Tag Archives: android

Android battery life, Kitkat vs Marshmallow

Computer Aid Posted on by

I recently got 2 samsung i9506 (S4 galaxy) phones

i’ve had such a bad experience with lollipop battery life, that I went back to using kitkat

But now that I have 2 identical phones, I decided to compare kitkat with the latest android: Marshmallow

Although the phones were not setup identically, I did give Marshmallow some big advantages as follows:

KitKat phone:

  • running standard Samsung kitkat 4.4.2
  • uses my current SIM card, used as a normal phone
  • I rooted, & disabled as much Samsung bloatware as possible
  • Running GSam battery monitor
  • Connected to WiFi
  • Max screen brightness
  • Fully charged
  • about 5 different gmail accounts activated, with notifications active
  • various other accounts setup (eg trello, firefox, etc)

Marshmallow:

  • Running AOSP Cyanogenmod (from sometime in May 2016)… IE a bare-bones android with no bloatware
  • no SIM card
  • GSam battery monitor
  • Connected to WiFi
  • max screen brightness
  • Fully charged
  • Only 1 gmail account

Now, since I use my phone a lot, what concerns me the most, is the battery drain while the screen is on, & I’m active browsing, reading emails, & playing some trivial games like hill climb racing.

So I used both phones, side-by-side, and spent about 30 minutes on various activities… the same stuff on both phones, side-by-side.

I then went into GSam, & looked at the battery “rate of change” chart, to see how efficient each android was…

Surprisingly (and disappointingly), I found that MM would drain at around 35% to 40% per hour… ie it would go flat in under 3 hours of constant use.

Given that KitKat was also powering a 4G SIM card, it should have been worse… but it drained the battery at around 20% – 25% per hour… ie it would go flat in around 4 – 5 hours.

Just to be sure, I swapped the batteries, & did the test again… & got the same results… so I’ve ruled out any differences in batteries.

As a result, I can guess that both Lollipop & Marshmallow have some major flaw, or an inefficient OS design.

As such, there is no way I will be moving away from Kitkat anytime soon.

The only reason I would recommend MarshMallow, is for those who only use their phone for 2 or 3 minutes per day, as MarshMallows “doze” mode means the battery barely drains while the phone has the display off.

YMMV (Your mileage may vary)

How to Pick Out the Right Tablet

Computer Aid Posted on by

There’s no denying that the tablet market has blown up in a major way.

Indeed, it seems hard to cast your mind back to when many people considered the iPad a ridiculous invention that would never catch on.  Those seeking a tablet in 2014 have a whole host of different options to choose from, which is why we’re going to take a look at how to go about choosing the right one, whether it’s a tablet hybrid from Lenovo or a Nexus 7:

Picking a camp

The first major decision in choosing a tablet is which operating system you’d prefer to have.  It’s an entirely subjective thing (despite what many of the more passionate fans might say!) and it’s simply a matter of trying them out and seeing which one works best for you.

iPads will obviously use Apple’s latest operating system, with Android supplying the operational software for most other manufacturers including Acer, Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Samsung.

It’s also worth noting that there are now some affordable Windows 8 tablets making their way onto the market.

Apps

Needless to say, apps remain a key reason for the success of the tablet market.

For some people, they offer the ability to watch movies or YouTube videos, for others they provide the ability to edit photos.  Others, of course, simply like to relax and read a book.

The Apple App Store is certainly very well maintained, with nearly half a million programs and games available right off the bat.

Android has certainly stepped up its game in recent years in a bid to compete.  However, the Android store also has a reputation for being less well regulated in terms of security: a lot of malware-affected apps originate there.

The visuals

Needless to say, the size of the screen also plays a key part. Tablets vary by a reasonable amount, usually between 10 and 7 inches.

Fortunately, most of the major models (iPads, Nexus Tablets and Kindle Fires) all come in different size, so you don’t have to be stuck with one brand just because you like the size.

Screen resolution is another important factor.  The more detailed the activities the tablet is being bought for, the bigger and more detailed the screen will need to be.  The Kindle Fire 8.9 currently offers the best in terms of pixels at 2,560 by 1,600.  The iPad’s retina display (at 2048×1536 pixels) is also excellent.

Wi-Fi and other connections

This is actually a major characteristic, and one that inexperienced users will often forget to take into account.

Different tablets will have different connection options, with some only able to connect to the web when there is a Wi-Fi hotspot nearby.  This means that they won’t be able to connect to the net when out and about like a smartphone does.

