Leave a Review of your Honor 9 Lite to Win a Google Home Mini - Honor 9 Lite Guides, News, & Discussion

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Honor has recently been putting out some great new phones. Their budget lineup currently consists of the Honor 7X and the Honor 9 Lite. The Honor 7X is one of our favorite budget phones right now, and has even become the best selling phone in the Amazon unlocked phones category. The Honor 9 Lite has just recently launched in India and is quickly gaining traction due to its super low price.
If you own either of these phones, this is your chance to win a Google Home Mini. Leave a short review in the comments of this article, detailing what your thoughts are on your phone so far. Talk about the camera, performance, battery life, display quality, or anything that you feel is noteworthy.
Honor listens closely to the XDA community and takes your opinions seriously, so now is your chance to tell them what you think. We will pick one lucky reviewer to win a Google Home Mini!

A beauty behold !
It's been eight days I BOUGHT it
USED it for alot of time until now.
COLOR is Midnight Black (personally wanted this, although other colors were tempting too)
Things that necessarily require mentions:
Network Bands (4g,3g,2g)
The network strength is perfectly fine, the signal doesn't fool. It correctly takes the receptivity to the exact extent needed, you wont loose any even in remote areas. If an iphone user has a network strength like one bit in his notification bar, you too are having surely. So, here network isn't a problem with this phone.
The Weight
In today world, we could be of carrying any weights, but when it comes to the phones, the weight really matters. If it's above 180g, boy, take it in written, so much pain in hand, soo much when talking calls, soo much in holding it straight infront. Soo much in pocket too. This phone instead is only 149g, which is excellently lightweight. The utmost benefit would be for people who waited for a phone which had good specs and stands equal to others of its range aswell. For the lightweight phones preferring people, finally the wait is over
Body Built
A strong phone doesnt mean an awesome phone. A weak phone doesnt mean poor quality. Firstly, one should know there is no such thing like strong or weak in phones of major brands. It is purely specs that decide to the needs of people and make phones accordingly. This phone has Severely flaunting looks. Totally an eye catcher. The glass back is soo beautiful & makes you want to look at it rather than looking at the screen most of the time
Display Screen
The 18:9 ratio is more than you can ask for in this phone. I mean, you are getting a 428ppi screen, what more do you want expect that huge clarity and detail in this price range and phone screen This looks more crisp than the any other budget phones, i guarantee you baby, its 428ppi, you donno how good the screen gets when its 428. Most of the phones were 403ppi and looked already good enough. This is much better now.
Platform
You are not in line, like before a person or after a person. You are right next to each other, like holding hands. Which means, you are in such a thing called " Happiness comes in all sizes and quantities :victory:." Because, its HiSilicon Kirin 659 in all the phones of the honor budget class range. Which would benefit you highly in performing without causing any complexities. Games are good to play, if one knows how to tweak better, then it's kickass
Memory
4GB and 64GB, is more than enough and perfect. You wont require more for this processor and budget.
Camera
This is the core purpose of this phone. Damn, the photos are soo good, sooooo good that you will for the first time find yourself have a true "Wow" reaction on your face when you snap them. Selfies are great aswell. People mentioned alot in the comments session in major sellers websites that the nighttime shots are horrible in the rear camera. You should know one thing, you aren't carrying a DSLR or HandyCAM, its your phone. its primary utility was to communicate. You are wrong to expect it to do well in a lowlight location. Not even a DSLR with a flash can be capable of better picture quality. Even professionals use heavy lights for the good feel in a photo when movies are made. So, a phone you are expecting to do this night capable photography job is totally a myth. Think once, there is no point of expecting some heavy landscape photography over night. Even James Cameron would shoot his film in the day with soo expensive cameras. If still you arent happy then when it's night time you want to snap something, its not phone you require, that's surveillance camera you need to carry with yourself having night vision lens :laugh:
Sound
That's loud. You will be totally fine with it. Just as loud as it can fit in there. Music has clarity and crispness, bass isn't an element for music through speakers, earphones does the job well if someone needed bass.
Software
The Android 8.0 is soo well designed, it would understand your interests. Even would show you few that you wouldn't have imagined to find them in phone. There are all the modifications possibly existing in every popular custom ROM readily available in this honor phone stock ROM itself. The settings hold various toggles to change according to your liking. Below they are listed...
Huawei ID It takes care of backing up all the contacts, messages, calender and necessary stuff to the cloud provided by Huawei.
Wireless & Networks Lte, VoLTE configurations can be modified, data usage with specific networked apps is added advantage.
Apps & Notifications Apps to uninstall or disable, enable is available. Default apps, App twin & notification mods such as network meter, etc are here too.
Battery setting In this option, there is a power saving mode that can give you more than 4days standby if stuck to only few basic utilities with the phone.
Display setting Eye Comfort which can exchange color of screen to cool, warm feel. Screen resolution modification which is only in honor that enables to reduce screen density which can result in great power save.
Storage setting You get around 52GB free out of 64GB internal space. The RAM Management is nice too. There is always somehow 2.4GB RAM remaning in 4GB available though around 13apps are in the multitasking window. The software of honor does the RAM allocation very well for tasks processing.
Security & Privacy Fingerprints soo fast (0.25sec), file safe to hide files, App lock, Screen Pinning.
Smart Assistance setting Double tap to wake screen or lock screen.
System setting inside here, there are data transfer, backup & restore, reset, update, etc.
Themes These look soo beautiful and give a punchy look to the phone.
The Magazine Lockscreen This is the best part of the phone when you unlock, the pictures are soo beautiful that just by looking at them, your mind strikes at wow which really is relaxing and refreshing all the time you want them.
Navigation Buttons the onscreen buttons can be exchanged places from right to left which is way convenient for southpaw's.
Battery & Power Consumption
The moderate usage of phone can last a whole day, from 100% in the morning, you can use the phone till next day until same time u charged if you are only on 4g data usage and checking messages, attending calls, by then your battery will be around 10%. In the night, the percentage of drop in non usage is only 2% which is super less. The charging time is alot, but there's something honor's very concerned about, it takes alot of time to charge because, the module of charge input itself is designed by honor in such a way it takes charge slowly (Not to mistake as snail slow) to not spoil the battery life. Hence, this doesn't heat up phone very much. It keeps cool and does its job CooL without messing around. It takes 2hrs15min for full charge. This is same with many mobiles, almost 2hr15min is common with most mobiles.
Wifi, bluetooth, GPS, OTG are all working flawlessly too.
Frankly speaking, cost is soo low, quality we get is really good, more than pleasing for the price we pay for.
Mentions that need to be considered:
I know the camera in our phone is enough capable to get the exact software enhancements i find in HonorV10 Camera app. I clearly see honor is trying to limit these enhancements for the sake people would fall dull that they invested double the price and got exactly the same software loaded in half priced model (which is ours). Sure, many people might question this out. But, Please, middle class people require somebody to bother them. It's us who suffer the loss or gain equally and still keep calm without having no other choices rather than to convince ourselves we cant get more, nobody cares. The rich complain, they sue, you bother them. We request, we ask things soo much, we are many & loud but unheard (-_-) , you have established soo well in our country market this time, the what we have lost (beauty, power, feel ) in xiaomi phones, we found in yours. Your phones made us feel alive. I felt soo good looking at my Honor 9 Lite, it was worth all the effort you put on. I didnt even buy a Xiaomi phone for myself until date, i felt like us were being played by that company. It didnt feel good. They sold cheap stuff with good software tweaks. It was Hugo Barra who designed software, only because of this Xiaomi phones were a hit. You lagged at it alot in the past until Honor 6X. I never bought any Xiaomi device, i loved the Honor 4x, but found there were no updates. But this time you came superawesome into the market, your software is wayyy better than Xiaomi in looks and feel, all that it finally require is bug fixes, proper tweaks to utilize the whole capacity of the hardware, you do everything from scratch and created us this antique designed masterpiece phones. You should be proud. All you require is massive tweaking in the software, thats all. The processor's are superb, the screen buttersmooth, sound clear crisp and loud. Its the tweaking that's missing. I really wish honor this time you keep alot of effort in giving us customers in the country who bought your phones a huge happy smile. Ask how?? Here's how, we like gifts, gift us like 2 or 3days before festivals an OTA update that solves all the bug issues in our honor phones and then look at the news, scroll down, check the comments session. You would be very well liked. We'd then even feel honored to have had you bothering us and all together. Straight outta heart, we would be TRULY overjoyed that you did care for us this time on.
Dear Honor,
The world is a happy place for as long you, atleast hereafter consider to help us better .​​

