Develop Bugs

sx-66 bad or blown speaker?

finally got an sx66!!....man it is a great little device...!!
but.....
...i believe i may have recieved my sx66 with a blown speaker(bought it on ebay ).....and am trying to figure it out....
i will describe it best as i can....
hmmm.... if i listen to music(volume half way or higher)on the sx66 its speaker will distort and sound like a blown speaker....and still won't play at the volume of the sx56..
the bummer is i do not have any devices in a store to test this theory(they are all backordered)....and if i have to take it into siemens for repair that will cost $$$.....so i want to be sure ..... ...i don't mind, i just want to get this sweet little device working correctly....also after speaking to Siemens tech support, they told me that the repair location is in houston. I live in houston, so that is cool.
phone calls sound ok....but the volume is very low....so that would work ok even with a blown speaker.....,yes?
..... any input you may have will be helpful......
also if i attempt to use the speakerphone past half way on its volume it distorts VERY badly....you almost cant understand the other person.
also...there is a .wav of a dog barking in /My Documents...if i play that at half volume or louder it distorts it.....more crackling than dog barking......
all of this was duplicated on my sx56 to test......and all work just fine.....
for poops and giggles i attempted a hard reset....no dice....
headphones sound nice....so i believe it is with the speaker....i have read several posts about bluetooth issues and such, but nothing pertaining to the speaker.....i understand that the speaker is not going to sound like a 1000 watt sound system, but it should work better than it does...ya know?
i am hoping that they would not put such a lousy speaker in there....even the default cingular ringtone is awful because of the distortion....i mean DISTORTED BAD!!....if there is a bad speaker does anybody know of a replacment?.....or fix?....other than turning it down....if i turn it down to where it does not distort, then you ca barely hear it....it is like half the volume of the sx56 with VERY low quality sound....
thanks thanks and thanks thanks again for your help to a fellow 66er....ROCK!!! and yes....this is a sweet sweet device.....after using a sx56 for 2.5 years....yep...i love this addition to the family.....just this damn speaker thing is making me bug....

Sounds to me like your SX66 really does have a blown speaker. My unit doesn't sound at all like you describe. The speaker isn't the loudest in the world, but it doesn't distort like that either.
(sorry)
I will be curious to know how you are able to get it repaired. Siemens probably isn't going to honor the warranty, because it was purchased second hand.

thats what i figured and found out from siemens....they will repair it, but it is on me...
good news is that the ebayer i bought it from responded to me and told that i could return the 66....
but i also did discover that the repair location is only like 20-30 min from me!.....is that not cool??....
so it looks like i am going to get it replaced......rock!...
ill let you know more as it happens.....
thanks.....for your help in comfirming my hypothesis about the blown speaker....
bummer!!....now i have to wait longer to get to know it....oh well, at least i have my faithful sx56.....the sx56 is such a good quality device.....i hope the sx66 can live up to it.....
thanks again....
-derfaust

Speaker/headphone volume VERY low.....

I sold my HD2 on Thursday and let me say first off that I have no regrets whatsoever: I absolutely love this phone. Before I sold the HD2 I played some music tracks on both devices through the loudspeaker and headphones jack and noticed a HUGE differential in volume.....I thought the HD2 speaker was pretty tinny but it was at least audible; the Desire speaker volume is incredibly underpowered...being practically inaudible in a moderately noisy environment. This problem seems to extend even as far as the headphones socket since some of the songs I was unable to play at full volume on the HD2 for fear of bursting my eardrums are simply not loud enough for me on the Desire.
Am I the only person to think the volume levels are too low? Is there perhaps a way to increase the pre amp levels. It's as quiet as the first generation iPhone which was REALLY BAD.
Any thoughts from anyone here?

Hi there - I've been searching online to see if anyone else has been having this problem and came across your post.
Had my Desire for a week now, and I love it. But the volume via headphones is WAY too low. Stupidly too low. I can't hear it on the tube at all, for example.
I was looking forward to using it - and Spotify, in partcular - as a replacement for my aging iPod. But there's just no way.
I can't believe this is common to every phone, as surely there would be more people complaining about it. Are there different firmware versions knocking about? It's got me pretty frustrated.

