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I currently own a Captivate and I'm tired of the ROM-switching, and the laggy interface (On each and every ROM I've installed) and want to give this device a shot, so my questions to people that migrated from Android to WP7 are:
What's better? What's worse? What will I miss? Is it worth the move?
Thanks!
xgibran said:
I currently own a Captivate and I'm tired of the ROM-switching, and the laggy interface (On each and every ROM I've installed) and want to give this device a shot, so my questions to people that migrated from Android to WP7 are:
What's better? What's worse? What will I miss? Is it worth the move?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just left the droid bionic 4 days ago. I am not new to windows phone though. What's better:
Ease of use. Its simple
Reliable. Connects every time
Hardware is now comparable with a lot of dual core droids. This does not lack for speed.
Its attractive and light.
Once you learn the Os, it becomes addictive in its simplicity.
Connects my jabra hands free and allows voice actions. Cool.
What's not so good:
If you have any notion of custom, forget it. What you see is what you get. I mean that...exactly as it sounds.
Apps. WP has many of the more familiar apps, but not all, yet. There is no Starbucks app, or Barnes and noble to name 2. Its getting better though.
Still limited in ringtones. Takes some doing to get your tone.
Battery life is not great. Not awful either.
The buttons on this focus are backwards. The volume id on upper left. A right handed phone holder changes the volume everytime.
No led notifications..at all.
Would I buy this again. Yes. I say this knowing I'm getting the 900 soon. I'll have both. This is a good phone.
Thanks, that is very helpful. One thing you didn't mention is that compared to Androids of the same level the speed is astonishing. The experience is so smooth!
So far I have found most of the same apps I used regularly on Android and a very good alternative to another.
As you said, battery life is not the best in the world, but it sure beats the 7-8 hours I got on the Captivate. I went through a whole day (~13 hours) of heavy use (OTA downloads, take a couple of pics, etc) before I needed to recharge.
The one thing that ticks me off in particular is the way multitasking is managed. I open something and hit the home button. If I go through the active apps (holding the back key) I can get back to the exact place I was in before I left it. If I tap on the tile of the app it restarts the app from scratch. What gives?
xgibran said:
Thanks, that is very helpful. One thing you didn't mention is that compared to Androids of the same level the speed is astonishing. The experience is so smooth!
So far I have found most of the same apps I used regularly on Android and a very good alternative to another.
As you said, battery life is not the best in the world, but it sure beats the 7-8 hours I got on the Captivate. I went through a whole day (~13 hours) of heavy use (OTA downloads, take a couple of pics, etc) before I needed to recharge.
The one thing that ticks me off in particular is the way multitasking is managed. I open something and hit the home button. If I go through the active apps (holding the back key) I can get back to the exact place I was in before I left it. If I tap on the tile of the app it restarts the app from scratch. What gives?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I didn't mention speed because most people's first response to a speed claim is no way, or you missed something. Fact is, I didn't believe it either. I went to t-mobile to pay my bill. There was an in store special on the 710. $20, that's it. So I took it. That little low end phone outpaced the bionic in almost everything. When my bionic went on vacation decided to take off, I did not hesitate. I have not looked back. I'm successfully weaned from android, with no regrets..even my girlfriend made the trip back. She's even more integrated with windows live, office, SkyDrive, OneNote, the entire cloud scenario. She uses the concept at work. They think shes a genius.
So yeah, good concepts, good phone. Perfect, no. Like you mentioned. But a good show none the less.
I just made the switch from the HTC Desire. Honestly, the Focus S is a great phone. It's beautiful, stupidly thin like a cat walk model, great camera, etc.
WP7 is a beautiful OS, oh I've wanted to have it on my phone for so long now, but it's got a gammy leg. My main gripes are:
-Multitasking is a pain - it's so slow to resume applications I'm not sure what the difference is in relaunching an app. That said, without proper multitasking apps that should receive push notifications sort of... DON'T! This whole, let it run under the lock-screen is lame. In Android I thought it was ridiculous that EVERYTHING just ran in the background and now I'm complaining about the inverse. Is there no happy medium?
