A tale of 2 chachas - HTC ChaCha

Dear All,
I would like to share my experience with my chacha to give credit to everyone who contributed to this phone by time and effort and to encourage everyone with a stock rom to move to a custom more useful one.
I just wanted a phone that works for daily business use of emailing, messaging, voIPing etc.. efficiently and reliably. This made iPhones my easy solution. Few weeks ago, my iPhone was broken with a total loss and I had to buy a new phone.
I could not afford a new iPhone and Chacha was the most affordable practical smartphone. I bought it and thought I would have a low end smartphone that would barely satisfy my needs. However, I was very disappointed after few days of usage because of the following.
- Battery drains in 7 hours (Dialer issue)
- Very low internal memory that could not sustain few mails after installing the minimal apps
- Could not monitor battery level accurately
- Could not monitor data usage
I was very frustrated specially because of the first 2 points. I decided to try custom roms and I was introduced to this sincere forum. I decided to take the risk and leave the tested and stable stock rom to an alpha custom rom. After going through few posts I decided to try CM9. Despite being an ex developer, it was a pain rooting and installing the custom rom, but it was done successfully after several hours. And here what I got after several days of usage.
- Hit 16 hours without a charge with 2 synced push mail accounts, synced facebook, synced whatsapp, synced skype, HSDPA on, wifi on, location services on .. SURPRISINGLY, still have 20%. (Even iPhone could not stand this)
- Installed ALL apps I need with 50 MB free in my internal memory, thanks to link2sd that allowed me to move lots of apps to SD. (Apps installed: whatsapp, gmail, facebook, fb messenger, skype, wind finder, terminal, adobe reader, quick office and several useful widgets)
- can monitor battery usage in status bar
- can monitor data under data usage
- very smooth experience and usable interface
- toggle bar in notification center for extra accessibility
Of course there are few issues and bugs with the rom, but, nothing you can't live with.
The dedication of the developers who worked on this turned a very not useful brick to a very very practical affordable phone. Now, I wonder why should someone spend a lot of money on a phone when he can have the same features for 1/6 the price.
Now I believe I had 2 different Chachas and I am happy with the new one,
Thank you everyone for sharing the thought with me.
Special thanks to adlx the developer, Alex whose his posts were very beneficial and some other guy who I can't remember (his post helped me with rooting)

Well said ,my friend.
It took me a lot of pains to root it too, thanks to HTC !
Right now , I am switching between CM9 and CM10 and I feel my phone has gotten a whole new life. :victory:
Glad I didn't ditch it for a newer one just as yet.
Would like to thanks Alex, adlx and all the developers who dedicated their time, effort to making this phone the best QWERTY Android of all times ! :good:

grateful
Really grateful for you nice review and you did encourage me to get this Fone.
i was curious about battery and you answered my doubts.
Thanks
if i buy this fone and got stuck with root process, i will return to you
Ymowiena said:
Dear All,
I would like to share my experience with my chacha to give credit to everyone who contributed to this phone by time and effort and to encourage everyone with a stock rom to move to a custom more useful one.
I just wanted a phone that works for daily business use of emailing, messaging, voIPing etc.. efficiently and reliably. This made iPhones my easy solution. Few weeks ago, my iPhone was broken with a total loss and I had to buy a new phone.
I could not afford a new iPhone and Chacha was the most affordable practical smartphone. I bought it and thought I would have a low end smartphone that would barely satisfy my needs. However, I was very disappointed after few days of usage because of the following.
- Battery drains in 7 hours (Dialer issue)
- Very low internal memory that could not sustain few mails after installing the minimal apps
- Could not monitor battery level accurately
- Could not monitor data usage
I was very frustrated specially because of the first 2 points. I decided to try custom roms and I was introduced to this sincere forum. I decided to take the risk and leave the tested and stable stock rom to an alpha custom rom. After going through few posts I decided to try CM9. Despite being an ex developer, it was a pain rooting and installing the custom rom, but it was done successfully after several hours. And here what I got after several days of usage.
- Hit 16 hours without a charge with 2 synced push mail accounts, synced facebook, synced whatsapp, synced skype, HSDPA on, wifi on, location services on .. SURPRISINGLY, still have 20%. (Even iPhone could not stand this)
- Installed ALL apps I need with 50 MB free in my internal memory, thanks to link2sd that allowed me to move lots of apps to SD. (Apps installed: whatsapp, gmail, facebook, fb messenger, skype, wind finder, terminal, adobe reader, quick office and several useful widgets)
- can monitor battery usage in status bar
- can monitor data under data usage
- very smooth experience and usable interface
- toggle bar in notification center for extra accessibility
Of course there are few issues and bugs with the rom, but, nothing you can't live with.
The dedication of the developers who worked on this turned a very not useful brick to a very very practical affordable phone. Now, I wonder why should someone spend a lot of money on a phone when he can have the same features for 1/6 the price.
Now I believe I had 2 different Chachas and I am happy with the new one,
Thank you everyone for sharing the thought with me.
Special thanks to adlx the developer, Alex whose his posts were very beneficial and some other guy who I can't remember (his post helped me with rooting)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Related

My friend hates his TP cuz of these issues and blames me 4 selling him on HTC.

My friend hates his Sprint Touch Pro and blames me 4 selling him on HTC.
If anyone can offer any help or fixes, I would greatly appreciate it.
I am going to e-mail him a link to this thread.
Thank you.
The following in quotes is the e-mail he sent me.
Here's the low down on my HTC Touch Prop Experience thus far and why I will
sell this turd on ebay...
