Related
Sometimes you are away from a charger and want to conserve what you have left, or are trying to run a resource heavy app without glitches (satnav) or trying to get a big update/download faster.
I thought we could post tips that either help with speed of the device or with saving battery - particularly if you know of apps or settings that slow the running down or eat battery.
I know these are quite obvious but I'll list some anyway to get us started
Turn these off for extra speed and batt :
Wireless General
GPS (you can leave location by network on for most stuff like weather apps)
Wifi - turning it off while you're out and about saves lots o batt. I also keep network notification off completely unless I'm in a new location looking for a wifi fix.
Bluetooth - set for off and undiscoverable
Mobile network - Set it to 2G for a big boost in battery life (and I've found, if the 3G is rubbish - I know, obvious, but I recently spent 20 mins moaning of no signal at all to send a tx at a gig, then realised I could flick to 2G and was away!!)
Data Sync
Google - You can turn of Auto sync and just sync manually when you choose
Background Data - Turning this off gives a huge battery boost, but gmail won't arrive in real time, so if you're expecting important mail don't turn it off.
On the sync option, if you know contacts and calendar are not changing that often you can uncheck these and sync manually every now and then
Apps that use Data Sync
Weather - check how often the app refreshes and set it to a longer time - some weather apps are by default set to refresh every 30 mins and this might not be needed most of the time.
Twitter and Facebook widgets and apps - again check the refresh periods, also notifications will Use batt more than no notifications.
Same probably applies for Exchange Sync but I don't use it.
Sound/Display - these things will save batt when you need it.
I think having Ring AND vibe will be more batt intensive, so maybe knock off the vibrate when you want to save battery
Keep Brightness low and lower screen timeout.
Turn off Auto rotation and animations and Notification Flash
Turning keypad tones off etc will save a bit too. It all adds up.
Turning Off TouchFLO
When running CoPilot, it helps to turn off wifi and some have reported that if you can toggle the Sense UI to the ordinary Android 3 screen home this helps too (Tho I've personally not had problems) To turn off Sense UI or Touchflo 7Screen home, you need to first go to settings-applications-manage applications and look for TouchFLO then clear defaults. After this, when you go to home, you'll be offered a choice of home or TouchFlo. To toggle back to Touchflo, press the home button again. To return it to default, just check the Use by default for this action, and then make your choice.
Post anything you've found to help or hinder speed, or to drain or boost battery life
Ta Dayzee xx
Is there a widget to switch from 3G to 2G?
no, that is not a setting that can be done on a widget. all the ones that are around and claim to do it just jump you straight into mobile settings so you can toggle it yourself in two clicks instead of four....
But there is the Mobile Network one - HTC built in - when that is turned off, you can still get calls, and send txts. I use this toggle to do that - also can you not set a shortcut to do 3g to 2g only using bettercut? I'm sure you can, because you have that option in settings and bettercut can make a shortcut to any settings toggle.
Dayzee
Edit - Bettercut doesn't work with Hero Well, certainly not for creating and adding a shortcut to a system setting - will let the devs know...
Is it my imagination or does having the people widget on a home screen makes the device a little sluggish?
Is anyone else using touchdown? Not sure if that is slowing my device down and using battery a lot too?
Toggle Settings is a good app for controlling Daisys suggestions above, taskiller or Advanced Task Manager are essential for closing unwanted apps.
Couple of notes about apps that close stuff down like Taskiller and Task Manager - they can slow your fone down immediately after an end all, as the apps that need to run like TouchFlo have to restart - which they do, all by themselves - but it makes the fone prone to laggyness and force closing if you try to open stuff straight after.
If you get one that allows exclusions (I know advanced Task Manager does but dunno on others) then exclude TouchFLO and you'll get less proba after close all.
Also there were reports that one of the Taskiller apps messed with the long press home functions. Not sure on this tho...
Dayzee said:
If you get one that allows exclusions (I know advanced Task Manager does but dunno on others) then exclude TouchFLO and you'll get less proba after close all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
With Taskkiller you also have the option to exclude programs. It also has a widget you can tap to close all (except the ignored programs) The free version only allows two apps to be ignored. Exclude TouchFlo is a good suggestion.
Ce said:
With Taskkiller you also have the option to exclude programs. It also has a widget you can tap to close all (except the ignored programs) The free version only allows two apps to be ignored. Exclude TouchFlo is a good suggestion.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try TaskPanel, it's free and doesn't seem to have any restrictions in its exclude list. You can also add a memory threshold when TaskPanel should automatically kill applications (configured through a separate list). And finally, it registers itself as an ongoing task and starts up automatically.
TaskPanel ist great... Thanks for that Tip. Have it running in the Background and now it Kills processes that are not in my Exclude List everytime the RAM goes below 50Meg.
My Hero is now (almost) Lag-Free.
Full charge at 7am and at 5pm, battery still at 94%.
How?
Turn off background data.
jhericurls said:
Full charge at 7am and at 5pm, battery still at 94%.
How?
Turn off background data.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Background data? As in what? Mobile network?
jhericurls said:
Full charge at 7am and at 5pm, battery still at 94%.
How?
Turn off background data.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Surely that disables all the sync services etc which is really what the phone is all about!
Also the Market won't work unless background data is enabled... It will save battery but a said, many services won't work unless you update manually.
I switched this off when in France so I didn't eat up my roaming data bundle.
The Jones said:
Is it my imagination or does having the people widget on a home screen makes the device a little sluggish?
Is anyone else using touchdown? Not sure if that is slowing my device down and using battery a lot too?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ive also noticed this also with the people widget after i removed it as well as the Clock # 8 it severely reduced the lagginess of my Hero
Hi Dayzee & co.,
If you're looking for a good way to save battery power without having to turn wifi on and off manually, check out "Y5 battery saver"
Y5 - Battery Saver is an AndroidTM application which saves your battery by turning the Wifi off in locations where you have never been connected before. The application turns Wifi back on when you are back to known location. It will remember the locations automatically. All you have to do is turn the Wifi on and connect to the known Wifi network for the first time
Really cool, and works like a charm. Ok, you need to have your GPS turned on, but at least that one is useful everywhere you are (except inside buildings, fair enough)... whereas wifi isn't. Furthermore, wifi uses up more battery than GPS.
Concerning Advanced Task Killer (awesome!), you might want to check out this thread if you're sick of having to restart your phone each time you have to sync. In a few words: always put HTC sync in the Ignore list of the program. Unchecking it won't do.
Cheers!
Stop using Peep (set it all to manual update), remove the widget and start using Twidroid.
As well as a huge reduction in battery draw, you'll find your Hero is far more responsive than is ever was before.
The last few days my Hero has not been sluggish and the battery life has increased dramatically. Set to 30 mins update just like Peep was.
Here's my tip, that works really well, for me. I've tried a myriad of task managers, but finally settled for TaskPanel. It doesn't really matter what you use, I suppose, but I found it to be one of the clearest. Furthermore, advanced task killer's and taskillers "kill all" commands seemed to randomly kill the TouchFlo process as well, even though it was "ignored"...
I've come to the conclusion that cpu load rarely is a problem on this phone (in terms of finding a reason to possible lag), unless you are watching videos (which you probably won't, since it appears to be impossible to encode videos so they don't at least slow down a bit every five seconds) or listening to music.
Instead it's the amount of memory you have free for apps to use. I have no idea why, since I also live by the credo "memory free is memory wasted", so ideally my phone would have 5 megs of ram free and everything would work great. Now for some reason, my Hero desktop starts to lag substantially (as well as other gui-elements, such as long scrolling lists) whenever my memory goes below 40 megs.
I always hated the "favourite people" widget by Htc, so I closed it day one. Maybe that's why my htc experience has been pretty positive. I also closed the desktop widgets for SMS-messages and Mail, since they can't show MMS:es or HTML-mail and since they are both ridiculously slow at flicking from one message to the next. I also threw away the novelty clocks by Htc, since they animate too often and that slows down the interface while they are moving. Instead I opted for the iPhone-like clock "digital clock widget". Just don't force kill it, since it will stop updating and you will be stuck with a beautiful clock that shows the right time once every day.
So basically, my formula for a fluid hero experience is:
* Check your free memory with TaskPanel every now and then. If it goes below 50, prepare for slowdown. If it goes below 40, go on a killingspree.
* Register TaskPanel as an "ongoing service", so it shows up in your notification drawer. Now, if you can see your notification drawer (which you can't in the browser), then instead of clicking home to close stuff, open TaskPanel (or whatever) and kill the app you are about to stop using.
* With multitasking comes responsibility. Odds are, if you ever owned an iPhone, this is something you were *****in and moanin about. "Gimme multitasking, gimme!". Well now you've got it and so, learn to use it. Everything that is slow, badly programmed or a resource hog has gotta go, unless you really really need it. Beautiful clock animating slowly? Too bad! Ditch it.