Ok this is not nice, speaker volume is very important to me. This is the first time I see somebody be this negative about it though...
Damn..
Further, you coming from the HD2, any more thoughts you want to share about the switch?
How is the 4.3 inch to 3.7 inch 'jump'?
Kind regards

Screen size is not a problem for me, colours are beautiful on the Desire and the screen seems note responsive. I tried using the HD2 for a day after getting the Desire and hated it bycomparison! Only massive annoyance though is that it is nowhere near as loud.
I suspect that people are still in their honeymoon period with the phone and that complaints will start to surface about the speaker volume in time. As far as I can recall all my other Android devices were a lot louder than this.

Don't have the device yet but in a video review the guy said the speaker was pretty loud, so it's probably only a software problem
chipshop said:
Had my Desire for a week now, and I love it. But the volume via headphones is WAY too low. Stupidly too low. I can't hear it on the tube at all, for example..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Juste buy in-ear headphones ! your ear will thanks you, pushing the volume to 100db because the tube is masking noise : not a good idea believe me.

I too, coming from an iPhone, find the headphone volume painfully low.
I use an under speaker pillow to listen to podcasts without disturbing the wife, and on the iPhone she'd sometimes complain that she could hear it. Now with the Desire I find that sometimes I can't hear it and that's at full volume.

I know this is probably obvious but I take it you have gone through. Audio settings
And maxed the volume? And checked any volume controls on headphones? If both set to max
And still not loud then the handset is faulty so get it replaced
Now!!
Mine set to max would be at ear bleeding levels!!

The speaker quality isn't great, but considering I don't use them that much it is good enough for me.
Am a little surprised with the headphone issues, considering that I have my volume set just under halfway and it is more than loud enough for me.
I am using my Sennheiser earphones, but the volume is fine with the supplied HTC ones too.

what kind of bit-rates are you using for music? ... 128? or more, ... as the quality effects the loudness somehow I believe.
try experimenting with different bit rates and see how that goes

leoni1980 said:
Screen size is not a problem for me, colours are beautiful on the Desire and the screen seems note responsive. I tried using the HD2 for a day after getting the Desire and hated it bycomparison! Only massive annoyance though is that it is nowhere near as loud.
I suspect that people are still in their honeymoon period with the phone and that complaints will start to surface about the speaker volume in time. As far as I can recall all my other Android devices were a lot louder than this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think this might be due to new UE regulations about maximum volume in mobile devices, though im not 100% sure if its already in the system.
However Im pretty sure that in couple days/weeks there will be some hacks/apps/ to change that

So have I got a faulty phone?
Or are people just overly forgiving??
Everything is set to max. I've also noticed that the Mic quality in videos is also shockingly poor in terms of volume. I wonder if all of these functions are shared by the same chipset.

leoni, I'm having just the same problem. I think it must be a problem with some of these phones. I can't believe that people are just being overly forgiving.
I'm not looking to push the volume up too high, but if I can't hear it when there's a little background noise going on, then that's a serious design flaw.
I'd like to do a comparison with another Desire at some point, hopefully I'll bump into someone using one soon...

Just to answer some of the above questions/suggestions:-
I'm using MP3s in 256k bit rate format. All volume controls are set to max and there is no volume control on the headphones I am using.

I'm sending mine back. I'm due an upgrade on Monday anyway so I'll test one in the shop and see if It's the same. The headphone volume is the main issue for me; its just too low.

I also think that the volume is way too low. Just out of curiosity, could this be a Rom issue? I'm using the stock TMO Rom. To the people who think it's loud enough, which Rom are you on?