Cant type first and last name into messaging "to" field (once you hit the
space bar for the last name it selects the first 'josh' in your phone book,
etc.)
Cant search by company name in the address list (I need to look up account
in my phone all the time by company name)
Some names do not appear in contact list search at all but I know they are
there and can get to them manually
Cant search first and last name in contact list (must type one or the other)
GPS won't automatically drive to calendar appointment when the address is in
the appointment or give the option to drive to the appointment
GPS won't give you the option to drive to an address in your address book
GPS freezes up and stops navigating when you turn off the screen (to save
the battery). Won't start again until you close the app and restart.
Several times the phone has frozen up and the touch screen would not
respond...cant get into messages, can't get into contact list.
Auto backup fails every night (third party app but the best one on the
market)
every day the phone freezes up in my contact list...multiple times every
single day. I have over 1700 contacts....I have reset my phone at least 5
times already today.
using three fully charged new batteries a day...I am on my third battery
today as of 5pm and yes I bought three freaking batteries
T9 text input randomly turns itself on and I have to manually turn it back
to ABC input
Facebook and twitter apps suck to the point of being unusable (Facebook app
is the brand new one from Microsoft's upcoming windows mobile 6.5 OS)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Put Juicy 8 on it and it's a whole new experience.
dwizzy130
Wow, i hate lists, but here i'll try to help with some limited knowledge from a touch pro owner since october (my first real smart phone)
use arrow keys left/right to select next person in list when starting to type name
cant help you there, i look up by person's name. There may be alternative software out there for a different address book connected to the main one? SPB mobile shell might have something. Found it! you can do it by going to contacts - then in the menu view-by and select company
maybe those numbers are listed on your sim card and not on your phone book, in the options there should be an option to show both address books
shesh you're picky again, Name one example where you actually need to type both to find the person you want! (i can't think of one example)
Wow, you really think windows thought of everything didn't you? GPS can't do squat without GPS software
This is most likely due to a problem with your firmware - update your ROM and see what happens
Update your ROM - i suggest a nice EnergyROM 2.0 or 1.3 - it is pretty damn stable and bug free - most of your issues from here out sound like things that can be fixed by wiping your phone and installing a better rom than the junk tossed together by the service provider
Why does it fail? What is the backup software? PIMbackup is a pretty solid one, and why do you need to backup nightly? I sync my contacts and calendar with google sync. Thats the only vital data i don't want to loose that changes daily (except for tasks, still waiting for google sync to add tasks)
Again - update your rom! Imagine a car torn apart by a kid in his first year at auto school, and then trying to put it together in a month. That is what the hack jobs who work as rom chefs for service providers do to these phones when they add in their junk bloatware. (Also HTC provided an update with new features, most providers now have released revised versions with their bloatware added of course, but they still work better than the original firmware that comes on the phone)
Battery life depends on use. How often do you have it check for email? My battery lasted only half a day when i told it to check every 5 minutes. Then i realized i really don't care about checking email (and nobody important emails me that often) so i set it to 4 hours - battery life went up drastically. Also turning down brightness, and turning off wifi will save a LOT of battery life. I get a sold day and a half out of my phone now. (with pretty decent amount of use)
Can be another issue with the firmware you're running. There is an app called Advanced Config Editor, I think there is a setting to disable T9
Sigh, indeed, applications are still a work in progress, before the iPhone, there was very little competition for slick applications, but consumers will prevail in the end. For now - its all about keeping up to date with your favorite phone blogs to find out about the latest software available
In all honesty, the TP and other windows mobile phones are not for everyone. They work great if you know what you want to do with them but if you expect to just pick up a phone and go, buy a freeken iPhone and enjoy your watered down smart phone for braindead people. (Hey, i bought my mom one for christmas, she's all happy that she changed the ringtone for me.... despite the fact her past 5 phones could also do that in less than 5 buttons......)
HTC makes a wonderful selection of mobile devices, I have always been pleased with their products.
Cant type first and last name into messaging "to" field (once you hit the
space bar for the last name it selects the first 'josh' in your phone book,
etc.)
Cant search by company name in the address list (I need to look up account
in my phone all the time by company name)
Some names do not appear in contact list search at all but I know they are
there and can get to them manually
Cant search first and last name in contact list (must type one or the other)...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can do all these things by default in the stock WinMo contacts on my HTC Fuze
GPS won't give you the option to drive to an address in your address book
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Know nothing about the Sprint GPS nav app (I assume that's what he's using?) but Garmin Mobile does this, and I suspect most other GPS nav apps do as well.
As far as crashes and battery usage go, the only fix is to flash a different ROM without all the provider bloatware. Sounds like most of his gripes are related to Sprint's implementation of the device, not about HTC or the device itself. In any case, he'll probably never be happy with it - tell him to get an iPhone where he can blithely ignore all the missing features and lack of flexibility.

[Q] Switching from an iphone - questions about android

I'm getting tired of my iPhone 3G, it's beginning to show its age with ios4 and I'm tired of running jailbreak just to get features I feel the device should have out of the box. This hurts both the stability of the device (jailbreak apps take up ram which in turn tends to cause other apps to crash since they can't allocate enough memory) and the overall system coherency (most mods and hacks don't work well with others and it becomes a chore to set everything up nice and clean).
So I'm thinking of switching to Android, I've done some research and I'm mostly torn between a few handsets (Desire Z, Galaxy S II, Desire S etc), but I think I'll decide after I visit the store and get a chance to play with them.
More to the point - I have some questions about the Android platform in general before I take the plunge.
