suggested few things that can improve the images including:
1- Lower the ISO between 50-200 (this will reduce the shutter speed which is not good if you have shaky hands or you are capturing moving objects)
2- lower EV which have similar effect to lowering ISO but without lowering the shutter speed (which I found a better choice)
Poor lightning conditions
Here is the difficulty were you might need to change the settings from image to image and need to test different suggestions to find the best shots. Auto mode doesn't work great here either. Few people suggested few things such as
1- lowering the ISO to 50-200 and slightly increasing the EV (it does reduce the noise but increase the chance of blurry images and reduce the brightness of the images as well)
2- I suggest using "Night Portrait" scene without modifying any other settings (it gives good images with minimum noise without making the images dark or blurry)
Using Other apps
Some people suggested using other apps and they gave better results but I didn't use any. here is the link.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=47321605&postcount=13
At the end, here is a link to a website of one of the developers who gave few suggestion for better images
http://xperia-dev.be/wp/xperia-z1-camera-tips/
Speaker
Again, the speaker of the Z1 comes with lots of settings, so you might need to play with them to find what suits you. But you need to remember that different songs might sound better with different settings.
ClearAudio+ is like auto mode with the camera. It tries to find the best settings for each song. It is good at doing so but you can get better results (louder and of better quality) if you manually adjusted it.
first you need to untick ClearAudio+ to be able to go to sound enhancements. Tick Dynamic normalizer. then click on settings and tick Clear Stereo, Clear phase and XLoud and set surround sound to Studio. then go to the Equaliser. here you can adjust the settings to your taste. However, if you don't have special preferences, you can move all sliders to +10 to get even louder sound from the speaker (it does make difference).
By following these simple steps, I got louder speaker than Nexus 5 and SGS4, even in this sealed phone.
Reserved
ahomad said:
Speaker
Again, the speaker of the Z1 comes with lots of settings, so you might need to play with them to find what suits you. But you need to remember that different songs might sound better with different settings.
ClearAudio+ is like auto mode with the camera. It tries to find the best settings for each song. It is good at doing so but you can get better results (louder and of better quality) if you manually adjusted it.
first you need to untick ClearAudio+ to be able to go to sound enhancements. then click on settings and tick Clear Stereo, Clear phase and XLoud and set surround sound to Studio. then go to the Equaliser. here you can adjust the settings to your taste. However, if you don't have special preferences, you can move all sliders to +10 to get even louder sound from the speaker (it does make difference).
By following these simple steps, I got louder speaker than Nexus 5 and SGS4, even in this sealed phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
are you sure about +10 equaliser doesnt effect spaker on the long run performance ??
Mohaakotb said:
are you sure about +10 equaliser doesnt effect spaker on the long run performance ??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is not the +10 equalizer. but having everything on the highest with already high volume song will probably have an effect. I usually have the equalizer at +10 but then reduce the volume if the song was so high (easy to do it with the volume buttons rather than changing the equalizer every so often). But then there are MODs that increase the volume of the speaker where you can do this with ease
Why should you have to avoid using certain apps on your smartphone if it heats up, surely this indicates a fault? A brand new phone shouldn't heat up til its unusable...
Mrs has a z1 and it gets mega hot so we are returning it to Sony
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk
f0xy said:
Why should you have to avoid using certain apps on your smartphone if it heats up, surely this indicates a fault? A brand new phone shouldn't heat up til its unusable...
Mrs has a z1 and it gets mega hot so we are returning it to Sony
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Faulty units needs to be returned for sure. I am talking about good units but faulty apps (which you need to avoid). There are apps and games that heat the phone unnecessarily (which are poorly built) those are the one you need to avoid especially if there are better built ones that does the same thing without heating the phone.
I use heat as an indication of how well an app is built (this isn't necessarily accurate) but if you find an app that does very little yet heats the phone quickly, then you either have faulty unit or the app is poorly built and if there is replacement app that does the same job without heating the phone, then you need to avoid using the first app (that what I meant by trying to avoid apps that heat the phone if you can)
ahomad said:
Faulty units needs to be returned for sure. I am talking about good units but faulty apps (which you need to avoid). There are apps and games that heat the phone unnecessarily (which are poorly built) those are the one you need to avoid especially if there are better built ones that does the same thing without heating the phone.
I use heat as an indication of how well an app is built (this isn't necessarily accurate) but if you find an app that does very little yet heats the phone quickly, then you either have faulty unit or the app is poorly built and if there is replacement app that does the same job without heating the phone, then you need to avoid using the first app (that what I meant by trying to avoid apps that heat the phone if you can)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try playing PvZ2 without heating your device up, it's not possible.
3r1k said:
Try playing PvZ2 without heating your device up, it's not possible.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I said in the original article that most games heat the phone. And my advice was to avoid using WHEN possible. The post you were replying to was about apps rather than games and specifically the apps that you can find replacements to.
ahomad said:
I said in the original article that most games heat the phone. And my advice was to avoid using WHEN possible.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Then what's the point of buying a device with such a strong CPU? I'm planning to play GTA Vice City, Real Racing 3, PSone games with emulator, NFS Most Wanted and al those games a lot. A non-faulty unit should be able to perform with 100% CPU load even on longer periods without any effects (damage of comnponents, or ungluing of the glass). And for battery when gaming, don't worry, I have a whole set of portable batteries to keep my phone alive And about damaging the speaker; if the equalizer is here by default (stock), without any mods, it shouldn't affect the speaker. It's Sony's job to protect the speaker, not ours as customers! What I'm trying to say is that everything that comes with the phone we should be able to use at maximum without any damage (so 100% volume, +10 eq, 100% CPU load or the heaviest games on long periods). If anything of stated causes some damage to the unit, it should be treated as a faulty unit.
xplod2841 said:
Then what's the point of buying a device with such a strong CPU? I'm planning to play GTA Vice City, Real Racing 3, PSone games with emulator, NFS Most Wanted and al those games a lot. A non-faulty unit should be able to perform with 100% CPU load even on longer periods without any effects (damage of comnponents, or ungluing of the glass). And for battery when gaming, don't worry, I have a whole set of portable batteries to keep my phone alive And about damaging the speaker; if the equalizer is here by default (stock), without any mods, it shouldn't affect the speaker. It's Sony's job to protect the speaker, not ours as customers! What I'm trying to say is that everything that comes with the phone we should be able to use at maximum without any damage (so 100% volume, +10 eq, 100% CPU load or the heaviest games on long periods). If anything of stated causes some damage to the unit, it should be treated as a faulty unit.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
While I partially agree with your argument, I mostly disagree. for the first part, I am not saying do not play certain game or use specific app, I am giving an advice to extend your battery life. if you found replacement app that do not heat the phone, go with it and if you didn't or just want to keep using the first app, then use it (simple as that).
