Activated My White 16Gb Today - Thoughts

[mizzoudrew]

1. Activation was a nightmare. I followed the instructions provided for activating the 4G SIM online, but the prompts they indicated would appear did not. I had to then spend an hour on the phone with tech support to get that worked out.

2. 4G is blazing. Might be faster than my home FIOS connection. I downloaded and installed about 25 apps rapid fire as fast as I could find them in the Play store.

3. TouchWiz is godawful. I replaced with Nova Launcher after a few hours, and the experience is infinitely better. If you haven't installed a different launcher, I recommend.

4. The phone itself is incredible. It just flies, and very rarely do you have any lag. No crashes or any hangups so far.

5. Volume is a bit quiet on calls. For whatever reason, there's an 'extra volume' mode during calls, and I found it to be necessary while on speaker phone. I also did a video chat through Google Talk, and wished I could find a way to increase the volume a bit there too.

6. Call quality is excellent, as is signal strength.

7. The cover and case I bought are great and extremely easy to install. If interested, I got these:
Cover: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0085GI1S...ag=hawk-future-20&ascsubtag=UUacUvbUpU1943517
Case: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0087GAOE...ag=hawk-future-20&ascsubtag=UUacUvbUpU1943517

8. The messaging program still sucks. Maybe I'm missing something, but I've never understood Android's insistence on sending pictures as a slideshow. Handcent is a must.

9. Home button takes a bit to get used to. It feels weird to switch between capacative Menu and Back buttons, and the physical home button. The level of pressure you use on it is just so much more. However, it feels well built and long lasting.

10. Smart stay is great. Auto-brightness needs a lot of work. For some reason, it takes a few seconds for it to adjust the brightness. I finally just manually set the phone to 75% brightness.

11. Camera is utterly amazing. SO fast and crisp in low light.

12. Battery life is great. I've been using it non-stop all day and I still have about 35% left.

Conclusion: All-in-all an outstanding device. There are just enough small annoyances where I could see the average user not finding it to be the level of an iPhone, but once you customize some things and get rid of the TouchWiz interface, it's outstanding.

 

[Forgetful]

Physical navigation buttons suck. Phone designers should be beaten for using them. Ymmv

Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk 2

 

[dubge]

I have never used handcent but after reading your post I installed it, it also drives me crazy when pictures come in as a slide show, I got a message today and couldnt read it and because it was a slide show I couldnt zoom in on the text.

handcent is pretty nice, I cant believe I went this long without trying it!

Only thing I dont like about handcent it you cant hold the phone up to your ear and have it call the person who you are texting, I liked that feature on this phone, not sure if I like that more or not getting text pics as a slideshow

 

[mizzoudrew]

handcent is pretty nice, I cant believe I went this long without trying it!

A couple of notes on Handcent...

1) You can disable the pop-up notifications if you don't like them. I hate them/girlfriend loves them.

2) There's an option to auto-resize photos when sending a msg without giving you the prompt every time (under Send Message Options)

3) Make sure to un-check 'Auto Retrieve' and 'Notifications' on the default Messaging App if you decide to stick with Handcent. That way you won't have two messaging apps running and notifying you every time.

4) Handcent has some good themes (in the app store) and colors if you're bored, or feeling particularly festive during various holidays.

Oh, also... in the top right of a text conversation is a little phone button to quickly call the person you're texting with. You might find it just as easy to give that a quick tap as it is to put the phone up to your ear to make a call with default. Hope that helps!

 

[drmaf894c]

In the last when I have used hand cent I have noticed increased battery drain. Any change on that front here? Otherwise it is a terrific messaging app and I like it a lot esp all the different themes.

Just curious.

Sent from my ADR6300 using Android Central Forums

 

[jam4775]

I have never noticed increased battery drain with handcent and I've been using it for almost two years now.

If you are using popup notifications with the screen turning on, that'll definitely drain your battery more. Also, I'm not using any of the handcent services either, which run in the background and could cause increased battery drain.

 

[mikesmith]

I tried Handcent. I like Go SMS better.

But it's all just personal preference. Both are good apps.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Android Central Forums

 

[civonne19]

I've been using handcent && it works very good! I can backup my msg if i decide to swtich phones && my gallery pictures also

You would only learn how to use it by playing with the app. It has a lot of cool features. Sing up too to save ur settings like themes msg and what not

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Android Central Forums

 

[Dave4321]

"9. Home button takes a bit to get used to. It feels weird to switch between capacative Menu and Back buttons, and the physical home button. The level of pressure you use on it is just so much more. However, it feels well built and long lasting."

I use Wave Launcher and put the Home Button app and Multitalk Shortcut (Shows as Recent Apps in app drawer) on it for easy access to both. I also use Virtual Button and Button Savoir on opposite sides (for right and left hand use).

Most of the functionality except the home button require root.