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I have been using a Galaxy S2 for the past two and a half years and have been pretty happy with it overall. Last week my Republic Wireless Moto X came in, and I decided to share my experience.
(Physical Appearance)
Physically, the Galaxy S2 and Moto X are almost identical in vertical and horizontal size. The Galaxy S2 is a hair wider, and not quite as long. The Moto X packs a 4.7” screen into approximately the same sized package as the Galaxy S2 which has a 4.3” screen - though only around 4.45” of the X’s screen is usable most of the time due to onscreen buttons. The Moto X is considerably thicker (the S2 is an incredibly thin phone) though its shape is very pleasant to hold. Thinner is not always better. I was also surprised by how noticeable an increase from 122g to 130g is in my hand – the X feels surprisingly heavier and denser.
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The screens on these two devices are both Samsung-manufactured OLED panels. The S2 uses the same RGB pixel layout as the Moto X, but runs at a lower resolution of 800x480 (16:10) as opposed to the X’s 1280x720 (16:9). The Moto X’s panel is basically the same panel as is used in the Note 2, though with smaller pixels, making it one generation behind the S4 and one generation ahead of the S2. Neither has the RGBG (pentile) layout of the Galaxy S, S3 and S4, which is arguably a plus.
Auto brightness:
Max brightness:
Although it’s difficult to capture with a camera (my second S2, in fact), the Moto X’s screen is a little brighter at any given level of auto-brightness, has a higher max brightness, and a slightly lower minimum brightness than the S2. The saturation is higher on the Moto X than on the S2 though its pixels have faded in the past two and a half years (a common problem with OLED panels). Interestingly, the S2’s blue pixels have faded more quickly than its red and green pixels, which has changed its originally overly-blue image to a slightly red-green tinted image. I have to wonder if Samsung did this intentionally with their tuning, and wonder if the Moto X will suffer the same pixel fading as it ages. Also worth noting is Samsung’s inclusion of “screen modes” which control the saturation, which is absent in the Moto X. I have been using the “natural” setting on my S2 for a while now and I wish the Moto X had the option to decrease it’s saturation a little too.
Subjectively, the Moto X’s screen is an incredible improvement. Text is easier to read due to the higher resolution, and it’s just generally a more pleasant screen to look at. Not to say that the S2’s screen wasn’t acceptable, but displays have come a long way in a short time.
One thing that surprised me was the feeling of the vibrations in the S2 vs the Moto X. The X’s vibrations remind me a lot of the OG Droid (I have not owned a Motorola phone since that one), and are a lot rougher or lower-frequency than those of the S2. I wouldn’t say one is better than the other, but they definitely feel different, each being very representative of their manufacturers.
(UI and subjective performance)
The UI on the Moto X (as you probably already know) is very near stock android. Aesthetically, I like it better than TouchWiz on the S2 though functionally they are not very different. Nearly everything is organized exactly the same in the S2’s version of TW, the major differences being in the font choices and colorfulness of icons and menus. One thing notably lacking on the Moto X (with the stock launcher) is the ability to resize widgets and add or remove homepages.
Some of the app skinning done in TouchWiz is arguably an improvement over stock android, and most of the places where things are better there, Motorola has done the same. The most notable example is the camera UI. To be frank, I don’t like the UI Google has chosen for its camera, and am glad Motorola made their own.
The S2 is one of the first phones that I felt was largely “fast enough”. It has a dual core Exynos 4 SOC clocked at 1.2GHz and 1GB of RAM (~830MB usable). The Moto X has a dual core Snapdragon S4 Pro clocked at 1.7GHz and 2GB of RAM. The Snapdragon is considerably faster per clock.
I have been running my S2 rooted since day 1 and with recent 3rd-party kernels, the UI is almost perfectly smooth if there isn’t anything running in the background. There are occasionally dropped frames, and animations can be choppy if things are running in the background. Scrolling up and down webpages as they are loading in Chrome can also show dropped frames. 1GB of RAM is sufficient right now, but only just, and with the increasing requirements of apps I expect the S2 will be limited by its RAM sooner than its SOC. I would like to note that TouchWiz actually runs better than more recent versions of Cyanogenmod, so I have gone back to a modified 4.1.2 TW. The Moto X by contrast has a perfectly fluid UI out of the box, and almost nothing I have done has produced any dropped frames. Subjectively, the Moto X is noticeably smoother than the S2, especially when multitasking.
Game-wise, there is no game on the Android Market that won’t run perfectly smoothly on the S2 (today). It even handles DS emulation smoothly – you can’t tell the difference between a DS game running on the S2 vs the Moto X. So, despite the Moto X being several times faster on paper, games and emulators show no improvement (yet).
Worth mentioning is how much more quickly the Moto X tends to connect to and authenticate over WiFi.
(Features)
The Moto X has several features which I appreciate, but they aren’t make-or-break for me. Sadly, it lacks a few features which almost are.
The twist-to-activate-camera feature is neat, but it takes very little more time to hit the power button and turn it on from the lockscreen. I was surprised to learn (and other reviews hadn’t mentioned) that the motion works regardless of what you’re doing. The camera can be activated via the motion from within a call, while watching a video, or from within a game (unless, I assume, the game takes control of the motion sensors). This is situationally pretty useful.
Active display is a wonderful feature which I find as useful because I can wake my phone without hitting the power button as seeing if I have notifications without fully waking the phone.
Moto Connect is a fantastic seamless integration of texting into your desktop browser, and I wonder why others haven’t done this before. It’s one of the main reasons I used primarily Google Voice for texting before.
Assist’s Sleeping and Meeting modes are useful, but I had to disable Driving as I suspect it was hitting my battery pretty hard (tons of GPS related wakelocks) for what I got out of it. I’ll admit, I sometimes check my texts while driving, but I always wait until I’m in a low-risk area (ie stopped at a traffic light, or when there are no cars for some distance on the highway) and it would probably save more than a few lives if this feature existed on all android phones. I thought the custom SOC was supposed to allow these features without a significant battery hit, but it seems that’s not entirely true. I may revisit this feature later.
Audio effects – I turned this off almost right away. It’s nice to have a system-wide equalizer included but it’s not a very robust implementation.
I haven’t yet felt the need to use Moto Care, but it seems a very thoughtful feature to include for non-tech savvy users.
What is the Moto X missing that the Galaxy S2 has?
1. uSD card slot. On my phone I keep ~16GB of music, ~2GB of audiobooks, ~3GB of game ROMs (PSX games are large), ~1.5GB of system ROMs and backups (or at least I did on my S2), and may use half a GB for photos / backgrounds / other images at any given time. Add in 4GB of system files/apps and keeping at least 20% spare area to keep performance up, and 32GB is just about right for me - assuming that my usage patterns don't change and I don't need any more space than I'm already using in the next 2 years. The Moto X has only around 10.5GB of usable space free unless you get the developer edition (not available through Republic Wireless and probably not through contract either) which a serious, serious problem for me.
