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Ok so right off the bat I'm not a professional phone reviewer. This is just me talking about a phone I'm excited about... I didn't post any pictures as I didn't take any yet, but I'm very pleased with the look and you can find plenty online.
So I've spent the last two weeks researching and looking for a good dual sim phone, with dual standby capability. Before I start, without a dual standby capability a dual sim phone doesn't let you take a call from one number, while you are talking on your other number.
This phone is the international version and is a triband 900/1800/1900 - as always be sure your service provider runs on the band before you buy a phone. It also has to separate IMIE numbers as well.
[This next paragraph is for entertainment only, so feel free to skip to the next one if you're not interested in a very good prank.]
I ordered this phone from Amazon and chose overnight shipping. Needless to say I've not been excited about a phone for a very long time, but this time I was. Unfortunately the last update was that it was checked into Memphis, which has all flights grounded. So, the 2nd day I check the tracking and I see that it's out for delivery, I hop in my car and start the 40 minute drive to my office to pick it up. 3 minutes out my manager calls me and tells me "it just arrived"... I arrive and I open my shipping box, upset that it's late but happy it's here. I pull out the phone box and open it up... only to see some piece of crap prepaid ancient mini brick phone. I instantly flip my lid, and for a split second I considered just snapping this piece of crap in half. I then dump the box contents on the floor, and then realize there is a group of people in tears laughing. Turns out my best friend cut the packing box open (from the bottom as not to damage the label) and put his crap phone in it. Anyways, on to my thoughts...
[Appearance] So, when I pull the phone out it's really quite nice looking. It has the shape and appearance of an Iphone, but it has the 4 hard buttons at the bottom. One nice thing comparing it again to the Iphone is that not everyone and their dog has one of these. Very slim form and smaller overall than the Iphone. I have not taken pictures yet, and have not completely tested it overall but I have already decided that it was well worth the $260 ($230 from another seller, but I paid the extra $30 for piece of mind).
The first thing I do is pair it with my windows mobile Smartphone and I then beam over all of my contacts. The windows mobile phone just sends them all, but I had to hit accept for every single file. Tedious, but much easier than actually re-entering them in by hand. After that I had to enter into the file explorer and choose reload for about 90% of them (one by one again). In the end they all transferred over, with attached photos. The only thing that didn't transfer was the ringtone assignments.
[Call Quality] Once I was able to get outside of work hours I placed both my personal and work sims inside the phone. I've tested it like crazy just on calls alone. First, the speaker phone is WAY louder and much more clear than my HTC Fuze (Raphael). In addition the call quality when not on speaker phone is quite nice as well. There were times when I thought I dropped the call because there wasn't that light hiss in the background. Next I tried calling out on the sim. When you dial a number, just to the right there are a couple of boxes and you just touch the sim you want and whalla, you're calling out on that sim. It also had no problem taking calls from one line while on the other. It's just like call waiting. The only negative to it is that the icon which identifies the sim is very small and in the top left of the incoming call, so it's somewhat hard to tell which line is ringing. Although I predict I will get quite used to it.
The touch screen is very responsive and is actually fairly easy to negotiate around with just using your fingers. The speed of the phone is nearly instant in everything you do, outside of accessing memory to change a ringtone or something (super slow). Granted I have a crapload of photos and ringtones on my microSD card.
[Features] It has some pretty cool features within the simple operating system. There are 4 hard buttons on the bottom, and 4 soft buttons at the bottom of the touch screen. The hard buttons are useful and make sense. The screen buttons are also good. There is one button on the bottom right that opens up a new menu on the right side of the screen. This menu has 4 long buttons that let you easily access everything you need within the phone. In addition there is a little rounded tab at the right side of the screen when you are in idle mode. The first tab allows you to access your "widgets" You can just drag them and drop them right onto the desktop, or drag them right back in. Out of the box the widgets are as follows: FM radio, round old school clock, Calendar, music, photos, world time, memo notes, missed calls, messages, and schedule. Really neat in that you can just place them where you want, and they all come out small but expand into the full featured widget. At the idle screen you can also slide your finger either right or left, and it makes the screen flip as if it was a cube. Your widget menu has not been replaced by a speed dial menu. Press any icon from 2-9 (1 reserved for Vmail) and it lets you choose a contact to associate. You can then drag that icon right onto the desktop of the phone as well. Overall very cool features so far.
