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Basically, I am underwhelmed
After a few hours playing, my thoughts .....
The Good
Nice size
Looks good
Screen resolution
The bad
Touch interface is crap. Give me SPB Mobile Shell any day
The on/off switch is easily knocked on/off - in the pocket or especially when using the slip case
Frequent waits for a response from a screen press -so you press it again, and again, and again and then things lock up or slow down.
The back gets really hot when using GPS or heavy 3G use
... and the ugly
The phone looks a bloody greasy slimy slippery mess after being in the hand for only two minutes
A triumph of form over function
I wonder what other little gems are waiting to be discovered
Touch interface is crap. Give me SPB Mobile Shell any day
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Click to collapse
Tweaks solve this problem.
The on/off switch is easily knocked on/off - in the pocket or especially when using the slip case
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is indeed a big problem, if true.
Frequent waits for a response from a screen press -so you press it again, and again, and again and then things lock up or slow down.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As I said above, tweaking solve it.
The back gets really hot when using GPS or heavy 3G use
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How hot can it get ?, stop being a child.
The phone looks a bloody greasy slimy slippery mess after being in the hand for only two minutes
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You can buy a case that will always be on. It will be better protected too.
PaulusUK said:
The phone looks a bloody greasy slimy slippery mess after being in the hand for only two minutes
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Click to collapse
Maybe you shouldn't have eaten fried chicken before using it
tweaking is always the answer.. but why bother?
so it seems that even this Diamond that was announced as SO great needs tweaking to be REALLY usable :-(
But why do HTC always require to do all the job of installing, testing, tweaking, re-testing, uninstalling (as soft is not compatible with 'just' this device) , re-installing another one, test it for a few days, etc...
(including all the crashes that we have while testing it)
Lame !
Shame on HTC and Windows Mobile for making an OS where not-everything may work great.
Well.. iPhone then.
Come on, it's worth it just for Teeter! I've just finished it, need to call it a night.
Seriously though, the accelerometer by itself is a brilliant addition and I'm sure some amazing applications will come of it.
PaulusUK said:
Basically, I am underwhelmed
After a few hours playing, my thoughts .....
The Good
Nice size
Looks good
Screen resolution
The bad
Touch interface is crap. Give me SPB Mobile Shell any day
The on/off switch is easily knocked on/off - in the pocket or especially when using the slip case
Frequent waits for a response from a screen press -so you press it again, and again, and again and then things lock up or slow down.
The back gets really hot when using GPS or heavy 3G use
... and the ugly
The phone looks a bloody greasy slimy slippery mess after being in the hand for only two minutes
A triumph of form over function
I wonder what other little gems are waiting to be discovered
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
lol!
Wait until you need to use the speakerphone or direct push mail, and your battery only lasts 3 hours on standby.
mital said:
lol!
Wait until you need to use the speakerphone or direct push mail, and your battery only lasts 3 hours on standby.
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Click to collapse
Well, I use those and my phone lasts till the end of the day, How long have you had the phone? I have noticed with every charge the batterys improves.
Mital, you hd it for a few weeks now ?
happy overall or not ?
The battery is going to be that bad for most device when using push email, I have my HTC Trion and if push email on with GPRS it last a bit more than a working day, if Wifi then just around 8 hours,
seem sno much differece with Dimond then.
My first major problem was that of no GPS access - several programs would not access the GPS and the phone would freeze when the GPS was accessed. Then I loaded Microsoft Voice Command 1.6 and this completely locked the phone - TouchFlo worked, but nothing would open when clicked on, and no change after soft resets either.
So, the first hard reset.
Then after reinstalling some GPS software, still no access to the GPS - and no changes in the com port settings made any difference.
So after much faffing about, the second hard reset.
So here I am scared to touch the phone in case I upset it and it frezes me out again!
And I think Opera hogs the resourses not only in use, but even after its closed down. The diamond works even slower after I have used Opera. Wierd.
