Smart Phones

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Locked phones tend to be branded, either on the phone itself or in the system, so things like wallpapers and ringtones give you a hint of the original carrier, that has been my experience in the US, Colombia and Mexico so far. Now, I imagine you bought a GSM phone (using a SIM card, hence how you know is locked, most CDMA or PCS phones don't use SIMs) and only four of those carriers in Canada use it according to wiki: Rogers(Fido), and smaller networks for remote provinces like Lynx, Ice and Keewaytinook. If the phone comes from the US it can only be ATT (Cricket included), TMobile (which are clearly branded BTW) and a small carrier called Alaska Networks. If it comes from the outside world then there is a catch, GSM uses two main groups of frequencies, in North America 850 MHz and 1900 MHz bands are used while in Europe and other countries 900 MHz or 1800 MHz bands. In theory your phone is quad band (that is, it should work both in Europe and North America) so that shouldn't be a problem (sometimes foreign versions aren't quad band).

Now, you may have the so-called "international version" in which case if it doesn't connect the problem is the phone itself.

[Aggie]

There's a tool on my carrier's (Koodo) website that says the phone should be compatible. It's theoretically going to be connecting through HSDPA I think (Koodo doesn't do GSM).

I don't have a dedicated carrier service desk in my town, which makes it a bit awkward to deal with the company directly.  I took it to a service desk for several brands (including mine) and went through a bit of setup there, but I still haven't got it connected to the carrier.

I'm also moving this week, so it's not a top priority if it's going to be a hassle.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

HSDPA is for data only, but you have to be connected to a voice network first (hence if it's GSM or not).

[Aggie]

Well, carp... I've been purposefully hiding from this tech as long as possible, and know squat about it. Ironically, I only got this phone to try match older technology (slider dumbphone).

Mobile services provided by Koodo use Telus Mobility's CDMA, HSPA+ and LTE networks. CDMA devices, however, have been discontinued by Koodo outside of Northern Ontario and Manitoba.[9] Koodo Mobile's CDMA and HSPA networks use the 850 MHz and 1900 MHz frequencies while their LTE network uses 1700/2100 MHz (AWS).

But the word is they're phasing out CDMA this year.

Phone:

Compatible networks    

2G
Quad-band GSM/GPRS Class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots), 32–48 kbit/s/EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz

3G
Tri-band UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA: 850/1900/2100/900 MHz

You very well might be right on the GSM thing, which would make it pretty much useless as a phone. Incidentally, the Telus network is by far the best in terms of service coverage in difficult areas, so I'm reluctant to switch carriers in case of outdoor emergencies.

Foolish question, but if SIM cards are for GSM phones, why do I need a SIM card on my non-GSM phone?  Everyone I know uses a SIM card.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

See, the thing is that on CDMA they're not called SIMs but R-UIM and later CSIMs (all standard SIMs are GSM).

And remember, data frequencies have little to do with voice protocols. The carriers have done some things so that they can share their data networks but they still need the subscriber to be logged on to their parent network, so being able to use HSPA or LTE has nothing to do with the standard used by the carrier (GSM or CDMA).

IOW, if you plan to use a non GSM carrier, you got a lovely mp3/wifi player.

[Aggie]

Eh, the price ($100 Canadian all in) was OK for that much. It's a good basic camera for the size, and if I can get it to function as a wifi music player, I'd be happy enough. I suppose I could borrow a Rogers card and see if it does indeed work on that network.

At least I didn't spend $600 one of those big bloody touch-slab phones. If it had worked, I'd have had to use it!

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Does Rogers have a prepaid service? You could try that at a very low cost and test coverage yourself.

[Griffin NoName]

Does anyone know how to work out what is making a smart phone (android) very slow to load each screen. The delay between clicking an app and the app opening etc is now so long it is really irritating.

Also, is there any way of telling an app not to run in background. I have tunein radio and I suspect many of my problems started with that and it runs all the time whether I want to use it or not.

I got so fed up I've been looking to upgrade to a bigger memory phone but latterly think that it's over-reacting, although not entirely silly as no room to load any more apps and keep running out of space for app updates.

[Griffin NoName]

I bought a new phone. It's Android 5.0.2 bang up to date. I am very pleased with it.

I decided I don't want to lock it while at home as typing in the pin number every time I pick it up is very irritating. so I've left it on swipe to open. Once you set a pin, you can never go back to swiping apparently.

I do want to lock it when out and about in case of loss or mugging. So I want a widget I can click to lock and then needs pin to open. Once opened it stays back on the swipe to open until I actually click the "lock" widget again.. ie. not like the provided pin lock on the phone which locks whenever phone not in use. I want to be in charge of the lock mechanism.