My biggest problem is with the volume through the headphones....speaker volume I can live with, though it is crap and tinny

I think this must be an issue on your phone or you expect it to be crazy loud. I swapped out my ipod for this today on a good set of headphones (AKG KE518LE's) and the volume levels seem identical. As for the speaker, i find mine is a tad on the loud side to be honest. I find myself having to knock it dont a few notches on the volume.

alex101uk said:
I think this must be an issue on your phone or you expect it to be crazy loud. I swapped out my ipod for this today on a good set of headphones (AKG KE518LE's) and the volume levels seem identical. As for the speaker, i find mine is a tad on the loud side to be honest. I find myself having to knock it dont a few notches on the volume.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
are you on TMO ROM?

Loud speaker isn't audible above the sound of my shower, which is a real shame as coming from a n95 8gb the loud speaker was great. Oh well. I'm a forgiving type!

I have found music volume to be pretty low but I'm fairly convinced it is a software/Rom issue because the volume in some applications is loud! Doesn't made much sense. Running T-mob here.

[Q] Do you regret your purchase/upgrade?

Hi Fellow Members from all over the World:
If you knew all the Desire HD issues before you buy it/upgrade, would have you bought it/upgraded?
Please post your comments and share youir experience!

I thought this thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=817464 was dealing with this topic (backwards from your) very well ...why create another one?

not in the slighest i thought it was good to start with but today after some searching it was brought to life

M_T_M said:
I thought this thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=817464 was dealing with this topic (backwards from your) very well ...why create another one?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mine is general AND has a poll, the other one is too specific and restrictive: proximity sensor and battery. In mine, you can vote and eventually explain why. That's why I created a new thread.

Absolutely not.
I had the nexus one before and thought DHD would be my secondary phone (I have to have two) but after playing with it for one hour I switched sim cards and never looked back.
One word - screen. When I look at the nexus screen now it looks like a toy.
Although I am a bit irritated about the speaker quality.

kuba1410 said:
Absolutely not.
I had the nexus one before and thought DHD would be my secondary phone (I have to have two) but after playing with it for one hour I switched sim cards and never looked back.
One word - screen. When I look at the nexus screen now it looks like a toy.
Although I am a bit irritated about the speaker quality.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
agreed, the speaker quality is terrible and so low

Hell no this phone rocks.
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App

By the way, I'll vote and answer when I get mine. I pre-ordered mine as I'm due to an upgrade and they said I'll get it tomorrow but I know the demand for the DHD is so high that it might take longer.

who knows said:
agreed, the speaker quality is terrible and so low
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Isn't it? You would expect more from a flagship phone and boasting "Dolby Mobile" and "SRS", the nexus one had none of these and although the speakers were rubbish too, they still where better then those on the DHD.

Absolutely not! I got mine yesterday & I LOVE it. I cant stop playing with it

Ignoring the battery issue (it's getting better after few charge cycles though), I don't regret it all.

today i took mine out for a solo test run for the first time. came off charge at 10am and 12 hours later has 35% battery, after 45 minutes of gps, 3 hours of wifi internet and and hour of angry birds. oh and 3 phone calls. thats not bad. this is after 8 complete charge cycles done over 4 days. when you use it heavily it dies quick, but pace yourself and it does juuuust fine.
the camera is shockingly bad though. white balance is terrible, focusing in anything but perfect light is crap, and the image quality is questionable.
and the ear speaker volume is a little quiet for calls in loud environments, but its CLEAR. i had no problems hearing what the other person was saying, even in a noisy cafe.

