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Hi Fellow Members from all over the World:
If you knew all the Desire HD issues before you buy it/upgrade, would have you bought it/upgraded?
Please post your comments and share youir experience!
I thought this thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=817464 was dealing with this topic (backwards from your) very well ...why create another one?
not in the slighest i thought it was good to start with but today after some searching it was brought to life
M_T_M said:
I thought this thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=817464 was dealing with this topic (backwards from your) very well ...why create another one?
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Click to collapse
Mine is general AND has a poll, the other one is too specific and restrictive: proximity sensor and battery. In mine, you can vote and eventually explain why. That's why I created a new thread.
Absolutely not.
I had the nexus one before and thought DHD would be my secondary phone (I have to have two) but after playing with it for one hour I switched sim cards and never looked back.
One word - screen. When I look at the nexus screen now it looks like a toy.
Although I am a bit irritated about the speaker quality.
kuba1410 said:
Absolutely not.
I had the nexus one before and thought DHD would be my secondary phone (I have to have two) but after playing with it for one hour I switched sim cards and never looked back.
One word - screen. When I look at the nexus screen now it looks like a toy.
Although I am a bit irritated about the speaker quality.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
agreed, the speaker quality is terrible and so low
Hell no this phone rocks.
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App
By the way, I'll vote and answer when I get mine. I pre-ordered mine as I'm due to an upgrade and they said I'll get it tomorrow but I know the demand for the DHD is so high that it might take longer.
who knows said:
agreed, the speaker quality is terrible and so low
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Click to collapse
Isn't it? You would expect more from a flagship phone and boasting "Dolby Mobile" and "SRS", the nexus one had none of these and although the speakers were rubbish too, they still where better then those on the DHD.
Absolutely not! I got mine yesterday & I LOVE it. I cant stop playing with it
Ignoring the battery issue (it's getting better after few charge cycles though), I don't regret it all.
today i took mine out for a solo test run for the first time. came off charge at 10am and 12 hours later has 35% battery, after 45 minutes of gps, 3 hours of wifi internet and and hour of angry birds. oh and 3 phone calls. thats not bad. this is after 8 complete charge cycles done over 4 days. when you use it heavily it dies quick, but pace yourself and it does juuuust fine.
the camera is shockingly bad though. white balance is terrible, focusing in anything but perfect light is crap, and the image quality is questionable.
and the ear speaker volume is a little quiet for calls in loud environments, but its CLEAR. i had no problems hearing what the other person was saying, even in a noisy cafe.
I'm not really shure if I would have bought it and these are the reasons why:
battery life is not that good, although I expected this so it's not really a reason, though I'd like to mention it
"Locations" only works with data connection, so what's the use of preloaded maps then? I want to see my location without having a data connection (when roaming abroad) but this is not possible, why not? such a shame. This should be possible. I even think it's ridicoulously easy to implement in a firmware update, though I wouldn't really know
Speaker is absolutely useless. I never hear it when it's in my pocket and to make matters worse, the vibrator is not one of the best either. It makes a lot more noise than it should and it just vibrates fast, not hard. The lower the frequency and the bigger the amplitude of the vibration, the harder you feel it. Every phone in this price range I ever had, had a better vibrator
camera quality is very disappointing. On the DHD's screen it all looks very nice and crisp, untill you copy the shot to your pc, bummer... I was expecting a serious improvement in quality, coming from an iPhone 3GS but sadly this is not true
setting up the dlna to work (if compatible, which it is rarely!) is harder than running to the store, buying a Nokia N8 + hdmi cable, transfer some movies to it and connect it to your tv. So, kinda useless...
is it really that much trouble to install a LED notification light that you can actually see from an angle?
Ok, flash in the browser works, but how... it's slow and laggy
to sum it up, the DHD is still a fantastic phone, but to me a flagship device should excell on EVERY field, or at least be way above average on every field. This means GPS solution + speaker + camera... everything! And it just doesn't, not even by a long shot.
Honestly I was expecting more from the DHD
for the moment I'm keeping it because I still feel there is no phone out there that can offer me this much, but as soon as Symbian revamps their UI, I'm going back to Nokia. On the insides, S60 is still a very good OS and I love it for its possibilities but sadly it looks like crap and we're too spoiled by iOS and Android to go back there...
kuba1410 said:
Isn't it? You would expect more from a flagship phone and boasting "Dolby Mobile" and "SRS", the nexus one had none of these and although the speakers were rubbish too, they still where better then those on the DHD.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dolby is when you use headset not the speaker
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App
kuba1410 said:
Absolutely not.
I had the nexus one before and thought DHD would be my secondary phone (I have to have two) but after playing with it for one hour I switched sim cards and never looked back.
One word - screen. When I look at the nexus screen now it looks like a toy.
Although I am a bit irritated about the speaker quality.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same here. And the colors on the N1 look way overdone. I don't even like to look at it. I read so much on the bad speaker, but I must say I think I have one the better ones I guess. The loudspeaker on mine is very good. I can make too loud sometimes. No distortion at any level. I actually like it. Better than my N1.
