Guest at90 Posted January 19, 2011 Report Posted January 19, 2011 I really like this phone and see it as a good upgrade from my previous Nokia E71, but I'm getting fed up with the inconsistent performance of the device. Sometimes it's great, everything runs and loads smoothly and it's really nice to use. Other times it's like I put diesel in a petrol car and everything feels sluggish, transition animations are jerky and with simple things like text messaging, the keyboard freezes and ends up putting about 20 spaces instead of only one I pressed for. Yesterday I couldn't even answer a call because the phone had frozen which was extremely frustrating, yet this morning the phone was working great. Anyone else have this problem with their phone?
Guest at90 Posted January 19, 2011 Report Posted January 19, 2011 Which rom you currently use? Just the stock Orange rom with all the crap removed.
Guest T3KO Posted January 19, 2011 Report Posted January 19, 2011 If still on stock Rom: http://android.modaco.com/content/zte-blad...-the-zte-blade/ I use Jellyfish and everything is running perfect.
Guest Kthulhu Posted January 19, 2011 Report Posted January 19, 2011 A frozen screen once could be for a number of reasons but I have two phones and I do not find them "sluggish". The cover plastic quality and buttons is cheap, and in my opinion, quality of "phone calling" speakers and earpiece is not great sometimes. Maybe is the rom you are using, is 2.1 or 2,.2? the apps installed?
Guest Rotmann Posted January 19, 2011 Report Posted January 19, 2011 (edited) Install one of the 2.2 ROMs out there and the phone will be pretty close to perfect. It's your fault that the phone is sluggish, you left the crappy orange software on it. Edited January 19, 2011 by Rotmann
Guest ricer Posted January 19, 2011 Report Posted January 19, 2011 Yeah 2.2 has some significant performance improvements.
Guest ellhead Posted January 19, 2011 Report Posted January 19, 2011 The stock Orange Rom is pants. I say install a custom Rom. If you don't want to go for a 2.2, use one of the 2.1 roms, the developers have done an incredible job.
Guest darren_ Posted January 19, 2011 Report Posted January 19, 2011 I also run the stock ROM with Orange stuff removed. I find it quite nippy with Launcher Pro so haven't bothered to upgrade to 2.2 yet. I have noticed that on a few occasions after booting up (I charge the phone with it off as I find it takes a better charge that way) the phone is very sluggish and OSMonitor App (free from Marketplace, needs root) shows a process is using up 100% CPU. By covering the light sensor at top left hand of screen the 3 buttons light up and this process dissappears and phone then works fine. This problem is discussed in another thread.
Guest SqueakyG Posted January 19, 2011 Report Posted January 19, 2011 (edited) Install one of the 2.2 ROMs out there and the phone will be pretty close to perfect. It's your fault that the phone is sluggish, you left the crappy orange software on it. I don't know if you're joking or not. Are you joking? See, this forum can be an intimidating culture. I'm an Android newbie who ended up here because most of the time when I googled stuff about the San Francisco it pointed me here. But this is such a hardcore ROM community, it seems there are no solutions that don't involve installing a different ROM. I'm learning as much as I can, and perhaps I may even pluck up the courage to do it, but you have to understand that it's intense. I don't really know what I'm doing. I'll be following instructions to the letter... but these instructions are sometimes too advanced. StephenHarperUK's 18th Jan guide is well-written for the newbie, but many ROM release threads are still impenetrable. For example, he points to one that instructs: "ENSURE YOU HAVE A NANDROID BACKUP BEFORE FLASHING! You must also almost certainly wipe before installation." Er, what? OMG, that's actually intimidating, and what is nandroid? So I don't really agree that it's "my fault" for not doing this. Apologies if you were joking. As for the thread subject: I think my phone runs pretty well, considering I'm using LauncherPro and I deleted most of the Orange junk with Titanium Backup. I'm disappointed that Angry Birds slows down badly whenever there's a lot of physics (does Android 2.2 fix this, or is it a limitation of the 600mhz processor?). And I don't know if I can make the battery life less disappointing. The stock task manager mostly shows a CPU % of about 15-25%. Is that normal, or should it be more like 1% when doing nothing? So it depends how much deeper I want to go. It's a pretty fine phone already for the price. 90% of people who walk out of the Orange shop with a San Francisco probably don't even switch from the Orange launcher, never mind learn what rooting means. Custom ROMS... advanced. I'll decide if it's worth the frayed nerves. Edited January 19, 2011 by SqueakyG
Guest ellhead Posted January 19, 2011 Report Posted January 19, 2011 I think he was joking. LOL. Being a budget phone with butchered software a stock phone is bound to suffer from a few bugs. If it's running slow it may be because of the ram cap? When I flashed mine the first time I didn't make a nandroid backup. Bad practice. And I was lucky enough Not yo run into problems. I don't think it's possible to propper brick your phone though. You always have clockwork recovery to really flash a dodgy install.
