Related
1. Allow copy-pasting and easier editting of phone numbers in the dialer and more generally dialer improvements (e.g. have log+TF9+dial+contacts all on the same tab, similar to Sense dialer), ability to call from anywhere within Android through longpress or double tap (e.g. of home button) when no hard key is available (e.g. on the SGSII)
2. Provide a stock application freezer within the task manager (similar to GoLauncher App Drawer but with freezing instead of killing apps)
3. Offer a data toggle: Off/Auto/2g only, either as a widget or in the notification bar.
4. Better way of looking for Apps in the market, similar to Appbrain but with more focus on app rating.
5. GPS location lock toogle: GPS only, Wireless only, GPS+Wireless: this is used too often depending on WiFi availability, and is too deep within the menus.
6. Create a separe setting menu entry for mobile data and USB connectivity. Things such as roaming and USB storage are used too often to be burried that deep down the Wireless & Network menu
7. Allow Lock Screen Wallpaper change from the home screen menu, not only regular wallpaper
8. Include functionality thermometer for external temperature (corrected for phone surface temperature heat). How often do I want to know room temperature in those hotels with a bad air conditionning!
9. Better music app
10. Why on earth is security grouped with location?
I have given you mine.
- What are you innovative features that Google could implement to beat the crap out of Apple's smart*ss. Universal remote control, thermometer,...?
- What are you missing most?
- What do you find poorly implemented and would like to see improved?
I will post the best ideas in the first post as they come along.
My most desired Android feature? The option to run stock on any Android device.
I don't care if it's an OTA or I have to find a computer. Just let me choose. And I don't want the option to turn off whatever the manufacturer has barfed on my device. I want the clean install pure Nexus stock.
Aside from that? I want the lockscreen to actually run realtime, weather, stocks, email, etc. rather than be useless. And I don't want to tack on three other apps out of the box to get the job done. I want it working the minute I turn it on, included in all future Android releases. It's 2011.
I would like most a screen capture feature like the one iPhone has by pressing power + menu key and a better music player. Yes both of these are available on market but no too integrated to work seamlessly like the iPhone.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App
Screen shot already there in stock! Press and hold the home button and then press and hold the power button!
kevinlee0602 said:
I would like most a screen capture feature like the one iPhone has by pressing power + menu key and a better music player. Yes both of these are available on market but no too integrated to work seamlessly like the iPhone.
On your SGSII you have a screen capture feature. Just press home+power a short time and it makes a screenshot.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App
an exchange push client without have battery drain. this is also possible with the gmail client. so please fix this also for exchange
Why would you want to defrag a flash memory
It will rather damage it than make it faster
Have separate screen timeout settings from phone lock.
USB reverse tethering (so I can use my PC connection and spare my data plan ) Can't be that hard since Windows Mobile could do it years and years ago...
du.renato said:
USB reverse tethering (so I can use my PC connection and spare my data plan ) Can't be that hard since Windows Mobile could do it years and years ago...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes would be nice if Stock android had that. HTC Sense already has it, so...Google should add this as a standard.
The ability to have on every phone stock Android!!!
This give us an option to run CM7, MiUi, or whatever we want on our phones!!! So everybody can make on his phone, what they need/want!!!
This would free us!!!
We can make a petition, like with the bootloaders!
Cheers
Ramalama said:
The ability to have on every phone stock Android!!!
This give us an option to run CM7, MiUi, or whatever we want on our phones!!! So everybody can make on his phone, what they need/want!!!
This would free us!!!
We can make a petition, like with the bootloaders!
Cheers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+ 1
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App
GPU rendered UI for smooth transitions, CPU does a sloppy work even if its dualcore.
as other people stated before, i would also appreciate the internet sharing from the pc to the phone, as i'm used to, coming from windows mobile. an alternative would be to be able to use ad-hoc wi-fi, so that i could build a network bridge through my netbook to my wired network. that's something i miss every day, as in certain spots of my house, i don't receive any coverage from my wi-fi and using the netbook as a free accesspoint would be awesome.
while we are on the networking issue: can anybody tell me a good telnet client and a file explorer, that does not require root and offers the ability to access network shares or windows 7 homegroups?
this shouldn't be to hard as all android sense can already do this...
In honesty, I would like to be able to run ios apps
And game compatibilities between all Android hardware
A more standardized gaming API would be nice so we can have lots of great games like on iOS.
My Ten Cents
1. A better and customizable screen lock with many options.
2. A smarter dialer including a real T9 search engine like HTC dialers. Now that I am using RocketDialer instead, which is great for this.
