Nexus 5, Straight Talk, Google Services and GMail - A potpouri of thoughts

[oskar1995]

So this is a multi-dimensional question that I was hoping would just go away, but has consistently befuddled me. Right now I'm rocking 2 (well 3 if you include my stupid work BB) cell phones. I picked up my Nexus 5 to use on Sprint but I'm demo-ing Straight Talk (and ATT LTE) for a month. I also have my trusty GS3 in my other pocket.

I've been using both phones to figure out speed and service in a variety of areas. I'm obviously a bigger fan of Straight Talk and the LTE coverage I'm getting so eventually I'm cancelling Sprint and porting my number over. The speeds are better (3-100x); coverage is much better on average and the signals are generally more stable. Obviously your mileage may vary, but those are my thoughts on that.

As for the Nexus 5, there are two little issues popping up that are throwing me for a loop and the ever intelligent gang here on the AC Forums might be able to help shed some light. When I check my battery status I'm about 58% left after 1d 5h 21m 38s. Pretty happy with that with obviously only about 20 minutes on screen time (and not much of anything done). That all makes sense. What doesn't necessarily make sense is what I look at the items that have used battery: 26% Google Services 20% Wifi, 18% Phone Idle, 12% Standby 8% Screen 7% Android OS. Out of that list the 26% Google Services really doesn't make sense. I've never seen this pop up anywhere on my other devices and certainly not this high. Would one consider this behavior normal and just a component of my usage pattern or is there something I might want to look for. I also noticed there was one day where my battery life was surprisingly bad (for sittting in my pocket all day) and this had hit about 50-60%.

The second issue (which may or may not be related to the first) is a periodic, yet very noticable delay in receiving emails. I've seen this happen on LTE, 3G, HSPA. I'll get an email to my account (synced on both phones and my iPad with Verizon) and I'll feel one phone (S3) go off, I'll see the message on my iPad, and nothing on the Nexus 5. If I go back and look at the notifications, it's fairly common to see the Nexus 5 notification come in 5-8 minutes later (sometimes more). I've confirmed this with some tests while also monitoring my signal strength. On WiFi, I've actually gotten them on the Nexus 5 a second or so earlier. I've also had them come through the same time on cellular as well.

Thoughts? By the way, LOVE the phone, LOVE the screen, LOVE stock KitKat

Thanks in advance

 

[Gekko]

1. on almost every OS update i lose Gmail "instant" Push. the way i restore it is to do a hard reset and manually reinstall and resync everything one by one - NOT using a backup/restore app.
2. Clearing Data/Cache of "Google Services Framework" will also cause "Push" problems. don't do it. fix is same as above.

BUT the fact that your lack of push is intermittent could be unrelated. it may be worth a try though.

good luck.

 

[oskar1995]

Gecko,

Thanks for the thoughts. The loss of instant push has been both before and after the update. Happened like day 2 with the phone (mind you with very little installed and very little use). I'm going to continue to monitor and see if it gets better. It works fine on WiFi which lends me to think it might be something in the Network. I've noticed my pings on Straight Talk a little higher than Sprint (even with a lot more bandwidth) so that might not be helping

As for the Framework. After reading about the impact it could have I've avoided that alltogether on my current phone. I had done it on my S3 awhile ago, but not in the last year or so.

 

[Gekko]

if you ever get sick of Straight Talk - consider AT&T GoPhone. i love it and don't mind paying a little more for the extra value they provide.

 

[maucer]

The second issue (which may or may not be related to the first) is a periodic, yet very noticable delay in receiving emails. I've seen this happen on LTE, 3G, HSPA. I'll get an email to my account (synced on both phones and my iPad with Verizon) and I'll feel one phone (S3) go off, I'll see the message on my iPad, and nothing on the Nexus 5. If I go back and look at the notifications, it's fairly common to see the Nexus 5 notification come in 5-8 minutes later (sometimes more). I've confirmed this with some tests while also monitoring my signal strength. On WiFi, I've actually gotten them on the Nexus 5 a second or so earlier. I've also had them come through the same time on cellular as well.

I am not sure if you are still following this thread, but I switched to StraightTalk about a month ago, and have been experiencing huge delays in my google voice notifications as well (among other things). I've tried several different apps to get this resolved, but none have worked for me... so I decided to write my own. It was published to the google play store this morning (Android 2.3+ currently). If anyone sees this, please try it out, and let me know what you think.

Always On Push Notifications

 

[oskar1995]

I am not sure if you are still following this thread, but I switched to StraightTalk about a month ago, and have been experiencing huge delays in my google voice notifications as well (among other things). I've tried several different apps to get this resolved, but none have worked for me... so I decided to write my own. It was published to the google play store this morning (Android 2.3+ currently). If anyone sees this, please try it out, and let me know what you think.

Always On Push Notifications

I've actually gone back to Sprint (I only did a one month trial of straight talk). The speeds were good but the pings, lags and delay were BRUTAL. Even with the blah Sprint data (although it's gotten a lot better) I NEVER see those dreaded orange icons. I don't notice as much of a lag with other apps either which is good. Even before the 4.4.2 update it seemed like things got better. Once that update hit as well I feel like the problem disappeared. Sounds like Straight Talk might still have some issues. The app looks pretty slick and I'll check it out of I run into issues

 

[maucer]

I've actually gone back to Sprint (I only did a one month trial of straight talk). The speeds were good but the pings, lags and delay were BRUTAL. Even with the blah Sprint data (although it's gotten a lot better) I NEVER see those dreaded orange icons. I don't notice as much of a lag with other apps either which is good. Even before the 4.4.2 update it seemed like things got better. Once that update hit as well I feel like the problem disappeared. Sounds like Straight Talk might still have some issues. The app looks pretty slick and I'll check it out of I run into issues

Sure, I assume it should resolve similar issues with other providers too, since it's such a simple solution. However, I haven't tested it on anything else.