And yes it is red hot after GPS and GPRS/3G use. I will measure it tonight with and IR thermometer, but there is no way it can be handheld for a long time at that temperature.
I suppose I could fry some bacon and eggs on it while waiting for the OS to do something. lol
Mmm, bacon and eggs sounds good to me, count me in!
I have to say I'm not experiencing the problems your getting. The only problem, which is easily solved, is that I don't get as good reception as with other phones Ive previously owned, but Ive noticed there are a few Radio updates floating around XDA Developers so will look into that.
With regards to programs not closing correctly, i found that making sure that when the 'X' is touched it closes down the program, does it for me.
Also my GPS works flawlessly with Tom Tom. I think you may unfortunately have a faulty unit as im not experiencing any of what your suggesting. My phone gets warm but never hot enough for Bacon AND Eggs
I find the handset can be a bit frustrating when typing sometimes, but thats always been the case with touch screen phones and people who say that they are perfect and better than a hardware keyboard are telling porkies! HTC arent there yet, but for me, there not far off!
Seriously tho, im sorry to hear that your getting problems and hopefully they will be solved soon.
Well, I have my Diamond since mid-June and I have to say that at first I wasn't very impressed with its speed.
The TF3D was very jerky and took a long to respond to my inputs.
Since my unit was one of those grey imports from HK made by Expansys, I thought that it probably had something to do with it, mainly a very early ROM (It's my third HTC model and I'm used to buy it and then tweak it).
So I started to look in the xda-dev forum and to try some of the ROMs, tweaks and cab files that our xda-dev resident geniuses provide.
And I must say that my Diamond is behaving very well, certainly a lot, lot better than it did a month ago.
- I never had major problems with any kind of software (not that I have a lot of stuff installed)
- The 4Gb storage memory is (for the time being) enough for my needs.
- The GPS (with TomTom 6), BT, WiFi and all that is working OK.
- The battery duration improved and it lasts for a day or more (more significantly since ROM update)
- The VGA screen is a must
On the other hand it does get a bit hot doing certain tasks, but so does my laptop when I have it sitting in my lap.
Also, even though HTC made a huge effort (in my opinion) to make a more 'user friendly' interface, don't forget that it still runs on MS WM6, and that, for now, is something that we have to live with.
Overall, I recommend it, but to get the most of it, you really need to keep looking for updates (and xda-dev is the best place for it) to improve its performance.
Regards,
*minds out of the gutter*
I frequently use my phone in bed while lying down sideways (years of using my laptop in bed have made this so). This means that Gyrator gets completely screwed up because my head is sideways, giving no hope for the screen to be oriented the same way as my eyes. I usually have to move around a lot to get it to line up, or give up and sit up.
Is there a way to switch Gyrator, or your phone, to know that sideways is up for a temporary period of time? Does anyone else deal with this problem? Is this the most meaningless problem you've ever heard of? Is all this way too much information about my bed habits?
I have the same problem with Opera on my Fuze.... You are not alone, sir.
+1 Agreed
I uninstalled gyrator last night whilst in bed as it was annoying me so much.
I honestly thought I was the only one with this problem.
I ended up just using PIE for anything I wanted to read (which worked out since I mostly read short stories on websites)
I have not come across anything that might do what you're asking, and although I wasn't exactly looking for it I think it would have caught my eye.
If I find anything I'll let you know. Power to the bed-gyrators! (?)
Agreed. Uninstalled Gyrator for the same reason as yours.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=465586
Get it and add exceptions to it for apps you use in bed
I think it might be easier to just crash Gyrator in bed. There are no apps I use exclusively why lying down.
Try playing Teeter while lying down sideways. It's a mess!
follow kraize's advice and install this alternative to gyrator. much easier to configure and has some diff settings that are def what ur looking for.
My wife loves her Gyrator, she uses it in the bed, at her desk at her office... I think she likes it too much......
+1 for Change Screen. I've been using it for 2 days and not 1 problem and very easy to customize.
