Related
..it was snappy to the point that for a moment I thought that these store demo units are rigged with an intel 2.6 ghz dual-core processor sitting in the back room.
Can someone explain why then the "Tilt" that has exactly the same processor/memory combo but just even the basic navigation of tapping menus, bring up programs, settings etc. was with probably 1 nanosecond delay on the Sprint Touch. Serious!
Infact, it was almost ironical when I activated the famous "touchflo" feature and found that to be quite less responsive compared to the other stuff. Still was lot faster than my Tilt in general.
I have Duttythroy's BIG STORAGE Rom which more or less is quite stable but man, for someone like me who literally uses my phone's various features etc. every 2 minutes or so in an entire day, I could surely use the overall operating system snappyness.. (if there is such a word)
Why.. Why??? Why my Tilt??! Why can't you run like your little brother!!
AJ
because it didnt have anything installed on it.
Put a stripped down rom on your tilt. it will be fast and snappy too.
a corvette is fast and snappy. throw 4000 lbs of potatoes in it and tell me how fast and snappy it is
still not convinced..
I agree with what you say totally. However, in this case I'm still thinking that after my additions to the Tilt and with the Touch "stripped-down", it can't/shouldn't be that much difference.
Come to think of it, even though the Touch may not have lot of programs installed it still did have full Set of Sprint bloatware in it. I played with SprintTV which was essentially mobi tv and other stuff was there as well.. so you can't say that the Touch had a major advantage in installed app dept.
I'll just get over it soon though... especially when I get to type 2-3 back 2 back near 160 char txt msgs and then turn on my TomTom mid way and see it lock on to GPS sats in like 20 secs or so... Touch!! naaah!!
AJ
now if we can just get some video drivers, we can have our cake and eat it too
Ha, go get the Touch then and load your programs on it, use it for a couple of weeks, and see how snappy it is then. Its not just programs, its configuration, messages, alarms, etc...
I don't really know what you're complaining about. My Tilt is quite snappy/responsive. Menus/programs load almost instantly. It's quite a bit faster than my PPC6700. It has several problems that I wish it didn't have...but I can't complain about the responsiveness of the unit itself. It's quite good.
So...the biggest question here is probably: "what today screen programs are you running?" If you're running some flashy today screen software I'd bet that's your problem. I'm a fan of the "clean" look so I don't use anything but HTC Home and the owner/calendar plugins.
These are the first impressions of a power user after a week with the Diamond - I hope they might help others to decide whether to get one.
EDIT: Things have moved on since this post, you might want to look at post #39 too (page 4)
Background
I'm a power user but also a heavy day-to-day user as well. I use my phone for calling people, basic PDA functions, OTA google sync, web access, IMAP mail, GPS and also .NET software development. (I'm the author of 'Touch Settings') I used to have an HTC Touch. Before that, an HTC Prophet. Before that, an HTC MDA Compact.. ..you get the idea. I like HTC devices. I've stuck with them all, put up with their frustrations and watched them steadily improve. But this phone felt like the most exciting release yet. A massive leap forward in terms of specs. I was calling up Orange for about a month to find out the ETA. I actually RAN to the Orange Shop in Oxford Street and managed to get their last one in stock at the weekend!
So, one week in, here we go...
Great things
THE SCREEN
My favourite thing is the VGA screen. I cannot believe the difference it makes to the look of the phone, seriously. I could never go back to QVGA again now, this is a major improvement. Just reading the operator name in a slim, Arial-Narrow type font at the top of the screen and not being able to see the individual pixels, this is a true step forward. Everything, repeat, EVERYTHING looks better.
THE CAMERA
The auto-focus camera is nothing short of brilliant. Still rubbish in low-light levels, still no flash, but this is light-years ahead of the last one! I still get a little smirk of delight on my face when I hear it whirring as it focuses ahead of taking a picture!
A FASTER PROCESSOR
Hooray! FINALLY!... 528MHz ...4 times faster than my HTC Touch!...in theory. See below.
THE NEW ADD-ONS
Having GPS, FM radio, a tilt switch, a light sensor and more is fantastic. Teeter, the game, is awesome and will impress every person you know at a party.
THE SIZE
The Diamond is slightly smaller than the HTC Touch as well - easier to fit in a pocket. And it really does look gorgeous. Well done HTC.
Enough praise. Because then there's all this:
The Not-so-great things:
THE SPEED
Pop Quiz. Take your Windows Mobile phone. Tap the start button. Then tap 'Programs'. Does the window flash onto your screen immediately? No. There's a delay, isn't there? And sometimes you can even see it drawing every individual icon, top-to-bottom. On my HTC Touch, after a day of use, this took about 2 seconds.
On the Diamond, with TouchFlo 3D running, it's worse.
Skip this paragraph if you don't want a rant. Seriously, when are Windows Mobile phones actually going to get responsive enough to be useable? Delays when you press buttons, delays when you bring up menus, switch applications, etc, etc. What the hell is this operating system DOING with those 537 mega cycles per second??? Having patiently waited through my last THREE sloooow devices, I was thrilled at the thought of a phone that actually whizzed along... ...but it's a bit like going from XP on a slow computer to Vista on a fast computer - no noticable increase in speed at all. Such a crushing disappointment. My old Nokia could re-draw a screen faster 3 years ago. In this day and age, and with a processor doing a belting 500+ MHz, this should NOT be happening. Things should appear INSTANTLY and react the VERY MOMENT you touch them. I am running out of patience. The iPhone is looking more attactive every day.