for the second part regarding the speaker and CPU. I totally disagree with you. Try playing heavy game which heats the phone quickly for long time and keep it plugged in the charger (lets say 10 hours), it will just explode in you hand. Another example, imagine you have a car and you keep harsh accelerating and braking all the time (while according to your sense, you are not doing anything wrong as long as the manufacturer allowed it) this will damage the engine, tires, brakes ...etc and you will pay to repair or replace these things. The same goes for the speaker and CPU, if you overuse them, they will die sooner and you will pay the expense of repairing or replacing them. This goes probably for every electrical equipment, pushing them to their limit, even if the manufacturer allowed this, will make them break more quickly.
ahomad said:
While I partially agree with your argument, I mostly disagree. for the first part, I am not saying do not play certain game or use specific app, I am giving an advice to extend your battery life. if you found replacement app that do not heat the phone, go with it and if you didn't or just want to keep using the first app, then use it (simple as that).
for the second part regarding the speaker and CPU. I totally disagree with you. Try playing heavy game which heats the phone quickly for long time and keep it plugged in the charger (lets say 10 hours), it will just explode in you hand. Another example, imagine you have a car and you keep harsh accelerating and braking all the time (while according to your sense, you are not doing anything wrong as long as the manufacturer allowed it) this will damage the engine, tires, brakes ...etc and you will pay to repair or replace these things. The same goes for the speaker and CPU, if you overuse them, they will die sooner and you will pay the expense of repairing or replacing them. This goes probably for every electrical equipment, pushing them to their limit, even if the manufacturer allowed this, will make them break more quickly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cars are one thing and phones another. Car manufacturers can limit RPM and protect the car on that way. If you limit the RPM, then the driver can keep pushing the accelerator as long as he wants, this wont damage the car. But, limiting RPM's would result in some dangerous situations; imagine you're passing a vehicle and another vehicle appears in front of you. You will need some reserve power to finish your passing before you crash into that vehicle. So limiting RPM would be dangerous. On the other side, limiting your phone's speaker loudness will protect the speaker but it won't affect it's usage. So I believe that speakers are protected to not get overpowered. The amplifier is probably the same power as the speaker itself. But if you root your device and remove that protection or if you even push it more by applying stronger signal, you can damage it. The same is probably with processor. It's clock is limited to a value that can't damage it even on longer usage. But if you overclock it, then you can damage it. I believe and assume that it's like that. At least it should be like that.
I'll keep pushing my volume to the boundaries and playing games as long as I want. If the phone dies, I'll take it to the warranty. There's no proof that I modified the phone on any way so I must get a new one or a free repair. And believe me, I pushed my X10 way more than I should in terms of everything. I used boosters for volume on my rooted device and sometimes I even heard the speaker making strange sounds like it will explode But nothing happened. I even tweaked the LED flash for getting double stronger torch. There was a warning for damage but on shorter periods it worked.
And for the speaker, if you hear the speaker distorting the sound or producing strange sounds, just lower your volume. On that way you won't damage it.
xplod2841 said:
And for the speaker, if you hear the speaker distorting the sound or producing strange sounds, just lower your volume. On that way you won't damage it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That was my point exactly.
I never said you HAVE to lower your volume always. Actually my post was about giving advice on how to increase the loudness of the speakers. The same goes for the Chip, I tried to give advice on how to improve the phones performance and battery life (which would benefit your gaming experience) But I never said not to play games (I personally play quite often).
xplod2841 said:
I even tweaked the LED flash for getting double stronger torch. There was a warning for damage but on shorter periods it worked.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is the LED flash tweakable for increased illumination in photos too? And how-to do this?
Sent from my C6603 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
Destroyedbeauty said:
Is the LED flash tweakable for increased illumination in photos too? And how-to do this?
Sent from my C6603 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It was on my X10, not Z1. And it was an application for rooted devices included in one ROM for X10.
Why xperia Z1 hasnt move to.sd card option?? Sony should give this option on.next update..
Sent from my C6902 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
ahomad said:
Speaker
Again, the speaker of the Z1 comes with lots of settings, so you might need to play with them to find what suits you. But you need to remember that different songs might sound better with different settings.
ClearAudio+ is like auto mode with the camera. It tries to find the best settings for each song. It is good at doing so but you can get better results (louder and of better quality) if you manually adjusted it.
first you need to untick ClearAudio+ to be able to go to sound enhancements. Tick Dynamic normalizer. then click on settings and tick Clear Stereo, Clear phase and XLoud and set surround sound to Studio. then go to the Equaliser. here you can adjust the settings to your taste. However, if you don't have special preferences, you can move all sliders to +10 to get even louder sound from the speaker (it does make difference).
By following these simple steps, I got louder speaker than Nexus 5 and SGS4, even in this sealed phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tried that and ended up with a slightly higher volume but poorer quality, clear audio+ ensures best quality but the volume is hampered I guess by the hardware.
Hi all of you, happy Z2 owners, who struggles from overheating issues. As I feel from reaction of Sony representatives, overheating will not be improved or fixed, my personal opinion is that it is a hardware issue, not software, and Sony do not even want to confirm overheating as an issue, it is considered to be normal for them, when camera gets warm (base don their reply).
So, what we could do now is to sit and wait till we get or not get any help, or we could try to do something.
First of all, all these major sites, as Gizmodo, Engadget, The Verge and so on... Non of them didn't mention anything serious about the overheating. Moreover, none of them does not mention about it now either, but if you take a look to the number of user who experience the overheating problem, you see that there is a lot of us.
Should we maybe try to point the attention of the major online publishers to the problem, also to the behaviour of serious company, who throws raw product to the market and closes eyes when they see serious problem.
The second option is to think about some collective claim to Sony and deliver it to them by media channels.
