Database Users

Pros and Cons

Those of you who have theirs already,
POST'EM UP!

There was a reviews thread around earlier...between that and all the "this phone sux" threads, I think you kinda already have it.

thecodemonk said:
There was a reviews thread around earlier...between that and all the "this phone sux" threads, I think you kinda already have it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
just thought it'd be nice to have it one place for reference.
you know,in a list form.

Just got mine this afternoon, here are my first impressions:
Pros:
-The screen is absolutely GORGEOUS, one of my biggest issues with past phones (came from the Hero) was the poor quality of the screen compared to, say, an iPhone. This screen blows it away. Its super crisp, very bright and absolutely massive. Its a true joy to browse the web, shoot pictures, watch videos and just plain interact. 10 minutes after I got it I jumped back on my Hero and was amazed at how I ever lasted the 6 months on it.
-Picture quality (still photos), I thought was quite impressive for a phone, and the front facing camera is cool, however it may be a little gimmicky. My dad has an iPhone and I'm sure when the new one comes out he'll get it and I can see us using the cameras to catch up sometimes when I'm down at school, but you do feel kinda silly walking around with the phone in front of your face.
-The phone itself is rather large (obviously), but feels satisfyingly dense and has just the right amount of weight behind it. Feels great in the hand as well.
-The speed is also mindblowing. Everything just plain feels faster, probably because it is. What I found the most improved was navigating the Marketplace, which strangely always felt laggy to me on the Hero. Not anymore, the Evo is literally click-click-click-click DONE. VERY impressive. Text entry also seems very much improved.
Just like any device, it's not without its faults:
-The camera (video), I feel is a little unimpressive. Still it is a very good camera for a phone, it just doesn't pack that same WOW factor as the rest of the device.
-I'm a little worried how the lens itself will hold up, as many have mentioned, the back does rest right on the glass. This is easily fixed with a case though (which I hope to purchase soon).
-SenseUI is also not very appealing to me, I find it incredibly bland and in some sense (no pun intended) flat out ugly. I much prefer the stock Android home. I could also do without the Sprint Bloatware. Both will be addressed with the first custom 2.2 ROM
Things I can't address yet:
-The battery life: I received the phone with approximately 25-30% battery and wanted to run it all the way down before I recharged it fully. I was quite impressed at the lengths I had to go to to get it down to 0. I was watching a live stream on USTREAM, had wifi, gps, sync and bluetooth on, screen on full brightness, and was consistently bouncing back and forth between Google Earth, YouTube and web browsing. Even with all of this, it took 3-4 hours to run down completely. Not bad at all for extremely heavy use
-4G, unfortunately Indy isn't scheduled for 4G until 2012. I should be making a trip up to Chicago soon though and can comment further if requested. There are a ton of people who are in 4G areas who can comment on 4G speeds though.
Anything specific just ask, I'd be glad to address any questions you, or anyone, may have.

booyakasha said:
Just got mine this afternoon, here are my first impressions:
-SenseUI is also not very appealing to me, I find it incredibly bland and in some sense (no pun intended) flat out ugly. I much prefer the stock Android home. I could also do without the Sprint Bloatware. Both will be addressed with the first custom 2.2 ROM
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You know if you go to settings>applications>manage applications>HTC sense> and scroll down and click clear defaults, you take off sense.
As soon as you click home it will give you an option for sense or launcher (stock android) and then click automatically choose this option and it will keep whichever you like for default.
However the black notification bar, dialer, and lock screen will all be sense as well. And you cannot have the HTC widgets.

booyakasha said:
Just got mine this afternoon, here are my first impressions:
Pros:
-The screen is absolutely GORGEOUS, one of my biggest issues with past phones (came from the Hero) was the poor quality of the screen compared to, say, an iPhone. This screen blows it away. Its super crisp, very bright and absolutely massive. Its a true joy to browse the web, shoot pictures, watch videos and just plain interact. 10 minutes after I got it I jumped back on my Hero and was amazed at how I ever lasted the 6 months on it.
-Picture quality (still photos), I thought was quite impressive for a phone, and the front facing camera is cool, however it may be a little gimmicky. My dad has an iPhone and I'm sure when the new one comes out he'll get it and I can see us using the cameras to catch up sometimes when I'm down at school, but you do feel kinda silly walking around with the phone in front of your face.
-The phone itself is rather large (obviously), but feels satisfyingly dense and has just the right amount of weight behind it. Feels great in the hand as well.
-The speed is also mindblowing. Everything just plain feels faster, probably because it is. What I found the most improved was navigating the Marketplace, which strangely always felt laggy to me on the Hero. Not anymore, the Evo is literally click-click-click-click DONE. VERY impressive. Text entry also seems very much improved.
Just like any device, it's not without its faults:
-The camera (video), I feel is a little unimpressive. Still it is a very good camera for a phone, it just doesn't pack that same WOW factor as the rest of the device.
-I'm a little worried how the lens itself will hold up, as many have mentioned, the back does rest right on the glass. This is easily fixed with a case though (which I hope to purchase soon).
-SenseUI is also not very appealing to me, I find it incredibly bland and in some sense (no pun intended) flat out ugly. I much prefer the stock Android home. I could also do without the Sprint Bloatware. Both will be addressed with the first custom 2.2 ROM
Things I can't address yet:
-The battery life: I received the phone with approximately 25-30% battery and wanted to run it all the way down before I recharged it fully. I was quite impressed at the lengths I had to go to to get it down to 0. I was watching a live stream on USTREAM, had wifi, gps, sync and bluetooth on, screen on full brightness, and was consistently bouncing back and forth between Google Earth, YouTube and web browsing. Even with all of this, it took 3-4 hours to run down completely. Not bad at all for extremely heavy use
-4G, unfortunately Indy isn't scheduled for 4G until 2012. I should be making a trip up to Chicago soon though and can comment further if requested. There are a ton of people who are in 4G areas who can comment on 4G speeds though.
Anything specific just ask, I'd be glad to address any questions you, or anyone, may have.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've been to the sprint store and had a chance to play w/ one.
everything seems awesome, except it felt a little jerky,not smooth like the Hero/Eris.
And I noticed a little bit of glitch when going from the camera to home screen too fast. as Sprint has the best plan, I kinda have to go with them.
I just don't wanna think that HTC/Sprint would fudge things up to be cheap. I mean where's the AMOLED love? all in all, I'm sure I'm going to love this phone.

1wingangel said:
I've been to the sprint store and had a chance to play w/ one.
everything seems awesome, except it felt a little jerky,not smooth like the Hero/Eris.
And I noticed a little bit of glitch when going from the camera to home screen too fast. as Sprint has the best plan, I kinda have to go with them.
I just don't wanna think that HTC/Sprint would fudge things up to be cheap. I mean where's the AMOLED love? all in all, I'm sure I'm going to love this phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here's to hoping the jerkiness you experienced is attributed to early software on the device(s). Regarding AMOLED, there's no way HTC could have possibly included a 4.3" AMOLED display in this phone. There are two main reasons why.
1. AMOLED technology is very expensive as it is at 3.7", I can't imagine how much it would cost for them to order 4.3" displays from their providers. There's no doubt that significant cost would have been diverted to us.
2. AMOLED displays are in short supply. The Droid Incredible's been out of stock for a while because HTC can't get enough AMOLED displays to produce the number of Incredibles that would satisfy the demand of the buying public.