3. Ability to connect internet over pc's connection when connected with wire.
4. More options for sound loudness and quality; including detailed settings for back speaker, head phone, bluetooth and incall volume settings. (This is actually number one priority for me)
5. Better Google apps integration for work especially for google docs and calendar.
6. A temperature sensor would be nice for room temperature.
7. A stronger vibrator with vibration presets
8. An easy option in somewhere, where we can say "do not turn off the screen and gps if connected to sats when connected to power source" (What do I have to do to use the device for navigation with google maps in my car connected to power source without turning off the screen?)
9. Better internet browsing; I mean we have these monsters in our hands, yet each different browser act differently on the same page, especially when it comes to text zooming and reflow; there must be an easier way of it. Plus, better flash support.
10. Better headset please with the phone; I don't want to look into alternatives after purchasing the phone.
Regards.
I think HW acceleration would be the best for Android, instead of just trying to hide the lag with raw power (which isn't working). Look at WP7 and see how smoothed everything is compared to any non-GS2, and it does it with less powerful hardware.
I just got my Honor 7 and I like it a lot! It's a cool feature that the fingerprint reader supports gestures, but I don't find the preset function very useful. Instead I'd like to use it like a universal scroll both horizontally and vertically. It would be great if it's possible to use it in any app just like swiping the front screen. That way one could scroll through websites etc while seeing the whole screen.
I'm new to android development, so I wonder if it's even possible to achieve? Would it require low level programming or is it accessible through some api? Is it possible to make an app that catches the gestures and transform it to what I want, or would I need to root the phone and hack on a custom rom?
I will probably not have time to implement this, but I'm curious wether or not it's possible. If anyone else is inspired by the challenge, you're welcome to hack along
Did you find anything??
Sent from my EVA-L09 using XDA-Developers mobile app
swipe left and right for skipping music would be a great feature too.
somebody knows if its possible?
Sorry, didn't find anything. I still think it would be a killer feature, but I'm not sure how accurate the sensor is. My guess is that it would be pretty hard to hack it, and it's far out of my league.
if you have a look at your finger sensor menu, you can see, that both directions (up and down) are used for other functionality!
I think it is impossible to use this fingerprint otherwise without getting trouble with it.
non-toxic said:
if you have a look at your finger sensor menu, you can see, that both directions (up and down) are used for other functionality!
I think it is impossible to use this fingerprint otherwise without getting trouble with it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually, both directions are optionally used for other functionality. This is what got me thinking that it might be possible to catch the swipe gestures, but use it for something else. Don't really know where to start though. As you say, it's a big chance to get trouble with it, conflicting the other behavior etc.
Hi lets help each other here about finow x5air
my problem are
1)i live in India and my watch says no network each time i call it just dont register ,have tried airtel idea etc ant suggestions
2)my weather dont show me anything y ?
any help is appreciated:fingers-crossed:
I got my x5air a week ago and had problems with watch helper software it's keep disconnecting from my galaxy s8plus.
I installed different app and so far it's working
App name is watch droid assistant
how many storage will it remain?
FumiJ said:
how many storage will it remain?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
16 Gb is on board and app is take around 2-3 Mb
Also I disable Most google apps and some other stuff which I am not using for now
New problems with Finow X Air
I also just recently got my Finow X air. I love it so far, the problem are just...
apparently the X Air it's the only model in the Finow X 5 linee which doesn't turn screen on automatically when you look at your watch.
I fixed this problem by installing th app "gravity screen" and set it so, that if you turn your watch in special angle away from you, it turns off and if you turn watch to you, the screen automatically turns on, so you have both hands free and can see the time (which is core aspect of any watch!)
the problem now is that, x air seems to automatically turn off gravity screen and any other apps opened before in background after 1 minute and resets every setting (I also hate that stock android keyboard, you can hardly write with it on small watch)
So in summary my problems are:
1. We should have an auto turn off and turn on screen by looking at the watch feature
2. Let us change freely keyboards!
3. Both settings should remain, and not just stay for 1 minute.
Do any of you know a fix or solution for this or experience same problems? Thank you for your answer in advance.
I install this launcher http://roundandroidwatches.proboards.com/thread/758/universal-launcher-new-generation-2
And also use Debloater to freeze some apps
Keyboard is ok but aldo you can install Google handwriting keyboard which will aloud you to write 1 letter at the time but it's working fine for me
---------- Post added at 02:50 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:43 PM ----------
Also I use some of this faces
http://www.watchfaceup.com/android.php
Regarding the auto turn screen on off problem I found
The app "shake screen on off " from play store works even better than "gravity screen".
You shake your wrist and your watch goes on.
Shake wrist again or just wait a Iittle and it turns off.
Problem is that system still automatically closes every app including "shake screen on off" in background in standby mode..
