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So I decided to write this little review to try talk about/point out/explain certain things that I thought other major reviewers (Engadget, The Verge, etc) didn't mention or didn't explain well enough, as well as things I do and don't like about the phone. (Don't let the Great Wall of Text scare you) Here goes!
The first thing I have to point out is how well this phone feels in your hand. I never want to put it down. Ever. That cold aluminum body feels amazing when you pick up the One and really drives home the flagship status of this phone. While this is great, I am terrified of dropping this phone. It feels like it would scratch very easily on a rough surface (I have yet to see a scratch, but I have been babying it until my case arrives). The aluminum feels very similar to the Macbook Pro case. While a lot of people are complaining about the false "zero gap" manufacturing, it virtually is zero gap. I have the slightest of space between the top aluminum strip on the front and the white band circumventing the phone. I would be hard pressed to fit even an eyelash in this gap, however. So far all intents and purposes, I think we can call it zero gap Anything larger than this, and I would consider returning it or waiting a few weeks for HTC to iron out the issue. Just ask to see the phone they give you before buying it and you can avoid this problem all together.
Sense 5 is a welcome upgrade and I don't miss CM 10.1 as much as I thought I would. My most missed feature is quick reply from the notification shade, but I'm living without it. This software flies through animations, opening apps, responding to input, scrolling, everything. Slick as oil. And the aesthetics of Sense 5 aren't too bad either. Not everything is rosy perfect though. Adding apps from the drawer to the homescreen is annoying. You have to tap and hold the app as you normally would. But then instead of transitioning to the home screen automatically so you can place the app somewhere, you have to first drag it all the way to the top left where it says "shortcut" and then it transitions to your homescreens. Gets old when you're setting up your home screen. Also, let's say you open an app by searching for it in your app drawer (not from the home screen). If you exit that app by hitting the home button, it does not send you home. Rather it sends you back to the notification drawer with all your apps. That's annoying. Pressing the back button also does not send you out of the notification drawer and to your homescreen like it normally does. You must hit home once again to enter your homescreen.
At first, I thought blink feed was gimicky. Just some marketing technique to set HTC apart in the consumer's mind. But after playing around with it, it has grown on me. The selection of news sources is small, but hopefully that will grow or allow you to add your own custom websites. I do find myself occasionally scrolling through it when waiting in line, the drive thru, waiting for someone, etc. Which was the original purpose anyway. I have not noticed a hit on battery life from this feature.
An annoying feature of the gallery is that in throws in all your Facebook Friend's photo albums into your gallery. Yes you read correctly. Jimmy Bob's recent Everglades field trip WILL show up in your gallery as well as other friend's albums. So far I have not figured out a way to remove this besides unlinking my phone from my facebook account (aka logging out of the app). While your photos have their own area/folder apart from these Facebook albums, it's still annoying to see the faces of people I never talk to in my own gallery.
Now onto the camera. There is definitely some truth behind the "UltraPixel" marketing. Compared to an iPhone 5 and Note 2, the One most definitely takes better pictures in low light settings. Even in extremely dark settings (night time with some light filtering in through closed blinds), the One is able to make out rough pictures, something the iPhone and Note 2 could not do at all. While the One is able to take pictures in very low light, this does not mean the pictures come out amazing or noiseless. Don't expect to just run out into the pitch black night and be able to photograph anything. In very low light settings, the pictures are still grainy and sometimes crappy. But most definitely better than the two phones mentioned already. All these comparisons were done with the flash off. Even with the flash on, the One still managed better photos in my opinion. They looked more natural and less like the came from a camera phone. Slightly lower than ideal lighting is where the One is able to shine. The other phone's flashes sometimes washed out or harshly lit up the scene while the One didn't even use the flash and took a great photo. Can't wait to use it more.
Zoes are pretty cool, another feature I initially thought was gimicky. The short clips appear as normal photos in your gallery, but then begin to randomly play like the photos in a Harry Potter movie. Looks pretty cool in person. A feature I haven't been able to try out is the "Event" categorizing of my photos. Basically the phone looks at the time and location where you took pictures, and tries to group them into "events". Think of these as different albums in your gallery. When you open an event, at the top there will be a highlights reel: basically a slideshow of your photos, zoes and perhaps videos (not 100% sure about the videos). It adds music, transitions, Instagram-esque filters and automatically starts playing. Watching your whole photo gallery come to life is pretty cool.