-Facebook Chat integration is another hobbled feature. I can't send pictures which you can in the Android app. I receive pictures as a LINK to the desktop FB site which is ridiculous because if you zoom you are bounced back to the left margin for some reason. Even the official FB app is useless when it comes to FB chat/IM! I used this with my wife constantly. The alternative is WhatsApp but then the whole seemless continuity from mobile to desktop is shattered!
-Integration with Gmail is a bit ropey, but seems quite adequate I suppose. I guess here too push notifications aren't possible it has to be 30 min intervals.
-I do admit to wishing that the keyboad had the key long press functionality for special characters like in Android. Flipping to the numeric keyboard is labourious
-Notifications are also a little inconsistent. The whole toast thing. Without a doubt the Android (and now iOS) pull down notifications bar is fantastic. This also goes for quick access to stuff like switching wifi, airplane mode on or off, etc
I'm sure I could go on... The positives are amazing. Damn it's smooth, beautiful and functional, but the above issues and others make it kind of a deal breaker for me. Android has sucked for a while, but it has matured and WP7 needs to do the same pretty quickly. I know the above issues might not be a deal breaker for a lot of people, but for me they are
Hmph! I'm a little annoyed now...
Coming from an ATT Cappy, I'm stoked.
Been on the Focus S for a few weeks now and I love it. IMO, it just works. What I need and want a phone to do, it does very well. EYE CANDY! There are a few things I miss coming from Android however.
1. The ability to toggle WiFi always on. This really sucks when sitting on my couch and using my phone to control my htpc (xbmc). It takes about 10 seconds for the wifi to re-connect after the screen is turned on. By no means a deal breaker and I'm sure will be addressed in future updates.
2. Individual audio volume controls. I miss the ability to have my alarm, system, media and other notification volumes at different pre-configured levels.
3. Apps are more expensive and the free ones are still a bit lacking.
4. Home screen customizing. I really would find it useful to have 3 home screens rather than 2 (tiles and apps). There's just too much **** i want quick access too I guess
5. Zero expandable memory. This one totally blows and was almost a deal breaker for me. ~16GB's is enough storage space, but just barely. There is no way I can have all my music, audio books and some movies on here. Currently I just have music :/
That's my 5. Everything else I think is comparable or better than Android currently. This phone is sleek and super fast. We just need some updates and app development to get this thing tip top.
Switched from Captivate to Focus S via the Smoked challenge.
- As far as operation goes, the Focus does indeed smoke the Captivate. Severely. I was always fighting the Captivate, but with the Focus S, the phone actually works as it was intended to. Metro is a bit plain, but the performance is steady and predictable. Personally, I'll take steady and predictable every time.
- The app situation on Windows isn't as solid as Android. Which only matters if the specific apps you are looking for aren't there. For example, if you can't live without Angry Birds, stay home.
- Video transfer *SUCKS*. Moving over large video files (movies) that aren't already formatted in a Zune friendly format takes *hours*. Seriously. Once they are transferred, they are beautiful, but if you are the type that likes moving different movies back and forth, stay far away from WP...at least until Apollo.
- Taken as a whole, this is an easy upgrade to recommend.
sarlo100 said:
Switched from Captivate to Focus S via the Smoked challenge.
- As far as operation goes, the Focus does indeed smoke the Captivate. Severely. I was always fighting the Captivate, but with the Focus S, the phone actually works as it was intended to. Metro is a bit plain, but the performance is steady and predictable. Personally, I'll take steady and predictable every time.
- The app situation on Windows isn't as solid as Android. Which only matters if the specific apps you are looking for aren't there. For example, if you can't live without Angry Birds, stay home.
