Tab A 8" as Smart Automation Panel - Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Questions & Answers

I currently have a several HD Fire's (wiped and running Lineage) as panels around my house. The main one is a 10" panel and it works great. However, the 8" panels (2018 versions) that I have in my room and at my other entrances are all just terrible. They're too slow and the build is such that they can't be kept alive while the screen is off so whenever they do come on the data on them needs to be refreshed and that can often take 15 seconds just standing there waiting.
I'm wondering if my experience would be better going with the Sammy's. I don't believe they'd need to be wiped for starters. They also appear to have a better (faster) processor over the 1.3 Ghz dual core on the Fire's. I guess the main question is, could they be set to keep updating while the screen is off? You don't want the screen on as it will kill the unit life and in a bedroom it would be a total distraction -- even if the screen is just black. Otherwise every time it comes on ActionTiles (the software most everyone uses for smart panels) will show the time as of the last time it was on and data from then as well until it refreshes.
Thanks.

Related

Chromebook better than a PC?

Hi there.
I'm doing this thread to once & for all find the ultimate answers to my PC "issues".
Before i bought my Lenovo Yoga 8 laptop i was thinking of buying a Google Chromebook. Specs might not be as high-end as a Windows PC but it loads a lot faster (having no such apps or enough background process to load in the background), apps load a lot faster, updates come automatically (and no need to download/intall like a PC), straighforward OS and no complicated hundreds of settings to tinker with unlike a PC. And besides a Chromebook is virus and malware-free forever.
I also happen to come from a Macbook Air and i found my PC that slow. Downloading & installing apps takes a lot longer, opening or closing an app or browser or tasks also takes longer. But in the course i have made some research to improve the speed & performanc of my Windows laptop mainly:
1. Turned off bluetooth
2. Set Windows Update to automatic
3. Updated Windows Defender
4. Defrafgging my gard drive monthly
5. Choose Selective Startup (under msconfig) and made sure no apps are enabled under Startup, selected apps are running under Services, choose a higher number under Processors and maximum memory set to at least half of what my Lenovo is capable of (under Boot)
6. Set performance to High Performance. (And being plugged in the mains)
What else have i missed?
Also i noticed when i look at Task Manager there are background processes that i do not understand and i'm not sure whether to disable them or not although it shows 0% affecting the RAM, etc.
If i don't get satisfied with this "complicated" WIndows 8.1 OS i might as well sell it and get a Chromebook as i use most of their services anyway on my Android phone.
To put things into certain context you see the most "intensve" task i will be doing in my computer will be downloading torrents 10 tabs/files at a time (it could be an .mp3 album or a standard .mp4 HD movie), wireless printing hundreds of pages from an assignmnt or work project, transferring hi-quality files (Flac or .mkv) to my Android tablet or doing an "intermediate-level" photo editing of my photos for upload to Twitter, Facebook, etc. My computer stays at home 99.99% of the time and IS online 100% of the time.
What you think guys?
I am not exactly sure what you bought, cause I can't find any Lenovo Yoga 8 running windows 8.
If you find windows 8 slow, you either bought something very low end, or something broken inside.
And no, a chrome book is not better than a PC. A PC has this thing called "reliability", which the chrome book lacks when you no longer have an internet connection.
Unless you are ready to pay a hefty monthly subscription to some mobile operator for unlimited data connection (which isn't really unlimited, after around 4GB, your connection will be slowed down automatically in many cases), and are ready to face the consequences of not having said data connection service whereever you go.
Even if windows PCs are more "expensive", which they are not, you can find a much more powerful computing machine at the same price of a chrome book (haswel i3s are really cheap now), you know you can do anything you want, whenever you want, and not relay on your internet connection to do more than checking the time.
Sorry...
I have bought Lenovo Yoga 2 11-inch Windows PC.
The MacBook Air I had before my Lenovo one stayed at home 100% of the time and is connected to the web 100% of the time. My fibre broadband is at least 70MB downloads speeds. With this respect a Chromebook would be suitable for me.
The PC I bought isn't low-end by any means. It is of the higher mid-range ones based on the specs itself. As I said I have done my own research, looked at Youtube videos on tip & tricks. The 8.1 update itself took me almost 5 hours even with that good specs. After that it is still slow. You can set up a Chromebook in 5-ish minutes, takes under 10 seconds to boot up from no power or sleep and apps start almost instantly. Because of probably all these background processes going on in Windows 8.1 it is still slow. Have shut and stopped some of them but still no significant change.
WIndows 8.1 isn't the lightweight, smooth OS I was hoping for. It is still "complicated" compared to a Mac and a Chromebook. Having it owned and used for 4 weeks I think that was enough for me to realise that perhaps....maybe next time.
Your PC is VERY low end. It has a Celeron/Pentium processor which is basically a higher clocked intel atom.
Upper mid range is core i3, not celeron my friend.
A MacBook has a core i5 processor, among other things, like a SSD for storage.
You traded a lot of mobility in the yoga for lower specs. This is why you paid so much. You can easily get a haswel i5 for this money, which is almost 10 times faster than this. You didn't research properly, I am affraid. This ain't no notebook for keeping around the house. this is a mobility oriented product.