Me personally could just change the faulty device in the store, it is not going to be too big problem for me, as it is clearly obvious fail of device, when camera is not working properly. In case if there is ANY limitation in timing of filming, it should be mentioned in technical data PRIOR sale of the product, otherwise it is hidden defect. But I am really upset about the behaviour of such company as Sony and I would really wish they acknowledge their mistake and help all of us at once.
Personally, I don't understand what the big deal is with this overheating issue. I understand that people want to "futureproof" themselves because they "might" get a 4k display in the future but honestly, "futureproofing" should never be a factor when when it comes to the ever-changing world of electronics.
Samsung placed a 5 minute limit on their 4k and Sony decided to toss things up and give it a dynamic limit based on temperature. I go to concerts and many conventions and have yet to run into a situation where I thought "hey, it'll be a good idea to record this in 4k." While I understand your frustration about Sony not really addressing the issue, they did come out and say that people should only record in short clips.
If you're still really interested in recording long 4k videos and pushing your device to the limit then check out these threads:
Pesetio made a discovery that undervolting your phone could help slow down the heating of the phone thus longer 4k video - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2776605
Jackos released a mod where he pushed the thermal limit up 10 degrees celsius and this basically allowed you to ignore the overheating message and record 30+ minutes of 4k video - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2777712
However, after reading many "overheating" posts on this forum, I think a lot of people agree that the limiter is there for a reason and the longevity of the device supersedes our desire for longer 4k video recording.
@HeartUnderBlade, actually we encourage overheat for all of functions of camera. When we take some pictures, video camera with full hd and high temporary of weather. After that overheat and shut down camera. Maybe some guys live in country that the weather is cool. I think they won't encourage this issue. My opinion, sony should behave properly if not numerous guys will be leave them.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
harrynghiem said:
@HeartUnderBlade, actually we encourage overheat for all of functions of camera. When we take some pictures, video camera with full hd and high temporary of weather. After that overheat and shut down camera. Maybe some guys live in country that the weather is cool. I think they won't encourage this issue. My opinion, sony should behave properly if not numerous guys will be leave them.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
While I understand your frustration, I think encountering the overheating message should be considered a good thing if you value the longevity of your device. Imagine if you never encountered the overheating message, your phone could be damaged in the long run by user-error and you'll never be able to fix it. However, I think a very small percentage of people actually experience overheating in anything other than 4k and I would try to replace your device if that's the case. Do keep in mind that I noticed you're from Viet Nam which is a country that can get very hot and humid so that could play a HUGE role in the overheating of your phone.
HeartUnderBlade said:
While I understand your frustration, I think encountering the overheating message should be considered a good thing if you value the longevity of your device. Imagine if you never encountered the overheating message, your phone could be damaged in the long run by user-error and you'll never be able to fix it. However, I think a very small percentage of people actually experience overheating in anything other than 4k and I would try to replace your device if that's the case. Do keep in mind that I noticed you're from Viet Nam which is a country that can get very hot and humid so that could play a HUGE role in the overheating of your phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Me, personally, do not care about 4k video. But, when I download something over 4g, i am not able to use camera at all, as it is too hot. When i turn on photo mode (usual still photo), in about 7-10 minutes without even taking some pictures the camera turns off.
I do not want, neither intend to do something with voltage. As a costumer, I am buying finished product, that should work as it should work. If it does not work as promised (and I am not an advanced user, i would say), it is a fault of manufacturer. They MUST react.
Anton Sh. said:
Me, personally, do not care about 4k video. But, when I download something over 4g, i am not able to use camera at all, as it is too hot. When i turn on photo mode (usual still photo), in about 7-10 minutes without even taking some pictures the camera turns off.
I do not want, neither intend to do something with voltage. As a costumer, I am buying finished product, that should work as it should work. If it does not work as promised (and I am not an advanced user, i would say), it is a fault of manufacturer. They MUST react.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For the downloading and using a camera, I personally don't even think you should be pushing your phone to that limit. The camera can be very intense on your phone considering the image stabilization, high def image/video, and the high framerate that Sony put into the camera. If we know that Sony placed a thermal limit on the camera then why would you go into a camera knowing that you're downloading something and not expect it to overheat? When you say that it gets too hot, do you mean it just gets too hot to the touch or does it overheat (as in you get the overheat warning)? I would expect it to overheat considering it's put under that much load of having to write download data while writing data from the camera.
As for the 7-10 minute thing, I actually think that's normal. If I turn on my camera and just leave it idle then it shuts off by itself. I mean... why would you care if you leave a camera idle without doing anything? It seems a bit silly, don't you think since it just wastes battery at that point.
HeartUnderBlade said:
For the downloading and using a camera, I personally don't even think you should be pushing your phone to that limit. The camera can be very intense on your phone considering the image stabilization, high def image/video, and the high framerate that Sony put into the camera. If we know that Sony placed a thermal limit on the camera then why would you go into a camera knowing that you're downloading something and not expect it to overheat? As for the 7-10 minute thing, I actually think that's normal. If I turn on my camera and just leave it idle then it shuts off by itself. I mean... why would you care if you leave a camera idle without doing anything? It seems a bit silly, don't you think since it just wastes battery at that point.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you use ipad or iphone. Please turn on camera on your iPad and leave it for 10 minutes. If it turns off itself, go to apple and they will change your device for 99% (if you are under warranty). I am not sure if you are Z2 user or not, if you are not, you will not understand. The device is getting hot whatever you do, so you are not able to film/take pictures.
I am not going to argue with you, this thread is for people who experience the problem and is ready to act. If the company sells you something, it should work as advertised. If not, this should not be issued/sold without additional comments from manufacturer.
I cannot imagine that my BMW will turn off the engine because i use air conditioner, or air conditioner will be turned off automatically if i drive in sport mode.
205
Of course, about iPad or iPhone, i mean turning off because of overheating, not auto lock.
HeartUnderBlade said:
While I understand your frustration, I think encountering the overheating message should be considered a good thing if you value the longevity of your device. Imagine if you never encountered the overheating message, your phone could be damaged in the long run by user-error and you'll never be able to fix it. However, I think a very small percentage of people actually experience overheating in anything other than 4k and I would try to replace your device if that's the case. Do keep in mind that I noticed you're from Viet Nam which is a country that can get very hot and humid so that could play a HUGE role in the overheating of your phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Total agreement for 4k issue. However, if we take some picture and encourage overheat message. I think that is big deal. I am used some phone before s4, iphone 5, s3 ... But i haven't seen yet. What do you think if you take the z2 and come in beach with your friends and take around 10 pictures and shut down camera. Because overheat. My friends reported numerous time same cases.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Anton Sh. said:
If you use ipad or iphone. Please turn on camera on your iPad and leave it for 10 minutes. If it turns off itself, go to apple and they will change your device for 99% (if you are under warranty). I am not sure if you are Z2 user or not, if you are not, you will not understand. The device is getting hot whatever you do, so you are not able to film/take pictures.
