Related
Someone enlighten me on why official reviews of this phone do not include a GPS test. Knowing how all variants of the Galaxy S failed miserably on the GPS, would it not make sense to put peoples minds at ease with a simple mention of GPS? Why official reviewers never mention GPS is kind of strange and especially with this particular branded phone ;(.
OmniNut said:
Someone enlighten me on why official reviews of this phone do not include a GPS test. Knowing how all variants of the Galaxy S failed miserably on the GPS, would it not make sense to put peoples minds at ease with a simple mention of GPS? Why official reviewers never mention GPS is kind of strange and especially with this particular branded phone ;(.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i'm sure i read on a few of those that gps is quick and accurate. What official tests do you need? didn't all the mobilers show you the performance of their units?
Also do we need another thread for this?
ph00ny said:
i'm sure i read on a few of those that gps is quick and accurate. What official tests do you need? didn't all the mobilers show you the performance of their units?
Also do we need another thread for this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
An official review would be from someone like Engadget or Cnet or Android Central. Official reviewers are more meticulous with everything. I just don't understand why they wouldn't do it lol. There's no rational reason not to quickly mention that either "gps is very accurate" and vice versa =/. Strange.
OmniNut said:
An official review would be from someone like Engadget or Cnet or Android Central. Official reviewers are more meticulous with everything. I just don't understand why they wouldn't do it lol. There's no rational reason not to quickly mention that either "gps is very accurate" and vice versa =/. Strange.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
engadget is meticulous with their reviews? lol you're kidding right?
you should probably catch up on mobiler's reviews which had gps tracking with diagrams drawn. If that's not enough for you then what is
Engadget goes straight to the main points that matter and give an educated opinion, which is what I look for. It's blog short, meaning very little fluff. If I want to read an exhaustive and robotic detail of every feature, with very little I would call "impressions" because really, almost every phone is good to them, I read a GSMArena review. If I want a poorly translated and very dry review that is so long but says so little, I read a mobile-review.com review. If I want to get my tabloid kicks and whoever is paying them to defecate on some brand or write vilifying troll reviews, I'll go Gizmodo. If I want blind fanboy lust reviews with tons of smooching, I read Androidcentral and Phandroid reviews.
Here's a respectable enough looking and sounding review, saying thte GPS locked in under 5 seconds and the compass seems better than most.
http://www.techradar.com/reviews/phones/mobile-phones/samsung-galaxy-s2-930907/review?artc_pg=11
I have found Anandtech have the most thorough reviews...
silverwolf0 said:
Here's a respectable enough looking and sounding review, saying thte GPS locked in under 5 seconds and the compass seems better than most.
http://www.techradar.com/reviews/phones/mobile-phones/samsung-galaxy-s2-930907/review?artc_pg=11
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Frome same article:
"Another point we were happy with – the compass on the Samsung Galaxy S2 was more accurate than anything we've seen recently on smartphones, and actually pointed in the right direction most of the time."
This is indeed good news... ^^
GPS Test on engadget:
http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/29/samsung-galaxy-s-ii-gps-it-works-it-really-works-video/
Wis12 said:
http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/29/samsung-galaxy-s-ii-gps-it-works-it-really-works-video/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just saw that as well ...
So in one instance at one location the phone's GPS locks quickly, but they don't say how quickly, if the lock was hot or cold or even how accurate it was. Also, why they turned off wireless network positioning is beyond me. If it works, it should only help, not hinder, the lock. If it doesn't, well, they should have said so. (Disabling A-GPS altogether would make sense if you only wanted to test the chip + antenna setup instead of the whole stack, but they didn't do that.)
I'm assuming there's labs where GPS signals can be simulated and conditions completely controlled. That's really the only way you can meaningfully test GPS functionality for a single device. To expect even a professional publication to run such a lab is unrealistic but they could certainly pay to have a few devices tested.
Aside from that there's the far easier way of comparison. Take a top of the line (civilian) GPS as a reference, 10+ phones including some with known good and known bad GPS, including non-Android ones and run a few tests in different locations.