So I tested it with a stop watch and *after exactly 3 minutes in standby mode the watch closes every open app.*
Can someone confirm this or knows how to fix the autoclose problem?
Raaik said:
Regarding the auto turn screen on off problem I found
The app "shake screen on off " from play store works even better than "gravity screen".
You shake your wrist and your watch goes on.
Shake wrist again or just wait a Iittle and it turns off.
Problem is that system still automatically closes every app including "shake screen on off" in background in standby mode..
So I tested it with a stop watch and *after exactly 3 minutes in standby mode the watch closes every open app.*
Can someone confirm this or knows how to fix the autoclose problem?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Check Power saving it should be like on my first picture for wrist shake work properly
and also go to more settings, about phone, developer options and on very bottom part check what you have , like on my second picture
Zenia said:
Check Power saving it should be like on my first picture for wrist shake work properly
and also go to more settings, about phone, developer options and on very bottom part check what you have , like on my second picture
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
HEUREKA! NO PROBLEMS ANYMORE! I LUVE YOU, THANKS YOU SOOO MUCH!!
PS. i'm not a robot
Hơ can I type STATIC IP in Wifi setup networking cause it have no Advance Setting?
Harbir said:
Hi lets help each other here about finow x5air
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can not input STATIC IP because it have no Advance Setting after Show Password as same as Config Network Setting in Adroid Phone. Pls help me cause my wifi netwoking cannot using DHCP but STATIC IP. Thanks!
---------- Post added at 07:38 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:30 AM ----------
Harbir said:
my problem are
1)i live in India and my watch says no network each time i call it just dont register ,have tried airtel idea etc ant suggestions
2)my weather dont show me anything y ?
any help is appreciated:fingers-crossed:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I cannot input STATIC IP because it have no Advance Setting after Show Password as same as Config Network Setting in Android Phone. Pls help me cause my wifi netwoking cannot using DHCP but STATIC IP. Thanks!
It seems the watch will close Apps once the screen is turned off. Then there are no notifications at all until you re-open the app. For example, Gmail will not inform me the arrival of new emails, even if it is set up as a push email. Only when I re-launched Gmail, then suddenly a bunch of emails come in. I am not able to use the trick mentioned above to enable push notifications. Are there any other options? Thanks.
Gmail were? watches or phone
I use my watches like a assistant to phone and it's push all notification to watch from phone.
I disabled Watch Assistant and install Watch Droid Assistant it's working great for me
I need to clarify that I am using the watch as a standalone device. It has a SIM and not connected to a phone. I would like to get notifications of emails. But it does not work that way. On an Android phone, I would imagine there is a battery optimization setting that I can uncheck to keep the app alive. I am not sure whether there is something like that on the watch.
Heart rate
Can Strava or similar apps use the built-in hear rate sensor?
Hi people,
Whenever I tried to add new faces by clicking on " + " or when i try to load the Finow Appstore, after some time loading, i get a black screen. Yesterday it worked though. As if it couldn't reach Finow server.
I tried resetting, but it didn't change anything.
Does anyone have any idea?
Thanks!
Hi, I also faced same problem and have fixed it without installing any third party application. Try this .. press center button -> gesture up from bottom -> genture right to left -> genture right to left -> here select the center icon it looks likes torch light.. that’s it .
Thanks for your help, I already tried it, it didn't work.
But today everything works fine, so i guess there wasn't an error on my side, but either on the server's side.
Hi Folks,
I've got the phone for 3 days now and I'm fiddling around with it to see what it can do and what not. I had an Omate derivate with rectangular screen (512MB/4GB, replaceable battery 600mAh) which I found much better to use and which had an sdcard slot. I'm pretty much p...d off that it is impossible to find anything like it with more memory. I found one phone with 320x200 screen in landscape, but only with Android 4.4 and no card slot and not enough memory. So finally, I bought the X5 Air which is not ideal for me, because of too small a battery and the round screen that makes a lot of problems. 2 GB Ram is good, but 16 GB Flash without the possibility to expand is rather mediocre for my purposes aside of the weak battery .
But here I am, and willing to give it a try.
Here is what I did so far:
Rooted with Kingroot
Works, but installs bloatware.
Tested a few launchers:
From the ones I tested I like Evie the most. It works nicely and works quite well with the round screen.
Installed Linux Deploy
Works perfectly. I just copied my installation file from the old phone and can now access the desktop via VNC from any device in the network. Only drawback is that swapoff doesn't seem to work, and obviously it is not a good idea to have a swap space on the internal flash memory of the phone. Defects are prone to happen. With 2 GB, swapping is not necessary, that's why I wanted more memory. More work needed here.