I am not going to argue with you, this thread is for people who experience the problem and is ready to act. If the company sells you something, it should work as advertised. If not, this should not be issued/sold without additional comments from manufacturer.
I cannot imagine that my BMW will turn off the engine because i use air conditioner, or air conditioner will be turned off automatically if i drive in sport mode.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You know, I was not here to argue with you. I'm just saying that some of the issues might not even be a big deal. If you've noticed, a lot of the "overheating" threads have started to die out and threads about coping with the issue is starting to emerge. It shows that this community is starting to somewhat accept that the overheating message may be there as a precaution. I think you missed my point about the camera turning off while in idle. I don't think that's an overheating issue but rather a feature the camera app is programmed to do to prevent it from useless staying on and wasting your battery. I haven't done any extensive testing but leaving my camera on idle, it shuts off. However, when I move it around and click a few buttons every once in awhile, it stays on.
I think funky0308 made a very good point when he said "Overheating FC isn't error or bug, that's added for a purpose." http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=53295417&postcount=10
Also, it's silly to compare a car to a phone...A car has an engine, belts, a whole gallon of liquid coolant, and a radiator. Your phone, it's a bunch of computer hardware that is calculating a lot of data in a small enclosed space with nothing but a heatsink to try to cool down your phone. If you really want to compare a car to a phone then take all the cooling features out of your engine (including all the fans and radiator) and let's see if your engine overheats or not.
Also for your information, yes... I own an iphone, ipad, and I'm one of the few people that owned the Z2 when it started to roll out.
harrynghiem said:
Total agreement for 4k issue. However, if we take some picture and encourage overheat message. I think that is big deal. I am used some phone before s4, iphone 5, s3 ... But i haven't seen yet. What do you think if you take the z2 and come in beach with your friends and take around 10 pictures and shut down camera. Because overheat. My friends reported numerous time same cases.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
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Your issue does sound like it might be a defect. I've read of a small handful of people experiencing the overheating message just from regular photos. I believe those people sent it in for a repair under warranty and received new devices which fixed their problems. Try contacting the place you bought it from or a Sony store nearby.
HeartUnderBlade said:
You know, I was not here to argue with you. I'm just saying that some of the issues might not even be a big deal. If you've noticed, a lot of the "overheating" threads have started to die out and threads about coping with the issue is starting to emerge. It shows that this community is starting to somewhat accept that the overheating message may be there as a precaution. I think you missed my point about the camera turning off while in idle. I don't think that's an overheating issue but rather a feature the camera app is programmed to do to prevent it from useless staying on and wasting your battery. I haven't done any extensive testing but leaving my camera on idle, it shuts off. However, when I move it around and click a few buttons every once in awhile, it stays on.
Also, it's silly to compare a car to a phone...A car has an engine, belts, a whole gallon of liquid coolant, and a radiator. Your phone, it's a bunch of computer hardware that is calculating a lot of data in a small enclosed space with nothing but a heatsink to try to cool down your phone. If you really want to compare a car to a phone then take all the cooling features out of your engine (including all the fans and radiator) and let's see if your engine overheats or not.
Also for your information, yes... I own an iphone, ipad, and I'm one of the few people that owned the Z2 when it started to roll out.
Your issue does sound like it might be a defect. I've read of a small handful of people experiencing the overheating message just from regular photos. I believe those people sent it in for a repair under warranty and received new devices which fixed their problems. Try contacting the place you bought it from or a Sony store nearby.
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Ok, so i am not sure if my device is faulty as well, but i am sure it is not ok, when you, for example, watch youtube for 10 minutes, turn it off, than turn on photo camera and it turns itself off because of overheating (all other apps are closed at this moment)
My two penny's worth, I have been sat out in the sunshine trying to take pictures, ok it is warm, but this is England, we're talking 23degrees, but my camera won't take more than a couple of pics without shutting down.
Loving the phone otherwise, but the camera has always been a major factor in my choice of phone.
Anton Sh. said:
Ok, so i am not sure if my device is faulty as well, but i am sure it is not ok, when you, for example, watch youtube for 10 minutes, turn it off, than turn on photo camera and it turns itself off because of overheating (all other apps are closed at this moment)
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When you put it into that perspective then your device may be one of the few that might be faulty. I'm able to watch HD videos on streaming apps for hours and then use my camera and it'll be fine.
Guest69 said:
My two penny's worth, I have been sat out in the sunshine trying to take pictures, ok it is warm, but this is England, we're talking 23degrees, but my camera won't take more than a couple of pics without shutting down.
Loving the phone otherwise, but the camera has always been a major factor in my choice of phone.
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The same here regarding the choice of phone and the same story about filming or taking pictures in a sunny day.
BUT this post is not about it but what should we do about it. Somehow SONY has to answer us and acknowledge the problem. Ok, even if it is a few, they need to issue the confirmation that there might be this problem on some devices and what should we do about it. This is how the company should react to their mistakes.
The problem is with thermal handling the way I see it , the phone heats up because all cores are running at max frequency on longer duration. Sony mut have configured the kernel aggressively. It is likely possible this was done to allow 4k video recording even at short minutes time.
Sent from my almighty Xperia Z2
nealkoy said:
The problem is with thermal handling the way I see it , the phone heats up because all cores are running at max frequency on longer duration. Sony mut have configured the kernel aggressively. It is likely possible this was done to allow 4k video recording even at short minutes time.
Sent from my almighty Xperia Z2
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Non-techie question, does it really necessary to use all cores at max when watching video? Or downloading data over 4g/wifi?
Relax guys, they are most likely working on the problem and will come with the solution of undervolting the cores or work on camera app resource efficiency.
One question, what ambient temperatures are you guys having problems with? Or better, where do you live? (Country and city)
HeartUnderBlade said:
Personally, I don't understand what the big deal is with this overheating issue. I understand that people want to "futureproof" themselves because they "might" get a 4k display in the future but honestly, "futureproofing" should never be a factor when when it comes to the ever-changing world of electronics.
