35 replies to this topic

[[email protected]]

I saw some review of early batches which have poor quality control; i.e glass not fitting correctly, abnormal battery drain, and some noise on the mic while charging..did any of you guys have these?

Also, how good is the screen? can it be at par with the Samsung S3? And how good is the battery life?

TIA

[RussellS]

[email protected], on 07 February 2013 - 03:12 AM, said:

I saw some review of early batches which have poor quality control; i.e glass not fitting correctly, abnormal battery drain, and some noise on the mic while charging..did any of you guys have these?

Also, how good is the screen? can it be at par with the Samsung S3? And how good is the battery life?

TIA

I havn't heard any problems regarding quality control as such, only that they had problems with their original lcd screen supplier and had to find an alternative supplier which was the reason for the delayed release.
Their was a battery drain issue when in standby with an earlier firmware release but that was apparently sorted with the November firmware release (G3-20121129-082828).
The build quality on mine is excellent and everything is fitted perfectly. I can't comment on the mic noise as I havn't tested it but I will do some testing today and let you know.

With regard to the screen, it really is excellent. I havn't done a side by side comparison with a S3 but I have seen both and I don't feel at all dissapointed with the G3 screen after looking at an S3. Also the touch screen is really, really excellent. It glides around so smoothly and has excellent sensitivity. I don't think anybody could find fault with either the lcd or the touch screen.

Also, the stock firmware appears to be excellent. With the Huawei G300 it has been a constant battle to find the best firmware. However, with the G3 the stock firmware just seems to work and I haven’t found any bugs or annoyances (see caveat below).


I have found one problem with the G3 which I am still investigating related to the bluetooth. I am having difficulty getting it to work with the built in bluetooth hands free system in my car. The G3 is running Jelly Bean (4.1.2) and would pair with the car bluetooth but would then not connect reliably. However, I have seen lots of reports on the internet of other phones having problems like this after updating to Jelly Bean most noticeably from Samsung Galaxy S3 owners. Apparently this is due to Google changing the bluetooth stack in 4.1.1 onwards which has caused various problems with some bluetooth profiles. However, the G3 works fine with a Bluetooth headset, Bluetooth stereo headphones and a bluetooth A2DP music receiver. It is only my car bluetooth that is having problems at this moment.

I am currently going back to ICS to test the bluetooth to see if it works ok with that. I will report back when I have more information.

[RussellS]

[email protected], on 07 February 2013 - 03:12 AM, said:

....... and some noise on the mic while charging..did any of you guys have these?

I have tested it today by making some sound recordings using the mic with the phone charging and not charging and I can honestly say there is no difference in the sound quality or the noise level. However, I'm not using the charger supplied with the G3 as I don't particularly trust the very cheap chinese chargers. It doesn't have any CE or BS certification labels on it and also it has a US mains connector. Therefore I have tested using the G300 charger, a Motorola Charger and an HTC charger and they are all fine.

Now, with regards to the Bluetooth and my car hands free system. I'm happy to report that having downgraded to ICS the bluetooth connection to my car appears to be working fine. It has downloaded the phonebook to the car & I've made and received a few calls without issue. So it looks as though the issues I had were related to Jelly Bean and the fact that Google appear to have dropped the ball a bit. I have seen further reports from Galaxy S3 & Google Nexus owners reporting various bluetooth issues since updating to Jelly bean especially with regard to car hands free systems.

I will keep my phone on ICS for a few days just to check that it is indeed working consistantly and reliably in the car and then, once this is confirmed, go back to Jelly Bean and see if I can get that working.

Edited by RussellS, 08 February 2013 - 01:11 PM.

[[email protected]]

thanks russells!

[[email protected]]

Somebody here at Modaco believes the Umi X1 is better than the G3 except the battery. He mentioned there's a slight lag on the G3 even when creating an Sms, probably due to the bigger HD screen and older GPU..anyways I've been happy with my ZTE BLADE, and I believe the G3 is a worthy upgrade..

