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I bought a 32gb Nexus 10 from Staples over the weekend and am enjoying it, but I realize that I'm seven months late to this hardware (while still paying full price). Is there anything coming in the next month that I should return this unit for? A high PPI is a must at this point.
Thanks.
Samsung was trying to get a Nexus 11 going and had specs for it, but at the time Google had not yet approved the production of it. No word has been heard since then about a new model upgrade for the Nexus 10.
trimalchioinwestegg said:
I bought a 32gb Nexus 10 from Staples over the weekend and am enjoying it, but I realize that I'm seven months late to this hardware (while still paying full price). Is there anything coming in the next month that I should return this unit for? A high PPI is a must at this point.
Thanks.
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The next Nexus 7 will probably come out in a month or so, if you're okay with a 7" tablet. If you must have 10", the high-end announcements so far are a new Asus Transformer Pad Infinity, not coming till the fall, and the Toshiba Excite Pro, coming next month, both running Tegra 4 and with the same 2560 X 1600 resolution as the Nexus 10. If you want a stylus, the Toshiba Excite Write is the same as the Pro, but with a Wacom digitizer and a stylus.
There are always new announcements being made in the runup to the holidays, this is just what we know so far. We can't say how good any of these devices will be, as none of them are out yet.
Just got the Toshiba Excite Write
And it looks to be a damn fine tablet. Antutu scored 28k+ and the graphics power is phenomenal. Has built in video and audio enhancements, seems pretty stable on this kernal build, although I expect an update soon because of a couple of weird quirks. The stylus works great (love the eraser by turning over the pen!), but not as developed as the Note 10.1, however, the screen rez is fantastic at 320 DPI and looks as good as the Nexus 10. The rear camera is REALLY great...best I've seen so far on a tablet, and the speakers are clear as a bell with excellent surround sound controlled in hardware, so anything you play gets enhanced. It does get a little warm on the left side under the camera when running an intensive app.
If you have any questions or requests, fire away!
babblin5 said:
And it looks to be a damn fine tablet. Antutu scored 28k+ and the graphics power is phenomenal. Has built in video and audio enhancements, seems pretty stable on this kernal build, although I expect an update soon because of a couple of weird quirks. The stylus works great (love the eraser by turning over the pen!), but not as developed as the Note 10.1, however, the screen rez is fantastic at 320 DPI and looks as good as the Nexus 10. The rear camera is REALLY great...best I've seen so far on a tablet, and the speakers are clear as a bell with excellent surround sound controlled in hardware, so anything you play gets enhanced. It does get a little warm on the left side under the camera when running an intensive app.
If you have any questions or requests, fire away!
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I will keep my tablet thanks. At least I know my benchmark scores are 100% raw horsepower and not shady nVidia "optimizations".
brees75 said:
I will keep my tablet thanks. At least I know my benchmark scores are 100% raw horsepower and not shady nVidia "optimizations".
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Suit yourself, but that's a lot of wasted CPU cycles and amps there for a misplaced sense of "power." Mobile devices are all about optimization right now, and if the reports show the device to be fully usable, then you're unlikely to run into issues. Certainly this has my eye.
babblin5 said:
And it looks to be a damn fine tablet. Antutu scored 28k+ and the graphics power is phenomenal. Has built in video and audio enhancements, seems pretty stable on this kernal build, although I expect an update soon because of a couple of weird quirks. The stylus works great (love the eraser by turning over the pen!), but not as developed as the Note 10.1, however, the screen rez is fantastic at 320 DPI and looks as good as the Nexus 10. The rear camera is REALLY great...best I've seen so far on a tablet, and the speakers are clear as a bell with excellent surround sound controlled in hardware, so anything you play gets enhanced. It does get a little warm on the left side under the camera when running an intensive app.
If you have any questions or requests, fire away!
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How did you get your hands on it? None of the major tech sites have even reviewed it yet and they say it's not supposed to be delivered to buyers for another week.
How does it compare to the Nexus 10 otherwise? Specifically, the resolution is the same, but are the colors as good or better? Forget about benchmarks, do you notice any differences in a quad-core A15 compared to the dual-core A15 in the Nexus 10 in real-world use? What is battery life like with such a powerful CPU? Do the speakers go louder than the Nexus 10's speakers, when cranked up to the max? Can you post some pics from the rear camera, so we can see how good it is?
I'm happy with my Nexus 10, so I doubt I'll be picking up another tablet for a while. But I'm curious how these upcoming spec-hogs will compare to the current spec-hog king, the Nexus 10.
joakim_one said:
How did you get your hands on it? None of the major tech sites have even reviewed it yet and they say it's not supposed to be delivered to buyers for another week.
How does it compare to the Nexus 10 otherwise? Specifically, the resolution is the same, but are the colors as good or better? Forget about benchmarks, do you notice any differences in a quad-core A15 compared to the dual-core A15 in the Nexus 10 in real-world use? What is battery life like with such a powerful CPU? Do the speakers go louder than the Nexus 10's speakers, when cranked up to the max? Can you post some pics from the rear camera, so we can see how good it is?
I'm happy with my Nexus 10, so I doubt I'll be picking up another tablet for a while. But I'm curious how these upcoming spec-hogs will compare to the current spec-hog king, the Nexus 10.
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I don't have a Nexus 10 at the moment for direct comparisons, but I personally think the brightness and color are at least on par. I do feel that the viewing angles aren't quite as high however in the Write. Don't know if this has anything to do with the digitizer or not. The pic of my kitteh was taken with the rear camera in room light, but I'll shoot a few more and post.
I also think that the Write's Tegra 4 delivers the goods in gameplay, even when set to balance mode, there's no stuttering in anything I've thrown at it so far, and Autocad 360 rendering is blazingly fast in real time 3D view, even when rotating fully rendered 3d models. I'm not sure how well the Nexus 10 would handle the same stuff, especially in power saving mode.
I do question the battery life a bit, as it seems to chew through the battery at times, and at this point I'm kind of doubting the life claimed by Toshiba. I'm not sure if the current kernel build is fully optimized yet, as there's at least one major issue when streaming or watching video, both through Google Play or from a file saved on the SD card. The screen goes black after a few seconds of playback, although the sound continues to play. Pressing the power button to put it in sleep mode, then again to wake it up, solves the issue and everything plays and streams fine after that. YouTube streaming doesn't have this issue. Also, it doesn't matter which player you use, it still does it, which leads me to believe that the unit I got might still have an early, unoptimized build on it. I seriously can't see them mass shipping with that kind of readily apparent bug, but who knows?
The sound is also a bit odd. It seems pretty muted, even at full volume, when playing any type of media. Games are plenty loud though, and the stereo separation and surround enhancements are simply stellar, even when I have the thing parked on my lap. I strongly suspect that there's some sort of limit as to the max volume switched on in the hardware to avoid blowing out the speakers or something, or it could be in the kernel itself...I honestly don't know at this point. I just know that the maximum volume is significantly lower in media playback for some strange reason.
As for how I got it, I'm just as amazed as you are. I pre ordered on July 2, and the shipping date showed July 3 on my order. I called toshiba and asked them if this was correct, and was told that they weren't scheduled to ship until the 18th. I thought they'd go in and change the date after I called attention to the ship date, but it stayed showing the 3rd. Low and behold the next day I got an email with a tracking number, and sure enough it arrived the following Monday due to the delay caused by the 4th (2 day shipping).
Was it a mistake? I have no frigging idea, and feel pretty privileged to have one before any of the major sites have reviewed it. Here's a pic of the tablet and box it came in, to satisfy any doubters that might be out there, as well as the invoice that came with it.
babblin5 said:
Was it a mistake? I have no frigging idea, and feel pretty privileged to have one before any of the major sites have reviewed it. Here's a pic of the tablet and box it came in, to satisfy any doubters that might be out there, as well as the invoice that came with it.
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Thanks for the info, sounds like a nice device, although with some early hiccups. This is the first Tegra 4 device on the market, now that the Nvidia Shield has been postponed, so I was curious how it would do.
How long does it last in normal, continuous usage? My Nexus 10 goes about 5-6 hours.
joakim_one said:
Thanks for the info, sounds like a nice device, although with some early hiccups. This is the first Tegra 4 device on the market, now that the Nvidia Shield has been postponed, so I was curious how it would do.
How long does it last in normal, continuous usage? My Nexus 10 goes about 5-6 hours.
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I'd say it's at least 5-6 hours, but nowhere near the 9-11 that Toshiba claims.
Here's some photos off the rear camera of the Excite Write.
Excellent stuff, thanks for posting babblin :thumbup: I have one heading my way (shipped July 12th) and will admit to a certain amount of trepidation since that last 5 tablets I've tried to buy (2 Nexus 10, 2 Nexus 7, 1 Xperia Tablet Z) were faulty out of the box.
I'm curious — although I suppose I'll find out for myself soon enough unless it's a total dud — does stylus pressure register in any drawing app (eg. SketchBook)?
TellTenPeople said:
Excellent stuff, thanks for posting babblin :thumbup: I have one heading my way (shipped July 12th) and will admit to a certain amount of trepidation since that last 5 tablets I've tried to buy (2 Nexus 10, 2 Nexus 7, 1 Xperia Tablet Z) were faulty out of the box.
I'm curious — although I suppose I'll find out for myself soon enough unless it's a total dud — does stylus pressure register in any drawing app (eg. SketchBook)?
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I'm not sure, but I'll check into it. I did use it to sign a PDF though, which was pretty cool...
babblin5 said:
If you have any questions or requests, fire away!
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What is the available ram after reboot? The N10 GPU takes 800 meg now so only ~1.2gig available.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4 Beta
no.
this tablet will long for the next 3 years at least
rxnelson said:
What is the available ram after reboot? The N10 GPU takes 800 meg now so only ~1.2gig available.
T
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4 Beta
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I have quite a few things running in background, and it's using .89 gb
To the OP...
There is "ALWAYS" a better tablet coming soon. You should never, ever, ever purchase a tab because of what is around the corner.
Of course this means that you'd never, ever, ever own a tablet either
I don't see a problem with an N10 purchase around this time, after all, I purchased one last month. The closest "reviewed" tab is the Sony 10.1" tab and it's not enough of a boost over an N10 to warrant upgrading from the N10 to one.
Specification wise, other than a microSD slot (which has less benefit with each release of Android due to DRM), camera and the ability to take it swimming (water isn't good for the Nexus), the N10 still seems to have the top specs. Screen resolution, audio quality and several GPU benchmarks appear to have the N10 still in the lead.
This fall? That's when you'll likely see some 10" tablet refreshes.
babblin5 said:
Here's some photos off the rear camera of the Excite Write.
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Nice, there's no way the Nexus 10 produces shots like those, with its below-average camera. Looks like a clear win for the Excite Write camera, though I barely use the camera on my Nexus 10, so not a big deal for me.
To answer my own question, the Toshiba Write doesn't get pressure sensitivity — much less good performance — out of either SketchBook Pro or Ink. It does, however, do a nibble job in HandyNote Pro which is why I bought it.
The normal swiping and app switching is not quite as smooth as I was expecting from the "next gen" Tegra 4 — especially not in Balanced performance mode. I also find it odd that it has a dedicated charging port which I keep mistaking for the headphone/mic jack, but at least it charges reasonably quickly which is good because battery life leaves something to be desired — like more of it.
Nevertheless, I'm still giddy from actually being sent a tablet without any discernible defects. 6th time the charm And it only took 8 months.
Update - July 29, 2013:
I celebrated too soon — defects discerned.
1) Brightness fluctuates even with Auto-brightness OFF. The screen seems to go brighter when displaying light content and dimmer when displaying dark content. It does it abruptly and annoyingly at any brightness and there's no way to disable it.
2) Dust under screen protector or, worse, glass. The Write, like the Xperia Tablet Z, seems to have a factory installed screen protector over the glass. Whether the dust was under this protector or the glass I could not tell. The two Nexus 10 I had (and returned) had stuff under the glass so it's possible.
I contacted Toshiba Canada and they sent me a box to send it back to them for service. At least they're paying for all the shipping.
After a week's heavy use, I have to say that either the OS is still unoptimised for the hardware, or the tablet I got was defective (not beyond the realm of possibility). The Balanced mode was very stutter-y and sluggish especially in app switching. Maximum Performance mode was smoother but ran real hot and got about 6 hours battery life.