Samsung placed a 5 minute limit on their 4k and Sony decided to toss things up and give it a dynamic limit based on temperature. I go to concerts and many conventions and have yet to run into a situation where I thought "hey, it'll be a good idea to record this in 4k." While I understand your frustration about Sony not really addressing the issue, they did come out and say that people should only record in short clips.
If you're still really interested in recording long 4k videos and pushing your device to the limit then check out these threads:
Pesetio made a discovery that undervolting your phone could help slow down the heating of the phone thus longer 4k video - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2776605
Jackos released a mod where he pushed the thermal limit up 10 degrees celsius and this basically allowed you to ignore the overheating message and record 30+ minutes of 4k video - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2777712
However, after reading many "overheating" posts on this forum, I think a lot of people agree that the limiter is there for a reason and the longevity of the device supersedes our desire for longer 4k video recording.
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If the phone is genuinely getting red hot then of course you need to do whatever necessary to stop the phone overheating and causing harm to components (including the battery) but there IS an issue that can't be ignored/discounted even if some people aren't experiencing it.
The key question is: Is it hardware and therefore unfixable, or is it poor software that is causing the phone to run too hot despite there being no actual need for it to get that hot?
It's not just 4K video (I've come to accept that, unless Sony decides to undervolt as in the possible solution mentioned above, 4K video will be limited. It's not the end of the world, as while I may record some things in 4K it isn't going to be of any substantial length), it's just taking ordinary pictures.
Using mobile data also seems to be another factor. If you have, say, Photos or Dropbox uploading pictures and video in the background, that can also cause the phone to get red hot.
If you've got a good 4G connection and an unlimited data tariff, why wouldn't you want to upload stuff there and then (rather than waiting for Wi-Fi or when charging)? Doesn't seem to be a problem on other phones.
Sure, Google or Dropbox could fix things by having a setting to only auto upload when there's no other (major) CPU usage, but surely a Snapdragon 801 device isn't under stress because two things are happening at once? Uploading a file and taking a photo. If that pushes the phone to overheat, there HAS to be something Sony can do to fix it.
Guest69 said:
My two penny's worth, I have been sat out in the sunshine trying to take pictures, ok it is warm, but this is England, we're talking 23degrees, but my camera won't take more than a couple of pics without shutting down.
Loving the phone otherwise, but the camera has always been a major factor in my choice of phone.
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Precisely. If you are getting the camera shutting down so it can 'cool down', when it's just 21-23 degrees (albeit humid and probably hotter when the phone is in direct sunlight) then you have to start wondering. God help those who take their Z2 to somewhere hot this summer hoping to take loads of photos and video.
Mind you, if it's by a pool then you can always dunk it in to cool it quicker!
Hi guys...
Although I agree to OP and I found this overheating as a quite big problem I expect this to happen.
Z2 has same Snapdragon 800 overclocked and named 801 so that's not device that could record 4K at this setup.
But...
I'm long time Sony user and I'm absolutely sure they will do everything they can do fix this.
It could be fixed quite easy as we all see (simple undervolting will do the trick)
Z2 is Sony's new way and after Z1 which I still have and I still believe it's great device, Z2 is next logical step with a expected issues.
Is that OK, of course not...
But, as I said, lets wait for a next bigger firmware update (I heard it's on its way).
You'll know when it comes because it'll have "2" instead of "1" (17.2.A.x.x.x) and I'm sure we'll have great device after that...
We all know 402 didn't do that so we have to wait new release.
Maybe we get 4.4.3 in that, next, big update...
If they don't find a way to fix that problem in next two or three updates then we all know it's hardware issue and we should find a way how to claim our rights.
To end this long post...
I totally support OP idea but let's give them a chance to fix that...
If that was only 4K problem I wouldn't say anything but heating (not overheating, at least not on my device) is present on video playback, on LTA download....
Sent from my D6503 using Tapatalk
Well, crap. Just when I am in the market to buy the Z2, I find this issue. Panama is a warm, tropical climate, and I am a bit concerned that the overheating isssue will be even worse here!
Is anyone else using the Z2 in such a climate?
The Yotaphone 2 is now established, no longer on the horizon, so I thought we should have a dedicated thread to it, reviews about it, thoughts etc.
right, yotaphone 2 review so far.
First of all I will say that the specifications of the phone are perfect for me. Yes I like flagship specs but after a few generations of going for the best there is and having tried all the roms and UIs around (miui, touchwiz, sonys one, cyanogen, htc sense, windows, the oppo one etc, it goes on) I decided that I was bored. I wanted something completely different. Considered the jolla but when the yota 2 was announced I was instantly infatuated. Liked the idea of the first model, the second one nails it for me. And to be fair to it – a snapdragon 800 is a very competent soc, does all I need it to do and does everything fast. Currently I don’t need a 64 bit octacore chip, this one handles basically all the things I can throw at it and I don't really play the huge games anyway. Other than an occasional test of a heavy game, its gba and ps1 emulators, casual rpgs and a couple of shooters for me. Also, I read somewhere that Yota’s reasoning was they needed time to get the soc figured out with their device. Yota say they’re using the 800 to keep the heat low, preventing damage to the e-ink screen.
UPDATE: I have since realised that the phone is actually using the snapdragon 801. When announced in February it was using the 800 but it seems they quietly upgraded it before release. The phone says it's the MSM8974pro-aa which can be either 800 or 801 but the gpu clock speed is higher at 578mhz which is exclusive to the 801, so that's a lovely discovery .
On the face of it (both of them) this is a wonderfully pretty phone. At least from my point of view the aesthetics are all spot on. Everything is presented beautifully. This includes the box it comes in and everything in it. Even the charger is lovely to look at. Wonderfully compact and has yotaphone written across the back that lights up when the phone is connected. On the point of the charger, it outputs 1.5A and charges the phone in a couple of hours or so (25% to full takes between 1.30 and 1.45 hours). This adds to the convenience of the phone and lack of battery worries that I will get into later. You also get a load of earphone buds, like, loads.
