Related
I only got the phone 2 days ago, coming from a Nokia 5800 (which I loved), its worlds apart and a very worthy upgrade. I'm totally new to Android and everything about it, but I'm fairly sure I've digested enough information over the past 2 days to set my phone up properly.
So for any other n00bs, this is some of the info I've setup on mine.
Rooting
This is a must, the z4root (1.3 version) app will take care of your permanent rooting needs. Be sure to leave the "USB Debugging mode" on for ever.
Blur
Love it, keep it, I don't think there's any performance hit with it running. But if you don't like it, don't go to the lengths of removing all the apk's manually - just don't register/sign-up when the phone is very first turned on (or if the phone is set-up, then you can backup with TB and factory reset the data, but don't set-up Blur).
Overclocking and undervolting (ie. Battery!)
800MHz doesn't *quite* cut it, the phone is a little laggy and unresponsive. The app to get first is SetVSEL (on Android market), I've got mine setup and stable with:
300MHz / 26
600MHz / 34
1100MHz / 58
And a priority of 60%. Then enable the setting to limit to VSEL1 when the screen is off. A priority any higher than 60% makes the phone really lag when trying to turn the screen back on/answer calls etc. from an idle state.
This took the phone immediately from a 5hr maximum battery life on idle to over 13 hours (still not impressive, but miles better!).
Then upgrade the ROM to the JIT enabled version http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=893291
Backing Up
Titanium backup pro - worth it, get scheduled backups set up and sign up for a free dropbox account (link - http db.tt/fxOD4Zf) for online backup storage.
Must buy/install apps
1 VPN (VPN password saving/connect tool)
AdFree (Ad-blocker)
Angry Birds (Game)
Astro (File manager)
Barcode Scanner
ConnectBot (SSH client)
DropBox (Online storage) link - http db.tt/fxOD4Zf
Google Earth
Facebook
Google Goggles
Last.fm (Music streaming)
Layar (Augmented reality app)
PocketCloud (MSTSC/RDP client)
Quadrant (Benchmarking tool)
ROM Manager
SetCPU (although not neccessary with SetVSEL, but it does offer a little more fine-tuning)
ShopSavvy (Barcode scanner / price comparison tool)
Skype
Sports Tracker
Spotify
Stability Tester (Good for making sure VSEL voltages are stable)
System Monitor (Fairly basic overview of system status)
System Recovery (not available on Android Market) LINK http goo.gl/SSMpE
Titanium Backup Pro
Twitter
Vehicle Light
Voice Caller ID
Voice Recorder
z4root - LINK http goo.gl/CuRgz
Impoving battery
Disable live wallpaper
Disable smart screen brightness and manually reduce
Lower CPU voltage
Set low CPU speed when screen is off
Enable data saving
Disable GPS when not in use
Handy links
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=893291
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=833953
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=853674
Thank you for the guide, especially the setvsel freqs.
5 hour battery life on idle... that's why people don't like Blur!
I don't use any Blur widgets at all - although I have't removed them - and on the stock ROM will easily get 2 days battery life on idle, hell I can get 2 days with moderate usage!
milesg said:
5 hour battery life on idle... that's why people don't like Blur!
I don't use any Blur widgets at all - although I have't removed them - and on the stock ROM will easily get 2 days battery life on idle, hell I can get 2 days with moderate usage!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agree!
If you are coming from U.S. t-mobile, there is no way you can bypass Blur, other than flash to "foreign firmware".
Once you registered and use Blur, you got bunch of useless app running on the background, news/weather/social and etc that can NOT be stopped, unless you root and remove them. ( it seems to be constantly u/d link your status to the world, I rather have my own privatcy control )
Blur Contact also another quick way to confuse the crap out of my contact and produce annoying double list.
Plus, unless you are on Froyo, you don't get to disable "Data Enabled" under Data Delivery. ( yes, you can install APNdroi or similar app to stop Data access when not in used, but it will just be another program running on the background )
Anyway, I really appreciate all these genius in the forum who creats so many different custom ROM and firmware for me to "upgrade".
I don't think it is possible to skip the blur account setup.
Other then that I am not convinced that any deep customization is necessary to make the DEFY a great phone.
I rooted the phone to rename/remove some unnecessary apps (e.g. amazonmp3). but after the earpiece problem I got my phone back with the original firmware restored. because I was lazy I didn't bother rooting and renaming/deleting. just installed launcher pro and advanced task killer. result: same performance improvements as with the rooted one before!
I just run a quadrant benchmark: 1073 points!
note that my defy is not really de-blured. I just installed launcher pro to stop that terrible blur launcher. even my task killer settings are conservative.
battery life is also not that bad: weekdays it is just a bit over a day (~30h). weekends depending on what I do. this weekend I am sitting home and still have 40% battery after having it disconnected from charger on friday morning.
bottom line: rooting is recommended to do some maintenance stuff (backups, firewall, etc.). using an alternative launcher is a MUST (launcher pro works best for me, but there are others too). however, renaming or deleting apps is not a good idea because of the heavy system integration of blur crap motorola did.
blessani said:
This took the phone immediately from a 5hr maximum battery life on idle to over 13 hours (still not impressive, but miles better!).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hey just a tip, install recovery, or, as your phone is just very young.
connect it to a power plug everytime when charging (not pc-usb, real power supply) and let i load as long as possible (3-4 hours max is enough) try to repeat this process 3-6 times and you'll get the maximum battery life.
works great! :=)
i resetted my battery stats once after a rom upgrade and the battery lasted for about as u said, 3-5 hours... i thought that i had destroyed my phone or similar, but after these complete charges, everything worked as it should again
would suggest it for any power driven device
My handset has the custom Defy recovery installed already (first thing) as per http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=893291
Its only charged off mains power, but to be honest, I've only had it 3 days now, and I've been using it so much in the past day tweaking it, that I haven't had a chance to see what I'll get our of it.