But no, none of the above. I'm so fed up with people who conclude something works great just because it doesn't fall flat on it's face ... Instead, another video that takes ages to make, ages to watch and is absolutely devoid of any meaningful content. Bloody worthless ...
Yep, pretty hopeless video at Engadget. A quick lock with no real indication of accuracy, and no information about how well it maintains a lock. Face palm.
Jeez!
Nothing is good enough for you guys.. go buy the device and do the test yourself.
There are alot of posts about GPS and it simply works as it should!
techradar.com/reviews/phones/mobile-phones/samsung-galaxy-s2-930907/review?artc_pg=11
"the Galaxy S2 managed to lock our GPS in less than five seconds, and we were away in no time at all."
lugi93 said:
Nothing is good enough for you guys.. go buy the device and do the test yourself.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That simply isn't practical. Even if I wanted to pay for the SGS2 itself out of pocket just to review it, I still wouldn't have enough phones and/or stand-alone GPS units for a meaningfull comparison. Never mind the equipment needed for the audio, screen and camera quality measurements. A little more technical knowledge would surely be beneficial as well.
But the fact that this is impractical if not impossible for a private layperson to do is the very reason that tech publications exist in the first place! If all I wanted were an (more or less) uneducated impression or opinion I could just order the thing off Amazon and return it after a few day, if I don't like it.
This problem is not specific to mobile phones, of course, but it's especially bad there since a lot of non-overlapping knowledge would be required to do a proper review - basically you'd have to review each device
as a mobile phone (calling & SMS/texts only)
as a portable music player
as a compact camera
as a personal / in-car navigation device
as an e-book reader
as a mobile web-browsing device
as a gaming handheld
as an external storage device / thumb drive
... ... ...
Now, some of those features can be evaluated "at a glance" but a lot simply cannot.
And no, I'm not being perfectionist right now - if I were, I'd be insisting on multiple review copies from different batches ...
lugi93 said:
There are alot of posts about GPS and it simply works as it should!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not quite. There are a lot of posts about the GPS, yes. But it seems to me that they are by people who don't have much experience with GPS, on mobile phones or otherwise. How could they know if it works as it should if they've nothing to compare it to?
In my very limited personal experience the LG P500 for example is so much better than the SGS1, NS and - by the looks of it the SGS2 as well - that it isn't even funny.
Wis12 said:
GPS Test on engadget:
http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/29/samsung-galaxy-s-ii-gps-it-works-it-really-works-video/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That must have killed them to say something positive that wasn't iPhone related!...
My contribution to testing the GPS functions, hopefully useful to people (particularly prospective buyers). If you have comments please post them there at the blog, rather than here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VuptfBPIEI&feature=player_embedded
It is a general failing of many reviews that they do not compare but just give an overall impression .
But that is the same across a broad range from inkjets to GPS with all in-between .
Not that i am complain about my SGS2 GPS far from it i have no complaints it works as i want it to .
A minority view possible but 14 million users did not complain about SGS1 GPS some did but not 14 million of them .
jje
Apple Gets Touchscreen Patent......
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2308...es_things_potentially_awkward_for_rivals.html
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2200...ors_prices_may_rise_as_result.html#tk.mod_rel
potential problem for android lovers...
I would not even be surprised--by Apple or by the patent process--to learn that Apple has patented taking the first step with your right foot when walking with a smartphone in your pocket (don't get any ideas Apple--that's my innovative "technique"!)
so what?
Well, lets just hope the patent is revoked. The Company doesn't exactly have a good track record for well playing with others. But I suppose it's not as stupid as say patenting page up and page down for example.
Already discussed here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1136241
Just Received my TS. Although I like it I am wondering if there is any future for this device. The 6+ months delay seem like an eternity and what looked like a promising novelty is already lagging behind. And what makes me wonder is the apparent separation between the company and the first batch of users. How come that not one single bug seem to have been fixed? How come that there is still no OTA updates? Omate closed their official forum and is redirecting to xda for support, but where is Omate in this forum? And what about the possibility of switching to Android Wear, that looks like it will be the standard for this type of devices? I was a happy backer of their Kickstarter project, but at this point all I think is that I bought myself a Xmas present that was delivered at Easter!
