Life with the one 14 Days in..

[Bigbill01]

following on from this thread I am now 14 days into my virgin android experience with the one. Here are the opinions of an ex iphone addict..

so far the one, as a piece of hardware, is pretty much second to none, the touch screen is responsive, the camera is performing fine and the size of the screen is fantastic.. Now i may seem a little negative from now on, buts its the problems I have been facing using the one and Android in general..

Cons:
Fragmentation - Devs developing for 100's of devices.. most of the apps I have used looked terrible. Bad design, low res graphics everywhere, clunky interfaces. Not all.. but a large majority of apps fell like ios apps from 2009.
Power button - To wake this phone you need to press the power button.. the power button is placed in a such a way as to make it nearly impossible to wake the phone one handed. If you do you will probably lower your ringtone volume at the same time or nearly drop the phone. I thought a Bestskinever would help with 'grip' but it doesn't.
App inconsistency - maybe a bit harsh, but I have apps that don't seem to be completely bug free.. namely NiLS - sometimes it works, sometimes it hangs, sometimes it just does nothing. I have yet to find the perfect global notification app - I am still missing emails and texts, this is more than likely related to my many years of iphone use though, I am still getting used to the notification pull down. Also they does not seem to be a unified design spec regarding UX. some apps swipe left, some have button pushes, some pull down to refresh, its a mish mash.
Video - I am currently using double twist to play video, its not pretty in anyway, massive icons, a bit clunky, but one huge pain in the *** is the fact that when clicking 'video' within any video app, it loads all of my 'gallery' videos.. I don't want to see zoes or home movies.. Just my movies or Tv shows. I have astra file explorer (which is great) and I am thinkning that maybe i need to start using more file structure on the phone.. again, an iPhone hangover.
Bloody Speaker click - Annoying, and I am hearing more and more, at times its doing this during video playback, even heard slightly distorted buzzes at times.
The Gallery - Just not very good, no matter what the gallery loads facebook images. No idea why HTC would think that anyone would want to see facebook pictures in your phones gallery. You can disable facebook and it goes away, but then your logged out of Facebook, log back in and the images return after a short while. Very annoying.
The dialer - HTC stock dialer is really awful, not easily navigated or very useable. Luckily there is an app called exDialer which is how it should be done.

Pros :
Hardware - Superb design, not quite apple standard, but very close.
The speakers - A breath of fresh air to have front facing speakers.
Google voice - Works about 90% of the time. Far more responsive than siri. Cant add events and things like siri though, or can you?? "remind me to XYZ at 4 o'clock." I don't think voice supports this?? anyone confirm?
The Apps - on the pro and cons list..??? any problem I have had with the phone or android so far, I have managed to sort out by using these forums and app recommendations. Apple will never ever do this. Dialer was junk.. I got a new one.

So far I am moderately happy with the phone, I am still an Android newbie so I may be missing obvious things.. I have not got any virus protection or not entirely sure if the back up that is stock on the phone is backing up all my data.. (like iCloud)

I have been looking at the samsung S4 as a comparison to the one, the home button looks so enticing, using the power button to wake the phone is not good.

Not being negative, just airing my views

 

[Dan Higgs]

I agree on the home button. From an ex iPhone lover

Posted via Android Central App

 

[dekar24k]

The (lack of a) physical home button that can turn on the screen is really the only thing that annoys me as well. Other than that I'm really happy with my One. Went from iPhone 5 a couple weeks ago and I'm not looking back, at least not yet.

 

[Gator352]

Use "auto screen on" in the play store. All you have to do is wave your hand over the screen and it turns it on so you don't have to use the power button. Works like a charm. Sometimes I have to wave my hand over it twice but that's because it's using sensors and I wave my hand to fast. So the trick is to wave it slowly!!

 

[dekar24k]

Use "auto screen on" in the play store. All you have to do is wave your hand over the screen and it turns it on so you don't have to use the power button. Works like a charm. Sometimes I have to wave my hand over it twice but that's because it's using sensors and I wave my hand to fast. So the trick is to wave it slowly!!

Nice tip. I had this feature on my Note 2, but I didn't know there was an app on the Play store for it.

 

[Diorarat]

Use "auto screen on" in the play store. All you have to do is wave your hand over the screen and it turns it on so you don't have to use the power button. Works like a charm. Sometimes I have to wave my hand over it twice but that's because it's using sensors and I wave my hand to fast. So the trick is to wave it slowly!!

Thanks for the tip. I don't want to wear out the power button to soon.

Sent from my HTC One

 

[Noremacam]

Bigbill1, can you elaborate where hardwarewise, apple has it better? I'm not disagreeing or arguing, just want to understand as right now I don't own either an iphone 5 or htc one.

 

[MONDINGO]

Or you can just go back to Apple and iOS! Sounds like to me you are just not happy at all... You're only 14 days in. Give it time. And I don't like double twist either.

Sent from my HTC One using AC Forums mobile app

 

[cgardnervt]

The (lack of a) physical home button that can turn on the screen is really the only thing that annoys me as well. Other than that I'm really happy with my One. Went from iPhone 5 a couple weeks ago and I'm not looking back, at least not yet.