- Video transfer *SUCKS*. Moving over large video files (movies) that aren't already formatted in a Zune friendly format takes *hours*. Seriously. Once they are transferred, they are beautiful, but if you are the type that likes moving different movies back and forth, stay far away from WP...at least until Apollo.
- Taken as a whole, this is an easy upgrade to recommend.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I actually returned my Focus S for an SGS II. There were just too many little things I missed coming from Android that I couldn't live without. Going to the SGS II seems to be the best of both worlds for me and I'm super stoked.
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
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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?
Click to expand...
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.
Click to expand...
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 don't know how much longer I can put up with Samsung. I've been with them since the note 1 and it's so bad now. Everything from poor software to faulty hardware. GPS seems like its never worked correctly, no matter what they do. Updates cripple their phones. Their camera has certainly gone backwards in quality since the note 4 camera. The phone is lagging and slow always. Even in safe mode. The battery life is 3 hours at best, which is unacceptable. They force updates now, like Microsoft. They bundle things that you can't remove like facebook and instagram, but make you separately download their media players? That's backwards. The reception is horrible compared to other phones. Wi-Fi drops all the time, even next to my router. It has to warn me every single time I plug in headphones that it could damage my hearing. It has to notify me every single time I open the camera that location is either on or off. Charging is slow. Games shudder and lag no matter what I do. I can remove huge, useless apps like facebook. I can't root because of the locked bootloaders. I can't ever quickly see my new facebook messages because it has to now group multiple notifications and there is no way to turn off the "open chat heads" nonsense. The only thing mine doesn't do is over heat it seems like. That green battery ic9on update with the ultimate new UI completely compromised my Note. T-Mobile won't take it back without paying $50 either.
Samsung seems to have turned their backs on what their actual fans want in favor of being an iClone. Why does every single app and menu have a search bar now? Annoying. The drop down menu and notifications have severely dropped in quality since ICS. Does anyone else feel this way at all? It took me a long time to swallow my pride and get the note 2 way back when. Now I regret that I did. I can't find a way around these issues and no one will help.
Sent from my SM-N930T using Tapatalk
Well.. here goes another post, right?
Just needed to say my 2cents about this phone which i was waiting for impatiently.
To be clear, I've owned the Mate 9, Mate 10 & P20pro loved them all when they came out. But this is a different story. I'm also on .122, no gluegate issues, no face unlock issues, or other (guess i'm lucky).
- Bluetooth issues when connecting to my car (WTF!). Connection is done well for normal phone connections, but to play media, i had to put in airplane mode and reconnect 3-4 times.
- The display more like the font DPI and Notifications... what the hell Huawei? It's ugly. When you try to change the DPI those notifications are atrocious.
- Notification bugs on lockscreen : It's hard to sweep them out, to delete them or even to read them.
- Status bar : Huawei could of implemented, like on the Pixel 3XL , that if you want to hide the notch, have another line appear where you could see all the notifications. Not ideal... but an "option". Or choose the icons you want to appear, and not needing to go ADB style in your phone.
- Browsing the net on Chrome : Again a DPI issue, which doesn't fully, logically and normally set the page correctly.
- Camera : Sorry to say, but it's not a wow for my daily usage. I'll give it a couple more testing days, but in general i'm not impressed by the focus speed of moving objects (kids & dogs). Still images yes, for sure. But when you live a life as a family guy you need to be quick to snap that right moment when your kid or dog is doing something crazy. And it just doesn't make it happen.
- Camera lenses : I miss the BW lens honestly speaking. Changing it to a wide angle might please some people, but the BW pictures i used to take with the phone on the go are gone. Those pictures used to be great (+1 for P20Pro)
- Speakers : Dual ? *cough* *cough*. I feel the are muffled, not clear.
- Wifi Connection : Now that's a funny one... i have a 500/150 connection. On wifi my Note9 goes up to 487/127. My Mate 20p does 80/65. Once i go into recovery and clean the cache.. it hits 380/120. Then messes up again during the day.