Installed Crono Surf
Looks good, but if I could combine an alternative launcher like Evie with the generic watch face engine, that would be nicer.
Installed Ki4a
Works perfectly, but to access settings, the screen has to be set to the smaller size (rectangular) and it is better to open it in parallel on a normal phone because you cannot read all descriptions.
Installed HERE We Go
Seems to work, but due to the limited flash memory, you cannot download all the maps you would like to have for offline navigation.
Installed Titanium Backup
Works, but some buttons seem impossible to access.
Removed Kingroot
Kingroot installs too much bloatware for my liking. And it cannot be uninstalled via the normal app management (system app). Maybe there is an uninstall routine via the settings in Kingroot, but it cannot be accessed on that stupid round screen. So I used Titanium Backup to uninstall it. Restart after that and Kingroot and Root seem to have gone without trace. Additionally, I reset the device. Until there is a proper way for rooting the X5 Air, I will stay with Kingroot, but it is good to know that I can revert it.
Basically, I can more or less do with the phone what I intended, but one important thing is missing, standard bluetooth tethering. The menus for setting up a hotspot are completely missing. Anybody knows a way or a tool for that?
When I have time I want to try out xposed framework, maybe that can solve the missing options problems, but so far, I really find it annoying to have hardware that is limited by the software. What is this, Apple? Even my 4 yrs old Omate derivate could be easily converted to a fully working android device with homescreen, notification bar etc. And above all it had only 2 buttons but still all the phone navigation actions were possible, incl. a working running-apps list.
Kind regards,
Felix
Do smartwatches support master bluetooth?
Do smartwatches have master bluetooth? I would like to connect speakers or heart monitor strap (I do not like light based ones) to it, and I do not know will it work as it works with a normal android phone.
Hello,
I have the option to download the official Beta Android R (RPB1.200504.18).
My Pixel 4 phone is my daily phone, just like to ask, if its worth downloading this beta version.
I know it will not be stable and may be a bit flaky, but will my phone be useable if I do?
Thanks
152bobby said:
Hello,
I have the option to download the official Beta Android R (RPB1.200504.18).
My Pixel 4 phone is my daily phone, just like to ask, if its worth downloading this beta version.
I know it will not be stable and may be a bit flaky, but will my phone be useable if I do?
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Been using it since day 1, no major issues here . Working flawlessly, except for Qnap apps that all crash besides the Qfile app.
One thing that sucks about Android 11 is that you can no longer hide the nav bar..
https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/02/21/android-11-kills-apps-that-modify-the-navigation-bar/
Anyone with a working solution, adb command is welcomed
jemeljsh said:
Been using it since day 1, no major issues here . Working flawlessly, except for Qnap apps that all crash besides the Qfile app.
One thing that sucks about Android 11 is that you can no longer hide the nav bar..
https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/02/21/android-11-kills-apps-that-modify-the-navigation-bar/
Anyone with a working solution, adb command is welcomed
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, I've downloaded it and I'm having a play with it. One immediate thing I notice missing is the Screenshot option when long pressing the power button.
The icons are along the top instead of down the side (which I think was better), so how do I take a screenshot now ?
Hi guys,
I have requested few features from google. I will appreciate if you can comment there and mark the features star to generate some interest. Only do it if you like the feature i have requested. Please find the link below to all the features i have requested.
1) Always on display Scheduling
https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/158846274
2) Digital wellbeing app timer slots
https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/158862278
3)Day/Night wallpapers
https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/158846288
4)Battery Care for android
https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/158846286
5) Ability to pin apps in Ram
https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/158862276
You can star it as well as comment on it. This will hopefully increase the chances of these feature generate attention. Thank you in advance.
152bobby said:
so how do I take a screenshot now ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My wife had the same question when I updated her pixel 3 to this latest android 11 beta
Normally you can take the screenshot as on any other android - hold down volume down + power button and vollaaaa!
New way to do it also is by swiping up from the bottom and holding, and the besides the switch between apps option will appear you will also see Screenshot, Select, Share options underneath it
Yeh I get the old fashioned way, holding power and volume keys. Why on earth have they taken the very handy button that popped up when long pressing the power button !!!
As for your swiping up option, that doesn't work at all on my phone !!
Swiping up from the bottom and letting go works on my 4XL but only when in an app. If you are on the launcher i think its the old fashioned way. This is standard google to take away things we use!
Just received another beta update (RPB1.200504.020), 8.23MB
I'm able to set Shell as the default Home (Launcher App). What can I do to utilize this?
