Monica

I have a problem with my (older) Android phone and am not sure how to debug it.

Four times in the last six months, I have used the navigation in Google Maps while in a car (audio, not looking at the screen). Every time the trip has ended the same way: the app informs me that I have reached my destination, I reach for the phone to exit, and the phone crashes. On restarting, it tells me I have 1% battery and crashes again. (Phone was not low at the start of the trip.) Now here's the interesting part: when I plug it in to charge, it reports something in the range of 30-40%. So, something is confusing the phone about its battery state, because no way does my phone charge that quickly (especially on a car charger).

Here's tonight's case: I was at something over 60% when I turned on nav for a 15-minute trip. Crashed on arrival, plugged in (in the car) and turned on, it said 32%, I unplugged, and it crashed again (back to 1%). I left it off while I completed my errand, but plugged it in to charge on the drive home. At home, it was 40% and, this time, did not crash when I unplugged it from the charger.

To determine whether the problem is specific to Google Maps, I installed another navigation app (Waze). When the installation finished I opened the app...and the phone crashed. When I connected it to the charger, it said it was at 31%. I let it charge for a bit (I turned it on while it was connected to the charger), and disconnected it around 50% with no issues.

Here's all that in pictorial form:

Also, the power manager reports no fast-drain apps. iDrive, a backup app, was a fast-drain app and is the singular entry in the history, but I've nerfed it and it hasn't popped up recently. Could its mere presence be a problem?

Now, I'm pretty sure the battery isn't actually being drained to practically nothing, because it wouldn't bounce back that quickly. And apparently it's not just Google Maps or GPS, because Waze didn't even finish opening before that crash. But something, either Android or something in hardware or firmware, sure thinks there's a problem that calls for shutting down.

How do I find it?

I have not had crashes with other apps -- though I also don't stream videos or play games on my phone, so I'm not taxing it. I have noticed the pattern of "steps" you can see in the picture here -- battery will drop noticably, then stay level for a while, then do it again. I don't know what's causing that or if it's related.

The phone is old -- ZTE Axon 7, bought in 2017, running Android 7.1.1 and apparently not eligibile for newer -- but it otherwise works, has the (rare) aspect ratio I crave, and already has all my stuff on it. I'd like to keep using it for a while (and let the 5G world sort itself out in the meantime).

[Update to the update, 2020-12-14 13:15 EST: Lost service again this morning. After much discussion with a T-Mobile rep, I've learned that they are doing work on my tower to upgrade it for 5G, this work will continue for a few weeks, and while they don't think there are general outages despite my reports, "brief interruptions" are possible during this work. Uh...]

[Update 2020-12-13 15:45 EST: Problem went away on its own; see comment below for more info.]

I generally don't keep my phone's WiFi on; even though I could use my home network, I don't tend to run into throttling on the cell network, this frees up some home bandwidth for other things (like my work computer, since March), and I'd rather not have other WiFi networks passively tracking me when I'm out and about (not a consideration since March, but someday again I hope).

On Thursday my phone started dropping the cell connection -- flaky, not outright reporting errors, but almost entirely not working. (In timing that somehow just fits in 2020, it dropped two minutes before an important phone call.) I've switched to WiFi, which seems to demand more battery, but eh, it's a workaround.

This, however, leaves me with the underlying problem: what the heck is going on? I've already power-cycled, reseated the SIM card, reset the network connections (but not messed around in APN), toggled into and out of airplane mode... none of that helped. I even got a new SIM card from T-Mobile (on Friday) and swapped that in; still nothing. Another device on the same network (and plan) gets low bars but gets bars. This feels like a recent degradation, but in the course of debugging this I learned that Dani uses the home WiFi all the time, so I don't have good data from a second device.

I talked with an actual human at T-Mobile (in order to get the new SIM card), who told me that he's not surprised that a phone released in 2016 (I bought in in 2017) is having problems on "modern networks" (by which we mean the 4G LTE that's been there for the life of this phone). His take is that technology moves on and my phone's antenna probably isn't powerful enough any more. I don't know how to test that hypothesis; if the antenna were completely gone it wouldn't work with WiFi either, but it does.

Is there some other debugging I can do, or any simple repair I can make? Or am I in "buy a new phone" territory?

