[Soumyajit9]

Hello Peeps,

I am back into this thread with questions and advices.

I was struggling for sometime with a slowing down Samsung Galaxy Grand Neo that I had purchased 1.5 years back, after my Samsung Galaxy Grand was pickpocketed in a city bus.
I had to run Clean Master atleast 10 times in a day, to clear up disk space, ram to keep the phone running at a decent speed.

All these were tempting me to go for a 2GB RAM phone. With unlimited options in the market dominated by Chinese brands, it was quite a task to settle on a Moto G 3rd Gen 16GB 2GB RAM variant.
So now that I have received my Moto with Android Lollipop 5.1.1, I have a plethora of questions for all the gadget gurus here.

Here it goes:

1) How to remove the annoying Google Search bar from the home screens ? I Googled and found that Google has embedded this horse poop into its JellyBean OS onwards. The option to remove it (without rooting the device) would be to disable Google Now (from applications manager). But it could soft brick the handset and is not a guaranteed solution. The other solution is to install a launcher, like Go, Nova, KK, CM, etc, etc, which I do not want to do. Anyone has a better idea, or suggest me to live with it. (SOURCE)

2) Solid White colour apps drawer is blinding !! Google throws up answers to install a different launcher like I said above. Any other wise ideas are invited.

3) Google's Play Music is again horse poop for me. Kindly suggest a good Music Player with Customizable Equalizer.

4) No default Video Player. I installled VLC, which is the mother of all players ! Anything better is welcome.

5) No Mobile Data On/Off shortcut in Notifications drop down. Quite a daunting task to navigate to settings to switch on/off mobile data. Any suggestions how to get this ?
In my old Nokia C7-00, I remember having installed some kind of shortcut on the home screen that had multiple buttons to switch on/off Mobile Data , Flashlight, Brightness, etc.

Now that the doubts are over, here are some good things about the Moto G3.

1) Excellent performance ! Absolute lag free experience (atleast that is what I feel, upgrading from a Samdung). The free RAM at anytime is around 1.4 GB !!!

2) Superb Camera - Both 13 MP Rear and 5 MP Front. Some cool on the go settings like adjusting the exposure and all are too good. Loved it.

3) Very good Audio output, both speakers and headphones ! The speaker is a soundbar lookalike at the front, throwing very clear sound. The headphone that came with the phone is a basic looking. So I am using my Samsung Ear Plugs and must say that the bass punch and the clarity are too good !

On a slightly different note, although Moto G3 has a 5" screen, it looks visibly smaller to the Samsung Grand Neo 5" handset that I have. I will measure diagonally and find out if it is actually 5" !!!

[mukul32]

Originally Posted by Soumyajit9

Hello Peeps,
I was struggling for sometime with a slowing down Samsung Galaxy Grand Neo that I had purchased 1.5 years back, after my Samsung Galaxy Grand was pickpocketed in a city bus.
I had to run Clean Master atleast 10 times in a day, to clear up disk space, ram to keep the phone running at a decent speed.

First of all, congratulations on your new phone! Happy you chose a proper stock Android device, rather than bloated Chinese phones offering fancy specs on paper.

As for the Google search bar, I would ask you to keep it. It is really nifty, and you can use it to search anything in your phone, or on the Web. Eg, you can search contacts, music, apps, your regular Web searches, everything right from that bar. You also have the option of talking to the phone using the 'Okay Google' hotword, if you like it. Saves the effort to get to the browser every time you need some info. On the flipside, the only negative I could think of it is, it might cover foreheads in selfie wallpapers And if you really hate it despite the functionality it offers, there's always the option of nova launcher, which is clean and simple, and better than all the others around. That launcher can fix the white app drawer as well.

As for the Google play music app, you might have been used to the Samsung music player earlier, but here, the GP music is a very solid app. Plus, there are no ads in it. And it syncs with the Google search app to give you music results in searches. There are decent third party apps like poweramp, etc but most are filled with ads and are usually ugly. And the equalizers usually only use software tweaks, and may even affect audio quality. So if you can get used to GPM, that's a really good option.

As for video playback, I would take only one name - Mx player! By far the best video player on Android, with great features and solid format support. Switch to that app straightaway.

Given that you are using stock 5.1, the data toggle is actually there, but it's a two step process. When you click on the network toggle, you will see a data usage figure in the quick settings itself. Just above that, where you have the date and time, below it you'll find a data on/off toggle. Hope it helps.

And the smaller size is actually a plus, because the device would be more convenient to handle in a single hand.

PS: Never use those ram cleaners, speed boosters, battery boosters, etc third party apps. They are all mostly fake. Not just useless and ad filled, they themselves use up ram and battery, staying active in the background. Using such apps, one only 'feels' there has been a difference, while there has been none. Android itself is good enough to manage ram and battery on its own. And if the hardware itself is too weak, there's no app that can miraculously make a phone blazing fast, whatever might they claim. Many experts have said this earlier as well.Android has been having a very good ram manager built in, and since lollipop there's a decent battery saver as well. You can find it in battery settings.