- Dual SIm : Sometimes i have my second SIM card having issues. The "not registered on network" kind. I have to switch to airplane mode and back to make it work. If i don't see it right away people can't reach me..
- GPS : Works great, really.
- Battery : So yes.... it has has a great battery, not to forget that you need to go into the settings and put the apps you really don't want to get closed in manual. Otherwise, baby cams, waze, and other notifications don't come through.
I really expected another experience than this, I thought they learned and listened to their customers, but they didn't. I hope they will resolve the issues down the line. I feel sorry for the guys that have a Gluegate phone, i just think that is unacceptable for a phone with such a price tag.
I really hope Huawei are gonna do something about it, this is why i'm keeping it in the drawer waiting for a new firmware. It took the p20pro 3 4 firmwares to make it a great phone.
Back to my Note9 in a couple of days once i finished really testing this camera out.
Hey for the notch you can change this in under settings click, display, then more display settings then notch. Should fix it for you
Android auto works mostly but not for the phone option. That's my grumble right now
Grm12 said:
Hey for the notch you can change this in under settings click, display, then more display settings then notch. Should fix it for you
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, but did that. I think there is an option on the 3XL that the notch goes down a bit, and then you can see the notifications like a normal status bar. But you lose screen size by doing that... i read that somewhere, but can't find it.
Sounds almost exactly like my post. Pixel 3 comes at the end of the week. Sadly only the 64gb version in black, but you can't have everything.
David Horn said:
Sounds almost exactly like my post. Pixel 3 comes at the end of the week. Sadly only the 64gb version in black, but you can't have everything.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yea, read yours which gave me the inspiration to type mine. Funny that you mention the 3xl...I've been looking and reading reviews on it for the last hour.
3 things scare me though
1. The battery life, 2. The lack of RAM and 3. non dual SIM. On the last point, I can't understand why having an eSIM and a physical SIM they didn't put two IMEI like the iPhones...crazy. but that camera is really tempting. Been testing the M20Pro Vs my Note 9 cameras this evening... I have to admit I still prefer the m20 pro's.
SAO said:
Well.. here goes another post, right?
Just needed to say my 2cents about this phone which i was waiting for impatiently.
To be clear, I've owned the Mate 9, Mate 10 & P20pro loved them all when they came out. But this is a different story. I'm also on .122, no gluegate issues, no face unlock issues, or other (guess i'm lucky).
- Bluetooth issues when connecting to my car (WTF!). Connection is done well for normal phone connections, but to play media, i had to put in airplane mode and reconnect 3-4 times.
- The display more like the font DPI and Notifications... what the hell Huawei? It's ugly. When you try to change the DPI those notifications are atrocious.
- Notification bugs on lockscreen : It's hard to sweep them out, to delete them or even to read them.
- Status bar : Huawei could of implemented, like on the Pixel 3XL , that if you want to hide the notch, have another line appear where you could see all the notifications. Not ideal... but an "option". Or choose the icons you want to appear, and not needing to go ADB style in your phone.
- Browsing the net on Chrome : Again a DPI issue, which doesn't fully, logically and normally set the page correctly.
- Camera : Sorry to say, but it's not a wow for my daily usage. I'll give it a couple more testing days, but in general i'm not impressed by the focus speed of moving objects (kids & dogs). Still images yes, for sure. But when you live a life as a family guy you need to be quick to snap that right moment when your kid or dog is doing something crazy. And it just doesn't make it happen.
- Camera lenses : I miss the BW lens honestly speaking. Changing it to a wide angle might please some people, but the BW pictures i used to take with the phone on the go are gone. Those pictures used to be great (+1 for P20Pro)
- Speakers : Dual ? *cough* *cough*. I feel the are muffled, not clear.
- Wifi Connection : Now that's a funny one... i have a 500/150 connection. On wifi my Note9 goes up to 487/127. My Mate 20p does 80/65. Once i go into recovery and clean the cache.. it hits 380/120. Then messes up again during the day.
