Database Users

2.2 Review

*** True Story ***
I am a member on Dell's community forum and have watched Dell's mouthpiece, Amy-B, post the lies and put up the smoke and mirrors regarding this for a while now. When she first announced that the update would begin on 11/15, I paid closer attention. By the end of the week when there was no update, I commented that users may have a potential class action suit. With that, I got a scathing email from Dell saying I violated their terms of use, some left handed subtle threats, and my post was deleted. I still laugh about that.
End True Story, my ongoing review below
I put 2.2 on last night and played with it for a little while before bed, then really started putting it to the test today. here's what's happened until now.
First, when I applied the update, it kept a lot of previous settings and applications rather than clean wiping. It also bypassed forcing me to login to google account, so when I tried to use the market, it couldn't. With that, I used my credentials to login to my google account and immediately started having some google calendar syncing error. It became a loop, each time asking me to report it, then asking me to force close the app, and then over and over the same thing. So I rebooted the streak, and it came up with the same exact issue not allowing me to do anything with it. I had to pull the battery to shut it down this time and when I get it all together to power up, I simply held the up/down volume keys and told it to do a factory reset.
The rom cooks itself into the streak as the factory install and 2.2 came up on the next boot, this time asking for google credentials. It worked that time, and I was ready to put the phone through it's motions.
Issues I've found
1. Voice Dialer via Bluetooth crashes each time I try to use it. It crashes to the point that it tells me to restart my phone. This is without fail.
2. swiping to unlock the phone, or pattern unlock are flaky. it will start then stop as if I've taken my finger off. I have to do it multiple times and crazy ways to make it work. Pattern lock same thing. Especially after coming out of my pocket... as if the heat from my body makes my finger not be recognized on the whole screen. This build makes the touchscreen no longer responsive as it was in 1.6... update, I've tested this over and over and over. yes, it seems to be the temperature, because if I blow on the screen to cool it, or something similar, the screen becomes instantly responsive to my touch. I never had this problem with 1.6 regardless of when I pulled it out of my pocket.
3. sometimes, changing screens gets choppy or laggy.
4. No widget bar or tray/drawer that allows you to turn BT or Wifi on or off. You have to get something from the market to do this (updated, this is available as a widget, I should open my eyes a bit)
5. Can't change the number of screens; can't add or subtract screens, stages, rooms, or whatever you choose to call it. You're stuck with 7, the center one being the default.
6. Multiple FC's for variety of reasons, many are while simply browsing the market. With that Microsoft-esque error reporting thing always popping up, I think they anticipated feeding garbage to the masses.
7. Have tried a few alternate launchers. Some are better than others, more functional etc.. .but no matter how weak an alternate launcher appears to be, they pretty much ALL beat StageUI
Likes
1. Have always liked the live wallpapers that we were introduced to in 2.1
2. landscape mode rights itself regardless of which side is facing up. could be a caveat since it puts the home/back/menu buttons upside down on the left instead of right with the hard buttons on the bottom, but still kind of cool nonetheless.
4. Support for Exchange is native and doesn't require additional software/applications.
the long and the short of it.. Dell is useless as an OS developer/tweaker and StageUI blows.
Samsung hit the homerun with it on its Galaxy S series. I was just at best buy, and the Galaxy Tab is pretty sweet but the price tag is ridiculous. Comparing 2.1 of my Vibrant with 2.2 on my streak, the Vibrant wins. no contest.
Day one of having the new 2.2 update on there and it's clear that this OS needs some patching already. I can only imagine what the people on O2 in the UK had to go through with their 2.1 fiasco
more to follow...

Here's a couple of things that I like in this build but before I list the items I wanted to address the comment you made about being able to turn of BT, wi-fi, GPS, brightness, etc. Under apps you can select Power Control and that will give you those options in a form of a widget. You do, however, will have to delete one of the Stage widgets to free up the room. Or you can just open the widget via apps. For my use, I currently prefer a different launcher than Stage. I am using the LauncherPro but there are a lot of other free choices like ADW, Zeam and so on.
Here are the things I like about this build:
1. Ability to hang up the call by pressing the power button ( you have to go to Settings-Accessibility-then check the mark for that option)
2. Radio feature - is absolutely great. The thing I don't like is the web ad that seems to pop every time I start listening to a station. If anyone knows how to turn/block that pop-up you would make me very happy )
3. Keyboard is awesome. Love the size, the options to switch to symbols, just love it. Haven't messed with SWYPE but I love the Andriod KB right now.
4. Flash - yes it works and it works well.
5. Speed - significantly faster. Whether navigating or downloading. Wi-fi speeds are faster than 1.6 or 2.1 I use to have.
6. Bluetooth volume is louder. This one was high on my priority list.
7. Music widget - looks nice and clean.
8. Camera works fine. I don't see an option for 720p though.
9. Security is beefed up by adding the option for PIN or password on top of the normal sliding lock. My slider works without any issues. But I prefer the pattern lock which also works great.
10. Haptic feedback can't be completely turned off, or you can turn off certain features alone like keyboard. I have mine off so the three main buttons don't vibrate any more. I don't think that option was available in the previous builds but I could be wrong.
These are the ones that I can think of right off the bat. I may add more as I remember them.

streak4m3 said:
Under apps you can select Power Control and that will give you those options in a form of a widget.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Long press home, then under widgets, then power control... thanks tons. that's what I was looking for.

