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After having the Fascinate for 2 days~

J

Jinsta

Newbie
Hey Guys,

Just sharing my thoughts on what I think of the Fascinate :P. Tell me if you agree or whatever and lets talk about it, haha.

1) The volume buttons feel very cheap. They move around a lot and produce plasticky noise when wiggling.

2) Battery life was good until a few hours ago where it suddenly jumped down 20-30% randomly. Any thoughts on how to improve battery life?

3) What the heck is up with the letters seeming pixelated? From afar the text while viewing the web seems to be gray...??

4) Otherwise, I think its a great phone :P
 
In regards to the battery issue:
I did notice this today and for me its was that the signal strength was fluctuating drastically making the phone work hard on sending and receiving emails/text. So check if yours is doing the same and if so the only way I found to fix it was a clean swipe and a few battery pulls.
 
Jinsta said:
Hey Guys,

Just sharing my thoughts on what I think of the Fascinate :P. Tell me if you agree or whatever and lets talk about it, haha.

1) The volume buttons feel very cheap. They move around a lot and produce plasticky noise when wiggling.

2) Battery life was good until a few hours ago where it suddenly jumped down 20-30% randomly. Any thoughts on how to improve battery life?

3) What the heck is up with the letters seeming pixelated? From afar the text while viewing the web seems to be gray...??

4) Otherwise, I think its a great phone :P
Click to expand...
1) There is a thread or two on some people have what they perceive is loose volume buttons. I don't but there is a thread on it here: http://androidforums.com/fascinate-support-troubleshooting/172319-volume-rocker.html
2) Numerous threads on battery life, I wont link any in particular. The screen itself is usually the greatest battery drainer. If you use live wallpapers that a big drainer. Otherwise, common drainers also include BT, WiFi, GPS and the frequency with which you sync your email. I keep WiFi and GPS off unless I intend to use it then it goes on only during use. My gmail stuff is sync'd but my hotmail is only once per hour.
3) This is not something I notice so no comment from me here
4) Agreed :)
 
Volume rocker seems fine to me. They don't feel cheap, but they ARE ridiculously easy to press.
 
Hmm, how do I make it so that Gmail only syncs once an hour? If I turn off Background Data in Accounts and Sync menu then it also turns off auto-sync and then turns of Gmail syncing.. What to do?

and Sho95, what do you mean by clean swipes and battery pulls to fix the issue?
 
Jinsta said:
Hmm, how do I make it so that Gmail only syncs once an hour? If I turn off Background Data in Accounts and Sync menu then it also turns off auto-sync and then turns of Gmail syncing.. What to do?

and Sho95, what do you mean by clean swipes and battery pulls to fix the issue?
Click to expand...

I meant to say a Factory Data Reset. You start of fresh and eliminate any possible corruption that has happen during MFG installation. You be surpprice how a few battery pulls solve some issues and it can't hurt to try.
 
Battery pulls are for Blackberrys not Androids. :eek:

Would you routinely pull the plug on a running computer? Same thing, Android is a mobile computer. Shut it down properly and restart it if you need to reset it. If that doesn't work, then the Factory Reset might be needed.
 
xliderider said:
Battery pulls are for Blackberrys not Androids. :eek:

Would you routinely pull the plug on a running computer? Same thing, Android is a mobile computer. Shut it down properly and restart it if you need to reset it. If that doesn't work, then the Factory Reset might be needed.
Click to expand...

That's were your wrong. Battery pulls are need in all phone with the exemption of the BB which I had to to weekly on my own and all company BB's. Like I stated before you be surprise what a battery pull can do.
 
Jinsta said:
2) Battery life was good until a few hours ago where it suddenly jumped down 20-30% randomly. Any thoughts on how to improve battery life?
Click to expand...

I'm completely certain, at least for the case of the Fascinate I own, that there is nothing wrong with the battery life, but the battery indicator. I've been observing it very well, like I drain a battery down to 10%, then charge it for less than a minute, unplug it, and somehow it'll say it's 60+% charged. Leave it on for a while, and yea the percent's will drop very quickly since it really wasn't 60% full to begin with.

I believe that charging the battery when the phone is off may help. I think that the battery indicator is more accurate when the phone is off and may actually charge to full. For instance, last night I drained the battery completely to 0, then charged the battery without turning on the phone. Checked later, and it's indicator showed that the battery was around 30-40% full, turned on the phone, then it JUMPED UP to 85% charged, and it would not go down to the more correct value, even tried pulling out the battery (no way it charged that much in that time). I continued to let it charge to 100%, but I'm pretty sure it's not really full, and it will not let it charge anymore since it thinks its full.