The phone arrived four days ago. No regrets yet...
Greenjinky said:
Absolutely not! I got mine yesterday & I LOVE it. I cant stop playing with it
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Click to collapse
i bet you do
I've had this phone three weeks (I guess that makes me an old timer) and even now despite the much documented issues of speaker, battery life I can still say not only do I have no regrets, it's the best phone I have ever had.
matthiasdeblaiser said:
I'm not really shure if I would have bought it and these are the reasons why:
battery life is not that good, although I expected this so it's not really a reason, though I'd like to mention it
"Locations" only works with data connection, so what's the use of preloaded maps then? I want to see my location without having a data connection (when roaming abroad) but this is not possible, why not? such a shame. This should be possible. I even think it's ridicoulously easy to implement in a firmware update, though I wouldn't really know
Speaker is absolutely useless. I never hear it when it's in my pocket and to make matters worse, the vibrator is not one of the best either. It makes a lot more noise than it should and it just vibrates fast, not hard. The lower the frequency and the bigger the amplitude of the vibration, the harder you feel it. Every phone in this price range I ever had, had a better vibrator
camera quality is very disappointing. On the DHD's screen it all looks very nice and crisp, untill you copy the shot to your pc, bummer... I was expecting a serious improvement in quality, coming from an iPhone 3GS but sadly this is not true
setting up the dlna to work (if compatible, which it is rarely!) is harder than running to the store, buying a Nokia N8 + hdmi cable, transfer some movies to it and connect it to your tv. So, kinda useless...
is it really that much trouble to install a LED notification light that you can actually see from an angle?
Ok, flash in the browser works, but how... it's slow and laggy
to sum it up, the DHD is still a fantastic phone, but to me a flagship device should excell on EVERY field, or at least be way above average on every field. This means GPS solution + speaker + camera... everything! And it just doesn't, not even by a long shot.
Honestly I was expecting more from the DHD
for the moment I'm keeping it because I still feel there is no phone out there that can offer me this much, but as soon as Symbian revamps their UI, I'm going back to Nokia. On the insides, S60 is still a very good OS and I love it for its possibilities but sadly it looks like crap and we're too spoiled by iOS and Android to go back there...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Very good points dude.
mancuk29 said:
Dolby is when you use headset not the speaker
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Didn't know that, any way, this till makes you think that speakers have some quality to them.
bobbyphoenix said:
Same here. And the colors on the N1 look way overdone. I don't even like to look at it. I read so much on the bad speaker, but I must say I think I have one the better ones I guess. The loudspeaker on mine is very good. I can make too loud sometimes. No distortion at any level. I actually like it. Better than my N1.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually, the my first impression was: Nice, big screen, but the colors are off.
I had a black wallpaper on my N1, put the same on DHD and it looked bleached.
After over one week of usage I have no reservations as to the colors, the screen is pure brilliance, I am never going back to a <4.3" screen.
You must be lucky with the speaker. Youtube is nigh unusable without headphones.
Despite the bad reviews I picked up a Liveview yesterday. Was $50 brand new off Craigslist. And surprise surprise, it turned out to be a turd. Well, I don't like to waste money, so I set about modding it. Thought some people here might be interested to see what I did.
So far I've waterproofed the case. Next I'll be building a better strap, one that doesn't make it huge or block the USB port. http://www.jax184.com/projects/liveview/liveview.html has everything I've done so far on it.
Nice i got that thing and it "worked" but still with the having to restart it all the time was very annoying but i ended up sending mine back
So I've been using the Liveview for a couple days, or at least trying to. Even after doing a full reset of the device, reinstalling the software on my phone and removing all the plugins, it has a battery life of about 6-8 hours. In that time I turned the screen on twice, and it briefly lit up to tell me of an incoming call. No texts, no alerts, and I don't have farcebook/twatter/etc turned on. It sat 2 feet from my phone the entire time. If I actually try to use the damn thing to, say, control the media player, the battery goes dead in 2 to 3 hours.
Pathetic...
I've decided I'm going to build it into a custom case for a friend of mine with a much larger battery, since the stock one is completely and utterly useless. So much for my gasket job...
Not sure if the battery is just dying on yours or what but if I never touch the screen, mine lasts for a couple days at least (and that's with alerts!). Sad to hear yours has issues :\
Mine's brand new and running the latest firmware/software with the bare minimum of functionality enabled, so I'm as confused as you.
I have a liveview and i absolutely love it. I dont have any connection issues but i mostly just use it as a watch with out having it connected over bluetooth and the battery lasts for days when i do that. I do have an issue now where i dropped it and the select button on top doesnt work anymore
Can I connect multiple liveviews to my phone?
I just bought 4 of them for $15 a pop !! Sweet
I know I can use it with torque which is cool
what else can I do with them? Can I run album art to it from say player pro? or Pocket Casts?
is there a decent list somewhere of "interesting" things you can do with the little buggers?
