[Android General] ManuLM:
Impressions after a few weeks of usage

here are some impressions on the device, after a few weeks of usage on a daily basis.

My reference is another Android Phone, the Samsung Galaxy S2 which I own for a year now. I can't pretend to make a detailed review ala Endgadget, so I'll rather cover some topics to highlight. Feel free to ask for any specific questions.

Screen:

First point, the screen on the K800 is a 4.5inches display, and this is a notable difference from the GS2. More space, but also much more points. This is my first HD(720p) display, and I must say I love it...

Surfing is easier and nicer, and watching a 720 DivX on the device is actually fairly impressive. Note the rescaling works well, and a usual DivX would do just as good, without the extra points.

The display delivers a more realistic color than the GS2 amoled, less vivid, also I feel less bright.

Hardware

general size and shape are not K800 top spots. The design is very squarish, the phone is also rather thick (~11mm is nowadays a thick phone). It is also heavier.

Overall assembly quality is very good, but squarish. It is also heavier than the GS2, note there are reasons for it: bigger display, bigger battery also (1900mA).

Assembly quality is very good and the phone feels solid, and sits nicely next to my Lenovo laptop without looking ridiculous.

One topic of regret is the absence of a SD card slot, forcing you to rely on the 16GB internal storage.

Usage

SW: it is shipped with Android 2.3.7 as said earlier, and if this can be seen as an issue by many of us SW enthusiast, it is also an advantage on the power side. Together with the large battery, the phone offers quite an extended usage. With a "light" day (3G / GPS always on, few calls/mails/SMS, light surf, few minutes of playing) I only draw ~25% of the battery. I love this !!

On a heavier day I managed to draw almost 50% (when I just got it), playing around, downloading apps, trying various stuff and customizing UI besides a normal usage. The average is around 30-40% per day depending on my usage. This overall is a very nice aspect of the phone.

After having my GS2 flashed to ICS LPG, I faced a major increase of the battery, having to recharge the phone during the same day when my usage was a bit heavy, which is really annoying (and made me buy a juice pack...). GS2 drains its battery faster.

Speed:

The UI sometimes has some quick slow downs, not killing but visible (scrolling accross desktops), which are hard to explain, but overall the experience remains very smooth. I also faced some issues of reactivity on the android soft buttons, be it back, home, or context menu. While it is not killing for the usage, it is a point to improve and it makes the user experience not up to the level of the galaxy S2, because you have to press the button sometimes 2-3 times before it reacts. Also the haptic feedback (very short vibra run when you type) is much sharper on my Samsung device, so there is some more maturity needed on Lenovo side here (I guess they have to learn here).

The surfing is really fast on the K800, be it on 3G or on Wifi where it really goes fast. Getting pages is notably faster than on the Galaxy S2.

USB interface is also quite enjoyable, I reached 17MB/s on a file transfer, which makes the transfer of big files (read 720p content) quite fast and convenient. I faced no recognition issues at all on my various computers.

You really feel like the hardware interfaces on the device are not skimmed down anyhow, and that feels good. I could not try the WiDi as I have no WiDi receiver.

Compatibility:

I faced only minor issues on the device, like G earth does not run, so do some apps, like Asphalt 5 or 6, but I could not spot too many issues here. I also could not get temple run running on the device.

That's all that comes to my mind right now, so I'll be just posting further impressions on the go.

This device is now my primarily device, and in the evening I do not worry that I'll run out of juice.