It's the best you can get for the price with some small compromises
Let's start with not so good stuff before we get on to the great stuff!
I've got the 3GB variant and Midnight Black Color, I'm using it now for about 23 days.
Memory Management - Well the RAM/Memory management on this device is very aggressive, Here's how I was watching some dope stuff on YouTube and few Minutes in and I got a call and was talking for about 15 - 20 Mins and after the call ended, I was hoping the youtube app will be in the same state I left it! But, no The app was closed completely and I had to relaunch the app again, and also if you are running music in the background you get this stupid notification saying the app is running in the background and drains battery which can annoy anyone!
Hopefully, they will fix these in future software updates.
And (Not sure whether it's the Memory management or the app's problem), I'm running NOVA Launcher as default After 2 or 3 days, it automatically switched back to the default Launcher, well this only happened twice and after that, I didn't face this problem anymore, I thought it was worth mentioning.
Camera - Well the only thing that I felt weird was with the rear camera when I switched to Portrait mode or Wide Aperture mode It Changed the Resolution to 8MP, but the same with the front camera it was 13MP and there is no option to switch to 13MP, and maybe that's why most of the Tech YouTubers say the front cam of this device is good then the rear.
And also I wish it had EIS hopefully, in future software update we will get it!
It would really help the video quality!
Well, that's the things that annoyed me the most, now let's get to the good stuff!
Design and Build Quality - Well, you might have heard a lot about this, but the device screams Premium, They have nailed the design with this device, it's absolutely gorgeous and It's really light to hold tho, some people may like it, and people like me may want a heavy device (Personal preference).
OS and UI - Well it's really smooth didn't have any lag issues or any of such kind, it's snappy and didn't face any heating issues or so, the only thing is RAM management which I mentioned it earlier and apart from that, it's really good.
Battery and charging speed - I could easily get through a day, I have no complaints about the battery it's really good and I'm happy with it. From 20% to 100% the charging time it took was somewhere around 1hr 15 mins to 1hr 40mins, which is reasonable for a 3000mAh battery, it doesn't support fast charging but I don't think that's an issue as I can get a day's worth of battery and I have no complaints about it, But I did wish it had a Type - C port, it's fine not a big issues but it could've had a Type - C
Speaker and Headphone output - The speaker is loud and clear, there is no Distortion at full volume, there is a bit bass which you can feel and its' good but a finger can cover it and the whole sound can be lost, that's the only issue and that's the issue with all mono down facing speaker.
And for the headphone output, I don't own a premium headset, I have a cheap one and it worked fine with it, it was loud and clear.
Call and Network - Call quality was really good, No issues Tried with Jio, Vodafone and BSNL didn't face any issues, the receiver was able to hear me clear and loud and the data was also at a good speed and with 4G it didn't affect the battery much as I thought it would, Wifi Bridge is one of the really cool features and it works really good.
and Finally
Camera - Well I've already told the problem I faced apart from that I don't have any issues,
It focuses really fast and also takes photos really fast, it's super snappy! I really loved the quality of images that I got in this price segment.
The Pro Photo and Pro Video mode are really good if you know to use them well, There are several other modes The food mode is also good and Timelapse is awesome.
Well, the front cam in portrait mode does fail sometimes to recognize people's face if there are more than 2 persons in the shot, it just happens sometimes and not every time. And I wish it had a Slo-Mo Mode tho.
The images are of really good quality tho, good enough to post on Social Networking sites.
Conclusion - I think it worth the money I paid, It does have some minor issues which can be fixed via Software Update apart from that it's a really good device and I'm Lovin it.
PS - I had actually added images and since I'm a new member XDA doesn't allow new users to post links.

