flashing gingerbread to galaxy tab p1000 is a nice idea. It opens many app compatiblity to the tab. But its full of issues compared to froyo. I'll share my issues.
first the goodies
Those who still having odin flashing doubts quote here i can give you a beginners guide.
I am going through every aspects. Some are previously discussed but some are not mentioned in any other threads or forums i think. Please share yours too if any.
I flashed gingerbread european version xxjq1.
The best thing i noticed was booting time. of tab went down to less than half on froyo. Very fast booting. Also booting sound changed to a nice music though its not a big deal.
Lock screen is the same as froyo as i expected something like galaxy s2.
But you can set different wallpapers for your home screen and lock screen which was not in froyo.
Home screen is looking same but its samsung home 2.3.3 version. Icons on the home screen dock is changed. Browser icon changed to green. Except that nothing looks changed on home screen from froyo.
Now comes surprise. The notification bar became extremely smooth compared to froyo. Flawless. But not as smooth as galaxy s2 or better devices like that.
Over theme color changed so the notification bar icons color also changed to a more dark green. Best other thing about notification bar is, if you have an ongoing call minimized the bar
looks crystal green lighted. Its awesome to see which is missing on froyo.
Another thing which i think very handy is music player got integrated into notification bar.
When music player is running you can play/pause, previous/next, fast forward/backward straight from notification bar. Big improvement.
now technical
Task manager got updated. There is one more tab named downloaded.
Your newly installed programs are listed here. So dont have to go to settings applications.
Ram manager changed. There is no stage 1 stage 2 option. Only one button clear memory. I think it is good.
Stock browser's change should be admitted. Its like wow. I assure you no other browser you installed comes even close to its user interface. I am writing this now in it. It bacame buttery smooth to navigate. Not a small lag when scrolling on a big content rich page and switching to new tabs. There was no lag to scroll even when youtube was playing in desktop mode with flash. Even my desktop firefox lags a little to scroll when playing hq youtube but our tab aced.
Also there is a memo button and phone button integrated into browser menu bar which is very handy. Overall browser is awesome.
I forgot to mention before there is no new stock wallpapers.
Now about music player the onboard virtual 5.1 improvement is incredible.its like wow compared to froyo. Plug in your headphone and you will notice.
In settings the battery info has greatly improved. There is a graphic demo of battery use.
And ofcourse battery consumption DECREASED much much much. I have to say that beacause i had a problem with the battery. When its about 40%-45% it suddenly dropped to 3% and shuts down in 3-5 min. But now its completely gone. Plus i assure you that you will be amazed with the battery capacity of our great tab.
When using camera the preview has been improved much. Its like flowing when scrolling through pictures. Plus quality of recorded video increased much.
now the media storage system improved much. As i mentioned tab became fast, media scanning also became much fast. Sdcard thing changed to usb storage on gingerbread. Plus there is a progress bar in notification for media scanning. Thats good beacuse we couldn't see progress before.
Call setings is having more options than before video calls voice mail etc on the first page itself.
The stock video player codec improved much. Before i had a brrip mp4 movie showing unsupported format. But now it works smooth. Plus video player became smooth overall on playing.
Anyone with more goodies please add. I'll add more when knowing. I wrote all this for those who want to know changes before trying gingerbread on their tab.
By issues, I assumed you meant problems/bugs/incompatbilities. Are you saying there are no disadvantages to doing it? I've a forgotten XEU tab. I keep hoping Samsung might officially offer GB but the longer it goes the less likely it seems.
jeremyr62 said:
By issues, I assumed you meant problems/bugs/incompatbilities. Are you saying there are no disadvantages to doing it? I've a forgotten XEU tab. I keep hoping Samsung might officially offer GB but the longer it goes the less likely it seems.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ofcourse there are disadvantages. I was little busy two days so i cant finish. By issues i definitely mean bugs and problems.
Yeah, now comes the problems
Starting from the beginning, the power on is having little problem. On froyo you have to press power button for like 1 or 1.5 sec and release. Tab will power on after one more second. But now I have to press it until it power on. I don't know if its bug or not but for me its annoying.
after booting here comes bigger problem. The four button leds on bottom never turns off until screen goes off completely. Even if there is 1% charge the leds are on. And ofcourse it doesn't turn off when playing videos. Its really annoying like if you are watching a full length movie in a dark room you have to keep starting at these led and its really annoying.
but I have found a solution. There's a widget named buttonbacklight in market. it requires root access. But very useful. And if you turns off screen and on it again led lights again. You have to turn it off again. but that's not hard as starring at those leds all the time. Plus you can cut the led brightness to half with this widget. Great for dark environments. Thanks to the widget maker.
I forgot to mention, the light sensor now works perfectly. on froyo it takes some time to adjust the brightness on changing lighting condi tions as it has nothing to deal with hardware. but now its fine.
Now comes a big problem. The camera is having real problems on autofocusing. you can't use the camera to take shots close by two or three inches on a dark room by autofocusing and flash. You will get only a bright white picture. this was not in froyo. It was perfect. so you can't use the tabs camera to capture text in a dark room. I tried it on black surface also but no use. Its not for completely dark but with limited light also. Set the flash to auto and if flash is needed to take picture then closeups are not possible. I think this is not mentioned anywhere before. And the flash turns off after focusing. Not good on dark rooms as you can't see any
preview.
Sorry I forgot to mention before, there is a big improvement also for the camera. There's TOUCH FOCUS added now.
On froyo there was four options on USB settings. but 'ask on connection' is absent now.
Its very hard if you connect your phone for different purposes frequently as you have to go to settings and change it.
Now comes another problem for media. On froyo music or video pause when you disconnect headphone or what that is connected to 3.5 mm jack. This is good and is present in gingerbread also. But it pauses when you plugs headphone or whatever into the jack. This is annoying but not too hard to deal with.
