5.1 update review, added info 7/7

[DDROIDJ]

I am having issues with the Voice function when in Handsfree (driving) Trying to get it to navigate to a location and instead it searches in Google for a website of the address or location. The only way I have been able to get it to work is to tell it to open maps and then give the location or address. Any tips on how to fix this?

 

[FoxKat]

Very interesting! I do generally have several notification apps at once (GMusic, My Data Manager,, GSAM, and Power Switches), but I wasn't doing anything particularly power intensive, at least not more than usual. Is there any way to re-calibrate it or something?

It's not really a matter of recalibrating. It's simply a matter of what they call voltage suppression. The phone's meters should have certain tolerances built in that allow for a percentage of voltage suppression before it would assume that it's reached a certain Plateau. Apparently there is not much difference in voltage between 8 percent and 0 and so whatever you had running in the background was sufficient to pull the voltage down and trigger a shutdown.

It may not have been any particular power intensive application, but simply a combination of one or more less intensive ones that happened to perhaps trigger an update at the same time and the combination of the two or more were sufficient to pull the voltage down enough to trigger shut down.

What you can do to prevent that in the future is as you see you're reaching near zero on your phone, make sure you end applications that you're not actively using. On the other hand, if you follow my threads you'll see that I'm an advocate of not pushing your battery levels down below 15% if at all possible. When battery levels are within 15 percent of either 100% full or 0% empty, it stresses the battery and ultimately results in a shortening of its overall life span. It also therefore means that as the lifespan gets shorter, each subsequent charge will last a shorter period of time as well.

These batteries are defined as having reached the end of life when they will no longer hold at least 80 percent of its original rated charge capacity. This means of course, that a 100 percent charge would only result in approximately 80% of the usage time that you would have gotten when the battery was brand new. Therefore, 10% charge remaining would actually feel and act a lot more like 8% (or less) in that example.

These lithium-ion batteries prefer to be recharged partially numerous times throughout the day as opposed to being fully charged and then fully depleted before being recharged again. I recommend you carry a spare charger with you and plug in whenever convenient, or carry a portable battery backup and use that to boost the cell phone's battery power intermittently throughout the day as well.

 

[PereDroid]

A) My only semi gripe is that notification shade thingy that I posted about in the other thread.

B) Most folks do NOT do an FDR. I would say a MINORITY do. I have not.

 

[k1ngr4t]

It's not really a matter of recalibrating. It's simply a matter of what they call voltage suppression. The phone's meters should have certain tolerances built in that allow for a percentage of voltage suppression before it would assume that it's reached a certain Plateau. Apparently there is not much difference in voltage between 8 percent and 0 and so whatever you had running in the background was sufficient to pull the voltage down and trigger a shutdown.

It may not have been any particular power intensive application, but simply a combination of one or more less intensive ones that happened to perhaps trigger an update at the same time and the combination of the two or more were sufficient to pull the voltage down enough to trigger shut down.

What you can do to prevent that in the future is as you see you're reaching near zero on your phone, make sure you end applications that you're not actively using. On the other hand, if you follow my threads you'll see that I'm an advocate of not pushing your battery levels down below 15% if at all possible. When battery levels are within 15 percent of either 100% full or 0% empty, it stresses the battery and ultimately results in a shortening of its overall life span. It also therefore means that as the lifespan gets shorter, each subsequent charge will last a shorter period of time as well.

These batteries are defined as having reached the end of life when they will no longer hold at least 80 percent of its original rated charge capacity. This means of course, that a 100 percent charge would only result in approximately 80% of the usage time that you would have gotten when the battery was brand new. Therefore, 10% charge remaining would actually feel and act a lot more like 8% (or less) in that example.

These lithium-ion batteries prefer to be recharged partially numerous times throughout the day as opposed to being fully charged and then fully depleted before being recharged again. I recommend you carry a spare charger with you and plug in whenever convenient, or carry a portable battery backup and use that to boost the cell phone's battery power intermittently throughout the day as well.

I just find it so odd that even if the phone is being used with all the same stuff, I lose maybe 5% an hour give or take. And none of it is particularly "burst" intensive, just 2 monitoring apps and then power toggles. For the phone to shut off at 7% and 8% (which now that I think about it is actually the only two times it's ever gotten that low since I take a lot of your advice and normally plug it in at 30ish!), even when it's in its "sleep" mode...I dunno, I guess I'll just have to start pretending 10% is closer to 2%. Oh well, rarely goes past 15 anyways, so...

 

[FoxKat]

Well if you do follow what I suggest the perhaps a recalibration charging cycle isn't a bad idea. You know how to do this, right?

Power off phone completely
Plug into charger and allow it to charge to 100%
Unplug and use to 15%
Power off completely again
Plug in and charge to 100% again

Operate as normal from there forward.

 

[PereDroid]

Sounds like witch craft to me.

 

[RyanPm40]

My friend hates what they did with the volume control in this update. We can't figure out how to put it on silent while still receiving notifications? She hates having it vibrate all the time. Also, sometimes you'll go into an app and expect the volume buttons will affect media (like in Google Music), but often it just decides "Nah, I'm gonna change the ringer volume instead!". Also has been getting poor battery life. Maybe she needs a factory reset?

