A few days in, how does everyone like their X?

hpham72

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The bad. The notification vibration sounds terrible. It sounds like the phone is coming apart every time I get an email or message. It males the phone sound/seem cheap. I have had some issues with battery life that I am trying to track down (may be app related) and my battery life has not been as good as the GS4 or Note II. As I mentioned in another thread, I have had very high "Time Without a Signal" percentages -- as high as 46%. Every other phone has shawn 1 to 2 percent at most. I think the X is just measuring LTE connection because it has a signal whenever I look at it or try to use it. The screen really shows fingerprints and looks bad most of the time. As mentioned, I would prefer the screen to be 5 inches. It is just easier to read, type on and use.

I'm awaiting this phone for T-Mobile, coming from a Nexus 4, mainly because of the small form factor, mostly stock android and battery life, so hearing about your issues with battery life gives me pause. I hope that isn't normal behavior for the phone.
 

tonymhoffman

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I'm awaiting this phone for T-Mobile, coming from a Nexus 4, mainly because of the small form factor, mostly stock android and battery life, so hearing about your issues with battery life gives me pause. I hope that isn't normal behavior for the phone.

His case is the first I've read on here.. Everyone else is getting around 15-16hrs on avg.

Posted via Android Central App
 

Gdwheel

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I'm awaiting this phone for T-Mobile, coming from a Nexus 4, mainly because of the small form factor, mostly stock android and battery life, so hearing about your issues with battery life gives me pause. I hope that isn't normal behavior for the phone.

I think I had an app issue that was causing the battery to drain quickly, but setting that aside, I do not think the X is going to get much better battery life than I was getting with my other phones. That is, of course, based on my use of the phones. I have not had battery problems on any of my recent phones. I usually have more than 50% battery left after a 15 hour day with all of them (unless i have a rogue app working) and the X is similar. I do not think they will get anywhere near what Moto was claiming.

I question how extensive use of Google Now will impact battery life on this phone. Every time I have tried Google Now on any other phone it has really hit battery life, mostly by using location services extensively. That is the only way it is effective. As I said, I have not used "OK Google Now" much other than to try it, and it worked well, but I wonder how it will affect battery life if used extensively.
 

dpw2atox

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i was told that too by someone in a store when i asked him why the need for all this processing power when we were convesing about cpus,etc and also part of a conversation of why people always told me android was glitchy, and that's how he explained it to me, which made sense. he said it wasn't until generally this year and then end of last that the processing power and other hardware was able to run androids without glitches and other problems.

The main issue with Android's performance is honestly quite complex and is really a combination of things rather than any 1 thing. A lot of it has to deal with Google's original design on Android though they have been working hard with each new release to fix the issues.

Prior to ICS/Jelly Bean all animations were done via the cpus though now they use the GPU (think Win XP vs Win 7), being that the cpu had to both process all of the app data as well as the GUI there was a performance hit until ICS/JB. Jelly Bean took this to a whole new level with Project Butter and made the GUI even smoother.

Another issue is the GUI of Android is mostly Java based and while there is a JIT (added in 2.2), it still is never going to be quite as fast as native code and there is a performance hit (though it does allow many of the apps to run on both ARM and x86). With each release Google seems to work on improving the JIT's performance, optimizing the garbage collector, etc... but there still is work to be done.

Another issue that was only just resolved in 4.3 is the lack of TRIM support....this would cause devices to start to slow down over time simply from the internal memory blocks being written over but never "cleared" after the data was deleted which means the next write to that block has to both delete and then write the data. There were alternative fixes on the Android Market aka LagFix but they require root. There have been benchmarks showing a 10-25% performance increase depending on what is being done with File System performance after TRIM has been run.

Finally the last "big" issue is that Android offers true multitasking, not partial like iOS. This though also means that there is many background processes running and taking up ram. With the more modern devices coming with 2GB of ram, the multitasking issue is starting to go away. Even though many of the apps themselves aren't that big, Android runs many background processes for apps you've opened (and sometimes ones you haven't) so when you hit a low memory situation, it has to clear out some apps before it can load the new app....again slowing things down.

So to be fair its been both a combination of hardware and software improvements over the past 1-2 years that are helping Android become better and better.
 

Paisley

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The main issue with Android's performance is honestly quite complex and is really a combination of things rather than any 1 thing. A lot of it has to deal with Google's original design on Android though they have been working hard with each new release to fix the issues.

Prior to ICS/Jelly Bean all animations were done via the cpus though now they use the GPU (think Win XP vs Win 7), being that the cpu had to both process all of the app data as well as the GUI there was a performance hit until ICS/JB. Jelly Bean took this to a whole new level with Project Butter and made the GUI even smoother.

Another issue is the GUI of Android is mostly Java based and while there is a JIT (added in 2.2), it still is never going to be quite as fast as native code and there is a performance hit (though it does allow many of the apps to run on both ARM and x86). With each release Google seems to work on improving the JIT's performance, optimizing the garbage collector, etc... but there still is work to be done.

Another issue that was only just resolved in 4.3 is the lack of TRIM support....this would cause devices to start to slow down over time simply from the internal memory blocks being written over but never "cleared" after the data was deleted which means the next write to that block has to both delete and then write the data. There were alternative fixes on the Android Market aka LagFix but they require root. There have been benchmarks showing a 10-25% performance increase depending on what is being done with File System performance after TRIM has been run.

Finally the last "big" issue is that Android offers true multitasking, not partial like iOS. This though also means that there is many background processes running and taking up ram. With the more modern devices coming with 2GB of ram, the multitasking issue is starting to go away. Even though many of the apps themselves aren't that big, Android runs many background processes for apps you've opened (and sometimes ones you haven't) so when you hit a low memory situation, it has to clear out some apps before it can load the new app....again slowing things down.