The gallery app has not improvedand became worse than before. Its very slow and lags to load files. I expected rotation animation on switching landscape portrait modes.
although the Codec improved on video player, its user interface became hard to user.
You can't set brightness for video if your phone's brightness is set to auto. so if you're watching a movie and you want to increase or decrease brightness you'll have to exit video and change brightness. Not on user defined brightness. But very annoying when brightness is auto.
And the screen rotation animation when you switch between two landscape modes is gone. It was a little eye candy.
Another problem is also very annoying. On froyo there was different two different icons for downloaded and downloading tasks as there was a little animation for downloading ones so that you know something is downloading. But now there's no animation for downloading and both exactly same icon. There's only animation for something that is installing. So if you wanna know if something is downloading or the download is complete, you have to pull notification bar down. very annoying if you left something downloading and came to see if its complete as you have to unlock phone and pull down the bar.
Get back soon.little busy.
ram
ram usage is much high than gingerbread. I've got upto 120mb ram usage in froyo. But gingerbread usually use 190 to 200 mb all time. U have to use task manager apps to clear some apps and bring usage to 150mb. But memory management depends on apps independent offree ram. If u run an hd game with a download in some heavy browser, ur download 'll cancel because the game force close browser for resource.
Related
Hi,
I noticed that there is a slight delay when I scroll down a web page or the application menu. I have the impression that the display isn't as fluid as the iPhone to my girlfriend. Another comparaison than i saw, is on the locking screen, when i unlock the phone the little triangle isn't really smooth if i compare to the iphone. It's like if the refresh rate of the screen was too low.. I wanna know if i'm the only one to have this issue..
X10 for the win!
iPhone runs only one app at a time.
while this phone can run tens of apps.
maybe too many apps are running in your background
try using 'Advanced task killer' to kill all unused apps.
my phone runs as fast as iphone for the features u mentioned..no lagging whatsoever.
I'm using this app, that's not a lag like if the phone had too many apps running..
I installed hardware info app on the market and I have noticed something strange. Under Display, Size=320x569. The screen resolution is not supposed to be 480x854 ?
In others words, when I scroll down/up/right/left (anywhere) the phone has a little delay to scroll...
The scrolling on browser was smooth. Maybe its a heavy page.
About the lockscreen its natural IMO because if we make our phone sleep/standy or screen off. The apps that runs lockscreen etc is idle and like also turn off to make battery life efficient. So its natural that the lockscreen is too lag a bit moment as it refreshes from being idle to being used. It begins loading up
Not sure whether I'm the only one but there are a few things that really bugging me with the OTA:
1) Auto-brightness now just always keeps me at the lowest brightness. I prefer the auto but not if its going to make my screen always dark.
2) The camera actually seems to take not as good pictures for some reason. Everything looks more washed out, especially in low light cases.
3) The default black background worked with all programs, and the white just doesn't. For example FPSE: when you are picking from a list of roms if the list doesn't go all the way to the bottom then where there are things to pick from its black and below it its white. Titanium Backup has the same thing below the list of schedules. It is frekin ugly and just doesn't look right like it did before.
4) The top bar icons just don't look as nice as the old ones.
5) Talking over the phone everyone sounds quiter and grainer
daneren2005 said:
Not sure whether I'm the only one but there are a few things that really bugging me with the OTA:
1) Auto-brightness now just always keeps me at the lowest brightness. I prefer the auto but not if its going to make my screen always dark.
2) The camera actually seems to take not as good pictures for some reason. Everything looks more washed out, especially in low light cases.
3) The default black background worked with all programs, and the white just doesn't. For example FPSE: when you are picking from a list of roms if the list doesn't go all the way to the bottom then where there are things to pick from its black and below it its white. Titanium Backup has the same thing below the list of schedules. It is frekin ugly and just doesn't look right like it did before.
4) The top bar icons just don't look as nice as the old ones.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've noticed that low light pictures suck now.
I'm not having the same low light picture issues.
Also, if some apps look bad because of the new theme, those app makers should fix their apps. If just one app inherits the new color-schemes, all apps can. Some programmers are not using "best practice" techniques in this case.
For example, they manually set the background color and font color, rather than inherit from the colors from the system. Should be a simple fix for them, if they care.
daneren2005 said:
Not sure whether I'm the only one but there are a few things that really bugging me with the OTA:
5) Talking over the phone everyone sounds quiter and grainer
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For those that don't mind using Bluetooth, I highly recommended the Motorola H720.
This headset isn't that expensive, and IMHO it greatly enhances the call quality on ALL of my Android phones.
I'm still on (Bell) Froyo, but the H720 might be worth a shot for anyone disappointed with call quality...
Sent from my GT-I9000M using XDA Premium App
Since upgrading to official Gingerbread, my Gmail icon no longer shows up in the messaging app. Gmail still works, but when I go into messaging all other accounts are listed except my Gmail app account. Gmail was always listed in the messaging app in Froyo. My wife hasn't upgraded yet and Gmail list listed in messaging on her Atrix. Is anyone else having this issue?
Daneren, I agree the new color theme is horrible. The color and symbols on the notification bar really bad.
low light pic sucks!!! Colors seem a little cheap on the menu bar.
Jonny Steele said:
low light pic sucks!!! Colors seem a little cheap on the menu bar.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is why I think Motorola should have put the new exposure setting onscreen instead of in the menu settings. That setting makes a huge difference in picture quality, and I have to adjust it way too much for it to be in menu setting.
I am disapointed with a few things also. Low light pics seem effected, I cant tether anymore, my quadrant standard score is 300-800 lower consistantly now, there is an annoying lag when I unlock with the slider, and I prefer the top bar icons with 2.2.2.
ssackett said:
I am disapointed with a few things also. Low light pics seem effected, I cant tether anymore, my quadrant standard score is 300-800 lower consistantly now, there is an annoying lag when I unlock with the slider, and I prefer the top bar icons with 2.2.2.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried a 3rd party app like Barnicle Tethering?...
