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Since everybody seems to upbeat about the Nexus 4, here some things that REALLY piss me off.
For reference, I am coming from a DEFY / CM9 and have at the same time here a new HTC One S / CM10. And then there would be a Nexus 7, and a Kindle Fire / CM10/SGT7.
Why on earth couldn't they have the normal buttons on the bottom, and instead needed to waste precious screen real estate ? I do understand that a 7 inch tablet needs that as it's turned between landscape and portrait. But for a phone ... After all there is space on the device, which is unused now ...
This little microSIM tray is nifty. Especially if you are at an airport, just bought the prepaid microSIM and try to put it in. You have the tool with you, right ?
The new and improved camera app stinks like heck. The device support ISO settings, different focus modi, red-eye removal ... the works. But the default application fails to expose ANY of that. I cannot even set the JPEG quality level ... EPIC fail.
Tried to use 720p video recording ? 22fps stuttering ...
Lockscreen widgets ... why on earth would I want to have that ? And why couldn't there just be a simply settings entry to disable that ? (yes, I know that there is now an app out there that gets rid of it ...)
The good old clock. Nice work. Tons of features. Way too many. Why split this over-engineered mess into "Alarm" and "Watch" and whatever ?
Battery drain ... Looks like a lot of the new features (some which I cannot uninstall per default) are sucking up processor time, like the "Mediaserver" (got the same apps/settings as on CM9/CM10, where this does not happen).
This new pulldown quick settings is nifty. Takes me now 2 clicks and one slide to toggle wireless ... much improved over the one-click toggle in CM9/CM10 (and HTC Sense, and TouchWhiz, and ...).
Overall I feel that 4.2 is a step back from 4.1, because every new feature that should make up 4.2 seems to be more in the way than anything else. The toy needs sooo urgently CM10 it's not even funny.
I totally agree with all your points, it's definitely a turd. Wanna sell it?
To your first point, I have a feeling that Google will eventually rethink the use of on-screen buttons and come up with a solution that occupies less real estate. The back button is redundant and can easily be replaced in-app like the menu button was (e.g. click the icon in the upper-left corner to go back is already implemented in many apps) and its behavior is confusing and inconsistent; it's a carry-over from the past and poor UX design overall. The task switcher could quick easily become a hold and drag gesture from the home button or status bar with adding any additional steps to get to it.
Thinking something crazy like the tablet interface where the status bar moves to the bottom, gets a little wider, and houses the home button would be a good solution.
Why does... does... do you guys smell apples? I swear I think I do.
TheFiveDots said:
The back button is redundant and can easily be replaced in-app like the menu button was [...] and its behavior is confusing and inconsistent
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What the... huh? Have you ever used android for longer than a few minutes?
The missing back button is the first thing I always cringe over whenever I have to handle an apple device at work, it's the best thing of the whole OS (well,at least it's pretty awesome)
And software buttons are the best solution in general, because they can hide and make place for more stuff on demand.
The "empty" space on the bottom of the nexus4 isn't because they thought they'd leave space there just for fun, there's space because it's needed for the hardware below.
If there were hardware buttons taking up the space the phone would be even bigger (or the screen smaller)
Instead of whinning about it why not try to do something about it.
Sent from Arkham
Yeah stop moaning and send it back.
Why keep a phone that "pisses" you off so much...
U mad bro?
Early adopter and complaining (very mad) that there are some updates needed............silly
Maybe u should sell it on eBay and make some money?
Or better......sell it to one of the great devs that are waiting for a device!!!!!!
Sent from my GT-I9450
muspel said:
What the... huh? Have you ever used android for longer than a few minutes?
The missing back button is the first thing I always cringe over whenever I have to handle an apple device at work, it's the best thing of the whole OS (well,at least it's pretty awesome)
And software buttons are the best solution in general, because they can hide and make place for more stuff on demand.
The "empty" space on the bottom of the nexus4 isn't because they thought they'd leave space there just for fun, there's space because it's needed for the hardware below.
If there were hardware buttons taking up the space the phone would be even bigger (or the screen smaller)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes. I have. Thanks for your assumptions though. Despite your "cringing", Apple's implementation of a dynamic "back button" at the top-left of nearly every iOS app is much more consistent and predictable.
On Android, sometimes the back button takes you back to the screen you were on previously on the same level, sometimes it takes you up a level, and sometimes it closes the app which is always surprising and annoying if you were not aware you were already at the root level. The home button closes an app, the back button doesn't need to. Google is even well aware of this unpredictably and has gone as far to draw up guidelines as to how it should be implemented, but many developers choose to ignore it.
Unpredictable behavior is bad UX design, plain and simple. Having a place in-app that takes you back and a hardware/software button that does the same is also redundant and unnecessary. Navigating an app should be natural and intuitive and all within the app, in my opinion. Hardware/software keys should be reserved for OS-level tasks like Home, Task Switching, etc.
I agree the software buttons are the best choice, but it would be nice to see them implemented in a much more dynamic and space-saving way.