A new phone wouldn't necessarily be the worst thing; mine is stuck at Android 7.1.1 (because of US trade blocks against China that happened mere weeks after I bought the phone). But the phone otherwise works fine, so if it's fixable then replacing it would be a waste. And, more significantly: WTF is with phone sizes and aspect ratios these days? My phone has a 16:9 aspect ratio and is 6" long. This is a good size for me. Anything bigger won't comfortably fit in my pocket; much smaller and I'll have trouble seeing. And that's where the width comes in: modern phones are too freaking skinny for text! They've all been designed around the idea that you'll watch widescreen movies on your phone, I guess, which I consider ridiculous -- I'll watch movies on my TV or at least my full-size monitor, or if really pressed, my 10" tablet. Not my phone. But to make them support that, they've made the portrait orientation tall and skinny, and that does not work for me.

Remember when cell phones were new and not yet smart? (Some of you might not.) There were two basic styles: flip-phones and candy bars. I never understood why anybody liked the candy bars; they were large and prone to butt-dialing. A flip-phone fit in my pocket fine and its keys couldn't accidentally be pressed while closed. While locking has presumably cut down on butt-dialing, I still don't want the candy-bar form factor.

(My phone is a ZTE Axon 7. I would like as close to its aspect ratio and size as I can get, if I have to get a new one.)

--

A tip led me to Network Cell Info Lite, which has gauges with needles that hover between the orange and red zones (not completely static). I'll collect some more data points when getting take-out tomorrow.

My cell phone (Samsung Galaxy S4) had been showing signs of its age, and then more recently it started spontaneously (and unpredictably) rebooting, sometimes several times in a row. This happens with both of my batteries, so it's probably something in the hardware. (Yeah, checked for seating, dust, etc.) It's also running Android 4.4.4 and Samsung has no plans for further updates (aside from security patches, when they get around to it); meanwhile, the current Android release is 7.something. So I started shopping and reading reviews.

I would have been willing to get the latest Samsung, on the theory that after the fiery-batteries-of-death fiasco they're probably being careful with the next one. But... ugh, aspect ratio! I do not want a long, skinny phone! I'm mot going to watch super-wide-screen movies on my phone, and the thing is too skinny to read web pages, email, or anything else once I apply a bit of zoom. Meanwhile, the extra length (height) isn't helpful and further challenges pockets. Ick. Remember back before smartphones, when the two form factors were flip-phones and candybars? I hated candybars, too.

Sadly, "longer and skinnier" seems to be becoming more common; the Google phones are the same way. So, criterion #1: reasonable aspect ratio (and size).

Criterion #2 turned out to be even harder. When did removable batteries stop being a thing? I've replaced the battery somewhere along the line on my last two phones (to get extra life out of them). Actually, with the S4 I got a spare battery fairly early on, which allowed me to carry an extra, charged battery in my pocket on phone-intensive days, like when taking lots of photos on vacations. There are still phones out there with replaceable batteries, but they're a dying breed. I only found one that got ok reviews, and it had some other weirdnesses.

I went to the local T-Mobile store to see if they had anything interesting that I'd missed in my searches (and, you know, to fondle the phones). Long and skinny rules the shelves there too.

In the end I bought a ZTE (who?) Axon 7 (whazzat?). It has a good screen size and aspect ratio and lacks a removable battery. I'm a little concerned about the latter (how many times can I charge this phone before the battery dies, taking the phone with it?), but I assume if it modern batteries were terrible that way, I'd've heard. I've never bought a phone without seeing one first, but I took a chance.

I took it to T-Mobile today to have service transferred, came home and took a 1.8G OS update to 7.0 (the phone shipped with 6.something), and at this point I think I've got most of the basic settings right. So far I'm happy.

It's too early to evaluate the software, but the folks at ZTE clearly put some thought into other usability and user-experience considerations. I don't usually care about the "opening the box" experience (just gimme my stuff), but their packaging stood out as well-designed. The box includes the wall charger of course; it also includes an adapter to use with your micro-USB cables because this phone (like many newer ones) takes USB-C in. They could have just said "hey, we gave you a charger; you're on your own for the rest", but they didn't. The box also includes a case -- not a high-end one or anything, but I've never seen a phone that included one before instead of making you buy it separately. It also includes a screen protector -- ditto, always a separate purchase in the past. In short, the box not only contained everything I needed to use the phone, but it even included an adapter I could stick on my car charger or power pack. (There's also a set of earbuds, which I don't care about.)

There is one mystery object in the box, a piece of rubber(?) of a size to cover the (rear) camera and fingerprint reader (why would you?), but with no obvious place to snap it in, and with what looks like a pin buried in it at one end. The guy at T-Mobile was mystified, too.

Price-wise, this is a mid-range phone, not inexpensive but also not in the Samsung Galaxy S8 range. I hope the battery lasts a few years, to give me a cost per year that's comparable with the last one.