Mecha2142 said:
Here's to hoping the jerkiness you experienced is attributed to early software on the device(s). Regarding AMOLED, there's no way HTC could have possibly included a 4.3" AMOLED display in this phone. There are two main reasons why.
1. AMOLED technology is very expensive as it is at 3.7", I can't imagine how much it would cost for them to order 4.3" displays from their providers. There's no doubt that significant cost would have been diverted to us.
2. AMOLED displays are in short supply. The Droid Incredible's been out of stock for a while because HTC can't get enough AMOLED displays to produce the number of Incredibles that would satisfy the demand of the buying public.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The jerkiness is def a software problem. I'm sure it's because android isn't meant to be on a screen this huge....yet.
2.2 will surely fix it.
thanx for the screen input, I had no idea about an AMOLED shortage.

samsung i9000 has a Super Amoled on a 4 inch screen, but it is also gonna be considered cheap at $500, and stores in the uk have them for upwards of $600 so i guess you do have a point
ps: i do not actually own either of the two phones
edit: but i wont mind $100 more for a display like the samsung

Sounds like you just got a quirky device. I haven't experienced anything like that. I'm amazed at how smooth and responsive it is :/
-------------------------------------
Sent via the XDA Tapatalk App

engineer14 said:
samsung i9000 has a Super Amoled on a 4 inch screen, but it is also gonna be considered cheap at $500, and stores in the uk have them for upwards of $600 so i guess you do have a point
ps: i do not actually own either of the two phones
edit: but i wont mind $100 more for a display like the samsung
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's because Samsung is the company that's producing the AMOLED displays for HTC. Seems like they're cutting the supply they send to them to use in their own devices as of lately. That's why they don't have to charge as much for the devices; they make the displays themselves.

@1wingangel
If that phone was sitting in the Sprint store with everyone playing with it and no task killer installed. I bet every single application was still running and it was still just a lil jerky. I can't imagine people didn't turn all apps and play with it, unless you tried one new out of the box.

jeffrimerman said:
If that phone was sitting in the Sprint store with everyone playing with it and no task killer installed. I bet every single application was still running and it was still just a lil jerky. I can't imagine people didn't turn all apps and play with it, unless you tried one new out of the box.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
no, it was the display model.
so yeah, I'm sure there were alot of apps running,but isn't the point of having all that ram/rom to be able to have a ton of apps running all at once?

1wingangel said:
no, it was the display model.
so yeah, I'm sure there were alot of apps running,but isn't the point of having all that ram/rom to be able to have a ton of apps running all at once?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yeah that is true. I haven't noticed any lag with 21 apps running before I installed a task killer. It was lightning fast. My only con is the power drain when it is sitting overnight. And that apps randomly start up in the background. I see my 3g on and arrows going up and down when it was sitting overnight or maybe that happens when I turn on the screen. I lose a third to half my batter overnight, but someone also said it has to be drained and charged a few times and it will get better. My brother has the 3gS and he said it blows it away.

Mecha2142 said:
Here's to hoping the jerkiness you experienced is attributed to early software on the device(s). Regarding AMOLED, there's no way HTC could have possibly included a 4.3" AMOLED display in this phone. There are two main reasons why.
1. AMOLED technology is very expensive as it is at 3.7", I can't imagine how much it would cost for them to order 4.3" displays from their providers. There's no doubt that significant cost would have been diverted to us.
2. AMOLED displays are in short supply. The Droid Incredible's been out of stock for a while because HTC can't get enough AMOLED displays to produce the number of Incredibles that would satisfy the demand of the buying public.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
AMOLED display is also craptastic in sunlight. Super AMOLED is better though...but obviously even more expensive with more supply issues.

1wingangel said:
no, it was the display model.
so yeah, I'm sure there were alot of apps running,but isn't the point of having all that ram/rom to be able to have a ton of apps running all at once?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They said it would run all of them at once, not that it would work smoothly with them all running at once No matter how much memory you have allocated, there are still limits~

Xenithflare said:
They said it would run all of them at once, not that it would work smoothly with them all running at once No matter how much memory you have allocated, there are still limits~
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
okay, so I just got back from radioshack, And the guy said that he killed all running background apps and live wallpapers, and it still felt jerky(not laggy),but jerky.
my only thought is that maybe I just never noticed it before,coming from a smaller screen. or maybe the display models just aren't up to par.
p.s. I've also been spoiled by custom roms on mt3g

minus a few bugs the only con is that the screen takes up so much realestate that i am always accidentally activating icons on the screen and the 4 onscreen buttons are way too sensitive.
I was about to buy a BB or Nokia for business and use the EVO for fun but so far this phone is working just fine for business. this is a fast device and i haven't noticed any lag and i am running tons of widgets and running apps that constantly update.
forgot to mention that i will be returning it for a replacement on Tuesday for one without a dead pixel.

1wingangel said:
okay, so I just got back from radioshack, And the guy said that he killed all running background apps and live wallpapers, and it still felt jerky(not laggy),but jerky.
my only thought is that maybe I just never noticed it before,coming from a smaller screen. or maybe the display models just aren't up to par.
p.s. I've also been spoiled by custom roms on mt3g
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Judging from demos in my own store, I can attest to the fact that as soon as we put a unit on display (whether GPS or phone), it immediately becomes defective It's like a rule.

No jerkiness here...
Only time I experienced lag was when I tried turning on 4G while downloading/installing about 10 apps at once when I first got it, even then it was hardly noticeable.
YouTube freezes up on me when I try switching from HQ sometimes.
MixZing and Last.FM act weird together for me. Sometimes Last.FM will just close and MixZing will start playing music off my SD card randomly. I uninstall MixZing and haven't had an issue after that. Kind of strange.
Supposedly I am in 4G coverage but I don't get very good signal, not sure what that is about. I don't really mind since I use Wi-Fi at home/work. I'd have to play with it more to see if its an actual problem.
Everything else is pretty awesome.

[Q] Galaxy S4 vs Nexus 5...who wins?

Hi all.
I'm looking to replace my Moto G 4G phone with something that has slightly bigger screen and better optics. I chose the Galaxy S4 & the Nexus 5. Specs-wise we all know the Nexus 5 wins hands down. But i want to talk about the latest 4.4.2/3 on the S4.
I would like to know of any improvements (speed, performance & photo quality wise) on the camera of the S4 and if the battery life has been improved as well.
I'm also a bit reluctant in the sense that bloateware seemingly still remains in the S4. Is Samsung tackling this? And what can i do to make the phone a bit more faster?
Please advice. Thank you.

If u want simple speedy interface with latest updates then nexus 5 is ur device.
S4 wins in term of extra touchwiz features,camera,battery life nd display(as i prefer amoled over ips lcd) .
One can always flash custom aosp custom roms on s4.
In the end its ur own decision.
Sent from my GT-I9500 using Tapatalk

usmankh10 said:
One can always flash custom aosp custom roms on s4.
In the end its ur own decision.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
AOSP ROMs for the S4 have lots of bugs usually involving the camera, video playback and sound quality. This was one of the main reasons I sold my S4 and got an N5, because I really dislike TouchWiz.
---------- Post added at 08:17 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:09 PM ----------
Gino76ph said:
I would like to know of any improvements (speed, performance & photo quality wise) on the camera of the S4 and if the battery life has been improved as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I got about the same battery life on both. The S4's camera is arguably better in most conditions, except low-light where the N5's OIS gives it an advantage.
Gino76ph said:
II'm also a bit reluctant in the sense that bloateware seemingly still remains in the S4. Is Samsung tackling this? And what can i do to make the phone a bit more faster?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Samsung is causing the bloatware problem, but rooting and removing junk is possible. That could trip the Knox warranty bit if you aren't careful. Installing a custom ROM will definitely trip Knox.
The only thing you can do to make the S4 faster is run an AOSP ROM or custom kernel, but there are penalties (mentioned above).
You can't go wrong with the N5 unless the difference in camera performance or having an AMOLED screen is that important to you.

CafeKampuchia said:
AOSP ROMs for the S4 have lots of bugs usually involving the camera, video playback and sound quality. This was one of the main reasons I sold my S4 and got an N5, because I really dislike TouchWiz.
---------- Post added at 08:17 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:09 PM ----------
I got about the same battery life on both. The S4's camera is arguably better in most conditions, except low-light where the N5's OIS gives it an advantage.
Samsung is causing the bloatware problem, but rooting and removing junk is possible. That could trip the Knox warranty bit if you aren't careful. Installing a custom ROM will definitely trip Knox.
The only thing you can do to make the S4 faster is run an AOSP ROM or custom kernel, but there are penalties (mentioned above).
You can't go wrong with the N5 unless the difference in camera performance or having an AMOLED screen is that important to you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the AMOLED screen is such a huge win for the S4 and i have yet to see a better camera on any other phone. However, the N5 OS is godly for purists. I have been researching for a week now how to flash an AOSP GPE rom on my S4 (att nc1) and the dev is just not there yet. There is a great thread here
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2767026
with some really bright guys working it out but its still quite buggy. I am hoping to learn enough and flash this rom to my S4 and try to get the best of both worlds. IMO touchwiz is a gimmick, a day after i got the phone i turned off all the touchwiz features as i found them quite useless.
hope that helped

CaptainTrap said:
the AMOLED screen is such a huge win for the S4...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I used to swear by AMOLED screens. After I got the N5, I couldn't stand the bluish-green color cast of the S4 any longer, which put another nail in its coffin. I do miss the deeper blacks.

