[phamilyman]

Originally Posted by Sprucegoose

No bro, HTC QC is far better than Samsung.

But as for quality control, Samsung have well documented issues. They might have eased up post the SGS2 but their QC is not as good as HTC

My HTC Chacha's touch screen was replaced within 4 months.
week long service they needed!

Iknow others whose phone screens have dead pixels and suchlike in 1.5 years.

Build quality looks exceptional. Problem free, no way.

[bhp_maniac]

Originally Posted by madbullram

Lucky you No luck for me yet.

Finally, I am now able to track the shipment. I suggest you send in a mail to their customer service mail ID. I got prompt response after I send in my concern.

Originally Posted by Sprucegoose

Well I've had issues and a few people I've known have had issues, besides all the research I've done on the internet indicates that Samsung have quality control issues. Motorola and HTC have the best QC.

Though Samsung's customer care is good. Not heard of anyone having a bad experience there.

One more issue with Samsung is that they use their in house exynos processor, for which there is not much original android development. OS's are generally ported to the exynos, rather than being custom built for it.

AFAIK the Qualcomm processors are the most dev friendly.

I am using an exynos note 2 and the development support is quite good. I shifted from Sony to Samsung last year with a Tab 2 and afterwards a Note 2. Now waiting for an S4 for my wife. My Sony had a couple of dead pixels, Motorola was having horrible standby on 3G network which they were not able to solve. But all the Samsungs have done well till date. For me, Samsung is OK if not great!

[Latheesh]

Nexus 4 - 16GB - is available for Preorder

Store: Flipkart
Price: 25990

Is it worth?

[Sprucegoose]

Originally Posted by phamilyman

My HTC Chacha's touch screen was replaced within 4 months.
week long service they needed!

Iknow others whose phone screens have dead pixels and suchlike in 1.5 years.

Build quality looks exceptional. Problem free, no way.

Better QC doesn't mean no phones will have a problem.
The only phone I had no problems with was my Motorola milestone and how I abused that phone.

Flung it across a room sop hard once that the battery popped out and even the SIM card came loose.

Not a scratch on the phone and no problems.

My S2's battery started dying on me and the Radios went bust.

My Lumia 710 had similar problems.

If my Sony XZ doesn't last I'll either switch to an HTC or back to a Motorola.

One great thing about the SXZ is that I can use it at home. No other phone has been able to make calls from home except for my milestone. I get full network on all, but I can't hear the other party and they can't hear me.

Also one benefit of the SXZ is that I can use the tough screen with sweaty fingers and the phone can survive random rain showers.

Originally Posted by bhp_maniac

I am using an exynos note 2 and the development support is quite good. I shifted from Sony to Samsung last year with a Tab 2 and afterwards a Note 2. Now waiting for an S4 for my wife. My Sony had a couple of dead pixels, Motorola was having horrible standby on 3G network which they were not able to solve. But all the Samsungs have done well till date. For me, Samsung is OK if not great!

most custom roms are written for the qualcomm processors and are ported to other processors. They are not as optimised.
There is not much of a difference.

The beauty of Android is that it is open source, it'll be unlikely that you will not find an OS for your phone regardless of the Processor. It's just that a Kernel / OS optimised to run on a qualcomm processor, when ported to a non qualcomm processor will not be as good on it. minor issues will be there. Battery life may not be as good, may not be as quick, may not be as stable.

[agambhandari]

Originally Posted by Latheesh

Nexus 4 - 16GB - is available for Preorder

Store: Flipkart
Price: 25990

Is it worth?

It is yours to decide.
vs an S3 , you get faster updates from android, cleaner stock android, faster chipset(both GPU and CPU)
But you have some downers
like a little inferior Screen and the camera.

The price is about 6K premium over the US Play Store price, similar to the N7. A little over what was expected. But google really needs to speed up its launches in India.

[amitk26]

Anyone ordered Lava XOLO Q700 , it was announced yesterday and sold out with in a day when my friend enquired. This is probably first sub 10K phone with Android 4.2 and first one enabling android multi user

Here are the specs at 9700Rs looks like a good buy in that segment


http://www.themobiworld.com/News/107...-Specification

[vivekiny2k]

Originally Posted by Sprucegoose

Well I've had issues and a few people I've known have had issues, besides all the research I've done on the internet indicates that Samsung have quality control issues. Motorola and HTC have the best QC.

Originally Posted by D4d-maniac

I have nearly 8-10 Samsung smartphones in my family ranging from original i9000 to s3 and note2. They have been used for periods ranging upto 3 years. Never had to visit Samsung service centre except maybe buying a new battery. So the quality and reliability seems pretty top notch to me.

not only mobiles, even with automobiles I have seen some people seem to have issues no matter what brand they get, while some never have an issue. And then I begin to think it's probably the person behind the wheel who is the issue. @sprucegoose, did you fling your S2 across the room too ?