The locking mechanism is quite nice as well. You can either unlock with a short hold on a key on the screen, or the lock key on the right side of the phone. About the only negative so far is that there isn't a slide to unlock, and you press the hard keys to answer or decline. I know at some point I will accidentally answer or decline someone while pulling the phone out of a full pocket.
Next onto the camera. 5M camera with a crapload of image settings. While the quality isn't nearly as good as my high end digital camera, it shares many of the same features. It has an LED flash, and you can really play around with the settings (assuming you are a camera buff, otherwise most will just confuse you). It lets you take quick action photos in sets of 3, 6, or 9 in fast succession too. it also has a video camera, but I didn't test it as of yet.
It has an FM radio which needs to have the dual earphone wired headset hooked up to it to use (typical). The headset of course has a microphone also for those of you who think talking on Bluetooth was invented by the "debil". (That's some high quality H20).
The PC suite that comes with it is pretty nice so far also. When you connect the phone you can choose between 4 options. One can be a music sync for all the music lovers out there, but my presumed favorite is that you can use the phone as a modem with the provided software (not tested yet). You can connect to your PC via USB or Bluetooth. I only wish my work computer would allow for me to install software! Oh well...
Text messaging and MMS is nice as well. You can choose most of the typical entry methods, but I've been having fun with the handwriting entry. Don't leave any gaps when you spell any letters, but it's cool to just write on the screen and have it put it right into a text. It's slower than using the on screen key pad, but a fun novelty for now. It doesn’t appear to have a full touch screen qwerty, but I also didn’t rotate it to landscape during testing so it could be there.
I did have one issue with my voicemail recognizing one number at AT&T, but after a long hold time they just reset my voicemail and both numbers worked like a charm in accessing vmail. One negative, and a fairly big one is that when I called both of my lines and left voicemails it still only put one voicemail notification at the top. It's not possible, or at least I've not figured out how to discern which line has the voicemail on it. Although when unlocking it puts a nice big box on the screen stating the calls I missed. In addition the missed call widget is nice to show missed calls as well.
About the only issue I am having so far is getting the internet to work. I want to test it just so I can verify it will work, and to mess around with the browser some. I intend to drop my dataplan as I only used it for my GPS previously, and since Santa brought me a full on GPS I know it's a wasted $30 a month.
[G-sensor] It also has what I think is called the G-sensor, or at least the thing that rotates the screen when you do. Also when you drag the widgets or speed dials onto the screen you can shake it to “snap them into place”. Personally I prefer to place them in the locations I want though.
So, in closing I love this phone so far. The last phone I was this happy with was the original Razr back when no one else but me and a select few had it (only a few other dummies willing to pay the $500 for it back in the day). I presume that I have missed a fair amount of things people may be interested in, so please feel free to ask for additional information and I will see if I can discern it from messing around with the phone. My HTC Fuze and Crap dual sim Chinese phones are officially retired. I’m sure I’ll snag another smartphone at some point so I can load up all of the tweaks from here, but for now it’s nice to have a phone that isn’t slow to respond and accomplishes my personal goals.
But no windowsmobile, right?
HI, thats a long review. Think a lot people are happy about it, cause it is a good phone i suppose.
But it's not windowsmobile,isnt it?
I need "dual sim" "dual standby", and find no windowsmobile phone that supports this. I have two china phones, which both drive me mad, more than windowsmobile ever did, so I finally want to find a solution.
Don't think this is the right thread to post my topic,so I'll search now for the right place here in xda-developers.
Cheers
So, I have been using the S6 Edge for a couple of months now. I have been experiencing a few issues:
1) It seems that Smart Stay is not working, yes the setting is on.
2) When I go to my contact app, some of the letters are not there, such as the letter "M", but when I start to scroll, they appear.
Any thoughts?
PS: Is it me or does this forum seem not as active as other prior devices. Looking forward to some Kick ASS Roms.
sandman512 said:
So, I have been using the S6 Edge for a couple of months now. I have been experiencing a few issues:
1) It seems that Smart Stay is not working, yes the setting is on.
2) When I go to my contact app, some of the letters are not there, such as the letter "M", but when I start to scroll, they appear.
Any thoughts?
PS: Is it me or does this forum seem not as active as other prior devices. Looking forward to some Kick ASS Roms.
