I have a DROID DNA. You have questions. Fire away!

[FishPharm]

This is a tad bit off topic but I didn't want to start another thread but lets say we get the DNA, how long do we have if we want to trade it in for a Note2 etc? Last year they had a pretty large window to return the phone.

 

[Markster1]

14 days

The Nottinator

 

[EggoEspada]

This is a tad bit off topic but I didn't want to start another thread but lets say we get the DNA, how long do we have if we want to trade it in for a Note2 etc? Last year they had a pretty large window to return the phone.

Currently its still a 14-day window of return. They might extend it to say, 30 days, but nothing has been annonced as of yet.

Sent from my SCH-I535

 

[PsychDoc]

Hey Phil, I was wondering if you could comment on the brightness level of the DNA's screen at max brightness. I love bright screens and have always kept my phones' "automatic brightness" controls disabled so the phone can always be on max. That was one of the primary reasons I didn't get the GS3. The screen was/is way too dark for me even at maximum brightness. I know the brightness king is the iphone 5 but I was wondering if you found the DNA's screen to be adequately bright? Also one or two reviewers have mentioned a "bluish cast" to the screen. Have you compared the whites of this phone on the google home page to other, competing phones? Are the whites truly white? I'm a current owner of the Gnex and the horrible yellowish cast on what's supposed to be white has driven me nuts.

TIA!

 

[DarkScythe]

Hey Phil, I was wondering if you could comment on the brightness level of the DNA's screen at max brightness. I love bright screens and have always kept my phones' "automatic brightness" controls disabled so the phone can always be on max. That was one of the primary reasons I didn't get the GS3. The screen was/is way too dark for me even at maximum brightness. I know the brightness king is the iphone 5 but I was wondering if you found the DNA's screen to be adequately bright? Also one or two reviewers have mentioned a "bluish cast" to the screen. Have you compared the whites of this phone on the google home page to other, competing phones? Are the whites truly white? I'm a current owner of the Gnex and the horrible yellowish cast on what's supposed to be white has driven me nuts.

TIA!

Please see my post here: http://forums.androidcentral.com/ve...-have-questions-fire-away-12.html#post2327673

As for your first question, I believe one of the review sites had some sort of comparison with the DNA and 4 other recent phones, and they had them all side by side so you could see the brightness difference between them.
That said, brightness is ALSO subject to variance, but not by too much.
We can probably Google up the panels used by each screen and find the luminance specs for each one.

Edit:
Whites being "truly white" really depends on your eyes.
As an amateur photographer, I deal with white balance all day during post processing.
White is always white, be it yellower (warmer) or bluer (cooler.) If you want "natural" daylight, the measurement is commonly 6500K.
Best bet is to have someone test their phone with a colorimeter to find out, but as my post states, there are huge variances there.

 

[badbrad17]

The Verge just killed it on battery life...rut-row.

HTC Droid DNA review | The Verge

Yup. Not surprised. The big quotes are:

1. It?s certainly a phone that requires a trip to the battery charger at least once, possibly even twice, during the day to make it to the evening.

2. The DNA just doesn?t feel as fast as the Nexus 4 in pretty much everything ? despite its very high benchmark scores.

Sent from my SGH-T989D using Android Central Forums

 

[morecaffeine]

Has this been tested by chance? Have seen it be an included option in some phones while missing from other models of the same manufacturer.

 

[Imacellist]

In regards to playing music in the car. All of my phones that I have had have always had a bit of background noise when it comes to charging and listening to my phone through the car stereo at the same time. I am wondering if the separate amps for the headphone jack, or the fact the headphone jack is pumped up a bit would change this. Could you plug it into a car charger, plug in an audio cable to your stereo, and turn the volume up and see if there is any noise? Not a deal breaker but I am just curious if the effect is different on this phone. Note that I am saying turn up the volume on the car to max, but don't play anything, that is the easiest way to tell.

 

[Imacellist]

Yup. Not surprised. The big quotes are:

1. It?s certainly a phone that requires a trip to the battery charger at least once, possibly even twice, during the day to make it to the evening.

2. The DNA just doesn?t feel as fast as the Nexus 4 in pretty much everything ? despite its very high benchmark scores.

Sent from my SGH-T989D using Android Central Forums

Looking at people that are A.) more reputable *cough android police* and B.) Have spent significant time testing the battery I would say The Verge really screwed that review up. You should never use a phone once and make all assumptions from that one use. Everything I have read is that the battery life is great and WILL last all day. As far as speed, I'm sure it is right on par with the nexus 4, the only difference is that the nexus 4 is bloatfree (my DNA will be the moment the first ROM comes out) and is also on 4.2 instead of 4.1.2. That makes a difference in benchmarks, and also user-ability.

 

[DarkScythe]

Looking at people that are A.) more reputable *cough android police* and B.) Have spent significant time testing the battery I would say The Verge really screwed that review up. You should never use a phone once and make all assumptions from that one use. Everything I have read is that the battery life is great and WILL last all day. As far as speed, I'm sure it is right on par with the nexus 4, the only difference is that the nexus 4 is bloatfree (my DNA will be the moment the first ROM comes out) and is also on 4.2 instead of 4.1.2. That makes a difference in benchmarks, and also user-ability.