Well, anyway i have returned the Yoga 2 back to the store and got myself an Acer C720 Chromebook. First impressions? Positive. Solid keyboard (could do with a backlit one), good sounding speakers, solid build quality and that's it so far. It's barely 24 hours so its too early to say as i haven't tried it that much yet.
IMO the best thing to improve general "feel" of a computer, especially things like how fast applications start up, is get an SSD. I don't what your Yoga had, but if it was one of the ones with the 5,400 rpm drives, it'll be slow.
If all you need is Chrome, then a Chromebook has the advantage being cheaper. Whilst a 10 second boot that Google claim for Chromebooks is quick, I wouldn't call Windows PCs slow, so long as you don't cripple them with a slow hard disk. My low end Asus T100 boots in 12 seconds (my Android Nexus 7 2013 takes 30 seconds). I don't see why web apps would load slower or things take longer to download on Chrome under Windows, than on a Chromebook - has this been tested (on equivalent hardware and network)?
"updates come automatically (and no need to download/intall like a PC)"
But you still have to download them on a Chromebook, and it happens automatically on Windows...
Never had a virus on Windows, and virus checking is built in and in the background now. There is more of a risk, but then it's like saying you're better off with a £10 dumb phone, because it's impossible to get a virus on it
Chromebook has everything you need? Then well, go ahead. Cause it is cheap and maybe simple to use.
Just make sure one day if you come up with something that you want to do but can be done only on a real computer (like using certain software or playing certain games), you can't. At the end of the day, you pay for what you get.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
A Chromebook and a PC serve different purposes. A Chromebook is like a motorcycle, lightweight, efficient and it will get you to from point A to B on the internet. A PC is like a truck,it can do a lot more but needs a bit more hardware to run on. If you can get by with a Chromebook do ahead. But I want full desktop programs, hardware driver support, etc. Thats why I got a Toshiba Encore tablet that runs 8.1. Windows still feels kind of weird on a tablet, but having a full desktop OS in a device that portable is awesome and those Bay Trail Atoms are a hell of a lot better than previous Atoms.
The Lenovo Yoga laptop i got is a quad-core Haswell-powered computer. Yet, it took me 4 hours to update it to 8.1 whilst my Chromebook took 4 minutes (even less) to set-up. My quad-core Yoga took 30 seconds (or less) to startup whilst my Chromebook took 7-8 seconds maximum.
Since having an Android phone and tablet for the past 4-5 years i feel i am tied up to Google and its various services. I can still avail and enjoy some of the MS services like OneCloud and OneOffice via its web app versions so for me that's still ok.
Gino76ph said:
The Lenovo Yoga laptop i got is a quad-core Haswell-powered computer. Yet, it took me 4 hours to update it to 8.1 whilst my Chromebook took 4 minutes (even less) to set-up. My quad-core Yoga took 30 seconds (or less) to startup whilst my Chromebook took 7-8 seconds maximum.
Since having an Android phone and tablet for the past 4-5 years i feel i am tied up to Google and its various services. I can still avail and enjoy some of the MS services like OneCloud and OneOffice via its web app versions so for me that's still ok.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your yoga wasn't a haswell...
According to Lenovo it was.

Shield Tablet K1 Optimization

Software Section
Performance/Power Setting
I have been intrigued with the "performance/power" section of the settings on the Shield k1. I only got my tablet just a few days ago but have already found some things I didn't see mentioned on XDA. I'm sure this stuff is all over the forum buried somewhere, but I didn't see it mentioned so I figured I would post it for those interested. In this section I am going to show the minimum and maximum processor states for each mode under "Performance/Power" in the settings app. Before posting I would like to point out that whatever you choose for these settings are system wide and override EVERYTHING else that you try to use, such as app optimization or even gltools. If you set "Limit Frame Rate" under custom to 20, nothing will get you more than 20 fps in any game. Even if you command it higher with app optimization or some other way. This also applies to watching videos or anything system wide, so be aware.
Max performance
Min = 1224 mhz
Max = 2218 mhz
Optimized <------------ Most people should use this
Min = 204 mhz
Max = 2218 mhz
Battery Saver
Min = 204 mhz
Max = 1530 mhz
Custom **
Min = 1122 mhz
Max = 2218
**Custom turns out to be the worst choice of the bunch. First off the "CPU Cores" setting does absolutely zero. You can set the cores to 2, 3, or 4, and no matter what, 4 cores will always run. It does nothing to disable the cores. One thing to note here is that when you start disabling cores, there WILL be an impact on benchmarks even though the cores aren't turning off. I am not sure exactly what's happening here, but something is going on with the frequencies or something that I cannot detect. Next is the "CPU Frequency" which does work, however setting it to the lowest possible setting will only net you a minimum processor state of 1122 mhz, much higher than you can get in the other options. So this would not help you in any way for battery life. The max processor speed doesn't go any higher than the others either, so there is no advantage (battery life or performance) to using custom. The final section of custom is "Limit Frame Rate" and it works as well. However, limiting the frame rate is something that is usually done to conserve battery life, but since you are stuck with a rather high minimum processing speed (1122 mhz), then any battery life you may gain from the lowered FPS will be lost with the processor drain. Your best bet is to set the processor state to "optimized" as it has the lowest AND highest achievable clock speeds (for best battery life and performance) and then turn the FPS down under app optimization if needed.
