Team-BHP - Android Thread: Phones / Apps / Mods

Micromax just launched the YU series phone named YUREKA.
Has got awesome specs on paper.
615 Snapdragon Octacore processor.
2 GB DDR3 RAM
16GB Internal Memory.
Cyanogen CM11
Android 4.4.4
13MP primary and 5MP secondary camera.
2500 MAH battery

All this for a meagre 8,999. Will be available exclusively on Amazon from 2nd week Jan.

I just bought the Zenfone 5. Got delivered today. I am sure the prices for the Zenfone will fall starting Jan because of YUREKA.

Also feel I should have waited for the YU, but then even though its very good on paper, best to wait for the user reviews when it comes to Micromax.
Some of their phones are damn good and some, even though good on paper, don't turn out that great.

EDIT: Micromax is taking the competition from Xiomi head-on with the launch of YU. A very good and aggressive move. Samsung too announced a good 9500 off the MRP of S4 starting today.
All in all, the customer is now spoilt for choices in the 8-12k bracket.

Friends, a query.

I am using the Zenfone 5 since yesterday.
I fully charged it at around 6 in the evening. By night 10 pm, battery level was at 28%. I had read the reviews that the battery is bad, but never imagined it to be this bad. Please note that I have not even installed and played any heavy games. Just the usual Sudoku, Candy Crush & Daddy was a thief.
Today morning, at 8:40 I again fully charged it. Right now, at 12:00, battery stands at 68%. This is seriously a big disappointment.

My questions
1. Those using this, has anything helped in increasing the battery performance?
2. Will Flipkart accept a return & refund of this phone on the basis of poor battery performance & bad Picture quality of indoor photos taken ?

EDIT: I had called Flipkart yesterday night for the battery issue and they gave some useless solutions to try, like hard resetting the phone + charging it with a different charger. They will do a call back today on their own for this issue as a follow up. So wanted to know your feedback on whether they do accept return & refund on this basis. Apart from the battery & the bad Indoor photo quality, I actually like the phone.

Quote:

Originally Posted by extreme_torque (Post 3605820)

Question for Android experts, how difficult it is for a company to build stock Android ROM from AOSP? Can't OnePlus simply build their own Android Lollipop ROM just like Nexus devices and distribute? Does it needs too many resources?

In other words you are asking why companies like Samsung, Motorola etc are employing armies or people to work on phone models.

Lots of differences buddy , Even with AOSP a default Nexus phone needs a small battalion of software engineers to bring it to commercial level.

For any other product with some Alpha features there are development teams and then test teams to productise and the whole cycle is of many months.

Suppose your objective is just to prepare a clone phone with AOSP on some chipset then probably you need not do anything most chip set vendors do maintain a branch and you just need to compile and flash.
However suppose you are a chip set vendor or an OEM yourself then it involves a lot of work.

Now question comes how come those "brilliant" dudes at some forum give me a XYZ ROM with in few days the answer is that it is not a complete product work so it is not same as taking AOSP source , Brining up the board , Then tweaking drivers and kernel for most optimal performance under hundreds of scenarios , No power optimization work, No Addtional additional features.
No testing for various certifications such as GCF / PTCRBA or any other local complaisance body and of-course no G CTS.

Quote:

Originally Posted by amitk26 (Post 3605938)

In other words you are asking why companies like Samsung, Motorola etc are employing armies or people to work on phone models.

Because these OEMs load crapware that users dont need. Each one of crapware apps needs people to "product manage", write , test and secure the app.

Hopefully, with the signals from market (decreasing quarterly/yearly income for these OEMs), these crapware will go the way PC crapware have gone.

On the other hand, Cyanogen does not need so many developers since it is focused on AOSP. But it does not have resources to focus on specific models.

An ideal OEM will have

1. Resources to test and fix issues on the specific devices
2. No apps (or option to get rid of apps)

Fortunately, Google is filling the role of that OEM via Nexus.

Quote:

Originally Posted by vinit.merchant (Post 3605936)

1. Those using this, has anything helped in increasing the battery performance?
2. Will Flipkart accept a return & refund of this phone on the basis of poor battery performance & bad Picture quality of indoor photos taken ?

Frankly I didn't face any issues related to battery performance. The battery is capable of holding the charge at least for a day in my case and in special cases for a couple of days. I am sure you must have ensured that the basic To do such as brightness min, background running apps must have been taken care of. In a couple of Zenfone forums, I have read rooting the phone, downloading no frill CPU control from play store and reducing the clock speed would help retain more battery. But the performance will be affected. Battery monitoring app might help identify the areas of higher battery drainage.

Quote:

Originally Posted by NetfreakBombay (Post 3605984)

Well my Dear Sir few facts

1. Google is not filling role of OEM via NEXUS as of now.
G has some 70 Google code inspectors to maintain AOSP and code inspect and commit to main line. They do have teams to develop some central peaces /frameworks however each Nexus device has an army of engineers of OEM behind it to bring it in shiny form in your hands be it Asus , Motorola , LG or Samsung.

So even a reference model without any OEM specific feature need an army and this is the reason big G still does not make phone on it's own. Rolling out a physical product means it has to be right in first shipment whereas in other traditional G products they can afford to bring a beta to production from staging and continue to run as beta for years.

And this is the reason even chipset vendors for their reference platforms which is fully AOSP need to maintain teams of engineers.

2. Crapware for one is feature for another , Some of this so called crapware becomes a standard framework of Android in Next release and this is how the platform evolves . Look carefully at each release and check the major changes were introduced by someone hailed by one section and termed as crapware by another and finally absorbed by another.

Latest example is enterprise security related "crap" which you found of no use of as consumer is the only major addition in L because it is of great use to governments and large business.

Most new sensors added in AOSP were first added by one or other OEM and were shouted out as crapware.

3. Falling / Rising sales have nothing much to do with this kind of feedback of few.
For every person crying crapware there are 4 more hailing it. Sales are a complex function of price , pent up demand or gap between 2 models , untapped market , new user creation , brand building and total value proposition .
I know which perticular model you are talking about but even after falling sales that particular model sold than more than many Android models combined so may be it has to do something with over-projection and tall targets set by over ambitious people.

Quote:

Originally Posted by amitk26 (Post 3604682)

.

Copyleft licenses such as GNU GPL do not cover other aspects such as patent grant or service terms.
However if you look carefully at Apache V2 License which google uses for Android it is not strong copyleft but it has a clause for patent grant.

Thus Google or any other contributor distributing source under apache v2 can not sue user of the code for the patent violated in it. Where as in GNU GPL and LGPL you can create code and still demand patent royalty.
Best example of this is MP3 Codecs , Fraunhauffer institute Germany has patent on MP3 but it gives out a LGPL lib of the codec. If you productise using MP3 you need to take license from Fraunhauffer.

I remember participating in the discussion about the current version of the GNU GPL and LGPL and distinctly remember that those contain "no suit on patent" clauses.

So which version of the LGPL were the MP3 Codecs released?

The kernel uses an older version of the GNU GPL.

Anyway, if the matter is merely about trademarks, I am with Micromax and CM.

Another question. Does this agreement mean I can no longer use ROM Manager to download and install a future version of CM on a yet to be launched piece of hardware ( as and when they become available)? ;-)