I'm not really shure if I would have bought it and these are the reasons why:
battery life is not that good, although I expected this so it's not really a reason, though I'd like to mention it
"Locations" only works with data connection, so what's the use of preloaded maps then? I want to see my location without having a data connection (when roaming abroad) but this is not possible, why not? such a shame. This should be possible. I even think it's ridicoulously easy to implement in a firmware update, though I wouldn't really know
Speaker is absolutely useless. I never hear it when it's in my pocket and to make matters worse, the vibrator is not one of the best either. It makes a lot more noise than it should and it just vibrates fast, not hard. The lower the frequency and the bigger the amplitude of the vibration, the harder you feel it. Every phone in this price range I ever had, had a better vibrator
camera quality is very disappointing. On the DHD's screen it all looks very nice and crisp, untill you copy the shot to your pc, bummer... I was expecting a serious improvement in quality, coming from an iPhone 3GS but sadly this is not true
setting up the dlna to work (if compatible, which it is rarely!) is harder than running to the store, buying a Nokia N8 + hdmi cable, transfer some movies to it and connect it to your tv. So, kinda useless...
is it really that much trouble to install a LED notification light that you can actually see from an angle?
Ok, flash in the browser works, but how... it's slow and laggy
to sum it up, the DHD is still a fantastic phone, but to me a flagship device should excell on EVERY field, or at least be way above average on every field. This means GPS solution + speaker + camera... everything! And it just doesn't, not even by a long shot.
Honestly I was expecting more from the DHD
for the moment I'm keeping it because I still feel there is no phone out there that can offer me this much, but as soon as Symbian revamps their UI, I'm going back to Nokia. On the insides, S60 is still a very good OS and I love it for its possibilities but sadly it looks like crap and we're too spoiled by iOS and Android to go back there...

kuba1410 said:
Isn't it? You would expect more from a flagship phone and boasting "Dolby Mobile" and "SRS", the nexus one had none of these and although the speakers were rubbish too, they still where better then those on the DHD.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dolby is when you use headset not the speaker
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App

kuba1410 said:
Absolutely not.
I had the nexus one before and thought DHD would be my secondary phone (I have to have two) but after playing with it for one hour I switched sim cards and never looked back.
One word - screen. When I look at the nexus screen now it looks like a toy.
Although I am a bit irritated about the speaker quality.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same here. And the colors on the N1 look way overdone. I don't even like to look at it. I read so much on the bad speaker, but I must say I think I have one the better ones I guess. The loudspeaker on mine is very good. I can make too loud sometimes. No distortion at any level. I actually like it. Better than my N1.

The phone arrived four days ago. No regrets yet...

Greenjinky said:
Absolutely not! I got mine yesterday & I LOVE it. I cant stop playing with it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i bet you do

I've had this phone three weeks (I guess that makes me an old timer) and even now despite the much documented issues of speaker, battery life I can still say not only do I have no regrets, it's the best phone I have ever had.

matthiasdeblaiser said:
I'm not really shure if I would have bought it and these are the reasons why:
battery life is not that good, although I expected this so it's not really a reason, though I'd like to mention it
"Locations" only works with data connection, so what's the use of preloaded maps then? I want to see my location without having a data connection (when roaming abroad) but this is not possible, why not? such a shame. This should be possible. I even think it's ridicoulously easy to implement in a firmware update, though I wouldn't really know
Speaker is absolutely useless. I never hear it when it's in my pocket and to make matters worse, the vibrator is not one of the best either. It makes a lot more noise than it should and it just vibrates fast, not hard. The lower the frequency and the bigger the amplitude of the vibration, the harder you feel it. Every phone in this price range I ever had, had a better vibrator
camera quality is very disappointing. On the DHD's screen it all looks very nice and crisp, untill you copy the shot to your pc, bummer... I was expecting a serious improvement in quality, coming from an iPhone 3GS but sadly this is not true
setting up the dlna to work (if compatible, which it is rarely!) is harder than running to the store, buying a Nokia N8 + hdmi cable, transfer some movies to it and connect it to your tv. So, kinda useless...
is it really that much trouble to install a LED notification light that you can actually see from an angle?
Ok, flash in the browser works, but how... it's slow and laggy
to sum it up, the DHD is still a fantastic phone, but to me a flagship device should excell on EVERY field, or at least be way above average on every field. This means GPS solution + speaker + camera... everything! And it just doesn't, not even by a long shot.
Honestly I was expecting more from the DHD
for the moment I'm keeping it because I still feel there is no phone out there that can offer me this much, but as soon as Symbian revamps their UI, I'm going back to Nokia. On the insides, S60 is still a very good OS and I love it for its possibilities but sadly it looks like crap and we're too spoiled by iOS and Android to go back there...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Very good points dude.