CafeKampuchia said:
I used to swear by AMOLED screens. After I got the N5, I couldn't stand the bluish-green color cast of the S4 any longer, which put another nail in its coffin. I do miss the deeper blacks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you are really making me want an N5 now....

CaptainTrap said:
you are really making me want an N5 now....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do prefer stronger blacks, contrast & overall colours of the AMOLED so that's one vote for Galaxy S4. The battery life and capacity in the S4 is better than the N5 so that's two votes. The bloated Touchwiz i think is still better in terms of added features so that's three votes now. The camera has been a very contentious issue but in this respect "overall" the S4 will get my vote; i don;t do much night shots anyway.
I suppose there are always two sides of the coin when it comes to the UI bloateware. Yes its either you love it or hate it. Whenever i ring (or email) Samsung about my suggestions on performance, lessening bloateware, etc. i do wonder if they really listen to you. And i'm not into flashing ROMs or rooting and i still prefer the normal updates.
Will a "RAM optimisation" or "overclock" app help in increasing the speed & performance of my S4? Is there something in the Developer Options that i need to change or tick?
Please advice. Thanks.

CafeKampuchia said:
I used to swear by AMOLED screens. After I got the N5, I couldn't stand the bluish-green color cast of the S4 any longer, which put another nail in its coffin. I do miss the deeper blacks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree with you finally.
I get so annoyed with the blue tint after using my laptop and iPad.
I do think it has more to do with calibration however because the Tab 2 with a IPS has a blueish tint as well :/
And also I think movie mode makes the colours look wrong even though everyone says it looks more natural because they think they are experts and pro for stating Less saturated/grammar = more natural when in reality, the grammar looks wrong at least to be compared to other screens.

MrAndroid12 said:
I agree with you finally.
I get so annoyed with the blue tint after using my laptop and iPad.
I do think it has more to do with calibration however because the Tab 2 with a IPS has a blueish tint as well :/
And also I think movie mode makes the colours look wrong even though everyone says it looks more natural because they think they are experts and pro for stating Less saturated/grammar = more natural when in reality, the grammar looks wrong at least to be compared to other screens.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have bought the Galaxy S4 (normal UK LTE version) and i like it. But again, these issue of bloateware is getting in my way, battery life down from fully charged (at 6am) to just 30% by 5pm on moderate use (basic checking emails, news, weather, downloading a newspaper mostly and not even playing games or watching videos) and slow performance. This is what i did so far.
I turned off:
Bluetooth
Wifi (when i'm out & about); Scan for nearby wifi networks turned off
GPS (70% of the time but my nature of work requires me to visit clients hence i need the GPS to look for their address but this is only around 1-2hrs max at any given day)
Auto-sync
Notifications (apart from BBC News, Instagram & Twitter)
NFC
Samsung own gimmicky motions & gestures
Wireless printing
Vibrate
S-voice
Installed the Snapdragon Battery Guru app
Power-Saving mode is Turned on
Brightness set to low (and not on Auto)
Set the all animations (from Developer Options) to the second lowest value
Installed an alternative lightweight(?) launcher like Nova.
Stopped all background tasks and Clear memory
The above tasks did helped a little but can't help notice still some performance issues (camera and some apps still loads at least 2 seconds which by today is slow), benchmarks show RAM & processor are seemingly under clocked.Compared to the Z1 Compact or Moto G 4G the general performance & smoothness of the UI is better than the S4. Is there anything else i can do?
Please help.

Gino76ph said:
I have bought the Galaxy S4 (normal UK LTE version) and i like it. But again, these issue of bloateware is getting in my way, battery life down from fully charged (at 6am) to just 30% by 5pm on moderate use (basic checking emails, news, weather, downloading a newspaper mostly and not even playing games or watching videos) and slow performance. This is what i did so far.
I turned off:
Bluetooth
Wifi (when i'm out & about); Scan for nearby wifi networks turned off
GPS (70% of the time but my nature of work requires me to visit clients hence i need the GPS to look for their address but this is only around 1-2hrs max at any given day)
Auto-sync
Notifications (apart from BBC News, Instagram & Twitter)
NFC
Samsung own gimmicky motions & gestures
Wireless printing
Vibrate
S-voice
Installed the Snapdragon Battery Guru app
Power-Saving mode is Turned on
Brightness set to low (and not on Auto)
Set the all animations (from Developer Options) to the second lowest value
Installed an alternative lightweight(?) launcher like Nova.
Stopped all background tasks and Clear memory
The above tasks did helped a little but can't help notice still some performance issues (camera and some apps still loads at least 2 seconds which by today is slow), benchmarks show RAM & processor are seemingly under clocked.Compared to the Z1 Compact or Moto G 4G the general performance & smoothness of the UI is better than the S4. Is there anything else i can do?
Please help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ahh.. battery life is an issue with all smartphones today and considering that your phone is used for navigation for one to two hours max, that is incredible considering that the bloody iPhone 5S won't make it it past half a day with normal usage with 3G so 11 hours @ 30% is damn good for a smartphone.
Z1 compact has a snapdragon 800 chip so that cannot be compared but as for the Moto G 4G, the reason why it runs a lot smoother is due to the near stock android it is running so the best thing you can do is to install a AOSP rom on your S4.
I suggest disabling pre-installed apps.
As for benchmarks, my stock S4 isn't under clocking unless if it's on power saving mode or overheating.
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What I can tell you about Nexus devices is this: you can pretty much do anything with it OS-wise. I was shocked by the ruckus about Knox voiding warranty and to me it's utter BS. I mean if I buy the phone, I should have the right to do anything with it. When you have a Nexus phone, when you root it, it doesn't trigger any warranty voiding schemes (because yeah root can void warranty, but just flash a clean stock rom and locking it again, it will be cleared for warranty). When the hardware of my S4 broke, I cannot have it repaired because of the knox warranty void, thankfully there's a service center here that didn't check the download mode. But I do have to agree on the points already mentioned, in terms of specs and hardware, S4 wins by a large margin. But hey, I always swear for Nexus devices (if there were any Nexus 5 devices here in my place, I would definitely buy that over my S4. Sadly, they do not stock up on N5 anymore because Samsung took over the smartphone market here in the Philippines.

Leonhan said:
What I can tell you about Nexus devices is this: you can pretty much do anything with it OS-wise. I was shocked by the ruckus about Knox voiding warranty and to me it's utter BS. I mean if I buy the phone, I should have the right to do anything with it. When you have a Nexus phone, when you root it, it doesn't trigger any warranty voiding schemes (because yeah root can void warranty, but just flash a clean stock rom and locking it again, it will be cleared for warranty). When the hardware of my S4 broke, I cannot have it repaired because of the knox warranty void, thankfully there's a service center here that didn't check the download mode. But I do have to agree on the points already mentioned, in terms of specs and hardware, S4 wins by a large margin. But hey, I always swear for Nexus devices (if there were any Nexus 5 devices here in my place, I would definitely buy that over my S4. Sadly, they do not stock up on N5 anymore because Samsung took over the smartphone market here in the Philippines.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As i said i have unchecked/stopped Notifications of almost all my apps apart from Gmail, Instagram, Twitter. That's it. If i need to enable some Notifications that would be Messaging and Whatsapp but nothing else. I will disable all pre-installed apps as you guys have suggested too and see if it helps.
I would like to further ask:
1. Would charging a brand-new battery (like mine) improve its actual "hours use" (i.e. battery life)?
2. Would resetting a phone improve its battery life by erasing some possible bugs or issues?
3. Would installing a battery-saving app like Battery Guru help or hinder my phone's battery life?