I'm curious why everyone says The Verge screwed up here.
Their testing methodology may be flawed, as none of us will ever sit there for 4 hours continuously visiting web sites and downloading high resolution photos, but it IS still a repeatable (on their end, I hope) test that had some fairly controlled variables, as any "benchmark" should.

Furthermore, as I noted in my post earlier, although The Verge's review put the battery life at "only" 4 and a half hours, it was 4 and a half hours of continuous usage, with the screen on. (I can't tell, but to me, it only stands to be logical that a benchmark about visiting websites would have the display remain on.)

AndroidPolice, the so-called "more reputable" source gives a different take in their review, and their methodology mirrors the average user much more closely, but is also subject to way more variance.
In this case, since the phone was not continuously used/abused, it went on very strongly for over 27 hours. Very respectable, and most of that was good idle power management.
However, note that even in AndroidPolice's review, the total amount of "Screen on" time remained in the 4 hour range - the same exact range that The Verge arrived at.

I am quite intrigued.

 

[Imacellist]

I'm curious why everyone says The Verge screwed up here.
Their testing methodology may be flawed, as none of us will ever sit there for 4 hours continuously visiting web sites and downloading high resolution photos, but it IS still a repeatable (on their end, I hope) test that had some fairly controlled variables, as any "benchmark" should.

Furthermore, as I noted in my post earlier, although The Verge's review put the battery life at "only" 4 and a half hours, it was 4 and a half hours of continuous usage, with the screen on. (I can't tell, but to me, it only stands to be logical that a benchmark about visiting websites would have the display remain on.)

AndroidPolice, the so-called "more reputable" source gives a different take in their review, and their methodology mirrors the average user much more closely, but is also subject to way more variance.
In this case, since the phone was not continuously used/abused, it went on very strongly for over 27 hours. Very respectable, and most of that was good idle power management.
However, note that even in AndroidPolice's review, the total amount of "Screen on" time remained in the 4 hour range - the same exact range that The Verge arrived at.

I am quite intrigued.

I think The Verge is not known as well for these kinds of things. For the most part, people do not care, nor should they, how long their phone will last if they constantly tax the processor and screen to kill the battery as fast as possible. This information is not really helpful, and ends up scaring the less knowledgeable consumer. If I hear that the Verge tested a phone I'm looking at and they tell me it's gonna last for 5-6 hours I won't want to get it. The other thing that bothers me is that they take that extreme test, and then say that you will most likely have to charge your phone 1-2 times every day! That is not what it means. Real world tests are what we actually care about. That tells us what we can expect if we are to purchase and use this device. That is why I'm saying they screwed up. The point of a review is to give USEFUL information, what they did with the battery is scare people. Real reviewers know enough to use the phone for a few days before giving a solid review on the battery. The guys at android police know this, and only posted information on it because people are freaking out about it. Heck Phil hasn't talked much about battery, because he said he needs to use the device for a couple days to know what it really is capable of. *end rant*

 

[lazarus2297]

This is a tad bit off topic but I didn't want to start another thread but lets say we get the DNA, how long do we have if we want to trade it in for a Note2 etc? Last year they had a pretty large window to return the phone.

14 days

The Nottinator

That's why you get it at best buy.. whether you are upgrading or buying at full retail.. they will match Verizon's price and you get at least a 30 day return policy and no restocking fee if you decide to exchange/return it.. just understand that if you upgrade, you have 14 days to return the device and have your contract/upgrade reset.. or you can keep the upgrade but switch to a different Verizon phone until that 30 day limit..

Sent from my DROID RAZR HD using Android Central Forums

 

[DarkScythe]

I think The Verge is not known as well for these kinds of things. For the most part, people do not care, nor should they, how long their phone will last if they constantly tax the processor and screen to kill the battery as fast as possible. This information is not really helpful, and ends up scaring the less knowledgeable consumer. If I hear that the Verge tested a phone I'm looking at and they tell me it's gonna last for 5-6 hours I won't want to get it. The other thing that bothers me is that they take that extreme test, and then say that you will most likely have to charge your phone 1-2 times every day! That is not what it means. Real world tests are what we actually care about. That tells us what we can expect if we are to purchase and use this device. That is why I'm saying they screwed up. The point of a review is to give USEFUL information, what they did with the battery is scare people. Real reviewers know enough to use the phone for a few days before giving a solid review on the battery. The guys at android police know this, and only posted information on it because people are freaking out about it. Heck Phil hasn't talked much about battery, because he said he needs to use the device for a couple days to know what it really is capable of. *end rant*

Right, I understand that, but TheVerge released numbers based off a benchmark, rather than usage.
Benchmarks are inherently very taxing, and yes, technically it was a flawed approach as no one actually sits there doing those things continuously until their phone dies.