So my quick review:
The good:
Loving the out-of-the-box Exchange support. Yay. Mobile e-mail/calendar/contacts without having to use Touchdown and the hassle of 'pushing' Touchdown contacts to the phone's contacts.
w00t. Ability to grab requiring apps from the market which require 2.x.
2.x features like portrait home screen, better multi-touch, etc.
The bad:
The Stage UI is just lame. Giving it a few days before I toss it in the bin.
I miss the old video playing app. I dunno what it was called, but there isn't even a shortcut for the new one. I installed ASTRO File Manager, browsed to my video directory and the file launched with some less-than-basic video player. What I liked about the old one was the order-by-date view which I have become used to but isn't the end of the world, the resume where you left off feature, and the delete from within the app feature. I guess Rock Player is the video player most people seem to be recommending, so I hope it has this.
For all its faults, I liked the old keyboard. I suspect it's still there, but I have yet to look. Using 2 (To/two/too) and 4 (For/four), etc in txt/IM/tweets now takes extra keypresses.
I never really knew how handy the Dell notification area was for 1.6. I'd turn off the cellular data and run Wi-Fi only, with just a couple of presses and it wouldn't interrupt the app I was in. Now I have to go to the home screen, press the menu button, and that's only to turn off wireless. I have yet to find the equivalent enable/disable for 3G.
Yet to check:
I've found the Streak's camera has taken pretty lame photos. I'm not photophile, but our 5 year old, 4MP camera takes better photos than the Streak. I've had the Streak set to the best quality (Lowest compression or whatever it was) and if you zoom in on a picture while viewing on a PC, it gets pixelated very quickly, while our 4MP pics are much nicer looking and they are twice the file size (4MP pic twice the file size of a 5MP pic?), so I'm interpreted this as 'The Streak takes crappy pics'. Been waiting to see what, if anything, the upgrade to 2.2 does for this.
So I guess it seems to lack polish, BUT, I think the reason for this is because it's actually near-to-bare Android, so I'm not going to criticise the roughness when the other option is more polish (Which one may or may not like) from Dell that means OS updates take 6+ months. I'm sure I'll be able to overcome anything I'm not liking with apps or through tweaking some options somewhere. Isn't this why we have Android?
But yeah. Stage is coming off pretty quick I suspect.
PS - You all might laugh: http://i.imgur.com/ULMLx.png

This build was far too laggy for my tastes. 1.6 was faster on some of the processes for me. I'm happily back on DJ Steve's build which is soooo much faster and has virtually the same features.
Sent from my Dell Streak using Tapatalk

Something I'm surprised is:
2.2 doesn't have separate sounds for incoming:
E-mail
Texts
Reminders
...I dunno if iOS does, but my old Windows Mobile device did. I'd like a different sounds for these events, as I'll respond to them differently. Now I don't know if it's a calendar reminder which I can't ignore, a text which I might ignore or an e-mail that I can ignore...

streak4m3 said:
8. Camera works fine. I don't see an option for 720p though.
.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I got fooled by this. check 'Custom' for 720p. I can verify it is 720p too. pretty good quality.
Edit: Check it out. cant post link so you'll have to type the youtube code in manually
watch?v=Xm-jbOqIUiU
Enjoy! pretty sweet.
Format : MOV
Dimensions: 1280x720px
Video codec: MPEG4
Audio codec: AAC

htnprm said:
I never really knew how handy the Dell notification area was for 1.6. I'd turn off the cellular data and run Wi-Fi only, with just a couple of presses and it wouldn't interrupt the app I was in. Now I have to go to the home screen, press the menu button, and that's only to turn off wireless. I have yet to find the equivalent enable/disable for 3G.
PS - You all might laugh: http://i.imgur.com/ULMLx.png
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try "Quick Settings" which puts an icon in your status bar so when in an app, just drag down the status bar click on it and all your settings are there. Or, try "QuickDesk". Not sure if this is out of beta yet but its also an awesome app for doing exactly what you are talking about.....and much more.
Cant wait to get my Streak and to start rockin this 2.2. Would love to have vanilla 2.2 though.

as you are on 2.2 now , can you check something for me ?
- can flashled from camera be used as torchlight ?
- it should have usb tethering now, but does it also do wifi-tethering ?
- can the flashplayer play activescript ?
- is activesync (not exchange) working ?