Furthermore, some apps (including the built-in Think Free Office) flickered when the onscreen keyboard was engaged. Also happened with the xda-developer app and Flick Note and a few others but not with Google Docs or Evernote so I suspect it's down to app/OS optimisation for high res screens. Does the Nexus 10 have this problem?
For some reason I have noticed that my att note 3 n900a stutters and lags when playing games that my mega 6.3 and note 2 have zero issues playing. Games like, Fifa14, Nba2k13, Homerun Battle 2, Real Basketball, and Frontline Commando. This baffles me, give the fact the adreno 330 and quad core a15 based krait 400 is theoretically capable of nearly double the computational capacity of the exynos 4412 of the note 2, and around 1.25x faster than the dual core a15 based s400 chip in the mega with adreno 305. The only thing I can figure which would cause this stuttering, frame dropping, and lag is lack of optimization or compatibility with the newer gpu, but given the fact the mega has the same basic architectural framework, albeit dual vs quad core a15 and higher clock, the compatibility should not be the issue. Im wondering if the insane overheating is causing massive throttling of the cpu and gpu, as my n3 heats up and dims the screen by 60% in only a few minutes of play, which is extremely annoying.
Ive also noticed that pictures take appx 4 to 6 seconds to process upon capturing the image, when set at 13mp and superfine quality. Again, with the power of the soc this is ridiculous.
There is also a bad delay between hitting the lock button and the time it takes for the phone to turn off the screen and lock the phone.
Lastly is the worst problem with the note 3...the call quality and speaker quality. While others may attempt to justify the hideous sound quality of the speakers baffles me, as the ear piece is quiet and tinny, and the speakerphone is so tinny and filled with digital artifacts it makes calling or talking on the note 3 an absolute chore. I realize the fact that its a phone and am not expecting dolby 7.1 hd audiophile quality, but the call quality of the note 3 is atrocious and has kept me on the edge of retunring it, as it fails to be even a decent phone.
All in all, im a massive note fan, I own all 4 note devices and love them, and bought the note 3 to be a backup to my mega 6.3 but to be honest. Its nowhere near the phone the note 2 is. For all its power and benchmark bragging rights, it performs identical or worse in nearly every aspect to the note 2 and mega 6.3 in real world use. The ui transitions are identical, as is the scrolling animations. The call and sound quality cannot stamd up even to my nearly 2 year old note 1 and are an absolute joke for an 800 dollar flagship device.
Another decision by samsung that I cannot comprehend is the s pen and software for the s pen. The s note app has had the entire premium suite stripped feom note 2 in the note 3 inexplicably, missing formula match with wolfram alpha, global search, and shape fixing. The handwriting recognition either doesnt work at all, or when it chooses to work, is a horribly ineefective "scrolling style" input vs. The intuitive and precise input of my note 2, note8, and note 10.1. The action memo is a redesigned ui of quick command ripped directly from note 2, except minus the customizable inputs and actions which quick command allows for in the rest of the note series.
If I wasnt a massive note series fan, and hadnt waited almost a year for the note 3 I would never have purchased it at all. Especailly given that its .13 inches larger than note 2, which is appx 3.2mm taller screen which is so tiny of a difference even side by side its hard to tell them apart. Subjectively, I much prefer the note 2 look and design, and overwhelmingly love the mega screen size over note 3, on top of the tacky fake stiching back panel, I am having to force myself to find anything at all which I like or serves me better than the note 2. Worse s pen input, worse s pen shape and size, stuttering laggy gameplay, overheating and screen dimming...EXTREME BATTERY DRAIN vs note 2, giving appx 2 hours less screen on time at identical settings of brightness and features active, and call quality so bad I try to avoid it if possible any time I carry the phone.
All in all, the only upgrades ive seen in the week 9 days ive had the note 3 is a slightly clearer picture quality in bright lighting, but this is offset with terrible mid and low light quality due to lack of any night mode for shooting, and slightly brighter screen. Hopefully samsung and att will update the note 3 soon to adress several of these issues in the software, as I do see great potential for the note 3 given the hardware kit inside, but the speaker and call quality is a hardware issue that is doubtful to change.
I am making this post as an honest objective take on my experience with the note 3, a phone I was absolutely ecstatic to get at 10:01 on day 1 of launch, but has left me dissapointed and havent seen these issues adressed honestly and openly. Again, I love the note lineup, I now have all 5 note devices and will be getting note 10.1 2014 after the first update releases, so please dont mistake where im coming from, as im sure much of these issues will hopefully get sorted out soon.
Hm..
I'm loving every aspect of this phone. I am coming from an HTC One, though.
I hardly ever play any games, mainly Hero of Many and Fieldrunners 2. I'm not having any issues with them. I'll see if I can try out the games you listed to check out the lag.
With the camera you can turn off Smart Stabilization and the processing time goes away completely. I don't really notice a difference with it on or off, but then again I hardly take pictures.
I love using the S Pen and the handwriting recognition works flawlessly for me; not sure what is going on there.
Power button lag is weird, I'll give you that one. Sometimes it's instant, other times I hear the locking sound but the screen stays on for 1-2 seconds afterwards.. doesn't really bother me, though.
Battery life is absolutely amazing so far. ~4-5 hours screen on time with 20% left is amazing in my book. Much better than my HTC One.
Loudspeaker quality does suck, unfortunately. Not enough for me to care, though.
Edit:
I play some of the games you listed for a bit and didn't notice any slowdown or lagging. I did not clear my RAM or close any applications prior to installing/playing the games.
Thats great man im gkad your enjoying it.
The handwriting recognition is the text messaging input or other conversion from handwriting to text, not the free hand part which works as it should. I take it youve never used note 2 or youd know the massive difference between the handwriting recognition imput styles...n2 50x better homestly. The s pen itself is also much thinner and narrower which makes it awkward to hold when writing, thankfully I have my note 2 one laying around or note 8 that I use so Im not stuck using the note 3s tiny little one.
The screen on time like I said is appx 2 hours less than note 2, and 3 hrs less than mega 6.3...never touched an htc phone so I have no cluewhat you were getting there...but my note 3 at full brightness only manages around 3 hrs, at 75% around 3.5 hrs...identical to my buddies sprint variant as well. Not exactly steallar when note 2 at full brightness pulls 5 to 6 and my mega easily goes 7 hours plus 20 hrs of standby time.
Im aware of the stabilization mode for the camera, but that doesnt automatically fix the processing as it occurs at random vs everytime with it activated. But the quality is the bigger issue, great bright light pictures but horrible mid to low light pics.
Try actually playing the games my man and you will see, as these issues have popped up on 4 different variants including the intl exynos that ive peraonally played on, not solely on my note. Play a half a game of fifa14 and wait till your soc is 160 degrees and tell me it diesnt dim or lag lol
Congrats coming from the dark side (htc) lol...the note 3 is a good phone but will be stellar once these issues get resolved like I said before, except the call and soeaker quality which is atrocious.
Mega
Try a custom ROM such as cyanogen
Sent from my SPH-L710 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
UnknownFirmware said:
Try a custom ROM such as cyanogen
Sent from my SPH-L710 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
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Thanks for the suggestion, but id rather not have an 800 dollar paper wight. My best friends intl n9000 got bricked remotely as samsung knox registry does periodic pings, and samsung will brick rooted devices. I watched it happen in person. Plus no warranty...ill wait for the update lol
Haha good call I hope things go well
Sent from my SPH-L710 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
Early in your post you mention overheating. Did you apply an early version of the Vega root method? I've heard the original firmware had some issues. I've had my Note3 since Tuesday last week and I haven't had any of the issues you are describing in your post.
You definitely use the S-Pen more than I do, I just scrapbook and do simple SNote taking for meetings with mine but the handwriting recognition has been perfect for me so far and I have awful handwriting.
I don't play any high end games really just stuff like Candy Crush, Plants vs. Zombies, Osmosis HD, Sushi Chop and Ingress but in those games I have seen zero stutter or lag and have had zero overheating issues.
I've also not had any power button lock lag. I have, a couple times now, had wake lag but maybe only 2-3 times in the last week and only right after I've received a SMS message so I might have hit the button while the screen was awake from incoming message and actually turned it off before looking at it.
Also picture processing for me has been fast. I went to an event this weekend and took a ton of pictures and video and although the picture quality was decent I wasn't blown away, but I think that is a common complaint for a lot of Note3 owners. I've had zero issues with picture processing times with Smart Stabilization either off or on.
If you have not applied an old firmware via the original Vega root then is it possible you just have a defective unit? The screen dimming and overheating you are describing would concern me a lot if that were happening on mine.
lag could be because of 1080p screen.
Background of me, I came from HTC one and S4 but I previously had Note 2 and 1 as well.
I just tried Fifa14 and Homerun Battle 2 on my Note 3 and there's zero lag. Mine is rooted with no issue of heating up or dimming screen. It gets warm a bit and that's it.
Like other suggested, turn off smart stabalization and problem's solved.
I notice that it happens random on mine as well but rarely the screen hang before it turns off. Most of the time, screen shut off as soon as I hit lock/power button.
Call quality is prefectly fine. I get better signal than my HTC one and call quality is excellent. Speakers can be better compare to Note 2 I must admit but on Note 2 I have registry hack going on so I wonder if I can change the value to make the Note 3 speaker louder. The sound quality is definitely better on N3 compare to N2 except it's a bit quieter IMO. Headphone output is excellent. I must say N3 is far from being fail to be a decent phone as you've said.
Compare Spen between N2 and N3, I prefer N2 stylus as well due to it's heavier weight and feel better but N3 stylus is a lot better on sensitivity and accuracy. To each it's own. I get use it pretty quick.
Can't comment on the battery life since I just got this phone 2 days ago but I can say it is better than HTC one battery life. I can go through HTC one with viper rom which supposed to be pretty darn good battery life and yet I have to charge twice a day with the way I use the phone. On N3, it lasted me a whole day. That's really more than I can ask for and it should be about the same as N2 battery life or better.
Sorry you don't have good experience with N3. May be you got the bad one out of the bunch. I suggest try to exchange it with a new one and try it out.
PS> You talk about your friend phone got bricked by Samsung Knox thing and I just don't see this is valid. My N3 is rooted and all the knox related stuff is freezed by Titanium Backup. Even without freezing it, I still don't think samsung is bricking the phones. Your friend must have done something wrong and don't wanna admit but to blame to Samsung Knox. No offense.
This is my 5th Note and I'm quite pleased with it. Formula match and convert handwriting to text are still there. You draw them with the pen on the main Note page and then select them with the cloud tool. This menu pops up.
Give this app a whirl if your rooted...
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.grilledmonkey.lagfix&hl=en
DanMc85 said:
Give this app a whirl if your rooted...
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.grilledmonkey.lagfix&hl=en
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May be I am wrong but isn't 4.3 has built in feature of this?
BarryH_GEG said:
This is my 5th Note and I'm quite pleased with it. Formula match and convert handwriting to text are still there. You draw them with the pen on the main Note page and then select them with the cloud tool. This menu pops up.
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Barry...nice find, im in my 4th year of med school going thru physics, and biochemical analytics and use the wolfram based formula match constantly and couldn't find it.
megalomanic14 said:
Barry...nice find, im in my 4th year of med school going thru physics, and biochemical analytics and use the wolfram based formula match constantly and couldn't find it.
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I'm here to serve.
mutantblack said:
Background of me, I came from HTC one and S4 but I previously had Note 2 and 1 as well.
I just tried Fifa14 and Homerun Battle 2 on my Note 3 and there's zero lag. Mine is rooted with no issue of heating up or dimming screen. It gets warm a bit and that's it.
Like other suggested, turn off smart stabalization and problem's solved.
I notice that it happens random on mine as well but rarely the screen hang before it turns off. Most of the time, screen shut off as soon as I hit lock/power button.
Call quality is prefectly fine. I get better signal than my HTC one and call quality is excellent. Speakers can be better compare to Note 2 I must admit but on Note 2 I have registry hack going on so I wonder if I can change the value to make the Note 3 speaker louder. The sound quality is definitely better on N3 compare to N2 except it's a bit quieter IMO. Headphone output is excellent. I must say N3 is far from being fail to be a decent phone as you've said.