I'm loving the beta but I've found that when the pop-up asking you to chose what app to open something with, I only get two options: the recommended app and a second one and no list of apps that were being shown in android 10. It's really frustrating when you can't choose the correct app because it isn't listed. For example, what if you want to open the link in the app but you only see two web browsers? I use deampify to strip off the Google AMP part of the URL so I can open a link in the website's app such as CNN or The Washington post. That means if deampify doesn't show up then there is no way to chose it like I could in android 10. Another example is if you get an attachment in an email and you might want to open it in one of several apps such as Adobe Lightroom if you're going to edit it, Google Photos if you're saving it, Dropbox if you're sharing it with your family, Instagram if you're posting it, and what's app if you're sharing with a single friend? See how this can easily be an issue? Anyone else have this issue? Is there a fix?
I used the first official beta release for about a week, here's what I found:
* Good enough for a daily driver, if you don't mind a few hick-ups or manually restarting your phone every once in a while
* Slightly slower launching apps
* Audio quality from phone speakers was no where near as good (sounded thin and boxy), and not as loud.
* Camera would black-screen on me about every 4th launch and I'd need to force stop the camera
* Camera app always warned me it was too hot to preform certain advanced features
* Boot-up, not a big deal, but took about 6 times longer to start back up.
* I liked the notifications on the pull-down better. Not a huge change, but noticeable
* LOVED the screenshot edit pop up after every one (does more than Android 10 does). This was one thing I missed the most when I switched from a Samsung S10+ to Google.
The audio quality and camera were just too much for me to handle right now, so I went back to Android 10 for now. I may try beta 2 when it comes out?
Using Beta 2 right now, no issues at all, device is smoother than ever and battery lasts longer about 36 hours with medium usage getting 3.5h SOT
caifaz said:
Using Beta 2 right now, no issues at all, device is smoother than ever and battery lasts longer about 36 hours with medium usage getting 3.5h SOT
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I haven't been having battery luck. On beta 2 I get about 1.5 hours. Of screen on time. Phone doesn't go to sleep at all. Same with Android 10. I have to go back to using naptime.
I don't have motion sense on or aod display.
jduenes said:
I haven't been having battery luck. On beta 2 I get about 1.5 hours. Of screen on time. Phone doesn't go to sleep at all. Same with Android 10. I have to go back to using naptime.
I don't have motion sense on or aod display.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thats odd, have you tried a full wipe?
Hello!
I just wanted to know if this phones' software have ads anywhere in the UI? If yes, is there an option to opt-out?
Secondly, I've heard Xiaomi phones are notorious for having stock apps that ask for unwanted permission to function (eg: calculator wanting to access contacts etc.), is this one a victim of that?
Also does the stock os has an option to disable gesture based navigation and use on-screen navigation bar instead?
Finally, does it come with 3rd party keyboard(like swiftkey etc.) out of the box, or how is the built-in one in terms of privacy? Was it known for data gathering in the past?
If you have the device in hand, please do check these things and let me know. Are there anything else that I should be aware of, like known issues? I am not planning to flash custom roms or modify deeply.
Thanks in advance.
@n1troV I have been using my M3 for more than one month, I hope that I have answered all your questions.
1. ads anywhere in the UI?
Yes, in all Xiaomi system apps, you have to go through the settings in each of them and choose to trun off "Recommendations", to disable ads for each app.
2. unwanted permission
The calculator in MIUI does not require any permissions, in the settings, the Storage permission is listed, but denied, the calculator can still be used without the permission. There are a lot of pre-installed Google apps. The dialer, messages, and contacts apps are also from Google.
(Edit: The Taiwanese version uses the original MIUI dialer app and messages app)
3. option to disable gesture based navigation
Yes, it can be changed in the settings, please see the screenshot below.
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
4. 3rd party keyboard
Yes, it came with Gboard pre-installed, you can install a different keyboard, if you do not want to use it. By default, Gboard sends analytics data back to Google, but that can be disabled in the settings.
I am using the stock MIUI ROM, and the fingerprint unlocking was very slow when I got the phone, but after getting two system updates, now the unlocking speed is faster.
If possible, I suggest that you can use Szaki/XiaomiADBFastbootTools (can be downloaded from GItHub) to debloat the phone with adb, to remove some unwanted system apps like MSA , WMService, Analytics, Chrome and other Google apps.
I used the phone for navigation several times, and the GNSS accuracy is about 4m, it is usually enough, but sometimes if another road is too close, the maps app thinks I am on the other road.
By default, VoWiFi is not enabled on this phone, but it can be enabled by disabling carrier check, using the code *#*#869434#*#* in the dialer.
If privacy is important to you, you can use a private DNS service like AdGuard DNS or NextDNS to block unwanted connections.