Hi, do someone know the dimensions of the battery, because i have one with death batt. and need a replacement.
nice mod! Based on the pictures I can see the battery size in case I need to replace it, by the way using notifications my watch last 2.5 days, using a plugin last only 30minutes or less
nerys71 said:
Can I connect multiple liveviews to my phone?
I know I can use it with torque which is cool
what else can I do with them? Can I run album art to it from say player pro? or Pocket Casts?
is there a decent list somewhere of "interesting" things you can do with the little buggers?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 I just got one for $15, I wanna find some cool things I can do with it. What have you done to set yours up?
its a pain in the freaking butt. cool potential poor execution.
it constantly gets disconnected when something goes wrong ON THE DROID SIDE. terminating the app and relaunching it solves the problem for X period of time (few hours ??)
the most convenient access is also the worst designed. the watch band. YOU CAN NOT CHARGE IT WHILE IN THE WATCH BAND.
what freaking moron though that was a good idea to force us to remove it (VERY difficult) to charge it.
if the software bugs get worked out I may look into modding the stinking socket so I can charge it while in watch mode (thinking of RIVETING the case to the band) then I won't need the little watch pin thingy that is keeping me from charging it while its in the watch band.
and there is just not that many "cool" apps to use for it yet or the few out their are poorly executed.
how hard can it be to reliably push the freaking album art to the watch ?
nerys71 said:
its a pain in the freaking butt. cool potential poor execution.
it constantly gets disconnected when something goes wrong ON THE DROID SIDE. terminating the app and relaunching it solves the problem for X period of time (few hours ??)
the most convenient access is also the worst designed. the watch band. YOU CAN NOT CHARGE IT WHILE IN THE WATCH BAND.
what freaking moron though that was a good idea to force us to remove it (VERY difficult) to charge it.
if the software bugs get worked out I may look into modding the stinking socket so I can charge it while in watch mode (thinking of RIVETING the case to the band) then I won't need the little watch pin thingy that is keeping me from charging it while its in the watch band.
and there is just not that many "cool" apps to use for it yet or the few out their are poorly executed.
how hard can it be to reliably push the freaking album art to the watch ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Brother....
For disconnect issue , install this app
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ishii.app.liveviewcharm
Its really bad remove device all time from strap : (
Hope it help you
2 Generations of Liveviews
Just to be clear, there are 2 versions of this device floating about... The older one goes for around $20 and is not much more than a novelty... The newer model runs around $100 and seems to have fixed the battery life issue... One should look at the Pebble once it is available as a possible alternative...
openliveview
Drewmungus said:
+1 I just got one for $15, I wanna find some cool things I can do with it. What have you done to set yours up?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I started creating a usable gui for the openliveview project. Theo openliveview project is an open source reimplementation Of the liveview app.
You van follow the development in this thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1422106&page=26
Note: you have to uninstall the liveview app bevore you van install openliveview
probbiethe1 said:
I have a liveview and i absolutely love it. I dont have any connection issues but i mostly just use it as a watch with out having it connected over bluetooth and the battery lasts for days when i do that. I do have an issue now where i dropped it and the select button on top doesnt work anymore
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This might help you. It won't solve the issue of select button, but it'll help you read notifications.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=40041226
Where can you find one for 15 bucks? Even if it did nothing, I'd want it for 15 bucks, just to have as a key for my phone using tasker. I supposed I could get any old bluetooth headset, but I wanted something wearable.
jadenguy said:
Where can you find one for 15 bucks? Even if it did nothing, I'd want it for 15 bucks, just to have as a key for my phone using tasker. I supposed I could get any old bluetooth headset, but I wanted something wearable.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, $15 is AWESOME!
$18 with Free shipping on ebay buy it now is the best price I can find so far.
I bought four of them and donated 2 to the local hackerspace.
Would be wicked to control more than one at once. I'm trying to find some chick to wear two as earrings.
Perhaps one controlled with Sony app and one Open Liveview App each for one mac address.
Contrary to earlier post, I seem to be able to have both Sony and Openliveview apps installed at once (though haven't tried RUNNING both) yet.
My battery life across the two that I've evaluated and (a third I lost to the ocean) seems significantly better than the average reported above.
But a LOT of variables have changed since the OP. New firmware, new app, new phone, new bt stack, new android versions...
My impression IIRC is that this thing is ROCK SOLID on CyanogenMod7 or CM9 on evo 3d.
Oppo N3 Review Thread
Hey all
This thread is to collect the available reviews for the Oppo N3 into one place. Feel free to post reviews found on the web or when the device becomes available create your own:good: If anybody feels one should be added to the OP, please PM me. I'll kick off with a few i found on the net:highfive:
Reviews/Previews
http://www.stuff.tv/oppo/oppo-n3/review
Stuff.tv Hands-on/Preview
http://www.cnet.com/uk/products/oppo-n3/
CNET - Hands-on
Video Reviews/Previews
Android Authority - First Look
Good And uPDATE
So Nice i See Specification .But Cost Some High
Review Quick and Dirty
Bought it today after comparing it with Mate 7 and here is my quick and dirty review:
Plus
+ very impressed by the motorised camera
use of o click: can control manually in small increments, on screen or through the o click;
+ sound quality and volume;
+ extremely fast camera focusing and shot to shot speed;
+ finger print scanner is good once i've figured out how to use it (and this coming from a person whose corporate finger print scanner cannot read mine...)