Somebody said Android wold be very good at managing resources by itself and that sounds reasonable. However, I read numerous comments about people finding this to not be the case. Maybe in version 2.0. But for now I'm stuck killing of processes myself. It works for me and makes my UI snappy. And I can keep 3-5 apps running at the same time (that are my own choices, not mandatory apps that come with the UI) without problem. I regularly have babbler, androidirc, taskpanel, market, ebuddy, redditisfun running at the same time without problem. Just kill off apps you are not going to use for a long time.
Ok, sorry to be rambling, but this is my take on the situation. It might get resolved with the Hero update or with the 2.0 version of Android. Don't know, but until then, we need some tools and wild speculation won't solve anything. If you made it through the whole message, I would appreciate your comments - especially any positive experiences you have from "letting Android do its own cleaning". It sounds a little fishy that it would be bad a first, but after about a week, things will get really snappy? What if I boot my phone? Will I have to wait a week again for things to become fast?
-JJ
Speed and battery boosting Tips
Dayzee said:
Sometimes you are away from a charger and want to conserve what you have left, or are trying to run a resource heavy app without glitches (satnav) or trying to get a big update/download faster.
I thought we could post tips that either help with speed of the device or with saving battery - particularly if you know of apps or settings that slow the running down or eat battery.
I know these are quite obvious but I'll list some anyway to get us started
Turn these off for extra speed and batt :
Wireless General
GPS (you can leave location by network on for most stuff like weather apps)
Wifi - turning it off while you're out and about saves lots o batt. I also keep network notification off completely unless I'm in a new location looking for a wifi fix.
Bluetooth - set for off and undiscoverable
Mobile network - Set it to 2G for a big boost in battery life (and I've found, if the 3G is rubbish - I know, obvious, but I recently spent 20 mins moaning of no signal at all to send a tx at a gig, then realised I could flick to 2G and was away!!)
Data Sync
Google - You can turn of Auto sync and just sync manually when you choose
Background Data - Turning this off gives a huge battery boost, but gmail won't arrive in real time, so if you're expecting important mail don't turn it off.
On the sync option, if you know contacts and calendar are not changing that often you can uncheck these and sync manually every now and then
Apps that use Data Sync
Weather - check how often the app refreshes and set it to a longer time - some weather apps are by default set to refresh every 30 mins and this might not be needed most of the time.
Twitter and Facebook widgets and apps - again check the refresh periods, also notifications will Use batt more than no notifications.
Same probably applies for Exchange Sync but I don't use it.
Sound/Display - these things will save batt when you need it.
I think having Ring AND vibe will be more batt intensive, so maybe knock off the vibrate when you want to save battery
Keep Brightness low and lower screen timeout.
Turn off Auto rotation and animations and Notification Flash
Turning keypad tones off etc will save a bit too. It all adds up.
Turning Off TouchFLO
When running CoPilot, it helps to turn off wifi and some have reported that if you can toggle the Sense UI to the ordinary Android 3 screen home this helps too (Tho I've personally not had problems) To turn off Sense UI or Touchflo 7Screen home, you need to first go to settings-applications-manage applications and look for TouchFLO then clear defaults. After this, when you go to home, you'll be offered a choice of home or TouchFlo. To toggle back to Touchflo, press the home button again. To return it to default, just check the Use by default for this action, and then make your choice.
Post anything you've found to help or hinder speed, or to drain or boost battery life
Ta Dayzee xx
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
turning off allmost every things,then what reson to have a smart phone and spend 600$ for the device better, turn off your hero and keep in the pocket and turn it back on to use...keep in pocket with power off till next use.this is not the sulution .turning off everythings ........rether go with motorola razer v3.
I still don't see the point of using task managers and killing tasks. I just let the OS manage everything for me.
My Hero run very well indeed since I worked out that Peep was a real battery and resource hog.
I've just been for a 4 mile walk and used My Tracks to track the walk, Twidroid, Browser hot linked from tweets in Twidroid, answered a phone call and responded to a number of texts.
Looked at My Tracks a number of times to see what it was doing and to look at the satellite map. I like to point out things on the phone screen to the kids that they can see in real life - geeky but they think its cool.
Kept checking on how fast we were walking etc...
So screen was active quite a bit.
All over the space of 1hr 15mins with the GPS running all the time.
Hero never lagged once, battery used was around 10% (at a guess, maybe 12%).
Overall very impressed.
This intends to be a one stop shop for everything E4GL, including but not limited to the latest tips and tricks from the forums, battery tips, the best Android apps, ROM Reviews, and more. Big thanks to my bud Biofall who much of the batter tips are sourced from.
If you've got anything that you think should be added, PM me with the subject "E4GL Thread Add" and I'll look at it as soon as I can.
◄●Best Android Apps●►
These are some of my favorite Android apps. More to come. Make a suggestion and I'll review it!
◄●Tips and Tricks●►
[HOW TO]Sanding Top Cover to Matte Black - DIY Instructions - Not to fond of the glossy cover on the back of your EVO? Make it matte!
Screenshots - To take a screenshot, Press Power Button [HOLD] + Press Home Button, then let go of both. Upon pressing the home button, the screen will flash white.
◄●FAQs●►
What is S-OFF?
Read this: S-OFF explained - by a Developer
◄●Troubleshooting●►
My device won't turn on - Check out these tips from Sprint.
◄●EVO 4G LTE Extras●►
EVO 4G LTE Reviews - by Legendary20
◄●EVO 4G LTE Battery Tips●►
◄●All Users●►
Turn off all radios when not in use (gps, Bluetooth, wifi, data, 4g). Use a widget (default or app like Switchpro) to quickly turn them on and off. The radios draw power even if not in use. Be sure to use WiFi over 3G when you can.
Stop using live wallpapers - I love them, but they are really only good for showing off due to their battery drain.
Set your screen timeout to something that fits you - This will prevent your phone from staying on when you don’t manually turn off the screen (which you should).
Everyone has that issue where the first ten percent go the fastest.
This is due to two things. One is that these types of batteries stop charging once they get to 100% to prevent damage, and begin charging again at 90%. This means that you could potentially unplug your seemingly fully charged phone at 90% actual charge. The second is below
Use the trick described in this thread, it works.
My idea behind how often you should do it is once a month, if you flash a new ROM, or if you stop noticing the benefits.
This is the calibration technique recommended by HTC themselves. Check it out!
Make sure your phone sleeps - I'm sure you have all heard around that your phone isn't "sleeping".
This is referring to the phone's "awake" time, hence the name. When you go to menu>settings>about phone>battery, you can compare the two numbers, "up time" vs. "awake time." Generally, up time refers to the amount of time since the last reboot. The "awake time" is how long the screen has been active. The problem is, a lot of the time, due to the endless possibilities of inconsistencies between apps/ROMs/kernels/phones, the phone will not go to "sleep", drawing power proportionate to the screen being in use when it reality the phone is sitting idle.
If you compare these numbers, and they are the same, or if you note the difference, turn off the screen for a minute, then re-check and they are the same, then your phone is not sleeping.
One solution is to reboot.
Usually, SystemPanel will show an app that has gone "rouge" and is keeping your phone awake.
Uninstall applications/reinstalling them slowly, checking after every install to see what is causing it is one tedious but surefire solution.
Lastly, follow these steps that I have discovered almost always work.
Reboot phone.
Instantly upon reboot, as soon as you gain control, open up some type of monitor/taskkiller
"kill all" tasks on startup; about 5 times in quick succession should do the trick.
Turn off the screen and leave it for about five minutes.
Check the up time v. awake time and see if they are the same.
If they are, repeat steps 1-5. If they are different, you are good.
Use Juice Defender - Basically it controls your data for you to maximize life. Learn more from my review of Juice Defender.
Task killers used to be the shiz, but no longer.
Here is the ultimate, in depth, graphically assisted, explanation by the famous Fresh ROM's chef, Flipz. In short, they aren't needed (and can do more harm than good).
A good alternative is the application SystemPanel Pro. It has a free version, but I highly reccomend purchasing the paid app. It basically monitors everything going on with your phone's usage both in real time an in terms of usage history. If your battery is draining fast, it tells you what app was doing it, how much it was doing it, and allows you to stop it.
◄●Rooted Users●►
Try out custom kernels - In the Android Development section of the forums, you can see all of the different kernels being developed. These allow for all kinds of modifications like underclocking the CPU and undervolting, both of which save battery. Here is a great guide to custom kernel's by mroneeyedboh.
Use SetCPU in compliance with whatever your custom kernel allows.
This site will explain the basics of SetCPU: http://www.pokedev.com/setcpu/
-Profiles from SetCPU should usually involve these for battery life optimization:
-Screen off at the minimum clock speed for both, with the max raised on level if sluggishness is apparent
-A temperature greater than “X”
-General power related profiles that lower cpu speed at lower battery levels
◄●Notes●►
Some apps or processes begin to run at startup and keep the phone awake. These apps are not detected by things like spare parts or system panel, unless sometimes represented in the "system" process, in which case its usage will be unusually high.