mancuk29 said:
Dolby is when you use headset not the speaker
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Didn't know that, any way, this till makes you think that speakers have some quality to them.
bobbyphoenix said:
Same here. And the colors on the N1 look way overdone. I don't even like to look at it. I read so much on the bad speaker, but I must say I think I have one the better ones I guess. The loudspeaker on mine is very good. I can make too loud sometimes. No distortion at any level. I actually like it. Better than my N1.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually, the my first impression was: Nice, big screen, but the colors are off.
I had a black wallpaper on my N1, put the same on DHD and it looked bleached.
After over one week of usage I have no reservations as to the colors, the screen is pure brilliance, I am never going back to a <4.3" screen.
You must be lucky with the speaker. Youtube is nigh unusable without headphones.

Motorola Elite Sliver bluetooth earpiece

Has anybody else tried the Motorola Elite Sliver bluetooth earpiece? I have tried two of the units with my AT&T S3 and with both the people I am talking to have complained about the low quality of the sound. It's loud enough. They say the sound is "fuzzy" and sounds like I am talking in a barrel. Also, there is a lot of background noise. I installed the MotoSpeak app and tried different background noise cancellation settings but that didn't help. I had a friend of mine try it with his iPhone 5 and the problem persisted. It is without a doubt the most comfortable earpiece I have ever worn. But, that's of little value if the other person can not understand me.
Thanks
retnuh

I use it with my S3 and I like it. I haven't haany complaints about MINE, but two of my friends got them because I raved about it and they both sounded fuzzy. one of them returned it and the other still uses his. I love how minimal it is, but I sometimes miss my moto h710 I had. that thing was amazing and crystal clear.

retnuh said:
Has anybody else tried the Motorola Elite Sliver bluetooth earpiece? I have tried two of the units with my AT&T S3 and with both the people I am talking to have complained about the low quality of the sound. It's loud enough. They say the sound is "fuzzy" and sounds like I am talking in a barrel. Also, there is a lot of background noise. I installed the MotoSpeak app and tried different background noise cancellation settings but that didn't help. I had a friend of mine try it with his iPhone 5 and the problem persisted. It is without a doubt the most comfortable earpiece I have ever worn. But, that's of little value if the other person can not understand me.
Thanks
retnuh
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think I can help you with this since i was exhausted with this prob before.
You can connect the earpiece normally, yet before turn on bluetooth on your S3 do a few step below:
Access Motorola Elite sliver menu and turn off Wide band audio (option 5)
Then turn it off
Turn it on and access menu again. Then turn on Wide band audio
Turn on S3 bluetooth and let it connect to Motorola Sliver as normal
--> You are good to go, people now can hear you loud and crystal clear :victory:
Hope you also enjoy the earpiece as I do after fixing this prob

Thanks windbytrick. People tell me that really made an improvement. Is this procedure required every time I take the earpiece out of the charger? Or, every time I turn the earpiece off? Thanks again.

retnuh said:
Thanks windbytrick. People tell me that really made an improvement. Is this procedure required every time I take the earpiece out of the charger? Or, every time I turn the earpiece off? Thanks again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
this should be done everytime you take the earpiece out of the charger, i'd recommend you do it once in the morning and keep the connection between SLIVER and S3, then you dont have to worry for the rest of the day. It wont be a prob for both S3 and Sliver battery.

Thanks winbytrick.

I had it, return and bought Jabra WAVE+. Way better and more comfortable.

Tengtengvn,
Does the Jabra Wave+ have the same capabilities as the Sliver with the MotoSpeak app?

Android has that capability built in. Why do you need an app to do that?