Gino76ph said:
As i said i have unchecked/stopped Notifications of almost all my apps apart from Gmail, Instagram, Twitter. That's it. If i need to enable some Notifications that would be Messaging and Whatsapp but nothing else. I will disable all pre-installed apps as you guys have suggested too and see if it helps.
I would like to further ask:
1. Would charging a brand-new battery (like mine) improve its actual "hours use" (i.e. battery life)?
2. Would resetting a phone improve its battery life by erasing some possible bugs or issues?
3. Would installing a battery-saving app like Battery Guru help or hinder my phone's battery life?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. Battery life is a very subjective topic. It really boils down to how you use your device.
2. Depending on what you meant about reset, is it factory or just a normal reboot?
3. Battery savers are not fool proof, but they can tell you what's hogging the battery. I suggest battery doctor for this purpose.

Leonhan said:
1. Battery life is a very subjective topic. It really boils down to how you use your device.
2. Depending on what you meant about reset, is it factory or just a normal reboot?
3. Battery savers are not fool proof, but they can tell you what's hogging the battery. I suggest battery doctor for this purpose.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What i mean about #1 is that i heard that when you buy a new device having a new battery the first few days the battery is still "adjusting" to its charged state. And after a few days once the battery has "learned" how the device is being used it "optimises" to its potential. Hence, the battery life will be what it is intended or advertised. Did i make sense?
As re: # 2 i meant the whole factory reset will it "flush out" or clear any bugs.
Would you still say Battery Guru is a good battery-saving app? Or not?

Gino76ph said:
What i mean about #1 is that i heard that when you buy a new device having a new battery the first few days the battery is still "adjusting" to its charged state. And after a few days once the battery has "learned" how the device is being used it "optimises" to its potential. Hence, the battery life will be what it is intended or advertised. Did i make sense?
As re: # 2 i meant the whole factory reset will it "flush out" or clear any bugs.
Would you still say Battery Guru is a good battery-saving app? Or not?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have heard of what you meant with your first point but I do not know if it really does it like that.
Factory resets does make your device clean like the first time you got your device, so unless you don't have any hardware problems, it should fix the bugs.
I have read the reviews and they are mixed. I think it all boils down to personal choice. I swear by battery doctor coz I use it.

Leonhan said:
I have heard of what you meant with your first point but I do not know if it really does it like that.
Factory resets does make your device clean like the first time you got your device, so unless you don't have any hardware problems, it should fix the bugs.
I have read the reviews and they are mixed. I think it all boils down to personal choice. I swear by battery doctor coz I use it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is this the Battery Doctor that you have? https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ijinshan.kbatterydoctor_en&hl=en
Going back to Issue #1 and talking about in "general terms" would charging a brand-new battery for a couple of times improve/optimise it's life thereby extending it in the long run? or would this depend on the algorithm or behaviour or programming of the OS or firmware?

Gino76ph said:
Is this the Battery Doctor that you have? https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ijinshan.kbatterydoctor_en&hl=en
Going back to Issue #1 and talking about in "general terms" would charging a brand-new battery for a couple of times improve/optimise it's life thereby extending it in the long run? or would this depend on the algorithm or behaviour or programming of the OS or firmware?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, that is the battery doctor I am using. Li-ion batteries are interesting batteries because in order for them to be healthy, you need to charge between 50%-90%. Never overcharging and charging below 20% once a month will really improve the longevity of the battery. As far as the OS/software is concerned, it really depends on what you use your phone for. Also, if your battery is draining and you are sure that it's not the actual battery itself, you can use apps like Watchdog to see if which apps are hogging the battery.

I see. If those are the apps you guys have recommended and if they are lightweight then i shall try them.
But would you say there is no risk of overcharging a phone's battery? Say for example i started charging at 11pm and by 4am it is fully charged but i wake up at 6am instead to remove the plug. Would that have any impact?

Gino76ph said:
I see. If those are the apps you guys have recommended and if they are lightweight then i shall try them.
But would you say there is no risk of overcharging a phone's battery? Say for example i started charging at 11pm and by 4am it is fully charged but i wake up at 6am instead to remove the plug. Would that have any impact?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
According to the Battery Doctor App, overcharging is charging the phone for more than 9 hours. That would imply that if you overcharge too often, it will really shorten the lifespan of your battery.

Leonhan said:
According to the Battery Doctor App, overcharging is charging the phone for more than 9 hours. That would imply that if you overcharge too often, it will really shorten the lifespan of your battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Say for instance i'm at work and its 2pm and my battery is down to 50% which i feel i might not reach at home. If i charge my battery halfway thru the day would that still damage my battery or not?