I'm not happy with the idea of paying an extra $30+ per month for higher data limit when the amount of storage I need to decrease my data usage to near zero is less than $30 up front. If I don't need to stream anything, I can easily get by with a 300MB cap. Republic Wireless is uncapped when you have their basic data plan, but Sprint’s 3G is pretty much too slow to stream music, much less videos, and coverage is not great. As for the arguments about how it could negatively affect build quality – keep in mind, the phone already has a sim card slot, and uSD cards are not any larger.
2. Removable battery. This one is actually less of an issue for me now as I bought an external battery pack. I can live without it, but this can be a problem for some users. One thing to note is that generally, most of the replaceable batteries that will fit a phone will be manufactured for only as long as the phone is, so if you’re looking to replace an old battery with a new one, most that you buy will probably be equally old, just less used. Still, it is a point of failure that can easily be replaced, which brings me to the next point…
3. No user replaceable parts. Over the two and a half years I owned my S2, I needed to replace the camera module and the charge port. It’s arguable that build quality of the S2 is to blame here, but it isn’t an invalid criticism of the Moto X that parts are not user-replaceable as they are on Samsung phones. Twice I would have needed to replace my phone or send it to the manufacturer for repairs. The total cost of parts was $12 and about 10 minutes to pull the phone apart because of this “feature”. I’m actually waiting on rooting my Moto X until the one-month warranty/return period is over as I’m concerned about part failures.
Despite how much I like the Moto X, I might not have chosen it had it not been for the incredible pricing through Republic Wireless. A uSD card is practically a requirement for me.
(Subjective Sound Quality)
Using my Beyerdynamic DT 880’s, I feel that the Moto X has better quality output, though I know basically nothing about the hardware involved. I think I could most accurately describe it as sounding like the difference between using a pocket amplifier and not. It’s easier to distinguish individual instruments and sounds, and the noise floor is a bit lower.
(Camera)
I spent a bit more time comparing the cameras, because the camera is so important to me.
The Moto X has a 10MP sensor as compared to the Galaxy S2’s 8MP sensor. Both have the same horizontal resolution so the extra pixels on the X’s camera are vertical. The Galaxy S2 takes 4:3 aspect ratio pictures, while the X takes 16:9 photos.
The Moto X has a larger aperture (f/2.6 vs f/2.4) which allows the sensor to collect more light. The X is also capable of taking pictures with an ISO as high as 5000, vs 800 from the Galaxy S2, ISO being the sensitivity to light that the sensor is capable of. These two factors will allow the X to take much brighter low-light pictures at a given exposure time, or take similarly bright pictures with much shorter exposure, which helps to prevent blurry pictures.
The X also has a different subpixel layout than most (all?) other smartphone cameras, having one clear pixel in place of the second green pixel in the camera’s 2x2 grid. This gives the possibility of collecting even more light, but can potentially produce odd artifacts when taking pictures.
Software-wise, the Moto X is very simple to use. Tap on the screen, and it focuses quickly and snaps a picture. The Galaxy S2 uses tap-to-focus by default, and only captures if you hit the capture button, which is small. The Moto X is capable of taking pictures much more quickly.
How do the cameras compare in practice? Both cameras are being used with default settings in the following shots. The left (or if you’re using a small screen, first/upper) image is taken by my Galaxy S2, while the second is from the Moto X’s camera with the latest update.
These two shots were taken in a dark room with the curtains drawn. The Galaxy S2 used an ISO of 400 with 1/17 of a second exposure. The Moto X used an ISO of 5000 with a 1/14 of a second exposure. Definite win for the Moto X, the Galaxy S2’s camera fails miserably in these conditions.
With the curtains pulled back to let in a bit of sunlight, the Galaxy S2 fares better. It continues to use a 400 ISO with a 1/17 of a second exposure, and takes a fair, if slightly blurry picture. The Moto X’s shot comes out sharp in part because it is able to use a 1250 ISO with a 1/40 of a second exposure. There is some software sharpening going on here too though, as can be seen at the bottom of the image. Overall, another win for the Moto X.
In this indoor shot, the Galaxy S2 arguably takes a better indoor picture. Although the Moto X’s shot is sharper, the repeating pattern of the carpet causes weird color artifacts due to the Moto X’s subpixel layout. Additionally, the colors are closer to natural in the Galaxy S2’s shoot. The Galaxy S2 opted for ISO 800 + 1/16s while the X went with ISO 1600 + 1/19s.
In this early-morning outdoor shot, the Moto X performs admirably. There is a deep shadow on the house to the left, with bright sunlight on the right. In order to capture enough light for detail in the shadow, the Galaxy S2 overexposes the building on the right. The Moto X automatically enables HDR and exposes both parts of the image properly. While the Galaxy S2 is capable of HDR, it’s very slow and often results in incredibly blurry shots.
This is a closeup of a fallen pine branch taken outdoors in direct sunlight. The Moto X captures more detail with more natural colors.
This is a crop of a macro shot taken with varying light levels similar to those taken in the 4th set of pictures. These have been cropped (obviously) with the building being at the center of the photo and the leaves on the grass at the bottom being at the edge of the Galaxy S2’s sensor, and near the edge of the Moto X’s. In this shot, the Moto X opted not to use HDR. The Galaxy S2 actually captured more natural colors here. Additionally, I noticed that the edges of many images taken on the Moto X are blurry, and more than can be explained just by having a very wide aspect ratio. Take a look at the leaves on the ground in the two shots.
My apologies for the extremely long images, but it was necessary.
In this shot, there is a sun glare and varying light levels, as well as repeating visual patterns in the plants. The Galaxy S2 takes a hazy shot but the colors are fairly accurate. The Moto X opted for HDR here and took a sharper shot, but messed up the colors quite a bit in the entire image. Additionally, we see the odd color-checkerboard artifacts in the plants near the pool deck, and blurriness toward the bottom edge of the shot. A strong win for the Galaxy S2.
This is another closeup in good outdoor light. The top of the cropped image represents the middle of the image captured by the camera, and the bottom is the edge. I would argue that the Moto X does slightly better in the colors in this shot and has a bit more detail in the center of its focus, but notice the extreme blurriness present at the bottom of the Moto X’s shot.
This comparison shows the common visual artifact taken by the Galaxy S2’s camera which is not present in the Moto X’s shots. Images taken in low light without a flash on the Galaxy S2 do not have consistent color between the center and the edges. It is not generally visible in shots which have detail, but can ruin certain indoor shots.
In this first flash comparison, the Galaxy S2 appears to take a better shot, but it’s deceptive. The S2 has a much brighter flash but it’s almost perfectly white, while the X has an almost yellow-green flash that helps make reddish indoor/evening scenes’ color tone closer to that of sunlight. Also, the Moto X doesn’t need nearly as bright a flash because of its incredible low-light sensitivity. I would say that the S2 generally picks up more detail when its flash goes off (at least on things close enough to be lit by the flash) but the color of the flash doesn’t do good things for a person’s face. (sorry, you’re not getting any pictures of my wife ^^)
The S2 probably makes a better flashlight and is good for taking pictures of “stuff” in low light, but the Moto X is better for taking pictures of people in these conditions – which is what you’re probably going to be taking a lot more pictures of in low light. I’d call this one a win for the Moto X.
