Are you comfortable in your own skin? Is your phone comfortable in its skin? Rate this thread to express how you deem the skin on the Sony Xperia XZ Premium. A higher rating indicates that you love it: it adds just the right amount of features, it's visually pleasing, and overall it's additive to the experience. If this is a Nexus phone (you didn't think we hand-wrote all of these prompts, did you?) then use this rating to indicate how the latest version of Android looks to you.
Then, drop a comment if you have anything to add!
i really wish you got more control of what you have on the phone. Sony includes software that you are free to download if you wish with no way to remove it, some not even able to disable.
Coming from Motorola's very clean software to this was a bit of a shock. this is really my only complaint about an otherwise superb phone.
It runs android 8.0 but it's more like android 7.5 as it's so bare-bones that it's literally missing stock features. No ambient display, always on display, double tap to wake/sleep or screen-off gestures. Sony didn't even bother updating the notification shade colour or the power menu. There isn't much in the settings menu either. The theme engine isn't powerful enough in my opinion as it just changes the wallpapers, icon theme and nav bar icons while keeping the system UI the same.
One cool feature is how you can change the lockscreen clock. Unfortunately, an am/pm indicator is enforced if you use 12-hour time and the indicator is placed really awkwardly on the clock widgets. If you look at the promo pictures of Sony phones then they always run it in 24 hour time but have the time being in the morning (e.g. 10:30 am) so you can't tell that it's 24 hour time. It's like the people in charge of the press renders know how dumb the am/pm indicator looks but the person in charge of designing the clocks just refuses to get rid of it for some reason.
Bidiminished said:
It runs android 8.0 but it's more like android 7.5 as it's so bare-bones that it's literally missing stock features. No ambient display, always on display, double tap to wake/sleep or screen-off gestures. Sony didn't even bother updating the notification shade colour or the power menu. There isn't much in the settings menu either. The theme engine isn't powerful enough in my opinion as it just changes the wallpapers, icon theme and nav bar icons while keeping the system UI the same.
One cool feature is how you can change the lockscreen clock. Unfortunately, an am/pm indicator is enforced if you use 12-hour time and the indicator is placed really awkwardly on the clock widgets. If you look at the promo pictures of Sony phones then they always run it in 24 hour time but have the time being in the morning (e.g. 10:30 am) so you can't tell that it's 24 hour time. It's like the people in charge of the press renders know how dumb the am/pm indicator looks but the person in charge of designing the clocks just refuses to get rid of it for some reason.
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Click to collapse
If you're not cheap, buy some Substratum themes which themes the whole phone and apps. You don't need root if you're on Oreo. Also, Always on Display would surely kill the battery on an LCD screen. I love their bone stock software, if I needed something I can just download it. The less bloats the better!
Related
I previously sorted out the locking up problems with help from you guys on here, and I'm sure that I have seen something about a battery indicator on screen when not using O2active but can't find it. Can someone post a link to the thread if it actually does exist or does the function not exist out of O2active?It's quite possible that I had a "moment" and imagined that I saw this of course - it's an age thing, hopefully!
Cheers. Alan
Why not load up the GPRS monitor program that the device come with and configure that to display Battery status on the screen - after its free, and a damn good utility if you use GPRS to track the cost - Mike
Or download Batti (just search for it - it's free)... I use it, and love it, for various reasons I won't bother to detail here
Thanks for that, I'll do a bit more digging. I don't use GPRS for monitoring (as far as I know) so I'll have a look at batti.
In. Done. What a handy little thing! Thanks again.
There's several, really... I like to classify them graphically as...
A. Applications
B. Today screen/Tray
C. Task bar
D. Top/Bottom overlay
The first group, Applications, I wouldn't even bother with. They tell you what the battery level is, and sometimes more information, but you do need to actually run the application. So there's no quick view of what the battery level is at any time.
The second group is nice if you're on the Today Screen a lot. They typically have nice graphics. However, they'll only be on your Today Screen, and take up space there. Very often the larger "Does everything!" applications that use the Today Screen will have one of these, typically along with indicators for memory and storage space.
The third is a bit nicer already. You can see it on any screen, as long as the task bar is in view. There's just one problem - they take up space on the precious task bar - and there's not a whole lot of space there on a QVGA device when in portrait mode. Some solve this by putting a tiny little bar underneath the clock - so much for getting a readout 'at a glance', though. In addition, any application that hides the task bar, will hide that indicator as well.