Compare Spen between N2 and N3, I prefer N2 stylus as well due to it's heavier weight and feel better but N3 stylus is a lot better on sensitivity and accuracy. To each it's own. I get use it pretty quick.
Can't comment on the battery life since I just got this phone 2 days ago but I can say it is better than HTC one battery life. I can go through HTC one with viper rom which supposed to be pretty darn good battery life and yet I have to charge twice a day with the way I use the phone. On N3, it lasted me a whole day. That's really more than I can ask for and it should be about the same as N2 battery life or better.
Sorry you don't have good experience with N3. May be you got the bad one out of the bunch. I suggest try to exchange it with a new one and try it out.
PS> You talk about your friend phone got bricked by Samsung Knox thing and I just don't see this is valid. My N3 is rooted and all the knox related stuff is freezed by Titanium Backup. Even without freezing it, I still don't think samsung is bricking the phones. Your friend must have done something wrong and don't wanna admit but to blame to Samsung Knox. No offense.
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If you read my post you would have understood...I laid out the issues my and a few of my close friends are all having, mainly related to software issues that I said will get patched or fixed....the call, sound, and speaker quality of the PHONE part of the note 3 sucks...its no where near the clarity of the note 2, mega 6.3, or s4...the speakers and mic of the note 3 are hideous...maybe its difference for me since I have 7 other flagship phones laying around to compare it to, but in my opinion, that of my 3 best friends, and several people on xda and vast amounts across other forums the speakers are terrible, and filled with digital whitenoise as I said previously.
The s pen sensitivity can be tweaked on all s pen so that makes no difference to the feel or physical dimensions hahah...its an awkward, narrow, weightless piece of plastic compared to the note 2 pen, luckily for me I can keep it in the silo and use my other note pens.
And knox is causing hard bricks as validated by samsung tech support...its a mechanism in place to stop data mining if the device is stolen. So no, he didnt do anything wrong as it functioned rooted for several hours, then he went to unlock it after pulling it out of his pocket and it was off...upon reboot he got an error message and a symbol I had never seen before, then proceeded to call samsung tech for the next hour and a half. Just search xda for note 3 brick or note 3 know brick and you shall see many others my man....ps you realize the difference between att n3 and Intl right? Wheras att disabled the knox protocol except for the mainframe security, whereas intl phones have an app with knox that allows dual booting...
Anyway, as a device note 3 will be great once some bugs and kinks get worked out, but as a phone it sucks
mega
I have no lag playing games nor any power button issues. The only annoying part of the phone so far is the brightness levels not gradually changing. I think you have a defective phone/software installed.
Anyone tried a note 2 pen with note 3? Would it recognize on screen and would it even fit?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
I think you have a bad unit. I have had the OG Note, Note II and now the Note 3 and this by far is the best of the bunch in all aspects.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
I have trouble believing samsung would want to or care purposely brick rooted devices. Seems like good ground for a class action lawsuit if a manufacturer remotely accesses and bricks your device.
Anyway, try turning off one handed operation. Someone posted that it greatly affects benchmarks and it really does. It might be hindering your devices gaming performance.
This all makes me sad.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
Delete
I'm on pace for about 4hrs OST. Not good.
mk92595 said:
I'm on pace for about 4hrs OST. Not good.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How long have you had the phone? I'd give it a few cycles before drawing any conclusions.
mk92595 said:
I'm on pace for about 4hrs OST. Not good.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's fine especially with the turbo charge and Qi charging options.
I'll pretty much be able to have it charging anywhere easily since I have a few Qi charging plates available (Tylt on my desk, for example).
Turbo charge will get it an hour of OST in a few minutes of charge.
Hade you listened to music with headphones yet?
It would be very interesting if you had the opportunity to compare the quality and max volume with another phone for comparison
Sent from my GT-I9505 using XDA Free mobile app
jmill75 said:
CON'S:
Screen/Device - yes its also a con, phone is big! Heard it a million times but personally if the screen would have been 5.5 it would have been PERFECT- - again subjective
Size - going to take some getting used to. Over the next few days I will have some decisions to make as Moto X 14 is sitting right here and feels great in hand.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you do no research before buying this? Did you get the phone out of a mystery box? I hate to sound like an A-hole but I just don't get it. All of your other points are valid and informative but you buy a big phone then complain about the size is dumb to me.
wondercoolguy said:
Did you do no research before buying this? Did you get the phone out of a mystery box? I hate to sound like an A-hole but I just don't get it. All of your other points are valid and informative but you buy a big phone then complain about the size is dumb to me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There's nothing 'dumb' about this. Reading stuff and actually using something is very different. You can't get an idea of phone size and usability without owning it.
Davil_79 said:
Hade you listened to music with headphones yet?
It would be very interesting if you had the opportunity to compare the quality and max volume with another phone for comparison
Sent from my GT-I9505 using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is a great point thank you when I go up to TMO here in a few hrs I'm bringing my headphones to test out the music quality
---------- Post added at 09:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:47 PM ----------
ECrispy said:
There's nothing 'dumb' about this. Reading stuff and actually using something is very different. You can't get an idea of phone size and usability without owning it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Guy thinks 5.5 would be perfect but 5.9 has no idea the difference in size?
If can't tell the difference then maybe go to the store before spending 650.00. It's what I'm doing not because I don't know the size but I like to try a device before spending the money.
I think it just depends on your hand size. Personally, I've texted with one hand so for me it's not bad.
Sent from my Nexus 6 using XDA Free mobile app
mk92595 said:
I'm on pace for about 4hrs OST. Not good.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
4hrs OST? . do you listen to a LOT of music with the screen off? Please say you do please say you do.
biggiestuff said:
4hrs OST? . do you listen to a LOT of music with the screen off? Please say you do please say you do.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not a lot. Probably 30 min. It is my second cycle so I expect better.
Davil_79 said:
Hade you listened to music with headphones yet?
It would be very interesting if you had the opportunity to compare the quality and max volume with another phone for comparison
Sent from my GT-I9505 using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
THIS! There was at least one report that the volume was low. I gotta have my music. Bluetooth is okay but I'm happiest with my Bose headphones on. If audio sucks it's not worth having. Here are my experiences
Galaxy S2 = low volume, sucked beyond suck
Galaxy S3 = no complaints
Moto X 2013 = no complaints
Nexus 5 = not as good as Moto X so sent back
OnePlus One = no complaints
iPhone 6 = oh yeah Spotify sounds awesome
Nvidia Shield portable = oh yeah! I can't turn it up all the way it's too loud but it sounds great.
I certainly hope they didn't screw this up on the Nexus 6.
delete
jmill75 said:
So to explain how PRE ORDER works, you don't actually have the phone to play with. Are you stupid or what??
You have fun playing with the phone at the T-Mo store. I have a real phone that I get to test out. If you dont like my review then get the f out of my thread.
Better go do some dishes and mow the grass, going to take a lot of allowance to buy the N6...just saying.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You just killed this thread with the tude....dude. Totally unnecessary on your part. Catch you on the flip side.
I do not own the phone but I used one from a friend who recently came in from the US (32 Blue).
My time was just over an hour so this review is not that deep, but some facts I found. (I will compare with the Note 4 and iPhone 6+ as these two phones I have a load of experience with).
SCREEN:
Bright, but not extremely bright. Better than the Galaxy Nexus I'm currently stuck with using (Nexus 5 died) but that isn't saying much. It is noticeable less bright that the Note 4 and iPhone 6+. The colours are less vivid than the Note 4 and the colour balance is not as good as the iPhone 6+. If the Note 4/6+ where next to the Nexus 6 in store with all having maximum brightness, the Nexus 6 would easily fail to convince the prospective buyer that it has a decent screen. The screen is decent, but flawed. It is not super engaging - just ok. It does the job indoors. I did not test outdoors. In terms of sharpness I found it equally sharp compared with the much lower resolution 6+ but not quite as sharp as the Note 4.
The size of the screen initially made me not want it, then I considered it would be ok but after using it I love the 5.95 inch screen and I wish it was a solid 6 inches and closer to the bezels. I do not like how the bottom bezel is slimmer than the top, but what can you do! The size of the screen feels great.
5/10 in my opinion. Respectively I'd give the 6+ 7/10 and Note 4 8/10.
BUILD/BODY:
Build quality on the blue Nexus 6 seemed good; the metal frame is a nice addition and the blue is really dark (or that could just be from memory). Not as bad as I was expecting. If you dropped it I think it would be less damaged than your iPhone 6+ or Nexus 5. Not a bad phone to hold either for it's size. The 10.1mm thick point however is a bit of a joke. The battery is very average and the camera could've easily fit into a 7-8mm thin body - in my opinion it is just too fat. It feels super fat and it looks super fat, next to the 6+. It just feels fat to me. My opinion. Also the rounded back makes it impossibly annoying to leave and using while resting on a table.
Build quality: Seems like 7.5/10 - materials do not feel or look as good as an iPhone 6+ but feel better than the Note 4.
Thickness: 1/10 - really did not like it at all, it just felt thick to me. This is my personal opinion however!
CAMERA:
Fast, good quality and an improvement on the Nexus 5. HDR+ is still too slow for quick use. I thought the stock camera app was extremely underwhelming. Hardly any good options and no RAW photos out of the box. The video mode I did not try apart from 4K (which was not as good as the Note 4). Standard pictures indoors in normal light were good, but not great. Note 4 and 6+ beat it hands down. No matter what picture I took with the Nexus 6 none impressed me that much. Shutter speed for normal photos was decent, but slower than the iPhone 6+ (noticeably, especially when the camera occasionally lost focus and tried to refocus - it took about 2 seconds on average when this happened). Also, for the sheer size of the phone I was recommended by a photographer (my girlfriend) that the aperture could've easily been 1.2 to 1.5/3 for the size of the phone and that would've produced better images. She mentioned that the flashes overexposed my images (which they did when used) and that is due to being too close to the lens; also an xenon flash would've been a better choice for this phone.
Camera: 5.5/10 - good, improvement on the Nexus 5 but nothing to write home about. I'm sure with better software you will be able to use this camera well. I feel like it was let down by terrible software (this is 2014/15 guys...the camera software should be more optimised).
SOUND:
Speaker sound of course dominates the iPhone 6+ or Note 4; not as good as the HTC Boomsound but still loud and clearer then most phones I've used. Noticeable good loudspeaker sound when playing music back. I did not get to check what it sounds like when using speaker phone when making a call, but I assume stereo speakers for voice calls (loudspeaker) would be a great improvement. I think that my biggest problem is that they are ugly (the speaker grills) to me on the front of the device, but that is again a personal opinion. They work well.
The music player playback through headphones is NOT good. The volume is too low, the sound quality is average (a bit better than the Nexus 5 but not by much - 99% of people would not tell the difference). I used to work heavily in music production so I have an idea of what I'm talking about here. The music playback quality in the phone is not down to software (I'm sure software could help it a bit here) but hardware. I do not believe the phone has a dedicated music chipset (or whatever it is called) in the phone (correct me if Im wrong). The sound playback is not amazing and not premium. iPhone 6+ is better and even the Note 4 was better for playing music back through headphones.
SPEAKER QUALITY: 8/10
PLAYBACK (HEADPHONES) QUALITY: 4/10
SPEED AND OS:
The phone is faster than the Nexus 5 for normal use. I had heaps of windows open and no lag. Really smooth and the animations of the OS look great. Android 5.0 feels like they hired someone from Apple to improve the feel of the OS, without limiting your customisation options. It's great, so much better than Jelly Bean (which I'm currently using on my Galaxy Nexus). Sometimes when opening large apps (Asphalt 7: Heat) the phone slowed down noticeably. It look over 10 seconds to open this app, twice it didn't open after 10 seconds and crashed. There are some serious slow down issues with large apps here. These issues did not exist on the Note 4. In terms of everyday use - if you are coming from a stock, clean Nexus 5 - you will not notice a huge speed difference, if any. From memory the Nexus 5 was just as quick in everyday use (phone calls, text messages, accessing the gallery). The Nexus 6 might be quicker but not enough to make a lasting impression. This is just down to the RAM/Snapdragon 805 combo - yes it is the latest from snapdragon but not as snappy as the iPhone 6+ (which feels a bit more streamlined and quicker). The Note 4 felt slower than the Nexus 6 though overall, but not by much. As I said above, despite feeling a little heavier than the Nexus 6, it was faster to open apps (sometimes significantly faster).
