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.
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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?
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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 just used the phone for half a day and thoroughly enjoy it. On first impression, the phone is very light for the size and they give nice accessories considering the price; earphones, screen protector, case. The phone have an RGB notification light.
Interface:
-The interface is not stock Android, it's more like a modified version of MIUI. It's very usable once you install your choice of stock launcher, replace the default keyboard, and disable some of the bloat apps.
-Since it's not stock Android, I find it take a bit of time to get used to finding things in the Settings menu.
-The swipe up hardware toggles (Control center, similar to iPhone toggles) are pretty useful and more well organized than stock Android imo.
-Screen off gestures, you get many different commands (double tap on, camera, flashlight, customize your own, etc) and it work pretty good.
-Feature to display network speed on the notification bar
-"Close all" button in the recent apps menu.
-There is a feature to modify apps permissions called "Permissions of App".
-I can not find the shortcut to "Smart Lock" window anywhere, even though it is supported in the OS, if you pair a bluetooth device it will display the notification to enable it. But there seems to be no way to get to the actual Smart Lock window to enable other smart lock features, or I miss it somewhere.
Performance:
I installed all my programs pretty quick. I don't see any lag issues. All the apps launches fast and run smoothly. I don't intend to play any heavy games on a $100 phone, all the light games I play like Subway Surfer and Horizon Chase have no lags.
Connection:
Cell: The dual sim feature seems to work good. I still have to to test the signal quality, but I have to say the data speed is average. I get about 10 to 12mbps down for T-Mobile LTE speed test.
Bluetooth: I'm happy to report the Bluetooth have good performance, the motion of people lips in videos are in synced with the audio from the bluetooth speaker.
WiFi: Can reach high speed, no problem.
GPS: No problem.
Storage:
There is a strange quirk with the phone which is by default your microSD is acts as the main 'internal storage' of the phone (sdcard0), and the actual internal storage act as external (sdcard1). So it would help if you use a fast microSD. I think this is because I have the microSD inserted the first time I set up the phone. Maybe this problem can be prevented by not inserting the microSD for the first time you boot up the phone. I don't know, but I'll just live with it.
Display:
The screen is very nice for a 5.5" 720p AMOLED display. It's not going to be sharp, but it the pixels are smooth so you don't get so much of that pixelation effect. Pretty much deep black, saturated colors and good viewing angles you expect from AMOLED. It's definitely not the brightest of display though, so you might have some problem under direct sunlight.
Camera: I haven't used it too much, but it's pretty average. Like all lower end camera, it have issue with under/over exposure, also the white balance is really off on auto mode. I like the manual mode that let you control the ISO and shutter speed. It's no where bad in good lighting condition, I'd say it takes good enough details for a budget phone.
Speaker: Very average, don't expect much here.
Charging: I used my Anker quick charger and it seems to charge the device fast and safely.
Ringtones selection:
The only thing I don't like is that if you have music in your phone, when you go to change the default ringtones, it will display every single songs in your phone and you have to scroll through it. The way to remedy this is to use the file manager in the phone and create a file called ".nomedia" in your music folder, so the phone will not recognize songs in it. Once you set your desired ringtone, you can remove that file. Or you can simply use a third party app to do the job.
Aside from some quirks, I honestly have no complaints so far, I would have no problem paying the full $150 for this device. I definitely like it better than the Moto G3, except that Motorola phones tends to have superior signals and call quality compared to most other brands. I definitely will not use this phone without a case though since it's on the light side.
Couple of things I noticed
1. The navigation buttons at the bottom (Home, Back & Option) does not have backlight. Not sure if there is a LED there that can be enabled in settings. I couldn't find any setting for that.
2. The data connection drops from 4G LTE to 'H' (HSPA) when on a call.
One of thing I notice about the Gallery app in this phone is there is an "Encrypt" option. If you press it accidentally it encrypt the file and move it into the "Pictures\.GallerySafe" folder. To access the encrypted photo, you have to "pinch outward" in the app.
No Smart Lock support: I tested and even though the smart lock feature turned on when you paired a bluetooth device, it actually doesn't work.