+ despite the weight of 192 g, it feels solid instead of heavy
+ without using the VOOC charger, charging speed is snail like; with the VOOC, it is really fast
+ O click pairs quickly and works very well (as compared to the previous version)
+ ps. heard from some reviewers that the camera head is loose but mine feels satisfactory. Some also mentioned about the rattling from the loose volume button, but mine seems fine too. Heng ah.
+ despite the many complaints about the faux leather over the camera/ear piece, after using it, I think i like this choice as it makes long conversation where I place my ear tightly next to the ear piece more comfortable. In short, it looks like a misfit, but it feels good when used.
+ Oh i love the gesture functions esppppppppppppppppp the double tap to wake, 3 fingers to screenshot
Minus
- crazy location of ear phone jack (though, fortunately, I use wireless earphones, so it is irrelevant.)
- coming from Note 4, somehow this screen looks small, although both are 5.5 inches
- mass storage option is gone (previously oppo had it right?)
- auto brightness is too aggressively dim indoors
In all, i think it is an excellent phone. However, at this price point, I don't think it'll move many pieces.
As compared to Mate 7, I think where Mate 7 trumps N3 is its screen to fascia ratio since Mate 7 doesn't have a rotating camera and uses on screen keyboard. However, i found mate 7 to be a tad unwieldy and the speaker to be too 'thin'/too shrill.
Largely agree with the above.
The good:
The phone is overpriced. I pre-ordered from OppoStyle and got a free VOOC battery pack, 32GB SD Card, and an iLike case for it, so the price of £430 actually felt ok, but without those freebies I'd feel a little bit ripped off, and that offer is gone now.
The camera is fabulous, only taken one selfie with it so far which was after a 4 day long course and 140 mile drive home, no makeup and really tired, but still somehow made me look good: http://lum.uk/temp/IMG20150122211859.jpg
The shutter speed on the camera is really fast too, so great for taking cat photos. http://www.imgur.com/p5dwFqR.jpeg
Dual-SIM on a flagship phone is wonderful. Work have me using a Blackberry Curve with a data bar on it and only Blackberry services allowed, so I've never been able to shove my work SIM into an Android and still get email before. Words cannot express how much I hate that Blackberry but I can't even dial on it without either using a pen to poke the keys, or end upbreaking a nail.
Color OS is actually surprisingly nice. This is the first Android I've owned where I haven't felt the need to immediately rip out the entire OS and replace it with Cyanogen or AOKP (My previous androids were an HTC Desire Z and a Motorola Droid 4). I've still had to replace the launcher with Nova Launcher though.
VOOC charging is really clever. I read a bit about how it works, the phone basically has 3 batteries and charges them at 1.5A each, so it's not going to kill the battery too fast. I really don't mind that a standard charge is slow. I charge it overnight at 2.1A from a USB mains socket by my bed, so that'll be 0.7A per battery which is going to make it really nice to the batteries longevity.
Battery life is superb. Even during a day of heavy use, my second day of owning the phone, including much tinkering, gaming and also using a lot of data in the doctor's waiting room, it was only down to 40% by midnight.
The "Skyline" notification light is actually quite good in these days of LEDs that are far too bright, however whenever I see the name I always think of a Nissan, not a fancy LED.
An SD card slot on a high end phone released in 2015!
The downsides:
The dual-SIM layout is slightly odd. It takes a micro SIM as its primary and a nano SIM as the secondary. 4G is only available on the micro SIM, not the nano!. This strikes me as an odd decision as nano SIMs are more likely to be 4G capable, and to be the primary SIM for the phone, with the larger SIM being from a crappy company phone. Fortunately for me my girlfriend is very good with a craft knife and the Blackberry SIM is now a perfectly good nano SIM. I guess some folk would rather use up their works data allowance for everything and then stick in a personal nano SIM for calls.
The position of the power button is annoying. I keep grabbing it and locking my phone when I want to just hold the phone. I wonder if there's a way to make that button unlock only, not lock, as I can lock it by either closing the case or double tapping the home button.
Opening task manager by doing a long press on menu, rather than home, takes a little bit of getting used to.
The Oppo widgets only work on their own launcher. I had to install Google Calendar to get a working calendar widget, which then left me with two calendar entries in the app drawer.
There is still a little bit of bloat to be removed. Google Chrome should not be baked into a ROM as it's 80mb and is almost invariably out of date when the phone ships, plus I use Firefox anyway, also the above mentioned oppo calendar.
There's a hidden app with the name still in Chinese that had me nervous at first as I had no idea what it did. Turns out it's EngineeringMode.apk and is triggered by *#*#4636#*#* and has a few things to tinker with, but use with caution.