1) I'm a heavy music listener, and I love how the iPod app does music. It's brilliant. How's the android keep up in this department? Making and syncing playlists on your computer? Dynamic playlists on the phone? Playback controls on the lockscreen? Last.fm sync? Switching tracks with volume buttons (CM7 can do that) Any other things I should be aware of?
2) Assuming I'll be setting up with my google account - how does android handle gmail contacts? I can tolerate google dumping anyone I email into my gmail contacts, but I don't want all that garbage on my phone. Any easy solutions?
2b) Pictures on contact list - sync?
2c) Aliases? I have other accounts set up in gmail (work, private, spam) and I need to send mail from all of them. Possible? Easy?
3) Any decent todo list applications? Apart from the usual rtm/evernote. I had a real trouble with this on the iphone. Good ones did not have lockinfo integration and the ones that had were either too expensive or did not suit my needs.
4) Upcoming events, birthdays, todo's on my lockscreen. This is a must. Possible?
5) I'm a bit of a social network whore. More and more often I tend to arrange meetings with friends using facebook/buzz/mailing groups. This means notifications and ease of replying to messages on various networks. I know for a fact that the notification system on the android is heavens above the crap apple delivers currently, and this will probably feel way better and more natural than on the iphone. Are there any particular issues in this area?
6) Battery life. Currently my 3G can go up to 3 days on a charge (usually 2), depending on usage. But I don't use the internet more than I have to since the device is a bit on the slow side since ios4... This will probably change How much does multitasking affect battery? Can you define apps that you want to close when you quit and apps that you want to go into the background (like chats or ims) Or is there some other clever way of easily managing the stuff that's sucking your juice? Any recommended handsets that have a particularly good battery life?
7) iTunes syncing backed up all applications and settings - any comparable solution on android?
8) Visual voicemail on the iphone was the best approach to voicemail I've seen. Any such on android?
9) How much fuss is upgrading the firmware? On the iphone you just press a button, sync and go grab a coffee. After it's finished you restore your jailbreak apps with another click and youre ready to roll. How does this work here? Assuming I'll root and get CM after a few weeks when I'm sure the handset won't need replacing
And finally - any other things I should know? Features I that a user coming from apple would find appealing?
Thanks
2) I honestly don't know. I have setup a seperate google account just for my phone.
You could be able to do all your e-mail dreams with an app. What about this?. Not sure about the buildin email app.
4) Anything is possible with "Widgetlocker" lockscreen.. well almost, but as long as you can get it as a widget you can place it on your "Widgetlocker" lockscreen.
6) Battery life is a problem for most phones, I have heard good things about LG Optimus 2X when it comes to battery. My HTC desire last about 2 days with moderate use. Its the mostly the screen and wireless network that drains the battery.
There is app-killers that can do all kinds of fancy things but often programs just "sleep" when put to the background and the android system automatically kills programs when need of resources.
9) In HTC phones you have to enable a check for firmware updates. When an update is published you will get a notice asked if you want to update. Don't know about other phones.
When dealing with rooted phones, you download a zip file containing the ROM to your SD card, reboot to recovery, do a "nand backup", flash ROM from zip file.. wait
1) I'm NOT a heavy music listener, but it seems nearly all you need is available on Androïd.
2) Pictures in contact list: yes. Aliases yes.
If you don't want to use google sync for your phone contacts, you can choose to store them only in the phone, and saving them in .vcf format (using Go Contact app for example).
I use K9 email client, with multipush abilities, as many mail accounts you want.
3) Don't know . See in Android Market site.
4) Yes. Specific widget.
5) Nope.
6) Battery is a complex problem. Depends on Android version, Baseband version, hardware, installed softwares (some launchers are draining more than others). My Optimus 2X is able to long 48h without being turned off, with a moderate usage, no games, some WiFi surfing.
7) Plenty: Titanium Backup, BackUP Everything etc....
8) Don't know what is visual voicemail. Lol. Never touched an Iphone.
9) Nearly as simple.

Recommend me some Apps, Please

I'm swapping from Android to Windows Phone, and was hoping if anyone is bored enough to read this they might suggest some Windows Phone Apps that might suit my needs.
In no way do I expect anyone that hops in to respond to each type, or google around for me, but I expect I'm not the first person to make the Android -> Windows phone swap, so maybe some of you will have a quick idea of ones to try out. You don't need to spend a lot of time explaining every app, if you're busy. Every platform is different though, so rather than spend 10 hours looking for something that everyone in the community already knows, I thought I would just toss out some quick questions.
1. RSS feeds. On Android I use gReader Pro. It's a pretty basic app that allows easy setup for RSS feeds and syncs them with your google reader account. Not very exciting, but it's easy to use because my feeds are already set up via google, so a decent app that can do the same would be nice.
2. Google Voice. I'd like to make and receive texts, as well as make calls on wifi (receiving calls isn't a big deal, but would be a plus). I downloaded GoVoice, which seems like it will be pretty decent, but am open to suggsetions.
3. Podcasts. I used Doggcatcher on Android, which allows you to stream, download + save, and sync podcasts. It has a decent search function to help you get started.
4. Tasker. This one is more difficult to explain, but essentially it allows you to program a set of tasks, like a macro function. Essentially I have it set up for "Off" (as in data/wifi/bluetooth/gps/gsm disabled), "Data" (same as off but wifi enabled), "Loud" (same as data but with notifications and media volumes all the way up), and "Car" (same as Loud but wifi off and speakerphone and GPS enabled). Basically I use this to change the state of the GPS, WIFI, and volumes, so that I can quickly switch a number of settings at once. Great app, if you have some patience and have an Android kicking around.