Not very impressed with the Honor 9 Lite.
I did online research and read lots of review on the Honor 9 Lite.
What convinced me was a comparison some reviewer did with his current daily driver, a 1+3t, and was, as he put it, 'pleasantly surprised'. Since my current daily driver is also a 1+3t I relented and bought one, the 3+32GB version.
After using the Honor 9 Lite I don't think it comes anywhere close to a 1+3t. Now I appreciate and understand that it is cheaper than my 1+3t (even at its current value) but I'm not very impressed, especially with the way EMUI 8 completely rapes Android stock ! I knew this going in but never realised to what extent EMUI restrict customisation.
Let me give examples.
1. First thing I always do with every phone i buy is disabled all apps I don't need/use. Some of the apps on the Honor 9 Lite are cooked in and without root cannot be disables, frozen or removed; e.g. Files, Huawei Mobile Service, Themes.
2. Next thing is to replace any homelauncher with my favourite 'Nova'. Well as soon as you do this on the 9Lite you get a pop-up message stating something like 'changing home launcher uses more battery'...What ? Anyway you can force it through and then just change the default home launcher to Nova. Then some of the EMUI widgets, like weather, don't work anymore. That's ok, I expected that, what I did not expect is for it to show up as available but when you try to add it to your homescreen you get a FC and Huawei launcher is back, in effect removing your default launcher you just set.
3. Huawei badges also obviously don't work under Nova; again as expected.
4. Next I fired up Chronus widget so i can get a replacement for the now non-working Huawei weather service (which at least you can disable). Chronus now does not update the alarm. So you set an alarm in clock but Chronus does not pick up the changee unless you go into chronus change something and save it. This was even after i loaded up Google clock and set alarm through that.
All the above works flawlessly in my Oreo based 1+3t.
5. Lag..yes it is a lot worse than my 1+3t, now like i said because of the price difference i did not expect the Kirin659 to be on par with the Snapdragon 821 but the lag difference was much more noticable on the Honor9 lite than i expected.
6. Since Nova was basically non functional I had to return to Huawei's own launcher.
7. No way of hiding status bar. By the way I also tried play store apps, like GMD Full Screen, but it did not work properly.
8. Battery life is one day on normal use.
9. Cameras are acceptable but no better than my single camera 1+3t.
Conclusion:
Not impresssed, it looks great, weight is spot on for me, size is also great so is the screen brightness, but everything else is nothing special and that EMUI8 man, it just restricts you from most customisation which is the reason we all love android. If i wanted restrictions i would have gone for an iphone.
Why should i have to unlock BL and root to be able to do simple things like use full immersive mode. I'd like to keep android pay functioning so don't want to unlock,root and battle with magidisk to hide root. I just want control back of my phone.
Anyway, thought i would put this together outlining my experience with the Honor 9Lite, hopefully yours will be better and find acceptable.

Well, I bought this device as my ex-device was quite old enough(I was using grand 2 as my daily driver).Next,when I was searching for new devices,I was looking for a device which is better in all aspects(camera,looks,sound,performance,signal quality) and also in a moderate price.Then I stumbled across Honor 9 Lite.It was the old phone in my budget range which was able to cater to my demands.It looks gorgeous as ever.The glass body,its colour (I got the Sapphire blue one) and its modern looks with minimal borders made me order the phone without even checking for other details(I already knew it supports 4G and fingerprint sensor) .When I got the phone,I found that it is not too heavy but is indeed slippery due to glossy back,so I applied the cover to increase friction and to prevent falling .
These are the following pros and cons of the phone I found:-
PROS
1.Camera->Both the front and back cameras are awesome and can even capture good amount of detail even in low light condition.Maybe the 4 cameras(2 in pairs does the trick)
2.Android OS->Being latest is the best.This device packs with Android Oreo which many 2017 flagships like S8(they got it but Samsung removed the OTA update) haven't recieved properly
3.Processor->I haven't heard about this processor's name earlier but was shocked by its insane frequency(greater than 2 Ghz) so I decided to do an Antutu benchmark and found that this processor's performance is comparable with Snapdragon 625.
4.Display->Display is awesome.Nothing to say about it
5.Battery->Battery life is a bit-tad low (It lasts 9 hrs for me),so I need to charge atleast once a day.No fast charging support and no USB C was a dissappointment
6.Storage and Ram management-Plenty of Ram(3 GBs) and storage(around 22 GBs),so no complaints there

Related

Poll: HD7 and WP7 Pros and Cons. Share your thoughts and vote.

