Database Users

[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

Z5 impressions so far

Some of my impressions after a few days of usage
- Very snappy and fast
- Screen is brilliant enough
- Design is beautiful, the graphite colour looks great
- The Camera is great just when you know it
- 23mpx should be improved a bit with manual ISO and better detail
- 8mpx is great
- They added colours to the contacts which makes scrolling through sms threads a bit
- There is more space available on the homescreen, one extra line compared to the Z2
- Buttons are great
- I just love the sound when talking - it's the best sounding Xperia in calls to date
- Stereo speakers are quite good too
- I don't like to have SIM and SD on the same tray, I can't put in/take out SD card without a reboot
- I still use it more than usual so I cannot fully comment on batt life
- I love the much faster charging now!
- As I mentioned earlier, I was disapponted with NFC/PCCompanion performance of Xperia Transfer, Cloud option did the trick
- Calendar sync (on a fresh deice) didn't work with all the cathegories
- Deleting sms theads is very fast now
- No problems with overheating
- So far it's a very very good phone, very sleek epxerience

It's good to hear that someone has something positive to say about the Z5. I agree with most of what you have to say too, but it seems like we're in a minority.

I don't think we're minority

I agree with above too.
Love the screen. Even coming from LG G3, the Sony screen smokes it in terms of colours and quality.
I think most the negatives are around when a phone launches. Problems occur during the build process. Even mine has a slight lighter part in the center of the screen on the back light. But it's not bad enough for me to care and take it back.
Sent from my E6653 using Tapatalk

Well need to say it - Z5 bring some problems with it BUT they dont make this model bad and sum of all cons and pros still made me choose it vs s6.
Phone is fast and feels "clean" compared to samsung devices.
The design is dmn nice and buttons position + screen position vs case size is a big + when u realise it was made this way intentionaly.
Lots of ppl say - waste of space ( space between phone edge and screen edge and buttons on screen not under ) when i play on it or type on it - its dmn easier to hold it.
I rly like the phone - even if expectations were a little bit higher.
I was thinking about s6 / edge, note 4, g4 and some others. If change i would probably try htc or huawei.
The only thing i would like to know is what is the real % of unhappy ppl cos of bad working / damaged z5 compared to s6 and others.

Thanks for the review kindly update us about battery life since i can relate (z2 user also) if im gonna go with z5 or stick to z2 and go z6. Since im now in a tight budget my first baby is about to come.
Sent from my D6503 using XDA Free mobile app

styxter said:
Thanks for the review kindly update us about battery life since i can relate (z2 user also) if im gonna go with z5 or stick to z2 and go z6. Since im now in a tight budget my first baby is about to come.
Sent from my D6503 using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd wait for Marshmallow before you take initial reactions on battery which means by then you may be better with Z6 [emoji1]
At moment I'm averaging about 3.5 hours SOT but lasting 24+ hours easy
Sent from my E6653 using Tapatalk

bryjenko said:
I'd wait for Marshmallow before you take initial reactions on battery which means by then you may be better with Z6 [emoji1]
At moment I'm averaging about 3.5 hours SOT but lasting 24+ hours easy
Sent from my E6653 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree with all those points above, it's a good phone. But the battery life is pretty bad compared to other Xperias. I would wait and see if marshmallow fixes it but I have doubts. The phone uses WAY too much power when it's in use - when it's in sleep mode it's fine, the same as my Z3. But in use it's about half the battery life I got on my Z3.

I've just downloaded qualcomm batteryguru don't know if it's any good or not it's still in learning mode, i'm really happy with my z5 but battery could be a bit better...
Sent from my Sony Z5 ooossshhhh

jeremy_inc said:
I agree with all those points above, it's a good phone. But the battery life is pretty bad compared to other Xperias. I would wait and see if marshmallow fixes it but I have doubts. The phone uses WAY too much power when it's in use - when it's in sleep mode it's fine, the same as my Z3. But in use it's about half the battery life I got on my Z3.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
coming from galaxy s4 and used to just make it through the day with normal use and got around 3.5 hrs sot max. with the z5 and the same use i end up with at least 50% left at the end of the day. 5.0 hrs sot is no problem.
i'm happy!

Yeah I think the battery at the moment is software related. I have no doubt we will see some improvements.
Sent from my E6653 using Tapatalk

Almost fine but they should fix the occassional stuttering of the UI and camera performance in low light / indoor + give the iso mode and others to each megapixel...

How are some people getting 5hr screen on time mine won't do much more than 3hrs?
Sent from my Sony Z5 ooossshhhh

I got 4:30 SOT.

What's your setup you using stamina mode? Screen brightness? Just trying to figure out if I've got a rogue app munching power thanks
Sent from my Sony Z5 ooossshhhh

wakers said:
What's your setup you using stamina mode? Screen brightness? Just trying to figure out if I've got a rogue app munching power thanks
Sent from my Sony Z5 ooossshhhh
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah I'm maxing sort of 3.5 to 4 with no battery saving efforts. Be keen to know what people are doing to get 5 hours too
Sent from my Xperia Z5

wakers said:
What's your setup you using stamina mode? Screen brightness? Just trying to figure out if I've got a rogue app munching power thanks
Sent from my Sony Z5 ooossshhhh
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I never use any Stamina. Brightness around 50%.
I always turn off internet adn wifi and bluetooth off when I don't use it.
I don't use neither push emails nor automatic notifications.
And some apps turned off...
I believe Snapchat or Instagram in the background also sucks juice,
so I force close these when the phone is just on standby.