Sent from my GT-I9000M using XDA Premium App
If you're rooted wifi tether for root seems to work fine for me.
I'd rather do that than manually dig around sql files and possibly bork something (as per the mod in the dev section).
As a formed N1 user I miss my vanilla android sometimes
To add to that
-home screen seems to be less responsive
- battery indicator inaccurate
Haven't tested a lot. Will take time to test all the options and features.
However the new keyboard seems to be an improvement though.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
No bugs or issues here but new MOTOBLUR home looks and performs worse than its predecessor.
As far as picture and video quality I see no difference.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA Premium App
the default music player seems to have shuffle turned on permanently and I can't turn it off!!!!
wintermute000 said:
the default music player seems to have shuffle turned on permanently and I can't turn it off!!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Slide your finger to the left, you should then have an option to change that.
thx but slide where? tried everywhere lol
wintermute000 said:
thx but slide where? tried everywhere lol
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Should be on the album art, if that doesn't work... Idk.
thx doesn't work, over to winamp.
Would prefer stock (lockscreen features, less bloat/ram)
Car dock became atrocious. You now can only add 4 apps to it, the rest is either close button (two of that), and stupid music player functionalities (music player, internet radio, podcast player) or voice search.
I also have ran into the issue with the battery indicator.
wintermute000 said:
the default music player seems to have shuffle turned on permanently and I can't turn it off!!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you are looking for a player that's close to the previous, give PlayerPro a try. (Has trial but not free)
If you want a free player with even less permissions used than Winamp, give Zimly a try.
I currently have both players on my phone...
Sent from my MB860 using XDA Premium App
I want to read your review of ICS on your Iconia. What do you like, what you think is lacking and should have been different as compared to HC. Positive and negative reviews are important so don't feel like you only have to pick just what you like or what is wrong with it. Write it all. Your first impressions and if you want, a followup later - once you've had some time with it.
I'd like to ask that you put some thought into it. Not that it has to be long but no single sentences. I'll just get a mod to clean the thread of them.
I'll get the ball rolling:
I went ahead and installed and can report no issues so far. A couple of things though.
After it booted [after the install] it wouldn't connect to the network automatically - I had to manually tell it to connect, though it still had the credentials and has since connected fine upon multiple reboots.
The browser bookmarks synced automatically. My problem was with HC - for the life of me it wouldn't sync my browser - all my other computers synced up fine with my primary and I tried everything I could to get it to sync with HC but it wouldn't and that was from a fresh reset a few weeks ago. After rebooting into ICS I found all my bookmarks synced up quickly so I'm happy again.
No screen issues and it's far more snappier than it was on fresh vanilla HC. To be fair, I reset a few weeks ago and only installed about 5 apps - aldiko, dropbox, docs etc... the basics. Even vanilla HC was a bit of a bear sometimes but ICS is not.
No more stuttering when swiping through homescreen in orientations other than normal which is great to see.
I much prefer the new app drawer. It's a much more unified experience and swiping is so snappy! That's is the biggest things for me. But it's also nice to see a clean area. The HC apps/widget/wallpaper nightmare was just that. Not in terms of navigation, it just looked fugly and dropped me out of the whole HC look. Now it's far more complimentary to the ICS experience.
The whole swiping apps/notifications features is nice but I'm not sure it's really doing anything. I opened Gmaps and saw it listed in the running apps list in Settings - went to the homescreen - opened up the recent list and swiped Gmaps out - went back to settings>apps and it was still present. It wasn't a solid test, to be sure, but I'm not sure how significant the swipe to remove tasks is and whether it is actually meant to kills tasks or just remove them from the list. [confusion on my part] Second to that, I'm pretty ambivalent about the swiping notifications feature - an X to press, a tab to swipe - it's all the same and neither adds to or takes away from that basic function.
I could care less about the ring and I haven't read anywhere that we were suppose to get it at all so it's no surprise to me to not see it. Same with face-unlock. It's not something I would use.
Well for my Acer a 500 the stock browser is super sloooww. It was super fast before the update. My screen flickers within some apps. For some reason scrolling is slow also. Before update I could swipe and scroll and it would scroll fast and its not the same anymore. For instance before update on my browser I could scroll down and it was so fast I would have to back up to get to exact spot I wanted to read. Now I scroll down and it only goes down a short distance and have to scroll again. I cannot remove zinio, tegra games and a few other bloatware that I have no use for. These are my big complaints with the update now.
Sent from my A500 using xda premium
Looking good so far.
Since the update I have been testing all of my apps. So far all are working correctly. I was disappointed that I lost root, however that was an easy fix. I searched the forum and found an easy way to get full root. Had a few hickups at first with the browser and network connections, but they seemed to correct themselves as the day progressed.
Overall I am very happy.
nishka256 said:
Well for my Acer a 500 the stock browser is super sloooww. It was super fast before the update. My screen flickers within some apps. For some reason scrolling is slow also. Before update I could swipe and scroll and it would scroll fast and its not the same anymore. For instance before update on my browser I could scroll down and it was so fast I would have to back up to get to exact spot I wanted to read. Now I scroll down and it only goes down a short distance and have to scroll again. I cannot remove zinio, tegra games and a few other bloatware that I have no use for. These are my big complaints with the update now.
Sent from my A500 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Screen flickering is what I am also experiencing quite a lot with ICS. With honeycomb, that was never an issue but a lot of apps make the screen flicker in ICS. For me, the stock browser and scrolling is blazing fast with ICS. It had a bit of lag when on honeycomb. Also, I just tried uninstalling zinio and I was able to. Couldn't do the same with tegra games, however, though!
So far I am really liking ICS but there are definitely a few issues that need to be worked on. The update process in itself was not smooth. I had to try 4 times, reboot and even factory reset before I was able to update the tablet to ICS.
Overall, I am having mixed reviews.