da_jojo said:
as you are on 2.2 now , can you check something for me ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah. I was wondering about many of these. Hopefully I get the first real sit-down with the phone sans-children jumping all over me, so I'll get back to you.

htnprm said:
Yeah. I was wondering about many of these. Hopefully I get the first real sit-down with the phone sans-children jumping all over me, so I'll get back to you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
cheers, appreciate it

da_jojo said:
as you are on 2.2 now , can you check something for me ?
- can flashled from camera be used as torchlight ?
- it should have usb tethering now, but does it also do wifi-tethering ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes the led can work as a flashlight. I used the N1 Torch app and it worked fine.
Yes it does have wifi tethering.
I really miss the 1.6 menu bar/notification bar. Stage blows compared to the old ui. The swype keyboard is great. I have mixed feelings about the update mainly because of the ui changes.
Sent from my Dell Streak using Tapatalk

Spectre51 said:
Yes the led can work as a flashlight. I used the N1 Torch app and it worked fine.
Yes it does have wifi tethering.
I really miss the 1.6 menu bar/notification bar. Stage blows compared to the old ui. The swype keyboard is great. I have mixed feelings about the update mainly because of the ui changes.
Sent from my Dell Streak using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thnx for the info
yeah me too, but you can allways install one of these :
http://myandroidworld.in/posts/android-launchershome-replacement-apps

da_jojo said:
as you are on 2.2 now , can you check something for me ?
- can flashled from camera be used as torchlight ?
- it should have usb tethering now, but does it also do wifi-tethering ?
- can the flashplayer play activescript ?
- is activesync (not exchange) working ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. Yes, I use StreakLight from Market (free)
2. Yes, there´s an option for this and I checked it, and it seems to work. But I haven´t connected a device yet.
3. How can I check this?
4. Dunno, cause I use Exchange and some Imap

gavelis said:
1. Yes, I use StreakLight from Market (free)
2. Yes, there´s an option for this and I checked it, and it seems to work. But I haven´t connected a device yet.
3. How can I check this?
4. Dunno, cause I use Exchange and some Imap
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thnx
ad 3 : http://www.playerversion.com/ and http://jrgraphix.net/research/flash-dock-mx-2004.php and http://flowplayer.org/plugins/streaming/rtmp.html

da_jojo said:
as you are on 2.2 now , can you check something for me ?
- can flashled from camera be used as torchlight ?
- it should have usb tethering now, but does it also do wifi-tethering ?
- can the flashplayer play activescript ?
- is activesync (not exchange) working ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Alright. Others have answered, but I'll pass on what I know. If you're talking Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) not talking to an Exchange server, a la Hotmail, I'm getting a "cannot connect to server" error... My EAS to work's Exchange is working flawlessly though.
And USB/Wi-fi tethering are working grand. I'm tethered by Wi-fi as I write this, so I can pass my 3G USB modem on to a colleague. w00t.
I am a little concerned about battery life. I haven't done that much with the phone today, unlike a normal day where I might squeeze in a few calls, texts, tweets, bit of web browsing, and three+ hours of video and have the battery at 20% at the end of the day. I'm at 20% left now, and I haven't done any of those things.

thnx
have you tried hotmail through POP3 ? it worked with k9 client.
what i meant is activesync on windows 7 64bit with office 2010 32bit.
yeah batterylife concerns me also. i have a habit of draining these in godspeed (A)

You can create a shortcut to the wifi & networks popup from launcherpro activities.
1. Long press on the desktop bsckground
2. Select shortcut
3. Select Activities
4. Select wireless & networks
You now have access to the old dell popup to disable data, 3g etc.
Sent from my Dell Streak using XDA App

this is exactly what people where missing , thnx

rodjordan said:
You now have access to the old dell popup to disable data, 3g etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Kinda. You still have to go from the app you're in out to the home screen, turn it on/off, and then go back to your app. But thanks for the info.

Why I like the Venue Pro

I think we should turn the thread a little more positive. So with that said here are the things I really enjoy about the Venue Pro.
1. Form factor and build quality are outstanding on this phone.
2. Much faster loading the majority of (if not all) games than my wife's HD7.
3. LG Voice to Text is awesome and works great on the Venue Pro. There is a small pause when jumping directly to the home screen from the app but the app has been perfect.
4. Having the ability to type on a physical keyboard when it is in the single digits and waiting for the city bus is a life saver.
6. Screen is very high quality. I would like a more accurately calibrated screen and I would pay for a screen calibration app if anyone is capable of achieving this. (I am a video junkie so the colors can be a distraction at times.)
7. Camera takes very good pictures in well lit environments.
Anybody have recommendations on other apps to sideload? Are the custom color accents working for the Venue Pro yet? I know a good portion of things require read/write access which we don't yet have to my knowledge.