doministry said:
I never use any Stamina. Brightness around 50%.
I always turn off internet adn wifi and bluetooth off when I don't use it.
I don't use neither push emails nor automatic notifications.
And some apps turned off...
I believe Snapchat or Instagram in the background also sucks juice,
so I force close these when the phone is just on standby.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Snapchat & Facebook are two worst apps for battery

Mano1982 said:
Snapchat & Facebook are two worst apps for battery
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mm, Facebook in my case was never ever a problem.

i have adaptive brightness on, with the slider in the default spot (half way). no stamina / savibg modes on. gps, wifi and bt always on and have 2 e-mail accounts pushing in the background.
i have deleted / turned off most sony crap, because i use google alternatives.
(still) manage to get 5 hrs.
info: black rev 4, still on 32.0.a.4.11

Z5C common issues

so guys i`m an owner of z3c a great phone but lacks the build quality and terrible camera...since i broke the screen i`m planing to jump to
samsung galaxy s6 its a premium tbh but i hate samsung.......or z5c both are same price to me....
so i`ve been following the post of Z5c on sony.talk.....and the amount of defected units is way too high..... them blurry images and rarely dead pixles but its more like 7 out of 10 with defected lens .....is it worth it to take the risk and get the z5c? or is there any more bugs found on this phone hope we can discuss it here even though i dont believe the camera is that great even if the phone is not defected

I'll just post my issues with the Z5 Compact:
- Auto-brightness is broken, unlocking the phone with enabled auto-brightness results in a bright display for a couple of seconds --> Sony said that it'll be fixed in the upcoming Marshmallow update
- Lags and inconsistent performance, disabling X-Reality helped a bit. It just doesn't feel like a fast phone, my old HTC One M8 was flying through the system. My brother has a Nexus 6p with the same processor and it feels much smoother, we compared them side by side (opening apps, loading websites).
- Music and Podcasts from different apps (Spotify, Shuttle+, Pocketcasts) are pausing every now and then (already repaired the phone with PC companion and did a manual factory reset, reformatted my external SD card)
- slow camera launch
- it takes a while to look at a taken picture
- active mobile radio bug --> will be fixed in the upcoming Marshmallow update, other Marshmallow phones confirmed that
- slow connection to wifi networks (exclamation mark in the statusbar)
- many bloatware apps from Sony (luckily they can be disabled)
Overall im quite disappointed by this phone because of its lackluster firmware performance. I'm hoping Marshmallow fixes the most annoxing bugs (broken auto-brightness is a pain), if not I'm selling it. I like the slim UI, the design of this phone and the camera. My photos are thankfully not blurred.

I've got Z1c, Z5c and S6. If you love small size, Z5c is the only option. The current problem is software not mature, not to the level you can't real use it as a daily driver but enough to annoy you. We are waiting for MM to fix. Me and my friend both owned Z5c and our lens no blur.
S6 two big issues, other than that it's good. First is poor memory management during heavy multi-tasking(light use okay) and second thing is bad color reproduction(over saturation and too much contrast, auto exposure isn't as accurate) compared to Z1c/Z5c. But I know Z3c white balance is quite buggy even worse than Z1/Z2 line.
I always take photo so camera is most important to me and I tend to stick with Z1c/Z5c and going to sell out my S6 soon. But S6 camera is extremely quick and OIS is useful, for the point and shoot purpose no doubt better than Sony but I just can't use it to shoot out any decent photo though S6 camera got little more details but color is too wrong. Casual user may more welcome S6 camera bcoz they just want speedy.
The current problem on Z5 camera is high ISO bad and 4K focus/quality at low-light even worse than my Z1c. But the focus is decent, slightly slower than S6 but blows Z1c/Z3c. Color and exposure is improved too, I'll say the best I've ever seen. However, if the upcoming MM not fix all issues, I'm thinking to stick with Z1c for a little bit more time and wait Z6c/Z7c.

To be honest I expected the z5c to suck when I bought it.
Marshmallow wasn't out yet and to me, it looks like the best strategy for sony would be to release ****ty software because MM update would come soon anyway.
Unfortunately, I'm very dissapointed, I agree that the phone is laggy and tend to get way too hot. Batterylife is worse than Z3C. (I could easily last two days, one day is even an issue on this phone) The MM update should have hit the Z5 family end December at latest.
I still have hopes for MM, if you could wait three weeks I would, let's see how it works out. (but somewhere it already feels like I'm going to get dissapointed, I had such high hopes for Sony but I feel betrayed by them)

30min Wifi Skype call, temperature reached: 50°C.
So consider also that in some situations the phone overheats easily

Wait to see if mm fixes the problems. I went from z3c to z5c. Not very happy. So my tip is to wait for some weeks

