So, I just got my first Smartphone

  • Thread starter Gil
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Gil

Gil

Bird man
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old-guy64
My wife had a T-Mobile G1.
It was having some significant problems with charging (like it wouldn't)
So we decided to get her a new phone.

We bundled up and went to the T-Mobile store and discovered that they were having a "BOGO" on most of their phones.

So, we are now both sporting brand new
My Touch Slide 3G phones.

They rock. Only feature that doesn't float my boat thus far is the short battery life.

As I've only had the thing a couple of days and I'm still learning how to use it, you'll have to wait for my "informed opinion".
 
Nice! Congratulations! One of the biggest problems with smartphones is that they typically don't have great battery life. If you can, turn off wifi and/or 3G when you're not using it. That will really help with battery life. Something else to consider, if you don't use the phone as a clock and just let it sleep until you need to use it, that will really help standby time. By not using my phone as a clock anymore, I was able to go an extra day without charging.
 
I've turned off wi-fi, GPS, auto update, dimmed the screen, and only turn on bluetooth when I'm using it.
I need to turn off one of my e-mail accounts as I get a crap-ton of junk mail in that account and spend a lot of time emptying my inbox.

I'm still customizing my Android apps. But for everything I need a phone for, It goes above and beyond for the most part.
 
Each day I learn more and more about this phone.
I've just added the ATK (advanced task Killer) app.
A LOT of folks have complained that it is not needed for an Android phone.
It reportedly slows the phone to a crawl.

I downloaded it cause it saves battery. You open the app, choose which apps to turn off (kill), and which ones to leave running.
My phone has been off the charger for nearly 6 hours and I'm still over 80% battery life.
before I started using the app, I'd be sitting in the high 60's by this time.

Granted, I've not been using the apps, but I've posted to facebook several times, been in my e-mail, and texting like there's no tomorrow, and I'm not worried my batteriy will die in a little bit.

I'll update as I go...
 
Task killers were "needed" before the Eclair (2.1) update. Since then, however, they've made some big changes to how android manages applications, negating the need for a task killer.

I used one until recently on my Droid Eris, read up on it and even found where Android developers mentioned they were bad for the system, I've since taken it off and my battery life has actually improved.

Just use the back button instead of the home button to exit apps (which has more of a chance of initiating the app's "close" code), and lock the screen when you're not using the phone. I get upwards of 8 hours heavy use, much longer regular use, with Wi-Fi, AIM and GPS Location on the entire time. (Auto Backlight setting)

A few useful apps I've downloaded are SwitchPro Widgets (Costs money), which is like the normal power control widget on steroids, allowing a ton of toggle switches.
Shapewriter Keyboard (Or SlideIT/or Swype) is a pretty neat app to have, increases my typing speed threefold.
Aldiko and Amazon Kindle apps are both great E-Reader apps if you do a lot of reading.
So far the best Media Player I've found is MixZing, it has the suggestion feature which is nice, but the interface outdoes most others I can find so far.
AIM is thus far the best app if you want to use Facebook Chat on your phone, there's other FB Chat apps, but they are more or less custom browsers
EasyTether is a life saver if you want to use a laptop on the go or have an unreliable ISP at home (like me!)
Radiant is a good time waster, it's a cross between galaga and space invaders, very fun.

Welcome to Android though!

Post 2,000!

From,
Chris.
 
Gil - The other thing to bare in mind with batteries is they usually take a few cycles to get into the swing of things. Charge and drain about 5-10 times and you should start seeing it's true battery life.
 
I've gone thru many charge cycles.
I'm careful to let the battery get below 50% most of the time, and into the red every few charges.
I've also stopped adding apps so dang often.
And I have the wi-fi off, and GPS off unless I need them, and I'm starting to see some significant improvements in battery life.
I'm still using ATK, as I've been having the improved battery life since I started using it.
Though I'm considering "Juice Defender" instead.
The thing that stops me is that it needs another paid app to run optimally, and I have a thing about stuff that lures me in so they can get my limited cash...
 
The Task Manager/App Killer apps also seem to cause more problems than they fix.

Part of the battery issue could be the battery measure is off. Have you fully drained the phone yet (and I mean fully dead) and let it do a complete recharge?
 
Gil
I've gone thru many charge cycles.
I'm careful to let the battery get below 50% most of the time, and into the red every few charges.
Click to expand...
Azuremen
Part of the battery issue could be the battery measure is off. Have you fully drained the phone yet (and I mean fully dead) and let it do a complete recharge?
Click to expand...
This is what I meant. Even if you have to do some battery draining work to kill it, it allows the phone to measure the battery life better.
 
I have killed it to the point of the phone turning off.
And I often go below 15%.

I have also incorporated all the battery saving tips that I have found.
Turn off WiFi
Dim the screen to the lowest setting you can see it at.
Use the back button to back out of apps
Lower the time for the screen to go to sleep.
T-mobile actually advises putting the Advanced Task Killer on (specifically).
I'm running it on a "reasonable" automatic setting that kills every task but phone and messaging.

I'm waiting for the lastest OTA update from T-mobile. It should drop to all T-Mobile Android users by the 19th of this month....

I do enjoy this phone.
I'm particularly fond of SWYPE. I'm still not all that fast with it, but it is cool almost all the time I use it.
It does frustrate the hell out of me when it doesn't get the simple words like "out" but always gets long words.
 
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I can see why Task Killers were recommended now, your phone only runs 1.6, which doesn't have those new battery saving calculations like 2.0+

From,
Chris.
 
Actually I'm running 2.1
Waiting patiently....For the OTA update.
There are also task "managers" that are among the top apps among T-mobile customers.
But I'm still a bit too cheap to mess with the paid apps.
It would piss me off to pay for an app, find out it sucks, then uninstall. And I'm out whatever the app cost.
I don't mind trying the free stuff and uninstalling if it sucks.
I'm still a little put off by the fact that you can't get any of the accesories (like protective cases) yet for the MyTouch Slide.

Oh and I tried the GPS for kicks and giggles the other day, while I was charging the phone in the car.
It is every bit as cool as my wife's Garmin.
However, it scared the crap out of me when it spoke calling off my first turn....2 miles out.
I was expecting it to speak up about a mile out.
Haven't messed with it beyond that though.
 
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Okay, I do have a question for android users.
How in the wide world of sports do I move some of the space intensive stuff to the SD card?
I've got less than 1% usage on the SD, and like 70% on the phone's memory.

I've played with the thing endlessly, but cannot figure out for the life of me, how to move stuff to where it has plenty of room to roam....
I've found some apps that will do it for 2.2 (Froyo).
But nothing so far for 2.1 (Eclair)
Any ideas?
 

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