Nokia 5 from eBay? - Nokia 5 Questions & Answers

I'm expecting an Nokia 5 in the mail next couple days,, my question is is it an okey phone? How's battery, display etc.. ??

It's a great phone for the price and has the latest software, camera is good but not the best and the battery is good. Some people have issues with the phone slowing down and the battery being worse when upgrading to Android pie (not me personally) so you should not update the phone straight away and do some research before you update to Android pie. Overall it's a good phone with great build quality

I got perm unlock even upgraded to pie with twrp
This is better than my Oppo . Great phone.

Related

My thoughts after 3 months of use

Originally I wanted to buy Oneplus 3 but I wanted something smaller in size, so I opted for H8. I must say i was delighted with the design and '''in hand'' feel. Also, i was tricked with the whole XDA support thing, which turned out to be a disaster with no help whatsoever from Huawei side. The ''bang for the buck'' term turns out to be a little overhyped.
The biggest feature of this phone was camera which is pretty good, but it's no better than other single sensor units found in large variety of devices. Sometimes even my old Galaxy alpha took better pictures, especially close-ups. Also, focus is a litlle slow to say at least. I didn't expect to get ''best of the best'' so I was satisfied, but this hype about the camera was just advertising and nothing else.
The screen is a little bit dimmed, even by IPS standards, and I've seen better. (I'm not making a comparison with OLED)
Signal reception & quality was excellent and I had no problems with it whatsoever. The story was different with Wifi speed, especially with the lack of it. Compared with my other phones it was about 60% slower with both devices connected on 2.4gHz freq., so that's a fail.
Now, i have to mention the worst thing and that is software and support. Ok, EMUI is quite different than stock android so most people are not happy about it, but I didn't mind that at all. The most Important thing is that everything is fluid and working smoothly, which was not always the case. I noticed slowdowns and I had to resolve them by clearing cache every now and then. News about Nougat update were welcome and I was so excited to get it. Unfortunately, EMUI 5 is a complete mess. The fact that it looks nice doesn't mean that it works nice. It's filled with bugs and battery life is average, if you're lucky. I don't understand why they released the update if it's not finished, obviously. It should be fluid, fast and consistent, at least if they want to compete with other brands (btw samsung is even worse, you don't even get updates with them).
The biggest highlight for me is the one all the reviews valued as average at best, and that's battery life. I get 6,7,even 8hrs of SOT, and that's a hell of a stat.
Conclusion is....if i had a choice all over again, i would take something else probably. Unfortunately I have to live with it now, and I hope our devs will manage to sort out everything and release a stable Lineage, and we should all make a donation. Only they can make this device worth using for a few years, cause Huawei will certainly not.
I apologize if someone disagrees with me...tell me your thoughts...
I feel you on some of the stuff, i dont have any crazy issues other than the auto brightness and the security patch is still stuck on Dec.2016
Wifi with 5ghz is flawless for me plus the part about slowdowns is a little odd considering the one great strength at this price point is the cpu.
I never have any noticeable slowdowns.
The battery life is surprising though. Without gaming i may get around 5h SOT on Emui 5 B380.
Would you mind sharing usage statistics or any other information about how you pull that off?
Edit:
Quite frankly I'm in sort of a love/hate relationship with the phone. I can't really say that EMUI 5 does that bad since it really just works during daily use but at the end of the day i simply don't want it and i dislike the overall feel and style of the software.
This is really the only big letdown for me.
Qualitywise though it's a blast considering that I paid 350€ for it and I still am very happy with it in that regard.
But it's a nobrainer forcing me to use the stockrom and if that policy doesn't change it'll be the last Huawei/Honor phone for me
- Actually scratch the wifi part, i get 60mbps down with the phone compared to the 100-120 i get with my 5 year old wlan stick
Although I think with the H8 it depends strongly on signal strength. I remember it being a lot better when i first tested it
Sent from my FRD-L09 using XDA Labs
SharxX8 said:
Wifi with 5ghz is flawless for me plus the part about slowdowns is a little odd considering the one great strength at this price point is the cpu.
I never have any noticeable slowdowns.
The battery life is surprising though. Without gaming i may get around 5h SOT on Emui 5 B380.
Would you mind sharing usage statistics or any other information about how you pull that off?
Edit:
Quite frankly I'm in sort of a love/hate relationship with the phone. I can't really say that EMUI 5 does that bad since it really just works during daily use but at the end of the day i simply don't want it and i dislike the overall feel and style of the software.
This is really the only big letdown for me.
Qualitywise though it's a blast considering that I paid 350€ for it and I still am very happy with it in that regard.
But it's a nobrainer forcing me to use the stockrom and if that policy doesn't change it'll be the last Huawei/Honor phone for me
