Related
I searched but didn't really find any elaborate writeups on the real-life differences between the Hermes and the Kaiser. I'm contemplating the same with my AT&T 8525 to the 8925 Tilt.
Specifically of interest would be:
- How's the GPS? I had the HP before and the reception sucks bad that it was practically unusable indoors. Also it was slow as molasses.
- Hows the 3mp camera? The one on the 8525 blows, not even good enough for those rare occasions when it gets used. Is it tons better on the Tilt? I guess I will lose using the flash as a flashlight.
- Does things run a whole lot faster, Safari, PIE e.g.
- Will most of the 8525 software port over without much grief?
Thanks a bunch.
Having moved from an 8525 to a Tilt and running a lot of apps w/o flashing the ROM to something other than the ATT-installed ROM I can tell you:
1. The Tilt is FAR, FAR better than the 8525!
a. It is VERY stable and rarely freezes up (I only get into trouble if I am playing with the phone (settings or something and a text message comes in)
b. I run a couple of apps that require .NET to be installed - it's already on the phone w/ WM6 so that saves a TON of internal memory
c. Speaking of internal memory - there is more than enough to go around...I am sure that at some point I'll have to think about managing it a bit better
d. The phone is FAST. My contacts list has 2400+ it used to take the 8525 about 30 sec to load it. About 10 w/ the Tilt.
e. The only software I had an issue with was Opera as it is keyed to the Device ID. I asked, they sent a new reg code. Everything else works just fine (I probably have 40 apps on the thing, most straight from the 8525).
f. The camera. It is a little sharper. I think the color is much better. The autofocus, though, means that your subject has to be motionless and it takes a bit longer to be able to snap the picture. I miss the flash, but always have done OK w/ just the screen as a flashlight (I eat lots of carrots)
g. I have a very long history w/ Symbian phones and had switched to the 8525 since Sony Ericsson no-longer make a Symbian phone that supports the US bandwidths. The 8525 was OK, but no-where near as good as my old P910 in terms of stability. I was not too impressed with WM as per the 8525 and missed the stability of my P910. With the Tilt, though, I won't be looking to switch back to Symbian unless SE revolutionize phones as they did with the original P900 again. The Tilt is THAT good!
- How's the GPS? I had the HP before and the reception sucks bad that it was practically unusable indoors. Also it was slow as molasses.
--I love the GPS (I never had it before). It's pretty responsive and you can use any GPS software solution you like. Reception for me (AT&T in MD/DC) is great.
- Hows the 3mp camera? The one on the 8525 blows, not even good enough for those rare occasions when it gets used. Is it tons better on the Tilt? I guess I will lose using the flash as a flashlight.
--I've taken some pics and they came out better on my Tilt than my 8525. Yes you lose the flash but you gain auto focus. You can also find the WordConnect Business card reader on these forums which is definitely a bonus.
- Does things run a whole lot faster, Safari, PIE e.g.
--Honestly, I can't say that programs run any faster. They are pretty snappy but if you got a great ROM on your 8525, those ran just as good.
- Will most of the 8525 software port over without much grief?
--Mostly yes because a lot of software is OS dependent not hardware dependent. I haven't had any problems using the same software...in fact my Today screen is almost exact to my 8525 Today screen.
Other advantages: spring assisted slide, screen tilt (obviously), radio will be upgraded to HSUPA, more on board memory, 3mp camera, gps.
Some disadvatages: no flash on camera, no front camera (tilt)...that's all i can think of.
Hey I too found it hard or conflicting to find information, can anyone answer any of the below? Thanks.
1) How is the stylus? (Is it the same as the Hermes, collapsable)
2) I am guessing that the battery is completly different?
3) Does the battery meter truly show power remaining? Or is it like the hermes in 10% increments?
4) Does it come with a belt clip or holder or cradle?
5) How about headphones? Still propeirity? Do they come with it?
6) Finally, does the hardware allow for call recording (both parties and not just the user himself)
1) How is the stylus? (Is it the same as the Hermes, collapsable)
Not collapsable. I like it much better. ATT version comes with an extra in the box.
2) I am guessing that the battery is completly different?
Can't remember if the battery is different. I believe it it is. However, there is no switch to get to the battery compartment. You have to press hard and push up a real pain.