Hahah, I totally have this same problem. But then, I don't think it bothers me enough to actually do anything about it. And it would annoy me more to have a switch an app on and off to change the behaviour.
Must...get...disappointed mind...out of.....gutter...
I like that I can set Gyrator to allow certain rotations, and not others, so that TouchFlo and the phone app only flip, but don't rotate. I believe I couldn't get that level of control with Change Screen.
Hi,
Something I've tried to to find the answer to, but so far have been unable to do so - the camera performance has always been terrible on my tytn2. I've tried a range of different roms, but none have made any difference to the camera.
My understanding is that it is important to have a radio that works with the rom you are using, but can I get better camera performance by using a different radio?
Currently I am using "07/10[Super Ram][CHOME][Manilla] Josh's Kaiser Roms+Kitchen "21929 Hybrid Light" - a great rom, and my radio is 1.65.16.25.
I would really appreciate it if anyone can give me any pointers with this or otherwise help me get better camera performance (the tytn2 is an amazing phone, the camera is the only problem I have with it).
Cheers
Moved as not ROM Development...
The camera is just whack anyway unless in ideal light situations.
Typically the camera will either work or not work at all depending on the Radio, unfortunately the Kaiser's camera (and all cellphone cameras in general) is not the greatest in low light so you are pretty much stuck with what you got.
Thanks for the responses. It's not so much the camera performance in terms of picture quality, but the terrible lag when taking pictures - there is a two second or more delay between pressing the camera button and the picture taking. This always results in pictures that are extremely blurred.
Turn off the full press and also the shutter noise...
I tried everything possible with my tytn to improve camera , however it was all pointless since it could not be done.
Well not quite. In my frustration with a few things which aren't perfect in Shifu's latest ROM (hey, it's pretty darn nice for the most part, even M2D is running well for the first time in my experience of over 20 WM6.5 ROM versions, mostly on the Elfin, 3 on this Kaiser), I did some searching for a camera video frame rate solution. Found one. I've already forgotten the link (since reading it this afternoon), but it's so simple there's no need to go looking. Here's the procedure. Works in any lower light situation, as in not broad daylight. Haven't test it it outside in daylight yet, but it might even work there, will find out tomorrow.
1) Open camera application.
2) Put hand over lens to create a black screen.
3) Turn off power. (This part is a bit of a stumbling block for those with slide to unlock or a password active - have to have those turned off for this to work.)
4) Keep the hand (or whatever, doesn't matter so long as it blocks light) over the lens for at least a second.
5) Take off the hand.
6) Press the power button again.
7) Start shooting when you like.
8) Enjoy what looks like 30fps video, much improved autofocus and shutter response times, and unfortunately, darker images. So still not a great low-light camera, but indoors in average conditions or even somewhat dim light it's not bad at all for a phone camera. Took me a few tries to nail down the procedure and be able to reproduce the effect every time, but five minute's practice at most.
Apparently the vast improvement in frame rate and general responsiveness globally in the camera's operation and settings dialogues is over-ridden if one points the camera at a light source or brighter reflective objects. I find it stays stable during a session even if I point it directly at a 20W halogen light from 6 feet away, but your mileage may vary.
Another tip would be to avoid the double-take of the autofocus algorithm. Bloody thing focuses on a half-press, then focuses all over again, blurring out then returning to sharpness, on full shutter press. So either go to half-press shooting, or use the D-pad centre button to shoot pictures and videos, as this is a single-stage switch.
In my case, running Shifu's latest ROM from December and his recommended radio, and just this evening flashing Kaiser-HardSPL-3.56, I find the video frame rate to be about 2 to 3 frames per second without this trick, and well above 20fps with the trick. Awesome. A little bit irritating too, having to do this silly little button sequence thing, but it's better than having to go hunting for my 'real' camera when a video opportunity presents itself and the Kaiser will take less than 10 seconds to get ready, and getting the proper camera will take over a minute of walking and digging and powering on... As has so often been said in web discussions of phone cameras, it's not so much the quality of your best camera that's important in everyday use, it's whether you have a working camera with you that counts. And this little trick makes the camera I ALWAYS have with me a whole lot more usable.