Probably the most beautifully designed phone of 2010. I am probably saying that because smartphones are just copying each other. It is probably the easiest phone to type on because of the curved glass, it is curved outwards and it is actually quite noticeable.
Unfortunately because of the availably, we don't get fun features like custom color accent. I think that is because the developer doesn't have a Venue Pro.

how did you get the LG voice to text app, i would like to try that out on the VP

It is actually a very simple process. The first thing is to unlock your phone either with ChevronWP7 or with a developer unlock. Once you have done that there is a thread in the developer section with a XAP file that you unzip. Then you can install it using the developer tools or with one of the other sideloading methods. I used ChevronWP7 and the developer tools. There is a great guide on installing ChevronWP7 in the general WP7 development thread. This is also where you can find the XAP file. I guess it is actually a RAR file that you unzip. If you look in the section that says HTC hub for everyone there is also a link to a supposed led flashlight app. It uses the recording feature of the camera and turns the led on. Brilliant idea if you ask me. I was going to try this today when i get a little time.

I love the design, the OS.. the slide out keyboard feels solid, the loud speaker is LOUD!! lol.

Annoyances

I love my Galaxy Camera and to be fair there isn't a great deal wrong with it but I thought I would share just a few niggles I have found that I hope Samsung could improve on.
1) is the prompt on a cold boot asking if you want to use the external SD card as the default storage. Make it the default permanently (just like you can on a smartphone).
2) is the default action of extending the lens when you turn on the camera. It's handy for a quicker shot I agree but it worries me that the barrel might get damaged that time you accidently turn it on in inside a bag or coat or the annoyance of sending the camera off balance as you hold it to check your emails. I believe a setting to toggle this feature on and off could be implemented.
3) the setting for voice activated camera functions is not remembered. You know when you frantically keep saying "Cheese" only to find it's turned itself off.
4) the default keyboard is reset to stock keyboard on a cold boot. I prefer Swiftkey but have to reset this every time I cold boot.
5) the cover on the USB port is fiddly to remove to charge the camera. I agree there should be some sort of cover as it would be ugly without one, but it's a pain to open and the flap gets in the way of the cable. I am sure a slightly better design could be found.
6) no auto screen brightness setting.
7) for such an expensive camera, why wasn't some sort of case included in the box?
These aren't major issues and the Pro's outway the Con's in abundance. I just thought I would share my observations to anyone interested and maybe add your own. Perhaps someone at Samsung might even take them on board!

apprentice said:
I love my Galaxy Camera and to be fair there isn't a great deal wrong with it but I thought I would share just a few niggles I have found that I hope Samsung could improve on.
1) is the prompt on a cold boot asking if you want to use the external SD card as the default storage. Make it the default permanently (just like you can on a smartphone).
2) is the default action of extending the lens when you turn on the camera. It's handy for a quicker shot I agree but it worries me that the barrel might get damaged that time you accidently turn it on in inside a bag or coat or the annoyance of sending the camera off balance as you hold it to check your emails. I believe a setting to toggle this feature on and off could be implemented.
3) the setting for voice activated camera functions is not remembered. You know when you frantically keep saying "Cheese" only to find it's turned itself off.
4) the default keyboard is reset to stock keyboard on a cold boot. I prefer Swiftkey but have to reset this every time I cold boot.
5) the cover on the USB port is fiddly to remove to charge the camera. I agree there should be some sort of cover as it would be ugly without one, but it's a pain to open and the flap gets in the way of the cable. I am sure a slightly better design could be found.
6) no auto screen brightness setting.
7) for such an expensive camera, why wasn't some sort of case included in the box?
These aren't major issues and the Pro's outway the Con's in abundance. I just thought I would share my observations to anyone interested and maybe add your own. Perhaps someone at Samsung might even take them on board!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just received my Galaxy Camera today and I have to say I am very impressed with it. Setup was a breeze (I'm used to Android) and I was up and snapping pretty quickly. Without reading the non existent manual (I downloaded a PDF version from Samsung) I was able to take pictures MUCH better than I did with my previous S3, or my current Nexus 4, all on Auto settings (which is good as I know nothing about cameras).
I would agree about the annoyances, but I know about most of them before I even got the camera, and I personally don't think they are enough to put someone off buying this camera.

point 1: I think this is exactly the same as on smartphones right now, but on smartphones you rarely open the camera app before the memory card is mounted.
if the camera app would start after the memory card is mounted it would probably remember your previous setting, but because it's the first app to start it will always revert to internal storage.
point 4: not specifically a galaxy camera problem.
I have smart keyboard pro installed, and its always smart keyboard pro that pops up.
I haven't seen the Samsung keyboard since the day I got my camera.
point 6: this is something they can't add anymore.
the galaxy camera has no light or proximity sensors so it has to rely on the camera sensor for brightness, which is only really doable in the camera app(which is also the only place where you have automatic brightness)

Point 2
Enable swipe screen in settings.
Sent from my SGS3 using Tapatalk
ROM Sotmax Ultimate V10
Kernel Yank555.lu-V2.8d

corrsea said:
Point 2
Enable swipe screen in settings.
Sent from my SGS3 using Tapatalk
ROM Sotmax Ultimate V10
Kernel Yank555.lu-V2.8d
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ha! I hadn't thought of that.. thanks that's one problem solved.

corrsea said:
Point 2
Enable swipe screen in settings.
Sent from my SGS3 using Tapatalk
ROM Sotmax Ultimate V10
Kernel Yank555.lu-V2.8d
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the tip.