About HD7 and WP7, quick review.
Positive HTC HD7:
. The device is awesome, fast, slim, the 4.3” high resolution screen is really epic and it feels really good when holding it in your hands. It makes you wanna have sex with it.
. The device materials quality is over my expectations
. Auto focus and dual LED flash working great
. Gsensor, proximity, and ambient light Sensor fast and reliable
Negative HTC HD7:
. Internal storage: 8 GB (Europe), I just hope we can upgrate it soon
. Battery drains a lot. it seems that battery manufacters are not keeping the pace. I recommend to disable all automatic updates and dont use 3G.
Positive Microsoft WP7:
. Really a clean OS fast and very responsive.
. The Hubs and animated tiles layout is very simple and fun to use.
. Social integration is a awesome feature and well worked by Microsoft (but it may be a little confusing for newbs.
. The boot sequence is the faster I ever seen.
Negative Microsoft WP7:
. Marketplace and Zune not available for all regions (you need to create a windows live account in a Region like UK for example).
. Lack of Customization
Bottom line:
WP7 is a kind of fresh air in the mobile world, a different approach with easy-to-use interface focused in integration of features and social network. Its fast, clean, intuitive, full of people-centric features with memory management like no other OS. Overall is has unbeatable perfomance.
Metro UI it is not just a app launcher, it has live tiles and not that sea of the same old and boring icons. The touch responsiveness is awesome and the short transitions between applications is the best experience I ever had.
The WP7 keyboard is clean , the mail experience is solid, IE9 is fast, the Office integration make WP7 impossible to ignore for serious business users, terrific Zune and Xbox Live integration with beautiful and useful user interface. All of these features are as simple and clean as the rest of the OS.
A kid can use it, a grown up can use it, a elderly can use it.
WP7 its still a work in progress and yes there is a lot of features missing but since it is just one year old, you can wait and live without it. The most important is that what we have now does not break, crash or lag. It works perfectly and smooth. Bottom line, you love it or you hate it.
In my case, I Love Windows Phone.
EDIT:
My Rate so far: 8.5/10
Thats all.
dot
Hm, have not had any issue with the hubs. Agree on battery life, it is pretty weak so far. I've done multiple drains as well.
I'm pretty torn on the HD7 myself. On the one hand it's probably the best-looking handheld device I've ever owned. Hardware is just excellent and feels great in the hand. But the more I look at the screen the more I realize how poor it is. Colors are very washed out. My 1st gen iPod touch has better brightness, contrast and saturation than this screen. HTC could have done better here.
Would you say the battery last longer same or shorter then HD2?
I find the HD7 to be the best looking of all the WP7 phones yet released. I love the black chrome surround and the silver mesh inserts at each end of the front face. I also found ou t those mesh inserts conduct sound from the rear speaker. That is a plus, rather than just being there for looks.I love the high quality kickstand also. The HD7 combines all the best elements of the HD2 and Evo in a much prettier package.
My HD7 works flawlessly...signal and fit and finish as well. The screen is unblemished and the display is colorful and bright. I love the chrome buttons and I especially love the dual level camera button.
WP7 is, to me, the best mobile OS ever released. It is superbly smooth, uncluttered and efficient. It lacks features right now but, similar to the iPhone's lack of features, WP7 will evolve into the most successful mobile OS ever produced...my opinion.
Taking into consideration the nature of the system and how it will evolve, I give WP7 a 9 out of 10. I have experienced some minor bugs. Otherwise I would give it a 10/10
I love my hd7 to , real good build quality and O2 German version has 16 GB in it
I hate sound quality in HD7. There is absolute no bass if you use the included headphones or buildin speaker. As far as I know there is also no other headphones that have compatible control. Also the mic should be at the level of mouth or a little lower, but not at the chest level.
nesher said:
I hate sound quality in HD7. There is absolute no bass if you use the included headphones or buildin speaker. As far as I know there is also no other headphones that have compatible control. Also the mic should be at the level of mouth or a little lower, but not at the chest level.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, the HD2 included head set also has the mouth piece way low, like they designed it for the indigenous people who stretch out their necks, never made sense to me on that one.
Nice thread, I will wait for more comments before I buy mine.
My HD7
Me and MY HD7 it's a love hate relationship I guess.
A bit of history:
I've owned the HD1 (****ing loved it), The HD2 (was an okay device) Now the HD7 (still testing it). I'm a smartphone FANATIC! I have devices ranging from the Nexus One, to the Blue Angel (favorite phone of all time), to the EVO, G1, MOTO Backflip, Touch Pro1 and 2, even the XDA Flame, and Palm Pre, you name it. So I don't really have a biased to any particular device.
The HD7:
The physical design is AMAZING (though I think it could use more metal on the back, but it still feels way better than the plastic clad EVO). The screen appears to be floating as it's not touching the upper and lower bezel. The kickstand is sturdy.
The camera button is hard to press on the second stage (not the focus stage), if you attempt to use one hand it will probably shake enough of ruin your shot (and I have big hands, I can palm a basket ball). two hand use should be fine
The camera flash is great. It does a good job with adjusting the brightness of the light.
The battery life is absolutely pathetic, worse than than any device I ever owned.
The Audio from the built in speaker is CRAP! Even with HTC sound enhancer. I'ts actually the worst sounding phone I every owned, but it's bearable.
The Audio pushed out through the headphones is AMAZING!
The vibrator. I know who ever's reading this is like WTF? But I've always hated the way the vibrator feels on HTC device. I think it's an important feature on devices nowadays especially with tactile feedback emulations. With that said: On my EVO it's horrible it makes an annoying noise and it only vibrates the lower portion of the phone. But the vibrator on this device is awesome. It feels really natural and vibrates the whole phone. Almost better than the one on the Samsung devices.
The LCD display is actually decent. I don't know what everyone complains about, the device would have cost nearly twice as much with a 4.3 inch SAMOLED like everyone wants, no one has a 4.3 inch AMOLED or SAMOLED so give it a rest people! The display could be brighter in my opinion though.
The sound quality for phone call is the best I had so far, but put it on speaker phone and it's the worst I've heard.
Pocket IE is very fast faster than the Android 2.2 default browser. But the render is kind of weird as they seem to not have have anti aliasing on text when completely zoomed out so it looks horrible sometimes. Over all the browser is good.
Windows 7 in a nutshell
I love it and hate it.
I love: the messaging app, the overall interface, the idea for hubs, the xbox live integration, the live tiles, the lock screen, the Email Hub (beautifu and extremely functional), the picture and video Hub (beautiful and functional) the entire OS is extremely responsive and cohesive.