This shouldn't take more than three repeats, and if it does, you need to factory reset, and slowly add apps back to see what's causing the problem.
When it comes to actually "calibrating" one's battery, there are a couple of methods floating around. The method I first learned is to charge the phone all the way, boot into recovery immediately, and "wipe battery stats". Then reboot quickly, and run your phone all the way to death without charging it, then charge it all the way without interrupting it, and you should be good to go. Do this when changing ROMs/kernels for best results.
Big thanks to Biofall for the battery tips that you see her. Thanks dude.
I'll keep this updated as often as possible. Open to all suggestions, just send me a PM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the enable/disable data always isn't really an option on ICS roms, if it is, it's def not in the same place
ticklemepinks said:
the enable/disable data always isn't really an option on ICS roms, if it is, it's def not in the same place
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Right you are. I'll update that, thanks.
I'd suggest adding v6 supercharger but that isn't as easy as somethings...
Mostly due to it changing ram settings for apps n making.it kill them in x time or at x amount
Sent from my PG86100 using xda premium
1. Battery calibration for first runtime should just be using it until the phone shuts off, then go to bootloader until it shuts off. Then do a full charge to 4.2v.
I would HIGHLY suggest putting a button combination map.
With out the removable battery you know a ton of people are gonna flip out
without knowing them
Speaking of button combinations, there's an interesting tidbit here http://insidesprintnow.wordpress.com/2012/05/10/htc-evo-4g-lte-power-on-troubleshooting-steps/
Gordon Ramsay said:
Speaking of button combinations, there's an interesting tidbit here http://insidesprintnow.wordpress.com/2012/05/10/htc-evo-4g-lte-power-on-troubleshooting-steps/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I guess they allow 20 seconds for user error. Thts great though we dont have to worry about all tht. Smart move on their side
Hunt3r.j2 said:
1. Battery calibration for first runtime should just be using it until the phone shuts off, then go to bootloader until it shuts off. Then do a full charge to 4.2v.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Occasional recalibration is good just so you have accurate percentages.
coffeehandle said:
I would HIGHLY suggest putting a button combination map.
With out the removable battery you know a ton of people are gonna flip out
without knowing them
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good idea. Anybody got a list of them?
Gordon Ramsay said:
Speaking of button combinations, there's an interesting tidbit here http://insidesprintnow.wordpress.com/2012/05/10/htc-evo-4g-lte-power-on-troubleshooting-steps/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh nice. I'll include that. Thanks man.
Added in Legendary20's reviews thread.
Now that most of us have gotten our phones, be sure to post up your tips and tricks to add to the OP.
Screen shots can be taken with power+vol down
Check Me Out On The Google Play Store!!!
Sent From My Half Dead HTC Evo 3D, On The Now Network From Virgin Mobile?
It says Bluetooth 4 which if that's the case wouldn't make a difference if its on or off. Also there isn't a practical way to turn off 4g and doesn't make much of a difference. Incase you wanted to add notes to the battery part.
Sent from my EVO using xda premium
Screen photos can also be taken while holding down the power button and taping the home key. The screen will blink then you get a popup screen telling you image has been saved to your image file.
Sent from my mighty EVO 4G LTE
WUESTSIDER X!
I hear 3g and voice works simultaneously cuz of the chipset... awesome
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus
Yes, you can talk and internet browse (3G) at the sametime. I confirmed it with my EVOLTE.
Sent from my mighty EVO 4G LTE
WUESTSIDER X!
Added link to regaw_leinad's post about S-OFF
1) on the Gmail app when trying to copy text you used to be able to just click on the highlighted text to copy it to clipboard, now you have to go down to the bottom left and click on the icon to do it. This is only on the Gmail app.
2) The menu button will be sorely missed. Now the menu for each app appears, depending on the app, on a different part of the screen, as opposed to having it always on the same spot.
The "Recent Apps" button is UTTERLY USELESS! With the original Evo, you used to be able to press and hold the home button and see the most recent 8 apps without having to scroll at all!! WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?? (WERE THEY THINKING?!?!)
3) The text app, and for that matter Handcent and GoSMS DO NOT show the count for the unread messages, neither on the icon, nor on the notification bar, UNLESS you actually scroll down the notifications, then you can see how many unread messages you have.
4) Gmail app used to be awesome with the original Evo. Not only did it show the total unread messages you had but also, if you marked a message as unread (even a very old message), whether you did it from the phone or even from the computer, you would get a notification as if you just got a new message! Where's that?!?!
5) Sync seems to be having its own issues as well. On the regular email app, if I set it up to sync email every 5 minutes, it takes rather about 10-15 mins for the emails to come in. Original Evo was prompt at that...
6) on the regular email app in order to be able to go to the next or previous email, one has to first click on menu and only then do you have the "next" or "previous" option, unlike on the original Evo.
7) When already on max volume and want to make sure you still are with the volume rocker, you would hear a sound with the old Evo, now you got nothing are have to actually LOOK at the screen to make sure you got it to the max.
8 ) No option to play YouTube videos out of the YouTube app when clicking on a YouTube video on the browser.
That was a given with the original Evo. Annoying as hell on the LTE.
9) You MUST use both hands when holding the phone vertically if you want to have access to the whole screen (if you're laying down or sitting back on a sofa, for example), otherwise you will be unwillingly hitting the volume rocker or needing a chiropractor for your thumb. An issue which could be avoided with a gel cover, but could have been foreseen by HTC when producing such a smooth non-grippy back to the phone.
10) Gmail and Tasks are incompatible?! I mean, what's the point??
11) The regular email app can only be accessed a limited amount of times per 15 minutes? I already got quite a few of those error messages...
12) You used to be able to choose the input method and switch keyboards by long-pressing on any field. Now you have to exit whatever application you're on and go to settings, keyboard etc. to do it.
This isn't a cellphone war between the 4G and the LTE, obviously the LTE has lots of stuff over the original Evo. I'm not here to bash the LTE, on the contrary I would love to find solutions to all (or most) of those issues.
For the time being if I have to sum it up:
I love the speed and I LOVE the battery life but, in terms of practicality, I would stick with the original Evo.
P.S. I would rather not root my phone, and would like those problems to go away, help!
Gimme your thoughts!
txtmax4 said:
1) on the Gmail app when trying to copy text you used to be able to just click on the highlighted text to copy it to clipboard, now you have to go down to the bottom left and click on the icon to do it. This is only on the Gmail app.
2) The menu button will be sorely missed. Now the menu for each app appears, depending on the app, on a different part of the screen, as opposed to having it always on the same spot.
The "Recent Apps" button is UTTERLY USELESS! With the original Evo, you used to be able to press and hold the home button and see the most recent 8 apps without having to scroll at all!! WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?? (WERE THEY THINKING?!?!)
3) The text app, and for that matter Handcent and GoSMS DO NOT show the count for the unread messages, neither on the icon, nor on the notification bar, UNLESS you actually scroll down the notifications, then you can see how many unread messages you have.
4) Gmail app used to be awesome with the original Evo. Not only did it show the total unread messages you had but also, if you marked a message as unread (even a very old message), whether you did it from the phone or even from the computer, you would get a notification as if you just got a new message! Where's that?!?!
5) Sync seems to be having its own issues as well. On the regular email app, if I set it up to sync email every 5 minutes, it takes rather about 10-15 mins for the emails to come in. Original Evo was prompt at that...
6) on the regular email app in order to be able to go to the next or previous email, one has to first click on menu and only then do you have the "next" or "previous" option, unlike on the original Evo.
7) When already on max volume and want to make sure you still are with the volume rocker, you would hear a sound with the old Evo, now you got nothing are have to actually LOOK at the screen to make sure you got it to the max.
8 ) No option to play YouTube videos out of the YouTube app when clicking on a YouTube video on the browser.
That was a given with the original Evo. Annoying as hell on the LTE.
9) You MUST use both hands when holding the phone vertically if you want to have access to the whole screen (if you're laying down or sitting back on a sofa, for example), otherwise you will be unwillingly hitting the volume rocker or needing a chiropractor for your thumb. An issue which could be avoided with a gel cover, but could have been foreseen by HTC when producing such a smooth non-grippy back to the phone.
10) Gmail and Tasks are incompatible?! I mean, what's the point??
11) The regular email app can only be accessed a limited amount of times per 15 minutes? I already got quite a few of those error messages...
12) You used to be able to choose the input method and switch keyboards by long-pressing on any field. Now you have to exit whatever application you're on and go to settings, keyboard etc. to do it.