3) Does the battery meter truly show power remaining? Or is it like the hermes in 10% increments?
This is much better. Shows true power remaining in 1% increments.
4) Does it come with a belt clip or holder or cradle?
ATT version does not come with any of these.
5) How about headphones? Still propeirity? Do they come with it?
Dido on this and doesn't come with a splitter. No worries still use the one that came with my old 8525.
6) Finally, does the hardware allow for call recording (both parties and not just the user himself)
No. I have heard of other 3rd party apps that allow this.
Thanks jeffwill2, in my book a very helpful first post!
Battery contacts are in different location than 8525.
they put a notch in the kaiser battery so hermes batteries wont fit in it (i think this was by design)
I've been looking at the various threads on here, trying to work out whether its worth upgrading or not. So far the issues have been:
MS Reader
Slow GPS lock
Are there any other issues, whats the general feeling, is it worth it or if it a'nt broke.......
Thanks
James
guess not.....
Yes it's worth the upgrade.
This thread can be closed now
sure its worth it to upgrade to 6.1...but only if your rdy to hate your phone and then eventually hate yourself and then inevitabley hate life...which will then end with a slow and quiet pull of a trigger, which then in turn explodes your brains all over your desktop monitor and brand newly minted 6.1 kaiser.
enjoy!
moegdaog said:
sure its worth it to upgrade to 6.1...but only if your rdy to hate your phone and then eventually hate yourself and then inevitabley hate life...which will then end with a slow and quiet pull of a trigger, which then in turn explodes your brains all over your desktop monitor and brand newly minted 6.1 kaiser.
enjoy!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yea, just upgrade.
lol...seriously upgrading to 6.1 is like upgrading to killing yourself
wm 6.1 is the worst software upgrade i have ever come across - but i am sticking to it in the meantime due to time reasons.
threaded sms is the only thing that was nice - reminded me of my good old treo.
otherwise its a useless update and renders quite a lot of software non-functional.
The normal TCPMP version doesn't work in WM 6.1, I'm using a recompiled version (which does work), but now I'm experiencing some sort of vertical ripple lag when watching video.
Other than that, you've got threaded sms, your today screen rotates all at once (but it still takes about the same time) and perhaps some other thing, but I haven't noticed them yet...
m0bov said:
I've been looking at the various threads on here, trying to work out whether its worth upgrading or not. So far the issues have been:
MS Reader
Slow GPS lock
Are there any other issues, whats the general feeling, is it worth it or if it a'nt broke.......
Thanks
James
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Some issues are gone, new ones have appeared... I still think the upgrade is worth it though. But very far from nirvana
Only you can determine if the positives are worth the negatives when upgrading to WM 6.1.
As a Developers Forum our best advice to you is to investigate it for yourself after reading about the issues & solutions others have encountered during their transition. Then find a few Roms (cooked or Original) that appears to best suit your needs and give each of them a try.
In the end if you hate 6.1 you can always downgrade.
Hi,
I consider myself as a hardcore PPC user. I use my PPC for almost everything and if I ever lost my PPC, I have nothing... well.. but of course I have backup on my laptop.
Battery Life
I use a bluetooth earphone during work, meaning that the bluetooth is turned on on my PPC from 8am to 5pm (discovery off). Before going to work, I spend about 5 to 20 minutes reading internet news via WiFi. Normally when I reached home from work, I have about 10% power left. Without WiFi in the morning, I have about 20% to 25% power left. Well, this is when I was using O2 Xda II mini (HTC Magician) and O2 Atom Life. Believe it or not, when I gave my O2 Xda II mini to my wife, she only need to recharge it after 3 to 4 days of usage, and the same thing happen when I gave her my O2 Atom Life.
Getting my hand on HTC Diamond, well it is the same. It lasted as long as my previous 2 PPCs, except that the battery is smaller, meaning, it actually is better. Since it has built-in GPS, if it is used, of course the battery will die faster, but from my usage, the built-in GPS does not consume more power than the WiFi.