- Actually scratch the wifi part, i get 60mbps down with the phone compared to the 100-120 i get with my 5 year old wlan stick
Although I think with the H8 it depends strongly on signal strength. I remember it being a lot better when i first tested it
Sent from my FRD-L09 using XDA Labs
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I must admit that I'm not a really heavy user. I mostly use whatsapp, web browsing and youtube, and a litlle bit facebook and instagram. Only gmail is set to auto sync. Also I disabled all unnecessary apps. So, only the essential things are running and I'm using EMUI 4.1. I tried out EMUI 5 and my SOT was at least 2hrs less. Talking about wifi, I had the same situation after testing a few times, both on 4.1 and 5.0. My speeds were about 60mbps, and other phones about 120/130 mbps.
I'm dissapointed with the fact that Oneplus One feels like a much faster device, even though it's 3 years old. It has excellent support, and when I flashed 7.1 on it the thing just flies like hell, I was amazed! Don't get me wrong, this is just a personal observation without any real testing but the software use was just excellent.
I just managed to install 1.3gb and 300mb update via FF...I will report if I see any changes, at least concerning battery life.
frommars6 said:
I feel you on some of the stuff, i dont have any crazy issues other than the auto brightness and the security patch is still stuck on Dec.2016
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I completely understand. Some people maybe don't pay so much attention on details, or maybe I'm just a perfectionist.
But:
1) Auto brightness i messed up
2) battery life on EMUI 5 is crap, at least according to large number of users
3) Auto dimming in contacts/sms/browser etc.
4) status bar icons flicker when unlocking with fingerprint
5) Animation break during uninstalling apps from ''apps submenu''
6) bluetooth issues
7)............
If they release an update it should be done right, and not like this
I've had the phone for 2 months. I haven't tested the Wi-Fi bc I get really fast lte at home and have unlimited high speed data. The Wi-Fi has been fine when I've used i but can't compare. I prefer nougat to mm but I had the same experience with battery life...plus rooting process with twrp wasn't very clear. The battery life on mm is amazing. I haven't experienced any slow downs. MM with nova launcher works well for me. I'm actually very happy with this phone.....especially only costing $250. But really the only thing I excuse for price is the lack of nougat....the rest works well enough for me. I came from nexus 5x so this camera is better. I wish there was more development but I'm actually quite happy with emui and think I'd stay rooted stock even if I had another option.
I sold muy HTC 10 ando bought the honor 8, and was the BEST decisión I could made, fast, dont lag att all, 6-8 SOT easily and 24 hours of charge, atand by time 1-2% in 11 hours, great looks, great camera, i like miui, is very customizable, the only bad thing os the development, but besides that, i give Honor 8 10/10
yebbey2 said:
I've had the phone for 2 months. I haven't tested the Wi-Fi bc I get really fast lte at home and have unlimited high speed data. The Wi-Fi has been fine when I've used i but can't compare. I prefer nougat to mm but I had the same experience with battery life...plus rooting process with twrp wasn't very clear. The battery life on mm is amazing. I haven't experienced any slow downs. MM with nova launcher works well for me. I'm actually very happy with this phone.....especially only costing $250. But really the only thing I excuse for price is the lack of nougat....the rest works well enough for me. I came from nexus 5x so this camera is better. I wish there was more development but I'm actually quite happy with emui and think I'd stay rooted stock even if I had another option.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree. And I'm not saying the phone is bad. MM is fine but I like Nougat even more (if it only worked as it should). Lack of support is the biggest issue unfortunately...
kmry said:
I sold muy HTC 10 ando bought the honor 8, and was the BEST decisión I could made, fast, dont lag att all, 6-8 SOT easily and 24 hours of charge, atand by time 1-2% in 11 hours, great looks, great camera, i like miui, is very customizable, the only bad thing os the development, but besides that, i give Honor 8 10/10
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I must admit that EMUI 5 feels much snappier...If they fix the bugs I will update immediately. But I'm not so optimistic.....If we have to wait a year for the update and fixes that's too much. Security patches are also outdated, and what about 7.1..... :crying:
mejgs said:
I must admit that EMUI 5 feels much snappier...If they fix the bugs I will update immediately. But I'm not so optimistic.....If we have to wait a year for the update and fixes that's too much. Security patches are also outdated, and what about 7.1..... :crying:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What bugs are you talking about, i havnt found any :s? Im información Nougat.
kmry said:
What bugs are you talking about, i havnt found any :s? Im información Nougat.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Then you are very lucky check my previous post above... Even if everything else is working flawless, 2hrs of SOT less is a big deal.