The last category, at least for me, is ideal - and Batti belongs in that category. Thes are the battery indicators that are usually just a line of a few pixels (or even 1 pixel, like Batti) high, going across the top/bottom of the screen. They're always visible, and you can easily tell how full your battery is even if it's just a white solid bar (such as what's in MagicButton).
They usually come in two flavors.. a solid bar going from left to right, or individual little bars, so that you can easily count in percentages. One of SPB's products comes with one of these, for example. Which style you prefer is really a matter of personal likings.
What's extra nice about Batti is that you can set it up to change the color of the bar at two percentages (e.g. 33% for 'low' with an orange color and 10% for 'critical with a red color), all user-definable. It can also indicate charging, and has a nice textual read-out of charge, voltage, temperature, etc. if you click on it (optional). The frequency with which it updates can also be setup. Some of the battery indicators poll every second, for example, thereby actually draining the battery a good bit itself more than it needs to. I have mine set up to update every minute, which is more than enough.
The *only* thing I would love to see added to it is alarms for the two percentages - which I've requested from the author, but haven't heard back from him as of yet Some of the other battery indicators may have alarms, so that might be something to keep in mind.
Batti
Where can I download Batti from ?????
http://www.google.com/search?q=pocketpc+batti
Battery meter.
I downloaded Batti and I dont think its very good at all !!!. The battery level indicator that comes with Pocket Hack Master is way better. However what I realy Real Real need is the OLD battery level software from WM2003. You know the one with red and green in the settings folder. Unfortunately I deleated it when I hard reset my phone.
Please anyone out there who has the old WM2002/3 still on file. Can you send me a copy of the file I need to make that work again.
Thankyou
Rob
I guess you'd have to state your reasons for liking the one that comes with Pocket Hack Master better
There's three things that are at play, to begin with...
1. Pocket Hack Master isn't free. Of course, if you are looking into the functionality it offers (CPU clock speed tweaking, etc.), then its built-in battery meter is a nice bonus when you do buy it anyway.
2. Pocket Hack Master doesn't run on all devices. Due to the fact that it is an application mostly geared towards CPU clock speed tweaking, it will refuse to run on unsupported processors such as the TI OMAP processor. I believe this doesn't apply to the Blue Angel, but does to e.g. the Wizard.
I have an HTC Wizard.
3. Personal preferences. Everybody will prefer their own style of battery meter, etc. You didn't fully explain why you like Pocket Hack Master's better, and unfortunately I can't fully review it as Pocket Hack Master refuses to work on my device. However, from some screenshots it appears that you can only set colors for battery or A/C (i.e. no change of color based on the charge level), the size appears limited (though you can make it a small 2px bar or a series of 4px blocks), and you can't set the refresh rate. On the other hand, you can fully control its positioning and hide the border. All in all - though again.. I'd have to actually be able to run it to make sure.. I haven't seen an screenshot of the 'gradient' method for example - I'd still have to stick with Batti on features alone.
Hopefully they'll add TI OMAP support soon, as it would be worth getting for that, for sure
For the curious, Batti was updated to version 1.4.
Added: Sound Events
Added: Option for turning off the frame around Batti
Added: Option for blinking on critical level
Added: Battery status on Info page (Charging, On AC, On Battery)
Added: Custom color for charging*
Some bugfixes
* charging is different from being fully charged. Sound events can be defined for charge start and charge end as well.
And I forgot to mention in my main rant that you can change the strings for localization easily - most of the main languages are already available for download
My question about this utilities, is which takes least memory space and battery life?
I hate to install something very usefu which on the downside slows down the device and makes me go crazy with the battery.
Of course anything that continuously monitors the battery performance will take up extra battery life itself, though it's typically negligable. Batti itself can be configured to poll only every N seconds - I have mine set to 60 seconds, but obviously there's no real reason to even set it to this frequency - the battery won't drop that much in a minute
As for memory use, I can't really report on others, and you have to keep in mind that several of the battery monitors are part of a larger whole; and if you want the larger whole anyway, then you typically won't lose any additional memory from enabling the battery monitor functionality. For example, MagicButton has a battery indicator line as well.
Batti takes up roughly 40KB
If you want a pure battery monitor proggie:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=364278
One of the best
Hey guys!
I recently sent my Nexus in for repairs, and borrowed a Nokia N9 from a friend to use meanwhile. Now I've got my Nexus back, and there's one thing in particular that I miss about the N9 - the clock and notifications on the locked screen.
If you haven't used or seen an N9 in action, this feature is really, really useful - and something I think could be ported to (at least) the GNex.. See attached images
When the user locks the screen, usually on other phones it just goes plain black. On the N9 however (because of the AMOLED screen) the screen is mainly black but with the clock still visible! It also shows small icons to alert the user of new messages and such. To avoid burn ins, the N9 changes the position of the clock and notification icons randomly. It also uses the proximity sensor to "know" when it's in a pocket, and then turns of the screen completely.
So devs, can this be done?
Simba90 said:
Hey guys!
I recently sent my Nexus in for repairs, and borrowed a Nokia N9 from a friend to use meanwhile. Now I've got my Nexus back, and there's one thing in particular that I miss about the N9 - the clock and notifications on the locked screen.
If you haven't used or seen an N9 in action, this feature is really, really useful - and something I think could be ported to (at least) the GNex.. See attached images
When the user locks the screen, usually on other phones it just goes plain black. On the N9 however (because of the AMOLED screen) the screen is mainly black but with the clock still visible! It also shows small icons to alert the user of new messages and such.
So devs, can this be done?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
wouldn't this create burn in on the screen? Are you serious that the n9 screen never turns off fully?
Sent from my Google phone
ChongoDroid said:
wouldn't this create burn in on the screen? Are you serious that the n9 screen never turns off fully?
Sent from my Google phone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, to be honest it probably would create burn ins if the screen were on 24/7.. But Nokia has (seemingly) thought about this! (And I have failed to mention it in the 1st post )
The N9 changes the position of the clock and notification icons randomly. It also uses the proximity sensor to "know" when it's in a pocket, and then turns of the screen completely. This way it avoids burn in
Not exactly the same but give it a go
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.led.notify
Don't know if it will work with ICS and the Galaxy Nexus btw...
s60mike said:
Not exactly the same but give it a go
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.led.notify
Don't know if it will work with ICS and the Galaxy Nexus btw...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is what I'm looking for! It works pretty good, although it cannot turn of the software buttons in ICS.. But an update to the app could fix that
Danke viel mal!
You're welcome
Crazy! Im interested now
Sent from my Google phone
Well, using the stock clock on ICS, you can set the phone into a very dim low power mode (as you mentioned). I am pretty sure the clock periodically moves around the screen to avoid burning too. It also hides the softkeys. You just need to tap the screen when it's displaying the clock overlay and it'll dim down.
I doubt it'd be viable for carrying around in your pocket due to the fact that your phone is obviously not locked in this state and it hides the notification bar so you don't have any visual feedback for notifications (besides LED flashing?). :/
Krijs said:
Well, using the stock clock on ICS, you can set the phone into a very dim low power mode (as you mentioned). I am pretty sure the clock periodically moves around the screen to avoid burning too. It also hides the softkeys. You just need to tap the screen when it's displaying the clock overlay and it'll dim down.
I doubt it'd be viable for carrying around in your pocket due to the fact that your phone is obviously not locked in this state and it hides the notification bar so you don't have any visual feedback for notifications (besides LED flashing?). :/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, the ICS standard alarm clock offers similar functionality.
As I wrote a few posts up, the N9 always displays the clock and notifications when not in a pocket (or when the proximity sensor is not blocked). But, if you take the phone and put it in your pocket it will completely turn off the screen - it would be a waste of battery to do otherwise.
Regarding the notification bar, the N9 also has icons on the lockscreen as any Android has in the notification bar - it's only showing a small SMS bubble under the clock if you have a unread text etc. etc. You wouldn't loose any functionality with a mod like this, only gain moar
Look at the attached pic in the first post to see what I mean
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk
Simba90 said:
Yes, the ICS standard alarm clock offers similar functionality.
As I wrote a few posts up, the N9 always displays the clock and notifications when not in a pocket (or when the proximity sensor is not blocked). But, if you take the phone and put it in your pocket it will completely turn off the screen - it would be a waste of battery to do otherwise.
Regarding the notification bar, the N9 also has icons on the lockscreen as any Android has in the notification bar - it's only showing a small SMS bubble under the clock if you have a unread text etc. etc. You wouldn't loose any functionality with a mod like this, only gain moar
Look at the attached pic in the first post to see what I mean
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah I get you, I'd also like this mod, I am quite often finding myself turning the phone on to get the time/see notifications so something like this would be schweet.
Would be an awesome mod. Gonna follow this thread n see where it goes
Sent from my SΔMSUΠG GΔLΔXΨ ΠΣXUS ツ using XDA Premium App
Thinking this needs to be seen again I'd love this so much, and I'll help out if I can.
NoLED is a nice software. It must be updated to hide the soft buttons as I can see now
My only concern is the battery consumption because the Android OS is not going to deep sleep mode if the screen is on which means the phone is always awake
Any ideas
This mod would be sweet. I had an old Nokia n95 and like that the clock was always displayed with the screen off.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
Any ideas on how to accomplish it? Being able to double tap the screen to unlock is really a luxury I would miss
honeyb said:
Any ideas on how to accomplish it? Being able to double tap the screen to unlock is really a luxury I would miss
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 Although I would rather have it turn on the screen with a double tap.
DDRFAN said:
+1 Although I would rather have it turn on the screen with a double tap.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's what I wanted to say I want it the same way as on my N9.
DDRFAN said:
+1 Although I would rather have it turn on the screen with a double tap.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
that's a feature of noled and the most efficient way to unlock the phone. especially if you have noled show a clock at all times as well as with notifications. did cut my battery life by about 15-20% but with some tweaking of settings i got it down to only 7-10% which was acceptable for the added ease of use.
Hi guys,
I thought some of you might enjoy the Apollo theme I've created on my Omnia 7 with the help of the Screen Capture, Supreme Shourtcut and Advanced Config homebrew apps.
The only editing I've done here is replacing the people tile to protect my privacy All the pictures have been taken from my phone.
You'll notice I've sacrificed having a live Call tile. Since you get an readout of missed calls on the lock screen I didn't consider it that great a loss.
Let me know what you lot think...
EDIT: Just noticed that the screen capture for some reason hasn't captured the dark purple I have set as the home screen menu background Well anyway, that's there!
First look - messy
But then I think actually using it on a phone wouldn't be that messy.
My reaction towards this is neutral.
Takes away all of the aesthetic appeal of wp7.
I think it looks great!
Microsoft reallllllllly needs to allow more customization with colours in Apollo. In the worst way.
They need to change how notifications are displayed. The notification bar sucks right now. And i hate the fact that it disappears and there's no way to make it permanent.
I've heard some people are getting less battery life and more lag while others are saying better battery life and more fluid. What is your experience using lollipop? (especially the 8.4 version since I own one and want to know if I should update or stay with kitkat).
Thank you
I flashed the saudi arabia firmware on my 8.4 and factory reset it, I don't notice any difference with battery life or fluidity but I install nova launcher + disable most of the bloat so it has always been very smooth for me both on kitkat and lollipop.
I really like how multiple users are set up now with both restricted access, screen pinning and temporary guest modes, there is a lot of flexibility there and the user switching has moved to the top of the notification bar so you can switch users at any time.
I like all the new animations and uniform teal & white color scheme, in kitkat some things were black background, some things were white, in lollipop it feels more uniform.
What I dislike is that it feels very much like a phone rom ported to a tablet, the recents menu in kitkat made sense to only cover the bottom of the screen but now its a full screen giant sized card recents menu like on our phones and it just looks gigantic and makes multitasking harder in my opinion. Then on the opposite side of the scale the size of the notification bar has shrunk and is super tiny compared to kitkat, it takes precision to click the buttons now but at least it looks better I guess.
Overall, I do like lollipop because of the way multiple users are handled, improved notifications and sd card read/writing fixed, I just wish the recents menu wasn't replaced really.
Personally, I have found nothing worthwhile in Lollipop. I didn't want to update but since AT&T pushed it OTA I had no choice. It installed the update while I was asleep (after asking me several times during the day if I wanted to apply the update) and now I'm stuck with this ridiculous iPhone color scheme, the previously-mentioned obnoxious "recent apps" screen, the complete crippling of Tasker and the necessity to dig deep into menus to enable/disable mobile data.
I haven't noticed any new features or any significant change in performance (for better or for worse). TouchWiz is still a piece of **** and I'm never buying another Samsung. If I want a UI that looks and feels like iOS, I'll buy a damn iPhone.
I also don't like the new notification panel or the fact that I can't see it on my lock screen. I can either have full-blown notifications blasted across the lock screen (similar to Google Now cards) or nothing at all. There was nothing wrong with simply having the panel's notification icons visible on the lock screen. Now I have to unlock my phone to see if I got an sms or a voicemail.
I suppose that wouldn't be such a big deal if this device had a notification light that I could customize with different colors for email, sms and voicemail.
Based on the new way the OS handles (with no thought to whether there is any difference in performance), I recommend you stick with KitKat. Lollipop just plain sucks.
thorvindr said:
Personally, I have found nothing worthwhile in Lollipop. I didn't want to update but since AT&T pushed it OTA I had no choice. It installed the update while I was asleep (after asking me several times during the day if I wanted to apply the update) and now I'm stuck with this ridiculous iPhone color scheme, the previously-mentioned obnoxious "recent apps" screen, the complete crippling of Tasker and the necessity to dig deep into menus to enable/disable mobile data.
I haven't noticed any new features or any significant change in performance (for better or for worse). TouchWiz is still a piece of **** and I'm never buying another Samsung. If I want a UI that looks and feels like iOS, I'll buy a damn iPhone.
I also don't like the new notification panel or the fact that I can't see it on my lock screen. I can either have full-blown notifications blasted across the lock screen (similar to Google Now cards) or nothing at all. There was nothing wrong with simply having the panel's notification icons visible on the lock screen. Now I have to unlock my phone to see if I got an sms or a voicemail.
I suppose that wouldn't be such a big deal if this device had a notification light that I could customize with different colors for email, sms and voicemail.
Based on the new way the OS handles (with no thought to whether there is any difference in performance), I recommend you stick with KitKat. Lollipop just plain sucks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
dont get mad at samsung, at&t was the one that forced it down your throat.
Well I am happy with kitkat, and lollipop has been available since yesterday for my T800 in the UK, I have auto updates disabled, and a found an thread dealing how to cancel an update and remove the update notice, which i have not seen yet.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1856632
John.
Are you comfortable in your own skin? Is your phone comfortable in its skin? Rate this thread to express how you deem the skin on the Honor 8 Lite. A higher rating indicates that you love it: it adds just the right amount of features, it's visually pleasing, and overall it's additive to the experience. If this is a Nexus phone (you didn't think we hand-wrote all of these prompts, did you?) then use this rating to indicate how the latest version of Android looks to you.
Then, drop a comment if you have anything to add!
Though I don't like EMUI, mom liked it. So I got that going for me, which is nice.
Like emui 5
EMUI 5 is good. much cleaner UI and various options of theme is just add on. we can change the whole look and feel og the phone on any day with multiple theme available.
Using the Nokia 6 theme and its cool.
not bad
EMUI is one of the least stock experiences you can get on an Android device. This software is slow and bloated. There are a few useful features in EMUI like the following:
Screen Recording
Instead of relying on a third-party app for screen recording, EMUI has a great screen recorder baked into the system.
To activate screen recording, hold power + vol up. Then you will be asked to select your audio input. There is no limit to the amount of time that you can record, so just make sure you have enough space. I made a 1:20:00 recording and it ended up being 2.6GB, but this will change depending on your screen resolution. Your recordings will save as an .mp4 file.
The screen recording feature is very useful and has several features that you would normally have to pay for in a third party app. The ability to record for an unlimited amount of time, and record system audio are usually only accessible through premium screen recording apps.
Huawei Home
The default launcher that comes with EMUI is called Huawei Home which is a very customizable launcher. The homescreen is simple and displays the time, a wallpaper, and the amount of steps you’ve taken that day. In the home settings, you can choose custom transitions, toggle app icon badges, create a custom icon grid and more.
For a default launcher, it’s pretty good. If they could get a better selection of icons, it would really improve the look of everything.
Private Space
Private Space is a separate account where you can hide all of your private files, photos, videos and apps. You setup this account with a pin and fingerprint password. After you’re all set up, you can access your private space by pressing the fingerprint sensor which will log you in to your separate account. Your main fingerprint will be used for your primary account and a separate fingerprint will be used to access your private space. It’s really fast and secure, which makes this a great EMUI feature.
Private Space is kind of a hidden feature that not many people know about or use but it is very useful. After using it for a bit, you’ll come to rely on a separate space for all of your files and apps that you need to keep secret.