Develop Bugs

[Q]Battery sometime takes a nose-dive when in range of the microcell. Anyone else?

I was late for work because my phone died completely unexpectedly and took my alarm clock function with it.
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This isn't the first time there has been an inexplicable battery-life nose-dive causing me to miss an alarm *and* making me unreachable by anyone I might be holding up while late (Grrrr....). I'm pretty sure it's caused by the microcell, even though it wasn't connected (most phone will not connect without toggling airplane mode).
You can see where I was watching some Youtube videos and ran it down to 5% before putting it on charge around 4:15PM yesterday afternoon. After getting it charged to over 50% capacity, it then began dropping rapidly when I disconnected it, which wasn't noticed before I left home for dinner and a movie at 4:45PM.
Thanks a lot, Google, for not giving me the MUCH DEMANDED numeric battery percentage indicator.
Anyway, it hovered around 50% for several hours. I left my brother's place at around 1:00AM this morning, even though I knew I needed to get up at 06:10AM at the latest for work. I turned on the alarm when I got home around 01:30AM and got the message that the alarm was set for 4 hours and 37 minutes from now, which was more sleep than I've been getting but I wasn't going to waste any more time getting to sleep (just switched from 3rd to 1st shift). The battery indicator still showed about 50% and, as is often the case, my chargers and cables were packed up in the car for work the next day.
It had just gone over 8.5 hours without a notable drop in battery life (still over 50%; an imperceptible drop on the graphical status bar indicator), so why would I expect it to be unable to last another 4.5 hours on standby?! Getting my stuff from the car and packing it up again in the morning or setting an alarm on a redundant device takes more time and I wasn't about to deprive myself of more sleep when the phone SHOULD have been able to do this.
Well, I've had this happen before, so I at least took the precaution of turning off WiFi and Bluetooth, both of which had been on the entire day previously. Not only has it happened before, but I exchanged the phone... twice AND bought a second OEM battery with Sony Ericsson EP900 charger.
Anyway, the phone was locked in standby, as confirmed 100% when I woke up at 05:15AM to use the restroom. Didn't matter though: The battery life still tanked like the most intense of gaming sessions while sharing HSPA+ data over WiFi with a torrenting notebook! There was nothing in the list of what consumed what percentage to account for the drop. Sure enough, I woke up at 06:37, which was almost 30 minutes late and already well past the time I needed to have left home. !$#@%$#!
This only seems to happen at home, where I have an AT&T microcell. It almost never gets on the useless microcell without toggling airplane mode, which is not unique to this phone (confirmed with iPhone 3GS and two iPhone 4 handsets). It'll just sit there saying "no signal" or sit there holding on to the weakest of 3G/HSPA+ signals while standing right next to the damned thing. Also, the microcell drops calls when sitting right next to it and can't seem to ever successfully hand-off to Edge or 3G towers without also dropping the call (instantly reconnects with a full-strength signal meaning that there was plenty of surrounding signal strength outdoors). On top of that, the other party will often suddenly be unable to hear you even though the signal is perfect and you can hear them fine. When that happens, it may drop in about a minute if the other party doesn't hangup sooner when you "stop answering."
I'm unplugging the thing right away regardless. Screw AT&T. Even if it's not the cause of this particular problem, I can't believe my brother paid for this useless thing that makes everything worse. I'd just like to know if anyone else has had this issue so that I can conclusively determine if the microcell is related or not before I wear out my two batteries.

The battery life on my Xperia Play is crap as well. It'll just drain when just scrolling through the menus and even when playing simple stuff like emulators.
I can get maybe an hour of gaming.

sufy1000 said:
The battery life on my Xperia Play is crap as well. It'll just drain when just scrolling through the menus and even when playing simple stuff like emulators.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's not what I'm talking about AT ALL. I'm saying that it sometimes nose-dives when I am at home when sleeping/idling for seemingly no reason even when it has been fine all day and I have FURTHER reduced drainage by turning off features. My notorious microcell is at home and I feel that it's no coincidence.
The problem I am talking about can drain a full battery while you are asleep... less than 8 hours on standby/sleep.
If Android handled rebooting more elegantly and DIDN'T lose all the tabs I had open in the browser, I'd try rebooting every night to see if I still encounter the problem. I'd also be more sure that it isn't happening elsewhere if I had a numeric battery indicator when it is taken off the charger. So many SIMPLE things to improve usability.
While I'm on "simple" UI fixes, I've been having a lot of usability tweaks on my HP TouchPad with ICS. How about a way to tell which video in the freakin' LIST of videos I am currently watching WITHOUT having to pretend to want to email it to myself? Also, how about having a way to actually list the names of the videos instead of the thumbnails? An ES File Explorer is no better, with no alternate line colors and no way to enforce listing in one column, you will end up staring the same video three times before finding the first in the list you haven't watched! At least show the file I selected last time so that I don't select the same damned one again (put the same kind of selector a track ball or D-pad would leave). How about having a play button that isn't wedged between two other buttons I might not want to push and how about putting them a bit farther away from the area that will dismiss them if I touch it instead? How bout NOT putting them equally close to the progress indicator/scrubber? Gah! So. Much. FAIL.

CZroe said:
That's not what I'm talking about AT ALL. I'm saying that it sometimes nose-dives when I am at home when sleeping/idling for seemingly no reason even when it has been fine all day and I have FURTHER reduced drainage by turning off features. My notorious microcell is at home and I feel that it's no coincidence.
The problem I am talking about can drain a full battery while you are asleep... less than 8 hours on standby/sleep.
If Android handled rebooting more elegantly and DIDN'T lose all the tabs I had open in the browser, I'd try rebooting every night to see if I still encounter the problem. I'd also be more sure that it isn't happening elsewhere if I had a numeric battery indicator when it is taken off the charger. So many SIMPLE things to improve usability.
While I'm on "simple" UI fixes, I've been having a lot of usability tweaks on my HP TouchPad with ICS. How about a way to tell which video in the freakin' LIST of videos I am currently watching WITHOUT having to pretend to want to email it to myself? Also, how about having a way to actually list the names of the videos instead of the thumbnails? An ES File Explorer is no better, with no alternate line colors and no way to enforce listing in one column, you will end up staring the same video three times before finding the first in the list you haven't watched! At least show the file I selected last time so that I don't select the same damned one again (put the same kind of selector a track ball or D-pad would leave). How about having a play button that isn't wedged between two other buttons I might not want to push and how about putting them a bit farther away from the area that will dismiss them if I touch it instead? How bout NOT putting them equally close to the progress indicator/scrubber? Gah! So. Much. FAIL.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
AOKP has the battery percentage display you want, as well as other 3rd party apps. I'm sure there are other apps to replace the ones you're finding fault with, if you would just take the time to look into it. And new developments in custom kerlels have done a lot to address the battery drain issues in general. Finally, have you considered the possibility that your microcell unit might be defective and see about having it checked and serviced or replaced?
Oh, and about the alarm thing, invest in a clock. They sell pretty cheaply these days and it never hurts to have a backup plan!
Sent from my R800x using xda premium