No kernel source code available, no fastboot files available. This is especially annoying given that the OTAs failed for me.
Most information about the phone, and about ColorOS is only available in Chinese.
Non-removable battery.
SD card can't be used at the same time as a second SIM. I wonder if careful shaving of both cards could get around this, but unwilling to try it as getting a card stuck in that slider would basically ruin the phone.
The SIM slider can be completely removed and if you lose it you have a £430 tiny overpriced tablet!
All in all I'm quite happy with my purchase. I'm not sure it'll do that well as the phone doesn't know what it wants to be. The dual-SIM thing is great for business people, but the selfie camera is obviously targeted at young women, yet the size is likely too big and they're competing with Samsung who actually have physical shops in the UK. They're also doing zero marketing. For me it is (almost) the perfect phone*, but I'm weird and have multiple often contradictory requirements. I love it but not sure I'd recommend it to anyone else.
* for it to be perfect it would have to have a 5-row QWERTY slider. This is my first non-QWERTY phone and I'm struggling with typing having come from a Droid 4. Guess I need to look for an external keyboard.
so far battery life seems to be as good as my note 4.
very happy with the phone so far but knowing me, soon, i will revert to note 4 cos i like the pen.
the motorised camera is quite amazing.
my main gripe is i wish the finger print scanner were as big as the huawei one.
Comparing with Note 4
Note 4 over N3
- generally faster esp with file copying
- slimmer
- feels better in the hand
- a more sensible headphone jack
- better screen
- better auto brightness
- Spen!!!!
- GPS is better
- more RAM
N3 over Note 4
- faster camera
- more wow factor with the camera module
- much better mono speaker
- better finger print scanner
- colorOS is a more user friendly OS than touchwiz
- can be dual sim (not checked whether it is dual standby though)
- lower price point plus got freebies
- gestures are great!!
- fast charging is quite phenomenal
The placement of the monospeaker is particularly smart. It is at the bottom but more importantly, because of the skylight notification portion, the speaker is not the last part of the phone. This is important because for phones with bottom-mounted speakers, when i play games and hold the bottom, my palm covers the speaker. Additionally, when the phone is placed on the table, with the skylight bulge and the table flanking the speaker, there is a lot of resonance, making the speaker pretty loud!! At the same time, on speaker phone mode, i can cup my palm over the bottom to increase the volume. In all, this is the best implementation of bottom speaker.
what do you mean by "dual standby"? I have two SIMs in there, so I'll test it for you.
i suppose to find out whether both lines can be called through or whether only one can be used (despite there being two sims in the phone).
Lum_UK said:
what do you mean by "dual standby"? I have two SIMs in there, so I'll test it for you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
both sims work at the same time
inertiaholic said:
i suppose to find out whether both lines can be called through or whether only one can be used (despite there being two sims in the phone).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you can receive calls or texts on both sims at the same time....the sim settings are also great...you can set it to default reply so that if someone texts or calls you on sim1 the phone will default reply on sim1....also when you go to make a call or send a text there is an option for both sims you just press the one your using
Review by Music.Photo.Life.
I'm happy to share my review of the OPPO N3 here.
http://musicphotolife.blogspot.sg/2015/04/oppo-n3-swivel-camera-smartphone-review.html
Thanks for reading!
I picked up a XIAOMI Mi Mix 3 from Micro Center today at what I consider a steal considering the hardware (USD $379.98) and after doing some quick research.
Micro Center is a two-and-a-half-hour drive for me and I was already there, so I didn't have the luxury of time for leisurely research. I usually spend weeks, not half an hour, making these decisions. But I used to be a commercial customer before I sold my business, and I made a lot of friends there, so they don't hassle me about returns; and since I was already there, I figured I'd try it out.
My initial impressions are mixed, but more positive than negative.
Positives
The build quality feels very solid. Actually, it feels like a Sherman tank. This is a pretty hefty phone. It has a quality "feel" to it, though. I also like the flat screen, although I guess that's a matter of personal preference. The included case is okay for now, but I ordered a more rugged one, a screen protector, and a leather holster from Amazon. I'm old, but active; and I don't carry a purse.
Functionally, the XIAOMI Mi Mix 3 supports AT&T's network 100 percent, as far as I can tell. That seems pretty amazing for a phone that technically isn't sold in the USA. I've had phones that were targeted to the U.S. market that had mediocre band and protocol support.
The radio reception is also the best of any phone I've ever used where I live, and I've been on AT&T for a long time and used a lot of phones. The LTE works great. I'm getting download speeds of around 50 Mbps, and I live in the boondocks.
The GPS reception is especially incredible, with TTFF of an amazing four seconds, two meter accuracy in 16 seconds, an average C/N0 around 46 dBHz using 32 of the 35 satellites it caught, with some coming in at 59 dBHz. That's pretty amazing for a phone. It's actually better than some airplanes I've flown.