To make it short, the battery life on PPC is based on how long you turned it on (usage time, not standby mode). If it is stated in the specification as 3 hours talk-time, then it will last for 3 hours of usage. That is what people are forgetting. When using other handphone (which are not PPC), people only use it to talk, sms or some gaming. When they switch to PPC, there are so many things that you can do with it and people actually spend more time using it not awaring of the total time used (not standby mode). There is a good software, AE Button Plus, which can measure the uptime for us. It shows the usage time as well.
Volume
All of my PPC has decend volume level, which O2 Atom Life is the lowest. Not sure why because it has 2 speakers (stereo). It should be louder right? But Diamond actually is loader than it. But there seems to be a solution here. In O2 Atom Life, I used the Equalizer to increase the volume. There is none on Diamond but I believe you can find one in this forum.
GPS
I love the GPS, except sometimes the GPS software cannot seem to turn the GPS on (1 out of 10). Need to close the software and reopen. Previously I was using Garmin Mobile 10 (via bluetooth) and comparing with the built-in GPS, the lock-time is very very fast.
With Garmin Mobile 10, I turn it on, get in my car, start the car, then wait from 1 minutes to 3 minutes before it can get a lock. With Diamond's built-in GPS, I open the GPS software, get in my car, start the car and I already has a lock.
The problem now is the slow screen refresh (the time taken to redraw the screen). With my O2 Atom Life, the screen redraw is fast (when I make a turn or the map zoom in or out). With Diamond, when I make a turn, I can see the roads being redraw one by one. If I turn the auto-zoom on (Garmin Mobile XT), it will go black for 1 to 3 seconds before the screen reappear when it tries to zoom in or zoom out.
I believe this has something to do with the display resolution of Diamond, 640x480 compared to 320x240 (on my Atom Life). The higher the resolution, the lower the framerate. Further more Atom Life processor is faster. But comparing to Xda II mini, Xda II mini is a little bit faster (redrawing rate).
Please remember that Diamond has a built-in graphic processor (correct me if I'm wrong). When software make use of this graphic processor, I believe we would not have this problem anymore. Instead, we might get real 3D display.
Overall
Overall, I'm satisfied with my new Diamond but of course I always wanted a longer usage time... so I think I better start looking for HTC Touch Pro.
programatix said:
Hi,
Overall
Overall, I'm satisfied with my new Diamond but of course I always wanted a longer usage time... so I think I better start looking for HTC Touch Pro.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
...or get yourself the HTC Diamond extended battery BP E270. It has 1350 mAh instead of 900 and it adds only 4 mm thickness => Diamond + BP E270 = still slimmer and lighter than Pro. Unless of course, you want the keyboard.
programatix said:
There is a good software, AE Button Plus, which can measure the uptime for us. It shows the usage time as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's off topic, but can you explain that more please ?
My opinion...
I currently have two major issues with the Diamond. They aren't helped by the horrendous T-Mobile branding job! (Surely the execs that rubber-stamped those colours should be made to wear that horrible T-Mobile pink every day to work for a year to see how it feels).
In light of the above, I've obviously had to apply the original Diamond Black on top. Problem is, it eats Main Memory space for breakfast, lunch and dinner! I'm always struggling with space! Really annoying!
The second issue is probably because I'm a tad impatient and may be considered a power user by some. The thing is, when I'm doing things on my phone, I expect it to react, if not instantaneously, then at least in a split second. Often the Diamond lags considerably, which can be very frustrating and lead to incorrect actions. The most common of these is when ending a call. When I press the end call key, I expect the call to be ended now - not in 3 seconds' time!
OK, end of *****.
The CDMA (telus) phone already comes with the HTC Diamond extended battery BP E270!
.....But, still. There's always room for more. There's a 1800mAh battery floating around but apparently has a hideous replacement backing that just takes away from what the Diamond is all about - it's slim low profile.
Yodajr said:
It's off topic, but can you explain that more please ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually it's a software which allows you to set 4 actions for a hardware button on a PPC. You can find it here (http://ae.inc.ru/aebplus.php).
