A couple of questions about this device

branja6 · 24 Jan 2023, 09:17

Hey, folks. My initial desire was to buy Sony Xperia 10 III and install Sailfish OS on it, but they are a bit pricey in the country that I live in.
I am thinking of purchasing one of these devices (Pixel 3a or 3a XL) and trying UT on it.

I have a few questions about the general usage since it would be my daily driver.

What is it like using the device on a regular basis?
How reliably do Android apps run via Waydroid?
Can one get notifications for Android apps if they continue running in the background (mainly Viber and Facebook Messenger, I'd use native apps for Telegram and Signal)?
Would it be possible to use Google camera or one of its ports through Waydroid?
Is it reasonable to expect that VoLTE will be supported on UT in the future?
Does adblocking still works via uAdBlock app?

Thanks in advance,

Branja

Emphrath · 24 Jan 2023, 23:58

@branja6 Hello and welcome. My two cents:

The device works smoothly compared to other UT phones I had. But coming from android... Battery life is much, much shorter. Using camera is a slow, unintuitive process - when it doesn't bring up permissions issues and you need to restart it. Flight mode will require you to restart the phone or at least the GUI to get a cellular data connection back on - but you might need it to work around sms suddenly not arriving; mms are hit and miss. Fingerprint reader works on paper but actually is barely usable - and only for unlocking the phone anyway. I could go on about other issues but they wouldn't be device specific - everything else is fine I think.
Waydroid is a rather impressive piece of work. It runs with almost no lag and is easy to use. You just need to hit that waydroid-stop button after each session otherwise it will drain that battery in no time. Forget about using it on a continuous, background-app kind of usage; especially if you need notifications - unless you keep the phone charging, this is an unreasonable use. I managed to install pretty much anything so far, including apps requiring google services, with the help of microG - but core Gapps like Lens or anything like that... It might be possible, not sure.
Yes, you get the notifications. Btw Signal currently doesn't have any.
Google camera, I'd be surprised, but maybe.
to the extent a lot of people work to achieve this, and it's a major prick in the foot of UT users, I'd say it's reasonable...
Yes, it works fine !

branja6 · 25 Jan 2023, 20:57

@emphrath thank you so much for answering all the questions!

From everything you've written, I've decided to save more money and get an Xperia instead of a Pixel. In order to use it as a daily driver, it has to fulfill all the basic things and still be able to last through a day (and a half).