Interestingly, the S2 does not have its color problems when the flash is on, while the Moto X does. I would argue that the Moto X is probably best used with the flash off when you can get away with it, while the S2 is basically useless in low-light without the flash.
I would argue that the Moto X definitely takes better low light pictures than the Galaxy S2. In mixed lighting conditions, the Moto X also takes superior shots, assuming its software isn’t confused and color artifacts aren’t produced. In well-lit conditions, I believe the Galaxy S2 takes better macro shots because of its consistency, lack of color artifacts, and no visible edge-blurring in these conditions. In well-lit micro shots, the Moto X displays generally better color accuracy but has noticeable edge-burr, making it a tossup in my eyes.
Overall I would rather have the Moto X’s camera. When it’s working “right” it takes stunning pictures, but the more-than-occasional color artifacts introduced by its unusual subpixel layout and lack of perfect software correction leave me with mixed feelings.
(Battery Life)
The Moto X comes with a much larger battery than the Galaxy S2 (2200mAh vs 1650mAh) so better battery life is expected. Additionally, the S2’s battery is close to 2 years old and may have lost as much as 20% of its max capacity.
I have found that with the Moto X, I am able to get a bit over 5 hours of screen-on time on a charge vs 4 hours with the S2, both mostly browsing the web over WiFi. However, the Moto X does not sleep nearly as well.
Digging into Better Battery Stats, it appears that I had some really bad GPS wakelocks – more than 500 overnight. The S2 will happily sleep for more than 5 days on a single charge without airplane mode, while the Moto X would probably die in 3 days, despite its newer SOC built on a smaller process and larger battery. Because of this I find that on a day of average usage (~2.5-3.5 hours screen on), I tend to have around the same battery remaining on the S2 as on the Moto X, though both easily get me through a day. I’m going to need to play around with the Moto X further to see if I can reduce GPS related wakelocks (isn’t there hardware that’s supposed to make this not a problem?) or just turn it off when I’m not using it. I may write another article on how to save battery on your Moto X at a later date.
Worth noting here is that the Moto X charges much more quickly than the S2 does. The S2 is capped at 650mA charge current, while the X comes with an 800mA charger and can draw more than 1200mA if you have a charger that can support it.
Conclusion – draw your own. I went from a great phone to a great phone, but not everything is an improvement.
thank you for your review. could you comment on the bass audio output of this phone? (through headphones)
Interesting that you say you can easily get 5 days idle on your S2, and the battery stats seem under 0.5% per hour. I've never owned an Android phone that could do that... actually, my iPhone couldn't either but that was a few generations ago. iPhone 3G, 3GS, Droid X, Galaxy Nexus, Galaxy S3, and now my Droid X.
Do you have email sync? Other apps syncing/polling? I mean, I don't have a whole lot but Facebook/Google+ sync, Gmail, Weather bug updates hourly... all of that adds up to about 1% or so per hour in ideal circumstances, so 3 days is about all I'll ever get - and that has always been consistent, I've never owned a phone I could get much under 1% per hour if I have normal polling/syncing stuff running.
Not doubting, just interested.
c19932 said:
thank you for your review. could you comment on the bass audio output of this phone? (through headphones)
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Click to collapse
Absolutely.
In comparison to the Galaxy S2, low bass is slightly "warmer" and noticeably less muddy. Whether it's because of a better DAC or more amplification I can't say for certain. I could probably make a recording of the outputs with my PC if you're interested - you won't hear exactly what it sounds like because it will have been processed but you might be able to hear relative differences.
binary visions said:
Interesting that you say you can easily get 5 days idle on your S2, and the battery stats seem under 0.5% per hour. I've never owned an Android phone that could do that... actually, my iPhone couldn't either but that was a few generations ago. iPhone 3G, 3GS, Droid X, Galaxy Nexus, Galaxy S3, and now my Droid X.
Do you have email sync? Other apps syncing/polling? I mean, I don't have a whole lot but Facebook/Google+ sync, Gmail, Weather bug updates hourly... all of that adds up to about 1% or so per hour in ideal circumstances, so 3 days is about all I'll ever get - and that has always been consistent, I've never owned a phone I could get much under 1% per hour if I have normal polling/syncing stuff running.
Not doubting, just interested.
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Click to collapse
Exchange kills my battery but I have GMail / Calendar / Contacts / Google Keep / Google Voice / Hangouts / Chrome / Drive / Currents Sync on. In things like Words With Friends I disable notifications when the option is present. Beautiful Widgets Weather updates are set to 2.5 hours. I don't have a Facebook app installed, and I close Skype and sign out when I'm not using it. Market is set to not auto-update apps, location reporting is disabled (so you can't track your path around town but it gets rid of most GPS wakelocks), and in apps that have an option of not using data unless on WiFi I enable that, and set WiFi to turn off while the device is sleeping (WiFi -> Advanced).
Functionally, there is very little lost from these settings.
I've recently been playing with Greenify, but it seems unnecessary with the above settings.
Eckyx said:
Exchange kills my battery but I have GMail / Calendar / Contacts / Google Keep / Google Voice / Hangouts / Chrome / Drive / Currents Sync on. In things like Words With Friends I disable notifications when the option is present. Beautiful Widgets Weather updates are set to 2.5 hours. I don't have a Facebook app installed, and I close Skype and sign out when I'm not using it. Market is set to not auto-update apps, location reporting is disabled (so you can't track your path around town but it gets rid of most GPS wakelocks), and in apps that have an option of not using data unless on WiFi I enable that, and set WiFi to turn off while the device is sleeping (WiFi -> Advanced).
Functionally, there is very little lost from these settings.
I've recently been playing with Greenify, but it seems unnecessary with the above settings.
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Click to collapse
Look into getting Better Battery Stats. You can get a free copy here on XDA. I used it to figure a strange wake lock issue I was having only when connected to a specific wifi router. Based on your high Android OS number I would guess you might have a similar issue. I kept seeing my phone be idle for 7 hours but somehow the CPU total would be over 4 hours and the awake time being almost 1.5 hours. I am trying to figure out what the setting is on my router that causes the issue but so far no luck.
landale said:
Look into getting Better Battery Stats. You can get a free copy here on XDA. I used it to figure a strange wake lock issue I was having only when connected to a specific wifi router. Based on your high Android OS number I would guess you might have a similar issue. I kept seeing my phone be idle for 7 hours but somehow the CPU total would be over 4 hours and the awake time being almost 1.5 hours. I am trying to figure out what the setting is on my router that causes the issue but so far no luck.