KingKonga said:
I'll just post my issues with the Z5 Compact:
- Auto-brightness is broken, unlocking the phone with enabled auto-brightness results in a bright display for a couple of seconds --> Sony said that it'll be fixed in the upcoming Marshmallow update
- Lags and inconsistent performance, disabling X-Reality helped a bit. It just doesn't feel like a fast phone, my old HTC One M8 was flying through the system. My brother has a Nexus 6p with the same processor and it feels much smoother, we compared them side by side (opening apps, loading websites).
- Music and Podcasts from different apps (Spotify, Shuttle+, Pocketcasts) are pausing every now and then (already repaired the phone with PC companion and did a manual factory reset, reformatted my external SD card)
- slow camera launch
- it takes a while to look at a taken picture
- active mobile radio bug --> will be fixed in the upcoming Marshmallow update, other Marshmallow phones confirmed that
- slow connection to wifi networks (exclamation mark in the statusbar)
- many bloatware apps from Sony (luckily they can be disabled)
Overall im quite disappointed by this phone because of its lackluster firmware performance. I'm hoping Marshmallow fixes the most annoxing bugs (broken auto-brightness is a pain), if not I'm selling it. I like the slim UI, the design of this phone and the camera. My photos are thankfully not blurred.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
From reading the forums it seems to me that the quality of the z5c handsets Sony has put out is pretty uneven, from poor quality control, different build lines, different rev versions or...?
I'm overall happy, no issues of lags, reboots or the like.
Keep mobile data off almost always so not affected by active mobile radio bug, which is really an Android issue more than a Sony issue if I understand it correctly.
No issues with music or podcasts, listen to pods a lot.
No issues with overheating, it does get quite warm occasionally with heavy use but nothing really bothersome. (I don't play games or shoot video.)
Generally happy with camera, no blur issues, no slow launch issues, though watching pictures/launching album from within camera is really slow. I'm not a keen photographer or a very exigent user of the camera, understand from others there are issues of software limiting the hardware. Definitely could do better in low light.
Agree on the bloatware, have disabled most and wish more was possible. Then again, compared to Samsung or most other manufacturers...
So the issues I have are:
- auto brightness bug, common to all z5 and acknowledged by Sony a long time ago. Disappointing it takes months to issue an upgrade or patch.
- wifi management is confusing. Without Stamina mode wifi keeps turning off in standby/sleep, though I have it set to always keep on. With Stamina mode it stays conected?? Seems counterintuitive. Also occasionally it keeps turning off even then, can't understand why?
- I want to keep wifi always on when connected to a known network, off when no network. Previously Sony had a bundled app, Location based wifi, which took care of it and worked really well. Disappointed they no longer include it, after trying several third party apps I believe I have found one that works.
- battery capacity is ok, not great, but only(?) without mobile data on. Regularly get 6+ hours on screen time which isn't bad, more would be better.
- finger print sensor works poorly and irregularly. Apart from not working if fingers are dirty or damp, which is ok and expected, it works poorly in general. I have five fingers saved, it works well with one of them in certain angles, less so with another finger and very poorly on others. Frustratingly, when I press lock key only to look at time without wanting to unlock it often does just that, more frequently than when i do want to unlock.
Size, ergonomics, hardware quality, waterproof certifications - I'm real happy and see few if any competitors on the market. Software could be better and updates much more frequent, but apart from above mentioned issues my phone is quick and snappy, no lags. Pleased with the general UI, but wish more customization was possible and more bloatware was optional or uninstallable.

Regarding poor performance of fingerprint sensor it seems, thanks to michal89chz, that I have found a solution. I had tried to re-register fingerprints before without seeing much of a difference. It seems that registering a fingerprint in all kinds of different angles greatly improves the performance of the sensor, now hit rate has gone up from 4/10 to 9/10. If it keeps up take that off the list of complaints. Though Sony ought to have made it clear in the settings when you first register your prints that this procedure is necessary for a good performance.

Heres my take.
The camera is better than z3c when ready but takes so long to launch that the moment is usually gone long before the phone is ready.
Oh and from time to time the camera won't launch because according to the error message some other app is using it. I've only been able to solve that issue by rebooting adding insult to injury for the already ridiculous camera launch times.
Thats really the only advantage.
It gets way hotter and lags like crazy seemingly at random.
My guess is that Snapdragon 810 is just a piece of **** and I hope Sony makes a z6c with 820 which i will happily buy..
I'm so frustrated that Samsung S7 starts to look good but it's bigger than the HTC One m7 and I found that too big

FlipFlopHHJ said:
Heres my take.
The camera is better than z3c when ready but takes so long to launch that the moment is usually gone long before the phone is ready.
Oh and from time to time the camera won't launch because according to the error message some other app is using it. I've only been able to solve that issue by rebooting adding insult to injury for the already ridiculous camera launch times.
Thats really the only advantage.
It gets way hotter and lags like crazy seemingly at random.
My guess is that Snapdragon 810 is just a piece of **** and I hope Sony makes a z6c with 820 which i will happily buy..
I'm so frustrated that Samsung S7 starts to look good but it's bigger than the HTC One m7 and I found that too big
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try Xperia X Performance

About that auto brightness bug, you guys could try Velis Auto Brightness app from Play Store, works great for me.

- Auto Brightness bug here. (I can't believe I'm using Manual Brightness in a 2015 hi-end phone).
- Poor picture quality with the camera with low or medium light and with close/mid pictures, specially close-ups. (In general, the camera is terrible is the worst thing of this phone, the main reason I can't wait to upgrade the phone. Never used flash in two years with my previous phone with HDR+, now I need flash again to see some details at MEDIUM light!!).
- Performance issues, mainly because of Lollipop. But also they'll need to improve the kernel.
----
I do not have any reboots issues, nor temperature problems.

