New phone woes - A lighthearted moan and maybe you can help

Shrimply

Hey guys,

Bit of a moan for the weekend about how new isn't always better :rotfl:

So I've recently bought a new, cheap phone, it's not a long term thing just a bit of a toy to establish if I can cope with something as large and to bridge the gap until I find something I really like. For the past 3 years I've used my HTC Desire X. And I miss EVERYTHING.

I've just bought a Oukitel U2, cost me £55 and for the price it's a really nice piece of kit really. The only real thing for me that it lacks is a notification LED (which it's listed as having). The lack of backlit buttons are also a nuisance but not a big one.

The camera is probably better than it should be for the price, although the flash is awful and it's terrible in low light.. No surprises there. It really isn't much worse then my 3 year old phone. By biggest grumble is how hopeless snapchat is on it. I'm led to believe this has a lot more to do with the app than the phone though.

Anyway, it's a really nice phone. I even managed to get it rooted which I'd never have dreamt of trying on something more expensive.

However, there is a lot of things which I miss about my HTC and I haven't yet found replacements for. Can anyone help. Half the bother is working out what is missing because of a change in OS and what is missing because it was HTC specific.

1) No call and text logging.
I'm guessing this is a change in android, but it has data monitoring, but not text and calls? I miss this, I'm sure there is hundered of apps which can do it, but the one on my old phone was really nice and simple and bang on accurate with my bills.

2) A music player which links to all the music and radio apps
-Pretty sad about this and unless I'm googling the wrong things I can't find anything similar.

3) Texts - This is a biggie (I'm currently using the Textra app)

- No sent time information on recipients texts. I understand this is a bit of an issue. It is incredibly handy to know though.

- The ability to draft texts without a recipient being added, to avoid sending before I'm supposed to

- Some way of archiving messages

- Delivery Reports, these work well in Textra but weren't in other apps where message archiving was possible ( Google messenger)

-And finally SMS length and conversion to MMS.
HTC allowed 5 sms lengths before converting to MMS and warned me when it did so. I have no idea how Textra handles this and I'm not finding that much information. So a little worried I'll end up running up a huge bill.

4) The keyboard and particularly the punctuation above the letters, I'm struggling to find one that I like, I think it's only natural to take a while to get used to the difference in screen size though so hopefully this will just happen.

It think this is currently all my moans, there is loads about the new phone I do like by the way, it's a cracking piece of kit for the money. Interested to hear any insights though

RumRat

So I've recently bought a new, cheap phone,

it's a cracking piece of kit for the money

Basically................No it isn't.....
What version of android is it running? Much better phones out there for not much more than you paid....

Shrimply

Well I spent quite a lot of time reading reviews and looking at alternatives. And deciding which was best for me. So I'd be interested to hear what you thought was better.

It's Android 5.1

kwikbreaks

Shrimply wrote: »

Well I spent quite a lot of time reading reviews and looking at alternatives.

You probably (and imo sensibly) excluded Windows phones which MS seem to have to heavily susbidise to sell because of the abysmal operating system which I don't doubt for one second RumRat finds to be simply exquisite.

In its day the Desire X may have been quite a high end phone. Certainly the original Desire which I had some years back was reckoned to be pretty good.

Shrimply

I struggle to see how anyone can say that £55, from a uk seller, which included delivery in 2 days for what I've got isn't a good price.

And yes it very much had to be android.

My Desire was mid-range I guess, I think I paid just under £200 for it. It's been a good phone but it was low on internal memory, lacked a front camera and had a weird thing with the internet speeds.
It's so nice to open a browser and load pages at the same speed as on my laptop haha. I will miss it's size though. One of the reasons for buying the U2 was to see if I can cope with a larger phone. If I can't it pretty much means I'll be buying the z5 compact unless the manufacturers break a trend this year. Saying that, right now I could see myself sticking with the U2 for a while.

RumRat

Shrimply wrote: »

Well I spent quite a lot of time reading reviews and looking at alternatives. And deciding which was best for me. So I'd be interested to hear what you thought was better.

It's Android 5.1

And to be honest, why would you tell someone who is happy with a purchase that they have already bought that it is a bad choice?

I didn't say it was a bad 'choice' that's only something you can make.
I don't know why it's not doing the basics. As it's not, it would indicate that it's not a 'cracking phone'
You don't seem to be 100% happy with your choice and my post was just my opinion, which you asked for.
Try the 'Chomp' app for your texting.
Try 'Call log manager' for your phone dialler and logging.
Call and text logging are basics though...

RumRat

kwikbreaks wrote: »

You probably (and imo sensibly) excluded Windows phones which MS seem to have to heavily susbidise to sell because of the abysmal operating system which I don't doubt for one second RumRat finds to be simply exquisite.

In its day the Desire X may have been quite a high end phone. Certainly the original Desire which I had some years back was reckoned to be pretty good.

I have an Android phone............but, I don't agree that Windows phones are abysmal.

Shrimply

I'd be interested to hear what you'd have spent your £55 on in any case. To see if it's something I considered.

I think a lot of the problems are things missing from my phone that would be missing from stock android. I may be wrong.

I have call logs, but in the past in the data usage sectionI also has a tab for texts and calls, where you set the reset frequency and it recorded the total number of minutes made and received and the total number of texts sent and received within a billing period. Should these still be there?

I'm looking for these screens
https://www.dropbox.com/s/edqqmn8297a1tns/2016-02-06%2013.31.21.png?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5wr5jraj9meuayc/2016-02-06%2013.31.36.png?dl=0

I tried chomp, which is made by the same developer as Textra I believe. Again though, Google messenger was hopeless with delivery reports, and again this is stock android, so I'm not really sure it's the phone that's to blame.

RumRat

I'd be interested to hear what you'd have spent your £55 on in any case. To see if it's something I considered.

I wouldn't have spent just £55, but, as your phone is a stopgap throw away it's not worth worrying about.
That data usage screen doesn't reside in 5.1.1 afaik, you can see what an individual app uses and set warnings and a limit only.
Calls......open the the phone app, go to log, tap 'More' top right then 'Call duration'....

agrinnall

I don't have those numbers on my Nexus 5X (Android 6.01) and I didn't have them on my Nexus 4. I don't believe they are part of stock android, perhaps they were part of the HTC bloatware. In these days of contracts with vast offerings of texts and calls I can't see any great value in knowing how many texts or minutes of calls you have used.

Shrimply

agrinnall wrote: »

perhaps they were part of the HTC bloatware.

Oi, I like my HTC bloatware Have you not noticed.

I don't have many minutes, I don't use many either but it is nice to be able to keep track of them. Plenty of apps to do it, it was just nice them being there along with data monitoring.