Nexus Noob questions

[greycobalt]

So I finally switched from my X2 to a Nexus and I'm in love. It's like night and day. One of the only problems so far (and I've seen numerous threads here) is the battery. It barely lasts half a day before recharge. It's ludicrous. I also think it's fairly dumb you have to shut off and disable everything that makes it a smart phone to get adequate life out of it. That being said, any recommendations on an extended battery? People recommend the Seidio, but I can't really afford that at the moment. Amazon has a number of $20 ones with the same capacity, any advice or experience? Is the "official" Verizon extended battery as much a rip off as it sounds? I'll miss my cool case though. :-(

Without being rooted, is there a way to remove the keyboard and GPS icons from the notification tray? They're very irritating.

Is there a Wifi app that automatically connects to the strongest signal Wifi? We have a booster in our home, and the phone will hang on to the crappy signal until I manually go in and tell it to connect to the much closer, much stronger booster signal, and vice versa when I'm back. Not the phone's fault, just annoying.

Back to the battery thing, is that just poor design, or poor software utilization? Sometimes when it's dying and I'm using it plugged in, it will still go down in percentage until I leave it alone for a while. That doesn't seem right.

Anyway, thanks muchly for the help!

 

[ntrddragn]

So I finally switched from my X2 to a Nexus and I'm in love. It's like night and day. One of the only problems so far (and I've seen numerous threads here) is the battery. It barely lasts half a day before recharge. It's ludicrous. I also think it's fairly dumb you have to shut off and disable everything that makes it a smart phone to get adequate life out of it. That being said, any recommendations on an extended battery? People recommend the Seidio, but I can't really afford that at the moment. Amazon has a number of $20 ones with the same capacity, any advice or experience? Is the "official" Verizon extended battery as much a rip off as it sounds? I'll miss my cool case though. :-(

Without being rooted, is there a way to remove the keyboard and GPS icons from the notification tray? They're very irritating.

Is there a Wifi app that automatically connects to the strongest signal Wifi? We have a booster in our home, and the phone will hang on to the crappy signal until I manually go in and tell it to connect to the much closer, much stronger booster signal, and vice versa when I'm back. Not the phone's fault, just annoying.

Back to the battery thing, is that just poor design, or poor software utilization? Sometimes when it's dying and I'm using it plugged in, it will still go down in percentage until I leave it alone for a while. That doesn't seem right.

Anyway, thanks muchly for the help!

not sure if you saw this thread about the $20 battery. http://www.droidforums.net/forum/galaxy-nexus-accessories/203054-20-3800-mah-battery-test-comparision.html

not sure about the wifi app. mine just setup to lock onto my personal wifi whenever im near it.

 

[dezymond]

I don't have a keyboard or GPS icon on my notification tray, even when I was stock. GPS icon will go away when you turn it off, as for keyboard, are you using a 3rd party keyboard?

Once you connect your wifi to the booster signal it should automatically stick with the booster.

If you use your phone while charging, especially using 4g, it will drain. That is normal and I do this alot.

 

[sbenson]

So I finally switched from my X2 to a Nexus and I'm in love. It's like night and day. One of the only problems so far (and I've seen numerous threads here) is the battery. It barely lasts half a day before recharge. It's ludicrous. I also think it's fairly dumb you have to shut off and disable everything that makes it a smart phone to get adequate life out of it. That being said, any recommendations on an extended battery? People recommend the Seidio, but I can't really afford that at the moment. Amazon has a number of $20 ones with the same capacity, any advice or experience? Is the "official" Verizon extended battery as much a rip off as it sounds? I'll miss my cool case though. :-(

Without being rooted, is there a way to remove the keyboard and GPS icons from the notification tray? They're very irritating.

Is there a Wifi app that automatically connects to the strongest signal Wifi? We have a booster in our home, and the phone will hang on to the crappy signal until I manually go in and tell it to connect to the much closer, much stronger booster signal, and vice versa when I'm back. Not the phone's fault, just annoying.

Back to the battery thing, is that just poor design, or poor software utilization? Sometimes when it's dying and I'm using it plugged in, it will still go down in percentage until I leave it alone for a while. That doesn't seem right.

Anyway, thanks muchly for the help!

Battery life on the Nexus is one of the topics we see most here. Unfortunately, rooting and taking some proactive steps is the only way to get decent battery life out of this phone unless you're willing to castrate your phone (i.e. turn 4g off, wifi off, gps off, screen brightness all the way down).

With the official Verizon extended (2100mah), you'll still be able to use your case and it will give you a decent boost (1-2 hours+). When I was completely stock, with the extended battery, I was getting around 12hrs per day with everything turned on - average daily use. When I started tampering with stuff and trying custom roms and kernel, my battery life was easily boosted into the 18-20 hour range under the same usage patterns.