Guest tmanutdb Posted January 19, 2011 Report Posted January 19, 2011 I'm disappointed that Angry Birds slows down badly whenever there's a lot of physics (does Android 2.2 fix this, or is it a limitation of the 600mhz processor?). And I don't know if I can make the battery life less disappointing. So it depends how much deeper I want to go. It's a pretty fine phone already for the price. 90% of people who walk out of the Orange shop with a San Francisco probably don't even switch from the Orange launcher, never mind learn what rooting means. Custom ROMS... advanced. I'll decide if it's worth the frayed nerves. Ok, im running Sebs 2.2 desoftened rom. It runs angry birds really well. No slow down (which i did experience on 2.1- even the custom 2.1 roms). Use the battery recalibration thread to help your battery life. All i can say is yes, its really worth learning how to flash your phone as the benefits are a faster, smoother phone that looks so much better. I can't recommend the developers on here enough.
Guest SqueakyG Posted January 19, 2011 Report Posted January 19, 2011 When I flashed mine the first time I didn't make a nandroid backup. Bad practice. And I was lucky enough Not yo run into problems. I don't think it's possible to propper brick your phone though. You always have clockwork recovery to really flash a dodgy install. StephenHarperUK's guide says you should do a backup with Clockwork's "Backup". Is that sufficient? What is nandroid? And is it better?
Guest Pelemane Posted January 19, 2011 Report Posted January 19, 2011 StephenHarperUK's guide says you should do a backup with Clockwork's "Backup". Is that sufficient? What is nandroid? And is it better? nandroid=clockworks backup
Guest ellhead Posted January 19, 2011 Report Posted January 19, 2011 The performance gains from 2.2 are pretty big, maybe not in every day use, but for games and video it is. Angry birds used to take a while to load a level properly (stuttering if i was to eager), music playback used to skip whilst screen was rotating or locking, video used to stutter as the progress bar faded on and off the screen etc.. I'm running Paul's 2.2 alpha r4 and i'm pretty pleased with it. all the above mentioned problems are fixed, i've got slight instability sometimes due to the nature of an alpha and the pendulum lock screen is horrendous lol. The 600mhz processor is more than enough to run most programs. the HTC wildfire is only packing a 5XXMhz proc if i remember right and the OSF has a far superior screen. i think it will be a while before it is rendered obsolete. The speed at which the 2.2 roms are getting pumped out is astonishing, for example paul is on his 8th beta if I remember correctly. If you don't like the idea of running through revisions of roms, backing up and reflashing, stick with what you have got, wait a month or two, and then take the plunge. by that time i'm sure there will be oodles of youtube tutorials. Stick with the forums though and keep up to date, the resources are getting better all the time.
Guest SqueakyG Posted January 19, 2011 Report Posted January 19, 2011 What exactly does Paul's ROM contain? The thread is quite confusing for a newbie. It's got this huge box about a "Kitchen" where you can order apps and features if you have a premium account on this forum. But if you just download the ROM as a regular person, does it not contain these things? I wouldn't want to miss anything that's already installed on the basic Orange ROM (minus the Orange crap I deleted, of course!)
Guest Xenon0816 Posted January 19, 2011 Report Posted January 19, 2011 I agree with the others: It really is worth to learn how to flash your phone... And once you learned it, it takes you 10 minutes to flash and check out a new rom and another 5 to go back to your previous rom...
Guest JHdD Posted January 19, 2011 Report Posted January 19, 2011 The first time you flash you're nervous and think it's bricked when booting takes a long time. The second time around it's a breeze.