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Click to collapse
I have it but I haven't made sense of it yet. The two largest wakelocks I've seen has been qcom_rx_wakelock with more than an hour in a 14 hour period and a count of 6,678, and nlpcollectorwakelock. I don't know what's calling on the GPS yet so my temporary fix for that is to turn off GPS when I'm not using it. There are some minor wakelocks under "Partial" - MMApiWebService.lastChance, MMApiWebService, AcquireWakeLockAction, NotifDataListener - but these are not nearly as bad as the qcom and nlp wakelocks. Without rooting I am unable to view Alarms, and the only reference that works is since "Unplugged". So, every time I have wanted to transfer data to or from my phone I've reset BBS and haven't yet had a good record. I'll definitely be looking into it over the next few days.
Eckyx said:
I have it but I haven't made sense of it yet. The two largest wakelocks I've seen has been qcom_rx_wakelock with more than an hour in a 14 hour period and a count of 6,678, and nlpcollectorwakelock. I don't know what's calling on the GPS yet so my temporary fix for that is to turn off GPS when I'm not using it. There are some minor wakelocks under "Partial" - MMApiWebService.lastChance, MMApiWebService, AcquireWakeLockAction, NotifDataListener - but these are not nearly as bad as the qcom and nlp wakelocks. Without rooting I am unable to view Alarms, and the only reference that works is since "Unplugged". So, every time I have wanted to transfer data to or from my phone I've reset BBS and haven't yet had a good record. I'll definitely be looking into it over the next few days.
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Click to collapse
Yeah I can't say some of the things on there made much sense to me either but I've at least been able to use it to try and figure out that the drain issues are only happening on specific wifi connections. I wish I had another KitKat device to test to see if it's a Moto X issue or a KitKat issue.
The processor arrangement doesn't have anything to do with GPS. You kept wondering if it did... It doesn't. GPS is separate from the low power chips. The 8 "cores" are used as such:
- 2 for applications
- 1 low power audio processing (Touchless Controls)
- 4 GPU cores
- 1 context aware core (no clue what that means)
natezire71 said:
The processor arrangement doesn't have anything to do with GPS. You kept wondering if it did... It doesn't. GPS is separate from the low power chips. The 8 "cores" are used as such:
- 2 for applications
- 1 low power audio processing (Touchless Controls)
- 4 GPU cores
- 1 context aware core (no clue what that means)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The context aware core I believe controls the sensors used as part of the Active Display. Which would explain why the Moto X does this so much better then on other phones with 3rd party apps.
Sent from my XT1060 using Tapatalk
natezire71 said:
The processor arrangement doesn't have anything to do with GPS. You kept wondering if it did... It doesn't. GPS is separate from the low power chips. The 8 "cores" are used as such:
- 2 for applications
- 1 low power audio processing (Touchless Controls)
- 4 GPU cores
- 1 context aware core (no clue what that means)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah, thank you. I poked around in some other reviews and found this, which agrees:
Brian Klug said:
This stowage and contextual awareness detection comes through fusion of the accelerometer, gyro, and ambient light sensor data on a TI MSP430 controller which enables most of the active display features from what I can tell. These then are exposed as flat down, flat up, stowed, docked, and the camera activation (flick) gesture. The MSP430 also surfaces its own temperature sensor to the rest of Android, which is nifty (the Moto X has an accelerometer, gyro, pressure sensor, compass, and the MSP430’s temp sensor).
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Click to collapse
For some reason I suspected that the GPS hardware well under this too.
____________
I set the phone back to stock and let it sleep overnight, and here are my BBS results from that:
Calcualtes to roughly 1.33% per hour idle vs <0.5% per hour I was getting before - which isn't going to prevent me from getting through a day, but completely unnecessary. Interestingly the qcom_rx_wakelock wasn't responsible for a large percentage of the wakeups last night, though its count was extremely high.. One thing I can think of that is different is that I'm on my 5GHz WiFi network now, though I'm definitely not ready to point fingers.
I'm going to go through and disable the following, one by one, and see how my device sleeps overnight with each gone:
Activity Recognition (RW specific)
Assist
Location Reporting
Help Improve Motorola Products + Moto Care
And if I still have odd wakelocks, GPS after that.
Assist gives GPS wakelocks to see if you are driving or not. That might be it.
Eckyx said:
I'm going to go through and disable the following, one by one, and see how my device sleeps overnight with each gone:
Activity Recognition (RW specific)
Assist
Location Reporting
Help Improve Motorola Products + Moto Care
And if I still have odd wakelocks, GPS after that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Please update us after you experiment a bit.
I have location services turned on, which I'm sure contributes to my ~1%+ per hour idle consumption rate, but I've been happy with that and haven't done much controlled testing. Would be interested to see if that can be cut further - I'll probably fiddle a bit over the next couple nights as well with some of these services.
Thanks TS for posting this thread. I was considering whether to go from my current S2 to Moto X in view of the Cyber Monday discounts.
But the stuff ( expandable storage, fm tuner, gd camera ) that are important to me are unfortunately not found on the Moto X and the costs involved in importing the phone to my country isn't worth the effort.
Hence I've decided to go for an S3 + custom roms to resolve any software deficiencies compared to Moto X instead.
But still... :good: for the effort !
First battery life update -
I disabled Assist Driving and Activity Recognition (Republic Wireless Feature) and let the phone sleep for 6 hours. I had the following results:
* Battery loss reduced from ~1.3% per hour to ~1.2% per hour
* NlpCollectorWakeLock reduced from 8.0% to 1.7%
* NlpWakeLock approximately unchanged
* Overall deep sleep improved from 73.6% to 80.7%
I'm going to re-enable Activity Recognition and see if it hits battery life - disabling both of those gave a not-insignificant improvement, but I'm not sure which is the worse offender.
I'm on the same boat myself. Thinking of switching my dying i777 for the off contract motor x for att edition. I plan on switching to either aio or straight talk next march. I'm debating the nexus 5 but all the features of the x makes it a winner for me. Your review is great man, I wish everyone would do them like yours.
:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:
Sent from the second to last Galaxy
PACman Rom Nightlies
AJK 4.9 "the boss"
Have you guys heard of the Meenova MicroSD card reader? It plugs into the microUSB port and allows you to read your expandable storage. It's smaller than a quarter, and it says it's compatible with the Moto X. I'm planning on getting one for Christmas.
It's not a permanent solution, but you could just plug it in everyone you wanted to "stream" something. And all without data.
http://www.meenova.com/st/p/m3r.html
Theron113 said:
Have you guys heard of the Meenova MicroSD card reader? It plugs into the microUSB port and allows you to read your expandable storage. It's smaller than a quarter, and it says it's compatible with the Moto X. I'm planning on getting one for Christmas.
It's not a permanent solution, but you could just plug it in everyone you wanted to "stream" something. And all without data.
http://www.meenova.com/st/p/m3r.html
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Click to collapse
Actually, I have one on my desk it front of me. I haven't had a chance to play with it much but I found that Play Music and Apollo were both unable to play music from the card when I first tried. Play Music saw the files but could not play them, and Apollo did not see the files at all. I was surprised by this as I expected the media scanner took care of finding media. I have heard reports from others with different phones that Poweramp can play music just fine that way, but I haven't had a chance to test it much.