Omate, obviously totally abandoned this project.
Rumors are thet they are preparing TS2 so TS is something that used that as a learning base...
Don't know did you followed g+ but I talked much about exactly the same problem months ago...
I said: (in December 2013): when we get TS that device will be old and many other device will be released.
We'll have expensive project that will be just overpriced and unusable...
I'm very sorry to see that but even then while community attacked me -I was right...
We'll try to give our best and try to adapt it but TS is dead and that's, unfortunately, something Omate admitted long time ago...
There's no Omate on XDA, no support, no answers or anything...
We are alone mate...
Sent from my C6903 using Tapatalk
funky0308 said:
Omate, obviously totally abandoned this project.
Rumors are thet they are preparing TS2 so TS is something that used that as a learning base...
Don't know did you followed g+ but I talked much about exactly the same problem months ago...
I said: (in December 2013): when we get TS that device will be old and many other device will be released.
We'll have expensive project that will be just overpriced and unusable...
I'm very sorry to see that but even then while community attacked me -I was right...
We'll try to give our best and try to adapt it but TS is dead and that's, unfortunately, something Omate admitted long time ago...
There's no Omate on XDA, no support, no answers or anything...
We are alone mate...
Sent from my C6903 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agreed. Omate is done. They were done before they started shipping.
1. Warranty- HA! Null and void
2. OTAs, support, service- LOL
..... U get the picture....
If something goes wrong with your TS...I guess your only choice would be to contact Omeox. Omate certainly won't do anything and most likely won't be around to help. This has been their MO from the beginning. For example, the infamous BT problems and Omate's lack of dev support. This alone spelled disaster for the company and sealed the coffin for any future "free" help from the dev community. Lesson learned: ANY start-up MUST have, keep and strengthen the full support of the community devs.
And lastly, the Omate disaster has laid a major wake to future smartwatch, IGG or KS, campaigns. Its a real shame...now, for any fledgling tech trying to grab a foothold in this market, that truly has something new and innovative, will have to work twice as hard to get noticed.
All due to Rocki and LLP's lies, misleading marketing and "bait'n switch" game.
Thanks Omate!
NO SOUP FOR YOU!
Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk
While all this is definitely a shame, one bright side out of this is that I have a damn cool watch, and I paid about fair market value for it (the other Umeox watches go for similar prices). I guess I'm lucky in that mine works fine, so I don't have to deal with Omate again.
I realize that some specs have changed which kinda sucks. But I never intended to go swimming or anything with this, and the other spec changes are minor to me and don't really reflect anything in real world usage. The patch available really make this thing a good, usable, android watch phone (thanks again, Loki!). So I'm at least happy with what I got out of this whole ordeal.
Will I back anything on kickstarter (or others) again? Hell no! But at least I don't feel like I got screwed out of my money.
LLP was bragging on his g+ account about Omate's skills. While I think it is impressive they managed to produce a product, the fact remains that the hardware they used is debatable theirs and if what Loki has said is true, the software is Omate's main field of expertise and that in itself is of a questionable quantity.
I just do not understand Omate. I am not fussed about waterproofing and what not, but not being open about it until after the orders were taking just isn't cricket.
And then this whole lark about not having service centers in your country bla bla bla. Omate should just accept some things will break and have made back up watches to replace those which do. Those which are broken could be shipped back, repaired and resold.
The lack of anyone from Omate here seems really odd. I guess it could be a language issue but I doubt it.
What puzzles me is what did Omate expect to happen? For XDA to do all the work? For the project to develop a life of it's own?
I do think Kickstarter has lost an awful lot of credit, but I do not think the blame should be theirs. Omate just caused PR disasters one after another. Even now, the manner of the conduct online is extremely unprofessional.
Would I buy another Omate (TS2)? Most likely not. I love my TS and think it is super cool, but I want a device which will grow and has a loving community behind it. It is clear there is no love for this device now.