The front facing screen is an excellent screen. Super AMOLED (my preference, I love the deep blacks), 442ppi on a 5inch screen produces a brilliant, crisp and clear image and the touch responsiveness is excellent. There are a few niggles with using the keyboard (slight over sensitivity with using swype input) but you soon get used to this, once your fingers and thumbs adjust to the screen this goes away I find. It’s much like using someone else’s laptop and their mouse pad is much more sensitive that yours. EDIT: I will concede that the keyboard probably needs a patch sent through, swipe input is fine but normal typing you have to learn to be more accurate than usual. Doesn't take long but if someone borrows your phone... (to be fair, no one is borrowing my Yota. There are many like it but this one is MINE).
The second screen is just beautiful. The whole back panel is made from the same piece of curved gorilla glass so you don’t notice the screen is there, it hardly feels like one but it’s joyous to the touch, smooth (so smooth) and a nice matte black/dark gray. The sensitivity is obviously slower and there are slight delays waiting for the screen to change, but these are minor and you get used to them. I’m still just wildly impressed that yota have pulled this off so well. The backscreen is excellently implemented, the yota mirror feature works like a dream, anything you want on the back can and will be. The screenlock is done using the gyroscope as well, whichever side is facing up is the one that unlocks when pressing the button. Also, the possibility of leaving some vital information like a map or a plane ticket on the back while the rest of the phone is turned off or utterly dead is likely to not be used often, possibly even if ever by some, but the fact that it can be done is a lovely bit of life insurance.
The yotapanels (configurable pages of widgets made for the EPD) are very pretty indeed and very functional. The back screen has its own phone and messaging app. My only niggle with notifications on the back is that the email part of the notification widget is at this point set to the stock email app, not customizable. Only a minor niggle as I would use the front screen for sending emails anyway but it would be nice to choose to check gmail (hoping for an update to change this). The panel grid layout and widgets can be changed to your liking, within reason. I have 2 businessy type pages with clock, calendar, weather, most called people, battery etc a news page with rss reader, emails, important apps and appy geek and a leisure page with games, book and music widget). What surprised me was downloading appy geek then finding a variety of widgets from them I could use on the panels. This gives me hope that more and more third party back widgets will be added over the course of development.
UPDATE: The widgets are better than I thought - the back panel music player associates itself with whichever music app you were playing from last. Also there are some nice easter eggs that you find as certain things occur on the backscreen which give a great sense of Yota going the extra mile. e.g. get someone to text you with just the word cool and leave the EPD face up.
On the subject of development I have received 2 updates so far, optimizing the back screen touch responsiveness, heat output, battery life, yotaenergy mode etc. Also, eventually someone will find a way to root them and then more possibilities reveal themselves. Honestly though, other than being able to use trickster mod, root explorers, remove system apps and a couple of other things I don’t miss all the little features of custom roms. Even sweep to wake isn’t as essential as it used to be for me – yota placed the lock button slightly above the right side (so your thumb is on it when the phone is front facing). This to me begs the question why doesn’t everyone else do that, it’s so much more natural, convenient and keeps the one hand ability going. Yota have made some smart decisions.
UPDATE: The phone has been rooted, Kingo root can do it with drivers you find on the yota website or other drivers online (mine was a case of trial and error). So a root file explorer, wakelock detector, system app remover and a kernel control app installed. Very happy and now its pretty much exactly as I want it.
The phone is very well put together and feels solid. This all improves with the bumper, which adds to the aesthetic further and makes you feel safer. Gorilla glass 3 on both sides or no, this is a phone you worry about dropping, 2 screens = double the vulnerability and double the worry. The back screen is wonderful to the touch but also quite slippery. The bumper gives you a bit more grip and therefore confidence. Despite the worry I have no qualms, it’s a brilliant thing to hold and have around you.
I think my favourite thing so far is being able to keep your phone locked and face down and still see the time, incoming notifications, respond if needed, read, play games and a host of other things. A simple glance is all you need, so convenient and saves those little bits of time and battery that build up over the course of a day. I still gush with appreciation when I look down.
UPDATE: I still do.
On to the battery life – it’s damn good if you want it to be, otherwise it's still not bad. 2550mah compared to 3000 may seem annoying to those that love a top spec’d beast and now that 4000mah phones are starting to come out this paltry little number is in danger of being outdated. However, this phone saves battery in so many ways such as:
1. Having the e-ink display (no battery usage except when it refreshes). How this saves battery is down to you – use the panels properly, get into chess, Sudoku and the other supplied games, use it for reading etc. Get into the habit of using it and you’ll save hours and hours.
2. Having yotaenergy mode. This is not to be underestimated. You can select what you want it to limit or turn off, if you select everything (except wifi cos obviously you need wifi) then cpu is limited, nfc and gps are off, brightness on main screen is down to minimum, the list goes on. Now, most of these I would do myself on a rooted phone, but it’s nice to have a mode that incorporates all the things needed to save a bundle of energy and implements it so well. This has the potential to save you days if used in conjunction with the back display. I use this at work and I can still check emails, notifications, play games for a bit, read etc and a work day ( 7 and a half hours ) will cost me like 5-6% + or – a few depending on the day. Granted I mostly use the back for that stuff but still, damn good so far.
3. Having a vanilla android experience. Having stock android with hardly any additions, all of which you can disable if you want, keeps the minimal drain down.
Now I’m a man that likes a phone to have a battery life that does not concern me. My old one x would require underclocking, a new rom that would need to be reflashed on occasion, greenify etc to get it through the day comfortably with decent usage and screen time. Now this is childs play, it’s a substantial weight off my mind. No real figures yet, haven’t done proper tests as it’s only been a few days. What I can say is that it’ll do a full 24h with heavy usage, wifi and data on, at least 3 hours of games and youtube, all without using energy saving or the e-ink that much and still have well over 30%. That was the second day of owning it, it’ll get better.
I turned yotaenergy on at 92% today, the first 8% drained in a few hours due to a naughty app that is now uninstalled. Going to test how it lasts over the weekend and will report back afterwards.
The bloatware is limited, some is annoying (don’t have twitter so don’t want twitter etc) but to Yota’s credit their own stuff is minimal, and I wouldn’t want to remove any of their own additions. The games chosen function great on the back screen and I dare say look better on it than on the front. There is the occasional little glitch, but most of these can be avoided or solved with a quick screen refresh of changing of modes etc.
I will stop now, I apologise for the length and hope I covered what most people wanted to hear. Will get back soon with long term battery test results.
