Help Irritating Things about my new Desire Z

[Geeman72]

HI All

Please forgive me if the things I'm about to write about have been raised before, but I'm starting to lose my sanity.

I took possession of my Desire Z last Friday (29 July) and it was an upgrade from my existing Nokia N97 (which I've been more than happy with, but the touch screen broke, hence the upgrade).

Now, I know that I'm not used to the Android O/S (the N97 used Symbian), but there are some things about this phone that totally frustrate me, such as:

• the homescreen has stopped rotating when i turn it into lanscape. Other apps like the maps and messaging do still turn, but the homescreen and the apps menu has stopped (and probably some others);
• you can't actually exit out of an app. My biggest bug bear is that when you are using the internet, there's no way of closing it down. Even if you use the Advanced App Killer software, if you go back into the internet it goes back to the last page you were looking at. What's the point in having a homepage if the phone ignores it?
• Also, although eth Advanced App Killer dow force close the apps, if you go back about 5 minutes later and open AAK again, some of the closed apps are running again!!!
• the battery life is appalling. I've been told that all smartphones are the same with them needing to be charged daily. This is in stark contrast to my old N97, which could last 2 or 3 days on single full charge and that had a touchscreen and flip out qwerty keyboard too. If the phone actually let you shut down some of these apps then maybe the battery would last longer!!

Theer are many other features of my new phone that I dislike, but these are the worst offenders. I'd just like to be able to exit out of apps like I could on my old N97. God only knows why I let my mate talk me into upgrading to a HTC.

If anyone has any ideas or comments about these, or any other issues that the Desire Z has, then please feel free to post.

Thanks for reading.

Geoff

 

[Slug]

Welcome to Android Forums, Geoff!

the homescreen has stopped rotating when i turn it into landscape.

The homescreen only rotates when the keyboard is opened.

you can't actually exit out of an app. My biggest bug bear is that when you are using the internet, there's no way of closing it down.

If you want to close the Browser completely, use the BACK button.

if you go back into the internet it goes back to the last page you were looking at.

That's because using HOME puts it into the background, so that you can do something else then reopen it where you left off. The analogy on a desktop computer would be minimising the browser. To return to your home page, select Menu/More... and use the "home" option.

although eth Advanced App Killer dow force close the apps, if you go back about 5 minutes later and open AAK again, some of the closed apps are running again!!!

The OS won't let you close processes that it needs to run. Well it will, but it has to restart them when they're required. Automated task killers are, for this reason, generally counterproductive as this constant close/open cycling takes power.

the battery life is appalling. I've been told that all smartphones are the same with them needing to be charged daily.

Obviously the period between charges depends on individual usage, but the first week of ownership is never a reliable guide as we're constantly playing with features and exploring everything we find. Stamina definitely improves over the first week or two. A tip that works for me is to give it a power-off overnight charge on Friday night, then use it over the weekend until it switches itself off due to low charge. Charge it up again until you get the green light and thereafter use as normal.

If the phone actually let you shut down some of these apps then maybe the battery would last longer!!

Only active apps consume resources. An app that is "idle" is basically suspended, and if left like that long enough will be closed by the OS.

I'd just like to be able to exit out of apps like I could on my old N97.

Android doesn't behave like Symbian. Trust me, just use the phone for a while without worrying about what's going on 'under the hood' and you'll start to like it. It's always a culture shock moving from one platform to another.

 

[Stuntman]

Slug has done a very good job at answering your questions. I'll add a bit as I also transitioned from an N97 to the Desire Z.

Regarding battery life, my experience is that the batter life on the Desire Z does not seem significantly worse than the N97. I recharge the N97 daily as well as my Desire Z. The instruction manual of the Desire Z talks about the battery life. It says that brand new batteries tend to not last as long as batters that have been used a while. After a few weeks, I find my Desire Z battery lasting longer than when it was brand new. I have also noticed this with my N97. When it was brand new, the battery didn't last that long and I had to charge it occasionally before the end of the day. After a few weeks, I only need to charge it once a day.

I think that the perceived battery life may be partially due to the fact that when I get a new phone, I play around with it a lot as I try out all of the features. After a few weeks, the phone is then more or less configured the way I like and I have less of a need to tinker with it.

The inability to close an app completely is an adjustment I had to make. Symbian manages apps and processor time differently than Android. Android tries to manage things so that most often used apps are already loaded, so when you go to them, they come up faster. Symbian doesn't do that. Also, in Android, when you switch away from an app (like pressing the home key), the app generally doesn't run. It just stays in memory. There are some exceptions, but often when most apps are not in the foreground, they don't need to run or use processing cycles. An app in memory doesn't necessarily mean that it is using up your battery. Obviously something like a timer or stop watch needs to keep running. Your Word document doesn't need to do anything processing when not in the foreground.

Generally it is OK to just switch away from the app when you are done using it. You can be confident that it won't be using any processing cycles or battery. If you use a task killer, you use up cycles when the app is killed. Then Android sees that there is memory available and if your app is used often, it will load it into memory again because you are likely to want to use it again in the future. If you keep killing the app, it will drain your battery more as Android just uses more cycles loading the app again.

It's a bit of an adjustment not finding an "Exit" button. Some apps offer this because users just feel more "comfortable" being able to exit the app. Opera Mobile added this feature in the last update, but I don't really use it.

If you want your browser (I assume you mean the stock Android browser) to start up in a home page, you can create a shortcut to the home page and place it on your home screen. Instead of starting up your browser by pressing the "Internet" icon, just press that shortcut to your home screen icon and it will launch the browser to that home page.

The other thing about switching from an N97 to a Desire Z I found was that the N97 allows me some greater control over things like how different apps access the internet. For instance, I have an issue with email that is more due to my cable provider and carrier being different. My email is with my cable provider which uses a different server name via cable than via the carrier. On the N97 I had to force my email to go over my carrier all the time even when on WiFi at home. I do not have the same level of control on the Desire Z. What I ended up doing is just forwarding my email to my Gmail account. I find this setup unusual at first, but over time, it worked much better for me than using my cable provider's email system directly. The biggest advantage is push notifications for my email. I have a secondary account that I also import into Gmail as it makes my email management better.

If you have some other issues, please feel free to ask. Keep in mind that Android is different than Symbian and you will have to make some adjustments. I personally like my Desire Z way more than my N97.

There are a few things I like about the N97 more. I think the feel of the keyboard on the N97 is better although I prefer the layout of the Desire Z keyboard. The tilt screen is nice. 32GB of storage is great and the FM transmitter makes it convenient to play my music over my car (or any) stereo system. My N97 has been religated to a music player now.