But there's more...
- if the tiny lens cover gets wet (one or two raindrops are enough) it doesn't shut properly anymore
- the gallery app is extremely slow if you have more than just 10 folders. I have about 40 picture folders on dropbox and as the app syncs all the folders it takes ages to scroll through them
- the media service grows and grows until the internal memory is full, I had to delete its data several times already
- user expericience is not consistent: in the gallery there are no Android buttons, for going back to a previous page/folder you need to reach up to the upper edge of the screen for the return or home buttons
- the zoom rocker should be more sensitive or even two-staged. The steps the barrel does now are too big in my opinion.
- there should be a WB option in Auto mode.
Except the first point those are all software related issues which might or might not be resolved in a future update....
Sent from my GT-P6800 using XDA Premium HD app

paulikxp said:
But there's more...
- the gallery app is extremely slow if you have more than just 10 folders. I have about 40 picture folders on dropbox and as the app syncs all the folders it takes ages to scroll through them
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can recommend QuickPic. Very snappy gallery app.

Ezzy77 said:
I can recommend QuickPic. Very snappy gallery app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If I'm not mistaken QuickPic doesn't support Dropbox... And that's crucial with all my important pictures being there.

[ROM][7.1.1][MEIZU PRO5] crDroid v2.1 bugs

as i am barred from posting in the original thread, here my bug list, if anyone can help out, it would be perfect!
-phone crashes sometimes, if i remove the headphones
-battery drains quicker
-ril and fingerprint are unstable.
apart fro mthis, the rom is really cool, even the display seems more saturated than with flyme, which is really really like. thanks faust!

For fingerprint, try to register the exact part that you try to tap it in the first time and use it exactly where you land it. It work for me.
Afaik, the meizu sensor is a low res one, it does not fit Google requirement.

Sometimes I have a discard of the sim and in have to reboot the phone

zatagi said:
For fingerprint, try to register the exact part that you try to tap it in the first time and use it exactly where you land it. It work for me.
Afaik, the meizu sensor is a low res one, it does not fit Google requirement.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i tried to take the same finger twice, and it works after pressing it roughly 20 times.
but i wonder, flyme os does better recognition, so it means the underlying software is better?
what kind of library crdroid is using and where can i find the sources?

Main issue I'm having with this ROM is that videos seems to zoom in automatically, in Youtube or other apps.
Not sure how to fix it!

fingerprint sensor
I used these instructions: https://forum.xda-developers.com/me...-fingerprint-improvement-crdroid-7-1-t3504948
I can't post to linked topic
yes, it works, but I afraid it is not secure, because i scanned one finger and i can log in with any of my fingers.
I haven''t try to log in using finger of somebody else, but I think, it may be possible
EDIT: I just installed FPv2.zip, it works better, using 1 scanned fingerprint, I can open phone with 5 fingers of 10, 2 of them left hand and 3 right hand (1 scanned) fingers.
sorry my bad english

woolikum said:
I used these instructions: https://forum.xda-developers.com/me...-fingerprint-improvement-crdroid-7-1-t3504948
I can't post to linked theme
yes, it works, but I afraid it is not secure, because i scanned one finger and i can log in with any of my fingers.
I haven''t try to log in using finger of somebody else, but I think, it may be possible
EDIT: I just installed FPv2.zip, it works better, using 1 scanned fingerprint, I can open phone with 5 fingers of 10, 2 of them left hand and 3 right hand (1 scanned) fingers.
sorry my bad english
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks for the info,
that doesnt sound that well.
i wonder if we can have sourcecode and/or use the original meizu libraries?..

it seems that the headphone-jacket-restart-bug is fixed with the latest version.
but now the camera does at times stall and it needs a warm restart to be able to use it again.

Hi guys !
I'm a little late but I would like to install this rom.
I'm following this tutorial (https://www.getdroidtips.com/crdroid-os-meizu-pro-5/) but the link is broken (http://xep.8800.org/pro5/nougat/) and I can't find the cdDroid rom. Can you help me?
Thanks a lot!