[Speed.Demon]

I agree with mukul32, please don't install any RAM/battery booster apps. All of them are total crap and do more harm than good. Android manages RAM on its own quite well, and killing all the background tasks increases load on the CPU.


@Soumyajit9, do have a look at Nova launcher. It's very close to the stock UI and there are tons of customisation options available.

As for the music player, I have been using Rocket Player for a while now, and I'm quite satisfied.

[h@r$h@l]

Hi Guys,

Need urgent advise. I have a Moto G 1st Gen Single SIM intl edition i got from US. The phone is dtill going strong. But i made the stupid mistake of updating it to "latest" os. Its now running thr fully buggy 5.0.2.

The os update has just messed up my phone. Random restarts, freezing, deleting images from Gallery etc.

Is there a way to roll back to 4.4.4.? If yes can someone please share that information here. I saw a few videos on YouTube but most are for Indian dual sim variant.

Thanks in advance.

Regards,

[mukul32]

Originally Posted by h@r$h@l

Hi Guys,

Need urgent advise. I have a Moto G 1st Gen Single SIM intl edition i got from US. The phone is dtill going strong. But i made the stupid mistake of updating it to "latest" os. Its now running thr fully buggy 5.0.2.

The os update has just messed up my phone. Random restarts, freezing, deleting images from Gallery etc.

Is there a way to roll back to 4.4.4.? If yes can someone please share that information here. I saw a few videos on YouTube but most are for Indian dual sim variant.

Thanks in advance.

Regards,

There is a way, though it's a bit of a workaround. You will need to download the entire KitKat firmware from Motorola (will be quite heavy in size) and flash it onto the phone with help of a PC through USB. And you need to back up your data because you'll lose all of it. Actually, the method is similar for all the models, only the firmware to flash different for every variant or device. The firmware would be different yet if it is a carrier locked device (since you mentioned the US).

But one thing I would like to ask is, did you try factory resetting your phone after the update? Lollipop was a major upgrade from KitKat, and the whole interface of lollipop, fluid and animated, uses much more of the graphics.
And if you had a lot of data and especially a large number of apps installed, carrying over everything makes it quite heavy. Perhaps too heavy for the humble Snapdragon 400. Hence the glitches. People also experience battery issues or crashes. The best and easiest way to try and fix things is to factory reset the phone once. It should run much better initially after the reset, and if you keep it clean, it should run fine later as well.

[Soumyajit9]

Originally Posted by mukul32

......And if you really hate it despite the functionality it offers, there's always the option of nova launcher, which is clean and simple, and better than all the others around. That launcher can fix the white app drawer as well.

Originally Posted by Speed.Demon

@Soumyajit9, do have a look at Nova launcher. It's very close to the stock UI and there are tons of customisation options available.

Thank you for the tip. Seeing no other choice, I installed Nova Launcher, and it works like a charm !
My wife mocked me a bit for installing a launcher on this whereas I could have installed the same on my Samsung Grand Neo and lived a new life !! Only if my old phone had so much RAM !!

Originally Posted by mukul32

As for the Google play music app, you might have been used to the Samsung music player earlier, but here, the GP music is a very solid app. Plus, there are no ads in it. And it syncs with the Google search app to give you music results in searches. There are decent third party apps like poweramp, etc but most are filled with ads and are usually ugly. And the equalizers usually only use software tweaks, and may even affect audio quality. So if you can get used to GPM, that's a really good option.

Originally Posted by Speed.Demon

As for the music player, I have been using Rocket Player for a while now, and I'm quite satisfied.

As per recommendation from a colleague (who uses a Moto G1) and from Speed.Demon above, I installed Rocket Player. Although the name sounds funny for a music player, it does the job well. I found lot of customizations that can be done. No ads. Still exploring the app.

Originally Posted by mukul32

As for video playback, I would take only one name - Mx player! By far the best video player on Android, with great features and solid format support. Switch to that app straightaway.

I am still on VLC. Will explore MX Player later.

Originally Posted by mukul32

Given that you are using stock 5.1, the data toggle is actually there, but it's a two step process. When you click on the network toggle, you will see a data usage figure in the quick settings itself. Just above that, where you have the date and time, below it you'll find a data on/off toggle. Hope it helps.

I guess I understand what you are mentioning. But that is like 2-3 step. I wanted a switch like the WiFi or AutoRotate. Just one toggle switch. I am so used to Samsung customizations !!

Originally Posted by mukul32

And the smaller size is actually a plus, because the device would be more convenient to handle in a single hand.

As of now it is just slipping off my hands. I have ordered a rubberized hard case from E-Bay. Hopefully that would fit in my palms and will be more grippy.

