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I have been looking to purchase the galaxy s 2 for some time now. I've read about alot of problems with the phone but I played with the at&t version and it is super fast, beautiful screen, perfect size and has a great camera. The biggest thing that's keeping me from purchasing it is the audio quality from the headphones. Is it as good as the Iphone 4 or Zune HD(which is my favorite music player) from your experience? Next, hows the battery life compared to the iphone 4 which has great battery life and the only android phone that matched it from my experience was the nexus one. If I do decide to purchase the galaxy s 2, should I get the international version or the at&t version as Im getting them both off-contract. One more question, what kind of 3g speeds are you guys seeing in NYC with the international version and at&t version? Thanks
Now is not the time to get a Galaxy S II in my opinion. Wait for the Prime to come out and either decide on Prime or 4S
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium
My brother just told me that he can get the at&t galaxy s 2 for only $430 so I'll just buy it and if I dont like it, I can sell it for 450-500. I'm really hyped for the prime but I dont know when they are gonna release it and I want to get a new phone over my iphone 4. I dont want the 4S as Im kind of bored by IOS and it was barely an upgrade over the Iphone 4 and I was disappointed, but IOS 5 looks nice.
Wait for prime bro'.
And if I was in New York, I'd sold mine to you.
I recommend you to wait mate, there are some problems with galaxy s2 that still has not been corrected (im running 2.3.4 because i havent got an update few weeks ago greater than that on kies).
The biggest problem with this phone is the retarded overheating, it overheats ALOT when recording at 1080p and playing a decent ammount of games, (i experience overheating issues mostly in 3D games like asphalt 5, Motor Academy, dungeons defenders and more. The overheating issue is a huge downside mainly because it cannot let you enjoy your game without feeling that boiling effect on your fingers and the fact that i worry most of the times for it to not melt the circuitry board inside, like it has happened before with other people (ive only read 1 guy having this problem so far).
But there are also other problems, the oled screen still blurrs, its faster than an lcd but blurr is still there, viewing angles shifts hue to a bit of blue, if u put solid colors like pure gray on whole screen, you will notice the color displays with a different contrast on different parts of screen, the camera displays a pink circle on the screen when in medium lighting conditions viewing white walls or other objects that occupies the whole screen.
Speaker quality is average, there might be more but i cant remember them right now.
This is the best phone i know right now but i recommend you to wait for a better one, hopefully without these problems, if u cant wait and rly like oled then this might be the best one so far.
TheWarKeeper said:
I recommend you to wait mate, there are some problems with galaxy s2 that still has not been corrected (im running 2.3.4 because i havent got an update few weeks ago greater than that on kies).
The biggest problem with this phone is the retarded overheating, it overheats ALOT when recording at 1080p and playing a decent ammount of games, (i experience overheating issues mostly in 3D games like asphalt 5, Motor Academy, dungeons defenders and more. The overheating issue is a huge downside mainly because it cannot let you enjoy your game without feeling that boiling effect on your fingers and the fact that i worry most of the times for it to not melt the circuitry board inside, like it has happened before with other people (ive only read 1 guy having this problem so far).
But there are also other problems, the oled screen still blurrs, its faster than an lcd but blurr is still there, viewing angles shifts hue to a bit of blue, if u put solid colors like pure gray on whole screen, you will notice the color displays with a different contrast on different parts of screen, the camera displays a pink circle on the screen when in medium lighting conditions viewing white walls or other objects that occupies the whole screen.
Speaker quality is average, there might be more but i cant remember them right now.
This is the best phone i know right now but i recommend you to wait for a better one, hopefully without these problems, if u cant wait and rly like oled then this might be the best one so far.
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WHAT? Dude if you have all those problems then you should return your device and get a replacement because i got none of them. This phone is seriously phone of the year and this is my first samsung device. If sammy keeps this up then i am in for good. And about screen getting real hot... I got that problem in the first weeks but then after an update the problem went away. Using lates villainrom now. But like every other dual-core smartphones the phone gets hot when you use it for a long time... Again this happens to every dual-core smartphones as the cpu uses alot of power. And to the op, I seriously recommend you to get this device, unless you're thinking about getting the prime then you should wait a few more weeks. But i dont think that the prime will be much better then SGS2 except better screen.
Umm i don't think you can call it overheating for the sgs 2. In the sense that it is not overheating, it is simply expending the amount of heat proportionate to the amount of work being done. it's like when you play crisis 2 on your computer, your computer gets really hot right? Well an average computer per say, not a prepped, or modded one.
So like the computer, the sgs 2 is bound to heat up since you are forcing it to perform at such high levels, meaning big 3d games, 1080p, etc. To summarize, with great power comes great heat.
Which brings me to another speculation, how bad will the prime or iphone4s heat up? if the Mali does this bad, I'm wondering how the sgx543 will do since it has atleast twice the performance.
Anyways onto your own matter, I'd rather wait than get a half year old device despite the enormous pros.
The SGS2 is kinda cheap now, and it will be even cheaper when the Prime will be out. This phone has good specs, it won't grow old that fast, so i wouldn't go mental for whatever comes next. Anyway, i'd wait a little if i were you
Kailkti said:
Umm i don't think you can call it overheating for the sgs 2. In the sense that it is not overheating, it is simply expending the amount of heat proportionate to the amount of work being done. it's like when you play crisis 2 on your computer, your computer gets really hot right? Well an average computer per say, not a prepped, or modded one.
So like the computer, the sgs 2 is bound to heat up since you are forcing it to perform at such high levels, meaning big 3d games, 1080p, etc. To summarize, with great power comes great heat.
Which brings me to another speculation, how bad will the prime or iphone4s heat up? if the Mali does this bad, I'm wondering how the sgx543 will do since it has atleast twice the performance.
Anyways onto your own matter, I'd rather wait than get a half year old device despite the enormous pros.
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Well then, im not sure what u call melting the circuitry board, but i call it overheating.
as for whoever told me that i should change the phone because someone else got none of those issues, i had changed it 2 times and all 3 i had, had the exact same problems, you probably dont get overheating because you either dont use it for the same apps or games as i do or u have possibly underclocked it or have some sort of battery saving application, or maybe even an unnoficiall firmware, these problems are part of all s2 phones it has been checked plenty of times by plenty of experienced people in this forum, they are nothing new.
PS: i doubt iphone will have such issues, maybe their battery will explode again or maybe it will loose signal if holded with left hand, but i doubt itll have overheating issues, there are some dual cores out there and none have such issue as sgs2 has, it has nothing to do with it beying stressed to much, its either a hardware building fault or a software issue.
The S2 is pure gold still when Prime is out, the phone got no problem at all IF and only IF you follow the root instructions/rom installation instructions step by step, if you forget something, you probably end up with problems. (most forgotten is to install kies drivers or to not shut down kies while flashing with odin).
Prime is gonna be the top phone, so it can be worth wait.. but sure the S2 (2nd best phone by then) will cost about 200 less.
I bought the SC2 right after the iPhone 4s was announced, not regreting, and don't think the the prime will be much better, I probably buy the s3 when it comes out next year.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App
Buddy just go for the phone that YOU want...Galaxy S2 is for me a top top phone..dual core gorgeous screen and memory is great....regarding audio i cant find any faults with it..you have different equalizer settings and you can adjust it to your liking....
regarding the overheating issues i have occured them as well when i first got my phone....since ihave rooted it though and have got my custom rom and kernel that i am using that has gone away now and im experiencing great battery life....like the post above the next handset for me will be the s3....
iphone 4s if the screen was a tad bigger i would of gone for that....but as i said if you cant wait for the prime then s2 is the one for you buddy
TheWarKeeper said:
Well then, im not sure what u call melting the circuitry board, but i call it overheating.
as for whoever told me that i should change the phone because someone else got none of those issues, i had changed it 2 times and all 3 i had, had the exact same problems, you probably dont get overheating because you either dont use it for the same apps or games as i do or u have possibly underclocked it or have some sort of battery saving application, or maybe even an unnoficiall firmware, these problems are part of all s2 phones it has been checked plenty of times by plenty of experienced people in this forum, they are nothing new.
PS: i doubt iphone will have such issues, maybe their battery will explode again or maybe it will loose signal if holded with left hand, but i doubt itll have overheating issues, there are some dual cores out there and none have such issue as sgs2 has, it has nothing to do with it beying stressed to much, its either a hardware building fault or a software issue.
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Well overheating for me means it is expending so much heat whilst doing so little. Meaning it is heating up even though it is on standby or screen off.
Melting the circuit board I think is natural if you expect it to handle so much. Because when the GPU or processor demands so much power/electricity in proportional to the process, and the process is a big one, then of course it will need a lot of power. And where does the power go? Well the wasted becomes heat. And personally i don't think you can compare other past dual cores as none are nearly as good in architecture as the exynos or in fact perform as close, side from the A5.
And yes I do experience great heat when I play games like dead space, dungeon defenders, and so on. But i expect it since the phone is trying its utmost best to perform. Meaning it is trying its best to play at 60fps or more when it isn't needed. Now a solution maybe to cap the GPU and CPU to only produce frames at say 24fps or so. That may fix "overheating".
Note however that above is sincerely speculation as i have no idea how the SoC operates.
My personal experience after 4 weeks with the S2:
It´s great as a fast multimedia device (great images from Camera, HD Video recording and playback of movies and films, internet browsing), but if you plan to use it MUCH as a phone stay away... speaker quality is quite poor, you may experience trouble with echoes due to failing noise redcution, volume with headset is very low.
Other MAJOR downsides i found, compared to other droid phones:
Wlan signal strength very poor, around 20% lower signal rates that LG Optimus. Also 3G signal strenth is poorer than LG. Really disappointing.
AMOLED display is overrated, colors of images are distorted and very unnatural (reds, blues) compared to standard LCD (i´m a photographer so i know how my images should look).
Ob btw,if you plan to use the S2 as a GPS car navigation device forget it, because the battery will be charged at a max rate of 650 mAH even if your car charger can deliver more - at least with Navigon your battery will drop even when charging! What a joke!
Long story short: don´t buy unless you can get it for under 200 USD.
Nexus Prime. Simple.
Or Nokia WP7 if you can wait.
wait for primee buddy, i'd do it
Might wanna look at this phone. Its has all the latest technology packed into a sexy slim stylish design.
http://www.recyclinglives.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/old-mobile-phone-355x360.jpg
Sparksltd said:
Might wanna look at this phone. Its has all the latest technology packed into a sexy slim stylish design.
http://www.recyclinglives.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/old-mobile-phone-355x360.jpg
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You're on to something there!
- Also useful for hand to hand combat.
- privacy, no one will be trying to snoop a look at your screen.
- outdoor hobby requirements, you'll never be afraid of doing an army assault course knee deep in mud with it in your pocket.
My sgs2 , while good, isn't great at meeting the above points.
