Help First Impression and issues with Galaxy S

[CaSPeR1]

Hello Eveyone

This is my first post and Id like to say about my experience with my new phone and the new OS.

First Id like to give a little insight into my history of owning phones. Well I have owned many phones including Samsung Phones. Well I prefer smartphones over regular phones.

As for Smartphones I have always preferred Nokia+Symbian over others due to the hardware and OS which meets my needs.

I have owned N96/N97 and last september moved over to Nokia N900 and Maemo. N900 is no doubt a poweful phones which many features and with an OS which is ahead of its time then, maybe still is.

Now I dont want to compare the N900 with the Galaxy S, the reason for me moving to the Galaxy S was simply down to the specs and the excellant 4 inch screen.

Yes there are pros and cons. The N900 had a Keyboard. Which means when typing you have the full screen and can also copy and paste from the keyboard. For the Galaxy S lack of keyboard means copy and paste of selected texts in a website may be possible but certainly not easy since you dont have the full keyboard (I have not managed it yet) There are some webpages which I can not add to bookmark, it requires me to press CTRL and D to add it to bookmarks, since I have no keyboard and cannot bring up the keyboard to input this I have had problems with bookmarking some webpages.

No doubt where the Galaxy S lacks a keyboard it in my opinion makes up to it with the SWYPE software. I am simply loving it. Its probably is the next best thing since sliced bread literally.

Friends are amazed at how fast I spell and accurate too in messenger and messages. I can type a whole paragraph than they can read it.

Ok I know the Galaxy S does lack some notable features which are even present in my old phones, like LED for start and a dedicated camera button. These are some features which should have been present.

As for the LED light. Simply select a plain white image and put the screen brightness full and wham its lit up the room. As for taking images in the dark. Well its not meant to be a dedicated camera so I would not complain over the quality of images.

I watched a comparison between the Iphone 4 and Galaxy S and in my opinion the Galaxy S came out on top.

There are some issues I have with my phone, no doubt others have too. First its the GPS. The GPS finds me to the accuracy of 1000 meters. My location of the MAP is way off and its not possible to use this. I have done some tests like walking with the phone in my hand and even driving. It jumps all over the place and at many times lags behind my current location.

I have downloaded the GPS test software by Chart Cross, it does find satelites but they are all greyed out and according to the sofware approx 3/4 are in view and 0 are in use.

I had a N96 and that used to find on average 12 satelites and a maximum of 16.

Compared to my old phones including the N900 the GPS is either not working or the software needs updating

Next its the heat. I understand it has a fast processor but the heat it produces is so much that if I were to answer a call then I would be left with burnt marks on my ear.

I have no idea how to tackle the heat issue. Even when charging the phone gets very hot.

Now the screen is great but is it responsible for the being the biggest battery user?

I have done a couple of my own tests. Now the phone is full charged. All GPS/Wifi/Bluetooth etc are turned off and screen brightness is low.

After playing ASPHALT for 60 minutes I checked the battery usage after 60 minutes and according to the phone the Screen consumed approx 65 percent of the battery and the game used 15 percent.

Id like to know your own experience with the battery uage time and its reporting according to usage.

Any tips for improving battery life would be welcomed. Id lie to know how much usage you got out of Video/Music playback.

Currently the battery lasts me just the 1 day. A couple of calls, some Wifi usage, and some over 3G. Some games. Total usage time using the phone is 2 hours a day and with some usage during background. Which leaves about 15 percent of the battery end of the day.

I am using my N900 in addition to the Galaxy S.

I normally carry 2 batteries since I use the internet for radio over 3G.

Now coming to the real point why I am here. The phone no doubt is great. Its does have some issues which I hope can be solved through the next update. Its the Android OS which is my main problem.

Now on the N900 I been signed into messager whilst at the same time text messaging. I also have the Web Browser with the radio on through the browser and a couple of other tabs like email an forums etc.

I can switch between Apps without one stopping.

On the Galaxy S I had Google Maps opened, after 5 mins it locked my Location well not accurately but it was good. I remember I had to send a quick email, well I switched to email and when I came back to Maps it had disconnected and had to find me again.

Now thats not good enough. I am already frustated with the GPS and I dont need it to disconnect when switching to a different App. Multitasking is a deal breaker and thats why I have always preferred Nokia over others.

Again sometimes I load heavy pages on the internet, whilst its loading a big page I switched to do something else and it stopped downloading the page an I had to reload the link again.

I understand that Froyo will ad a lot especially Flash 10.1 so I dont feel I need to point out the lack of it now.

I am very frustated with switching Apps. I understand the recent Apps list but no I want the current running Apps list.

I do not like the way Android handles Multitasking, in fact its not Multitasking. To prevent one app from running to enable another to run is not Multitasking.

Even when I turn off the screen it stops all Apps running. Sometimes I do need to turn the screen of especially when I am listening to radio through the browser.

I do not think the Galaxy S can replace my N900 ,it has the right hardware but its the way it handles Multitasing is what is a deal breker for me.

I installed Launcher Pro, so it behaves more like a tablet and I can view the menu in landscape mode.

When I connected to Kies, it would not work becuase an App is running. I then realised it must be the Launcher Pro, i had to switch to Touch Wiz and even then Kies did not recognize the Phone.

Well I'dd like some help and also discuss some limitations Android has and ways round it if possible.