I had no problems downloading or updating. I just don't see much difference from honeycomb. I can now use some ics only apps, so that's ok. Switching home screens seems to have less lag. I guess I just expected more from this update.
Overall I guess it is nice to be up to date but it still feels llike the same old tablet.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using xda premium
ICS + A500 : Home Screen Long Press Disaster
If I'm missing something PLEASE let me know.
Otherwise why are people taking this sitting down?!
BEFORE ICS long press on Home Screens brought up:
1-split screen with Widgets and Apps below and ALL 5 Home Screens above
2-sending Widgets and Apps to specific Home Screens was a breeze
3-click on a Widget and send it to the page of your choice and watch it go there
4-click on one Widget after another and off they all go
5-the same applies to Apps: you can click on 10 apps one after the other and they all add themselves to the Home Screen of your choice
6-then with simple tap and back to the Home Screen
AFTER ICS long press on home screens brings up...are you ready for this?
1-Choose your wallpaper (WHAT A TOTAL WASTE OF THE LONG PRESS)
2-to get to the widgets list you have to press the apps grid icon at top right
3-that brings you to a tabbed list of Apps and Widgets (this is the OLD SLOW way of adding Apps and Widgets to your home screens!!!)
4-click on Widgets and
5-now press on one widget and ICS brings you back to the home screens where you can drop your widget on the main home screen or push it around to other home screens (very TEDIUS and CLUMSY process!!!!!)
6-now you HAVE TO go back HOME to then press the apps grid icon at top right AGAIN to get back to the tabbed list of Apps and Widgets, then press on Widgets and repeat the process for adding other widgets to the home screens!
7-each and every time you want to add an App or a Widget you ICS forces you to go through this process
8-meaning that you can only add one App or one Widget at......a.......time......!!!
I have to wonder what kind of genius would get rid of the split screen that shows all the home screens, the Apps, and the Widgets?!
Is there a launcher app that would give me back my split screen with a long press on the home screens?!
So far, so good. I never expected the Ultimate Tablet Nirvana from ICS... just incremental improvements. The A500 is smoother and more responsive. I really like the new media player, especially the row of movies/clip thumbs, etc at the bottom. Chrome is a big thing. I've used about every browser out there and was never fully satisfied with any of them. Chrome, for the first time, gives a desktop experience on a tablet. That alone makes the ICS upgrade worthwhile.
On a side note, my 64gb micro-sdxc card arrived the same day I updated, so that's another nice In Your Face to the iPad rabble out there. 80gb of storage.
idroids said:
If I'm missing something PLEASE let me know.
Otherwise why are people taking this sitting down?!
BEFORE ICS long press on Home Screens brought up:
1-split screen with Widgets and Apps below and ALL 5 Home Screens above
2-sending Widgets and Apps to specific Home Screens was a breeze
3-click on a Widget and send it to the page of your choice and watch it go there
4-click on one Widget after another and off they all go
5-the same applies to Apps: you can click on 10 apps one after the other and they all add themselves to the Home Screen of your choice
6-then with simple tap and back to the Home Screen
AFTER ICS long press on home screens brings up...are you ready for this?
1-Choose your wallpaper (WHAT A TOTAL WASTE OF THE LONG PRESS)
2-to get to the widgets list you have to press the apps grid icon at top right
3-that brings you to a tabbed list of Apps and Widgets (this is the OLD SLOW way of adding Apps and Widgets to your home screens!!!)
4-click on Widgets and
5-now press on one widget and ICS brings you back to the home screens where you can drop your widget on the main home screen or push it around to other home screens (very TEDIUS and CLUMSY process!!!!!)
6-now you HAVE TO go back HOME to then press the apps grid icon at top right AGAIN to get back to the tabbed list of Apps and Widgets, then press on Widgets and repeat the process for adding other widgets to the home screens!
7-each and every time you want to add an App or a Widget you ICS forces you to go through this process
8-meaning that you can only add one App or one Widget at......a.......time......!!!
I have to wonder what kind of genius would get rid of the split screen that shows all the home screens, the Apps, and the Widgets?!
Is there a launcher app that would give me back my split screen with a long press on the home screens?!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You need to realize that ICS is written for use on phones and tablets, not just tablets. The old way may have been quicker on tablets but wouldn't be very useful for phones (and their much smaller screens). It was a necessary sacrifice.
I personally don't have an issue with the new way, just because I'm not adding 10 apps or widgets to a screen anyway and I don't find the movements that time consuming vs. the old way. If I WERE adding lots of apps or widgets to a screen then I suppose I'd agree completely. I however prefer the widgets in a bigger area instead of having to scroll forever through them, in fact to me it seems a better trade off for the widgets.
ICS appears to be more polished than hc when it came out. Hc 3.0.1 was not a refined experience. There will be some changes when 4.0.4 is pushed, but it is enough to prevent me from going out and purchasing the next new tablet.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using xda premium
The Good:
Everything is more responsive, period. Moving around is quicker, switching home screens is quicker, moving through apps and widgets is quicker. Not that the A500 was slow before, but it had its hiccups. This gives the tablet new life, imo - it really feels like a different piece of hardware.
The interface is more streamlined. I've never been into form over function, but in this case everything works well together. Many apps now written for ICS fit in with the whole scheme of things which creates a more uniform experience and aesthetic. Many ICS App widgets now allow you to choose either their default or black, which fits in with the ICS color scheme.
Some, dare I say most? video issues seem to have been addressed as I can play files I'd needed to use 3rd party apps to play on the included player now. Flash also seems more fluid.
Notifications are easily closed (with one X vs. many).
Widgets are laid out in a drawer vs. scroll bar making it much better and easier (for some) to go through and add them to screens.
Settings have been improved; for example, there's now a setting to see the data apps use, factory reset is now under a more obvious tab and other settings are found more easily as well.