Go with what agrees with you.
____________________________________________________
sent from my phone using ones and zeros
01binary01 said:
You're on to something there!
- Also useful for hand to hand combat.
- privacy, no one will be trying to snoop a look at your screen.
- outdoor hobby requirements, you'll never be afraid of doing an army assault course knee deep in mud with it in your pocket.
My sgs2 , while good, isn't great at meeting the above points.
Go with what agrees with you.
____________________________________________________
sent from my phone using ones and zeros
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Yea I read somewhere it can be used as a baseball bat too. I wish my gs2 could do that . I loose count the amount of times I've left mine at home while out shopping and I've spotted some chavs.
I belive that the nexus Prime will be on pair wih the Galaxy S2
After having the Prime for slightly over two weeks, I can give you my first impressions, review, and overview of this hyped up tablet. I must say, finding one of these really was hell for me. It took me almost 3 months for a local shop to get stock for reasons unknown. And oh, I'll also be doing a slight comparison between the Prime and the iPad(chill iPad and Android fan boys). Now I must apologize if this is a rather long winded. I'm no professional reviewer. I'm just here to voice out how I feel and to help whoever that is deciding whether or not to buy this tablet. If you disagree with me, it's alright.
First Impressions
Screen
One of the the concerns I had for the tablet was the screen. You might wondering, why I had this concern. After using a Galaxy Note, I was accustomed to the really vibrant and saturated screen known as Super AMOLED. And I had quite a hard time deciding between this or the next Samsung Galaxy tablet(probably a successor to the Galaxy Tab 10.1?). But in the end, I chose this over the latter. I'm glad to say that the screen is actually quite okay. You won't get the crazy saturation and vibrance levels of any Super AMOLED screen, but instead you'll get natural and frankly quite vibrant colours. If you already have or used an iPhone, this screen should be quite similar other than the high pixel density. Talking about pixel density, when I first looked at the screen, I could(almost) see the individual pixels. Uh oh. As I used it, I sort of got used to it. I often wondered why Asus couldn't have used a higher pixel density especially because it's a 10.1 inch screen we're talking about. Visibility under sunlight is rather; disappointing. You can try using Asus's 'Super IPS+ mode' for outdoor viewing but it only makes it slightly more visible. I'm not sure whether Super AMOLED Plus suffers from this too so I can't say much about it. Compared to the Prime, iPad 3's retina display isn't as sharp as I thought it would be. It could be due to the matte screen protector that I applied on it, but the same screen protector on my iPod 4th gen. still looks sharper and more crisp.
Performance
I'll give you a head's up whoever that is not so familiar with the specs of the Prime - it's running on an Nvidia Tegra 3 Quad Core processor chip clocked at 1.4GHz(yes, you read that correctly), a more than sufficient 1GB of RAM and a choice of 32GB or 64GB of storage space expendable up to 128GB with an SD card. Oh, and it comes with a keyboard dock as well. Seeing all those specs, it's definitely an iPad killer, right? No, not really. Until apps and the right software comes, it'll perform like any other dual-core tablet. What a shame. And that's what I felt when I first used it. Ice Cream Sandwich, Google's latest Android operating system performed rather well. I'll be honest and say, that everything wasn't exactly snappy. Even when set to 'Performance mode', the browser crashed every now and then. I downloaded and used Dolphin Browser HD too, same thing happened. I actually came to a point of thinking of selling it for something else since I was so disappointed. I tried searching for solutions and ended up doing a cold boot. That partly solved the performance issues. I guess I'll just have to wait until the next update. Until that update comes or I just feel like flashing a ROM on this, iPad just seems like a faster tablet to me even though it's only the GPU that is quad core.
Battery Life
Advertised of having 18 hours of battery life docked to the keyboard, battery life isn't exactly as impressive as I thought it would be. First off, after using the tablet for internet browsing, Facebook, Instagram checking every now and then for a mere hour and a half, the tablet consumed almost 70% of the tablet's battery. But after using it for a couple of days, it improved significantly. Last night I tested Asphalt 6 for about an hour plus, the battery went down by 18%. As I'm typing this review from my Prime, it has drained about a good 35% in an hour and a half. After reading several forums, I'm pretty sure it's because of the latest update by Asus that caused this, not the tablet itself. iPad has a similar battery consumption rate.
Apps
As we all know, Apple's App Store was the king of all application stores/markets when compared to Google's Play Market(formerly called Android Market) when it started. As of now, the tables have turned. Day by day, I see the number of apps and games for Android tablets increasing steadily. Of course, some might think generally Apple's apps are more robust and premium. And while that is true, I also personally think that Android developers improve over time and learn from mistakes. Comparing the preinstalled applications, I say Android owns the YouTube app hands down. But when comparing browsers, I think Apple's Safari has a slight edge when it comes to the looks and feel of both browsers. Generally, I'd say Google's Apps like GMail, YouTube and Google Play are better on Android.
Overview
I think this is a great tablet despite the flaws I mentioned. It's all just a matter of getting used to. Battery life, the bloat ware and performance issues can be taken care of with future updates or flashing a custom ROM. As for the speakers, investing in a pair of compact speakers or headphones will take care of that. The keyboard dock feature is actually one of the main reasons for getting this tablet. And support for mice and flash drives mean this might be a replacement for your Windows device. Of course, not everything can be done on it but for casual users this is more than sufficient to take care of your browsing, gaming and socializing needs.
And oh, the comparison with the iPad 3. I would say they both have their own flaws. The more apparent question you should ask yourself is not the specs of the tablet, but the operating system they are running on. Is it the open source that Android offers? Or is it the closed, but simpler, but more refined that Apple offers?
Pros
killer hardware
Ice Cream Sandwich
comes with a keyboard dock
good viewing angles
able to hook up a mouse and external flash drives and hard disks! Solves my problems with a tablet
SD card and micro SD card slots
HDMI ports
Cons
battery life
surprisingly sluggish despite hardware
weak speakers
ergonomics were a little weird at first
quad core doesn't really mean a thing until apps support it.
has a fair bit of bloat ware
Here are some pics:
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Yeah, they're all on Instagram more pics coming soon.
Click here for the official product page.
Twice you stated that the Prime comes with a keyboard dock. That's not true. The keyboard dock is a separate purchase. Also you are a little late to the party. There are thousands of reviews and opinions concerning the Prime. I've had mine since December 20th.
Eddie Hicks said:
Twice you stated that the Prime comes with a keyboard dock. That's not true. The keyboard dock is a separate purchase. Also you are a little late to the party. There are thousands of reviews and opinions concerning the Prime. I've had mine since December 20th.
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yeah no offense to the OP but this review is about 4-5 months late
I don't share your preference, but it's precisely that, a personal preference.
On the Apps section, you barely scratched the surface. Sheer quantity of apps not a useful measure. Also, have you seen the Overskreen Browser or Stick It! ? The iPad apps are not necessarily more robust, nor are they necessarily premium. They just cost more (considerably in some cases for the same app on both platforms). What about Amazon's Android app store? They give away a free app every day (some are crap, some are not).
There's a pretty significant difference in cost between the two, relative to what you get. The TP is simply more bang for the buck. Apple likes to sell a Toyota for the price of a Lexus and make you think it's a Ferarri. Any shortcoming is the fault of the reviewer, not the product (you're holding the phone wrong).
Your battery life sounds terrible.... where is your brightness and Super IPS+ on?
And for visibility in the sun, I never had a problem and I've tried to sit in the brightest areas to see how much the IPS affects visibility and it does a pretty good job.
I can't say I aggree with your review really, your issues and critizism just sounds a bit far fetched to me. Your pros kept mentioning features found on the keyboard doc not the tablet. SD card slot, attachable to HDDs, mouse, flashdrives, require USB slots which is on the keyboard.
A review of a tablet, but giving 50% of the pros to just the attachment, Kind of wrong don't you think?
Wow, a lot of negative comments. I thought it was a nice review. If you already own the device and you're not interested in the comments of a new owner...don't read the thread.
bedoig said:
Wow, a lot of negative comments. I thought it was a nice review. If you already own the device and you're not interested in the comments of a new owner...don't read the thread.
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as an owner of one, i was very interested to read a new review. But the review itself just didn't seem very accurate.
yoursexyhero said:
as an owner of one, i was very interested to read a new review. But the review itself just didn't seem very accurate.
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Reviews of a review. Nice.
yoursexyhero said:
as an owner of one, i was very interested to read a new review. But the review itself just didn't seem very accurate.
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Sorry, your post popped up just before mine. I wasn't referring to either of the two comments immediately preceding my own.
bedoig said:
Wow, a lot of negative comments. I thought it was a nice review. If you already own the device and you're not interested in the comments of a new owner...don't read the thread.
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It's part of building concensus. His review was fine. Better than most, but he opened himself up for ridicule with his unsupported statements about the apps and the app store. Twice, bloatware was mentioned, yet no detail of what this bloatware is. I don't recall seeing AOL, Compuserve, nag-ware Anti-virus trials, or 90-trial versions of productivity apps installed on my TP when I got it.
Many are interested in the comments of a new user, but few will take a Mulligan when it comes to inaccuracies or other unsubstantiated criticism.
Great review...Looking forward to your next review on the Motorola Xoom!!
Just messing with you man, but yes you are just a little late.
I question your battery life results.
An hour and a half of web browsing, Facebook & Istagram shouldn't use up 70% of your battery, especially if you are using the Prime with it's keyboard dock.
Even if you had the brightness turned all the way up, IPS+ turned on and were running on High Performance mode, I don't think it is possible to use up 70% of the Prime's battery in 90 minutes with the usage you described.
I have played highly demanding games like Dead Space, Dark Meadow and Modern Combat 3 for 2-3 hours in a row on my own Prime and I almost always have slightly less than half of the Prime's (tablet only) battery remaining when I stop playing.
When doing light stuff like web browsing an Instagram for a few hours a day, it is common for me to go two or 3 days between charging.
almightywhacko said:
I question your battery life results.
An hour and a half of web browsing, Facebook & Istagram shouldn't use up 70% of your battery, especially if you are using the Prime with it's keyboard dock.
Even if you had the brightness turned all the way up, IPS+ turned on and were running on High Performance mode, I don't think it is possible to use up 70% of the Prime's battery in 90 minutes with the usage you described.
I have played highly demanding games like Dead Space, Dark Meadow and Modern Combat 3 for 2-3 hours in a row on my own Prime and I almost always have slightly less than half of the Prime's (tablet only) battery remaining when I stop playing.
When doing light stuff like web browsing an Instagram for a few hours a day, it is common for me to go two or 3 days between charging.