Impressions after 1 day of use

So I was interested in this phone from the moment that it was announced. I've been waiting for a phone of reasonable size, but that also has high-end specs, for quite some time now, and the Razr M finally fit the bill. In the past year or so I've owned the following: 1) HTC One X (returned due to all sorts of bugs, including delays in receiving push email, not to mention that it was huge); 2) Galaxy Nexus (this was actually an AWESOME phone... just way too big for my taste. My wife owns it now.); 3) HTC One S (decent size, although still much larger than the M. Riddled with bugs though... funky wifi, delayed push notifications, etc.).I was not on Verizon prior to yesterday, but I did have various other incentives to switch from AT&T, so I waited a week to see what people's initial impressions of Razr M were before I finally pulled the trigger yesterday. Here are my first impressions after ~24 hours of use.
Build quality and form factor are awesome. This thing is just a perfect size. Roughly the same size, or even smaller, than last year's phones with 4" screens. I've been waiting over a year for a high-end phone that's not huge, and this thing does not disappointment. The little flap that has to be pulled up to put in the SIM and SD cards feels a little old school, but it seems solid enough. Overall, if you've been waiting for a smaller phone, I think you won't be disappointed.
The M is fast and smooth. I've owned a number of high end phones in the last few months and the M is as fast as and as smooth as any of them. Benchmarks prove it (read reviews; I'm not going to post any numbers here.). If you are obsessed with specs and benchmarks, the M will not disappoint. If all you care about is a smooth user experience, the M will certainly not disappoint.
Blur / Motorola android overlay. I don't really like it. It's MUCH better than old versions of blur, and some of you will probably think my complaints are nitpicky, but I just prefer the stock experience (so I use Nova Launcher). First of all, I don't like that the "4g" symbol stays in the notification bar even when connected to wifi. It's the only Android phone I've ever used that leaves the cellular network symbol ("4g" or "3g" or "H+" or whatever your network happens to have) in the notification bar when connected to wifi. It's just a waste of space, and it makes you wonder if the mobile network is somehow sucking down battery life even when it shouldn't be.
Second, I don't like the fact that the dock icons have labels beneath them. WTF? Again, I don't think I've ever seen a launcher that puts labels in the dock. I get rid of all icon labels anyways using Nova, but labels in the dock is just too much for me.
Third, I don't like the persistent google search bar. Even if removed, you just have a row of dead space at the top of the screen. All of these things led me to ditch the stock launcher and go with Nova. I think Motorola's attempt at a quick settings area (scroll all the way to the left) was a pretty good effort, but I think it should have just stuck with the tried and true quick settings in the notification pulldown. This way, you wouldn't lose it when you change launchers. Overall, this version of blur is probably the best yet, but it still doesn't compare to AOSP, nor does it compare to Nova Launcher, in my opinion.
Bloatware on this phone is bad. All sorts of garbage. Thankfully, 95% of it can be disabled. Even so, what a waste of space. I really hope the carriers are making a ton of money off of bloatware, otherwise they are just idiots for continuing to include it despite a very clear message from users that we don't want bloatware.
The screen on the phone is good. I won't go into pentile, but it doesn't bother me. The one comment I have is that compared to my HTC One S (which also has a 4.3" amoled pentile display) the whites on the M are more of a dull yellow. You only notice it if you hold the M up next to a phone that has superior whites, but if you do, you will see that whites on the M are pretty bad. No big deal to me though, but I just thought I'd mention it.
Signal strength has been a concern for me with this phone. There were some reports of weak 4g LTE signal compared to other Motorola phones on Verizon. Honestly, I haven't really been able to nail this down. I can say that both the 1x and 3g EV-DO signals on this phone seem to be just as good as they are on blackberries, iPhone, and other Motorola phones, so I don't think there's a 1x or 3g signal problem. Unfortunately I haven't been able to directly compare it to other LTE phones on Verizon. If I can, I'll report back. Suffice it to say that in the metro-DC area, I hold a steady and decently strong 4g LTE signal, so if it weren't for the reports, I would have no reason to believe there are any signal issues.
Battery life is awesome. When I picked the phone up yesterday and turned it on, it had 42% battery life. By the time it died this morning, it had been on charge for about 16 hours, and it had 3 hours 20 minutes of screen on time. That extrapolates to about 35 hours off charger and 7 hours screen on, if starting from a full battery. Given, this was mostly on wifi, but that's still pretty good. And the battery hasn't even been conditioned yet, so I suspect it might get even better. Also, this was with no battery saving mechanisms in place. I'm not using smart actions or juice defender or anything else. I've got a gmail account, gtalk, and a couple other things syncing in the background. Overall, compares favorably with every phone I've ever used so far. Hopefully the first day was representative!
The notification LED. This thing is effing awesome. I LOVE notification LEDs, and for some reason most phones have really crappy ones, if they have them at all. The Galaxy Nexus (and now the S3) have great ones. But HTC devices have horrible LEDs the size of pin heads, that are recessed into speaker grills so you can barely even see them. The M's notification LED is bright, large, and easy to see from a distance and from an angle. LOVE it. It also works with Light Flow out of the box. So far I'm using Green, Magenta, Orange, Yellow, and Red, and they all work. Haven't tested blue, pink, or purple, but no reason to think they wouldn't work, too.
Call quality. Who makes phone calls anymore these days, anyways? =P (haven't tested call quality yet. sorry).
Camera. Haven't really taken many shots, but initial impression is--as most of the reviews said--mediocre. Not terrible by any means, and sufficient for my needs (taking the occasional photo of my dog). But clearly does not hold a candle to the amazing camera on the One S or One X.
Wifi / GPS / Bluetooth. Haven't tested GPS or bluetooth yet, but the wifi antenna appears to be awesome. I get a much better signal (and speeds) on the M than I get on the One S or on my wife's Gnex. Thumbs up on wifi.
Anyways, sorry for the long post. I have too much time on my hands. But my initial impression of the phone is extremely positive. If anybody is on the fence, I'd say go for it. Fingers crossed that a few devs pick this thing up and that we at least get root. But because I love the size of this phone so much, and since I haven't really located any annoying bugs thus far, I think it's a phone I'd be content to own for a year or two even without root.
9/24 5:30pm EDT update:
Call quality is fine. Honestly, I'm not a call quality audiophile. Everything is loud and clear, just like it has been on pretty much every cell phone I've owned in the past few years. Nothing unusual to report.
GPS is really solid. It locks MUCH more quickly than either the Galaxy Nexus or the HTC One S. GPS Status also shows that it both sees and uses a few more satellites than the One S does. For instance, I was sitting near a window in my living room, and the M was using 10/19 satellites, while the One S was using 7/17. GPS gets a thumbs up.
And this is probably something I'll create a separate thread on, but I'm getting some wakelocks on the M that I do not get on the One S. I have the M and the One S setup identically. When the One S's screen is off, the phone is in deep sleep. The battery settings show that the phone is almost never awake unless the screen is on. The M, by contrast, is frequently awake for very short periods of time even when the screen is off. It does not seem to be causing much battery drain, as I'm still losing well less than 1% per hour on wifi (when the screen is off), but it is nevertheless worth noting because presumably it should not be happening. I'm in the process of trying to figure out what is causing the wakelocks, but haven't figured it out yet. I somehow suspect it has something to do with "phone idle" taking up a much higher percentage of battery consumption than I've seen on other phones. In any event, I'll start a separate thread on this when I gather a bit more info, but just something to be aware of.