[amitk26]

Buddy have a look at motherboard of a modern phone and check if it is really servicable by average joe you can employ at service centre ?
I bet not more then 1 out of 50 technicians can handle soldring iron to replace components on the boards with that fine layout.
If you have a large customer base then to ensure quick turnaround time It is better to device the strategies so that an average low skilled service personal can handle the situation rather then a couple of master service centres with ace technicians to diaganose and repair.

Originally Posted by Sprucegoose

The only phone I had no problems with was my Motorola milestone and how I abused that phone.

Flung it across a room sop hard once that the battery popped out and even the SIM card came loose.

You won't believe that there is something called drop test and random sample drawn from a lot is subjected to it. I have dropped my phone a number of times and it flings open. In fact at my workplace people handle phones quite mercilessly and none of them develop problems due to that.

Originally Posted by Sprucegoose

My S2's battery started dying on me and the Radios went bust.

How exactly you know radio went bust ? Average service station does not have that kind of equipment to diaganose that radio went bust or not. There can be N number of issues like software issue / Network providers issue etc.

Originally Posted by Sprucegoose

One great thing about the SXZ is that I can use it at home. No other phone has been able to make calls from home except for my milestone. I get full network on all, but I can't hear the other party and they can't hear me.

So SXZ UX designers have cheated you if signal strength is not enough to carry the voice data then they should not show the signal bars to you in first place.

Originally Posted by Sprucegoose

most custom roms are written for the qualcomm processors and are ported to other processors. They are not as optimised.
There is not much of a difference.

All AP vendors now ( TI , Qualcomm , Samsung , ST ) release their kernel source and they are bound to do this by GPL license of the Kernel.

The custom rom vendors mostly modify the system image and not kernel image.

Even many so called custom ROMs are actually different mix of application and Launcher UX on the base software from manufacturer else it can not be a one man effort. I do not belive that an average custom ROM developer even if he is genius can do the job of 30-40 developers. Creating an entierly new image right from scratch and take to production level includers that kind of effort

In fact most motorola phones have locked bootloader the steps you see to load a custom binary are just replacing the system image on same stock kernel.

There are vulnerabilities in Qualcomm trust zone implementation and Motorola bootloader got unlocked last month but that is not same as custom ROM development.

http://blog.azimuthsecurity.com/2013...ootloader.html

I am not belittling effort of any independent enthusiast they are really brilliant people who by pass all the chains and locks but really speaking they do stand on shoulders of many others. Some of these people are real genius but not all.

Originally Posted by Sprucegoose

It's a lot more than one in a million, but because Samsung know their quality control is not too good, they compensate with quick and comprehensive servicing.

Quick service was forte of Nokia when it was number 1 in India.
Samsung carefully studied market and established network by investing in service chain to match them . Once you decide to have service centre in every nook and corner you can not expect highly skilled and trained technicians to be available for a consumer item. It has to meet criteria of faster servicability.

Similarly when you expect to sell your product to the tune of 40-50 million units design needs to be optimized for factory process both for hardware and software and there has to be enough investment.

[Sprucegoose]

Originally Posted by vivekiny2k

not only mobiles, even with automobiles I have seen some people seem to have issues no matter what brand they get, while some never have an issue. And then I begin to think it's probably the person behind the wheel who is the issue. @sprucegoose, did you fling your S2 across the room too ?

dropped it several times, but no flinging... [the SGS2]
the flinging was a mistake. [Motorola Milestone]
thought i was holding the slide in case with the open end towards me.
when i pretended the fling the phone... the damn thing flew out and almost impaled my friend.

Originally Posted by amitk26

Buddy have a look at motherboard of a modern phone and check if it is really servicable by average joe you can employ at service centre ?
I bet not more then 1 out of 50 technicians can handle soldring iron to replace components on the boards with that fine layout.
If you have a large customer base then to ensure quick turnaround time
It is preferabble to replace the module and have an average low skilled service guy handle the situation rather then strategy of couple of master service centres with ace technicians to diaganose and repair.

I have looked and i know why they replace the entire motherboard. it'll just take too much time to test each component individually and then replace all the spoiled parts. not to mention the additional cost of getting trained if not highly trained technicians to do the job. Works out cheaper and faster the replace the mobo.

You won't believe that there is something called drop test and random sample drawn from a lot is subjected to it. I have dropped my phone number of times and it flings open. In fact at my workplace people handle phones quite mercilessly and none of them develop problems due to that.

I know what drop tests are and i've seen a lot of phones get damaged after rather innocuous drops. This Rarely happens though. And i didn't merely drop the phone. It was flung [by mistake] with all my might at a wall.

I've not seen any device survive that kind of an impact. without at least the glass cracking.

I guess I was just lucky.

How exactly you know radio went bust ? Average service station does not have that kind of equipment to diaganose that radio went bust or not.
There can be N number of issues like software issue / Network providers issue etc.