It also comes with extra functions like displaying the uptime statistic, task manager, bluetooth toggle, wifi toggle and more.
belovedra said:
Problem is, it eats Main Memory space for breakfast, lunch and dinner! I'm always struggling with space! Really annoying!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I believe it depends on what software you are running and believe me, most PPC users are struggling with that. Imagine with 64mb of main memory which only 24mb available on start up. With diamond, it's about 52mb free main memory on start up, right? Further more, most handphone (not PPC) has about only 64mb of main memory, for example, N95-1
belovedra said:
The second issue is probably because I'm a tad impatient and may be considered a power user by some. The thing is, when I'm doing things on my phone, I expect it to react, if not instantaneously, then at least in a split second. Often the Diamond lags considerably, which can be very frustrating and lead to incorrect actions. The most common of these is when ending a call. When I press the end call key, I expect the call to be ended now - not in 3 seconds' time!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, this is an issue not only with Diamond. It exists in all PPC since PPC is able to multitask, sometimes it becomes slow because of the tasks running in background.
Another problem is related to some task managers which close running application when you tap 'X'. The next time you want to call that application up, the PPC need to reload the application which is slow. In another word, don't close the program when you tap 'X'. Comparing to normal handphone (other than PPC), you have limited software running which actually does not allow you to mod the phone. So, most critical applications stay in main memory, it is fast to call up the unclosed applications (like calender, phone and contacts).
Regarding ending call, the problem you mentioned also exists in other PPC, like my O2 Atom Life and O2 Xda II mini. Actually, when you press or tap the End Call button, it actually ended it but the screen refresh seems slow, so we tend to keep on tapping the end button, which sometimes end up in calling the person again.
losdrivare said:
...or get yourself the HTC Diamond extended battery BP E270. It has 1350 mAh instead of 900 and it adds only 4 mm thickness => Diamond + BP E270 = still slimmer and lighter than Pro. Unless of course, you want the keyboard.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is a great news. Since I'm living in Malaysia, it's hard to find one. HTC Touch Pro has not been released yet here. But actually I wanted Touch Pro because of the size of the main memory. I've been living with 64MB (normally about 24MB available for user) of main memory for too long and I always wanted to load more applications at once (greedy eh?).
Further more, since my Atom Life has 1GB of ROM (795MB available for use), living with only 256MB of ROM (only 82MB available for use) on Diamond leaves me starving for more.
Regarding the keyboard... I don't think I'll be using it, but who knows? If I can type faster using it than TouchPal, I'll definately be using it.
programatix said:
Ok, this is an issue not only with Diamond. It exists in all PPC
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Aha! So, once again it's the big beast M$ that's to blame. Makes sense. They seem to be behind a lot of trouble I see in Windows software... One of the reasons why I changed to Mac OSX.
Thanks programatix! I thought perhaps it was just the Diamond, or even the HTC range.
belovedra said:
When I press the end call key, I expect the call to be ended now - not in 3 seconds' time!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try downloading the Advanced Config software for the Diamond, and check the Phone->End call delay. Change that to 0. Problem solved.
There are many solutions for many of the problems you mention, even for performance issues. Apart from Advanced Config, try also getting Diamond Tweak.
Battery issue is a common problem of PPC. Just imagine you are using a PC which is an your palm size. Of course it is designed to be energy efficient, but it will not last you for long days. That's why car charger and USB cable exist for you to charge your gadget often
programatix said:
Overall, I'm satisfied with my new Diamond but of course I always wanted a longer usage time... so I think I better start looking for HTC Touch Pro.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you have ActiveSync with Exchange server, you can save battery by setting the update to manual.
Hi, i am thinking of switching to diamond 2, however may i know is there any problems encountered with diamond 2? Like the parts spoils easily or software lag? Reviews from anyone here? Thank You.
i moved to d2 from polaris,
its huge upgrade specially the screen quality and it can run 3d apps and its faster + gsensor & light sensor are cool, but after the first week of excitement and getting used to new features, overall its pretty much the same...
i mean still the same windows, same games, same apps in much prettier package.
on the other hand when i hold it next to my polaris the polaris looks like a dinosaur i would never go back to that crappy qvga screen
the only disadvantage of d2 is the lack of d-pad its kinda missing cause not all apps & games made for only touch use.
An amazing device.
Last HTC phone I had was a Himalaya about 4 years ago, bought from eBay for a bargain price. That's still going, so I've no doubt that this device will keep me going for a good long while yet!
The only real benefits it has over other HTC devices are the camera (5MP with autofocus) and the general aesthetics... It's a very professional, very good looking phone. All of the other features are on all HTC WinMob devices, including the operating system. Ports are happening for the interface to adapt to different hardware across the range, but it's not big trouble.