OS: 8/10 - great step up from previous Android OS versions.
SPEED: 7.5/10 - a quick phone, but has serious slow down issues.
BATTERY:
From an hour of use I can't tell how good it is but it did dip nearly 30% from my use with it which included web browsing, photos, music playback and some video watching as well as a phone call. The call quality was normal, I didn't have a problem with it. Volume was good too (but that could just be because I was indoors with minimal environmental sounds bothering me). I can't rate the battery based on this brief amount of time with it however I do suspect that if you used this phone heavily you will not get more than 15 hours of use; screen on time of more than 5 hours - I can't see it lasting. Competitively the Note 4 that I've used lasts about 5.5 hours with heavy use and constant screen on time, the iPhone 6+ lasted well over the 6 hour mark. I was left with an impression that the battery should've could've been bigger in this phone.
CONCLUSION:
I didn't spend long with this phone but from what I can tell it was good. It was NOT worth the $970+ for the 64gb version here in Australia (delivered, off-contract price). This felt like a solid $500 phone. Yes it was overall better than the Nexus 5, but it was not that much better. It was not $570 better than the Nexus 5. Sorry to say it, but it is true. I liked it better than the Note 4 but that is because I hate TW. If the Note 4 was stock Android, the Nexus 6 wouldn't survive. The iPhone 6+ (I've never liked iOS) held its own against the Nexus 6 in terms of camera quality, screen quality, premium looks/feel and speed.
I was planning to buy three Nexus 6 phones (one for me, one for my girlfriend and one for my mother). I purchased her a 6+ because I couldn't wait around for its release. Still in the market to buy myself a new phone and my girlfriend a new phone. The Nexus 6 is not in our price range or scope. Too expensive and not enough phone for the price. If you are talking pure specs - Asian phones (VIVO etc) offer the same processor/RAM combo with 8mp FF camera with flash and 16MP rear facing camera with dual LED flash in a waterproof body thinner than 7mm with a battery 3500-3900mh. Let's ignore the OS on the Asian phones as you can easily install stock Android onto them (the Chinese dev community for them is huge) - just focusing on hardware. You are trying to tell me that some Asian manufacturer can produce overall better specs in a phone and sell for $300 cheaper (for me) than Google can? What a load of BS. Google should've tried harder and put more into it for the price. Software is good, but it fails in big departments (e.g. camera).
Yes this is a long conclusion but this is a conflicted phone. I wanted to love it and spend my money on it but for what it is, I can't do that. The stock OS is nice but not worth so much money. I don't have money to burn and so I cannot afford to burn what I have on a phone which makes me feel like they held back...more than they should have.
If you want stock Android experience I can't tell you to buy the Nexus 6 as the Nexus 5 would do the same job for you. Sure the camera and battery is worse on the Nexus 5 but I would still go with it. Hold out with that phone for a few months until the Nexus '7' (or whatever the next stock Android phone is called) gets released. The Nexus 6 just is not worth all that extra money for the upgrades it has. Good phone, nice phone, solid and I like the 6 inch screen but not nearly a $1,000 phone at all.
spartanm99 said:
I do not own the phone but I used one from a friend who recently came in from the US (32 Blue).
My time was just over an hour so this review is not that deep, but some facts I found. (I will compare with the Note 4 and iPhone 6+ as these two phones I have a load of experience with).
SCREEN:
Bright, but not extremely bright. Better than the Galaxy Nexus I'm currently stuck with using (Nexus 5 died) but that isn't saying much. It is noticeable less bright that the Note 4 and iPhone 6+. The colours are less vivid than the Note 4 and the colour balance is not as good as the iPhone 6+. If the Note 4/6+ where next to the Nexus 6 in store with all having maximum brightness, the Nexus 6 would easily fail to convince the prospective buyer that it has a decent screen. The screen is decent, but flawed. It is not super engaging - just ok. It does the job indoors. I did not test outdoors. In terms of sharpness I found it equally sharp compared with the much lower resolution 6+ but not quite as sharp as the Note 4.
The size of the screen initially made me not want it, then I considered it would be ok but after using it I love the 5.95 inch screen and I wish it was a solid 6 inches and closer to the bezels. I do not like how the bottom bezel is slimmer than the top, but what can you do! The size of the screen feels great.
5/10 in my opinion. Respectively I'd give the 6+ 7/10 and Note 4 8/10.
BUILD/BODY:
Build quality on the blue Nexus 6 seemed good; the metal frame is a nice addition and the blue is really dark (or that could just be from memory). Not as bad as I was expecting. If you dropped it I think it would be less damaged than your iPhone 6+ or Nexus 5. Not a bad phone to hold either for it's size. The 10.1mm thick point however is a bit of a joke. The battery is very average and the camera could've easily fit into a 7-8mm thin body - in my opinion it is just too fat. It feels super fat and it looks super fat, next to the 6+. It just feels fat to me. My opinion. Also the rounded back makes it impossibly annoying to leave and using while resting on a table.
Build quality: Seems like 7.5/10 - materials do not feel or look as good as an iPhone 6+ but feel better than the Note 4.
Thickness: 1/10 - really did not like it at all, it just felt thick to me. This is my personal opinion however!
CAMERA:
Fast, good quality and an improvement on the Nexus 5. HDR+ is still too slow for quick use. I thought the stock camera app was extremely underwhelming. Hardly any good options and no RAW photos out of the box. The video mode I did not try apart from 4K (which was not as good as the Note 4). Standard pictures indoors in normal light were good, but not great. Note 4 and 6+ beat it hands down. No matter what picture I took with the Nexus 6 none impressed me that much. Shutter speed for normal photos was decent, but slower than the iPhone 6+ (noticeably, especially when the camera occasionally lost focus and tried to refocus - it took about 2 seconds on average when this happened). Also, for the sheer size of the phone I was recommended by a photographer (my girlfriend) that the aperture could've easily been 1.2 to 1.5/3 for the size of the phone and that would've produced better images. She mentioned that the flashes overexposed my images (which they did when used) and that is due to being too close to the lens; also an xenon flash would've been a better choice for this phone.
Camera: 5.5/10 - good, improvement on the Nexus 5 but nothing to write home about. I'm sure with better software you will be able to use this camera well. I feel like it was let down by terrible software (this is 2014/15 guys...the camera software should be more optimised).
SOUND:
Speaker sound of course dominates the iPhone 6+ or Note 4; not as good as the HTC Boomsound but still loud and clearer then most phones I've used. Noticeable good loudspeaker sound when playing music back. I did not get to check what it sounds like when using speaker phone when making a call, but I assume stereo speakers for voice calls (loudspeaker) would be a great improvement. I think that my biggest problem is that they are ugly (the speaker grills) to me on the front of the device, but that is again a personal opinion. They work well.
The music player playback through headphones is NOT good. The volume is too low, the sound quality is average (a bit better than the Nexus 5 but not by much - 99% of people would not tell the difference). I used to work heavily in music production so I have an idea of what I'm talking about here. The music playback quality in the phone is not down to software (I'm sure software could help it a bit here) but hardware. I do not believe the phone has a dedicated music chipset (or whatever it is called) in the phone (correct me if Im wrong). The sound playback is not amazing and not premium. iPhone 6+ is better and even the Note 4 was better for playing music back through headphones.
SPEAKER QUALITY: 8/10
PLAYBACK (HEADPHONES) QUALITY: 4/10
SPEED AND OS:
The phone is faster than the Nexus 5 for normal use. I had heaps of windows open and no lag. Really smooth and the animations of the OS look great. Android 5.0 feels like they hired someone from Apple to improve the feel of the OS, without limiting your customisation options. It's great, so much better than Jelly Bean (which I'm currently using on my Galaxy Nexus). Sometimes when opening large apps (Asphalt 7: Heat) the phone slowed down noticeably. It look over 10 seconds to open this app, twice it didn't open after 10 seconds and crashed. There are some serious slow down issues with large apps here. These issues did not exist on the Note 4. In terms of everyday use - if you are coming from a stock, clean Nexus 5 - you will not notice a huge speed difference, if any. From memory the Nexus 5 was just as quick in everyday use (phone calls, text messages, accessing the gallery). The Nexus 6 might be quicker but not enough to make a lasting impression. This is just down to the RAM/Snapdragon 805 combo - yes it is the latest from snapdragon but not as snappy as the iPhone 6+ (which feels a bit more streamlined and quicker). The Note 4 felt slower than the Nexus 6 though overall, but not by much. As I said above, despite feeling a little heavier than the Nexus 6, it was faster to open apps (sometimes significantly faster).
OS: 8/10 - great step up from previous Android OS versions.
SPEED: 7.5/10 - a quick phone, but has serious slow down issues.
BATTERY:
From an hour of use I can't tell how good it is but it did dip nearly 30% from my use with it which included web browsing, photos, music playback and some video watching as well as a phone call. The call quality was normal, I didn't have a problem with it. Volume was good too (but that could just be because I was indoors with minimal environmental sounds bothering me). I can't rate the battery based on this brief amount of time with it however I do suspect that if you used this phone heavily you will not get more than 15 hours of use; screen on time of more than 5 hours - I can't see it lasting. Competitively the Note 4 that I've used lasts about 5.5 hours with heavy use and constant screen on time, the iPhone 6+ lasted well over the 6 hour mark. I was left with an impression that the battery should've could've been bigger in this phone.
CONCLUSION:
I didn't spend long with this phone but from what I can tell it was good. It was NOT worth the $970+ for the 64gb version here in Australia (delivered, off-contract price). This felt like a solid $500 phone. Yes it was overall better than the Nexus 5, but it was not that much better. It was not $570 better than the Nexus 5. Sorry to say it, but it is true. I liked it better than the Note 4 but that is because I hate TW. If the Note 4 was stock Android, the Nexus 6 wouldn't survive. The iPhone 6+ (I've never liked iOS) held its own against the Nexus 6 in terms of camera quality, screen quality, premium looks/feel and speed.
I was planning to buy three Nexus 6 phones (one for me, one for my girlfriend and one for my mother). I purchased her a 6+ because I couldn't wait around for its release. Still in the market to buy myself a new phone and my girlfriend a new phone. The Nexus 6 is not in our price range or scope. Too expensive and not enough phone for the price. If you are talking pure specs - Asian phones (VIVO etc) offer the same processor/RAM combo with 8mp FF camera with flash and 16MP rear facing camera with dual LED flash in a waterproof body thinner than 7mm with a battery 3500-3900mh. Let's ignore the OS on the Asian phones as you can easily install stock Android onto them (the Chinese dev community for them is huge) - just focusing on hardware. You are trying to tell me that some Asian manufacturer can produce overall better specs in a phone and sell for $300 cheaper (for me) than Google can? What a load of BS. Google should've tried harder and put more into it for the price. Software is good, but it fails in big departments (e.g. camera).
Yes this is a long conclusion but this is a conflicted phone. I wanted to love it and spend my money on it but for what it is, I can't do that. The stock OS is nice but not worth so much money. I don't have money to burn and so I cannot afford to burn what I have on a phone which makes me feel like they held back...more than they should have.
If you want stock Android experience I can't tell you to buy the Nexus 6 as the Nexus 5 would do the same job for you. Sure the camera and battery is worse on the Nexus 5 but I would still go with it. Hold out with that phone for a few months until the Nexus '7' (or whatever the next stock Android phone is called) gets released. The Nexus 6 just is not worth all that extra money for the upgrades it has. Good phone, nice phone, solid and I like the 6 inch screen but not nearly a $1,000 phone at all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interesting review. Did you try the N5 with 5.0? It runs even faster than on 4.4 and possibly loads faster than the N6 since there's no encryption, though there are still some compatibility issues with certain apps and ART which the N6 would also share.
@ spartanm99
You had the Nexus 6 for 1 hour. You don't own the Nexus 6 and won't based on your assertions. You do own a Note 4 and iP6 is that right?
While I appreciate your thorough and lengthy assertions it's hard to take them without a grain (large grain) of salt.
Curious, did you own the N5 ever?
bblzd said:
Interesting review. Did you try the N5 with 5.0? It runs even faster than on 4.4 and possibly loads faster than the N6 since there's no encryption, though there are still some compatibility issues with certain apps and ART which the N6 would also share.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I never tried the N5 with 5.0 so I can't comment on that, just the 4.4.4 version
Interesting points though - thanks!
jbdan said:
@ spartanm99
You had the Nexus 6 for 1 hour. You don't own the Nexus 6 and won't based on your assertions. You do own a Note 4 and iP6 is that right?