Very thorough description phositadc, thanks!

"Second, I don't like the fact that the dock icons have labels beneath them."
Just a note that you can remove the labels in the dock.
Thanks for the review.

Pretty much mirrors my experience with this device. Except, I use Apex launcher rather than Nova. Also, coming from a Droid X2, this phone has a tendency to slip out of my hand sometimes (gives me a heart attack).

Not_A_Dev said:
Pretty much mirrors my experience with this device. Except, I use Apex launcher rather than Nova. Also, coming from a Droid X2, this phone has a tendency to slip out of my hand sometimes (gives me a heart attack).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah none of the reviews mention it but I agree it's worth noting that the phone is pretty slippery (due to its size, materials, or both). I was planning to go without a case but if cruzerlite or diztronic makes one I'll probably get one.
-Sent from my Razr M.-

jmctitan said:
"Second, I don't like the fact that the dock icons have labels beneath them."
Just a note that you can remove the labels in the dock.
Thanks for the review.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Really? Without a custom launcher? I must've missed that setting; could you please tell me where it is?
-Sent from my Razr M.-

I'd have to agree with your mini-review phositadc. I just popped the sim in and started setting this phone up. I have a rooted VZW GS3 and this DE razr is much more suited to me. The samsung is going up on craigs!

phositadc said:
Really? Without a custom launcher? I must've missed that setting; could you please tell me where it is?
-Sent from my Razr M.-
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can also use custom icons with the stock launcher.

Ugh, sorry. I was mistaken. My apologies for getting your hopes up.
phositadc said:
Really? Without a custom launcher? I must've missed that setting; could you please tell me where it is?
-Sent from my Razr M.-
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Click to collapse

jmctitan said:
Ugh, sorry. I was mistaken. My apologies for getting your hopes up.
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Click to collapse
Just replace the stock UI icons with custom icons and it solves your issue.
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How do you replace the stock icons? Thanks in advance.
lsxmma said:
Just replace the stock UI icons with custom icons and it solves your issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

I downloaded desktop vizualizer to make an icon. Than removed the stock icon I wanted to replace it with. Then you just drag the new icon in its place.
Hope this helps.

Thanks.
lsxmma said:
I downloaded desktop vizualizer to make an icon. Than removed the stock icon I wanted to replace it with. Then you just drag the new icon in its place.
Hope this helps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

muffled audio.
I got a Razor M for my wife & she's been complaining about voice quality, says it sounds very muffled. So it's going back to Amazon for replacement, we'll see if the 2nd one will be any better.

Update
I'll post this at the end of my OP, but just to add a little more:
Call quality is fine. Honestly, I'm not a call quality audiophile. Everything is loud and clear, just like it has been on pretty much every cell phone I've owned in the past few years. Nothing unusual to report.
GPS is really solid. It locks MUCH more quickly than either the Galaxy Nexus or the HTC One S. GPS Status also shows that it both sees and uses a few more satellites than the One S does. For instance, I was sitting near a window in my living room, and the M was using 10/19 satellites, while the One S was using 7/17. GPS gets a thumbs up.
And this is probably something I'll create a separate thread on, but I'm getting some wakelocks on the M that I do not get on the One S. I have the M and the One S setup identically. When the One S's screen is off, the phone is in deep sleep. The battery settings show that the phone is almost never awake unless the screen is on. The M, by contrast, is frequently awake for very short periods of time even when the screen is off. It does not seem to be causing much battery drain, as I'm still losing well less than 1% per hour on wifi (when the screen is off), but it is nevertheless worth noting because presumably it should not be happening. I'm in the process of trying to figure out what is causing the wakelocks, but haven't figured it out yet. I somehow suspect it has something to do with "phone idle" taking up a much higher percentage of battery consumption than I've seen on other phones. In any event, I'll start a separate thread on this when I gather a bit more info, but just something to be aware of.

Nice review!!! Love the edge to edge display. It doesn't hit the shelves in my country yet. Hope we got it with intel Atom cpu coz I heard Razr M with Atom cpu in UK.
Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk 2

I use the phone a lot, about 3000 peak minutes a month. I find the phone sounds better than just about any cell phone I've used. The best part is the phone is nice and loud. My use is in NYC where the streets are noisy, and, I work on construction sites. This phone is far better with notifications, earpiece and rear speaker than any other phone I've used.
Battery life for me is a mixed bag. I can get down to 1.5%/hour so sitting on my desk I easily get a day, probably two in standby. So far, in use, it hasn't been that good. After about eight hours, the battery is down to 15%. The battery charges pretty fast though so it takes the sting out of being off charger with heavy use during the day.
Screen for me is as good as anything else I've used. I rather have the D3 screen which could be better viewed in daylight. I don't use my phone for movies, games or serious photos so the screen doesn't need to be retina.

Thanks for the info guys. The wife is CRAZY about the circle widgets and for that reason alone she's probably going get this phone but the mediocre camera could be the reason she goes with an S3. You never know what she's going to like or why. Example, her favorite rifle of mine is my FAL. Why? Because it has a carrying handle and "it's just handy." She bought her Toyota Matrix because it had a wiper on the back window and really liked that feature. lol

Thanks for a great review. I played with the phone at a Verizon store and it did not strike me as particularly snappy. However, that was probably due to the blur launcher and an abused display specimen.
Sent from my ThunderBolt using Tapatalk 2

cowisland said:
Thanks for a great review. I played with the phone at a Verizon store and it did not strike me as particularly snappy. However, that was probably due to the blur launcher and an abused display specimen.
Sent from my ThunderBolt using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah I think that is true... the one I used at the store was mediocre as are many store devices... but the one I bought is as fast and smooth as any android device I've used.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app

Experience with phone. / What do you HATE?

so i am curious ... share your expeience thus far with the zenfone2 as well as tell us what do you guys hate most about it?
i just picked up a new shiny zenfone 2, the 4G/32G model, Z00A/ZE551ML model for $270.
of course right off the bat i unlocked the bootloader, rooted it, and installed TWRP. after which i put on a custom ROM ... i am still messing between BlissPop and Resurrection-Remix. Both are based on Cyanogenmod and are great with customization options. especially the fact that i can change my DPI to 400 and everything looks so beautiful. if you change to one of them make sure you pick a DARK theme. Darker themes charge the battery less.
So now what do i hate about my phone?
Well, this is a tough one. Its nice that we have top of the line hardware and such however the CPU being an Atom/x86 maybe our loved/hated part. ya its quick but the device gets hot quite often.
Then we have a minor issue that i am hating. I wish the capacitive buttons were on-screen instead of being static as they are now. The line separator between the screen and the buttons also tends to pickup dirt quite frequently and you have dirt stuck there.
I also dislike the curvy back although it makes it easy to hold it is not flat when put on a table ...
please share....