OEM skin/software

Are you comfortable in your own skin? Is your phone comfortable in its skin? Rate this thread to express how you deem the skin on the Xiaomi Mi Mix 3. A higher rating indicates that you love it: it adds just the right amount of features, it's visually pleasing, and overall it's additive to the experience. If this is a Nexus phone (you didn't think we hand-wrote all of these prompts, did you?) then use this rating to indicate how the latest version of Android looks to you.
Then, drop a comment if you have anything to add!

10.0.11.0 - Global
I can't believe how bad the MIUI 10 global firmware is...
I had heard the MIUI might not be to everyone's tastes, so I was prepared for a little bit of disruption...
However it's much worse I expected.
Firstly, a few positive points:
The hardware is top notch. It's a bit heavy and thick, but it's a very comfortable device to hold. I LOVE the hardware.
Visually it's actually quite appealing. The settings screen has a nice "slinky" effect when scrolling hits the top and bottom. There's also some nice animated when apps open and close from the launcher.
That's about all the good things I can say about it.
The worst things:
Notifications are just plain broken. By default, all installed apps only show notification badges. They don't show icons in the status bar and they don't show on the lock screen.
I can't imagine what MIUI designer thought this was a good design choice. Notifications is the one thing that Android does WAY better than iOS, so why MI would nerf notifications to be almost useless is unfathomable.
So after figuring out why notifications weren't working, I went through every app and for every category of each app enabled notifications in the status bar AND lock screen.
Really annoying, but I thought "hey, you only have to do this once, right? Stop complaining..."
But even then the notifications on the don't work right. They show once... when you unlock the phone they all disappear off the lockscreen forever. Consider this example, I set a reminder to for 12pm. It shows on the lockscreen at 12:01, but I'm not ready to deal with it yet. At 12:02 I unlock the phone to make a phone call. Boom notification disappears. Next time I look at my lockscreen, nothing to do. Complete and utter bollocks!
There's lots of bloat apps on the device. Why would I want to use the MI Messenger when I can use the awesome Google Messages?
So I install Google Messages... and guess what... notifications don't work. I changed all the stupid defaults to enable everything, still no notifications.
That's probably due to the very aggressive power management on the phone. Obviously MI disable this for their own apps (so they run correctly), but for every other app the defaults are set very aggressively. Why MI felt they had to rewrite the, already very competent, power management built into Android 9 I don't know... but they did and it' bad. Great you made my battery last a few hours longer, but you also made my phone completely useless...
Back to the bloat, you can't remove OR hide any of the built in schlock, also very annoying.
The iOS like launcher with no app drawer and ALL icons on the home screen, also very annoying.
I could go on and on... The Mi Mix 3 is a beautiful piece of hardware that it completely and utterly let down by abysmal software.
I'm going to try putting the "Unofficial Pixel Experience" ROM on it. If that doesn't perform well I will be selling this baby at a loss, because MIUI 10 is completely unusable.

pm-2019 said:
10.0.11.0 - Global
I can't believe how bad the MIUI 10 global firmware is...
I had heard the MIUI might not be to everyone's tastes, so I was prepared for a little bit of disruption...
However it's much worse I expected.
Firstly, a few positive points:
The hardware is top notch. It's a bit heavy and thick, but it's a very comfortable device to hold. I LOVE the hardware.
Visually it's actually quite appealing. The settings screen has a nice "slinky" effect when scrolling hits the top and bottom. There's also some nice animated when apps open and close from the launcher.
That's about all the good things I can say about it.
The worst things:
Notifications are just plain broken. By default, all installed apps only show notification badges. They don't show icons in the status bar and they don't show on the lock screen.
I can't imagine what MIUI designer thought this was a good design choice. Notifications is the one thing that Android does WAY better than iOS, so why MI would nerf notifications to be almost useless is unfathomable.
So after figuring out why notifications weren't working, I went through every app and for every category of each app enabled notifications in the status bar AND lock screen.
Really annoying, but I thought "hey, you only have to do this once, right? Stop complaining..."
But even then the notifications on the don't work right. They show once... when you unlock the phone they all disappear off the lockscreen forever. Consider this example, I set a reminder to for 12pm. It shows on the lockscreen at 12:01, but I'm not ready to deal with it yet. At 12:02 I unlock the phone to make a phone call. Boom notification disappears. Next time I look at my lockscreen, nothing to do. Complete and utter bollocks!
There's lots of bloat apps on the device. Why would I want to use the MI Messenger when I can use the awesome Google Messages?
So I install Google Messages... and guess what... notifications don't work. I changed all the stupid defaults to enable everything, still no notifications.
That's probably due to the very aggressive power management on the phone. Obviously MI disable this for their own apps (so they run correctly), but for every other app the defaults are set very aggressively. Why MI felt they had to rewrite the, already very competent, power management built into Android 9 I don't know... but they did and it' bad. Great you made my battery last a few hours longer, but you also made my phone completely useless...
Back to the bloat, you can't remove OR hide any of the built in schlock, also very annoying.
The iOS like launcher with no app drawer and ALL icons on the home screen, also very annoying.
I could go on and on... The Mi Mix 3 is a beautiful piece of hardware that it completely and utterly let down by abysmal software.
I'm going to try putting the "Unofficial Pixel Experience" ROM on it. If that doesn't perform well I will be selling this baby at a loss, because MIUI 10 is completely unusable.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Xiaomi phone has Xiaomi apps, you sound surprised.... Should of just got a pixel phone