First Impressions of XIAOMI Mi Mix 3

I picked up a XIAOMI Mi Mix 3 from Micro Center today at what I consider a steal considering the hardware (USD $379.98) and after doing some quick research.
Micro Center is a two-and-a-half-hour drive for me and I was already there, so I didn't have the luxury of time for leisurely research. I usually spend weeks, not half an hour, making these decisions. But I used to be a commercial customer before I sold my business, and I made a lot of friends there, so they don't hassle me about returns; and since I was already there, I figured I'd try it out.
My initial impressions are mixed, but more positive than negative.
Positives
The build quality feels very solid. Actually, it feels like a Sherman tank. This is a pretty hefty phone. It has a quality "feel" to it, though. I also like the flat screen, although I guess that's a matter of personal preference. The included case is okay for now, but I ordered a more rugged one, a screen protector, and a leather holster from Amazon. I'm old, but active; and I don't carry a purse.
Functionally, the XIAOMI Mi Mix 3 supports AT&T's network 100 percent, as far as I can tell. That seems pretty amazing for a phone that technically isn't sold in the USA. I've had phones that were targeted to the U.S. market that had mediocre band and protocol support.
The radio reception is also the best of any phone I've ever used where I live, and I've been on AT&T for a long time and used a lot of phones. The LTE works great. I'm getting download speeds of around 50 Mbps, and I live in the boondocks.
The GPS reception is especially incredible, with TTFF of an amazing four seconds, two meter accuracy in 16 seconds, an average C/N0 around 46 dBHz using 32 of the 35 satellites it caught, with some coming in at 59 dBHz. That's pretty amazing for a phone. It's actually better than some airplanes I've flown.
I didn't mess with the cameras much (I don't really use them that often on any phone), but they seem very good to me. I break out my Nikon when I have serious photography to do, so I may not be the best judge of mobile phone quality. The cameras on the Mi Mix 3 seem perfectly adequate to me; but as I said, I'm no connoisseur of cell phone cameras.
The slider for the selfie camera is a nice feature if you hate the notch. I never cared about the notch, but it does bother some people. I also like that the slider stays in place magnetically (more reliable and durable than mechanical latches), although I do wonder whether that affects the magnetometer (assuming the phone has one).
In short, hardware-wise, I'm happy. The Snapdragon 845 is no slouch, and the rest of the hardware in the Mi Mix 3 seems to use it well. I consider it a bargain for the hardware alone.
In terms of performance, it's fast and crisp. I haven't put it through any strenuous tests yet, but It has a nice, fast feel to it.
Setup was completely painless, it auto-provisioned on AT&T with zero configuration needed, and Google and MIUI restored almost everything from Drive with no issues. Even my DND settings were carried over. It was really pretty flawless. The one exception was K-9 Mail. For reasons I neither know nor intend to bother looking into, neither the app itself nor the settings were migrated. I had made backups of everything anyway, so it was no big deal.
Negatives
I wouldn't say that MIUI is quirky so much as that I wonder what the point was of changing things around for no apparent reason. In other words, I don't think there's anything "wrong" with MIUI based on the few hours I've had the phone, but I wonder what advantage there is to it as compared to a stock Android. I can live with it, though. It's not so much a negative as a "just different," really, based on first impressions.
I also don't like the fact that there's no automated desktop backup software. I suppose I can build something easily enough, but there should be desktop backup. Or am I the only one who actually uses a computer anymore? I guess LG's [usually] competent backup software spoiled me.
I'll see if there's a generic Android backup utility out there for Arch Linux or Windows that syncs by WiFi before re-inventing the wheel. It's not rocket surgery; but coding for the sheer joy of coding kind of grew old for me decades ago. I never bothered looking for generic non-root Android automated backup software before because I never had to. There probably are bazillions of perfectly competent solutions out there for Arch (or for Android itself, for that matter).
In fairness, however, I'm a genuine backup nut. I literally have backups of my backups as far as computers are concerned. Within 20 seconds of my saving a document, it has been backed up to an ioSafe USB drive and a local NAS (the ioSafe, which is a backup destination, is in turned backed up to the NAS), and is on its way to BackBlaze. So my OCD about backups may be inflating my annoyance about not including a desktop backup application with the handset.
Back to the Mix 3, I also found the notifications a bit wonky. In addition to having to give permission in multiple places, the notifications use the media volume instead of having their own setting. That doesn't make much sense to me. I can think of plenty of reasons why one might want to control notifications separately from media. The puzzlement, however, is why they coded it out of stock Android. I mean, what advantage is there to justify the time spent removing a slider that was already there?
Then again, maybe the separate notification volume was an LG thing. My last few phones have been LG. Maybe LG coded it into Android.
There's also somewhat more bloatware than I'm accustomed to finding on an unlocked phone, but it seems lightweight and innocuous enough. Some of it might actually be useful. I really haven't done anything to it except push it to the last screen. At least it doesn't include a crap ton of silly games and such.
The only one that annoys me is that I can't uninstall FecesBook (at least not without root). At least, not in the usual way. I can't explain why because of NDA's I've signed, but I'd rather never use a computing device again than have a FecesBook account.
All Things Considered...
I officially have two weeks to decide whether to keep the phone. Micro Center probably would extend that for me because of my long history with them, but I don't want to abuse that relationship. Besides, to weeks will be enough to decide whether my appreciation of the Mix 3's superb (in my opinion) hardware compensates for my lukewarmness toward MIUI.
Based on first impressions, however, I'm pretty sure I will keep the phone. I love the hardware, and I think I can at least learn to live with MIUI (which is more than I can say about my ex, and she was a lot more expensive and quirky than MIUI is). Or I can root it, although that's not something I'd do just because I'm miffed about having to look somewhere else for a setting and having an inactive FecesBook icon hidden in a folder on the last screen.
Richard