Now, if only there were a way to get Resco Audio Recorder to make clear 2-sided recordings of my calls. Worked like a dream on the HTC Touch Elfin. All I hear is remote, static-distorted voices with this Kaiser. Seems from discussions that this is a hardware limitation. Hope not. And it'd be nice too if the device weren't cranky about my 8GB microSD. Seems a tad unstable at times. Same for considerable numbers of other users, so maybe another hardware limitation? Hope it's drivers, and that some genius presents an update.
GerardSamija,
Yeah that's an old trick but not perfect as tends to dim the light and when hit by a large light flips back to the slow fps another one is to remove the plastic cover on case covering lens.
I gave up using camera unless outside & it's the same issue on Touch Pro even with the built in flash "well light really"
2 Side Voice Recording on Kaiser **WORKS**
Thank you very much for that stylez. I'm reading through the pages of that thread, and while so far the latest CAB there hasn't quite made decent quality two-way recording for my Kaiser, it's considerably improved from what it was yesterday. Nice.
Trying the 'old' camera trick (sorry for re-publishing ancient news - I've only had this Kaiser a few days, so just getting caught up. On testing it this morning I found a number of tries didn't work at all. Not sure why. Then just now I tried it again and it worked fine, though delivering only about 15 to 20fps, not quite smooth. I did back to back tests without and then with the trick, and there was about a tripling of framerate from A to B. Guess I'll just have to keep practicing to get it down solid.
And I probably will remove part of the shielding over the camera lens, carefully. The lens in the body itself has a flat glass cover so no real risk of damage there, as it's recessed behind the battery cover. Occasional cleaning of dust is necessary anyway with a pocketable camera, so this just adds the step of slipping off the battery cover to do that. The phone I have was used for a few months, then left in an office drawer for over a year. Not a lot of wear, but obviously some fine scratching of the coating on the camera lens protective filter. Removing it will improve imaging, and the glass lens cover beneath is about the same as on my old HTC Elfin. That one has held up very well.
I hear windex helps.
ChumleyEX said:
I hear windex helps.
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lol ya i gave up using the camera really, i know im just caring around a big brick, with the advantage that its touch screen and has a keyboard... otherwise its not used much for anything else, unfortunately there are a million other phones that would meet this basic need, though im not getting burned by HTC again or any other phone maker...
I'm getting better at the timing with tricking the camera into responding quickly for stills, and getting 15fps and better almost all the time. This afternoon was fairly sunny here, and I shot a few videos of my son at the playground. Checking them later on my Asus 901 they look quite good. And contrary to many comments saying pointing at bright light kills the effect, I was able to shoot almost directly into the sun without losing frame rate.
Oddly, VLC gives an audio codec cannot be found error. Guess I'm off for yet another codec hunt. Windows 7 has mostly been pretty solid in supporting things like that, but I guess VLC stands apart from the OS in terms of codecs.
Windex? Nah, bit of a rub with a shirt end is fine. It's not a camera for making museum grade images. It's convenient, when I don't want to carry a bulky HD camera with proper optics around with me.
Thoughts on it, display in sunlight, battery life, handling of notifications, look/feel of it on your wrist..... basically anything to do with the watch!
i like it. granted that its a new class of its own, i still get confused especially when i get multiple notifications on an app (ie hangouts). its confusing where the group text starts or if im still being shown a private text..
the screen is kinda hard to read in direct sunlight but tilting it a bit or using a different watch face helps.
i like the feel of it.. i preferred this over the g watch coz of the added feature and the look.
I really like it; however, screen is difficult to see in sunlight at times; screen is also a smudge magnet which adds to difficulties in seeing the display outdoors.
Love it - compared to the sony smartwatch and the Galaxy Gear it really has great improvements. Only Day 2, but my initial thoughts:
Pros
- Look/feel - it is little large (I don't have big wrists) but still stylish.