The ability to connect to 3G/4G is something that does add a bit to the price but for those that want to access the web when out and about, it’s not really optional.

Those that just want to use the tablet at home, however, could probably get away with just Wi-Fi.

Paypal Here: a quick evaluation

Computer Aid Posted on by

I’ve been wanting to accept credit card payments (without the big monthly fees) for many years.

Recently I contacted paypal, and asked about their Paypal Here system (I’m in Australia).

It sounded good: approx 2.9% Paypal fee on each transaction, with no ongoing fees: just perfect for me.

After Paypal activated my “here” account, I downloaded the app to my Android phone (android 4.2), and it all looked nice, and without actually entering a transaction, seemed to be just what I wanted.

However, once I took a real payment, from a real Customer, I found 2 major problems, which make me reluctant to use Paypal Here:

  • At the time of entering the Credit card details, the paypal here app tells me that I cannot continue until I activate the phones location services, and offers to take me to the settings where I can activate these services… but ALL the location services are already active! So what do I do??? I eventually decide to go OUTSIDE, so that the phone can get a GPS lock on my location, and then I’m able to complete the transaction. I can’t see any reason why this happens, and its a major problem to ask the customer to come outside with me, just so they can pay by credit card.
  • The next day, I look at my paypal account on my computer, and I see the paypal here transaction, but with no other identifying information. This is despite me spending time to enter the invoice number into the (optional) description field on the Android App.

PP_HereSo, not only to I get these awful “features” with Paypal Here, I also have to pay an extra 0.5% for the extra inconvenience.

Sorry Paypal, as far as I’m concerned, “Here” is “Gone” (at least until you can fix your app)

android imei problems and how to change imei

Computer Aid Posted on by

I imported a dual-SIM android phone, which then started to behave strangely when a SIM card got inserted into either of the SIM slots.

When I’d try to make a call with a few different SIM cards, I’d either get the message:

No SIM or SIM error

or

Restricted access changed

After some digging around, I found that entering the number *#06# should display the IMEI for the phone… but instead, I got:

IMEI1: Invalid

IMEI2: Invalid

So I decided that it was possible that the phone had two “changed” IMEI numbers, so I would see about changing them back to the numbers on the back of the phone.

While researching this, I found that it is illegal (apparently) to change IMEI numbers.

But I figured:

I’m only going to use numbers that I know belong to me, and I won’t try any other numbers… and its worth trying before I have to ship the damned thing all the way back to china for a replacement.

First of all, the phone needs to be “rooted”

Second, you need to do install a linux command prompt

Then, you need to do the following (assuming you want to use an IMEI of “123456789012345”):

echo ‘AT+EGMR=1,7,”123456789012345″‘>/dev/pttycmd1

This will change the IMEI for SIM1

To change the IMEI for SIM2:

echo ‘AT+EGMR=1,10,”123456789012345″‘>/dev/pttycmd1

Just remember: Only do this with numbers you know are yours for certain (eg from an old phone you are about to throw away). If you try anything else, you might get into a lot of trouble.

In my case, using the phones original IMEI numbers did not help, yet using the IMEI from another phone worked perfectly.

So it looks like the manufacturer somehow mucked up their numbers, and the phone is going back 🙁

View Google tasks on android

Computer Aid Posted on by

I’ve started using google tasks (via google calendar, but it can also be accessed via Gmail), so that I can keep track of my ever-increasing workload.

Yet, I cannot find a way to view the tasks from my android phone…

I eventually found a way of doing it, but not via a dedicated Android App (its done via the browser instaed… but at least it works)

  • Create a task in Google Calendar or gmail using your web browser
  • Start your android phone browser and go to http://gmail.com/tasks
  • Enter your login information. Tick “remember me” if the option appears.
  • Now that you can see your tasks, add it as a bookmark
  • Put the bookmark onto your home screen (eg: long-press on a blank section of your home screen and go through the menus to select your bookmark)

Best android apps

Computer Aid Posted on by

As promised, here is a list of great Android apps that I have on my HTC desire mobile phone (I won’t cover games, as everyone has different opinions on games):

Note: I’m not a big facebook or twitter user, so I won’t cover the built-in and downloadable apps for social networking, but I’m sure there are many to choose from.