TFL3D - INTERFACE
Fantastic to look at, but surprisngly sluggish to use. The more days that pass, the more it's becoming apparent that this interface is more about form and less about function. It's also often lacking in visual feedback; sometimes a button will move when you drag it (main nav bar at the bottom), sometimes not! You just have to swipe and see! Visual feedback is a very important part of user interface design.
COMMON ACTIONS, E.G. CALLING PEOPLE
I feel that, action-wise, some things have (incredibly) got HARDER since my HTC Touch. For example, I used to be able to call my favourite contacts with a swipe and a tap.. ..now it's a swipe, a complicated side-swipey thing, a painstaking wait for the piccies to flip around, and finally a tap. Er, hello? This is the MAIN THING I USE THE PHONE FOR - CALLING PEOPLE! I can't even position my favourite contacts in memorable places; again, a big factor in user interface design, hence why you remember where your icons are on your PC's desktop.
HOME SCREEN (TFL3D again really)
I can't add any custom home screen items! What the hell happened to being able to view my list of things to do? (tasks) Seriously, this is a shockingly bad step back. I know there are some apps to work around this, but I'm doing a review of the stock phone and software here.
THE JOYPAD
This should be renamed the joy-less pad. It's virtually impossible to click the Left and Right buttons without frequently mis-tapping and hitting the 'Back' or 'Hang Up' keys instead. There are no markings, you just sort of have to 'guess' where abouts on the flat screen to tap. The actual target area isn't big enough and I'm getting sick of quitting out of screens when I just want to move right or left. I've got fairly big hands but I'm no elephant.
The ipod-style 'whiz-around' wheel seems promising but when you try it, it's under-responsive and jerky in its movements. I would suggest that's why they've limited the applications that support it by default.
NO MINI SD CARD SLOT
Another step back - from 8Gb storage on my HTC Touch (with a mini SD card) to a paltry 4Gb now. Not enough to put all my music on the phone plus nav software, and no slot for more storage.
GROSS GREASINESS
As other forum users have pointed out, all that swiping on this shiny black device - it looks like the back of a transit van after a minute or so of use.
CONCLUSION
Owning an HTC Diamond is without doubt a step forward from an HTC Touch, but it's a smaller step than you might think. Be prepared for a mixed bag of emotions. Joy at the look of the thing, disappointment when you realise it's slower than you hoped, shouts of happiness when you first play 'Teeter', cries of frustration when the screen turns off randomly during calls or you miss-hit the joypad button or you can't swipe the tiny bit of the screen you're meant to.
After all that, I might surprise you by saying this. I would still say this phone is the best option on the market for the day-to-day user who wants an ultra-portable device that packs enough power to do that bit more than just making calls.
Just 24 hours into owning the phone I did my first ROM flash, from 1.37...1 to 1.37...3 - and this helped the speed somewhat and fixed a memory leak. I also tweaked the registry as much as I could. This has helped too, but the above problems are all still too evident, nothing has really improved enough to make me retract any of them. Keep watching these forums, though, because future ROM updates have the power to make this device much, much better.
That's about it, I hope these comments have helped, or given you something to debate in the space below. I'm going to stick with the Diamond for now. But I wouldn't mind betting I'll have completely disabled TouchFlo 3D before the week is out...
Carlos
I too wonder how long I will last with TF3D. However, the joypad is no problem. Simply use the centre button as a reference point. If you rest part of your thumb in there and press any side of it, then it is easy to navigate. At least I find it easy anyway. Hope that might help you.
carlosp_uk said:
I was calling up Orange for about a month to find out the ETA. I actually RAN to the Orange Shop in Oxford Street and managed to get their last one in stock at the weekend!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you were really a fan you would have made sure you were the first, and didn't have to run
mcwtrekkie said:
If you were really a fan you would have made sure you were the first, and didn't have to run
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think I may well have been Orange's first online order! Could not wait.
evilskanker said:
I think I may well have been Orange's first online order! Could not wait.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's the spirit!
Has anyone managed to add a UK city to the weather forecast page ? I found it almost impossible to scroll down to the last page, it keeps selecting wrong countries, the only way I see - scroll one-by-one using hardware buttons ....
Yes, I added 3. Scroll with finger, well, more of a flick.
evilskanker said:
Yes, I added 3. Scroll with finger, well, more of a flick.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think I've tried about 20 different ways of scrolling with a finger, always end up with a list of south american cities ... (
Comparing to my old Orbit, I would say I have to press harder for screen to react ..
hertc said:
I think I've tried about 20 different ways of scrolling with a finger, always end up with a list of south american cities ... (
Comparing to my old Orbit, I would say I have to press harder for screen to react ..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's at times like these that it would be good to be able to use the wheel for scrolling down.
evilskanker said:
It's at times like these that it would be good to be able to use the wheel for scrolling down.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agree, still remember Sony J7 I had long time ago, all these things were so easy with a wheel ..
hertc said:
Comparing to my old Orbit, I would say I have to press harder for screen to react ..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Apparently the Diamond is the first PocketPC device to have a tempered glass screen to make it extra tough. This makes it require a little more pressure than other devices.