The sim eject tool, aka paper clip.
TheFiveDots said:
To your first point, I have a feeling that Google will eventually rethink the use of on-screen buttons and come up with a solution that occupies less real estate. The back button is redundant and can easily be replaced in-app like the menu button was (e.g. click the icon in the upper-left corner to go back is already implemented in many apps) and its behavior is confusing and inconsistent; it's a carry-over from the past and poor UX design overall. The task switcher could quick easily become a hold and drag gesture from the home button or status bar with adding any additional steps to get to it.
Thinking something crazy like the tablet interface where the status bar moves to the bottom, gets a little wider, and houses the home button would be a good solution.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, I was thinking that the merged tablet interface would be a cool idea for the "Nexus 4". With CM10/SGT7 on the KF you also get a nicer notification panel, which might be reasonable for a device of this size.
MonsieurJohnny said:
The sim eject tool, aka paper clip.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Doesn't work. Paperclip is too big for that one (at least the 3 different ones I tried).
woody296 said:
I totally agree with all your points, it's definitely a turd. Wanna sell it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually I might do (or simply return it), but for different reasons than just the SW I was ranting about (and being disappointed for now). Of course many issues I cited will be fixed with a CM10.1 custom ROM in about 3 months ...
I disagree with the on screen buttons. I had the gs3 and it was terrible for accidentally catching the buttons. The bezel is there for a reason, Samsung put real buttons on the bezel and it's terrible. This is best of both worlds, if an watching a video I get the full screen as the buttons disappear, yet for everything else the screen is a great size.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda premium
I feel sorry for everyone and everything in your life.
I disagree. 4.2 is a major improvement, much faster and smoother. All these new things will be improved upon in future updates.
It sounds to me like some people would never be happy no matter what they do.
As for the on screen buttons, i love them after coming from a device that had a push button for home. It would be great though to make them autohide as they do for video.
sent via xda premium with nexus 7
Lol I love that all you fan boys bash the Op and make fun of him, but I hate to break it to you, everything in his post is true. The proper response is: "yes Google screwed some things up pretty badly here, but overall the good outweighs the bad."
Some of you people are worse than iSheep. No need to defend everything a company does. If you don't acknowledge the bad you basically give Google a license to never fix the problem it created because Google thinks you like those problems!
-Sent from my GS3 running CM10.-
I've been using it for a few days and I love the device . smoother than m gs3
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2
This guy doesn't own one, he's just seen videos, it is pretty obvious.
People just love complaining, I think this is he's first android phone, probably bought it because it was so cheap, try to buy an iPhone for that price you'll probably just about pick up a second hand 4s, I've never seen a phone so cheap with so many features, first phone with 2gb ram, even the iPhone 5 has only 1gb ram.
send your phone back and go and buy an iPhone 4s from ebay!!!
Does anyone use the Trickster Mod app on stock kernel? I have the donate version and i take advantage of the charging LED light. If so what, if any tweaks did you try? I also use the multi core power save tweak set a 2. For anyone that may know, would using titanium backup to convert Trickster Mod to a system app have any advantages?
Doubtful. AFAIK Trickster mod just makes the changes at startup, it doesn't need to run all the time.
BTW I have both enabled, the multi core power saver and mp-decision.
Cool to know it works with the stock kernel. Is there a noticable difference in performance and does it give you better battery life?
sman789 said:
Cool to know it works with the stock kernel. Is there a noticable difference in performance and does it give you better battery life?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's tough for me to say if it gives better battery life due to a lot of changes in settings, e.g. greenify, app permissions etc working in connection. I will say it doesn't hurt. When my phone is asleep I lose about 1 to 1.5 percent per hour which is okay with me. Performance is fine for my needs. Plus I like the LED feature to know when my phone is charge by the status of the green light without having to psychically unlock the MX and check. But to say how much of a difference is hard to tell without setting everything else back to default and just using Trickster.
5.0 was something I really looked forward to...once I got around to flashing it however, man it's taking a huge decrease in the performance department compared to 4.4.4. Here are some of the things I noticed:
1. Laggy UI overall - opening apps, loading, caching is all much slower now - not the animations, just the time lag before the animation/after animation.
2. Bad battery life - is it me or has the battery really taken a hit? Today I got out of the house at 8AM and by 3PM I get the 15% battery saver notification. With about 2.5 hrs of SOT. Before I used to get at least 3+.
3. Unnecessary animations - I do not understand the whole "logical part" of L's animations. They claim apps now "open from somewhere". All I'm seeing is that they slide up now. IMO, it was more logical before, the app used to extend diagonally FROM its icon itself. On top of that, the animations are more laggy too.
4. Colours/Icons - what is with the colour choices of teal, etc. in the backgrounds and all over the UI? Starting to look like Touchwiz. And, the triangle/square/circle are totally random choices of shapes...the arrow, home, etc. were more logical.