Unless Omate have some secret stuff going on in the background such as a huge update and a ton of new features, I don't see anything special about the Omate. I had an EC309 and with the exception of Omate's sd slot, it could do everything the TS could.
Personally, I think Neptune Pine will win people's hearts. It has had a bumpy ride but recently started being VERY open about production problems and delays. Perhaps it takes an Omate to get these Kickstarter companies to step up a notch.
I'll probably buy a Neptune Pine and other smartwatches. I don't think Omate has killed people's love for the concept, but it has left a bitter taste in many peoples mouths regarding crowd funded projects.
Hyperthetically say if we were to developer/begin a new Smartwatch or smartwatch company. Thru market research we established that there was a massive demand for something similar to the Omate or the A.I. Watch, I.e. a mobile notification and stand alone Android with a sim card wifi, gps BT ...etc.
First we started to source the unit (as designing a new one would take too long and cost too much and it would be copied) what would be the 'do's & don'ts'?
Keep it civil pls and dont say do the exact opposite of Omate... although that would probably go a long way.
It's more of about the way Omate managed the release rather than the product. I accept there would be issues in development.
What is odd is that the watch seems to be available to buy on their China site with no mention of it being a pre-order/ waiting God knows how long till it turns up. Does this mean that they're actively selling them now in China before sending the backers theirs?
Like their Chinese site though. At least it gives info about the company.
http://china.omate.com/
Have they (Omate.com) removed the specs info'?
simple1i said:
Have they (Omate.com) removed the specs info'?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Doesn't seem like it. They still have that annoying avatar with the Omate being splashed. Their Chinese site still has the specs up. I think they still say the camera is 5 mega pixel.
http://china.omate.com/smart.php
Omate lacked to help me after receiving a damaged unit and after many emails still nothing so if your look for a good smart watch wait till the apple watch if your looking to get ripped off and a dameged unit sure go with omate and don't be upset when you get a soft brick
Not sure what exactly you expected. Hope you read the scores of negative comments on Omate and their lack of customer service and support BEFORE you purchased.
I recently sent them 7 separate emails to multiple addresses about charging issues and corrupt pre-loader. NEVER received a single acknowledgement from any department contacted. AND, I still have 7 months of the factory warranty still left...
Still can't believe Omate released a second, companion "clone" watch... I specifically remember LLP stating that the companion was only half of a SmartWatch, and was ultimately useless during the his TS camscam. Not sure if I've ever seen this blatant of hypocrisy since Jobs declared Android a rip off.
FYI, This does not apply to all of the smaller companies trying to make inroads into the wearable market... but for the most part, most of the direct tech available from sites like Alibaba and Aliexpress are unwarranted regardless of what's listed. Buyer beware!
I am one of his friends. He pre-ordered it and waited so long for it but he did not know about those bad reviews. Bad Bad omate
ZTE announced as being banned from use by US officials.
Very interesting, I haven't seen concrete evidence posted.
1) any record of "phone home" packet being sent via stock firmware(like BLU)?
2) is there a hardware embedded or software or both tech concern?
3) would lineageOS devices be susceptible to this?
What steps has anyone takeno ameliorate concerns?
cyrusharding said:
ZTE announced as being banned from use by US officials.
Very interesting, I haven't seen concrete evidence posted.
1) any record of "phone home" packet being sent via stock firmware(like BLU)?
2) is there a hardware embedded or software or both tech concern?
3) would lineageOS devices be susceptible to this?
What steps has anyone takeno ameliorate concerns?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why do you suspect it's because of a security concern? The US govt wanted to ban Huawei on selling phones via carrier on the US, they failed, so now they are banning ZTE and Huawei phones on the govt. They just don't want them selling on the US.
Anyways yes we found out about one app that sent location info to some place in China. That was before they changed to Qualcomm IZat. Before that, when you were setting up your phone, they asked you if you wanted to use that app to improve gps performance, so you actually were asked if you wanted to use it anyways. Aside that I think there was nothing else.