I didn't mess with the cameras much (I don't really use them that often on any phone), but they seem very good to me. I break out my Nikon when I have serious photography to do, so I may not be the best judge of mobile phone quality. The cameras on the Mi Mix 3 seem perfectly adequate to me; but as I said, I'm no connoisseur of cell phone cameras.
The slider for the selfie camera is a nice feature if you hate the notch. I never cared about the notch, but it does bother some people. I also like that the slider stays in place magnetically (more reliable and durable than mechanical latches), although I do wonder whether that affects the magnetometer (assuming the phone has one).
In short, hardware-wise, I'm happy. The Snapdragon 845 is no slouch, and the rest of the hardware in the Mi Mix 3 seems to use it well. I consider it a bargain for the hardware alone.
In terms of performance, it's fast and crisp. I haven't put it through any strenuous tests yet, but It has a nice, fast feel to it.
Setup was completely painless, it auto-provisioned on AT&T with zero configuration needed, and Google and MIUI restored almost everything from Drive with no issues. Even my DND settings were carried over. It was really pretty flawless. The one exception was K-9 Mail. For reasons I neither know nor intend to bother looking into, neither the app itself nor the settings were migrated. I had made backups of everything anyway, so it was no big deal.
Negatives
I wouldn't say that MIUI is quirky so much as that I wonder what the point was of changing things around for no apparent reason. In other words, I don't think there's anything "wrong" with MIUI based on the few hours I've had the phone, but I wonder what advantage there is to it as compared to a stock Android. I can live with it, though. It's not so much a negative as a "just different," really, based on first impressions.
I also don't like the fact that there's no automated desktop backup software. I suppose I can build something easily enough, but there should be desktop backup. Or am I the only one who actually uses a computer anymore? I guess LG's [usually] competent backup software spoiled me.
I'll see if there's a generic Android backup utility out there for Arch Linux or Windows that syncs by WiFi before re-inventing the wheel. It's not rocket surgery; but coding for the sheer joy of coding kind of grew old for me decades ago. I never bothered looking for generic non-root Android automated backup software before because I never had to. There probably are bazillions of perfectly competent solutions out there for Arch (or for Android itself, for that matter).
In fairness, however, I'm a genuine backup nut. I literally have backups of my backups as far as computers are concerned. Within 20 seconds of my saving a document, it has been backed up to an ioSafe USB drive and a local NAS (the ioSafe, which is a backup destination, is in turned backed up to the NAS), and is on its way to BackBlaze. So my OCD about backups may be inflating my annoyance about not including a desktop backup application with the handset.
Back to the Mix 3, I also found the notifications a bit wonky. In addition to having to give permission in multiple places, the notifications use the media volume instead of having their own setting. That doesn't make much sense to me. I can think of plenty of reasons why one might want to control notifications separately from media. The puzzlement, however, is why they coded it out of stock Android. I mean, what advantage is there to justify the time spent removing a slider that was already there?
Then again, maybe the separate notification volume was an LG thing. My last few phones have been LG. Maybe LG coded it into Android.
There's also somewhat more bloatware than I'm accustomed to finding on an unlocked phone, but it seems lightweight and innocuous enough. Some of it might actually be useful. I really haven't done anything to it except push it to the last screen. At least it doesn't include a crap ton of silly games and such.
The only one that annoys me is that I can't uninstall FecesBook (at least not without root). At least, not in the usual way. I can't explain why because of NDA's I've signed, but I'd rather never use a computing device again than have a FecesBook account.
All Things Considered...
I officially have two weeks to decide whether to keep the phone. Micro Center probably would extend that for me because of my long history with them, but I don't want to abuse that relationship. Besides, to weeks will be enough to decide whether my appreciation of the Mix 3's superb (in my opinion) hardware compensates for my lukewarmness toward MIUI.
Based on first impressions, however, I'm pretty sure I will keep the phone. I love the hardware, and I think I can at least learn to live with MIUI (which is more than I can say about my ex, and she was a lot more expensive and quirky than MIUI is). Or I can root it, although that's not something I'd do just because I'm miffed about having to look somewhere else for a setting and having an inactive FecesBook icon hidden in a folder on the last screen.
Richard
You can disable unwanted apps using miui hidden settings app from post store.
crabamer said:
You can disable unwanted apps using miui hidden settings app from post store.
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Thank you. That worked!
Richard
Well, the phone and I didn't make it through the weekend. It seemed like every time I figured out one problem, another surfaced.
The deal-killer, however, was the sound quality the first time I made an actual phone call. In all seriousness, I got better sound out of tin-can telephones made of two soup cans and a piece of string when I was a kid. It was the absolute worst, almost inaudible sound quality I've ever experienced on any communication device.
So I looked up the problem on their forum, and one piece of advice was to factory-reset the phone after an update that I just got last night. So I did that, and it rejected my password when it rebooted. When I tried to do a password reset on the site (three times), I got no response to the email. And when I tried to check it using the phone number, I got an error message that the account didn't exist.