5. Google Apps - Google apps are ever-more confusing to use now with a plethora of headings under the swipe menus (i.e. Gmail, Inbox, Photos, etc.). More importantly, the font is now super small...the nice big font in KitKat was way nicer and had easy-to-understand menus. Chrome is way worse - tabs have become "apps" and the only way to switch between them is to access recent apps. No more new tab button, no more swipe between tabs, and it crashes like no tomorrow. Calendar is so-so..it's harder to delete events now.
Overall KitKat was way smoother, cleaner UI, very accessible, but only lacked a couple key features. Looks like Project Butter is gone. An update is fast needed.
The Good:
Dialer and Messenger apps are far better than the stock on KitKat (UI/usability-wise). I really like lock-screen notifications.
(1) Wat? No lag here. (stock, no root)
Won't comment about (2) and above (yet).
OnlySkills said:
5.0 was something I really looked forward to...once I got around to flashing it however, man it's taking a huge decrease in the performance department compared to 4.4.4. Here are some of the things I noticed:
1. Laggy UI overall - opening apps, loading, caching is all much slower now - not the animations, just the time lag before the animation/after animation.
2. Bad battery life - is it me or has the battery really taken a hit? Today I got out of the house at 8AM and by 3PM I get the 15% battery saver notification. With about 2.5 hrs of SOT. Before I used to get at least 3+.
3. Unnecessary animations - I do not understand the whole "logical part" of L's animations. They claim apps now "open from somewhere". All I'm seeing is that they slide up now. IMO, it was more logical before, the app used to extend diagonally FROM its icon itself. On top of that, the animations are more laggy too.
4. Colours/Icons - what is with the colour choices of teal, etc. in the backgrounds and all over the UI? Starting to look like Touchwiz. And, the triangle/square/circle are totally random choices of shapes...the arrow, home, etc. were more logical.
5. Google Apps - Google apps are ever-more confusing to use now with a plethora of headings under the swipe menus (i.e. Gmail, Inbox, Photos, etc.). More importantly, the font is now super small...the nice big font in KitKat was way nicer and had easy-to-understand menus. Chrome is way worse - tabs have become "apps" and the only way to switch between them is to access recent apps. No more new tab button, no more swipe between tabs, and it crashes like no tomorrow. Calendar is so-so..it's harder to delete events now.
Overall KitKat was way smoother, cleaner UI, very accessible, but only lacked a couple key features. Looks like Project Butter is gone. An update is fast needed.
The Good:
Dialer and Messenger apps are far better than the stock on KitKat (UI/usability-wise). I really like lock-screen notifications.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Please tell us your method of installing 5.0?
Sent from my Android 5.0 Nexus 5
1. Not laggy for me too. It works smooth. Did a clean install.
2. Battery life seems to be fine.. Did not see any improvements yet..but definitely not a deterioration..
3. This may be a personal preference. I actually like the animations.
4. Again personal preference. I love the color scheme of lollipop. Bright colors and white just works.
5. I agree there is a confusion with Email app redirecting to gmail and Inbox which manages Gmail..haha what a mess. But I can get used to it. Agnostic about the font size change. I hated the chrome tabs which showed up in multi tasking, but I just turned the feature off. Now I have all the swipe to switch tabs, swipe down to see tabs etc.
Even though I like Lollipop overall, I agree with several of your points:
Battery life is much worse than the first DP released months ago. That was amazing. Now, I still have a better battery life while actually using the phone, compared to KitKat, but the standby power consumption is worrying: I get a 5% drop by just leaving my phone in airplane mode for one night, which would barely take 1% on android 4.4...
The UI doesn't look laggy at all to me, but I must admit that some animations are pointless; others are pleasant though.
I like the UI of some of the new Gapps instead: gmail is really well made, especially in the tablet version, calendar is ok and the changes in the other ones (maps, keep, newsstand) didn't affect usability.
At first I didn't like chrome either, but after you get used to the new way to use it, it's not that bad. Anyway, you can disable the new tab view and revert to the classical UI whenever you want
Sent from my Nexus 5
Lags what?? Come on. Mine is running butter smooth like never before. Much much fluid and consistent than Kitkat 4.4.4. And stop criticizing UI based on colors and all. These are subjective elements and opinions always vary greatly from person to person. Most of the people are liking this new UI. It does have a character and feel of liveliness unlike any previous android UI.
PS: And for once in a lifetime, do checkout settings under Chrome.
Odd
Got no lag issues
Battery is better for me
3 ~ 5 are taste choices not issues, i love the new ui and animation
Maybe its time to see if any oem offer better looks to your taste
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk
People if you read all his comments, all items are so subjective. Colors can look ugly to you but not to everyone. Battery would be because of how you use it. Gapps, are made not your sake and fonts that are small for your is enough for someone. Again, post issues that are show stopper.
@OP: Damn right they have. The OTA updates have stopped as well. I think the rest of us (99%) should be receiving Android 5.0.1 or something next month. Till then... no updates.
In chrome you can change the tab style under settings
I sideloaded the OTA and my phone was laggy and had a few force closes so I flashed the factory image and it's fine. Fast, smooth and works.