Booting is fairly quick vs. Honeycomb. Seems to boot in under a minute no matter how many apps are installed. Booting is generally fast based on the amt. of apps that are installed, but I seemed to boot in roughly the same time before installing apps as after installing over 200 of them.
Some of the new features are nice, the screenshot ability is definitely welcome and swiping away apps is also great. Note: some apps will never fully close as they use services that run in the background.
The Bad:
Some users preferred the long press, split screen and 1-click adding of apps and widgets to the home screen vs. the App Drawer approach. I am inclined to agree that this method can be faster for adding multiple app icons and widgets to the home screens.
The Ugly: (bugs?)
The native browser still doesn't seem to be able to handle encrypted content from Google Chrome, and so the native browser cannot be synced with a Google Account which has had its content encrypted. It can only handle accounts with their passwords encrypted (which is the default).
How I see it is, if Chrome Beta can handle it, I don't see why there wasn't a setting added to the native ICS Browser to allow for it. To me, this doesn't make sense. Perhaps I'm just missing something.
***At "excellent" strength and a 75Mbps link rate, upon checking for updates I get a message saying "network coverage is poor, move to a location with better coverage to continue". Hopefully some sort of fix comes from Acer directly before they issue more updates as I can now essentially, not receive updates (apparently).
Will append to list as I come across stuff.
***Update: This doesn't seem to be specific to ICS. After further investigation it seems this WAS caused by something on Acer's end (as of 4/29/2012, updated 5/22/2012).
UPDATE:
As of 5/22/2012 I have not been having/seeing any issues. I have noticed that when the tablet is extremely low on power (under 10% or so) it turns the wifi off when sleeping, even though I've set it to never turn wifi off. I'm not certain if this is a bug or working as intended in ICS as some power saving feature. This never, ever happens when the tablet is on A/C power or docked. When I wake the tablet, wifi is connected to automatically. I'm personally happy that it does this, but I can see it being a problem for some people...so I don't really want to file this under bug/issues.
Neoprimal said:
At "excellent" strength and a 75Mbps link rate, upon checking for updates I get a message saying "network coverage is poor, move to a location with better coverage to continue". Hopefully some sort of fix comes from Acer directly before they issue more updates as I can now essentially, not receive updates
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm betting this is simply they message they're sending because their servers are being overloaded from the ICS push.
Why ICS for Tablets AND Phones?
Taking the split screen feature away from my A500 is like taking my steering wheel and my automatic transmissions away from my car! Argggghhh!
Cutting corners on an OS so that it works exactly the same on phones and tablets makes about as much sense as saying that the engines used on a 2-seater plane, in a jet fighter, and in a 747 should all work the same so as to give the passengers the same experience. That is "plane" old silly. What is even SILLIER is to insist on putting a plush airliner seat into a 2 passenger plane or to insist on keeping a propeller on jumbo 747s.
I totally get that the split screen (showing ALL the home screens at once above and the Apps and the Widgets below) would not work well on an small phone but why should it since it's NOT designed for a small screen? Why do tablet users have to put up with taking 3 steps backward just so that phone users can take 3 steps forward.
Tablet users should simply be given the choice to customize their experience so that they can take advantage of the extra real estate on their screens instead of being forced to put up with restrictive aspects of an OS that is trying to be everything to everyone. Sure ICS is a big improvement on Honeycomb, but why did some aspects of its OS have to be amputated simply to satisfy some designer's need to have a single OS for 2 VERY different gadgets?
So PLEASE, when the next version of ICS comes out PLLLLLLLLEEEEEEEEEASSSEEE give us tablet users the split screen again through the long tap on the Home Screens! Think about it! How often are you going to change your background? Making the long tap lead ONLY to the background change screen is such a WASTE of a unique gesture!
Well if you absolutely want long press to open drawer, try Apex launcher, it's based on ICS launcher but there's an option for binding long press/double tap to any function of the launcher. There is many more options that should suits you. Nova launcher is another alternative you can try.
Positives
A couple of the things I noticed right off is that when recording you don't get the terrible background noise you always seemed to get on hc supports avi video format now which I was happy with and the camera and video app seem to be recording at better detail not sure if its me or my cam? The browser is also blazing fast for me now. Layout is also crisp and clean the ring is useful makes taking screenshots a snap.
Negatives...have noticed some apps cause terrible lag for me there was also a lot of lag and freezing the first couple of hours I had the update. Also sometimes the screen flickers stated above ^^^^ none of these are big issues and shouldn't keep you from updating to enjoy
I had a lot of issues with the ICS update. I finally had to do a factory reset. Some issues were solved, but others remain:
Seems to be solved:
- Unstable applications (flashing and crashing, including Gmail).
- Unstable folders (flashing, crashing and all icons on the desktop disappearing).
Unsolved:
- Wifi is unstable and does not auto-connect (I have to connect manually when I restart the tablet or when I get home... it was working fine before ICS).
- The GPS does not work (I am not sure if it was working before ICS... as I had not had the time to test, so maybe it is not new).
- System update does not work (indicates that network coverage is insufficient despite the signal being strong and staying beside the wireless router).
ICS = bitter pill to swallow!
Well I learned the hard way that I shouldn't have jumped on the ICS bandwagon too early!
I cannot believe that in 2012 we have people designing MAJOR OS updates that have MAJOR problems and bugs!
Why not just wait another month or so and work out these major problems before unleashing ICS on everyone.
I mean didn't the ICS designer and programmers TEST ICS ON ALL TABLET AND PHONE platforms BEFORE releasing it to the world?
I'm going to milk my airplane analogy some more and say this:
Releasing ICS without having thoroughly tested it across ALL platforms is like building a plane and not knowing if it is designed well enough to fly at different altitudes and even worse not being sure it can actually land well in ALL major airports in the world in spite of different weather conditions.
Can you tell I am SICK of designers and programmers NOT having done their homework and using the general public to test their new OS for them?!
This HAS GOT to change!
