Greetings,
I have had my USCC Samsung Mesmerize I500 for a little over a week now and can't say that I am totally impressed with it. Firstly, I should say that this is not only my first android device but my first smart phone, so my expectations may be a little unrealistic. Please feel free to correct me at any time if this is the case.
I have to say that this is an amazing device with an enormous potential to be a hugely useful tool, however there are a few things that are inhibiting my ability to fully realize that potential. Input from anybody on this forum would be greatly appreciated.
a.) The first issue I came across is that the battery life seems to be much more limited than I had expected. I actually chose this phone over the HTC Desire (which I had been debating on getting) primarily because of the allegedly superior battery life. So far I have only been able to get a maximum of about 4 hours of use from the battery on a full charge (out of the box, though, I have been able to increase this slightly). By use, I mean a few phone calls and text messages, possibly browsing a few web pages, but the majority of the time, the phone has spent idle in my pocket.
I have conditioned the battery--doing a full power cycle of the battery--and this may have helped some, but not as much as I had hoped.
I took some other steps as well, possibly at the cost of the stability of my phone, to try to improve battery life, with mixed results.
1.) Disabled "Live Wallpaper". I read that this can be helpful in improving battery life and freeing up system resources.
2.) Removed the live widgets from the TouchWizard screens and installed a separate launcher application. I tried LauncherPro, Go-Launcher and Zeam, and of those, I found that Zeam runs the most fluidly on this phone.
3.) I installed a Task Manager application (I know this is a topic of much debate and conjecture, but I have found that this alone had nearly doubled the effective battery life to about 8 hours or more, so it's a trade-off I am willing to make)
b.) The second issue I will bring up is the degree of "lag" or general slowness I have found in the user interface--when switching between screens, bringing up menus and prompts, etc--has gone from fairly annoying when I first purchased the phone, to abysmal at this time. Some of the steps mentioned above have helped the phone to run more smoothly, but not as much as I had hoped.
The issue seems to be most specifically associated with the dialer application and the messaging application, which is fairly frustrating. I have the impression that these applications are tied in with the TWLauncher, Samsung's Touch Wizard, so I don't know if there is any alternative.
c.) Lastly, and possibly most importantly, is that the phone application tends to crash randomly and unexpectedly, for no apparent reason when in a phone call or when I'm done with a phone call. I receive the error message ""Sorry! Activity Phone (in process com.android.phone is not responding)"" and ultimately have to do a Force Close of this application. This is not good.
Finally, I would like the suggestion of the Samsung Mesmerize and Android userbase as to how I should proceed.
My options would be to
A.) Do a factory reset and hold out for the next firmware updates in hopes that they may be able to resolve the majority of the problems that I have experienced thus far with this phone.
B.) "Root" the phone as outlined in various place and run a custom rom in order to hopefully eliminate some of the issues I have been plagued with.
C.) Take the phone back and get a HTC Desire instead, as it is still under the 30 day guarantee period offered by the carrier.
Any and all input is greatly appreciated.
Thank you!
I have had my USCC Samsung Mesmerize I500 for a little over a week now and can't say that I am totally impressed with it. Firstly, I should say that this is not only my first android device but my first smart phone, so my expectations may be a little unrealistic. Please feel free to correct me at any time if this is the case.
I have to say that this is an amazing device with an enormous potential to be a hugely useful tool, however there are a few things that are inhibiting my ability to fully realize that potential. Input from anybody on this forum would be greatly appreciated.
a.) The first issue I came across is that the battery life seems to be much more limited than I had expected. I actually chose this phone over the HTC Desire (which I had been debating on getting) primarily because of the allegedly superior battery life. So far I have only been able to get a maximum of about 4 hours of use from the battery on a full charge (out of the box, though, I have been able to increase this slightly). By use, I mean a few phone calls and text messages, possibly browsing a few web pages, but the majority of the time, the phone has spent idle in my pocket.
I have conditioned the battery--doing a full power cycle of the battery--and this may have helped some, but not as much as I had hoped.
I took some other steps as well, possibly at the cost of the stability of my phone, to try to improve battery life, with mixed results.
1.) Disabled "Live Wallpaper". I read that this can be helpful in improving battery life and freeing up system resources.
2.) Removed the live widgets from the TouchWizard screens and installed a separate launcher application. I tried LauncherPro, Go-Launcher and Zeam, and of those, I found that Zeam runs the most fluidly on this phone.
3.) I installed a Task Manager application (I know this is a topic of much debate and conjecture, but I have found that this alone had nearly doubled the effective battery life to about 8 hours or more, so it's a trade-off I am willing to make)
b.) The second issue I will bring up is the degree of "lag" or general slowness I have found in the user interface--when switching between screens, bringing up menus and prompts, etc--has gone from fairly annoying when I first purchased the phone, to abysmal at this time. Some of the steps mentioned above have helped the phone to run more smoothly, but not as much as I had hoped.
The issue seems to be most specifically associated with the dialer application and the messaging application, which is fairly frustrating. I have the impression that these applications are tied in with the TWLauncher, Samsung's Touch Wizard, so I don't know if there is any alternative.
c.) Lastly, and possibly most importantly, is that the phone application tends to crash randomly and unexpectedly, for no apparent reason when in a phone call or when I'm done with a phone call. I receive the error message ""Sorry! Activity Phone (in process com.android.phone is not responding)"" and ultimately have to do a Force Close of this application. This is not good.
Finally, I would like the suggestion of the Samsung Mesmerize and Android userbase as to how I should proceed.
My options would be to
A.) Do a factory reset and hold out for the next firmware updates in hopes that they may be able to resolve the majority of the problems that I have experienced thus far with this phone.
B.) "Root" the phone as outlined in various place and run a custom rom in order to hopefully eliminate some of the issues I have been plagued with.
C.) Take the phone back and get a HTC Desire instead, as it is still under the 30 day guarantee period offered by the carrier.
Any and all input is greatly appreciated.
Thank you!
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