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Kinda miss my Bionic

J

jbirdsvt

Newbie
I've had my Moto X for 3 days now and I'm just not that impressed. It's definitely faster than my Bionic, but there are areas where it's lacking.
1. The notification (text, email, snapchat, etc) volume is inconsistent. Sometimes it's loud enough and sometimes its not. Even playing the different tones in the selection menu, the volume changes.
2. The speakerphone volume is way too low. I almost never hold my phone to my face to talk, but on this phone, I can't even hear the person on the other end through the speaker.
3. The native text app is lame. A conversation is all black and white and there's no option to add color. I like for my side to be one color while the other person's side is another color.
4. There's no quick and easy way to set the phone to vibrate. This option was on the lock screen on my Bionic. I didn't even have to unlock it. Now I have to unlock it and hold down the volume button.
I'm sure there's more, but these are the main problems I have. If anyone has any remedies/suggestions, please throw them my way!
 
jbirdsvt said:
4. There's no quick and easy way to set the phone to vibrate. This option was on the lock screen on my Bionic. I didn't even have to unlock it. Now I have to unlock it and hold down the volume button.
I'm sure there's more, but these are the main problems I have.
Click to expand...

Install the app Power Toggles: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.painless.pc

On the lock screen, slide the lockscreen from the left edge to the right. (If you slide from the right edge to the left, it starts the camera.)

Hit the plus on the screen. You should see Power Toggles as a widget. When you add it, add a toggle for volume/vibration (and whatever else you want.)
 
jbirdsvt said:
3. The native text app is lame. A conversation is all black and white and there's no option to add color. I like for my side to be one color while the other person's side is another color.
Click to expand...

There are many, many good replacement messaging apps. Handcent, Go SMS Pro, Chomp. I'm sure that you can find one that can do what you want. (Just make sure to turn off notifications in the native messaging app so that you avoid multiple notifications, and make sure that whichever app you install is added to the list of notifications in Settings->Active notifications->Manage notification types.)
 
The notification volume needs to be on max volume if you want to hear anything, especially if said place is loud.

Also, Textra SMS is the best SMS app I have used. I switched from GO SMS. All those apps started out good (handecent, go sms) but they all added so much bloatware and software, I got sick of it.
 
Miss your Bionic? You can have mine, when I upgrade. The Bionic was Motto's biggest mistake, well al least my biggest mistake. I have 2, can't wait to get rid of them. I guess I might miss my Bionic when I upgrade, then again I might miss a tumor, once its removed. The Bionic almost sent me back to the windows side again. Horrible smartphone, poor software & Motto support.
 
I keep misreading the title of this thread as "Kiss My Bionic"









...and wondering if it is something inappropriate :)
 
Well, I put Go Launcher on my X and it helped some. I ran Go on my Bionic, but I wanted to try to go without it on this new phone to "fully experience" a pure android OS, but it's just missing too much. One thing that it's missing is a good calendar widget. I downloaded a few free ones, but none of them would do what I wanted. The Go calendar widget is the only one I could find that I liked, so I'm back to Go.
I also downloaded Handcent, but sometimes it wont let me type in the message field and I have to exit out and come back to get it to work.
The volume is still an issue, but I've found other notification sounds on Zedge that are louder, so that helps. I still can't hear people through speakerphone though.
As bad-ass as this phone is supposed to be, it sure seems like I'm having to do a lot to get it right.
Maybe it's just me?...
 
Funnyusername said:
The notification volume needs to be on max volume if you want to hear anything, especially if said place is loud.

Also, Textra SMS is the best SMS app I have used. I switched from GO SMS. All those apps started out good (handecent, go sms) but they all added so much bloatware and software, I got sick of it.
Click to expand...

Good call on Textra! Just replaced Handcent! Thanks!
 
jbirdsvt said:
Well, I put Go Launcher on my X and it helped some. I ran Go on my Bionic, but I wanted to try to go without it on this new phone to "fully experience" a pure android OS, but it's just missing too much. One thing that it's missing is a good calendar widget. I downloaded a few free ones, but none of them would do what I wanted. The Go calendar widget is the only one I could find that I liked, so I'm back to Go.
I also downloaded Handcent, but sometimes it wont let me type in the message field and I have to exit out and come back to get it to work.
The volume is still an issue, but I've found other notification sounds on Zedge that are louder, so that helps. I still can't hear people through speakerphone though.
As bad-ass as this phone is supposed to be, it sure seems like I'm having to do a lot to get it right.
Maybe it's just me?...
Click to expand...

What you are going through, is what people love about Android. :) They love how they can change and tweak things to make it their own.

Also, did you try Nova? I liked it more then Go Launcher.

Besides the speaker, It doesn't sound like you are going through THAT much. Tweaking the launchers, getting new sms programs, and installing widgets is the great thing about this platform, because you can make it your own.

And to be honest (besides the speaker, which I don't have an issue with) most of the problems you are describing are very...picky? It just sounds like you were use to one thing, and its been weird going through a change. I think if you just used the phone for a couple weeks you would be fine with a lot of the stock features.
 
Funnyusername said:
What you are going through, is what people love about Android. :) They love how they can change and tweak things to make it their own.

Also, did you try Nova? I liked it more then Go Launcher.