I hate camera battery and the design

My hates for this phone (ZE551ML Z00A 4GB/64GB Z3580)
On stock software:
SMS issues, workarounds are unacceptable to me
Still Android 5.0.0
On CM based ROMS:
Bluetooth audio lag and random failures until restart
Hardware:
Camera is useless in anything but bright sunlight.
Power save controls could be more fine-grained.

cylent said:
so i am curious ... share your expeience thus far with the zenfone2 as well as tell us what do you guys hate most about it?
i just picked up a new shiny zenfone 2, the 4G/32G model, Z00A/ZE551ML model for $270.
of course right off the bat i unlocked the bootloader, rooted it, and installed TWRP. after which i put on a custom ROM ... i am still messing between BlissPop and Resurrection-Remix. Both are based on Cyanogenmod and are great with customization options. especially the fact that i can change my DPI to 400 and everything looks so beautiful. if you change to one of them make sure you pick a DARK theme. Darker themes charge the battery less.
So now what do i hate about my phone?
Well, this is a tough one. Its nice that we have top of the line hardware and such however the CPU being an Atom/x86 maybe our loved/hated part. ya its quick but the device gets hot quite often.
Then we have a minor issue that i am hating. I wish the capacitive buttons were on-screen instead of being static as they are now. The line separator between the screen and the buttons also tends to pickup dirt quite frequently and you have dirt stuck there.
I also dislike the curvy back although it makes it easy to hold it is not flat when put on a table ...
please share....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can enable on screen buttons. Check in the themes and apps section.
Some cases make the back of the phone flat, check on eBay for those.

cnsngr said:
I hate camera battery and the design
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Click to collapse
to be honest i never understand why people rely on the camera in a phone. i never have. i take it for what it is. crap. if it is a good camera then great. if not then oh well.
cmendonc2 said:
You can enable on screen buttons. Check in the themes and apps section.
Some cases make the back of the phone flat, check on eBay for those.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i dont want to enable them. i know how to do so. it would take up screen space that is needed. its not like this is a 7" inch screen. ...

cylent said:
to be honest i never understand why people rely on the camera in a phone. i never have. i take it for what it is. crap. if it is a good camera then great. if not then oh well.
i dont want to enable them. i know how to do so. it would take up screen space that is needed. its not like this is a 7" inch screen. ...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
what should i rely on taking pictures in my daily life should i buy an dslr instead and use it daily and keep it where ever i go of course people gonna rely on phones for taking pictures, they can fix it and they can start with raw support

cylent said:
to be honest i never understand why people rely on the camera in a phone. i never have. i take it for what it is. crap. if it is a good camera then great. if not then oh well.
i dont want to enable them. i know how to do so. it would take up screen space that is needed. its not like this is a 7" inch screen. ...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, its a 5.5" screen the same size as my Note Edge... If it had on screen buttons then they would take up the same real estate that they would on my edge if I wanted them...
Don't know how you can whinge about not having them then saying it would take up prime real real estate on the screen when every other 5.5" screen phone that has these onscreen keys is the same size screen...

cnsngr said:
what should i rely on taking pictures in my daily life should i buy an dslr instead and use it daily and keep it where ever i go of course people gonna rely on phones for taking pictures, they can fix it and they can start with raw support
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i think you're missing the part where it says "Smartphone" not "Smartcamera".
This is primarily a phone with a camera added to it.
if you really want a phone with a good camera you can try the Samsung Galaxy Camera 2

cylent said:
i think you're missing the part where it says "Smartphone" not "Smartcamera".
This is primarily a phone with a camera added to it.
if you really want a phone with a good camera you can try the Samsung Galaxy Camera 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Im not missing any part mate, it is a bad camera and i rely on my phone for taking pictures in my daily life its not that hard, im not expecting dslr quality ofc, but i dont white that noisy white dots to

cnsngr said:
what should i rely on taking pictures in my daily life should i buy an dslr instead and use it daily and keep it where ever i go of course people gonna rely on phones for taking pictures, they can fix it and they can start with raw support
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tips for Taking a Fashion Shot - ZenFone | ASUS

To be honest for the most part I've enjoyed using this phone. I have the 4GB RAM/32GB internal storage North American model and it's been decent so far. I came from a Nexus 4 that I had for about 2.5 years and switched to this phone when it came out in North America in late May. I don't mod a lot, I've only rooted (so I can run stuff like Adaway, Cerberus Anti-Theft, and Xposed Framework) and that's it. I've considered unlocking my bootloader to get a permanent custom recovery (which I did with the Nexus 4) but I can live with a tethered recovery (just so I can flash a zip when needed) if I wanna be able to have an OTA update without issue. Yes, I know you can just flash new firmware updates without just waiting for an OTA update but I'd rather just let the OTA hit.
As others have said, the camera is kinda crappy but I don't really take a lot of photos in general so it's not a big deal breaker for me. Yes there's a lot of bloatware but I've just disabled stuff I don't use either via settings or a 3rd party app. The phone is a tad bit on the heavy side but that's just minor griping. The regular firmware updates have been nice though I'm still waiting for them to push Android version 5.1 even (though they have at least confirmed Marshmallow for the Zenfone2 so that's a good sign).

cylent said:
Tips for Taking a Fashion Shot - ZenFone | ASUS
Click to expand...
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Well that 20 second video helped me very well thank you so much its awesome now

great phone
but bad battery life :crying:

horrible battery

I hate missing backlight back/menu/central buttons... And missing support of USB 3&HDMI&h265/HEVC hardware video codec acceleration for decoding/encoding.
If ASUS resolve it on Zenfone 3, he will be mine ! (Except if a equivalent smartphone upcoming with physical Keyboard)
Want this keyboard on Zenfone !!! :
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Or better :
Well... Missing accessory, so native hardware... Dreaming.

you get what you pay for.
i paid $270 dollars for the 32G/3GigRam unit.
you can always use onscreen navigation bar ...