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When I had my Prime, I tracked battery life pretty closely. I've posted about it elsewhere on this forum, but basically my battery life was about like this (balanced mode, screen brightness about 30%, non-IPS+ mode):
1. Video: Prime was great here, burning about 7%/hour. I think the 5th core was being used exclusively for Netflix, etc.
2. Ebook reading, email, etc: use was about 10%/hour.
3. Browsing: for some reason, browsing was a little more battery-intensive, at about 15%/hour. This included any app that used the browser engine, like RSS readers.
4. Gaming: heavy gaming burned between 20-30%/hour.
So, even with intense gaming, the Prime should last at least 3.5 hours. And, I'd have considered that decent enough, all considering. Toss it in the dock, and you could game for over 5 hours.
wynand32 said:
When I had my Prime, I tracked battery life pretty closely. I've posted about it elsewhere on this forum, but basically my battery life was about like this (balanced mode, screen brightness about 30%, non-IPS+ mode):
1. Video: Prime was great here, burning about 7%/hour. I think the 5th core was being used exclusively for Netflix, etc.
2. Ebook reading, email, etc: use was about 10%/hour.
3. Browsing: for some reason, browsing was a little more battery-intensive, at about 15%/hour. This included any app that used the browser engine, like RSS readers.
4. Gaming: heavy gaming burned between 20-30%/hour.
So, even with intense gaming, the Prime should last at least 3.5 hours. And, I'd have considered that decent enough, all considering. Toss it in the dock, and you could game for over 5 hours.
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browsing will always be a heavy battery burner on prime. with or without flash on. same goes for my Ipad. web browsing is very RAM intensive. it can burn up alot of ram fast. so therefore its going to burn battery at a faster rate. now ddr3 ram would probably make web browsing burn up less battery since its more energy/power efficient. but even web browsing on my Ipad burns battery faster.
As for the op battery claims, it seems way off to me. never heard of battery burning up that fast with the little bit he said he did.
Battery is something I dont even worry about on the Prime. Asus got the battery department right
Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using xda premium
Here's a fast and dirty for anyone looking at a prime :
For the love of GOD, wait until they release the .25 update. Staying stock on .21 is just asking for suffering. The bloat is there, no doubt, mostly from ASUS putting it's own widgets in - a task killer sounds like a nice plan until you find out it's more likely to CAUSE problems than it solves.
Right now there's definitely something up with the way the kernel interfaces with the Teg 3 chipset, the .25 update apparently will cure this, which will in turn result in better stocklike releases and some inlining of new kernels for the AOSP crowd.
If you're okay with toasting the warranty, there's budding dev support, and there's some genuinely good reworks of Stock available, or for those looking for the pure AOSP experience, there's more than enough excellent choices to cover you.
It's a genuinely excellent tablet, but ASUS, no offence, but you need to make with the chop chop on getting this tablet up to full speed. B- for your software, when even single developers with some time, motivation and a working build environ can outdo what you supply.
There, by now everything else that IS worth discussing regards hardware and the android ecosystem has been covered, what I've given is a quick skinny as to the Prime's current position.
Eddie Hicks said:
Twice you stated that the Prime comes with a keyboard dock. That's not true. The keyboard dock is a separate purchase.
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Now you see that all depends on having a narrow world view and continuing the belief that the only country in the world is the USA. There are some global territories where the only option is with a dock. Like the UK for example.
Apologies, and a little more elaboration.
My apologies to everyone for doing this review so late. I'm pretty sure many of you have already gotten it. But there are friends of mine who haven't, and are still deciding. Once again, I'm no pro in this so I'll take any criticism as lessons. I'm just letting people know how I felt of this tablet. Yes, of course, I've listed many pros of the keyboard, because it's one of the main reasons why I got it. I'm pretty sure you already know that it has the killer hardware etc. but that doesn't mean everything. Usability, is. As far as I know, trying to play a movie when I was in the car was rather uneasy. I could see the movie, but it's rather unadvisable if you'd ask me. I am not sure whether my copy is faulty or whatsoever, but I hope not. I just find it kind of ridiculous that even though I purchased a high end tablet, there's still tweaking to do to make it perform as it should. I will follow up a more complete continuation of the review in the near future. To whoever that disagrees with me; you're entitled to your opinions and so am I. I find it ironic whenever some argument happens because of something so small like this. As f now, until another update becomes available or I flash a custom ROM on this, I'm not 100% satisfied with this tablet.
Eddie Hicks said:
Twice you stated that the Prime comes with a keyboard dock. That's not true. The keyboard dock is a separate purchase. Also you are a little late to the party. There are thousands of reviews and opinions concerning the Prime. I've had mine since December 20th.
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It is. It came with the dock for me. Yeah, already noted. The whole point of this review is not for the already existing owners of this tablet, but for the ones for who are deciding.
almightywhacko said:
I question your battery life results.
An hour and a half of web browsing, Facebook & Istagram shouldn't use up 70% of your battery, especially if you are using the Prime with it's keyboard dock.
Even if you had the brightness turned all the way up, IPS+ turned on and were running on High Performance mode, I don't think it is possible to use up 70% of the Prime's battery in 90 minutes with the usage you described.
I have played highly demanding games like Dead Space, Dark Meadow and Modern Combat 3 for 2-3 hours in a row on my own Prime and I almost always have slightly less than half of the Prime's (tablet only) battery remaining when I stop playing.
When doing light stuff like web browsing an Instagram for a few hours a day, it is common for me to go two or 3 days between charging.
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Click to collapse
Hmm, I'll get back to you on the battery life. Maybe it just needs time until the battery will learn my usage like some reviews I've read from others. But I do notice that whenever browsing takes place, the draining becomes worse. Gaming now seems fine, and I think it'll last for about 4 hours? I've also read there has been some complaints about the latest update .21 bringing battery drain when using WiFi. Oh, and btw it's 70% drained from the keyboard's battery, not the tablet's.
Nice review!
Hopefully the next update will fix the sluggish performance and improve battery life.
Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using xda premium
Its not perfect but after all the criticisms i have to say i like it
Sent from my TrueSmart using XDA Free mobile app
It's ok, I like mine too
What do you like about it though?
I'm getting another SIM to use in it and I think I'll like it more then, but the fact that the companion app is so poor means that the integration with bluetooth isn't an option really.
I'm quite happy with it too.
I have the 1/8 2100 version, and all seem to work well.
- It started up out of the box
- The cradles charge ( I got the extra one I ordered)
- the buttons don't fall off
- call quality is awesome
- screen sensitivity is good (sometimes a little too good, but hey)
- bluetooth, wifi and gps have a proper connection
- "back button" swipe left action works
And in general use:
- surprisingly easy to read on small screen
- even able to watch short video/tutorials on watch (very handy when needing both hands free)
- app installing/start up goes quick
- I use Minuum Keyboard now, and that is awesome, Frees up half the screen for reading conversations, perfect!
- with Minuum keyboard it's also easy to make small voice commands that turn to text, for me works even quicker than responding with the "normal phone" in the old days
by having the phone on the wrist it makes checking if you need to respond 10 times faster. Just a flick of the hand and a two finger swipe when you get a short vibrate or buzz from a message/email/update and you are ready. Where as the "normal phone" you have to get out of the pocket, check and put back.
The two biggest downside that I find, are not necessarily omate related but more smartwatch in general:
- by having the watch on your wrist, if you use it for typing, by default are using both arms. Where as a "normal phone" you can operate with one hand.
- I don't 100% like the reading angle: you have to hold your arm really parallel to the body to read without make strange neck moves. Having "landscape" mode is even worse.
I think about 35 degree angle of the arm would be a way better reading position. That maybe would be the biggest advantage of the round type smartwatches like the moto 360, the ability to adjust the screen orientation till it ergonomically fits you best.
Wiggz said:
What do you like about it though?
I'm getting another SIM to use in it and I think I'll like it more then, but the fact that the companion app is so poor means that the integration with bluetooth isn't an option really.
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Click to collapse
My experience is pretty much identical to timkey's. It does what its supposed to. Typing is obviously slower but its better than I thought. Screen is sharp. It's fast. And it's a phone on my wrist I think rooting it and putting on soft keys and a status bar are pretty essential though. I do find the touch screen goes a little haywire sometimes.
To help with the viewing angle, I wear it a little loose and then I can twist it slightly towards me.
Sent from my LG-V500 using XDA Free mobile app
I like it because it functions just how I wanted it to. Its quite simply an android phone on your wrist, which is pretty damn awesome. Calls work pretty good, texting on this is awesome (so handy being able to just look at your wrist), and it's pretty much taken every app and game I've thrown at it so far. I also like being able to throw a song on and have handsfree music, so I can cut rebar or something at work and have music. And to top it off, I get pretty great battery life out of it. It's always lasted at least a full day, if not two. Even after two days the lowest I've had it is 30%
So, despite the company itself acting like a total noob for supporting this, it does function quite well (after some necessary patching of course). Having proper sources and support with proper firmware updates and having more tweaks android is known for available, would all just be icing on the cake.
So would those who like it buy a TS2, or has the arrogance and sheer mismanagement of Omate put you off, even though you enjoy the product?
I enjoy mine, though I can rarely use it as intended due to water issues. I have a T-Mobile sim in it. I would not only not ever buy anything associated with Omate ever again, but also not Umeox and not MTK. Never Again.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
It depends. I mean, the reality is I paid about £120 for a brand new android phone in watch form. If the TS2 was also a bargain, I'd probably get one. Hopefully they would learn some good lessons from this.
I am an engineer and did my degree in electronics, so I have some experience with product development. It was very clear to me that the timescales Omate were claiming were ridiculous and that made me question their competence. I'm still impressed they produced what they did as fast as they did. The testing problems people are experiencing are not acceptable but they are expected. Omate kinda painted themselves into an corner with their optimistic claims and high ambitions.
Now, all that said, I don't see what I would want from a TS2 that in don't get from this device. Its too small to do anything too intricate. It creates a WiFi hotspot and provides basic smartphone functionality well, which is all I need it for. Maybe if I got a 4G data plan, it might be good to have a watch that can make use of it but that's all I can think of.
Sent from my LG-V500 using XDA Free mobile app
The device has potential. I could maybe live with the HW shortcomings like IP rating, non-responsive buttons, add SD-card kills back seal etc as well as HW limitations like a little too heavy and too thick. The delays and communication failure from Omate is a separate story. I believe llepen believes what he says, he is still communicating still.
What I do not accept is the crappy firmware, that is HW specific. Noproper open source either. That kills BTLE, battery etc, as well as limits the adaptations required to get Android usable on a small device. I am not talking about limiting functionality like Android Wear, but an adapted Android experience w button actionssweep. Omate/Umeox mostly relies on MediaTek, and MediaTek seem to make good HW, but are both breaking GPL and incompetent in SW development.
I love my TS. I tried to have few expectations as to not be let down if it sucked, but I was happy to find that it was just about everything I could hope for in a smartwatch. It is solidly built, not too big, the screen is very sharp and sensitive, the camera is Good Enough(tm) (though the camera app really should rotate 90 degress left, which it does in the BlueTooth tether ROM, iirc).