I hate: Some hubs won't load (and requires a soft reset) less than 5% of the time, Some apps have the tendency to crash (more time than I'm comfortable with) bot 3rd party and built in apps, I hate that the video recorder will not retain settings.
And I ABSOLUTELY HATE when searching for apps you get music result as well; example: if you search in Market Place for "Notes" you'll get some applications like "Voice Notes" and "Light Notes" but you'll also have albums and play lists mixed in like "Notes from the Past" and "Best of the 70s - Play list" WTF!! at the very least they could have grouped them by type "Albums" "Applications" "Play List". Instead they mix them all up randomly so you'll have to search an entire list of music albums so you won't potentially miss a very good app all the way at the bottom. W T F !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I give the device a 7/10
-Frankie
MHO.
HD7 -> compared to other HTC devices -> significant de-evolution.
HD7 -> compared to other devices same class -> not possible.
WM7, "satisfactory" start with possibility to improve fast.
HD7, terrible hardware choice and cant improve anything.
4/10
K
Thanks Dotcomp for the poll ,now thread is sticky....guys be nice,i'll check this thread and i won't see any flame around and in case post and quotes with flame will be deleted.
Thanks all for cooperation.
I rate it a 4/10. Pretty much subpar. I think there is a distinct difference between a fresh new look and quality.
For someone who is new to and Microsoft mobile OS dating back to the Offline pocket Pc's like me then this OS looks half baked.
For someone new to the MS OS then this OS is great with it's flashy graphics and smooth transitions. However there are just too many things that the girst Pocket Pc phone Edition had out the door that this OS lacks. Yes! I'm sure they'll be rectified down the line.
Now I need to make it clear before all the flaming kicks in; I definitely believe in the OS and it's future. There's a lot to come down the line. Heck! Great apps are coming out all the time. i just found FIM in the marketplace this morning.
However; as the saying goes. Call a spade a spade. Windows Phone 7 compared to Windows Mobile 3 or 2 or just plain PPC is subpar.
PROS:
Solid design on the hardware side.
Like the classy look of the hardware
The OS is very polished
Software keyboard works well and the screen size helps.
OS is snappy for anything native.
touch sensitivity is best I have ever seen. Most responsive OS i have ever used.
ZUNE /media capabilities and netflix are all a welcome +
CONS:
Very slow 3rd party apps.
Have to be reloaded every time they launch and takes for ever to just
check simple information like facebook or twitter or local movie times
no multi-tasking is sometimes bothersome as well as the omission of cut/copy/paste
Horrible browser who's acid test is only 5/100
no flash ( not really a deal breaker but just thought i would throw it out their)
no many apps available yet and when they are i think they dont work as optimized/or efficient as they should. (yes i know its early still)
on the hardware side the camera has a pink hue when i use the flash rendering the flash useless basically
cheap shiny metal material which was already chipping and i had only used the handset a week.
All in all I think MS did a great job redirecting the failing division they had
now i believe its time they bring the browser up to speed while adding a lot of industry standard features they need to catch up on. Great inial release and starting point for their revolution. I didnt think they had it in them. By next fall I expect them to be on par with most on the industry in terms of missing features and I think WP& is a great alternative to anything out their while bringing a totally different experience to the market with its unique minimal look. I am a die hard android fanboy but would not mind sticking it out with a WP7 device when 3rd party apps function properly. with that being said I give MS an A-
I like the phone and Microsoft.... but it needs to work just as good if not better than the iPhone 3GS that I had. I like that I can change the battery that is definately better than iPhone. And the microSD card is better too but it needs to be accessible as well. Not behind a cover and 10 screws. I know that is really for system memory, but then there should be a seperate slot for another SD card. I still like to take pictures or create/save documents and take the card and transfer to another computer or phone. Where is that SIM Manager too?? You had it before but now it's not a feature. And please please make the volume much much higher. Even the "speaker phone" volume is way too low.
All in all this phone and OS has lot's of potential. I like the "cloud" concept but as it stands today, my previous iPhone beats this handset. Please HTC and Microsoft... don't make me go back to Apple.... please !
tagging
Hi all, I tell them that I decided to change my htc htc hd2 and then my desire for the new hd7, I love the speed with which I access the most important things in fast, but I feel some omissions such as: When you dial keypad Phone numerical prediction can not find the contacts, I have no possibility of a browser like igo gps, garmin, etc. And as already mentioned missing file browser. If anyone knows how to put the prediction of contacts or a good gps software please send an email to this fledgling community in windows phone 7.
poor battery life.
poor screen.
poor camera.
great OS just needs a few more features. And I know they are coming.
Come on HTC I know you have better cameras and screens,What were you thinking?
Why not have a higher capacity battery as well?
After two weeks Im going to return my phone. I cant really pinpoint one thing why I dont like it, but I miss using Android. I know Ive gotten beat up about this before but If you have a cell phone number listed in the home field of the contact, they arent searchable in "Messaging" . I understand how everyone feels about that but my argument is the person is listed in the contacts so the information is there, but it wont even display the persons name when searched. Fixable but "to me" annoying. I also dont like that the tiles on the home screen are basically all the same color. For me It makes glancing at the screen difficult to quickly search the tile Im looking for.
Battery life is terrible and makes the phone unusable for media if you are also relying on it all day long for other stuff.
Volume is way to low.
Not having LED notifications for SMS and Email is just insane. All day long I have to turn the phone on and off to see if I missed something. Just stupid.
Its beautiful and runs great but there just isnt a reason to switch to it if you have used any other modern smartphone.
Just my two cents.
The Marketplace really needs a dedicated app search area. As it is, you put in a search term for an app and it brings up music results as well. Sort of annoying searching for the Twitter app and having a bunch of mixtapes and singles mixed in with the apps.
Maybe it's there and I'm missing it?
manlisten said:
The Marketplace really needs a dedicated app search area. As it is, you put in a search term for an app and it brings up music results as well. Sort of annoying searching for the Twitter app and having a bunch of mixtapes and singles mixed in with the apps.
Maybe it's there and I'm missing it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I find this EXTREMELY ANNOYING too!!!!!
One good thing I would like to add to the positives is the maps app. To me its the best Ive ever used.