App Optimization Setting <------------ Most people should leave this setting untouched (disabled)
All settings under app optimization work as expected except of course the Max CPU cores again. It does nothing. The Frequency limit does work as well as the frame rate limit. All options works as expected except turning off the cores. For the most performance and battery life it would be best to use the "optimized" power plan from above, and then go into the app optimization and turn down the Max CPU frequency as far as you can without experiencing lag. You can also adjust the resolution if the loss in quality doesn't bother you. I personally don't touch anything in app optimization. I play pretty graphic intensive games so need my processor cores to run at 100% because I hate lag. I also don't like running LCDs at anything other than native resolution so I don't adjust that. Frame rate limit is a waste as the panel automatically caps it to 60 (the max it can display) and I want to see as many frames as possible.
That leaves "Optimize System Memory". This has been a hard one to benchmark, but here is what I've noticed. With this setting enabled it seems that I lose 2-4 frames when the tablet gets loaded up. If you run an FPS monitor you will notice that occasionally the FPS will dip when too much is going on. Well when these dips happen and "Optimize System Memory" is enabled, I find that it dips lower by a few frames.
I almost exclusively do not touch app optimization. The only time I would use this is for a game that took very little resources to run (PVZ2). I would turn the processor clocks down to 50% to conserve battery, but that is about the only use I see for it.
GLTools
This is what I use to monitor FPS. I have been unable to squeeze any extra performance out of any game using this. The only thing this app can do to help frames is reduce resolution, but you can do that with the "app optimization" section in the main settings. This app does many other things for compatibility, but they aren't useful to me at this time. I just use it to monitor FPS, as FPS METER crashes the tablet in both the rooted and non-rooted versions. I was really hoping that forcing anti-aliasing to off in the games would help with the frames, but it appears to do nothing. I suspect that most of the games for android don't have anti-aliasing to begin with, which is why turning it off doesn't seem to help. Bummer.
Gamestream
I have figured out a way to get gamestream to work with zero lag. It's as if my PC was connected directly to the TV and sitting on the floor below it. I cannot tell that the PC is in another room and broadcasting over wifi. I have a decent home network, but nothing special. When I first set it all up there was so much input lag that I considered it unplayable. I have since figured out why and it's perfect. I can't even believe it every time I use it, it's almost too good to be true. The trick is that you need to pair your controller directly to the PC and not the tablet, this will eliminate the lag. When I paired the Xbox One controller directly to the Shield K1 over bluetooth, the controls would work, but there was noticeable input lag if too many inputs where happening in a short time. I then bought the wireless adapter for the controller and paired it directly to my PC via wifi and the problems were solved. This is another great thing about the new Xbox One controller, it has both wifi direct and bluetooth so you can use either.
Zero lag setup:
Mid-high grade AC router
Comcast 30mbps cable internet connection
Router connected to PC via cat 6
5ghz signal to the Shield K1
Xbox One controller paired directly to the PC via wifi
"Game mode" enabled in TV settings
With the above setup I have a 1ms delay which isn't detectable to my eye. Gamestream works better than I expected and I plan on using it quite a bit. Geforce Now looks interesting, but I have no intentions of doing any testing with it. I don't like monthly fees and I have tried streaming services in the past; there is just too much delay for me.
Hardware Section
Dual Shock 4
What a mess. This is one of the best controllers money can buy. It's comfortable, it has a touch pad, the analog sticks are amazing, excellent d-pad, it has the highest quality build, it's rechargeable, and it just doesn't work with android.... If you try to connect the controller directly through the bluetooth section in settings, it will connect and then within 30 seconds be lagging like crazy. I then installed "sixaxis controller" (requires root) and connected that way. Controller worked almost perfect with this app and it let me totally customize the controller. However some things were still broken. For example in the game Half-Life 2 Episode One, the d-pad doesn't function correctly. No matter what I try to do to the mappings, it just won't work right. It works in some menus, but not most. Too bad because this is a really great controller. One last thing to note. I connected this to my S7 Edge running Nougat (hoping that the new native gamepad support would do something) and it connected right away. However the controller did absolutely nothing. I could see that it was connected and it showed up in the bluetooth menu, but no buttons would respond and games wouldn't detect it. Too bad.
Nvidia Shield Controller (1st gen)
I did not test this controller for a very specific reason; it does not use bluetooth. All of the big-name companies have moved over to bluetooth. Sony has always used it, Microsoft just added it, and even the next Nvidia Shield controller is bluetooth. The bluetooth option has lower bandwidth and less range than the wifi controllers, but is more power efficient. Who needs a controller that can stay connected at 200 feet when you can't even see the TV from that far? LOL There also seems to be zero difference in latency between the wifi and bluetooth variants, so I would pick a bluetooth controller for the energy savings.
Amazon Fire TV Controller (1st gen)
Well this thing sucks. I got this when I purchased my first Amazon Fire TV and use it occasionally. I hooked it up to the Shield for testing and I was not impressed. The d-pad likes to click multiple directions at a time (even when you are extra careful), I literally had it register an up and a down at the same time LOL. Not only this but the trigger buttons for some reason have compatibility problems with a lot of games, sometimes the controller randomly loses connection and you have to pull the batteries for 30 seconds to get it reconnected, the thing just sucks. It's something you use when you just want to play a quick game on your Amazon TV or hand it to a little kid to play some games for a bit, it's not to be taken seriously. Oh and the "dead zones" on the sticks are way to wide. You can move the stick about 25% in any direction before anything responds on screen. And sometimes for no reason at all there will be delay between button presses. Just stay away from this one, seriously.