On a related note, .nomedia files don't seem to work on the Moto X (I put them in the folders where I keep my audiobooks to prevent them from being picked up by my media players) which suggests to me that its media scanner may work in a slightly different way than I'm accustomed to.
I'll take a short break from battery testing later this evening and see if I can get it working. At the very least, I should be able to store ROMs and other files that don't rely on the media scanner.
Confirmed - Poweramp will play files off of the USB disk but Play Music, Apollo, and presumably other media players which rely on the system's media scanner rather than scanning folders themselves. Mortplayer (the program I use for my audiobooks) is also fine with the Meenova adapter because it too is folder-based with its own media scanner.
It seems to be a bit buggy though. Sometimes I have to unplug and plug back in the adapter or none of my media will play, even that which is stored locally on the phone.
I think I could live with having my less-listened to music on there, but I have concerns about possible effects on battery life caused by the adapter. I would definitely need to purchase Poweramp, or find a good free player that uses folder structure and/or has its own media scanner. I often go to sleep with my phone charging and listening to an audiobook which rules out keeping those on the card, but game ROMs would probably be fine to move over.
I haven't done this since my 2012 Nexus 7, but I did have some issues with battery/wake time on the old N7 when using an OTG cable and a thumb drive. Basically, if I put the tablet away with the cable/drive plugged in, it would be heavily drained of battery when I pulled it out again, much more so than normal sleeping should account for.
Which makes sense, of course, it's pulling power to keep the drive online, and it's not awful when you're actually using the thing - just mentioning it since it also pulls power when the tablet is sleeping, and dropping your tablet into your backpack, then pulling it out 8 hours later and finding it severely depleted is a surprise.
So with the new google and Samsung phone out. What do I really gain to switch. I unlocked my boot loader, I can load just anything right? So what do I really gain to upgrade? I just don't see that much difference. Am I missing something? This phone has really been great. I bought the 64 gig one. Never had any problem with it. I have never had a phone this long, almost 2 years now. I bought this phone the day it came out. I have read all the spec and just don't see much difference right now. Updates? Am I going to be paying 850 for updates? A little better camera?
What do you see?
Nothing. In the end its just a phone. I love my droid turbo 64 gig with a almost 2 day battery. Camera needs some work but takes decent pictures. Unlocked bootloader and running RR ROM so I'm set with this phone until development ends on XDA.
Sent from my DROID Turbo using Tapatalk
I'd probably buy the droid g4 plus 64gig sd 4gig ram
Octocore 3000mah battery 1080 screen.
$300 on Amazon and a good start on dev work
I know the battery and screen is a downgrade but who honestly needs a 2k screen? That's just wasted gpu power on a screen this small.
mrkhigh said:
I'd probably buy the droid g4 plus 64gig sd 4gig ram
Octocore 3000mah battery 1080 screen.
$300 on Amazon and a good start on dev work
I know the battery and screen is a downgrade but who honestly needs a 2k screen? That's just wasted gpu power on a screen this small.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Once I went 1440p I can't go back, especially 1440p AMOLED. And I don't like very large screens like the Moto Nexus 6. This was "my" Nexus 6.
The ZTE Axon 7 right now for $400 slaps the new Pixel XL silly. It matches or beats almost every spec, except for possibly the camera. (And the camera isn't' worth an extra $400!) Google should be ashamed of themselves.
I'm keeping this phone at least another year.
See I've always been annoyed by the thought of the battery power wasted by this screen.... No idea how hard the gpu hits it. But it's definitely finer than I'm worried about
---------- Post added at 03:32 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:12 PM ----------
ZTE is a brand that scares me. They released some trash early on.
Given the dev work and octocore processor I'd still go moto g4
All you can gain is a bigger screen and in some scenario's (not all!) a better camera. Furtheron you are more likely to downgrade rather than upgrade.
You have your bootloader unlocked so you are able to flash MM as stock (brazillian by iWoody) or Cyanogenmod or any other custom kernel and ROM. You can do all the modifications possible on a MM device, your Droid has all the sensors (are there even sensors added on newer devices besides OIS?)
You can increase batterylife with greenify and dark themes (which I prefer in general), and keep the phone up a solid two and a half days regular use
In case the camera is an issue I suggest you to go for CameraFX zoom, since this has a function to measure stability before taking the shot. To me, this comes most close to reach ois possible for the Droid and have some better quality on my photos. Also, you have the option to store RAW photos, which also increases the quality. I have a preview attached to this post
I bought myself a VR gear and along with the 2k screen it is performing very well as virtual reality. I would not quickly settle for 1080p again in VR world.
Fingerprint sensor. External SD card. Other than that, nothing.
bought a zuk z2, used for 3 days, sold it
i miss so much my droid turbo
come back again to turbo
i will only change speakers in phone, better lcd with sun, and remove those capacitive buttons
rest is just perfect
eheheh said:
bought a zuk z2, used for 3 days, sold it
i miss so much my droid turbo
come back again to turbo
i will only change speakers in phone, better lcd with sun, and remove those capacitive buttons
rest is just perfect
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Stereo speakers + rear camera OIS added to this phone would make it prefect. Basically all the specs the Moto Nexus 6 had, just in a more reasonable size. Motorola almost made it perfect -- releasing the "Nexus 6" Google should have... Motorola just left off stereo speakers and rear camera OIS, for unknown reasons.
ChazzMatt said:
Stereo speakers + rear camera OIS added to this phone would make it prefect. Basically all the specs the Moto Nexus 6 had, just in a more reasonable size. Motorola almost made it perfect -- releasing the "Nexus 6" Google should have... Motorola just left off stereo speakers and rear camera OIS, for unknown reasons.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To bad phones can't be PC. Having the ability to swap out certain components to make it better.
Sent from my DROID Turbo using Tapatalk
ChazzMatt said:
Stereo speakers + rear camera OIS added to this phone would make it prefect. Basically all the specs the Moto Nexus 6 had, just in a more reasonable size. Motorola almost made it perfect -- releasing the "Nexus 6" Google should have... Motorola just left off stereo speakers and rear camera OIS, for unknown reasons.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
btw for you opinion what is the best custom rom for droid turbo? i´m thinking of unlocking bootloader and install one of them, not that i´m unhappy with the 5.1.1. stock, but it hasn´t my language, Portuguese PT not br
and btw custom rom will gain more battery?
thanks
I am on the fence between the Pixel LX and the LG V20. I know there are different phones. The reson I am considering these two is for the features and also the root able and Volte.
Any suggestion or comments that will help me in my decisions?
I will be on T-mobil network
Thanks
I love the V20 which has more capabilities than Pixel XL which I also own and am returning.
Just visit and read the Pixel threads to help with your decision.
Sent from my VS995 using Tapatalk
V20 is pretty smooth. Not always quite as smooth as the Pixel XL is, but very, very close. I've only been using the V20 for 24 hours, and I miss the Pixel XL in some ways, and not in others.
-The V20 definitely is the more capable phone. Tons of features. The Pixels are just plain boring - they work great, but lack anything special.