UPDATE: Battery anxiety is truly gone. Example - took phone off charge at about 1am, up at 6.30, went to work, bit of browsing and game play during day. Got home, played bit of games, read a bit. Went out that night, stayed at a friends, got up at 11am next day. All of that was with mobile data or wifi turned on throughout. By using yota energy in times of minimal usage and EPD for standard things I saved bundles I intentionally took energy mode off when gaming and when was doing things on phone to create a fair test. When I checked gsam battery monitor it reported I'd used 50% in 34 hours, that was with 2.5 hours screen time, with about as much time spent gaming as reading and a fair amount of browsing and app updating etc. For a phone with 2550mah I'd say that's pretty excellent going. Maybe there are phones that can match it but even if so, they're not as much fun to use as this one.
If anyone has any requests for battery tests (full screen on time, how long on battery saver and EPD etc just ask).
Much TL,DR –
Very pretty phone, great front screen, back screen surprisingly useful and nice to look at and touch. Software well implemented. Hopeful for long term development improvements. Very good performance, great battery. Occasional glitch but nothing that detracts from and limits experience.
UPDATE: glitches have lessened significantly over a short space of time, haven't had one for ages.
UPDATE: there is a recurring one - the back panels app shortcuts will occasionally default to the originals. This takes less than a minute to rectify but still, hoping for it to be fixed in an update. This is only glitch I still encounter, the rest seemed to be teething problems.
Overall, loving it. Expensive but very different and a joy to use. Definitely worth it if you get a discount. I managed to get mine with 10% off and 2 bumper cases (longish story), to me that makes it great value because I honestly already see myself getting the subsequent generations, it would already annoy me not having the back screen.
Worth checking their facebook page every now and again to see if they've got another 10-20% discount going again.
Thanks for the in depth review, it's clearly hit the sweet spot for you ☺
I have a question about notifications.....when in the yota panel or yota cover mode and it is on your desk EPD facing up, what happens if you get a notification from say whatsapp or xda developers I.e. one that doesn't have a specific widget on the yota panel, is there any indication on the EPD that a notification has been received and if so can you interact with it or does it just send you to the OLED side?
Secondly, if you have your home screen mirrored on the EPD and again it's laying on your desk, will the notifications appear in the notification shade and can you swipe down the shade to check and interact exactly with them as you would on the OLED display? I.e using whatsapp as an example again , get the new message notification in the shade, swipe it down, click on the message, whatsapp opens and you type in a reply and send it....All from the e ink side.
Battery drain leads to battery anxiety, I am hoping that the yota 2 works how I've described above as I spend a lot of time lighting up the OLED on my phone just checking and responding to notifications and it could be a game changer to be able to do that from the e ink side. Saving the OLED for the more intense stuff like games, videos web browsing etc.
Thanks in advance
Mike
Sent from my GT-N8010 using XDA Premium HD app
Not a problem, it very much has and also it was a slow day at work .
The notification widget on the panels and covers has 4 items, phone, text, email and general notifications. Phone and text can be interacted with, and lovely apps they are to use as well. A great example is that if someone sends you a text that just says cool (even with third party text apps) then the text will show up and atop it is a picture of a man adjusting his bowtie. Lovely little easter egg. The email sends you to the stock email client, hoping for a way to get that to associate with gmail to come out eventually. The fourth is for other notifications (whatsapp, xda and everything else). The email and notification icons will simply send you to the front screen. You can just mirror them straight back over though. And I suppose having the phone implement everything would be a bit tricky. You never know, development might add them later. Sorry I write too much. In short, you can't interact with 'other' notifications straight from the screen but have to mirror it back.
To answer your second question - yes. If your using mirror on the home screen it will appear just as the same homescreen and same android, just on the back screen. Anything that comes up you can interact with, including pulling down the notification shade, opening your apps (in this case whatsapp) and interacting with them as you would (replying straight from the app). The only difference is its slower obviously, but still very do-able. If your going for super battery saving then it doesn't strike as a problem if you have to take a bit longer. It's enjoyable and pretty anyway, and very easy on the eyes.
So to summarise, yes, you can use the EPD just as you would the amoled. Even if you have to turn over activate the notification from a panel you can just mirror it straight back over, avoiding amoled over use.
I'm the same, always hate having the battery life hanging over me. The yota has got rid of that for me. It came off charge at 6am friday morning, its now just before 5pm - gsam says 34 hours. Battery is on 35%, both data and wifi have been on and being used constantly, games being played a lot, internet and youtube have occurred here and there. I've been trying to push it through its paces when have had the time. Had a couple of cheeky battery draining apps for first half of Friday so got rid of them but still.. It's nice to have 35% and feel confident that I could probably get another full day out of it if needed. And all in such an interesting package.
So, 48 hours battery life without a struggle with normal usage is perfectly feasible and also the charger charges it in a very short time, super convenient.
Hope I helped, sorry for the length again.
Thanks that really helped ?
I really like the idea of a more than one day battery life for moderate to heavy use, I'm out of contract in a couple of months and have been considering an xperia Z3 which has a large battery and is being reported by users as achieving 2 days use, however this phone is intriguing, I can think of so many potential uses for the snap shot on the EPD and to be able to control music and audio books etc. But it's the battery life that is most tempting with this device your quoted figures are impressive, how much were you using it during that period?
Another question if you don't mind, in some reviews and videos I've seen views of yota panels than display what look like short cuts to regular apps such as chrome, youtube, currency converter, maps, whatsapp , can you configure the yota panels to show an icon of any app in the app draw? For instance I use audible a lot and the EPD would be perfect for using and controlling audible from a short cut on the Yota panel. Would this short cut direct you to flip the phone to the OLED then mirror it back as per the general notifications you described above?
Thanks
Mike
Sent from my GT-N8010 using XDA Premium HD app
It is a nice freedom to have to be sure, to not feel you have to charge it over night. If caught in those party situations, or when just away from charger its nice to know its fine. I read some z3 reviews and the z3 seems to do something similar with battery. The z3 would almost certainly beat the yota in a hands down typical battry test but for long term endurance with conservative usage (and lots of use of the EPD) then i'm certain that the yota could take it. And even if not, the EPD is amazing to have. Keep stumbling across more uses for it. (currently replying to your review on a laptop with your reply screenshotted onto back of my yota). I would say that other than when at work (minimal usage but still some games here and there) I was using it between normal and heavy usage depending on the time. Normal - moderate for most of the time with a few sessions of heavy usage. Data and wifi on the whole time, almost always downloading and updating apps too. More than I would usually use it basically and 2 days use was a breeze. In a few days I think i'll go for intentional conservative usage and see how long it goes for.