Guest Scoopading Posted January 20, 2011 Report Posted January 20, 2011 I also run the stock ROM with Orange stuff removed. I find it quite nippy with Launcher Pro so haven't bothered to upgrade to 2.2 yet. I have noticed that on a few occasions after booting up (I charge the phone with it off as I find it takes a better charge that way) the phone is very sluggish and OSMonitor App (free from Marketplace, needs root) shows a process is using up 100% CPU. By covering the light sensor at top left hand of screen the 3 buttons light up and this process dissappears and phone then works fine. This problem is discussed in another thread. I agree with Darren's post. Your problem is almost certainly related to what he is describing. Flashing the rom to something different will NOT solve the issue, because I've seen people on other non-stock roms who STILL report the problem! The problem is down to a bug in ZTE's code where they are not initializing something properly at start up sometimes. You can even tell when it's likely to happen. If you see all three button lights come on at some point during the later stage of booting then the boot has been successful. If you do not see the button lights then there is a chance that it has not initialized something properly. You can check by going to the resources tab in the bundled ZTE Task Manager app, or installing an app like Watchdog Lite. There are two ways to reset this. The first, as Darren mentioned, is to cover the light sensor at the top left of the phone. This causes the three button lights to come on, and the CPU usage falls from 90% to a more normal 10% or so. The second is to start the camera application and perhaps open its options (can't remember if just starting the camera app is enough). This also reinitializes/resets something and the three button lights come on. You can then quit the camera application. Originally many people though the camera application was to blame because of this, but that doesn't seem to be the case. However the included Gallery application does, in some scenarios, appear to exacerbate the problem. I know it does because I became aware of the issue because my phone was booting slow almost every boot, and Watchdog was telling me the issue was the Gallery app. Even when it doesn't cause the issue the Gallery app often causes CPU spikes at start up anyway, so I would recommend people remove it if they care about performance most (This will require Universal Androot and the Free version of Titanium Backup to remove it from system apps). I use B&B Gallery as the replacement app. Whilst "Just Pictures" is a nicer looking app it doesn't integrate as well with the system.. EG I had some problems getting it to play with Launcher Pro and it also appears to rob the phone of its ability to render bmp images amongst other things, so I would not recommend Just Pictures. As for playing games, if performance on Angry Birds is really important there's a way to get it to play fairly smoothly on 2.1 even on busier levels. Just place the phone in Airplane mode, kill the currently running apps with the task manager, then launch the game. It will run much better. AdFree for Android can also help with general browser performance, as well as any apps which include adverts, although it requires root to allow it to modify the hosts file (you can then unroot again once it's been allowed to modify things).
Guest gn123 Posted January 20, 2011 Report Posted January 20, 2011 I also run the stock ROM with Orange stuff removed. I find it quite nippy with Launcher Pro so haven't bothered to upgrade to 2.2 yet. I have noticed that on a few occasions after booting up (I charge the phone with it off as I find it takes a better charge that way) the phone is very sluggish and OSMonitor App (free from Marketplace, needs root) shows a process is using up 100% CPU. By covering the light sensor at top left hand of screen the 3 buttons light up and this process dissappears and phone then works fine. This problem is discussed in another thread. It sounds like this problem, I had a similar one back on the default software.