This is the price you pay for being an early adopter. It has happened before on nexus devices in the past. It's going to take them at least one or even two more updates to polish it.
Concerning chrome tabs, go to settings in chrome and turn off "merge tabs and apps".
You can turn off system animations from developer options in settings, or make them a bit faster by setting the value to .5x
As for unnecessary apps, you can disable the apps you don't want to see, or if you're rooted, you can delete them for good.
I want to say that after week od testing Lollipop (AOSP version with Hybrid Kernel) I went back to Omni ROM based on KitKat. Why? Because for me Lollipop is not as smooth as KitKat. I mean especially animations that are often laggy. Check out for example Play Store. Search any app with huge description, click "More informations" and then click "x" button to close whole description. For me this animation was very laggy. It's only example but I just felt worse smoothness and responsive in compare to KitKat. Even recent apps panel opens slower than KitKats one. It should not supposed to be so. I feel on KitKat 100% comfortable in daily use, not on Lollipop. I like new look and features but KitKat is faster.
And I will not change my mind, I'm not a noob and I can see the difference. I will wait month or two for custom ROMs and I will check out Lollipop again.
rayiskon said:
This is the price you pay for being an early adopter. It has happened before on nexus devices in the past. It's going to take them at least one or even two more updates to polish it.
Concerning chrome tabs, go to settings in chrome and turn off "merge tabs and apps".
You can turn off system animations from developer options in settings, or make them a bit faster by setting the value to .5x
As for unnecessary apps, you can disable the apps you don't want to see, or if you're rooted, you can delete them for good.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you know long did previous nexus devices had to wait for the "polish" it out updates in the past?
and313 said:
Do you know long did previous nexus devices had to wait for the "polish" it out updates in the past?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've been on the nexus line for 4 generations, but no one can answer your question with 100% certainty. It might take a x.x.1 or even x.x.2 update to iron things out.
I would say this transition is even bigger than gingerbread 2.3 -> 4.0 ICS was.
Choppy animations, FC's and inconsistencies in apps are normal at this stage. Apps will update in time. And i mean all apps in general, not just GApps.
1. No lag here.
2. Getting 4 hours + SoT, even on Developer Preview I was getting nearly 5.
3. Everything looks better in slow-mo.
4. Touchwiz is so much more random. Colors everywhere, heavy theming, where as Google has a constant flow. Maybe they just got tired if everything being black(might've been nice in the N6)
5. I always hated the Photos thing, but getting use to it quickly. I can see where Google is trying to go.
The font is beautiful to me. I love it.
Chrome, you can change it from recent apps back to normal in Chrome settings(I don't know if you read the instructions for that)
Calendar looks beautiful, but haven't used it yet.
Now. Remember that Lollipop was JUST released, therefore only the start of things to come. KitKat had many improvements done to it to become what it was.
Curiousn00b said:
1. No lag here.
2. Getting 4 hours + SoT, even on Developer Preview I was getting nearly 5.
3. Everything looks better in slow-mo.
4. Touchwiz is so much more random. Colors everywhere, heavy theming, where as Google has a constant flow. Maybe they just got tired if everything being black(might've been nice in the N6)
5. I always hated the Photos thing, but getting use to it quickly. I can see where Google is trying to go.
The font is beautiful to me. I love it.
Chrome, you can change it from recent apps back to normal in Chrome settings(I don't know if you read the instructions for that)
Calendar looks beautiful, but haven't used it yet.
Now. Remember that Lollipop was JUST released, therefore only the start of things to come. KitKat had many improvements done to it to become what it was.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This exact same thing, minus #3.
Sent from my Nexus 5 on Lollipop 5.0
TheLastSidekick said:
This exact same thing, minus #3.
Sent from my Nexus 5 on Lollipop 5.0
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ohno, I meant the animations. You see it more in slow-mo. I'm not saying put your phone animations like 2x's slower.
In an Android Police post, they made GIFS of the animations. To the eye it looks like a slide, but in thebGIFS it was beautiful.
No lag here.
Battery is improved in my case ( on avg-extreme usage).
But apps takes longer time to install. But I know its due to the ART , but performance wise its a clear winner.
No force closes even on extreme multitasking.
My device is rooted just to install ViperFx everything else is completely stock.
OnlySkills said:
5.0 was something I really looked forward to...once I got around to flashing it however, man it's taking a huge decrease in the performance department compared to 4.4.4. Here are some of the things I noticed:
1. Laggy UI overall - opening apps, loading, caching is all much slower now - not the animations, just the time lag before the animation/after animation.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, I noticed this since first preview came out. I thought it would be fixed in final factory image, but it didn't.
I installed Lollipop with full wipe option (-w) and still laggy everywhere(Drawer, multi-tasking, even opening setting).
Third party apps which have services running in background are only Facebook Messenger and Yahoo!Weather, tried removing them but no help.
I am so jealous of you guys who didn't encounter this issue :crying:
BTW, I also noticed taking some HDR+ shots makes system holding more memory (and never release them).