5. Astrid Tasks. A pretty basic reminder app. I'm sure there are plenty of these for Windows Phone, but any suggestion would great. If it can store backups to the computer, or sync with a cloud based system, that would be a plus.
6*. Something to show running applications quickly. I'm not sure if this is actually an issue for Windows Phone, but sometimes apps go "rogue" on Android, so being able to make sure that a particular app isn't a battery drain would be nice. I was using System Panel on Android. If this isn't needed, disregard the question.
7. A good alarm app. I was using Gentle Alarm on Android, which has a widget to show you the next alarm that will go off, and allows easy creation of various alarms, which can be set for audible, vibration, specific days of the week to repeat on, etc. You can also ensure that alarms will always be audible, regardless of if everything else is muted, which is nice for at night when you don't need an email waking you up, but need to make sure the alarm is at maximum volume in the morning.
8. Anything else you can think of that is a must have for daily use. I'm a student and don't really have a lot of time to play with the phone for games, but hey, we all have to pass the time every once in a while.
9. Onenote. I like how this app syncs easily, but I can't view my handwritten notes that I write on my tablet. Is there a workaround that allows you to see these?
------ I'm only using this Lumia 710 on WIFI, essentially as a PDA + GPS, so anything handy that can prevent battery drain is a plus, as I don't require GPS to constantly be on, and I certainly don't need phone/data(non-wifi) to constantly be on.
In short, I appreciate any input you might have, even if it's only for one of the things I have listed. The phone seems great in general, and had most of the important things already installed (the email, calendar, navigation, office, etc., is fantastic as is, which is a great bonus compared to Android, where I had to use 3rd party apps for most of the core aspects).
Regards,
--bb
Weave
Skype
Music and Video with Zune
Not possible
Ask Ziggy
not needed
Default alarm
Board Express Pro
Sent from my HD7 using Board Express
---------- Post added at 06:16 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:14 PM ----------
Nokia Drive
Crackle
Nokia Creative Studio
Contract Killer
Sent from my HD7 using Board Express
---------- Post added at 06:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:16 PM ----------
Box
SkyDrive
MetroTube
Sent from my HD7 using Board Express
pvt_nemesis said:
Weave
Skype
Music and Video with Zune
Not possible
Ask Ziggy
not needed
Default alarm
Board Express Pro
Sent from my HD7 using Board Express
---------- Post added at 06:16 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:14 PM ----------
Nokia Drive
Crackle
Nokia Creative Studio
Contract Killer
Sent from my HD7 using Board Express
---------- Post added at 06:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:16 PM ----------
Box
SkyDrive
MetroTube
Sent from my HD7 using Board Express
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for all of the suggestions. That should keep me busy for quite awhile. :good:
Try also fantasia painter for photo editor. Is awesome and free. The only app i am missing since switching from wp7 to android
Sent from my HTC Explorer A310e using xda app-developers app
Before I get into my list, I'm just going to run down how apps and multi tasking work on WP7 in case you don't already know.
#1: No app can truly run in the background. The only way to get an app to continue running is either to have it up and prevent the screen from turning off, or (if supported by the app) allow it to run under the lockscreen, which means when you press the power button, only the screen turns off, the phone does not enter a sleep state.
-----------------The exception to this rule is when an app is playing music. If the app dev has done it correctly, he should have handed the music playing off to the system, so once you set up the music source in app, you should be able to minimize it and use the next/previous/play/pause controls. In fact you can even go to grooveshark's beta html5 in internet explorer; HTML5 can plug in to this system media playback! I was very excited to learn that. But at least on grooveshark, next/previous controls don't work.
#2: HOWEVER each app can have a "daemon" which is essentially a set of tasks that are run periodically by the system (minimum of every half hour). So if you use google latitude, latitude apps will only be able to update your position every half hour (or at longer intervals, but no shorter). This system of background daemons is actually very very good as it encourages unique thinking from the developer side, and still gives the user the benefits of true multi tasking without the battery drainage. What a daemon can do isn't that limited, but it's the fact that no internet connection can remain active in the background that poses a lot of problems (for example, IRC clients cannot have multi tasking for this reason). Since things can only run every half hour, you don't have to worry about things like turning off your gps, since nothing is allowed to just turn on the GPS and keep it on.
#3 : Also there's still push, of course. Lemme break that down for you: push notifications can either be through the live tile (rather than having a background daemon update the tile, things are pushed to it immediately as they arrive), or push can be used through statusbar notifications. One unfortunate oversight in this system is that if you have an app that you do not pin to the start menu, and if it has a notification and you did not hear it... there is no list of missed notifications. This doesn't come into play that often; for me it only happens with eBay, where I don't want to bother having that on my start screen but I might miss some alerts.
#4: Battery Saver mode is YOUR FRIEND. You can get nearly another day out of your phone (or I can with my Titan) when battery saver kicks in. You can enable it so that it turns on when the battery is low (%20), or manually. However, it disables all background daemons and push notification in order to save battery.
#5: Multi tasking and switching between apps. Hold down the back button to see the list of the last several apps you used (or in the case of my unlocked ROM, all of the apps you have used since boot). When you minimize an app (press the start button), it gets "dehydrated" which means it's just suspended to RAM. It works like you'd expect; start typing something in one app, switch over to another to look something up and switch back to the first to resume typing. To remove an app from the list, or "exit" the app (since it isn't actually running the only thing this does is remove clutter or perhaps free up some slots), you "back" out of them. Press the back button until the app goes away.