KingKonga said:
I'll just post my issues with the Z5 Compact:
- Auto-brightness is broken, unlocking the phone with enabled auto-brightness results in a bright display for a couple of seconds --> Sony said that it'll be fixed in the upcoming Marshmallow update
- Lags and inconsistent performance, disabling X-Reality helped a bit. It just doesn't feel like a fast phone, my old HTC One M8 was flying through the system. My brother has a Nexus 6p with the same processor and it feels much smoother, we compared them side by side (opening apps, loading websites).
- Music and Podcasts from different apps (Spotify, Shuttle+, Pocketcasts) are pausing every now and then (already repaired the phone with PC companion and did a manual factory reset, reformatted my external SD card)
- slow camera launch
- it takes a while to look at a taken picture
- active mobile radio bug --> will be fixed in the upcoming Marshmallow update, other Marshmallow phones confirmed that
- slow connection to wifi networks (exclamation mark in the statusbar)
- many bloatware apps from Sony (luckily they can be disabled)
Overall im quite disappointed by this phone because of its lackluster firmware performance. I'm hoping Marshmallow fixes the most annoxing bugs (broken auto-brightness is a pain), if not I'm selling it. I like the slim UI, the design of this phone and the camera. My photos are thankfully not blurred.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 all the above..
Exactly my thoughts. This is the worst phone you can buy.. Mostly due to software issues.. I was trying to record a video. I opened the app and hit record button and i lost initial 10 seconds of the footage. Thats how worst camera launch time is.
It gets way hotter for everyday tasks. I dont game on my phone still super hot. Lags all the time. Multitasking is terrible. Even if i have 3-4 apps running in background i experienced google maps reloading a couple of times which is terrible.
Wifi is slow as well and music pauses randomly as it wishes. Sometimes bluetooth studdering.. I thought battery life was good initially but it became worse.
This is the worst ever phone from sony. I have a z3c before which is way better despite of its short comings

thanks a lot everyone on your replies i`v read it carefully thanks for helping me to decide <3
after today MWC and the the release of X series and the overpriced phones i think its time to step aside from sony but my heart will always be there Thanks for sharing your experience and being 100% honest
i`ll wait till M.M but its also gonna take few weeks according to sony statement today then i`ll come back here and check your feedback it will help everyone

Tinup93 said:
thanks a lot everyone on your replies i`v read it carefully thanks for helping me to decide <3
after today MWC and the the release of X series and the overpriced phones i think its time to step aside from sony but my heart will always be there Thanks for sharing your experience and being 100% honest
i`ll wait till M.M but its also gonna take few weeks according to sony statement today then i`ll come back here and check your feedback it will help everyone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if you are going for a Galaxy S6, I'd rather go for a Nexus 5X. You won't have the size and the battery you have with the Z3C....but in everything else is a win. And it's not an expensive phone.
There are no alternatives to the Z5C at the moment in the compact range. It's the only one I'd buy (and I still don't like it).

I don't have lag or overheating. It's quite hot sometimes but still in a manageable level, don't forget every SD810 phone is hot. But I rooted and using Greenify with xposed so I have more free ram than non-root user and I also flashed Tommy-Geenexus's kernel which lower downed the cpu speed to reduce heat. I think MM will improve big.Little cpu for who experienced lag. In my opinions, z1c z5c s6 the battery performance during use is very similar, not as good as z3c but still enough for normal use. My problem on Z5c is battery drain during idle/standby, after flashed the raidoactivefix xposed module been improved but still worse than z1c and s6 at overnight standby.
Some have bluetooth disconnect issues, after used Amplify xposed module to limit a whole beach of wakelock/alarms my Sony MW600 handfree finally suffer from this issue so it may related somethings bad coded to keep DDOS attacking BT devices....lol... On the other hand, my Sony SmartWatch2 seems never get disconnection, maybe smartwatch's cpu is strong enough to defense spam.
What's the most annoyed me is camera. Low light photo is also good but not above 160/200iso range. 200iso already started a bit bad so most people will just said the camera suck. Within 160iso the quality real better than my Z1c, 200 or up my Z1c even performed better in terms of details. My Z1c with 4K mod doing better focus and quality too.
Not real intended to leave Z5c as I like the better screen, white balance and fast focus, I still want to hold Z5c at this time. But since the result is so mixed to me, if MM not fix it, I will stay with Z1c and get some cash back.

I've seen a few issues as well, I've got a white international with no camera blur and no self cracking screen (yet).
I have to have a one thumb phone so my options were limited. I had an s4 mini for going on 3 years, best phone I've ever had. I always wanted to try the z compacts but the z1c didn't have LTE and the z3c had stupid side charging. I gave the z5c a chance with low expectations based on all the negative I heard, and I was still disappointed lol. I will probably be settling with the s5 mini but until I'll be playing with this.
Very short battery life, no replaceable battery, and no wireless charging. Nothing that I didn't know jumping into it but still hard to deal with having to answer calls while on a charger, let alone the heat on my face is almost unbearable at times.
Camera issues are also something I knew before hand, I am coming from an 8mp camera with a broken lens so it's an upgrade to me. But yet the lag has got to be a joke. Right?
Software is kind of cool, reminds me of miui a bit on the notifications, it's miles above touchwiz, and with some xposed tweaks I think I'll really like the home launcher! Root and xposed are a huge deal to me for some of my apps so I'm still carrying my other device for that need while I figure out xposed on the z5 line. I have had a lot of rooted phones and for you guys waiting and relying on a MM update to fix things... I wouldn't and wont be, there will just be new or slightly fixed issues. Happens every time lol
All in all I like the phone, the form is great, button layout I love, and the screen hopefully will not fade out like my other amoleds! Hopefully we can get some cm12 on this platform to play with soon.