My one major complaint is that Omate's version Android is awful. I work around it with third-party software (e.g. Nova Launcher, All in One Gestures), and with some effort, after-market ROMs can be ported. I'm very disappointed that no sources are available, but we all knew that would be the case.
That the notification bar is always hidden bugs the heck out of me, but the BlueTooth tether ROM fixes that.
Screen-on battery life is okay; not great, not awful, but it charges very quickly, so that's usually not a big deal. Screen-off life is fantastic.
I wish I could change the DPI for Ingress. It would be so cool to be able to play on my wrist.
Working with Omate is indeed like rolling a boulder uphill, and while I'll probably never buy anything from them again until they prove themselves reliable, I do believe Le Pen is trying. And I'm as disappointed with Omate as I am with those who continue to try to poison the TS community, making productive, open collaboration difficult.
timkey said:
I'm quite happy with it too.
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Click to collapse
I agree with just about everything you say. Anymore I use my phone only for long text conversations and more-than-casual web browsing. Everything else is done on my TS. Flesky is remarkably easy to use once you get used to it (although whoever decided to put backspace next to return needs a smack in the face). I'm especially happy that it's so easy to read text on the small screen as I read lots of RSS feeds on and off all day long.
The reading angle bothered me at first, but my arm just had to get used to being held in an unfamiliar position.
gerhardo said:
I could maybe live with the HW shortcomings like IP rating, non-responsive buttons, add SD-card kills back seal etc as well as HW limitations like a little too heavy and too thick.
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Click to collapse
The IP rating and back seal issues don't matter much to me, but I can see how that would be a disappointment to other users. The button responsiveness, weight, and thickness are fine for me. It did seem a bit heavy for the first day or two, but I quickly got used to it.
nicktastique said:
I wish I could change the DPI for Ingress. It would be so cool to be able to play on my wrist.
Working with Omate is indeed like rolling a boulder uphill, and while I'll probably never buy anything from them again until they prove themselves reliable, I do believe Le Pen is trying. And I'm as disappointed with Omate as I am with those who continue to try to poison the TS community, making productive, open collaboration difficult.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Xposed Framework
Xposed Per App Settings
I consider setting default dpi to something higher than 120, to see better and change dpi where needed
gerhardo said:
Xposed Framework
Xposed Per App Settings
I consider setting default dpi to something higher than 120, to see better and change dpi where needed
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, but it doesn't work, and others have confirmed. Is your experience different?
Smockingjacket said:
So would those who like it buy a TS2, or has the arrogance and sheer mismanagement of Omate put you off, even though you enjoy the product?
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Click to collapse
No.
While I like the watch itself, if I were to drop another $200-$300 on a new watch, it would be from a company that can support it's device a little more competently. I really doubt we'll ever see a firmware update.
Although as long as this watch doesn't **** the bed I should be using it for a good long time. It functions pretty much like I want it to, so I don't feel the need to upgrade anytime soon.
I like it as well. After changing launcher and installing a few apps I felt it was usable. I tried for a while to use it as phone replacement. It DOES work as that, but the upsides of having a watch (smaller / lighter than a phone, won't forget something strapped to your arm and so on) doesn't really outweigh the downsides (hard to type, sometimes hard to navigate menus, small screen causing readability and layout issues, battery is slightly worse than my phone, etc). The most annoying issue though is when the screen goes into over-sensitive mode and register button press all over the place. Someone said it gets a lot better with a screen protector on, I will try that.
However, it does work great in some areas. My main use is for exercise - RunKeeper (and similar apps) works great. I can take a run, track my progress, listen to music, and see notifications if someone is trying to reach me, without needing a much more cumbersome phone jumping around in my pocket.
It's also useful when I'm outdoors, say fishing or hiking. While it isn't waterproof, it does what I need (gps / maps, tell time, make calls if I need to, no risk of dropping it).
So overall, it's a nice device (even though software and such needs some urgent updates). Maybe not great for a phone replacement but for outdoor use and exercise it's really good imo.
nicktastique said:
Yes, but it doesn't work, and others have confirmed. Is your experience different?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Works fine for me, using it for SuperSU and Titanium.
Well, the TS is unavailable again: Screen is black, no response to buttons (except the feedback I added with Xposed Additions to get virtual physical button) and no adb. adb is a common issue, very seldom works. But I have my device for a couple of days, I have occasionally borrowed one for time to time though.
He means that changing the DPI to 90 for Ingress doesn't work, I think, gerhardo.
Actually, I play Ingress with my TrueSmart and the stock Ingress client (only) and it mostly does work. Hacking and firing work fine from the front screen long press menu and I was even able to deploy I found recently mainly by lucky pressing in the portal view on a crunched up set of buttons there. I had previously thought deploying impossible with stock and stock. Its still impractical.
What was reported no longer working was adjusting the DPI because of some change Niantic introduced into their code at some point a while back. I have not tried that anyway.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
trent999 said:
He means that changing the DPI to 90 for Ingress doesn't work, I think, gerhardo.
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Click to collapse
Yes that's what I mean in particular. Ingress no longer honors density settings via App Settings. It doesn't even appear to honor ro.sf.lcd_density on the TS, though it does on my Note 2 (which is annoying since it's set to 280).
I like mine too (1/8 2100 Dev).
Straight from the box, no patch, no rom, no bootloader, no nothing. The apps tho aren't there but it's almost like when the new Xbox, Playstation or Nintendo come out - people don't introduce games until the hardware is in use. I figure the developers of apps are waiting, working and planning something awesome for all smartwatches (not just companions).
Omate, well, hopefully, lessons on their side have been learned and fingers crossed the TS2 (if there is one) will be better planned for.
Hats off to SWApp Link tho. The app is the best thing that's been introduced for me. I had my SIM in my phone originally, then the watch and now back to the phone (just to work out what is best for me - I take a lot of photos and use 4G too much so my Note 3 is where my SIM is needed most) but the app - Bluetooth aside - is absolutely wonderful.
I don't regret buying the TureSmart, nor regret using Kickstarter - I have backed many an idea over the months. My regret is that the technology in total isn't there, yet.
But thank you XDA for being here :good:
PURPOSE
So 1st and foremost, the plan here is to give you my experience with these 2 phones. Granted, I have only used the Axon 7 for about 3 days now and can say I have yet to fully break it in to find everything that may or may not be right / wrong with it. However, this will be a unbiased look and comparison. I'm neither a fanboy or sheep. No brand affiliation. Not a programmer either, just a pro-sumer Senior Member of XDA willing to get trolled, flamed, etc. for sharing a look at these 2 phones. Hopefully, I can give "the everyday guy / gal look" without getting bogged down in stats, variables or benchmarks. Here goes...
MY BACKGROUND
No one special. Just a guy that likes the latest tech... phones being at the top of the list. I am a nerd. No doubt about that. I think anyone that knows about XDA probably is to some extent. No brand loyalty. Recently, I have had the privilege to try out the following phones:
1. Axon 7
2. OnePlus 3
3. HTC 10
4. LeEcco Le Max 2
5. Huawei P9
6. LG G5
7. Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge
8. Huawei Mate 8
9. Huawei Nexus 6P
10. LG Nexus 5X
11. Samsung Note 5
12. Apple iPhone 6s+
And probably some more, but these are the most recent. Does that make me qualified to make a review... Maybe. It does make me an idiot that likes new phones, though. I am always looking for something that meets my needs but also is a good phone. Currently with TMobile but have been with ATT, Verizon & Sprint at some point over 20 years of using cell phones.
MY NEEDS
I drive about 40 miles everyday to work (yes, my work week is currently 7 days a week with a few occasional days off). So, with this in mind and where I drive, I need the minimum requirements:
1. Can Stream Music
2. Bluetooth is fully compatible with my 2016 vehicle
3. An equalizer of some sort since I have only switch out my new cars speakers for better ones and don't plan on changing or adding a better sound system.
4. Decent pictures when needed
5. As a nerd, I like to "mesmerize" people with a pay with your phone app like Apple Pay or Android Pay
6. Works with my Huawei Watch
7. Relatively not laggy - will sometimes do some ROM-ing or some customization but since I tend to get rid of the phones quickly I try not to void warranties or make it too non-stock
THE COMPARISON
I am looking at my experience with the OnePlus 3 and the Axon 7 under/around these requirements and some normal stuff like battery, screen, snappiness, heat, speakers, etc. Here goes:
SOUND OVERALL
There is not too many times when I do a review comparison where 1 phone just crushes the other... and I don't mean like crushing an empty aluminum beer can in your hand crushing... I mean like BigFoot crushing late model junk cars at the end of a Monster Truck Rally Crushin'.... 'Mericaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!! Sorry got carried away there a second. Honestly, how phone manufacturers cannot include a system-wide sound equalizer with all the other STUPID GUI tweaks and bastardizations they do to Android especially is beyond me in 2016. Most people are transitioning to bluetooth headphones or have bluetooth in their cars and for the most part use streaming services to/for music. Yes, there is the occasional dude with the $1000 plug-in headphones that also plugs into a in-line $2000 DAC that only listens to download Loseless Quality Music with the Music App that came with the phone.... with a show of hands, how many fall into this category??? Then why pray tell is this the only music equalization most manufacturers are catering too on their phones (Apple included)? I don't know just wanted to rant a little. With that said though, the inclusion of Dolby ATMOS without having to root on the Axon 7 plus its dual stereo forward facing speakers makes this a non-competition. Yes, you could add ViperATMOSBeatsDon'tcare Mod.zip to a rooted TWRP OnePlus 3... but why should I have to? Why can't some system-wide equalizer be included Mr. FlagShip Killer? Look at their own Community Forum and its one of the most active requests since the OnePlus 3 came out (along with actually using all the RAM the phone has)... Good Work ZTE!!! I'm sure for all you headphone people too that the AXON 7 would dominate even though I have zero to judge that on since I have never taken either the OnePlus 3's headphones nor the AXON 7's headphones out of the box.
WINNER: AXON 7 BigFoot- Crushing OnePlus 3 Grave Digger.