- Screen: awesome that the clock is always on, this was my biggest gripe about the Gear
- Usefulness: I've spent time training Google Now, and that's really paid off. Notifications mean i take my phone out of my pocket a lot less, and Google Now surfaces reminders and other useful info pretty well (although you don't have a lot of control over the order of notifications etc). The fact that it syncs dismissed notifications on the phone immediately is, in a word, awesome
- Apps: early days yet on this, but most big apps I'm sure will integrate so you can do the key features easily
- Voice recognition works great so far
Cons
- No speaker means if you want to do stuff without looking at the screen with your voice, it's harder. But seems like something I can live with
- Charging dongle is kinda annoying to fit on, and have to remember to travel with
- Starting an app (say Fit) takes a few too many swipes (if you're in a place where you don't want to be speaking to your wrist...)
A lot of the other potential "cons" like not many watch face designs, no feature to locate your phone (I know there's an app for this though) I reckon will play out over time and Google can fix pretty quickly...
A
eurorauser said:
, no feature to locate your phone (I know there's an app for this though) I reckon will play out over time and Google can fix pretty quickly...
A
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Take a look at this one for that: Wear Aware
i'm pleasantly surprised with how much i'm enjoying it.
my first full day with it will be tomorrow so i haven't taken it outside in the sunlight much yet, but checking email, counting steps, reading and replying to texts (i use evolve and it works great) is great and much more reliable and smoother than it was on my OG gear, and it's proving to be far more useful than my pebble.
the strap is actually quite comfortable and i'm glad i didn't buy a new strap before getting the watch.
the charging cradle, if you put it on tab side first it snaps in much easier. it's annoying but i haven't found it to be the spawn of lucifer as some people were screaming about it. treat it like part of a $200 gadget and it will be fine. mash it on like the hulk and it's going to break, it is plastic tabs after all.
i used it for about 7 hours today and it's now around 65% remaining. moderate use, but i def was clicking and swiping for no reason since it's new as well. i am pretty sure i'll have to charge it every night, but i don't sleep with a watch on and i charge my phone every night too, so i don't see it as being a big issue. my pebble lasted longer, but it would often die since i didn't have a set pattern on when to charge and would head out and a few hours later realize i had 20% left.
so in short, i'm happy, yes there are growing pains but those are the early adopter blues.
So far very please for what it can do. Regarding bot visible in sunlight, tell me what phone is visible in sunlight. None of them are great, only the kinfpdle due to the ink screen it has. I can wait till indoors or in shade. 9 more days testing and then deciding to keep or not. Off charging cradle at 6:30am today and as of this post still has 34% left. About the same as my previous Gear watch.
Ian B
The number of apps pouring in each day are a great sign for the platform as a whole. The Tizen gears were nothing like this.
Quick reply.... I like it. Had Nero, no comparison.
I've had a few issues and design factors that I'd like changed:
Hate the alarm mute icon. I would love to figure out a way to hide that on the clock face. Would make the watch look more watchie if you will.
Also would like to only wake the watch from the button vice touchscreen, or atleast an option to set that insettings.
Does anyone else find themselves open palming your watch to put it in hybernate?
FynxSyndct said:
Does anyone else find themselves open palming your watch to put it in hybernate?
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Click to collapse
I pressed it against my forehead earlier because I was in bed and my other arm wasn't free.
SkuzFoz said:
I pressed it against my forehead earlier because I was in bed and my other arm wasn't free.
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Click to collapse
This really made me LOL
I'll be the lone wolf in the wilderness by bucking the trend and saying that I'm very disappointed with my Gear Live. I'm a gadget lover and really wanted to love this device. But I was far more enthusiastic about this thing before I actually received it. Once I had one, I quickly grew disappointed with it.
Out of the box, pairing with my Nexus 5 took multiple attempts. Once I finally did get it paired, only the stock apps would work. Any apps that I downloaded from the Play store would run on my phone but the watch interface would never show up (no matter how many times I tried to force the apps to sync via the Android Wear app or rebooted the watch).