One of the reasons, in my opinion, that windows 8 is getting a lot of negative flack is because people don't know that live tiles are good. It doesn't help that, last time I checked, there were no useful live tile apps in the 8 marketplace yet. So frustrating! People hate what they don't understand, because hating on the internet is the standard state of existence. I encourage you to think about what you do on the internet every time you sit down on your computer, and see if you can find an app with live tile to do it for you. For me, I had a routine of checking my email(s), going through a lot of webcomics, reading news feeds, etc. That was my daily routine. Now with WP7, I have each aspect of my routine as a live tile, so I can literally replace that entire process with just looking at the start screen.
The other thing about live tiles and metro that people fail to understand is that active push notifications, where unnecessary are BAD, for a few different reasons. Push notifications are "active" and live tiles are "passive". This is because live tiles do not make any noise or otherwise prompt you to look at them; they are simply there and deliver content when you pull out your phone. Let me put this in perspective: say I pull out my phone to look up something on wikipedia. I can see that I have 2 new emails, some new RSS articles and a facebook notification. Number 1: I don't feel the urge to go and clear the unread count of all of these things, as I would if they were all aggregated in the statusbar like on android (because you need that statusbar for things, and if it's cluttered and you don't keep up on it, it quickly fills up and becomes overwhelming). I can leave them alone for now and go to wikipedia. Now if this were an android/IOS device, I would have gotten an audible notification for each of those three things, and I would have taken time out of whatever I was doing IN LIFE to tend to my phone.
Some points about stressors here (and when I say stressors, I don't mean overwhelming stress you can feel, but stress in the clinical sense, which is objective): having your phone beep at you constantly stresses you; for most people it's difficult to put their phone out of their mind until they have seen what the notification was. This is not good.
Moreover, feeling the need to go and clear unread counts/managing your statusbar is also somewhat of a stressor; if it starts overflowing you'll either learn to not use things that create notifications (somewhat limiting your experience with a smartphone), give up all hope and never look at the statusbar again, or just clear it out and miss out on things you wouldn't have if the information was presented in an orderly fashion.
Live tiles, being passive, are also more efficient in terms of time spent on the phone and your phone's battery life. Notice how in my example, I observed the new content only when I was already pulling out my phone to do something else. With things aggregating in bulk, I can view them in bulk at points of the day where I was already on my phone. This is opposed to pulling out my phone every 15 minutes because something new happened... which wastes time pulling your phone out of your pocket many times a day, wastes battery when turning the screen on/off many times a day, and if you use wifi; wastes even more battery when the wifi radio is turned on/off sporadically many times a day.
So yes, live tiles are an objectively less stressful approach to mobile devices and less distracting from tasks at hand. The same concepts can be applied to windows 8; rather than having popup notifications for all your facebook, email, rss, etc bombard you while you're trying to write a paper... all of that information is silently aggregated for you in the background.
------------The List-------------------
For alarms,
627.AM
Built in Alarm app.
For task / project management
Tasks by telerik
Or just use the built in calendar app
Or use Onenote and Pin your task list to the start screen.
For RSS
Wonder Reader hands down, none of the other google reader clients are quite as fully functional and polished.
Fuse is pretty but I never got the hang of using it.
For Wifi Video calls
Tango. It's pretty limited in that the android and IOS client are updated with better features, and you can only call other people with tango... but the service itself is more efficient and more reliable than the skype app was last time I tried it. Moreover it supports push for accepting calls, something skype doesn't. Also I like the concept of not having "online / offline" states. You call someone, and they choose to answer it or not. Why would I need to log into a phone...
I used to take notes on a tablet at school, and ran into the same problem as you. Only solution I know of is to print your notes back into onenote. You'll have duplicates of everything unfortunately.
Podcast functionality is built in.
For random recommendations...
das Image (Better image search)
Image Map (Renders all of your pictures on a map based on GPS loc info)
Dynamic Background (Unlock) (Updates the lockscreen picture every half hour choosing randomly from a pool of selected images)
Battery Status (Unlock) (Live tile for current battery percent, also tracks battery usage and graphs it for you)
EnClock (there is no stopwatch built in to WP7, and you never know when you need one)
eBay
HandyScan (Helps you take good pictures of papers, backs up to skydrive. Better to keep documents in here than with regular pictures).
Keep Alive (by jaxbot, it prevents wifi from turning off)
Nokia Drive (Unlock unless you get a nokia device)
MetroPaper (Read it later / pocket)
Metrotube + Supertube (youtube apps. 1 is awesome, 2 lets you download videos and even create offline "music" playlists)
Photo2cloud (back up full res photos to skydrive independent of PC)
Supreme Shortcuts (Unlock) (Lets you pin any setting page to the start screen)
WeatherLive (There are plenty of other weather apps... but weatherlive works, it's incredibly thorough, updates live tile using GPS location, is pretty, etc)
Zite (Gives you news articles based on google reader feeds and who you follow in twitter, good for every time I go to the toilet )
If you use IRC or SSH
The SSH Client Pro
TinyIRC
And now that you are a part of the WP community, you should invest in AND pin the live tiles of each to your start screen:
WPCentral
WMPoweruser
Games! I Don't like to play serious games on my phone; I like something I can whip out at any time and turn off at any time, no consequence. That said, I make an exception for the Final Fantasy updated / rerelease for WP7
COLLAPSE (Probably my favorite mobile game. It's an easy puzzle game, but satisfying to plow through at ludicrous speed. There are some very hard rounds with special conditions though.. story mode is dumb but it has unique challenges and you need to play through it to unlock all the quick play modes).