Nexus 6 Thoughts and Review from a former Note II User

I have noticed quite a few Galaxy Note II users online that are close to pulling the trigger on a new phone. I have been in that camp for a few months and finally did. I really don't have and major complaints about the Galaxy Note II but rather small quibbles about the device. So you have a basic idea of where I am coming from I'll let you know what I like and dislike about the Galaxy Note II.
GNOTE II Pros:
Good Specs - The phone has specs that are still considered above mid level and should still be a viable phone for at least a couple more years if properly updated...if.
Camera - I get pretty fair image clarity from the phone and when I need something better I'll break out a DSLR or my Galaxy Camera.
Voice - Very clear and loud.
S-Pen - Oh how I'll miss thee.
Capacitive Buttons/Physical Buttons - Well thought out for one-handed use.
Weight Its a bit heavy but I actually like the weight of this phone and could probably use it as a throwing-star analog to get the drop on somebody if I hit them square in the temple. But that really is not a concern for most people.
Hardware - Its well made and very resistant to drops with a simple TPU case.
GNOTE II Cons:
Updates - I'm on T-Mobile which has taken any chance it has to kill the possibility of future updates. Occasionally an errant voice on a messageboard out of T-Mobile Customer Support stating they have seen this in the works wafts across my screen but I have yet to see it come to fruition.
Samsung Ideology - Samsung products are good for a year then they release a new one as if you really need a new product from them. Samsung makes great products but rarely do they fix glaringly obvious mistakes after a year past its original creation. I currently am working on a Samsung monitor with a color calibration issue that has been reported and known by the company for years but never fixed but they fixed it on the new model of this monitor. My Galaxy Camera, while nice, suffers from insane Touchwiz lag and could use an update on fixing that but we won't see it because they released the Galaxy Camera 2. I am in the game for technology to last a minimum of 3 years running well. I realize the market is bleeding edge but the edge has gotten far less bloody than the G1 days. I shop for phones like I do TV's or computers now.
S-Pen Manufacturing - I've been through four S-Pens. I use it a lot for taking notes throughout the day as it feels more natural than typing on a computer screen. The S-Pen tends to randomly stop working without provocation. Then if you order a "100% OEM Samsung Factory S-Pen" most likely its a Chinese knock-off. I can't find true S-pens anymore which is a concern for owning a new Note.
Lack of Stable ROMS - Nearly everything I have tried causes issues with NFC or Bluetooth. I use bluetooth all the time for music to various speakers, headphones, or my car.
Knox - It does its stinking job too well. SU can run but it can't hide. I have lost SU so many times on this stupid phone it is ridiculous. Let alone the every 10 minutes my phone lets me know that Triangle Away is being activated. I don't do a lot of coding or tinkering but I do like finding ROM's with good utilitarian purposes. I remember swapcache back in the G1 days and enjoyed finding the next cool thing to do with my phone! We are past that time now, honestly, but if it isn't Samsung branded then Samsung doesn't want you to do it.
Samsung Services - "You have started S-Voice" NO I DIDN'T. "Saving contact to Samsung Contacts" Bad Samsung, stop it! I insanely dislike...nay..HATE how Samsung will not let you get rid of its version of things. My contact list was a thing of beauty running in the 100's with every person I needed to work with (I'm a teacher that does coordination work and administrative work for a school of 600+), their room numbers, email addresses, and everything you could think of until I bought a Samsung product. I have some names with 20 duplicates due to the way this beast handles contacts. I eventually just had executive function overload and decided to give up on being organized. I might bring that back to life soon.
Now that you have an idea of where I'm coming from this is what I think of the Nexus 6....
I like it!
The first thing I really enjoyed about this phone was the speed. I'm running it Stock, Rooted, and Encrypted (for now...maybe forever...I work at a school where my kids know how to build robots and get linux running on projectors so I wouldn't mind encryption on my devices) and loving the heck out of it. I was so impressed by simple things at first such as animations from opening folders as soon as my finger touched the screen whereas my Note II would lag for a good time without animations. In fact, turning on the device is so overwhelmingly stupidly simple to turn on. I can check the time by just pulling it out of my pocket without touching buttons where if I wanted to check the time on my Note I would have to wait 5 - 10 seconds after pressing the power button while pondering the ever present question, "Did I press that button?" which inevitably leads to "#$&(*, I pressed it again and turned it off!"
The next thing I noticed was the size and weight. It is a bit harder to use than my Galaxy Note II with one hand. I think if they reversed the capacitive Back button it would be a lot easier to use for us right handers. I may look in to figuring that out. Honestly, I almost feel like this thing is too thin and light. It feels well built and solid. Even with the SUPCASE I bought it still feels a little odd in my hands but that may be due to the weight being very centered in the deep area of the curve opposed to being consistently weighted. As a personal aside this is the first phone I have ever put a screen protector on WITHOUT BUBBLES....I..AM...A ....GOD!!! Well..maybe demigod. Needless to say, Spigen makes a fine screen protector.
Unlocking and rooting this thing was a breeze. Once I get paid in a couple of weeks I plan on donating to @WugFresh for at least a case of beer for his amazing Toolkit that will even walk you through setting up Windows 8 drivers! You can find that at http://forum.xda-developers.com/nexus-6/development/toolkit-wugs-nexus-root-toolkit-v1-9-8-t2947452
The camera is better than my Note II by simply being clearer which I'm assuming is to the better camera sensor. I haven't messed with it that much.
The screen and adaptive lighting are by far my favorite thing on this phone. I am probably in the minority on this but adaptive lighting is brilliant. I have seen a lot of people talking about how AMOLED is causing the reddish/purple/yellowish hues to blacks and grays at low light levels. I do not believe that is the fact. It seems like they are using some sort of blue light filtering for this in low light. As an insomniac I tend to send the wee hours of morning which I consider night perusing XDA, Twitter, and various other odds and ends of the internets and am so happy the screen actually gets dark. My Gnote II on the lowest setting was annoyingly bright. I thought I was a genius one day when I thought to use a blue screen filter and made it darker but lo and behold the backlit capacitive buttons attached directly to the stinking hardware on the Gnote II. Its like having someone flash their brights at you when you use one of those programs on the Note. Its annoying. The Nexus 6 takes no part in this and I would 100% recommend it for fellow insomniacs. It has helped me to get sleep a little bit quicker over the last couple days which is a nice benefit. Lets see if that keeps up though. I'm pretty immune to sleep.
Also the screen is really nice quality and reproduces blacks amazingly well. I'm an art teacher and art history buff so I usually check out different high quality images on my phone to see how good it looks. It seems to work very well at recreating the color and light of some of the paintings. My favorite to use for this test is Van Gogh's Starry Night Over Rhone. Eventually my phone gets used in the classroom when a student needs to look up an image and put on an easel (or kickstand case but haven't seen one I like yet) to display when my tablet or laptop is in use.
Battery life and charger! Its great. 'Nuff said.
I think the biggest negative so far is the volume of calls. My wife said I sound quieter than usual. I also can't hear people as loudly as I used to. The speakerphone does not travel as far as the Note when it absolutely should seeing as the speakers are fairly decent for a cell phone. I could see someone fixing this pretty easily in a ROM.
The other negative is the lack of some multitasking programs that Samsung had and of course the lack of S-Pen. I use a Huion H610 Pro at home for digital art and graphic design so I loved the fact that Samsung phones used similar tech but I absolutely abhor using capacitive styluses (styli?). I'll have to figure out something I can carry with me that will work like that with a similar feel.
Anyway, as of right now I'm extremely happy with this phone. I have had no issues as of yet and luckily no burn in however I do not like my phone to cause sunspots when I look away from it so I'm not expecting to have a huge problem with it. If you have some similar issues with the Galaxy Note II (which T-Mobile amplifies) then I would suggest jumping ship especially if you have crackflashing tendencies because there is no Samsung product without a Nexus name attached to it that will be as easy to deal with as this.
-Travis

Let me go ahead and apologize for the poor grammar and lengthy sentences. I'm sitting home from work sick today (XDA fun time does not happen between the hours of 7am to 5pm at work normally) with bronchitis. The medicine(s) I'm on must really like run-on sentences after I re-read that wall of text. I hope it helps someone after deciphering it, haha.

From one educator to another (I'm a school administrator and former classroom teacher), let me say 'well done!'. Before the Nexus 6, I was a proud Note owner for the last three years - Note 1 and Note 3 to be exact. After finding out that the Note 4 would be even more locked down than the 3, and deciding that I was getting really really tired of TouchWiz and truly loved what Lollipop's UI brought to the table, I made the jump. And I am just as pleased with my choice as you are. No more crazy contacts lists or S-Voice intrusions, amen. ......I do miss my old S-Pen though....

I'm using the Note 2 atm and I "really want" the Nexus 6 (64gb infact, hard to come by in Australia otherwise I probably would have one by now).
Using SlimKat now because the stock ROM was absolutely dreadful!! (Laaag!) The S-pen does not work out of the box on the current rom and I'm not missing it either... I'm ready for the Nexus and looking forward to using "modern speakers" on a phone.

PerthSGS2 said:
I'm using the Note 2 atm and I "really want" the Nexus 6 (64gb infact, hard to come by in Australia otherwise I probably would have one by now).
Using SlimKat now because the stock ROM was absolutely dreadful!! (Laaag!) The S-pen does not work out of the box on the current rom and I'm not missing it either... I'm ready for the Nexus and looking forward to using "modern speakers" on a phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I also came from the note2 on tmobile and like the OP said, there was a lack of ROMs for the phone.
i ended up pulling the trigger on a white 32gb nexus 6 (i was looking for a 64gb but they were hard to find) the other day and like it very much. I think i rooted and unlocked the bootloader within 30mins of having the phone.
just trying to enable tethering on it right now is the only obstacle for me.

simplyTravis said:
Let me go ahead and apologize for the poor grammar and lengthy sentences. I'm sitting home from work sick today (XDA fun time does not happen between the hours of 7am to 5pm at work normally) with bronchitis. The medicine(s) I'm on must really like run-on sentences after I re-read that wall of text. I hope it helps someone after deciphering it, haha.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had a Note 4 from T-Mobile for a few days and I didn't care for it at all & I was coming from a S4 before getting the Note 4, So I decided to return it and got the Nexus 6 which is way better. I'll also be paying less then I would of been with the Note 4.

How does the screen brightness compare between the two?

How's the focusing speed compared to the note 2?
I'm trying to decide between this and the HTC m8. I have small kids so I need something with a quick focus and overall good durability. (I'm not really concerned with megapixel count.)
Thanks!

lschuman said:
From one educator to another (I'm a school administrator and former classroom teacher), let me say 'well done!'. Before the Nexus 6, I was a proud Note owner for the last three years - Note 1 and Note 3 to be exact. After finding out that the Note 4 would be even more locked down than the 3, and deciding that I was getting really really tired of TouchWiz and truly loved what Lollipop's UI brought to the table, I made the jump. And I am just as pleased with my choice as you are. No more crazy contacts lists or S-Voice intrusions, amen. ......I do miss my old S-Pen though....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I plan on getting things back to normal now thankfully. My contacts are so much easier to get through now. Right now I'm in the midst of dealing with starting up after school programs for our school and will be editing Google Docs with this thing next week so I'll get a real test of how it works. I work at a charter school (part of the biggest charter school system in Texas: Harmony Public Schools) and since we don't have a bus system our after school clubs tend to be in the hundreds daily. I run around circles making sure everything is going right and people are in the right place so its helpful to be able to pull up a list on a decent size screen to find information on the go. Our school has been around 7 years and I've been there 6 years of that with only 2 people there longer than me so I tend to be the guy to ask about anything.
Tubgirl said:
How does the screen brightness compare between the two?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
With adaptive brightness off the Nexus 6 is noticeably brighter with better black levels and a warmer tone (not yellowish.) I keep it on most of the time and haven't had any problems seeing things. It has been raining here in South East Texas since I've owned the phone so if it ever clears up I'll let you know how it compares outside but I'm assuming it will be a bit better than the Note II.
anrkee said:
How's the focusing speed compared to the note 2?
I'm trying to decide between this and the HTC m8. I have small kids so I need something with a quick focus and overall good durability. (I'm not really concerned with megapixel count.)
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, I did a couple of tests. First from picking it up off of a black countertop and letting it autofocus on its own in a decently lit room. The Nexus 6 won by like less than half a second to a second.
The next test was when I would tap the screen to set white balance and autofocus in a decently lit room. From the tap the Note II won by less than half a second.
The last test was in a dark room looking then picking it up to focus on a computer screen to test white balance setting and autofocus. The Nexus 6 won this hands down by a bit over a second. I think it simply achieves much quicker white balance but autofocus is slightly slower. I'll try to do some comparison shots tomorrow when I get home from work if you want.

