All Things Android - Apps, Phones, Tablets - Discussion

This is what I have on my original Nexus7:
Amazon.com: Blurex Ultra-Slim Case for New Nexus 7 FHD 2nd Gen Tabet Black - With Smart Cover Auto Wake / Sleep Feature (Blue): Computers & Accessories

It's held up really well for the past 2 years I've had it and I would recommend it. Not only does it do a few different landscape angles, it has a handy strap that lets you hold it in portrait mode for one handed reading. I'm not sure if the 1st gen is the same size as the 2nd gen, you might have to look into that. Otherwise search for "Blurex Ultra-Slim Case". Mine is the black leather color. » review«

 

Anyone considering the Nexus 6? It's probably a little too big for me.

 

Bah the reviews of the Nexus 9 looked promising...until the mediocre battery life, slow load times of certain gestures in 5.0, and heat issues they are encountering, I'll probably stick with my Nexus 7 for little longer..

 

What other phone will you be looking for?

 

I was just going to stick with my 5S until something interesting is released. Stock Android and good battery life are my main requirements. I've owned and considered keeping a One M8 Google Edition, but the camera is too iffy for me. The OnePlus One is nice, but signal strength is usually 5 - 10 db lower than my other phones(M8 & 5S).

 

Really? It sucked that bad? Could've it just been 5.0 that was causing the issues?

 

Initial reviews from both ArsTechnica and TheVerge have been VERY bad. Heat problems, stutters in the UI, flexible back, mushy buttons, light bleed around the edges of the screen. When it's priced against high-end tablets from Sony and Apple, those issues are IMO unforgivable.

 

Well see I'm not sure if they got a retail Nexus 9 or a review unit shipped to them. This was Android Authority's review, and they only had 4-5 of screen time before the battery went kaput. Maybe it was the new K1 Tegra chip, or maybe the QXGA+ screen resolution, or maybe new 5.0 Android, but remember this honking tablet has a 6700 mAH battery. My 2014 Nexus 7 has only 3950 mAH and I can easily get 3-4 days and more than 4-5 hours of screen time with no problem.

 

I know, it's disappointing. The good news is that we will probably get 5.0 pushed to our nexus 7

 

Heat issues, battery life problems, unoptimized kernel source? Tegra.

Mine seems to be fine... I just had to remove the stupid oleophobic coating on the lens.

Simple answer is Tegra. Google is using it, but they didn't build it and NVIDIA simply cannot match Qualcomm when it comes to documentation and support, especially with CodeAurora.

Android, in recent years, has been seriously optimized for Qualcomm SoC's.

When Lollipop gets pushed to the GPE phones and the Nexus PHONES, you won't see the kind of performance stutters that you see with Tegra.

 

I'm shocked.

 

Yeah, but ArsTechnica's reviews said pretty much the exact same things about the Nexus 9's shortcomings, and they've got some die-hard Android enthusiasts on their payroll, so I'm not writing it off as just TheVerge loving Apple.

Edit: Ron Amadeo, the author of that image linked above and die-hard Google fan, just posted this gif:

 

Yeah, I'm not debating that it has issues (nor am I massively surprised), I just can't take anything The Verge says seriously.

 

Aww Christ. After having play time with the SHIELD tablet, I had such high hopes for the K1 in the new Nexus.

If you will excuse me, I have shoe polish to wipe off my mouth.

 

There aren't a lot of English reviews out for the Xiaomi MiPad, so I haven't been able to confirm that it shares all three issues, but it certainly does share the latter two:

I haven't had a look at MIUI since the Gingerbread and Ice Cream Sandwich days of Android, but I don't recall fluidity beeing much of an issue back then. I presume at least some of the blame the reviewer is putting on the Chinese manufacturer is being directed wrongfully.

Interestingly, the reviewer was unable to spot a heat issue, perhaps due to a difference in build materials:

Xiaomi MiPad: Review

 

I'm honestly not surprised, why didn't Google decide to go with Qualcomm SoCs over Nvidia? Tegra is crap, was crap, and always will be crap. Only thing I can think of is cost, but they had to have known with all the issues with the original Nexus 7 and the Tegra 3? I guess not.

 

The only reason I can think of is for its 64-bit properties. Otherwise a Snapdragon would seem like the obvious choice

 

Damn, just missed the HTC 50% off nexus9 deal.

Deal alert: HTC offers the Nexus 9 for $199, a 50 percent discount the day after launch | TechHive

ah well, I'm still undecided, going to wait for more reviews.

 

T1 was only used in the Zune HD. T2 had CPU problems because it didn't support any kind of extensions like NEON. T3 supported NEON but had a proprietary big.LITTLE config that was seriously non functional along with seriously narrow bus bandwidth. T4 was actually ok, but it was really power hungry and it's only competitive design wins had to have active cooling. K1 with the 64-bit Denver cores are now in-order execution... unlike everything else on the market. That's where the stuttering is coming from... it's like the saltwell Atom. Out-of-order execution is, kind of, needed with modern OS's that feature multitasking features like Android. K1 going in-order is asinine.

As far as the GPU, that's never been a problem.

 

Think I'm going to replace my Note 2 this weekend.. Front runner right now is Note 4, just have to decide if I want white or black I guess

 

Coworker has the Note 4. It's a GREAT phone. You'll like it.

I think it looks better in white than black (he has the white), but that's as subjective as things get.

 

I'm kind of leaning towards white but it seems there are none in stock anywhere near me I've always had black or dark color going all the way back to my LG Dare. The white seemed to not have as large as a presence as the black when I was checking then out at Best Buy. I'm just worried the non-dark bezel will be distracting..?

 

If I were going to replace my GS3 now, I'd probably opt for a Note 4. Looks like a fantastic phone with a great camera and battery life. I just can't stomach the high upfront off-contract cost right now.

 

I doubt the non-dark bezel will be distracting as Android's aesthetic transfers from the dark-oriented Holo style to the light-oriented Material Design. If anything, it'll transition better.

 

Buying an Android Device, do you buy a one with an ARM or INTEL cpu?

ARM tests: Intel flops on Android compatibility, Windows power • The Register

John.

 

That's odd, normally handsets with white bezels tend to seem bigger - with black handsets the screen sort of merges into the bezel, whereas on white handsets it always stands out, which most people perceive as the handset being bigger.

 

I seem to be having wifi connectivity problems with my Note 4. It disconnects sporadically and shows low signal strength when it is connected. I'm not having issues with any other devices. I'm also trying out a few launchers but I haven't decided which one to keep.

Another "feature" is that the S Pen can be inserted in either direction. I hated on the Note 2 how it had to go in one way...

Picked mine up last night! Of course I didn't buy off-contact, but it's super sweet. Don't let the size scare you off, you'll get used to it in a day or two and then all other puny phones will be awkward. The fast charging is pretty impressive too. I've gotten used to just swapping batteries out on the Note 2 but I might not have to with Note 4. I haven't gotten to mess with the camera much yet though.

I ended up going with black. I had an hour and half wait to play with the two color options and decided to go with black. They also only had one phone (surprisingly, this store was the only one in town that had either color in stock) and it was black which kinda helped lol

That is what I though too, so I guess it was just the environment. I was limited to the 1ft security tether at Best Buy (not a single AT&T, Target, Costco, Sam's Club, or Radio Shack in this town had a demo model), so I'm sure it had to do with their setup. The back cover on the white is noticeably different then the black. The black is softer and grippier with more of a leather feel. The white is harder and a bit slicker with more of plastic feel. I assume this is to keep the white from staining..

 

Try disabling 'Smart Network Switch' in the wi-fi settings, it may be responsible.

 

Bought an Samsung Tab S 10.5" yesterday the Amoled screen is amazing but i am so scared i am going to scratch or drop it.

John.

 

I did try that setting out for a minute but it would never connect to 2.4ghz or 5ghz so I turned it off. Now that I'm messing with it again, I can't actually get it to connect to my 5ghz network at all. It shows it and let's me type in a password, but it never will connect. I get 1 bar of 2.4ghz signal when in the same room as my router.

Edit: I'm at 53% battery usage with 2.5hrs screen on time (varied screen brightness). It's showing that Android System is using more battery than the screen. Is this normal on non-rooted devices? I figured the screen on this bad boy would be far and away the biggest drain..

 

My quick review of Hail to the King: Deathbat ($1.99 on Play):

This Diablo-style dungeon crawler was put out by metal band Avenged Sevenfold and tells the backstory of their undead mascot Deathbat.

Yes, seriously.

The game features simple-but-well-executed Diablo-style gameplay, respectable visuals, and the best soundtrack of any Android game I've ever played. The score is written by Avenged Sevenfold, but it's not just their music playing in the background; it's video-game-score-stuff, varying from spooky to heavy depending on what's happening in-game; it's just really well done.

The game is $1.99 up-front, and you can unlock additional player characters with unique weapons (each unlockable character is a medieval undead version of an Avenged Sevenfold band-member) for another $1.99 apiece. Equipment and consumables in-game are purchased ONLY with in-game currency, not real money, so the in-app transactions are truly optional; you don't need to spend real money to progress. The game is not balanced to encourage or force you to use the in-app purchases.

tl;dr--respectable gameplay, great music, and a non-predatory pricing scheme make this dungeon crawler absolutely worth it.

 

How does it compare to Dungeon Hunter 4? I've been playing that on my Shield Portable and I think its an excellent game. Of course they have way to many in-app purchases so that sucks, but thus far I have been able to get to level 19 without spending any real money and its been fun.

 

I haven't tried Dungeon Hunter 4, but based on reviews of it, I think Deathbat a couple steps behind in complexity (there's really only one "class" with three actions: attack, basic spell, powerful spell), and different weapons change the characteristics of your attacks and spells. But it's easily accessible, GREAT background music (can't emphasize this enough), and I really like that the gameplay is not balanced to encourage microtransactions. I hate games where it feels like it's nearly impossible for all but the elite players to progress after a certain point without regularly engaging in microtransactions. With Hellbat, for $1.99, you get the game, and everything after that is up to you, no pressure to spend more money (unless you want to play as band members with their unique weapons). That's more fun for me.

 

Nexus 6 appears hamstrung by SERIOUSLY slow storage:



Nexus 6 review—The “premium” price still comes with compromises | Ars Technica

 

Yeah I'm 100% NOPE to that Nexus 6. Google showing its true colors, high end specs at now almost 85% higher cost! I think Google should be ashamed at itself for now charging so much more and still having compromises. There should be no excuse for that on a 650 dollar phone.

 

Two weeks after I bought my Moto X (2014), I learned that my carrier was getting the Nexus 6. At that time, I had some real buyer's remorse. I no longer do.

 

The only beef I have the 2014 Moto X is the way better specs and larger screen size, and a teeny tiny battery mAH upgrade. With a 5.2" chassis, it should have received at least a 2800-3000 mAH battery IMO to get all day battery life. But I guess you can't have it all.

 

I have disabled NFC, Bluetooth, and I have GPS in "battery saving" mode instead of "high accuracy" mode, but otherwise have my Moto X (2014) in stock settings (4G LTE enabled, brightness set at 50%, processor in stock configuration), and I typically only lose about 30% battery charge between 9am and 7pm with moderate use (emailing, web browsing, periodic streaming music). If you don't routinely use NFC, Bluetooth, and GPS, changing settings on just those three things can basically double the Moto X's battery life.

 

It's looking like the read speeds on the Nexus 6 is not due to crappy hardware, but due to the always-on encryption on the Nexus 6 as opposed to the default-off encryption on the other phones it was tested against. Without encryption, the Nexus 6's disk speed improves dramatically.

https://plus.google.com/+JeremyCamp1337/posts/iDyPjEuEf51

 

I just received a Moto X 2014 today and I have to say it's really nice. It's the Verizon model though, so it only connects to AT&T 3G. Aside from that though, it's an excellent midrange device. Battery life really hasn't been an issue so far. 66% to 18% netted 2:23 of screen on time. That includes updating and installing about 30 apps too.

 

Up until yesterday I was only getting 3.5-4hrs of sot (half brightness) with 50% of that going to Android OS and I was pretty disappointed. I'm not sure what changed but battery has been much better since yesterday. I'm at 42% with 4.5hrs sot (half brightness) today

 

Ah I was wondering about that - still, an 805 can support significantly faster storage than the 800 (as can the 801) so I'm still confused. Can an order of magnitude of 3x difference be entirely SoC based? Or is the N6 packing 800-era eMMC (I can't imagine that being the case)?

 

Anyone looking for a brand new unopened Moto X 2014 to buy?

 

Depends on the price.

 

How about 450€? I could throw in shipping included

 

What happened to your HTC M8?

 

Android Lollipop update: Nexus 5 owners face Wi-Fi issues, battery woes - Tech2

John.

 

Perhaps he exchanged it for 2 way trip to US?

 

Naw, Phistachio's better than that. He'd go with Samsung again before he'd go with a Motorola Chastity bootloader.

 

Nothing, it's still alive and well! I just got the Moto X but then I realized I'm in need of money so I'm now selling it!