In all, a very capable phone. Find one at a price you like and you will not be disappointed.
The current phone i had is Dream, however i met with keyboard problems. Thus no slider phone anymore for me, candybar is the obvious choice.
In the market i feel that TD2 is the most beautiful phone currently, but i am hoping i would never need to send it in to repair. Thank you for your reviews.
TD2
I agreed with BNM, the buttons & D-pad are essential to operate most games and programme mapping to. I also found that pocket player don't work very well with TD2. Going to try Pocket Music next.
where do you stand?
It all depends on your luck and what you want to do with your TD 2. For the former, it is all about receiving a version which doesn't present problems (I have this device for a month and going and still haven't had problems with it. Read here a lot about hardware failure, not charging to the maximum, lag in menu and so on); as for the latter, you must consider if your phone is a phone or is a testing device (a lot of problems arise when users try to make "fried eggs" with a phone - some of the users here are doing/did to their TD 2 some things just to test the device. I myself avoid changing the windows reg as it is how it is for a reason. Also I found it very dangerous to use programs to boost audio (consider that the levels are how they are because maybe, just maybe, that is the maximum of the speakers and more will fry them)). So you must decide where you stand
google g1 to d2
i just changed my g1 after using it for 6 months and bought d2.
what htc has done to windows is simply AMAZING.
i have never ever been so happy with a windows device.
i hardly feel im using the crappy windows interface but am able to enjoy all the usefulness of windows at the same time with a slick interface.
the only gripe i have is that htc should have put in a capactiive display.
the battery is cool...
wifi, 3g... everything is great
cheers HTC
I'm as happy now as when I purchased it 2+ months ago. Perhaps I've been lucky in not suffering some of the problems (screen and charging) some have.
Good points: TF3D is great. You get a really nice interface whilst retaining the power of WM underneath, the best of both worlds. Superb screen. Good Bluetooth sound quality. Excellent camera for stills. Styling is cool (if you like retro 70's, which I do!)
Bad: Wifi is weak, 3G sensitivity only average, camera poor for movies. Screen might be fragile.
The good points outweigh the bad, for me.
Happy with my D2 after 2 months of usage. I have not changed Rom or radio yet, I'll probably wait for official 6.5 upgrade before playing with hardspl and custom rom, but overall, the stock device is very nice. Battery life is what I expected (not great, but I have 2 days of moderate usage or 1 day of heavy usage ... it is ok. And it seems to get better with radio upgrade, and an extended battery in the 1300 mAh range may become available while keeping the same size...)
Screen is amazing, the resolution is so high that everything is very very crisp and ebook reading is almost as nice as e-ink. Only difference is that it is a transmissive technology, not reflective, so nice in shadow or in your bed, not nice in direct sunlight. touch sensitivity is ok, not as good as capacitive but not by much...and you have the stylus for old-style interface...and for handwriting recognition...and old keyboard...and making drawings. Best of both worlds, in the end i prefer this to a capacitive screen...
And the D2 size is perfect for me: not too big i never feel it is more anoying than a normal dumb phone...But still big enough to have a usable screen where WVGA is not overkill (it is not, but just barely: people which can not focus on nearby objects should beware that WVGA will be a disadvantage).
Whatever the technical evolutions in the future HTC models, or competing smartphones, I think the D2 has hit the perfect size: I would not change it at all, keep the overall size of the D3 or whatever exactly the same (but make its screen 3.4 inches maybe ;-) )
So to summarize, the screen, overall size and style of the phone makes it a winner for me, there is currently no other smartphone I would have instead. I expect this will change in 2010, but for me the D2 is the best choice in 2009...As a bonus, I have found the GPS very sensitive (even indoor) and accurate. It is a battery draw and it lags (not too much, but sometimes annoying), but it is more sensitive than my previous bluetooth GPS-only device!