For me, it's more like: hardware is quite neat but the software is a mess. With the kernel sources not being released by Huawei there is no chance for me to use Lineage as a daily driver. Therefore it's my first and my last Huawei device.
I have had my honor 8 since they first came out.
I was on the UK beta group.
I have not messed with my phone at all, only had the official OTA updates and I must say that I have had no trouble with my phone at all.
It's the best phone I have had.
It's the only phone that I have not rooted.
For my everything works and works well.
The battery with the 380 update is not as good as the 360 but I'm still getting a full day and I'm hammering my phone all day.
The only complaint is with honors reluctant release of the kernel code for EMUI 5 and that we are not getting EMUI 5.1
I'm a happy Honor 8 owner
John
johnhux7 said:
I have had my honor 8 since they first came out.
I was on the UK beta group.
I have not messed with my phone at all, only had the official OTA updates and I must say that I have had no trouble with my phone at all.
It's the best phone I have had.
It's the only phone that I have not rooted.
For my everything works and works well.
The battery with the 380 update is not as good as the 360 but I'm still getting a full day and I'm hammering my phone all day.
The only complaint is with honors reluctant release of the kernel code for EMUI 5 and that we are not getting EMUI 5.1
I'm a happy Honor 8 owner
John
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Likewise, ever since I upgraded to Nougat a couple of months ago, I did not have any real issues either, and I am a power user (I can't really make a comparison about the SOT on MM, because I didn't check the statistics before upgrading, although I have noticed a slight decrease in battery life, but by no means a 2-3 hour difference), so I can't complain
If you have all this problem i think your honor is bugged.... I have some result with Nougat as mm.... The some sot 5 hours with 16/17 hour standby 4g with 3 mail push WhatsApp ecc... I have forced installation of 380 and reset.... No problem At all
grifovunque said:
If you have all this problem i think your honor is bugged.... I have some result with Nougat as mm.... The some sot 5 hours with 16/17 hour standby 4g with 3 mail push WhatsApp ecc... I have forced installation of 380 and reset.... No problem At all
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What are you meaning by saying that you think our phones after bugged ?
You think there is a bug in the 380 update ?
I definitely think that they have got something wrong with this update.
I have replied it via Honor UK Google+ and for the first time they hadn't replied
grifovunque said:
If you have all this problem i think your honor is bugged.... I have some result with Nougat as mm.... The some sot 5 hours with 16/17 hour standby 4g with 3 mail push WhatsApp ecc... I have forced installation of 380 and reset.... No problem At all
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Lucky you but, no it's not bugged. I tested every update, official OTA, Firmware Finder etc....they all have bugs, b360 and b380. If you're trying to say that only small percentage of units is working well then the situation is even worse. That means 8 out of 10 devices is broken out od the box. Considering I was getting up to 8hrs SOT on marshmallow compared with max 4-5 on nougat I think these updates are crap, and yes, I tested all of them including "one week usage", factory resets after updating etc... Now i see people have problems with gyro sensors also...that doesn't surprise me...
faeArai said:
For me, it's more like: hardware is quite neat but the software is a mess. With the kernel sources not being released by Huawei there is no chance for me to use Lineage as a daily driver. Therefore it's my first and my last Huawei device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Totally agree with you...nicely said.
As I see it: Huawei won't do jack sh*t about this issues. They released a phone that is, let's say, working excellent (on MM), it looks beautiful, has famous dual camera setup etc. People here have some complaints but it's not gonna make much difference I'm afraid. After seeing the device in person and a few good reviews they will buy it, so did I. Let's be honest, regular consumers just don't care about updates, source codes and all that stuff. I know my girlfriend doesn't have any clue what Nougat is...
Unfortunately, all members of XDA community are a minority and maybe some of us will never buy Huawei phone again, but there are plenty people out there that will.
So, sales go up, money accumulates no matter what we say. I get it, why would they make the effort to make a few people happy.....who gives a damn.
Lack of care for consumers is annoying but at least we have a large variety of devices to choose from so...next year make your choice wisely
mejgs said:
Lucky you but, no it's not bugged. I tested every update, official OTA, Firmware Finder etc....they all have bugs, b360 and b380. If you're trying to say that only small percentage of units is working well then the situation is even worse. That means 8 out of 10 devices is broken out od the box. Considering I was getting up to 8hrs SOT on marshmallow compared with max 4-5 on nougat I think these updates are crap, and yes, I tested all of them including "one week usage", factory resets after updating etc... Now i see people have problems with gyro sensors also...that doesn't surprise me...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So,i am very lucky
I have buy 3 honor and all works well both with mm and nougat.
I am very happy and lucky