Other tid bits: there's a permanent power saver notification in your notification dropdown. Always there no matter what. There's an app that lets you remove it if you're rooted however (the app is somewhere in these forums). The front facing camera is a big upgrade from the HOXL one. Did I mention how amazing this phone feels? Finally, 32GB on an HTC flagship. 24.4GB available to you. Although the camera lens is slightly slightly slightly recessed, I still feel it can get scratched.
In the end, this is definitely the best Android phone I have handled and used (yes, including the S4 yes I said it). And I used to work in Best Buy Mobile until very recently, so I have handled my fair share of smartphones. I would highly recommend this phone to anyone and everyone.
Well this turned out a lot longer than I anticipated. Hope this shines some light on the One from the perspective of an everyday owner. Let me know if you have any questions!
TL;DR. Read it! This took [email protected]#$ing forever to type.
Congrats on getting away from Best Buy!
are we going to have one of these at 15 days 30 days etc etc ?
Great review! I would like to point out though that you can get rid of the power saver notification by long pressing it, going to app info, and force stopping it. It reappears when your battery gets low since it automatically turns on, but you can avoid looking at it most of the day!
Sent from my HTC One using xda app-developers app
Excellent review. I've had it 4 days and I guess I haven't opened my gallery since linking my Facebook account, cause that annoyance was new to me... Thanks for pointing it out!
One other thing that I feel isn't getting the attention it deserves is the addition of IR. I haven't had IR in a smartphone since my Treo, and I missed it. The first thing I did when I got my One was setup all my TV's/Receivers to be controlled by my phone.
Wallaby8 said:
Great review! I would like to point out though that you can get rid of the power saver notification by long pressing it, going to app info, and force stopping it. It reappears when your battery gets low since it automatically turns on, but you can avoid looking at it most of the day!
Sent from my HTC One using xda app-developers app
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Thanks for this tidbit.. It would be nice if the "show notifications" option allowed you to select/deselect...
The chassis is zero gap. the speaker covers are add-ons to the chassis.
To add apps, widgets and shortcuts to your screens long press any blank area for your home screens and the popup will allow you to select said icons to which ever screen you want by highlighting it with a tap 1st. It will put the icon in the first available space starting from the top left but you can then move it.
I haven't setup Facebook yet but I have read there is a setting in the gallery to un-check this option. *Edit* My bad. The only way to stop pic syncing from Facebook is by not allowing Facebook to sync in the 1st place. Not an ideal solution but all there is atm.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2197998
Lastly, with pics/camera. Set sharpness to -1 and there will be much less post processing. (Credit hamdir) I think you'll like the pics even more!
Hope this helps.
Thanks!! it was helpful.
Yeah I haven't had a chance to test out the IR but I've heard its pretty cool. But it may not work on cases that cover the button and I wish they allowed you to hit "hide notifications" it almost looks like they went our of their way to block that setting lol
Sent from my HTC One using xda app-developers app
If you long press on the 'Power Saver' notification and go to App Info, you can force close that app. Then the notification will no longer be there. Each time the phone reboots, you'll see it and need to do it again, but I did it once and haven't had to reboot for any reason. Notification Gone!
It's really unacceptable how all those lovely watch designs in the store have the same ugly digital always-on face. Only the first 3 built in watch faces have a corresponding analog always-on watch face. I find this to be a huge limitation of the device and has kept me only using those 3 watch faces.
ozaghloul said:
It's really unacceptable how all those lovely watch designs in the store have the same ugly digital always-on face. Only the first 3 built in watch faces have a corresponding analog always-on watch face. I find this to be a huge limitation of the device and has kept me only using those 3 watch faces.
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I'm wondering if this is a limitation to the developer from Samsung in order to make us use those three only or if it's possible to somehow code them in order to have a "quick glance" version of those third party watch faces Anyone?
Oh yes a HUGE limitation and UNACCEPTABLE!!! <sarcasm intended>
Are you serious? Do you have even the slightest understanding of the amazing technology being used in this device, or it's incredible capabilities? And you are stressing over something so incredibly trivial.
Staggering!
esseff said:
Oh yes a HUGE limitation and UNACCEPTABLE!!! <sarcasm intended>
Are you serious? Do you have even the slightest understanding of the amazing technology being used in this device, or it's incredible capabilities? And you are stressing over something so incredibly trivial.
Staggering!
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Might be trivial to you. The always-on watch face is huge to me. Being a d*ck about it doesn't change anything.