While I appreciate your thorough and lengthy assertions it's hard to take them without a grain (large grain) of salt.
Curious, did you own the N5 ever?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I used the N6 for about an hour. You didn't like my review conclusions I'm assuming...My review is exactly what I experienced in an hour of use; the only thing that I can't talk much about is the battery.
You don't need a month or even three days to be able to tell someone how a phone operates in regards to:
- Sound quality (speaker)
- Music playback quality
- Taking pictures in one location (inside room, normal lighting)
- Taking 4K video in the same conditions
- App opening speed
- Overall OS speed and basic use
- Build & Design in hand
I can give a good idea of all this in an hour. Anyone can. These are basic points which can be experienced in an hour. The sound quality is not going to change in an hour if I kept the phone for a week. It will still sound the same. The app opening speed won't change either etc.
Absolutely take with a grain of salt as this is my detailed experience with the phone, but saying a large grain is a bit crude and just sounds like you don't like my opinion of a phone you likely paid for. I didn't pay, my review is not biased in any way and I have nothing to gain from writing something negative (or positive). Will I ever own a N6? Maybe, if it becomes cheap enough or if I am gifted one. This is just not a $1,000 phone (64gb for me is about that; 32gb is about $900 shipped) - plain and simple.
I do own a Nexus 5 (since launch); as per my sig. Yes I have experience with a N5.
spartanm99 said:
I never tried the N5 with 5.0 so I can't comment on that, just the 4.4.4 version
Interesting points though - thanks!
I used the N6 for about an hour. You didn't like my review conclusions I'm assuming...My review is exactly what I experienced in an hour of use; the only thing that I can't talk much about is the battery.
You don't need a month or even three days to be able to tell someone how a phone operates in regards to:
- Sound quality (speaker)
- Music playback quality
- Taking pictures in one location (inside room, normal lighting)
- Taking 4K video in the same conditions
- App opening speed
- Overall OS speed and basic use
- Build & Design in hand
I can give a good idea of all this in an hour. Anyone can. These are basic points which can be experienced in an hour. The sound quality is not going to change in an hour if I kept the phone for a week. It will still sound the same. The app opening speed won't change either etc.
Absolutely take with a grain of salt as this is my detailed experience with the phone, but saying a large grain is a bit crude and just sounds like you don't like my opinion of a phone you likely paid for. I didn't pay, my review is not biased in any way and I have nothing to gain from writing something negative (or positive).
I do own a Nexus 5 (since launch); as per my sig.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Didn't mean to come off as crude that is the last thing I want to sound like. I think your opinion is just that, your opinion, and I neither like or dislike it. Sorry you took my reply the wrong way. 1 hour is not enough time in my opinion, even one day would not be enough time. That is my opinion. Thanks for your input
No Tech Blogs. i.e. I don't care about objective reviews, I only want to hear 100% positive responses and live in a positive feedback loop where all my Nexus 6 buddies and me circlejerk. I claim the phone's qualities are subjective, but then dismiss all negative opinions as those by a bunch of phonies and not "real" and far below mine.
PURPOSE
So 1st and foremost, the plan here is to give you my experience with the LeEco Le Max 2 6GB version compared to some other recent flagship phones I have tried. Granted, I have only used the Max 2 for about 1/2 a week now and can say I have yet to fully break it in to find everything that may or may not be right / wrong with it. However, this will be a unbiased look and comparison. I'm neither a fanboy or sheep. No brand affiliation. Not a programmer either, just a pro-sumer Senior Member of XDA willing to get trolled, flamed, etc. for sharing a look at these 3 phones. Hopefully, I can give "the everyday guy / gal look" without getting bogged down in stats, variables or benchmarks. Here goes...
MY BACKGROUND
No one special. Just a guy that likes the latest tech... phones being at the top of the list. I am a nerd. No doubt about that. I think anyone that knows about XDA probably is to some extent. No brand loyalty. Recently, I have had the privilege to try out the following phones:
1. LeEco Le Max 2 6GB
2. HTC 10
3. Huawei P9 4GB
4. LG G5
5. Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge
6. Huawei Mate 8
7. Huawei Nexus 6P
8. LG Nexus 5X
9. Samsung Note 5
10. Apple iPhone 6s+
And probably some more, but these are the most recent. Does that make me qualified to make a review... Maybe. It does make me an idiot that likes new phones, though. I am always looking for something that meets my needs but also is a good phone. Currently with TMobile but have been with ATT, Verizon & Sprint at some point 20 years of using cell phones.
MY NEEDS
I drive about 40 miles everyday to work (yes, my work week is currently 7 days a week with a few occasional days off). So, with this in mind and where I drive. I need the minimum requirements:
1. Can Stream Music
2. Bluetooth is fully compatible with my 2016 vehicle
3. An equalizer of some sort since I have only switch out my new cars speakers for better ones and don't plan on changing or adding a better sound system.
4. Decent pictures when needed
5. Works with my Huawei Watch
6. Relatively not laggy - will sometimes do some ROM-ing or some customization but since I tend to get rid of the phones quickly I try not to void warranties or make it too non-stock
THE COMPARISON
I am looking at my experience with the Max 2 and the other flagships under/around these requirements and some normal stuff like battery, screen, snappiness, heat, speakers, etc. Here goes:
SOUND OVERALL
Lets start out by saying that I'm not a person that needs a phone that has good external speakers... I really have no use for them and as long as they are loud enough for notifications then I'm cool. Also, I am not a cross-training adventure workout junkie that requires 3.5mm in order to do everything with my phone... I state this now so that I clear the air with the Max 2 being one of the first phones not to have a 3.5mm jack and require a CDLA to 3.5mm adapter or CDLA USB Type C Headphones... I think the Max 2 may even come with the adapter and since I so don't give a brown matter from my butt about it, I haven't even taken it out of its packaging. Personally, the only time I use headphones is skiing and I have bluetooth wireless headphones built into my helmet... and like someone in the 21st century I realize I can have wireless headphones. :good: Now, my main sound experience with the Max 2 is bluetooth to my 2016 HR-V. It connects with zero issues, phone and bluetooth audio both work great. As a bonus, the built-in Dolby ATMOS makes my otherwise tinny speakers without equalization sound great. It also doesn't detract from the volume output like other similar apps... It allows me to blast bassy metal to offend anyone I want, which is a great double bonus situation for me. Nothing like driving by a church blasting GHOST and having the lyrics Hail Satan play loud, clear and rockin' hahaha. Seriously though, in recent memory, this is the only phone from 2016 flagships I haven't had to use a workaround app that drastically decreases the volume. Now I will say that the Dolby ATMOS setting works a little wonky and easily resets itself if you enter into the sound settings or back out of sound setting after enabling... once you know about this though, it is easy to workaround just by hitting home button instead. For the external speaker people, the Max 2 is super loud and the speakers do sound crisp... I think it is stereo speakers as well, if you care about those things... bass-wise, the speakers are not the best but not bad also... definitely as good as of not better than the HTC 10 or LG G5.
WINNER: NO DOUBT SO FAR IN 2016 - LeEco Max 2
BATTERY
From my experience so far, I have had decent battery life out of the Max 2. 3100 mAh does seem a tad small for this larger phalet... but I'm yet to say that its a problem for me. Of recent phones, LG G5 has the worse battery life with the HTC 10 being next in line, then S7 rounded out at the top with the P9... The P9 has a Kirin processor so lets toss it out. Out of the Snapdragons I will say that with my usage so far the Max 2 matches the S7 with battery life from my usage. Max 2 has fast charge as well which helps keep it on par with the other 820's. Just yesterday, I used the Max 2 all-day no recharging with 2 heavy usage periods for a total of 3 hours plus of screen on time playing Clash Royale. The rest of the day was standard usage of checking emails, looking at some news items, etc. It lasted the whole day from 8:30am until 1am in the morning with 15% left. This was on wifi the whole time as well. I feel this adequately meets my needs to last a whole day without recharge (which rarely happens since I always recharge when in my car) with moderate usage all day long.
WINNER: It's close to call but since its the larger phone and still performs well even though no wireless charging - LeEco Max 2
HEAT
I have yet to see a real heat spike with the Max 2. I have heard reports of heat but maybe this is with the 4GB version. Since the lack of need to flush RAM or actively manage memory more critically with the greater space, this may play a factor. Not a super nerdy tech guru on this so someone that understands this more may have to chime in. I have also yet to place it in a what I like to call, a pocket burning situation like at a concert were I'm using the camera a lot, there's high tower saturation causing the radio to work more, etc. I can say the phone barely heated up trying to download a 1.5GB update on LTE... so I guess that says something right? The only other phone that runs this cool is the P9 with it Kirin processor... all the 820's run a little hot when taxed so I would not be surprised if the Max 2 was the same if push to limits. I can say that I have gotten overheat warnings on the S7 when setting up the phone and downloading copious amounts of data.... and my first G5 overheated that it caused an internal malfunction causing me to have to replace the phone under warranty. The HTC 10 seemed to be the coolest out of the other 820's I have tried.
WINNER: Still is the P9 however out of the 820's - LeEco Max 2
SNAPPINESS
I have explained in some of my other reviews, I like to talk about performance in terms of snappiness with normal day to day usage with the phone rather than throw up meaningless to most people AnTuTu stats or whatever. I am going on out on a limp here and saying that the Max 2 dominates of course due to 6GB of RAM... it's like pitting a turbocharged version of a car vs. its not turbocharge version... more under the hood most of the time leads to better performance. No loading issues, no lag from app to app. What I can say is that EUI is a fairly nice GUI take on Android, better than EMUI, but not as nice as the new HTC 10 Sense / Stock like interface. I however did my standard change of porting over the sense launcher to the Max 2 which I just love... as far as getting use to how things work, there is a lot of configuration that can be done with notifications, much like Huawei's EMUI interface that might make it off putting to some... I lucked out and the aliexpress merchant I bought the Max 2 from pre-loaded the Google App Store when I got the phone. I since did 2 updates (one I downloaded and force flashed myself, the other was through LeEco's update system directly) and the app store continues to work fine.... There are redundant apps for email, calendar, message, etc. to google versions... however most of these are built well enough that you might not want or need the google versions. Notifications seem to work OK although some do not like that it does not litter the top of your screen with icons for every single notification.... rather it just typically puts an icon with "..." and a circle at the top... takes a little to get use to, but with a notification LED as well, I think this bypasses this small issue for some. :laugh: Also, people are starting to create ROMs for it and it is easily rootable albeit in Chinese at first, so you can definitely get more out of it with some tweaking.... haven't heard if they released Kernels yet. But it is only a matter of time given it popularity in China.
WINNER: Maybe just because of the 6GB but still... LeEco Le Max 2
DISPLAY
This to me is one of the areas much like sound where if it is not screwing up the way I use the phone then I care less about stuff like resolution. If someone can truly tell a load of difference between QHD, SuperHD, 1080p, etc. etc. good for you. Here what I can say. The Max 2 screen is great! Plus, its the largest compared to the other Flagships I have tried... forgot how nice it is to use a larger phone... It does not suffer from which ultimately made me get rid of the HTC 10 from the screen polarization being applied wrong causing you not to be able to use it outdoors with sunglasses on.... I know right... major f-up IMO that HTC 10 did... I couldn't see it in my car with sunglasses on, too annoying for me. Thankfully, don't have to worry about this with the Max 2 even with a tempered glass screen protector. Since it is somewhat screen related, I can say that the fingerprint sensor is something to be desired. Its slow, sometimes taking 3 tries for it to read properly... I have tried multiple times to reprogram and it does not help. Definitely the G5 and P9 beat it hands down when talking about rear facing fingerprint sensors... Even touchwiz laggy S7 sensor beats it. Hopefully, updates help with this. Like capacitive buttons it has, in the configuration I like with back button on left... apps button also reveals the control center feature on the Max 2... similar to Apples swipe up control center... not placing these toggles in the notification panel is a fresh take on using these toggles and I like it... Color balance seems good on the phone as well if you care about those things... No Always-On feature for the Max 2 either but not a huge deal with a configurable notification LED.
