Mini arrived! 8/21

[Brooke]

Yes, it has active notifications and an LED. I've been using mine since 10:30 a.m.

Yes on Active Notifications, which means, IIRC, that it is not an LCD screen. And Yes to the LED (upper left corner).

 

[Ry]

Yes on Active Notifications, which means, IIRC, that it is not an LCD screen. And Yes to the LED (upper left corner).

AFAIK, it's an LCD screen. It has the notification LED because it doesn't have an AMOLED screen like the Moto X, DROID ULTRA, and DROID MAXX. Instead of "breathing" like those phones, the Active Notifications "lockscreen" uses the LED to notify.

Basically - Active Notifications on the DROID MINI probably works like the Active Notification app clones that are popping up on the Play Store.

 

[phositadc]

Yes on Active Notifications, which means, IIRC, that it is not an LCD screen. And Yes to the LED (upper left corner).

Is there a separate setting to turn the led on or off?

Sent from my GT-I9192

 

[phositadc]

By the way, anybody try light flow with the led yet? Usually Motorola phones work work light flow, I think.

For the record, I'm ridiculously happy that it has an led. Does it look about the same as the led on the older razrs?

Sent from my GT-I9192

 

[wckesq]

Light Flow works fine. The LED is a small circle on the top left corner. Not a bar like the RAZRs.

 

[Brooke]

AFAIK, it's an LCD screen. It has the notification LED because it doesn't have an AMOLED screen like the Moto X, DROID ULTRA, and DROID MAXX. Instead of "breathing" like those phones, the Active Notifications "lockscreen" uses the LED to notify.

Basically - Active Notifications on the DROID MINI probably works like the Active Notification app clones that are popping up on the Play Store.

On further playing, the only thing it displays through the lock screen is the time. Is this not Active Notifications?

 

[wckesq]

I get email and missed call notifications on my lock screen.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using AC Forums mobile app

 

[brianbrain]

I just received two Droid Minis (one for me, one for the wife).

A few things to clear up:

1) It is an LCD screen. EDIT: I'm actually not so sure now. It could be OLED. Either way, I don't care, the screen is beautiful.
2) Active Notifications work exactly the same as I've seen the Ultra and Maxx online. The phone periodically "pulses" with the time and current notifications, which can then be interacted with.
3) The LCD screen does a surprisingly fantastic job at displaying the active notifications without back-light bleed or showing "grey" for the non-illuminated pixels. I'm not sure how they did this, but I think they have the LCD screen operate at a very low brightness for active notifications (either that or it utilizes a localized LED back-light technology) - I'll need to test it in bright daylight to see exactly what's going on. EDIT: Again, it could actually be an OLED screen - I just don't know..haha.
4) This phone is amazing. Fits beautifully in the hand, screen is sharp and vivid, speaker is very loud - I don't what else to say. My wife and I are both incredibly happy. The best phone we've ever owned.
5) There IS an LED notification light (in ADDITION to the active notifications). It has illuminated for me in blue thus far. It may or may not be RGB. EDIT: Wife's phone just had the LED notification blink green. It appears it's RGB!

EDIT: Additional: The Nokia wireless chargers I had for my 928 (Qi standard) work perfectly with the Droid Mini. No problems, just awesome. Motorola Connect is SWEET!

EDIT 2: Here's a CPU-Z dump - CPU-Z Android Validator Beta 0.1

 

[anthony2558]

Can anyone test a T-Mobile SIM in this phone. I wanna get it and use it on T-Mobile like my droid RAZR M.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 2

 

[brianbrain]

I'd love to help, Anthony, but I don't have a T-Mobile SIM on me..The phone does list GSM under the network options, however (not that it helps much..). I might be able to borrow a buddy's tmo SIM tomorrow to check, though.

 

[privatesamso]

Tell us about the battery

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4

 

[renna22]

I just received my mini yesterday love it. I have one problem tho i cannot seem to sync my facebook contacts. when i go to settings, accounts, and click facebook then sync it says that it has synced but my contacts arent there please help!!