Battery life & screen not bright enough under sunlight (using lux light app helped cranking up the brightness a bit more). Oh, and I HATE where they placed the speaker!
I almost pulled the trigger on a galaxy note 5 dual sim this past weekend, but I've decided to wait a bit and see what's coming in the next few months, the note 5 is missing too many features.
Camera seems fine, I've taking some very nice pictures using manual settings, but I hated this phone when I was in Orlando while shooting video in the afternoon where it was hot outside (late October). The phone kept on recording at a very low framerate and it didn't even save the videos for some reason.

I'd say the things I hate about this device are the small details.
The fact that the led has only 3 colors and cannot be customized;
The horrible audio jack (even for a smartphone standard);
Battery life is an issue, but can be fixed (Project T kernel was a life saver in stock kernel, still looking what I can do in CM based ROMs);
The compatibility issues we have due to the x86 architecture.
I do love this phone, but sometimes these things really annoy me.

After coming from a Xiaomi mi3w I just have to say so far this phone is pretty amazing. I don't ever use the camera so the camera is better than I need it to be for the few times I use it a year. The battery problems I see everybody complaining about baffles me as I own 3 mid range priced phones and this 1 has close to the best battery life with similar usage.
Xiaomi mi3w: 4-5 hrs sot with 1 day uptime
2nd most expensive device
ASUS ZenFone 2: 5.5-6 hrs sot with 1 day uptime
cheapest device
oneplus two: 5.5-6.5 hrs sot with 1 day uptime
most expensive device
The things that annoy me are
1. Asus has poor rom development for keeping you updated.
2. Horrible place to put a speaker.
3. Hardware keys can not be swapped and I'm use to my back button on the right and my menu button I the left.
4. You can't reassign functions to the hardware keys. They should also be backlit.
5. They don't use any type of hotplug to unplug cores with 0 zero load to save to power.
6. Glitches in their keyboard while typing sometimes taking me back to previous paragraphs or the last typed words if I try and correct a mistake made earlier. Just a buggy keyboard in general.
7. Micro stutters in certain apps like browser and tapatalk due to an inefficient kernel or os.
Sent from my ASUS_Z00AD using Tapatalk

I only hate the battery and the issue that you can´t change the sms ringhtone.

First impressions!

This is coming from an IPhone 6s plus
The phone feels amazing on the hands, the speakers sound lound and clear, fingerprint scanner is fast and accurate, the camera is amazing especially the wide angle.
The battery life is average speaking on a first cycle basis and with everything on, Bluetooth,nfc,gps, brightness 100%,always on display, occasional music and video streaming. The screen brightness could be a little higher but overall happy with this phone, it went from 5%-40% during a 17minute charge time so the quick charge 3.0 is amazing plus that extra battery being shipped fixes any concern with the battery life.
No weird issue with backlight bleed, dead pixel or phone getting to hot.
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Awesome mine comes tomorrow can't wait to get it did u enable the app drawer or no

My G5 is getting hot doing the most basic of tasks. Like posting this. Feels like I've been running an intense game but I've done nothing of the sort.

ward24 said:
Awesome mine comes tomorrow can't wait to get it did u enable the app drawer or no
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Didn't find the option only if I enable the easy home so I stopped messing with it
Stocklone said:
My G5 is getting hot doing the most basic of tasks. Like posting this. Feels like I've been running an intense game but I've done nothing of the sort.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Let it settle and load all your apps it will stop getting hot, I thought the same the first hour of setting it up

Stock image no editing

ward24 said:
Awesome mine comes tomorrow can't wait to get it did u enable the app drawer or no
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
HtcOnekid said:
Didn't find the option only if I enable the easy home so I stopped messing with it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Haven't got the phone (yet),but,from several video reviews I've seen,easy mode is the only access you have to the (stock) app drawer.

I upgraded from a Samsung Galaxy S5 yesterday.
Pros: fast phone, good battery life, premium build and feel, excellent camera both front and rear, loud and robust built in speaker, hi is clean and customizable. Vibrations while typing and unlocking feel solid and premium. IR blaster is powerful and effective. Not a whole lot of bloat pre-installed on it
Cons: Visual voicemail is T-Mobile bloatware instead of being built into the phone app like it should be on Marshmallow. The back lock/unlock/power button will take some getting used to. Since this is my first device with USB-C I only have one cable in the house at the moment.

greysonofusa said:
I upgraded from a Samsung Galaxy S5 yesterday.
Pros: fast phone, good battery life, premium build and feel, excellent camera both front and rear, loud and robust built in speaker, hi is clean and customizable. Vibrations while typing and unlocking feel solid and premium. IR blaster is powerful and effective. Not a whole lot of bloat pre-installed on it
Cons: Visual voicemail is T-Mobile bloatware instead of being built into the phone app like it should be on Marshmallow. The back lock/unlock/power button will take some getting used to. Since this is my first device with USB-C I only have one cable in the house at the moment.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
FYI you can also turn on the screen by double tapping on it.

I love it except I've already been through 2 of them due to light bleed in the bottom right corner of the screen. I want to keep it because I really enjoy the phone but the light bleed bothers me knowing it is there.

Came from the LG v10 and G4 b4 that I thought the smaller screen would bother me but it's so fast and clear I love it I've been killin benchmark apps like I never seen before. Also the camera is nice the pop up option makes nice pics.

Easy Home is Crap, I couldnt find any other way of enabling the app drawer through the stock launcher so I installed Nova Launcher and everything looks right now. I switched from the V10, the only regret that I have is stepping down to 32gb internal storage from 64gb in the V10. But I still have my 200gb SD card from my v10. My local T-Mobile Store only had the gold color, but it is not an obnoxious gold color. I love the G5 it is soo much snappier than the v10, although no local stores had any cases for this device so I turned to Amazon. I have a TPU clear case, glass screen protector, and an additional USB-C cable so I dont have to move the one from the house to my car charger.

awesome
i got my g5 2 days ago. first i want to say the build quality is sweet. i like the mixture of the plastic and metal on the back. i love the weight of this phone. i take a lot of pics and the more weight the phone has the steadier you can keep your hand. the finger print is very fast. it's almost instantaneous. it doesnt work at first boot though. you have to use your pin/password first then after that you can use your fingerprint. why they decided to do that i dont know. the camera on this thing is amazing. the ois is very good and the focusing is much faster than any lg phone i've had. the first day i had this phone the phone got hot. i dont know if it was the initial break in time or what. i did have to install a bunch of apps and i was playing with it for a long time. it killed my battery life. when i got the phone it had 50% life. i took it down to 15% then charged it back to full. the next cycle is when my phone was pretty warm. the next battery cycle only lasted about 12 hours total. at around 12% i recharged it again to full overnight. when i woke up i restarted the phone with a full battery. it's been 6 hours since then and the phone has not gotten warm once. at 95% i had 45min of SOT. i had to plug my phone in to pc to do some things so it went back to 100% battery. i will see today how much SOT i get from a full drain. if that 5% use was any indication i think it's going to be around 6 hours SOT. that's what i got on my note 5. i didnt like how lg got rid of the app drawer so i installed google now launcher to get it back. i hope we get root on this thing. there are some other tweaks i want to do for even better battery life. not having twrp i can live without. so far i am happy with my pruchase of this g5. i'm looking forward to seeing if my happiness keeps up for the next couple months. i'm hoping this holds me over til the next nexus phone comes out.