This isn't a cellphone war between the 4G and the LTE, obviously the LTE has lots of stuff over the original Evo. I'm not here to bash the LTE, on the contrary I would love to find solutions to all (or most) of those issues.
For the time being if I have to sum it up:
I love the speed and I LOVE the battery life but, in terms of practicality, I would stick with the original Evo.
P.S. I would rather not root my phone, and would like those problems to go away, help!
Gimme your thoughts!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Some on the stuff like not being able to open links in the YouTube app is an apple problem, choosing diferent keyboards was something the google did on ICS(annoyed as hell too), some issues is cause of ICS and some other is sense but I could live with them
Sent from my htc_jewel using Tapatalk 2
1 note about that long rant, with the keyboard a small icon appears in your taskbar that you can pull down to change input method without having to exit the app and go to settings
Sent from my EVO using XDA
[Novice Guide] 50+ Tips and Tricks - Make phone faster - Better battery life & More!!
Source by Andrew Williams :-> HERE
50 Samsung Galaxy Note 2 Tips and TricksFor novice users
Hi everybody
So you decided to join the ranks of Android and the millions of happy Note2 owners. But It can be troublesome to setup your phone at the begining. So I decided to search for you some little tricks you can use to better know and use your phone. I found this excellent article by Andrew Williams. I modified some content to better fit XDA's forum format but the info are the same. I also add a touchwiz tweaks that was not in the aticle, Here are 50 useful tips and tricks for new(even less new) Note2 users to pull out the best of your phone. Enjoy!
TouchwizMake Touchwiz go faster.
To make Touchwiz look good, Samsung created some animations to transit between screens. These animations take some times and can make your phone seems slow. The solution is to go in your phone Settings-> Developer options and turn off -> "Windows animation scale", "Transition animation scale" and "Animator duration scale". Now check how much snappier your phone is.:good:
If Developer Options is not enable go to SETTINGS->About Phone and tap BUILD NUMBER for 7 times.
***You can also turn on "Force GPU rendering" but SOME applications don't like that, so you can try it, but if you find you start having problem with some of your aplications, turn it off.
Ringtones - Alarms - NotificationsPut your Sounds in the system.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 2 allows us to use mp3 as ringtones, alarms or notifications. But if like me you have over 16G of music on your phone it might be anoying to "Go To Files" and search for them. Another way to do it is by creating a folder where Android will automatically look in and put the files in the "Ringtones". To do this just create a folder called "Media" on your sd-card. Inside the Media folders create 3 more folders "Ringtones", "Alarms" and "Notifications". It should look like this.
Media..
--------Alarms
--------Notifications
--------Ringtones
Now move/copy your mp3 files in the according folders. Now if you go on your phone settings->sounds->device ringtones you should see your mp3 files in the list.(Phone restart might be needed)
Screen and video
Get AMOLED colours in check
OLED-based screens like the Samsung Galaxy Note 2's tend to bring oversaturated colours that make skin tones look unnatural. They pop, but they pop a little too much. There's a solution, though. In the settings menu is a Display Setting submenu that lets you choose how vivid the colours are. We recommend the "natural" or "movie" settings.
Fill video codec gaps with third-party players
The Samsung Galaxy Note 2 has an excellent inbuilt media player, but there are some files it can't handle. We found that high-quality 1080p MKVs were too much for it. Snag a third-party media player like MX Player from the Google Play app store, though, and you'll be flying. These can use software encoding to fill gaps in natuve video support.
Video multi-tasking is in
One of the neatest additional features of the Samsung Galaxy S3 and Galaxy Note 2 is that you can overlay a video playback screen on top of any part of the phone. Just press a button in the nav bar of the media player and a little window will pop-up on the homescreen, playing the vid. Watch an episode of Peep Show while browsing the web? Don't mind if I do.
Free games to show off the screen
One of the best ways to show off the Sasmung Galaxy Note 2's screen is with a fancy 3D game. Top free picks to try include Dead Trigger.
Not bright enough? Turn off auto
The standard setting of the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 uses automatic brightness, which judges the intensity of screen brightness using an ambient light sensor on the front. If it's still not bright enough at the max slider point, switch off the auto mode for real searing intensity. But it will affect battery life.
The microUSB port can output video
The Samsung Galaxy Note 2's microUSB port is more special than you might guess. It has MHL capabilities when used with a special Samsung cable, letting it output HD video and surround audio. The Samsung adapter, which is essentially an MHL-to-HDMI converter costs around £25. The Samsung Galaxy Note 2 does not come bundled with one, though.
Mini home cinema? Tick the surround box
If you want to output surround sound, make sure you tick the Surround box within the Settings menu. This isn't within the Audio bit, which you might expect, but is actually in the Accessory submenu.
Battery life
Keep battery life riding high with auto management
The Samsung Galaxy Note 2 has a massive 3100mAh battery. Stamina is good at the worst of times, but there's also an auto power management mode to make the most of the phone's juice. It's called Power Saving and has its own section within the main Settings menu. It can throttle the CPU, change the background of the web browser to conserve power (it turns the white background blue), and turns off haptic feedback. These are compromises, but they do work.
Switch off features for extra battery life
The best way to conserve power in any phone is to switch off features - most importantly 3G mobile internet. You can do this manually in the Samsung Galaxy Note 2, directly from the pull-down notifications menu, and apps such as MySettings let you do the same thing.
Reduce screen timeout time
Another dead simple trick is to reduce the screen timeout time. This is in the Display submenu within settings, and lets you choose between 15 sec and 10 minutes of time the screen stays lit after a screen press. It's hardly a secret, but it is something not enough people consider.
Grab a spare battery, live forever
In a time of non-removable batteries - the HTC One X and iPhone 5 to name but two - we love that the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 has a removable battery. You can swap it out within about 15 seconds. Spare batteries are available from eBay for well under £10. We recommend shopping around for a reliable brand though as some third-party batteries are as dodgy as Del Boy's VCRs.
Turn off S Pen
The S Pen digitser sucks away at the Note 2's battery life a little, so it's a good idea to switch off the detection feature entirely if you're unlikely to use it for an extended period. You'll find it within the S Pen sub-menu in Settings.
S Pen
Quick commands let you launch… anything
An S Pen feature that's easy to miss is Quick Commands. This lets you launch any app on the phone with a quick flick of the S Pen. Just press the stylus button and swipe up the screen, and the Quick commands box will pop-up. Draw your pre-determined character or symbol and key-presto, the right app will launch.
OCR means you can forget the virtual keyboard
The Samsung Galaxy Note 2 features excellent OCR, optical character recognition, and it's built into the Samsung keyboard. Whip out the S Pen and the keyboard area will turn into a little box for you to write in, whether you're writing an email, text or searching the web. It's remarkably clever at working out your scribbles too although we haven't tested it on a doctor yet.
S Pen keeper - it's a keeper
We love the S Pen, but the thing is terribly easy to lose. Samsung has devised a way to make sure you don't leave home without it. It's called S Pen keeper. Using the accelerometer and the digitiser sensor of the Note 2, the phone can tell when you're walking away without the stylus in its little hole in the bottom of the device. Walk far enough and it bleats out an alarm tone.
Keep the kids happy with S Note
The stylus of the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 makes it an obvious choice for creative types, business types and a host of other busy folk. But it'll keep the kids entertained too. S Note has a feature called Idea Sketch, which lets you write the name of an object, only for it to appear in your sketch. It's a perfect educational tool, and a fun one too.
Air View - hover pen fun
Something that makes the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 S Pen so much more than a standard stylus is that it can be sensed without even touching the screen. Samsung makes great use of this with Air View. It's used throughout Samsung's apps, and makes info pop-up when the S Pen hovers over items. For example, you can read the first lines of emails, see previews of pictures and take a closer look at calendar events. It's fantastic.
You can scribble - on anything
The Samsung Galaxy Note 2 S Pen also let you scribble notes on anything. Just hold the button on the stylus down, press the nib down on the screen and hold it there until you see a flash around the screen edges. This is the phone taking a screenshot of what's on-screen, which you can then write notes on. This is further integrated into apps like S Planner, which have dedicated handwriting modes.
Other apps use S Pen pressure sensitivity
Now that the Note series is fairly established, a bunch of excellent apps already make use of the pressure sensitive S Pen stylus. Top picks include Sketchbook Pro and Infinite Painter. It's not just S Note that shows the S Pen off these days.
The S Pen takes screengrabs
Here's a really neat S Pen tool to show off to your "non stylus" friends. Press down the button on the Galaxy Note 2 stylus, draw a shape on the screen and whatever's on-screen within the shape will be saved as a screengrab.
For full S Pen compatibility, check out Samsung Apps
Samsung says that if you want full S Pen certified apps, you'll need to go to the Samsung Apps store. This comes built into the Note 2, and there's even an S Pen apps section. At present, you're still best off using the Play Store as well, though, as the Samsung Apps store isn't exactly rammed full of Note 2 apps yet.