The phone is not perfect, but it is still a good phone for its price. If you want to have more RAM and an ultra-wide-angle camera, you can take a look at Redmi 9T, it has almost the same hardware, but it's better, and its price is the same as or similiar to M3's price, depending on which country you are in.
You can ask me if you have any other questions about the phone.
Thank you very much! You've answered pretty much all of questions I had and then some. I was unaware of the sluggish fingerprint sensor and inaccurate GPS, neither of which are dealbreakers to me, personally.
I've considered 9T too, I actually dig the design language of that one abit more than M3 and there's a slight bump in performance too. It's significantly more expensive compared to the m3 where I live though.
By the way, have you tested read/write performance of the ufs storage on the m3? If you have some free time, please do run passmarks' disk benchmark utility and share some screenshots along with the storage capacity.
Moreover, are there any noticeable lags/frame drops in the UI, delays in app opening? I am not expecting ~$150 phone to perform like ~$1000 flagships but I'd like to know what the general user experience is like.
And thanks for the tips on secure DNS. I was thinking of implementing pihole for network-wide ad-blocking, will look into private DNS services too.
Thanks again for taking your time to write a well-detailed reply, cheers!
@n1troV It takes about 2 seconds for the phone to open an app, I have tested with different apps. I think it's acceptable for the price.
My previous phone had SD625 chip, and M3 has SD662 chip, after changing to M3, I feel that M3 is a lot faster.
There is one thing I forgot to mention, this phone has dual speakers, but when I tried it the bottom speaker is a lilltle louder than the top speaker, I think when I watched review videos of M3, someone also mentioned this problem.
I will test the storage speed tomorrow when I have time.
n1troV said:
If you have some free time, please do run passmarks' disk benchmark utility and share some screenshots along with the storage capacity.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Below is a screenshot of passmark.
(Edit: The phone has 4GB of RAM, but passmark only shows 3GB)
I have the 128GB version, so the storage is UFS 2.2, the SD card I use is Kingston Canvas Select Plus 32GB.
I also have another screenshot of the CIT mode, it shows the hardware information of the phone.
To show you what it feels like to open apps and to scroll through Google Play on the phone, I have recorded a video using the built-in screen recorder, it is in the attached zip file.
Thank you! The ufs storage performance was abit underwhelming though. Have you had an emmc 5.1 based phones in the past? I suppose those chips perform about the same in benchmarks. In fact, having ufs based storage is one of the main reasons I've considered m3 hoping it would help sustain good overall ui performance/snappiness although that does not seem to be the case here.
As for the muffled earpiece speaker; I guess i can pass on that since even higher end phones suffer from the same issue likely due to the fact that there isn't much space in phones with edge-to edge displays and camera hardware to fit a better speaker.
Does this phone support streaming off of popular platforms? There used to be a requirement of some codecs or something along those lines to support drm enabled streaming out of the box iirc, can this one do?
Lastly; if you're in the market for sub $200 phone and m3 and 9t are not your options, what would be your next best pick? Just curious.
@n1troV Previously, I had used two different Redmi phones, both with emmc storage, and they have Snapdragon 435 and Snapdragon 625 chips.
After start using my M3, when I transfered files from my laptop to the M3 using a USB cable, it still took a long time, the speed of transfering files from PC does not feel any faster than my previous phones that have emmc storage. I think this is because the phone only has a USB 2.0 port.
The phone supports Widevine L1 DRM certification, so it can play DRM content at the maximum quality.
I have not played any DRM content on it, but the "DRM Info" app shows that the security level is L1.
I already got used to XIaomi's MIUI, since I used two Redmi phones previously, I would only choose a phone that is made by Xiaomi, this is why I bought the M3.
Before I bought the M3, I had thought about buying other phones that are made by Xiaomi, including Redmi Note 8T (It is not sold in where I live), Redmi Note 9 Pro (It supports NFC, but it is too expensive), and Redmi 9.
When I decided to buy a new phone, because the Redmi phone I was using (Redmi 6 Pro) had GPS issues, last year, I went to XIaomi's website again, and saw that there was a new phone called POCO M3, and I compared its specs with Redmi 9.The specs of M3 are a better than Redmi 9's, except that the CPU of Redmi 9 has better performance, and Redmi 9 has a wide-angle camera. So I decided to buy the M3, since I don't take photos often, and I don't play mobile games.
After using the M3, I feel that the side-mounted fingerprint sensor is a lot more convenient than the rear-mounted fingerprint sensors that my previous phones have, with the side-mounted fingerprint sensor, it's easy to unlock the phone even when it is on the table.