E5823 said:
Regarding poor performance of fingerprint sensor it seems, thanks to michal89chz, that I have found a solution. I had tried to re-register fingerprints before without seeing much of a difference. It seems that registering a fingerprint in all kinds of different angles greatly improves the performance of the sensor, now hit rate has gone up from 4/10 to 9/10. If it keeps up take that off the list of complaints. Though Sony ought to have made it clear in the settings when you first register your prints that this procedure is necessary for a good performance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hate quoting myself, but when necessary...
Fingerprint sensor has not kept up performance. Just like when phone was new, it works like a charm for a day or two, then regresses badly. I don't know if problem is hardware or software, and don't much care except I guess the latter would be better - if they ever manage to release an update (that actually improves things without introducing more bugs than were fixed...).
Anyway, the sensor now works slightly better than before I re-registered all prints a couple of days ago. Hit rate is somewhere between 5-6/10 depending on angle and finger, but sometimes much worse. Not great. And no, phone or fingers are not grimy. One advantage of water-almost-proofness is you can wash off phone now and again. I'm guessing intent of including fingerprint sensor was not for user to wash fingers and phone before every interaction?

I sorta like that the fingerprint sensor doesn't catch 100% touches because I read about people who were irritated that they were just trying to check the time and every time ended up unlocking the phone. It doesn't happen with me and I'm very happy with it, I can live with the extra half second it takes to try again.

From my point of view, i'd like to agree that some of issues mentioned above are present. Those are:
-Poor camera quality. For me the camera is not an essential feature, so i don't complain, but it is really nowhere near the flagship-quality, imho
-Fingerprint scanner performance. It seems to be extremely sensitive about its own and finger's cleanness. It can work just fine for a half a day and then it suddenly rejects the fingerprint for several times. This is my first and only android-based device with the scanner, so i can't compare with sony's direct competitors, but i never experienced such issues using any of apple devices with fingerprint sensor.
-Auto-brightness issues are completely described in posts above, i totally agree with all that.
-Software was unstable for a couple of months after sales launched. As i said, i don't often use a camera, but there was just one time in autumn when it was necessary for me to record a video. And z5c captured no sound at all. The mic that time was not functional at any applications, and i noticed this an hour later when a person who called me could hear no sound from my side. That was extremely disappointing. Some random reboots were present in early versions of firmware too. It get much better and more stable these days, but some minor software issues can still be noticed now and then.
And then here comes the major issue of them all: z5c just doesn't like winter. It was about -10 celsius outside, and i was there for a couple of hours with a phone in the pocket of my jacket. When i returned home, i saw that the glass on rear panel had a massive crack:
http://cs630129.vk.me/v630129131/11b31/QE0b_6WL5dU.jpg
And this issue with glasses cracking when temperature is low is present on every sony's device with glass on its back since the original xperia z. Every winter there are dozens of reports about glass-related problems on our local pda forums, sony's local office was awared of the problem, so there were hopes that they will fix it in their latest models. Here comes z5, and nothing changed. Those issues are covered by warranty as long as warranty lasts (1 year usually), so i didn't have to pay for the repair, but it took some time to replace the glass.

Some Questions from users of X compact

Hey guys
I am deciding to buy a Xperia X compact soon so I have some questions I hope those who baught this phone already would answer me
1.how is the display quality in comparison to Galaxy S6(I have this currently)
I really like it when everything is floating on the surface and there is no gap between dispay and my finger touching it.
2.can you get antutu 6 and geekbench scores? I wanna compare it to z5c and x
3.which one has a more beautiful back, the black or the white?!
4.how much do you see lags(even minor ones) in the normal usage?!
5.how much does it take to go from 100% battery charge to 10% and on what usage?!
and also how long does it take to charge from 10to100 !?
(I never let these phones go under 10 cause it damages the battery )
i know there might be some reviews soon on youtube and gsmarena but i want to know the answer sooner
thank you

Hey everyone, just wanted some feedback regarding an issue I began having this week with my X Compact.
Issue: The phone is not as responsive during the unlocking process as it once was. I used to simply swipe to unlock and the phone would immediately unlock with a simple swiping motion. Now, the phone requires a harder swipe before it unlocks.
Any ideas?
Facts: 1) Smartlock is activated, 2) Phone has not been dropped or been damaged by water, 3) No other hardware or software issues are a concern at the moment, 4) The lock screen option is on "Swipe", 5) Phone is running the latest software (November security update), and 6) the regular Sony launcher is being used.
Any suggestions are appreciated.
Thank you

I havent experienced any lag, the phone is smooth and responsive.
Display is great for its size. 720 isnt an issue to me. Brightness is good in daylight. Colors are accurate and blacks are more black than I've seen on ips lcd displays.
I get regularly 5hr sot. To charge to 100,depends if you have the battery care enabled or not. It learns your charging habits. During the night it'll charge slowly so it gets to 100% just before you unplug from the wall. You can turn it off and it'll charge quicker at the expense of some extra heat. They have battery care to prolong the battery life.
Here are benchmarks, close to 810 performance

In my opinion camera could be better. I had Z3c, Z5c and now Xc and image quality was degrading, especially when there is not enough light.

I also had the z3c and now the X compact and while I never actually tested the X properly, I know that I've been disappointed with the z3c's camera. On paper it had a great camera, in actual use it felt a bit crappy. I miss the design of my z3c though, one of the most beautiful phones I've ever had, even compared to the Xc.

I have the XZ and the X Compact and neither of them lag at all, performance...at least for me... feels exactly the same.
I do not use social media apps or video games at all, so your experience May differ.
( I only use the pre-installed Sony and Google applications, and always disable or uninstall Facebook)
Zero lag.
When it comes to battery, I keep my screen brightness pretty high at 90% bright, and today I've been using the X compact mostly on trains in Seoul, so I'm sure my reception is off and on between OK and poor....
... after two and a half hours of screen on time I'm down to 69% battery, continuous non-stop use between the browser and the Gmail app.