ZTE Axon Elite

Hi Guys, I am from UK and tempted to buy Axon elite.
Given your experience with the phone, would you suggest buying this phone? I have read about terrible call and music output, can someone confirm, if this is still true - i.e. software/hardware issue. How about the camera? The specs are confusing where somewhere it is mentioned 8mp interpolated to 13 MP, whereas some places it has been mentioned as 13 mp. Same with front cam as well. Any feedback, please. The specs look good, but the issues mentioned, coupled with lack of customer support and custom roms make me ask this question.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
Hello nikunj87,
I too am from the UK and have owned my Axon Elite for roughly 3 weeks now, and can answer most of your questions if you wish. I would suggest buying it, I use mine on Vodafone and I bought it unlocked for £270(!!!), given the spec the hardware alone is a phenomenal deal. The fingerprint sensor not found on the Pro, or normal Axon, works surprisingly well, it's decently accurate and fast enough for most situations. The display is actually quite good, bright, sharp and colour reproduction seems to be quite good, the software allows control of the saturation of the display, going from more neutral to pretty oversaturated; I prefer the more saturated colours but that's just me. I thought I should mention, my SD810 does indeed get quite warm, however you'd be surprised at how low the temperatures actually are, it feels warm because ZTE dissipates the heat throughout the body of the phone, it can feel quite warm but CPU temp will only be in the high 30's most of the time, compared to the 801 in my OPO that idled at 39cish. Most daily tasks it keeps it's cool though, it's never actually been a problem for me.
Speaking of the software, it isn't actually too bad, MiFavor 3.2 aboard android 5.0.2, I do really like some of the customization features and ZTE has done a good job keeping the UI decently snappy, though on my particular phone the RAM management isn't too great, no idea if it's just my phone though to be honest. In short it's a pretty heavy skin, it wasn't too much to my liking but some stuff is nice, I now just run the google now launcher on mine, oh and I forgot to mention the play store and services is preinstalled, I wasn't expecting it to be either. As for the issues you've mentioned, call quality has been fine for me, no worse or better than my OnePlus One, mine seems easily clear and loud enough for my tastes. Music quality is also excellent, however for my tastes it's not as loud as I'd like, I've tried increasing volume the same way I did on my OPO (by editing the mixer_paths file) but the phone seems to just completely ignore what I changed. I'm sure it's fine for most though as I have quite bad hearing loss.
The cameras I found to be really quite good, my Axon has taken some honestly shockingly good photos, the HDR mode does slightly over expose and punch up colours quite a bit, though it does do a nice enough job of bringing light out of dark scenes. The camera app is quite well designed, and allows you to adjust exposure when you tap to focus, I apologise I can't include any screenshots or images, if you get this phone definitely try the Bokeh mode out, I tried it on some flowers and the result was stunning. The FFC also did really well, pulling a really nice amount of detail and colour was very good, exposure could of been a little better but it's only a FFC so I can't really complain. As for the sensors, you have a 13mp Exmor RS sensor for the main camera, a 2mp Omnivison lens for recording depth information and a 8mp FFC.
Sorry for the wall of text but I guess I wrote a mini review, if you need to know anything else or I missed something (bound to of missed something) then please ask! You should buy this phone, I really like mine, though I'd be interested in the Axon Pro, and it's software, the skin just isn't my cup of tea in all honesty but it works well enough, hopefully someone can get a completely stock 6.0 ROM on this phone, that would be killer!
EDIT: I managed to increase the volume, you have to scroll down to the line stating something like "playback_headphones" and edit the values there, now one of my biggest gripes with this phone is resolved and funnily enough, the audio quality is a mile away from my OPO, despite being at a louder volume the audio is nowhere near as distorted and it has so much quality and clarity behind it, I couldn't be happier.
Hi Josh,
I will receive ZTE Axon Axon in 2-3 days. I got an irresistible deal - $300
I totally hate ZTE's skin on Axon Elite. It is not fair that Axon and Axon pro have near stock android UI and Elite has that stupid skin that not many people want. At least ZTE should provide and option of going back to Stock UI.
Anyways, is there a theme manager in the Axon Elite that can be used to change the UI/looks of the phone? I know Nova and other launcher can help a bit, but not the notification bar, pulldown and settings etc.
Thank you and I am glad that you like your ZTE Axon Mini.