 

[NZtechfreak]

Hello Eveyone

There are some issues I have with my phone, no doubt others have too. First its the GPS. The GPS finds me to the accuracy of 1000 meters. My location of the MAP is way off and its not possible to use this. I have done some tests like walking with the phone in my hand and even driving. It jumps all over the place and at many times lags behind my current location.

Root the phone and install the Epic GPS fix at XDA, completely fixes GPS. Of course this shouldn't be neccessary in a release-version device, but thats the unfortunate reality.

Id like to know your own experience with the battery uage time and its reporting according to usage. Any tips for improving battery life would be welcomed. Id lie to know how much usage you got out of Video/Music playback.

My battery life is great, but only a day (but then my use is very heavy).

Setting screen brightness off auto and then using the notification tray as a slider to turn down the brightness should help. Turning down the browsers brightness in its settings should also help (yes, it has a separate setting within the browser, browsing often involves looking at lots of pages with high white levels which burns more battery in an AMOLED screen).

I think using Exchange for email syncing, rather than Googles inbuilt solution saves battery.

Don't leave WiFi on when its not connected, that also really slays battery life.

Make sure you're aware what sync activities are happening in the background and at what frequencies. For example at one point I had the Twitter application and the Facebook application syncing automatically, which when I thought about it didn't make sense considering I had the Pure Messenger widget syncing the same content.

Now on the N900 I been signed into messager whilst at the same time text messaging. I also have the Web Browser with the radio on through the browser and a couple of other tabs like email an forums etc.

On the Galaxy S I had Google Maps opened, after 5 mins it locked my Location well not accurately but it was good. I remember I had to send a quick email, well I switched to email and when I came back to Maps it had disconnected and had to find me again.

Now thats not good enough. I am already frustated with the GPS and I dont need it to disconnect when switching to a different App. Multitasking is a deal breaker and thats why I have always preferred Nokia over others.

Again sometimes I load heavy pages on the internet, whilst its loading a big page I switched to do something else and it stopped downloading the page an I had to reload the link again.

I am very frustated with switching Apps. I understand the recent Apps list but no I want the current running Apps list.

I do not like the way Android handles Multitasking, in fact its not Multitasking. To prevent one app from running to enable another to run is not Multitasking.

I do not think the Galaxy S can replace my N900 ,it has the right hardware but its the way it handles Multitasing is what is a deal breker for me.

Thats how Google Maps is set up unfortunately, other GPS programs will run in the background unless you exit them using the apps exit method, for example I use Sygic maps and pressing the home key leaves it running in the background (usually I do that to change tracks in the music player whilst driving). It will continue to track my position and give voice guidance whilst in the background.

In fact most activities will run in the background for me, including loading pages within the browser...

You may like Power Strip to help give the phone the sort of app switching behaviour you want.

LauncherPro activities may also work, I'd need to look into that further. Occurred to me reading your post that it may be able to open the running apps screen as an activity, which would be useful as a kind of task switcher.

Another option would be to one of the Froyo firmwares, which have a task manager inbuilt.

 

[robnil]

Comming from winmo I also first had a hard time figure out the task manager. I wanted an alt-tab instead of last runned apps. But the I realised that android works in a different manner.

It just wont kill a process unless its nessesasy. So the last run apps is actually a task manager. About memory its supposed to solve this by itselt and a lot of articles state that using a task killer is a bad thing.

And most apps should be running in background to be quick in response. Like the dialer, and a lot of others. But then again some apps really could use an "exit" even though Google themself tells developers to not include one.

Games doesnt make sense to have running in background unless you explicitly ask for it (playing a game, answer the phone and return to gamestate). And what ive seen most games has an exit.

I use advanced task killer, but i run it only manually and have most apps on ignore-list. This works for me.

Most gps-softwares can run in background, but it seems like its up to the developer to design this. An incredibly lame example of this (maybe its a setup-thing but i doubt it) it the copilot demo included with SGS. If you swap to the home screen and return it is actually completely reset. Not only gps-status, but the whole route needs to be setup and calculated. Imagine that while driving!

But this is not android to blame.

Your description of multitasking sounds more like you are confusing the iOS4 with its pseudo-multitasking-attemt. In iphone4 it works exactly as you describe it and according to steve its "the right way"...

With both android and winmo i have only noticed real multitasking, which ofcource can kill your battery and performace rather easy if you dont know when to kill a process.

GPS i hope they will fix software-wise. The "fixes" in xda does not really work, as you can read in the threads. But by some reason the gps is 1000 more accurate if you turn on wifi combined with gps. No wifi i can be 1000m of, with wifi i get 1 - 5m. And no this is not triangulating wifi-hotspots because there are just no hotspots present here. Celltower-triangulation works ofcource but that has nothing to do with wifi.

Use dark to black backgrounds. The amoled will comsume a lot more viewing a white pixel than a black. The asumption that a completely black screen will use zero battery i dont beleave in thuogh.

And i would also say: turn of automatic brightness and set it to the lest brightness. If you need to push it, just stoke your finger over the top status bar from left to right.

There are some battery-voodoo you can do. I dont have the links and I have not tested it but some claims great improvements. Some kind of ritual with the charger.

Kill all syncs. If you dont need them. My old winmo phone went from 8 hour usage to 3 days (!!!) just by turning of mail-push. Android is 10 times worth sinse almost all apps tend to try to update something at a regular basis.

About kies, I dont use it. Why do you want to use it?