Powersaving / extend battery life
On rooted and non-rooted Note 4 devices.
There are quite a few battery saving tools on the playstore market. However, most of these tools only use what your device can already do by itself. Besides that, it is one more app that can and will consume power so the overall effect of these apps is very limited.
Here is a lot of stuff you can do by yourself to save power and increase battery life. Although most forum users will already have some knowledge on the way your phone works I will begin this post with the most obvious tips on power saving.
Obviously, the list below is a list of possibilities, and not a list of stuff you should do immediately while reading this post. Just look carefully which functions you really use which you don’t. Every option can save a little bit of battery, but together they make quite a difference.
I am quite a heavy user and at this point my phone can do 1,5 to 2 full days without a charge.
General:
1 Turn your GPS of if you are not using it
2 Turn your Wifi of when not using it
3 Turn your Bluetooth of when… (you get the idea)
4 Same goes for NFC
System settings:
Display and wallpaper:
Use auto brightness and set it to your liking. There 10 different levels of auto brightness. I have found that level 2 or 3 is not only sufficient but friendlier to my eyes.
If you really want to get most out of your battery, it’s possible to have a completely black wallpaper image. Black doesn’t take any power so this will save you a lot during a full day of work. I always have one black wallpaper in my preferred wallpaper list.
Smart stay. With smart stay on, the device will stay on while looking at it. Now you can reduce the screen time out mode to 15 seconds. Actually works pretty well and saves a lot of power.
Activate auto adjust screen tone.
Turn daydream off.
Turn led indicator off.
Touch key light duration on “always off” or 1,5 seconds.
Increase touch sensitivity off.
Lockscreen:
It really helps if your lock screen just has a black wallpaper.
Unless you really need to, don’t make your screen lock too complicated. The fingerprint scanner seems pretty cool but really isn’t. It often takes several swipes to get it to work and that takes power as well.
Personally I use non at home and a simple pattern outside. I use the tasker app to automate this but I will talk some more about specific apps after the general settings.
Multiwindow:
Although the multi-window function is one of the things that makes the Note series the king of Phablets, a lot of users hardly ever use these functions. If you are one of these users, turn this function off. The hone keeps checking which apps you can or can’t use in this function evertime you open an app, or open your recent apps. This takes power and CPU.
Even if you are a multi window user, the 2 listed options:
Open in split screen view & pop up view shortcut aren’t used by many. If you don’t use them, turn them off.
S pen:
Same thing here, look at the options You really use during the day.
I do find Air command a very useful function and personally I always keep it on. If you don’t use it, you know what to do by now.
Under Air view there are the following options to turn off if not used by you:
Information preview / Preview info, extend text, or enlarge pictures hovering over them
Icon Labels / View the labels of icon by hovering over them
List scrolling / Scroll up or down by holding the pen over the edge of the screen
Link preview / Hovering over a link will show you a preview of the page
Air menu / Hover the pen over the action or attach button to add content or contacts
Motions and gestures:
Again. Turn everything off that you are not using.
Direct call / By bringing the phone to your ear it will call the contact on the screen
Smart alert / Device will vibrate when you pick it up to notify you about missed calls and messages
Mute/pause / I don’t think this option will affect your battery life
Palm swipe to capture / I have no idea who thought this would be a good option to add. Turn it off if you agree.
Cloud:
I have rooted and installed ROMS and apps on many phones of friends. What seems odd to me is that most people have at least 3 cloud storage spaces were the automatically store all their pictures. Some them even had 4 or 5 without realizing.
1 Samsung account,
2 Picasa / google,
3 Dropbox.
One of these will do just fine. You can have more but just don’t let them auto-upload your camera pics. If every picture you take has to upload to 3 or more different cloud spaces, your device will be working more than it should have to.
Backup data:
Same story. Pick one. Stick to it. Don’t have 3 backup accounts.
Accessibility:
Vision and hearing / Turn off unless you need them
Dexterity and interaction :
• Assistant menu / Off
• Air wake up / Off
• Press and hold delay / 0.5 seconds
• Interaction control / Off
Direct access / Off
Answering / ending calls / Look at what suits you best. Picking up quickly will save battery over the phone ringing longer.
Powersaving:
Whats in a name ha? The powersaving mode can be adjusted which means you can get to saave power in the way you find most efficient.
The options are:
1 Restrict background data.
• This option limits the stuff you can do on your phone rather drastically. Dowloading content, viewing multi media and sending messages. Personally I never use this as this makes my phone just as useless as a phone with an empty battery
2 Restrict performance, which has 4 sub options:
• 1 CPU performance / This machine has enough power to do pretty much everything with this option on except for some high performance games perhaps.
• 2 Screen output / Usefull to have turned on when in need of extra battery life.
• 3 Turn off touch key light / Usefull to do when needing power.
• 4 Turn of GPS / Which I already only turn on when needed.