Thanks for that. No need for test shots. You answered my question perfectly.

Totally off-topic from the Nexus 6: if you enjoy the extra duties in addition to your classroom, please consider administration! Keep up the good work for our kids.

Post your personal S6E reviews

:highfive: congrats to those who have it early.
so tell us what you think about it, the feel on the hand, how fragile does it look and feel (is it slippery like the sony phones with glass, grippy?) , hows the performance of the camera, screen, battery, etc.

It's only been half a day but my early impressions are as follows,
-Fingerprint scanner is wicked fast.
-Screen is beautiful
-It is fast fast fast. I love Samsung devices and I admit that lag was always an issue. I have not been able to slow it down yet. Really I havent. Lol. Even the recent app switcher is fast.
-Like the themeing a lot. I can't wait for more themes.
-Feels good on the hand. The edge does make it a bit different to hold but I love the curved screen. Makes using the phone a pleasure.
-I have only taken a couple pictures but they turned out great. More on that later.
I'm sure I'll have more as the days pass..

I played with the phone in a T mobile store. For about 20 minutes battery was down to 93% from 100%.,Power hungry. Could you guys confirm?
Also I found the browser cannot hide the status bar hence no full screen browsing. Please also confirm this?
S6 edge in the bestbuy which is unbranded has no ability to sort the menu alphabetically. But T mobile edge has an option to sort.

You're correct on the status bar. Too early to know on the battery. The option to sort might have come in the software update that dropped today. Not sure though.

does this look like the edge to u? i think phonearena made a mistake
http://www.phonearena.com/news/Sams...r-but-survives-this-violent-drop-test_id67696

It looks like the edge
The regular s6 has very recognizable edge as well and that is not it
Sent from my SM-G900P using XDA Free mobile app

avenging said:
does this look like the edge to u? i think phonearena made a mistake
http://www.phonearena.com/news/Sams...r-but-survives-this-violent-drop-test_id67696
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yup, that an Edge, and damn did she slam that hard! Good to know it can survive what she just did, lol.

From a performance point of view there is no doubt in my mind the Edge is going to be great, the only doubt is battery life... I realise its a bit early for conclusions yet but once people have used their phones for a week or so, its the questions that everyone wants answering. Everyone's use patterns are different but as long as I can make it through a heavyish day ok, I'll be happy with that.

madpete said:
From a performance point of view there is no doubt in my mind the Edge is going to be great, the only doubt is battery life... I realise its a bit early for conclusions yet but once people have used their phones for a week or so, its the questions that everyone wants answering. Everyone's use patterns are different but as long as I can make it through a heavyish day ok, I'll be happy with that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's battery is only 7% less in capacity than S5, so I see no reason why battery life would be extremely different. The screen has higher res, but CPU is much more power efficient.

Szadzik said:
It's battery is only 7% less in capacity than S5, so I see no reason why battery life would be extremely different. The screen has higher res, but CPU is much more power efficient.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes...still, I'd rather yes some real numbers from someone who actually has the phone. We know very little about its battery performance yet, and I have seen mixed reviews with some saying its good and others poor.
I should just say that I have the phone pre ordered and I'm looking forward to getting it, battery is the only doubt I have...I'd just like to see some numbers and I think most other people would too.

madpete said:
Yes...still, I'd rather yes some real numbers from someone who actually has the phone. We know very little about its battery performance yet, and I have seen mixed reviews with some saying its good and others poor.
I should just say that I have the phone pre ordered and I'm looking forward to getting it, battery is the only doubt I have...I'd just like to see some numbers and I think most other people would too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have pre-ordered it as well, but it is still 2 weeks before shipping. We will all see in due time. People in the US are already getting theirs, so we should have some info within a week as batteries start working normally after a few charges.

Also could you guys confirm available free memory?

I went to Best Buy yesterday to get a look at the S6 edge. Needless to say, I was very impressed. Touchwiz seems lightning fast compared to 4.3 on my S4. The shortcuts and ease of access really convinced me to buy this (when green comes along). The edge display looks absolutely amazing and does, in fact, feel more immersive. I love the metal frame and the new headphone jack location. Basically, this thing looks and feels all-around perfect. The black looks BLACK in person, whereas online it gave me the belief that it was a deep-blue. Don't know if I want to settle for the white 32GB or wait a month or two in hopes of the green appearing.

varunkumars said:
Also could you guys confirm available free memory?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I forgot to look. With all my apps and a couple hundred pix loaded on have 107 gigs available.

varunkumars said:
Also could you guys confirm available free memory?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the 32GB should have around 22-25GB available
and
the 64GB should have around 53-56GB available

Szadzik said:
It's battery is only 7% less in capacity than S5, so I see no reason why battery life would be extremely different. The screen has higher res, but CPU is much more power efficient.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Eh, you forgot to mention that the screen was actually more efficient, too. Not only is it 14nm, the screen is like 23% more efficient than the screen on the Note 4, iirc.

tehdef said:
Eh, you forgot to mention that the screen was actually more efficient, too. Not only is it 14nm, the screen is like 23% more efficient than the screen on the Note 4, iirc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was not aware the screen would be more efficient with that much higher resolution, but that is a good thing to know as well. Might mean all this whining about smaller battery size is just for the sake of whining.

Thanks for your answers guys. Today again I walked into Best buy and T mobile stores to do my research more. What I found,
Battery: Yesterday when I played with the phone I suspected it to be Power hungry. But I think I should take it back. Battery is ok not bad after all. I am comparing with my LG G2(has a good battery, 3000mah) and I measured the time it takes to drop every %. S6 takes a little more time than the G2 to drop which tells me the battery is good. Also the picture below. I don't have an S5 so I can't really compare with that. I played a couple of games that were installed on the phone and the battery is still ok. This is by no means a scientific way of measuring, neverthless I wanted to share this with you guys.
Although I have chargers at home, car and work still a good battery(if not the best) gives a sense of confidence. and satisfaction that I have the best phone irrespective of all the breath taking features. Don't you agree?? S6 may not disappoint I believe.
Browser/Browsing: Browsing is a breeze. No sense of lag anywhere. But the status bar doesn't hide which I assume is a part of Lollipop. I would be curious to see if a dev can come up with a mod. A full screen immersive browsing on the S6 's beautiful screen would be super cool.
Youtube/Video: Flawless like its predecessors. Nothing special to mention.
Music: Flawless sound like its predecessors. No distortion. Sound is very clean with the headphones. I listen to a lot of Music and sound quality is very important for me. When I played the music on speaker I felt some vibration I wonder what that is??? I wonder if it is the speaker giving the vibration.
Menu:Arrangement of the apps in the menu is nice and simple although I would prefer the icons to be a little smaller. T mobile phones come with an option to sort alphabetically. AT&T don't have the phone for display yet(Slackers:crying so can't tell. All in all I like this new menu. No complaints.
GPS: I didn't spend a lot of time here but I thought it locked quick enough. Nothing special and no complaints.
Screen Quality : I thought the screen is much better than S5 (in the store) and on par with the note 4. But my G2 has a different color temperature which I believe make whites look a little bluish where as S6 whites are yellowish. To me both are ok. But I really have to admit the additional pixels on S6 make no difference in picture quality (S6 vs G2). Really a 1080p screen would have been enough. To clarify I am not complaining, just my opinion. Viewing angles are good unlike G2 (LG's for that matter).
I have to tell you, normal people passing by with no phone knowledge would stop by and take a glimpse at the edge screen, They all seem to like it. Seems like edge is getting all the attention it deserves.
Build/Design: This is where S6 edge outshines every other phone in the market. In my opinion, till date this the best design ever period. I have seen some complaints about finger prints. It is not bad after all. Looks like white takes less finger prints than others. Excellent build quality and feels solid in hands. Thums up.
Single handed use: It can be used single handed with no issues. Menu is set up for single hand use which I really like. Although my hand is not very big it fit nicely in my hand. Not sure about the non-edge S6. Should be the same.
Speed This is one thing that is very crucial. All android phones I used so far tend to be fast initially but as I go adding/deleting apps and other files phone tends to get laggy. It really gets on my nerves. But even as a brand new phone they stutter at times. But with S6 it is blazing fast. No lag anywhere (at least I did not see). App drawer is a little slow to open. Samsung probably configured it to be slower on purpose. Some might misunderstand it to be a lag, just a heads up. Speed speed speed is what it is.
Camera: I need not specially tell you about the camera. There are expert reviews which claim this to be the best camera. Flawless. Double press on the menu opens the camera in split seconds which is very impressive.
I care less about the heart rate sensor so did not test it. Although I care about finger print scanner I could not test it because it is not my phone.
This is a big leap forward not just for Samsung but for android as a whole.
I was disappointed about the battery yesterday but liked it today and took some time to test all the features. I like the phone, will get one. White Color 32gb. AT&T.