But much more resilient to damage, and also nicer on the eye.
wasn't to amazed with the stock rom,
but after some days of usage and flashing the first cooked rom,
i am getting more and more into my new mobile..
Totally agree, using my Diamond for a week after three years on I-mate's.
carlosp_uk said:
CALLING PEOPLE
I feel that, action-wise, some things have (incredibly) got HARDER since my HTC Touch. For example, I used to be able to call my favourite contacts with a swipe and a tap.. ..now it's a swipe, a complicated side-swipey thing, a painstaking wait for the piccies to flip around, and finally a tap. Er, hello? This is the MAIN THING I USE THE PHONE FOR - CALLING PEOPLE! I can't even position my favourite contacts in memorable places;
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just a suggestion -
Speed Dialing.
you can place at least SOME off your favorites in the positions you want.. and then it will just be one long press.. and it will dial.
Phone - menu - Speed Dial.
and of course.. there is always voice dialing.
Turn off TF3D. Ive heard is does HUGE things for the interface speed, and you'll get your tasks back (first thing Im going to do when I get a sprint diamond on this side of the pond)
I agree on almost every point
Not having used touch before, I really can't say anything bad about the navigation. To me it's a revolution, but it's not quite there yet.
The biggest flaw is the biggest asset. Let me explain.
The biggest asset to this device is the screen. I have never liked the screen on any of the QVGA devices I have used (Wizard and Hermes). The VGA screen on the Diamond is fantastic! Crisp and easy to read, even in direct sunlight. The words by HTC "Not too big, not too small" really sums up my feelings about it. However. Screen size is relative to what you display on it. I'm sure a lot of research, testing and effort went in to decide the size of the elements on the TF3D interface. Personally I would have designed it differently.
The main professional reason I choose to use a WiMo is Active Sync OTA (Over-The-Air). Having direct push of Mail, Calendar and Contacts to my device is critical in my profession. This HAS to work, it has to be easy to use, and easy to read. On the Diamond it works fantastically. Lots better than on the Hermes. It takes some getting used to, when you have never used touchflo before.
The touch interface has to be finger friendly, demanding finger sized icons and buttons. Having a small screen required HTC to use the entire screen. That makes you wish for a larger screen, yet a larger screen would require a larger device and I dont want that. Dilemma.
Like you said, the TF3D interface lacks in visual feedback. This could be replaced by tactile feedback. The same technology used in the game TEETER could be used to give me feedback on my actions.
Being a WiMo certified pro I know that the main obstacle for HTC is WiMo itself, or rather the Windows CE it is built upon. Win CE 5 is nowhere near a realtime OS and the switch to Win CE 6 (afaik it will be the foundation for WiMo 7) will be a major leap. CE6 is not a RTOS either, but it has the means to enable truly great applications. I look forward to what Developers will create for WiMo7.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Embedded_CE_6.0)
The only thing I really dislike on my Diamond is the scrollwheel. I clearly does not work like you would expect it to. Unintuitive. And the Up/Down/Left/Right navigation around it is near unusable. Using the touch screen works though so it is not a showstopper for me.
Speed of the interface is good once you have used the cache size tweaks. Not great but good.
I fully agree on the speed comment, 527mhz... but it seems it's different mhz compared to my HTC Herald (P4350).
On my Herald I also have WM6.1, a 200mhz cpu (o'ced to 240 mhz) and everything starts faster!
I've got the 1.37.xxx.3 rom on my Diamond, TF3D disabled and still it's slower.
Very strange indeed.
guys i suggest you all to flash duttythroy's diamond project v2 rom. it increased the usability amazingly.
guys i suggest you all to flash duttythroy's diamond project v2 rom. it increased the usability amazingly. and c'mon guys, our shiny precioussssssss is out some weeks. look what they've done with the kaiser within one year... stay patient and keep being excited for that genius piece of hardware.
carlosp_uk said:
These are the first impressions of a power user after a week with the Diamond - I hope they might help others to decide whether to get one.
Background
I'm a power user but also a heavy day-to-day user as well. I use my phone for calling people, basic PDA functions, OTA google sync, web access, IMAP mail, GPS and also .NET software development. (I'm the author of 'Touch Settings') I used to have an HTC Touch. Before that, an HTC Prophet. Before that, an HTC MDA Compact.. ..you get the idea. I like HTC devices. I've stuck with them all, put up with their frustrations and watched them steadily improve. But this phone felt like the most exciting release yet. A massive leap forward in terms of specs. I was calling up Orange for about a month to find out the ETA. I actually RAN to the Orange Shop in Oxford Street and managed to get their last one in stock at the weekend!
So, one week in, here we go...
Great things
THE SCREEN
My favourite thing is the VGA screen. I cannot believe the difference it makes to the look of the phone, seriously. I could never go back to QVGA again now, this is a major improvement. Just reading the operator name in a slim, Arial-Narrow type font at the top of the screen and not being able to see the individual pixels, this is a true step forward. Everything, repeat, EVERYTHING looks better.