BATTERY
People get bent out of shape nowadays about the "wall hugger" syndrome... this is the need to re-charge your phone more than once, twice, 3-times etc. per day and being attached to a charger constantly. Well, we only have ourselves and technology to blame. Battery technology has yet to progress to a point that adequately matches all the other advances cell phones have made... I can remember in the 90's getting my first Li-ion Battery Cell Phone and was like "WOW!!! I can charge this anytime I want, days of battery life, no need to discharge the whole phone before recharging and no need for extra batteries..." Fast forward almost 30 years... AND its the same type of battery... So no phone truly wins here until technology gets better. This too along with our need for skinny things... women, cocktails, bank account, soda, etc. have phones getting increasingly skinnier without ever considering what it has do with the battery is disturbing. If only we could get back to the simpler times of a bagphone, then the battery could be as big as you want it... AHHH, the simpler times. HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Really though, the batteries on both phones perform very similar in my use. The place where they differ the most is the charging. For OnePlus 3, you have to use their proprietary DASH Charge as oppose to QuickCharge 3.0. This means you can only buy OnePlus 3 chargers (or some not trustworthy knock offs) to take advantage of feature... it's not so bad now that they made the car charger available again on their website and the phone comes with a wall plug with the feature... it's just a departure from the standard many others are using and requires new accessory purchases... basically a OnePlus Money Grab.... DASH Charge is slightly faster but not enough for anyone but a battery loving neophyte to really take notice.
WINNER: AXON 7 - Sorry QuickCharge 3.0 Industry Standard beats proprietary DASH Charge even though DASH Charge is slightly faster.
HEAT
Not going to spend much time here. Both phones run Snapdragon 820's. Both phones are metal... guess what... they get hot under stress... so no winners here, only losers. Neither had to be powered off for getting too hot though, like my S7 needed to when I was doing its initial setup... so there's that. :good:
WINNER: Both or None... They get hot under processor stress and in the dreaded "At an event and have your camera constantly on then stick it in your pocket only to have 3rd degree burns on your thighs or butt" Test
SNAPPINESS
Neither phone I have taken the time to Mod or root or stare at compassionately... but both perform really well like they should. Now, let the 6GB vs. 4GB debates begin!!! First, it is well known that even after 2 updates, the OnePlus 3's RAM management is still wonky and does not fully utilize all that RAM. No matter. I can't see an advantage yet. Yes you could AnTuTu-whogivesapoop test them all day. I rather just talked about how using the phone feels. Neither have extensive bastardizations over stock android so neither grinds the phone to a halt like TouchWizCement does. I run the BETA of Sense 8 Launcher for All Android Phones on both. Both phones perform well with it. I have played Pokemon GO! on both along with Clash Royale... both run fine. GPS works good on both and locks in fairly quickly. It isn't the best I have seen but not the LG Worst either Until there's another processor to look at, I think most manufacturers are taking full advantage of the limits of the 820. Throwing RAM at it doesn't dramatically do anything either. I guess it good to always have it in your back pocket if needed.
WINNER: ONEPLUS 3 - Simply because it has more RAM, no real-world experience proves it faster. Fanboy Benchmarkers withstanding
************DISCLAIMER / NEWSFLASH************* FOR IT PEOPLE FROM NEW JERSEY AND/OR GENERAL KNOW-IT-ALLS
YES... One can easily claim that RAM on the face of it has nothing to do with Snappiness since no present day Android phone fully utilizes 4GB let alone 6GB of RAM... The point to be made here is that the OP3 although having more RAM has no advantage in snappiness over an AXON 7. With that said, since both phones cost the same, neither phone is snappier, why not pick the one with more RAM based on stats alone... for this particularly on the face of it unrelated category? Furthermore, there has been many tests of the OP3 that show that RAM in a way DOES influence its snappiness when compared to 4GB phones... not because of the amount of RAM but by OP3's RAM MANAGEMENT. Lastly, although it may seem like a marketing ploy now for OP3 to have 6GB of RAM since it is not needed since it is not utilized.... I have kind of heard this argument before... when phones had 1GB of RAM and 2GB phones were introduced, then when 3GB phones were introduced, etc. etc. and from basically every iSheep out there, that more RAM does not necessarily make a phone better or faster. Albeit true for the most part for Apple because they spend a vast amount of time developing their RAM Management and have iOS lock down, for Android and what seems to be a lack of development on this front, RAM amounts increase to handle the sloppiness of the RAM Management and/or lack of focus on developing this overlooked section of the phone's programming. Basically, OP3 moves the needle for better or worst towards 6GB at the same price as 4GB... more is more in this one scenario only...
DISPLAY
Not much to mention here either. Both have good displays. On paper, the AXON 7's is better. I would say that the average person not knowing that one has higher resolution than the other would have a hard time calling it out. Color reproduction is about the same on both as well. Neither have a "always-on" feature which would have been nice. Both have LED's for notifications. Here's where once again you just have to stick with the stats and say....
WINNER: AXON 7 - higher stats mean better screen right!!!!???
PHONE DESIGN
Wow! a bit to talk about here. Let's start on both phones exterior features and design. Both are designed well. Definitely not ugly by any stretch of the imagination. The AXON 7 was designed with help from BMW and significantly improves on the previous generation iteration, like having actual speakers in both of the speaker grill looking forward facing top and bottom of screen. I do have the gold AXON 7... the color isn't the greatest but I wasn't going to wait for the gray one to come out to test it... I might return the gold for a gray if they become available in my return window. The OnePlus 3 is a pretty phone too. It doesn't have a firm like BMW attached to it, but one feels they did a good job of improving on the OnePlus 2 design without getting away from their bread and butter core design elements. With that, I love the alert slider... call me an isheep but I feel to this day that it is the single greatest design advantage the iPhone has had over any Android phone for years now. Although not as perfectly functional as Apples is, the OnePlus 3 is a great feature. Both have excellent fingerprint readers. Very fast. For my use case, a front facing fingerprint reader is better. That's my use case, in a cradle, in my car, that I get in and out of while sometime leaving my phone in the cradle, makes the front facing reader slightly more convenient. NFC chip and camera placement good on both as well. AXON 7 does have one design characteristic that I found annoying and I noticed while playing Clash Royale.... the power button is on the right side of the phone near the center. While playing and trying to drag drop to the top of the screen, you can easily inadvertently toggle the on/off button, this might be the button is overly sensitive or just my clumsiness. OnePlus 3 scores some extras too with swapstyle cases... Why can't other phone manufacturers take notes here. I think it is great that I can get relatively cheap exclusively designed nice looking cases for my OnePlus 3... for the AXON 7, I'm stuck with Chinese knock off cheesy poop designed cases with TPU raining from skies... I need a case and sure the first thing that comes to mind when I get a nice looking professionally designed by BMW phone is to put it into a TPU trashcan of a case because 0.0 (zero point zero) cases by ZTE are available or even look worthy of residing on the phone.... yep, I so love it. AXON 7 does step it up with one thing, SD card compatibility. More storage... sure I can use that anytime...
WINNER: TIED - OnePlus 3 would have won here, but not having SD Card capability is just dumb... especially since you used the space for a dual SIM.
*********************ADDITIONAL DESIGN DISCUSSION************CAPACITIVE BUTTONS ON THE AXON 7**********************
Purposely I left this discussion out about the capacitive buttons on the AXON 7. WHY? You may ask. At first, like many, when I heard that not only does the AXON 7 only have capacitive buttons without the option to toggle to turn them off for on-screen buttons, the buttons themselves do not light up, did make me a little worried. But to not buy a phone based on a untested worry is just fear mongering at it best, plus I bought my AXON 7 from Amazon so that I could easily return it if I hated it. Well, surprisingly the capacitive button "issue" is really just a bunch of hype... yes, I do think that OP3 has the advantage here with the toggle for on-screen and that its buttons light up. However, the AXON 7 does provide a on-screen button solution although it is way more sloppy looks wise then OP3's. The whole light up button thing to me can be excused by what was an intentional design choice by ZTE. So, unlike the OP3 which has its all app and back buttons spread out along the bottom of the display, the AXON 7 distinctively has its all-app and back buttons crowded towards the center closer to the central home button. Why do this? Well, from my use in dark rooms and at night, it makes not seeing the actual buttons not an issue. Let me explain further. I know from muscle memory that the home button is in center of the bottom of screen... pretty easy to hit in a completely dark room unless I'm drunk that is... being able to do this on muscle memory then in turn with a slight adjustment to the right, makes it easy to hit the back button (setup for right hand in the AXON 7's setting) and same to the left with the all apps button. If the buttons were spaced out like OP3's without lights then it would be an issue... but in this case and what I hope is design answering function, the AXON 7 doesn't have an issue... once again to me, maybe not you.... hahahahaha
CAMERA
I have done a couple of these reviews and every time I point out that I am not a big fan of cameras on phones. I went to school for photography and movie making back when film was still used. Have seen lenses that cost more than my current house and have seen Ansel Adams original prints first hand. So, it makes me a camera snob... thus, my opinion of on phone cameras is that they are all Bantha PooDoo. However, improvements are made with every new phone and even though innovations have seem to slow in favor of the pixel wars... one day they might be great.
Looking at both and later I will put up some similar shots from both, each phone have decent cameras. The OnePlus performs better in low light especially however I would not count the AXON 7 out in the cold as I feel that the AXON 7's low light difficulties might be able to be corrected with feature updates. The AXON 7 does have it's ripoff version of a "live photo" that works pretty decent plus some decent scenario modes that just work better for pictures I may take. The OnePlus 3's camera software is just basic with good custom manual settings. The AXON 7 has manual mode as well. Like I said, I will upload some similar shots from each and you can decide.
WINNER: TBD
CONCLUSION
So, what can I conclude? Both phones are awesome... Both have plus and minuses. I don't think there's a clear hands down winner and would not want to argue that point. I can only tell you that beyond everything else that the lack of a system-wide equalizer for sound just annoys little brown stinkies out of me. My commute to work is a big part of my day sometimes 7 days a week. I want to listen to Sirius XM app and Google Play Music so it sound great in my car. I want to set some equalization that make it sound awesome then forget it is even there. Not constant resetting of bass boost, tweaking sound to have it all reset again and again. Why provide a basic equalizer in Google Play Music on the OnePlus 3 that always has the bass setting reset when a call comes in, you switch to a new app or the crappy RAM Management software kicks it out of memory even though you locked it into memory on the all apps screen? That just pains me... If OnePlus does listen to their customer base, maybe just maybe they will add one in a future OTA update. Who knows. Having had the original AXON, I have to say that this phone is definitely an improvement and is worth checking out if you liked the original. I am still a little off-put by the fact that ZTE has done very little to support this phone with accessories like cases and stuff making me hit Aliexpress for the Oscar the Grouch specials that they have there. Could you survive with either one of these phones as your next new phone... of course! Hopefully, this little review will help you out in that decision. Lastly and as always, this is just Some Guys Opinion...
:highfive:
Newsflash - Having 6gb of RAM doesn't make a phone more snappy than a 4gb phone... people need to stop thinking this...4gb is more than enough RAM for even the most hardcore user...6gb is just a gimmick for sales.
gparmar76 said:
Newsflash - Having 6gb of RAM doesn't make a phone more snappy than a 4gb phone... people need to stop thinking this...4gb is more than enough RAM for even the most hardcore user...6gb is just a gimmick for sales.
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Newsflash- didn't say it did but with proper RAM management it COULD in theory be more snappy if it kept more apps in memory not requiring them to be reloaded. Also if the phones are the same price why not have more. Was pretty much my point. It makes no difference but higher quantity wins out. Your argument is the same for better displays 1080p is good enough why would you need more? Because they can and do... Snore
mahst68 said:
Newsflash- didn't say it did but with proper RAM management it COULD in theory be more snappy if it kept more apps in memory not requiring them to be reloaded. Also if the phones are the same price why not have more. Was pretty much my point. It makes no difference but higher quantity wins out. Your argument is the same for better displays 1080p is good enough why would you need more? Because they can and do... Snore
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lol...why don't you read what you wrote...Snappiness -OP3 simply because it has more RAM.
All I'm saying is you're wrong...the OP3 could very well be "snappier" but it sure as hell isn't because it has 6gb of memory... memory management issues or not...the only time RAM would take away from a modern day smartphone's speed or cause heavy lag would be if it had very low amount of RAM (512mb or 1gb)....even 2gb phones run great on Android M...most high end phones that have 3 or more GB of memory never use all of it...you could load up 250,apps simultaneously and you would never use 4gb of memory...trust me I've tried and I'm using the OP2...most if not ALL issues related to lag these days or just spotty performance in the UK is related to the OS and how the OEM implemented it...heavy skinning, bloatware, etc etc.
gparmar76 said:
lol...why don't you read what you wrote...Snappiness -OP3 simply because it has more RAM.
All I'm saying is you're wrong...the OP3 could very well be "snappier" but it sure as hell isn't because it has 6gb of memory... memory management issues or not...the only time RAM would take away from a modern day smartphone's speed or cause heavy lag would be if it had very low amount of RAM (512mb or 1gb)....even 2gb phones run great on Android M...most high end phones that have 3 or more GB of memory never use all of it...you could load up 250,apps simultaneously and you would never use 4gb of memory...trust me I've tried and I'm using the OP2...most if not ALL issues related to lag these days or just spotty performance in the UK is related to the OS and how the OEM implemented it...heavy skinning, bloatware, etc etc.
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Bra- I know you guys in the UK think you invented English language but...
The whole paragraph explains that neither the Axon 7 or the OP3 is faster or more snappy. In so much as this is true, why not have 6GB of RAM if it doesn't cost more. Thus exactly what I wrote rather than the trainwreck you wrote :
WINNER: ONEPLUS 3 - Simply because it has more RAM, no real-world experience proves it faster. Fanboy Benchmarkers withstanding
Which simply means in headlines, newsflashes or whatever else makes you feel like you are telling someone that you're important that when 2 phones perform the same, might as well have the one with more stuff, regardless if it helps or not...
I prefer that I pick who puts words in my mouth and it turns out you're not one of them
mahst68 said:
Bra- I know you guys in the UK think you invented English language but...
The whole paragraph explains that neither the Axon 7 or the OP3 is faster or more snappy. In so much as this is true, why not have 6GB of RAM if it doesn't cost more. Thus exactly what I wrote rather than the trainwreck you wrote :
WINNER: ONEPLUS 3 - Simply because it has more RAM, no real-world experience proves it faster. Fanboy Benchmarkers withstanding
Which simply means in headlines, newsflashes or whatever else makes you feel like you are telling someone that you're important that when 2 phones perform the same, might as well have the one with more stuff, regardless if it helps or not...
I prefer that I pick who puts words in mouth and it turns out your not one of them
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"BRA" It was spell check that changed UI to UK... would have thought that was clearly evident...but alas...
And I know what he was implying...bra...lol...aren't bras worn by women? Maybe you mean Bruh?
gparmar76 said:
"BRA" It was spell check that changed UI to UK... would have thought that was clearly evident...but alas...
And I know what he was implying...bra...lol...aren't bras worn by women? Maybe you mean Bruh?
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Nope I meant to call you "bra" and spell check had my back. Bruh is for my bruhs. "Bra" is for someone exactly like you because since you must wear them since you're a little biatch... Trolling flaming gnome. Go get in line for Harry Potter and have a nice day BRA
mahst68 said:
PURPOSE
So 1st and foremost, the plan here is to give you my experience with these 2 phones. Granted, I have only used the Axon 7 for about 3 days now and can say I have yet to fully break it in to find everything that may or may not be right / wrong with it. However, this will be a unbiased look and comparison. I'm neither a fanboy or sheep. No brand affiliation. Not a programmer either, just a pro-sumer Senior Member of XDA willing to get trolled, flamed, etc. for sharing a look at these 2 phones. Hopefully, I can give "the everyday guy / gal look" without getting bogged down in stats, variables or benchmarks. Here goes...
MY BACKGROUND
No one special. Just a guy that likes the latest tech... phones being at the top of the list. I am a nerd. No doubt about that. I think anyone that knows about XDA probably is to some extent. No brand loyalty. Recently, I have had the privilege to try out the following phones:
1. Axon 7
2. OnePlus 3
3. HTC 10
4. LeEcco Le Max 2
5. Huawei P9
6. LG G5
7. Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge
8. Huawei Mate 8
9. Huawei Nexus 6P
10. LG Nexus 5X
11. Samsung Note 5
12. Apple iPhone 6s+
And probably some more, but these are the most recent. Does that make me qualified to make a review... Maybe. It does make me an idiot that likes new phones, though. I am always looking for something that meets my needs but also is a good phone. Currently with TMobile but have been with ATT, Verizon & Sprint at some point over 20 years of using cell phones.
MY NEEDS
I drive about 40 miles everyday to work (yes, my work week is currently 7 days a week with a few occasional days off). So, with this in mind and where I drive, I need the minimum requirements:
1. Can Stream Music
2. Bluetooth is fully compatible with my 2016 vehicle
3. An equalizer of some sort since I have only switch out my new cars speakers for better ones and don't plan on changing or adding a better sound system.
4. Decent pictures when needed
5. As a nerd, I like to "mesmerize" people with a pay with your phone app like Apple Pay or Android Pay
6. Works with my Huawei Watch
7. Relatively not laggy - will sometimes do some ROM-ing or some customization but since I tend to get rid of the phones quickly I try not to void warranties or make it too non-stock
THE COMPARISON
I am looking at my experience with the OnePlus 3 and the Axon 7 under/around these requirements and some normal stuff like battery, screen, snappiness, heat, speakers, etc. Here goes:
SOUND OVERALL
There is not too many times when I do a review comparison where 1 phone just crushes the other... and I don't mean like crushing an empty aluminum beer can in your hand crushing... I mean like BigFoot crushing late model junk cars at the end of a Monster Truck Rally Crushin'.... 'Mericaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!! Sorry got carried away there a second. Honestly, how phone manufacturers cannot include a system-wide sound equalizer with all the other STUPID GUI tweaks and bastardizations they do to Android especially is beyond me in 2016. Most people are transitioning to bluetooth headphones or have bluetooth in their cars and for the most part use streaming services to/for music. Yes, there is the occasional dude with the $1000 plug-in headphones that also plugs into a in-line $2000 DAC that only listens to download Loseless Quality Music with the Music App that came with the phone.... with a show of hands, how many fall into this category??? Then why pray tell is this the only music equalization most manufacturers are catering too on their phones (Apple included)? I don't know just wanted to rant a little. With that said though, the inclusion of Dolby ATMOS without having to root on the Axon 7 plus its dual stereo forward facing speakers makes this a non-competition. Yes, you could add ViperATMOSBeatsDon'tcare Mod.zip to a rooted TWRP OnePlus 3... but why should I have to? Why can't some system-wide equalizer be included Mr. FlagShip Killer? Look at their own Community Forum and its one of the most active requests since the OnePlus 3 came out (along with actually using all the RAM the phone has)... Good Work ZTE!!! I'm sure for all you headphone people too that the AXON 7 would dominate even though I have zero to judge that on since I have never taken either the OnePlus 3's headphones nor the AXON 7's headphones out of the box.
WINNER: AXON 7 BigFoot- Crushing OnePlus 3 Grave Digger.
BATTERY
People get bent out of shape nowadays about the "wall hugger" syndrome... this is the need to re-charge your phone more than once, twice, 3-times etc. per day and being attached to a charger constantly. Well, we only have ourselves and technology to blame. Battery technology has yet to progress to a point that adequately matches all the other advances cell phones have made... I can remember in the 90's getting my first Li-ion Battery Cell Phone and was like "WOW!!! I can charge this anytime I want, days of battery life, no need to discharge the whole phone before recharging and no need for extra batteries..." Fast forward almost 30 years... AND its the same type of battery... So no phone truly wins here until technology gets better. This too along with our need for skinny things... women, cocktails, bank account, soda, etc. have phones getting increasingly skinnier without ever considering what it has do with the battery is disturbing. If only we could get back to the simpler times of a bagphone, then the battery could be as big as you want it... AHHH, the simpler times. HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Really though, the batteries on both phones perform very similar in my use. The place where they differ the most is the charging. For OnePlus 3, you have to use their proprietary DASH Charge as oppose to QuickCharge 3.0. This means you can only buy OnePlus 3 chargers (or some not trustworthy knock offs) to take advantage of feature... it's not so bad now that they made the car charger available again on their website and the phone comes with a wall plug with the feature... it's just a departure from the standard many others are using and requires new accessory purchases... basically a OnePlus Money Grab.... DASH Charge is slightly faster but not enough for anyone but a battery loving neophyte to really take notice.
WINNER: AXON 7 - Sorry QuickCharge 3.0 Industry Standard beats proprietary DASH Charge even though DASH Charge is slightly faster.
HEAT
Not going to spend much time here. Both phones run Snapdragon 820's. Both phones are metal... guess what... they get hot under stress... so no winners here, only losers. Neither had to be powered off for getting too hot though, like my S7 needed to when I was doing its initial setup... so there's that. :good:
WINNER: Both or None... They get hot under processor stress and in the dreaded "At an event and have your camera constantly on then stick it in your pocket only to have 3rd degree burns on your thighs or butt" Test
SNAPPINESS
Neither phone I have taken the time to Mod or root or stare at compassionately... but both perform really well like they should. Now, let the 6GB vs. 4GB debates begin!!! First, it is well known that even after 2 updates, the OnePlus 3's RAM management is still wonky and does not fully utilize all that RAM. No matter. I can't see an advantage yet. Yes you could AnTuTu-whogivesapoop test them all day. I rather just talked about how using the phone feels. Neither have extensive bastardizations over stock android so neither grinds the phone to a halt like TouchWizCement does. I run the BETA of Sense 8 Launcher for All Android Phones on both. Both phones perform well with it. I have played Pokemon GO! on both along with Clash Royale... both run fine. GPS works good on both and locks in fairly quickly. It isn't the best I have seen but not the LG Worst either [emoji14] Until there's another processor to look at, I think most manufacturers are taking full advantage of the limits of the 820. Throwing RAM at it doesn't dramatically do anything either. I guess it good to always have it in your back pocket if needed.