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Smart stay never worked for me either. As far as the threads, it's still a new device. It will increase in time
Same exact scenario. No smart stay. I gave up on it. Besides, I'm trying to deal with battery drain, poor signal with sprint, overheating, phone freezes, etc and so smart stay is low hanging fruit
Ok as some of the members of this forum may know I got off to a shaky start with my Android wear watch (a Sony SW3).
I've now had it about four weeks and have over come the major problems I initially had, so I thought I would start a tread highlighting the things I love and the things I hate so others can assess if a smart watch is for them.
Firstly, what I love:
- Reading messages from Text, Email, Whatsapp and Messenger
It's so simply to just quickly look at my wrist see if I'm interested, if not I delete, if I am, may read further on the watch or if the message is to long, find my phone and continue there.
- Voice control
A really unexpected plus for me. I thought 'OK Google' was a bit of a gimmick at first, but how wrong could I have been. It's fantastic (OK, I feel a bit of a nerd saying OK Google to get it started, but that's a tiny problem). Driving and going to be late, OK google, Send text message to XXXX, then speak your message eg ' Sorry running late will be with you in 30 minutes. The translation is actually pretty accurate and it's done, you don't have to take your eyes off the road!
- It's an accurate watch, not sure where it gets it's time from but I guess it comes from the phone which in turn gets the time from the network which means no more setting, not running fast or slow. Not sure how it works when you change time zone though but I'll find that out soon enough.
- It's waterproof. Don;t forget to turn the touch screen off, but I've now been swimming with it, I regularly shower with it. Not a hint of a problem.
- Control you music system. I use Sonos around my home and I can turn the volume up and down, change track. Ok it's limited but it still an unexpected benefit.
- Control Bluetooth music with Spotify. Really a feature best used in the car. There's an app that will fire up Spotify on your phone which in turn will use the blue tooth audio to connect to your car. No more digging around to find you phone, unlock it, fire up spotify, find your play list etc etc etc.
- Incoming calls. Nice feature as I can decide if I want to take the call without having to find my phone to see who's calling.
What I hate (ok hate is a bit strong, but)
- The UI I think is not properly thought through You have al these options, tilt to wake, tilt to scroll through cards. Clumsy at best and a battery drain at worst (tilt to wake particularly) Even the touch screen to wake is not that cleaver as it can be operated but a lot of things touching the screen not just me, eg a sleeve, particularly one that is damp
- Voice control Ok I know I've said above that voice control is fantastic but it has one major down side, it needs internet connectivity. If it doesn't have it, it just doesn't work! Wish it would use the processing power of my phone to process voice.
- Wifi, ok I accept this is probably a bug, but wifi doesn't currently work properly, for some reason it will drain all the all the battery for no apparent reason and it does it very fast. I've now turned it off and only turn it on on the occasions because it's great to have full functionality
- Screen, the screen is fine, but that's damming it with faint praise. I would really like to see a higher quality screen and a little bit bigger would be nice.
- Incoming calls. When rejecting a call, it would be good to be offered a 'rejection message' that is sent via text giving a reason for the rejection.
When rejecting calls you can slide up instead of left por right swipe ano it will show up predefined messages that it will automaticly send to The caller.
::enviado do meu oneplus one via tapatalk::
My complaints (1 month usage) is the app tray feels bloated. Not every app needs to be displayed. Not every app has options set through the watch. Also the layout feels cramped to me. I would prefer some options (icons only, 1x2, list mode, 1x1 mode, text/no text, recent shortcuts at top on/off, etc.)
2. Embedded speaker for taking quick calls without digging for your phone last minute. 1 problem a watch introduces is that your phone starts to be left behind. I now leave my phone on the counter while I buzz around my home. Phone rings, its a mad dash down stairs to find my phone.
3. Some sort of keyboard. I'll take the old school T9 input. Just let me type a few things.
player911 said:
My complaints (1 month usage) is the app tray feels bloated. Not every app needs to be displayed. Not every app has options set through the watch. Also the layout feels cramped to me. I would prefer some options (icons only, 1x2, list mode, 1x1 mode, text/no text, recent shortcuts at top on/off, etc.)
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Download wear mini launcher from the playstore. It's a brilliant replacement that let's you customise the watch to how you want it.
I totally agree with you. I also use Android wear for
Reading messages from Text, Email, Whatsapp and Messenger
Voice control
Agree with some points according to my experience with my old android wear.
Hope my new one will work better.