Here are some photo samples. The main problem are over exposure, white balance detection and some lost of saturation. The quality suffers when you're indoor with less lights.
https://goo.gl/photos/j9BrJ7gcbDCXBQgD6
The LED notification light seem like its set a ways under the glass and has this really bright shining affect versus a little glow other devices have.
I must say, the amoled screen on this is quite impressive for $100 phone..
wifi and data speeds are very similar compared to my oneplus 2 (both running Tmobile)
I noticed that the user cannot remove home screen icons. Like when you press and hold there's no option to remove the icon. Some apps show an option to uninstall. But for some pre installed apps there is no option to remove the icon.
Like Google chrome, opera browser, BLU help, amazon etc....
I don't want to uninstall the app, just remove from home screen.
Yea I noticed the LED light being very bright. I could read a book under that lighting.
hamilLewiston said:
I noticed that the user cannot remove home screen icons. Like when you press and hold there's no option to remove the icon. Some apps show an option to uninstall. But for some pre installed apps there is no option to remove the icon.
Like Google chrome, opera browser, BLU help, amazon etc....
I don't want to uninstall the app, just remove from home screen.
Yea I noticed the LED light being very bright. I could read a book under that lighting.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
just use another launcher. google now, nova
eksasol said:
One of thing I notice about the Gallery app in this phone is there is an "Encrypt" option. If you press it accidentally it encrypt the file and move it into the "Pictures\.GallerySafe" folder. To access the encrypted photo, you have to "pinch outward" in the app.
No Smart Lock support: I tested and even though the smart lock feature turned on when you paired a bluetooth device, it actually doesn't work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The smart lock is really baffling. It prompts to turn on smart lock but never works after that.
tlxxxsracer said:
just use another launcher. google now, nova
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Click to collapse
thanks, that's what i finally did
so i found that there is an option on the desktop settings to 'hide' apps that you don't want to see on the desktop. it will hide the apps, with a password / pin. i'll post a guide later.
I've been using the Honor 5X a bit today so here is a comparison.
Things I prefer on the Vivo XL:
-This is a faster device. Everything about the Blu is more responsive and I don't think it's down to just the 720p display. It seems that this Mediatek CPU is actually pretty decent, games are smoother on it as well. In comparison, Honor 5X is slightly sluggy, not just in the interface, but in apps as well. This is probably due to the EMUI OS on the Honor 5X.
-Blu's UI is actually easier to understand and getting used to, especially if you're not accustomed to MIUI style interface on the Honor 5X.
-I'm not sure if it's due to the screen protector preinstalled on the Honor 5X, but the Blu touchscreen is a bit more sensitive and responsive to touch. Though it's not bad on the Honor 5X.
-The slide up "Control Panel" on the Blu is more useful with lots of options. Hate to admit it, but I prefer this slide up behavior more than Android's default because it's faster being close to your thumb. The notification toggles for the Honor 5X is missing a few options, but not a big deal.
-Blu is thinner and more light weight.
-The USB Type C connector is god sent.
-Removable battery.
Prefer on the 5X:
-Sharper screen that is very bright, its actually brighter than some highend flagship devices. The viewing angle isn't great however, but that is non-problem because it's a phone, not a TV.
-The camera is (only) slightly better. It have a bit more details and much better handle at white balance. Although the Blu camera's tap to focus is faster and more responsive. At this price range, it's not a big difference between the two phones.
-While their EMUI interface takes time to learn, it have some useful features, such as network control for apps. This let you disable data or wifi access for any apps you want, which is a very useful security feature.
-Very nice metal body.
-Finger print scanner, which I don't use.
It's a bit hard to choose which phone I would use as the daily driver. I think that if you go with the Blu, the software is good enough that you don't need to install custom roms. If you go with the Honor 5X, I believe you will need to install custom roms if you want the most out of the performance. I would have to pick the Blu Vivo XL as better value for the money, since it performs better for $50 less, and may last longer due to removable battery and USB Type C connector (more durable than microUSB). Also I like it when companies throw in free phone case and headphones, which is lacking in the Honor 5X packaging.
hamilLewiston said:
so i found that there is an option on the desktop settings to 'hide' apps that you don't want to see on the desktop. it will hide the apps, with a password / pin. i'll post a guide later.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
wheres the guide?
Thanks you for this app
My phone is Global ROM PFGMIXM 10.3.5.0.