WINNER: ONEPLUS 3 - Simply because it has more RAM, no real-world experience proves it faster. Fanboy Benchmarkers withstanding
DISPLAY
Not much to mention here either. Both have good displays. On paper, the AXON 7's is better. I would say that the average person not knowing that one has higher resolution than the other would have a hard time calling it out. Color reproduction is about the same on both as well. Neither have a "always-on" feature which would have been nice. Both have LED's for notifications. Here's where once again you just have to stick with the stats and say....
WINNER: AXON 7 - higher stats mean better screen right!!!!???
PHONE DESIGN
Wow! a bit to talk about here. Let's start on both phones exterior features and design. Both are designed well. Definitely not ugly by any stretch of the imagination. The AXON 7 was designed with help from BMW and significantly improves on the previous generation iteration, like having actual speakers in both of the speaker grill looking forward facing top and bottom of screen. I do have the gold AXON 7... the color isn't the greatest but I wasn't going to wait for the gray one to come out to test it... I might return the gold for a gray if they become available in my return window. The OnePlus 3 is a pretty phone too. It doesn't have a firm like BMW attached to it, but one feels they did a good job of improving on the OnePlus 2 design without getting away from their bread and butter core design elements. With that, I love the alert slider... call me an isheep but I feel to this day that it is the single greatest design advantage the iPhone has had over any Android phone for years now. Although not as perfectly functional as Apples is, the OnePlus 3 is a great feature. Both have excellent fingerprint readers. Very fast. For my use case, a front facing fingerprint reader is better. That's my use case, in a cradle, in my car, that I get in and out of while sometime leaving my phone in the cradle, makes the front facing reader slightly more convenient. NFC chip and camera placement good on both as well. AXON 7 does have one design characteristic that I found annoying and I noticed while playing Clash Royale.... the power button is on the right side of the phone near the center. While playing and trying to drag drop to the top of the screen, you can easily inadvertently toggle the on/off button, this might be the button is overly sensitive or just my clumsiness. OnePlus 3 scores some extras too with swapstyle cases... Why can't other phone manufacturers take notes here. I think it is great that I can get relatively cheap exclusively designed nice looking cases for my OnePlus 3... for the AXON 7, I'm stuck with Chinese knock off cheesy poop designed cases with TPU raining from skies... I need a case and sure the first thing that comes to mind when I get a nice looking professionally designed by BMW phone is to put it into a TPU trashcan of a case because 0.0 (zero point zero) cases by ZTE are available or even look worthy of residing on the phone.... yep, I so love it. AXON 7 does step it up with one thing, SD card compatibility. More storage... sure I can use that anytime...
WINNER: TIED - OnePlus 3 would have won here, but not having SD Card capability is just dumb... especially since you used the space for a dual SIM.
CAMERA
I have done a couple of these reviews and every time I point out that I am not a big fan of cameras on phones. I went to school for photography and movie making back when film was still used. Have seen lenses that cost more than my current house and have seen Ansel Adams original prints first hand. So, it makes me a camera snob... thus, my opinion of on phone cameras is that they are all Bantha PooDoo. However, improvements are made with every new phone and even though innovations have seem to slow in favor of the pixel wars... one day they might be great.
Looking at both and later I will put up some similar shots from both, each phone have decent cameras. The OnePlus performs better in low light especially however I would not count the AXON 7 out in the cold as I feel that the AXON 7's low light difficulties might be able to be corrected with feature updates. The AXON 7 does have it's ripoff version of a "live photo" that works pretty decent plus some decent scenario modes that just work better for pictures I may take. The OnePlus 3's camera software is just basic with good custom manual settings. The AXON 7 has manual mode as well. Like I said, I will upload some similar shots from each and you can decide.
WINNER: TBD
CONCLUSION
So, what can I conclude? Both phones are awesome... Both have plus and minuses. I don't think there's a clear hands down winner and would not want to argue that point. I can only tell you that beyond everything else that the lack of a system-wide equalizer for sound just annoys little brown stinkies out of me. My commute to work is a big part of my day sometimes 7 days a week. I want to listen to Sirius XM app and Google Play Music so it sound great in my car. I want to set some equalization that make it sound awesome then forget it is even there. Not constant resetting of bass boost, tweaking sound to have it all reset again and again. Why provide a basic equalizer in Google Play Music on the OnePlus 3 that always has the bass setting reset when a call comes in, you switch to a new app or the crappy RAM Management software kicks it out of memory even though you locked it into memory on the all apps screen? That just pains me... If OnePlus does listen to their customer base, maybe just maybe they will add one in a future OTA update. Who knows. Having had the original AXON, I have to say that this phone is definitely an improvement and is worth checking out if you liked the original. I am still a little off-put by the fact that ZTE has done very little to support this phone with accessories like cases and stuff making me hit Aliexpress for the Oscar the Grouch specials that they have there. Could you survive with either one of these phones as your next new phone... of course! Hopefully, this little review will help you out in that decision. Lastly and as always, this is just Some Guys Opinion...
:highfive:
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Thanks but no thanks... You actually didn't influence my thoughts. More like 1 step forward, 1 step backward, your pros fit both phones matched your cons
Sent from my SM-A9000 using Tapatalk
Thanks for your comparison! Not sure why people are so arrogant or condescending. Appreciate your effort writing this up so some of us can make a better decision.
ashburton said:
Thanks but no thanks... You actually didn't influence my thoughts. More like 1 step forward, 1 step backward, your pros fit both phones matched your cons
Sent from my SM-A9000 using Tapatalk
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That's the whole point. Too many so called "real" reviews online do not give an honest opinion and are influenced by the author getting free stuff, free phone, etc. My point is to not make you say "hey I need to go get one of these phones now" but rather "I did know that and didn't know this... now I do." Thanks for reading!
Charkol said:
Thanks for your comparison! Not sure why people are so arrogant or condescending. Appreciate your effort writing this up so some of us can make a better decision.
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Yep!! You got the point exactly. I'm not here to "influence" anyone into making a decision. I'm not a ZTE or OP3 salesperson. Just laying out real world facts as I see them (Thus the title of the post). Too many blog reviews make phones out to be the greatest thing since sliced bread or the bottom layer of poop in an unattended bird cage (like the stuff stuck to newspaper on the bottom). The fact of the matter is that these people tend to be influenced in other ways (monetarily, free stuff, etc.) to make or break a review. Just because I posted in the AXON 7 forum, does not mean that the AXON 7 wins every category automatically. The AXON 7 is a good phone but not without some flaws, same with the OP3. It's knowing what flaws you can live with and which ones you can't that should influence your decision rather than Some Guys Opinion hahahahahaha :highfive:
Post some stats of battery life comparison. I highly doubt the A7 gets better battery than the OP3.
Sent from my Nexus 6P using XDA-Developers mobile app
mahst68 said:
Nope I meant to call you "bra" and spell check had my back. Bruh is for my bruhs. "Bra" is for someone exactly like you because since you must wear them since you're a little biatch... Trolling flaming gnome. Go get in line for Harry Potter and have a nice day BRA
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I'm an American and am embarrassed to read what you wrote.
Sent from my SM-G935T using Tapatalk
darkjedi said:
I'm an American and am embarrassed to read what you wrote.
Sent from my SM-G935T using Tapatalk
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You are an American?
Sent from my Nexus 6P using XDA-Developers mobile app
darkjedi said:
I'm an American and am embarrassed to read what you wrote.
Sent from my SM-G935T using Tapatalk
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I am too but he stopped commenting so there's that. Sorry I know it was very lame
brickedvice said:
Post some stats of battery life comparison. I highly doubt the A7 gets better battery than the OP3.
Sent from my Nexus 6P using XDA-Developers mobile app
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Didn't say it did actually.... I said it performed similarly. I also said that the OP3 actually charges faster. Why did I pick the AXON 7 then.... well, that's the question isn't?
Oh wait... it's right there in the Battery paragraph if you only took time to read thoroughly... thanks!
I guess, that the snappiness of the OnePlus 3 isn't only because of more Ram, but also because of the much slimmer Oxygen OS.
I didn't receive my OnePlus 3 so far, but even when it's faster, I think I can't live without those awesome speakers of the ZTE Axon 7.
mahst68 said:
Didn't say it did actually.... I said it performed similarly. I also said that the OP3 actually charges faster. Why did I pick the AXON 7 then.... well, that's the question isn't?
Oh wait... it's right there in the Battery paragraph if you only took time to read thoroughly... thanks!
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Your review was kind of big b.s that's why no time to waste on reading all of it. Do a better job next time. Thanks!
Sent from my Nexus 6P using XDA-Developers mobile app
Cypher_01 said:
I guess, that the snappiness of the OnePlus 3 isn't only because of more Ram, but also because of the much slimmer Oxygen OS.
I didn't receive my OnePlus 3 so far, but even when it's faster, I think I can't live without those awesome speakers of the ZTE Axon 7.
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Yep. I wish I could get past the sound thing. Unfortunately it consumes about an hour of my day everyday if not longer. You'll enjoy the OP3. Great phone!!
brickedvice said:
Your review was kind of big b.s that's why no time to waste on reading all of it. Do a better job next time. Thanks!
Sent from my Nexus 6P using XDA-Developers mobile app
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Why is it a bs review? Explain
I bought the Mediapad without much research to replace both my laptop and Galaxy Tab s3 and I'm not very happy about small things:
1. Keyboard operation is bad, it just places in the screen while I'm typing. I believe it is the track pad but also bad integration and problems with operation in landscape mode.
2. Again keyboard. There is no Portuguese official keyboard but some Chinese clone that already broke the hooks that grab the tablet. Not detachable, no decent 3rd party alternatives.
2. No more updates to correct issues: besides no more google android updates, Huawei seem to have dropped support for what was a flagship tablet. Went from 9.0 to 9.1 and that was that.
3. I use educational apps and, again, they have a hard time in landscape mode. It might be the apps but behaviours are similar and I don't see other people complaining about my issues.
4. I rarely need to use Office stuff but I find Android Office suit very poor. The Mediapad comes with WPS Office and that works a bit better, that's why the Surface Pro crossed my mind while I was writing this.
5. Desktop mode feels like some beta product that was being developed and now will not be finished.
6. This is more personal and subjective but I really feel bad about being supporting Huawei. I also don't feel comfortable with all the data gathering and services running in the back.
There are things I wouldn't want to give up though....
1. Screen is IPS but it's very good.
2. Battery life is great, with almost 0 drain when the cover is closed. I can have it away for a week and battery will have dropped 3% or something.
The Tab s6 is a lot of money, especially after adding the stylus and keyboard. I could sell the M5 and soften the blow a bit but at this point it would have to be really worth it...