-I miss the AMOLED screen, but love having a 5.7" screen again on the V20 (coming from Note7 and 6P) - it's a dramatic difference, exacerbated by the additional top ticker display. If you love, love punchy color that is nowhere near accurate/realistic, the V20 display will disappoint you if you've used AMOLED before. But I actually use my Pixel XL in sRGB mode. The V20 is slightly, slightly more saturated, but extremely cold with its whites. I have to use the night-time comfort view set to medium 24/7 to get anywhere near an accurate, warm white. Personal taste here. Qualcomm is supposed to have some TruPallate thing built in that changes saturation/color temp based on your environment - I've yet to see anything from this.
-Camera comparison is a bit of a wash. The Pixels have much better dynamic range, and better selfie detail, but the V20 typically has more detail overall (due to being 16MP - not always the case though!) The V20 also has the best camera app and manual control, bar none, if you're into that. And it has an always-ready wide angle camera, which few, few people will ever have access to.
-Great sound quality in terms of output and recording. The Pixels are meh. I have audible noise with my $1,000 IEMs on the Pixel XL. The V20 is crystal clear.
-Not much to comment on in terms of battery life. I don't expect much from the V20 with its smaller cell and larger display, but I had bugs on the Pixel causing CPU times to be insane giving me garbage battery life.
-Power button/fingerprint scanner on the V20 is kind of ****, at least how it feels. Without a case, it's hard to find. The button feels cheap when you press it, as do the volume keys. But my Pixel's power button has QC issues too - it sticks, badly. The V20's scanner is mostly just as fast though, which is great. Sometimes it misses or reacts a little slower to the way I land my finger on it, possibly because it's a smaller sensor than the Pixel (and I'm not using a case on the V20 yet which makes it harder to find), but it's probably the best FP scanner I've used other than the Pixel's.
-Haven't really tested sunlight legibility yet, but the V20 will get brighter than the Pixel XL out of the box. If you root and use a kernel to activate the Pixel's HBM, it is brighter than the V20. I imagine the Pixel XL is fairly better in sunlight due to this, and its less reflective display.
-Pixel XL seems to have a better speaker.
-V20 has a much brighter camera flash for pictures, but slightly dimmer flashlight (at least the built in one - could be modified probably with root). The Pixel XL's camera flash is much better for color reproduction and skin tones though.
I really can't decide between the 2 phones. If the Note7 were still around, and actually a good performer, it'd be in my hands still. The V20 would have been perfect to me if it had an AMOLED display. But don't be mistaken, it's a great phone and actually gives you some features for your money. The Pixels are like iPhones... they just work, really really well, and that's about it. And the days of that being a huge advantage are coming to an end with Android OEMs finally maturing with their software optimization.
Settings/Developer Options/Tick on "Force GPU Rendering should make Android phone smoother/snappier!
If root available try L Speed/Entropy/fstrim apps found on Play Store!
LG V20 & LG G5 are snappy beasts and are well optimised with the Snapdragon 820 and is better than Samsung!
I wished that LG could have waited little more that it could have had the Snapdragon 821!
The Qualcomm website states that Snapdragon 821 fixes scrolling performance?
Is SD 820 bad sometimes? SD 810 & SD 808 is of course laggy sometimes!
Can't wait for next version of Snapdragon which might be SD 835 [830 might be skipped] Bring on LG G6 & LG V30! They should give battery life of 5 hours within 5 minutes of charge! Qualcomm Quick Charge 4.0
Also lag free & superior performance!
Hi there.
I'm currently stuck in choosing between the Xperia X, the iPhone 6S & the Moto G5 Plus.
In terms of camera quality, no processor overheating + a balanced performance and battery life which one would you guys choose?
Which one also has a louder speaker than the other?
And which one has a camera lens that doesn't scratch easily?
iphone6s price wise very expensive - low ram / single sim / no sdcard
MotoG5, very good speakers, good performance, overheats, battery drain high over 4g, nice stockrom to enjoy daily interactions/ snapdragon430
XperiaX, low speaker volume, very good performance, never lags, overheats sometimes, moderate batter drains over 4g. powerful stockrom offers amazing features / snapdragon650
So, I take of the three the Xperia X offers a fine balance of everything?
Gino76ph said:
So, I take of the three the Xperia X offers a fine balance of everything?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would give the answer in a diplomatic way!
If today as Xperia X user i am given a choice to buy between the 3 devices you asked.
I would buy Sony X again!
with all its other flaws , X looks amazing in hand the screen is pure and vibrant that in night the icons seems like floating. touch sensor is highly sensitive and unlocks even before my thumb touches the powerbutton. the camera is amazing!
Even if the battery of the Xperia X is so-so?
I have the G5 Plus and the X.
The X has better camera (mostly due to OIS).
The X also has a better screen.
The X has more sensors, however the g5+ has fewer senors but it uses them better (moto actions and gestures).
The X looks better than the g5+
The G5+ has a better fingerprint scanner (but both are good).
The G5+ has fingerprint scanner gestures for navigation.
The battery life on G5+ is better. The G5+ does not over heat at all.
The G5+ is smoother than the X (overall performance) but both are pretty smooth.
G5+ camera probably scratches easier (so use a case)
G5+ speakers are louder (and headphone jack louder)
If you want a premium experience (almost flagship) you might want to go for the X.
If you are a social media junky, then you might need long battery life and should go for the g5+ (3gig or 4gig model).
Both phones are fantastic.
Gino76ph said:
Hi there.
I'm currently stuck in choosing between the Xperia X, the iPhone 6S & the Moto G5 Plus.
In terms of camera quality, no processor overheating + a balanced performance and battery life which one would you guys choose?
Which one also has a louder speaker than the other?
And which one has a camera lens that doesn't scratch easily?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I guess you already have made up your mind, but here is my addition: The xperia x's speakers aren't of high volume, (you can't hear well if the place has lots of people or noise) but for a phone's speaker (dual-tone btw) I love how it sounds. Though, in order to get the most out of it it obviously needs to be placed on a flat surface. After quite some time, the lens haven't got a single scratch. The only complaints I have for the XX is the paint around the phone (where the buttons are). I'm not a wreckless user and it has a couple of marks (paint woren off). The screen is also a bit more scratch-prone than you would expect, get it a screen protector
Ptikjp said:
I have the G5 Plus and the X.
The X has better camera (mostly due to OIS).
The X also has a better screen.
The X has more sensors, however the g5+ has fewer senors but it uses them better (moto actions and gestures).
The X looks better than the g5+
The G5+ has a better fingerprint scanner (but both are good).
The G5+ has fingerprint scanner gestures for navigation.
The battery life on G5+ is better. The G5+ does not over heat at all.
The G5+ is smoother than the X (overall performance) but both are pretty smooth.
G5+ camera probably scratches easier (so use a case)
G5+ speakers are louder (and headphone jack louder)
If you want a premium experience (almost flagship) you might want to go for the X.
If you are a social media junky, then you might need long battery life and should go for the g5+ (3gig or 4gig model).