3 Grayscale Mode
• This option doesn’t affect your performance but just makes you entire phone black and white. This grayscale mode saves a lot of power and you will still be able to do all the work stuff like browsing, mailing, texting, etc…
Ultra power saving mode:
In this mode your phone can last for several days but its use is very limited. You can browse the web, call and text but that’s pretty much it.
I think this would come in very handy if the end off the world has come, all power is gone, and you want to be the very last person to send a text
Just kidding. If this is what gets you home on a few percent of power, it comes in very handy.
Look at the standby time when you turn it on. It’s amazing how long a phone can last in this mode.
Widget use:
Widgets can save or cost you power. There are very useful widgets that give you quick access to wifi, GPS, Bluetooth and other power saving stuff on your home screen. Besides easy access you will become more awre of the fact that you have a lot of stuff on that really doesn’t need to ben on at the moment.
Other widgets can cost you lots of power and data. This mainly depends on the amount of data the widget has to download and the refresh interval. For example: If you have a Facebook widget on one of your home screens that refreshes every 15 minutes, that means it will go and download new content from facebook every 15 minutes. This costs you data (when not on Wifi), but also battery life.
So look carefully at the widgets you use before installing them on your homescreens if you want your battery to last.
Launchers and home screens:
By organizing your favorite and most used applications you will be able to open them faster and so it will shorten your screen on time.
Personally, I think you should be able to open every app within 2 seconds. If you have many apps, and the only way to open them is scrolling to several pages of app drawer, your doing something wrong.
The beauty of Android is the fact that it is the most customizable system out there so use it! Combine widgets, apps, shortcuts, and folders until you have everything within reach.
When using TouchWizz launcher, it really helps to turn of Briefing on your home screen. This makes the phone slower and it costs battery life and data usage.
Many Samsung users have come to terms with the fact that TouchWizz will never be the best launcher out there (And that’s the understatement of the [email protected]&1ng century).
That’s why most heavy users will install a third party launcher as a home screen replacement. The one most used is probably Nova Launcher.
Playstore link:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.teslacoilsw.launcher
Youtube tutorial:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO52dfFm40o
I have found after installing this launcher and setting it up, my battery life increased with 7-9% on a full days use. At this point I haven’t figured out if this is only because I navigate more efficiently, or that there are other reasons aswel.
The benefit of a third party launcher is more customization for your home screens and app drawer (such as making categories is the app drawer and such). But also to have gesture control, for example: Have apps open when swipning up or down, with one or multiple finger, double tap, home button and so on.
This gives you much easier and faster acces to your most used apps.
Other usefull apps for powersaving:
Tasker is an app that lets you automate tasks on your phone. For example letting your phone detect when you are at home, and automatically turn on wifi, turn of GPS and your lockscreen pattern.
Tasker does not have to let GPS run for these task and can also turn everything around when you leave home. The amount options on tasker is pretty much unlimited and these automated tasks can save a lot of power thus increasing battery-life .
Playstore link:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.dinglisch.android.taskerm
Youtube tutorial(s):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzY9te12UI0&list=PLjV3HijScGMynGvjJrvNNd5Q9pPy255dL
Tasker is not an easy to use in 2 minutes app. It will take some time and effort to really get into it, but beside winning a lot of battery life, it will let you automate pretty much anything you can think of.
Rooted users:
For rooted users there are many more options to save power and increase battery life.
I am just going to mention a couple:
• Limiting your CPU frequency. Your note 4 has a surplus of power and you will never need it all unless you play high performance games. You can limit the frequency completely, or make profiles that change the frequency as your battery level decreases. Personally I use the app SetCPU to do this.
Playstore link:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mhuang.overclocking
• Freezing or uninstalling bloatware. A lot of stuff on your android phone you will never use. I always use Chrome as my browser so I won’t keep the original browser Samsung gave me on my phone. This goes for many apps. I use 2 applications to freeze and/or uninstall apps from my phone to free up memory, RAM and save battery life:
SD Maid (also limited functions for non rooted users)
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.thedarken.sdm
Titanium Backup (also the best backup app I have found sofar)
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.keramidas.TitaniumBackup
Both these apps let you freeze and uninstall bloatware. Be carefull though! Do not just start deleting everything that doesn’t look familiar, or you will get in trouble.
Freeze apps first and see if ervything keeps working. Then make sure you do a Nandroid backup within TWRP or CWM recovery before definitely uninstalling apps.
There are several lists available on the web which show what can possibly be frozen and/or deleted. This is one I found quite useful:
http://www.reddit.com/r/galaxynote4/comments/2pgiib/the_ultimate_list_of_removablefreezable_bloatware/
Custom ROMs:
There are many custom ROMs that are more friendly for your battery then the stock firmware. However, if you are new to rooting and installing custom ROMS please be carefull and watch the tutorials before you start flashing away.
A good site to begin is:
http://galaxynote4root.com/
From XDA Senior Member:
Zedomax (Profile http://forum.xda-developers.com/member.php?u=2447605)
Many thanks Max. You are the one that got me hooked on this stuff!