tdphotos said:
the 32GB should have around 22-25GB available
and
the 64GB should have around 53-56GB available
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think he meant the true amount of RAM available. (Should be less than 3 GB)

Status bar maybe due to Lollipop. Its present on my Pure Edition Moto X and my Atrix HD running CM12.
Sent from my XT1095 using XDA Free mobile app

[UPDATE] HTC M8 to LG G4: My Honest Experience In-depth

PREFACE: I don't know when was the last time I used a non-rooted phone and a completely stock ROM. My last android devices were HTC Desire S > HTC One M7 > HTC One M8. So you can guess I am a big fan of HTC's build quality, sound quality, lately user interface etc. The only sector HTC couldn't shine for me, ever, was camera quality. It's not that their cameras are horrible, it's just that always there is something missing. M7 had pink tint issue & M8 camera used to take good pictures but Megapixel becomes an issue when u use a camera in day to day life. Well decision of joining LG league was a big leap for me. I am quite sure you all know all the little details & specs of G4, so I will not go for specs. Neither I am going to read the same script saying all the goods about G4 like many youtubers. I will share what experience I have gathered during my short time playing (almost 3 days) with LG G4. I will try to divide my each category into Pros & Cons. So let's begin.
1. BUILD:
Pros:
- Leather back has a good grip and attractive design.
- Feels slim in hand and maintains the curve of the face while talking.
- Big but not uncomfortable. In fact all those saying, this device is big but doesn't feel so, are 100% true. I have used HTC Desire 816 for a short time & I can ensure you G4 doesn't feel as big as 816.
Cons:
- As I am used to having cases on my previous devices, using without one makes me insecure sometimes dropping the phone, not due to slipperiness, but due to thin profile (which is not actually a bad thing).
- Doesn't feel as expansive as S6 Edge or M8, but doesn't feel cheap at all.
2. DISPLAY:
Pros:
- Very good quality - sharp & crisp.
- Good backlight in outdoors.
- Colour reproduction very accurate.
Cons:
- 720p videos looks dull. 1080p and above are ok.
3. CAMERA & GALLERY:
Pros:
- Everything you already know.
Cons:
- No Resolution choosing option.
- No 360 panaroma option.
- You have to touch right above the dialer for changing the manual control options, anywhere else will switch between front & back camera, which takes time to get used to as the dialer is not that wide.
- OIS very aggressive in video mode. Videos seem to be stretch at corners which is not very pleasant. Audio quality is not good enough too. Voice seems to have no depth.
- No option for choosing which albums you want to show in "Albums" section in gallery, so some random folders containing random images i.e. music folder, app folder show in the "Albums" and you cannot hide them which is possible in Sense gallery. One other tiny pick - when u open an image, all the options are on the upper part of the screen which is not accessible with one hand. It was located below the photo is Sense gallery. Otherwise gallery is a nice one.
4. AUDIO:
Pros:
- Loud & clear. I think louder than M8. One of the loudest and good quality speaker I have ever used in a smartphone.
- No problem enjoying youtube and music videos.
Cons:
- Not as clear as M8 in a very few occasions. (Not due to blocking by palm)
- Bass almost absent.
- Facing to the wrong direction.
- Not much appealing while listening to music on speaker.
5. CHARGING & BATTERY LIFE:
Pros:
- Only phone I have ever used which if I leave idly at 100%, after 2-3 hours I will get is back at 99-100%. (wifi & mobile data off, 1-2 calls maybe) Very much impressed with the stand by time of the G4.
Cons:
- Poor charging speed, even with the provided LG charger & cable. Fastest I have found when I switch off the phone. Couldn't try with any quick charger yet.
- Battery drains drastically even with only wifi (2mbps connection, don't lough, i know) as if it is connected to 3g mobile data connection. It's like 1% drain in 1-3 minutes. M8 was much better in such scenario. Some people, of course, saying that this condition improves over time. Can't verify though as never before used a LG phone.
[UPDATE: Switch off auto-brightness. You will see much improvement of the battery. Although I have changed my first device and brought another one & I actually found this device to be better in battery management than previous one. Sorry, not speaking scientifically though.]
[UPDATE 2: Charging problem seems to have solved in the newer device.]
6. HEATING ISSUE:
- Charge your phone first to 100% (switching off) right after you buy the phone.
- I have had serious heating issue for the first 2 days. It's not that it used to become untouchable, in fact you will feel no heat on the back, rather I lifted the phone to my cheek to talk, it almost made red flush on my cheek.
- Things seem to have improved now. I think heating issue will resolve automatically in time.
[UPDATE: As I exchanged my previous G4, new one seems not to have such heating issue from the get-go. Although I need to use it for a few more days to confirm.]
7. PERFORMANCE & UI:
a) Call quality & Phone app:
- Must tick the "noise suppression" & "voice clarity" option in "settings > call". Person hearing you will find significant improvement bcoz of this.
- Phone app doesn't seem quite bad. I was actually bragging on the fact that HTC Sense has the best intelligence in merging and organizing phone contacts. No AOSP or even Google's built-in phone app has the same level of intelligence. But LG seems to have done better with this (although not as good as HTC, but better than others).
- But no "Remove Duplicates" option is a bummer for me.
- Also no "Default Tab" option (i.e. whenever you open the app, a selected tab e.g. recent / dialer will open first) is a disadvantage for me.
- Rather than making a seperate dialer tab, if LG would make a dialer floating button like lollipop's stock dialer, IMO it would be better.
b) Messaging:
- Here's a quick tip. If you coming from a old phone & trying to recover all the messages by some app, at first merge your contacts in the people app. Otherwise your messaging app will freeze quite often.
- Messaging app seems quite nice.
- Customization options are very limited. Provided background wallpapers and bubbles are very childish. And you cannot apply new theme which is weird in 2015 where HTC & Samsung have gone far ahead in this segment.
c) RAM management:
- You will not be happy. I am not saying the phone will freeze now and then, but LG G4 is not doing well in this segment. Don't know it's Lg's or Lolllipop's fault.
[UPDATE: With my newer G4, didn't actually feel any lagging or difficulty yet. Although I didn't restore all my apps yet. I will update if anything changes.]
d) Performance issues: (updated)
- Sometimes misses a few taps. But I don't think it's any LCD issue. It seems to me that deafult ROM isn't as fluid as HTC's or Samsung's or Apple's. Maybe Lollipop has also something to do with it. But I definitey think this will improve in custom ROMs (if & when they will be available )
e) Other things:
- Missing Sense 7 very much. Nothing can beat the integrate themes in Sense 7. No idea why LG almost completely opted it. Yah theme is there, but very limited like IOS.
- And also missing "swipe to lock" feature. Many-a-times swiping the nav bar subconsciously.
- No root or unlock bootloader yet for my H815T. It's causing hell on me. I am not at all used to live with a unrooted locked phone. Evenn Helium doesn't quite work for LG G4.
Well I tried to cover as much and as precise as possible about my experience with G4. I think an update from LG can solve many of the issues and later stage custom ROMs can eliminate all the issues I have mentioned here as hardware-wise it is really a nice device. And LASTLY guys, if you think your device isn't performing well, go and change it, don't wait coz yah all devices may not same built. I have found significant improvement changing my older G4. Yah there may or may not be any scientific explanation, but it helps actually. Go & change yours if it seems lagging, charging slowly or overheating....
Thanks for reading. And share your thoughts.
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You must have a good one m8 and a bad G4. And i must have a bad one m8 gpe and a great G4. My stock rooted 5.1.1 m8 is a battery sucking stuttering pos. My G4 silky smooth battery sipping joy. My G4 is by far the smoothest phone I have ran to date.