There are some data logging apps on the Play store anyways, so you could see which apps are sending data
When I first had stock I found that the lockscreen wallpaper thingy would query a server in China with your phone's IMEI in the URL string. At one point I also found where they would find their wallpapers on the web. Like, they just skimmed them from "best photos of 2012" sorts of articles.
Anyways, I think I used things like NetGuard and Wireshark to capture packets and see what they looked like to glean that information on what was being sent to random servers when clicking around on some features on the stock ROM.
Aside from that, this stuff with ZTE, Huawei and the U.S. gov't has been going on since like 2009 or so. They've never released proof every time it comes up. They have this speculative fear that someday Huawei could embed snooping software in networking hardware (routers and stuff) but there's never been any proof. For ZTE, they didn't like that ZTE made business deals with Iran a few years ago.
The summer before this phone was released, Congress lifted sanctions on ZTE to allow them to trade in the U.S. ZTE consequently opened up their books and let our gov't sift through their business dealings and find intelligence on North Korea's business dealings, amongst other things I'm sure.
The impression I got is the U.S. gov't works on gathering intelligence and uses pressure against industries in other countries to get what they want through threatening a foreign government by going through their businesses.
Bottom line: I have no idea if they do shady stuff because no one has given any proof.
I can cite sources but that's the gist of my thoughts on the subject.
I just think this means government officials can't use phones from Huawei or ZTE
But that makes sense, I remember in stock rom I took photos with location on, and those photos had a location of a factory/office in Shanghai, China which made me very suspicious
It isn't just phones. Huawei produces business-class and telco-class networking equipment. That's why they get more of the coverage and speculative concern.
This 60 Minutes episode was kinda my introduction to the story a few years ago.
And then right around the time I bought this phone the U.S. lifted sanctions against ZTE
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-to...sanction-relief-to-chinas-zte-corp-1458511694
Here's an article on ZTE giving up financials to us on North Korea
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...-target-north-korea-violators-with-zte-s-help
Granted, ZTE has also done a few things the U.S. didn't like in regards to trade with Iran and North Korea and Huawei (I gathered) would reverse engineer Cisco equipment to steal their intellectual property.
At this point it sounds indirectly harmless for you and me.
Teet1 said:
I just think this means government officials can't use phones from Huawei or ZTE
But that makes sense, I remember in stock rom I took photos with location on, and those photos had a location of a factory/office in Shanghai, China which made me very suspicious
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That was the previous location accelerator weird thingamajig i think
Choose an username... said:
That was the previous location accelerator weird thingamajig i think
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It didn't do much of that location acceleration if my pictures and Google maps all pointed to china
I am glad I wasn't the only one to perceive corporate agendas ''vs an actual threat. ZTE has been amazing. The only time I have seen dev and device support like theirs was with Moto in their first google year. ZTE was the only one doing something good for me in 2016 devices. I was pissed to read all of the stories against ZTE. Mostly because it is obviously click bait. _typed from my freshly received Axon 7 $79 refurb Hands down the industry's best warranty.
This whole spying thing is always silly. IMO the US would have to be the number one suspect for a spying nation. Things like Google commercialised spying. We might be served adds using our data but what else is being done with it?
My thought is that if the US points the finger, maybe it's because they do it already themselves and are paranoid about others doing as they do.....
ZTE has been caught using spyware and the Axon 7 does have suspicious software on it. The odd thing is that Google is collects enormous amounts of personal data and nobody seems to mind. It even leaks that data back out in the form of ad selections, search result rankings, and Google Maps detail rankings.
kevinmcmurtrie said:
ZTE has been caught using spyware and the Axon 7 does have suspicious software on it. The odd thing is that Google is collects enormous amounts of personal data and nobody seems to mind. It even leaks that data back out in the form of ad selections, search result rankings, and Google Maps detail rankings.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you tell us where you read the first statement? The worst thing we've seen here is a gps accelerator app sending stuff to somewhere in China, but that's not necessarily spyware since they might just be sending location data