Final Fantasy
Wordament
Fruit Ninja
Dodonpachi Maximum (Genre: Bullet Hell. If you don't know what that means then try it before you buy it. If you love bullet hell; buy this. It's by CAVE).
Wizard's Choice (A casual text adventure).
link68759 said:
Lots of good info
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for the detailed response!
I've started using Onenote as a to-do list, but I made a recent post as to why that's causing me problems (or so it seems).
I seem to be syncing everything from onenote, and my device has basically filled up overnight as it downloaded my files. Microsoft told me to contact Nokia about it, and then disconnected?
It seemed like a good plan to me as well. I don't really need to see detailed graphs and notes on the phone, just a couple simple folders.
I may just reset the phone and give the other apps you suggested a shot, and not connect with my microsoft live ID at all. I went from plenty of space on the device to none, in a matter of days.
I'm not sure if podcasts were an issue as well, and how it saves and deletes them. I only stored what I would consider a small amount, maybe 200 megs or less.
Nokia drive works great. It takes up a lot of space, but I have it on my feature phone as well, and the GPS acquisition time on the Lumia 710 blows away my E5-00, and my Droid X. It's just incredibly fast at locking in.
I'll do a reset tomorrow and give the other apps a shot, and try to avoid anything that could be crushing my storage. All I really need for storage is email, nokia drive, and basic apps/news/podcasts, which on my android (nav aside) shouldn't really take more than 1 gig of space. A few small games to pass the time, and some apps for productivity, and I should be back in business.
Unfortunately I can't seem to find a way to determine what is using X amount of space, so I'll have to do a full wipe and install items slowly, to sort it out.
There isn't a proper app to view this kind of thing, is there?
Regards,
--bb
I'll reply to your other thread about one note.
You can't not connect with your live ID if you plan to download apps unfortunately.
For viewing used space, Zune does divide it up for you, I don't remember how specific it gets but it should be divided into space used by music, videos, podcasts, apps. I don't think it's possible for an app to view usage, because each app is sandboxed; that is they have their own folder on the device and they are not allowed to leave it.
Nokia Drive shouldn't need to take up a lot of space; you can just download the maps of where you live and where you might possibly go spontaneously, as opposed to your whole country XD. Yeah I've had good luck with my phones and GPS, WP7 in general does an excellent job with GPS.
Oh I forgot to mention in my first post; WPCentral and WMPoweruser are good because they do a lot of app/game reviews, usually the reviews are on new apps in the market. This is pretty much the only way I discover new apps
link68759 said:
I'll reply to your other thread about one note.
You can't not connect with your live ID if you plan to download apps unfortunately.
For viewing used space, Zune does divide it up for you, I don't remember how specific it gets but it should be divided into space used by music, videos, podcasts, apps. I don't think it's possible for an app to view usage, because each app is sandboxed; that is they have their own folder on the device and they are not allowed to leave it.
Nokia Drive shouldn't need to take up a lot of space; you can just download the maps of where you live and where you might possibly go spontaneously, as opposed to your whole country XD. Yeah I've had good luck with my phones and GPS, WP7 in general does an excellent job with GPS.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Gotcha!
I will look into setting up a new windows live account for OneNote to-do type lists. I know Office sometimes used to have issues with multiple live accounts on the same computer, in Windows 7, but I think that's mostly fixed now. I use google calendar anyways (to sync), so realistically it's not the end of the world for me to keep the accounts disconnected from my school Onenote live account.
I guess I synced all of Nokia North America at once (1.9 or so gigs of a download). I certainly don't need more than 20% of it. In fact, my whole state, now that I look at it, is only 36 megs.
Now that you've given some ideas of how to approach it, I'm liking this more than any of my other previous phones (iPhone, BB Bold, Droid X, etc). It needs some time to grow as an operating system, and Nokia really needs to put an LED notification light on future models [shakes tiny fist], but I think they're back in the game!
Thank you very much for all of your help.
//Edit: I read your other post responding to mine. I think you're right. I could probably do a wipe, use the same account, but move the basic to-do lists to a separate folder, pin them, and make sure to never ever open the school folder itself in Office on the phone. That sounds like it would work ok as well, as I must have opened a school folder that overwhelmed it and just started syncing massive amounts of pdf's, inking, and so on, along with the simple things.
I just wanted to also mention that all that you typed out would make for a great sticky. That's a ton of great info.
Thank you again for all of the feedback.
You made some excellent points about how smartphones add lots of unnecessary stresses when they're constantly distracting us with notifications, as well as how live tiles really help ease you into information you need, and information you might not, but are willing to take a brief glance at. I'm a big Windows 8 fan, and have used RP, RTM Pro (currently), and RTM enterprise. I think Live Tiles are fantastic, whether it's on my phone, my convertible laptop, or my desktop. I think you're absolutely correct about how people just don't quite understand how handy it will be yet.
//BTW: I bookmarked your post as a sort of "zen" explanation I can refer back to, or link to a friend, so they understand the unity and purposes in the next stage in Windows products.
///Afterthought: I still would like a notification LED on the phone, as long as it's customizable. On Android and Blackberry I would always disable the light for all of the nonsense things, but keep it enabled for things like a missed call (because that could be my son needing a ride, or something else that's important), or for a severe weather alert. Random emails would just have to wait until I turned on the screen.
Sorry to bump my own thread again, but I have a question about three of the apps that link68759 mentioned.