freebee269 said:
i got my g5 2 days ago. first i want to say the build quality is sweet. i like the mixture of the plastic and metal on the back. i love the weight of this phone. i take a lot of pics and the more weight the phone has the steadier you can keep your hand. the finger print is very fast. it's almost instantaneous. it doesnt work at first boot though. you have to use your pin/password first then after that you can use your fingerprint. why they decided to do that i dont know. the camera on this thing is amazing. the ois is very good and the focusing is much faster than any lg phone i've had. the first day i had this phone the phone got hot. i dont know if it was the initial break in time or what. i did have to install a bunch of apps and i was playing with it for a long time. it killed my battery life. when i got the phone it had 50% life. i took it down to 15% then charged it back to full. the next cycle is when my phone was pretty warm. the next battery cycle only lasted about 12 hours total. at around 12% i recharged it again to full overnight. when i woke up i restarted the phone with a full battery. it's been 6 hours since then and the phone has not gotten warm once. at 95% i had 45min of SOT. i had to plug my phone in to pc to do some things so it went back to 100% battery. i will see today how much SOT i get from a full drain. if that 5% use was any indication i think it's going to be around 6 hours SOT. that's what i got on my note 5. i didnt like how lg got rid of the app drawer so i installed google now launcher to get it back. i hope we get root on this thing. there are some other tweaks i want to do for even better battery life. not having twrp i can live without. so far i am happy with my pruchase of this g5. i'm looking forward to seeing if my happiness keeps up for the next couple months. i'm hoping this holds me over til the next nexus phone comes out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I like Smart Settings too. I have it turning off wifi as soon as I leave my house and plan on setting it up to launch google play music too. it automatically changes from ringer on to vibrate... I know there's programs that do this for you on other phones but having it built in is cool. This is a useful add-in unlike Slowsungs TouchJiz stuff that is not useful... do I need Gear VR draining resources even though I may never use it... no, then why is it there, Same with Samsung Pay (which I use but others don't) and about 20 other things. LG got it right this time. The G6 or the V11 will just improve on this platform. :good: :laugh:

dillmanr3 said:
Easy Home is Crap, I couldnt find any other way of enabling the app drawer through the stock launcher so I installed Nova Launcher and everything looks right now.charge.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here's how you get the "normal" launcher back:
http://androidforums.com/threads/no-app-drawer-option-on-lg-g5-solved.1015945/#post-7263187

The G5 in the two days I've owned I've owned it is easily in contention for the worst phone I've ever had. Granted LG has some awesome software concepts but that's about where any praise I can give this phone ends. This phone gets hot far to fast even during normal use. Not including it gets ridiciously hot just sitting on the charger untouched. If I load The Walking Dead Road to Survival the battery vanishes. Even as I type this my phone is on my car charger and its using almost as much power and the charger is giving it. If I try and play Pandora while driving it actually loses battery even while charging. Also if I try and play ANY video after having the TWD game open it stutters like I'm watching it on a potatoe until I close all programs through the task manager. For as many problems as I was having with my Note 5 I wish I wouldnt have used my jump for this garbage "flagship" phone. I can't wait for the month to be over so I can burn another jump to go back to a Samsung. I highly doubt I'll ever buy an LG again.

dmonger11b said:
The G5 in the two days I've owned I've owned it is easily in contention for the worst phone I've ever had. Granted LG has some awesome software concepts but that's about where any praise I can give this phone ends. This phone gets hot far to fast even during normal use. Not including it gets ridiciously hot just sitting on the charger untouched. If I load The Walking Dead Road to Survival the battery vanishes. Even as I type this my phone is on my car charger and its using almost as much power and the charger is giving it. If I try and play Pandora while driving it actually loses battery even while charging. Also if I try and play ANY video after having the TWD game open it stutters like I'm watching it on a potatoe until I close all programs through the task manager. For as many problems as I was having with my Note 5 I wish I wouldnt have used my jump for this garbage "flagship" phone. I can't wait for the month to be over so I can burn another jump to go back to a Samsung. I highly doubt I'll ever buy an LG again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You either have a hardware issue (they happen unfortunately) or you have a rogue app eating up your CPU cycles. Time to troubleshoot. That's definitely not normal and it's most definitely atypical.
I'd start with a factory reset. Don't install anything else. Don't do a thing. See if it still happens. If it does I'd return it for a replacement. If it doesn't happen then I'd start updating apps and installing apps one by one.

MechaMorph said:
You either have a hardware issue (they happen unfortunately) or you have a rogue app eating up your CPU cycles. Time to troubleshoot. That's definitely not normal and it's most definitely atypical.
I'd start with a factory reset. Don't install anything else. Don't do a thing. See if it still happens. If it does I'd return it for a replacement. If it doesn't happen then I'd start updating apps and installing apps one by one.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sent from my LG-H830 using XDA Free mobile app
The phone was already factory reset on Saturday when I attempted to return the phone and grab an S7 Edge. All the apps were previously installed on my Note 5 without issue. And unfortunately if it is a hardware issue how would I actually prove that to try and have T-Mobile switch it out?

And there's my Gsam showing that my WiFi has been a drain on my battery even though its been turned off the entire time
Sent from my LG-H830 using XDA Free mobile app

dmonger11b said:
Sent from my LG-H830 using XDA Free mobile app
The phone was already factory reset on Saturday when I attempted to return the phone and grab an S7 Edge. All the apps were previously installed on my Note 5 without issue. And unfortunately if it is a hardware issue how would I actually prove that to try and have T-Mobile switch it out?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
dmonger11b said:
And there's my Gsam showing that my WiFi has been a drain on my battery even though its been turned off the entire time
Sent from my LG-H830 using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The Gsam and the heat from the device should be enough for them to swap it out. They generally don't ask many questions. I recently had upgraded my wife to a Galaxy S6. It had an issue with sending receiving group texts. Got another one by simply showing them the texts.

I'll have to stop by after work and talk to them. I'm just really put off by how bad my particular phone is. I do hope it's just a hardware issue and not a systemic problem with LG I love concepts behind this phone
Sent from my LG-H830 using XDA Free mobile app

[Review] FNF Ifive Mini 4s tablet

I have now had my FNF Ifive Mini 4s, that i ordered from China, since March 7th (Shipping took only 14 days) so i think it is time for a review
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Key features
Android 6.0
7.85" 2048*1536 display
RK3288 Quad Core CPU at 1.8Ghz
Mail-T764 GPU
2 GB DDR3 RAM
32 GB Internal storage
4800mAh Li-Po battery
SD-Card slot
802.11 a/b/g/n/ac 2.4Ghz+5Ghz WIFI
Bluetooth 4.0
Disadvantages
Batterylife is only around 2 hours of screen on time with maximum brightness.
Bottom speakers instead of front-facing.
Design and build quality
I really like the bezels on this device. They are nice and small on the sides and a little bigger on the top and bottom. This makes using the tablet for media consumption really comfortable, since there is just enough space for your thumbs on each side of the tablet when it is tilted to the side.
The front of the tablet is all glass. The frame is made of metal and the back has glass in the top and bottom and plastic inbetween. This combined makes an overall sturdy tablet. The tablet has no flex at all when trying to bend it or press down on different spots, so this makes me confident it wont break on normal use.
The buttons are much better than on other tablets at this price point. They dont wobble too much and I am confident they wont fall out or get stuck. The MicroSD-slot works nicely and so does the 3.5mm headphone jack.
The dimentions are 230 x 169 x 7 mm.
Display and screen
The display on this tablet was what made me buy it in the first place. A 2048*1536 display on a 150 USD tablet seemed crazy, so i bought it to see for myself. The display is truly great and very enjoyable to look at, even for long periods of time. In the time I have had it, I have seen severeal movies on it and even read an e-book. Since the screen is 7.85" it has a pixel density of 326.11 PPI
Android 6.0.1
The tablet comes with stock Android 6.0.1. It comes with no bloatware at all which I appreciate alot and it is updated regularly. In the time I have had it, I have gotten 3 updates, which fixed the small amounts of problems it had when I first recieved it. The ROM runs smoothly with no stutters at all thanks to the RK3288 CPU and Mail-T764 GPU.
Camera
The camera is not that good, only 8MP in the rear and 2MP in thefront. I can not really see a use for a camera in a tablet anyway, since I think it is too big for that, so this does not matter to me.
Benchmarks
Antutu
Basemark OS II
Battery Life
When the brightness is set to max and the tablet is used normally I get around 2 hours of screen on time. When the screen is set to the minimum brightness I get around 5-6 hours of screen on time. The battery life is okay, but I think they should have made the device a little thicker and added a little more battery. With my use I have to charge it either every night or every other night.
Conclusion
I think the FNF Ifive Mini 4s definently is worth its price. It is a great tablet for watching movies and Youtube videos, browsing the internet and playing games (but dont expect a high framerate on titles like Grand Theft Auto). I would definently recommend buying this tablet. It is simply an amazing tablet concidering its price of only approximately 150 USD.
I rate it 8.5 out of 10
If you appreciated my review feel free to press the "Thanks" button
EDIT: I just updated to 1.0.8-W, which should work on all devices, new as old, and this seems to boost perfomance nicely. To update, use this tutorial, but use this tool and img instead of the ones mentioned inside the tutorial Thanks to RVA84 for letting me know this in the comments.

Thanks for the review. Shame it has such poor battery life, but a battery pack should make that not so much of a problem. What is battery life like when it is sitting idle? Does it support automatic power off? Nothing more annoying than a tablet with a flat battery
Also, what do you use to protect it and stand it up? There doesn't seem to be much in the way of accessories for this tablet.

stephendt0 said:
Thanks for the review. Shame it has such poor battery life, but a battery pack should make that not so much of a problem. What is battery life like when it is sitting idle? Does it support automatic power off? Nothing more annoying than a tablet with a flat battery
Also, what do you use to protect it and stand it up? There doesn't seem to be much in the way of accessories for this tablet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It loses around 2-4% battery per day in idle. What do you mean by automatic power off? I do not have anything to protect it or stand it up. I usually sit with it in my hands in bed

UnknownDK said:
It loses around 2-4% battery per day in idle. What do you mean by automatic power off? I do not have anything to protect it or stand it up. I usually sit with it in my hands in bed
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks. On MTK tablets and devices, there is a feature to power off the device automatically. It's usually in the settings. If it's not there, it doesn't support it.

stephendt0 said:
Thanks. On MTK tablets and devices, there is a feature to power off the device automatically. It's usually in the settings. If it's not there, it doesn't support it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, I can not find it.

UnknownDK said:
Well, I can not find it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not too surprising considering it uses a rockchip SOC. Either way not a big deal, I usually use tasker to put it on flight mode at night

I just got this, and I found that when gaming on it (like the new Office Space idle game) the battery was getting destroyed in a huge way. We're not talking 2 hours of life at that point, it dropped almost 20% in about 10 minutes, crazy high usage.
I enabled dev mode and saw that the 'force gpu rendering for 2d' option was enabled, I disabled it and battery life has gone way up even when using games. I'm going to run some tests to determine the overall difference, but other than the battery life I agree this is a pretty great tablet.
I honestly still have my Nexus 7 2013 and still use it daily, but I can see myself switching to this pretty quickly.

Let me ask a follow up question to other owners:
My battery life is simply horrific, as in if I'm in a game with brightness halfway, I lose several percentage per minute in some cases, and the back gets noticeably warm to the touch. I have a few screenshots of the battery usage showing it drop from 60% to under 30% like nothing, but everything shows up as "miscellaneous", and it doesn't seem like there's any actual power consumption tracking going on. I installed a few different battery tracking apps, all of them claim to not be able to connect to whatever the Android stock service is that's necessary to calculate per app battery consumption, is that just how the 4s works or is there something actually broken on mine?
It's bad to the point that I can sit for 20 minutes using it continuously, bouncing between Clash of Clans and CATS and then have to consider plugging it in for a charge. My Nexus 7 or phone (Axon 7) go for hours with the same type of usage no problem :\

Sphexi said:
Let me ask a follow up question to other owners:
My battery life is simply horrific, as in if I'm in a game with brightness halfway, I lose several percentage per minute in some cases, and the back gets noticeably warm to the touch. I have a few screenshots of the battery usage showing it drop from 60% to under 30% like nothing, but everything shows up as "miscellaneous", and it doesn't seem like there's any actual power consumption tracking going on. I installed a few different battery tracking apps, all of them claim to not be able to connect to whatever the Android stock service is that's necessary to calculate per app battery consumption, is that just how the 4s works or is there something actually broken on mine?
It's bad to the point that I can sit for 20 minutes using it continuously, bouncing between Clash of Clans and CATS and then have to consider plugging it in for a charge. My Nexus 7 or phone (Axon 7) go for hours with the same type of usage no problem :\
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm having the same problem with mine. Trying to figure out what the issue is. Just ticked off Force GPU rendering as per Sphexi's recommendation. We'll see if that helps.

