[Android] thread. Droid up in here, yo.

Discussion in 'Technologics' started by Rasputin, Jan 12, 2011.

  1. aaron Elitist Negative Nancy

    Location:
    Washington DC
    I also got mine today. Set up with a new Tmobile SIM no problem, and I'm getting a full-strength signal from the wireless router here in my office.

    I did have to restart the phone after I put in the SIM before it would pick it up, but I'm sure you've tried that. Hope you get it sorted out.
    FrankA likes this.
  2. Creole Ned Being Nice For A Week

    This was a big factor for me. I don't store my music in 'the cloud' (I yell at it, like any proper old man would) and the 16GB Nexus 4 simply doesn't have enough onboard storage. I bought a 16 GB SD card the same day I got my S3 and popped my entire music collection onto it. Works great.

    I wonder if Google will come out with a 32 GB Nexus 4 at some point, much the way they doubled the storage on the Nexus 7.
    An alternative launcher is also a reasonable suggestion and Wader provided some insanely detailed steps on just how far you can go in customizing your flavor of Android.

    Mainly, though, I just like having all of these options available. And SwiftKey.
  3. FrankA Elitist Negative Nancy

    Yeah, did try that. It is constantly dropping the wireless connection too, especially if I dare to move out of the room.

    I'll get a new SIM when I'm not at work and try that. My Galaxy Nexus (which I'm replacing due to a second failed charging board, broken screen, broken volume rockers & a broken vibrate motor) sitting right next to the N4 has a full strength signal from the same router while the N4 manages a bar tops.
  4. FrankA Elitist Negative Nancy

  5. aaron Elitist Negative Nancy

    Location:
    Washington DC
    stupid question that I hope you won't take as an insult: you're sure you're connected to that router, right?
    FrankA likes this.
  6. FrankA Elitist Negative Nancy

    Hahahah, yeah. No worries.
  7. FrankA Elitist Negative Nancy

    Here's another fun one to puzzle out.

    [IMG]
  8. Adam B Keeper of the Elemental Materials

    Location:
    Minneapolis
    Phone is here!! 2-3 weeks my ass.

    Of course, I have no SIM for it because my contract is up on 2/20 and my current phone uses a fattySIM instead of a microSIM. Grumble, grumble.
    FrankA likes this.
  9. FrankA Elitist Negative Nancy

    You can cut a SIM down to a microSIM, but that's a one way transaction and it doesn't always work.
  10. aaron Elitist Negative Nancy

    Location:
    Washington DC
    Well shit, I just noticed my own Nexus 4 delivery is not without problems. I ordered a 16GB model and they sent me the 8. Dang. The nice lady on the phone assured me they'll cross-ship, so we'll see. At least I get to play with it until I get that shipping label.
  11. Adam B Keeper of the Elemental Materials

    Location:
    Minneapolis
    So a dude on Twitter told me. I apparently made my Dex check, because I'm up and running and connecting to Wi-Fi and AT&T and everything. Woo, new phone!
    extarbags and FrankA like this.
  12. DocLazy Beer

    I'm not seeing a difference either. I've got a note 10.1 and being able to turn on/off stuff quickly is very handy.

    The tablet version supports multi windows, so you can have multiple apps on screen at once. This feature alone is worth getting a Touchwiz device over what ever minor visual differences stock android has.
    extarbags likes this.
  13. extarbags Already Beat BF's New Expansion

    Oh I get it, you're trolling. You had me going on the "TouchWiz is unbearably ugly" thing, but you should have known we'd catch on when you started saying nice things about Sense of all things, which the whole world knows is and always has been an abomination.
    qmanol likes this.
  14. mkozlows Worked The System

    Sense is super-annoying these days, and I hate it. But it's way less ugly than TouchWiz. Its aesthetic is not Android's, which leads to annoying mismatches between Sense-styled apps and Android-styled apps, but I don't have to claw my eyes out to look at any other screen.

    (Incidentally, I was talking elsewhere with my friends about this; sentiment was running about 2:1 in favor of TouchWiz being just fine, although the people who hated it, REALLY hated it. The correspondence between hating TouchWiz and having noticed the highway sign font transition some years back was very high.)
    Fishbreath likes this.
  15. FrankA Elitist Negative Nancy

    So my N4 is now working fine courtesy of a $20 MicroSIM from a T-Mobile store. Dicks.

    Reception on my home wireless is totally normal, as well. I am wondering if our use of extenders at work is screwing with it somehow.
    Lizard_King likes this.
  16. Cubit I Pretty Much Live Here

    Location:
    Lafayette, IN
    Got my N4 yesterday, and was immediately impressed with the build quality. It makes my old Skyrocket feel like a cheap toy. I'm still getting used to the lack of LTE and different radio behavior, but overall I couldn't be much happier. It is refreshing to not have to flash buggy CM 10 builds to get a stock Android experience. Today will be the first full day of use so I'm curious how the battery life will shake out. I know some reviewers weren't impressed.
  17. Adam B Keeper of the Elemental Materials

    Location:
    Minneapolis
    I'm surprised at how much lighter the N4 is than the HTC Inspire I had until yesterday.

    Battery wasn't great yesterday, but that's pretty normal for a first day with a phone. We'll see how it goes from here.
  18. Cubit I Pretty Much Live Here

    Location:
    Lafayette, IN
    Battery life is dependent on so many factors, but I'm seeing fairly good performance on the second day with the N4. Normal use for me at work is leaving the phone on my desk (wi-fi off) and checking every few minutes for messages/e-mails/tweets. After 6 hours on battery I'm at 61% left. That should get me through the work day and most of the evening.
  19. Tactu Hivemind Coordinator

    Has anyone have personal feedback for the facebook integration apps? Apparently Google and Facebook are having a tiff about user data. Consequently, contact information from facebook isn't imported by the default Person's app. There are a few paid and free apps on the play store that fill in this need, but was wondering if anyone has tried one yet.
  20. Adam B Keeper of the Elemental Materials

    Location:
    Minneapolis
    I live in a gloriously Facebook-free zone, sorry Tactu. Although I imagine a tiff between Google and Facebook about user data involves whether you should give it away to all of your business partners and any government official who expresses a passing interest or charge them a nominal fee before handing it over in a nice collated binder.

    Anyway, I went a-widget hunting with the N4, and I have to say that I'm extremely happy with Simple Calendar Widget and Eye in the Sky. A decent wallpaper and a little better organization for my apps, and I'm pretty much in business.
  21. Adam B Keeper of the Elemental Materials

    Location:
    Minneapolis
    9:30pm and I'm at 44% after a workday of light/moderate use on my N4. I'm at the least not pissed at the battery situation.
    Cubit likes this.
  22. Cubit I Pretty Much Live Here

    Location:
    Lafayette, IN
    I'm at 20% after 16 hours. Half work time, half sitting at home. Not stellar battery life, but good enough.
    Adam B likes this.
  23. Adam B Keeper of the Elemental Materials

    Location:
    Minneapolis
    My thoughts exactly. Provided the battery doesn't completely tank over the next year or two, I'm relatively happy.

    e: And goddamn I could not be happier with the phone's performance and feel. What a great little piece of hardware in that regard.
  24. Tactu Hivemind Coordinator

    56% after 12 hours at work and light use. less than my old HD7, but the battery holds up much better under usage, so I'm pretty happy as well.
  25. mkozlows Worked The System

    Question for a thing that must exist: I want to change my alerts when I go to bed so that, e.g., a new Scramble move, G+ comment, or email won't make any noise, but a call, text, or voicemail will still be loud.

    I don't think I can do this with Android's own controls, so what third-party software is recommended for this?
  26. Canuck Level 90 Paladin

    Tasker will probably let you cook up a recipe for that.
  27. Tactu Hivemind Coordinator

    I ended up buying haxsync. There is a free app that does the same thing but it has a built in add app that installs with it that accesses your Facebook info for advertising. Since the haxsync app is only a dollar, I felt it was with it. It works fairly well and also sync Facebook events too, which not all of the apps do apparently.
  28. magnet Level 90 Paladin

    I tried a few recently and really liked CallApp. It can also access twitter and linkedin. And if all of those come up empty, it does some sort of web scrape. So for instance if you call a restaurant or it calls you, it might display a photo from a review, maybe even figure out its address.
  29. magnet Level 90 Paladin

    Android has a blocking mode in its settings that might help a little with this.
  30. XPav Elitist Negative Nancy

    Location:
    Grogaboo hunting
    Point of Order: When was the last "Droid" that was any good released?
  31. mkozlows Worked The System

    Recently, the Droid DNA. It's not absolutely compelling, due to battery life problems, but a 5" 1080p screen isn't nothing, either.
  32. FrankA Elitist Negative Nancy

    I'm not entirely pumped on the battery life on my N4, but much like everyone above I'm not mad at it either. I'll echo the comments about the feel of the phone as well - the back being covered by gorilla glass is an interesting choice. I'm just trying VERY hard not to drop it. The case I bought for it was a total piece of shit.

    Anyone found a case that they like?
  33. Cubit I Pretty Much Live Here

    Location:
    Lafayette, IN
    Not wanting to cover up the beautiful rear of the phone, I bought the $20 bumper case from Google. It fits the phone like a glove but the headphone jack opening is a little small and I actually had to whittle down the plastic on the ends of a few of my ear buds to get them to fit. Not a deal breaker but something to be aware of. The bumper protects all the edges and raises the phone enough when it is laying on the back that I'm not so afraid of scratching the back glass. I'm not counting on much protection from falls though. Honestly, on this phone I feel like only a big bulky otterbox-like case would prevent any glass breaking from a fall.

    I also purchased these two slim cases:

    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00A55Q2HA/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i00
    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009Y10TZM/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i01

    They both seem to fit fine but the Diztronic is the stand out.
  34. Muffin Already Beat BF's New Expansion

    Location:
    Austin, TX
  35. Tactu Hivemind Coordinator

    I also bought the bumper. It's fits really really well, and it's not very bulky. As Cubit said, it's not the most substantial protection in the world, but also as Cubit said, with the glass back, I'm not sure you're going to get good protection unless you step up to something really bulky. I'm happy that it protects the front/back from scratches by keeping it lifted off of the surface that the phone is laying on. One thing that I really like about the bumper is that the buttons work perfectly, pretty much like not having a case at all. Other cases make pressing the buttons more difficult or mushy, so this was a pleasant surprise.
    Cubit likes this.
  36. Adam B Keeper of the Elemental Materials

    Location:
    Minneapolis
    So I'm loving the shit out of 99% of the N4. The OS is fantastic, the phone itself is fast as hell and gorgeous. My new lockscreen widget (built by an Android designer, apparently) kicks ass.

    I am, however, less than pleased at the overnight hard crash the other night. Plugged it into my old charger (a 4.1A from my old HTC), which was fine the previous night, and come morning it was totally locked and I had to do the hold-power-button-for-10-seconds restart to get it to respond to anything. Not a huge deal -- it boots in like 1/3 the time of my last phone (fuck, actually way less than the seriously 10 minutes that dumb thing took) -- except that it's also my morning alarm.

    Fortunately I woke up in time to make it into my meeting with out-of-towners that morning. That would have been bad to sleep through.
    FrankA, extarbags and aaron like this.
  37. aaron Elitist Negative Nancy

    Location:
    Washington DC
    Ooh that's pretty. Installing.
    extarbags likes this.
  38. Cubit I Pretty Much Live Here

    Location:
    Lafayette, IN
    Heh, just came here to post a link to that lockscreen widget. I've been pretty lukewarm on the implementation of lockscreen widgets so far, but that makes it actually useful.

    Also, I don't know what changed, but my battery life is suddenly excellent the last couple days. Yesterday I was still at 40% after 16 hours. Maybe these batteries do take a a little while to get broken in.
  39. Adam B Keeper of the Elemental Materials

    Location:
    Minneapolis
    GET OUT OF MY HEAD

    No really, I have the exact same experience on both counts.

    YOU WITCH
    FrankA and extarbags like this.
  40. Tactu Hivemind Coordinator

    Thanks so much for posting this! I was looking for a lockscreen widget to show my calendar and this one is perfect! Do you have a recommendation for a calendar app? The default google one is missing some functionality that I like (click on address to get directions). I've been playing with Business calendar and I've been liking it. It has been designed to conform to the Holo android spec, so it doesn't look like a Samsung app like some of the other calendar apps. I'm using the free app for now, but am thinking about pulling the trigger to get rid of ads.