ZTE Axon 7 mini - $149 at PCMobile (Loblaws store Lindsay)

[fox]

Security fixes and better battery life. Also, the possibility that an upgrade would enable second SIM capability in the SD/SIM slot.

[Jason]

You can get security fixes without having to get Nougat if the provider updates it. But yeah, battery life seems to get better with every new release of Android.

Bill, are you keeping the phone?

[ssfc72]

Yes,  I  am keeping the phone.  A very nice phone at a great price.  The phone can be moded,  as well.

[fox]

Yes, it really is a nice phone, and the price is very low for what you get.

What kind of mods are you looking into? Also, you mentioned in an earlier post some settings you used to increase battery time. Could you elaborate? I found one setting, but it seems to be all or nothing, and it results in putting red bars on the phone (warning that this reduced power setting is in effect).

[ssfc72]

The mod that I will try, will be to install the USA image or the UK/International image, on the Canada version phone.  I want to see if that will uncripple the single sim Canada version phone and allow dual sim operation, that the US and some International Axon mini phones can do.

The US version image may allow an upgrade to Nougat, as well.

Since there is a possibility that the phone may get bricked, I won't be doing this until I have had the phone about a year.  I will keep my eye on the XDA site to see if someone with a Canada version phone has succeeded in imaging the USA version software, onto the phone.

For reducing battery power usage and Data usage, I haven't changed any settings.
What I do is, I go to the Apps menus and I uninstall any apps that I don't use and that can be uninstalled.  I disable Google Play Store, for one, because I found it was chewing through my limited Data, when I had the Data turned on.

I force close all other apps, that I am not using at the time.  Apps such as ColorNotr, Dropbox, KeyPass, etc.
Note - if you turn you phone off and then when you power up again, some of the core apps, that had been force closed will be turned on, again.  After I power up the phone, I go into the Apps menu and force close the apps that have been turned on.

This routine is more for preventing excess Data usage than for power savings, but the battery charge does seem to last longer.

Also, to save battery power/Data usage, I turn syncing off on everything, except my weather app.  I go into the Google Account and turn of all Google syncing.
Of course the Location service is turned off, unless I need to use it for the Map app.

I leave the phone, powered on overnight, but I turn off wifi and I put the phone into airplane mode.

[Jason]

It let you uninstall Google Play? Interesting. How do you update apps without it?

[ssfc72]

You can log onto your Google Play Store website with a browser and select the Google Play Store app, and it will download it to the phone.

In the case of this phone with Marshmallow Android, I was mistaken about being able to uninstall the Play Store app.  The app can only be disabled, so when I want the Play Store back, I just enable it.

I tried to disable/stop  Google Play Services, but Marshmallow Android won't allow that to be done.

[fox]

I think I now have a better understanding of the situation, having gone to Canada Computers this morning. As I noted earlier, they have the gold version of the same phone on sale for $50 more than we paid at PC Mobile, and they had a demo that I could check out. What I found was that it does have the dual SIM function, that it was already running Android Nougat, that the Build number is slightly different; missing the part of the number that identifies it as a Bell version, and the model number has "USA" in it. I asked a salesperson who seemed to know a lot about their phones. He indicated that a lot of Canada Computer products are U.S. or international versions. When I showed him my PC Mobile model, he speculated that Bell Canada bought a lot of these phones and later decided to either get rid of excess stock or just dump the model and sell their stock to PC Mobile at a deep discount. I'm guessing the latter because that phone is not listed on the Bell Mobility website.

I ended up buying the phone from Canada Computers, though I had to settle for the gold model. The other phone will be taken back to PC Mobile once I make sure that this one is good.