It's a shame, too, because other than the sound quality, I loved the hardware of the phone. But not being able to hear a phone call makes it useless to me.
Oh, well. Ten hours of driving and a tank and a half of gas isn't the worst thing I've ever been through.
On the bright side, when I swapped the SIM back into the phone the Mix 3 would have been replacing, I decided to put a new spare battery in it, too, and charge it on the way to Micro Center. Lo and behold, it didn't overheat. So maybe it was the battery, rather than the phone, that was having a problem. I'll check it out further this week.
Richard
Unlock your bootloader then install AOSP based rom, like Resurrection Remix, all problem solved.
Or if you want to stick with MIUI, try EU rom, no bloatware, no Chinese stuff.
GVN.Gallus said:
Unlock your bootloader then install AOSP based rom, like Resurrection Remix, all problem solved.
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You may be right, but how would that have solved the earpiece problem? That seems like a hardware issue to me. If I held the phone sideways like a wing sticking out of the side of my head, I could hear it. But it was still so scratchy and tinny that I can't imaging listening to it on every phone call. Also, it's not the most convenient way to use a phone. I'm old. I still make phone calls.
It's all academic at this point since I returned the phone. But I'm still interested in the answer just for its own sake. Would an alternate ROM have improved the sound volume and quality? If so, then I regret my hastiness because all in all, I loved the hardware -- except for the earpiece.
Thanks,
Richard
GeekOnTheHill said:
You may be right, but how would that have solved the earpiece problem? That seems like a hardware issue to me. If I held the phone sideways like a wing sticking out of the side of my head, I could hear it. But it was still so scratchy and tinny that I can't imaging listening to it on every phone call. Also, it's not the most convenient way to use a phone. I'm old. I still make phone calls.
It's all academic at this point since I returned the phone. But I'm still interested in the answer just for its own sake. Would an alternate ROM have improved the sound volume and quality? If so, then I regret my hastiness because all in all, I loved the hardware -- except for the earpiece.
Thanks,
Richard
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Maybe your earpiece speaker had been covered by dust or plastic? The real earpiece is under the screen, you can see it when slide screen down, you can try that and make phonecall to test the sound.
I have no problem with earpiece sound and as far as i known, no one ever complain about it.
And yes custom rom and modder can change the sound quality, there even a mod to turn earpiece speaker into loudspeaker so we had dual rocker.
GVN.Gallus said:
Maybe your earpiece speaker had been covered by dust or plastic? The real earpiece is under the screen, you can see it when slide screen down, you can try that and make phonecall to test the sound.
I have no problem with earpiece sound and as far as i known, no one ever complain about it.
And yes custom rom and modder can change the sound quality, there even a mod to turn earpiece speaker into loudspeaker so we had dual rocker.
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Thank you. And yes, I did check for plastic when I tried the selfie cam, and I did try making a phone call with the display slid down. It made almost no difference. It was very slightly louder, but no less scratchy and tinny.
Can you please point me to a custom ROM for this phone? I really liked the hardware. If there's a custom ROM that supports everything reasonably well, I might just buy another one and check it out. It just seemed like a hardware issue to me. And maybe it was. It could be that this one particular device had a defect.
Thanks,
Richard
GeekOnTheHill said:
Thank you. And yes, I did check for plastic when I tried the selfie cam, and I did try making a phone call with the display slid down. It made almost no difference. It was very slightly louder, but no less scratchy and tinny.
Can you please point me to a custom ROM for this phone? I really liked the hardware. If there's a custom ROM that supports everything reasonably well, I might just buy another one and check it out. It just seemed like a hardware issue to me. And maybe it was. It could be that this one particular device had a defect.
Thanks,
Richard
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You can find and try some custom rom in THIS SECTION that suitable your need, personally i recommend Resurrection Remix.
GVN.Gallus said:
You can find and try some custom rom in THIS SECTION that suitable your need, personally i recommend Resurrection Remix.
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Thank you. I'll check it out. Maybe I acted too hastily.
My reason for buying the Mix 3 in the first place was for a daily driver to replace an aging V20 that has at least one known problem (tired GPS radios) and that I thought was overheating (but which now appears to have had a faulty battery). I didn't buy the Mix 3 as a project phone. I needed a phone to actually use starting today (Monday). I planned to buy something else while I was at Micro Center to return it.
However, because the v20 didn't overheat with a fresh spare battery that I charged during the trip, and because I have another V20 that I use for GPS-dependent apps, I'm not up against a time deadline any more. I like the Mix 3's hardware enough that I may buy another as a project phone.
Thanks again,
Richard
Toggle the loudspeaker setting on and off when you're on the first call after a reboot. Interesting to know this is a Xiaomi bug, not a Xiaomi.eu bug. Once you've done the toggle trick it'll be fine until you reboot again.
As for roms, if you're rooting, having tried several of the AOSP-based roms I'd recommend Xiaomi.eu, everything will work (including the slider & associated settings), it'll be marginally faster (and it's already fast on AOSP), it'll have marginally better battery life, and it won't randomly reboot or go into a reboot loop when charging wirelessly.