Originally Posted by mukul32

PS: Never use those ram cleaners, speed boosters, battery boosters, etc third party apps. They are all mostly fake. Not just useless and ad filled, they themselves use up ram and battery, staying active in the background. Using such apps, one only 'feels' there has been a difference, while there has been none. Android itself is good enough to manage ram and battery on its own. And if the hardware itself is too weak, there's no app that can miraculously make a phone blazing fast, whatever might they claim. Many experts have said this earlier as well.Android has been having a very good ram manager built in, and since lollipop there's a decent battery saver as well. You can find it in battery settings.

Originally Posted by Speed.Demon

I agree with mukul32, please don't install any RAM/battery booster apps. All of them are total crap and do more harm than good. Android manages RAM on its own quite well, and killing all the background tasks increases load on the CPU.

Thanks for the tip. I sometimes wonder the same. Don't those RAM monitoring tools actually eat up RAM too !!

Thanks once again for all the help and tips.

I am now Googling, how to take a screenshot.

[ampere]

Originally Posted by Soumyajit9

Thank you for the tip. Seeing no other choice, I installed Nova Launcher, and it works like a charm !

Not wanting to try the Google Now launcher? I gave both a try and settled with Google. Of course it aggregates all data, but some how personally I liked it better.

[RavSam]

Actually this cleaner is quite good going by my usage.
Clean Master
https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...r.mguard&hl=en

Now I didn't investigate further into it to know if it really works or not but it cleans up the junk file and finds duplicates really easily

[Soumyajit9]

Originally Posted by ampere

Not wanting to try the Google Now launcher? I gave both a try and settled with Google. Of course it aggregates all data, but some how personally I liked it better.

Coming from Samsung TouchWiz, any launcher is new and better for me However, the Google search bar embedded at the top of the home screens and the white background apps drawer made me reject the Google Now launcher.

I have another question about the Moto G3 / Lollipop.

There is no single click to close all open apps / windows. Closing each of these one by one is a huge huge pain ! Is there any solution to this ?

[DaiusPitar]

Originally Posted by h@r$h@l

Hi Guys,

Need urgent advise. I have a Moto G 1st Gen Single SIM intl edition i got from US. The phone is dtill going strong. But i made the stupid mistake of updating it to "latest" os. Its now running thr fully buggy 5.0.2.

The os update has just messed up my phone. Random restarts, freezing, deleting images from Gallery etc.

Is there a way to roll back to 4.4.4.? If yes can someone please share that information here. I saw a few videos on YouTube but most are for Indian dual sim variant.

Thanks in advance.

Regards,

Sad to hear about this.

I am still using a similar US single SIM moto G 1st gen. I upgraded to 5.0.2 as soon as it became available. However I am having NO issues and am extremely happy with this.

Except for the crap camera, I'm loving it. I prefer the sharp resolution which is preventing me from upgrading to later iterations of the moto g. Can't get used to lower resolution now.

So this is the thing I don't get, since am not that tech savvy, how do these upgrades not work properly on some units alone given same hardware setup/configurations?

[poloman]

Originally Posted by Soumyajit9

Thank you for the tip. Seeing no other choice, I installed Nova Launcher, and it works like a charm !
My wife mocked me a bit for installing a launcher on this whereas I could have installed the same on my Samsung Grand Neo and lived a new life !! Only if my old phone had so much RAM !!

I am also in the same boat. Nova launcher totally transformed my mi4 which was getting on my nerves. The interface is the best I would say, super light and super fast.

[mayankk]

Originally Posted by poloman

I am also in the same boat. Nova launcher totally transformed my mi4 which was getting on my nerves. The interface is the best I would say, super light and super fast.

If you want to go minimalistic, there used to be nothing better than Zeam. But the guy stopped development some Candy iterations ago. Still works, but nothing is guaranteed. You wont a smaller download, or memory footprint launcher.
However, I found a worthy replacement in rocket launcher. Slightly heavier, but still less than most.

[poloman]

Originally Posted by mayankk

If you want to go minimalistic, there used to be nothing better than Zeam. But the guy stopped development some Candy iterations ago. Still works, but nothing is guaranteed. You wont a smaller download, or memory footprint launcher.
However, I found a worthy replacement in rocket launcher. Slightly heavier, but still less than most.

Thanks for the suggestion, but for the moment I am quite happy with the Nova which provides a clean UI for me. Below are few screenshots from my phone.

[Speed.Demon]

Good news, Moto G 1st gen users!

Moto has now started rolling out the Android 5.1 update , along with the Stagefright fixes.

I got the update notification just a short while ago, will download when I get a bit of free time.

[tbppjpr]

Originally Posted by Speed.Demon

I got the update notification just a short while ago, will download when I get a bit of free time.

This time better you format the phone before and after the update to make sure your old data doesn't inherit bugs in the new firmware in case there are any. Even don't let Google restore old settings and apps automatically, do it manually. Format the memory card also, you can transfer back your personal data and media but there shouldn't be old app data on the card. This practice looks cumbersome but makes sure the firmware performs at its best afterwards.