You can disable unwanted apps using miui hidden settings app from post store.

crabamer said:
You can disable unwanted apps using miui hidden settings app from post store.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you. That worked!
Richard

Well, the phone and I didn't make it through the weekend. It seemed like every time I figured out one problem, another surfaced.
The deal-killer, however, was the sound quality the first time I made an actual phone call. In all seriousness, I got better sound out of tin-can telephones made of two soup cans and a piece of string when I was a kid. It was the absolute worst, almost inaudible sound quality I've ever experienced on any communication device.
So I looked up the problem on their forum, and one piece of advice was to factory-reset the phone after an update that I just got last night. So I did that, and it rejected my password when it rebooted. When I tried to do a password reset on the site (three times), I got no response to the email. And when I tried to check it using the phone number, I got an error message that the account didn't exist.
It's a shame, too, because other than the sound quality, I loved the hardware of the phone. But not being able to hear a phone call makes it useless to me.
Oh, well. Ten hours of driving and a tank and a half of gas isn't the worst thing I've ever been through.
On the bright side, when I swapped the SIM back into the phone the Mix 3 would have been replacing, I decided to put a new spare battery in it, too, and charge it on the way to Micro Center. Lo and behold, it didn't overheat. So maybe it was the battery, rather than the phone, that was having a problem. I'll check it out further this week.
Richard

Unlock your bootloader then install AOSP based rom, like Resurrection Remix, all problem solved.
Or if you want to stick with MIUI, try EU rom, no bloatware, no Chinese stuff.

GVN.Gallus said:
Unlock your bootloader then install AOSP based rom, like Resurrection Remix, all problem solved.
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You may be right, but how would that have solved the earpiece problem? That seems like a hardware issue to me. If I held the phone sideways like a wing sticking out of the side of my head, I could hear it. But it was still so scratchy and tinny that I can't imaging listening to it on every phone call. Also, it's not the most convenient way to use a phone. I'm old. I still make phone calls.
It's all academic at this point since I returned the phone. But I'm still interested in the answer just for its own sake. Would an alternate ROM have improved the sound volume and quality? If so, then I regret my hastiness because all in all, I loved the hardware -- except for the earpiece.
Thanks,
Richard