Guest cartierv Posted January 20, 2011 Report Posted January 20, 2011 I agree with Darren's post. Your problem is almost certainly related to what he is describing. Flashing the rom to something different will NOT solve the issue, because I've seen people on other non-stock roms who STILL report the problem! The problem is down to a bug in ZTE's code where they are not initializing something properly at start up sometimes. You can even tell when it's likely to happen. If you see all three button lights come on at some point during the later stage of booting then the boot has been successful. If you do not see the button lights then there is a chance that it has not initialized something properly. You can check by going to the resources tab in the bundled ZTE Task Manager app, or installing an app like Watchdog Lite. There are two ways to reset this. The first, as Darren mentioned, is to cover the light sensor at the top left of the phone. This causes the three button lights to come on, and the CPU usage falls from 90% to a more normal 10% or so. The second is to start the camera application and perhaps open its options (can't remember if just starting the camera app is enough). This also reinitializes/resets something and the three button lights come on. You can then quit the camera application. Originally many people though the camera application was to blame because of this, but that doesn't seem to be the case. However the included Gallery application does, in some scenarios, appear to exacerbate the problem. I know it does because I became aware of the issue because my phone was booting slow almost every boot, and Watchdog was telling me the issue was the Gallery app. Even when it doesn't cause the issue the Gallery app often causes CPU spikes at start up anyway, so I would recommend people remove it if they care about performance most (This will require Universal Androot and the Free version of Titanium Backup to remove it from system apps). I use B&B Gallery as the replacement app. Whilst "Just Pictures" is a nicer looking app it doesn't integrate as well with the system.. EG I had some problems getting it to play with Launcher Pro and it also appears to rob the phone of its ability to render bmp images amongst other things, so I would not recommend Just Pictures. As for playing games, if performance on Angry Birds is really important there's a way to get it to play fairly smoothly on 2.1 even on busier levels. Just place the phone in Airplane mode, kill the currently running apps with the task manager, then launch the game. It will run much better. AdFree for Android can also help with general browser performance, as well as any apps which include adverts, although it requires root to allow it to modify the hosts file (you can then unroot again once it's been allowed to modify things). It's ZTE ? I think it's android. Not even a working bug free gallery app. Shocking. Mind boggling. Gallery is a complete mess, so is camera and market. Those three are guaranteed 100% cpu lock up
Guest at90 Posted January 20, 2011 Report Posted January 20, 2011 Ah brilliant, the camera trick/covering the light sensor really has made it a lot better! It's now nice to use the phone again, thank you. ;)
Guest Scoopading Posted January 21, 2011 Report Posted January 21, 2011 It's ZTE ? I think it's android. Not even a working bug free gallery app. Shocking. Mind boggling. Gallery is a complete mess, so is camera and market. Those three are guaranteed 100% cpu lock up The initial problem, where the Blade sometimes boots up using almost 100% CPU, is almost certainly a ZTE problem and not a general Android issue - unless you're aware of many other phones suffering the exact same issue with the same type of "fixes"? It's actually surprising that the problem isn't more widely discussed, because I think it's the biggest fault the Blades software currently has. I suppose its random nature at boot time, plus the fact that it may fix itself as soon as someone does something which activates the button lights (like covering the light sensor or launching the camera) means a lot of people never make the connections and realize what the actual problem is which is causing their phone to lag. I would be very curious if those using custom roms, which were based on the different kernel which DIDN'T contain the code to support all of the button lights, experienced the same issues? If they did not it would tend to point the blame at the code ZTE is using for its button lights as somehow being at fault. Whatever the cause it's something which relates to the button lights. Btw, no argument from me about the Gallery app! I would absolutely recommend people uninstall it. It certainly seems to be coded very poorly, and Google appears to have decided to pay Cooliris and ship it mainly on the basis that it looks quite good, rather than how well the code runs! You'll also get no argument from me about the included camera software. Ugly and clunky. Fortunately the camera is so bad on the Blade that it doesn't really matter too much! I've disabled the camera app from launching at startup with Autostarts anyway. The Market app hasn't caused me any performance problems, but it has forgotten everything I've downloaded, before inexplicably fixing itself a few hours later! That one is definitely an Android issue.. I've seen many people on many devices where the same thing has happened.
Guest Rotmann Posted January 21, 2011 Report Posted January 21, 2011 I don't know if you're joking or not. Are you joking? See, this forum can be an intimidating culture. I'm an Android newbie who ended up here because most of the time when I googled stuff about the San Francisco it pointed me here. But this is such a hardcore ROM community, it seems there are no solutions that don't involve installing a different ROM. Hi, it was more like irony than joking. It's so easy nowadays to flash a new ROM to smartphones and specifically on the SanFran, although I have to admit too that the guides here are not n00b friendly. But if you read this then this you should not have any problems. A better n00b resource is OrangeSanFrancisco.co.uk , have a look. With Seb's recovery manager you don't even need to do something in Clockworkmod, you just do the flashing in an app, crazy :lol: Look at the video made by StevenHarperUK in that guide. It's ZTE ? I think it's android. Not even a working bug free gallery app. Shocking. Mind boggling. Gallery is a complete mess, so is camera and market. Those three are guaranteed 100% cpu lock up Dude, I really don't get it why you have an android phone since you bash android on every occasion you have (I'm referring to your numerous bashing posts, not especially to this one), are you a masochist or something?
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