  • Catch (catch.com). I started looking for a notes app on my iphone (before I got my Android), and eventually settled on catch. I was mainly after an app that would save notes to “the cloud”, in case my phone broke down… I would have preferred an app that saved the notes to my gmail account, but since Catch is easy, very quick, flexible (I can also save sound recordings and photos), and works on a PC, iphone, and Android, then its my best choice.
  • Firefox. I initially resisted putting Firefox on Android, but once I started using Firefox sync, I decided to try it. The biggest problem I find is that its much slower to load (compared to the built-in webkit browser). However, once you get used to it (it has slide-out bars on the right and left), its actually very powerful and flexible.
  • Barcode scanner. Although I don’t use it much, its great to be able to whip out my phone and scan a 1D or 2D (QR-code) barcode. Its simple, and it works.
  • Clinometer. This uses the accelerometer to measure the inclination of the phone in any direction. You can also change the skin to suit your needs.
  • Compass. Great for finding your cardinal directions. Like with any compass, it can get confused it you are in your car, or near most metals. But if you get lost in the South American rainforest, then you can be sure of heading in the right direction (at least for 2 hours, after which the phone batteries will run out!)
  • Elixir. This is great for tech-heads like me, where you can get all sorts of nitty-gritty information about your phone (free RAM, CPU speed, CPU usage, battery temperature, etc). But not very useful for average people.
  • Gmail (as well as Google contacts and Google calendar). This is probably my most useful set of applications (by far!). If you run a business and you deal with customers on a daily basis and you travel a bit, then this is essential for keeping your office with you at all times. Even if your phone gets destroyed, you can buy another Android or iphone, and check your mail, get customer details, and check your appointments, without missing a beat. Just make sure you use gmails imap feature, and you will never care about breaking your phone again.
  • Handycalc. Very powerful calculator, with extra add-ons for currency conversion, unit conversion, function graphing. Lots of nice functions in the one app.
  • Dropbox. This is in a similar category to the Google apps, in that you can choose what files to save to the “cloud”. So I use it for anything that I need to access from remote locations, or if I need to transfer data to someone else.
  • Keepassdroid. I have a huge number of passwords that I need to remember. Everyone has their own way of dealing with the internets password blowout. Some will try to use the same password everywhere (doesn’t always work, and you are putting all your eggs in one basket), others will write them down in a book. There might be better password safes out there, but I like keepass, as its open-source, seems to run on just about any device, and best of all, I put the database into dropbox, so I’ve always got the most recent set of passwords, without needing to copy the master password file around!
  • Sms backup+. After having lost all my saved SMS messages when my last smartphone suddenly broke down, I decided to look for something that would backup my SMS messages. Althought there is nothing like it on the iphone yet (!), I found SMS Backup+ will backup all SMS messages (incoming and outgoing), and also backup my call log (incoming, outgoing, missed calls, etc), and best of all: it saves the data to gmail, so I can read my sms messages from my PC!
  • SoundHound. To me, this is a novelty, but it has been nice to hear a song, find out what its called, get the lyrics, and then sing along (despite most people wishing I didn’t sing!). I also tried Shazam, but since it cannot be moved to the phones SD card … it then ends up using too much of my phones limited internal memory…
  • Where’s my droid. Thankfully I’ve never needed to use this for “real”, but it will allow you to send an SMS message to your phone, and it will report back either its GPS coordinates (assuming GPS is on, and the phone has a GPS lock… so that part won’t work indoors)… or it will report an approximate location based on the triangulation data from the phones cellular phone network (much more reliable, but much less accurate). Its good to keep this as a backup if you lose your phone (or it gets stolen).
  • WiFi Analyser. Its a great visual aid for diagnosing WiFi signal problems, as it shows any WiFi signals it can detect, and can do it in real-time in an easy to read graphical format… Its become an essential tool in my line of work!

Android task killers & task managers: useless

Computer Aid Posted on by

Like most technical people, it didn’t take me long to realise that the amount of free memory on my android phone was starting to run quite low.

And as most technical users from a non-android background, I immediately thought: I need to shutdown (or even kill) some running apps, in order to stop my phone from slowing down.

It turns out that the Android OS is a lot smarter than an average OS, and it deliberately keeps RAM as full as possible.

Why?

It all revolves around giving the user the best possible “experience” while using the phone.

Ie the user needs to “feel” like all the apps are running in the background (even if they actually are not), and when a user re-enters an application it should start as quickly as possible, and if appropriate, continue running from where it was last left.

In order to do this Android uses Applications and processes in an interesting way:

  • Multiple applications may share processes
  • An application may use multiple processes

So, just because a process is “running” it doesn’t mean that the associated application is actually doing anything.

Since there is a limited amount of RAM available for processes, Android needs to get rid of unneeded processes.

It decides which process to get rid of by guessing at which process will least affect the users experience, and then force-kills the process, and immediately reclaims the processes resources (like RAM).

At this point I’m thinking: that’s crazy!

But that’s because I’m used to traditional operating systems, where a process needs to be asked to stop nicely, so it gets a chance to finish anything critical, before closing.

So what does Android do differently?

It saves important state information about the application at the time the user leaves the application… so if that applications processes are killed, the state information has already been saved, ready to be restored when the application/processes are restarted.

Now, given the way Android handles memory and processes, it should always have memory available (by just killing off the appropriate processes), so deliberately shutting down all “unneeded” processes actually isn’t needed, and can actually lead to a situation where Android will actually “seem” slower.

Besides that, some processes are not meant to be killed, so deliberately killing them will just result in them getting re-started anyway.

The only time a task killer would be useful, is if a badly-written, out-of-control application is run on Android… but then, but I’ve yet to see anything like that.

Android is the future of mobile phones (and maybe even computers)

Computer Aid Posted on by

In the past 2 years, I have tried most types of smart phones.

I’ve tried Windows Mobile 6.1, iphone, Symbian S60, and just recently, android 2.2 (on a HTC desire).

I must say I’ve been keen to try android since I first heard about it a few years ago… and was frustrated at how long it took to be adopted by phone makers.

But now, its finally a mainstream product, and very successful as well.

Its great to see such a wide range of devices (first phones, but now tablets as well), and I cannot see any reason for android to progress onto mainstream PCs as well.

After having used an Android phone for about 2 months now, the only negative part I have encountered, is that there is no application that is capable of showing most media files… In order to view a MKS video of a downloaded documentary, I needed to use “Any Video Converter” to convert the video into an mp4 file that the phone could use.

This shows that the Android platform is still developing, and that some areas are still “unpolished”.

Compared to the propriety platforms like IOS (iphone) and Windows Mobile 7 (microsoft), it now has enough developer backing, that it will continue to gather momentum faster than the Apple and Microsoft offerings.

What about Nokia?

I recently heard that Nokia has effectively dumped Symbian for Windows Mobile 7. In my mind, Symbian was never going to be able to make the transition to smart phones, but WM7 is also unlikely to gather much support… not because it is inferior, but because past versions were very inadequate, and the latest WM7 is probably 4 years too late to change peoples mind about Microsoft smart phones (even I thought: oh no, not another weak attempt by Microsoft).

So, it looks like the great might of Nokia (and I was a big fan of Nokia phones before moving to smart phones) is now going to gradually fade, unless they can make a good decision on which smart phone OS to support (my opinion is that Android would have been the best bet, as it would have strengthened both Nokia and the Android movement).

Anyway, I’m finding Android great to use (I just wish the battery life on my phone was better), with lots of great apps, and a simple, yet powerful interface. You can just use it as it stands (eg for the technophobes), or you can customise it in so many ways.

Keep an eye out for my list of great app for android… coming soon!

android usb tether driver for Windows XP

Computer Aid Posted on by

Having recently gotten an Android mobile phone (and since I have a mobile phone plan with 1Gb of downloads), I decided that I might need to occasionally use the phone as a broadband modem (although a wifi “wireless” tether is nice, its also nice to charge my battery-hungry Desire while surfing the net via my laptop).

The laptop is XP, so I thought it should be easy to setup… but XP just didn’t seem to recognise the phone.

I can connect it to my linux-based (easy peasy) laptop, with no issues.

Even Windows 7 worked nicely.

So whats the problem with XP?

It turns out that XP doesn’t know how to handle the “USB” internet without proper drivers (which microsoft seem to be refusing to make available via its update system… how childish).

So I eventually found the solution in an android forum:

  • First, download the driver file: android tether xp
  • Make sure you save someplace (like your desktop)
  • Plug your android phone to the PC via a USB cable
  • When the phone prompts you for the connection type (or by flicking down from the top bar of the phone), select: usb tethering
  • When XP says: “i don’t have a driver for this”… just say you will select the driver maually, and then point it at the “tetherxp.inf” file that you downloaded.
  • After that, you will have a tethered android internet connection (just remember that it can sometimes take up to 1 minute before XP realises that the phone has changed USB connection type.