THE CAMERA
The auto-focus camera is nothing short of brilliant. Still rubbish in low-light levels, still no flash, but this is light-years ahead of the last one! I still get a little smirk of delight on my face when I hear it whirring as it focuses ahead of taking a picture!
A FASTER PROCESSOR
Hooray! FINALLY!... 528MHz ...4 times faster than my HTC Touch!...in theory. See below.
THE NEW ADD-ONS
Having GPS, FM radio, a tilt switch, a light sensor and more is fantastic. Teeter, the game, is awesome and will impress every person you know at a party.
THE SIZE
The Diamond is slightly smaller than the HTC Touch as well - easier to fit in a pocket. And it really does look gorgeous. Well done HTC.
Enough praise. Because then there's all this:
The Not-so-great things:
THE SPEED
Pop Quiz. Take your Windows Mobile phone. Tap the start button. Then tap 'Programs'. Does the window flash onto your screen immediately? No. There's a delay, isn't there? And sometimes you can even see it drawing every individual icon, top-to-bottom. On my HTC Touch, after a day of use, this took about 2 seconds.
On the Diamond, with TouchFlo 3D running, it's worse.
Skip this paragraph if you don't want a rant. Seriously, when are Windows Mobile phones actually going to get responsive enough to be useable? Delays when you press buttons, delays when you bring up menus, switch applications, etc, etc. What the hell is this operating system DOING with those 537 mega cycles per second??? Having patiently waited through my last THREE sloooow devices, I was thrilled at the thought of a phone that actually whizzed along... ...but it's a bit like going from XP on a slow computer to Vista on a fast computer - no noticable increase in speed at all. Such a crushing disappointment. My old Nokia could re-draw a screen faster 3 years ago. In this day and age, and with a processor doing a belting 500+ MHz, this should NOT be happening. Things should appear INSTANTLY and react the VERY MOMENT you touch them. I am running out of patience. The iPhone is looking more attactive every day.
TFL3D - INTERFACE
Fantastic to look at, but surprisngly sluggish to use. The more days that pass, the more it's becoming apparent that this interface is more about form and less about function. It's also often lacking in visual feedback; sometimes a button will move when you drag it (main nav bar at the bottom), sometimes not! You just have to swipe and see! Visual feedback is a very important part of user interface design.
COMMON ACTIONS, E.G. CALLING PEOPLE
I feel that, action-wise, some things have (incredibly) got HARDER since my HTC Touch. For example, I used to be able to call my favourite contacts with a swipe and a tap.. ..now it's a swipe, a complicated side-swipey thing, a painstaking wait for the piccies to flip around, and finally a tap. Er, hello? This is the MAIN THING I USE THE PHONE FOR - CALLING PEOPLE! I can't even position my favourite contacts in memorable places; again, a big factor in user interface design, hence why you remember where your icons are on your PC's desktop.
HOME SCREEN (TFL3D again really)
I can't add any custom home screen items! What the hell happened to being able to view my list of things to do? (tasks) Seriously, this is a shockingly bad step back. I know there are some apps to work around this, but I'm doing a review of the stock phone and software here.
THE JOYPAD
This should be renamed the joy-less pad. It's virtually impossible to click the Left and Right buttons without frequently mis-tapping and hitting the 'Back' or 'Hang Up' keys instead. There are no markings, you just sort of have to 'guess' where abouts on the flat screen to tap. The actual target area isn't big enough and I'm getting sick of quitting out of screens when I just want to move right or left. I've got fairly big hands but I'm no elephant.
The ipod-style 'whiz-around' wheel seems promising but when you try it, it's under-responsive and jerky in its movements. I would suggest that's why they've limited the applications that support it by default.
NO MINI SD CARD SLOT
Another step back - from 8Gb storage on my HTC Touch (with a mini SD card) to a paltry 4Gb now. Not enough to put all my music on the phone plus nav software, and no slot for more storage.
GROSS GREASINESS
As other forum users have pointed out, all that swiping on this shiny black device - it looks like the back of a transit van after a minute or so of use.
CONCLUSION
Owning an HTC Diamond is without doubt a step forward from an HTC Touch, but it's a smaller step than you might think. Be prepared for a mixed bag of emotions. Joy at the look of the thing, disappointment when you realise it's slower than you hoped, shouts of happiness when you first play 'Teeter', cries of frustration when the screen turns off randomly during calls or you miss-hit the joypad button or you can't swipe the tiny bit of the screen you're meant to.
After all that, I might surprise you by saying this. I would still say this phone is the best option on the market for the day-to-day user who wants an ultra-portable device that packs enough power to do that bit more than just making calls.
Just 24 hours into owning the phone I did my first ROM flash, from 1.37...1 to 1.37...3 - and this helped the speed somewhat and fixed a memory leak. I also tweaked the registry as much as I could. This has helped too, but the above problems are all still too evident, nothing has really improved enough to make me retract any of them. Keep watching these forums, though, because future ROM updates have the power to make this device much, much better.
That's about it, I hope these comments have helped, or given you something to debate in the space below. I'm going to stick with the Diamond for now. But I wouldn't mind betting I'll have completely disabled TouchFlo 3D before the week is out...
Carlos
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
what a crap...
THE SPEED
Put one of the new ROMs on it (Dutty, Walshieau), runs like hell. No delay here!