"Supreme Shortcuts (Unlock) (Lets you pin any setting page to the start screen)"
"Battery Status (Unlock) (Live tile for current battery percent, also tracks battery usage and graphs it for you)"
"Keep Alive (by jaxbot, it prevents wifi from turning off)"
By "unlock" I'm assuming he meant an unlocked bootloader, and not locked to a cellular carrier? I did the basic test today, and mine appears to be locked, which is a shame because both of those functions would be great.
As far as "Keep Alive" goes, I can't seem to find that specific app/dev combo in the market. I don't use 3g/4g data on this phone, or any phone anymore, so is that an app that is better than keeping the scanning on, or is it a battery drain? I'm just not sure I follow the concept, because I can't find a description of it.
Regards,
--bb
bladebarrier said:
Sorry to bump my own thread again, but I have a question about three of the apps that link68759 mentioned.
"Supreme Shortcuts (Unlock) (Lets you pin any setting page to the start screen)"
"Battery Status (Unlock) (Live tile for current battery percent, also tracks battery usage and graphs it for you)"
"Keep Alive (by jaxbot, it prevents wifi from turning off)"
By "unlock" I'm assuming he meant an unlocked bootloader, and not locked to a cellular carrier? I did the basic test today, and mine appears to be locked, which is a shame because both of those functions would be great.
As far as "Keep Alive" goes, I can't seem to find that specific app/dev combo in the market. I don't use 3g/4g data on this phone, or any phone anymore, so is that an app that is better than keeping the scanning on, or is it a battery drain? I'm just not sure I follow the concept, because I can't find a description of it.
Regards,
--bb
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You'll need to flash a custom ROM, which you can luckily do on your 710.
The a wifi radio turning on/off takes more power than one that is idly connected. So if you use the phone frequently, it's better to stay connected. If you aren't going to touch it for many hours at a time, better to let it disconnect and turn off.
But if you aren't using cellular then you'll need wifi to update information in the background.
Some more here
Dialpad7
Handyscan
Photogram
Skype
Sleep Bug
Tango
UC Browser
whatspp= messenger
Yelp = to find nearby things

Considering a purchase- questions

Hey guys,
I use Whatsapp pretty heavily and was wondering if you can record whatsapp voice msgs over the Gear 2? I know from what I've read, it was a possibility, however that was an article published a couple months back.
Can anyone give me some insight on that? Also, what other features do you find beneficial? I am on the fence, I am a watch fanatic and wondering if this would be a good purchase for me. My main apps are music for while at the gym (which I use bluetooth headsets anyhow), whatsapp, phone, text, and email. Which, from my understanding the Gear 2 handles all of these things (including phone calls?)
I'm sitting at the checkout screen and considering it, please help me decide! Thank you
My wife bought me one for Christmas, but I was like you, on the fence. I've had it for 5 days now, and I can definitely see the convenience in having it. Although it's early days for tizen development, there is (in my opinion) a bright future for it. Eventually there will be more and more app integration, just like those that adopted android way back in the day, and look where we are now.
The most important thing, in my eyes, to remember is that the gear is infact, a companion to your phone, and not a replacement. Keeping that in mind, together with realistic expectations of what you can do on it, it should be a wonderful experience.
Hope that helps you.
Love it
It's all about personal usage cases!
I have one and after a couple of months, would not be without it.
True, for full on features, you need your phone, but i often use it on its own. Loaded with music for the gym, Notepad ++ for memos etc, S-Alarm for the obvious alarms, calculators, watch faces, sleep monitoring, voice memos,calendars, fitness logging...and not forgetting the camera for those quick shots and videos, this little device really is a device which can be used on it's own!!. None of the above require the phone to use them!
Then of course when you begin to introduce the phone to the watch....even more is possible!
I really hope you're enjoying your new watch and look forward to hearing how you get on with it in the coming weeks
I find the Neo and the 2 have a good basic notification balance and not trying to replace your mobile - for me I like it, but a shame you can only reply template or S Voice to texts and not WhatsApp and email.
I very much doubt there will be any further app integration for us Gear owners.
But I still bought my Gear 2 knowing that
Sent from my SM-G900F using XDA Free mobile app
I'm not a WhatsApp user, but you can definitely reply to emails u using templates
I've added plenty of my own custom template for just this reason, and for me it works well.
I do however use the Samsung email app, and I know that if I received a gmail message, the option to reply using templates isn't available
@Manic9803
Seen your post earlier and seen this Whatsapp for gear 2 in app and themes.
Make sure to Thank the developer.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/gear-2/themes-apps/wip-whatsgear-whatsapp-wrist-t2947807
It's a great little gadget...but don,t expect to change your life. It's nice, convinient, you can see "SOME" notifcations, although I wish you could see full notifications and not the stupid "open phone to view". The battery life is great, about 4-5 days on a charge. I def use it many times a day to reject calls (because the speaker is not loud enough to take calls unless you're in a quiet room). There are some useful apps, I can shazam music, use a calculator, use GPS navigation and see my route directly on the watch.
It's an accessory, it's nice to have, but I could def live without it.

Samsung Note 9: Battery question

Hello everyone,
I'm new here so not sure did I hit the right section (sorry if its wrong).
By the normal use my battery last around 24hr but recently I had some issues with the battery drainage so to speak in like 2-3 hr it would just dry out and I have to recharge.
That lasted for like a week and then suddenly it stopped and it return to normal lasting 24hr on a full charge.
My question is was that a fluke or should I replace the battery?
Thanks,
Sam
Batteries don't die and get resurrected.
An apk(s) was the cause.
If it happens again track down the offender(s).
blackhawk said:
Batteries don't die and get resurrected.
An apk(s) was the cause.