Both phones are fantastic.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have seen reviews of the G5 Plus and they all seem to have common themes:
Photos seem a bit bland & poor low-light photos
Multitasking & app loading is near abysmal as apps load constantly and doesn't load quick enough
True?
Photos are definitely not bland... I'll take a couple with both phones and post here for comparison. That said, Ive been pleased with the pictures the G5+ takes. Apps load very quickly on both phones, and if you get the 3/4 Gig version they stay in memory. The G5+ is a very very snappy phone.
I haven't had the x for long. This is just my general opinion. The general feel for the G5 + is that it is the best midrange phone, and I can say I agree with this statement. Anyway, photos to come.
Ptikjp said:
Photos are definitely not bland... I'll take a couple with both phones and post here for comparison. That said, Ive been pleased with the pictures the G5+ takes. Apps load very quickly on both phones, and if you get the 3/4 Gig version they stay in memory. The G5+ is a very very snappy phone.
I haven't had the x for long. This is just my general opinion. The general feel for the G5 + is that it is the best midrange phone, and I can say I agree with this statement. Anyway, photos to come.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Will await for the photos.
So, 9 out of 10 written reviews and video reviews are either liars, trolls or paid to give negative reviews?
I need evidence photos taken in good light (outdoor), indoors (natural or artificial), low-light & night shots are better than the previous gen. I have yet to see a video that has some sort of EIS which again reviewers (& Moto) doesn't say has.
The UK only has the 3GB model and I'm quite concerned that again as per the videos Ive seen apps DO NOT stay in memory and they reload all the time which is a sign of poorly optimised software and poor memory management.
Ill post some photos tonight or tomorrow. Still won't make much of a difference. The X takes better pictures than the Moto G5+.
I know some reviews panned the G5+ for its camera. Others praised it. It is more than sufficient for the price in my opinion. Yes, the rear camera does seem to have EIS, motorola's product web page say it does also. It works OK, the X's works a little better.
Just a realistic run-down:
The G5+ on amazon is selling for 179 pounds . You only have the choice of 16Gigabytes which stinks, but you do get 3gigs of RAM.
Battery life will be better, pictures are sufficient and no its not the best in low light, but it gets the job done. Screen is plenty bright, the device is plenty snappy and Ive personally never seen an app reload. [Disclaimer, 4Gig/64Gig model here]. I'm not a social media junky. Need more internal memory? Buy a quick read/write rated micro sd card and use Nougat's adaptive storage option. A good micro Sd card costs 30 pounds. You don't have the option to do this on the Xperia X (out the box - you can enable it).
The Sony Xperia X is selling for 293 pounds in black -- ( more if you chose the other color options).. That's more than 100 pound premium over the G5+, but you get 32Gig of storage, a better camera, a sleeker package , a better but but smaller screen and a hit on battery life.
Now i wont be able to convince you that the G5+ is a better phone, but for the price and my use it is better. I bought mine for $299. My Xperia X can be had at $250 if I look around enough. The X @ $250 is a fantastic deal. the G5 model I have @ $299 is just as great a deal.\
If camera is the most important go for the X for sure. Just don't expect 4k recording on the X (G5+ can do it).
Sony Xperia X pictures
Moto G5+ pictures
Both Cameras are using auto matic modes, I-Intelligent for Sony, Auto for G5. I just started the camera , pointed it, and hit the shutter button (and or physical button).
Ptikjp said:
Ill post some photos tonight or tomorrow. Still won't make much of a difference. The X takes better pictures than the Moto G5+.
I know some reviews panned the G5+ for its camera. Others praised it. It is more than sufficient for the price in my opinion. Yes, the rear camera does seem to have EIS, motorola's product web page say it does also. It works OK, the X's works a little better.
Just a realistic run-down:
The G5+ on amazon is selling for 179 pounds . You only have the choice of 16Gigabytes which stinks, but you do get 3gigs of RAM.
Battery life will be better, pictures are sufficient and no its not the best in low light, but it gets the job done. Screen is plenty bright, the device is plenty snappy and Ive personally never seen an app reload. [Disclaimer, 4Gig/64Gig model here]. I'm not a social media junky. Need more internal memory? Buy a quick read/write rated micro sd card and use Nougat's adaptive storage option. A good micro Sd card costs 30 pounds. You don't have the option to do this on the Xperia X (out the box - you can enable it).
The Sony Xperia X is selling for 293 pounds in black -- ( more if you chose the other color options).. That's more than 100 pound premium over the G5+, but you get 32Gig of storage, a better camera, a sleeker package , a better but but smaller screen and a hit on battery life.
Now i wont be able to convince you that the G5+ is a better phone, but for the price and my use it is better. I bought mine for $299. My Xperia X can be had at $250 if I look around enough. The X @ $250 is a fantastic deal. the G5 model I have @ $299 is just as great a deal.\
If camera is the most important go for the X for sure. Just don't expect 4k recording on the X (G5+ can do it).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
what are you talking about? As soon as I got my XX I instantly popped in micro SD without problems.
FoxTheLegend said:
what are you talking about? As soon as I got my XX I instantly popped in micro SD without problems.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're taking about adding an external micro sd card. I'm taking adding to the internal memory size (where you store actual applications). Both phones support adding external microsd cards. Moto g5+ will let you do adaptive storage. Google: Android adaptive storage
Ptikjp said:
You're taking about adding an external micro sd card. I'm taking adding to the internal memory size (where you store actual applications). Both phones support adding external microsd cards. Moto g5+ will let you do adaptive storage. Google: Android adaptive storage
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ohh I see. That's nice. Tho you can do that to your SD card too in XX (Merge it with internal storage) if I remember correctly there was an option for this in settings.
Ptikjp said:
Sony Xperia X pictures
Moto G5+ pictures
Both Cameras are using auto matic modes, I-Intelligent for Sony, Auto for G5. I just started the camera , pointed it, and hit the shutter button (and or physical button).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey Cheers for the photos. But if my eyes aren't decieving me the G5+ photos looks slightly better than the Xperia X. Would you agree?
Ptikjp said:
Ill post some photos tonight or tomorrow. Still won't make much of a difference. The X takes better pictures than the Moto G5+.
I know some reviews panned the G5+ for its camera. Others praised it. It is more than sufficient for the price in my opinion. Yes, the rear camera does seem to have EIS, motorola's product web page say it does also. It works OK, the X's works a little better.
Just a realistic run-down:
The G5+ on amazon is selling for 179 pounds . You only have the choice of 16Gigabytes which stinks, but you do get 3gigs of RAM.
Battery life will be better, pictures are sufficient and no its not the best in low light, but it gets the job done. Screen is plenty bright, the device is plenty snappy and Ive personally never seen an app reload. [Disclaimer, 4Gig/64Gig model here]. I'm not a social media junky. Need more internal memory? Buy a quick read/write rated micro sd card and use Nougat's adaptive storage option. A good micro Sd card costs 30 pounds. You don't have the option to do this on the Xperia X (out the box - you can enable it).