[RussellS]

[email protected], on 09 February 2013 - 11:59 PM, said:

Somebody here at Modaco believes the Umi X1 is better than the G3 except the battery. He mentioned there's a slight lag on the G3 even when creating an Sms, probably due to the bigger HD screen and older GPU..anyways I've been happy with my ZTE BLADE, and I believe the G3 is a worthy upgrade..

Obviously I can't comment on the Umi X1 because I don't actually own one so I cannot do a side by side comparison. However, I personally don't think there is anything really to choose between them as the specs are pretty much the same except for battery size. I don't know why you think that the G3 has a bigger HD screen or an older GPU because they are both exactly the same. Both phones have a 720x1280, 326 ppi screen and both phones have a PowerVR SGX531 Ultra GPU.

The specs of both phones can be seen here which is the retailer I purchased my G3 from. You need to scroll down the page past all the pictures to get to the specs.

Umi X1: http://etotalk.com/u...bean_p3206.html

Jiayu G3: http://etotalk.com/j...id40_p3144.html

With respect to the slight lag you mentioned, I can honestly say I havn't experienced any lag at all. Everything is silky smooth. I've tried three different roms in my G3 and they have all been extremely responsive with no signs of lag whatsoever and I do tend to have quite a few widgets on my home screens which would make any lag even worse were it present.

So, bearing in mind that both phones appear to be pretty much the same inside, the only thing to choose between them is the styling and, of course, the battery size.

Edited by RussellS, 10 February 2013 - 10:55 AM.

[[email protected]]

I just read that buddy, (or misread it for that matter) and hard to link it up using Tapatalk..however what concerned me most was the word "lag" when I saw it, and I don't uave much experience with Mediatek, so..

anyways thanks for the reassurance..I myself believe that the only differences aside from the battery size is the styling, and I'm leaning towards the g3..

Edited by [email protected], 10 February 2013 - 01:47 PM.

[RussellS]

[email protected], on 10 February 2013 - 01:41 PM, said:

I just read that buddy, (or misread it for that matter) and hard to link it up using Tapatalk..however what concerned me most was the word "lag" when I saw it, and I don't uave much experience with Mediatek, so..

anyways thanks for the reassurance..I myself believe that the only differences aside from the battery size is the styling, and I'm leaning towards the g3..

Just one more thing, I don't know what this particular chipset and GPU is like for gaming and I think it would probably struggle with some of the more graphics intense 3D games out there. However I think that would be the same for any phone in this price range. I personally don't want a phone for those types of games. Look at the following YouTube video which shows three different Chinese phones with this chipset & GPU running N.O.V.A 3. You have to bear in mind of course that he is comparing them to a phone that costs £300+.



All the games I have run on the phone however have run very smoothly but then they weren't highly graphics intensive 3D FPS games.

Edited by RussellS, 10 February 2013 - 03:23 PM.

[[email protected]]

owI saw that review a few days ago, and tbh, I don't expect it to be a gaming machine - I have my desktop for that..but it's good to know it can play some new games..I believe the G3 gets about 5000+ in Antutu, and another user claims he gets 6,000 points with a particular ROM..heck - my Allwinner A10 tablet scores just about 2500, but I'm happy with it, how much more double the performance..lol

For me, the G3 will be for browsing and other online stuff, and happy to see it has 1gb ram and the big batteries (not quite sure if the mah rating is correct)..multitasking and 3G connectivity are the most important considerations, plus a great screen for reading..(I have two batteries charged up at all times with my Blade, as we all know 3G, data, and screen times are battery killers)

But yeah, a decent proccy-gpu combo in this price tag and design makes the G3 a winner in my book! Can't wait for the Chinese New Year holidays to be finished and have the G3 delivered!

Now, going back to Root, you guys tried Superuser App and SuperSu? Some devices have issues with one or the other..also do they have a rooted Stock rom from the manufacturer? Not that I care about warranties, just good to know..