TFL3D - INTERFACE
Simply switch TF3D off if you don't like it.
And use an existing tool for your today (SPB Mobile Shell ect.).
COMMON ACTIONS, E.G. CALLING PEOPLE
Disable the Diamond dialer, you get your traditional dialer back.
HOME SCREEN (TFL3D again really)
Simply switch TF3D off.
Use an existing tool for today (SPB Mobile Shell ect.).
THE JOYPAD
Get used to it, it works perfect after a few weeks.
NO MINI SD CARD SLOT
Ok, maybe you got a point...
On the other hand: do you really need ALL your music all the time. A sync now and then for other music isn't that hard.
GROSS GREASINESS
Ok, the shiny cover gets greasy. But is't so beautiful,,,
Hi,
Sorry to bother you people, but I was wondering if the reviews I am looking at are giving an accurate picture of the diamond?
Most say it is horribly slow with bad GPS detection.
Of course it is as the videos show.. but when you start using it on regular basis and not just using it for 10min you will notice some sluggish times (as with everything). But with some tweaks (check the forums) to the phone and TF3D, it should be responsive and smooth.
I take it the problem is ram? That seems to be the only difference between the diamond and the fuze.
Those are the two phones I'm stuck between. I'm a bit concerned that the fuze is a bit too bulky.
I would rate it very stable,but definitely nothing remotely like fast,comparing it to previously owned pocket pc's,its mainly laggy when multitasking or when interrupting a process it's already doing,and can be very annoying.....I personally won't buy another HTC until they stop using Qualcomm 7 series cpu's....nothing to do with ram IMO,it's the cpu that chokes and different rom's can only do so much.
On the flip side though,it's easily the most stable thing I've owned,and have only had the odd glitch with googlemap's and youtube application's,I only use GPS with googlemaps and it seems pretty good to me.
I don't use tf3d.
well.. i'm coming in from a wizard.
It was just lagging too much with the wm 6.1 rom with touch flo. Am I walking into a similar situation?
I found myself always on the lookout for the fastest ROM, this suggest that I'm not too satisfied with its speed.
While the phone is normally fairly responsive at times it can be very annoying just like gerryjoson said.
This same impression I had with the polaris and topaz of my colleagues, it must really be the CPU in it.
However I would not call it horribly slow and by the way GPS works beautifully.
Its biggest drawback is the battery which lasts 2 days max with low usage, only a few hours if you use wifi or 3g . GPS will suck it empty even faster.
Am I doing something wrong, or is this just what everyone's used to? The nook color is horrible for using for, well, anything, even when I first bought it the rom was laggy and sluggish. Rooted and wiped full, tried Honeycomb, CM7, MIUI, all overclocked to 1.2Ghz, and they're all just terribly slow. I had to return my first NC due to a yellow screen, and the replacement is rooted and on CM7 right now. Simple things like scrolling through a list of apps or contacts causes the nook to think I'm tapping on the contact rather than starting to scroll, pressing back in an app hangs forever until I press it again and then it registers both back presses and goes back twice, dragging widgets is nearly impossible due to the device being horrible with recognizing a drag, every animation, app drawer, slide, touch, drag, is painfully and horribly slow.
Again, this is the exact same experience I've had over two completely different new nook colors, with multiple different ROMs, including stock and overclocked. Please, tell me I'm doing something wrong, I hate this nook more than anything in life right now and I want to fix that.
Well, the NC is not the fastest android device around, but with the latest CM7 nightly, at 1.2GHz, 32 bit framebuffer disabled in Nook Tweaks and some decently optimized/accelerated apps (ADW EX instead of whatever other launcher, Opera instead of any other non-accelerated browser, Mobo for videos, etc.) it's mostly silky smooth.
I say mostly because there are some things that could be smoother, like scrolling through lists (I wish they could stop the GC from freeing memory when scrolling once and for all) and some apps that are quite slow, like ES File Explorer (also related to the GC), but otherwise it's perfectly fine to use. I have an HTC Desire and I do notice that the Desire is slightly smoother in some areas (or much smoother when srcolling through lists), but the NC is not far behind for everyday use.
I would say that your experience is not typical. The only problem that some (but not all) people have reported that your problem resembles is touch screen problems reported when using the NC will the charger plugged in.
You MIGHT be having trouble with lots of static electricity due to dry Phoenix air and A/C use. It's a shot in the dark.
You'd probably need to try to reproduce the problem for somebody to observe. I have seen some really weird PEBKAC problems that took a fresh set of eyes to troubleshoot.
I'm on phiremod. I have a few issues with it (mainly apps that I've loaded disappearing). Right now I'm going to leave well enough alone until ice cream sandwich.
With ics, we'll have the aosp (since its also for phones), and its designed to work with 7" screen and with software buttons. ICS will give us a fantastic and stable nook color (I'm only guessing though, lol)
Sent from my DROID3 using Tapatalk
No issues here. I've been running 7.1RC for a while not and have no experienced anything like you say you have. True it can get sluggish at times, but never for an extended amount of time that has made it unusable.
When I used to run the old 7.0.2 stable, I noticed that having a fair amount of widgets running could cause the system to slow down. But even now with a few widgets, about 12 icons per page, and rotating wallpapers using three total pages, I use it daily and have no issues.