I can only guess that it was the Radio that went bust.
whenever i received a call the phone freeze and had to be restarted.
I changed the baseband, the kernel and the OS to no avail.
I even flashed back to stock and nothing changed.
Phone got lost before i could take it to a service center

Data worked fine though [2G and 3G] it was just with calls.
if i made a call and the other party didn't pick up it would freeze and i'd have to restart the phone

So SXZ UX designers have cheated you if signal strength is not enough to carry the voice data then they should not show the signal bars to you in first place.

no..no.. all phones show full signal at home.
only the SXZ and the milestone before it could i use while at home.
SGS2, Lumia 710 and a nokia Dumb phone show 4 - 5 bars [5 being full], but you can't hear the other guy and he/she can''t hear you.
my friends' HTCs also don't work properly.
Blackberrys work though.

The SXZ works which was a relief.

All AP vendors now ( TI , Qualcomm , Samsung , ST ) release their kernel source tress and the custom rom vendors mostly modify the system image and not kernel image they are bound to do this by GPL license of the Kernel.

In fact many motorola phones have locked bootloader the steps you see to load a custom binary are just relacing the system image on same stock kernel.

Motorola and their locked Bootloaders...
what a pain.

Read an article somewhere that the CyanogenMod team was going to stop development for Exynos processor based phones.
they will still release the source code and I'm sure other developers will port CM to the Exynos, but the CM team is going to stop officially.

http://www.xda-developers.com/androi...ntation-issue/

Quick service was forte of Nokia when it was number 1 in India.
Samsung carefully studied market and established network by investing in service chain to match them . Once you decide to have service centre in every nook and corner you can not expect highly skilled and trained technicians to be available for a consumer item. It has to meet criteria of faster servicability.

Similarly when you expect to sell your product to the tune of 40-50 million units design needs to be optimized for factory process both for hardware and software and there has to be enough investment.

I have never availed of Samsung Service, but i've only heard good things about them. It's a plus point. Besides with the number of phones that Samsung churn out and the price vs performance ratio some problems are bound to crop up.

And Samsung have addressed that issue well.

[Behemoth]

Finally solved the battery drain issues with my Samsung S2 after the upgrade to JB. Installed the latest version of the Firmware from Kies, but it didn't help much. Then did a factory reset, which also did limited saving - then after several days realized that the screen had become the biggest guzzler. I installed an app called Screen filter which basically reduces the auto brightness with a negative offset. I keep it around 80% and it really is saving a lot of battery and my phone is back to good old days!

[Sprucegoose]

Originally Posted by Behemoth

Finally solved the battery drain issues with my Samsung S2 after the upgrade to JB. Installed the latest version of the Firmware from Kies, but it didn't help much. Then did a factory reset, which also did limited saving - then after several days realized that the screen had become the biggest guzzler. I installed an app called Screen filter which basically reduces the auto brightness with a negative offset. I keep it around 80% and it really is saving a lot of battery and my phone is back to good old days!

You can get a replacement battery from www.mugen-power-batteries.com

I had this one... Huge improvement, but then again the phone was twice it's original size.
http://www.mugen-power-batteries.com...tery-door.html

http://www.mugen-power-batteries.com...ii-si9100.html

[manson]

Originally Posted by Sprucegoose

You can get a replacement battery from www.mugen-power-batteries.com

Spruce, did you get a software update pop up on the XZ? I got one when I plugged in the XZL a couple of hours back. It read something about improving battery life. Will proceed with the install later tonight.
You were right about the screen being an absolute battery hog, a 10% charge can sustain an hour of talk time, but have the screen on for some reason and you'd be doomed in less than 15 minutes.

[Sprucegoose]

Originally Posted by manson

Spruce, did you get a software update pop up on the XZ? I got one when I plugged in the XZL a couple of hours back. It read something about improving battery life. Will proceed with the install later tonight.
You were right about the screen being an absolute battery hog, a 10% charge can sustain an hour of talk time, but have the screen on for some reason and you'd be doomed in less than 15 minutes.

i'm running on the latest firmware, but i installed it via Flashtool...
Managed to brick my phone while messing around. All is cool now.
Didn't get any pop up asking me to upgrade though.

Though battery life seems to have improved though.
2 hours of listening to music with bluetooth on and i drop 2 or 3 % only..
though 10 minutes of screen on time while gaming and i've dropped like 5 - 7 %

It's unlikely that any software update will fix the battery drain caused by the screen because these full HD screens require a really strong back light, which hogs the battery.

When i'm up and about again i'll be going in for an external battery. just so that i can make sure i always have some juice on me... if you know what i mean

[govigov]

@manson, XZ did have an upgrade and the upgrade went smoothly. The black notification bar is now present and so is the screen calibration tool. fixed issues with stamina mode messing up led and led flash notifications are also in. camera picture quality in auto is supposedly improved, although i am yet to test that.

[Gandhi]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned about Google I/O so far. The keynote event at Google I/O starts in less than 20 minutes. You can watch it live here - https://developers.google.com/events/io/