The Sony Xperia X is selling for 293 pounds in black -- ( more if you chose the other color options).. That's more than 100 pound premium over the G5+, but you get 32Gig of storage, a better camera, a sleeker package , a better but but smaller screen and a hit on battery life.
Now i wont be able to convince you that the G5+ is a better phone, but for the price and my use it is better. I bought mine for $299. My Xperia X can be had at $250 if I look around enough. The X @ $250 is a fantastic deal. the G5 model I have @ $299 is just as great a deal.\
If camera is the most important go for the X for sure. Just don't expect 4k recording on the X (G5+ can do it).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If the Xperia X had a bigger screen then I would by it in a heartbeat. I find the 5.2" (or more) to be a sweet spot in terms of holding the phone, screen real estate, etc. But I still can't seem to shake off those other issues of the G5+.
Gino76ph said:
If the Xperia X had a bigger screen then I would by it in a heartbeat. I find the 5.2" (or more) to be a sweet spot in terms of holding the phone, screen real estate, etc. But I still can't seem to shake off those other issues of the G5+.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Honestly .2 inches of real-estate isn't that much. The G5+ took some nice pictures indeed, so did the Sony X. I would say the Sony X is a tad more reliable in better pics in first shot. The G5+ will require that you hold the phone still for low light pics which can be problematic, but the shutter speed is more or less the same. Its not Samsung Galaxy low light performance... but it is fine for most people.
Good luck
Gino76ph said:
If the Xperia X had a bigger screen then I would by it in a heartbeat. I find the 5.2" (or more) to be a sweet spot in terms of holding the phone, screen real estate, etc. But I still can't seem to shake off those other issues of the G5+.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Really, for 0,2 inches? The xperia X is very nice to hold and surprisingly it seems when you are holding it that it isn't only 5 inches. I did compare it to an other ☓peria phone with a bigger screen (5,2 or 5,5?) and honestly the difference was incredibly minor. I wanted to go for bigger too, but this phone has a very appealing size
Balanced choice would be the xperia x, but if you want performance, consistent camera (video and stills), and a good investment you can't go wrong with the 6s; it's a beast (used to own it as my main phone and I still miss it)
The U 11 is not as good as I expected, specially for the audio part as it doesn't have a 3.5mm jack and the bundled adapter is perhaps very slightly louder than S8 but the sound quality is said to be better on the S8. Also the official U 11 is postponed till July in my country, only the grey market one is available right now and it costs a leg, +130$ compared to the S8 (grey market too)
So I am tempted again by the S8 which has undoubtedly the best screen in 2017, so here my questions for people coming from the HTC 10 or M9, and even actual S8 users:
-Are you afraid of screen burn-in? I usually use my phone's screen as Car dashboard to control music in my car so it can stay 1 hour with the screen activated, the HTCs LCD won't do any burn-in but what about Amoled of the S8?
-How's music on the earphone jack using your own iems? Are too far from HTC 10 and M9 audio power?
-How big are the chances to get a red tint screen nowadays?
-I always used my 10 in a Fiit VR headset for watching VR Movies, how's the S8 screen in a Fiit VR or BoboVR Z4?
-And of course do you regret getting the S8 instead of waiting for the U 11?
I'm coming from the htc 10. I don't have answers to a lot of your questions unfortunately but I can give you my thoughts. Using the supplied akg earbuds from the s8, music from the s8 sounds very good but on the 10 I feel its still better. not a difference that makes me wish i had my 10 back tho. as for burn in this is my first amoled screen and I use my phone as a display while driving and run Waze for my 45 min drive to work and then when I head home. so far no issues with the screen being on the whole drive and I don't anticipate there being any. yes, the maps change while driving but the nav and status bar are always on and I don't see issues yet. Red tint I do not notice and even if I did I think it's fixable with the display settings. never used vr so can't comment on that.
I do not regret getting this over the u11. I prefer a phone that I can easily use one handed. the 10 was about at the limits of what I could use one handed and the s8 is better in this area where the u11 is bigger than the 10 and is comparable to the pixel xl which I felt was way too big imo. I appreciate the headphone jack on the s8 despite people saying it's going away eventually, I normally use bt earbuds but there are times I want to listen to something quickly and just pull out wired buds instead of having to pair my bt ones.
if you're coming from the 10 the things you will notice are that the 10 was still a great phone compared to the s8 and the s8 doesn't feel much faster than the 10. there will be a slight learning curve with Samsung's ui which you will adjust to but you will be annoyed by how the 10 seemed to do things better. new features with the s8 will make up for that and the screen will look gorgeous coming from the 10 but you will see that the 10 still had a great screen as well. volume buttons on the opposite side compared to the 10 are annoying and still annoy me when using the camera which I'll explain below. the fingerprint sensor on the s8 will drive you mad after using the 10 front fps which imo fps on the front is my preference. both are very fast, assuming you get placement on the s8 correct the first time, this helps with a case on it. Battery life is better on the s8 most likely due to the cpu but not by much. I got over 4 hours sot with the 10 and get over 5 now with the 28 with similar usage. Camera on the s8 is superior to the 10 but again not by much, I still took fantastic shots with the 10. with the 10 I used volume button to snap pics and it was right there when shooting in landscape mode, with the s8 I have to use the on screen button with my right hand which I find results in blurry pics sometimes.
initially, i had buyers remorse going from the 10 to the s8 but after adjusting to Samsung's ui I'm happy with it. that being said, I don't think the upgrade from the 10 to the s8 is worth it due to it being only a slightly better phone. If you're looking for an upgrade and want to be comparable to the 10 I would consider the one plus 5 coming soon, tho last I saw they dont have a headphone jack either. if you have any other questions feel free to ask me.
Thanks for the details!
I think I will go toward the U 11, yesterday someone told me that VR movies on google cardboard compatible headsets (which I have) will get black bars on the screen making the viewable screen just 5.1'' due to the weird 18/9 ratio, the U 11 is 5.5'' but still 16/9 so it will use 100% of the screen
I came from the HTC 10. No i don't regret it.
1. I am not afraid of burn in, I will isle back to T-Mobile under manufacturer warranty and get a replacement with no deductable for the defect.
2. This was one of my biggest fears, before buying the S8 i had done as much research as possible and most people seemed to be happy with S8 audio. After getting the phone quality of audio was pretty good but not loud enough for me. So another user posted to free Adapt sound apk with package disabler from the play store and download Fx equalizer and that made a big difference. Then i used the htc earbuds i got from HTC as a gift and the combo is great, music i robust enough, and now loud enough. So no root audio for s8 based on these mods worked great for me.
3. Don't know anything about red tint on the phone so not wired about it, of it happens i will use solution from number 1 again.
4. I haven't used VR so can't comment on that part.
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Thanks!
I think I am gonna take an S8 then.
HTC keeps postponing the release here and the price will be more than an S8 + a used GearVR.
Sunshine doesn't look like it will be available for the U11 so root = no warranty
I love HTC but I have to be more practical this time and take the S8