I don't recognize any of these criticisms of MIUI 10. This is my first MIUI phone, I've previously run mostly ROMs based on Lineage, which is pretty close to stock Android. Notifications work fine for me, with the exception of Google Messages which is borked, Textra is a perfectly good substitute and works. The native messaging app does have problems, but with group texts not notifications. I've had no difficulties because of apps being killed in the background, quite the contrary compared to my previous phone with its pitiful RAM, multitasking on the Mix3 is, as I expected, significantly improved, and returning to apps much later almost always results in state preservation rather than a restart. Stock launcher?? Who the hell ever runs a stock launcher anyway? There are a million-and-one alternatives, including the Pixel launcher if you prefer, this being one of the biggest (and multitudinous) advantages of Android over crApple.

I love the phone but can agree that MIUI10 notifications are ****. Totally broken. Over aggressive battery management. I heard they are working on that.

I also think MIUI is... err... not my favourite flavour of Android (to be polite).
Thank goodness for Pixel Experience.
To be fair, I think their ROM is highly geared towards China. That's why they need all the custom non-Google apps.
However that's no excuse for the notifications issue. That's just bad. However I don't think this is a Mi Mix 3 issue... Its a MIUI issue and if you Google "MIUI notifications" you will see people complaining about it in MIUI 8.
Here's Android Police (a really reputable site in my opinion) complaining about it for the POCO F1
https://www.androidpolice.com/2018/...g-miui-poco-f1/#The_notification_icon_tragedy
Basically notifications are bad on MIUI and they have been for a while. And Xiaomi don't seem able or willing to fix it...

mmm_ok said:
I also think MIUI is... err... not my favourite flavour of Android (to be polite).
Thank goodness for Pixel Experience.
To be fair, I think their ROM is highly geared towards China. That's why they need all the custom non-Google apps.
However that's no excuse for the notifications issue. That's just bad. However I don't think this is a Mi Mix 3 issue... Its a MIUI issue and if you Google "MIUI notifications" you will see people complaining about it in MIUI 8.
Here's Android Police (a really reputable site in my opinion) complaining about it for the POCO F1
https://www.androidpolice.com/2018/...g-miui-poco-f1/#The_notification_icon_tragedy
Basically notifications are bad on MIUI and they have been for a while. And Xiaomi don't seem able or willing to fix it...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Of course it's highly geared towards China, it's a Chinese manufacturer who's main customer base is China lol
Only bad in Chinese ROM but that's for the Chinese market.

in Developer Settings, scroll to bottom and disable "MIUI Optimization" and it will work

i killed tupac said:
in Developer Settings, scroll to bottom and disable "MIUI Optimization" and it will work
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mmm have you a proofs? I mean, i already did it and no positive results.

So just some perspective here, I have a Pixel XL of all 3 generations, and multiple other devices that run stock or close to stock Android. I bought this device BECAUSE I wanted to check out MIUI in more detail. I invested several hundred hours trying to get MIUI to boot on my Pixel XL. I was never able to get it to boot all the way into setup. There are a lot of cool things MIUI does, and there are some annoyances. However, I think we can both agree that the build quality and price of the Xiaomi devices are second to none at the moment. I haven't seen build quality like this since my Droid X and Droid Rzr.
The nice thing is that we should get full TWRP support and once we have a working device tree (I won't lie, I've been working on that and a TWRP build) we can get some open source goodness with a full ROM. If you hate MIUI that much why would you purchase the device? Also as far as manufacturers go, Xiaomi is far from worst about updates and ongoing device support from what I'm seeing. Especially with these "halo" devices.

PWn3R said:
If you hate MIUI that much why would you purchase the device?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There seems to be an undercurrent of "Why did you buy it if you hate it so much?" and "If you don't want MIUI apps, you should have just bought a Pixel", so let's just clear a few things up...
This is NOT me:
I really hate MIUI... but I'm going to buy a Xiaomi phone anyway and complain about it.
This is me:
Huh, that Mi Mix 3 looks really cool... Never owned a Xiaomi phone before... I wonder if I should take a chance...
Oh crap I'm not getting ANY notifications. Wow, this MIUI is really broken.
As I said in my first post, I love the hardware. Unfortunately, in my opinion, MIUI, on the global version of this device at least, is busted. I just can't believe that they would have released something so half baked.
Fortunately, I've installed a custom ROM and waved goodbye to that MIUI nightmare.