I have one huge problem. In HC 3.2.1, when I press the volume button, it brought out the volume bar, and by taping the speaker icon, I can turn the volume to off, now it doesn't do anything!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's really annoying to have to hold the volume button to turn off the sound.
One Giant bonus I like in ICS is you can make native folders without the need of a secondary app.
Having one strange flaw which is my tablet randomly vibrates for no apparent reason other than that so far so go and the whole UI just seems a bit smoother than it was before on HC. Browser seems Way more Responsive than HC as well.
I'm pretty happy with ICS but GPS is not working at all. I need to check the gps.conf but it was working on HC.
Best feature of ICS: Chrome browser.
Android P in depth review (updating...)
Hi XDA, this is my opinion on the freshest dev preview of android P
Appearance
The appearance looks smoother and polished. The notifications have rounded corners and the Heads Up notifications appear like they are actually coming from the status bar instead of a rectangle taking up the screen. This is looking more and more similar to IOS, but android's customizability takes the lead. The new settings app looks a lot like the touchwiz settings because of the color coded icons. The clock has shifted to the left because P is made to support "notch" devices (i'll explain why Google is working hard for this feature later). The settings menu is organized more like touchwiz with the colored icons and that is a plus in my book. Overall, I believe this OS has achieved a greater standard when it comes to appearance.
New Features
Since this is only DP1, we are not seeing many new features, but I have seen the screenshot editor, different volume controls, the new settings app, etc. The screenshot editor is a much needed tool for me because I use social media and need to crop my screenshots, now this function can help me do just that. The volume defaults to media rather than ringer. The ring has 3 options, silent, vibrate, or ring. I believe this to be a better standard because I am always adjusting the media volume, but never the ring volume. This switch has kept the average consumer in mind. The new settings app has many battery tweaks! First off, there is a new power saving mode that doesn't tint your nav bar and status bar an ugly red color. This time, the battery saver works by limiting background power usage on applications and has a greater improvement on SOT. On DP2 at Google I/O, there will probably be more features to look for.
SOT/Battery life
The SOT has increased from 6 hrs on DU to 10 hrs on P. This is because P limits the background camera and microphone usage for apps such as Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, etc. The new battery saver feature can be turned on at any time and increases the SOT even more! I use the kirisakura harmony kernel for P and it is as good as the stock kernel, with better audio quality.
Tweaks, root, what else?
TWRP 3.2.1-2 works, but the password decryption is still faulty. It still registers what lock setting you're using. Magisk v16.1 has been released on the beta thread and magisk manager is bundled in (it is working and registering this time). Some magisk modules are not working because of P, but that should all be fixed in a few days. The only CK i've seen is Kirisakura harmony.
Overall...
Android P is a great OS for people that like new features and is relatively stable for a new OS. There are some api compatibility notifications, but that is because app devs haven't upgraded to the new api. I will be using this as my DD until official P comes out.
Thanks.
Bugs? Battery life? What apps don't work?
TokedUp said:
Bugs? Battery life? What apps don't work?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know if anyone will agree with me but my battery life is the same or better as stock for me. I had a couple force closes in the first 5 minutes after my first boot but only 2 since then. Snapchat comes up with a toast message occasionally that says something like "API compatibility error" or something, but the app still works. It has a couple hang ups here and there. I honestly feel like it's DP2 or 3 material. Been running for 24 hours, just my experience though.
Jackaroop said:
I don't know if anyone will agree with me but my battery life is the same or better as stock for me. I had a couple force closes in the first 5 minutes after my first boot but only 2 since then. Snapchat comes up with a toast message occasionally that says something like "API compatibility error" or something, but the app still works. It has a couple hang ups here and there. I honestly feel like it's DP2 or 3 material. Been running for 24 hours, just my experience though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Also have been running for 24 hours and battery is on par with stock Oreo. Haven't had any issues with apps, I don't use many though. Bluetooth works but it still said I was connected to my head unit after I turned my car off and was in my house, toggle off and on fixed it. Bluetooth icon doesn't show unless it's connected but it seems to be by design. Seems very stable for a dp1 but I think I might flash back to Oreo if root isn't available soon.
Sent from my marlin using XDA Labs
tekanina said:
Also have been running for 24 hours and battery is on par with stock Oreo. Haven't had any issues with apps, I don't use many though. Bluetooth works but it still said I was connected to my head unit after I turned my car off and was in my house, toggle off and on fixed it. Bluetooth icon doesn't show unless it's connected but it seems to be by design. Seems very stable for a dp1 but I think I might flash back to Oreo if root isn't available soon.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Looks like root is available just an issue with the magisk manager right now.
https://forum.xda-developers.com/pixel-xl/help/aod-pixel-xl-p-dp1-t3760506/post75821115
Jackaroop said:
Looks like root is available just an issue with the magisk manager right now.
https://forum.xda-developers.com/pixel-xl/help/aod-pixel-xl-p-dp1-t3760506/post75821115
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am currently figuring out a method to get your root apps on P, will be posted soon (along with a few other things
I actually like p alot even though I'm starting to see a hint of iOS
Pros
For me battery is better than Oreo
I like certain aspects of design
Seems more stable
Cons
I hate iOS
Limited root for now
I hate ios
joeeboogz said:
I actually like p alot even though I'm starting to see a hint of iOS
Pros
For me battery is better than Oreo
I like certain aspects of design
Seems more stable
Cons
I hate iOS
Limited root for now
I hate ios
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well you can hate it but iOS is far ahead of android when it comes to the UI.
I personally like the new UI on P.
Bugs so far (fresh image install, 100% unmodified non-rooted) in my few hours of testing. Keep in mind that I paid attention to every little detail:
1. Phone didn't want to wake one time to the point where I thought the phone was off. It took maybe 10-15 seconds of fiddling with the power button to wake it.
- This alone makes me think that an alarm clock could be missed.