And its unacceptable, because its already implemented and therefore its not a hardware limitation. Samsung are just being retarded in dealing with their watch face developers.
ozaghloul said:
Might be trivial to you. The always-on watch face is huge to me. Being a d*ck about it doesn't change anything.
And its unacceptable, because its already implemented and therefore its not a hardware limitation. Samsung are just being retarded in dealing with their watch face developers.
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@ozaghloul has a point... Samsung has been "lacking" with the watch face devs, I dont believe they have released the watch face sdk and I dont know if they ever will. The always on feature tends to be useful, I know my watch hasnt always responded to the on "motion" at times.
cipherswitch said:
@ozaghloul has a point... Samsung has been "lacking" with the watch face devs, I dont believe they have released the watch face sdk and I dont know if they ever will. The always on feature tends to be useful, I know my watch hasnt always responded to the on "motion" at times.
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In fact I find that switching off the motion and using the always-on screen actually saves a bit of battery. Also the always-on screen just looks so good especially at night. Not to mention how much quicker it is to glance at the watch and not have to wait for the motion to wake it up (sometimes unsuccessfully).
All that talk is about the nice analog always on screens of the first 3 faces (also number 6 has a nice analog). Its not about that Fugly nasty tiny little digital clock you get with all the other faces.
It should be fixed already long time ago! I'm not going to buy any watchface until they won't have different "Clock Always On" option.
Just wanna say that i agree that there should be more faces for always on..i use always on and no motion
eclipse05x said:
It should be fixed already long time ago! I'm not going to buy any watchface until they won't have different "Clock Always On" option.
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I totally agree with this. I honestly thought owing a Gear S with my Note 4 would be a much better experience. In reality it's not all it's cracked up to be. Even more so since Watchstyler has stopped working...Lame.
I don't understand how the developers are just accepting this. This directly affects their revenues too, because I am certain many more people will buy watch faces if they become fully functional.
ozaghloul said:
I don't understand how the developers are just accepting this. This directly affects their revenues too, because I am certain many more people will buy watch faces if they become fully functional.
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Totally agree with you! I've been patient but now it's just pathetic... Device these days is nothing without proper software and proper updates to its software... I would totally buy some new watchfaces but it's missing it's point without new "Always ON watch face".
There are some really great 3rd party watchfaces but they are missing this crucial factor!
And still, the other thing is that. There should be an option to deactivate "touch to wake" when "Clock Always" is ON. Now, when taking the shower it's going CraaaaAzy! And the same while running with a long sleeve (moisture inside of the sleeve)
1. Hopefully the new sdk wich come days agoo fix this?!
2. Why dont any devps respond?
Hi,
There is only one watch face which has an option to Turn on "Always On". Its name is "Desk Clock". Its free
It is not a "real" Samsung mode Always ON. If we select Always ON on Gear setting we have the classic digital clock and not this. It is just a clock wich avoid the dim mode and force the Gear to not sleep.
Hello everyone, I did the following, there is only one thing you must get used to and you can have your favourite watch face available with the wake-up gesture on, here is what I did in the gear s "settings--> display--> wake-up screen--> select "Last screen". The only down side to this is you must remember to hit the home button to your home screen before going into sleep. When the screen is off and you glance the watch face will appear and not the digital clock from the other non samsung default watch faces.
Remember by doing so more battery will be used unless you select a similar watch face as the digital one. It will show for the same 10 seconds as the digital face.
A bonus to this is that you do not have to tap the screen to wake from the digital clock, you go directly to the home screen, that is one less tap per glance.
Do not forget to hit the home button, you will get used to that or swipe down till you get the home screen.
Enjoy!!!
Whilst I do sympathise with the OP (and if it is a big deal for him then that's for good reason) I do think this watch looks amazing with some of the clocks that are available in the store and to not show them off when you flick your wrist is a bit of a waste really. Also there are a couple of clock faces on the Samsung Store that you can enable always on, they seem to work OK.
I keep the brightness and volume down a bit and limit the notifications to essentials and the battery easily lasts 1-2 days. But I love to see a proper clock face when I look at the watch so for me this isn't a huge issue.
Great
frevilla97 said:
Hello everyone, I did the following, there is only one thing you must get used to and you can have your favourite watch face available with the wake-up gesture on, here is what I did in the gear s "settings--> display--> wake-up screen--> select "Last screen". The only down side to this is you must remember to hit the home button to your home screen before going into sleep. When the screen is off and you glance the watch face will appear and not the digital clock from the other non samsung default watch faces.