DZH1 said:
I have the XZ and the X Compact and neither of them lag at all, performance...at least for me... feels exactly the same.
I do not use social media apps or video games at all, so your experience May differ.
( I only use the pre-installed Sony and Google applications, and always disable or uninstall Facebook)
Zero lag.
When it comes to battery, I keep my screen brightness pretty high at 90% bright, and today I've been using the X compact mostly on trains in Seoul, so I'm sure my reception is off and on between OK and poor....
... after two and a half hours of screen on time I'm down to 69% battery, continuous non-stop use between the browser and the Gmail app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the response. Yeah I am not sure what to think about this lag when unlocking. It is frustrating though. I compared my Z1 Compact to the X Compact, when unlocking, and the Z1 is much more responsive.

One week with the Redmi Note 4

Received my RN4 last week, and after spending a week with it I am definitely impressed.
Observations
1. Battery life is the phone's strongest suit. Can definitely get even better SOT if I was more careful using this thing, but fact is this is the first phone I've owned that I only need to charge once a day. (See attachment for SOT)
2. Build quality is solid as well, but definitely not top notch. Seams can still felt, and SIM tray is a bit hard to push in.
3. Display is great. Nothing out of the ordinary.
4. Helio X20 is a solid chip, but Javascript performance is underwhelming. Does not appear to have many benefits over the SD650.
5. Camera is underwhelming, quality is around the level of the Moto X 2014, but PD focus is quick and accurate, unlike the CDAF on the X14.
6. MIUI is not as intrusive as most Western media will have you believe, but I do not like the aggressiveness with which it kills background processes. GSam Battery monitor doesnt work reliably as it always gets kicked.
7. One handed usage is poor. The next model could definitely use smaller bezels on the X axis.
8. I got an update last week for "bug fixes", but was strangely 1.3GB big and took over an hour to download and install.
Overall, for $200, I'm definitely impressed. Can't say I feel a noticeable performance difference with my last phone, the Galaxy S7. Only place I can feel I got what I paired for is the camera.

AB__CD said:
Received my RN4 last week, and after spending a week with it I am definitely impressed.
Observations
1. Battery life is the phone's strongest suit. Can definitely get even better SOT if I was more careful using this thing, but fact is this is the first phone I've owned that I only need to charge once a day. (See attachment for SOT)
2. Build quality is solid as well, but definitely not top notch. Seams can still felt, and SIM tray is a bit hard to push in.
3. Display is great. Nothing out of the ordinary.
4. Helio X20 is a solid chip, but Javascript performance is underwhelming. Does not appear to have many benefits over the SD650.
5. Camera is underwhelming, quality is around the level of the Moto X 2014, but PD focus is quick and accurate, unlike the CDAF on the X14.
6. MIUI is not as intrusive as most Western media will have you believe, but I do not like the aggressiveness with which it kills background processes. GSam Battery monitor doesnt work reliably as it always gets kicked.
7. One handed usage is poor. The next model could definitely use smaller bezels on the X axis.
8. I got an update last week for "bug fixes", but was strangely 1.3GB big and took over an hour to download and install.
Overall, for $200, I'm definitely impressed. Can't say I feel a noticeable performance difference with my last phone, the Galaxy S7. Only place I can feel I got what I paired for is the camera.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the feedback, I also have an S7 and on the verge of selling to buy either the note 4 or the redmi pro. I know it will generally be a downgrade especially in terms of camera as nothing can touch the S7. But it seems a great device and would let me free up some cash. The redmi pro seems to have a better camera than the RN4 although a bit gimmicky with its dual cams, but both pack nice builds and big batteries. Although I think the RN4's finger print scanner looks better and is in a better location, I'm not really that impressed with the S7's as it still needs to be pushed and isn't that accurate. How do you find audio quality over say a pair of headphones compared to the S7?
Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

gsmyth said:
Thanks for the feedback, I also have an S7 and on the verge of selling to buy either the note 4 or the redmi pro. I know it will generally be a downgrade especially in terms of camera as nothing can touch the S7. But it seems a great device and would let me free up some cash. The redmi pro seems to have a better camera than the RN4 although a bit gimmicky with its dual cams, but both pack nice builds and big batteries. Although I think the RN4's finger print scanner looks better and is in a better location, I'm not really that impressed with the S7's as it still needs to be pushed and isn't that accurate. How do you find audio quality over say a pair of headphones compared to the S7?
Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Very loud, and decently clean and crisp too. There seems to be some decent audio equipment on this thing, both speakers and headphone, and I suspect there may be a discrete DAC on this, impressive for a $200 device. I went for the RN4 over the Pro for one reason and one reason only: there is an official global ROM out for this phone, while the Pro would require me to install GP package through a third-party solution.
I can definitely say that the FPS is way better on the back. Very accurate, and as long as I don't give it some super-weird angle it authenticates me without fail, quicker and more accurately than the S7.