WINNER: The S7 still has the best "looking screen"; G5 has the best always-on screen - Max 2 is ok but not the best in this class of phones.... Does get bonus points for the control center feature and correctly orientated IMO capacitive buttons
PHONE DESIGN
The Max 2 is a good looking phone especially with a premium metal chassis... I do have to say that I had to get the "Gold" version of the phone since it was the only one available at this point in the 6GB Version... I use "gold" here loosely as like other can report... gold is actually rose gold... not that rose gold is bad, but a pinkish phone for a guy is not cool... No matter, I got a Matte black hard case today the covers the back and pretty much takes care of the covering most of the pinkish gold exterior.... I believe there will be other colors out there soon but I could not wait any longer... Camera and button placement is nice. Phone feels great in hand. Although bigger than the other 2016 Flagships, its not gargantuan either... doesn't feel like putting a tablet up to your ear like other phalets can feel like. Pretty thin too and not overly heavy. The biggest design issue is of course no SD Card add-on memory since the SIM tray only accommodates dual SIMs. At 64GB, this isn't an issue for me as I don't save a lot to my phone and jam pack it with needless stuff. The fingerprint sensor is in a good natural position albeit if it only worked on the first try... Its not like Megan Fox / Candice Swanepoel good looking phone rather more like Melissa Benoist / Kate Upton good looking. You ain't going to wake up after a long night of drinking and go "my god... what did I do..." but you are also not getting the top of the heap in design characteristics either. It's nice looking but not someone you'd use your "hall pass" on over your wife, if you get my point..." Notification LED work great and should be noted as not being blinding at night like others can be.... looking at you HTC 10... I like no 3.5mm jack since I don't use it anyway... less holes to get dirt into... in this case, having less holes to stick stuff into wins out!!! :silly:
WINNER: Still S7 for overall design, wireless charging, etc. - Your not bad Max 2, but pinkish gold is makes my balls instantly shrink!!!
CAMERA
Another big deal for some but not really a huge concern for me is the camera on smartphones... Personally and I have gone over the reasons time and time again, I went to school for photography and have used some really great cameras, film and digital. So when you start looking at smartphone cameras, even in 2016, it is still hard to compare to the output of an actual camera. With that said, there is no real gimmick with the Max 2... looks to be an alright camera that I will post examples later of. Doesn't have "superpixels", low light lens, dual lens, etc, etc. etc. It will take pictures decently and in most cases that's all you need it to do. I can say that it does have one of my major pet peeves when it comes to the camera app in video mode... no focus lock.... honestly who uses always on auto focus in video mode.... looks like a bad wedding video... when you are recording something that you are a fixed distance away, like a concert lets say, you don't need for it to re-focus... it annoying. So, I am going to cut this section short and just say, the Max 2 has a camera, its nothing special and if you are ok with a no gimmick no frills nexus like camera than its absolutely fine for what its supposed to do.... :highfive:
WINNER: S7 for low-light, G5 for wide angled, P9 for dynamic range; HTC 10 for camera app & Max 2 for no frills OK no gimmicks camera
CONCLUSION
For my daily usage case, the Max 2 is great! When you consider that it outperforms in most cases phones that are $200 - $400 more than what it costs... It tends to soften the negatives. I think for me the greatest of which is the current functionality of the fingerprint sensor... I hate struggling to get it to read than having to still punch in a pin when it fails. Besides this, all the othe negatives are minor. Camera - its really ok just nothing special. Color - if you can wait, you can get a more manly color unless you want to go with the 4GB version (you can get different colors now). EUI - definitely not as big of a learning curve as EMUI but it does take a little bit of commitment to get use to all the customization you can do. Looks like LeEco plans to release updates frequently since there has been at least one since it released in May... Yeah, it doesn't have a headphone jack... grow up and get with the 21st century... hahaha. To get a 6GB phone, under $500, 64GB internal is not too shabby. Would it be stellar with a SD Card add-on, yep it sure would but I can make do without having the SD Card in most cases unless I really started ROM-ing and backing up TWRPs with it.... I think if you are looking for a good, well performing phone at a good price with some decent specs and killer sound, this does the trick, most definitely. Could it be better, you betcha... but I can say that for any of the 2016 Flagship phones. Lastly and as always, this is just Some Guy's Opinion... :good:
Good review, makes it sound really awesome. My experience is very different.
I have the 6GB version and its regularly becoming warm.
Sound is ok, but Huawei Mate 8 is a different class altogether (better).
As a mid level budget phone the Eco Max 2 is very clearly on the cost performance side.
But I think the battery softens its advantage.
The hardware specs on the Max 2 are all top class, but there is definitely muuuch room for improvement. On the paper the network is Cat 12, but tell you the truth in daily usage it doesnt differ speed to Huawei Mate 8. Same for the user experience speed.
Also its not funny if the phone reboots occasionally
LeTV has fixed some of the issues with the upcoming EUI 5.8 release, but they need to do more !!
If you are thinking about getting it and tweaking it for your local marcet you have to do little homework with Google playstore etc. Its a gadget for geeky power users, but not mainstream user, to many changes required.
EverPing said:
Good review, makes it sound really awesome. My experience is very different.
I have the 6GB version and its regularly becoming warm.
Sound is ok, but Huawei Mate 8 is a different class altogether (better).
As a mid level budget phone the Eco Max 2 is very clearly on the cost performance side.
But I think the battery softens its advantage.
The hardware specs on the Max 2 are all top class, but there is definitely muuuch room for improvement. On the paper the network is Cat 12, but tell you the truth in daily usage it doesnt differ speed to Huawei Mate 8. Same for the user experience speed.
Also its not funny if the phone reboots occasionally
LeTV has fixed some of the issues with the upcoming EUI 5.8 release, but they need to do more !!
If you are thinking about getting it and tweaking it for your local marcet you have to do little homework with Google playstore etc. Its a gadget for geeky power users, but not mainstream user, to many changes required.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Funny mine never rebooted once. No heat even under load. No big modifications to get google play. Mine was stock and able to OTA... Google Play just took a simple APK download and agreeing to "unknown sources." Yes, its not a consumer mainstream phone outside of China... however doing a review on XDA, pretty much means its a review for a more "geeky" crowd easily capable of simple APK downloads from shared sources mentioned at least 10 different times in 10 different posts in this forum. The Huawei Mate 8 succeeds because of Kirin... however of 820's and at this price point, its hard to beat... maybe only by OP3 once they figure out the RAM Management. The camera is better on the Mate 8 but it's not as good as the P9... Plus all in all, its just as difficult to install the Play Store on the Mate8 & P9... both phones I owned and sold, as I was able to get just as good as and somewhat better phone for $200 to $300 cheaper. In the states, all these phones max out our 4G LTE networks so seeing any major difference between the P9, Mate8 and the Max 2 in modem performance is minor. Once again, OGO
Thanks for the feedback, maybe I am just unlucky this time. The apk's I downloaded from apkmirror etc don't seem to work on my Chinese version max 2. I also tried Xiaomi installer version 2, Opengapps, LeTV Playstore zips for same.
I think in terms of price LeTV has found a sweet spot in the marcet, but overall the software quality is just not there yet. However the upcoming update will fix some of it.
Hi,
Thanks for the review. Could you tell me if it has MHL ?
Regards
I tried with my MHL-Adapter, which is working fine with LETV LE 1 (X600). Didn´t work ...
Ok, thanks for the info. MHL is so usefull when you want to see a film at the hotel...
I think it should have MHL (I might have found this hint in some descriptions) but actually it is not working (for me?)...
Having been in IT, the first thing you learn is most problems are usually user problems. Most of the issues that I have come up against are problems of my own doing. For example, some thing may not work because I deleted a necessary file in my quest to remove Chinese Le-bloat. So it has been trial and error. I installed the CM 13 yesterday, but didn't like the tinny sound the speakers were making. Went back to the dev 5.8 stock, installed Google play and a few apps and it's running like a charm. I have not experienced any overheating issues. This phone does everything that one does with a phone very well. I sure you can find an individual that does intense things on their device, but for the average user that surfs the web, watches you tube, plays a few games, sends/reads email and IM's others, this phone is hard to beat. This morning I had an antutu of 140491, which is pretty good considering I only have the 4/32 GB version. Can you say fast phone?!
Hi,
I may add a comparison to a phone that can be considered as the direct competitor to the Le 2 Max : the One+ 3.
There is one area where the Le 2 Max clearly wins : it's the display. I don't care about 2k or FHD. It's hard to tell the difference in real life anyways. But I'm talking about brightness and legibility in sunny daylight conditions. And there, there is no question : the Le 2 Max is superior to the OP3, even after OP3 released the new display drivers that improves things on the brightness side...
And the 0.2" more is a nice addition too... Really noticeable when you used the LeEco for several days and you then go back to OP3
But apart from that (which is really important I admit it), the Le 2 Max is lagging behind in almost every other aspect...
BATTERY LIFE : OP3 wins without a question...In really heavy usage (GPS + BT active +display on all the time) I get about 3h45minutes of battery life with the LeEco... and about 5h30 in the same conditions with the OP3. That's almost 50% better battery. Think the 2K display has a cost unfortunately
SNAPPINESS : the LeEco is OK. But once you compare it to the OP3, the overall feeling is clearly pointing into the OP3 direction !!! And just install a custom ROM like Tipsy, and your device seems to fly, when the Le Eco seems to walk
HEAT : under the heavy usage conditions I described before, the LeEco gets mildly hot. It's much cooler than the Nexus 5 used to be in the same conditions( where it lasted about 1h40 on battery !). But the OP3 is simply almost cool. On that side, OP3 wins...
SOUND : I admit that I don't give a **** about sound coming from the speakers. But on phone calls OP3 clearly wins. On Le 2 Max I have a "ghost sound". I seem to hear everything I am saying to the other person like he has a loudspeaker on. Doesn't happen on OP3.
CAMERA : I am not a great camera user. But both deliver pictures that are good enough for me. But I must say it's difficult to tear them apart
FINGERPRINT SCANNER : it's adictive to use on OP3 because fingerprint is recognized in a fraction of a second and is ALWAYS recognized. I cannot count the times I left my finger on the finger print scanner for seconds before it decided to consider it has to recognize a finger... and then I would say about 30% of the time it doesn't recognize my finger print on first attempt, and about 15% of the time it doesn't recognize it at all so I have to fire it up with the power key and pattern.
DEVELOPMENT : It seems LeEco has no intention at all to consider those phones as an important part of their business. Look at their website : they're ahrdly advertised. Go to their forums : there no activity. An official from LeEco shows up about once every 3 weeks. All in all, discussion and support are simply dead. All tehy keep saying is "Stay tuned, we have a lot to unveil"... but no date nor nothing ! And after 4 months of phone existence what do we have : a tweaked Stock ROM and a CM13 build that is obviously not really actively developped. After 3 weeks of existence, OP3 has tweaked stock ROM, CM13 and 3 derivatives, 3 or 4 AOSP derivatives and just recevied multi ROM... So all problems may have a fix some day... There's really little hope to have that with LeEco
Even CM13 builders doesn't publish their github source which would allow to work on other ROM's...
PERFORMANCE : not that I really care about benchmarks... as I am convinced that 3k or 4k points in Antutu will go unnoticed in real life. But on the OP3 if I run several Antutu tests in a row, I have only a really slight variation in results It goes from 142k to 136-138k on 3rd/4th pass. On x820 results vary from 140k (generally on first pass) and then sink to 110k (sometimes even less) on third/fourth pass... And that sounds really weird to me : maybe there's a throttle on the phone ?
ALL IN ALL : I'd love to keep the LeEco because of it's display. But considering all the "cons" it has, I am afraid it will soon join an ad site for used devices And that's a shame because with a little support from it's manufacturer, it would be THE device to keep
So LeEco : if you hang around here sometime, show us some love and release official device trees.
Well said and your comments are spot on @NexusPenguin
Le needs to release kernel sources to their phones to survive in this industry. They absolutely do not want to go down Xiaomi's footsteps.
If they don't release device trees, most people will simply not buy their Le Max 3 or whatever they release next. Simple to earn bad-will and buey themselves to ground.
it is definitively fast but....
