cabanatuan
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Well if you're going custom you've picked a good one
im waiting for S-OFF before i root this bad boy
Well if you're going custom you've picked a good one
Great review Rob,as I already own the phone I have to say you have hit the proverbial nail on the head and as you say it looks like a bright future for this phone if HTC's history is to repeat itself,yet again great job on the review.I've not said a great deal about it to be honest, but I'll gladly give you my thoughts
IMO, it's the best Android device around. But it's not the best by the sort of margins it should be. There are some subjective things that are personal opinion, such as the design and screen size. For me, it's as big as I'd want, things like the Note are too big for an every-day device, but for others that's not the case. Same with the design, I think it looks very classy, it's not cheap or tacky looking but it's not dull and predictable like previous HTC efforts have been. All personal opinion
The reason I say it's not the best by the margins it should be, is it has the ingredients to be truly superb. The hardware is amazing (not a word I use often in this perspective), the screen is just brilliant, Android ICS is very good indeed, HTC Sense has been scaled back and is a good addition (not strictly necessary and I've not been a big fan of Sense historically, but this version works well). But all of these ingredients don't add up to the sum of their parts. It's like having the absolute perfect ingredients for the best cake ever, but not quite baking it well enough.
For instance, navigating home screens lags too much, noticeable especially straight after unlocking. Scrolling is jerky at times and some animations aren't as smooth as they should be, considering the power on-tap. It seems to have all the processing power a mobile could ever need, but takes a split second to realise what you've asked it to do.
Some of this is down to Android itself. Scrolling, especially, has long been a weak point. The processing power flattens this out to minimise the impact on the experience, but it's there.
That's about all I can criticise it for though HTC will no doubt make further firmware improvements to remedy some of this (the firmware update that landed yesterday rectified some widget, Sense and scrolling problems, plus problems with Beats audio) and when you think about it, it's really nice to know you have a superb device that will get better as time goes on.
Battery life, for me, has been fine. I took it off charge yesterday at 06:00, had a 2-hour train journey with signal dropping off all the time, which batters the battery, plus music playing all the way, background services running, I read some news, sent some messages... then it sat in my pocket all day, bar a few messages, before doing the same as above again on the way home. It died at 21:30. Today I've been in the office with good signal and with medium-low usage it has dropped just under 30% so far. It's not amazing, but it's fine
Reception (WiFi and mobile signal) is really very good and actually improved noticeable with yesterdays firmware update. It's reliable, it's well built, it's easy to use and live with and feels much more mature than any Android smartphone has ever done.
So really, my only complains are the fact that the sheer level of horsepower is wasted and not used. It's marketing oneupmanship driving the hardware, it's just not necessary as Android doesn't make best use of it. Having it smooths out some Android flaws and it will be put to better use in the future I'm sure but today, while it's ahead of the competition, it's only a couple of steps ahead. It should be on another planet.
jonneymendoza said:im waiting for S-OFF before i root this bad boy
RobM said:I don't think that's the case, it's not on mine as I've got a different notification for email to messages. If you open the Googlemail App you can change the notification there, same option exists if you open the Message app and change the notification there. If you go via the central Settings you only see one option, which becomes the 'default' notification unless you change it in each app.
RSRAVI said:Hi Just got this phone ,
how do you get the live weather to work ......
the demo works but on home screen nothing happens
when it updates thanks
I assume you have weather synced in the settings?
Have any of you synced music and photo's to iTunes and iPhoto? If so, how easy was it?
ichikiriyama said:I agree. I believe you can only change the sound from within the individual app. If the app has no option within, I think you're stuffed.
1 question Is it better than the iPhone 4s?
RobM said:Better than the iPhone 4S at what?
Have any of you synced music and photo's to iTunes and iPhoto? If so, how easy was it?