AB__CD said:
Very loud, and decently clean and crisp too. There seems to be some decent audio equipment on this thing, both speakers and headphone, and I suspect there may be a discrete DAC on this, impressive for a $200 device. I went for the RN4 over the Pro for one reason and one reason only: there is an official global ROM out for this phone, while the Pro would require me to install GP package through a third-party solution.
I can definitely say that the FPS is way better on the back. Very accurate, and as long as I don't give it some super-weird angle it authenticates me without fail, quicker and more accurately than the S7.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great that's good to hear, I assumed there was a global rom for the pro but must have been something else I seen. I had a feeling the finger print scanner was better, I do find the S7's quite fussy and a lot of times I exceed the try limit and have to wait 30 secs[emoji34].
I really do appreciate the camera on the S7, although from the reviews I've watched the RN4 seems to have very quick auto focus and capture speeds. It obviously seems to suffer in low light but no phone is immune from this really only to lesser extents. I generally take most photos outside in good conditions anyway and usually of the kids where a quick shutter is needed. The camera app also seems fast to launch as well which again is an important to be able to snap photos quickly.
Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

Wich rom are you using? Do you root it?

gsmyth said:
Great that's good to hear, I assumed there was a global rom for the pro but must have been something else I seen. I had a feeling the finger print scanner was better, I do find the S7's quite fussy and a lot of times I exceed the try limit and have to wait 30 secs[emoji34].
I really do appreciate the camera on the S7, although from the reviews I've watched the RN4 seems to have very quick auto focus and capture speeds. It obviously seems to suffer in low light but no phone is immune from this really only to lesser extents. I generally take most photos outside in good conditions anyway and usually of the kids where a quick shutter is needed. The camera app also seems fast to launch as well which again is an important to be able to snap photos quickly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Fingerprint scanner really is great. Worlds better than the S7. Location isn't always ideal for when the phone is on a table top, but it is great when pulling the phone out of the pocket. I suspect that the only way to solve this is give people two Fingerprint scanners
Camera launches quickly and focus is reliable. Better than my 2014 Moto X ever was. Shutter is not as fast as the reviews make it out to be, but that may be because I have HDR on Auto, and HDR photos do take a while to process. Outside photos are reasonably crisp, inside the noise starts to become uncontrollable. Remember to go to Settings and select image quality "High" and enable "Enhance lowlight pictures automatically" when you get this phone. Hugely important, as the default Medium setting is too aggressive in compressing.

AB__CD said:
Received my RN4 last week, and after spending a week with it I am definitely impressed.
Observations
1. Battery life is the phone's strongest suit. Can definitely get even better SOT if I was more careful using this thing, but fact is this is the first phone I've owned that I only need to charge once a day. (See attachment for SOT)
2. Build quality is solid as well, but definitely not top notch. Seams can still felt, and SIM tray is a bit hard to push in.
3. Display is great. Nothing out of the ordinary.
4. Helio X20 is a solid chip, but Javascript performance is underwhelming. Does not appear to have many benefits over the SD650.
5. Camera is underwhelming, quality is around the level of the Moto X 2014, but PD focus is quick and accurate, unlike the CDAF on the X14.
6. MIUI is not as intrusive as most Western media will have you believe, but I do not like the aggressiveness with which it kills background processes. GSam Battery monitor doesnt work reliably as it always gets kicked.
7. One handed usage is poor. The next model could definitely use smaller bezels on the X axis.
8. I got an update last week for "bug fixes", but was strangely 1.3GB big and took over an hour to download and install.
Overall, for $200, I'm definitely impressed. Can't say I feel a noticeable performance difference with my last phone, the Galaxy S7. Only place I can feel I got what I paired for is the camera.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have been using RN4 for 2 weeks. And I do agree most of the views.
1. Battery: it seems not that good if you care about the numbers. But the overall performance is pretty good. Playing some 3d games with performance for an hour costs less than 10%.
2. CPU: I don't think this is a big leap as I can't from Nexus 5. The performance is not overkill. And I don't feel anything is super smooth. I guess the reason is that 10 cores are still to much for an Android system to operate with. I doubt the kernel fully utilizes the CPU.
3. Camera: don't expect much on it even though they claimed it's 16MP. The quality is quite glitchy in my opinion. If you really care about the quality of the camera on your phone, consider carefully. Despite the quality, the speed is fine as the focus, HDR and burst mode work perfectly fine.
4. MIUI: I just want a CM. That's it.
5. Price: this is the most pulling reason for me to buy this. You can just switch to a new one if this breaks somehow. :laugh:

Hello.
My name is Gabriel, from Romania.
I have a redminote 4 since 25 october 2016.
Since yesterday it doesn't display, in the upper right corner, the icon for mobile data - you know, the H, or H+, or 4G or 3G, next to mobile network signal icon.
The mobile data connection is working good, but the fact that the phone is connected to mobile data is not displayed any more.
Is there any setting for this?
Thanks.

Gabriel Sbircea said:
Hello.
My name is Gabriel, from Romania.
I have a redminote 4 since 25 october 2016.
Since yesterday it doesn't display, in the upper right corner, the icon for mobile data - you know, the H, or H+, or 4G or 3G, next to mobile network signal icon.
The mobile data connection is working good, but the fact that the phone is connected to mobile data is not displayed any more.
Is there any setting for this?
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you solve this? Are you on the global rom?
Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

No.
I had the intention to perform a factory reset during this weekend, but I didn't, I was too busy with other things.
And yes, is the Global ROM - I have Romanian language (not only...)
Thanks.

Gabriel Sbircea said:
No.
I had the intention to perform a factory reset during this weekend, but I didn't, I was too busy with other things.
And yes, is the Global ROM - I have Romanian language (not only...)
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A factory reset is probably the best option take first although it is a pain having to backup/ set everything up again.
Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 video review

Originalas said:
Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 video review
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Thanks will watch this later.
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gsmyth said:
Did you solve this? Are you on the global rom?
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Hello
I have black screen with my Redmi Note 4 but led of charge work have you some ideas how can i solve this issue?
Thanks

