New user, upgrading from BlackBerry Storm 2... a few questions!

[RMThompson]

Hey all. New user here. I've upgraded my Verizon phone to a Samsung Fascinate. I had a choice between the Droid X or this phone, (which I got on the cheap thanks to Wal-Mart.) and I am happy with my choice. I love how FAST everything is, how well things work and Swype.

I've got a few questions though that maybe someone can help me with:

1. Battery Life. From poking around here I see that it's a major issue with this phone, and this is the ONLY reason I am complaining and wondering if the Droid X is better. I'd love to put movies on the phone and watch them, but it seems impossible if you're not plugged in constantly, and that sort of defeats the purpose of a mobile device. I've already begrudgingly sacrificed the brightness (to just below 0) and the live wallpapers (which I loved), but what else can I do to maximize the battery? Also - are the extended batteries worth it? What about the generic batteries on eBay, do they work, or do the void any warranty?

2. Handsfree talking? On the BB I was able to plug in a regular pair of headphones, and then talk into the phone like a speakerphone, but only hearing the other person through the headphones. It was convienent for making calls at my desk while waiting on hold so I could still type. Anyone know how to make that work on this phone?

3. Putting movies onto the phone. If I want to show off the display, whats the best way to transfer movies onto the phone?

4. Getting rid of Bing? I hear there is a way to do this, untethered?

5. Any other tips and tricks? Just anything that you might think would be good for a new user. I am sure I will think of more questions as I get used to it.

 

[Joel S.]

Hey all. New user here. I've upgraded my Verizon phone to a Samsung Fascinate. I had a choice between the Droid X or this phone, (which I got on the cheap thanks to Wal-Mart.) and I am happy with my choice. I love how FAST everything is, how well things work and Swype.

I've got a few questions though that maybe someone can help me with:

1. Battery Life. From poking around here I see that it's a major issue with this phone, and this is the ONLY reason I am complaining and wondering if the Droid X is better. I'd love to put movies on the phone and watch them, but it seems impossible if you're not plugged in constantly, and that sort of defeats the purpose of a mobile device. I've already begrudgingly sacrificed the brightness (to just below 0) and the live wallpapers (which I loved), but what else can I do to maximize the battery? Also - are the extended batteries worth it? What about the generic batteries on eBay, do they work, or do the void any warranty?

2. Handsfree talking? On the BB I was able to plug in a regular pair of headphones, and then talk into the phone like a speakerphone, but only hearing the other person through the headphones. It was convienent for making calls at my desk while waiting on hold so I could still type. Anyone know how to make that work on this phone?

3. Putting movies onto the phone. If I want to show off the display, whats the best way to transfer movies onto the phone?

4. Getting rid of Bing? I hear there is a way to do this, untethered?

5. Any other tips and tricks? Just anything that you might think would be good for a new user. I am sure I will think of more questions as I get used to it.

I made the same jump.

1) Battery life is worse than my S2. It's probably a combination of use as well as the phone being a little harder on it. I didn't use my S2 like I do this one. I have chargers just about everywhere though, so I haven't bothered optimizing the battery usage yet.

2) No clue.

3) Can't help you here.

4) Check the ROMs/Hacks sub forum.

5) Enjoy it, and if your comfortable tweaking, be sure to check out XDA.

 

[NOsquid]

Verizon sells a nice spare battery/charger combo for $40. I'd just do that and not sacrifice anything. Battery life isn't that bad for a smartphone IMO.

I think the phone calls over headphones is fixed in the update that just got leaked. You'll get an OTA update soon.

Just plug your phone in via USB and put the movies on your SD card.

 

[Sta11i0n]

1.) First I can assure you the battery life on the X is worse. Its larger, less efficient screen is an even bigger battery hog. As far as extending yours, I'd recommend exploring your rooting options to remove any of the preinstalled VZ bloatware you don't plan to use. Also, stay away from task killer programs like Advanced Task Killer. The concept may seem like it helps by ending unused apps, but in fact it has been known to slow things down/use more battery. Androids software is very efficient at managing RAM unlike BB phones. This is pretty much the only thing I've done to my phone and with using live wallpapers and having my brightness set on auto, I can easily achieve over 24 hours of use on a single charge with normal usage. This includes heavy texting, web usage, playing music and games.

2.) Handsfree is not something I use enough that placing calls on speaker won't do. As a test I used the headset that came with my BB Storm (the one that has a microphone on it) and calls work with my Fascinate the same way they did with the Storm.

3.) Mount your phone via USB and copy whatever media files you wish to the SD card. If you want to keep it more organized like I do, you can create separate folders on the card for things like movies, music, etc. The phone will find them during its media scanning when you unmount and show the folders in your gallery for quick access.