Those talking about de-bluring, theres a really easy non-root method to do it http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=943134
You don't realyl need to OverClock unléess you're playing a game on PSX4DROID...
i use 1200 mhz @ 58 and it's quite stable tbh. Haven't done much testing but the temp stays at 42°c
I'm actually concerned about the temperature of CPU...how high can it go until cou is likely to get effected?
I am a noob too. I came from spica, so i used android before and flashed some roms, but i only playing for the Defy for a day and i have some question. I bought one with 2.21 DE with blur, the phone was fast but the unlock slider lagged like hell, and after a call, the call summary was displayed for at least 10-15 seconds.
I flashed a 2.51 CE firmware on the device and it is generally much faster, but the call summary is still locking the phone for too long time(I rooted the phone overclocked, factory reseted done everything, but nothing helps, somtimes it is better after restart). Does anyone knows why?
Another thing, i know that 2.51 is undowngradeable.I read that i cannot flash most of the cooked ROMS and the chineese and beta froyo ROMs, but th phone is fast, and i got enough of cooked and alfa, beta ROMs during my spica period, and no way i want to go back to 2.21 so that is not a problem, but when the official UK or CE Froyo comes out, i will be able flash the sbf with RSD lite or I am locked to that firmware forever? And if someone updated the Defy to 2.51 with OTA, not RSD lite made the Defy undowngradeble?
Sorry for the lot of talk and thank you for your answers in advance
Just a note if you update to the new Blur you won't be able to use z4root. You need Super1Click (ver 2.51). Here is a post on it from Moto. https://supportforums.motorola.com/thread/44255?start=0&tstart=0 And here is another from XDA. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=11151470#post11151470
Thank you for your tips.
I came from 5800 either
Sent from my MB525
[UT] X-RAY said:
I don't think it is possible to skip the blur account setup.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Press the Menu button (the hardware button with the 4 squares) and a menu pops up with "Skip Setup" listed. ^^
very good info, will try Titanium Backup Pro
You can use the phone without being logged into Blur. Shut the phone off and then go to myblur.com and change your password. Follow the directions and when done turn the phone back on and you will get an error that either the user ID or PW is wrong. All the other functions will work. For me the phone seemed real laggy running like this as it was trying to call home all the time.
no clue said:
Agree!
If you are coming from U.S. t-mobile, there is no way you can bypass Blur, other than flash to "foreign firmware".
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
5hr maximum battery life on idle?
ABC_Universal said:
5hr maximum battery life on idle?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah there is something wrong then if that is happening. I use a Defy and a DHD, and days I only use the DHD, and let my Defy just sit there, it can go three days before it even gets to 80%.
3 days before it gets to 80% ....yeah right
my defy eats 5-10% per 6hours in idle ... and thats at 300/16vsel setting, stock 2.1 rom, and skipped blur setup
and with moderate use ...i get around 48hours out of it
so how could yours be at 80% after 3days being idle is beyond me ...what rom are u using & what idle settings?
Mine only uses 4% battery when idle for 8 hours over night with the alarm clock programmed to go off so i guess that would be around 12% / 24 hours if left in standby / idle.
Running stock 2.1 but overclocked and undervolted with setvsel.
300 / 20
700 / 32
1100 / 56
75% threshold.
I also use droidwall to enable only what i want to access wifi or data but not sure if that would help when the phone is idle.
I use
300/16
600/36
1000/56
80%threshold
droidwall wouldnt help me since i dont have 3g connection set up and i only turn wifi on when i need it ...
does your 2.1 rom come with motoblur or without?
I wish my defy would eat only 4% per 8hours =/
Hi,
Yes mine has Blur installed & I normally only have the weather programme running.
I found it very hard to find information from people who actually have the update in other threads because it is mixed with information on how to actually obtain and install the update.
So what are your impressions of tge 5.1.1 update ? Please only post if you have the update installed and running for at least few hours.
My impressions:
- Battery life is worse, like 30% worse with Wi-Fi detection on, even if mostly using Bluetooth.
- Still can't edit the canned response list Emoji drawing is a bad joke.
- I can't dismiss notifications with flick gestures (only hide them)
- Very smooth and responsive UI overall
- No annoying "Ok Google" text on watch face until you say "ok Google" 5 times
Battery life for me for 5 times better.... One thing, this enables 'always on' apps... I would check some of your apps and see what battery consumption is. I've been in my watch since about 10am and I have 53% left right now. Way better than anything I have ever gotten. This is with wifi on.
It's pretty fantastic for me. I have no complaints. The processor is old, but I'm very impressed with how optimized they've made it. The lag just doesn't interrupt my work flow, unlike with the Apple Watch at least. There's no major delay. Will likely be buying V2 or V3 depending on how I feel the life cycle for these devices will be.
Updated yesterday. I feel like the battery lasts less, but you have to give it 2-3 days to settle down. Liking the new features, but I don't think I'm gonna use Wi-Fi too much since it drains battery.
For now, I'm keeping WiFi, gestures, and ambient mode off. This way within a week I'll have a true comparison of battery life. Then I'm going to test each function and how it effects battery. I'll let everyone know how it goes.