Factory resetting the watch and starting again cleared up that problem but I still found the functionality of the watch to be quirky at best. Add to that the fact that the screen is virtually impossible to read outdoors, the lack of support for continuous heart rate monitoring, and the sudden dramatic drop in my Nexus 5's battery life (which cleared up after I uninstalled the Android Wear app).
Bottom line for me is that this isn't ready to replace my old fashioned watch. So until I read about some new killer Wear app that I can't live without, the Gear Live had gone back into its box to be stored away. I'm hoping that the software will mature quickly to a point where I can give it another try.
Does gear live suport sleep monitoring? Can it automatically figure out that user is cycling?
How good is the fitness tracking on it?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk
I picked up a Google Cardboard for some fun, but the picture constantly rotates while trying to use it on my XZ. The axis of the rotation is that of going from portrait to landscape (Y axis??)
I've tested the accel, compass, and gyro using the service tests and they all seem to be fine. My XZ is completely stock and up-to-date (OTA).
Not sure what the problem could be? It works fine on my SGS5. I'd appreciate any feedback as the XZ looks and fits inside SO much cleaner than the SGS5, plus its not my daily driver so I won't have to take it out often.
I vaguely recall the same error happening on an app a long time ago, can't remember for the life of me what it was.
Hey. I also play with VR for almost month now(got two vr goggles with are WAY better lenses and quality than cardboard)
And also I have this problem of rotating screen. And to be honest its all depend on app and orientation provider. Most of the time app use indirect/direct sensor fusion but this method just suck...
I found only one solution for that and its to put phone on flat surface for few second with screen face up, and then phone calibrate sensor itself.
Of course its not helping for too long, but its always something...
My favorite VR game: Corridoom is best example for problem that we have.
Fast movement of device constantly move gyro starting point to one direction and when you sit in chair and look straight after a while you need to almost turn 180* because device lost this starting point. App does provide only simple calibration in main menu and Dev that I write about that said that for now its not gonna change this option.
So even if gyro in our xz is really accurate, because i use it as a VR goggles for PC gaming thanks to app Trinus VR
Only real solution for that is actual app that have option to block or reset roll effect. For example my main movie app for watching VR movies Cardboard Theater have such option and for most of time I dont have this problem when I watch movies.
I also tested it via service tests and you can see this problem, when you start app and this Rubik's cube is faced to you green move phone right and left and after few moves its not facing green, but red or blue... And for that app should have that option to reset yaw and roll when you stop moving, but for now most of devs that create VR apps and games just dont think to put such options.
And its not only XZ problem I tested it with galaxy S5 and galaxy Grand Prime and its also have that problem but not that often, mostly when I move my head very fast or for too long, screen start rotating.
maybe it would be possible to fix that in device it self to reset that roll effect but I dont think that anyone with knowledge would like to check that... :/
Trackers are pretty sensitive without some kind of reference point such as a camera. I expect a small amount of bias error over a duration, but using cardboard movie theater the screen turns 180 degrees (roll) in less than 10 seconds. The sensor tests are nowhere near as inaccurate.
Obviously any phone will have the issue over time though, they are cheap parts in small housing. There's multi thousand dollar systems with small degree of wander that are only IMUs. It's the severe amount the xz has that bugs me.
I'll try the laying it flat so it can reset its bias, might work. I noticed yesterday that when facing west it wasnt half as bad.
If you were actually able to enjoy a movie without locking the orientation then yours is far better than mine. My sgs5 I might have to adjust the orientation once every 30 minutes, the xz I have to reset it every seconds lmao.
Thank you for the input!
update:
Letting the bias adjust helped immensely. Thanks for the advice!
Hi did u manage to sort it out. I have xperia z and have same problem. I can play some games but everytime i use 'view in cardboard ' on youtube the screens spin, also when i use googke cardboard apps. Maby its a google problem and not our phones? Like you iv testedband recalibrated my phone byt to no avail
If you got it fixed giz a shout mate
Cheers