I just ordered a OnePlus 7t as a DD, so I have to wait at least a few weeks before buying another Mix 3 lest the old lady kill me. She just doesn't get it...
I do wish I'd known about the bug and the fix you mentioned because it was actually painful to return the Mix 3, so much did I like the hardware.
Can anyone explain how this is a feature? I mean it doesn't bother me. But the more I think about it . The less it feels like a feature. And more it feels like something fishy. I don't know enough about stuff to understand access to data under a proprietary feature. But at the bare minimum I've never thought you know what this phone needs is that small crappy front facing camera to be in the display . I think I prefer it not there at all since the phone opens the back camera is sufficient for both. End of the day I believe this will be my last samsung. I hate the front screen and inside screen is cool and impressive but still kinda annoying. In my mind these devices should come with all the quirks ironed out. I still enjoy my note 3 rooted as much if not more. And the note 20 ultra was a solid device but wasn't a big upgrade from my 10+. Bare minimum samsung not including accessories is just lame. I would have probably made the closed screen slightly larger for easier use on the go and then the use on the inside screen for less often use in casual settings.
Just my thoughts a month in and was curious to hear others thoughts. I know it's probably and amazing device for someone who doesn't upgrade frequently but as someone who does it was probably the device that has ended my desire for new and cool over tested and true. .
Anyone stumble across any lesser known features or functions that aren't well known?
Customization wise:
I use wavelet and my bose in car sounds amazing.
And have good lock/nice lock until hex is functional again.
Ad block
and system ui tuner that doesn't seem to be adding much
and I tried to see if I could use adb and 3c but it doesn't seem to improve much or increase any functional use but I just had it long ago and thought I'd see if it was useful
The latest update has improved my mobile service in rural areas near by sprint on tmobile experience
I haven't debloated because honestly the device probably wouldn't improve much with less and I'm kinda waiting to understand what all is needed until my account is fully tmobile. I assume nothing they have changes much but since it can't currently be unlocked on tmobile side I'm curious to how it's locked since it's not supposed to be sprint sim compatible. But still has the sprint unlock uicdd on device hidden with tmobile unlock visible. I also hope someone comes out with a case that has a tiny bluetooth keyboard , I think that would be kinda cool.
Ok
I know that for everyone, no device is perfect. As much as I LOVE this Fold 3, it's not perfect, but it's about as close as a mobile device has come for me. Then again, I know that I am also an edge-case as I use my Fold 3 in a way that most others do not. I use it as a Mobile Office. I call it my 3-pocket-laptop (look on YT for a video titled 4 pocket laptop to see what I am getting at).
I have a foldable BT KB with Trackpad, folding Tablet Stand and a 20kMah battery pack I take along and I can literally work from anywhere I have signal. I even made a portable, battery powered monitor (from an old Laptop and some parts I had to order (controller and the like)) I made that I can stuff in a backpack and have an even better experience when on the go. I no longer need to carry my work laptop with me with this setup.
So yeah, I get why it may not work for you, but for me, I love it.
Talderon said:
I have a foldable BT KB with Trackpad, folding Tablet Stand and a 20kMah battery pack I take along and I can literally work from anywhere I have signal. I even made a portable, battery powered monitor (from an old Laptop and some parts I had to order (controller and the like)) I made that I can stuff in a backpack and have an even better experience when on the go. I no longer need to carry my work laptop with me with this setup.
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Pics please! I've seen the Mr Mobile video you're referring to, that was a fantastic idea!
Talderon said:
I know that for everyone, no device is perfect. As much as I LOVE this Fold 3, it's not perfect, but it's about as close as a mobile device has come for me. Then again, I know that I am also an edge-case as I use my Fold 3 in a way that most others do not. I use it as a Mobile Office. I call it my 3-pocket-laptop (look on YT for a video titled 4 pocket laptop to see what I am getting at).
I have a foldable BT KB with Trackpad, folding Tablet Stand and a 20kMah battery pack I take along and I can literally work from anywhere I have signal. I even made a portable, battery powered monitor (from an old Laptop and some parts I had to order (controller and the like)) I made that I can stuff in a backpack and have an even better experience when on the go. I no longer need to carry my work laptop with me with this setup.
So yeah, I get why it may not work for you, but for me, I love it.
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I saw that video and thought it was completely awesome what he did with the Z Fold3 and turning it into a complete desktop solution and even his Microsoft only co-worker was impressed with it.
vinokirk said:
Pics please! I've seen the Mr Mobile video you're referring to, that was a fantastic idea!
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I'll get some pics up soon. I am redesigning the "monitor" case now and want to have an all-in-one unit to show off.
truckerdewd said:
I saw that video and thought it was completely awesome what he did with the Z Fold3 and turning it into a complete desktop solution and even his Microsoft only co-worker was impressed with it.
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Yeah, I am former MSFT myself and several people there want me to try the same thing with a Duo 2 (which they are sending me) and do a comparison. This will be fun!