So to be fair its been both a combination of hardware and software improvements over the past 1-2 years that are helping Android become better and better.

That was extremely helfpul, thank you so much. : ). Infact, i've wondered why i hear android slows down, and now i finally understand. thanks x10. I posted a thread in general regarding this exact issue

http://forums.androidcentral.com/ge...-phones-o-s-slow-down-but-short-orde-why.html
....
Do you think there is anything i can do apart from root that will help at all in both the slowdown and app clearing? i want to have the best android experience possible. : ).
 

dpw2atox

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Unfortunately not really, you can either root and void your warranty but reduce lag OR just hope for a fast update from the manufacturers. If you don't want to root? Don't load up your devices storage, disable any "bloatware" or pre-installed apps that you don't use to prevent them from running in the background.
 

guesswhat_567

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X should theoretically be in immune to this problem, It has some interesting stuff going on with file system read/write, giving it great performance and it does have trim functionalty that 4.3 has, and it looks like moto implemented trim on delete too.one of the reasons why moto x is smooth and snappy in performance. Read anandtech review of moto x.
 

Paisley

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X should theoretically be in immune to this problem, It has some interesting stuff going on with file system read/write, giving it great performance and it does have trim functionalty that 4.3 has, and it looks like moto implemented trim on delete too.one of the reasons why moto x is smooth and snappy in performance. Read anandtech review of moto x.

wow, that was some kind of review! i didn't see what you were referring to, but i got lazy and tried to find it instead of reading every page. do you remember what section it might have been in?
 

dj ozone

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I switched from Sprint to ATT to get the Moto X now (cracked the screen on my E4gT or I would have stayed with Sprint) ...Im enjoying this phone so far...My fav phone ever was palm pre and I might be liking this one just about as much!
 

tonymhoffman

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Thank you for this link. This was and is very educating on motos choices for doing things.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7235/moto-x-review/7

This Is awesome to see how the moto is in the running with all quad core performances. Interesting how the extra cores in s4 bring down cpu frequency in first 2 cores lowering the ceiling on achievable speeds while the moto maintains a 1.7 reading because it's only using 2 cores.

Posted via Android Central App
 

guesswhat_567

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Ya after reading anand tech review, it corroborated by belief that moto really did put an effort to optimize android for best performance and experience, instead of throwing bigger specs and see it it performs well !! like samsung ..not saying that samsung doesnt make great devices, its just good to see someone doing something different to give consumer a better experience ..

Thank you for this link. This was and is very educating on motos choices for doing things.

AnandTech | Moto X Review

This Is awesome to see how the moto is in the running with all quad core performances. Interesting how the extra cores in s4 bring down cpu frequency in first 2 cores lowering the ceiling on achievable speeds while the moto maintains a 1.7 reading because it's only using 2 cores.

Posted via Android Central App
 

Rule9

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Looks like pretty advanced engineering to me. It looks like the only thing they have left to work out is how to incorporate a 1080p display without a battery hit. I think both this and the HTC One are on equal grounds here. This has more interesting features and a more advanced read/write to flash memory but the One has the better screen and indoor camera quality. For me it would boil down to whether I wanted the features built into the X or the camera and display of the One.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4
 

JungleLarry

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Looks like pretty advanced engineering to me. It looks like the only thing they have left to work out is how to incorporate a 1080p display without a battery hit. I think both this and the HTC One are on equal grounds here. This has more interesting features and a more advanced read/write to flash memory but the One has the better screen and indoor camera quality. For me it would boil down to whether I wanted the features built into the X or the camera and display of the One.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4
Totally agree.
 

sunburned

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Looks like pretty advanced engineering to me. It looks like the only thing they have left to work out is how to incorporate a 1080p display without a battery hit. I think both this and the HTC One are on equal grounds here. This has more interesting features and a more advanced read/write to flash memory but the One has the better screen and indoor camera quality. For me it would boil down to whether I wanted the features built into the X or the camera and display of the One.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4

For me, what the One needs to improve on is the size. I'm sure you can blame boomsound speakers for some of the extra bezel, but the One is wayyyy taller than the X with the screen. That's pretty laughable. Even the 4.3" One Mini is taller than the X. I think all companies need to start worrying more about the footprint of the phone more than keeping it super thin. Moto did this one right on the ergonomic side.
 

Paisley

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For me, what the One needs to improve on is the size. I'm sure you can blame boomsound speakers for some of the extra bezel, but the One is wayyyy taller than the X with the screen. That's pretty laughable. Even the 4.3" One Mini is taller than the X. I think all companies need to start worrying more about the footprint of the phone more than keeping it super thin. Moto did this one right on the ergonomic side.

But to be fair, the X only has 4.4" viewable when you account for the onscreen buttons.
 

Central n ohios best

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IMHO, no Android phone up until now has matched the smoothness and fluidity of the iPhone 5, or even the 4S. All manufacturers have done is throw specs into their phones, and hope that they work. Finally, Motorola has taken a page from the Apple book, and tried to match hardware and software, which makes a snappier phone and a great user experience. That is why an iPhone runs smoother, and usually faster, than most Android phones, a does it with a dual-core and 1GB of RAM. And still does it even after a year of service, which is something that no Android can claim. Again, this is IMO, but I have had many, many Androids and none have matched the iPhone for smoothness and fluidity.

Hell my lg feels as smooth as an iphone. Imho

Sent from my T-Mobile LG Escape using Tapatalk 2
 

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