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Help very new to android... stupid question, im sure

S

stellar981

Lurker
What is this DJ05 I've seen in a thread on here? I just got my fascinate last week, so how would I know if I already have this? This is all greek to me, I am trying to figure this software out - day by day.

I am also having battery life problems. I seem to have trouble going a whole day without the battery being dead by 8 pm. (about 12 hrs) I went to verizon, they told me to get rid of Advanced task killer. So its gone. Is that a battery killer? My sister has the same phone and swears by it. I also went to phone info, as I read in another thread and it says 80% of my battery is being consumed by the Display!! How do I help this?? I turned the backlight brightness ALL the way down. And changed the light to go off in 15 secs instead of 30 (which I originally had it on).. but obviously im going to use the display anytime i use the phone. which compared to some, isn't THAT often. I want to be able to enjoy this phone, but it's quite frustrating when the battery dies after what I see as fairly low usage.. Any tips?
 
If you just got your phone, give it some time. Mine was horrible too. It has to break in. If it don't clear up by 30 days, maybe take it back. List of batt killers:

Backround data on
Lots of widgets running
Auto sync set to every minute-change to once an hour or so
Gps on
Wifi on
Rougue app-gotta delete recent apps to figure out which one it is.

I'm sure there are more reasons, but start there. Report back and someone may be able to point you in the right direction.
As far as dj05-go to settings/about phone. Should tell you what you are on. di01 is what you prolly have. Dj05 is an update that got leaked. You need to be rooted to get it. It will prolly never make it to ota update. Just hang tight for a while for froyo or an update and enjoy your phone. If you decide to root, read read and read some more. If you do root, there are many guys on here who can talk you through it or talk you down if it goofs up on you. Its hard to permabrick the fascinate. But read up before you do anythimg crazy. :)
 
Well, the only things in that list I have on are Background data (I use Google talk, email, etc) and auto sync for my email. That's what I mainly use on the phone. I'm coming from Blackberry, so you can see why this battery issue may come as more of a surprise to me. The only other programs I use regularly are AIM and facebook. But I never signed onto AIM today, and the battery is still going down. I currently have my charger plugged to my computer here at work. Not a fan of having to carry another cable in my purse. I'm still unsure about the touch keyboard as well.. So I'm pretty up in the air about the phone in general. I just want to be happy with my upgrade, considering you are stuck with it for a while. Unless you pay! As for the DJ05 stuff, sounds like something i know nothing about. The terms you used like ROOT and PERMABRICK, are ALL foreign to me! haha.. im usually up to date with the technology.. but my phone is an exception.
 
Root is kind of another word for jailbreak. If you are root you have superuser privileges over your phone so you can delete verizon programs and customize some of the software and themes on the phone. I'm pretty happy with the phone so I don't have root.
If you go to menu-settings-applications-running services you can turn off programs you don't need running. There can be programs that will run without being listed like a battery monitoring widget I downloaded and wasn't even using on my screen was draining my battery very quickly. Turn off wifi, bluetooth and GPS if your not using them. I run a program called LauncherPro which allows you change your screens and
more control over what programs and widgets are running. A widget called "Minimalistic text" includes a clock,battery monitor, date and weather not only looks good to me but is very easy on the battery.
I run 5 screens plus lockscreen with about 14 widgets running and am at 15 hours since unplugged and the battery is at 70 percent.
 
Stellar, if you go to eBay you can buy some additional micro USB cables like the one you got with your phone, and use them to charge your phone from any USB port. Just leave one in each location you frequent. In my case, my Prius has a USB port, as does my home and work computer, so I can charge my phone from any of those locations without having to carry around a charger.
 
GPS being on was my killer. Dead by 8pm usually. Now I go 17+ hours and I talk for over an hour per day and use my display over an hour. It's still not great, but much better than when I had GPS on
 
my battery life has seemed to be improving within the last week. maybe im not using it as much, or just charging it a few times has helped. who knows. HOWEVER, i am still unable to get used to this touch keyboard. i should have known, i always hated them. i dont know if this is possible, but i type too fast for it. so it doesn't seem to work fast enough for my liking. with my blackberry tour i can type a book in just a couple mins. this would take me a lifetime! so, i think the keyboard is now going to be the dealbreaker. other than that, ive really liked the phone for the most part. it can be a little lagging when messaging. but thats the only other issue ive had. i also HATE the camera, but that wasn't the dealbreaker. i'm currently considering eventually going to the droid pro or maybe the LG ally. any opinions on these two phones? either way, for now i think im just going to reverse the upgrade (thanks to best buy's awesome policies).. thanks for all your helpful words.
 
I was leery of the keyboard when I got my phone, but I seem to have gotten used to it. Swype works well for common words, and I can now rapidly type individual characters accurately even with the phone in the vertical position.

I find that the phone also does very well with voice-to-text input, which is even faster that Swype.
 
I, like you, am an Android newbie. Seriously, I'm coming off of a Samsung flip phone that I got 2 years ago when the blackberry was the new rage and even then my phone was an older model.....one of 5 that didn't require a data plan. I've told my [tech savvy] husband that I feel like I've gone from a Kindergarten classroom to a 4th year of college classroom over night!

When I first got the Fascinate, I had issues with the battery as well. It seemed to have tamed down a bit after the first week-10 days. From what I've read, it takes a bit for the battery to get broken in. Things I have learned along the way that help me with battery life follow:

I went into the settings for the keyboard and turned off the little vibrate that happens whenever you touch a key. That helped ALOT. Also, changing how often email and other apps/widgets update helps significantly. Now, I do still have my email being checked every 5 minutes because I need to get it quickly, but I think I'm going to be changing to push mail very soon...which I don't know if you know what that is. Anyways, don't use the live wallpapers. They are battery killers even tho they are really neat. Also, the screen that the Fascinate has is different than other kinds. From what I understand, each pixel is powered separately from the others. If an area of the screen is black, then the pixel is off. So, theoretically, a wallpaper that has alot of black in it won't use as much power. As a previous poster mentioned turning off the GPS, bluetooth, and WIFI (by pulling down the notification slide and clicking on those buttons to turn off) will help alot.

For the most part, that is all I've really done to help improve the battery life of my phone. Today I unplugged my phone at about 9:30am and rebooted it 6 or 7 times (I was having trouble with a bad install of an app) and then did a factory reset and then spent about 3 hours in the market downloading apps and a few widgets and tweaking how I wanted my screens to look like and such. I played Pandora for about 2 hours and then used the phone quite a bit after dinner. The battery indicator turned orange at about 10:30 this evening. So, I used the phone pretty heavily today and it did well.

As for the keyboard, I have found that Swype is the way to go if you are a fast typer. It recognizes ~97% of what I type and people are getting upwards of 40-50 words per minute. I can't use the regular keyboard at all because, like you, I was typing too quickly for the board. Swype can totally keep up with me. It did take a bit to get used to tho. I had to learn not to hit the space bar between words and when the little box with word choices comes up, if the word you want is the first one, you ignore it and it plugs that word in.

I, personally, have not had good times with the voice-to-text input, but I might be trying to hard with it.....that, and it doesn't like it when my 3 year old is talking in the background. :)

hope this helps!
 
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