 

[brianbrain]

I just received my mini yesterday love it. I have one problem tho i cannot seem to sync my facebook contacts. when i go to settings, accounts, and click facebook then sync it says that it has synced but my contacts arent there please help!!

I don't have Facebook, so I can't comment..LinkedIn sync'd normally upon installation though. I'll have to see if the wife reports any problems.

Battery seems great so far, but it really is too early to comment. We only unboxed them at around 6:30pm CST yesterday and they got about 5 hours of steady "tinkering" usage before it was time to go to bed. I'll report back how well it does today (although it will be difficult not to plop it down on my wireless charger as I'm so used to doing).

I've been keeping a close eye on the active notifications and unlike a traditional CCFL or standard LED backlit panel, the portions of the screen that are not reporting the time or notifications do not seem to illuminate at all - usually you'd notice a very slight change from black to a dark grey from the back-light, but after watching it very closely, I don't see any change on the unpopulated pixels at all..I've loaded up draw! with a full screen black wallpaper, however, and compared full brightness to low, and the black pixels do appear to change with the highest brightness (like I would expect an LCD panel to do) but at the same time there is absolutely no "light bleed" or uneven back-lighting (just how I'd expect an OLED panel to be). So I'm at a complete loss here..I'll say it again - I don't know what kind of panel this is for sure, but whatever it is, it's absolutely beautiful and does everything exactly the way I want.

 

[michaelwoodward1]

Any comments on the signal strength? I was going to get the Razr M for my wife, but that phone had horrible reception. Hoping this one will be better.

 

[brianbrain]

Signal strength is equal to my Lumia 928, so that is to say, fantastic.

For another point of reference, the signal on the Mini is better than the SGS3 I had and better than my wife's old Note II.

 

[Brooke]

I get email and missed call notifications on my lock screen.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using AC Forums mobile app

I'm not getting them like the demo shows, but rather as notification in e status bar.

 

[anon(7954017)]

Tell us about the battery

I picked my phone up yesterday at 9:30AM PST, it was at 51%. I charged it to 100% with the plan to drain it over the course of the day and do a new, full, charge today. Wifi on, battery saver off, app installs, messing around with Ingress, camera, voice commands, etc etc. All the things that would normally kill my DInc2 in a heartbeat. Left it uncharged overnight without "quiet time" on and right now (11:00AM PST) it's at 61%.

Not exactly scientific, but I am pretty happy so far. I'm not going to charge it all day today and see how long it can go.

 

[brianbrain]

I'm not getting them like the demo shows, but rather as notification in e status bar.

You may want to check your active notifications settings. Mine are exactly how they are in every video demo I've seen. Keep in mind that the pulsing doesn't happen if the device thinks its in your pocket or if you're not around - try waving your hand by it when you know you have a notification to test it.

Side note that I thought was pretty cool - when I was training "ok google now" I placed the phone down on a table..the phone knew it was on a table and told me, specifically, to pick the phone up off the table. I think that kind of awareness is cool

 

[brianbrain]

New discoveries here guys..

I noticed under the storage settings that the phone lists two USB disks with prompts to "insert a usb disk for mounting". I just so happened to have an old 4-in-1 OTG connector, so I plugged that baby in and plugged a USB thumb drive in. Instant recognition.

So I know nobody asked, but regarding OTG: The phone supports up to two USB mounted disks simultaneously right out of the box.

But wait, there's more...

I wanted to see how far this goes, so I plugged a USB mouse in. It works (even the scroll wheel). Tried a USB keyboard. Works too. I wish I had more things to try, but the point is made I think

 

[brianbrain]

Looks like the last "mysteries of the x8 platform" have been revealed.

iFixit has done a tear-down, and there are two processors from Texas Instruments that appear to fit the bill.

The "contextual computing processor" seems to be a good match for: MSP430 Ultra-Low Power 16-bit MCUs - 5 Series - MSP430F5259 - TI.com

And the "natural language processor" looks to match this guy quite well: Products - C55x Dual MAC DSP - TI.Com