Have the update one day now,
Good points:
-Smootness
-less buggy
-wifi when out of range
-wrist flick(great idea)
-Google maps maps
Bad points:
-Wrist flick is hard to perform correct (think it is a learning curve)
-When wifi is active on whatch and is connected but phone isn't connected to internet it still says it is connected.
-Laggier in first minutes after boot
-Lock screen sometimes activates when on wrist.
Overall i'am happy. Batterylife is to early to judge
I got the update yesterday after resetting my device. The first thing that I have noticed is that I can no longer dismiss notifications that only take up the bottom part of the screen. I have to pull the notification up and can then dismiss it. If this is what the developers intended, then that it is a major step backwards.
Also where do I setup which apps should stay "always on"?
Battery life after the update is disasterous, about 6% per hour but I need to give it a few days to sort itself out.
The dismissing of notifications is very much hit and miss and is impracticable.
At the moment I am not impressed with the update. Hopefully things will sort themselves out over the next few days.
For me, the update has been surprisingly good.
Good:
- Battery life (which I must admit, was my primary concern) is as good as it was prior to the update, even with the watch connected to WiFi.
- I love the flicking gestures, they work exactly as I imagined they would, although they're not as smart as they should (you can swipe available cards up and down, but when a card has multiple sub-cards, you can't scroll between them).
- Performance is great, specially considering it's a device with 512MB RAM, UI is still responsive enough and with very little lag.
- I love the new contact screen, it saves me a lot of time for quick calls when I can't remember the contact name (I normally use Google Now to call someone).
Bad:
- For the life of me, I haven't figured out how to enable always-on apps. It's one of the features I've been waiting for so eagerly, specially for Google Keep's checked notes (which I use A LOT).
- The WiFi connection is USELESS if you leave your phone home and find a protected WiFi network, because you NEED the phone to input the password. It kinda defeats the whole purpose.
One thing I noticed after the update is all of my hangouts threads became unmerged. Now each person has SMS/Hangouts as seperate threads. My one buddy experienced the same issue when his watch updated. Not sure why the software update would cause that, but it's upsetting.
Overall, I'm really liking the update. The only thing that's really bugging me is that you can't seem to dismiss notifications unless they're open. I'm used to being able to dismiss them immediately if I can get all the information I need from their title. Now, I actually have to swipe up first to open them, and only then can I dismiss them. It's not so bad that I can't live with it, but it is annoying.
The update has exceeded my expectations so far. I have only had it installed for about 12 hours. Battery life seems better. Worst case I don't think it has gotten any worse which was a huge concern because it hasn't been so wonderful. It seems to give more feedback and explanations so I'm not guessing as much. For example when I added a playlist it informed me that the battery needed more charge to download to the watch. Prior to the update I would have been scratching my head all day and then it would magically download when I charged up at night.
I really hope the WiFi works as advertised. I can think of many ways it could be useful to me. It seems like there are lots of times when I want notifications in case of an emergency because I'm a single dad but I also don't want to carry the phone with me.
My biggest annoyance with update is that now I have to open cards before they can be swiped away. Most times I can tell what a card is telling me and used to swipe them away without opening them.
Seems more responsive.
As others have said, removal of swiping / dismissing the previews was not a good call.
Not entirely sure, but looks like I won't be able to connect to my work WiFi which uses certificate based EAP-TLS authentication ? Will see when I'm back in the office next week.
Sent from my Lollipop TF700T
Do the other watches have the same issue (yeah, I'm calling it an issue instead of a feature) with the notification swiping? Or maybe this is something Motorola did thinking they were compensating somehow for the flat tire? Regardless, I hope there's an update to fix it, it just annoys the piss out of me every time.
My first day battery report.
Off charger at 9am, end of the day (11pm) 67%. This is with WiFi and ambient mode off so I can have a direct comparison to prior then update. But to me that is a huge improvement.
Has anybody figured out how to enable the App Always On feature?
I've updated my watch yesterday and wanted to let my watch get to 0% to calibrate the battery because of the new update. so I didn't put my watch off at night, and the next morging (today) my watch was 10% and the screen was totally black and it wasn't responding to the side button so I tried to hold it for 30 seconds to let it restart I saw the normal bootupscren but as soon it was staring the app it became black again. I now have let it charge to 100% and it it's responding perfectly again. Does anyone know what was wrong?
Thanks for your time!
user of android said:
I've updated my watch yesterday and wanted to let my watch get to 0% to calibrate the battery because of the new update. so I didn't put my watch off at night, and the next morging (today) my watch was 10% and the screen was totally black and it wasn't responding to the side button so I tried to hold it for 30 seconds to let it restart I saw the normal bootupscren but as soon it was staring the app it became black again. I now have let it charge to 100% and it it's responding perfectly again. Does anyone know what was wrong?
Thanks for your time!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I noticed the same behavior when mine was at 2%. It did not respond to screen touches and only switched on for about half a second after clicking the side button several (5 or more) times. It still took about 30 minutes for the watch to finally shut down. Maybe this is because of a very aggressive battery saving mode?
I must add that I did reset the watch after the 5.1.1 update was fully installed and wanted the battery to drain completely for the same reason you did: to recalibrate it.
Sent from my One S using XDA Free mobile app
Mister-B said:
Has anybody figured out how to enable the App Always On feature?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm thinking it may only be an AMOLED feature.
Mine had the same issue at 10%. I wonder if this is related to the performance issue Motorola was talking about.
I don't know if I am happy or sad that this is widespread. Hopefully they patch this up.
With a few useful actions missing, and really funky updating and subsequent battery drain-
How do you like AW 2.0 on your HW?
What do you miss the most?
What's your favorite new thing from 2.0?
Will you stay with 2.0?
I've been running DP for months and I don't really remember what I should be missing. I am happy with current performance and features will stay on 2.0
Edit.... Can't see poll in app....
jowofoto said:
With a few useful actions missing, and really funky updating and subsequent battery drain-
How do you like AW 2.0 on your HW?
What do you miss the most?
What's your favorite new thing from 2.0?
Will you stay with 2.0?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. Like it a lot. Just a little bit of a learning curve.
2. I miss the longer battery life. I charge it every night, but I was usually at 50% on 1.5, now I usually at 15%.
3. Answering calls. On 1.5, when I swiped to answer, I routinely swiped my launcher and lost the call. On 2.0 you tap to answer.
4. Definitely.
jowofoto said:
With a few useful actions missing, and really funky updating and subsequent battery drain-
How do you like AW 2.0 on your HW?
What do you miss the most?
What's your favorite new thing from 2.0?
Will you stay with 2.0?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
there are good things and very bad ones. I'm tending to not really like it. Reasons listed below.
I don't even know where to begin with... Here is a (probably incomplete) list of what I miss the most:
double tap on button for theater mode
contacts are not synced with the PHONE, instead it only syncs contacts from your Google account (which I'm not using, I'm using my own CardDAV server but I've seen already the exact same problem with Exchange, so this is not a niche problem - Calendar works well with my CalDAV server and is in sync with what is set up on the phone)
Google Now (all that below worked like a charm before the upgrade) - Google assistant is not really usable (for me at least), and far away from good or perfect:
it becomes quite useless without the contacts (can't make calls, as there are no contacts - can't send messages, etc.) - and making phone calls or sending messages is the primary use case for the voice control on my watch
saying "Call Jon Doe on mobile" (did a test cause I really need to call my wife often) keeps asking me for which number to call (seriously, Google Assistant? Are you that smart?)
saying "Send Telegram/WhatsApp/Text Message to Jon Deo - Hello World" will remain on a screen with buttons to cancel or send instead of sending that "Hello World" message (again: are you serious? Why should I use voice commands if I in return have to interact manually with my device again? What is the deeper meaning behind that?)
Old apps don't work anymore (I installed Heart Trace on the phone but it's not appearing on the watch - also not after doing the "sync apps" in the Wear app) - sure this will change for all apps that are still maintained by their devs - but others won't
notifications peek cards - especially for the music player. this is horrible and a really a big issue for me. And also for non-music player notifications: I just don't see at first sight (and without fiddeling with the watch) that there are notifications - the "complications" watch faces are ugly (IMHO) and I really hope that the dev of my watch face will include a small icon telling me that there are 1, 2, 3, 99 notifications pending.
tripple tap on the button for brightness boost - although I never used it (I just didn't know it existed until after upgrading to 2.0) I really see the benefit of this shortcut and would have started to use it - especially as summer is just around the corner and in bright sunlight the watch is hard to read.
swipe from right to left for the apps list (why would I want to swipe for changing the watch face??) swiping should really be associated to an action I use often - MAKE IT USER CONFIGURABLE!! (this holds true for most of the issues, and also for the good things below)
DND mode synced with the phone. Now, this is really controversial as it depends on the individual use case. I need it synced with the phone (either phone and watch muted or both on vibrate/loud). In any case: JUST LET THE USER DECIDE! (seriously, Google! How hard is this?)
battery live - was way better with AW1.5. Had 30-50% left after 22-24h - now it's completely drained after 20-22h with similar usage. Trying the stop sync over wifi setting next.
To be fair, there are a couple of nice features that I like:
the drop down quick settings - the individual screens for each setting were just horrible in terms of UX!
the apps carousel and the favorite apps shortcuts
the possibility to install apps directly on the watch
full fletched Telegram app (got to give props to the Telegram devs rather than to Google but still: I like)
possibility to stop the notifications from popping up all over the screen (a real problem if you are in a meeting at work with the customer and your friend sends you embarrassing messages so that every one can read them - other scenarios problematic, too) - instead now only a small icon appears and that's it
I'm really only centimeters/inches away from downgrading. Got the AW1.5 image already downloaded, giving AW2.0 some more days of testing, but if that list above keeps growing, I'll downgrade for sure.
There are also other issues with the UI/UX:
i.e., the scroll indicator on the right - historically, that makes sense. But on a watch (which most people are wearing on the left hand) when you reach to the screen for scrolling, you're actually obscuring the screen so you can't see the scroll bar anyway. So what's the point? also, the scroll indicator has the same size no matter how long the list is.
There is probably more, but I've had enough for today.
Cheers
dmckami said:
Old apps don't work anymore (I installed Heart Trace on the phone but it's not appearing on the watch - also not after doing the "sync apps" in the Wear app) - sure this will change for all apps that are still maintained by their devs - but others won't
Cheers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Heart trace works. For some apps I get notifications on watch to install watch companion app, for others I have to manually install on watch via play store. Sometimes you can't find the app in the watch store unless you have it installed on the phone...
derausgewanderte said:
Heart trace works. For some apps I get notifications on watch to install watch companion app, for others I have to manually install on watch via play store. Sometimes you can't find the app in the watch store unless you have it installed on the phone...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, I'll check that once I have charged the watch again. It ran out of battery mid-day today :-/
jowofoto said:
With a few useful actions missing, and really funky updating and subsequent battery drain-
How do you like AW 2.0 on your HW?
What do you miss the most?
What's your favorite new thing from 2.0?
Will you stay with 2.0?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. It's okay. There's a lot of potential, but it doesn't feel like it has been fully realized yet.
2. Not requiring me to press "ok" after I dictate a text message. That defeats the whole purpose of hands free messaging. The battery life downgrade is a bummer, but I charge my watch every night anyway so it doesn't really matter to me. I went from having 60-70% battery left in the afternoon to having about 50% left.
3. Facebook messenger finally works. In fact, all of my notifications work, though some work better than others. I'm looking at you, Outlook. Also, having a keyboard is nice. I think it works surprisingly well considering the tiny screen that it's on.
4. Yeah.
TheSt33v said:
. I'm looking at you, Outlook..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You have Outlook installed on the watch? It's working for me.
With double and triple tap back it would be perfect for me.
derausgewanderte said:
You have Outlook installed on the watch? It's working for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, and it does work, but not as well as the other notifications. The notification is there when I swipe up, but it doesn't appear in a noticeable way when I first get it like my other apps. I have to go looking for it.
twitter on android wear 2.0
Is it just me or is there no twitter support for android wear 2.0?
Well my experience is that wear 2.0 is not an improvement as far as performance and efficiency goes. Been running it for 5 days. now. the watch is laggy, so much so that starting and stopping the stopwatch leads to unreliable times. press the stopwatch start button on my watch face and approx 1/2 second later it starts (tap and the vibration feedback also comes about 1/2 second later). any watch animations seem to be laggy like they are running at 20 frames. battery is lasting half as long (used to be 48 hours, now lucky if I get 24 hours). Love the new app launcher layout but in true google style they half arsed it and didn't carry it into a single other menu on the watch so the usual inconsistency from the guys that implement the standards, well done Google.
RudeboyXL said:
Well my experience is that wear 2.0 is not an improvement as far as performance and efficiency goes. Been running it for 5 days. now. the watch is laggy, so much so that starting and stopping the stopwatch leads to unreliable times. press the stopwatch start button on my watch face and approx 1/2 second later it starts (tap and the vibration feedback also comes about 1/2 second later). any watch animations seem to be laggy like they are running at 20 frames. battery is lasting half as long (used to be 48 hours, now lucky if I get 24 hours). Love the new app launcher layout but in true google style they half arsed it and didn't carry it into a single other menu on the watch so the usual inconsistency from the guys that implement the standards, well done Google.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So I found that having the triple tap feature enabled for zooming was causing my touch reaction lag. no biggy, not a feature I need enabled. but I have found the battery life to be terrible. seems to have gotten worse. The watch uses about 5-10% per hour, if not more at times with little to no use. Can't even get through a full day. This is ridiculous. I went from having state of the art smartwatch with amazing UX to a power hungry wrist calculator. I literally don't like looking at my watch anymore as I'm without doubt going to see my battery drop about 15-20% since I last looked at it. Pathetic. I'm not performing another factory reset as it clearly is the ROM that's the problem. Huawei need to sort this out. All that time waiting and this is what we are given.
Usability wise, it's still nowhere nearly as comfortable to use an an Samsung Gear S3. That said, the UI is smoother and with better readable notifications. The Spotify-card on the Watch is a pain to use though. Sometimes it appears and sometimes it does not (also happens with Play Music).
Battery life is utterly dissapointing. I've had AW2.0 since OTA-day, now at least a week and I get about 1.5 days out of it. On AW1.5 I used to get 4-5 days out of it. Such an gigantic drop in batterylife is something I do NOT like. Now I can't brag about my watch lasting 5x longer than my collegue's Apple Watches :/
So far, Gear S3 is still by far the best watch money can buy. But if you really want Android Wear, imho the Huawei Watch still is by far the best buy.
1. Keyboard is not that easy to use but its good to have keyboard, apps got much better, battery drain is same as always for me (good).
2. I was on DP since DP4 released, but i remember AW1.5 had more beautiful UI that AW2's UI.
3. I can send voice messages via telegram!
4. Definitely.
Sent from my Huawei Mate 8 using Tapatalk
Other then the fact that somehow my max speaker volume changed to super low and the double tap to sleep is gone I am happy. Working with HW support, I did a reset which killed bat for about 4 hrs, but now bat life is same or slightly better than before and play services on watch is much smaller than after OTA update. New navigation took a day or two to get used to, but OK with it now. Like the fact that I have a little more control of what is on watch and how it is used. Probably going back to HW for speaker repair under warranty ( days left). Palm on watch to sleep doesn't work for me, but not a big deal. A few tweaks and it should be a nice OS.
amin318 said:
1. Keyboard is not that easy to use but its good to have keyboard, apps got much better, battery drain is same as always for me (good).
2. I was on DP since DP4 released, but i remember AW1.5 had more beautiful UI that AW2's UI.
3. I can send voice messages via telegram!
4. Definitely.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The voice message feature for telegram is great! It actually makes the watch smarter...no more quick replies or voice message via Google(especially if you speak in an unsupported language)....
And you can also hear the voice messages you receive on the watch directly via the speaker....
Just like a wrist walkie talkie
I just pray to god Whatsapp will implement this as well...
2.0 is the single worst software update I have ever seen. ...
It's almost as if it bypassed even the simplest quality control check!!
Swipe left is now taking you to a watchface rather than menu?? Like seriously?? OMG
Where can I downgrade?
I have had my P20 for about three month now... and it's OK but the Huawei "enhancements" and some other things are very frustrating.
1) Almost none of my "background" stuff works... Meaning things like Google Photo backup, SMS Backup & Restore scheduled backups, and other scheduled services don't run until I open the apps. Not much good to have automatic backups if they aren't automatic. Also, Google Rewards does not notify me of new surveys. Things that happen in the background seems to happen for a short time after you open the app, then they just stop.
2) Multitasking is a joke... On my old Moto G5+, I could have Facebook, Candy Crush Saga (don't judge, I have invested too much time to quit), Pandora, MeWe, Gmail, Messenger, Nine Mail, and a host of other apps running with no issues switching back and forth without them "reloading". On my P20 with the same RAM and supposedly a faster processor, if I am in Candy Crush Saga and switch to Facebook, then switch back, Candy Crush reloads when I was in the middle of level... Much less trying to have Pandora or a few other things going simultaneously. And yet I typically have 1.8-2.1GB of RAM available, it's impossible to actually multitask without apps restarting constantly.
3) Delayed or no notifications... From most apps... Gmail, Facebook, XDA, Nine (a real problem, this is my work email), Calendar, etc. Almost every app that isn't open gives delayed notification, sometimes a minute or two, sometimes hours, sometimes not until it is opened. Other times notifications show up, but no sound is given at all.
These things all seem to be related to how aggressive the memory and application management is to maintain the battery... Sort of making up for the hardware's inefficiencies through software. But it works, battery life is quite good.
4) Inability to change "default" apps like the Gallery... I hate the Gallery, but I love Google Photos as the "gallery" app. You can change it in the settings to the default, but few applications "honor" that setting. And for some reason the Gallery doesn't see all the photos I download with Photos. Weird... And even when you set other non-Huawei apps as defaults, it only works sometimes. This goes back to EMUI's software framework I think. Never had this issue on Motos, Nokias, Pixels, etc.
5) More of an annoyance than anything else, but what the heck is with the lock screen wallpaper? I can't get rid of the Huawei papers, they show up no matter what I do or how many of my own I add, the stock ones keep showing up. I have gone into the lock screen settings and disabled ALL of the embedded ones, and only my folder of about 50 or so images, and I keep getting the stock Huawei ones show up in the rotation.
Then there is the lockups... For example, open Google and search for something, switch to images, and maybe turn on GIF filter or something... This thing will grind to a halt in nothing flat, granted my old Moto would lag a bit, but it was 100 times better than this thing. I get the same thing in some apps but not others without consistency. Or if my UC-One app for work rings, sometimes it works, other times it locks up tight and needs a hard reboot to recover... No other phone out of the 80 or so at work does this. It's just so inconsistent.
And my last gripe is the data lag... At random times, regardless if on mobile data or WiFi, it will just lag out for 10 seconds to 2 minutes, usually once or twice a day, but not consistently... Everything looks fine, good signal strength regardless of source and other devices work fine, but no data will be moving and videos freeze and buffer, Facebook pictures don't load, etc. Granted, this really started after the May 2019 update.
It sounds like I hate this phone, but I do like a lot of things about it... The battery life if good, the charge times are good, the camera is excellent, the sound quality is acceptable, nice screen, not too big or overweight. But man, that new Pixel 3a XL at $20/month is sure looking pretty good.
Am I all alone here, or do others have the same issues?
Oh dude. 99 % of things you mentioned can be handled in the phone settings like telling phone not to shut apps in the background. You should Google before you write things down.
Ragarding your last point with lag: try doing a soft reset and install you carrier settings once again.
I've got the phone for half a year now and after searching and changing some settings it works better than anything else I've seen on a phone I paid 350 EUR for.
EuBir said:
Oh dude. 99 % of things you mentioned can be handled in the phone settings like telling phone not to shut apps in the background. You should Google before you write things down.
Ragarding your last point with lag: try doing a soft reset and install you carrier settings once again.
I've got the phone for half a year now and after searching and changing some settings it works better than anything else I've seen on a phone I paid 350 EUR for.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I take no offense from your comment, but I am not a noob... I have been working with Android since Eclair and smartphones in general much longer, including working on several ROM development teams and am an RC here. I did Google and DID turn off Huawei's "App Launch" management that I assume you are talking about trying to stop the optimizations from EMUI, and a few other things, but this is AFTER that. Although some of them seemed to help a little, it doesn't fix the problems.
Not only have I soft reset, I have done complete factory resets and all of my carrier settings are current... The lag also occurs on WiFi.
My post was kind of a rant, not necessarily looking for a solution unless there was one, and I was looking to see if I was the only one with these issues. Nor am I saying this isn't a good phone... Many of the things I have talked about would not bother many people.
In my case, I'm happy with the phone. Obviously I had some other problem, especially in some of the points you mentioned in the post. As the backup of Google Photos that did not work, but when I opened the app. However, selecting that all applications start manually has worked correctly for me.
I have disabled several applications using ADB. I know it does not erase them definitively, but hey, it's something. I also hate or just do not like the amount of applications that the phone has installed, I see them as unnecessary. I've always tried to use Google apps: calendar, dialer, calculator, clock, contacts, file manager, keep notes, etc. (that means I also disabled the original dialer).
But there is something that haunts me since I upgraded to EMUI 9. And it is a bug in recent applications that has a blue shadow that only appears when using a launcher. As I read, the solution is to disable the EMUI launcher, I did it once, but I prefer the appearance of recent applications of EMUI 9 than the previous ones. (Although I believe that this is poorly implemented).
Disable Huawei power genie app. I think it will solve all your problems with background apps.
You can find instructions online.
Your battery will take a small hit.
The biggest issue is the wifi, very capricious
I have no problem watching a 1080p stream on twitch... but loading the newsfeed on FB, twitter, is sometimes impossible. I have to switch to 4g to load the newsfeed and it's very annoying ... Sometimes i can browse the internet for 5minutes, then nothing would load, for no reason ...
The battery management settings is also very aggressive, and notifications often displayed 1h, 2h late. Occasionally i get a "1 message from " " ... 1 day" on messenger app
One thing i really miss is viper4audio ... I did everything, i can't get this thing to work.
Appart from that, it's a good medium range phone.
maxime4611 said:
The biggest issue is the wifi, very capricious
I have no problem watching a 1080p stream on twitch... but loading the newsfeed on FB, twitter, is sometimes impossible. I have to switch to 4g to load the newsfeed and it's very annoying ... Sometimes i can browse the internet for 5minutes, then nothing would load, for no reason ...
The battery management settings is also very aggressive, and notifications often displayed 1h, 2h late. Occasionally i get a "1 message from " " ... 1 day" on messenger app
One thing i really miss is viper4audio ... I did everything, i can't get this thing to work.
Appart from that, it's a good medium range phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know what phone you have.I think you are on a wrong thread.This is for Huawei P20 which is a premium phone not a midrange phone.
It's not a 800€+ phone, and there's the p20 pro. I bought it for 379€ in europe, just a month after it's release. So for me it's more a medium range phone ^^ the top medium range
costindaemon said:
Disable Huawei power genie app. I think it will solve all your problems with background apps.
You can find instructions online.
Your battery will take a small hit.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you so much for this. I was so tired of having to reload recent apps. It was so bad on my phone that just switching between 2 apps would close the first.
maxime4611 said:
It's not a 800€+ phone, and there's the p20 pro. I bought it for 379€ in europe, just a month after it's release. So for me it's more a medium range phone ^^ the top medium range
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well,for me there are the specifications that make a phone premium/midrange or entry-level.The P20 has specifications that matches a premium 2018 phone.If you were so lucky to find a new P20 in spring 2018 for less than 400 euros,good for you.
costindaemon said:
Disable Huawei power genie app. I think it will solve all your problems with background apps.
You can find instructions online.
Your battery will take a small hit.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ryandos said:
Thank you so much for this. I was so tired of having to reload recent apps. It was so bad on my phone that just switching between 2 apps would close the first.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You don't need to disable the Power Genius app, it can actually do some good... disabling it is functionally equivalent to going to Settings -> Battery -> App Launch and turning off "Manage All Automatically" and that will leave you like most other Android device with the kernel managing everything.
I disabled this at first after @costindaemon mentioned it, but Gmail app notifications, especially for non-Gmail accounts, got wonky... So I re-enabled Power Genius but turned it off as I stated above, then went through the apps and turned some on that I wanted "suppressed"... Gmail is an enigma here though, if it's management is turned off I had issues with notifications and accounts, and in App Launch it had a warning saying something like that, so I turned it on for that app and it's been good since. I have since just monitored the usage with GSAM's App Sucker and anything high on the battery usage list that I didn't want I turned on the Manage Automatically for that app and it no longer misbehaved. Think I have found the happy medium here.
I still have some issues with the phone, most just annoyances now... not to the level of frustration I was at before though. Still looking at that Pixel 3a XL though... it's in the cart, financing approved, but I just can't seem to pull the trigger yet. lol
acejavelin said:
You don't need to disable the Power Genius app, it can actually do some good...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're right. I made a mistake in thinking that disabling power genie worked, when in reality it was just rebooting my phone that temporarily fixed the problem.
I did a bit of googling into a "ram leak" on the P20 and it was actually because I was using a 3rd party launcher (Nova). The solution was to disable the stock Huawei launcher, and since I did that 2 days ago my free ram has not gone below 1000mb. I've installed another launcher in case Nova mucks up.
But it looks like you've moved onto the 3a now, hopefully it's better than the awful software experience that comes with this phone xD. I definitely won't be buying Huawei in the future.
Ryandos said:
You're right. I made a mistake in thinking that disabling power genie worked, when in reality it was just rebooting my phone that temporarily fixed the problem.
I did a bit of googling into a "ram leak" on the P20 and it was actually because I was using a 3rd party launcher (Nova). The solution was to disable the stock Huawei launcher, and since I did that 2 days ago my free ram has not gone below 1000mb. I've installed another launcher in case Nova mucks up.
But it looks like you've moved onto the 3a now, hopefully it's better than the awful software experience that comes with this phone xD. I definitely won't be buying Huawei in the future.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I got my Pixel on Monday... Already think it's 10 times better, except the camera. That 2x "optical zoom" was damn nice although the Pixel's pictures seem a better quality even though they take longer to process. For the camera, I'm still giving the edge to the Pixel but I haven't played with it much yet.
All my issues are gone now and battery life is noticeably better. The Huawei will be going up on the local classified ad sites soon, hopefully the market for them isn't completely tanked.
Sent from my Pixel 3a XL using Tapatalk
Your lockscreen issue is solved by deleting the excess wallpapers from the lockscreen. As you cycle into the first one, tap it and...
Any issues you have don't exist for me. Likely because i always first disable/uninstall most major google apps immediately.
Any problems i've noticed don't appear to me as device specific but rather OS related. To me, this thing performs quite well with impressively low battery drain by comparison.
Hello.
I bought my S20 few days a go, with device everything is great but, my battery is terrible,
I use it every half hour to see do i have new notifications, messages, new posts on instagram and thats it.
I dont play android games or etc.
But with this minimal usage im losing 50% of battery @ work, and i use phone max 1h SOT in 7h of work time.
I tried Naptime but naptime only save my battery when phone is locked, but when im using phone im losing % very very fast.
My settings: Location , bluetooth, NFC disabled. Facebook in hibernation, and i disabled all bloatware with ADB uninstall.
And im using 120hz.
Normally with my settings on other phones i get very good battery life.
I do not want to root my phone, but is there any solution how to get more battery life on S20?
Thanks
Disable all power management except the screen setting which should be set to Optimize.
Disable all cloud apps, all device feedback, Google Transport, Goggle Transport Framework and Playstore. All autoupdates.
See my other posts on this ( good luck with that).
A package blocker is more effective for troubleshooting on the fly. I'm running Pie and Q gives you less tools to see what's going on.
Karma Firewall* is useful to lockdown Goggle Play Services* (a known serial offender) and others.
Nonetheless you need to find the troublemakers as you're burning up the battery.
Play with it... this may take a while.
*you lose its logging ability with Q I believe. A major hit if so.
**toggle on/off as needed.
blackhawk said:
Disable all power management except the screen setting which should be set to Optimize.
Disable all cloud apps, all device feedback, Google Transport, Goggle Transport Framework and Playstore. All autoupdates.
See my other posts on this ( good luck with that).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I looked up every aplication, service and everything is ok, maybe device need to adapt to my usage.
*Device is 2 days old*
But, i did not fully discharged battery on my first use. Can that be the problem?
I know i had to do it but i forgot that.
I had S10+ before this device.
Im using same settings and apps. But difference in battery life is big.
Talentooman said:
I had S10+ before this device.
Im using same settings and apps. But difference in battery life is big.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately you'll need to track it down; no one size fits all. You need to figure out which system and 3rd party apks are responsible.
Use what tools are available and ones you can find for that OS.
Even with all syncing disabled on my 10+ Goggle Play Services relentlessly connects 4 times a minute with the internet. Blocking it toned it's battery usage down.
Brave browser is a hog and will run in the background unless forced stopped; closing its window does nothing.
Fun times... Google did nothing to address this and in fact has been making troubleshooting harder with each new OS using security as a ploy.
I ran Kitkat until last year. In 6 years I've never been forced to reload due to malware... bite me Google. Yeah viruses, trojans, etc are real and can/do infect Androids but almost always it's the user's fault. Transparency is what's needed not scoped storage and more user/apk inaccessibility.
Talentooman said:
I looked up every aplication, service and everything is ok, maybe device need to adapt to my usage.
*Device is 2 days old*
But, i did not fully discharged battery on my first use. Can that be the problem?
I know i had to do it but i forgot that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Let it settle in for a week. You shouldn't need to disable any packages to get good battery . My s20 gets 6.5-7hr sot without disabling anything and just using the 120HZ medium power saving Bixby routine trick , 5.5-6 hrs on optimized . Don't listen to those who say you have to disable a **** ton of stuff and basically cripple your phone...you absolutely don't .
digitaljeff said:
Let it settle in for a week. You shouldn't need to disable any packages to get good battery . My s20 gets 6.5-7hr sot without disabling anything and just using the 120HZ medium power saving Bixby routine trick , 5.5-6 hrs on optimized . Don't listen to those who say you have to disable a **** ton of stuff and basically cripple your phone...you absolutely don't .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Depends on the device, the firmware and what's loaded including carrier and Sammy junk.
I've tried it every which way and now have about 86 apks blocked. Some like Playstore and Galaxy updates get toggle on as needed which isn't often.
Every time with power management when it was used it seemed to work but within a few days it became the problem with excessive power consumption.
Plus and even worse it will screw up phone functionality constantly and inexplicably at times.
Android will manage power and go into deep sleep with all buckets active; no power management needed... at least on my configuration.
Because of the time and trouble invested as well as trash features like scoped storage I refuse to go to Q. This 10+ will most likely run happily on Pie and many of its factory loaded google apks.
Yes updates can and will screw things up; update one or two at a time, observe.
Having a fast, stable, predictable system that runs well with good battery life and does what you want is all that really matters with Android.
Security is very rarely an issue even on ancient software if you aren't inept.
As is I'm ready to do a full reload if needed, be back and running in 2 hours and 99% fully configured by that day with bare minimal internet connection required.
My S20 (Exynos) battery life seems to have improved since the Android 11 / UI 3.0 update.
For sure it isn't perfect but : about 4h SOT and 25% left.
gilzve said:
My S20 (Exynos) battery life seems to have improved since the Android 11 / UI 3.0 update.
For sure it isn't perfect but : about 4h SOT and 25% left.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Im still waiting for update..
Talentooman said:
Im still waiting for update..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Disable all power management except for screen/power mode.
Android does nicely by its self.
The only thing you should have toogled on is fast charging if you use it. Try it.
Once you got it running well be very careful of updates especially firmware. At least wait a while to see if it blows up the phones of others using it.