If it happens again track down the offender(s).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi blackhawk, thank you for the replay I was tracking with Advanced task manager app and all the apps that run right now they are aps that run on my phone regularly. There was no changes (I didn't install/remove any app in few months). That is the reason for my odd question so to speak.
samcoon62 said:
Hi blackhawk, thank you for the replay I was tracking with Advanced task manager app and all the apps that run right now they are aps that run on my phone regularly. There was no changes (I didn't install/remove any app in few months). That is the reason for my odd question so to speak.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try using Galaxy Labs Battery Tracker.
Sometimes Google apks will show battery usage as other Google or Android apks because of related dependencies even if the apk is disabled.
Google Backup Transport, Framework and Google Play Services are prime suspects. Clearing the data of these apks will many times stop excess battery usage. Gmaps is another one that will run in the background. Brave browser too.
Close apps when done with them especially before you go to bed.
Wifi if enable as well. Something did it...
Karma Firewall is very useful in spotting troublemakers and for locking down those apks.
It's freeware, ad free and uses almost no battery.
Has logging that makes seeing excessive internet usage easy.
Works best with Pie or early OSs.
blackhawk said:
Try using Galaxy Labs Battery Tracker.
Sometimes Google apks will show battery usage as other Google or Android apks because of related dependencies even if the apk is disabled.
Google Backup Transport, Framework and Google Play Services are prime suspects. Clearing the data of these apks will many times stop excess battery usage. Gmaps is another one that will run in the background. Brave browser too.
Close apps when done with them especially before you go to bed.
Wifi if enable as well. Something did it...
Karma Firewall is very useful in spotting troublemakers and for locking down those apks.
It's freeware, ad free and uses almost no battery.
Has logging that makes seeing excessive internet usage easy.
Works best with Pie or early OSs.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry for the late replay, wow so much information's thank you so much blackhawk I will setup Galaxy Labs Battery Tracker and Karma.
My wifi is always on and always connected to home or office wife (mostly home nowadays as the corona forced us all to work from home if we can.
I appropriate your help so much was going crazy over here lol
Sammy's can be quit the pain. If you're running Pie or below you have far more tools to track down the offenders. Running Apps/cache in Developer options and cache apps in Samsung Device Care are two I use.
This package blocker is another favorite I always use. It can completely clear app caches leaving no nulls that "clearing" them in app settings sometimes leaves. Incomplete clearing means the problem can persist. It's a great troubleshooting and debloating tool if you use it wisely. Has a widget that allows you to toggle selected apks on/off too.
Home - Package Disabler
The only NON-root solution that let’s you disable any unwanted packages that come pre-installed / installed with your phone / tablet.
www.packagedisabler.com
I get you what you are saying but it's a bit uncharted waters for me. lol
As I'm use to computers wracking them up and setting them back up for last 30+ years (professionally). I was always repulsive toward mobile phones. As I like my privacy, piece will working, and when I go somwere no one to disturb me and know were exactly I'm lol.
When they first came out I didn't want to get one until 2004 and then I got my first one Nokia 3310 that is still working (just who knows how many batteries did I change), 2nd one was Note4 in 2016 (also still works and looks like new) and now Note9.
Android phones I got just for viber (registration mostly as i more use it on PC) and banking (from time to tiem) calling and rarely sending sms. Other than that I don't use phone much as I prefer to shoot pictures with my Sony Camera and to do everything else on my PC.
Because of that there was no much interest and room for a phone so I didnt play with developers modes and wracking phones up like I do with PC's lol.
PS: Only reason I'm into Notes is the pen (don't ask me why, I have no idea) lol
samcoon62 said:
I get you what you are saying but it's a bit uncharted waters for me. lol
As I'm use to computers wracking them up and setting them back up for last 30+ years (professionally). I was always repulsive toward mobile phones. As I like my privacy, piece will working, and when I go somwere no one to disturb me and know were exactly I'm lol.
When they first came out I didn't want to get one until 2004 and then I got my first one Nokia 3310 that is still working (just who knows how many batteries did I change), 2nd one was Note4 in 2016 (also still works and looks like new) and now Note9.
Android phones I got just for viber (registration mostly as i more use it on PC) and banking (from time to tiem) calling and rarely sending sms. Other than that I don't use phone much as I prefer to shoot pictures with my Sony Camera and to do everything else on my PC.
Because of that there was no much interest and room for a phone so I didnt play with developers modes and wracking phones up like I do with PC's lol.
PS: Only reason I'm into Notes is the pen (don't ask me why, I have no idea) lol
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I use my 10+ like a PC. I rarely use my laptop and keep it completely off the internet.
The SD card is the data drive on my 10+. I can do a full reload from it with little or no internet; all critical data is store there including copies of all my apps. I load directly from the SD card, no Playstore needed. A full restore takes me about 2 hours now. The SD card is also backed up to 2 hdds just in case. Develope a complete restore plan for a forced reload. After that a reload is no issue.
They are very rare but they can happen especially if you run into a virus.
The only things I keep on the internal memory are the working apps, DCIM (with frequent backups to the SD card) and the download folder until the files can be vetted.
Androids are fun to play with. With a none rooted phone it's pretty hard to crash them. Lol, I've crashed and burned about 50 Window's loads playing in the Registry over the years. Cloned OS copies made that pretty painless.
I play with the 10+ a lot. It's a surprisingly stable and fast platform.
Lots of really good apps for it too. Most are free.
The 10+ replaced my TV as did the PC over 15 years ago. Pretty cool.
Gene Roddenberry would have gone nuts holding a 10+ in his hands. More than even he could have imagined.

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