Suggestions:
If you have any suggestions or comments on this subject, feel free to share them below.
great post thank you!! I wonder if you could share how much did you limit the CPU and if you you'd recommend any ROM there is plenty of them but which one worked the best for you? Thank you very much
CPU and ROM
mefistos said:
great post thank you!! I wonder if you could share how much did you limit the CPU and if you you'd recommend any ROM there is plenty of them but which one worked the best for you? Thank you very much
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks man.
I have the CPU set on 1728 MHz without any lag or problems even with multitasking. Only when playing games I push it up to the max.
At this moment I use 2 ROMs:
Alliance V2.2: This one is most customizable and you'll keep all the touchwizz functions. (I do recommend a third party launcher like NOVA or Action Launcher 3 to get rid of the lag TW still has).
CM12 official: This is more friendly to your battery, but you'll have to install CM Spen addon and Note buddy or Spen control to get some Spen functions working. The latest nightlies hardly have any bugs (I haven't experienced any).
Willem1975 said:
Thanks man.
I have the CPU set on 1728 MHz without any lag or problems even with multitasking. Only when playing games I push it up to the max.
At this moment I use 2 ROMs:
Alliance V2.2: This one is most customizable and you'll keep all the touchwizz functions. (I do recommend a third party launcher like NOVA or Action Launcher 3 to get rid of the lag TW still has).
CM12 official: This is more friendly to your battery, but you'll have to install CM Spen addon and Note buddy or Spen control to get some Spen functions working. The latest nightlies hardly have any bugs (I haven't experienced any).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't really play games so I am alright with 1728
I was actually wondering how does CM works with S Pen thank you for the info I will definitely try both of them
Willem1975 said:
Powersaving / extend battery life
There 10 different levels of auto brightness. I have found that level 2 or 3 is not only sufficient but friendlier to my eyes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you explain how to change the auto brightness level? All I see is the "auto" checkbox and that's it. No way to adjust the auto brightness level. I can adjust the brightness manually though, but that isn't "auto".
Auto brightness levels
spexwood said:
Can you explain how to change the auto brightness level? All I see is the "auto" checkbox and that's it. No way to adjust the auto brightness level. I can adjust the brightness manually though, but that isn't "auto".
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When pulling down your notifications, you'll see a slider and a checbox as you can see see in thee pic below. (It might look different becausse I'm running Alliancerom).
If the checkbox is ticked, you can adjust the slider for different levels of autobrightness. Without the checkbox ticked, you change the screen brightness directly.
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
Willem1975 said:
When pulling down your notifications, you'll see a slider and a checbox as you can see see in thee pic below. (It might look different becausse I'm running Alliancerom).
If the checkbox is ticked, you can adjust the slider for different levels of autobrightness. Without the checkbox ticked, you change the screen brightness directly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm on stock and with Auto checked, it becomes unchecked when you adjust the slider. Thus, adjusting the slider only forces it into manual brightness.
Edit: and I'm on the n910a
Didn't know that. Did not spend much time on stock. Sorry....
spexwood said:
I'm on stock and with Auto checked, it becomes unchecked when you adjust the slider. Thus, adjusting the slider only forces it into manual brightness.
Edit: and I'm on the n910a
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nothing like that happens on the snapdragon one. And i can bet it shouldn't happen on Exynos as well. This feature has been the same for years, and has worked very well; there is no reason to change it on any variant now.
Recheck that your rom is not messed up.
maksharma231 said:
Nothing like that happens on the snapdragon one. And i can bet it shouldn't happen on Exynos as well. This feature has been the same for years, and has worked very well; there is no reason to change it on any variant now.
Recheck that your rom is not messed up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My firmware is via ATT OTA, so it isn't messed up. I can't even flash anything since the n910a isn't rootable. The way my brightness slider is now is also how it was on Kitkat, and all ATT models are like mine.
It's just that when you mentioned the different auto brightness levels, I thought that maybe there was something I was overlooking in my settings. Apparently not, since your type of autobrightness was apparently adjusted by ATT.
spexwood said:
My firmware is via ATT OTA, so it isn't messed up. I can't even flash anything since the n910a isn't rootable. The way my brightness slider is now is also how it was on Kitkat, and all ATT models are like mine.
It's just that when you mentioned the different auto brightness levels, I thought that maybe there was something I was overlooking in my settings. Apparently not, since your type of autobrightness was apparently adjusted by ATT.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yup, must be ATT setup, although it makes much more sense the default android way.