Is Le Pro 3 right for me? Advice please.

I'm sick to the back teeth of my Galaxy S7 Edge.
My battery life has taken a nosedive in the last year, and I hate the 'edge' screen which is more of a nuisance than anything. Performance isn't anything to write home about either, considering the hardware inside it - it lags and jitters occasionally (although it is generally quite fast).
Every time I get a Samsung phone I end up wanting to go back to a vanilla Android one. And I don't want to root this S7E because unlocking the bootloader trips a firmware fuse, permanently breaking your ability to use Android Pay and voiding the warranty,. I wouldn't care if I was keeping the phone but I want to sell it.
So the reason I'm in this forum is to find out whether the Le Pro 3 is going to be a good fit for me. The hardware specs I am happy with. But I need to know if stock Android ROMs are fully 100% stable & able to be used as a daily driver? I've looked at a few of the ROMs in the dev forum and they all seem to mention IR not working and 4K recording not working. If that's all that's wrong then I could live with that. I am well past the stage of wanting to flash my phone every week, I want to 'set and forget'.
So if you could give me your honest opinion of the phone itself with an AOSP ROM that you use and any drawbacks, then I would really appreciate it.
4k is working now. TBH even the leeco's EUI isnt half bad once you flash one of the debloated rom's that you can find on here, and is incredibly smooth/and battery efficient.
Regarding nougat, from my own exp., it's been my daily for a month now. I find it extremely stable, havent had a single crash, suddenr reboot or whataoever. My personal favouritr is Omni, smooth as can be, but have tried Lineage and RR, no complaints there either. I use my phone all the time, charge it over night, and get regularly over 10h SOT thnx to @darkobas, some kernel tweaks, and leeco of course for jamming in 4000mah of battery lol.
I have Lex720 3-4 months, never find single issue with this phone. Roms, I flashed many of them, atm i am on stock 6.0 TARS 23S by Steve Mars I like this one everything works good, good battery life.
But I don't use my phone a lot, no game, everyday I got over 50% juice left can use it for another day. It's comparable to Oneplus3/3t for performance, battery life maybe better. If you don't care about headphone jack it's as good as any phone I think and it's 300$, can't beat it.
Best phone at its price you can get!
Great hardware specs, jack isnt even needed tbh you can get cdla earphones and everything will be good. Especially with dolby+viper you will be amazed.
Only con i find is camera at low light conditions (day light its fine) but thats fixable if leeco updates the software regarding img processing and i believe we will se improvements with EUI Nougat. Also no OIS but it has EIS.
Regarding rom, tora 23s,debloated 20s and now miui that is been worked on by also tora and turbo are great roms.
I dont like CM roms but as far as i have seen in postsk omni rom is great.
Seriously the phone is a beast and if we give it a little more time all roms will be finalized.
Point is, are you going to buy it with the launch of mi6 plus? If i were you i would wait to see the full specs and price.
I am using latest stock 21s with root and underclock. Performance good and battery life is also insane.
testreaper said:
Best phone at its price you can get!
Great hardware specs, jack isnt even needed tbh you can get cdla earphones and everything will be good. Especially with dolby+viper you will be amazed.
Only con i find is camera at low light conditions (day light its fine) but thats fixable if leeco updates the software regarding img processing and i believe we will se improvements with EUI Nougat. Also no OIS but it has EIS.
Regarding rom, tora 23s,debloated 20s and now miui that is been worked on by also tora and turbo are great roms.
I dont like CM roms but as far as i have seen in postsk omni rom is great.
Seriously the phone is a beast and if we give it a little more time all roms will be finalized.
Point is, are you going to buy it with the launch of mi6 plus? If i were you i would wait to see the full specs and price.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What he said. Also, I use the provided USB-C to 3.5 adapter with my sony earphones, the sound is excellent!
I bought the Lepro after 3 years of Nexus 5 ownership, and while I adore that thing to death and though it was going to be near impossible for me to find a phone who I'd find a worthy replacement, it was riddled with battery issues/wakelocks and crap from day 1. The lepro just blew me away, and still does.
trizex said:
4k is working now. TBH even the leeco's EUI isnt half bad once you flash one of the debloated rom's that you can find on here, and is incredibly smooth/and battery efficient.
Regarding nougat, from my own exp., it's been my daily for a month now. I find it extremely stable, havent had a single crash, suddenr reboot or whataoever. My personal favouritr is Omni, smooth as can be, but have tried Lineage and RR, no complaints there either. I use my phone all the time, charge it over night, and get regularly over 10h SOT thnx to @darkobas, some kernel tweaks, and leeco of course for jamming in 4000mah of battery lol.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What tweaks did you do?
islandlife98 said:
What tweaks did you do?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
https://forum.xda-developers.com/oneplus-3/how-to/advanced-interactive-governor-tweaks-t3476589