Would you upgrade to the S6? Would you seriously consider a Surface Pro instead (I know virtually nothing about these)?
I also though about an iPad, I know that IOS is much better developed for a tablet form factor but I really deslike Apple's prices, software (I have 0 experience with IOS) and I would have to run around with duplicated cables.
Opinions would be appreciated! :good:
I own both. Bought the m5 a few months after it came out. Have had the S6 since a few days after it first came out. I can't speak to keyboard issues (I've never used a physical keyboard with any Android device), but as far as the "is it worth it" question, definitely! Coincidentally, I was messing around with my m5 (rooted/LOS15 in part to rid it of Huawei spyware) a few days ago and was shocked at how what I was once fully impressed with was now a slow, unresponsive piece of junk—relatively speaking, ofc.
If your budget permits I *highly* recommend the S6, but just read a few minutes ago that there is, or soon will be, a S6 Lite.
Samsung has it's own suite of, imo, highly objectionable software, but their tablet hardware is the best, and there are are methods to disable Samsung crap, just search this forum.
I defer to others about the battery, as I use my S6 exclusively at home, and almost always have it plugged in via a 6 foot long cable; I have it set to charge to only 80%, btw.
TiTiB said:
If your budget permits I *highly* recommend the S6, but just read a few minutes ago that there is, or soon will be, a S6 Lite.
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Saw that too after posting the thread and it caught my eye by being a full size tablet. Thanks!
Kutusov said:
The Tab s6 is a lot of money, especially after adding the stylus and keyboard. I could sell the M5 and soften the blow a bit but at this point it would have to be really worth it...
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The Stylus (S-Pen) is included with the Tablet, so no extra cost to give there. Keyboard is a considerable sum though.
The Tab S6 is definitely worth it - That said I've come straight from the Tab S 10.5, it's 5 generations newer than what I'm used to, so the speed of the Tab S6 was always going to impress me. The battery life is surprisingly good though, I'll charge it once a day, granted, but I'm using it a lot and never seem to desperately need to charge.
There's quite a few people around here complaining about the screen on this, but mine is great. There are some issues when it's blending colours in video, some pixelation and noise can be seen, but overall I don't notice that much. And it's only with videos for me, not static images. But some people seem to have gotten pretty unlucky, so worth bearing in mind.
I don't use DEX mode (Samsungs desktop mode) but I've taken a look around it, and it seems pretty decent.
For me, I've no regrets about buying the Tab S6 ( I got it cheap on eBay though, £450 a brand new and sealed 256gb wifi model) but I guess the worthy question is something only you can really answer. No buyers remorse from me though, for what it's worth.
bartleby999 said:
For me, I've no regrets about buying the Tab S6 ( I got it cheap on eBay though, £450 a brand new and sealed 256gb wifi model) but I guess the worthy question is something only you can really answer. No buyers remorse from me though, for what it's worth.
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Thanks for that! I've been reading some horror stories here, especially about stand by time. 50% drain over night I guess one would read about the bad experiences and not so much when everything is ok though...
The Surface is off my list though, too big and heavy and I could get a laptop for less, for my sort of use there doesn't seem to be a point.
I'll just wait, the M5 is still usable, it's a shame they won't be fixing what needed to be improved.
Kutusov said:
Thanks for that! I've been reading some horror stories here, especially about stand by time. 50% drain over night I guess one would read about the bad experiences and not so much when everything is ok though...
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Battery drain is often attributable to misconfigured apps, or stuff running that you never ever consider even using. These problems are easy to fix. Just something to keep in mind.
Kutusov said:
Thanks for that! I've been reading some horror stories here, especially about stand by time. 50% drain over night I guess one would read about the bad experiences and not so much when everything is ok though...
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I don't see how people are getting 50% battery drain over night - That's a ridiculous amount to lose when just idling. I switch mine off at night, but I've had it on today since about 9am, I haven't used it much except some very light browsing for maybe 30minutes, and my battery has decreased to 91% it is now 5PM. So, I've lost 9% battery in 8 hours threw idling with a little use thrown in.
Anyone losing 50% overnight needs to return their tablet for a replacement. Or optimizes their apps.
TiTiB said:
Battery drain is often attributable to misconfigured apps, or stuff running that you never ever consider even using. These problems are easy to fix. Just something to keep in mind.
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I will. Just saw on your sig you also own a S5e. How's that one?
bartleby999 said:
I don't see how people are getting 50% battery drain over night - That's a ridiculous amount to lose when just idling. I switch mine off at night, but I've had it on today since about 9am, I haven't used it much except some very light browsing for maybe 30minutes, and my battery has decreased to 91% it is now 5PM. So, I've lost 9% battery in 8 hours threw idling with a little use thrown in.
Anyone losing 50% overnight needs to return their tablet for a replacement. Or optimizes their apps.
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Something very wrong there, yes! The M5 still sounds better in that aspect though, I never turn it off and I think it drains quite a lot less than that. Probably because it is very aggressive with RAM, radios and app management, one opens 3 apps and when returning to the first it has to refresh, the thing is just gone. I wouldn't trust it with more than 2 apps open.
I guess one could tweak the S6 to something similar...
Kutusov said:
Something very wrong there, yes! The M5 still sounds better in that aspect though, I never turn it off and I think it drains quite a lot less than that. Probably because it is very aggressive with RAM, radios and app management, one opens 3 apps and when returning to the first it has to refresh, the thing is just gone. I wouldn't trust it with more than 2 apps open.
I guess one could tweak the S6 to something similar...
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I think you can do that with Android as standard, if you enable Developer Options - There's an option to limit background apps and kill processes as soon as user leaves - Sure that would give the same effect.
I think battery life on the Tab S6 could be better optimised than what I have - I mean, Samsung bloat is going to take a lot, so a debloat could probably give an increase in longevity. It's fine as is for me though, I only use my Tab at home, and the battery lasts all day, even with heavy YouTube usage. I'm down to 74% now and I've been playing games and web browsing - 5 1/2 hours have past since my last post. I consider that pretty good.
I recently bought a Surface Pro 7 i5. I used it for a few weeks and decided it was junk. For one thing, Windows 10 was a nightmare to configure to my liking, and I've always been a Windows guy. There's like a baby settings menu and then the traditional control panel behind it, and they do not mesh well and there are just tons of bugs, especially with the power options. The battery life was abysmal.. I was getting about 2 or 3 hours of use. I spent hours disabling services and messing around with Throttlestop to undervolt it and that helped the battery a bit, but it was still pretty awful if you want to use it at full speed. I also wanted to dual boot linux and I wasn't able to do it properly, as the 7 is too new to really be supported. And there's no gallery app of any kind for Windows comparable to something like Quickpic, which just amazes me. Android emulators for Windows don't really work either unless you are purely interested in gaming. There were so many headaches and it wasn't passing as a tablet for me, just an undersized and overpriced laptop.
I sold it and bought a tab S6 with the money left over, and I'm much happier now. I miss the raw processing power and the flexibility of x86 for running full versions of certain programs, but I can do 95% of what I want to do on Android 9, plus many things I couldn't do on the Surface, and it's by far a more pleasurable experience. I haven't had the problems people are talking about.. screen looks great, battery life is great, theres no drain. I used to be hardcore about rooting and removing bloat, ads, etc, but theres no need to with this device, it's pretty perfect out of the box.
I don't have the keyboard and I haven't even tried Dex mode, but for general tablet use, media, and emulating games, the S6 blows away the SP7 in my view.
Is it worth the money? Meh...
Is it very good? Hell yeah.
The huge plusses for me are form factor, stylus/writing, android, keyboard cover WITH trackpad, high end tablet.
I DO think it's too expensive, especially with the keyboard cover. But unfortunately there were no real alternatives for me (bought it 4 months ago or so)... Was thinking about the surface pro as well but first, that one is also hella expensive, but I also find it too big for my use. The Tab S6 is such a nice package to take along, very comfortable to write with/on (I use it a LOT for note taking mainly).
Android is a plus because my phone's also android and my experiences with windows laptops is less positive when looking at the battery.
But it's not a full desktop/laptop replacement... Dex does not support 4k so when connected to my monitor it looks bad. Also, some specific apps don't have proper alternatives for me on android (programming, music transcribing). For general tasks as browsing, mailing, documents, even basic work related stuff (terminal work) it is perfectly fine, but just not good enough at everything.
So yeah, it really depends on your use-case. The apps you have issues with on the mediapad will most likely have the same issues on the tab s6. For me the keyboard works just fine (coming from a tab s4, which had more issues) and is a nice option though I use the stylus most of the time. It is fast, lasts quite a bit (no standby issues here as far as I can tell, but it does use a reasonable amount of battery when I actively use it).
schoolpizza said:
The battery life was abysmal.. I was getting about 2 or 3 hours of use. There were so many headaches and it wasn't passing as a tablet for me, just an undersized and overpriced laptop.
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That's that then. It ends up pretty much being my thoughts every time I look at the Surface, I really don't get it... It's a very expensive laptop, maybe with a bit different form factor... But there are more interesting things like the HP Spectre Folio, x360 etc.
Well, I've decided to keep the M5 for a while longer. Was just playing with it in a store and it is definitely better than the M5 but, for my sort of use, I really don't see much of an upgrade there considering how much I would had to spend.
Thanks for your thoughts guys!
Kutusov said:
That's that then. It ends up pretty much being my thoughts every time I look at the Surface, I really don't get it... It's a very expensive laptop, maybe with a bit different form factor... But there are more interesting things like the HP Spectre Folio, x360 etc.
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In addition to not really working as a tablet, I was also surprised by how locked down the hardware and UEFI is. It really lacks the customization you would expect from a system running a full PC operating system. Like an Apple product, you can't get the most out of the hardware you paid for.
I spent 800 dollars on the thing and really wanted to like it, but after a few weeks it dawned on me that I'm spending all my time troubleshooting annoying problems and I should just cut my losses and ditch it for the S6. The Surface Pro has power and can manage some technically amazing stuff as a tablet (I was running GTA 4 and 5 on it after a lot of research into optimizing performance) but it's so caveated by the system wide issues, hardware lockdown, and lack of tablet functionality that the extra power didn't mean all that much anymore.
Your M5 may serve you well but I can't recommend the S6 highly enough.. it's a very sleek, handy, and impressive device that is limited only by the lack of Android software development in certain cases...a full desktop-like web browser and a good PS2 emulator being at the top of my wishlist.
schoolpizza said:
In addition to not really working as a tablet, I was also surprised by how locked down the hardware and UEFI is. It really lacks the customization you would expect from a system running a full PC operating system. Like an Apple product, you can't get the most out of the hardware you paid for.
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What you wrote made me remember I used to own an HP Spectre 2 in 1 laptop. I could never get the "tablet" mode thing because it behaved nothing like what I would expect from a tablet.