My most of my complaints are solved with the Asus ZenWatch2. It is a solid upgrade to the LG G Watch. Once Marshmallow drops, we'll get a new app tray and speaker support (Zenwatch2 and Huawei) for calls.
I tried the alt launchers and it doesnt replace the stock launcher but runs over top of it. So it just adds to the chaos. However after the nostalgia wore off, I dont really use apps thus dont need to go into the app drawer.
Keyboard: try FlickKey
player911 said:
3. Some sort of keyboard. I'll take the old school T9 input. Just let me type a few things.
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Try FlickKey Keyboard for Wear. It adds a keyboard to any app that wants to call it. Right now, that is limited to Wear Messenger, Coffee for Wear, and K-9 for Wear - you need one of those messaging apps to be able to use it. BTE, FlickKey is not a T9 style keyboard - it works better than that.
I have tried various keyboards. What I was referring to was an option, by default, in Android wear to have a keyboard input. I don't use any of those apps, thus having a keyboard right now would be irrelevant.
What apps would you like to use a keyboard with?
player911 said:
I have tried various keyboards. What I was referring to was an option, by default, in Android wear to have a keyboard input. I don't use any of those apps, thus having a keyboard right now would be irrelevant.
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I certainly agree that users should be able to decide for themselves if they want to use a keyboard or not, and which one they want on their smartwatch. What apps would you like to use a keyboard with? FlickKey can be added to any app with just about 15 lines of code. So message the dev who makes the app you want FlickKey in and let them know they can easily add it for free.
I find Android Wear to be very useful - when it works. Performance on my original 360 hasn't been very consistent either but I'm sure the S400 watches fare much better. Seriously though - every Android OEM needs to switch to AMOLED as soon as possible since it's much more suitable for smartwatch use.
I have installed AW on a Samsung Gear 2 (ported to the watch by @biktor_gj) and it runs really great !
Much much better than the default Tizen where it comes with normally.
Since I am using AW, I'm really hooked on it.
I love to be able to navigate with my watch and/or get notifications (from Google Maps) about any traffic jams or hold ups on my route.
I love to be able to use my voice to respond to whatsapp messages or even use my voice to make a new message without even holding my phone.
Really looking forward to the upcoming version (Marshmellow?), which suppose to have speaker support, because the Gear 2 has a build-in speaker.
So that means I can make calls too again from my watch (which is now only possible in Tizen, but not AW).
Hangouts and Messenger and Email (I know there are email clients that support wear and flickkey). I doubt Hangouts or Messanger will get it support.
I'm noticing that during many of my calls, I apparently hit the HOLD button accidentally with my cheek. My proximity sensor seems to be working fine, and the screen does turn off appropriately when I hold the phone against my face. I'm assuming that at certain angles enough light gets through to the sensor to turn the screen on, and I accidentally hit the button in the corner. Anyone else have this issue? Is there any way to circumvent this? Thanks
Unfortunately i can't help but i am getting the same issue
Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk
I tried applying different dialer apps and they only serve to change the dialer/contact screens, but the default calling screen containing the HOLD button remains unchanged. I found that using Skype as the default dialer fixes this issue since it uses its own dialing/calling screens, but obviously it's not practical to just rely on Skype. So the problem still remains unresolved.
As an update, someone on Reddit posted a download link to the Google dialer app here at: http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s6/themes-apps/app-google-dialer-t3323432
This installs a new dialer, which actually provides a new calling screen as well, fixing the main issue. The default dialer is better in my opinion since it opens up the dial pad immediately while this one doesn't, but this is a good option at this point
gomulkaaa said:
I'm noticing that during many of my calls, I apparently hit the HOLD button accidentally with my cheek. My proximity sensor seems to be working fine, and the screen does turn off appropriately when I hold the phone against my face. I'm assuming that at certain angles enough light gets through to the sensor to turn the screen on, and I accidentally hit the button in the corner. Anyone else have this issue? Is there any way to circumvent this? Thanks
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even worst than calls is when you press it while watching youtube vids, i wish there was a lock of some sort cuz the music stops paying all the sudden
It's embarrassing when I put my clients on hold and don't realise until they don't respond to me. The cheek hold doesn't result in any audible sound so you can be talking for 20 seconds with the other end on hold. I love the S7 edge but I'm contemplating sending it back. I'll try the Google dialer mentioned above first though
Same issue here. I talk on the phone almost 2 hours a day and this is happening at least 1-2 times in every call! Checked my proximity sensor and it's working as it should.