Not at all. The app shortcut widgets have different sizes available, 1, 3 and 6 apps. Each one of these widgets can be configured, you can choose any app. Clicking on the app from the EPD will open the app directly on the EPD, it'll basically activate mirror mode without having to switch over. A wonderful feature I think. So you would be able to open audible from the shortcut and control it straight from the EPD without the need to even activate the OLED at all.
The z3 is a good phone, better processor, better camera etc. It rivals the s5, the m8 etc in terms of features. For me though, the yota covers everything pretty well, even if it's using now slightly outdated specs - it does the job happily. And the EPD adds a whole new level of functionality and makes using a phone a very interesting practice again. It's a new way of using a phone and that's what's most attractive for me.
Thanks again for your reply, it seems that the yotaphone will do pretty much all I would want it to on the EPD, it has really got my interest up now! I'm seeing a yota panel with my most used apps that would not really suffer from being on the EPD, audible, fotmob, kobo, whatsapp, beyond pod maybe even words with friends!
I think along the same lines as you in wanting something a bit different and interesting, I've had two android phones now and before that an iPhone, to be honest another straight forward android seems a little samey now hence deciding that battery life would be my priority rather than screen size or the latest cpu etc.... If only that eye watering price would drop a little come March.....
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Yeah above all I wanted battery life with decent enough specs and something different. I finished my contract and began saving with the express aim of getting this phone, once got the money figured might as well as no other phone appeals to me enough. The modular smartphones coming up certainly piqued my interest but I can't wait for them, wanted a new phone now. For me the yota is worth it so far and I hold out hope for the duration of my ownership of it.
Good luck to you whether you decide to go for it or something else.
20% discount offer on facebook if your still wanting dude. £444 seems pretty reasonable.
zute333 said:
20% discount offer on facebook if your still wanting dude. £444 seems pretty reasonable.
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Oh that's so tempting, i don't have face book tho, where's the discount coming from,yotaphone themselves? I've been waiting for March to see what the HTC One M9 and Galaxy S6 looks like....trouble is android now looks the same on most handsets, so will a M9 be that much different from my M7 meh.
My kids have Facebook tho, how do you get access to the discount?
Thanks
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yotaphone themselves indeed, celebrating 120,000 fans. Seems a bit harsh on the rest of us but i'm not one to begrudge success on a company I would like to succeed.
They all look the same now. Samsung have never been that good on the aesthetic look of their phone's imo, the m7 is beautiful in the same way as the m8 and m9 and possibly so on. And yeah, launchers are pretty stripped down now, and I find having a launcher that you can theme, or using something like dodol or themer you can get a phone looking exactly how you want, which negates manufacturers launchers anyhow. The only real difference comes from the odd gimmick here and there or in the case of the note edge a part of a screen. That one I kind of get but I'm also of the opinion that a whole second screen beats a sliver of one on the side .
Sorry, what you actually want to see is this: https://www.facebook.com/YotaPhone/posts/439221752895395
I hope the link works and the discount is still active if you go for it.
Well Zute333 thanks for the heads up on the discount , my daughter pulled up the voucher code via her FB and I've bought one at £421.80 ☺????????
It feels genuinely exciting to have something different to use over the coming months. Btw Is it a mini or micro sim?
Thanks again for helping me decide
Mike
Sent from my GT-N8010 using XDA Premium HD app
Well I'm a bit gutted if i'm honest, got mine at £495-£555 (discount still pending, long story), with the bumper. But to be fair I've had a lovely few weeks and am getting the jolla tablet for hilariously cheap price so counting it a good overall load of deals lol. Still though, £421.80 is epic, congrats and I hope you enjoy it dude. Lollipop on the way at some point, can only improve things.
It's micro sim.
EDIT: nano-sim
No worries dude.
I'm even more gutted: it seems this is only valid in the UK, as I can't change the country field to any other. Website is partly in Dutch, though.
Sad for you dude. I think they made the post in other languages for other countries but can't find em and don't know if they did one for the Netherlands.
I don't really mind having paid full price, just happy to have it. You can always wait, another offer will surely arise, the standard price will also probably drop eventually.
By the way, a reseller here in Holland says in its specs the Yotaphone has nanosim. I assume they're wrong?
---------- Post added at 12:56 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:43 PM ----------
Also, I see different specs on radio: some say 3G, some say 4G.
bartveld said:
By the way, a reseller here in Holland says in its specs the Yotaphone has nanosim. I assume they're wrong?
---------- Post added at 12:56 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:43 PM ----------
Also, I see different specs on radio: some say 3G, some say 4G.
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Ah, no I was wrong, I got the names mixed - thought there was mini and micro, equating micro with nano. The yota 2 sim tray is a nano-sim tray.
Also it can do 4g.
Thanks.
Hi all, newbie here! i've just bought Yotaphone 2 couple days ago, can't say how happy i am with this phone so far. It's fast enough and the always-on screen is amazingly convenient. Can't say much about battery life yet as only charged it once so far.
The only couple of minor things to mention though - the back-panel is very, very slippery so can easily drop the phone out of your hands. The other thing - email notifications on the back-panel. It's configured to default email app (as mentioned in some previous posts) and looks like there's no way how i can change it to gmail which is my primary email. But am i right thinking that there should be an update to fix this?
smekla said:
Hi all, newbie here! i've just bought Yotaphone 2 couple days ago, can't say how happy i am with this phone so far. It's fast enough and the always-on screen is amazingly convenient. Can't say much about battery life yet as only charged it once so far.
The only couple of minor things to mention though - the back-panel is very, very slippery so can easily drop the phone out of your hands. The other thing - email notifications on the back-panel. It's configured to default email app (as mentioned in some previous posts) and looks like there's no way how i can change it to gmail which is my primary email. But am i right thinking that there should be an update to fix this?
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Hey dude. Lovely phone isn't it. Yeah the back is pretty slippy, the bumper solves that problem if you can manage to get one? As for the email notification on the back, I agree, it's annoying that you can't configure it but I think they'll probably address that in an update, maybe make they're own email client like with the back sms app or something. Only time will tell on that front I suppose.
By the way, get someone to text you the word 'cool' and leave phone EPD facing up. Lovely little easter egg type addition by Yota. Figuring out various other ones over time