Xbox One S Controller (bluetooth)
Well this controller comes in at a close second to the Dual Shock 4, but has one major advantage; it works. You power this thing on, hit the connect button, and connect it straight to the tablet in the settings menu under bluetooth. That's it. No special apps or mapping problems, or lag, or stutters. It works exactly like it would on an Xbox. You hold the home button and it auto connects to the tablet and when you are done you hold the home button and the light goes out and it powers down. All mapping is done for you and everything works perfectly (new info below). The analog sticks are great, the new d-pad is a ton better than the old 360 one, it's nice and clicky now. This is a great controller and it's on sale right now everywhere for $49.99 so you should pick one up. Also, if you plan on gaming a lot you may want to get the rechargeable battery unless you like buying a ton of AA batteries and swapping them out. These new controllers charge with a standard micro USB cable, so it's super convenient to get the charging pack.
**update**
Turns out this setup isn't exactly perfect either. It may be an Android 6.0 problem though because it doesn't act like this on my s7e running 7.0, who knows. Everything works as described above, but if you reboot the tablet, toggle bluetooth, or enter console mode (VERY annoying) the controller will need to be deleted and paired again. It wouldn't be such a big deal if console mode didn't trigger it because you can avoid rebooting and toggling bluetooth, but the console mode thing is a huge inconvenience. I really hope this gets fixed, either by android or microsoft updates because it really messes up an almost perfect controller experience. Also, to properly pair the controller you have to use the pairing button at the top. When you first power on the controller with the xbox button it will try to pair with the tablet, don't let it and instead hold the connect button on top of the controller to enter pairing mode (the light will flash fast) and then select the controller from the bluetooth list to pair. If you don't do it this way, the controller will never actually talk to the tablet.
Dual Shock 3
It's a Dual Shock 4 without a touchpad so it has the same issues.
Nvidia Shield Controller (2nd gen)<------------------ Buy this controller
I just purchased the new Shield TV and it came with this controller. What a great controller this one is, definitely rivals the Xbox and Sony controllers for quality and performance. However this has one major advantage over the other two, it works perfectly with the Shield Tablet, Shield TV, and any other bluetooth device that you want to connect it to (as long as it isn't a PC lol). This brings me to the one single problem with this controller, it doesn't work right with PC, yet. When you connect it to a PC via bluetooth, it connects just fine and actually does work, however the mappings are wrong so when you push up on the left analog stick it registers as a trigger pull or something. I have a ticket opened to get this controller fixed for PC so I'm sure it won't be long before they fix it or I fix it myself. I am trying to find the config file on my PC that generates when you install this controller, then I could fix the mappings myself. Unfortunately this makes Gamestream unusable as the input lag is just too much for me when connecting straight to the tablet. Once the mapping is fixed this controller will be flawless for any Shield device, Android device, or even as a full time PC controller. Even though this controller has the mapping problem, it does eliminate the bluetooth glitch that the Xbox controller has (where if you toggle bluetooth it has to be re-paired to the tablet), so that effectively makes it the number one choice for controllers at this time. It also has a capacitive volume slider built into the face of the controller and is rechargeable right out of the box as well. So far the battery life has been insane. I never even charged it when I took it out of the box Thursday and have been using it multiple times a day for at least an hour each time and it still has over 50% charge. It doesn't look like it has lost a percent honestly lol The controller also powers down automatically after you don't touch it for five minutes and then when you pick it up it auto powers up and reconnects for you.
Game Specific Section
Order & Chaos 2
O&C2 is a beast of a game, it's like the Crysis for mobile. The game doesn't even look that amazing, I think it is just poorly optimized (just like Crysis), at least Crysis is beautiful though. The game has a hard cap at 30 fps, so don't expect any more than that no matter what you do to the settings. I have found through my testing that the best mix of visual and performance is the following:
In game settings:
Graphics profile = Optimal
Render scale = 100%
Frame rate limitation = 30
Crowd control = slider all the way up
Dead Effect 2
This is one of the best looking mobile games to date and is optimized for Nvidia, which is great for us. This game actually looks almost as good as Crysis, but doesn't run as poorly. It has been optimized very well. There also happens to be a lot of graphical adjustment in the settings which allows for fine tuning. Through testing I have found the game to look amazing and run 45-60 fps (no matter how much action on screen) with the following settings:
In game settings:
Visual Quality = Custom
Shader Quality = Medium
Effect Quality = Medium
Model Quality = High
Texture Quality = Full
Shadow Quality = Low
Bloom = Low
Plants Vs Zombies 2
Pvz2 also has a hard cap of 30 FPS and there is no adjustment of the graphics in the settings menu. I have found that the game runs at a locked 30 FPS even with the processor at 50%, so this is where I leave it to conserve battery life.