I have to admit I found CM7 pretty laggy before I started using the OC kernel. It's super easy now with it built into the nightlies, and it made a huge different in scrolling, etc.
That is not typical at all. I wouldn't be using (and loving) mine if it were. I am using CM7 nightly on emmc and it is a fantastic piece of work! Very responsive for what I do even without overclocking. Your experience is bad even on the stock OS so maybe it is bad hardware?
Just for kicks, I tried HC on a SanDisk 4GB class 4 card. And it is a little sluggish like you described. But not as bad and still very usable. I went back to CM7 because it is so much more responsive.
Ok, to be fair, when I say CM7 was laggy, I mean it wasn't super-silky-smooth like it is after overclocking a bit. I don't have a lot to compare to aside from a fairly new android phone (Thunderbolt). I did try a Honeycomb preview build first and that was a frustrating experience (laggy, stuff didn't work), but it was one of the earlier *preview* builds. CM7 with tablet tweaks is awesome.
To be honest, I never thought I'd register an account on XDA. Seems like theres too many pros for the noobs to fit in. Although the XDA noob video did give me some laughs.
To the OP:
Have you switched over from an Apple device? I previously had an iPhone 3g, and then a 3gs. When I switched to the Xperia X10 I thought either it was me, or the x10 was seriously messed up. It seems like it was me. I think the reason is that to scroll on the iPhone, all you need is a tiny little swiping motion to move between screens. However, it's not the case with Android phones. I found that your swiping gestures need to be a little bigger, otherwise, it's recognized as a click/tap/whatever.
I got used to it, however, I did find that installing a custom rom (CM7) helped a little.
edit:
Also, make sure you use advanced task killer or something to get rid of stuff in the background. **** running in the background Makes it slow. If it's rooted, try SetCPU and have it so that it's not ondemand, but on performance. Or, adjust the sliders until the minimum and maximum CPU speed is the same, making it run full speed all the time (Although I recommend having it set to the minimum while the screen is off.)
Apparently a major cause of the sluggishness in the scrolling of various apps and things such as form lists is due to the OS's garbage collector going nuts and trying to free memory in rapid succession. No ROM available for Nook Color solves this as it's some sort of flaw with Android 2.x itself. I don't know if Honeycomb (3.x) is better but I'm guessing that it is. Honeycomb will probably never be available in source form so Nook Color will never get it in proper form. Supposedly Android 4 (Ice Cream Sandwich) will be released in source, but we're talking a ways off and I'm unsure of how well it will fit Nook Color's hardware.
But yeah Nook Color is very slow compared to say a notebook. The CPU is an Arm Cortex A8 which is very low power, but also very simplistic compared with desktop/notebook CPUs. This is a necessity with a handheld device. However, the newer tablets with the NVIDIA Tegra 2 SoC (for example) use a Cortex A9 dual core where each core is much superior to the Nook's CPU and it has two of them.
Nook Color is a cheap entry level tablet with a nice screen but it has a ton of quirks because in modded form it is a community project with limited resources behind it.
OP, are you installing to an sd card? Maybe the card is unsuitable (quite common problem). I actually underclock mine, installed to the internal drive. Sometimes I get a menu scroll registering as a tap, but I get that on any touch device I've tried. Overall a properly tuned nook runs pretty snappy imo.
selection16 said:
OP, are you installing to an sd card? Maybe the card is unsuitable (quite common problem). I actually underclock mine, installed to the internal drive. Sometimes I get a menu scroll registering as a tap, but I get that on any touch device I've tried. Overall a properly tuned nook runs pretty snappy imo.
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What he said^^ are you running off SD card? I tried that at first and absolutely hated it, it was soo slow ESP. Scrolling through the interface and app drawer. I have since put phiremod 6.3 on my emc and saw a huge improvement and I'm only at 800mhz. Then I tried the v6 supercharger script and again saw an improvement in scrolling speeds and smoothness. If I OC then its very snappy! You may also try to recalibrate the screen if you are finding its not super sensitive which it is.
selection16 said:
OP, are you installing to an sd card? Maybe the card is unsuitable (quite common problem). I actually underclock mine, installed to the internal drive. Sometimes I get a menu scroll registering as a tap, but I get that on any touch device I've tried. Overall a properly tuned nook runs pretty snappy imo.
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Oh yeah, there's also that possibility.
I don't have a nook but I've been reading up about it.
Shouldn't you have a class 4 microSD card or higher for it to run decently well?
DillonBladez said:
Oh yeah, there's also that possibility.
I don't have a nook but I've been reading up about it.
Shouldn't you have a class 4 microSD card or higher for it to run decently well?
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Random block write speed is the most important thing. Sandisk 8 and 16 gig class 4 have the best performance suited to running a SD based CM7. Other brands even in class 6 or 10 have been found to be too slow and resulted in force closes and sluggish responding apps.
Nope, I'm not running it off an SD card. I think the screen issue is a problem with my nook itself; installing a drawing app and trying to draw never gives me a full line, and drawing in some places is just impossible.
As for the slowness... I must be doing something wrong then, because both my nooks have just been horrible.