I've looked at google play and there are millions of lock apps with no real way of knowing if they work the way I want. Does anyone know of a good widget that might do what I want?

[Bluenose]

Hi Griff. I have switched to and from pin unlock several times. I'm currently using Android 5.2 and I'm out in the woods atm ,but when i get home I'll go through the steps and write then down for you.  Btw, there is a widget called "active apps" just press on a blank page of your home screen and select widgets. Then press the active apps icon. This will put it on the home screen. Pressing this will give you a screen that shows you what is running and allows you to stop any or all of them. I use it all the time and it improves battery life by stopping unneeded apps from using cpu cycles.

[Griffin NoName]

If you go down to the woods today.................

I did have Battery Doctor installed but I uninstalled it as I kept pressing Optimise and it always killed my wallpaper and in any case if I went back into it a few seconds after optimising it would tell me to optimise again...... I don't want a phone where I am just optimising all the time;) - it did give the option to stop apps, but I they always warn it might make things stop working properly so very wary of that. So interesting you stop apps. Also everywhere it tells people not to download Killer apps - is that different?

I found an excellent tricks and tips for my phone model. Only trouble was I'd already worked them out for myself.

There's no "Active Apps" in widgets (or in apps either for that matter).

I suspect it may have gone the way of several other useful functions that were in previous version.

Everyone is complaining there's no data on/off toggle pn 5.0.2 and none of the google play data toggle apps work on Lollipop. But I've found a toggle switch on my phone built in so I'm not entirely sure what the fuss is about. Admitted, it's not all that obvious where it is, but it's not hard to find if you play with your phone for a bit.

The user guide for my phone is well written and detailed. Only problem is, nothing at all works that way in Lollipop.

Love the phone.

[Bluenose]

Hmm, maybe that icon is something my telco has installed.  However, I have found another quick way you can kill all running apps.  Just tap on the left soft key at the bottom of the screen (to the left of the physical home key) then notice the bar that appears at the bottom of the screen, click on the right hand icon, the one with the x on it.  This will close all running apps. I do this (usingf my icon version) whenever I have finished using FB or my web browser etc, in other words when I['m about to put the phone back in my pocket or otherwise not use it.  This does seem to make a difference in battery life.

Also, Lollipop 5.2 seems better at battery usage and it certainly makes it way easier to disable apps you don't want such as all that BS the telco likes to "helpfully" include in you O/S bundle.  The download is about 900 GB (so you might want to do this via WiFi) and you need to make sure there is enough space on your phone - I have found making sure all your photos are on an SD card usually sorts this.  According to the online discussion forums I have visited about the issue 5.0.2 has a number of problems with battery consumption as well as some other issues that are resolved in 5.2, so you might well want to see if you can get it.  BTW although I backed everything up before the upgrade, the upgrade was seemless and I did not have to access any of my backed up data.  All my apps stayed alive and all my contacts and photos etc remained intact.  Of course your mileage may vary, so I would recommend backing it all up regardless.

Oh, and the data toggle (at least in 5.2).  Drag down from the top of the screen and select the settings icon (looks like a gear)  in quick settings click on Data Usage.  There is a check box you can clear to stop Mobile data.

[Griffin NoName]

Your phone is clearly quite a lot different to mine. There's no way of getting a bar at the bottom of the screen.

Anyway I don't want to kill all running apps. There's some I want to keep running. So I need a selective feature. I am going to keep rummaging around on my phone to see if I can find anything that gives battery usage and apps. Mostly the apps utlilities only show size of apps. and no stop feature. I don't want to get an app off playstore as people have warned lots of them mess up the phone.

Basically I only run my phone on WiFi as I am at home all the time. I have data turned off. I don't need to go into data usage to switch it on and off. There's a data toggle on/off if you drag the top right status bar down. That's what I meant. It's quicker.

There is a way of stopping apps you've just used on my phone. If you press Home the app stays running. But if instead you use the Back icon to get back to Home Screen then the app is closed. Really handy tip. Of course you wouldn't want to do that for all the crap apps - it would be very tedious to run them all just to back out of them LoL!.

All my photos, ring tones, are on my SD card. Apart from storage reasons it is useful to just transfer them from one phone to another. Although the transfer phone-to-phone Sony supply works like a dream.

I'll see if 5.2 is available for my phone.

[Bluenose]

Sorry I must have misunderstood. I thought you had a Samsung Galaxy S5.  If it's a Sony then that would explain the differences. D'oh!  

I would still go the 5.2 upgrade though if it's available.