Dear jim262,
it is really fast. With Google Keyboard app, not debloated and after autoupdate to EUI 5.8.016S mine had a Antutu v6.2.1 of 139.159
But:
- I Need a international ROM
- why can´t the user decide wether he want´s the LeTV Software on it or not? So debloate that phone. I don´t want a fixed button on the Screen wich leeds to Chinese Websites. Unfortunately I can´t speak/read Chinese.
- The cam should have more Software ability to take pics with lower size. Actual it doesn´t allow less than 8 MP`s
jim262 said:
Having been in IT, the first thing you learn is most problems are usually user problems. Most of the issues that I have come up against are problems of my own doing. For example, some thing may not work because I deleted a necessary file in my quest to remove Chinese Le-bloat. So it has been trial and error. I installed the CM 13 yesterday, but didn't like the tinny sound the speakers were making. Went back to the dev 5.8 stock, installed Google play and a few apps and it's running like a charm. I have not experienced any overheating issues. This phone does everything that one does with a phone very well. I sure you can find an individual that does intense things on their device, but for the average user that surfs the web, watches you tube, plays a few games, sends/reads email and IM's others, this phone is hard to beat. This morning I had an antutu of 140491, which is pretty good considering I only have the 4/32 GB version. Can you say fast phone?!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LeTvNewby said:
Dear jim262,
it is really fast. With Google Keyboard app, not debloated and after autoupdate to EUI 5.8.016S mine had a Antutu v6.2.1 of 139.159
But:
- I Need a international ROM
- why can´t the user decide wether he want´s the LeTV Software on it or not? So debloate that phone. I don´t want a fixed button on the Screen wich leeds to Chinese Websites. Unfortunately I can´t speak/read Chinese.
- The cam should have more Software ability to take pics with lower size. Actual it doesn´t allow less than 8 MP`s
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Most of the roms are international roms with the ability to select language when you start.
Yeah, the phone is not a Galaxy S7 killer but I don't think we ever had such a device ~$250 on the market. Oneplus One might have been the only thing that came close but now their devices cost ~400€.
It doesn't have any real weaknesses, only a few things like the camera and software are mid-to-high end.
Clearly we'll see a drop in smartphone prices in the coming years, users won't pay 700€ anymore if you can get the latest for less. And these cheap manufacturers will catch up to Samsung and co. eventually.
mahst68 said:
PURPOSE
So 1st and foremost, the plan here is to give you my experience with the LeEco Le Max 2 6GB version compared to some other recent flagship phones I have tried. Granted, I have only used the Max 2 for about 1/2 a week now and can say I have yet to fully break it in to find everything that may or may not be right / wrong with it. However, this will be a unbiased look and comparison. I'm neither a fanboy or sheep. No brand affiliation. Not a programmer either, just a pro-sumer Senior Member of XDA willing to get trolled, flamed, etc. for sharing a look at these 3 phones. Hopefully, I can give "the everyday guy / gal look" without getting bogged down in stats, variables or benchmarks. Here goes...
MY BACKGROUND
No one special. Just a guy that likes the latest tech... phones being at the top of the list. I am a nerd. No doubt about that. I think anyone that knows about XDA probably is to some extent. No brand loyalty. Recently, I have had the privilege to try out the following phones:
1. LeEco Le Max 2 6GB
2. HTC 10
3. Huawei P9 4GB
4. LG G5
5. Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge
6. Huawei Mate 8
7. Huawei Nexus 6P
8. LG Nexus 5X
9. Samsung Note 5
10. Apple iPhone 6s+
And probably some more, but these are the most recent. Does that make me qualified to make a review... Maybe. It does make me an idiot that likes new phones, though. I am always looking for something that meets my needs but also is a good phone. Currently with TMobile but have been with ATT, Verizon & Sprint at some point 20 years of using cell phones.
MY NEEDS
I drive about 40 miles everyday to work (yes, my work week is currently 7 days a week with a few occasional days off). So, with this in mind and where I drive. I need the minimum requirements:
1. Can Stream Music
2. Bluetooth is fully compatible with my 2016 vehicle
3. An equalizer of some sort since I have only switch out my new cars speakers for better ones and don't plan on changing or adding a better sound system.
4. Decent pictures when needed
5. Works with my Huawei Watch
6. Relatively not laggy - will sometimes do some ROM-ing or some customization but since I tend to get rid of the phones quickly I try not to void warranties or make it too non-stock
THE COMPARISON
I am looking at my experience with the Max 2 and the other flagships under/around these requirements and some normal stuff like battery, screen, snappiness, heat, speakers, etc. Here goes:
SOUND OVERALL
Lets start out by saying that I'm not a person that needs a phone that has good external speakers... I really have no use for them and as long as they are loud enough for notifications then I'm cool. Also, I am not a cross-training adventure workout junkie that requires 3.5mm in order to do everything with my phone... I state this now so that I clear the air with the Max 2 being one of the first phones not to have a 3.5mm jack and require a CDLA to 3.5mm adapter or CDLA USB Type C Headphones... I think the Max 2 may even come with the adapter and since I so don't give a brown matter from my butt about it, I haven't even taken it out of its packaging. Personally, the only time I use headphones is skiing and I have bluetooth wireless headphones built into my helmet... and like someone in the 21st century I realize I can have wireless headphones. :good: Now, my main sound experience with the Max 2 is bluetooth to my 2016 HR-V. It connects with zero issues, phone and bluetooth audio both work great. As a bonus, the built-in Dolby ATMOS makes my otherwise tinny speakers without equalization sound great. It also doesn't detract from the volume output like other similar apps... It allows me to blast bassy metal to offend anyone I want, which is a great double bonus situation for me. Nothing like driving by a church blasting GHOST and having the lyrics Hail Satan play loud, clear and rockin' hahaha. Seriously though, in recent memory, this is the only phone from 2016 flagships I haven't had to use a workaround app that drastically decreases the volume. Now I will say that the Dolby ATMOS setting works a little wonky and easily resets itself if you enter into the sound settings or back out of sound setting after enabling... once you know about this though, it is easy to workaround just by hitting home button instead. For the external speaker people, the Max 2 is super loud and the speakers do sound crisp... I think it is stereo speakers as well, if you care about those things... bass-wise, the speakers are not the best but not bad also... definitely as good as of not better than the HTC 10 or LG G5.
WINNER: NO DOUBT SO FAR IN 2016 - LeEco Max 2
BATTERY
From my experience so far, I have had decent battery life out of the Max 2. 3100 mAh does seem a tad small for this larger phalet... but I'm yet to say that its a problem for me. Of recent phones, LG G5 has the worse battery life with the HTC 10 being next in line, then S7 rounded out at the top with the P9... The P9 has a Kirin processor so lets toss it out. Out of the Snapdragons I will say that with my usage so far the Max 2 matches the S7 with battery life from my usage. Max 2 has fast charge as well which helps keep it on par with the other 820's. Just yesterday, I used the Max 2 all-day no recharging with 2 heavy usage periods for a total of 3 hours plus of screen on time playing Clash Royale. The rest of the day was standard usage of checking emails, looking at some news items, etc. It lasted the whole day from 8:30am until 1am in the morning with 15% left. This was on wifi the whole time as well. I feel this adequately meets my needs to last a whole day without recharge (which rarely happens since I always recharge when in my car) with moderate usage all day long.
WINNER: It's close to call but since its the larger phone and still performs well even though no wireless charging - LeEco Max 2
HEAT
I have yet to see a real heat spike with the Max 2. I have heard reports of heat but maybe this is with the 4GB version. Since the lack of need to flush RAM or actively manage memory more critically with the greater space, this may play a factor. Not a super nerdy tech guru on this so someone that understands this more may have to chime in. I have also yet to place it in a what I like to call, a pocket burning situation like at a concert were I'm using the camera a lot, there's high tower saturation causing the radio to work more, etc. I can say the phone barely heated up trying to download a 1.5GB update on LTE... so I guess that says something right? The only other phone that runs this cool is the P9 with it Kirin processor... all the 820's run a little hot when taxed so I would not be surprised if the Max 2 was the same if push to limits. I can say that I have gotten overheat warnings on the S7 when setting up the phone and downloading copious amounts of data.... and my first G5 overheated that it caused an internal malfunction causing me to have to replace the phone under warranty. The HTC 10 seemed to be the coolest out of the other 820's I have tried.
WINNER: Still is the P9 however out of the 820's - LeEco Max 2
SNAPPINESS
I have explained in some of my other reviews, I like to talk about performance in terms of snappiness with normal day to day usage with the phone rather than throw up meaningless to most people AnTuTu stats or whatever. I am going on out on a limp here and saying that the Max 2 dominates of course due to 6GB of RAM... it's like pitting a turbocharged version of a car vs. its not turbocharge version... more under the hood most of the time leads to better performance. No loading issues, no lag from app to app. What I can say is that EUI is a fairly nice GUI take on Android, better than EMUI, but not as nice as the new HTC 10 Sense / Stock like interface. I however did my standard change of porting over the sense launcher to the Max 2 which I just love... as far as getting use to how things work, there is a lot of configuration that can be done with notifications, much like Huawei's EMUI interface that might make it off putting to some... I lucked out and the aliexpress merchant I bought the Max 2 from pre-loaded the Google App Store when I got the phone. I since did 2 updates (one I downloaded and force flashed myself, the other was through LeEco's update system directly) and the app store continues to work fine.... There are redundant apps for email, calendar, message, etc. to google versions... however most of these are built well enough that you might not want or need the google versions. Notifications seem to work OK although some do not like that it does not litter the top of your screen with icons for every single notification.... rather it just typically puts an icon with "..." and a circle at the top... takes a little to get use to, but with a notification LED as well, I think this bypasses this small issue for some. :laugh: Also, people are starting to create ROMs for it and it is easily rootable albeit in Chinese at first, so you can definitely get more out of it with some tweaking.... haven't heard if they released Kernels yet. But it is only a matter of time given it popularity in China.
WINNER: Maybe just because of the 6GB but still... LeEco Le Max 2
DISPLAY
This to me is one of the areas much like sound where if it is not screwing up the way I use the phone then I care less about stuff like resolution. If someone can truly tell a load of difference between QHD, SuperHD, 1080p, etc. etc. good for you. Here what I can say. The Max 2 screen is great! Plus, its the largest compared to the other Flagships I have tried... forgot how nice it is to use a larger phone... It does not suffer from which ultimately made me get rid of the HTC 10 from the screen polarization being applied wrong causing you not to be able to use it outdoors with sunglasses on.... I know right... major f-up IMO that HTC 10 did... I couldn't see it in my car with sunglasses on, too annoying for me. Thankfully, don't have to worry about this with the Max 2 even with a tempered glass screen protector. Since it is somewhat screen related, I can say that the fingerprint sensor is something to be desired. Its slow, sometimes taking 3 tries for it to read properly... I have tried multiple times to reprogram and it does not help. Definitely the G5 and P9 beat it hands down when talking about rear facing fingerprint sensors... Even touchwiz laggy S7 sensor beats it. Hopefully, updates help with this. Like capacitive buttons it has, in the configuration I like with back button on left... apps button also reveals the control center feature on the Max 2... similar to Apples swipe up control center... not placing these toggles in the notification panel is a fresh take on using these toggles and I like it... Color balance seems good on the phone as well if you care about those things... No Always-On feature for the Max 2 either but not a huge deal with a configurable notification LED.
WINNER: The S7 still has the best "looking screen"; G5 has the best always-on screen - Max 2 is ok but not the best in this class of phones.... Does get bonus points for the control center feature and correctly orientated IMO capacitive buttons
PHONE DESIGN
The Max 2 is a good looking phone especially with a premium metal chassis... I do have to say that I had to get the "Gold" version of the phone since it was the only one available at this point in the 6GB Version... I use "gold" here loosely as like other can report... gold is actually rose gold... not that rose gold is bad, but a pinkish phone for a guy is not cool... No matter, I got a Matte black hard case today the covers the back and pretty much takes care of the covering most of the pinkish gold exterior.... I believe there will be other colors out there soon but I could not wait any longer... Camera and button placement is nice. Phone feels great in hand. Although bigger than the other 2016 Flagships, its not gargantuan either... doesn't feel like putting a tablet up to your ear like other phalets can feel like. Pretty thin too and not overly heavy. The biggest design issue is of course no SD Card add-on memory since the SIM tray only accommodates dual SIMs. At 64GB, this isn't an issue for me as I don't save a lot to my phone and jam pack it with needless stuff. The fingerprint sensor is in a good natural position albeit if it only worked on the first try... Its not like Megan Fox / Candice Swanepoel good looking phone rather more like Melissa Benoist / Kate Upton good looking. You ain't going to wake up after a long night of drinking and go "my god... what did I do..." but you are also not getting the top of the heap in design characteristics either. It's nice looking but not someone you'd use your "hall pass" on over your wife, if you get my point..." Notification LED work great and should be noted as not being blinding at night like others can be.... looking at you HTC 10... I like no 3.5mm jack since I don't use it anyway... less holes to get dirt into... in this case, having less holes to stick stuff into wins out!!! :silly:
WINNER: Still S7 for overall design, wireless charging, etc. - Your not bad Max 2, but pinkish gold is makes my balls instantly shrink!!!