Left handers need a tweak
The Samsung Galaxy Note 2 comes setup for right-handers as standard, but there's also a mode for lefties in the Settings menu. This offsets the digitiser sensor, to compensate for the way those strange left-handed types hold pens. A creepy bunch, aren't they?
Interface
One for your grandma? Easy home screen mode
Here's one feature we were a little surprised to see in a device that's such a geek's dreamphone. The Samsung Galaxy Note 2 has a mode called Easy home screen, which simplifies the layout of the phone's home screens in a way that even your technophobe grandma might be able to get along with.
Full screenshots are easy
Like the Samsung Galaxy S3, the Galaxy Note II makes it pretty easy to take screenshots of whatever's on the phone's display. Just hold down the home button and the power button at the same time, wait or a white flash and a screenshot will be taken and whisked over to the Gallery app.
A cooler/easier way to take screenshot is to swipe the palm of your hand from right to left. For this to work you need to enable "Motion" in Settings and check "Palm swipe capture".
Use one-handed operation mode for on-the-go use
The big screen is one of the main selling points of the Samsung Galaxy Note 2, but it doesn't half make it hard to use one-handed. Knowing this, Samsung as included a one-handed mode, which organises things like the keypad, virtual keyboard and the unlock pattern screen so that you can operate them with one mitt. You'll find it in the Settings menu.
Don't forget side-loading of apps
The Samsung Galaxy Note 2 is an Android device, with all the benefits that brings. You don't have to rely on the official Google Play app store for one, with APK installation files available for all sorts of other apps online. Be careful, though, as Android viruses are a real issue.
Customise your phone with non-Samsung widgets
Samsung supplied a nice handful of widgets with which you can customise your home screens, but far too few people try a new look with third-party widgets from Google Play. And there are loads out them out there. Some of our old faves include those of the Beautiful Widgets package.
Gadgets and Gimmicks
Motion control
Here's one we're not big fans of, but some of you may like it. The Samsung Galaxy Note 2 lets you control things like the photo gallery and the navigation of you home screens using the accelerometer - by tilting your phone, basically. You can turn it off, though, and it's set to "off" as standard. Phew.
Face unlock
A bit Minority Report, this one. The Samsung Galaxy Note 2 can scan your face to unlock your phone. It takes a picture of your mug, remembers the basic geometry of it and then scans your face whenever you try and unlock the phone. It works pretty well, but as a security measure is about as flimsy as the padlock on a filofax.
Smart Stay
The last user-facing camera gimmick is one that sounds kinda neat in principle. It scans for your eyes to check if you're reading, and if it spots them, Smart Stay stops the backlight from turning off. It's designed to make reading on the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 a good deal less frustrating. It's a feature you'll find in the Settings menu.
Jelly Bean easter egg
The Jelly Bean easter egg has made it in the Samsung Galaxy Note 2. Go to Settings menu > About device and tap on the Android version number entry. You'll be transported to a screen with a picture of a giant jelly bean on it. Hold your finger down on said jelly bean and the screen will fill up with dozens of the blighters, which you can flick around. Pure joy.
Arrange your music by moods
The music player of the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 features a fun little extra called Music square. This scans through your music library, arranging the tracks by mood - passionate, calm, exciting, joyful or a little in-between. Tap a block in the 5x5 square grid and you'll be greeted with a tune to match your mood.
Storage
Expandable storage - where to get it cheap
If you're out to spend as little as possible (and the Note 2 doesn't come cheap as it is), your best bet is to buy the cheapest 16GB model, and supplement any other storage needs with a microSD card. Top retailers for bargain basement-price memory cards include 7DayShop and Ebuyer. A 32GB microSD card these days will set you back less than £15 if you shop hard enough.
Flush the cache for extra memory
If you find yourself running low on memory, you can easily delete the cache and temporary files of any apps you have installed. To do this, go to the Applications Manager section within settings and tap on an app to see how much memory it's leeching. There will be buttons to wipe the cache and data for the app here.
Comes with 50GB of dropbox storage
Cloud storage is the future - you may not like it, but you may as well embrace it. Samsung Galaxy Note 2 owners get to benefit from 50GB of free cloud storage from one of the best providers out there - Dropbox. There are Dropbox apps for mobiles, tablets and computers, and it honestly works like a dream. If this won't convert you, nothing will. You only normally get 2GB of free from Dropbox, making it a pretty sweet deal.
Don't sync, drag 'n' drop
If you chose to go Android rather than opting for an iPhone, there's a good chance that the open-ness of the platform had something to do with it. Samsung is keen on trying to make its users adopt the Kies desktop software, but it's actually completely unnecessary. Plug the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 into a computer with a microUSB cable and it'll show up as a media player drive, which you can drag and drop all kinds of files onto. Transfer speeds are impressively fast too.
Contacts
Nab contacts from Facebook and Twitter
When we first got our Samsung Galaxy Note 2 in, it didn't have any of the usual social apps installed. Even if you're not a massive mobile Facebook-er, it's worth giving the app a download because it lets you harvest contacts from the network, making populating your contacts book a good deal easier.
Blocking Mode
Do you have a bug-a-boo stalking you? Is there a creep who keeps calling? The Samsung Galaxy Note 2 lets you keep them away with the blocking mode. It restricts notifications and calls from all but your approved contacts - and that can be at all times, or just during the hours you choose.
Camera and Video
Use HDR mode in mixed lighting - or all the time
The 8-megapixel sensor of the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 is pretty good on its own, but the neat camera app ups its skills significantly. One of our favourite bonus bits is the HDR mode. This effectively combines multiple exposure in a single shot to bring out extra detail in shadows. Both the HDR and normal shots are saved, meaning there's very little downside - other than that taking shots is a little bit slower.
Check out slow and fast motion modes
Nestled within the menus of the video camera app are fast and slow motion modes, capturing either more or fewer frames per second than normal. It's not quite the 120fps mode you get in some dedicated cameras, but will come in handy if you're trying to video a sports event, for example.
Don't forget video effects
The Samsung Galaxy Note 2 doesn't have the fun face-distorting video effects you get with a vanilla Jelly Bean phone, but it does have a range of funky filters. There are colour pop modes, extracting all but certain shades from your videos, and the cartoon filter is perfect for some arty rotoscope-style vids.
Give the exposure longer time than the sound effect suggests
Each time you take a photo, a shutter sound plays in the Samsung Galaxy Note 2. However, we found that occasionally the phone needs a little bit longer to attain a solid focus. Hold still for an extra half-second for good measure.
Get vid previews with Air View
Using Air View, if you hold the pen over the transport bar of a movie clip in the media player, you'll be given a preview of what's going on in the film at that point. It makes finding the right part of a film or TV ep a doddle.
Connectivity
Don't go over you allowance, with Data Usage
A staple Android feature is the Data Usage counter. This can be found within the Settings menu, and it monitors your data usage, showing it as a colourful graph. You can use it to cut off your mobile data connection once you reach a certain limit, to ensure you won't get charged by your carrier.
Wi-Fi sync with Kies
We've already endorsed drag 'n' drop file transfers over Kies sync'ing, but if you're a Kies fan, don't forget that you can also sync wirelessly. To set this feature up, scroll to the bottom of the More Settings sub-menu, where you'll find the Kies via Wi-Fi option.
S Beam
A feature introduced with the Samsung Galaxy S3, S Beam uses a mixture of NFC and Wi-Fi Direct to let you transfer files between compatible Samsung phones. You just need to tap the phones together to get them playing. S Beam needs to be switched on, though, from within the Wireless and Networks menu.
NFC lets you buy coffee
The NFC connectivity of the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 also let you buy small items such as cups of coffee, sandwiches and the like. Several big high street chains have taken the NFC plunge, including Starbucks and EAT, using apps to let you dump credit onto your phone.
Share screens with AllShare Cast
AllShare used to be just about sending a video file from, say, your phone to your Blu-ray player. But now it does a lot more. AllShare Cast lets you send your Galaxy Note 2's screen contents to another display, a bit like AirPlay Mirroring.
Forget Bluetooth, Wi-Fi Direct is better
Wi-Fi Direct is tied into the S Beam transfer feature, but you can also use it easily on its own. This is a version of Wi-Fi that doesn't need an internet connection, as it can hook-up directly with another compatible device. It some ways it's a successor to Bluetooth, letting you transfer files, and at a much greater speed than old Bluetooth could handle.
Watch your 4G
If you want to get a 4G-capable Note 2, be aware that the LTE edition is separate from the standard one. EE says it'll stock the LTE Galaxy Note 2 from October 15.
Enjoy!:good:
PS: Without comments this thread will fall in the abyss of the system(unless it becomes a sticky, which would be good). So please keep it alive with a little reply. thanks.
<--Don't forget to hit THANKS if I helped
Thank you for this!
Sent from my SCH-I605 using Tapatalk 2
Nice dude. Great write up buddy. Thanks for this. I know all of this stuff already but this is most certainly a fantastic guide for people who just got this phone. Quite invaluable. I applaud your effort. Great stuff brother. Cheers :beer:
Can a mod please sticky this?
Sent from my SCH-I605 using Tapatalk 2
Kick A$$! Thanks.
TaPpEd from my TwEaKeD N2
Good tips, thanks didn't know about the spen drawing screen capture feture, nice!
Very useful. Thank you:good:
Awsome Job Sir!! Adding link to my guides directory!!!
Thank you most of this I knew already but some of it I did not very cool. Thank you for putting it all in one place.
Thanks, I learned a few new tricks with the S Pen. Also I turned off the animations per your suggestion, will see what affect that has.
This the first I heard of the dropbox promo. I will have to look into this, do you have more details on it? Although I currently am only using 50% of my 3.5 gigs right now anyhow.
AximUser08 said:
Thanks, I learned a few new tricks with the S Pen. Also I turned off the animations per your suggestion, will see what affect that has.
This the first I heard of the dropbox promo. I will have to look into this, do you have more details on it? Although I currently am only using 50% of my 3.5 gigs right now anyhow.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The Dropbox Promo works only if you have Dropbox "Preinstalled" on your device. If you have to download Dropbox it won't work.
Op Updated
Good tips!
Thanks for your contribution!
esegype absolutely
Straight up awesome...really appreciate the time and effort this must have taken...Noobs everywhere rejoice!!!
Awsome post. The SPen tid bits are especially handy (scribble directly onto a screenie).
Luv it.
Just wanted to send a little bump to this thread. Just read over entire OP again and still found something I didn't see the first time. Or remember Lol. This is great and very useful. I hope this thread stays alive
Sent from my SCH-I605 using xda app-developers app
npainter7 said:
Just wanted to send a little bump to this thread. Just read over entire OP again and still found something I didn't see the first time. Or remember Lol. This is great and very useful. I hope this thread stays alive
Sent from my SCH-I605 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do tell
Thanks for the tips. Very useful.
Thanks for the tips! Some useful stuff in there I didn't know about.
Thanks for the info. Being a new note 2 owner and switching from IOS these hints and tips are a great help.. Makes the learning curve not so long.
Thanks Again
Good Stuff
Hi,
I'm just letting everyone know that I have just pushed an update to my automation app MacroDroid http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1694335 to add Android Wear support.
You can read about the functionality on my blog post here: http://macro-droid.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/introducing-macrodroid-wear.html
This is a first release, so I strongly welcome all feedback and comments!
Cheers,
Jamie
Very impressive app ?, seriously quality app.
I need more time to test out all the different stuff in your app but so far everything works great whit my lg watch .
This is using 60mb of memory for the macrodroid process alone. Seems very high.
This is on a Moto G. Compared to Tasker which is running at the same time and only uses 12mb.
I have deleted all macrodroid profiles so it shouldn't have had anything running, but the memory use was still high.
Cossack101 said:
This is using 60mb of memory for the macrodroid process alone. Seems very high.
This is on a Moto G. Compared to Tasker which is running at the same time and only uses 12mb.
I have deleted all macrodroid profiles so it shouldn't have had anything running, but the memory use was still high.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're right that does sound very high, I've got a bunch of macros configured and I'm at 19MB. Most likely you've hit a memory leak in the UI and the UI pages are still hanging around in memory. It can be hard to catch all cases as there are many many UI paths, but I'll certainly do some more memory profiling to see if I can spot anything naughty hanging around. If you kill the MacroDroid process and restart does the memory return to something sane for you?
Cheers,
Jamie
I killed the app and wiped the macros. Started again with only 1 simple low battery warning macro. It stayed at 15mb all day.
I just created a new location macro and it jumped to 38mb and stayed there.
I switched macrodroid off and restarted and it is now back to 17mb.
Cossack101 said:
I killed the app and wiped the macros. Started again with only 1 simple low battery warning macro. It stayed at 15mb all day.
I just created a new location macro and it jumped to 38mb and stayed there.
I switched macrodroid off and restarted and it is now back to 17mb.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great thanks for the info. I've just had to move to Google Maps V2 and changed a load of UI, so I'm guessing I've got a little bug in there where I'm not releasing something. Hopefully I can get this squashed for the next update.
Cheers,
Jamie
I am trying to automate the screen intensity.
The worst thing about my Gear Live is battery live, if I am inside love to find a way to always have the screen minimum and the best I could do is have a manual macro to change the screen intensity.
I wonder if I can design a macro that every time the watch gets a notification the screen goes to 5, when it dims it goes back to 1.
Why not set the brightness to low when connected to WiFi and high when disconnected.
It should mean you always have a dim watch when indoors
AstroDigital said:
I am trying to automate the screen intensity.
The worst thing about my Gear Live is battery live, if I am inside love to find a way to always have the screen minimum and the best I could do is have a manual macro to change the screen intensity.
I wonder if I can design a macro that every time the watch gets a notification the screen goes to 5, when it dims it goes back to 1.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You could do something like on every incoming notification (using the incoming notification trigger), you set the brightness high and have a sleep before next (e.g 30 seconds) and set the brightness low again. Not perfect but might be of some use.
What I really wanted to do was find a way so that I could configure the Always on screen setting via the action, but after digging down into the code I'm pretty certain this would only be possible on a rooted Android Wear device and I don't really want to go adding 'root only' features for Wear just yet. Hopefully Google will open up this API at some point because as you point out battery life is critical on these devices.
Cossack101 said:
Why not set the brightness to low when connected to WiFi and high when disconnected.
It should mean you always have a dim watch when indoors
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do not use WiFi on my cell phone, just LTE data at least 95% of the time.
---------- Post added at 05:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:39 PM ----------
UndeadCretin said:
You could do something like on every incoming notification (using the incoming notification trigger), you set the brightness high and have a sleep before next (e.g 30 seconds) and set the brightness low again. Not perfect but might be of some use.
What I really wanted to do was find a way so that I could configure the Always on screen setting via the action, but after digging down into the code I'm pretty certain this would only be possible on a rooted Android Wear device and I don't really want to go adding 'root only' features for Wear just yet. Hopefully Google will open up this API at some point because as you point out battery life is critical on these devices.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If I set the app to listen for notifications it looks like it will disable much more than I would like to be disabled.
Manage Accessibliity, MacroDroid
-air gesture, air view interaction control, assistant menu, multi window, direct pen input, palm motion, one-handed operation will all be turned off....
I always lost "Jess" my customer voice synthesizer
Some of these I will miss on my Note 3 but I am trying it,
Toggle on Notification
Android Wear set the brightness to 6
Sleep before next action 20 seconds
Android Wear set the brightness to 1
If it works right notifications will crank the display for 20 seconds and then dim the display (may cut it back to 10 or 5 seconds)
You know I like your app, tried the other macro app .... (can not remember its name)
Found it too complicated..... Thanks for the tip.
AstroDigital said:
I do not use WiFi on my cell phone, just LTE data at least 95% of the time.
---------- Post added at 05:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:39 PM ----------
If I set the app to listen for notifications it looks like it will disable much more than I would like to be disabled.
Manage Accessibliity, MacroDroid
-air gesture, air view interaction control, assistant menu, multi window, direct pen input, palm motion, one-handed operation will all be turned off....
I always lost "Jess" my customer voice synthesizer
Some of these I will miss on my Note 3 but I am trying it,
Toggle on Notification
Android Wear set the brightness to 6
Sleep before next action 20 seconds
Android Wear set the brightness to 1
If it works right notifications will crank the display for 20 seconds and then dim the display (may cut it back to 10 or 5 seconds)
You know I like your app, tried the other macro app .... (can not remember its name)
Found it too complicated..... Thanks for the tip.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've no idea why these should be turned off by enabling MacroDroids accessibility options, but I don't have any Samsung devices so I'm afraid I can't really look into it at the moment.
UndeadCretin said:
I've no idea why these should be turned off by enabling MacroDroids accessibility options, but I don't have any Samsung devices so I'm afraid I can't really look into it at the moment.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If the macro works may not care much about the disabled stuff.
May want to put constraint in, 5am do not need the watch display cranked.
Xiaomi Mi 9
Battery life saving tips
- Discussion -
Presenting a few tips based off personal experience that can help squeeze out those extra few minutes/hours of battery life from our device.
Please note:
This is not a science and what works for some may not work for others. There are many factors involved in having good battery life and one person’s 1 SOT (screen on time) may mean completely different usage to another’s. For example, 1 hour of internet browsing will of course be less battery-intensive than 1 hour of processor-hungry gaming. So bear this in mind…
I am running the weekly Xiaomi.EU rom (9.4.11 at the time of posting) and so some of these settings/features may not be available on other versions of MIUI.
Some of the below will require. Some users prefer not (or can’t for whichever reason) to root and so you’ll just have to skip those if so.
Lastly, this thread is intended on being a work in progress and I welcome comments/suggestions/additions on the content. These are the settings that I adhere to which I believe, as well as most users, which are useful to aid battery life. Some tips may help out significantly, some may just offer a slight increase. Some may not even help at all and may just be placebo!
If something doesn’t work for you or you greatly disagree, let’s discuss it…
Network settings + roaming
There are various settings which are known to help out with the notorious Cell Standby drain etc. such as:
Preferred network type (found either by Settings – SIM cards & mobile networks – Sim Card Settings - Preferred network type OR by dialling *#*#4636#*#* via your phone app). Users in the EU find that setting the network type to GSM/WCDMA/LTE or WCDMA/LTE (on both sims) can help stop the device look for network frequencies that it’ll never find, such as the TD-SCDMA etc. You can Google what frequencies your network provider uses which can help you decide.
VoLTE (Settings – SIM cards & mobile networks) – there may be some debate over this one, but it can be said by having VoLTE enabled, whilst calls will be clearer, it will use 4G which is that bit more power hungry. Therefore some testing may be preferred if you’re a frequent caller. I personally have this on without and haven’t tested it fully, but I’m also not a huge caller.
Make calls using WLAN (Settings – SIM cards & mobile networks) – by using WiFi for calls this should be more battery efficient than using mobile network data.
Data roaming (Settings – SIM cards & mobile networks) – I tend to keep Overseas data roaming off when I’m in my home country with the thought that it prevents the device from looking for networks it won’t find. As for National roaming, I have this kept off too normally as I don’t travel around much generally, so again to prevent it searching for alternative networks when it already has a strong signal.
System settings
Here we have several system settings/features that may be used on a day-to-day basis but may not be needed to be enabled at all times. Generally speaking, having something turned on all the time yields benefits for convenience but at the cost of battery life, as seen below.
Wifi / Bluetooth – both of these can be regarded as similar, in the sense that by having it enabled all the time it can connect automatically without your input. For example, if I leave my WiFi on when I leave my home it’ll automatically reconnect when I come back. Great! However, throughout the entire day if it doesn’t find a known network it will constantly be looking for one, draining battery. Not so great. Therefore if the convenience of not having to turn your WiFi on/off is your preference, then leave it enabled. Though if you know you’re not going to be connected to a network, then some manual control may be preferred. The same rules apply for Bluetooth devices.
WiFi & Bluetooth Scanning (Settings – Additional Settings – Privacy – Location – Scanning) – this can be a big drain I have found and is usually activated when you have High Accuracy location mode activated. Again, it comes with its benefits of providing higher accuracy, but with some battery cost. By disabling both WLAN and Bluetooth scanning, extra battery life can be saved. There are some apps I’ve found that force you to enabled High Accuracy mode, so just remember to switch off these scanning settings once again if so.
GPS & location accuracy (Settings – Additional Settings – Privacy – Location – Location mode) – I personally don’t mind just using Device only and keeping this on all the time. As whilst like with Bluetooth as mentioned above, if I know I’m not connect to my Bluetooth speaker for example, I at least like to open Google Maps and it find me straight away rather than toggling GPS on etc. Personal preference of course, as with all of these…
NFC (Settings – More) – as with WiFi and Bluetooth settings, if you’re not using it and don’t mind the manual toggling on/off as needed, then disable and do just that.
Hotspot (Settings – Portable Hotspot) – as above really, as this could be a big drainer if left on. Luckily there is a setting (Turn off hotspot automatically) which can help with this.
Display
A massively subjective aspect of using your device and only you know what you’d rather have and what you;d rather be looking at. Just as we know, a higher brightness level will result in high battery drain and the screen can be the biggest drainer of the all, so choose wisely if you’re trying to conserve some juice.
Screen brightness (Settings – Display – Brightness level) – I personally have it set to manually controlled, as I find the auto-brightness not to be very smooth, at around 20-30% indoors and perhaps up to 100% outdoors. I believe that manually controlling brightness preserves battery as it of course doesn’t use the ambient sensor and brightness remains the same, rather than jumping up and down reacting to light levels.
Ambient display (Settings – Display – Ambient display) – functionality of having the ‘always on display’, but at the cost of some battery life. There is the scheduling that you can use to help with this, but personal preference whether you want this on or not. I personally don’t, though at times I’m tempted to given the notification light, for me, isn’t that practical.
Contrast and colours (Settings – Display –Contrast & colours) – it can be said that Standard will be the most battery friendly, Increased Contrast drawing that bit more power due to the increase in contrast and Automatic Contrast using the most given it will use the sensor to optimise contrast based off available light. I personally have it on Increased contrast and I’m happy enough.
Double tap/raise to wake (Settings – Display – System) – with both of these sensors will be used for the convenience of tapping your screen and raising your phone in order to wake the device. This may be handy, but be mindful that such convenience will come at the cost of the sensors running using up some battery.
Themes
Another subjective aspect of your device is you can make it look. The suggestion here is for black themes to be applied where possible as on our screens black images use less power, as noted by Google. Though indeed black theming isn't for everyone so this suggestion, as with all of them, is purely up to you.
Night mode (Settings - Additional settings - Developer options - Night Mode) - enable night mode (Always on) to turn on MIUI system-wide black/dark theme, such as the dialer etc. *If you don't know how to activate Developer options, see here
Substratum and Swift Black - I highly recommend using this theme with the help of Substratum, though indeed only available to rooted users. Be sure to follow all the required steps to get Substratum working, such as installing the Magisk module etc.
Battery & Performance
Here are the various system battery settings which aim to preserve battery. Some perhaps more useful than others!
Adaptive Battery (Settings – Battery & Performance – Use Adaptive Battery) – this claims to limit battery for apps that you don’t use often, which I have enabled, though as will be seen below some further manual control can be done.
Battery saver / background app restrictions (Settings – Battery & Performance – App Battery Saver – Choose apps) – here you can select per-app a choice of 4 background restriction settings. It’s time consuming, but it’s worth going through each app (note: use the 3 dots in the top right corner to Show system apps) and choose the restriction settings, if any, to be applied. Generally speaking, if you want notifications to come through from it (like WhatsApp) or you don’t want it being shut down in the background (like Spotify) then choose No restrictions. If you’re not so bothered about it and want the system to lay down the law on battery saving, choose Restrict background activity. There are settings in-between, like Battery Saver and Restrict background apps, but I’ll leave you to play around with those ones.
Battery Optimization (Settings – Battery & Performance) - this has several options to save battery ranging from adjusting screen brightness, turning on Battery Saver, turning off GPS etc. This can be used however I prefer to manually configure the settings, so this will be up to you…
Scenes (Settings – Battery & Performance) – here is a ‘smart scene’ called sleep mode which apparently will detect when you’re sleeping and close down apps, restrict NFC etc. I personally have this disabled as again I manually adjust such settings
Auto-start (Settings – Manage apps - *select app* - Autostart) – another useful option is to go through each app you have and disable the autostart, which could provide additional battery savings preventing apps from starting up in the background
Debloating / removing system apps
Lots of system resources can be freed up which can result in added performance and battery life. See the extremely helpful thread by @SirTAVARES who created the Debloat Applications (No-Root) thread.
I personally have used the above guide to remove a lot of pre-included apps, even on the somewhat pre-debloated Xiaomi.eu rom. Without root you can use ADB to remove apps and they won't reappear when you update your rom. They will appear back if you perform a factory reset, as they are not fully uninstalled.
Furthermore, with root you can remove the app from not only the user area but system area too. Check out the thread for more info on this.
Lastly, apps like System App Remover Pro can fully uninstall system apps, with the option to use the Recycle Bin option should you wish to restore
Battery draining apps and alternatives
It can be said that some apps are notorious for being big battery drainers, such as the official Facebook app. I’m not a huge user of some of the other apps, like Snapchat, Twitter etc. and to be honest I generally favour webpage versions of some things for example I don’t have the Amazon shopping app, I just use the web page version, saved as a bookmark on my home screen. The general tip here is if you are going to use an app, be sure to go through its settings and adjust notification settings/frequency. For example, I do have the Sky News app however set it to not notify me of news, the same for Yahoo weather. So tweak accordingly. If you have some good alternative app suggestions then I’ll be happy to include some here, but for now I’ll just start with…
Facebook – I use Folio for Facebook & Messenger which is a nice lightweight 'Facebook wrapper' in that it uses the Facebook webpage as the basis for the app. It also has a functional messenger included so no need for a separate app.
Battery monitoring apps - apps like GSam Battery Monitor and BetterBatteryStats can be useful in detecting the high draining apps, so could be worth using one of those in an effort to identify them.
Magisk modules
There are many Magisk modules out there which aim to solve battery. I only use one, which I’ll list below, however please feel free to make suggestions for inclusion in this section. I know that there are some like Greenify, Amplify (when using Xposed) etc. that could squeeze even more juice out of the device!
Universal GMS Doze - helps put Google Play Services to sleep to save some battery. I use this with no issues/impact on Gmail, Play Store etc.
Other system settings
Sync (Settings – Sync) – as with per app settings for notifications/sync frequency etc. settings, it’s worth checking here to see what apps are auto-syncing data. You can turn them all off (I believe) via the Auto-sync data toggle, or check them out individually via this menu setting. *Note: I have removed Mi Cloud etc. and so I don’t have any of that running in the background, but that’s up to you.
Vibration (Settings – Sound & Vibration) – now this is likely a very small potential for some battery savings but still worth noting. You can adjust the Vibrate on tap option ranging from Off/Light/Medium/Strong, which I’m sure someone who has it set to Strong will be using that tiny bit more power than someone who has it set to Off. Your call….
Permissions (Settings - Permissions - Permissions) - it's worth going through here to monitor per-app what permissions are being used. Some apps may not like being prevented using certain things and it may break some functionality, but it's an extra method in reducing potential usage, such as hardware usage, for an extra saving. For example, an app may try and use GPS each and every time you open it or even try running it in the background. If you're willing to, preventing it from doing so may help save some battery.
Authorization & revocation (Settings - Additional settings - Authorization & revocation) - here you can revoke some access from apps. I have stuff like Security, Downloads, Battery and performance and Settings listed here, all of which I've revoked with no noticeable negative consequences.
Fingerprint icon (Settings - Lock screen & password - Manage fingerprints) - another very small tweak for a potential very small saving. The setting is Show fingerprint icon when the screen is off (which is present on Xiaomi.eu 9.4.11) and by disabling will prevent the icon showing. As the icon is displayed by the screen, by turning it off it'll naturally save the power it takes to light the screen up, which as you may have noticed, it lights up with the tiniest movement of the device! I keep it on as I like it and battery doesn't seem to be greatly impacted - but this thread is about squeezing as much juice as possible, right?!
Recents and 'Clear all' - not a system setting but a little thing to do, is to open up the Recents menu and use the 'X' button to close all running apps, or swipe individual to close certain ones from running in the background. Now, it is the case the apps stored in the RAM aren't necessarily using battery, but this is still useful to stop apps that are running and active. Definitely a debatable one, as the argument against doing this is that it then uses battery to reopen the app, so perhaps just test it out and see for yourself.
Last but not least....
Now this last little tip of mine is certainly one that can be debated, but I do it nonetheless...
Remember, none of this is advice as such, it's just what I do to keep myself sane in knowing/believing (philosophical debate here?!) that I've done all I can to maximise battery life.
What I like to do is when installing a rom have the phone charged to 100% before doing so. This originates from the days of believing that batteries need to be calibrated. There is definitely lots of research that states it may not be needed and a simple Google search can reveal research into this, but it's something I like to do anyway.
So essentially my method regarding this, needed or not, is:
Charge phone to 100%
Update rom
Use phone until it switches off at 0%
Charge phone fully to 100% without interruption
I'm not stating this is needed, it's just what I do. Take it or leave it! I'm aware that there is science behind not allowing phone batteries to die at 0% in order to prolong the life of it, but again, it's just what I do and it works for me.
Your call!
That is it for now. As mentioned I highly welcome your comments and suggestions for adding to this thread so please do let me know if any questions etc.I'm purposefully not showing my SOT/battery stats as they won't be useful to anyone - the above tips are here for that!
Nice thread.. we need something like this. Thanks
marko94 said:
Nice thread.. we need something like this. Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, let's make it the best it can be
Great post. I haven't used substratum since my latest phone HTC one m8.. How did u installed it? With magisk?
Thanks for this extensive write up....
sakaki14567 said:
Great post. I haven't used substratum since my latest phone HTC one m8.. How did u installed it? With magisk?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, substratum via play store and there's a magisk module too. Follow its guidance and let us know if any questions
Many thx for all this advice ?
Thank you. I would like to see more ideas and for this thread to get pinned and updated for more tips
hardtheory said:
Many thx for all this advice ?
Click to expand...
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Ahmad Shawawreh said:
Thank you. I would like to see more ideas and for this thread to get pinned and updated for more tips
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Enjoy guys.
Let me know if you feel any difference and if any questions/additions
cd993 said:
Yeah, substratum via play store and there's a magisk module too. Follow its guidance and let us know if any questions
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Compiled everything, except the overlay of android system (it remains blue accent for some reason) phone overlay and system ui.
Thank you for your advice
With all you have done for your setting, Could you share us the battery performance please?
Tharitsaivet said:
Thank you for your advice
With all you have done for your setting, Could you share us the battery performance please?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As it as been say, the performance would be pretty different from different user (wifi, Bluetooth usage, nfc, ect) . I can give you an example, I done almost all optimization that has been given in the thread. I have Bluetooth activated all the time cause of my amazfit cor.
If I'm at home an only use wifi and if I often use my phone with 25 % brightness I can have 10 hours sot. But in real life use, with bad mobile network, usage of mobile data, phone call, screen at 100 % on outdoor use, I can only have 4h30 of sot.
Dépend of the usage and what you done with the phone. Personally, if I have a smartphone, it's to use use it. If you desactivaye all network, keep battery saver, keep your screen at 20 %, buy a Nokia 3310 ?
hardtheory said:
As it as been say, the performance would be pretty different from different user (wifi, Bluetooth usage, nfc, ect) . I can give you an example, I done almost all optimization that has been given in the thread. I have Bluetooth activated all the time cause of my amazfit cor.
If I'm at home an only use wifi and if I often use my phone with 25 % brightness I can have 10 hours sot. But in real life use, with bad mobile network, usage of mobile data, phone call, screen at 100 % on outdoor use, I can only have 4h30 of sot.
Dépend of the usage and what you done with the phone. Personally, if I have a smartphone, it's to use use it. If you desactivaye all network, keep battery saver, keep your screen at 20 %, buy a Nokia 3310
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
From what you said, it's seem to be good for standby draining. As I normally use the phone when I have the break from 9am to 6pm only 2 hrs screen on, My current phone battery are lower than 40% in the evening.
Tharitsaivet said:
Thank you for your advice
With all you have done for your setting, Could you share us the battery performance please?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hardtheory said:
As it as been say, the performance would be pretty different from different user (wifi, Bluetooth usage, nfc, ect) . I can give you an example, I done almost all optimization that has been given in the thread. I have Bluetooth activated all the time cause of my amazfit cor.
If I'm at home an only use wifi and if I often use my phone with 25 % brightness I can have 10 hours sot. But in real life use, with bad mobile network, usage of mobile data, phone call, screen at 100 % on outdoor use, I can only have 4h30 of sot.
Dépend of the usage and what you done with the phone. Personally, if I have a smartphone, it's to use use it. If you desactivaye all network, keep battery saver, keep your screen at 20 %, buy a Nokia 3310 ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tharitsaivet said:
From what you said, it's seem to be good for standby draining. As I normally use the phone when I have the break from 9am to 6pm only 2 hrs screen on, My current phone battery are lower than 40% in the evening.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK guys here is some stats for you, see attached. Been off charge 21 hours with almost 5 hours SOT down to around 40%.
Going strong!
Hi, also running xiaomi.eu but can't find the screen of your last screenshoot. Mine under battery and performance looks completely difderent
Sent from my OnePlus 5T using XDA Labs
tbv2005 said:
Hi, also running xiaomi.eu but can't find the screen of your last screenshoot. Mine under battery and performance looks completely difderent
Click to expand...
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I use Nova launcher which has that additional battery info screen
cd993 said:
I use Nova launcher which has that additional battery info screen
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I'm using Nova too, but I've never seen that screen before. Where can I find it / activate it?
janvandusschoten said:
I'm using Nova too, but I've never seen that screen before. Where can I find it / activate it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can add it to the home screen as a shortcut:
Long press empty space on home screen - add widget - shortcut activities (drag that to home screen) - Settings - Battery and Performance (PowerUsageSummary)
Then you'll have a shortcut to this battery info screen
10hrs39mins, best yet! On WiFi all day just light chrome/xda/reddit etc.
This is on latest RevolutionOS rom
Has somebody noticed that email apps (like bluemail, gmail...) make the phone never sleep totally ?
I often have 15 hours "held awake" in my gsam battery stats! [emoji33].
If I kill the email apps then my phone sleeps MUCH, better.
I tried several mail apps..same result.
Is it because of Android 9 or Xiaomi?
On my other devices (Android 7 and 8) I don't have this problem with the same apps...
Envoyé de mon MI 9 en utilisant Tapatalk