Model M1901F7G. Bootloader locked. Many apps were removed using SAKI program.
I mainly use my phone for gaming, listening to music, messagings, and browsing internet. I experience no lag at all even when I play pubg.
Overall I'm more than satisfied with this phone, especially when compared to my previous phone, Samsung J7. Below are my random thoughts/nitpickings/wish on the phone and things I noticed through my daily usage. It's really subjective opinion of mine, but could be more intriguing than most of those same boring reviews you can find on YouTube. If anybody knows how to fix or can suggest for workaround for my complaints, please let me know.
Pros:
Bluetooth headphones' remaining battery % can be checked in bluetooth connected device inside settings.
Removing app vault and Google app using SAKI program seem to have noticeably extended the battery life.
Unlocking with finger print really is responsive.
Because battery lasts really long time and it charges super fast with Q3 charger, I don't even charge it over 70% these days. Q4 charger is overkill too.
Headphone sound quality is surprisingly good. Comes with many presets you can choose from. Also LDAC audio codes is supported. Great for Sony headphones.
Available RAM increased by 0.1GB after uninstalling app vault and disabling it inside Home screen & Recents setting.
Cons:
When I set timer in clock, it doesn't show how many minutes left in notification bar, instead it shows what time the timer will go off. I wish it showed countdown time.
When I receive WhatsApp message, it doesn't give notification although I didn't disable it. This is pretty bad.
Golf clash app suddenly shut it self down. Happens once in 3 days or so, pisses me off when I go out of time because of this. I've reinstalled the app after the last crash and that might have solved it, didn't crash for 2, 3 days now.
When I play pubg for long time, sometimes the phone gets quite hot.
I've seen MI shopping/payment icon showing up in notification bar while browsing internet with chrome. This was very strange because I've removed all the MI apps through saki already 10 days ago. It's the icon that looks like shopping bag with "M" in the bag.
After uninstalling Google app, if I swipe up from home button, screen is covered with blank Google app remainder. This can only be solved if I changed launcher as I understand because there is an integration of Google app in MIUI launcher. Something minor and I'm not changing the launcher just for this.
Stock weather app update only once a day. This really bothers me. If I install 3rd party weather and time app and its widget, I can choose to update hourly. But then the time in notification bar shows up when in home screen. I don't need 2 times shown in home screen.
Stock camera can't be removed.
Can't choose gcam as default app to launch it by pressing volume down button twice.
Coming from a samsung mobile, i was just wondering if there is any way to get notifications like on the samsung mobiles on the AOD screen, instead of the just red tintet clock, and the 2 analogue clocks?
Bump
Go back to Samsung. This phone has no dev work. We will never have a proper aod.
+1, came from Samsung and I miss the options it had for AOD, would also be cool if we have more digital clocks AOD options instead of the red lines garbage we have now
Bump
Have you tried any of the AOD apps in the Play store? https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.newgen.alwayson&hl=en_GB
dio62000 said:
Have you tried any of the AOD apps in the Play store? https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.newgen.alwayson&hl=en_GB
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Yes, it's very good and all but the problem with it is that it takes a lot of battery in a very short amount of time, as the screen is "on" all the time in the battery consumption settings.
Hi,
I currently have a Pixel but am considering getting an S10. One of the features I love on the Pixel is the clock app’s screensaver-it means I can prop my phone up by the side of my bed and have a dim display showing just the clock. Does the S10 have anything similar please? Thanks!
I have an non-rooted S10e (SM-G970U). The screensaver settings unfortunately do not offer a clock option - only photos or colors. It's too bad Samsung doesn't have this option. I used it as you described on other phones and loved it. Now I use AOD as a substitute but , of course, it's "Always On" - not just at night when charging.
You setup the always on display to only trigger at night, it'll do the job pretty well if you're looking for a nightstand option. The always on display comes with various clock faces so I'm sure it won't be very difficult to find the right fit. If you can't from the stock ones you could always download good lock for extra clockfaces
Or you could just download any clock style screensaver which will do exactly what you're looking for. Display a clock when the phone is on charge and you let the screen go off on it's own. It's been in Android phones for years. S10 comes with a few built in screensavers.
AOD is the best option though. Minimal battery use.