Now for the drawbacks:
-lowlight performance of camera. It is not only the absence of flash, the camera is not sensitive enough, or the auto-iso is not correctly programmed. Low-end nokia phone are much much better at nightshots, and iphone 3GS is better too. They have less pixel, but imho a highly sensitive sensor with less pixels is better for a phone, for high def pictures I have a dedicated camera, the phone is there for the unplanned shots, and lowlight performance is much more important for those kinds of shots than megapixels...I hope this can be corrected by OS upgrade, the lens opening seems no worse than the iphone and better than the nokia...but maybe 5 megapixels CMOS sensor are inherently less sensitive than 2MP or 3MP ones...
- poor wifi sensitivity, D2 have much more trouble than a laptop with weak wifi signals...and more trouble than other handheld device. I hope radio upgrade may improve things a little, but I al not too optimistic, it may be a poor antenna...
- some slowdown of TF3D sometimes, or of the phone in general, and poor playback of movies...but here I am almost certain that playing with custom roms and using something else than windowsplayer should improve things a lot.
With xda-developers, I expect to keep enjoying the D2 for at least 3 years before getting tired of tuning my phone and buying the latest and greatest as replacement.
Had Diamond 1 now have TD2, first thought: not a big update and seemed bigger! missed scroll wheel, but now im used to it (after 1 week) glad i got it, much faster and more ram! as for wifi ok for me? did you try and go to settings/wifi/advanced/power mode and change to best performance????????
Yes I tried it, it does not make much difference. No problem at all when the signal is strong, but D2 can not catch signals as weak as my laptop can (normal), or even some not so weak that my older PDA can catch too (not normal)...
gkai said:
Yes I tried it, it does not make much difference. No problem at all when the signal is strong, but D2 can not catch signals as weak as my laptop can (normal), or even some not so weak that my older PDA can catch too (not normal)...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am 3 meters away from my wireless access point and still struggle to connect with all settings correct that work with HTC Elf and Wizard with ease.
I still don't think we have reached the ease of use of an iPhone and I think the WVGA format may not be the best for phones (too skinny in portrait and too wide in landscape)
TouchFlo3D still isn't sufficiently clever or fully featured although it is gratifyingly pretty.
I come to the TD2 from an MDA touch (HTC Elf) and in a few ways it is a step backward:
- battery life is far better on the Touch
- WIFI is also far better
- rounded rubberised style is more solidly constructed and has a better feel
- TF2D home has quicker access to SMS, tasks, program launcher, weather, missed calls
- snooze control more varied (I think this is a WM6.0 thing)
- And very significantly the radio reception shows 4 bars pretty much all the time where the TD2 struggles to get even 2 bars.
In every other way the TD2 is better
Tony
Hello everyone, I am very interested in buying this tablet because of the win 8.1+Android boot BUT I have read mixed reviews that some come ok while others come with problems. I personally don't want to deal with broken youtube, play store and etc.
Is there like a stock android ROM for this? Will flashing a new ROM damage the windows in the Tablet? Is it fairly straightfoward like a normal android tablet? Any tips, opinions, reviews and etc. Are greatly appreciated.
I have purchased this tablet and using it for a few weeks now. Dual boot Air II (not the 3G as I've seen videos on youtube showing that they are slower than the Air II). When I first got it, the play store wasn't working, however, when I updated the software through Teclast's update app (all in chinese) it work.
I haven't had any problems with it so far, everything is working fine. I've tried some very heavy games without any lag. It just lowers the brightness if it gets to hot. Also another note, I hated their UI, I think they tried to copy iOS. So I just downloaded a custom launcher and fixed the problem.
Based from my own experience I would recommend this tablet. I also bought it for the dual boot capabilities. (came pre-installed with dual boot windows 8.1 + android 4.4.4)
im quite frustrated with mine...here are the reasons.
windows runs very well. would be great apart from the fact that the battery wont get me through a whole day of fair use. also, wifi seems to drop sometimes.
android runs SLOW. launcher stuff is a bit laggy. it has to pause to think quite often. and wifi, again seems very spotty - stops working for 30 seconds randomly - frustrating.
also....with regards putting different roms on, etc - there is less knowledge out there about the Air ii - most of the posts are relevant to the 3g model so finding solid information about the Air ii is difficult. I cant recommend at this stage...
in regards to the wifi, try turning off wifi optimization in the settings
it seemed to work better on mine after I turned it off.
buddy,
how's the battery life?
any cons now???
