All Things Android - Apps, Phones, Tablets - Discussion

Seems like the X8 'Mobile Computing System' is, indeed, just marketing hype.

 

Well when I went back to Verizon, they didn't have any Android phones I wanted (GS3/4, Note 2, HTC One, LG Optimus G). I did not want a Windows Phone, and I wanted an iPhone. And I've used all 3 camps, iOS comes first, Android close second.


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I wouldn't go that far. It still lasts over 24 hours.

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Edit: "real world" usage reports seem to be much more positive: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2418077

 

Motorola made a number of claims about the power efficiency of the X8, yet it fails to measure up to competing devices when put through standardised tests.
It's bettered by the One, the Xperia Z and comfortably by the S4.

Even handsets like the Blackberry Q10 and, God forbid, the Lumia 920 did better.


All of which is somewhat beside the point, the X8 is "a lesson in marketing speak".
It's not even clear whether it's even an SoC or if 2 of the "cores" are actually separate chips.

 

Like I said in the tablet thread, the "X8" is nothing more than MSM8960T with a modified DSP, probably modified with firmware enhancements to keep the DSP running continuously. All of this is on the SoC die, CPU cores/GPU cores/DSP/ISP... I don't believe there's anything external in "X8". I think what jacks up the cost of the Moto X is that 4.7" 720p RGB stripe S-AMOLED, which I'd still like to know who's sourcing those. Samsung or LG? LG has a new AMOLED fab that's supposed to be ramping up mobile panels, but I didn't know they were mass market ready if that's who's supplying Moto. If it's Samsung, I want to know why Samsung isn't using the panel themselves, in their own devices. It's seriously a nice little panel.

 

Don't worry Tsuname. We'll get that brain slug known as iOS off you.

Hold Him Down Everyone!

...Lemme go get my knives...

 

I flashed franco.Kernel on my Nexus 4 yesterday. So far so good. Battery life is actually pretty good now.

 

Is that confirmed?
Nothing I've been able to find online actually says whether it is or not - and there's a couple of TI chips that iFixit mention in their teardown that sound like they could be the DSPs. I could be barking up the wrong tree, they may have nothing to do with the X8 but the descriptions on TI's do seem to be pretty much on the money for what Motorola are doing.

Anandtech said it's not RGB stripe in their article.
They said it's RGB but specifically state it's not RGB stripe.


I'm not trying to argue for the sake of it, there just seems to be a lack of hard facts with the Moto X.

 

Ah, so that panel is from Samsung. Which still begs the question... Why is Samsung not using that panel? They usually reserve premium AMOLED panels for their own devices. So this is odd.

The TI DSP is for Active NC. Samsung uses a similar solution, just not usually from TI. What's really interesting there is this: TFA9890UK :: NXP Semiconductors

 

What handset would they put it into though?

Which one? The TMS320C55 or the MSP430 F5259?
Because the description of the second one in particular sounds like it could be used for something like the voice control.

 

Any device out there use 2 stream wifi?

 

You mean channel bonding?
A lot of them.

I can't say for other brands but Samsung have had it in most handsets back to the S3.

 

True dual stream? None.

And as for channel bonding? Few of them do, but Samsung is one of the ones that always do, since the S3.

Most of the time it's just single stream N/AC because of power requirements. The Nexus 10 uses MIMO, where supported.

 

What's the difference?

 

Im trading my droid 3 "ipod touch like" device for a Droid Charge.

This should be interesting.

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:thumbsup: Let us know how that works out for you... snicker, snicker

 

The S3 and S4 both will channel bond with 20Mhz channels, because Samsung always uses long guard interval. AC is an unknown to me at this point, as I don't have an AP to test with, but I'm guessing that Samsung only uses a single channel on AC. So, maximum speed for Samsung devices connected to an N AP is 150Mbps. The common PHY rates I've seen from the S4 in reviews where AC was throughput tested was around 300Mbps... and that lines up to a single stream, as AC is using 40Mhz to begin with, along with 256QAM vs 64QAM for N.

The difference is that true dual stream can achieve channel bonding on both streams, effectively up to 4 40Mhz channels with PC grade WiFi cards that use short guard interval.

Long guard = 20Mhz channels
Short guard = 40Mhz channels

Interesting video on the subject...

 

5.68 Inches Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Display Leaked in HD Photos

 

Not a massive jump like the Galaxy Mega? Disappointed Samsung, here I thought the Note 3 was gonna be 6.5".

 

Eh, IMO, having the HTC One Max, the Honami and the Oppo N1 around the corner, I find this design, may God forgive me, bland. Usually it has something different from the previous generation note (Note 1 -> 2), but I fail to see any difference between the Note 2 and the Note 3 if that's to be the final design.

On the other hand, Sony IS stepping up their game. Honami is shaping up to be great success to Sony.

 

The Note's aimed at a different target market as the Mega, it was never going to be as big.

 

To be fair though, it shouldn't be expected of Samsung to dramatically alter the aesthetic of the Note III as it follows the same design language of the Galaxy S that precedes it. It's not very elaborate, but it will be more streamlined and an improvement over the Note II. I think Samsung made the right decision to go with a 5.7" screen too; don't get me wrong, the Xperia Z Ultra is a fantastic device but as Engadget's headlines put it, it's the best phone that you will probably never buy. The Note III's screen size gets a modest jump in size and the smaller bezel will should make it about the same size as the Note II so it's not impractical to carry around or handle on a daily basis. I'm still very interested in the One Max, pending on if HTC applies the refined manufacturing process from the One Mini and its ergonomics isn't bad.

 

Google dropped the Nexus 4 to $199/$249. Grab one while you can!

 

It's a great phone. Especially for $200 (no contract). It's not even a year old...

 

God will forgive you. Samsung on the other hand...

I've found it's best to reserve judgment until the actual phone is launched.

And the Honami does look awesome. But since Sony perpetually hates CDMA now, there's no way I will ever be able to experience it.

SHAME ON THEM!!!

 

Yup it still is a great phone for 250 unlocked. Good luck finding a non messed up quad core GSM smartphone unlocked for that price that isn't a pos. I still say it's one of the best value smartphones out.


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Fixed that for you.

 

Teardown shows that Moto X costs about $221 to build

That's a pretty expensive SoC, the quad core Snapdragon 600 costs $20 by comparison.

 

Well not every phone has an S600 due to cooling issues?


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The problem with the X8's cost is that you are paying more to get less...literally. If you take the Texas Instrument ICs out of the picture, there is no differentiation between the base MSM8960DT that the X8 SoC uses and the APQ8064-AA other than the missing two logical cores in the former. The reason why the 8960DT runs so well as AnandTech points out is that the two missing cores gives the SoC more thermal headroom so it doesn't throttle as aggressively, and the vast majority of Android apps are not designed to scale past two cores.

This is about the same as paying $500 for a Core i5 3360M when you could get a 3720QM for $350; same architecture, same base clock speed, same GPU, but you're paying more to lose two processing cores.

 

Wait what? Tapatalk is now free? Is that just an ad for the read only version?

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Uhh there is a paid version of Tapatalk, it is the newest one. I think Tapatalk 2 is free for iOS. I paid for Tapatalk on Android because at the time there was no free version.

 

Does that mean I was right then?

 

Very likely, it's not sensible for Qualcomm to integrate Texas Instrument components in place of theirs.

I really need to get my hands on a Moto X and see how much stronger that NXP amplifier really is over the HTC One's. On paper, its RMS more than doubles what the HTC has, so it may be another phone that doesn't need an external amplifier to power those high ohm headphones.

 

The Xperia Z1/Honami and Z1i/Honami mini will allegedly come with S-Master MX Mobile amplifiers, akin to what you'll find in the Walkman Z series. If that turns out to be true, Sony have really managed to unify strengths from most of the fields they dabble in.

 

It was dog day at my local public pool. So I took my two dogs and you all probably already know where this is going...Yep. Jumped in the pool with my One in my pocket. Was in there for like 5 minutes before I realized it was there. It is currently six feet under rice. I wouldn't mind taking it apart but I have heard it is difficult and I just don't have the tools necessary more than likely.

 

My girlfriend's Galaxy S 3 went into the pool for about 30 seconds, we took it out to dry, was all good. Also her mom's Galaxy S 4 had a milk bottle spilled all over it, we let it dry out and it hasn't had any issues.

 

I'd appreciate input on this. I'm considering taking the plunge (again) for a Verizon capable Android phone with 5" screen. I'd like to buy an unlocked phone if possible, but can always get one on contract with Verizon if needed.

Thanks.

 

Even though it only has a 4.7" diplay, the Moto X is the phone to get, in my opinion. It isn't bloated up with Motorola apps(and not too many Verizon apps either). The only 5" phone that I would get on Verizon is the Galaxy S4, but I'd take a look at the One and X first.

 

Problem is most unlocked phones are for GSM, unless you plan on buying the LTE unlocked versions from Verizon, then I salute your pocket book. The Moto X seems like a decent deal at around 400-500 unlocked.

 

Well, yesterday was my lucky day. Someone at work threw out a Motorola DROID RAZR. It even had an Otterbox Commuter case on it and a 32GB SD card. I have no idea why it was tossed in the trash. I'm deployed and do customs work, so when people pass threw they tend to lighten their load and throw away a lot of stuff. Well someone threw the phone away. So I was able to snatch it up, root, and flash CM 10.1 on it. Tried 10.2 but had keyboard shutdown issues.

While it's an older phone, it sure beats my Samsung Galaxy S Captivate. Having twice the RAM helps a ton. My Captivate was always bogged down due to the 512mb RAM.

And here we have free Wi-Fi, so it has replaced my Captivate. Just had to transfer all my photos and music, and put my 64GB SD card in it. The 32gb SD card will go to my wife or serve as a backup since I've had a few SD cards die on me in the last year.

Just thought I'd share since I'm stoked about it.

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Nice. That's good. Let mine dry in rice throughout the night and tried powering it on this morning. No go. It is dead. Sucks. I will probably buy a nexus 4 for $250. Any better ideas for ATT cusotmer with no upgrades til december?

EDIT: Just bought the Nexus 4. Don't think you can beat it for the price.

 

The Nexus 4 remains the best value for an unlocked smartphone, provided you're on a network like AT&T that supports it. Best value by far.

 

Thank you. I was looking at the wireless charger and jeez does it have bad reviews. How could Google/LG make something so bad and with such a terrible design flaw?

 

I never had a problem with my wireless charger.

Sent from my Nexus 4

 

Hmmm. Reading the most recent reviews on amazon shows that a lot their phones wont stick to the pad and keep falling off. And that they have to keep getting them replaced. I guess I'll just have to try it out whenever. Sucks it is so expensive.

 

At least it's about to become one.

Moto X could have price slashed to $100 by Christmas, $50 for wooden covers

 

Day 3 of using the Droid Charge as a iPod Touch like device (no cell service so airplane mode with wi-fi 100% of the time):

What a pile...where to begin.

Random lag. Yes it's a Galaxy S 1 family device meaning that pesky RFS filesystem. Still, I accepted the OTA and did a factory reset to boot and I'll still get a spinner when opening the app drawer or a delay when i hit the home key to exit an app. Annoying.

Weird errors and crashes: Like my other Galaxy S 1 family device experience (Stratosphere) I've had strange issues that I've never experienced on any other android device. The phone has locked up multiple times, screen on or off, and in both cases acted like it didn't want to try and turn on. This latest case (today) left me unable to turn on the phone (despite several battery removals) until I returned home 5 hours later. When I plugged it in at home the backlight on the hardware Android navigation buttons would flash but nothing would happen. It took two battery pulls while plugged in to get the phone to boot.

In both cases when the device locked up, I'd turn on the phone only to be greeted by this:



No it is not December 31 2004...nor is it Friday. Plus the time is way off. I'd verify that "use network provided time" is checked and it was. before the second lockup I had switched to set the time manually thinking it only got the time from the cell tower.

After this second lockup, wi-fi will connect fine but apps will think i'm offline. Brilliant.

When the device itself isn't locking up (granted only happened twice but still..annoying that a battery pull won't fix it in most cases) apps crash and return to the homescreen suddenly and without warning. Plus I'm getting weird app errors like this:



Yeah I was using hangouts before on this device + was able to enable device tracking/wipe in Play Services the first day i started to use the phone.

and this beauty:



For the record I've even gone and uninstalled both tapatalk and Amazon Appstore and reinstalled. Tapatalk will work fine for a day and then I get this message when I launch it. I can't run tapatalk without Amazon Appstore running as well (I guess it's some DRM thing) so clearly this is a problem.

Also, apps that let you sign in with Google (I've tried Feedly, SwiftKey, and others)....the google sign in webpage doesn't load correctly on the Charge....the sign in button doesn't do anything and looks grayed out...still trying to figure why that's the case on this thing.

The random glitches i've had on this device are quite mindboggling and a shame since I don't mind the UI overall. Combined with my Stratosphere experience, it leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. Yes, I could root and ROM the device but ICS or JB is out of the question due to several components not working (Camera...shockingly like my late Droid 3..which i stupidly let my brother use to trade in for a HTC One...doesn't work on the Charge when running ICS or JB), not that ICS or JB is a daily driver level ROM on this device anyway.

After not being able to go online despite being on my wifi next to the router I've had it. Popping my SD card out and moving to my HTC MyTouch 4G Slide for now.

 

Thanks guys for the input. I'll take a peek at the Moto X, HTC One, Galaxy S4.

I noticed the Moto X has only 16GB RAM and it doesn't look like it has a card expansion either. That concerns me a little bit. But it does have Google storage, but that won't help with installed apps. I don't plan on loading up with a ton of stuff, but I also don't want to be too limited and shuffle stuff around a lot. The S4 has 16GB but room for an SD card. The One has 32GB which should be more than sufficient.

The other thing I don't see is if any have an FM Radio? My Samsung Galaxy Player has a built-in radio which I use fairly regularly. It is a nice feature to have. Maybe they all have it now, I don't know, but definitely something I don't want to lose. (edit: it seems of the three, only the HTC One has a radio. I really like Samsung, but omitting an FM Radio seems kinda silly. I don't want to use radio apps and have to rely on consuming bandwidth or wi-fi).

They all cost $199 with two year contract.

 

The S4 is the only one of the three mentioned that has a microSD slot, but I'd still get the 32GB version since the stock ROM takes up a lot of space and not all apps can be moved to the SD card. In my opinion, the S4 is the best all-rounder but if you highly value premium materials and the quality of the phone's speakers, the HTC One might be more up your alley. The One is also the only phone suggested that has an FM radio. They're both great phones, so it is a matter of preference.

As for the Moto X, it's a nice enough phone but I don't think the current price tag suits it.