pm-2019 said:
There seems to be an undercurrent of "Why did you buy it if you hate it so much?" and "If you don't want MIUI apps, you should have just bought a Pixel", so let's just clear a few things up...
This is NOT me:
I really hate MIUI... but I'm going to buy a Xiaomi phone anyway and complain about it.
This is me:
Huh, that Mi Mix 3 looks really cool... Never owned a Xiaomi phone before... I wonder if I should take a chance...
Oh crap I'm not getting ANY notifications. Wow, this MIUI is really broken.
As I said in my first post, I love the hardware. Unfortunately, in my opinion, MIUI, on the global version of this device at least, is busted. I just can't believe that they would have released something so half baked.
Fortunately, I've installed a custom ROM and waved goodbye to that MIUI nightmare.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, that makes more sense. I haven't had notification problems on the global room, but it's flashed on the Chinese device in my case and it was dirty flashed over the EU rom without wiping data. I'm sure given what I saw with the Mix 2s there I had very briefly that they will sort out the issues on the global rom.
Sent from my Mi MIX 3 using Tapatalk

Almost all of the issues I've had with notifications were down to the combination of Pie/MIUI, and the multitude of confusing notification settings. Once I'd got all the permissions sorted out, notifications worked perfectly with the exception of Google Messages, and the solution to that was to switch to another message provider then switch back again, I don't know why that works but it does (I have to do it each time I update, apparently). The developer option thing doesn't work, all that does is reset all the notification permissions, leading to the tedious task of setting them back again. MIUI does have a learning curve, but it's certainly not a nightmare.

invisiblewave said:
Almost all of the issues I've had with notifications were down to the combination of Pie/MIUI, and the multitude of confusing notification settings. Once I'd got all the permissions sorted out, notifications worked perfectly with the exception of Google Messages, and the solution to that was to switch to another message provider then switch back again, I don't know why that works but it does (I have to do it each time I update, apparently). The developer option thing doesn't work, all that does is reset all the notification permissions, leading to the tedious task of setting them back again. MIUI does have a learning curve, but it's certainly not a nightmare.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can't use Google Messages because I'm on Verizon and they limit mms to 30kb unless you are using an "approved" device or using their Messages+ app. I gave up and just went to that instead. Getting notifications working on that just required setting allow change system settings for the app, enabling notifications in the app permissions thing from MIUI.

gonna echo everything said so far about miui notification settings. every other phone manufacturer i've ever used has ALL notifications enabled by default. it's a much faster task of just disabling any apps you don't want to see notifications from as they pop up. why in the hell would they do the reverse?
other than that, everything about it is top notch. but the notification system. that is my ONE and only complaint about the entire experience. so far. i've only had the phone for three days. let's see what else pops up (or doesn't, in this case)
ps. the only app i have any issue with notification wise after the tedious setup is hangouts, but from what i understand that's been a google issue for a long long time, and not an android issue.

How is always on display working for you guys? In my case, it just shows the clock and date, and incoming notifications are not highlighted or anything

Nooblit said:
gonna echo everything said so far about miui notification settings. every other phone manufacturer i've ever used has ALL notifications enabled by default. it's a much faster task of just disabling any apps you don't want to see notifications from as they pop up. why in the hell would they do the reverse?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Because everyone wants notifications right. Other than for calls and texts, having to manually disable notifications for all my apps is annoying and a waste of time.

urtv said:
Because everyone wants notifications right. Other than for calls and texts, having to manually disable notifications for all my apps is annoying and a waste of time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i find it a waste of time to have to do the reverse. OH and not to mention that if you go into an apps notification settings to adjust something small and unrelated like the sound the app makes or something like that, all of the system notifications get erased, causing you to have to go into the system notification settings fort hat specific app and have to re-enable everything over and over again. this happens with textra, hangouts, pretty much any sms or messaging app. it's literally backwards, the way they do it, and makes less sense than how literally every other manufacturer does it. i don't appreciate difference for the sake of it. there should be some logic behind it, and quite frankly that logic is broken.
with all due respect, of course.

I think that MIUI's idea regarding notification default settings is related with improving battery duration. I agree that notifications is the weak point here. But the fact that the notificacion settings go back to default when running the security application, or sometimes you don't know why, is worst and annoying, because you won't know it untill you miss an important notification because of it.
I came from a Mi Mix 1, and it was all the same...

bursuk2007 said:
How is always on display working for you guys? In my case, it just shows the clock and date, and incoming notifications are not highlighted or anything
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same problem here! I have my phone since yesterday and comes from a Galaxy S7 edge where i got all notifications on my AOD. But on the MIx 3 i just can see the time and the date and no notifications at all. Is this normal, or do i have to set something in the settings. (MIUI 10.0.11.0 Stabel)
Thanks for any hints!
Philipp