Excellent! I'm relatively new to the world of android phones and almost everybody here is pushing big-name-brand phones despite them having worse specs purely for the brand recognition (I suppose?) I've come to conclusion that M3 offers good value/performance for the price you're paying, not without its fair share of shortcomings though. That's to be expected, I guess.
Thanks for saving me lot of time not having to search answers for each questions I had. It certainly helped getting answers directly from an owner of the mighty M3.
That usb 2.0 bottleneck situation is understandable though. There are $1k devices on the other side of the pond still utilizing usb2 protocol, so yeah.
I mostly agree with your argument on fingerprint sensor placement except I personally prefer rear-mounted sensors mostly due to the fact that those got large surface area to work with and tends to be more accurate and quick. Usually your index finger sits there so its only natural to unlock the device as you pick it. Only downside is not able to unlock when device is on table.
Side mounted sensors on the other hand solve that issue but depending on the placement, it might be hard to reach specially on big phones. Having a hole cut on the side of the frame shouldn't help in terms of structural rigidity either. Eitherway I'd pick any capasitive implementation over gimmicky in-display sensor in a heartbeat.
@n1troV I just remembered that I could also do a read/write speed test on my old phone (Redmi 4X), it has LPDDR3 RAM and emmc 5.1 storage, the screenshot below shows the test results of Redmi 4X.
(POCO M3 has LPDDR4X RAM)
Since you have not used Xiaomi phones before, I think you need to know that Mi and Redmi phones have the original MIUI launcher, and the MIUI launcher does not have an app drawer, but POCO phones only have the POCO launcher, it has an app drawer, and cannot be disabled.
I have tried to install the MIUI launcher on my M3, but it could not be installed, so the only ways to install MIUI launcher on POCO phones are installing a custom ROM, or root/installing a magisk module.
Hmm it turns out ufs based storage is still significantly faster, at least on the reads.
You brought up an interesting point on the launcher, does M3 use swipe up gesture to launch app drawer or it has an option to have that dedicated grid style icon?
I don't dig the stock icons/ui elements on the above mentioned phones though. As long as a 3rd party launcher can be installed with unread counts reliably shown without random crashes, it should be fine.
I've had friends who used Mi phones in the past that I got to have some hands on time with (can't recall the exact model names), most of them were either android go/one devices though. Miui based phones were from 2016-17 so I'm sure alot has changed since then.
EDIT:
I might consider flashing custom rom as my last resort option, specially if I found stock apps constantly phoning home. Preferably a privacy focused rom (graphene/lineage?) with bare essential apps and 3rd party store (aurora?) minus the google stuff. That is only if services like realtime notifications are unaffected. Also there's a steep learning curve as I've not done any of this before
@n1troV The POCO launcher uses the swipe up gesture to open the app drawer, if you do not want to have an app drawer, there is a 3rd party launcher called Lawndesk, it can be installed and used on M3, and it can show unread counts after giving it the notification access permission.
Other 3rd party launchers can also be installed on the phone, but almost all of them have app drawers.
I had unlocked the bootloader of the phone and installed Magisk on it before, but it was difficult to update the phone with Magisk installed, so I reinstalled stock MIUI ROM and relocked the bootloader with Mi flash tool.
I am currently using NextDNS on the phone, because it is customizable, below is a screenshot showing blocked connections to Xiaomi. I have disabled all analytics options in the M3's system settings, I have also removed (debloated) all system apps that are related to analytics or system ads, but the phone still 'phones home'.
I still prefer using the stock ROM and POCO launcher, at least I have blocked those connections with NextDNS.
cbw said:
if you do not want to have an app drawer
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey that's not what I mean. Remember before the swipe up gesture was a thing, there used to be an icon on the bottom row of the home screen that opened app drawer on tap? I was wondering if such option is present on M3 to use drawer icon instead of swipe up.
cbw said:
I have disabled all analytics options in the M3's system settings, I have also removed (debloated) all system apps that are related to analytics or system ads, but the phone still 'phones home'.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
See, this is the kind of stuff that bothers me. You went through all the trouble navigating deep in system settings and opting out, yet it does sh!t like this in the background. In the screenshot you've attached, you seem to have narrowed down results to the requests made to domains that contain "mi" in it. Who knows what else its pinging
It's impractical for average user to go through each and every request phone is making as there is probably hundreds if not thousands of them. I really do believe that if you opted out of something it should not be pinging servers over the web period. Privacy is becoming a bigger and bigger problem every day yet most people ignore it entirely. I doubt average user would know or care about such sketchy behaviors of their "personal" devices.
tl:dr Probably not the best for privacy, at least not out of the box.
n1troV said:
there used to be an icon on the bottom row of the home screen that opened app drawer on tap?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
POCO launcher does not have that option, but there is a small arrow that can be clicked to open the app drawer.