I disagree! The one thing I hated about my S3 was the home button. When I bought it I thought I would love it. But I was wrong and I don't miss it to this day!

 

[Bigbill01]

Bigbill1, can you elaborate where hardwarewise, apple has it better? I'm not disagreeing or arguing, just want to understand as right now I don't own either an iphone 5 or htc one.

I.e if you run your finger from top to bottom of the screen side of the phone, so over the speakers, my lower speaker sits proud and your finger bumps up, it's not there with top speaker.. Pretty sure apple would not release a product like that.

Don't get me wrong it's still very good, just not apple class in my opinion.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[Bigbill01]

Or you can just go back to Apple and iOS! Sounds like to me you are just not happy at all... You're only 14 days in. Give it time. And I don't like double twist either.

Sent from my HTC One using AC Forums mobile app

I'm in for the long run.. Even if I hate android I shall be giving it at least 6 months and not judging early. This is purely my opinions from being ios to android convert..

Posted via Android Central App

 

[Bigbill01]

Use "auto screen on" in the play store. All you have to do is wave your hand over the screen and it turns it on so you don't have to use the power button. Works like a charm. Sometimes I have to wave my hand over it twice but that's because it's using sensors and I wave my hand to fast. So the trick is to wave it slowly!!

I used auto screen for a few days.. I kept feeling the phone heating up in my pocket.. I would pull it out and find the screen already on.

I was using the double tap the sensor option within the app.. Affected battery life due to that

Posted via Android Central App

 

[AMG_Roadster]

You can set reminders through google now. It works great - "Google remind me to purchase tickets to the base ball game at 5pm today"

 

[Good OL MC]

Cons:
Fragmentation - Devs developing for 100's of devices.. most of the apps I have used looked terrible. Bad design, low res graphics everywhere, clunky interfaces. Not all.. but a large majority of apps fell like ios apps from 2009.

I'm running in to that problem as well: a lot of apps don't feel right on the One (on Android?). I'm no dev, just an experienced mobile user, so I won't make claims as to what I think the problem is. What I can absolutely say is that apps that WORK on the One feel awesome. Pocketcasts blows away just about every podcast player I've used on any platform. They aren't the same version so it is tougher to compare but the Android version kills the iOS app. The Android specific functionality of some apps, like Any.Do, also makes the iOS version feel incomplete. And, surprise surprise, I've noticed that the apps that really take advantage of platform specific features also usually have the better design.

Not a criticism of your point - I think I just echo it strongly - just my own experience.

Power button - To wake this phone you need to press the power button.. the power button is placed in a such a way as to make it nearly impossible to wake the phone one handed. If you do you will probably lower your ringtone volume at the same time or nearly drop the phone. I thought a Bestskinever would help with 'grip' but it doesn't.

The placement annoys me as well. Would have been great on a smaller phone but I constantly find myself wishing it was on the top right or on the side.

The Gallery - Just not very good, no matter what the gallery loads facebook images. No idea why HTC would think that anyone would want to see facebook pictures in your phones gallery. You can disable facebook and it goes away, but then your logged out of Facebook, log back in and the images return after a short while. Very annoying.

Annoys me too. I find it sort of easy to get lost in the app as well.

The Apps - on the pro and cons list..??? any problem I have had with the phone or android so far, I have managed to sort out by using these forums and app recommendations. Apple will never ever do this. Dialer was junk.. I got a new one.

Being able to change things is forever a curse for me. I change out default apps for better productivity or features, find something in the new app that annoys me, switch it out, repeat, end up back at original app, repeat again. Okay, maybe not that bad - but that is the general idea. Eventually I force myself to just deal with whatever. Sometimes I like making constraints work for me rather than find something completely free.

 

[davidtm]

I also use AutoScreen On, but prefer the vertical lift from horizontal setting.

 

[Bigbill01]

Just to add some more info, Tonight i decided to Root my phone and turn it into a google edition ONE. I must say, I enjoy the virgin android FAR more than the HTC version.

Took me about an hour, after watching various videos, trying to figure out a couple of snags etc.. and I did it all on OSX. (tried with windows virtual machine for a while but it was problematic)

I am using TrickDroid_GE_1.0.0 and its really good. I am already enjoying my phone far more than before. I am a little concerned about security and what rooting actually opens me up for - i.e, are there stock passwords I need to change to allow root access etc. I only use the play store at the moment so in theory I should be ok with app installations.

Google backup was ok, didnt really return and images (nothing much to lose) I will look into my backup situation to see how I clone my phone to the cloud.. (minus the music and videos) just images, texts, emails etc.

 

[MonkeyNews]

There is a way to stop facebook pictures appearing in your gallery, I hated that. You need to log onto Facebook, then go into settings, apps, and find the fb for sense one, disable it, check the gallery and they should be gone. If so, turn the app back on and they still should be gone.

Also I love this phone. Bit of tinkering and it's perfect for me.

Sent from my HTC One using AC Forums mobile app