That's certainly not my experience. I'm running CM7 nightly 151 off sd and I can scroll through my app drawer or through long file lists very smoothly. A simple flick moves easily through hundreds of thumbnails. The only lag I ever experience is changing web pages. Maybe I'm biased because my main computer is a netbook but I really don't think the nook is at all slow.
DillonBladez said:
Also, make sure you use advanced task killer or something to get rid of stuff in the background. **** running in the background Makes it slow. If it's rooted, try SetCPU and have it so that it's not ondemand, but on performance. Or, adjust the sliders until the minimum and maximum CPU speed is the same, making it run full speed all the time (Although I recommend having it set to the minimum while the screen is off.)
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Click to collapse
Do not EVER use a task killer!! This is android 2.3 not 1.5. Task killers screw everything up. Android Handel's itself and apps that task killers say are running in the background are NOT really running they are cached for quicker use. Android is smart, its Linex not windows. Also do not have your CPU going full speed 24/7. Ever heard what heat does to electronics? Its not pretty.
To op:
What version of cm7 are you using? Try a recent nightly.
Sent from my NookColor using Tapatalk
I have to say I had touch response issues like "ghost taps" more often in the first month I had the NC, but they were never a constant thing, and usually resolved by turning the screen off for a second and back on. I haven't had any such issues in quite a while, though I do occasionally have to repeat a tap on the softkeys.
If you haven't, you should track down the touchscreen calibration app for the NC and see if it helps. Some people say a screen protector helped even out their touch response, too. The NC's touch response is not the greatest in general, but your issues sound extreme.
If your finger can't make solid lines in canvas or Sketchbook try recalibrating the screen using nsr (I think its called nook screen recalibrate in the market) otherwise LCD density? Any ideas anyone?
As for ghost taps I used to have that and you know what fixed it? Either cleaning the screen all.day or a screen protector. Since the screen protector I haven't had ghost taps or the zoom in zoom out craziness that the tap of the power button fixed.
OP: try an install to eMMC its quite simple if you make a cwr bootable card to install it with
Taosaur said:
If you haven't, you should track down the touchscreen calibration app for the NC and see if it helps. Some people say a screen protector helped even out their touch response, too. The NC's touch response is not the greatest in general, but your issues sound extreme.
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To save you a search, it's here.
I currently own a Captivate and I'm tired of the ROM-switching, and the laggy interface (On each and every ROM I've installed) and want to give this device a shot, so my questions to people that migrated from Android to WP7 are:
What's better? What's worse? What will I miss? Is it worth the move?
Thanks!
xgibran said:
I currently own a Captivate and I'm tired of the ROM-switching, and the laggy interface (On each and every ROM I've installed) and want to give this device a shot, so my questions to people that migrated from Android to WP7 are:
What's better? What's worse? What will I miss? Is it worth the move?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just left the droid bionic 4 days ago. I am not new to windows phone though. What's better:
Ease of use. Its simple
Reliable. Connects every time
Hardware is now comparable with a lot of dual core droids. This does not lack for speed.
Its attractive and light.
Once you learn the Os, it becomes addictive in its simplicity.
Connects my jabra hands free and allows voice actions. Cool.
What's not so good:
If you have any notion of custom, forget it. What you see is what you get. I mean that...exactly as it sounds.
Apps. WP has many of the more familiar apps, but not all, yet. There is no Starbucks app, or Barnes and noble to name 2. Its getting better though.
Still limited in ringtones. Takes some doing to get your tone.
Battery life is not great. Not awful either.
The buttons on this focus are backwards. The volume id on upper left. A right handed phone holder changes the volume everytime.
No led notifications..at all.
Would I buy this again. Yes. I say this knowing I'm getting the 900 soon. I'll have both. This is a good phone.
Thanks, that is very helpful. One thing you didn't mention is that compared to Androids of the same level the speed is astonishing. The experience is so smooth!
So far I have found most of the same apps I used regularly on Android and a very good alternative to another.
As you said, battery life is not the best in the world, but it sure beats the 7-8 hours I got on the Captivate. I went through a whole day (~13 hours) of heavy use (OTA downloads, take a couple of pics, etc) before I needed to recharge.
The one thing that ticks me off in particular is the way multitasking is managed. I open something and hit the home button. If I go through the active apps (holding the back key) I can get back to the exact place I was in before I left it. If I tap on the tile of the app it restarts the app from scratch. What gives?
xgibran said:
Thanks, that is very helpful. One thing you didn't mention is that compared to Androids of the same level the speed is astonishing. The experience is so smooth!
So far I have found most of the same apps I used regularly on Android and a very good alternative to another.
As you said, battery life is not the best in the world, but it sure beats the 7-8 hours I got on the Captivate. I went through a whole day (~13 hours) of heavy use (OTA downloads, take a couple of pics, etc) before I needed to recharge.
The one thing that ticks me off in particular is the way multitasking is managed. I open something and hit the home button. If I go through the active apps (holding the back key) I can get back to the exact place I was in before I left it. If I tap on the tile of the app it restarts the app from scratch. What gives?