OP3T ones work on our phone, same SOC. I used them as a basis to make my own two scripts that I toggle via a QS tile
I've had this phone for a while and everything is great except the camera quality, you will see a huge difference compared to S7 Edge.
Phone is running very stable with LineageOS 13, i use it as my daily driver and i don't have any problems so far.
Not interested in Xiaomi phones. I did consider the Mi5+ (i think) before i got my S7E but when i read about the hoops you have to jump thru to unlock the bootloader then i lost all interest.
testreaper said:
Best phone at its price you can get!
Great hardware specs, jack isnt even needed tbh you can get cdla earphones and everything will be good. Especially with dolby+viper you will be amazed.
Only con i find is camera at low light conditions (day light its fine) but thats fixable if leeco updates the software regarding img processing and i believe we will se improvements with EUI Nougat. Also no OIS but it has EIS.
Regarding rom, tora 23s,debloated 20s and now miui that is been worked on by also tora and turbo are great roms.
I dont like CM roms but as far as i have seen in postsk omni rom is great.
Seriously the phone is a beast and if we give it a little more time all roms will be finalized.
Point is, are you going to buy it with the launch of mi6 plus? If i were you i would wait to see the full specs and price.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
deleted
I've read all the replies and I'm still on the fence. Mainly because I'm one of those people who doesn't like buying a phone unless it's brand new, ie right at the start of its life-cycle!
I held off to see what the Le Max 3 would be like when it was announced, but I assume no Snapdragon processor = no dev interest and no ROMs.
You guys are knowledgable about Chinese phones - what else is coming out soon? I would wait for the OnePlus 5, but I've read that they're going with an edge screen (that I'm desperate to get away from). I like the idea of a Snapdragon 835 and 6GB RAM though.
Is there anything else on the horizon that I should be considering?
if you dont need a phone right now then you can wait a couple of months, the axon should be announced soon, also the honor pro 8 is already out
If u want support and great specs just go for mi6, period. The only phones i would buy would be either huawei or xiaomi from chinese brands. Leeco was the only exception because at that time nothing compared to its specs plus i am not a heavy-camera user so it was just the phone i needed.
If i were you right now i woudlnt go for it to be honest. Just my personal thoughts though.
Edit; If i was given again the opportunity to buy out of all 821sd phones i would still go LP3. I am not dissapointed at all. But right now i dont think its worth it with the launch of 835. Although the diffence is not great its better to have the latest phone.
testreaper said:
If u want support and great specs just go for mi6, period. The only phones i would buy would be either huawei or xiaomi from chinese brands. Leeco was the only exception because at that time nothing compared to its specs plus i am not a heavy-camera user so it was just the phone i needed.
If i were you right now i woudlnt go for it to be honest. Just my personal thoughts though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For Xiaomi phones no development, for me right now the best buy is Oneplus 3t
setspeed said:
I'm sick to the back teeth of my Galaxy S7 Edge.
My battery life has taken a nosedive in the last year, and I hate the 'edge' screen which is more of a nuisance than anything. Performance isn't anything to write home about either, considering the hardware inside it - it lags and jitters occasionally (although it is generally quite fast).
Every time I get a Samsung phone I end up wanting to go back to a vanilla Android one. And I don't want to root this S7E because unlocking the bootloader trips a firmware fuse, permanently breaking your ability to use Android Pay and voiding the warranty,. I wouldn't care if I was keeping the phone but I want to sell it.
So the reason I'm in this forum is to find out whether the Le Pro 3 is going to be a good fit for me. The hardware specs I am happy with. But I need to know if stock Android ROMs are fully 100% stable & able to be used as a daily driver? I've looked at a few of the ROMs in the dev forum and they all seem to mention IR not working and 4K recording not working. If that's all that's wrong then I could live with that. I am well past the stage of wanting to flash my phone every week, I want to 'set and forget'.
So if you could give me your honest opinion of the phone itself with an AOSP ROM that you use and any drawbacks, then I would really appreciate it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I hope I'm not late to this thread. Please do not buy this phone. There is no UNBRICKING support for this device whatsoever.
Please look around in this matter. There are about 5 threads of sudden deaths of this phone on Leeco.re, 3 more threads of sudden death of this device on leeco official forum where they will make u a bouncing ball and about 4 or 5 bricked threads over here on xda. This device is highly unreliable and shady after-sale support.
Until you live in a country where leeco officially retails (like india, HK, china) please refrain from buying this phone. I really hope you do not end up into a trashcan like I did when I bought Le Pro 3 without my ground work. I loved the phone until it lasted.
Your best bet is to get One Plus 3T which despite its expensiveness, has extended AOSP support and genuinely amazing community so far.

Mate 8 - a few questions from a potential buyer

Hi all,
I am in a market for a new phone and my best bet so far is the Mate 8. I love its screen size, body-to-screen ratio, battery life and smooth performance.
However, reading numerous reviews raised some concerns for me that I was hoping you guys could help me with:
- The dreaded software. Is it so horrible in its latest official version (I would like to mention that I would use only official stuff so I am safe not to void warranty)?
- Can I make the phone look and feel as a "normal" Android phone?
- What is going on with the camera? Some reviews stated it's horribly unstable, slow and the photo quality is subpar. How is the current situation?
- How about the notification issue? Has it been resolved?
- How is the screen looking for you? Any tints and other distracting stuff?
Thanks for your replies!
Can't say about other variants, but I have an L29 and on official B581
- software is fine and stable (as stable as any other major brand)
- I'm running Nova launcher which works perfectly. The Huawei own launcher is ok as well. Runs like any other Android.
- Camera is ok. Not the best in class but good enough.
- Notifications issues were resolved a while back.
- The screen is absolutely fine, no specific issues.
Do note that there hasn't been any major original android development on this (some attempts at Lineage, but didn't get too far).
Hope this helps.
-I'm on official L29---b582 , EMUI 5.0.1
No problem with software and got huge battery optimisation on latest update
- it's Android you can do anything, there's pixel2 moded launcher in XDA, and free themes like this[emoji116]
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=emui.en.com.gpix2
- i dont know about notification issue cus i never had it ( the problem was on some Emui4s i think)
-camera is not good as 2017's phones obviously, but its good enough (there no 4K video recording thought)
-about the screen, you'll love the screen )
Sent from my HUAWEI NXT-L29 using Tapatalk
pike888 said:
Hi all,
I am in a market for a new phone and my best bet so far is the Mate 8. I love its screen size, body-to-screen ratio, battery life and smooth performance.
However, reading numerous reviews raised some concerns for me that I was hoping you guys could help me with:
- The dreaded software. Is it so horrible in its latest official version (I would like to mention that I would use only official stuff so I am safe not to void warranty)?
- Can I make the phone look and feel as a "normal" Android phone?
- What is going on with the camera? Some reviews stated it's horribly unstable, slow and the photo quality is subpar. How is the current situation?
- How about the notification issue? Has it been resolved?
- How is the screen looking for you? Any tints and other distracting stuff?
Thanks for your replies!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the Mate8, L29C185B series. I've "retired" it about a month ago, and got the 9.
Have I had any problems in the just over a year? Nope. I run 100% stock, don't root, unlock bootloader or anything.
Other than using Nova Launcher Prime, instead of EMUI, what she came with, is how I run it.
Onto the software. It came with android 6, which I was perfectly fine with. It was updated to 7 in April of 2017.
Had 7 not been released, in my usage, it wouldn't have made a difference. 6 for me was rock solid.
My phone stays on 24/7. My usage is around 1500-2000 minutes per month on the phone, 300-400 text messages
per month, tons of web browsing (work), mp3's, streaming and LOTS of photographs.
On the subject of photos, I use Camera FV5 for that device, and it works fantastic. The key to getting a good
photo with a smartphone, is still to make sure you HOLD it still. The camera on the 9 is faster at capturing, but
for what I use the camera on the 8 for, it does the job. I do field electronics work, and use the phone camera
to snap photos of failures and parts on the equipment. The photos were always pretty clear, and in focus.
(I'm a weekend photographer for over 30 years, so I'm pretty good at holding it still).
The battery life for me, was typically 1 to 1.5 days. On weekends, I typically don't even use my phone, so charging
it Friday evening, would usually give me 60% left over by Sunday evening.
The 8 is a fantastic phone, in my opinion, unless you just "gotta have" the latest and greatest firmware installed.
Huawei isn't known for being spot on, to releasing software, but for my last 3 Huawei phones (Mate 2,8,9) they
have been very stable without any problems, that I didn't concern myself if it didn't have the latest firmware.
"It just works".
Thanks a lot for your input guys.
Even though three users might be considered as a rather smallish sample, your detailed answers are very reassuring and I have pretty much made a decision.
Thanks again!

One year later - do you recommend this phone ?

Hi guys.
One year later the prices are way down. Now LG G6 is 360 euro in my country.
Is about same price as Samsung A8, Nokia 7 Plus or Huawei P20 Lite.
I'd say one year old flagship should be an obvious choice over today's midrangers. Better camera, better cpu. However, one concern looking over this forum is with battery life (low sot, drains).
Seeing how phones have become consumables, no removable batteries, defects occurring after the 2 year obligatory warrant (at least in EU), oled screens loosing a lot of brightness in time ... I'm not willing to pay 800euro for the latest and greatest.
Yes, I recommend this phone. Despite the very poor software support it's good phone for its price. They - LG - are trying to fix their slow (almost nonexistent) update policy - Korea and Canada is already affected (Oreo update). It's fast smartphone with very stable android 7.0 by default with very good battery life.
Even without Oreo or wireless charging I'd recommend this phone but.... it is a bit laggy for the money to recommend.
I'd recommend it only for the camera and the display, because it can be easily bought for 350 euros or less, anything else is just "avarage" imho.
Depends what you want in a phone. If I didn't care for an SD Card, I'd probably get a Pixel 2 (not verizon) for the updates and Dev Support alone. If you don't care about root, then obviously your choices expand a lot more.
This phone will never see android P. If it does, it will be a custom ROM, meaning you'll lose the stock camera quality.
I paid $295 for mine and have no regrets though, so yes, depending on what you're looking for, I would recommend.
Things important for me in a phone:
1. Battery life. Or better said, real life battery life. I would like to have a few hours of SOT on 4G.
2. Also, I'd like the device to operate cool when outside is hot or when the signal is poor . No one is mentioning this in reviews but in my experience is quite a factor.
3. Camera, obviously. Most of my photos/films are taken with my phone for convenience reasons.
Not so important:
1. Display.
2. Performance. Opening/operating chrome without lag should do it.
Certainly I won't play PUBG on my phone. I do play PUBG on occasion on my PC.
3. Storage capacity. I keep mostly books (read them with tts - IVONA) but those don't take a lot of space. For music I have deezer, for movies Netflix. Nothing local. Photos I unload on my PC.
No , it's a Good phone but the lack of security patch is a really bad point. it's a shame because this phone is really nice ! january security update 5 month later still no update...
I am on the April security patch via T-Mobile.
Hardware is OK, but software ...
Overall the phone is incredible. Especially now, when its price is really decent, getting new one is really good idea. Build quality is very high, this phone is clearly built to last and its design is great. The camera is very good, especially with ported GCam apps which boost image quality even more. The display's colors and saturation is great, the display itself is AWESOME (18:9 rocks!)... it's not very bright in direct sun, my Xperia Z3 Compact was much much better, but it's good. UI responsiveness is very good, Snapdraon 821 still kicks a$$ and it's enough for this phone to run nice and smooth
However the phone is not perfect. I've been using it since July and right now I feel that LG should try a little bit to revive it. Oreo is on the way, yes, but it should've happened much earlier. I'm not complaining but this phone was LG's flagship device after all. Also battery life is not very good (battery-hungry display, buggy Android 7.0), my daily SoT is around 3-3,5hrs, I expected a little more from 3300mAh. The display starts to have image retention issues just after one year of using the phone and after short amounts of using the phone overall (none of my previous phones which I've been using for more than two years had this issue). But if these disadvantages are not deal-breakers, buy it! You won't regret it!
EDIT: I forgot about crappy front facing camera! 5MP is waaaay too bad and I highly recommend using GCam for selfies, it boosts image quality DRASTICALLY!

Should I switch?

Hello guys, I'll keep everything short.
I own Pocophone F1 , Should I switch to essential? What are cons and pros of Essential phone? It's on latest pie right now and fingerprint option is missing from settings, Can it be fixed? Is Camera "That" bad? Is battery better than Poco?
Thank you, please don't ignore this post if you have experience
Mrleonsio said:
Hello guys, I'll keep everything short.
I own Pocophone F1 , Should I switch to essential? What are cons and pros of Essential phone? It's on latest pie right now and fingerprint option is missing from settings, Can it be fixed? Is Camera "That" bad? Is battery better than Poco?
Thank you, please don't ignore this post if you have experience
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have no experience with the Pocophone, but I will say that I have been very pleased with this phone. The only thing I don't like is the sensitivity of adaptive brightness.
A few things about the PH-1 that I like:
1. It was developed by the guy that created the Android operating system, and it's a fairly pure Android experience, with the exception of the camera.
2. It gets security patches monthly, and whenever a new version of the Android operating system is released, the PH-1 usually gets that update the same day.
3. The camera is fine, it's just the stock camera app that's the problem, and even then, the stock app isn't terrible. Plus, there's a nice Google Camera app ported for this phone.
4. Battery life is pretty darn good. As long as I don't forget to turn off the hotspot, AccuBattery estimates almost 24 hours of use for me. Whenever I leave the hotspot on unintentionally, it will drop to around 18 hours.
5. Fingerprint option is not missing for me, and it's always worked fine. I wonder if anyone who's had a problem has a rooted phone. I've left the phone locked and on the stock OS, and it's been great.
6. You can't beat the price. I bought mine for $375 from Best Buy. It's no longer available through them, but you can easily find it in the ~$400 range.
Depends on what you want. The PH-1 has the look and feel of a premium phone with near stock software and timely updates. Battery life is great for 3040 mAh. Might not be as impressive as the 4000 mAh Pocophone. The screen is quite good if you get one without light bleed. The camera isn't great but it's now solid/ good after several updates.
The modular system was a nice idea, however Essential hasn't really done much with it. 360 camera never worked that well and the headphone jack / enhanced DAC accessory is just too little too late.
If you really want the PH-1 you should search about reception issues on your carrier. I had poor reception issues on my original PH-1 and several replacement devices.
Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk
the budget PIxel 3 is going to be announced soon, why not wait for that?
When the price tag was 250-300 it was an obvious choice but since the price has risen to 400-500 dollars i would be less able to suggest it was the best option but for "power users" id say its still the best option. Ultimate customization, no bloat, no bull**** stock apps, 2 adb line bootloader unlock, all stock files and flashes provided by manufacture, great/fast hardware with tons of cool features in a pretty robust chassis. My wife even likes it stock, enough to switch from a life long love of apple.

Categories

Resources