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new Moto G LTE owner

entropy5

entropy5

Member
Well, I've had this sub-$200 phone for a little over a month and I couldn't be happier. I upgraded from a Motorola Atrix 2, a fine phone but dated. The addition of LTE and a micro sd slot is icing on the 1st generation Moto G cake.

The best feature is the battery life. Phenomenal! 100% charge shows 32 hours to death. I can go a full a work day with out worrying. With the Atrix 2, I'd be getting worried around 3:30pm and start looking for a charger. The LTE speed on AT&T shows around 10+- mbs. My only gripe so far is the Kit Kat dialer, what a clumsy app. Easily fixed with exDialer. Google Now is just a blast to use. I find myself talking to it just to talk to it. haha
 
I've had my G LTE for three months. Other than apparently experiencing the "loses carrier connection" bug twice, early on (which hasn't reoccurred since I did a cache clear and factory reset): The phone has worked flawlessly.

And the OP's right about battery life. About once every three months or so I run it all the way down. I actually have to work at it to accomplish that. (E.g.: Run an app that has a "keep screen on" option for a while.) Last time was on the long U.S. Thanksgiving Day weekend. Took the phone off the charger on Wednesday morning. Finally managed to kill it by late Sunday morning.

But Google Now... I turned that back off. After it'd been on for about a week: All-of-a-sudden "Google Play services" was sucking down battery like there was no tomorrow. Turned off Google Now, restarted the phone: Problem solved. I'd never had that problem before activating Google Now and haven't had it, again, since turning it back off. Google Now's a neat toy, but not worth losing the device's sterling runtime over.

Wireless, WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS radios have all worked phenomenally. The thing is as fast, responsive and stable as I could wish. Screen is great. Size is neither too large nor too small (for me). Speaker(phone) is more than loud enough. Dropped it on floors twice (one vinyl-covered, one hardwood) and it survived it.

And the camera... the one big concern I had was, after all I'd read, that the camera would suck. It does not. No, it's no SLR, but it works well enough for my needs. In fact: I'm quite pleased with the camera.

The Moto G LTE is, for me, about as close to perfect as I could ask for in a mobile phone. I'm delighted with it.
 
I have owned a G G4 Lte for a little over a month and it seem like a reasonably solid piece of hardware. My satisfaction with the product ends there I'm afraid because I'm interested in personal privacy and it seems in that case I have no business owning a smartphone at all! As a (self-estimated) 3rd or 4th dan in general cyber defence I was F**king horrified at what the built in Google and Motorola software wanted to know consequentially I've barely used the thing, not connected my email account, not looked anything up and all I've installed is Ghostery, Orbot and some security software.

As soon as some critical business is concluded (the reason I was obliged to buy the thing) and I can afford to be out of contact I shall root the thing and take proper control with a custom mod. In the mean time I've downloaded NoRoot Firewall which may or may not work with the LTE stuff...

All of which brings me to my actual question, has anyone got a comprehensive list of what the various Motorola apps and functions are for, what they do? So I know which ones I can kill, disable, delete or block. Basic Daydreams for instance sounds like some disposable eyecandy but what's Motorola mesh? And so on, there are a lot of opaque parts names in there and a simple list of would be terrifically useful.

I bought a phone not a east European bride, having bought it Its Mine! and I say what goes on it, I say what it can do, not Google and definitely not Motorola. It's possible that my android requirements are infeasible in which case when this current business is concluded I'll drop the thing in the bin and go back to my venerable Nokia e (which still works after 8 year in the construction industry!) However it's a nice little machine and I'll try to tame it's... excesses if I can.
 
I haven't and don't plan on using any of the pre-installed Motorola apps either. This device has a minimum of bloatware compared to others I've read about. Not quite a Nexus bare-bones Android, but closer than others.
I think "Motorola Migrate" is a settings/data transfer app and "Daydreaming" is a do-stuff-while-the-phone-is-idle app.
I was a latecomer to the smartphone as well. But I do like the idea of having a small form-factor almost a computer in my pocket. I use it as more than just a cellphone every day.
 
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entropy5 said:
I haven't and don't plan on using any of the pre-installed Motorola apps either. This device has a minimum of bloatware compared to others I've read about. Not quite a Nexus bare-bones Android, but closer than others.
I think "Motorola Migrate" is a settings/data transfer app and "Daydreaming" is a do-stuff-while-the-phone-is-idle app.
I was a latecomer to the smartphone as well. But I do like the idea of having a small form-factor almost a computer in my pocket. I use it as more than just a cellphone every day.
Click to expand...

Yah but my Nokia E is a small form computer and folds open to reveal a qwerty keyboard about 3 times larger than that of a crackberry. It's just struggling with modern script heavy web pages after 8 years.

Anyway an update. NoRoot Firewall appears to work very well on the LTE, successfully blocking an assortment of Google apps as well as some nasty and absurdly over-permissioned apps from calling home or DLing adverts. Interesting to note when you re-enable the Google components because you want something from the Play/Store thing you get hit with automatically generated updates - even for stuff you have force closed and disabled. Which re-enables them.. Yea thanx for that, what bit of F*** Off are you having trouble with?

Also seriously unimpressed with the whole notification of updates thing, which you may like to check what is being updated?.. Sound good? Tough luck! Touch it and the downloads begin. Stop and forceclose/disable everthing all over again. Even less impressed with a Youtube player that requires that I log in even just to watch a vid. And wont let you back out of the app once the log-in pop-up is triggered. Go to homescreen/Settings/Apps and kill the thing manually!

Not that the real owners of the phone (Google apparently) are hassling you for personal details or anything... Perish the thought...
 
Go to the "Playstore" app itself and look at "Settings" then "Auto-update apps" and turn it off. I have apps that I either don't use and don't care to update or apps that I've sideloaded older versions of apps. I still get notifications of updates, but no auto-updates.

Youtube being part of Google, asks for a log-in to list your favorite channels, related videos to ones you've viewed before, etc.
 
Many thanx, I'd missed the Playstore settings. All this will be addressed when my business is seen too and the thing gets rooted. Probably going with Cyanogen unless anyone has any better recommendations.
 
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