What I Learned From Pokemon Go

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I recently started playing Pokemon Go after it was launched in Malaysia and these are some of the things I learned.


GPS

Pokemon Go depends a lot on GPS and the quality of GPS differs between the phones.

Samsung Note 3 does not work indoors. Even outdoor Samsung Note 3 loses the GPS signal. I tried switching between the different GPS modes - High Accuracy - GPS, Wi-Fi and mobile network, Power saving - Wi-Fi and mobile network, and GPS only. High Accuracy is the most reliable mode for Samsung Note 3 and is only playable outdoors.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 requires switching between Wifi and Network when playing indoor and GPS only when playing outdoors. High Accuracy does not work very well with the game.

OnePlus One has the most reliable GPS.

Battery

The game drains a lot of power. Xiaomi battery lasts the longest followed by OnePlus. Samsung has the shortest life among the three phones we used.

One concern I have is how much the frequent charging and discharging will shorten the life of the battery. The same could be said with the screen that is always on during game play. Battery is slightly less of a concern with Samsung Note 3 since the battery is user replaceable.

Buttons

The only way to exit Pokemon Go is to press the home button. It is sometimes necessary to exit the game and terminate it using the task manager - when you are not able to see the items in the game (when your character will disappear or the game objects disappear).

OnePlus and Xiaomi both use soft buttons, but Samsung Note 3 uses a physical button. I managed to work around this problem by installing Easy Touch (OS 10 Style) which provides an iPhone-like shortcut to go to the home screen without pressing the home button.

Hardware

Hardware matters, some of my friends were unable to play Pokemon Go because their hardware is not supported. It could be due to lack of memory or due to CPU in their phone. Asus phones uses Intel chip and is flagged as incompatible in Google Play Store. However, one of my friends found that she is able to install the software (using the apk) and play the game.

Network

I was unable to log in to Pokemon Go while I was on mobile data and was only able to log in when I was back in a Wifi zone. My son was able to but the process was slow. It looks like we should not logout before closing the game.

Time

The game is very time consuming, but the same can be said for other games. There is a lot to learn in order to be good in the game - leveling strategy, fighting strategy etc. 



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