I agree with some of what you've said. I used to be an HTC fanboi. I have used HTC flagships for the last 6 or 7 years. I only switched from the M8 to the G4 because the M9 wasn't worth the upgrade.
Personally I love the G4. Its a nice step up from the M8. Remember it's only been out a short time, and is still on it's initial release. When it's been tested in the public for a little time, LG will no doubt patch it to improve on things. Just give it some time.
I don't see any performance issues though. I have no delay when opening apps.

the_scotsman said:
I agree with some of what you've said. I used to be an HTC fanboi. I have used HTC flagships for the last 6 or 7 years. I only switched from the M8 to the G4 because the M9 wasn't worth the upgrade.
Personally I love the G4. Its a nice step up from the M8. Remember it's only been out a short time, and is still on it's initial release. When it's been tested in the public for a little time, LG will no doubt patch it to improve on things. Just give it some time.
I don't see any performance issues though. I have no delay when opening apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok tell me one thing. How much RAM is used most of the time on yr device? I can find it from the floating bubble of "clean master" & it normally never comes down to 85%. And one other thing, in battery usage what takes up the most of it? Mine is screen. Secondly System. Screen almost takes double battery than System all the time. Is it normal? I mean I wanna be sure that I don't have a defective device coz exchange will be easy here in my country.

nipun1110 said:
Ok tell me one thing. How much RAM is used most of the time on yr device? I can find it from the floating bubble of "clean master" & it normally never comes down to 85%. And one other thing, in battery usage what takes up the most of it? Mine is screen. Secondly System. Screen almost takes double battery than System all the time. Is it normal? I mean I wanna be sure that I don't have a defective device coz exchange will be easy here in my country.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Screen taking up the most battery is completely normal. The display uses more battery than anything else by a LONG way.
And by design Android will use most of the RAM available. It will leave apps sitting in memory, so they can be switched between quickly. It's not supposed to have a lot of spare free RAM. Free RAM is a waste in simple Android terms.

the_scotsman said:
Screen taking up the most battery is completely normal. The display uses more battery than anything else by a LONG way.
And by design Android will use most of the RAM available. It will leave apps sitting in memory, so they can be switched between quickly. It's not supposed to have a lot of spare free RAM. Free RAM is a waste in simple Android terms.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks a lot. But it seems to me whenever RAM crossing 87-88%, it starts stuttering.

the_scotsman said:
Screen taking up the most battery is completely normal. The display uses more battery than anything else by a LONG way.
And by design Android will use most of the RAM available. It will leave apps sitting in memory, so they can be switched between quickly. It's not supposed to have a lot of spare free RAM. Free RAM is a waste in simple Android terms.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
One other thing, can u say one thing that, I am using a Singapore/Australia model, ok?? Does it have anything to do with my battery drain?

That's nothing to do with it.
Howe low long have you had it? You'd have to post a screenshot of your power usage for us to comment on it further.

Same boat here. M8 to red leather G4. For now Im really liking the G4 in all but in two major aspects; one is the bad battery life compared to M8 (no more over 7hour screen on times ) and the other is bad audio quality. In audio it just cant match M8 neither on speaker (obviosly), headphones or bluetooth audio. I could live with the ok audio and loud but tinny speaker but the bt-audio streaming is something horrible :/. Cant listen to music from the phone in my car anymore . I dont have heat or bad lag issues but then again it might be the launcher and/or the other apps that I use dont cause that much lag. But I really really like the camera and the screen. Oh man if M9 had screen (not the resolution but the colors and outside readability) and camera like this I would have ordered it straight away.

Pyrres said:
Same boat here. M8 to red leather G4. For now Im really liking the G4 in all but in two major aspects; one is the bad battery life compared to M8 (no more over 7hour screen on times ) and the other is bad audio quality. In audio it just cant match M8 neither on speaker (obviosly), headphones or bluetooth audio. I could live with the ok audio and loud but tinny speaker but the bt-audio streaming is something horrible :/. Cant listen to music from the phone in my car anymore . I dont have heat or bad lag issues but then again it might be the launcher and/or the other apps that I use dont cause that much lag. But I really really like the camera and the screen. Oh man if M9 had screen (not the resolution but the colors and outside readability) and camera like this I would have ordered it straight away.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are having 7 hours screen on time??? OMG I am hardly getting 3.5 hours!!!!

the_scotsman said:
I agree with some of what you've said. I used to be an HTC fanboi. I have used HTC flagships for the last 6 or 7 years. I only switched from the M8 to the G4 because the M9 wasn't worth the upgrade.
Personally I love the G4. Its a nice step up from the M8. Remember it's only been out a short time, and is still on it's initial release. When it's been tested in the public for a little time, LG will no doubt patch it to improve on things. Just give it some time.
I don't see any performance issues though. I have no delay when opening apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How did you handle the transition from a more mature user interface ?
---------- Post added at 09:05 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:01 AM ----------
nipun1110 said:
OMG I am hardly getting 3.5 hours!!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What is your screen brightness set to indoors ? or is it on auto brightness.
liked the comparison with desire 816 for size, that one is so much bigger for the same screen.

People still use those memory cleaners?
That is what's causing your lag and battery drain.
Android is DESIGNED to keeps apps in memory to reduce cpu time to open it again. By cleaning the memory you are forcing the phone to do extra work that it normally wouldn't have to do when opening an app. Android will automatically clear memory that it needs to do something else.
Your phone will feel fastest and perform the best when your ram usage is between 50 and 80 percent.

nipun1110 said:
You are having 7 hours screen on time??? OMG I am hardly getting 3.5 hours!!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
With m8 the longest screen on time was over 14hours when reading a book inside with everything on and no battery savers on. Average was something like 5 hours. With G4 i get maybe 4-5hours SOT if Im careful. Oh and screen brightness is set to 65-70 with auto in both phones.
Sent from my LG-H815 using Tapatalk

I already exchanged the phone from the retailer with another one. Will check this one carefully. Right now doing the first charge switching off the phone. I will report later on. BTW I found avoiding autobrightness is a good option. Adjust the brightness whenever necessary.

And what is your usual setting indoors ? mention the number..
auto is the most efficient but its dimmer.

One Twelve said:
And what is your usual setting indoors ? mention the number..
auto is the most efficient but its dimmer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Check this link & u will find auto brightness is not that helpful, rather killing battery & I personally saw an improvement killing it.
http://www.androidpit.com/how-to-save-battery-life

Check this link for my at present battery update of New G4:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=61214824

nipun1110 said:
Check this link for my at present battery update of New G4:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=61214824
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, so you use your phone with a screen brightness of 50% indoors.
Some use more others use less. this plays a factor.
Good to see that you have noticed an improvement with the replacement but its annoying to have to exchange devices like this. You're not the only one, i've heard similar stories from a couple of others as well.

One Twelve said:
Ok, so you use your phone with a screen brightness of 50% indoors.
Some use more others use less. this plays a factor.
Good to see that you have noticed an improvement with the replacement but its annoying to have to exchange devices like this. You're not the only one, i've heard similar stories from a couple of others as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yah I have seen many posts of such. But I am really enjoying my new device. Even charging problem also solved. But man, u gotta switch off the auto brightness - take my opinion.

Good read. Glad some issues are fixed with the newer unit.
It is odd there is a fixed resolution with each ratio. But whatever, I leave it on 16x9 lol
Sent from my LG-H815