Right now have my phone completely discharged and will try to charge it completely without turning on phone, hoping for good results to share later, but yea that deceptive battery indicator is annoying.
 
sho95 said:
That's were your wrong. Battery pulls are need in all phone with the exemption of the BB which I had to to weekly on my own and all company BB's. Like I stated before you be surprise what a battery pull can do.
Click to expand...

I'm confused. You're saying all phones need battery pulls with the exception of Blackberrys? Then you say you pulled the batteries on all the Blackberrys in the company? :confused:
 
Ok, I'm not sure which one of you guys are right...

Damn, I don't want to factory reset my phone D: I customized and did everything to my home screens already.

Yea, the battery indicator is weird. On the battery doctor app it says I have 80% battery left buy on the battery icon on the notification bar it looks like I havent even left a dent on the battery. Strange and annoying...
 
I might be one of the few, but I've had zero battery issues. I've had the Eris and the original Droid, and neither had the battery life of the fascinate at any point of their existence. I've only had a few issues that I took care of myself by doing the whole one click lag fix, but battery life was never a problem. I play with this phone alot throughout the day and I am still only charging at the end of the day.
 
Jinsta said:
Ok, I'm not sure which one of you guys are right...

Damn, I don't want to factory reset my phone D: I customized and did everything to my home screens already.

Yea, the battery indicator is weird. On the battery doctor app it says I have 80% battery left buy on the battery icon on the notification bar it looks like I havent even left a dent on the battery. Strange and annoying...
Click to expand...
I use battery status pro and I find it highly accurate and I recommend it. Although Im sure most of the apps are the same as I DL'd 3-4 the first day from the market and they all reported the same % remaining. I trust these much more than the icon in the notifications. You are right that the icon won't even move until you're already down to 85% or less.
I've tested the Battery Status Pro app and it gives you a countdown of time remaining its and accurate to the minute
 
ronturn49 said:
I might be one of the few, but I've had zero battery issues. I've had the Eris and the original Droid, and neither had the battery life of the fascinate at any point of their existence. I've only had a few issues that I took care of myself by doing the whole one click lag fix, but battery life was never a problem. I play with this phone alot throughout the day and I am still only charging at the end of the day.
Click to expand...

Same here! I haven't done the one click lag fix either, and I also use live wallpapers. Change them several times a day in fact, as I've been showing off the crap out of this phone. I've made hours of phone calls, sent dozens of texts, played games on it, and let others play games on it, changed wallpapers, browsed the web, played with the GPS, etc. Only 7% when I got home, but I really worked it hard today, and that 7% remaining battery was enough to make a 20 min phone call to my wife, finish shopping in Walmart after getting off the phone, drive home, unload the groceries, and the phone was still powered on and running the pretty live wallpapers when I plugged it into the wallpaper.

Under similar usage the Droid X would have 15%-20%, but in my usage the Fascinate is so close that I'm still happy with it, and the few percentage points of battery I lose are more than made up for in many other benefits that the Fascinate brings to the table. I even turned of power management features and set the screen all the way to full brightness while showing it off for over an hour to some friends. If there ever was a phone that was as close to perfect as possible (at least for me anyways) then it is the Samsung Fascinate.

I also took some test pictures with the flash. They look much better than using the flash on the Droid X.
 
Does not having a assigned camera button bother anyone else? I'm coming from the original droid. And predictive text sucks on this thing when swype can't get the word.
 
saps said:
1) There is a thread or two on some people have what they perceive is loose volume buttons. I don't but there is a thread on it here: http://androidforums.com/fascinate-support-troubleshooting/172319-volume-rocker.html
2) Numerous threads on battery life, I wont link any in particular. The screen itself is usually the greatest battery drainer. If you use live wallpapers that a big drainer. Otherwise, common drainers also include BT, WiFi, GPS and the frequency with which you sync your email. I keep WiFi and GPS off unless I intend to use it then it goes on only during use. My gmail stuff is sync'd but my hotmail is only once per hour.
3) This is not something I notice so no comment from me here
4) Agreed :)
Click to expand...
my first fascinate had a volume button that was so loose that it would rattle when you picked the phone up....also, the power button was recessed which was a real pain to deal with. it seems samsungs 'quality control' is not that good as i looked at 4 others in the store and some had the loose volume rocker and the power button height varied from phone to phone.

for me, the fascinates screen is not as good for text as my droid x, partly because it's not as bright and also due to the nature of the amoled screens. for the most part it's not that big of a deal BUT there are times when i can't read the fascinate screen but CAN read the screen on the X and it's not always due to the size difference between the two.
 
I am not having any issue with mine at all! This is one of the best android devices on the market today IMO. I had the X and the dinc and by far this is a superior device.
 
*this is a superior device [in what I need a device to do, which may be different for others]

just poking fun ;]
 
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