If battery life is important to you and you won't root, take that bad boy back and get a Galaxy S3. It will get MUCH better battery life stock out of the box.

 

[greycobalt]

Thanks for all the tips guys!

I know the GPS is there to show you you're using it, but there hasn't been a time where I didn't know I was using it, so it's mostly redundant and cluttery for me. I am using Swiftkey at the moment, but before I installed it when I was using the stock keyboard there was also a keyboard icon in the tray. Clicking it lets me select which input type I'd like to use.

As for the Wifi, what happens is, we have a room with our computers where we spend a lot of time. The main router is in here, so we have great signal and no problem. But, if I go to the other side of the house to hang out, that main router signal goes down to 1 bar or less, while the booster is 5 feet away from me with 5 bars, and it won't switch. That's what is a little annoying.

I have no problem rooting, I was just excited that this would be the first smartphone that I didn't HAVE to root to get rid of bloatware and actually make use of. That, and I was waiting to stock update to Jellybean. I'm a fairly advanced user in that I know how to root and flash and not totally screw up my phone, but last time I had anything to do with kernels is where I drew the line...I was super confused. Is there any easy way to do what you're saying? If I could get 18 hours out of the Verizon battery with just some kernel tweaking and stuff that would be amazing.

Also, I did originally want to shoot for an S3, but something about the Nexus kept drawing me back. I didn't use my upgrade off it, I found a guy on Craigslist who wanted to sell his, so I still have my upgrade. I guess I can keep it in case of a Nexus emergency. I'm in total love with my phone though besides the battery. That's the only drawback for me!

 

[cupfulloflol]

The keyboard icon shows up whenever you have multiple keyboards enabled, as they have killed the long press to change input methods that existed in GB and earlier. If you run a custom ROM you can disable that option.

The GPS icon I don't know of a way to kill, outside of theming it, to make the icon invisiible. While I am not saying it isn't possible with an option inside of a custom ROM, I just haven't seed a ROM with said option.

I have noticed the wifi signal reporting on this phone is a little wacky. I don't notice performance degradation, but I do drop a bar sometimes when I am sitting less than 5 feet from the router. While I can't get as far away from the router as I can with my laptop with it's USB dongle (it has an antenna), it is on par or better than my HP Touchpad, my OG Droid, or my daughter's Bionic.

The official extended battery isn't that much of an upgrade. It is about a 10% upgrade in power, so it isn't going to double your battery or anything like that. I mean it is nice, as it doesn't add bulk, and most cases and accessories (like docks/cradles) will still work with it. I am not at all experienced with any of the other extended batteries. I have seen some mixed reviews on some of them, as in non-functioning NFC even though it says it has NFC, or not extending battery life over stock even though it is twice the size. Of course YMMV on all this.

As far as actual battery life, there are so many things that can come into play when considering battery life there is no 1 solution to "fix" them all. There are more tricks you can do once rooted to get the life better, but this is the case with all devices. http://www.droidforums.net/forum/ga...aokp-rom-flashed-now-battery.html#post2179474 <-- I linked to a few threads and apps there that are helpful. The threads go into things that probably require root, the apps can still be helpful though, especially BBM (which has been renamed to GSamBM).

 

[jntdroid]

Just a thought on your home wifi - I don't know if a NFC tag or Tectile could be programmed to do something this specific , but if so, you could have two tags, one located near your main router and one located near the other end of the house. Then, when you walk by one or the other, you simply touch the phone to it, and it disconnects you from one and connects you to the other. Again, if that kind of thing can be programmed into a tag...

sent from my phone

 

[cupfulloflol]

Just a thought on your home wifi - I don't know if a NFC tag or Tectile could be programmed to do something this specific , but if so, you could have two tags, one located near your main router and one located near the other end of the house. Then, when you walk by one or the other, you simply touch the phone to it, and it disconnects you from one and connects you to the other. Again, if that kind of thing can be programmed into a tag...

sent from my phone

That isn't a bad idea, I misread that he wants to switch routers. This may be achievable with something like Tasker , not entirely sure though as I am not that familiar with Tasker. NFC tags should work as well.

 

[greycobalt]

I'm only vaguely familiar with NFC, I only read a bit about it. I have no idea where it is or how to make tags, haha.

As for the rooting thing, again, definitely not opposed, was just looking forward to a phone that didn't make me feel like I had to! Now to root, doesn't it need to be unlocked? And if I unlock it, don't I wipe everything? That makes me a sad panda.

I have no idea which direction to go with the battery thing. I love the look and feel of the phone now, and my sexy case. I'd be totally happy with it if I could just use it and not have it die on me a few hours later. I suppose I'll have to just suck it and get a battery though, as a nice looking phone doesn't mean much when it's dead. I know the Verizon one is a super marginal increase, I thought it had to be a misprint when I first read it. Out of the third-party batteries, is there any specific one you would recommend?