4.) Back to my answer to #1, the simplest way to remove Bing is to root your phone, install a file explorer like Root Explorer, install the Google search file I've posted below, and either move the Bing file (I500_BingSearchAndroid_07152010.apk) to your SD card where your phone won't use it, or rename it by adding .old to the end of it. This will fully integrate Google via the phones search button the way Bing is from the factory.

5.) Answers #1 and #4 are a great start. Many people, like myself, are very happy with their phones in a stock configuration with just these changes. Once you're rooted though, your possibilities are endless. You can explore using other roms/kernels along with being able to utilize more advanced programs that require root access such as titanium backup and wireless tether.


EnhancedGoogleSearchProvider.apk

To install just copy the .apk file to your SD card then navigate to it in your file explorer of choice and choose install when you click on it. After that you can remove it from your card if you wish as it will be installed in your phones system/app folder.

 

[briang00]

I came from the S2 also and there are only a few thing I miss about it. Battery life isnt too bad. Think my storm was better, but with both phone I plug them in when I go to bed. Only had an issue once with my Fascinate running out but then again I had GPS on and was playing with it alot that day. Not a show stopper for me, yet. Have a charger in my car and one at work.
Havent tried the hands free like with the S2. Guess I would try it out and see.
Havent rooted my phone to get rid of Bing. Bing was almost a deal breaker for me, but if I want to search I go to google on the browser anyway. Have Google maps and Navigation on the phone so all is good.
Movies and media is easy, just do like the previous post said and transfer whatever you want.
As far as tips, live on Android Central. Plenty of helpful people and posts. I use it like I used Crackberry.com

 

[ocgreenmachine]

First of all, welcome to android! I also came from the storm 2. I do miss push email but web browsing is so much better on the fascinate.

1. I have done everything you listed to improve battery life. There are a few more things you can do, such as root your phone and remove bloatware, change your ROM to a more efficient one such as JT's super clean ROM, and turn your phone to airplane mode when you are in poor reception areas (I spend a good portion of my day underground).

2. I have only used bluetooth for handsfree, so I'm not familiar with the wired headphone/speakerphone scenario you're in.

3. With movies, I suggest downloading or ripping videos on a desktop and then transferring it to your phone just like with the storm 2. Try mobilism.org as a resource.

4. The only way that I know how to de-bing is to root and load a rom that has bing removed (jt's super clean is a good one). Also, I heard that 2.2 will have google search as default again, so we're all waiting for that.

I how this will help you as you begin to play with your fascinate.

 

[RMThompson]

Hey guys, thanks for all the advice!

Here is some updates:

1. Battery. the big V sells the extended Battery for $50 dollars, and I am not going to spend that. Short of rooting, any other advice for expanding battery life?

2. No one, even Verizon, can vouch for this scenario. I discovered on my BB whilst listening to music - just a regular headphones will act as the speaker for the phone, but otherwise it's in speaker mode... so you can talk to the phone as it sits on a desk and the headphones are in your ears. Doesn't work on the Fascinate.

3. Great, sounds good...

4. Actually I was able to find a thread on here about using Google WITHOUT rooting. (I REALLY dont want to root this phone.). I am using LaunchPro Plus and was able to download GOogle search bar and google maps, and works just as good. It's native in the LaunchPro now, but not in the default.

Tahnks for the advice!

 

[Joel S.]

Hey guys, thanks for all the advice!

Here is some updates:

1. Battery. the big V sells the extended Battery for $50 dollars, and I am not going to spend that. Short of rooting, any other advice for expanding battery life?

I wouldn't be too afraid of rooting. The chances of VZW of finding out are about the same as you hitting the lottery and getting struck by lightning on the same day. Think of it like adding a "run as Administrator" option, like you'd find in Windows, to the phone.

Some things you can probably do to extend battery life:
Lock the phone when you're not using it, don't wait for it to turn off on it's own.
Turn off any antennas you're not using (GPS, wifi, blutooth).
Turn the backlight down.
Don't use any live wallpapers.
Reduce the number of widgets you use.
Try using a black wallpaper, or one with a lot of black. I believe the Fascinate uses less power to display blacks.
Try changing the launcher and using only a few screens, the less memory you use, the less battery you drain. Don't think you have to be rooted. Edit I see you're using Launcher Pro, so give this a shot.
If you have email, get it pushed to the phone. You may have to go through Gmail or something like that.
Don't use any widgets/programs that update at a set interval, or set the interval for as long as possible.

If you root, you can use a program like SetCPU to underclock the processor a bit, that will save you tons of battery.

 

[Kevin Gossett]

Turn off any antennas you're not using (GPS, wifi, blutooth).

Actually, you can leave the GPS toggle on, because it won't actually be active (and using battery) unless there is an app running that requires it

 

[Snareman]

If you have email, get it pushed to the phone. You may have to go through Gmail or something like that.

Is this a setting you do on the phone or on the gmail website? I'm using k-9 mail and have a gmail and hotmail accounts on it. The instructions with some of the settings for K-9 mail aren't so great.

I think my battery life is pretty dismal. I could usually go through a 10h shift at work and come home with almost a full battery on my Blackberry Bold. On my SF with light to moderate usage while at work I come home with a quarter-half battery. For trips I bought the spare battery. That extended life battery is just way to big and ugly for me to use. I now keep a cable with me and will hook it up to the computer to charge at work and use my car charger much more than the never that I used it with my BB.

 

[namebrandon]

Actually, you can leave the GPS toggle on, because it won't actually be active (and using battery) unless there is an app running that requires it

I started doing this as well. Makes GPS response time much quicker.

 

[Chris Kerrigan]

Also don't forget that using WiFi were available also uses less battery than 3G. Just a thought.

 

[Snareman]

Also don't forget that using WiFi were available also uses less battery than 3G. Just a thought.

The only annoying part I find about the wifi is that if I'm in a place where it is available certain features on my phone won't work (like the market) unless I open the browser and accept the agreement. I have to do this at work every day. Sometimes I just end up turning off the wifi for ease of use.

 

[Sta11i0n]

The only annoying part I find about the wifi is that if I'm in a place where it is available certain features on my phone won't work (like the market) unless I open the browser and accept the agreement. I have to do this at work every day. Sometimes I just end up turning off the wifi for ease of use.

Odd. Never heard of this happening before. I'm connected to wifi at home and work so 90% of my usage is with it connected. When you're on wifi your 3g service should be on demand, or off unless the phone needs it to sync, etc.

 

[Snareman]

Odd. Never heard of this happening before. I'm connected to wifi at home and work so 90% of my usage is with it connected. When you're on wifi your 3g service should be on demand, or off unless the phone needs it to sync, etc.

Right. At home I have no problem. It has the PW to my home wifi and just automatically connects. But at places like the hospital I work at, Panera, ets where you actually have to accept the term of their network you don't seem to connect and get the network services until I open the browser and click accept on the first page. And then the hospital network times me out at some point and I'm back where I started. Gets a little frustrating.

 

[Sta11i0n]

I'll have to test this out the next time I'm in a hotspot location. Can't say I've ever tried to use it as 3g speed is satisfactory to me for a quick internet search and such. Both wifi networks I use on a regular basis are secured ones remembered by the phone that it'll connect to whenever they're in range.

 

[Chris Kerrigan]

A lot of places which offer free WiFi (such as airports, caf?'s and etc) make you accept a usage agreement before use, so I can attest to this being annoying. I make frequent trips to Toronto and I rely heavily on WiFi hotspots up there so I'm not using international data as much as possible, and practically every place I go I have to open the browser and accept the agreement.

The other problem with this is in heavily populated areas that are taking advantage of free WiFi, the network repopulates IP addresses every so often, so quite frequently you may find yourself having to accept the terms of use agreement again after a while even though you technically already have. Annoying, absolutely. But I can tolerate it if it means I'm saving a little juice and/or having faster speeds.

 

[Joel S.]

A lot of places which offer free WiFi (such as airports, caf?'s and etc) make you accept a usage agreement before use, so I can attest to this being annoying. I make frequent trips to Toronto and I rely heavily on WiFi hotspots up there so I'm not using international data as much as possible, and practically every place I go I have to open the browser and accept the agreement.

This, it's not an issue with the Wifi on the device, it's an issue with the company providing it. Unfortunately there's nothing you can do about it.

Re: Pushing email. If you have gmail, even through K9, it should be pushed. I can't get into specifics with some of the other big names (Hotmail, Yahoo, etc) because I don't know if they have the means to push email to Android phones. Google should be able to answer questions on those.

Quick read says K9 supports IMAP Idle... looks like it can leave a channel open to the server, and will only actively download emails when the server tells it to. So that would be more efficient than typical pull email.

In my case, I have a personal POP account. I've forwarded it to Gmail and set that up on my phone, so my email is pushed. My Gmail account is setup to send emails using my personal SMTP account, so the fact I even have a Gmail account is invisible to people unless they check the message header.

And yea, my BB's battery life was significantly better. That's partially due to just about everything being pushed to the phone (all email, facebook, etc), and the fact that I didn't use the BB like I use my Fascinate (more full page web browsing, hitting wifi/3g more for the different apps I have now, etc).

 

[ocgreenmachine]

You can also try using "Open Search" from the market to give yourself a shortcut on your home page to go to google voice search.

 

[ocgreenmachine]

Actually, you can leave the GPS toggle on, because it won't actually be active (and using battery) unless there is an app running that requires it

I've tried this and it appears to be true. Leaving GPS on doesn't drain your battery unless you use apps that actually use GPS. It also allows you to obtain GPS locks almost instantaneously if you leave the GPS toggled on.