Don't quite get why holding the power button now only gives you the option of powering off instead of other options like restart, airplane mode, silent mode, etc.

 

[iiWoodstocK]

My friend hates what they did with the volume control in this update. We can't figure out how to put it on silent while still receiving notifications? She hates having it vibrate all the time. Also, sometimes you'll go into an app and expect the volume buttons will affect media (like in Google Music), but often it just decides "Nah, I'm gonna change the ringer volume instead!". Also has been getting poor battery life. Maybe she needs a factory reset?

Don't quite get why holding the power button now only gives you the option of powering off now instead of other options like restart, airplane mode, silent mode, etc.

Tap one of the volume keys, and the on screen volume controls will appear. When *All* is selected, that's like regular ringer on. With *All* selected, tap the Bell icon (left of the slider) to get vibrate only. *Priority* makes it so that it's ringer on, but notifications only from user specified contacts/apps. *None* is completely silent mode, no alarms will go off as well. *Priority* can be set up where no contracts are "whitelisted" so alarms will go off, but the rest of the phone is on silent, just like KitKat's silent mode.

 

[RyanPm40]

Tap one of the volume keys, and the on screen volume controls will appear. When *All* is selected, that's like regular ringer on. With *All* selected, tap the Bell icon (left of the slider) to get vibrate only. *Priority* makes it so that it's ringer on, but notifications only from user specified contacts/apps. *None* is completely silent mode, no alarms will go off as well. *Priority* can be set up where no contracts are "whitelisted" so alarms will go off, but the rest of the phone is on silent, just like KitKat's silent mode.

This last part is just asinine to me, making a very basic and easy feature have a few extra annoying steps. My friend totally screwed herself for work with that *None* mode, didn't realize it would disable her alarm since most other phones' silent mode doesn't haha. So what do you mean by "no contracts are 'whitelisted'"? I'll have to pass this info along to her.

EDIT

Also, is this a native lollipop thing or just a Turbo thing? Just wondering because it doesn't do this stuff on my S4, but I'm not sure what to expect when I get the Xperia Z4v or LG G4 in a few weeks. It would certainly drive me insane and be enough to make me stay with Samsung.

 

[PereDroid]

Supposedly 5.1.1 brings the power button options back. Anyone confirm?

TapaTurbo

 

[iiWoodstocK]

This last part is just asinine to me, making a very basic and easy feature have a few extra annoying steps. My friend totally screwed herself for work with that *None* mode, didn't realize it would disable her alarm since most other phones' silent mode doesn't haha. So what do you mean by "no contracts are 'whitelisted'"? I'll have to pass this info along to her.

EDIT

Also, is this a native lollipop thing or just a Turbo thing? Just wondering because it doesn't do this stuff on my S4, but I'm not sure what to expect when I get the Xperia Z4v or LG G4 in a few weeks. It would certainly drive me insane and be enough to make me stay with Samsung.

By "white listed" I mean contacts that don't conform to the silencing of Notifications. So for me, I have priority mode set where only my family will make my phone make noise, everyone else, including app notifications are silenced.

This function is a new feature in stock Lollipop. Since the Turbo runs almost vanilla Lollipop, it has these controls. Samsung probably reworked the way the volume controls work with TouchWiz

 

[RyanPm40]

By "white listed" I mean contacts that don't conform to the silencing of Notifications. So for me, I have priority mode set where only my family will make my phone make noise, everyone else, including app notifications are silenced.

This function is a new feature in stock Lollipop. Since the Turbo runs almost vanilla Lollipop, it has these controls. Samsung probably reworked the way the volume controls work with TouchWiz

Thanks a lot for the info! I'll have to look out for that when playing with Sony and LG's phones.

 

[obxsalvo]

My friend hates what they did with the volume control in this update. We can't figure out how to put it on silent while still receiving notifications? She hates having it vibrate all the time. Also, sometimes you'll go into an app and expect the volume buttons will affect media (like in Google Music), but often it just decides "Nah, I'm gonna change the ringer volume instead!". Also has been getting poor battery life. Maybe she needs a factory reset?

Don't quite get why holding the power button now only gives you the option of powering off instead of other options like restart, airplane mode, silent mode, etc.

The power button will also reboot your phone if you hold it in for about 7 or 8 seconds, when screen goes blank release it and the phone will reboot. ( it takes a few seconds before the reboot starts. )

 

[Yeti35]

I noticed an added feature today I did not have before the update. It will now read my text through the car speakers provided I have the Bluetooth turned on. I didn't have that with KK. What sucks is it still uses the phone speaker rather then the car one when replying. So I end up having to talk louder or pick up my phone to speak my text into it. Works via the Drive mode in Moto. I have a 2010 VW Touareg which did not have this capability built in.

 

[obxsalvo]

I noticed an added feature today I did not have before the update. It will now read my text through the car speakers provided I have the Bluetooth turned on. I didn't have that with KK. What sucks is it still uses the phone speaker rather then the car one when replying. So I end up having to talk louder or pick up my phone to speak my text into it. Works via the Drive mode in Moto. I have a 2010 VW Touareg which did not have this capability built in.

Maybe it's because you go so fast through standing water and your car system is goofed up??

Just a joke based on your icon