App optimization settings:
Performance Setting = Custom
Max CPU Cores = 4
Max CPU Frequency = 50%
Frame Rate Limit = Off
Resolution Rendering = Native
Optimize System Memory = Off
Real Racing 3
Real Racing 3 runs pretty well. Most of the time the FPS stays locked at 60, but when there is a lot going on it can dip to 30 or just below. There are no in game graphics adjustments and I wouldn't turn the processor down at all because you will need full power when there are 10+ cars on the screen.
Do not adjust.
Doom 3
It's funny I remember 10 or more years ago when Doom 3 came out and I was upset that my PC couldn't run it LOL Now we can play it on a tablet that fits in our pocket. Anyway, I couldn't do much testing with this game as GLTools wouldn't show the FPS, it glitched out when I enabled it. The game has no graphical adjustment in it's setting as well and I wouldn't reccommend turning the processor down in app optimization without being able to confirm the impact. Game runs great though. The only issue I found was popping through my bluetooth headset, that could have been the headset.
Do not adjust.
Oceanhorn
What a great little game this is, really reminds me of Zelda. This game is very well optimized and never misses a beat. It looks and plays fantastic. I would like to see more quality games like this come out in the future, this kind of stuff can give consoles a run for their money. I have the in game settings turned all the way up and the processor set to 50% in app optimization and the FPS never dips more than a couple frames. This is a game that everyone should check out.
App optimization settings:
Performance Setting = Custom
Max CPU Cores = 4
Max CPU Frequency = 50%
Frame Rate Limit = Off
Resolution Rendering = Native
Optimize System Memory = Off
Pretty useful information, thanks bro
Good to see your reference to order and chaos 2, it's the only game I enjoy playing. I have bought a shield basically to stop hammering my Galaxy S7's battery all the time.
crash_194 said:
Good to see your reference to order and chaos 2, it's the only game I enjoy playing. I have bought a shield basically to stop hammering my Galaxy S7's battery all the time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's my main game, I play every day. You can squeeze a lot more performance out of the game if you start to reduce the graphics quality, but I'm big on visuals.
I have in my possession an Xbox One S controller, Dualshock 3, DualShock 4, and an Amazon controller. I will be doing a comparison in one of my reserved posts above. I also just downloaded Half-Life 2 episode 1 and was doing some testing with gamestream last night as well. I will be adding information about all of that as soon.
seh6183 said:
That's my main game, I play every day. You can squeeze a lot more performance out of the game if you start to reduce the graphics quality, but I'm big on visuals.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
O&C2 is a very good looking game, I hate to reduce the visual quality too much. I do think crowd control needs a happy medium though as it can get rather chaotic when loads of people start letting off AOE attacks.
I tried playing the game on a 2013 nexus 7 which I also own, it just doesn't have enough grunt though unfortunately and is an absolute lag fest. Can't wait for the K1 to land hopefully later this week.
crash_194 said:
O&C2 is a very good looking game, I hate to reduce the visual quality too much. I do think crowd control needs a happy medium though as it can get rather chaotic when loads of people start letting off AOE attacks.
I tried playing the game on a 2013 nexus 7 which I also own, it just doesn't have enough grunt though unfortunately and is an absolute lag fest. Can't wait for the K1 to land hopefully later this week.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I couldn't squeeze any more frames out with crowd control, where do you suggest I test to do this? Also would you mean by wait for the K1 to land?
seh6183 said:
I couldn't squeeze any more frames out with crowd control, where do you suggest I test to do this? Also would you mean by wait for the K1 to land?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I only just ordered one the other day mate and I'm waiting for it to arrive! Lol I'm a bit slow on the uptake I'm just speaking from experience of O&C2 on my Galaxy S7 at the minute.
crash_194 said:
I only just ordered one the other day mate and I'm waiting for it to arrive! Lol I'm a bit slow on the uptake I'm just speaking from experience of O&C2 on my Galaxy S7 at the minute.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Gotcha, I just got mine the other day too. I would root it immediately if I were you because it wipes the device and I had to download all my games again. It took me like 3 minutes to unlock the bootloader, flash custom recovery, and root it. Great device. I use an s7 edge and the performance is comparable, but the k1 edges it out. However you won't be playing on your s7 much anymore lol. Once you get used to the 8 inch and the speakers, your phone will feel like a joke, I laugh when I pick it up haha. I only use it as a last resort. The k1 fits into my back pocket so I have it with me most of the time.
seh6183 said:
Gotcha, I just got mine the other day too. I would root it immediately if I were you because it wipes the device and I had to download all my games again. It took me like 3 minutes to unlock the bootloader, flash custom recovery, and root it. Great device. I use an s7 edge and the performance is comparable, but the k1 edges it out. However you won't be playing on your s7 much anymore lol. Once you get used to the 8 inch and the speakers, your phone will feel like a joke, I laugh when I pick it up haha. I only use it as a last resort. The k1 fits into my back pocket so I have it with me most of the time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is good to hear! At the risk of going off topic, are you using a case and screen protector? If so, what sorts?
crash_194 said:
That is good to hear! At the risk of going off topic, are you using a case and screen protector? If so, what sorts?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nvidia folding cover and stylus on the way.
I have been using the stylus and the flip cover for over a week now and they are both great. The cover is necessary really as there is no way to prop the tablet up without it. I usually yank it off when I am gaming or holding the tablet with one hand (that's what's great about magnets), but leave it on as protection when moving around and to prop it up for viewing. The stylus isn't nearly as good as a Wacom stylus, but works well enough and I definitely find it useful for web browsing or editing a picture.
Also, I have purchased both the Microsoft Folding Keyboard and Logitech Ultrathin Touch Mouse for when I need to do some serious editing or school work. Every human being should buy that mouse immediately at the very least. The keyboard is optional as Googles voice dictation works nearly flawless, almost negating the need for a keyboard, but that mouse, buy it. The top surface of the mouse doubles as a touch pad and works great for android. I can control the entire tablet 5 feet away at work with one finger or at home 15 feet away when it's connected to the TV. Check out the reviews for it, it's definitely worth it.
Anyone play sky force reloaded?
_-..zKiLLA..-_ said:
Anyone play sky force reloaded?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No but that looks like some good Ole fashioned fun right there lol
seh6183 said:
No but that looks like some good Ole fashioned fun right there lol
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's amazing. It's gets very hectic though and can be laggy on some devices. I get my k1 tomorrow so my fingers are crossed lol
_-..zKiLLA..-_ said:
It's amazing. It's gets very hectic though and can be laggy on some devices. I get my k1 tomorrow so my fingers are crossed lol
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The k1 is a fricken beast and you have nothing to worry about lol
Guide updated with core information and Shield 2017 controller addition.
Really informative post seh6183.
Thank you. I also bought the new controller (kept the NSTV V1 as for now it's the same as the V2)

Switched from Huawei Watch 2 to LGWS - connections failing, battery abysmal (xpost)

Sorry for the crosspost - hoped I can get more eyes here...
Searched and searched so posting here and will try in general thread in case it's not tied to the watch itself.
Background: IOS user for phone, have to - developer, had Apple Watch (hated it). Got myself a Huawei Watch 2 on a deal and loved everything about it except the useless bezel and tiny screen size. Seeing as I had a great experience, I started a hunt for an LGWS. Hunt because not a single store sold one and I'm in Chicago with LOTS of stores. So online we go. There too - few resellers. Finally found one. New. Manufacture date of May 2017.
The Watch 2 worked flawlessly as functions go. Sycn'd, stayed connected, battery life of full use (all functions on - obviously no LTE), brightness at 8, raise to view on, always on display on... end of the day going to bed around 10:30 still had 50% of battery left at worst! The only issue other than cosmetic that it had was WIFI would not connect so "automatically" so to speak. So when I sent a watchmaker face, I always had to go to settings, connectivity, wifi and wait until the SSID showed connected. Then all is fine. Transferred over and enjoyed.
So the LGWS shows up. I unpair the Watch 2, connect up the LGWS and love it. The display I expected, size is great for me and off to the races. Within an hour it went from 95% to 60%. I figured - setup blues. Ignore it. Let it fully bake and see what happens. Another hour later I'm at 30%... ok onto the charger we go. Did a full charge at 6pm, by 9pm it was flat.
LGWS background: GW 2.8 loaded, Watch 2 was still running 2.0. LGWS - cellular off, raise to view on, display brightness 4, wifi connected...
But here's what I noticed: on my phone, it consistently says disconnected - tap card to connect. I tried that about 20 times, no joy. Rebooted watch and phone... no joy. Reset watch, deleted app on phone and deleted Bluetooth pairing. Re-installed Wear app, re-paired watch, left all at stock settings except shut-off cellular and OK Google listening.
That last bit is the 6-9pm going totally flat.
So. Any ideas here? Things I see - 8 vs 2 OS... obviously IOS (I get it, but why did the Huawei work so well?) and there is nothing I can do about that. Don't know if I can downgrade to 2 to see if that makes a difference... if I do, will it self-update back to 8 when it gets a chance?
I really want to keep this watch - it's exactly what I wanted (short of strap change capability). I sure hope Google doesn't give up on Wear. As a Mac/IOS dev, I can easily say this is a superior platform for the user. Truly great stuff and I want it to improve and keep improving. The iWatch bigots are really missing out!
Thanks in advance for your tips.
Cheers!
P.S. One thing I cannot do on IOS AW app is see battery usage by app. Sadly if I paired up to my old Galaxy S5 test phone, I suspect the problems may go away as it would be a first pairing of a watch to that phone plus it's not the same as the use environment.
wig said:
Sorry for the crosspost - hoped I can get more eyes here...
Searched and searched so posting here and will try in general thread in case it's not tied to the watch itself.
Background: IOS user for phone, have to - developer, had Apple Watch (hated it). Got myself a Huawei Watch 2 on a deal and loved everything about it except the useless bezel and tiny screen size. Seeing as I had a great experience, I started a hunt for an LGWS. Hunt because not a single store sold one and I'm in Chicago with LOTS of stores. So online we go. There too - few resellers. Finally found one. New. Manufacture date of May 2017.
The Watch 2 worked flawlessly as functions go. Sycn'd, stayed connected, battery life of full use (all functions on - obviously no LTE), brightness at 8, raise to view on, always on display on... end of the day going to bed around 10:30 still had 50% of battery left at worst! The only issue other than cosmetic that it had was WIFI would not connect so "automatically" so to speak. So when I sent a watchmaker face, I always had to go to settings, connectivity, wifi and wait until the SSID showed connected. Then all is fine. Transferred over and enjoyed.
So the LGWS shows up. I unpair the Watch 2, connect up the LGWS and love it. The display I expected, size is great for me and off to the races. Within an hour it went from 95% to 60%. I figured - setup blues. Ignore it. Let it fully bake and see what happens. Another hour later I'm at 30%... ok onto the charger we go. Did a full charge at 6pm, by 9pm it was flat.
LGWS background: GW 2.8 loaded, Watch 2 was still running 2.0. LGWS - cellular off, raise to view on, display brightness 4, wifi connected...
But here's what I noticed: on my phone, it consistently says disconnected - tap card to connect. I tried that about 20 times, no joy. Rebooted watch and phone... no joy. Reset watch, deleted app on phone and deleted Bluetooth pairing. Re-installed Wear app, re-paired watch, left all at stock settings except shut-off cellular and OK Google listening.
That last bit is the 6-9pm going totally flat.
So. Any ideas here? Things I see - 8 vs 2 OS... obviously IOS (I get it, but why did the Huawei work so well?) and there is nothing I can do about that. Don't know if I can downgrade to 2 to see if that makes a difference... if I do, will it self-update back to 8 when it gets a chance?
I really want to keep this watch - it's exactly what I wanted (short of strap change capability). I sure hope Google doesn't give up on Wear. As a Mac/IOS dev, I can easily say this is a superior platform for the user. Truly great stuff and I want it to improve and keep improving. The iWatch bigots are really missing out!
Thanks in advance for your tips.
Cheers!
P.S. One thing I cannot do on IOS AW app is see battery usage by app. Sadly if I paired up to my old Galaxy S5 test phone, I suspect the problems may go away as it would be a first pairing of a watch to that phone plus it's not the same as the use environment.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Man, as I was reading this I was like.. is this guy a mind reader.. I swear to you I have the exact same issues, and the same reason for switching from Apple watch Series 3 to Android Wear (watches should be round darnit).. I almost bought the HW2 classic and for the same reason (smaller screen, giant bezel, etc.) bought the LGWS.. I sure hope someone has some advice for both of us recent converts!
Day 2... full delete of app IOS, reboot phone. Full restore of watch. Remove from bluetooth pairings. Start over from scratch.
left it mostly stock... only OK Google and Cellular turned off (no sim in there anyhow, but to be safe since technically all phones are supposed to allow 911 calls regardless of sim status)... in that stock vanilla flavor - battery held up all day. Ended the day with about 30%. WIFI was not linked to any network, so just Bluetooth to my phone. All worked great.
Day two of grand experiment.. added WIFI set to auto on. Loaded the main app I really want, Watchmaker. five hours of use 44% of battery gone - roughly 8ish percent per hour. Not terrible, but compared to vanilla. MUCH worse. Will keep playing. The mix is in there somewhere.
The shocker is that the HW2 has a slightly smaller battery (10mAh smaller) but also a MUCH smaller face. That would account for it.
I had exactly the opposite experiences with the Huawei and LGWS. I tried out a Huawei watch 2 classic for about a week, and I had TERRIBLE battery life. Like, fully charged to DEAD in 12 hours. The LG lasted me 18 - 25+ hours (the lesser on workout days). I had all connections turned off except Bluetooth, although I turned on GPS on the LG and didn't notice any battery life change. I had assistant on, fit with everything on, always on, basically most of the apps and such.
Unfortunately, it seems like the battery life you get depends on the watch, and what you have on with AW. With LTE and WiFi on, I'm sure I would have been charging the LG once at least during the day.

Shield TV 2019 Ram Management

Hello. I was hoping someone who is experienced with both the standard and pro units of 2019 could help me in this matter. Both of these units are extremely hard to get ahold of right now or I would test myself, sorry to bother.
I was able to get my hands on a standard unit and everything is working as expected except it has horrible ram management. Either that or just lacking ram in general. I can't get any app to stay in ram. If I leave to simply look at the settings menu, when I return to the app it completely refreshes. I might, come back to see it in its same state if I only look at one app but don't click on anything, but thats not guaranteed.
No sense in even having an app switcher when it behaves like this. Its as if the developer option that forces all apps to close when you exit them is somehow enabled. I checked in developer settings and it shows disabled. I also disabled eco mode for all the apps I use and it didn't change anything.
I'm thinking the standard unit just doesn't have enough ram to keep up with demand. But i can't test to be sure. Can anyone with a pro unit confirm that they can browse through a few apps and then return to their original app and it be in the exact state you left it?
Any help would be appreciated, thank you.
i've basic Shield and i also keep researching this frustrating issue. Some apps will return to their previous some not.. Plex (the most used app) is the most problematic, always restarts even when just going briefly to settings. Can't imagine it's poor on Pro unit also. That's why i keep Basic version, and only upgrade to "Pro Platinum 2021" with 8GB RAM later
i would really like the app switching LG TV does - but i must admit Shield UI can be even faster (when it's not freezing).
Stability ** (tons of freezes and crashes, fan should not run in quiet mode)
Speed ***** (ultra fast UI and apps especially can be faster than WebOS, the only slow app is Plex)
App management *** (poor app switching, nice app widgets on home layout, not good integration - can't search all content AGAIN grr.. yeat another device whose global search will only throw some youtube results)
Connectivity **** (Dolby vision flickers, otherwise nice companion to AV receiver and a must for TVs without eARC)
Control *** (i like the backlight buttons, but in the end i switched back to TV remote which can control it too, and can display inputs so well, and i hate more than 1 remote.. also arrow keys are so small that i'm making mistakes frequently)
doggydog2 said:
i've basic Shield and i also keep researching this frustrating issue. Some apps will return to their previous some not.. Plex (the most used app) is the most problematic, always restarts even when just going briefly to settings. Can't imagine it's poor on Pro unit also. That's why i keep Basic version, and only upgrade to "Pro Platinum 2021" with 8GB RAM later
i would really like the app switching LG TV does - but i must admit Shield UI can be even faster (when it's not freezing).
Stability ** (tons of freezes and crashes, fan should not run in quiet mode)
Speed ***** (ultra fast UI and apps especially can be faster than WebOS, the only slow app is Plex)
App management *** (poor app switching, nice app widgets on home layout, not good integration - can't search all content AGAIN grr.. yeat another device whose global search will only throw some youtube results)
Connectivity **** (Dolby vision flickers, otherwise nice companion to AV receiver and a must for TVs without eARC)
Control *** (i like the backlight buttons, but in the end i switched back to TV remote which can control it too, and can display inputs so well, and i hate more than 1 remote.. also arrow keys are so small that i'm making mistakes frequently)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have a Shield TV 2017 and the new Shield TV Pro and they are all the same with ram managment. You pause a show and then go to another app or two and when you come back the entire app has to refresh and you have to find your show again to start it. Some apps refresh every time for no reason, just like you say. In comparison, the Apple TV 4k (which has the same exact 3gb of ram), can have as many as 11 apps open without refreshing and I can have 4 different movie streams paused at the same time and I can switch between them at any time. They end up staying in ram for many days at a time. Its nice to return to an app 4 days later to finish a movie and its right where you left it and all you have to do is unpause.
seh6183 said:
Hello. I was hoping someone who is experienced with both the standard and pro units of 2019 could help me in this matter. Both of these units are extremely hard to get ahold of right now or I would test myself, sorry to bother.
I was able to get my hands on a standard unit and everything is working as expected except it has horrible ram management. Either that or just lacking ram in general. I can't get any app to stay in ram. If I leave to simply look at the settings menu, when I return to the app it completely refreshes. I might, come back to see it in its same state if I only look at one app but don't click on anything, but thats not guaranteed.
No sense in even having an app switcher when it behaves like this. Its as if the developer option that forces all apps to close when you exit them is somehow enabled. I checked in developer settings and it shows disabled. I also disabled eco mode for all the apps I use and it didn't change anything.
I'm thinking the standard unit just doesn't have enough ram to keep up with demand. But i can't test to be sure. Can anyone with a pro unit confirm that they can browse through a few apps and then return to their original app and it be in the exact state you left it?
Any help would be appreciated, thank you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the MiBox 3 and never had this problem with less ram.
Have you found a solution yet?
Is there anything is the developers menu that we could tinker with?

Those who updated to OOS Android 12 - Is it still bad?

See title. Thinking again about updating now that we have another update out in C11 (I believe this is the most recent).
Would you if you had to chance to stay on Android 11? Still very much on the fence.
I haven't had the time or energy to do a clean install, so maybe these issues wouldn't show up normally but here is my experience so far:
1. Forcing the hz to be always 120 is no longer as simple and must be reset every boot
2. Also custom dpi must be set every boot
3. Widgets sizes are all off, some too big and some too small.
4. Always on display is forced on, and almost always doesn't turn on for about 20 seconds when taken out of a pocket, forcing a press of the power button.
5. When always on display doesn't show the fingerprint icon (either configured or after a few seconds), fingerprint scanning won't activate
6. Aptx TWS+ simply doesn't work anymore. Defaults to notmal aptx or aptx hd
7. Reply in floating window doesn't function at all
8. Notifications that are unread but still in the drawer don't show up on the lockscreen
The new fingerprint animations are dope though
crDroid 8.4 is running really nice!
There a couple things I don't like. The new animations are good and a change of system sounds/ringtone is nice. The UI is mostly a sidegrade if not a downgrade in utility. I felt the same going from 10 to 11 and now 11 to 12. I guess I will just get used to it.
What I don't like is the horrendous navigation buttons. What idiot at OnePlus thought it would be a good idea to space out the nav buttons an inch apart? Makes reaching my thumb over (and I have big hands) a pain in the ass. It looks stupid as **** too. I had to switch to gesture navigation mode because of this. Also they added crap like shelf and the qualcomm voice thing/quick device connect which are annoying as I couldn't get rid of the notifications. I tried turning quick device connect off in settings and it wouldn't work. had to mute the notification.
Also in recents/multitasking when I hit close all apps it should close all apps but instead it goes back to the app I was using. This is annoying as I developed the habit of closing all apps and shutting of my phone in a clean slate.
I will do a follow up post of bugs as I encounter them
Thanks for the responses guys. It's shocking to me that widely released software has this many issues still. I may just stay on A11 then. I am eyeing the Pixel 7 in Sept/Oct and I'll leave OP behind at that point. It was a good run.

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