CAMERA
Another big deal for some but not really a huge concern for me is the camera on smartphones... Personally and I have gone over the reasons time and time again, I went to school for photography and have used some really great cameras, film and digital. So when you start looking at smartphone cameras, even in 2016, it is still hard to compare to the output of an actual camera. With that said, there is no real gimmick with the Max 2... looks to be an alright camera that I will post examples later of. Doesn't have "superpixels", low light lens, dual lens, etc, etc. etc. It will take pictures decently and in most cases that's all you need it to do. I can say that it does have one of my major pet peeves when it comes to the camera app in video mode... no focus lock.... honestly who uses always on auto focus in video mode.... looks like a bad wedding video... when you are recording something that you are a fixed distance away, like a concert lets say, you don't need for it to re-focus... it annoying. So, I am going to cut this section short and just say, the Max 2 has a camera, its nothing special and if you are ok with a no gimmick no frills nexus like camera than its absolutely fine for what its supposed to do.... :highfive:
WINNER: S7 for low-light, G5 for wide angled, P9 for dynamic range; HTC 10 for camera app & Max 2 for no frills OK no gimmicks camera
CONCLUSION
For my daily usage case, the Max 2 is great! When you consider that it outperforms in most cases phones that are $200 - $400 more than what it costs... It tends to soften the negatives. I think for me the greatest of which is the current functionality of the fingerprint sensor... I hate struggling to get it to read than having to still punch in a pin when it fails. Besides this, all the othe negatives are minor. Camera - its really ok just nothing special. Color - if you can wait, you can get a more manly color unless you want to go with the 4GB version (you can get different colors now). EUI - definitely not as big of a learning curve as EMUI but it does take a little bit of commitment to get use to all the customization you can do. Looks like LeEco plans to release updates frequently since there has been at least one since it released in May... Yeah, it doesn't have a headphone jack... grow up and get with the 21st century... hahaha. To get a 6GB phone, under $500, 64GB internal is not too shabby. Would it be stellar with a SD Card add-on, yep it sure would but I can make do without having the SD Card in most cases unless I really started ROM-ing and backing up TWRPs with it.... I think if you are looking for a good, well performing phone at a good price with some decent specs and killer sound, this does the trick, most definitely. Could it be better, you betcha... but I can say that for any of the 2016 Flagship phones. Lastly and as always, this is just Some Guy's Opinion... :good:
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Thanks a lot this is thorough.. Impressive stuff
I really like my Le Max2. It's not perfect, but no phone is. It is certainly a fast and powerful phone. No lag and handles everything I throw at it with ease. Antutu scores of over 140K are crazy in a $230 device!! I am enjoying its audio output and have been mostly very impressed with the photos I have taken so far. The fingerprint scanner is very fast and reliable for me. I quite like eui as it is fairly light and has some very useful features, especially for power management (I have generally been getting 5 to 7 hours SOT). This is my first 2K display phone, and the clarity is fantastic. The black levels are good, and the colours are vibrant. Probably my main criticism of the phone is the viewing angles and max brightness level of the display. Colour shifting is pronounced when viewing at any angle much off straight, and the max brightness is just OK - I would like to be able to crank it up a fair bit more at times.
kanagawaben said:
I really like my Le Max2. It's not perfect, but no phone is. It is certainly a fast and powerful phone. No lag and handles everything I throw at it with ease. Antutu scores of over 140K are crazy in a $230 device!! I am enjoying its audio output and have been mostly very impressed with the photos I have taken so far. The fingerprint scanner is very fast and reliable for me. I quite like eui as it is fairly light and has some very useful features, especially for power management (I have generally been getting 5 to 7 hours SOT). This is my first 2K display phone, and the clarity is fantastic. The black levels are good, and the colours are vibrant. Probably my main criticism of the phone is the viewing angles and max brightness level of the display. Colour shifting is pronounced when viewing at any angle much off straight, and the max brightness is just OK - I would like to be able to crank it up a fair bit more at times.
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Anything special you did to improve fingerprint response
Mine does work but it becomes unresponsive if not used for a while but after first unlock the consecutive ones are fast
Which rom are you on?
Did you never had any fingerprint problem?
[email protected] said:
Anything special you did to improve fingerprint response
Mine does work but it becomes unresponsive if not used for a while but after first unlock the consecutive ones are fast
Which rom are you on?
Did you never had any fingerprint problem?
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Click to collapse
I am currently using the Parasite debloated version of S19. I have also used Cuoco92, stock Chinese 17S and 19S, and Indian 16S. Haven't had the slightest problem with fingerprint on any of them. I always register two with the same finger (my right index) and the other with my left index. I'd say it is 99% accurate - it really only misses if I put my finger in at a very weird angle or move it too much. Fast too, not instant but pretty near it - less than a count of one.
kanagawaben said:
I am currently using the Parasite debloated version of S19. I have also used Cuoco92, stock Chinese 17S and 19S, and Indian 16S. Haven't had the slightest problem with fingerprint on any of them. I always register two with the same finger (my right index) and the other with my left index.
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So you never have problems like the fingerprint doesn't recognize the first touch?
Or after all night standby the fingerprint takes a few seconds to unlock?
Do you think my fingerprint problem is hardware?
I bought it like 2 weeks ago I can return?
But it's a really good phone for the price
Only things that annoy me is fingerprint and lack of custom rom support both of which letv is to blame
[email protected] said:
So you never have problems like the fingerprint doesn't recognize the first touch?
Or after all night standby the fingerprint takes a few seconds to unlock?
Do you think my fingerprint problem is hardware?
I bought it like 2 weeks ago I can return?
But it's a really good phone for the price
Only things that annoy me is fingerprint and lack of custom rom support both of which letv is to blame
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Honestly never. Scanner has been rock solid for me. What ROM are you on?
Honestly, I had no idea this game existed until around a month ago. I am not big on MP gaming these days. I wanted to test my Note 4 tho. It ran smoothly on the lowest setting and it looked pretty d*mn good. I played for about thirty minutes with no visible lag. I was surprised considering the age of this phone.
In any case, to any of you reading, hold onto this phone! It's still a 'beast". Comes with plenty of storage, memory, expandable storage, removable battery, amazing high res display,great GPU that has stood the test of time, plus of course the stylus. Also plays Youtube videos in 1080p.
This phone will always be my "baby" and often my daily driver and I am never letting it go even tho I have many other devices. I could never bring myself to sell it. Seriously attached to this phone since I bought it new back in 2014.
On top of that, it runs beautifully on even Android Pie roms and there are still people developing roms for this phone.
I am still excited about this phone even after of these years! Let's hear it for our Note 4's! :highfive::victory:
Android Pie?
For note 4 EXYNOS?
Share the link for any ROM if you have one for note 4.
Sent from my K10 using Tapatalk
Yes, Android Pie. The Resurrection Remix rom. It's the snapdragon processor. It was a smooth experience.
Rom link here;
https://forum.xda-developers.com/note-4/snapdragon-dev/rom-resurrection-remix-7-0-0-t3899186
I would love to try the AOKP rom as well. I used them on my Samsung Galaxy S3.
Ok than, I thought that you have found something for our EXYNOS version.
Unfortunately I have no Snapdragon device any more.
Thx
Sent from my K10 using Tapatalk
DelphinusMinor said:
Honestly, I had no idea this game existed until around a month ago. I am not big on MP gaming these days. I wanted to test my Note 4 tho. It ran smoothly on the lowest setting and it looked pretty d*mn good. I played for about thirty minutes with no visible lag. I was surprised considering the age of this phone.
In any case, to any of you reading, hold onto this phone! It's still a 'beast". Comes with plenty of storage, memory, expandable storage, removable battery, amazing high res display,great GPU that has stood the test of time, plus of course the stylus. Also plays Youtube videos in 1080p.
This phone will always be my "baby" and often my daily driver and I am never letting it go even tho I have many other devices. I could never bring myself to sell it. Seriously attached to this phone since I bought it new back in 2014.
On top of that, it runs beautifully on even Android Pie roms and there are still people developing roms for this phone.
I am still excited about this phone even after of these years! Let's hear it for our Note 4's! :highfive::victory:
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Click to collapse
Installing custom rom. Makes gaming experience bit better
I tried pubg on the note 4
It was so laggy and minutes later the thing would run flaming hot
Cod is okay on the phone with lags at first and smooth afterwards
Im looking forward to upgrade to the note 8 if i have the money in the future
Other than that daily usage is good for a 2014 device
DankROMS said:
I tried pubg on the note 4
It was so laggy and minutes later the thing would run flaming hot
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Click to collapse
Did you lower the settings? It ran really good on medium settings and never noticed any heat issues. Maybe it's because I am using a custom rom.
DelphinusMinor said:
Honestly, I had no idea this game existed until around a month ago. I am not big on MP gaming these days. I wanted to test my Note 4 tho. It ran smoothly on the lowest setting and it looked pretty d*mn good. I played for about thirty minutes with no visible lag. I was surprised considering the age of this phone.
In any case, to any of you reading, hold onto this phone! It's still a 'beast". Comes with plenty of storage, memory, expandable storage, removable battery, amazing high res display,great GPU that has stood the test of time, plus of course the stylus. Also plays Youtube videos in 1080p.
This phone will always be my "baby" and often my daily driver and I am never letting it go even tho I have many other devices. I could never bring myself to sell it. Seriously attached to this phone since I bought it new back in 2014.
On top of that, it runs beautifully on even Android Pie roms and there are still people developing roms for this phone.
I am still excited about this phone even after of these years! Let's hear it for our Note 4's! :highfive::victory:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Me too! I'm also not a advanced MP player but cause of my curiousity about performance of my phone, I downloaded PUBG Mobile and played for a little time. Obviously, Note 4 haven't been the best (Goodness is changable, but in performance, definitely not the best anymore, objectively.) phone or phablet anymore, performances of Note 7, Note 8 etc. are better than, Note 9 and Note 10 etc. are much better than its performance, but I think Note 4 has already (Approx. since mid-2016.) transformed into a budget phone, price/performance phone rather than a flagship phone. As a budget phone or price/performance phone, I think it is better than a lot of new-released budget phones, especially Xiaomi's budget phone models. (Only about RAM, processor etc. specs, seem senseless for someone but Note 4 is definitely more versatile device than all of budget models.)
However, Note 4 still has flagship specs. Firstly, its awesome screen. 1440p 515 PPI Super AMOLED screen still great, even, many flagship models still hasn't got screen like this. Not only about 1440p 515 PPI Super AMOLED specs, but also its aspect ratio is great. Problem of design of new phones is that. Screen without a “notch” at the top of the screen or a “chin” bezel at the bottom is huge improvement but aspect ratio became worse. They have narrower width and bigger length. This is big problem for watching something. Additionally, removable back and battery, IR Blaster, approx. 100 dB Speaker, 4K Ultra HD video recording (This seems senseless but For example, Samsung Galaxy A50 has NOT 4K UHD recording in stock, you may have 4K UHD recording with third party apps. And many budget phones has not 4K UHD recording and 1440P recording for front camera.) and finally, its awesome S-Pen! With S-Pen, tablets completely become senseless. I've been using my Note 4 for 43 months, close to complete its 4th year, I don't think buy a new phone anyway. I'm planning to use it until it'll become decisively obsolete. With rooting and a Custom ROM, its performance is still great. :good:
Hi bro. I only use Rom Refined nougat tw 7.0
Very smooth gameplay pubg
Lest try Refined Nougat V.60 Tw 7.0
Have Game experience too and smootly gameplay PUBG