- Dual SIm : Sometimes i have my second SIM card having issues. The "not registered on network" kind. I have to switch to airplane mode and back to make it work. If i don't see it right away people can't reach me..
- GPS : Works great, really.
- Battery : So yes.... it has has a great battery, not to forget that you need to go into the settings and put the apps you really don't want to get closed in manual. Otherwise, baby cams, waze, and other notifications don't come through.
I really expected another experience than this, I thought they learned and listened to their customers, but they didn't. I hope they will resolve the issues down the line. I feel sorry for the guys that have a Gluegate phone, i just think that is unacceptable for a phone with such a price tag.
I really hope Huawei are gonna do something about it, this is why i'm keeping it in the drawer waiting for a new firmware. It took the p20pro 3 4 firmwares to make it a great phone.
Back to my Note9 in a couple of days once i finished really testing this camera out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I get where you are coming from on this. Unfortunately I have the glue issue, but non of the others.
The internet speed thing, well my internet connection at home is 100mb and this is enough for me.
As for the camera, the Note 9 will blur photos of almost anything especially kids and pets, and even more in low light. The note 9 camera is actually pretty terrible and I have one as well.
If you want photos of kids and pets, only the Pixel 1 / 2 /3 will do that.
I do miss the Monochrone but not for monochrome photos, I don't rate those, but for image quality. Low light, especially night mode, is much worse on the mate, almost unusable actually.
I can come across online as nasty or confrontational but I do truly hope you find an experience you deserve from a phone, I know the struggle of trying to find the right phone, I have been buying almost every single flagship barring iphones for years and still not there.
The mate 20 pro with the versatility of the wide lens was almost it, but if my replacement comes and has issues, I will stick with my Note 9 and buy a pixel 1 for photos as the pixel 3 camera is not really improved on it. It takes shots of moving subjects perfectly and low light shots are taken very well as well.
Jonathan-H said:
I get where you are coming from on this. Unfortunately I have the glue issue, but non of the others.
The internet speed thing, well my internet connection at home is 100mb and this is enough for me.
As for the camera, the Note 9 will blur photos of almost anything especially kids and pets, and even more in low light. The note 9 camera is actually pretty terrible and I have one as well.
If you want photos of kids and pets, only the Pixel 1 / 2 /3 will do that.
I do miss the Monochrone but not for monochrome photos, I don't rate those, but for image quality. Low light, especially night mode, is much worse on the mate, almost unusable actually.
I can come across online as nasty or confrontational but I do truly hope you find an experience you deserve from a phone, I know the struggle of trying to find the right phone, I have been buying almost every single flagship barring iphones for years and still not there.
The mate 20 pro with the versatility of the wide lens was almost it, but if my replacement comes and has issues, I will stick with my Note 9 and buy a pixel 1 for photos as the pixel 3 camera is not really improved on it. It takes shots of moving subjects perfectly and low light shots are taken very well as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I took my p20p out yesterday, and tested the 3. I have to admit that the p20p takes better pictures out of the bunch. Never tested a pixel before due to the lack of dual sim. Butbim really curious to test it out this time. Just worried about the battery, ram and well....missing the dual SIM.
The note 9 takes great pictures when in full sunlight but tested inside pictures last night. And I discovered it had a lot of flairs due the lighting. Mate 20 I feel has a lot of noise in general.
But most of my requirements are GPS , BT music (car), camera (kids and all) , battery and logical easy clean UI....and of course a good screen.
I neaaaaaaarly , really neaaaaaaarly hesitated to get the iPhone XSmax dual....but my soul and geek mind started playing rehab from Amy Winehouse in my head. I haven't touched (except my wife's) an iPhone for over 5 years.
Last night I was on the verge of keeping the Mate 20, but turned the phone on this morning to a list of weird and empty notifications which cemented my decision. If the Pixel 3 and 3 XL were made by Huawei and running pure Google software, you would never need to buy anything else.
Just a few thoughts on the A40 after one weeks use. Previously had a Oneplus 3t (with broken front).
What I like:
-Super lite, only 140g.
-Small but still decent size screen (5.9inches) due to the 85% screen to body ratio.
-Cheap.
-Very nice Super Amoled display.
-UI (Samsung One UI is a HUGE stepup from Touchwiz).
-Dark mode (systemwide: settings, notifications etc).
-Fastcharge.
-Bluetooth 5 (no long range support, though).
-Sd card slot
-Fast facial recognition to unlock
What I dont like:
-No Led Notification. You can get a vibrate/sound reminder every 3/5/10/15 minutes until you discard the missed call or sms. Miss the led, though. Tried the Nice Lock app (since Good Lock doesn't seem to work). Unfortunately Edge Lighting+ is the only module that doesn't work. I get a "This app is no longer available" message when opening the module.
-Slow android updates. Not the biggest deal for me. I am just happy it has Android 9, with its app-password-autofill.
-Samsung launcher is pretty good. I prefer Nova Launcher, though. That way I can hide the samsung apps I can't disable/uninstall.
-Speed: could be a little snappier, but its surprisingly fast - even though my phone has the Exonos 7904 (not the 7885). Suggestions: turn on "Reduced animations" under advanced settings. And under developer options (has to be turned on) change the three Animation Scale options from 1x to 0.5x.
Thats all I can think of right now. Overall very happy with this phone!
I have that phone for two week.s I point the same aspects that you mentioned.
Overal to 0-10, i give it an 8.
+ I was surprised by Samsung UI. Touchwiz was a complete crap.
+ Screen is amazing
- Short range of bluetooth.
- I use it without a case and sometimes it reacts on the edges.
- I don't know how, sometimes it unlocks in my pocket and starts typing something. It's annoying.
But overall experience is more positive than negative.
hello,
is always on display working?
daktary said:
hello,
is always on display working?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I´m afraid that this device don´t hace always on display, actually I don´t miss it
Anyone having problem with notifications not being delivered after couple of minutes device left locked? (apps added to memory exceptions, battery optimizations/adaptive turned off, high priority notif set in apps etc, concerns all applications regardless the settings) (I have put more details in separate thread in Troubleshooting forum for A-Series)
narcolo said:
+ I was surprised by Samsung UI. Touchwiz was a complete crap.
+ Screen is amazing
- Short range of bluetooth.
- I use it without a case and sometimes it reacts on the edges.
- I don't know how, sometimes it unlocks in my pocket and starts typing something. It's annoying.
But overall experience is more positive than negative.
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hi
for the auto unlock problem, I disabled double tape to wake function and it fixed the problem on my side.
Have you try some app to have always on display or use the display to have a "led notification"?
Hi everyone !!!
A40 is a very cool phone. All is fine, BUT, after the October 1 update, fingerprint unlock takes longer than before and also getting to home screen from e.g. open browser by pressing middle bottom button takes also MUCH longer than before.
Before the patch all was instant.
Do you maybe know how to fix this? I also noticed that battery drain is lower than before by 10%, on the positive side.
I am very happy that A40 got its own forum thread now
Going from my trusty pixel xl2 to this phone was a little bit of a shock the xl2 is certainly snappier but the samsung really surprised me.
I refused Samsung due to my s7 screen replacement fiasco I had
(They replaced it, I paid, it stopped working but with Knox tripped before the original replacement they wouldn't fix the non working replacement)
Apart from the bloat wear most of which I've disabled or uninstalled and the slow updates it's not a bad phone.
I miss aod and lack of support for one officially but using an app that does the job, it's far from perfect but I paid £80 for a genuinely good phone.
Can't wait for a little more uptake of the phone and some ROM makers to show us the potential of this little gem of a phone.
What about the camera?
I find the night photos quality, the worst i had for years!
Hardware:
is very good and the only "small" phone currently available with OLED display, 2 SIM cards + microSD card, FM radio, headphone jack and weight less than 150g. With other adjustments i reduced screen size to something around 5.1 inch only as i use phone with "old" fashioned and comfortable one hand control. Camera i dont care much as i dont use it often. Reception of mobile signal is not very good in areas with weak coverage. It is the only phone in term of hardware which can replace my J3 2016 (latest apps are no longer supported due to CPU). It is pity nobody else makes such "small" phone.
Software:
is simply CRAP. I have opposite experience compared to others. All previous UIs (Touchwiz, Experience) from SAMSUNG were way better (nice looking and practical) than ONE UI. I tried a couple of times to get used to it and spent long time tunning it but i always ended up saying no i dont like it, it did not help much. One UI is ugly and not practical UI. Everything is too big and wasting with space everywhere. Long time ago at the beginning of my "design" at my previous job i did this "Bubble rounded" style like ONE UI but after short time i went to way advanced style. It is like kids/begginer low cost design style. Icons are ugly, which could be changed, but bubble style with big blank spaces everywhere no. Samsung apps looks terrible and these are not intuitive.
One UI is slow and lags (almost factory state with very few apps as i still test it and try to get used to). I have Huawei P10 lite (2017) as well and that is way faster compared to A40 and i find EMUI 8 far superior compared to ONE UI, very intuitive, great features and adjustments available within available menus not like ONE UI where you need to download Nice lock and modules, normal "small" size of everything, no needed to scroll all the time where it is not really needed. Huawei Apps looks way way better and moreover with way better controls and menus.
If anybody can port workable and fast EMUI 8 ROM or EMUI 9 ROM to A40 it would be the great phone, i would even pay for that Please port EMUI 8 ROM to A40.
Such a gr8 phone
This phone is too cool but samsung can work better on cpu
maltheman said:
Just a few thoughts on the A40 after one weeks use. Previously had a Oneplus 3t (with broken front).
What I like:
-Super lite, only 140g.
-Small but still decent size screen (5.9inches) due to the 85% screen to body ratio.
-Cheap.
-Very nice Super Amoled display.
-UI (Samsung One UI is a HUGE stepup from Touchwiz).
-Dark mode (systemwide: settings, notifications etc).
-Fastcharge.
-Bluetooth 5 (no long range support, though).
-Sd card slot
-Fast facial recognition to unlock
What I dont like:
-No Led Notification. You can get a vibrate/sound reminder every 3/5/10/15 minutes until you discard the missed call or sms. Miss the led, though. Tried the Nice Lock app (since Good Lock doesn't seem to work). Unfortunately Edge Lighting+ is the only module that doesn't work. I get a "This app is no longer available" message when opening the module.
-Slow android updates. Not the biggest deal for me. I am just happy it has Android 9, with its app-password-autofill.
-Samsung launcher is pretty good. I prefer Nova Launcher, though. That way I can hide the samsung apps I can't disable/uninstall.
-Speed: could be a little snappier, but its surprisingly fast - even though my phone has the Exonos 7904 (not the 7885). Suggestions: turn on "Reduced animations" under advanced settings. And under developer options (has to be turned on) change the three Animation Scale options from 1x to 0.5x.
Thats all I can think of right now. Overall very happy with this phone!
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What does animation scale do? Is that the one under 5? Love mine was this or iPhone 7... Do you like full screen or hide notch.
The phone is bad and barely useable. Everything is slow and laggy and I can't believe how poorly this thing performs with how good the hardware is. Good looking screen and a solid build quality that feels good in hand.
Samsung's software is a joke and ruined an otherwise perfectly solid looking phone.
Hi, do you know what max. sound output the A40 phone can provide? I looked all over for the info, but no cigar.
I am planning to buy/use 200 EUR (SONY EX800ST) In Ear Monitors (IEM) which can input max. 500mW.
They are 16 Ohm. Sound pressure sensitivity: 108dB / mW.
The thing with these IEMs is that for HUGE bass they need much power.
THX