Wonder why they decided to change it
My battery life on my note 4 is truly awful and I genuinely have no idea what's doing it, without fail it'll die like half way through the day when I only really use it for reddit and WhatsApp, I've heard by a lot of people that snapchat is really bad for battery. Whenever I look at these battery apps they never seem to tell me though, my screen on time is always atrocious and everyone else is getting like 6 hours, I use alxedandr rom btw, I also get lags here and there and I have no idea why can anyone help
Drizzy xS said:
My battery life on my note 4 is truly awful and I genuinely have no idea what's doing it, without fail it'll die like half way through the day when I only really use it for reddit and WhatsApp, I've heard by a lot of people that snapchat is really bad for battery. Whenever I look at these battery apps they never seem to tell me though, my screen on time is always atrocious and everyone else is getting like 6 hours, I use alxedandr rom btw, I also get lags here and there and I have no idea why can anyone help
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Most people are having problems with Google Play services drain. It's causing poor battery life because it's stopping the phone from deep sleeping. Sign out of Google Play in the accounts page in settings, then reboot the phone and sign back in again. Uncheck all the items you don't want to sync for Google.
I'm on lollipop and did a cache wipe straight after installing AND uninstalled the Facebook app. I've got 40% remaining after 12.5 hours. Boc3 seems to be really stable.
If you are having problems with battery drain I suggest you go to settings>application manager>running and kill tasks from there.
I am getting exceptional battery life on my Exynos
just quickly, is there any way to like reset the battery life physically?
ie in the old days, we would often let the battery run flat out, and recharge fully and run flat out a couple times.
and it'll basically give you the best longest battery life after doing this.
I think I just discovered a fix after updating to 5.0, I am running stock just for the info, all I did was boot into recovery and wipe cashe partition about 3-4 times and that seemed to have worked very well battery life is back to normal. Can someone who has this problem confirm?
joe1blue said:
I think I just discovered a fix after updating to 5.0, I am running stock just for the info, all I did was boot into recovery and wipe cashe partition about 3-4 times and that seemed to have worked very well battery life is back to normal. Can someone who has this problem confirm?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What was your previous battery usage like for heavy, moderate and low usage?
Gold3nCloud said:
What was your previous battery usage like for heavy, moderate and low usage?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It was strangely very bad after I updated to stock 5.0, I would lose about 2% every 15min I mean very bad to the point that I was about to do a factory reset.
KK only
For those who cannot identify the battery drain source from the battery setting, disable your alarm clock. The stock alarm clock is causing a huge drain, and it hides itself in the Android System. Not even wake detector could detect it. I did a search, but couldn't find anyone talking about it. My SOT drops by an hour with the alarm clock on.
I always see this running in the background, I just disabled to see if there's any noticable differences. Any reason to keep this running?
New Rising said:
I always see this running in the background, I just disabled to see if there's any noticable differences. Any reason to keep this running?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not that I'm aware. I freeze mine with TiBu without any problems.
It provides:
Live Captions
Recent apps overview text/image selection
App recommendations in app drawer of Pixel Launcher/recent apps overview
MishaalRahman said:
It provides:
Live Captions
Recent apps overview text/image selection
App recommendations in app drawer of Pixel Launcher/recent apps overview
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the info my friend. Lucky for me, I don't use any of the things you mentioned. However, others that might need them will be happy to know this info :good:
Wow! Missing out on so much that makes the Pixel a pixel!
vonDubenshire said:
Wow! Missing out on so much that makes the Pixel a pixel!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Meh...each to their own my friend. I like my Nova launcher, with certain icon packs, and multiple screens. What's even funnier, I don't use AOD, active edge, soli, now playing, rarely assistant, smooth display, adaptive brightness, gesture navigation, or ambient eq. Shoot....I even drink milk straight outa the carton. I'm a 19th century man living in the 21st century!
However, I do like my add blocker, TiBu, custom kernel, KCAL control, and Swift Black theme, and my 8-11 hours of SOT over 2 days because I don't use social media or do gaming. So, I don't see me missing out on too much. After all, isn't that what android is all about....choice! :good::laugh:
I disabled it before and then quickly figured out what it was needed for and enabled it again. I use it all the time. Pixel launcher has spoiled me lol.
Sent from my Google Pixel 4 XL using XDA Labs
Mr Patchy Patch said:
I disabled it before and then quickly figured out what it was needed for and enabled it again. I use it all the time. Pixel launcher has spoiled me lol.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What differences did you notice? I haven't noticed any changes yet.
New Rising said:
What differences did you notice? I haven't noticed any changes yet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Swiping up a little on the homescreen to reveal most recent used apps is the biggest. That doesn't work when you disable device personalization sittings. I use it all the time.
Sent from my Google Pixel 4 XL using XDA Labs
I use Pixel 4a still running on Android 10. When I first started using the phone I noticed that "Android System" had a very high battery usage on my phone. It was always positioned at 2nd or 3rd in my battery usage list with like 10-15% battery usage, affecting my battery life. Compared to my other android phones with similar usage, it was higher on Pixel.
For a long time I couldn't figure out what caused it. Played around with many system apps by turning things on/off, turns out it was due to Device Personalization Services (now called Android System Intelligence). It had a high data usage when I checked it. I disabled it and it solved my problem. Now Android System drains just 3-4% of my phone's battery. I use 2 phones and bought Pixel 4a specifically for its camera. I don't use any of the Device Personalization Services and completely fine without it. So I'm mentioning my experience incase anyone wants to turn it off.