Remember by doing so more battery will be used unless you select a similar watch face as the digital one. It will show for the same 10 seconds as the digital face.
A bonus to this is that you do not have to tap the screen to wake from the digital clock, you go directly to the home screen, that is one less tap per glance.
Do not forget to hit the home button, you will get used to that or swipe down till you get the home screen.
Enjoy!!!
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U r brilliant really, great idea and it never came to my mind
Man, coming up on a year... still stuck with the same crappy digital "Always On" watch faces. Anyway around this with root? I just want one of the stock analog "always on" black and white faces with a different watch face from galaxy store.
The crazy acting during shower can be fixed if you turn on not disturb mode
Idont get why there is still No fix for the always on watch Faces!!!
I even tested the always Screen on app , it works but battery last about 6-7 Hours. thow its Cool to have any face You like always Oh
Skickat från min SM-N910F via Tapatalk
Hey all,
So, I have a dark-ish themed watch face. (Ranger). It even goes "glow in the dark" green after sunset. I usually have almost 50% of my battery when I get home to take it off. Is there a way to have the active watch face on all the time? Not a dark screen, not the "ambient" mode, but the actual face on? I can't seem to get that option on.
Also, since the Moto has the flash when it switches between active and ambient, are there any recommendations for a good watch face? I like Ranger as they look similar (not going from black to white, for example), just wondering if there are any that have a seamless (as we can get on the Moto) transition. I want mine to look more like a watch than a computer. Assuming I can't just leave the active display on all day.
Thanks!
I don't believe there is a way to leave the watch face active all the time. I could be wrong about that, but I think that's the case.
As far as watch faces go, try Emitter or Minimal & Elegant.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.thaphlash.watch.emitter
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.stmp.minimalface
Both do a really nice job of hiding the flat tire and ambient mode looks just like the active watch face, just black background with white text. With Minimal & Elegant, if you make your active watch face a black background with white text, you will never notice the transition to ambient. Even without doing that they both transition between active and ambient really nicely. They're hands down my favorites.
Hope that helps.
Haven't tried it myself but this app should do the trick https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.synetics.stay.alive
joshm.1219 said:
Haven't tried it myself but this app should do the trick https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.synetics.stay.alive
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Thanks, isn't this for the device? I didn't see an AW setting for watches...
Appreciate the help!
Koko for AW. You can keep the screen on all day long. But be prepared for a 1% battery drop every 5 minutes ?
I use this app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.phonephreak.extendedlight
PookiePrancer said:
Koko for AW. You can keep the screen on all day long. But be prepared for a 1% battery drop every 5 minutes ��
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i use this. works great
I wasn't in market for smartwatch, but Fit2 automatically came with a recent upgrade to Sammy Note 7 (both are sweet!). Is there any way to force the detailed watch face to stay? I know it could potentially be a battery hog, but I haven't found one yet where I like both the full screen and the scaled back screen. Thanks!
~Vol
...Settings, Display, and ENABLE - Watch Always On...
I have that one set. There are just 2 screens. When I shake my arm, a detailed watch face pops up with steps, calories, heart rate, etc. Then after a few seconds it switches to a scaled back screen that just shows digital time. I want the detail screen to stay.
ok...this seems like you need a Watchface which just displays the DETAILS of the 24H Log. As you said the display will default back to the WatchFace you have selected. Since the 24H Log isnt a watchface, you need one which just specifically displays the DETAILS info.
I suggest you check out the Galaxy Store, and see if there is something which fits your needs. I have over 300 to select from....i noticed some targeted specifically for fitness group, and prefer to see all their vitals on the watchface. Good luck, sorry couldn't be any more useful.
Exactly, the "watch always on" settings usually display a lighter face.
Samples
Couple of pictures attached. This is an aftermarket downloaded watch face called "Color Circles" or something like that. "Full" is the version I'd really like to see all day, but "Scaled" is what shows after about 5-10 seconds of inactivity. I can only think of one workaround. Does anyone know of a similar aftermarket selection that has a detailed face for the scaled back mode, or does the firmware in the watch only have a minimal amount of fields for designers to pick? Maybe it's a global limitation.
~Vol
Just arrived, playing with it.
Turned on always on display, but now it uses a simple display instead of the good default one. How do I change this?
Second, how do I disable heart rate monitoring and step counter? And gps I guess if that's on. Don't need them.
Also, can you change what apps open when swiping up down left right on home?
Uh, anything else I should do?