Any workarounds? Maybe someone can edit the phone.apk and remove this stupid button or disable it? I am against rooting but I will definitely root my phone if there's a fix for this.
Damn, I suffer exactly the same issue! Found this googling for ideas...
Very old thread, but I just wanted to give a suggestion to others with the same issue. I really love the Google Phone dialer app, which actually replaces the calling screen during calls with this app's own screen, so you no longer have the Hold button at such an unfortunate location. If you do choose Google's app, I recommend this specific version: http://www.apkmirror.com/apk/google-inc/google-phone/google-phone-2-05-07_rc4-release/google-phone-2-05-07_rc4-android-apk-download/
The caller-ID function by Google actually works with this version, whereas the other .apk files floating around do not have this function working properly.
I'm having the same issue and I've installed the Google phone, however as soon as I place the call, the existing on-screen options pop up.
The option to disable the default phone app is greyed out in settings, so unsure on how to resolve.
robot1000 said:
I'm having the same issue and I've installed the Google phone, however as soon as I place the call, the existing on-screen options pop up.
The option to disable the default phone app is greyed out in settings, so unsure on how to resolve.
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Finally searched for the answer to this today, after several accidental holds on work calls.
The solution above with Google Phone APK worked for me. I just went to SETTINGS - APPLICATIONS - DEFAULT APPLICATIONS and then under Calling App near the top, changed it from Contacts to Phone. . For some reason, I cannot open the phone app itself (gives an error message) but calls do use the phone app rather than Samsung stock dialer.
Turn off screen!! Most phones allow you to turn screen off without interrupting the call.
Same issue with a galaxy A5 2016
Can't understand why samsung doesn't fix it
Hi,
Just got my unlocked Pixel 4a today. No custom roms or anything. Android 11. Build RQ1A.201205.008.
I'm a bit of a minimalist, and I went through the keyboard settings for messages (it had this little emoji bar thing that also did the predictive words I wanted to get rid of). Also in that bar was the microphone for voice to txt. When I shut off those unneeded options and turned the dedicated numerical row on, the microphone disappeared. I've tried resetting the options to the best of my memory, but it still isn't back to where it was, and the microphone is still gone.
There is another microphone in the preview box, but that is a tap-and-hold-to-send-a-recording microphone. Not what I'm looking for. That works.
I checked permissions, Gboard has permissions. I checked the keyboard settings, voice to text is enabled. Anyone know the 'magic combination' of options to get this back? I use it frequently!! I'd hate to have to reset-to-factory just to restore this one feature.
Thanks!
I finally found it after much headaches. It seems the voice to text microphone is part of the "suggestion strip" that is under "Text Correction". No idea why this isn't integrated into the keyboard as it's own icon as it's been in earlier versions of Android.
If anyone has any recommendations on how I can potentially make that integration and get rid of the suggestion strip, please let me know.
I tried to reproduce the missing voice2text mic that you reported and failed.
I went to Gboard settings > text correction then:
Disabled show suggestion strip
Disabled next-word suggestions
Disabled emoji suggestions
Disabled sticker suggestions
Going back to the keyboard, the suggestion strip/stickers/GIF/clipboard/settings and the mic were all gone.
I re-enabled all the above and the mic reappeared, along with the other stuff.
One thing you could try short of factory reset is to go to the App Info for the Gboard, force stop, and clear the cache. Relaunch the keyboard to see if it brought the mic back.
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Looks like you resolved it. I think this design change was made a few cycles ago and am not aware of any way to re-integrate it. You could try SwiftKey to see if that has the feature you want.
I think installing a different keyboard can be helpful here. Have you tried to do it? To be honest, it was one of the most significant problems that made me change a model of my phone. I did have a Samsung Note, and the problem with the Gboard was repeating very often. I have been browsing different sites to find a solution, but was never successful in it. One day, one of my sisters visited me and took my phone while I was in the kitchen. She fixed the problem instantly, would you believe it? I came to the room and was surprised after she showed me it. She said she visited https://techplugged.com/5-best-solutions-to-fix-the-gboard-not-working-error/ and followed all the instructions given there. I have forgotten about the problems with Gboard for a long time, but there were other reasons for me to change my phone to the latest iPhone.