Buy Huawei P9?

Hey guys, I'm seriously considering getting a Huawei P9. I'm not a big fan of EMUI [i currently own Huawei GR5 (Honor 5X)], but the P9 pretty much the best device in my budget.
Hows the entire user experience? battery life? Speed?!
Since it's Kirin CPU, I'm guessing we'll not see CM on this device for some time? lol
Also, which model is more popular? In terms of software update availability and stuff? L19? L09? or L29?
From my own experience I came from a LG G4, yeh it has an excellent camera and fluid as hell, but I changed 'cuz the battery life (in G4 it suck , charging almost every day, and stopping data and/or wifi to extend it a little more)... Huawei P9 has an awesome battery.. with 31% you can still have like ~10hr (wifi/data on non stop).. Speed?? 3 GB Ram is more than enough, really good, I don't care about how many apps I opened, the response it's fluid and without lags.
I have both the P9 and galaxy S7 because I can't decide which I like the best. So here are my thoughts:
The P9 is the best allrounder, it beats the S7 on nearly everything except the camera and overall functionality.
The camera in P9 is good but compared to the S7 it blow chunks! It is so big difference you can't ignore it.
The more money u have to pay for the S7 is worth it.
And then there is the Emui, it's more fluid than touchwiz but there is just so many stupid things with Emui, like not all media players work on the lock screen, so far I only got power amp, spotify and Google music to show up on the lock screen.
Despite of all this I still come back to the P9, it's just more fun.
diigiital said:
The camera in P9 is good but compared to the S7 it blow chunks! It is so big difference you can't ignore it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On camera, the weak point of the P9 is video. Pictures are amazing. If you depend on video go for s7. If you just wanna take pictures the P9 is absolutely fine.
Also check out the Nougat beta for the P9 on youtube, from my experience so far Huawei has been very good with updates. And the Nougat rom (EMUI 5.0) will change things a lot in terms of software.
And the hardware is amazing. USB C, full metal body (Glass backs are a no go for me personally) and no camera bump. FP reader is perfect. Everything is fast and smooth, I've seen no slowdowns at all and battery is great too (2 full days minimum for me).
If you like to flash custom roms and stuff and use CM etc, one look in the dev thread will show that custom kernels/roms are just now slowly coming on. Recovery, root and xposed are all working fine though.
I went for the P9 over the S7, because it has way better price/performance ratio and for me better hardware design. It's just a much more interesting phone to me.
The P9 will give you more bang for the buck. Very fluid UI (no freezing, stuttering or random reboots). Everything just works (bluetooth, wifi - I get wifi in the house in places where I didn't get any with my LG G3 and OnePlus 2). Camera is great for still photography. Video quality is still pretty good even though it doesn't do 4K or have OIS. And the fingerprint scanner is just ridiculous... Takes just 3 or 4 taps to set up and works lightning fast every single time. Phone design is very sleek and feels great in hand (no camera hump neither!). Battery life is pretty good with about 4 to 5 hours of SOT. On slow days it can last 1.5 - 2 days.
EMUI takes some getting used to and takes some setting up to get everything working the way you want to, but that just means the initial set-up process is just a wee bit longer than on other phones.
If you don't like the look (like me), just install Nova Launcher and an icon pack of your choice. That'll give you double tap to sleep as well!
As for theming: there's quite an active theming community for EMUI on Google Plus.
With Nova launcher, icons and an EMUI theme running you can get close enough to a stock experience.

coming from pixel 2xl

Is it a upgrade at all?
not really - you no longer have as close to stock android, no guarantee for updates, incompatibility with some applications, only good thing is the camera
you might be better to wait and see what the new pixel is going to be like
I have both devices, I work in the arts fields, and I value camera quality. It really is a toss between the two, camera wise, both npu help get really good results. I grew up in the eighties and I am therefore used to manipulate settings in order to get the image I want. I am no professional photographer anyhow, but I get more from the P20 pro.
Monochrome Lens, telescopic lens, and either 40 mp or reduced 10 mp photos that are equally good of not better than pixel 2 XL.
On the other hand, sure, the Google device is getting updates, as all my previous nexuses. But if you get into the maze that is sometimes the setting panel in the p20 pro, you can in about phone section help the phone learn even better by telling him your rules about apps launches , fine tune it, and in a week or so your battery life will improve with added machine learning, just as in Pie.
Battery wise it's silly to try to compare them hardware size only, as, one it is to me only a guess allot who will have lost which percentage on a daily comparable usage. Both can go beyond the next day, but you'll have to charge it at some point, that next day anyway.
Lack of Bt 5.0 but oh well, I can still manage with the bundled app on my Bluetooth speakers play in stereo and up to 50 devices simultaneously, mind you. So no issue for me here.
I had no issue with the pixel neither and it has 5.0 BT.
Responsiveness is on par, and yeah stock Google's vision of Android is lighter and less resource hungry, but, the p 20 pro is more bloated, butt the trend in Huawei is to simplify the ui and it's navigation, and make it closer to say a Google device, but not too close. Emui is like a custom rom with tons of options. But you can turn them down if you want. So being a long time nexus buyer and then some OnePlus devices also, it was a jump but as I still have all my devices at hand, I don't regret getting the p20 pro. Which I had to learn how to use, but, once done is another kind of pleasuring experience also.
Hope this helps. I guess phones have reached a plateau and it's just npu in the next years that will improve every aspects of our phone's usage and optimization, but npus are in their beginnings. Cheers.
Aur3L said:
I have both devices, I work in the arts fields, and I value camera quality. It really is a toss between the two, camera wise, both npu help get really good results. I grew up in the eighties and I am therefore used to manipulate settings in order to get the image I want. I am no professional photographer anyhow, but I get more from the P20 pro.
Monochrome Lens, telescopic lens, and either 40 mp or reduced 10 mp photos that are equally good of not better than pixel 2 XL.
On the other hand, sure, the Google device is getting updates, as all my previous nexuses. But if you get into the maze that is sometimes the setting panel in the p20 pro, you can in about phone section help the phone learn even better by telling him your rules about apps launches , fine tune it, and in a week or so your battery life will improve with added machine learning, just as in Pie.
Battery wise it's silly to try to compare them hardware size only, as, one it is to me only a guess allot who will have lost which percentage on a daily comparable usage. Both can go beyond the next day, but you'll have to charge it at some point, that next day anyway.
Lack of Bt 5.0 but oh well, I can still manage with the bundled app on my Bluetooth speakers play in stereo and up to 50 devices simultaneously, mind you. So no issue for me here.
I had no issue with the pixel neither and it has 5.0 BT.
Responsiveness is on par, and yeah stock Google's vision of Android is lighter and less resource hungry, but, the p 20 pro is more bloated, butt the trend in Huawei is to simplify the ui and it's navigation, and make it closer to say a Google device, but not too close. Emui is like a custom rom with tons of options. But you can turn them down if you want. So being a long time nexus buyer and then some OnePlus devices also, it was a jump but as I still have all my devices at hand, I don't regret getting the p20 pro. Which I had to learn how to use, but, once done is another kind of pleasuring experience also.
Hope this helps. I guess phones have reached a plateau and it's just npu in the next years that will improve every aspects of our phone's usage and optimization, but npus are in their beginnings. Cheers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The learning is not perfect and even if you do change the battery settings for apps, you will still have some issues with certain apps (mainly stuff linking to cloud as they don't tend to backup until you open the app, even if told can run in the background), some apps can still be killed off and you just need to restart them again.
The trend in Huawei is not to make the UI closer to a Google device, but infact the UI is closer to Apple and it is only recently they have added the option to have a proper android desktop instead of the apple style desktop.
If you concerned about updates, application compatibility, ability to unlock the devicethen go with Google otherwise if not bothered about these then yeh choose a Huawei device
True, as I wrote, npu are learning but are in their infancy, what Huawei does is similar to what pixel device can do, but Google has a much better algorithm. So you are right, and some apps don't play nicely with the emui framework, Google photos is dropping frame rates just when scrolling through photos. As for iPhone /ios looks, I guess I don't particularly practice it. No ios device in the house for.... Years.
If only the pixel had a monochrome lens or an optical zoom or a software way to deliver those, it would be great. Maybe it will happen, hdr+ is such a great standard, who knows what new capacity they can bring with the software.

Software (ease of use, features, etc)

When you hand your phone to granny to take a photo of you, can she get the job done? Rate this thread to express how you deem the Xiaomi Redmi Note 6 Pro's camera software. A higher rating indicates that the software is easy to use, fast, uncluttered, and inclusive of advanced features for when you need them.
Then, drop a comment if you have anything to add!
TBH miui is getting boring, and there are many time when I am unable to find some settings I have to relay more on search option
I have purchased this for a family member of mine. Presently I am using it for a day or two for testing to see if everything is working fine within the return window.
MiUi is out right intolerable for me who loves custom ROM and using Z2 Plus (SD820/4GB).
But I kind of appreciate Xiaomi for their update commitment for their devices running MiUi.
UI is good enough for some one who is a completely non technical person.
Battery backup is excellent, so are their overall tuning. Yes there are some issues but their update cycle is dependable to get continued update for fixing any such.
But there are complaints, even from those users.
UX look and feel issue (China Factor)
How on earth MiUi Dev's think everyone likes Chinese bubbly design language?
Look at Oppo, they are Chinese to start with but Oxygen OS is getting so much love from rest of the world. Look at Samsung with their UI. So much different from stock android but loved around the world.
Can't they have a different UI which rest of the world will like?
Complicated Navigation
MiUi is getting complicated with its settings layout. Things are embedded so deep, it's problematic for non technical users for find their way around.
Getting Old and Boring
Once again another complain I am hearing from non technical user of MiUi. New device doesn't give new feeling anymore since the UI is kept same for half a decade now.
Similar issue what non technical users are reporting.
Like for example, my family member who would be using this device refused to upgrade from Samsung On8 (J7) to this year's On8 (J8) since everything looked same. Even though underneath, it's a completely different device.
Ads and privacy issues
Yeah they recover their cost from ads but it's utterly objectionable when they are showing adult ads without any specific option to toggle or filter such ads.
Lastly why do they need so much permission for ads? Our privacy too matters.. You really don't need so much personal information for showing ads.
No notch Support for MiUi
MiUi isn't yet notch compatible. Simply it's a cut in display. Nothing else. Notifications bar needs to optimised for this Notch. But judging from their MiUi agresive update cycle, hopefully we can have a better notch management.
Thanks.
3 starts. There's no 4K 30 FPS or Full HD 60 FPS recording option, and I know the sensor is capable of it.

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