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Click to collapse
I didn't mention speed because most people's first response to a speed claim is no way, or you missed something. Fact is, I didn't believe it either. I went to t-mobile to pay my bill. There was an in store special on the 710. $20, that's it. So I took it. That little low end phone outpaced the bionic in almost everything. When my bionic went on vacation decided to take off, I did not hesitate. I have not looked back. I'm successfully weaned from android, with no regrets..even my girlfriend made the trip back. She's even more integrated with windows live, office, SkyDrive, OneNote, the entire cloud scenario. She uses the concept at work. They think shes a genius.
So yeah, good concepts, good phone. Perfect, no. Like you mentioned. But a good show none the less.
I just made the switch from the HTC Desire. Honestly, the Focus S is a great phone. It's beautiful, stupidly thin like a cat walk model, great camera, etc.
WP7 is a beautiful OS, oh I've wanted to have it on my phone for so long now, but it's got a gammy leg. My main gripes are:
-Multitasking is a pain - it's so slow to resume applications I'm not sure what the difference is in relaunching an app. That said, without proper multitasking apps that should receive push notifications sort of... DON'T! This whole, let it run under the lock-screen is lame. In Android I thought it was ridiculous that EVERYTHING just ran in the background and now I'm complaining about the inverse. Is there no happy medium?
-Facebook Chat integration is another hobbled feature. I can't send pictures which you can in the Android app. I receive pictures as a LINK to the desktop FB site which is ridiculous because if you zoom you are bounced back to the left margin for some reason. Even the official FB app is useless when it comes to FB chat/IM! I used this with my wife constantly. The alternative is WhatsApp but then the whole seemless continuity from mobile to desktop is shattered!
-Integration with Gmail is a bit ropey, but seems quite adequate I suppose. I guess here too push notifications aren't possible it has to be 30 min intervals.
-I do admit to wishing that the keyboad had the key long press functionality for special characters like in Android. Flipping to the numeric keyboard is labourious
-Notifications are also a little inconsistent. The whole toast thing. Without a doubt the Android (and now iOS) pull down notifications bar is fantastic. This also goes for quick access to stuff like switching wifi, airplane mode on or off, etc
I'm sure I could go on... The positives are amazing. Damn it's smooth, beautiful and functional, but the above issues and others make it kind of a deal breaker for me. Android has sucked for a while, but it has matured and WP7 needs to do the same pretty quickly. I know the above issues might not be a deal breaker for a lot of people, but for me they are
Hmph! I'm a little annoyed now...
Coming from an ATT Cappy, I'm stoked.
Been on the Focus S for a few weeks now and I love it. IMO, it just works. What I need and want a phone to do, it does very well. EYE CANDY! There are a few things I miss coming from Android however.
1. The ability to toggle WiFi always on. This really sucks when sitting on my couch and using my phone to control my htpc (xbmc). It takes about 10 seconds for the wifi to re-connect after the screen is turned on. By no means a deal breaker and I'm sure will be addressed in future updates.
2. Individual audio volume controls. I miss the ability to have my alarm, system, media and other notification volumes at different pre-configured levels.
3. Apps are more expensive and the free ones are still a bit lacking.
4. Home screen customizing. I really would find it useful to have 3 home screens rather than 2 (tiles and apps). There's just too much **** i want quick access too I guess
5. Zero expandable memory. This one totally blows and was almost a deal breaker for me. ~16GB's is enough storage space, but just barely. There is no way I can have all my music, audio books and some movies on here. Currently I just have music :/
That's my 5. Everything else I think is comparable or better than Android currently. This phone is sleek and super fast. We just need some updates and app development to get this thing tip top.
Switched from Captivate to Focus S via the Smoked challenge.
- As far as operation goes, the Focus does indeed smoke the Captivate. Severely. I was always fighting the Captivate, but with the Focus S, the phone actually works as it was intended to. Metro is a bit plain, but the performance is steady and predictable. Personally, I'll take steady and predictable every time.
- The app situation on Windows isn't as solid as Android. Which only matters if the specific apps you are looking for aren't there. For example, if you can't live without Angry Birds, stay home.
- Video transfer *SUCKS*. Moving over large video files (movies) that aren't already formatted in a Zune friendly format takes *hours*. Seriously. Once they are transferred, they are beautiful, but if you are the type that likes moving different movies back and forth, stay far away from WP...at least until Apollo.
- Taken as a whole, this is an easy upgrade to recommend.
sarlo100 said:
Switched from Captivate to Focus S via the Smoked challenge.
- As far as operation goes, the Focus does indeed smoke the Captivate. Severely. I was always fighting the Captivate, but with the Focus S, the phone actually works as it was intended to. Metro is a bit plain, but the performance is steady and predictable. Personally, I'll take steady and predictable every time.
- The app situation on Windows isn't as solid as Android. Which only matters if the specific apps you are looking for aren't there. For example, if you can't live without Angry Birds, stay home.
- Video transfer *SUCKS*. Moving over large video files (movies) that aren't already formatted in a Zune friendly format takes *hours*. Seriously. Once they are transferred, they are beautiful, but if you are the type that likes moving different movies back and forth, stay far away from WP...at least until Apollo.
- Taken as a whole, this is an easy upgrade to recommend.
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I actually returned my Focus S for an SGS II. There were just too many little things I missed coming from Android that I couldn't live without. Going to the SGS II seems to be the best of both worlds for me and I'm super stoked.