2. Randomly goes from silent to ring.
- May be dangerous for some people depending on situation (business meetings, school setting, sleeping).
3. Launcher settings can be seen through the app drawer background.
- Tacky cosmetic mistake.
4. Adaptive brightness appears broken.
I'm sure there are more that I haven't encountered as it was only for a couple of hours. I wouldn't run it as a daily driver if you rely on your phone for things like business, alarm clock, maps, etc.
It's pretty functional for an alpha release but I wouldn't call this stable enough for everyday use unless you're comfortable with the possibility of the phone switching to ring randomly, missing an alarm clock for an important event, or phone not waking to capture a life moment (picture/video).
richii0207 said:
Bugs so far (fresh install, 100% unmodified non-rooted) in my few hours of testing:
1. Phone didn't want to wake one time to the point where I thought the phone was off. It took maybe 10-15 seconds of fiddling with the power button to wake it.
- This alone makes me think that an alarm clock could be missed.
2. Randomly goes from silent to ring.
- May be dangerous for some people depending on situation (business meetings, school setting, sleeping).
3. Launcher settings can be seen through the app drawer background.
- Tacky cosmetic mistake.
4. Adaptive brightness appears broken.
I'm sure there are more that I haven't encountered as it was only for a couple of hours. I wouldn't run it as a daily driver if you rely on your phone for things like business, alarm clock, maps, etc.
It's pretty functional for an alpha release but I wouldn't call this stable enough for everyday use unless you're comfortable with the possibility of the phone switching to ring randomly, missing an alarm clock for an important event, or phone not waking to capture a life moment (picture/video).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
did u flash factory (with wipe) or full ota file??
onesolo said:
did u flash factory (with wipe) or full ota file??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Flash image with full wipe.
richii0207 said:
Bugs so far (fresh image install, 100% unmodified non-rooted) in my few hours of testing:
1. Phone didn't want to wake one time to the point where I thought the phone was off. It took maybe 10-15 seconds of fiddling with the power button to wake it.
- This alone makes me think that an alarm clock could be missed.
2. Randomly goes from silent to ring.
- May be dangerous for some people depending on situation (business meetings, school setting, sleeping).
3. Launcher settings can be seen through the app drawer background.
- Tacky cosmetic mistake.
4. Adaptive brightness appears broken.
I'm sure there are more that I haven't encountered as it was only for a couple of hours. I wouldn't run it as a daily driver if you rely on your phone for things like business, alarm clock, maps, etc.
It's pretty functional for an alpha release but I wouldn't call this stable enough for everyday use unless you're comfortable with the possibility of the phone switching to ring randomly, missing an alarm clock for an important event, or phone not waking to capture a life moment (picture/video).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's weird I didn't have any of these issues except for the launcher settings icons displaying over the app drawer.
I did however encounter some minor problems:
On the settings icon shortcuts, when I click on "Data usage" I get an error saying "app not installed"
I cannot get the new screenshots editor, when I click on edit right after taking a screenshot it takes mo to the Google photos editor
I have noticed errors related to API compatibility showing on certain apps
Some apps don't seem to work correctly, GSam Battery Monitor for example is showing wrong stats (SOT jumped from 3 to 4h in a couple of minutes)
Other than that everything seems to work in a good and smooth way.
Words with Friends kept FCing
Pros:
1. Beautiful UI
2. Battery life is great (no orange bar for battery saving mode)
3. Notification management! P recognizes the types of notifications you want/ or don't want and gives you a quick option to disable them.
4. No FCs so far (might just be me)
Cons:
1. Launcher settings can be seen through app drawer (dev preview ****)
2. Settings icons are hideous
3. Media volume setting comes up by default when pressing the volume button. (might just be me)
I love so much about P. I can't wait for until it's out of dev preview.
guruguap239 said:
Pros:
1. Beautiful UI
2. Battery life is great (no orange bar for battery saving mode)
3. Notification management! P recognizes the types of notifications you want/ or don't want and gives you a quick option to disable them.
4. No FCs so far (might just be me)
Cons:
1. Launcher settings can be seen through app drawer (dev preview ****)
2. Settings icons are hideous
3. Media volume setting comes up by default when pressing the volume button. (might just be me)
I love so much about P. I can't wait for until it's out of dev preview.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think I read that now volume keys always default to media volume rather than ring volume. Check one of the feature list posts in xda news to verify.
Review updated, includes more stuff
I've been running Android P for about 3 days now my Pixel XL. I haven't had many issues at all, but my battery seems to drain/die much fast than it did on 8.1.
I may try to re flash P again to see if a fresh install helps in anyway. Especially since everyone seems to be getting much better battery life with P.
I'll update if I see any difference.
So you are getting 10 hours of SoT with this P preview? Seems unreal man!
nory82688 said:
I've been running Android P for about 3 days now my Pixel XL. I haven't had many issues at all, but my battery seems to drain/die much fast than it did on 8.1.
I may try to re flash P again to see if a fresh install helps in anyway. Especially since everyone seems to be getting much better battery life with P.
I'll update if I see any difference.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm also getting worse battery life on P, although I did just update from 8.1 with the factory image without wiping. I might just give it a try after wiping but I'd really rather not. I'm using a normal Pixel, non-XL.
Just wanted to add my 2 cents on the DP2 of Android P.
So far my favorite thing is how fluid it is and how nice the animations are (it's more fluid than Oreo in every way -- animations, scrolling, opening apps, switching windows, etc.) . The animations are especially nice when using the Pixel launcher. You lose certain animations when using 3rd party launchers. I've always used third party launchers since 2011 because stock ones never have the features I want but The Pixel launcher on Android P is pretty dang cool. I still miss options like no widget padding, icon packs, icon and folder resizing, gestures, custom desktop and app drawer spaces, but even losing all that is worth it with how amazing Android P runs with the Pixel launcher.