GeekOnTheHill said:
You may be right, but how would that have solved the earpiece problem? That seems like a hardware issue to me. If I held the phone sideways like a wing sticking out of the side of my head, I could hear it. But it was still so scratchy and tinny that I can't imaging listening to it on every phone call. Also, it's not the most convenient way to use a phone. I'm old. I still make phone calls.
It's all academic at this point since I returned the phone. But I'm still interested in the answer just for its own sake. Would an alternate ROM have improved the sound volume and quality? If so, then I regret my hastiness because all in all, I loved the hardware -- except for the earpiece.
Thanks,
Richard
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Click to collapse
Maybe your earpiece speaker had been covered by dust or plastic? The real earpiece is under the screen, you can see it when slide screen down, you can try that and make phonecall to test the sound.
I have no problem with earpiece sound and as far as i known, no one ever complain about it.
And yes custom rom and modder can change the sound quality, there even a mod to turn earpiece speaker into loudspeaker so we had dual rocker.

GVN.Gallus said:
Maybe your earpiece speaker had been covered by dust or plastic? The real earpiece is under the screen, you can see it when slide screen down, you can try that and make phonecall to test the sound.
I have no problem with earpiece sound and as far as i known, no one ever complain about it.
And yes custom rom and modder can change the sound quality, there even a mod to turn earpiece speaker into loudspeaker so we had dual rocker.
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Click to collapse
Thank you. And yes, I did check for plastic when I tried the selfie cam, and I did try making a phone call with the display slid down. It made almost no difference. It was very slightly louder, but no less scratchy and tinny.
Can you please point me to a custom ROM for this phone? I really liked the hardware. If there's a custom ROM that supports everything reasonably well, I might just buy another one and check it out. It just seemed like a hardware issue to me. And maybe it was. It could be that this one particular device had a defect.
Thanks,
Richard

GeekOnTheHill said:
Thank you. And yes, I did check for plastic when I tried the selfie cam, and I did try making a phone call with the display slid down. It made almost no difference. It was very slightly louder, but no less scratchy and tinny.
Can you please point me to a custom ROM for this phone? I really liked the hardware. If there's a custom ROM that supports everything reasonably well, I might just buy another one and check it out. It just seemed like a hardware issue to me. And maybe it was. It could be that this one particular device had a defect.
Thanks,
Richard
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can find and try some custom rom in THIS SECTION that suitable your need, personally i recommend Resurrection Remix.

GVN.Gallus said:
You can find and try some custom rom in THIS SECTION that suitable your need, personally i recommend Resurrection Remix.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you. I'll check it out. Maybe I acted too hastily.
My reason for buying the Mix 3 in the first place was for a daily driver to replace an aging V20 that has at least one known problem (tired GPS radios) and that I thought was overheating (but which now appears to have had a faulty battery). I didn't buy the Mix 3 as a project phone. I needed a phone to actually use starting today (Monday). I planned to buy something else while I was at Micro Center to return it.
However, because the v20 didn't overheat with a fresh spare battery that I charged during the trip, and because I have another V20 that I use for GPS-dependent apps, I'm not up against a time deadline any more. I like the Mix 3's hardware enough that I may buy another as a project phone.
Thanks again,
Richard

Toggle the loudspeaker setting on and off when you're on the first call after a reboot. Interesting to know this is a Xiaomi bug, not a Xiaomi.eu bug. Once you've done the toggle trick it'll be fine until you reboot again.
As for roms, if you're rooting, having tried several of the AOSP-based roms I'd recommend Xiaomi.eu, everything will work (including the slider & associated settings), it'll be marginally faster (and it's already fast on AOSP), it'll have marginally better battery life, and it won't randomly reboot or go into a reboot loop when charging wirelessly.

I just ordered a OnePlus 7t as a DD, so I have to wait at least a few weeks before buying another Mix 3 lest the old lady kill me. She just doesn't get it...
I do wish I'd known about the bug and the fix you mentioned because it was actually painful to return the Mix 3, so much did I like the hardware.