I just bought a iFIve Mini 4s. When it goes idle it basically dies. I have to push the Start button for several seconds and it reboots. Is that normal? It cannot be! Is there a setting or something I'm overlooking?

Courtaud said:
I just bought a iFIve Mini 4s. When it goes idle it basically dies. I have to push the Start button for several seconds and it reboots. Is that normal? It cannot be! Is there a setting or something I'm overlooking?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think you should contact your seller and tell them your problem. I think your device is malfunctioning.

stephendt0 said:
Thanks for the review. Shame it has such poor battery life, but a battery pack should make that not so much of a problem. What is battery life like when it is sitting idle?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For you and anyone else complaining about the poor battery life/battery drain:
1. First - The battery is 6700mAh and not 4800mAh as declared everywhere on web so that's should be enough for everyday usage (currently I got 4-5 SOT for web browsing and lite gaming)
2. Upgrade to the latest firmware version 1.06.
3. After upgrade wipe the system cache.
4. Disable ''Keep Wi-Fi during sleep''.
5. Turn on Android's developer mode and disable animations:
-Go to Settings > About, then tap on Build number several times to enable Android developer mode
-Go to Settings > Developer options, and scroll down to Window animation scale, Transition animation scale, and Animator duration scale.
-Tap on each of the animation options and turn them off.
6. For more speed, install a lightweight launcher (for this tablet I prefer Nova Launcher)
Hope this helps.

Hi.
Anyone can suggest a case for this tablet?
One that doesn't cover any button.
Thanks a lot!

julioforo said:
Hi.
Anyone can suggest a case for this tablet?
One that doesn't cover any button.
Thanks a lot!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
looking for this tok hope someone can help
i saw some bouetooth keyboard case on i think amazon search for fnf ifive keyboard case i think it is dedicated case for this device

I just got mine. Currently about $100 from gearbest and I'm sure other Chinese e-commerce sites.
I also own the Amazon Fire 8 HD tablet for those curious about a comparison. Software wise its so much better to just have vanilla Android vs the whole Fire skin and effort required to get a regular Android launcher setup. The Fire Tablet does fit seemlessly into the whole Amazon ecosystem though which can be quite nice if you use many or most of the Amazon services like Kindle, video, music and shopping. But hardware wise is where the real difference lie. Night and day. I also own the last model Amazon Fire 7 HDX. I mention that because I was shocked when I received my new Fire 8 HD. It was light, plastic-y and had an unforgettable display with much less resolution than the HDX. The buttons were loose and wiggled. Everything just screamed dirt cheap to me. Of course it was dirt cheap price wise compared to the HDX. The ifive Mini 4S is almost the complete opposite. Great screen, solid feel and a fast processor. All for just a few bucks more than the Fire 8 HD. I'd recommend it over the Amazon offering for practically anyone who wants an actual Android tablet. If you're looking for a media device then I'd say that you'll have to choose quality versus ease of integration with Amazon products and services.
Just posted the following over at TechTablets. I found that the latest version of the Google Camera app works with the front camera.
Just a quick comment. I just received my tablet today. I remembered from your YouTube review that the front camera hung the tablet if you took a picture. I agree, generally a tablet isn't a device for pictures but thought I'd see if it still was an issue. It still hangs the tablet but...
I've always preferred the Google Camera app simply because it was consistent across devices. Ever since I used it for the panorama photo feature on my Galaxy S5 phone I've been using it on everything. It takes decent photos on this tablet. Better than with the default app at least. But more importantly it doesn't hang the tablet if you use the front camera. I went to apk mirror to find the most recent arm (not arm64) architecture version that works on Android 6 since I knew the current version was just for Nougat (Android 7+) and I found the following. Name as it appears on apk mirror then link because I'm not sure if links here will work.
Google Camera 3.2.045 (2821762-30) (arm) (Android 6.0+)
http://www.apkmirror.com/apk/google...mera-3-2-045-2821762-30-android-apk-download/
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Suggestions about case, protection and custom rom for FNF Ifive Mini 4S?

UnknownDK said:
I just bought a iFIve Mini 4s. When it goes idle it basically dies. I have to push the Start button for several seconds and it reboots. Is that normal? It cannot be! Is there a setting or something I'm overlooking? I think you should contact your seller and tell them your problem. I think your device is malfunctioning.
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SADLY I am having the same issue. I bought this tablet for my wife and I thought she was being silly and overly dramatic since we know the battery life is not great. However I was using it and it was just on my chest resting for a few minutes with 61% charge and then I picked it up again to continue reading and the power button would not turn it back on. Generally speaking HOLDING the tablet power button for 5+ secs resets the device and it reboots back to 61% charge. This is really sad as I generally like the tablet compared to anything else in its price range, but this is wholly frustrating and hope that this is not indicative of the BRAND or overall build quality.

UnknownDK said:
I think you should contact your seller and tell them your problem. I think your device is malfunctioning.
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nickel911 said:
SADLY I am having the same issue. I bought this tablet for my wife and I thought she was being silly and overly dramatic since we know the battery life is not great. However I was using it and it was just on my chest resting for a few minutes with 61% charge and then I picked it up again to continue reading and the power button would not turn it back on. Generally speaking HOLDING the tablet power button for 5+ secs resets the device and it reboots back to 61% charge. This is really sad as I generally like the tablet compared to anything else in its price range, but this is wholly frustrating and hope that this is not indicative of the BRAND or overall build quality.
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I HAVE THIS issue as well. When the issue happens, I have tried messing with the power button.... clicking several times and I have been able to recover it a few times but not always. I don't think it is a battery issue. Maybe a hardware problem with the power switch itself? I bought mine from GEARBEST. I am going to reach out to them and see if they will do anything. Another issue I have is clicking the HOME button seems to produce a SPEAKER based clicking sound. I wonder if it is related to the HEADPHONE static issue we all are experiencing.

Was about to buy this tablet, instead of Xiaomi MiPad which is much more expensive. But the battery issues which are reported by multiple users is deal breaker
Wondering if it is more like software issues which can be fixed by some updates or more about the battery itself.

salocin411 said:
I HAVE THIS issue as well. When the issue happens, I have tried messing with the power button.... clicking several times and I have been able to recover it a few times but not always. I don't think it is a battery issue. Maybe a hardware problem with the power switch itself? I bought mine from GEARBEST. I am going to reach out to them and see if they will do anything. Another issue I have is clicking the HOME button seems to produce a SPEAKER based clicking sound. I wonder if it is related to the HEADPHONE static issue we all are experiencing.
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Mine have the same problem. This is ridículos. The tablet shut down and still losing battery. Did anyone figure out how to solve this issue? I also bought mine from Gearbest, did anyone receive an answer from them? I just got mine tablet yesterday and already notice this problem.