List of issues, any solutions?

[lafester]

so send it back.

not sure what you want us to do about it.

[haus]

One of the purposes of communities like this IMHO is to help people solve problems and learn how to use their devices. In the absence of that, a little commiserating never hurt either.

[dawinkley]

I just replaced my TP2 with the Shift (and I admit to missing flashing that poor phone almost weekly with custom ROMs). I replaced my wife's Pre with Epic. Epic is a beautiful phone, but for my needs, too big. This Shift is almost perfect for me. My only complaint is the volume rocker- too sensitive and placed in the wrong spot. Once it's rooted, I'm sure it can be disabled, but that's my only complaint of this phone.

[LuckyLui]

Hows the shift guys?

Minimalistic Mikfroyo 4.4

[elmerfudpucker]

I quit using ATK, reset the phone and I have noticed the phone is not starting up as many programs as before. I have read that Android tries to "predict" what you will need, so I am guessing there might be a bit of a slowdown due to its learning your habits. But I will be rooting and killing a few of the bloatware apps that I have no intentions of using. There is others saying the phone is underclocked as well, I wonder how well the root will fix that? Dont forget to reset and update the phone first, something we all have learned from the TP...

[toddpedersen]

I use a free app called RingGuard from Appbrain to prevent the volume rockers from changing my volume. It pops up a Yes or No to accept or deny the attempted change, and you can set it to timeout as No automatically.

Originally Posted by emkorial

(cross posted at xda)

Cause I'm about to return this thing.

Software/OS wise:

- I guess this is an Android "thing", but the phone is constanly launching random programs in the background that I had nothing to do with, and it noticeably slows the phone down. If I see Sense stuttering, I'll run ATK, kill the dozen or so random things thta somehow launched all by themselves, and the phone is snappy again. Today I was typing a text message, and the phone was so slow, it was only registering one character every 5 seconds or so in the message. I went tho ATK, a whole shitload of random stuff was running, I killed it all, text messaging goes back to normal. How can you use an OS that randomly launches apps that degrade system performance? And as far as I can tell there's no way to remove the apps, or keep them from randomly launching on thier own in the background. I thought Android apps running in the background were supposed to not use any resources? But these a re having a noticible impact, clear as day. Sluggish UI, run ATK, kill the apps, silky smooth UI.

- I despise threaded SMS and you can't turn it off.

- I hate the little gray faces in the people list, and you can't turn them off

- Don't like the transparent folder backgrounds, and you can't do anything about it.

Hardware wise:
- The volume rocker is in a terrible positoin and is way to easy to accidentally hit. And apparently you need root to do anything about by remapping the keys

- If the phone is locked, sliding out the keyboard just a little bit wakes up the phone unlocked. andthen when trying to slide the KB back in you end up hitting buttons and hittingthe volume rocker, it's just annoying

- Suffers from the iPhone 4 "holding the phone in your righthand cuts your signal strength by 3 bars" problem

I mean, by themselves, none of these is a huge deal (except the OS slowing itself to a crawl, WTF is up with that?), but add them all up, on tp of the fact I'm paying $30 more a month over my Mogul, and I think this thing is going back to the Sprint store this weekend.

Kinda shocking that 5 years later the latest Androis phone still can;t match my Mogul in terms of useability.

[envy174]

whats going on folks how is the battery life compared to the evo and epic no 1 has complained about that unless i missed it lol

[haus]

My battery life is abysmal compared to my TP2. Then again I looked at my Sprint account and apparently I used 5x the amount of data on the Shift in the first 7 days I owned it compared to the first 7 days of the month while I was still on the TP2.

My theory is twofold. First, I suspect Android is phoning home and sending stuff to places I don't even want to think about. It's probably all in the fine print somewhere. Second, the native news, weather, and stock apps are set to update much more frequently than I'd like. Today I turned them off completely just to see if it makes a difference.

But the biggest driver for me is the screen, according to the "what's using my battery" page. I use brightness at 25%.

Last night at 11pm my battery was at 20-30% (I don't recall the exact number but it was orange in the notification area). With the TP2, same operator usage pattern (meaning stuff I'm doing vs. stuff the phone is doing on its own/in the background) I'd be at 80% at the same time. Maybe 70% if I had a long conference call during the day.

Needless to say I'm looking for a good rechargeable battery pack with a built-in MicroUSB connector, since getting the battery door off this phone is harder than doing my taxes.

[toddpedersen]

For starters, it takes 3 or 4 charges and discharges before the battery is broken in and will provide good life. Not sure how far along you are in that process.

I would also recommend you access your TALK icon from applications and go to settings and turn of the Auto Sign in and then log off. This of course is only applicable if you don't use Google Talk on a regular basis.

I also suggest you turn off the Auto Brightness and install a free app called Brightness Profiles. Then add the app icon to your home screen for easy access. I run my Normal profile at 25%, Low at 0% and High at 100%.

I have installed a program called JuiceDefender which is free and gives you tones of automated settings to converve battery life with respect to your Data. You will need Ultimate Juice for someting like $4 if you want WiFi to be controlled based on location and to have access to the weekend peak and off peak settings. Well worth the money in my opinion.

I get two days before I have to charge it, but I do turn it of at night.

Originally Posted by haus

My battery life is abysmal compared to my TP2. Then again I looked at my Sprint account and apparently I used 5x the amount of data on the Shift in the first 7 days I owned it compared to the first 7 days of the month while I was still on the TP2.

My theory is twofold. First, I suspect Android is phoning home and sending stuff to places I don't even want to think about. It's probably all in the fine print somewhere. Second, the native news, weather, and stock apps are set to update much more frequently than I'd like. Today I turned them off completely just to see if it makes a difference.

But the biggest driver for me is the screen, according to the "what's using my battery" page. I use brightness at 25%.

Last night at 11pm my battery was at 20-30% (I don't recall the exact number but it was orange in the notification area). With the TP2, same operator usage pattern (meaning stuff I'm doing vs. stuff the phone is doing on its own/in the background) I'd be at 80% at the same time. Maybe 70% if I had a long conference call during the day.

Needless to say I'm looking for a good rechargeable battery pack with a built-in MicroUSB connector, since getting the battery door off this phone is harder than doing my taxes.

[envy174]

just the things we need to do just to save battery life i mean we pay so much money on a cell phone we cant even use the way we want to use it not only that they dont even ship the phone with cases no more lmfaoo then we try 3rd party batterys just to make it work but all said and done i still end up buying the phone its addictive lol (thanx haus and todd for the break down ill keep it in mind when i recieve my phone thanx