Got the Teclast X98 Air 2 HG8N a few days ago from TinyDeal. Arrived with dual boot 4.4/8.1, both in Chinese. Had to change to English, get online and ran OTA/Windows updates. No issues with camera orientation or Google Play. So far, very nice tablet. The Windows experience is odd. I want to swipe a lot for navigation since I've owned a few iOS/Android tablets before. Taking some getting used to actually using scrollbars again. Also found out that some sites and programs really are not designed for such a relatively small screen. Options are very small and hard to hit correctly with a finger. Stylus helps, but still tricky occasionally. I would recommend it with the caveats that it will not be in English, Android has a lot of crapware, and Windows can be tricky. I would like to install W10 and custom ROM but still trying to get a handle on the process for this model. Similar model threads are hundreds of pages, and may not be entirely compatible with this one.
Editing my post after getting a few more days hands on with this one. Initially there was a lot of focus on setup, config, tweaking, it was my new toy. Got it to a comfortable, useable state and now down to actual usage. The screen is gorgeous, that part still holds very true. The battery life is terrible. Android seems better than Windows, but I haven't done any benchmarking or close examination. It looks like for Android at least, the OS itself is consuming the most battery. I haven't gotten a single day of usage without stopping to charge at least once. I pretty much just keep it plugged up unless I walk outside with it for a bit. Right now focusing on how I can replace the pre-installed OS's and see if that will be any better. I have years of experience in IT, but not in an area like this so it is slow going for the moment. I'd recommend this still, but be prepared to tinker a long time. If you want an out of the box experience ready to go then this is not a good choice at all.
I have had my airII 3g since about february 2015. I still like it. screen is great - usually have the brightness turned right down to low as I use it indoors. have used both windows and android and it works well. I prefer to use android, windows buttons can be small to try and touch. Main use for mine is just facebook and internet browsing, and reading books, I did take it on a couple 8 hour flights and watched downloaded videos in windows and it was awesome. Speakers could be a bit louder. Once I rooted it and removed chinese android seems to run way better, battery life is good in my opinion but I guess im not a heavy user. I do have wifi drops in android although I recently downloaded wififix from playstore and it seems to be a lot better. Also after rooting i have found I rarely get the thermal brightness throttling message - cant remember last time I saw it. Tablet seems well made and has a bit of weight to it, I have mine in a Ipad air case which is good, its just the camera holes dont match. The 2.5amp charger that comes with it would be the minimum I would want to charge it with, my kids have teclast x80h with 2amp charger and its too small. I think there is also an issue when having bluetooth on for my headphone and using the wifi at same time can cause wifi to be slow. either way I am happy with purchase, knowing that at the end of the day it is a chinese tablet and would require tinkering with and maybe some issues, but its great specs for the money. I dont use 3g on it, i mainly only bought it as it was 64gig model.
It is a great device
i have the air ii hg9m and i would only recommend this to someone who is comfortable troubleshooting and fixing small issues as these chinese tablets are plagued with them, fortunately theres tons of support from this site with lots of cool people fixing any issue that might arise, as for mine (the newest air ii at the time of this hg9m) ive only had minor issues, like choppy 3d games in android, standby battery drain in windows, some overheating, slow charging and battery calibration issues, and no ota updates in android. but the basic functionality of the device has remained in tact. Thats also a huge advantage of dual os, if im having an issue with one os i can try the other to do what i want. If youre truly looking for a trouble free experience then apple is the way to go, imo they are your best bet at a good 100% trouble free experience, but you pay a lot for those odds.
Stylus?
arcanadei said:
Taking some getting used to actually using scrollbars again. Also found out that some sites and programs really are not designed for such a relatively small screen. Options are very small and hard to hit correctly with a finger. Stylus helps, but still tricky occasionally. I would recommend it with the caveats that it will not be in English, Android has a lot of crapware, and Windows can be tricky. I would like to install W10 and custom ROM but still trying to get a handle on the process for this model. Similar model threads are hundreds of pages, and may not be entirely compatible with this one.
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Would you mind sharing what stylus are you using that works with this tablet? I have not found one that works.
Thanks!
gatorgal88 said:
Would you mind sharing what stylus are you using that works with this tablet?
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Couple of little generics I had laying around but both had a metal mesh tip. The rubber tips didn't work for me on this one either.