2 weeks here...
I bought the Redmi Note 4 - S625 32 GB version as a replacement for another phone from another vendor, my old phone had the same hardware configuration, but was greatly lagging on performance, battery life and customization.
I have long decided on the Redmi, and have gone through several resources and reviews online, and was so far satisfied with what I read.
I was able to buy it at a discounted price in Egypt (USD 160), this is of course not a bargain for the global price, yet locally it was good compared to other similar devices.
I'll go through every aspect of my experience with the phone and provide you with my conclusion in the end.
The phone comes in a small box compared to other phones of the same size, the phone fits in exactly, with the charger and the charging cable, the extra space could've been better used to add earphones to the bundle, something Xiaomi should consider in the future, is to throw in one of their premium earphones.
The phone size is slim and nice to hold, something that counts for it, considering the huge 4100mA battery, I was unfortunate to buy the black edition, which is very prone to fingerprints and you can never keep it clean, let alone it also seemed scratch prone, I didn't want to risk it therefore the first thing I had to do was to go for a silicon cover.
Also the screen glass is clear with smooth edges, and gives the phone a very elegant look, yet I read it's not gorilla glass, so I had to go for a glass screen protector.
The screen is large enough with some bevel edges that could be improved in the future.
The dual SIM slot is an amazing idea, yet with a bit of better design I guess we can squeeze in a place for a memory card.
The camera and fingerprint sensor are very well placed and nice to use, having the camera non-protruding is a good design point, protecting the camera cover from scratches.
I don't mind the camera being 13MP, it has a clear quality, works well with the camera app, and is quiet responsive, I've seen cameras with higher resolution, but were a pain to operate, so good job Xiaomi.
The screen is clear and pleasant to use, I have even use it to watch movies using a VR box with no problems, it is also quiet visible in the sun with bright colors.
One thing I really liked about this phone, is its battery life, I guess Xiaomi went to great effort to squeeze much power into the battery space, and to optimize the power use by applications, clearly there is a power optimization software layer added to the OS to perform this well, I am a heavy user, having the phone in hand all day with the screen on, reading, watching videos, and streaming internet videos and music in the car all day, using maps and GPS applications, and acting as a Wi-Fi hotspot. Still at night, before sleeping, I plug the charger while the phone is at 40%, keeping me assured that even if I forget to charge the phone, it will remain there for another day of moderate use. BATTERY LIFE ON THIS PHONE IS AMAZING.
I have seen people complain that it doesn’t have a fast charging capability, yet it's no problem with a phone that can withhold its charge for two days.
The good thing about this phone is that it has all connectivity features of other similar phones, except for the NFC, which is becoming a defacto nowadays, though the FM radio is good and launches without any headphone connected, however the lack of RDS is a bit annoying, in addition to the fact that the radio interface is boring and non-themeable, I have posted this suggestion in the MIUI forum.
Software performance on this phone is amazing, and the dual app capability is extra nice, it is better than having the second space activated, specially with the availability of individual app locking capability, I can have my work and personal applications in the same space, while giving my work applications the necessary security level required. This beats all other phones offering second space while hogging the memory and system resources, and affecting the performance.
Also Xiaomi's keeping to its promise of a very responsive MIUI, even with an alternative launcher (I'll come to that later), I'm getting a very good performance, no launch delays, no botchy performance, etc... Which shows that enough effort has been put into OS optimization.
I haven't tried installing a custom OS yet, and this is mainly due to the fact that the factory OS is very well performing and doesn't need further optimization, till now!!
I had to resort to installing a third party launcher (Nova Launcher), since I didn't really like the way MIUI launcher treats the applications, without an application drawer, desktops can become really cluttered, specially that I always test new apps and remove them regularly. This may be convenient for iPhone users, but a no no in our Android world, Xiaomi should reconsider.
A nice addition to the UI is the floating ball, it comes with useful shortcuts, but to change them you have to dig deep into the settings, certainly there should be a better way to do this, still it is a good addition.
The screenshot shortcut saves a shot of the current screen and can later send you to the editing part if you need to crop and edit your shot, it would be better if a crop control can appear when a screenshot is requested, so that we can directly choose which part of the screen we want to capture and share directly.
The phone came with android marshmallow, but as soon as I started using it, a new update with nougat was pushed, I also guess and Oreo version in in the pipeline, still you can have the Oreo taste from any custom rom available for this phone, which are really numerous in comparison to phones from other vendors, I guess Xiaomi should capitalize on this as being one of the most custom ROM friendly phones.
The phone, contacts, and messaging native aps are quiet usable, and so far I haven't faced any problem with them, in comparison to other phones that sometimes struggled with my 1500 entry contact list, the Xiaomi is fully capable of handling such a contact list dispersed among two contact providers (google contact and exchange server), and fully capable of flawlessly handling them.
One small glitch with the messaging app is the inability to delete the newly received SMS from the notification area, something that is usually needed nowadays.
Coming to the notification area, I've seen it better implemented in other phones or ROM versions, where you can get full access to the complete message, and be able control it (delete or reply) from the notification area, I know that in MIUI there is the capability to expand the notification for more details by a two finger swipe, but this is impossible with one handed operation.
The phone also comes with nice extra applications, the security app is quiet useful, and hopefully it does what it promises in the background.
The remote app is also a great addition, making you able to control a vast list of IR enabled devices; yet it should be a good addition to be able to add and customize new non-listed devices, such as for example non-standard android tv boxes.
In conclusion:
I really love this phone and don't regret the investment I put in it, Xiaomi is on a very good track, it should soon reach and surpass market leaders if it keeps building such impressive devices with affordable prices, also having that MIUI forum and its community is a good addition of keeping the users close to the vendor.
My recommendation is to work on the software enhancements requested by the users.
My recommendations to the new buyers, is to install good screen and body protection, stay away from the black version, and invest in a good quality headphones to enjoy your Xiaomi.