Besides the speaker, It doesn't sound like you are going through THAT much. Tweaking the launchers, getting new sms programs, and installing widgets is the great thing about this platform, because you can make it your own.

And to be honest (besides the speaker, which I don't have an issue with) most of the problems you are describing are very...picky? It just sounds like you were use to one thing, and its been weird going through a change. I think if you just used the phone for a couple weeks you would be fine with a lot of the stock features.
Click to expand...


LOL. You're totally right! My wife actually didn't even want me to get a new phone because she said all I would do is pick it apart and gripe about nitpicky stuff! I'll admit, the X is growing on me. There's definitely more that I do like about it than things I don't.
 
jbirdsvt said:
LOL. You're totally right! My wife actually didn't even want me to get a new phone because she said all I would do is pick it apart and gripe about nitpicky stuff! I'll admit, the X is growing on me. There's definitely more that I do like about it than things I don't.
Click to expand...

Your wife knows what's up!

Also, I want to add, If you hit your power button and turn on the screen. And hold down the power button, a window of icons will appear and you can silence, vibrate, or volume you phone (maybe you do this already). Its pretty simple. Click, hold, touch. Done. Obviously, its not one touch, but I think its very quick once you get it down. I just want to bring that up, because I tried it out for the first time, and I don't see how that is considered a hassle. Its a very easy method to silence your device. Hope this helps making your phone not seem like such a :turtle:.
 
I've noticed, for me at least, and it seems others also notice this but....The Moto X seems to be one of those phones that gets better over time but doesn't "wow" at first glance.

+1 on Nova Launcher too -- it's awesome, even without root.

For a calendar widget I have always used Pure Grid Calendar. The dev used to run around in these forums when he was starting out. I like the full-month calendar and some of the old "eclair" skins. It takes some tinkering to get it looking how you want it but there are a fair number of options.

Edit: here's my calendar widget:

WHqPVq5.jpg
 
doogald said:
There are many, many good replacement messaging apps. Handcent, Go SMS Pro, Chomp. I'm sure that you can find one that can do what you want. (Just make sure to turn off notifications in the native messaging app so that you avoid multiple notifications, and make sure that whichever app you install is added to the list of notifications in Settings->Active notifications->Manage notification types.)
Click to expand...

The only caveat using a third party messaging app is that with Google Assist, test messages won't be read out loud while driving. Therefore, I have the stock Messaging app as the default texting app, but also use Handcent.
 
Funnyusername said:
Your wife knows what's up!

Also, I want to add, If you hit your power button and turn on the screen. And hold down the power button, a window of icons will appear and you can silence, vibrate, or volume you phone (maybe you do this already). Its pretty simple. Click, hold, touch. Done. Obviously, its not one touch, but I think its very quick once you get it down. I just want to bring that up, because I tried it out for the first time, and I don't see how that is considered a hassle. Its a very easy method to silence your device. Hope this helps making your phone not seem like such a :turtle:.
Click to expand...

Good call on that! As many times as I've seen that screen, it never occurred to me that I could actually use it to do more than turn it off!

alostpacket said:
I've noticed, for me at least, and it seems others also notice this but....The Moto X seems to be one of those phones that gets better over time but doesn't "wow" at first glance.

+1 on Nova Launcher too -- it's awesome, even without root.

For a calendar widget I have always used Pure Grid Calendar. The dev used to run around in these forums when he was starting out. I like the full-month calendar and some of the old "eclair" skins. It takes some tinkering to get it looking how you want it but there are a fair number of options.

Edit: here's my calendar widget:

WHqPVq5.jpg
Click to expand...

And thanks packet! I'm going to download and try Nova and Pure Grid tonight. I really would like to get away from Go.
 
What about the camera? Anybody know why outdoor pictures turn out so dark? It seems that if I include too much sky (light) in the shot, it darkens everything else to the point you can hardly see it. I got the OTA update this past weekend, but it didn't seem to help with this issue.
 
jbirdsvt said:
What about the camera? Anybody know why outdoor pictures turn out so dark? It seems that if I include too much sky (light) in the shot, it darkens everything else to the point you can hardly see it. I got the OTA update this past weekend, but it didn't seem to help with this issue.
Click to expand...

I've noticed the same thing on the Droid MAXX. Sometimes reframing the shot to have less background light helps. I'd also try turning on HDR for those shots and see if that helps.
 
Ok, so yesterday I found a couple more things I need to "fix" on my X. I was messing with a video on my Bionic and noticed the icon at the top that slings the video to another media device. I had forgotten about this. My X does not have this icon. How can I make my X do this the way my Bionic does it? It seems to be completely integrated into the OS on my Bionic. I don't have to run any specific app. I can just go to Gallery, open the video, and the icon is there. I hit the icon and it shows a box that says "Searching for media devices" and it finds my TV and my GoogleTV box. This is a really handy feature.

My second recently-discovered issue is printing. On my Bionic, I could go to Settings>Printers>Add Printer and it would find my wireless printer with no problem. The only way I've found to print from my X is to download a specific Brother app and print through that, but it doesn't integrate the print function into other menus. On my Bionic, I can open a document, hit menu and select print.

Is it because this is supposed to be a "pure" Google OS with no manufacturer UI overlay? If so, I think I miss the overlay. LOL
 
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