My battery life was terrible the first 2 days and I was considering going back to Oreo but it seems to have settle down now. I still feel I was getting slightly better battery life on Oreo but I can't say for sure. I know others have said they are getting better battery life on P but so far that hasn't been my experience.
I haven't run into any major bugs and have only experienced a couple minor issues like brief freezing (1-2 seconds and has only happened a few times), and had recent apps freeze up twice but hitting the home button fixes it. I know some have reported a lot of apps crashing but I don't use many apps and haven't had any issues there.
For me it's a DD. Wi-Fi Tethering, calling, texting, bluetooth, and GPS all work with no issues.
I'm not a fan of some of the new UI changes but overall it definitely seems like a good step up from Oreo. I can't wait to see how it develops over the next 6 months.
Nice write up! Agree this P is getting better and better!
I know Facebook isn't the best app in the world, and I'm a beta tester for the official app. I cannot get it to install for the life of me. Very odd errors.. keeps throwing error 504
jbarcus81 said:
I know Facebook isn't the best app in the world, and I'm a beta tester for the official app. I cannot get it to install for the life of me. Very odd errors.. keeps throwing error 504
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't personally use facebook but I just checked it out because of your post and it installed fine. I also logged in and scrolled through it a bit and it worked fine. Not sure why it's giving you issues :/
imucarmen said:
I don't personally use facebook but I just checked it out because of your post and it installed fine. I also logged in and scrolled through it a bit and it worked fine. Not sure why it's giving you issues :/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Could be an issue with the beta... I never thought much about it.
I beta test FB as well, and had issues trying to get the app to install too. I have it installed on my s9+, but couldn't get that one to update, so I found the apk for the version that's on the s9+, and it was able to install on the Pixel 2xl DP2. This leads me to believe it's the FB app itself, and not the phone.
Moostafa29 said:
I beta test FB as well, and had issues trying to get the app to install too. I have it installed on my s9+, but couldn't get that one to update, so I found the apk for the version that's on the s9+, and it was able to install on the Pixel 2xl DP2. This leads me to believe it's the FB app itself, and not the phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Perfect! Now to hunt down the latest beta APK .. looks like 172.0.0.51.93 is the latest version.
I went back to Oreo the same day I flashed P DP2. This was the same day DP2 was released. I don't remember every detail but here are the things that made me go back:
- A handful of apps would simply not work/open. I forgot which ones they were.
- I don't like the way the Quick Settings look.
- I don't like it that the Quick Settings wont open a quick detailed view and instead just open the settings app. Seems minor, but is a step-back if you ask me.
- QS icons in landscape mode are out of place.
EDIT: - Accessing the settings app via notification drawer now requires you to pull down the drawer completely. That's because the gear icon becomes only visible/accessible when it's fully expanded, while in previous Android versions, like O, the gear icon was visible even on a collapsed notification drawer.
I reeeeally love the new sound controls!
very ugly LTE icon
Literally the only thing I don't like is that the gesture bar is still eating up screen space like the nav bar did and WTF on the LTE font/icon. There is no reason to not expand displayed content all the way to the edge of the display and have the pill hover over the content. Also I see no reason for the back button. If swiping in one direction takes you back to the last used app, make swiping the other direction the back button inside an app. Other than that, I much prefer the roundness of the UI seeing the the display corners of my Pixel 2XL are rounded. It just looks more cohesive. I was a huge fan of Flux Ui, so P taking on that styling cue is another plus to me. Also the animations are much better. I haven't tested a full day of usage for screen on time yet without my phone touching a charger at some point, but the fact that I'm consistently getting a 1 to 2 percentage battery drop overnight is already better than any android version I've been on.
nitrous² said:
I went back to Oreo the same day I flashed P DP2. This was the same day DP2 was released. I don't remember every detail but here are the things that made me go back:
- A handful of apps would simply not work/open. I forgot which ones they were.
- I don't like the way the Quick Settings look.
- I don't like it that the Quick Settings wont open a quick detailed view and instead just open the settings app. Seems minor, but is a step-back if you ask me.
- QS icons in landscape mode are out of place.
EDIT: - Accessing the settings app via notification drawer now requires you to pull down the drawer completely. That's because the gear icon becomes only visible/accessible when it's fully expanded, while in previous Android versions, like O, the gear icon was visible even on a collapsed notification drawer.
I reeeeally love the new sound controls!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree on all your points but for me the fluidity and animations more than make up for it. Hopefully some of those things you mentioned get addressed. I definitely do not like the new QS style.
darkoj2007 said:
very ugly LTE icon
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agreed. That's is one of the new ui changes I'm not a fan of at all. It looks like it belongs on a phone from 6 years ago. Perhaps they did for people who are far sighted but it would be nice to have the option to use the old little LTE and 3g icons.
AndrasLOHF said:
Literally the only thing I don't like is that the gesture bar is still eating up screen space like the nav bar did and WTF on the LTE font/icon. There is no reason to not expand displayed content all the way to the edge of the display and have the pill hover over the content. Also I see no reason for the back button. If swiping in one direction takes you back to the last used app, make swiping the other direction the back button inside an app. Other than that, I much prefer the roundness of the UI seeing the the display corners of my Pixel 2XL are rounded. It just looks more cohesive. I was a huge fan of Flux Ui, so P taking on that styling cue is another plus to me. Also the animations are much better. I haven't tested a full day of usage for screen on time yet without my phone touching a charger at some point, but the fact that I'm consistently getting a 1 to 2 percentage battery drop overnight is already better than any android version I've been on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The gesture bar needs some refinement. I hate the back button as well. They need to at least make it have rounded corners and solid to match the rest of the ui. The sharp corners and hollow look really doesn't match and looks awful.
LTE and 3G icons are awful.
For some reason my battery just isn't performing as well on P as it did on Oreo. Especially the AOD -- it chews my battery up. It still easily get through the day with plenty of juice to spare and I work at home and always have a charger handy so it's not a problem.