Another bonus of rooting? we can try Chainfire to lower down some graphics of some games..maybe we can add a few FPS out of that NOVA game, and GTA, both of which can be found on Youtube running slow on the G3..

Edited by [email protected], 10 February 2013 - 05:23 PM.

[RussellS]

[email protected], on 10 February 2013 - 05:07 PM, said:

Now, going back to Root, you guys tried Superuser App and SuperSu? Some devices have issues with one or the other..also do they have a rooted Stock rom from the manufacturer? Not that I care about warranties, just good to know..

I have used both Superuser & SuperSu albeit on different roms and they both seem to work fine. Here are the roms I have used:

I purchased the G3 from Etotalk and opted for their mod rom which, I think, is a stock rom with just the Chinese apps removed and the standard google apps and services added. This rom was rooted when I got it.
I then installed the beta 4.1.2 Jelly Bean rom as described in putbinoot's post http://www.modaco.co...d/#entry2063123 . This rom is pre-rooted and contains all the Google stuff. If I remember correctly this had Superuser installed.
I then installed the last official ICS rom (G3-20121129-082828) which is not pre-rooted. I rooted it by following putbinoot's guide again and this uses SuperSu.

[[email protected]]

I have found a collection of ROMs for the Jiayu G3 http://www.needrom.c...-roms/jiayu/g3/

looks like a rather large collection, but I'm looking forward to a CM or AOKP - based ones..

I'm not sure if kernel sources have been released as mentioned in this blog http://techideki.com...0121129-082828/ (last paragraph), and if so, it won't be long before some serious ROMs will be released as well..

[RussellS]

[email protected], on 11 February 2013 - 02:32 PM, said:

I have found a collection of ROMs for the Jiayu G3 http://www.needrom.c...-roms/jiayu/g3/

Nice find, I will check those out.

[email protected], on 11 February 2013 - 02:32 PM, said:

I'm not sure if kernel sources have been released as mentioned in this blog http://techideki.com...0121129-082828/ (last paragraph), and if so, it won't be long before some serious ROMs will be released as well..

To be honest I am extremely impressed with the stock roms. Except for the small problem I have experienced with bluetooth in the beta 4.1.2 rom I havn't come across any bugs or annoyances at all. As it stands at the moment I would be quite happy staying on the November ICS release rom which I am running at the moment. Obviously Jelly Bean would be nice but I'm not desperate for it at the moment.

However, having said that, it is always nice to have some developer support for the phone to carry on when the manufacturer has moved on to newer models and stops development on the previous models. It would be nice to see a CyanogenMod release for the G3 either officially by the CM team (unlikely) or a port by a third party developer.


P.S. Bluetooth is still working fine in my car since going back to ICS.

[[email protected]]

I don't know if this really works, or if it would work with the Jiayu G3, but this looks interesting (OP 5) http://forum.xda-dev...d.php?t=2114292

Basically what it does is it allows you to repartition the internal storage so you can install more apps..kinda like a TPT Resize for the ZTE Blade which I have and have found useful.

OP 6 seems to be fix for GPS..

Edited by [email protected], 13 February 2013 - 08:10 AM.

[[email protected]]

Does the stock ROM have Performance Settings? and does the stock kernel allow overclock / underclock or maybe voltage controls?

[RussellS]

[email protected], on 21 February 2013 - 01:31 AM, said:

Does the stock ROM have Performance Settings? and does the stock kernel allow overclock / underclock or maybe voltage controls?

No, the stock rom doesn't allow any of that.

[[email protected]]

RussellS, on 21 February 2013 - 07:38 PM, said:

No, the stock rom doesn't allow any of that.

So, how do we make Jiayu release the Kernel sources? The way it is, mt6577 would just stay competitive for another 6 months or so. But if we have custom development we would probably be okay for at least a year. Look at the ZTE Blade. It's probably the non highend phone with the biggest community. It has been three years since it has been released and its still as updated as we speak: I got 4.2.2 on mine!