However, as I noted, the numbers that TheVerge and AndroidPolice arrived at, along with several users on this forum who have it already, all match up quite nicely.
TheVerge's taxing benchmark ran for 4 hours and 25 minutes. From 100% to 0%.
AndroidPolice technically ran a lot longer, 27 hours and 30 minutes, but in the end, the total amount of "Screen on time" matched what TheVerge found - 4 hours and 8 minutes of screen on, phone being used, sometimes quite heavily. In fact, TheVerge has a 17 minute advantage, which is to say that the amount of power consumed in that time running full tilt in their benchmark was roughly equivalent to the amount of power lost through idling for nearly a full day. (This is not a direct proportion of course, because there are many other variables involved in the battery capacity, consumption and discharge rates.)

I imagine the only reason that people are complaining is that if you only look at the one number from TheVerge, you would have no real idea on the long-term idle consumption rate. However, to say it is a useless review is a bit much, IMO. It provides much needed information from a different angle, that when taken together with all the other information, start to present to us a common trend. I'll refrain from the fanboy/hater explanation.

 

[badbrad17]

Looking at people that are A.) more reputable *cough android police* and B.) Have spent significant time testing the battery I would say The Verge really screwed that review up. You should never use a phone once and make all assumptions from that one use. Everything I have read is that the battery life is great and WILL last all day. As far as speed, I'm sure it is right on par with the nexus 4, the only difference is that the nexus 4 is bloatfree (my DNA will be the moment the first ROM comes out) and is also on 4.2 instead of 4.1.2. That makes a difference in benchmarks, and also user-ability.

Okay. I will agree. I will try to keep my mouth shut until we get some more feedback. I so want this phone to kill. But am just really not that hopeful.

Sent from my SGH-T989D using Android Central Forums

 

[Darth Duane]

Right, I understand that, but TheVerge released numbers based off a benchmark, rather than usage.
Benchmarks are inherently very taxing, and yes, technically it was a flawed approach as no one actually sits there doing those things continuously until their phone dies.

However, as I noted, the numbers that TheVerge and AndroidPolice arrived at, along with several users on this forum who have it already, all match up quite nicely.
TheVerge's taxing benchmark ran for 4 hours and 25 minutes. From 100% to 0%.
AndroidPolice technically ran a lot longer, 27 hours and 30 minutes, but in the end, the total amount of "Screen on time" matched what TheVerge found - 4 hours and 8 minutes of screen on, phone being used, sometimes quite heavily. In fact, TheVerge has a 17 minute advantage, which is to say that the amount of power consumed in that time running full tilt in their benchmark was roughly equivalent to the amount of power lost through idling for nearly a full day. (This is not a direct proportion of course, because there are many other variables involved in the battery capacity, consumption and discharge rates.)

I imagine the only reason that people are complaining is that if you only look at the one number from TheVerge, you would have no real idea on the long-term idle consumption rate. However, to say it is a useless review is a bit much, IMO. It provides much needed information from a different angle, that when taken together with all the other information, start to present to us a common trend. I'll refrain from the fanboy/hater explanation.

The thing is they used the same test on the GS3 and got a worse result and yet they said the battery was average and gave it an 8. the DNA lasted longer and they gave it a 4 and said it was terrible.

Having a testing methodology is great, but you have to use it properly.

 

[Darth Duane]

Can someone confirm they were able to use USB OTG for usb hosting? Engadget review seemed to say it's not supported.

 

[DarkScythe]

The thing is they used the same test on the GS3 and got a worse result and yet they said the battery was average and gave it an 8. the DNA lasted longer and they gave it a 4 and said it was terrible.

Having a testing methodology is great, but you have to use it properly.

True, I never said their review was without flaws, but that's partly why I conveniently left out anything about their scoring.
The meat of the statistic we're looking for - 4 hours and 25 minutes of screen time - is still valid though, and is in line with what other reviews are bringing in.

 

[ubigred]

Don't underestimate non-removable batteries. My iPhone 4 from a year and half ago that I gave to a relative is still just as good as it was when I bought it. It outlasts my S3 and the S3's battery is amazing. Additionally, my brother works at Verizon, and he says that with unibody (non-removable) phones, if anything were to go wrong with your phone, the warranty covers it and you just get an entirely new phone; which I am okay with.

Yea and you better hope all info (sms, mms, music, video, documents etc) is backed up to the cloud. If not, say goodbye.

Sent from my SGS3!

 

[Phoneguy108]

I have a question for Phil or for anyone with the DNA. The Note 2 has a silent mode exception feature. There is probably a specific name for this feature but I do not know the name. Basically, this feature allows the user to set specific people that can call/text with sound, while everyone else is kept silent. I am not sure if this is an android feature or something that is exclusive to Samsung. Any feedback on this would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[ubigred]

Looking at people that are A.) more reputable *cough android police* and B.) Have spent significant time testing the battery I would say The Verge really screwed that review up. You should never use a phone once and make all assumptions from that one use. Everything I have read is that the battery life is great and WILL last all day. As far as speed, I'm sure it is right on par with the nexus 4, the only difference is that the nexus 4 is bloatfree (my DNA will be the moment the first ROM comes out) and is also on 4.2 instead of 4.1.2. That makes a difference in benchmarks, and also user-ability.

Where did you read that the phone will last all day? More importantly, define "all day"?

Sent from my SGS3!