I have found a 3rd party launcher called Apex Launcher, it still has the old Android icon for opening the app drawer, but I think the old version (3.3.3) of it is better than the current version.
n1troV said:
you seem to have narrowed down results to the requests made to domains that contain "mi" in it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had to do it, because I also use other apps, and browse websites, so if I didn't do it, it would show a lot of domains, including the ones used by other apps and websites.
For browsing websites on the phone, I suggest that you can install an extension called ublock origin, but most mobile browsers don't support extensions. Kiwi Browser and Firefox Android (There is also a fork called Iceraven, it supports more extensions compared to Firefox) support extensions, so you can install extensions on them for privacy.
n1troV said:
Who knows what else its pinging
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have just restarted the phone, cleared the log in NextDNS, and stopped using the phone for 25 minutes, I have only opened NextDNS's website with Kiwi Browser, below is a screenshot of NextDNS's log.
Thanks for the update on stock launcher and possible third party options.
cbw said:
I also use other apps, and browse websites, so if I didn't do it, it would show a lot of domains, including the ones used by other apps and websites.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I understand that. Embedded trackers within apps is whole another story. I was more concerned about OS telemetry that cannot be disabled. There is no guarantee that the phone is pinging domains only have "mi" in it.
cbw said:
I suggest that you can install an extension called ublock origin, but most mobile browsers don't support extensions. Kiwi Browser and Firefox Android (There is also a fork called Iceraven, it supports more extensions compared to Firefox) support extensions, so you can install extensions on them for privacy.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am also aware that the mobile firefox has somewhat limited extension support. However adding more and more extensions doesn't exactly help with browser fingerprinting. In fact it makes matters worse as you stand out more compared to the "default" ff installations. uBo is my go to addon for adblocking on computers, will definitely have that on phone as well.
cbw said:
I have just restarted the phone, cleared the log in NextDNS, and stopped using the phone for 25 minutes, I have only opened NextDNS's website with Kiwi Browser
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I suppose you're logged into google account and has sync enabled? I mean still its imperfect way to track ALL the requests phone is making specially when its on standby, and for such small period of time. Unless its connected to pi-hole or some sort of firewall/nw analyzer all the time, there's no way you can tell whats going on
n1troV said:
I suppose you're logged into google account and has sync enabled?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes I have enabled sync for my Google account. With DNS, I could not find a better way to track the requests, because DNS cannot tell which requests are coming from a specific app.
I have installed AdGuard to filter requests on my phone (with local VPN method), and I will post screenshots of blocked requests later.
These are the blocked requests.
Xiaomi Cloud (and Cloud Backup), Xiaomi Service Framework, and System Apps Updater can be uninstalled using Szaki/XiaomiADBFastbootTools.
It is possible to use Android Debug Bridge (adb) to uninstall Google Play Services, but I do not know if it is safe to do it.
After searching online about uninstalling the Mi Account app, I found this.
https://gist.github.com/Biswa96/81fe477079fa5279f7cfd7b98d5519c7
Do not uninstall com.xiaomi.account if you've already logged in MI account.
You will get "This device is locked" message and won't be able to unlock it!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey, thanks for saving the day, again! I'm so glad the first person to reply to my thread happens to be somewhat privacy conscious.
cbw said:
I could not find a better way to track the requests, because DNS cannot tell which requests are coming from a specific app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exactly! Unfortunately same thing applies for network activity monitors. Pi-hole seem to have a decent dashboard, probably 3rd party hardware firewalls too.
cbw said:
uninstalling the Mi Account app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not planning to log into any third party services. Probably not even google on setup wizard.
I was wondering, is there a way to sandbox apps in android? As in you could isolate app data from one another and have full control over each app as to whether it's getting access to internet/gps and whatnot. I heard Shelter does this, not sure how that works exactly.
Unrelated to privacy: does the stock launcher has option to "lock homescreen grid"?
n1troV said:
Shelter
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It will cause bootloop in MIUI.
I also saw this in Shelter's description.
Some vendor / custom ROMs may have a broken implementation that may cause crashes and even bricking of your device. One such example is MIUI from Xiaomi.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If I want to test apps without installing them on my phone, I use a virtual machine app called "VMOS Pro", it works well on my M3, but it sends analytics data to several servers, and there is no option to disable that.
By the way, POCO launcher also sends data to two different severs, "api.accelerator.intl.miui.com" and "api.ad.intl.xiaomi.com", so you might want to avoid using it, POCO launcher can be uninstalled using adb or XiaomiADBFastbootTools.
n1troV said:
does the stock launcher has option to "lock homescreen grid"?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes.