Database Info

Could I be happy if I switched from Android?

So let me preface by saying Ive gone from iPhone to Android and have been watching WP since launch and plan on it being my next OS after I can get a hold of an off contract Verizon phone relatively cheaply or when my upgrade is up. I love how fluid it seems with its native apps and I want to get away from my buggy and laggy/stuttering Droid X (Which is the same for everyone I know with one).
But there's some things that you really don't take into account when you don't actually use the device everyday, so I figured Id ask here and see how WP stacks up.
What I am looking for info on:
-I use Android's file system to store non-market/root APK's to reinstall apps after wiping/updating the phone and such. I would like to unlock my WP for things like screenshot utilities; how does that whole scene work in a quick summary? I know about Chevron, but how are these apps distributed, updated etc.?
-How are non-native apps with scrolling smoothness these days in Mango? I cant stand the lag and stuttering in Android.
-Can you download from IE to the file system with homebrew? How about natively?
-How does Skydrive work for installers/loading installers, PDF's and other non-Office files? Can you browse it like a filesystem, as I currently use it as a Network Drive on my PC anyways.
-Does the universal volume setup become an issue? I use my phone as my PMP with headphones all the time, then I need it to be on vibrate for class and in general, also alarms randomly, and occasionally I play games with the media on. Will I be missing alarms or leaving the ringer on in class if I don't pay close attention or is it mainly just when going headphones to media? I dont quite understand how it works specifically.
-Quick ways to toggle WiFi and screen brightness with homebrew?
-Back up options for app settings and things if a wipe happens?
-Do you find yourself ever getting annoyed with the animations or the app list for less used apps that still get accessed once in a while?
-How bad is board reader for browsing forums or the free reddit apps? They dont have great ratings.
-Am I going to be panning a lot in IE without text reflow? I usually browse/do everything in portrait and dont like landscape much FYI.
Anything you really miss about Android or iOS?

I only know of TouchXplorer for HTC for file management but im sure there are others for the other brands. Not sure how you would go about storing files for re installation. Dont think anyone has figured out how to invoke the xap installer from files on the phone. Most of these apps are found here on XDA
Most apps are pretty smooth. Depends on the dev. Id say they are all smoother than android though.
Dont think you can download to the file system from IE
You can access Skydrive from the office hub. You can open media files and pdfs etc. Once again not sure about install files.
I havent had a problem with the volume. I use my phone for media and games. I just put it on vibrate when i need to which is easy to do on the lock screen.
Cant toggle from the homescreen yet, there are apps that are shortcuts to the setting though
There is a homebrew backup program here on XDA somewhere
I dont get annoyed by the animations. They make for a nice experience
The XDA app is a version of board express i believe and its not too bad. I Haven't tried any of the Reddit apps
There is a bit of panning. I find its just easier to find a good zoom level that you can read it on
Hope i helped

Mike415 said:
What I am looking for info on:
-I use Android's file system to store non-market/root APK's to reinstall apps after wiping/updating the phone and such. I would like to unlock my WP for things like screenshot utilities; how does that whole scene work in a quick summary? I know about Chevron, but how are these apps distributed, updated etc.?
I've never used TouchXplorer, so I don't even know if it is compatible with Mango, but if it is it would be the only file explorer option I know of. WP is not designed as an open system, so file explorers are not officially supported.
-How are non-native apps with scrolling smoothness these days in Mango? I cant stand the lag and stuttering in Android.
I have around 175 third party apps installed on my phone, and at least half of them exhibit enough lag/stutter that it is noticeable, and some are quite annoying, even some of the major apps (such as Accuweather.com and USA Today). Generally, it seems that if an app is fetching data from the internet while it is also rendering to the display, you will probably notice some lag/stutter. I've never owned an Android, but from the videos I've seen on YouTube and also from what I've observed watching my son use his Samsung Captivate, the lag (at least in third party apps) is comparable.
-Can you download from IE to the file system with homebrew? How about natively?
All apps are sandboxed on WP, so downloading to "the filesystem" is not supported.
-How does Skydrive work for installers/loading installers, PDF's and other non-Office files? Can you browse it like a filesystem, as I currently use it as a Network Drive on my PC anyways.
Again, I don't know about homebrew, but generally speaking SkyDrive only supports photos and Office documents from your phone.
-Does the universal volume setup become an issue? I use my phone as my PMP with headphones all the time, then I need it to be on vibrate for class and in general, also alarms randomly, and occasionally I play games with the media on. Will I be missing alarms or leaving the ringer on in class if I don't pay close attention or is it mainly just when going headphones to media? I dont quite understand how it works specifically.
This one is a bit tricky. As far as missing alarms due to turning the ringer on or off, that is probably not likely. Turning vibrate-only mode on or off is remarkably simple on WP. Just wake up the phone, press either volume control, and then tap the ringer icon to toggle it on or off.
However, that is the good news. The bad news is that the universal volume means that having the volume high enough to be able to hear the phone ring from your pocket also means that any app, game or media will also blast out of the phone at annoyingly loud levels. And conversely, if you turn the volume down far enough to play a game or listen to music at a comfortable level, but forget to turn it back up when you are done, you will miss calls, guaranteed. It has happened to me more times than I care to count.
-Quick ways to toggle WiFi and screen brightness with homebrew?
Quick setting toggles are not supported. You can, however, get a reasonably adequate shortcuts to the four main toggles (WiFI, 3G, Airplane mode, and Bluetooth) on your start screen. The unfortunate annoyance is that, depending on how you lay out your start screen, you may have a few button presses/scroll swipes necessary to complete the toggle of a setting). As for brightness, there is no toggle support for that.
-Back up options for app settings and things if a wipe happens?
There is no support for backup of app settings, game saves or SMS messages, period. None at all. You can (using a homebrew app) perform a complete device backup, but it cannot be transferred to another device.
-Do you find yourself ever getting annoyed with the animations or the app list for less used apps that still get accessed once in a while?
Do the animations annoy me? Yes. Contrary to the apparently popular opinion here, I find much of the animation on the start screen to be gimmicky (the people hub, game hub, and "me" hub icons especially so). And many third party apps flip their icons for no reason at all, just for the sake of flipping it. For example Flixster flips the tile between a static photo of a currently-playing movie on one side (with the program icon in the corner), and the program icon filling the tile on the other side. It serves no purpose.
With that said, SOME of the app tiles are VERY useful, such as most weather apps, which usually flip between current conditions and forecast conditions. Being a weather junky, I love that feature.
Regarding the app list, it is more than just an annoyance, it is a major frustration for me, every single day. With no app grouping capabilities at all (I wouldn't care HOW it was implemented, I just want SOMETHING implemented), finding apps in a long list can be a real chore. I don't like it at all. If you only ever plan to have 20 or 30 apps, it might be OK. But if you need more than that, the number of taps and flicks and swipes needed to find and launch an app can be time-consuming.
-How bad is board reader for browsing forums or the free reddit apps? They dont have great ratings.
I've only used the trial version of Board Express, and didn't like it at all. Most of the reports from people here are that it is painfully bad to use.
-Am I going to be panning a lot in IE without text reflow? I usually browse/do everything in portrait and dont like landscape much FYI.
That depends entirely on the layout of the web sites you visit. On some sites, the tap-to-zoom works very well, and makes the text fill the screen (without reflow, of course) at a nominally readable size. But on other sites, it just doesn't help at all, and I end up panning quite a bit.
Anything you really miss about Android or iOS?
I've never owned either, so I can't say. However, unless things change I will most likely be moving to an iPhone within a couple of months. WP has a LOT going for it, but unfortunately (for me) it still has too many gaps in its features, and some of them are too annoying to just live with them and wait patiently on Microsoft.
I hope the features that I need do get added in future updates, because I'd be happy to switch back. But after reading the snarky attitude of many of the fans here, I can't help but wonder if that same attitude isn't prevalent at Microsoft, which would kind of imply that those features won't be coming any time soon.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My answers are in blue.

To be honest, from your questions, I would say you would be better off staying with android, don't get me wrong, i love wp7 and it does everthing i need it to do, but you may find some of the stuff you want is not available and get frustrated.

I just switched and am very happy! After two years on android, wp7 feels so smooth and coherent

IMHO, go to a store or carrier centre and request a WP7 and play with it, as from what I believe, everyone has their own preferences.

My advise would be to stay away if you're a tweaker, which is sounds like you are.

pillsburydoughman said:
My advise would be to stay away if you're a tweaker, which is sounds like you are.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was though, but sometimes you get sick of constantly flashing roms, chaning things around, and want something that just works.
I'm happy that now it seems as if I have much more time since I'm not constantly fiddling with my phone 24/7.
I guess that is dependent on the person themselves though

What I am looking for info on:
-I use Android's file system to store non-market/root APK's to reinstall apps after wiping/updating the phone and such. I would like to unlock my WP for things like screenshot utilities; how does that whole scene work in a quick summary? I know about Chevron, but how are these apps distributed, updated etc.?
*No, you will be stuck at your pc for deploying XAPs. However Dotcomp says there is a way to deploy XAPs from IE.
MS security is a complete joke, you can just download the XAPs from MS.
-How are non-native apps with scrolling smoothness these days in Mango? I cant stand the lag and stuttering in Android.
* Well get used to it, its the exact same on WP7. However there aren't many apps with long scroll list, most take advantage of Metro.
-Can you download from IE to the file system with homebrew? How about natively?
*NO, and no
-How does Skydrive work for installers/loading installers, PDF's and other non-Office files? Can you browse it like a filesystem, as I currently use it as a Network Drive on my PC anyways.
*Skydrive was a afterthought on this OS, my opinion. Works great for Office documents, OneNote, and pics. That's it.
-Does the universal volume setup become an issue? I use my phone as my PMP with headphones all the time, then I need it to be on vibrate for class and in general, also alarms randomly, and occasionally I play games with the media on. Will I be missing alarms or leaving the ringer on in class if I don't pay close attention or is it mainly just when going headphones to media? I dont quite understand how it works specifically.
* Depends on you. I'm used to multiple volume settings, so its a pain to me.
-Quick ways to toggle WiFi and screen brightness with homebrew?
* If you can call a wifi icon on homesreen quick, then yes, other than that NO.
-Back up options for app settings and things if a wipe happens?
*If on the go, NO. If at your PC, http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=19341502#post19341502
-Do you find yourself ever getting annoyed with the animations or the app list for less used apps that still get accessed once in a while?
* Actually the animations are what make this phone. They're pretty quick and elegant. I like the live tiles, but they ruin the glance and go concept, because I have to wait on it to flip.
The app list is horrid.
-How bad is board reader for browsing forums or the free reddit apps? They dont have great ratings.
*Board Express made by Tapatalk, is nothing like Tapatalk on Android or IOS. It is like a sick joke. The browser is faster on WP.
-Am I going to be panning a lot in IE without text reflow? I usually browse/do everything in portrait and dont like landscape much FYI.
* Double tap usually makes the text readable, but if the site has text and pictures you want to see, you're SOL.
Also if you like to read comments, or deal with a HTML5 website, you will find yourself having to load the full website a lot. I can't even get the smartphone version of mobile sites, IE9 doesn't render some correctly.
Anything you really miss about Android or iOS?
YES! GOOGLE APPS! GAMES!
Youtube on Android is the greatest, Lazytube comes close but you have to pay for it.
Im used to sitting on my couch and flinging websites and videos from my phone to the TV(google tv), impossible on WP7.
Custom SMS, ringtones, and email notifications. You can do custom ringtones but its a hassle.
I can say I like the Email on WP7, however its not instant like on IOS or Android.
Oh, there is no auto update option. If there is a app that needs updating you have to open the market and tell it to update.
---
All of that being sad, you could still be Happy using WP7. It just totally depends on what you use your phone for.
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my lady took over the vibrant, lol.
-------------
Another thing, some people say they get tired of flashing custom roms on Android. The exact same OPTION is avaliable on WP7. You don't HAVE to flash either.

there are no custom roms for my phone...
I was continually trying to get my phone smoother, and smoother on android.
I just don't feel the need to with this. Once again, just my own two cents. I never said that it would be the same for everyone

Thanks for the replies so far. It helped me get a better feeling for WP and it seems like I should really just wait for all the new OS updates like Ice Cream and iOS 5.x+/iPhone 5 before diving into WP. I am a slight tweaker of Android, but I don't actually want to do that very much anymore. I just want a phone that works and suits my needs. Android suits my needs, but doesn't really work great and it annoys me.
WP seems like it would be okay for me. Im not an app whore anymore since Ive been a smartphone user for several years now and I pretty much just like to be able to get the news, read some forums, text a lot, use yelp to find places to eat, and occasionally pass some time on leisure games. Android is pretty weak as far as finding decent games IMO and I think WP could actually be better in that regard (iPhone is the only one I would consider good for leisure games, but if Ive gotten by on Android this long I think WP could be okay, especially since I still would have an iPhone and Droid for those games). Right now, using Launcher 7 on Android I only use 2.5 screens of tiles so Im not going to have too much of an issue with the app list I think (Homebrew folders support will do me fine in that regard as I can toss all the leisure games in there also).
What I am still unclear on is viewing PDFs that are hosted on websites because its a situation that I run into frequently enough that I need it to be able to view PDFs from sites or Skydrive (Either one). Can I navigate with IE to a site with a link to a hosted PDF and view it or not?
Can I leave my phone on vibrate (no ring) and still play headphones without turning the ring back on in doing so? This would be a huge issue if not because I can't be having my phone go off in class all the time. I rarely take my phone off vibrate, so I want to make sure I can leave silent/vibrate on and still play Zune without turning the ringer back on.
Does vibrate mean that alarms only vibrate and dont sound? ie. do I need to take my phone off silent ringer/vibrate all night if I want to hear an alarm in the morning?
--
I like how well Microsoft has seemingly written WP and I think eventually it will be great after Win8 and WP8. Maybe I just need to hold off for those phones and not waste money getting an off contract phone. If Win8+WP8+XBOX+Live services doesnt bring very tight integration and some nice new features, I think I'll lose all the faith Ive put into Microsoft the past 15 years.

Mike415 said:
Can I leave my phone on vibrate (no ring) and still play headphones without turning the ring back on in doing so? This would be a huge issue if not because I can't be having my phone go off in class all the time. I rarely take my phone off vibrate, so I want to make sure I can leave silent/vibrate on and still play Zune without turning the ringer back on.
Does vibrate mean that alarms only vibrate and dont sound? ie. do I need to take my phone off silent ringer/vibrate all night if I want to hear an alarm in the morning?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
With Mango both of these issues are addressed. You can put your ringer on vibrate and still listen to music, and even adjust the volume without affecting the "vibrate only" setting. However, when you turn the ringer back on, it will be on at the current volume setting, not what it was before.
Also, you can have the ringer on vibrate and still hear alarms. In fact, alarms are now treated as "special" by the OS, and they ignore both the volume and ringer (vibrate) settings. They start low, and get progressively louder until dismissed.
Mike415 said:
I like how well Microsoft has seemingly written WP and I think eventually it will be great after Win8 and WP8. Maybe I just need to hold off for those phones and not waste money getting an off contract phone. If Win8+WP8+XBOX+Live services doesnt bring very tight integration and some nice new features, I think I'll lose all the faith Ive put into Microsoft the past 15 years.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
WP will eventually be fantastic, and the ecosystem will mature. But I have to be honest and say that for me it isn't there yet, and it is unclear how long it will take to get there. If your only option right now is to go off contract to get a WP device, I would have to suggest that you wait at least until Apollo is released (which, by all credible accounts will be Q4 of next year).
My reason for saying this is because each time Microsoft does fix a problem, they do an admirable job. But they need to (IMO) be more aggressive with their release schedule. Following the "one small release mid year and one major release annually" model isn't enough. There should be smaller patch releases to address issues, rather than making people suffer with them for 6+ months.

Mike415 said:
Thanks for the replies so far. It helped me get a better feeling for WP and it seems like I should really just wait for all the new OS updates like Ice Cream and iOS 5.x+/iPhone 5 before diving into WP. I am a slight tweaker of Android, but I don't actually want to do that very much anymore. I just want a phone that works and suits my needs. Android suits my needs, but doesn't really work great and it annoys me.
WP seems like it would be okay for me. Im not an app whore anymore since Ive been a smartphone user for several years now and I pretty much just like to be able to get the news, read some forums, text a lot, use yelp to find places to eat, and occasionally pass some time on leisure games. Android is pretty weak as far as finding decent games IMO and I think WP could actually be better in that regard (iPhone is the only one I would consider good for leisure games, but if Ive gotten by on Android this long I think WP could be okay, especially since I still would have an iPhone and Droid for those games). Right now, using Launcher 7 on Android I only use 2.5 screens of tiles so Im not going to have too much of an issue with the app list I think (Homebrew folders support will do me fine in that regard as I can toss all the leisure games in there also).
What I am still unclear on is viewing PDFs that are hosted on websites because its a situation that I run into frequently enough that I need it to be able to view PDFs from sites or Skydrive (Either one). Can I navigate with IE to a site with a link to a hosted PDF and view it or not?
Can I leave my phone on vibrate (no ring) and still play headphones without turning the ring back on in doing so? This would be a huge issue if not because I can't be having my phone go off in class all the time. I rarely take my phone off vibrate, so I want to make sure I can leave silent/vibrate on and still play Zune without turning the ringer back on.
Does vibrate mean that alarms only vibrate and dont sound? ie. do I need to take my phone off silent ringer/vibrate all night if I want to hear an alarm in the morning?
--
I like how well Microsoft has seemingly written WP and I think eventually it will be great after Win8 and WP8. Maybe I just need to hold off for those phones and not waste money getting an off contract phone. If Win8+WP8+XBOX+Live services doesnt bring very tight integration and some nice new features, I think I'll lose all the faith Ive put into Microsoft the past 15 years.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi Mike,
Like you I mapped Skydrive as a network drive and simply drag/drop my pdf files there. PDFs are natively supported on wp7 once you download the official adobe pdf app.
The PDFs will show up on skydrive in the Office Hub. Infact if you use the Documents folder as the "root" of all your files and simple create folders within there, they will all show up in the office hub's skydrive folder. As you see I have a "PDF" folder with all my pdfs. You download them when you select it and it is saved to adobe's app storage locally on the phone.
Skydrive on the phone will also stream audio and video files! Sometimes my friends would share a video or some music with me and I'd be able to access it natively!
You can view any pdf or office document (provided it is in later version format i thnk office 2007 up) hosted on websites. It will download and open in adobe/office.
Also OneNote is absoulely terrific in the Office hub for syncing notes to the PC/web and phone. I use it extensively to manage my classes!
Hope this helped.

Mike415 said:
What I am still unclear on is viewing PDFs that are hosted on websites because its a situation that I run into frequently enough that I need it to be able to view PDFs from sites or Skydrive (Either one). Can I navigate with IE to a site with a link to a hosted PDF and view it or not?
Can I leave my phone on vibrate (no ring) and still play headphones without turning the ring back on in doing so? This would be a huge issue if not because I can't be having my phone go off in class all the time. I rarely take my phone off vibrate, so I want to make sure I can leave silent/vibrate on and still play Zune without turning the ringer back on.
Does vibrate mean that alarms only vibrate and dont sound? ie. do I need to take my phone off silent ringer/vibrate all night if I want to hear an alarm in the morning?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
PDF's are just working fine. Just install Adobe's PDF app and IE will automatically hook them and forward them to the app. Same on SkyDrive, you can even zip those PDF's as WP is able to look into zips.
As for the sound it should work the way you described. Volume control is for everything on the device but the button for vibration is only for the ringer. So if you mute your device via volume rocker then everything will be muted. If you only press the vibrate button then only the ringer will be silenced.

Awesome, guys. Great replies. The volume issues and PDF issues seem like they would be fine for situations like mine. Loved the screenshots!
Really I dont see too many issues not to switch over eventually, as the replies here have quelled my main doubts. As more apps come and current apps are optimized theres very little reason to not switch for most people. Its just that damn app list!
Good thing there's homebrew folders now though!

Mike415 said:
Awesome, guys. Great replies. The volume issues and PDF issues seem like they would be fine for situations like mine. Loved the screenshots!
Really I dont see too many issues not to switch over eventually, as the replies here have quelled my main doubts. As more apps come and current apps are optimized theres very little reason to not switch for most people. Its just that damn app list!
Good thing there's homebrew folders now though!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thankfully the games go into your xbox live folder though...
also you can tap a letter to quickly bring up all letters where you can quickscroll from letter to letter to find apps you have.

scoobysnacks said:
thankfully the games go into your xbox live folder though...
also you can tap a letter to quickly bring up all letters where you can quickscroll from letter to letter to find apps you have.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
and search too. I actually prefer the app list to iOS pages of icons. The applist I know exactly where to find it alphabectically using the jumplist. Need twitter? Tap a letter jump to T and its in that group. iOS its a "which page is it?' scenario.
The homebrew folders is also pretty nice. I use it for all my "News" apps and "Social" app but it doesnt have live tiles so it defeats the wp7 purpose of glance and go

scoobysnacks said:
thankfully the games go into your xbox live folder though...
also you can tap a letter to quickly bring up all letters where you can quickscroll from letter to letter to find apps you have.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
sayonical said:
and search too. I actually prefer the app list to iOS pages of icons. The applist I know exactly where to find it alphabectically using the jumplist. Need twitter? Tap a letter jump to T and its in that group. iOS its a "which page is it?' scenario.
The homebrew folders is also pretty nice. I use it for all my "News" apps and "Social" app but it doesnt have live tiles so it defeats the wp7 purpose of glance and go
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was just planning on throwing all my leisure games (non-XBOX LIVE) in folders. Does the XBOX Live hub hold non-Live games too? I wouldn't really need folders if all my games were in the XBOX hub, but I was thinking that it was only for Live games.

Mike415 said:
I was just planning on throwing all my leisure games (non-XBOX LIVE) in folders. Does the XBOX Live hub hold non-Live games too? I wouldn't really need folders if all my games were in the XBOX hub, but I was thinking that it was only for Live games.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the live hub holds all games!
It's a good thing too, I have a ton of games

scoobysnacks said:
the live hub holds all games!
It's a good thing too, I have a ton of games
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The only drawback of the xbox live hub is that is missing the jump list. I'd really love to see it in there too.
On topic:
I'd really recommend you go into a mobile shop and try different devices. I for one came from Window Mobile 6.1 over 6.5 and Android (2.1 and 2.2) all the way to Windows Phone. First I was missing several things I know from my former mobile OSes. But once I got used to the limitations (which were a lot more before NoDo and Mango), I've never ever looked back. I'm a proud WP7 user. But it really depends on what you use your device for.

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

[Q] to Note or Not !

Hi All,
Having patiently waited for the Nexus 10 to be announced and now not being able to get 'hands on' time with one as yet in the UK, I'm seriously considering getting a Note 10.1.
Had a play with one in-store recently, I found it hard to put back down!, Love it!. I previously had the original Note put found I didn't use stylus that much because a thought the 5" screen was too small to anything useful, I now have a SGS3
I recently sold my nexus 7 only because I want a 10" daily driver mainly for reading my Magazines & Video on the commute to work, then productivity side is having the stylus for drawing house floor plans mainly and the odd sketches using adobe creative cloud, which I hope works on this device.
I know the Nexus 10 would be better for movies, but I would also like to read my magazines and tech documents without too much zooming / scrolling (as i had to on the nexus 7)
I'm edging towards the Note 10.1 and maybe even consider the 3G version (Or should I just tether to the SGS3?)
Which one shall I get?

its your preference bec if you buy a 3g you will need two 3g plans if you teeter you can do with one and save money I do not know the difference between the two over there but if it is much then no point

For me, the pen input forgives any shortcomings the Note has (build quality, screen res <= don't care too much anyways). So if you want the pen, you want the Note. Otherwise the Nexus 10.

skadebo said:
For me, the pen input forgives any shortcomings the Note has (build quality, screen res <= don't care too much anyways). So if you want the pen, you want the Note. Otherwise the Nexus 10.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
^ This. But also, if you want more than 32GB of storage, you want the Note (since the N10 lacks memory expansion).

Well the screen is not as bad as the specs show and on the other hand N10 screen is not as good as specs show.

deba said:
I'm edging towards the Note 10.1 and maybe even consider the 3G version (Or should I just tether to the SGS3?)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The Note is the most complete tablet on the market now and that includes W8 RT & Pro tablets. The latter beat it on productivity because of their MS Office access but lose big time on the consumption side. That is unless you think the kluged way you consume media on your current laptop/desktop is ideal.
When looking at other tablets ask yourself if these features mean anything to you:
- Multiview (enhanced in JB)
- Pop up play
- S-Pen/S-Note
- AllShare Play and Cast
- Enhanced camera features (smile/face/blink detection, buddy shot)
- Mini apps (enhanced in JB)
- Enhanced audio and video codec support
- IR port
- Browser h/w acceleration
- S-Voice (added in JB)
- Air View (added in JB)
- Group Cast (added in JB)
Video Air View – Preview videos without opening them. View future/past scenes in a playing video via the timeline without stopping it.
Photo Air View – Pictures contained in folders will display in thumbnails when you hover over the folder. They advance nine at a time.
E-Mail Air View – Hover the pen over a heading or contents of an e-mail summary (including via the widget) to see an exploded view of the contents without opening it.
S-Planner Air View – Hover the pen over an event or task to see an exploded view without opening it.
Pop Up Note – Tap the screen twice with the S-Pen button depressed and a pop up note will be displayed. Even on the lock screen when the device is locked. On the N8000, if you’re in a call and remove the S-Pen from its holder, a pop up note automatically opens.
Easy Clip – Capture anything on the display (lasso) anywhere and save it to the clipboard or send it an application (including S-Note).
Draw/Write on an e-mail – As it says.
Draw/Write in S-Planner – As it says (Month View only)
Color Picker – In S-Note, set the ink color to a color selected from a picture.
Pen Switch – Select multiple pen types (color, texture, weight) and toggle through them without opening the menu by pressing the button on the S-Pen once.
Sketch Affect – Change any picture to an outline, color sketch, pencil sketch and more from within S-Note.
Share S-Notes – Convert S-Notes to plain text, PDFs, or pictures and share them via Facebook etc. in one step.
Photo Note – Write personal notes on the back of photos
Gallery Organizer – Create folders and drag and drop pictures between them.
I've had the Note since it was launched and wouldn't be able to move to a tablet that didn't offer some of those features. Good or bad, Samsung's done so much to the Note s/w wise that it's more "Samsung" than "Android."​
As for the 3G, personally, I wouldn't have a tablet without it. Tethering is a pain in the ass. Pull out phone, turn on Wi-Fi sharing, connect tablet, disconnect tablet, turn off Wi-Fi sharing. Forget the last step and you're phone's battery is toast. It's toast anyway based on the additional power draw. And when a tablet's always connected you don't have to wait several minutes for it to sync to be usable as is the case for a Wi-Fi tablet reconnecting after being offline. The Note's also a full-fledged phone and with its mammoth battery its the device I use for long conference calls. All my accounts are replicated on my phone and tablet. If I have to respond to a long e-mail I'll pick-up the Note. Something short like MMS I'll use the phone. To me, it's really nice to have that option of picking the right tool so easily. I guess in the end it depends on your wallet and the cost of 3G access.
The only area where the Note gets dinged is the lack of a FHD display and I honestly wish it had one. But, as others have said too, the stuff listed above outweighs that.

Thanks guys, I just picked up the 10.1 wifi after work and playing with now!.
BarryH_GEG said:
The Note is the most complete tablet on the market now and that includes W8 RT & Pro tablets. The latter beat it on productivity because of their MS Office access but lose big time on the consumption side. That is unless you think the kluged way you consume media on your current laptop/desktop is ideal.
When looking at other tablets ask yourself if these features mean anything to you:
- Multiview (enhanced in JB)
- Pop up play
- S-Pen/S-Note
- AllShare Play and Cast
- Enhanced camera features (smile/face/blink detection, buddy shot)
- Mini apps (enhanced in JB)
- Enhanced audio and video codec support
- IR port
- Browser h/w acceleration
- S-Voice (added in JB)
- Air View (added in JB)
- Group Cast (added in JB)
Video Air View – Preview videos without opening them. View future/past scenes in a playing video via the timeline without stopping it.
Photo Air View – Pictures contained in folders will display in thumbnails when you hover over the folder. They advance nine at a time.
E-Mail Air View – Hover the pen over a heading or contents of an e-mail summary (including via the widget) to see an exploded view of the contents without opening it.
S-Planner Air View – Hover the pen over an event or task to see an exploded view without opening it.
Pop Up Note – Tap the screen twice with the S-Pen button depressed and a pop up note will be displayed. Even on the lock screen when the device is locked. On the N8000, if you’re in a call and remove the S-Pen from its holder, a pop up note automatically opens.
Easy Clip – Capture anything on the display (lasso) anywhere and save it to the clipboard or send it an application (including S-Note).
Draw/Write on an e-mail – As it says.
Draw/Write in S-Planner – As it says (Month View only)
Color Picker – In S-Note, set the ink color to a color selected from a picture.
Pen Switch – Select multiple pen types (color, texture, weight) and toggle through them without opening the menu by pressing the button on the S-Pen once.
Sketch Affect – Change any picture to an outline, color sketch, pencil sketch and more from within S-Note.
Share S-Notes – Convert S-Notes to plain text, PDFs, or pictures and share them via Facebook etc. in one step.
Photo Note – Write personal notes on the back of photos
Gallery Organizer – Create folders and drag and drop pictures between them.
I've had the Note since it was launched and wouldn't be able to move to a tablet that didn't offer some of those features. Good or bad, Samsung's done so much to the Note s/w wise that it's more "Samsung" than "Android."​
As for the 3G, personally, I wouldn't have a tablet without it. Tethering is a pain in the ass. Pull out phone, turn on Wi-Fi sharing, connect tablet, disconnect tablet, turn off Wi-Fi sharing. Forget the last step and you're phone's battery is toast. It's toast anyway based on the additional power draw. And when a tablet's always connected you don't have to wait several minutes for it to sync to be usable as is the case for a Wi-Fi tablet reconnecting after being offline. The Note's also a full-fledged phone and with its mammoth battery its the device I use for long conference calls. All my accounts are replicated on my phone and tablet. If I have to respond to a long e-mail I'll pick-up the Note. Something short like MMS I'll use the phone. To me, it's really nice to have that option of picking the right tool so easily. I guess in the end it depends on your wallet and the cost of 3G access.
The only area where the Note gets dinged is the lack of a FHD display and I honestly wish it had one. But, as others have said too, the stuff listed above outweighs that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

skadebo said:
For me, the pen input forgives any shortcomings the Note has (build quality, screen res <= don't care too much anyways). So if you want the pen, you want the Note. Otherwise the Nexus 10.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I totally agree. The pen is great, I was on the fence about it also, to the point I cancelled my order, but it arrived anyway so I played with it and now there is no way I am sending it back. I use it mainly at work the large screen is not ideal for at home I still find the nexus 7 better for bed and toilet times so in that aspect the note 10.1 is the best solution for my needs, also the latest video from Samsung makes the next update even more to my liking.
Sent from my GT-I9300

BarryH_GEG said:
As for the 3G, personally, I wouldn't have a tablet without it. Tethering is a pain in the ass. Pull out phone, turn on Wi-Fi sharing, connect tablet, disconnect tablet, turn off Wi-Fi sharing. Forget the last step and you're phone's battery is toast. It's toast anyway based on the additional power draw. And when a tablet's always connected you don't have to wait several minutes for it to sync to be usable as is the case for a Wi-Fi tablet reconnecting after being offline. The Note's also a full-fledged phone and with its mammoth battery its the device I use for long conference calls. All my accounts are replicated on my phone and tablet. If I have to respond to a long e-mail I'll pick-up the Note. Something short like MMS I'll use the phone. To me, it's really nice to have that option of picking the right tool so easily. I guess in the end it depends on your wallet and the cost of 3G access.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As far as tethering goes, use Bluetooth tethering, not WiFi hostspot. It's much more battery friendly, and has the benefit of being overridden by default if a known wifi network pops in range of the tablet. I never actually disable tethering on my phone.

Get the Note 10.1. The Nexus 10 OS, surprisingly, isn't as mature and stable nor as versatile. I'm leaning towards returning the Nexus 10 at this point mainly for laggy hdmi out, lockup just browsing with Chrome and on top of that lightbleed. I'm sure the Nexus 10 will mature with another update or two but by then there will probably be new products from Samsung, etc. and the Nexus 10 might drop in price and/or get upgraded. If it was my only tablet I might hang on to it and wait for it to mature but since it's not I'm not not beta testing.

I got mine Tuesday, still using just my fingers with it and still browsing using my phone.
Need to get the hang of the pen but I love using it with sketchbook.
Really alot to discover about the note, so much more than any reviewing sites say about it and don't think Samsung really promoted it very well as nobody really knows what it can do until you have a scout through youtube.
I bought mine cause all I basically knew about it that it has a great pen and the note is very responsive, there wasn't really any information about it and some of the reviews really were bad and can't believe they're talking about the same tablet.
No wonder people are weary about buying one.
Really don't blame them.
I for one love the note
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda premium

mi7chy said:
I'm leaning towards returning the Nexus 10 at this point mainly for laggy hdmi out, lockup just browsing with Chrome and on top of that lightbleed. I'm sure the Nexus 10 will mature with another update or two but by then there will probably be new products from Samsung, etc. and the Nexus 10 might drop in price and/or get upgraded.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think we're witnessing a redefinition of the Nexus program and it doesn't appear XDA'rs are too fond of it. Rather than a development test bed for propeller heads, with the N4/7/10, Google's turning Nexus in to a full fledged "brand." And from the pricing it's aimed at value-oriented mainstream consumers and to create sales volume. There's a lot of "stuff" in their new devices and the specs look fantastic but if you read any of their forums there were compromises made. And at $299/$199/$399 each I guess we shouldn't be surprised. Looked at purely on "value" all three devices are pretty impressive. The N7 sort of stands alone because it competes with the KF and the like which is a relatively low bar. The N4 has some excellent high-end competition and has quite a few weaknesses compared to them. The N10 competes as much with the iPad as other Android tablets so all the h/w and s/w niggles along with some (shocking for Samsung) QC issues isn't a good start. If I didn't need/want the Note's features (and 3G) I'd still buy it over any other Android tablet though.

The main reason I would choose the Note 10.1 over the Nexus 10 is the ability to multi view apps, mostly in Jelly Bean. That does it for me!

For me it's the memory... I use the internal memory for apps, ebooks and music... I seem to be running out pretty quick, and I got the 32gb 3g note 10.1, the 64gb sd card is almost full so having no expansion is a serious deal killer for me... I want to see if the note 10.1 can handle a 128gb sd card but unfortunately we don't have 128gb in micro sd format, yet...

[Novice Guide] You Just Bought a Galaxy S4? - 50 Tips and Tricks

Original source by Andrew Williams :-> HERE
50 Samsung Galaxy S4 Tips and Tricks​For novice users​
Hi everybody
So you decided to join the ranks of Android and the millions of happy Galaxy S4 owners. But It can be troublesome to setup your phone at the beginning. So I decided to search for you some little tricks you can use to better know and use your phone. I found this excellent article by Andrew Williams. I modified some content to better fit XDA's forum format but the info are the same. I also add a touchwiz tweaks that was not in the article. Here are 50 useful tips and tricks for new (even less new) Galaxy S4 users to pull out the best of your phone. Enjoy!
This is a Tips and Tricks guide, to see all you can do with your new Galaxy S4 please read ->Galaxy S4 Bloatware explained
Touchwiz​Make Touchwiz go faster.
To make Touchwiz look good, Samsung created some animations to transit between screens. These animations take some times and can make your phone seems slow. The solution is to go in your phone Settings-> Developer options and turn off -> "Windows animation scale", "Transition animation scale" and "Animator duration scale". Now check how much snappier your phone is.:good:
If Developer Options is not enable go to SETTINGS->About Phone and tap BUILD NUMBER for 7 times.
***You can also turn on "Force GPU rendering" but SOME applications don't like that, so you can try it, but if you find you start having problem with some of your applications, turn it off.
Ringtones - Alarms - Notifications​Put your Sounds in the system.
The Samsung Galaxy S4 allows us to use mp3 as ringtones, alarms or notifications. But if like me you have over 16G of music on your phone it might be annoying to "Go To Files" and search for them. Another way to do it is by creating a folder where Android will automatically look in and put the files in the "Ringtones". To do this just create a folder called "Media" on your sd-card. Inside the Media folders create 3 more folders "Ringtones", "Alarms" and "Notifications". It should look like this.
Media..
--------Alarms
--------Notifications
--------Ringtones
Now move/copy your mp3 files in the according folders. Now if you go on your phone settings->sounds->device ringtones you should see your mp3 files in the list.(Phone restart might be needed)
Screen and video​
Get AMOLED colours in check
OLED-based screens like the Samsung Galaxy S4's tend to bring oversaturated colours that make skin tones look unnatural. They pop, but they pop a little too much. There's a solution, though. In the settings menu is a Display Setting submenu that lets you choose how vivid the colours are. We recommend the "natural" or "movie" settings.
Fill video codec gaps with third-party players
The Samsung Galaxy S4 has an excellent inbuilt media player, but there are some files it can't handle. We found that high-quality 1080p MKVs were too much for it. Snag a third-party media player like MX Player from the Google Play app store, though, and you'll be flying. These can use software encoding to fill gaps in native video support.
Video multi-tasking is in
One of the neatest additional features of the Samsung Galaxy S3 and Galaxy S4 is that you can overlay a video playback screen on top of any part of the phone. Just press a button in the nav bar of the media player and a little window will pop-up on the homescreen, playing the vid. Watch an episode of Peep Show while browsing the web? Don't mind if I do.
Free games to show off the screen
One of the best ways to show off the Sasmung Galaxy S4's screen is with a fancy 3D game. Top free picks to try include Dead Trigger.
Not bright enough? Turn off auto
The standard setting of the Samsung Galaxy S4 uses automatic brightness, which judges the intensity of screen brightness using an ambient light sensor on the front. If it's still not bright enough at the max slider point, switch off the auto mode for real searing intensity. But it will affect battery life.
The microUSB port can output video
The Samsung Galaxy S4's microUSB port is more special than you might guess. It has MHL capabilities when used with a special Samsung cable, letting it output HD video and surround audio. The Samsung adapter, which is essentially an MHL-to-HDMI converter costs around £25. The Samsung Galaxy S4 does not come bundled with one, though.
Mini home cinema? Tick the surround box
If you want to output surround sound, make sure you tick the Surround box within the Settings menu. This isn't within the Audio bit, which you might expect, but is actually in the Accessory submenu.
Battery life​
Keep battery life riding high with auto management
The Samsung Galaxy S4 has a massive 2600mAh battery. Stamina is good at the worst of times, but there's also an auto power management mode to make the most of the phone's juice. It's called Power Saving and has its own section within the main Settings menu. It can throttle the CPU, change the background of the web browser to conserve power (it turns the white background blue), and turns off haptic feedback. These are compromises, but they do work.
Switch off features for extra battery life
The best way to conserve power in any phone is to switch off features - most importantly 3G mobile internet. You can do this manually in the Samsung Galaxy S4, directly from the pull-down notifications menu, and apps such as MySettings let you do the same thing.
Reduce screen timeout time
Another dead simple trick is to reduce the screen timeout time. This is in the Display submenu within settings, and lets you choose between 15 sec and 10 minutes of time the screen stays lit after a screen press. It's hardly a secret, but it is something not enough people consider.
Grab a spare battery, live forever
In a time of non-removable batteries - the HTC One and iPhone 5 to name but two - we love that the Samsung Galaxy S4 has a removable battery. You can swap it out within about 15 seconds. Spare batteries are available from eBay for well under £10. We recommend shopping around for a reliable brand though as some third-party batteries are as dodgy as Del Boy's VCRs.
Interface​
One for your grandma? Easy home screen mode
Here's one feature we were a little surprised to see in a device that's such a geek's dreamphone. The Samsung Galaxy S4 has a mode called Easy home screen, which simplifies the layout of the phone's home screens in a way that even your technophobe grandma might be able to get along with.
Full screenshots are easy
Like the Samsung Galaxy S3, the Galaxy S4 makes it pretty easy to take screenshots of whatever's on the phone's display. Just hold down the home button and the power button at the same time, wait or a white flash and a screenshot will be taken and whisked over to the Gallery app.
A cooler/easier way to take screenshot is to swipe the palm of your hand from right to left. For this to work you need to enable "Motion" in Settings and check "Palm swipe capture".
Don't forget side-loading of apps
The Samsung Galaxy S4 is an Android device, with all the benefits that brings. You don't have to rely on the official Google Play app store for one, with APK installation files available for all sorts of other apps online. Be careful, though, as Android viruses are a real issue.
Customise your phone with non-Samsung widgets
Samsung supplied a nice handful of widgets with which you can customize your home screens, but far too few people try a new look with third-party widgets from Google Play. And there are loads out them out there. Some of our old faves include those of the Beautiful Widgets package.
Gadgets and Gimmicks​
Motion control
Here's one we're not big fans of, but some of you may like it. The Samsung Galaxy S4 lets you control things like the photo gallery and the navigation of you home screens using the accelerometer - by tilting your phone, basically. You can turn it off, though, and it's set to "off" as standard. Phew.
Face unlock
A bit Minority Report, this one. The Samsung Galaxy S4 can scan your face to unlock your phone. It takes a picture of your mug, remembers the basic geometry of it and then scans your face whenever you try and unlock the phone. It works pretty well, but as a security measure is about as flimsy as the padlock on a filofax.
Smart Stay
The last user-facing camera gimmick is one that sounds kinda neat in principle. It scans for your eyes to check if you're reading, and if it spots them, Smart Stay stops the backlight from turning off. It's designed to make reading on the Samsung Galaxy S4 a good deal less frustrating. It's a feature you'll find in the Settings menu.
Jelly Bean easter egg
The Jelly Bean easter egg has made it in the Samsung Galaxy S4. Go to Settings menu > About device and tap on the Android version number entry. You'll be transported to a screen with a picture of a giant jelly bean on it. Hold your finger down on said jelly bean and the screen will fill up with dozens of the blighters, which you can flick around. Pure joy.
Arrange your music by moods
The music player of the Samsung Galaxy S4 features a fun little extra called Music square. This scans through your music library, arranging the tracks by mood - passionate, calm, exciting, joyful or a little in-between. Tap a block in the 5x5 square grid and you'll be greeted with a tune to match your mood.
Storage​
Expandable storage - where to get it cheap
If you're out to spend as little as possible (and the Galaxy S4 doesn't come cheap as it is), your best bet is to buy the cheapest 16GB model, and supplement any other storage needs with a microSD card. Top retailers for bargain basement-price memory cards include 7DayShop and Ebuyer. A 32GB microSD card these days will set you back less than £15 if you shop hard enough.
Flush the cache for extra memory
If you find yourself running low on memory, you can easily delete the cache and temporary files of any apps you have installed. To do this, go to the Applications Manager section within settings and tap on an app to see how much memory it's leeching. There will be buttons to wipe the cache and data for the app here.
Don't sync, drag 'n' drop
If you chose to go Android rather than opting for an iPhone, there's a good chance that the open-ness of the platform had something to do with it. Samsung is keen on trying to make its users adopt the Kies desktop software, but it's actually completely unnecessary. Plug the Samsung Galaxy S4 into a computer with a microUSB cable and it'll show up as a media player drive, which you can drag and drop all kinds of files onto. Transfer speeds are impressively fast too.
Contacts​
Nab contacts from Facebook and Twitter
When we first got our Samsung Galaxy S4 in, it didn't have any of the usual social apps installed. Even if you're not a massive mobile Facebook-er, it's worth giving the app a download because it lets you harvest contacts from the network, making populating your contacts book a good deal easier.
Blocking Mode
Do you have a bug-a-boo stalking you? Is there a creep who keeps calling? The Samsung Galaxy S4 lets you keep them away with the blocking mode. It restricts notifications and calls from all but your approved contacts - and that can be at all times, or just during the hours you choose.
Camera and Video​
Use HDR mode in mixed lighting - or all the time
The 13-megapixel sensor of the Samsung Galaxy S4 is pretty good on its own, but the neat camera app ups its skills significantly. One of our favourite bonus bits is the HDR mode. This effectively combines multiple exposure in a single shot to bring out extra detail in shadows. Both the HDR and normal shots are saved, meaning there's very little downside - other than that taking shots is a little bit slower.
Check out slow and fast motion modes
Nestled within the menus of the video camera app are fast and slow motion modes, capturing either more or fewer frames per second than normal. It's not quite the 120fps mode you get in some dedicated cameras, but will come in handy if you're trying to video a sports event, for example.
Don't forget video effects
The Samsung Galaxy S4 doesn't have the fun face-distorting video effects you get with a vanilla Jelly Bean phone, but it does have a range of funky filters. There are colour pop modes, extracting all but certain shades from your videos, and the cartoon filter is perfect for some arty rotoscope-style vids.
Give the exposure longer time than the sound effect suggests
Each time you take a photo, a shutter sound plays in the Samsung Galaxy S4. However, we found that occasionally the phone needs a little bit longer to attain a solid focus. Hold still for an extra half-second for good measure.
Get vid previews with Air View
Using Air View, if you hold your finger over the transport bar of a movie clip in the media player, you'll be given a preview of what's going on in the film at that point. It makes finding the right part of a film or TV a doddle.
Connectivity​
Don't go over you allowance, with Data Usage
A staple Android feature is the Data Usage counter. This can be found within the Settings menu, and it monitors your data usage, showing it as a colourful graph. You can use it to cut off your mobile data connection once you reach a certain limit, to ensure you won't get charged by your carrier.
Wi-Fi sync with Kies
We've already endorsed drag 'n' drop file transfers over Kies sync'ing, but if you're a Kies fan, don't forget that you can also sync wirelessly. To set this feature up, scroll to the bottom of the More Settings sub-menu, where you'll find the Kies via Wi-Fi option.
S Beam
A feature introduced with the Samsung Galaxy S3, S Beam uses a mixture of NFC and Wi-Fi Direct to let you transfer files between compatible Samsung phones. You just need to tap the phones together to get them playing. S Beam needs to be switched on, though, from within the Wireless and Networks menu.
NFC lets you buy coffee
The NFC connectivity of the Samsung Galaxy S4 also let you buy small items such as cups of coffee, sandwiches and the like. Several big high street chains have taken the NFC plunge, including Starbucks and EAT, using apps to let you dump credit onto your phone.
Share screens with Group Cast
Group Cast used to be just about sending a video file from, say, your phone to your Blu-ray player. But now it does a lot more. Group Cast lets you send your Galaxy S4's screen contents to another display, a bit like AirPlay Mirroring.
Forget Bluetooth, Wi-Fi Direct is better
Wi-Fi Direct is tied into the S Beam transfer feature, but you can also use it easily on its own. This is a version of Wi-Fi that doesn't need an internet connection, as it can hook-up directly with another compatible device. It some ways it's a successor to Bluetooth, letting you transfer files, and at a much greater speed than old Bluetooth could handle.
S-voice​The Galaxy S4 comes with voice controlled app. Only some Samsung apps can be controlled via S-voice but the most important are covered. Once you start S-voice and pass thru the initial setup just go on settings and enable “control apps”.
Camera
You can now take pictures of yourself without holding the phone. Just put the phone on an improvised stand pose and shout SHOOT!
Music Player
You can also control the music player via Bluetooth or directly. It answers to PLAY, PAUSE, NEXT, PREVIOUS, VOLUME UP, VOLUME DOWN and RESUME.
Phone
You can also respond to a phone call by just by saying ANSWER or REJECT, This will put the phone on speaker(if previously setup)
Alarm
You can stop or snooze alarms with the command STOP and SNOOZE(pretty straight forward)
EXTRA​Play Multiplayer games with Group Cast
Group Cast allows for multiplayer games to be played on several phones simultaneously. Of course, only supported games work
Samsung introduced its new Galaxy S4 game controller.
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Enjoy!:good:
PS: Without comments this thread will fall in the abyss of the system(unless it becomes a sticky, which would be good). So please keep it alive with a little reply. thanks.
<-- Don't forget to hit THANKS if I helped

reply...

Why isn't there quick controls in the browser? My most used feature on S3.

This has been helpful - many of the tips I had already known or figured out but sometimes it's nice to be reminded of things that are not used frequenlty -- thanks

How do you make purchased using the NFC? at&t is not allowing this?

Thx for posting this. I'm a newbie to Android. Just decided to switch from Blackberry Dakota. Can't wait for the phone to arrive Sat next week. Seems like I have a lot to learn to speed up my learning curve with Android.

If Developer Options is not enable go to SETTINGS->About Phone and tap BUILD NUMBER for 7 times.
OP Updated

I know with the GS3 through ATT that they disallowed the 50 gb dropbox thing, are you sure it is with the s4? I don't see anything about how to get the 50 gb anywhere with the att version. If anyone knows anything, I would love to know what I am missing. Thanks

Thank you...

Awesome review of most of the features it has. I tried the cloud and its not up and running yet...
Would it save power if I turned all the air gesture off????
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using xda app-developers app

I didn't get the 50gb free dropbox space I have the ATT version...

Hi guys,
I just started to use my S4 on yesterday so i have few questions to ask.
1)do i have to charge the phone for 8 hour.?
2)what is the purpose of the animation?
3)my batterry seems drop very fast i just fbing, net and msg in the same time within 1 hour it drop from 90% to 63% is this normal?
Sorry for my bad english
Thanks

neincraft said:
I didn't get the 50gb free dropbox space I have the ATT version...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
After logging to Dropbox from your S4 check your email, you might have to reply to the Dropbox email before the 50Gb is apply.
Honestly I don't know if the AT&T S4 will receive or not the 50Gb of Dropbox. This guide was intended for all S4 so it is possible that some carrier versions don't have this options. This said I don't see why AT&T would block you from getting it.
ryanhoe said:
1)do i have to charge the phone for 8 hour.?
2)what is the purpose of the animation?
3)my batterry seems drop very fast i just fbing, net and msg in the same time within 1 hour it drop from 90% to 63% is this normal?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1- No, that is for old battery type, new Li-ion battery don't need this. Once your phone is charged it will automatically stop charging so it's useless to leave it on charge for more. BUT you might want to turn off your phone once it says 100% and let it charge again(while the phone is OFF) until the "Big Battery" is 100%. This will help re-calibrate the battery.(There is a lot of debate on this to say if it really help or not but one thing I know for sure is, it can't only help it cannot be a bad thing)
2- Animations are there only to make the phone look good.
3- I would need more details but dropping 27% n 1 hour doesn't seem normal. You might want to check those two excellent thread.
Read this ---> [GUIDE] Enlarge your battery life : an attempt to fix the battery drain
And this ---> [How to] Brilliant Battery Life 100% working!

Rankiz said:
Why isn't there quick controls in the browser? My most used feature on S3.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OP Updated!

Kremata said:
OP Updated!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No? Quick Controls isn't available under the browser's settings in S4. Running v4.2.2 in Europe.

I didn't get the 50GB either, even after linking my Dropbox account. I'm on AT&T

Rankiz said:
No? Quick Controls isn't available under the browser's settings in S4. Running v4.2.2 in Europe.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Arhg! I thought you meant I forgot to add Quick Controls, I couldn't check coz my wife is using the S4 and I have Quick Controls on my Note II. Ok :silly:

soritong said:
I didn't get the 50GB either, even after linking my Dropbox account. I'm on AT&T
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you check your email?

Kremata said:
Did you check your email?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yup. I just got the generic "You've linked your account to dropbox. Congrats" email

soritong said:
Yup. I just got the generic "You've linked your account to dropbox. Congrats" email
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And? Did you get the 50Gb?

Setting up your phone

Browsing through the internet I found a good article .Searched for a lookalike on xda but couldnt find it So created a thread.
So you just unwrapped an Android phone and, man, is it shiny. Here are suggestions for apps to grab, settings to tweak, and really nifty things you can do with your Google-powered mini-supercomputer.Cause not everyone is a pro
With luck, your shiny new Android phone is running Jelly Bean or at least Ice Cream Sandwich, so not a ton of updating should be required. If you're coming from an old Android phone, we have a guide specifically for you that will show you how to move all of your apps, settings, and data from your old phone to your new one. Still, there's nothing wrong with a fresh start with a brand new phone, so let's start from the beginning. Your awesome new Android phone is capable of a lot. Here's just a taste of what it can do:
Get the Latest and Greatest Google Stuff
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Before you start playing around and getting used to how things work, why don't you do two quick things: Set up a Wi-Fi connection, then update your phone's built-in applications. There are likely newer versions available than the ones you have on your just-opened phone, so they're worth picking up.
To connect to Wi-Fi, hit your phone's Menu button (the button with either parallel lines, or the two boxes), choose System Settings from the menu that pops up, then under Wireless & Networks tap Wi-Fi. On the next screen, enable Wi-Fi and wait for the list of nearby networks to update. Pick out your home router name (or your relatives'), enter a password if necessary, and now have some fun.
Open the Play Store app from your list of applications (press the grid-like, bottom-middle on-screen button to get there if it's not on one of your home screens), then tap the Menu button and select "My Apps." The list should be separated, with apps you have updates for at the top. Tap "Update" to update them all at once. If you don't see updates for some of your apps, you may have to search them out to download the newer version.
Google Maps: Google Maps shines on Android. Seriously - in addition to offering you free turn-by-turn navigation, Google Maps can help you with walking directions, public transit to your destination, and it even offers maps and walking directions of indoor places like airports and museums so you can find your way around. You might also pick up some "splinter" apps, like Google Local.
Gmail: The ubiquitous mail app just picked up pinch to zoom, swipe to delete, and some other handy features not too long ago. Make sure to update to the newest version.
Voice Actions/Search or Google Now: Google Search for Android controls your phone with your voice, but can send SMS messages, navigate you to your destination, place calls, find nearby businesses, and more as you talk to it. If you're running Jelly Bean, you get the full benefit of Google Now, a full-on virtual assistant that responds to your voice, keeps an eye on when you should leave for your next appointment or go home to beat the traffic, helps you manage travel, and much more. If you have Ice Cream Sandwich, you can get it too with some work, but Search offers many of the voice features we love.
Google Chrome: Even though it's only available on Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean devices, Google Chrome sings on Android. It left beta earlier this year and is one of the best Android browsers available. If you use Chrome on the desktop, Chrome Sync is built-in, so open tabs, bookmarks, passwords, and history are all available everywhere, and most importantly, it's blazing fast.
Google+: We love Google+, and think it's great for a lot of things even if (and especially if) your friends may not be on it. The Android app just picked up a huge update for people who love sharing photos, checking into their favorite locations, and hanging out via Google Hangouts video chat. Once you're all signed up and set up, don't forget to add Lifehacker to your circles!
Google Play Music: If you're really going to live the Android life, Google Music is both a music store and a music locker with millions of tracks and label support, and tons of cloud storage for your uploaded songs and your purchased music, all for free, and all accessible on your Android phone. Google Play Music just picked up scan-and-match so you don't have to spend days uploading songs, and considering the app can play music in the cloud or on your phone, we think it's a good choice for a secondary media player.
Google Currents: Google's magazine-style newsreader looks great, hooks into Google Reader so you can read your favorite blogs, and offers featured and curated content in a variety of categories to help you stay up to date and share interesting reads with your friends. The app was just updated to make breaking news easier to find and more news categories easier to read.
Set up Google Voice(mail): If you're intrigued by Google Voice, Google's one-number service with free SMS and other perks, Android is where you should be. You can even port your number to Google Voice so no one calling you knows the difference. Still, even if you don't want to, you can use Google Voice as your voicemail provider and send texts through the web. Activate the Voice app on your phone, and it will take care of your phone's configuration. From then on, your voicemail will go to Google, where it'll be transcribed, archived, and managed like email on your phone. You can even read or listen to your voicemail on the web, mark telemarketers as spam, and set up multiple greetings for different people. If you're an SMS fanatic, the app has been supports group texting and voicemail pre-fetching, so no more getting a voicemail in Google Voice and only being notified on your Android phone hours later.
Get Google Drive: Drive, the new name for Google's combination of Google Docs and cloud storage space, is just as great on your Android device as it is on the desktop. Well, mostly anyway—the mobile app just picked up editing and presentation support, which makes it useful for quick file edits as well as just viewing documents you need to review on the go.
Your Android doesn't need a USB cable to play or sync music on your desktop computer—though it can work that way, if that's more your speed. But setting up Wi-Fi syncing and internet streaming for your Android is so simple, you might never need to cord-hunt again when you want to switch up your playlist.
Music Player Showdown: Which Desktop Player Is Best for Syncing to Android?: If you want to use your Android phone as a music player (and survey says you do) then you'll need a media player that rocks when it comes to syncing your music. If you don't want to use Google Music (or can't, since it's US-only), Whitson has some options for you.
How to Sync Android with Windows as Seamlessly as an iPhone: Speaking of easy, Whitson walked us through the process of syncing our Android phones with your Windows systems quickly and easily in a way that's repeatable without a ton of hassle.
Upgrade Your Smartphone's Music and Podcast Abilities This Weekend: While it's not Android-only, this guide to beefing up your smartphone's media capabilities will get you rocking out and listening to your favorite podcasts on your device in no time.
How Can I Get an iTunes-Like Experience For My Android Phone?: If you're coming to Android from an iPod, iPod Touch, or iPhone, you may be wishing there were a way to just plug-in your Android device and sync all of your media, music, and podcasts. Thankfully, there are plenty of ways to do it, and we're happy to show you how.
How to Set Up Your Android for Automated Wi-Fi Syncing with DoubleTwist: When this is set up-and, really, it only takes about 15 minutes, much less if you've already connected AirSync-you'll have a computer and phone that "check in" with each other regularly over Wi-Fi. No cables needed, and you don't have to click the Sync button.
Winamp for Android Updates, Now Syncs with Macs Wirelessly: If DoubleTwist isn't right for you, try Winamp for Android—it syncs with Macs and Windows PCs over USB or wirelessly, syncs iTunes playlists, and is overall and excellent music player for Android. We've mentioned it before, and it still whips the llama's a**.
Troubleshoot the Tricky Stuff
Your Android phone is a great device, and Android as a mobile OS is much more mature and polished now than it used to be. Still, there are times where you need to troubleshoot problems and fix issues you'll run up against. Here are some tips. Photo by Sylvain Naudin.
How to Upgrade to a New Android Phone and Take Everything With You: If your new Android device is a replacement for an old one, taking your data with you is easy. We show you how.
How to Set Up a Fully Automated App and Settings Backup on Android: Once you get your Android device all set up and to your liking, don't let tragedy happen to you. Make sure you make sure your phone is regularly backed up so you don't have to worry about your data. Your Android phone is a mini-computer that has a lot of precious information on it, and keeping it safe is easy and takes only a few minutes to set up.
How to Speed Up, Clean Up, and Revive Your Android Phone: After installing a bunch of apps and games, your phone might slow down a good bit. Never fear, cleaning it up and getting back the speed you need is easier than you think.
How Can I Fix My Android's Crappy GPS: Turn-by-turn navigation and Google Maps are great...when they don't take forever to initialize and pinpoint your position. Here's how to fix that little annoyance, once and for all.
Use Android's ‘Safe Mode' to Disable Apps and Troubleshoot Problems: Apps giving you trouble? Installed or uninstalled something and now your phone is slow as molasses? Android's built-in "safe mode" may be able to help.
How Do I Fix My Bricked Android Phone?: One of the first things many of you may do with a brand new Android phone is root it and possibly install a new ROM. If that process doesn't go very well and you wind up with a brand new hunk of plastic and metal on your desk that's completely unresponsive, all may not be lost! There are plenty of ways to approach a so-called "bricked" phone that may bring it back to life.
The Best Data Usage Tracker for Android: Just as many smartphones added tethering support and enough great features that we wanted to use the hell out of our data plans, most carriers are killing unlimited plans and serving up overage fees for breaking your bandwidth caps. If you have Ice Cream Sandwich or Jelly Bean, you have tools built-in to keep an eye on your bandwidth usage, but if you want a per-app breakdown and some more tools, try this app.
How Do I Convert Video for my Android Phone?: Converting videos for the iPod is so easy in iTunes, but I can't seem to get videos to play on my Android device. How can I convert videos so that they'll play in the native Android video player?
Android Task Killers Explained: What They Do and Why You Shouldn't Use Them: Android task killers improve your phone's performance while also boosting battery life-or at least that's the much-debated promise. Here's a look at how task killers actually work, when you should (or shouldn't) use them, and what you can do instead.
Expand Your Phone's Capabilities
Beyond apps and tweaks, you can make your phone do some really neat things. Things like tell you where it is if it's lost or stolen. Things like play any song or video you happen to have on a nearby TV. Things like send a text back to your wife to let her know you're driving, not just callously ignoring her calls.
The Always Up-To-Date Guide to Rooting Any Android Phone: We recently updated our Android rooting guide to include lots of ICS and Jelly Bean-friendly options and tools for newer devices on the market now. One of the best things you can do to extend the functionality of your Android device is root it, and we're happy to show you how.
Five Best Android Launchers: One way to extend the features of your phone just by installing an app is to grab a new Android launcher. It'll completely change the way you interact with your phone, and in many cases it's free, can actually add features you didn't have in the first place, and offer you more customization options. Here are five great ones to choose from.
How to Choose the Right Android ROM for You: Ready to take the next step after rooting? If you really want to completely customize and tweak your Android experience, or just relieve yourself of carrier crapware and try out a new version or flavor of Android, installing a new ROM is the way to go. Think of it like installing a new OS on your computer—meaning you should be careful to back up your data and do your homework beforehand. Need some suggestions? Check out these five great Android ROMS.
How to Get Better Battery Life and Performance on Your Android Phone with a New Kernel: What's that? Rooting and installing a new ROM isn't enough for you? Well then, you might want to consider installing a whole new kernel for the ultimate performance boost. It's not for the weak of heart, but the benefits definitely outweigh the drawbacks. Just back up and make sure you know what you're doing before you start. Our guide will walk you through it.
How to Turn Your Android into a Killer Portable Media and Gaming Center: Want to get your game on with your Android phone or tablet? Sure, there are plenty of games you can play on the device, but why not use it as a media center, or hook it up with your TV for some serious gaming?
Use Your Android Phone as a Wi-Fi Hotspot for Free: The beauty of Android is that you can tether your phone to any device in your home pretty easily, and largely for free, as long as you don't go over your data caps or anger your carrier. Here's how to do it, and never worry about your cable going out at home again.
Turn Your Phone into a Universal Media Hub to Play Your Music, Photos, and Videos, Anytime, Anywhere: If you carry around media on your phone, sometimes it just won't cut it to play your songs through your headphones or your video on that tiny screen. Here's how you can turn your Android phone into a hub that can wirelessly play the movie you have downloaded on the big screen, or stream your favorite tunes to the stereo in another room.
How to Stream Media from Your Home to Your Phone Anywhere with Plex: If you'd rather leave the music and movies at home and take your phone with you on the go, this guide will walk you through turning your Android phone into a device you can use to enjoy all of the media you have at home, wherever you roam.
Turn Your Android Phone into a Personal Trainer: Work off those pounds you put on thanks to the Thanksgiving turkey and the Christmas ham with your shiny new Android phone. There are plenty of apps to help you get the most out of your workouts at home, at the gym, or outside, keep track of your progress, and meet your health and weight loss goals. Here's how to turn that new phone into a pocket gym you can take with you anywhere.
How to Find the Right Android Keyboard For You: Before you go too far with your Android phone, you may want to do something about the stock Android keyboard. There's nothing wrong with it, specifically, but there are some much better options out there that can make using your device easier and more fun.
Do Android Antivirus Apps Actually Do Anything?: If you've been hearing all about Android malware and you're worried you'll need an antivirus or anti-malware app on your Android phone, read this first before you install one.
How to Turn Your Tablet Into an Awesome Productivity-Boosting Second Screen: If you have an Android tablet, it doesn't have to just be an entertainment, social, and media device. It can be a great productivity booster as well, and you can do real work on it. Here's how.
How to Track and (Potentially) Recover Your Stolen Laptop or Android with Prey: There are obvious reasons to like Prey. Chief among them, it's free to use for up to three devices of any kind, from computers running Windows, Mac, or Linux to Android devices. But that wouldn't mean anything if the tracking Prey provided wasn't really solid. It's not fool-proof, especially if the thief wants to entirely wipe your computer or phone, but if that's not the case, it gives you a fighting chance.
CREDITS
*LIFEHACKER.COM
*INTERNET

Hi,
Nice. :good:
Will add a link to my first post.
A lot of good information in there.

Well done ...nice op....Loads of useful information...

Hats Off my dear buddy. This is what I can expect from you. Did a great job. Full of informations.:good:

btw i msut disable email adn use gmails app its a lot better
---------- Post added at 07:48 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:39 PM ----------
lol in iran i opened all the links and i saw this in my browser
filtered
blocked blocked blocked blocked blocked blocked blocked blocked blocked blocked blocked blocked blocked blocked

Coming here as a complete newb to Android and smartphones in general, this list will be useful, so thank you very much for putting it together. I'm also interested in the ROMs I've been seeing around here, as they seem to really add to an already great phone. I've also read though that flashing new ROMs means you can't use stock features like the camera apps, IR blaster, air view, smart pause, etc so I'll probably hold off on doing that.

Moved to General thread

Bump
Sent from my GT-I9103 using xda app-developers app

Thanksssssssssssssssssssssss

Added to sticky threads
As this is a nice guide, just added it HERE

Steve0007 said:
As this is a nice guide, just added it HERE
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you Sir.
Sent from my GT-I9103 using xda app-developers app

Excellent guide thanks for the information it has been a big help

Reference link: http://www.ebay.com/gds/How-to-Set-...he-First-Time-/10000000177371112/g.html:good: