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Hi,
I'm from Indonesia, and i own Xperia Ray now, and i am interested on Razr Maxx because of the battery life but beside that, i also expect the non laggy performance of a dual core and 1GB of RAM.
Can the Razr Maxx be recommended for me at this time of year? Fyi, the Razr Maxx is still +- 500 USD Sim free on my country, while Acro S is around the same price, and SGS3 for around 650USD. Meanwhile the original RAZR is around 350USD (on discount) and Galaxy Nexus for 330USD. the Razr Maxx HD, which is my dream phone, is still unclear whether it will come to my country on the future, regarding of Motorola decision to reduce the Asia Pasific scope.
Things that make me doubtful with Razr Maxx are the CPU+GPU side (which is so 2011 but nonetheless should be still more powerful than a single core of Xperia Ray shouldn't it be?) and the unclear JB update path (no precise date mentioned on upgrade table).
Should i choose another phone? Or should i wait for the Razr Maxx HD? Really need your input who owns RAZR Maxx Thanks for any input
PS: I prefer not having a Samsung device cause of the TouchWiz. My preferences is to use ICS UI, or any UI that is unobtrusive to the ICS core UI (like Sony's )
Nobody likes to answer?
Sent from my ST18i using xda app-developers app
hansip87 said:
Things that make me doubtful with Razr Maxx are the CPU+GPU side (which is so 2011 but nonetheless should be still more powerful than a single core of Xperia Ray shouldn't it be?) and the unclear JB update path (no precise date mentioned on upgrade table).
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I won't be too worried about the existing hardware on the Razr Maxx. I'm running ICS very smoothly, and while I'm not running any super high advanced programs, nothing I've tired to run has slowed it down at all.
That said, with the way phone tech is changing so fast, I probably wouldn't get a one if I was looking right now. Newer phones are designed for all the advantages of the newest OS, the Maxx was a 2.3 phone while 4.2 is out now. Just two examples: The Maxx still has the "hard" buttons at the bottom of the phone. The newest OS has "soft" buttons. A 'full screen' program and use that button space to display a bigger area. Additionally, the Maxx does not have a gyroscope so it can't use Photosphere, the newest thing for the Android camera.
Sure, these are both relatively minor things, but they'll start adding up. Two months later there will be something else the Maxx can't do that others can. Then another thing, then another thing.
Look at it this way: My phone is less than a year old and already it's being surpassed by other, newer devices. 12 months from now there will be devices that have surpassed those devices. My phone will now be two or more generations old. I can live with that, because in 4-5 months later I'll be moving to a new phone. But if you're just getting a new phone now, will you really want to be trading it out in a year's time?
That's not to say I hate my Maxx right now. I don't, not at all. But with smartphones the technology comes rapid fire. What was top of the line 12 months ago is average now, and obsolete 12 months later. You'd be buying average right now, not top of the line.
Pretty much everything that RedRamage says is true but..... the decision mainly lies in what you want. If you plan on making calls, watching youtube/netflix, playing games such as shadowgun and just normal things such as that then you can't go wrong with a razr as it won't be left in the dust regarding app development for sometime, there isn't much money in making apps that can only be available to people that can afford the latest and greatest, you may not get the crispest of graphics down the road or smoothest of motion but, it will work!
If you are looking to overclock, heavily mod, and try to push your gpu to it's maximum, then the razr is not the way to go as it has an encrypted bootloader so custom kernels can't be flashed, and the processor is dated in comparison to new devices rolling off the shelves. There are some custom ROMS you can flash with a taste of jellybean regardless if it will get an official update or not. ICS runs great on the RAZR and a couple apps like crackle and overskreen don't seem to like jellybean much
If you go with the razr, just spend the extra and get the maxx, the battery life is worth it
Hi Red and Draxin, thx for the Reply
RedRamage said:
That said, with the way phone tech is changing so fast, I probably wouldn't get a one if I was looking right now. Newer phones are designed for all the advantages of the newest OS, the Maxx was a 2.3 phone while 4.2 is out now. Just two examples: The Maxx still has the "hard" buttons at the bottom of the phone. The newest OS has "soft" buttons. A 'full screen' program and use that button space to display a bigger area. Additionally, the Maxx does not have a gyroscope so it can't use Photosphere, the newest thing for the Android camera.
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About the Onboard buttons, myself actually don't mind with the onboard button, i actually like it more than the on screen button which takes up some real estate. About the photosphere, i'm not sure but shouldn't it work on all Android phone? I mean, if Google Sky Map can work, why not Photosphere? and with this sheet of details of Razr Maxx being real, i won't count it out too quickly http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/08/behind-the-glass-a-detailed-tour-inside-the-motorola-droid-razr/
RedRamage said:
Look at it this way: My phone is less than a year old and already it's being surpassed by other, newer devices. 12 months from now there will be devices that have surpassed those devices. My phone will now be two or more generations old. I can live with that, because in 4-5 months later I'll be moving to a new phone. But if you're just getting a new phone now, will you really want to be trading it out in a year's time?
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Yup you're right, but in Indonesia, the RAZR Maxx was launched June 2012, seems the phone cycle is not as fast as it is on USA or other places. There is not even one Snapdragon S4 based phone here today, the highest only SGS3 for now, even the Bond Phone doesn't show it's nose while the film is already on the theaters.. really digging for Xperia T/TX but with my experience with a 1500mAh battery on Ray, i'm not sure that i want to have those flagship phones with meager battery capacity anymore..
Myself is not really a tech maniac on the phone side. All i want are smooth experience, no lag operation with great battery life. so if it is smooth and can live long, i'm all for it if i am a tech maniac, surely i will set my eyes on the Xperia T or TX, or Nexus 4 maybe but once again battery life hinders them
Draxin said:
Pretty much everything that RedRamage says is true but..... the decision mainly lies in what you want. If you plan on making calls, watching youtube/netflix, playing games such as shadowgun and just normal things such as that then you can't go wrong with a razr as it won't be left in the dust regarding app development for sometime, there isn't much money in making apps that can only be available to people that can afford the latest and greatest, you may not get the crispest of graphics down the road or smoothest of motion but, it will work!
If you go with the razr, just spend the extra and get the maxx, the battery life is worth it
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Thanks for the input too I'm more of an internet guy, the games that i like to play are the simple ones like Angry Birds or Bad Piggies, all those HD games is just too hard to play with on screen control so not my cup of tea. but majority of my current phone's battery goes to Internet related application like Maps and Browser.
The standard Razr is really tempting though, at 350USD it is a really cool phone to be had.. but well if only the Maxx battery can be plugged in
Draxin said:
If you are looking to overclock, heavily mod, and try to push your gpu to it's maximum, then the razr is not the way to go as it has an encrypted bootloader so custom kernels can't be flashed, and the processor is dated in comparison to new devices rolling off the shelves. There are some custom ROMS you can flash with a taste of jellybean regardless if it will get an official update or not. ICS runs great on the RAZR and a couple apps like crackle and overskreen don't seem to like jellybean much
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Well, i am okay with no kernel modification, as long as i can root at least, it's okay it is rootable isn't it?
Thanks guys, your inputs are helpful, if any please give me more input that would be greatly appreciated. :good:
I'll say no. Battery life is good on max, the phone is a bit laggy on ics. And I don't want too spend another year waiting for jelly beans update.
Sent from my Motorola Razr XT910 on ICS 4.0
vash_h said:
I'll say no. Battery life is good on max, the phone is a bit laggy on ics. And I don't want too spend another year waiting for jelly beans update.
Sent from my Motorola Razr XT910 on ICS 4.0
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Ou, ok.. :-/ Could you describe the lag you experienced? How's the situation with Live wallpaper enabled? Hmm.. or should i wait for that Jelly Bean update first? Holy smokes maybe RAZR Maxx HD or Razr i will be here then #reallyhopeso
The phone is not laggy for me in stock ics...
Sent from my XT910 using xda premium
Yes, it is easily rootable thanks to eternityproject.
Now if you are looking to flash custom ROMs....... that is where it can get a little tricky, and ypu would need to do your homework. Some wont work with a bootstrap recovery and some ROMs may soft brick or possibly hardbrick your device if you flash with the wrong recovery. If you are planning on flashing ROMs, get to know RSD lite beforehand.
Personally I haven't had a reason to look at custom ROMs, I run rooted with Stock ICS with NOVA prime launcher and it just purrs for me, I have jellybean on my xoom and the only thing I miss is google now. I grabbed boot menu manager apk from the playstore (thanks whirleyes) just for nandroid backups though it is capable of much more.
One question for you though, since Indonesia is behind the US in the phone cycle, are you sure ICS is available in your region? Razr is shipped with Gingerbread, and had read about another fella from South Africa that wasn't getting ICS (jeanjaqc I believe) pushed it with RSDlite, and when he was done, the phone wouldnt communicate with his computer so he couldn't root
Draxin said:
Yes, it is easily rootable thanks to eternityproject.
Now if you are looking to flash custom ROMs....... that is where it can get a little tricky, and ypu would need to do your homework. Some wont work with a bootstrap recovery and some ROMs may soft brick or possibly hardbrick your device if you flash with the wrong recovery. If you are planning on flashing ROMs, get to know RSD lite beforehand.
Personally I haven't had a reason to look at custom ROMs, I run rooted with Stock ICS with NOVA prime launcher and it just purrs for me, I have jellybean on my xoom and the only thing I miss is google now. I grabbed boot menu manager apk from the playstore (thanks whirleyes) just for nandroid backups though it is capable of much more.
One question for you though, since Indonesia is behind the US in the phone cycle, are you sure ICS is available in your region? Razr is shipped with Gingerbread, and had read about another fella from South Africa that wasn't getting ICS (jeanjaqc I believe) pushed it with RSDlite, and when he was done, the phone wouldnt communicate with his computer so he couldn't root
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When i came to look around at local Phone store booth, the Standard Razr was on display and it ran on ICS, so yeah i am sure the update is already available.
Well, with ICS already at near stock condition, i think i don't need to flash custom ROM i think.. Just remove those bloatware (if any, thank God no Verizon here ) and it should be decent performer i think
Seems like i will take the plunge at year's end, maybe the phone will be on sale around 400US$ later.. will pray for that Thanks all
Basically, the phone is awfully slow when updating apps, laggy in stock apps such as gallery (opening the gallery), music player (loading the application), camera ( switching still picture to video).
At times, even unlocking lock screen is laggy.
My definition of laggy may be different from u guys. If compared to blackberry storm, it's still fast. However comparing it to when it was gb, it's slower.
Btw, using stock ROM, rooted but no tweaks.. Rooted to use tibu.
Not using much widgets, only the contacts widget, Calendar widget and the system widget where i can easily toggle on and off my wifi and blue tooth.
Using still image as wallpaper, no live wallpapers. No much background apps, except avast antivirus, whatsapp, naver line.
Sent from my Motorola Razr XT910 on ICS 4.0
vash_h said:
Basically, the phone is awfully slow when updating apps, laggy in stock apps such as gallery (opening the gallery), music player (loading the application), camera ( switching still picture to video).
At times, even unlocking lock screen is laggy.
My definition of laggy may be different from u guys. If compared to blackberry storm, it's still fast. However comparing it to when it was gb, it's slower.
Btw, using stock ROM, rooted but no tweaks.. Rooted to use tibu.
Not using much widgets, only the contacts widget, Calendar widget and the system widget where i can easily toggle on and off my wifi and blue tooth.
Using still image as wallpaper, no live wallpapers. No much background apps, except avast antivirus, whatsapp, naver line.
Sent from my Motorola Razr XT910 on ICS 4.0
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Hmmm.. i'm confused, i mean, some guys say it is fast, some say it's slower.. Well, with my own experience on demo booth, the interface is quite fast, but as always, anything without user apps is definitely fast..
@vash_h: if you're on clean state after FDR, is it still laggy for you?
Oh yes, when I'm with friends and using phone on vacation (androidele) after 2 days my battery still has power .
My Maxx works perfectly(ICS 4.0.4)has no lag and fly on the network (beware of programs installed)
Razr Maxx Amazing
I use Razr Maxx AsiaRetail (India) bought 2 months ago. I have rooted my phone on ICS 4.0.4 using eternityproject's EasyRootICS 1.5. I use chefs freezer to feeze all motorola bloatware (citrix receiver, smart actions, gallery, music, motocast, bejeweled game...basically everything i did not need). I use andoid assistant (18-in-one) to clear cache and kill any open apps (easy widgets available, as well as an ignore list so that you don't kill the apps that you need like gmail or whatsapp). The phone runs smoothly on ICS without any battery extender or overclocking script. I use Google Play Music for Music, Gallery JB+ for Gallery (AWESOME) and MX Player for Videos (AWESOME AGAIN!!!). I am on wi-fi one quarters of a day and constantly on calls (2G + 3G - Only for data, But mostly 2G). The phone runs 2 days on my average usage. (3-4 hours screentime, 8 hours+ calls and about 3-4 hours of wifi - see my screenshots). This phone is purely on usage basis. If you are interested in development section (MIUI, CM10 and other roms) this phone is not for you. I tried MIUI, did not give me a good battery life (about 60% when compared to stock rom - with frozen bloatware). I haven't tried any JellyBean based roms due to its few bugs. Given my usage, i am going to stick to this phone for atleast 2 years. I am extremely happy with my choice. I would recommend it to any stranger that passes by for example, I wouldn't have bothered to write such a long post but I did! think on it.
P.S.: that little bit charging in the screenshots you see is due to me transferring songs to my phone using data cable.4-5 mins maximum.
traitor123 said:
I use Razr Maxx AsiaRetail (India) bought 2 months ago. I have rooted my phone on ICS 4.0.4 using eternityproject's EasyRootICS 1.5. I use chefs freezer to feeze all motorola bloatware (citrix receiver, smart actions, gallery, music, motocast, bejeweled game...basically everything i did not need). I use andoid assistant (18-in-one) to clear cache and kill any open apps (easy widgets available, as well as an ignore list so that you don't kill the apps that you need like gmail or whatsapp). The phone runs smoothly on ICS without any battery extender or overclocking script. I use Google Play Music for Music, Gallery JB+ for Gallery (AWESOME) and MX Player for Videos (AWESOME AGAIN!!!). I am on wi-fi one quarters of a day and constantly on calls (2G + 3G - Only for data, But mostly 2G). The phone runs 2 days on my average usage. (3-4 hours screentime, 8 hours+ calls and about 3-4 hours of wifi - see my screenshots). This phone is purely on usage basis. If you are interested in development section (MIUI, CM10 and other roms) this phone is not for you. I tried MIUI, did not give me a good battery life (about 60% when compared to stock rom - with frozen bloatware). I haven't tried any JellyBean based roms due to its few bugs. Given my usage, i am going to stick to this phone for atleast 2 years. I am extremely happy with my choice. I would recommend it to any stranger that passes by for example, I wouldn't have bothered to write such a long post but I did! think on it.
P.S.: that little bit charging in the screenshots you see is due to me transferring songs to my phone using data cable.4-5 mins maximum.
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He3.. Seems like you are really enjoying your phone so want this phone now X)
I am not a ROM junkies fortunately, as long as it is smooth riding and has quick toggles on status bar, then i'm all for it
I am also preparing to get the RAZR Maxx end of the year when my current provider's contract ends (then I can switch to the provider that has the RAZR Maxx and keep my number). I saw the RAZR on a good deal, but it looks like the phone is no longer available in South Africa. But the MAXX is a better option anyway. Hope my country has the ICS update! Although would love to use Cyanogenmod - which I'm currently using on my Milestone (but I could probably stick to stock for a while anyway before going custom).
Almost fell for the Huawei Ascend P1, but I hate the camera's bulge, and it's not really much of a better phone compared to the RAZR Maxx.
Now RAZR (Maxx) HD would be awesome, but I also don't know if we'll get it here.
Well, this phone has a good hardware. In deed, stock rom is a bit slow, but with some modifications you will have a really fast phone. Not to talk about custom roms... Great signal, design and feeling using it
I'm sure that it will be a great device after an year
i haven't noticed any slowness...maybe a little lag when installing or uninstalling an app. thats it.
In my personal opinion this phone is very good, I own one with ICS stock ROM and so far I am extremely happy with it, I have managed to make 4 days without recharging, with occasional Wi-Fi and 3G use (couple hours a day), and about 6 1/2 hours of screen use. As for the lag issues other people reports, I only can say it lags when installing apps, and with some demanding games. Apart from that is a smooth experience.
I highly recommend it!!
badger_8007 said:
In my personal opinion this phone is very good, I own one with ICS stock ROM and so far I am extremely happy with it, I have managed to make 4 days without recharging, with occasional Wi-Fi and 3G use (couple hours a day), and about 6 1/2 hours of screen use. As for the lag issues other people reports, I only can say it lags when installing apps, and with some demanding games. Apart from that is a smooth experience.
I highly recommend it!!
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traitor123 said:
i haven't noticed any slowness...maybe a little lag when installing or uninstalling an app. thats it.
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Umm, So it lags like stuttering when installing/updating app and you do something else? or the phone seems to stop for a while on installing/updating app? Well my single core experience with my Xperia tells me that this kind of lag is common though. or is it I/O bottleneck i guess?
Just pre-ordered an HTC One X + from AT&T today. Comes with JB 4.1 I believe. Coming from iPhone (jailbroken of course.) I see there was also a recent announcement, something about 4.2 being released by Google to VOSD. Read some of the improvements in 4.2 and would love to have them. But frankly, I don't want to spend hours futzing with my phone or risk bricking it. On the other hand, I don't want to wait 6 months for HTC to release a 4.2 update.
Without any prior experience can someone throw me a bone. Will there be a 4.2 ROM here I can download that will be stable and how long do you estimate before it is available versus waiting for HTC?
I've heard good things about Sense, but if I consider myself to now be a lifelong Android user, isn't it better to get used to using a vanilla version of the OS instead of using some manufacturer-specific overlay like Sense? So should I install a custom ROM no matter what from that perspective or will I loose to many conveniences/features specific to the phone?
Finally, will I be able to go back to stock HTC ROM (whatever is the most recent version) for warranty/resale purposes if I don't wait for the HTC upgrades?
I believe the JB 4.2 was only released yesterday with the sale opening for the Nexus 4/10. I am not really bothered as there are only "cosmetic" updates anyway like this orb pic shooting cam setting and dop down notification.
I got my HOX+ yesterday, after being very happy with the HOX since it was releases in April. And I have to say, so far unlocking/rooting the HOX + is not really necessary or a thing that needs to be done as soon as the batterry has charged to full the very first time you have it in your hands.
HOX+ with HTCs Sense is running very well, smooth as hell. And while I don't like the Sense launcher as it is restricting too much my daily use, I find alternative launcher much better..they provide amazing eye candy. In particular the Apex launcher is worth to have a look at.
But the integration of Sense is the background is just great, Contacts/phone/social media integration is basically perfect, as is the Google calender and in particular Google Now.
There also is a noticable improvement with the sound quality, and sound is mind blowing with the alternative player PowerAmp.
Development will take off for the HOX+ soon, and devs are already on it. Once CWM is up and running I will also unlock/root, if only for for the adblock
I am not a fan of AOSP as it is too stripped down for me. But that is pure personal taste.
Give the development a few weeks, in my opinion the HOX+ is already coming out of the box an amazing piece of technology, and Sense together with JB 4.1.1 is a very good user experience!
So in a way, it seems you could consider Sense a package of apps/features, that you might otherwise install over the vanilla OS anyway? I suppose when I think about it, I spent hours to jailbreak and install Cydia apps on my iPhone to customize how the lock screen works, notification works, the spring board works, the wallpapers work, etc. So even though iOS interface is consistent from version to version, I always modify it to my liking - essentially building my own "Sense" for iPhone.
One thing I don't like is bloatware - apps installed that I don't need but can't install. And I'm sure the AT&T One X+ comes with plenty of it? (At least in Windows PC's you can uninstall the stuff.) So my gut is telling me I will still probably end up rooting and going with a custom ROM anyway. I'm mainly looking for stability and consistency for years to come, despite what device I own. Not that learning a new interface "flavor" has a steep learning curve, but it would be nice to "standardize" on one "flavor" be it Sense or CM10 + some specific launcher app, etc etc. To be honest I don't have hours and hours to experiment anymore so it may be best to take what HTC gives me and be done with it. But I know I will crave 4.2 when available just to see what's improved (I've read about it - not groundbreaking but better), so I guess I'll probably cave and give at least one custom ROM a try. Makes the phone more unique too, which is kind of a novelty. But ya, this stuff we are talking about is foreign to probably 90% of the smartphone users out there. So the devices wouldn't sell as well as they do if they had issues or were hard to use out of the box!
hardstuffmuc said:
I believe the JB 4.2 was only released yesterday with the sale opening for the Nexus 4/10. I am not really bothered as there are only "cosmetic" updates anyway like this orb pic shooting cam setting and dop down notification.
I got my HOX+ yesterday, after being very happy with the HOX since it was releases in April. And I have to say, so far unlocking/rooting the HOX + is not really necessary or a thing that needs to be done as soon as the batterry has charged to full the very first time you have it in your hands.
HOX+ with HTCs Sense is running very well, smooth as hell. And while I don't like the Sense launcher as it is restricting too much my daily use, I find alternative launcher much better..they provide amazing eye candy. In particular the Apex launcher is worth to have a look at.
But the integration of Sense is the background is just great, Contacts/phone/social media integration is basically perfect, as is the Google calender and in particular Google Now.
There also is a noticable improvement with the sound quality, and sound is mind blowing with the alternative player PowerAmp.
Development will take off for the HOX+ soon, and devs are already on it. Once CWM is up and running I will also unlock/root, if only for for the adblock
I am not a fan of AOSP as it is too stripped down for me. But that is pure personal taste.
Give the development a few weeks, in my opinion the HOX+ is already coming out of the box an amazing piece of technology, and Sense together with JB 4.1.1 is a very good user experience!
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Just to chime in. I'm coming from 4 years of iPhone (still have my 4S and from the day I turned on the X+, I was in wow factor! Device runs SMOOTH as heck, responsiveness is more than I expected, just overall Great experience overall. That being said, I still want to be able to customize it even more. My iPhone had all the tweaks, theming, etc that truly made it my experience. So, i'm new to the whole "rooting" for Android devices as I'm a Mac guy also, but have a PC on standby waiting for instructions.
I'm really excited to actually take the dive in Android and especially with this particular device!
sense UI is the best for me among all the launchers.
i don't mind 4.1.1 vs 4..2 i don't think there's much changes anyways.
I have Jellybean 4.2 on my Nexus 7 and my old GNex. It is really buggy and the UI changes suck. There is battery drain, slow charging, instability and BT is broken. I rather have a stable Jellybean 4.1 and get a stable 4.2 in a few months on my Hox+.
Hellion said:
Just to chime in. I'm coming from 4 years of iPhone (still have my 4S and from the day I turned on the X+, I was in wow factor! Device runs SMOOTH as heck, responsiveness is more than I expected, just overall Great experience overall. That being said, I still want to be able to customize it even more. My iPhone had all the tweaks, theming, etc that truly made it my experience. So, i'm new to the whole "rooting" for Android devices as I'm a Mac guy also, but have a PC on standby waiting for instructions.
I'm really excited to actually take the dive in Android and especially with this particular device!
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I had a 4S for a time. Customising it was a pain in the arse. I'll be glad if I never see cydia again . You can customise a lot of android without needing to root. But some things like taskbar icons, transparency effects for system apps, bootlogo's, system transition effects ect. You need to be rooted for.
AndroHero said:
I had a 4S for a time. Customising it was a pain in the arse. I'll be glad if I never see cydia again . You can customise a lot of android without needing to root. But some things like taskbar icons, transparency effects for system apps, bootlogo's, system transition effects ect. You need to be rooted for.
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Is there a verified working root for us ATT users yet? Saw a lot of talk about one which is why I'm asking. If so, any moon steps on how to root? I need it mainly for titanium backup to backup data files too and more tweaks.
Also hope someone can fix the broken Steele headset controls for this dang phone. All u can do is pause and play tracks from your wired or Bluetooth headset. Can't change tracks nor adjust volume from your stereo headset, huge fail for me! At the gym 5 days a week for hours and nothing worse then pulling this link out of my pocket the whole workout to manually change tracks and adjust volume for certain songs.
With my old tablet the custom roms always meant a performance increase too, but:
I've tried pretty much well every single custom rom available for this tablet by now and i still havent managed to find one that actually increases the performance of the tablet. When im running the stock firmware i get about 7500-7600 on quadrant and my browser is really responsive and stuff. There's not been a single custon rom out there that has even performed better then 5600 on quadrant. Is it just me, or are the custom roms not hat good performance wise?
EDIT: By better performance i mean how snappy the tablet feels, using benchmarks as a secondary frame of reference.
Not sure if quadrant is doing a good job. I also am getting same results as you with 7xxx for stock and 5xxx for all CM based ones. Although the CM roms feel smoother here.
Sent from my SGP311 using XDA Premium HD app
I abstained the vote cause the question does not bear a black and white / yes or no answer anymore these days.
In my humble opinion, and I picked up the smartphone / PDA / mobile device modding bug back about when this site catered to the the original HTC XDA almost exclusively, and Steve Jobs was merely having wet dreams about his iPhone (*1)... nodded RIMs have gotten to a state where they are overvalued. Saying a custom ROM is always way ahead of stock is like saying "one device with a fixed featureless fits everyone perfectly".
Custom ROMs had their deserved heyday when the industry loaded up near every carrier distributed smartphone with scrappy bloatware that made you weep. Depending on the mobile OS at any given time it was nigh impossible to get rid of that stuff, unless you flashed the whole shebang. From there on the custom ROM scene kinda exploded along with the market distribution of smartphones and later on tablets, certainly owed to the introduction of Android over older generation closed source systems, which enabled much more in-depth possibilities of adding novel features, fixing stuff that was basically broken out of the box and integrating all of this nicely.
(For a frame of reference: I tossed my PalmPilot and Nokia phone when the HTC Wallaby (Telekom MDA or so)hit the shelves... Early adopter by nature and I thought combining cellphones and PDAs, bother which I used avidly was the most revolutionary idea since the combustion engine. This was generation Windows Pocket PC, basically a PDA with cellphone feature thrown in as an afterthought (the antenna actually doubles a stylus compartment). Phone integration was a PITA on good days. On bad, long work days it might just happen that your moody battery would jump from 35% to flat out dead within a mere six minute phone call. Yet, no biggie right? Well, it was, the devices had no non volatile storage. Dead battery means go home, pray your last phone backup is recent enough and restore the entire thing. I spent a lot of time fixing this device (windows style - shoehorning in binary OS components from newer PocketPC versions and prodding the registry on the phone (!)...) to a point where it was almost usable as PDA only device, supplementing telephonly with a Nokia.
A while later better devices came out, PocketPc was scrapped for Windows Mobile and in high hopes I got a HTC Charmer. This looked like a more solid platform and indeed proper custom ROMa emerged, adding real functionality and allowing to get rid of carrier branded crap, later even RIMs emerged with Windows Mobile version updates never intended for that phone, some even taking the recent cutting edge HTC front-end, the first incarnation of Sense (I think it was called vanilla). I figured the really bad conceptual problems were fixed and merrily went along. But, as god hates my guts, I drained the battery accidentally, only to find that the phone would still go dead, deaf, dumb and wiped despite a good three or four years of technological progress. I was so confident that I neglected backups with that model and basically lost the majority of my stuff again. The Nokia dumbphone was back in the game, the HTC left a dent in the wall that required plaster and a patch of new wallpaper.
TL;DR: The first gen smartphones (PDA with cell module afterthought were such flawed concepts, badly integrated, that keeping recent backups and maintaining it operational took quite an effort on user side, on that sort of negated the higher productivity of using one altogether. But bear with me now, I am still circling around the point or two I want t. Make.
Because a few months after I abandoned smartphones for good (or so I thought) Apple coughed up their iPhone prototype and a few months later pumped it to market. I was amazed (not because of the technological feat, they were more or less throwing R&D money bricks at existing tech and concepts, however they exactly figured out what went wrong in the early generations, fixed that stuff, added fingerdriven multi-touch in favor of stylus driven displays and, this is the real kicker, in a time and age when the cool cell to have was a Nokia 8 Series or a decent, very small flipphone or clamshell they managed to brainwash their customers into what PDA and smartphone adopters at that time already knew - it's totally worth to dump the train of ever smaller telephony only cells for a much larger, more fragile device because of all the freedom and power those things offer you.
I kept my guard and obviously went for Android devices once I got back on the horse. HTC Desire, a backup Wildfire, Desire HD, Sensation, One S and a few tablets along the way. Now, here is the kicker. The Desire ran much better with a custom. The Wildfire could only be updated to a recent Android version with a custom ROM due to HTCs sometimes appalling quick update discontinuation. The Desire HD ran a basically stock custom ROM! But with lots of lovely icon eyecandy, so I stuck with that too. The Sensation benchmarked equally (give or take 5%) but the ROM added novel features, properly implemented, which I decided to stick with. But frankly, it was because I could. I would not have recommended a newbie to Android flashing to take the plunge. My current HTC One S has a recovery downloader and is rooted cause some essential apps I can't live without need it. Full custom ROM switch. I see no point. Android has come a long way. If today I have bloatware I can go to App Manager and disable them. Icon gone, runtime resource hogging gone. Many features that were the selling points for a custom ROM a while back are now natively incorporated.
This is just how I feel about my Sony SGP311 now. It runs 4.2.2 rooted, no recovery yet. This is planned, maybe at some point a stable, close to stock custom kernel to allow some overclocking on a per app basis for XBMC. But other than that it just Danny works. The Sony skin put over stock Androi. Is not that bad, and more to the point it never gave me the impression of hogging the system. Turn off what is useless to you, Office suite, walkway, etc and be on your merry way. It just comes down to what you do with the device, but as a custom ROM junkie who has just gotten off the habit, for me it makes no sense anymore.
Now, if you made it all the way here, I ran two benchmarks on my 4.2.2 root but stock. Maybe they aid you in your decision.
EDIT: the attachments are garbage. Here are proper links:
http://i.imgur.com/vMFEX1p.png
http://i.imgur.com/IEPVvMS.png
http://i.imgur.com/mB5MKSH.png
Also, none of the above is supposed to rain on the developers parade or something. I admire your skills and dedication over all those years, and there isn't a single custom ROM that went onto my devices withour a PayPal "crate of beer" donation ever. However, the fiddling, time spent reading up on custom ROM choice, issues and unlocking process etc is just not in relation for me anymore. Those thoughts are yours to reject, spindle, mutilate, adopt, oppose or plainly ignore... Just speaking for myself here.
Thanks for this! I was also trying to decide if I should be flashing a custom rom on my XTZ. I am itching to flash but couldn't come up with any strong reason to do so, probably for battery life and stock look?
Will be interesting to hear from another person who is a strong believer of flashing custom rom on XTZ.
Sent from my GT-N7105 using Tapatalk
i got slightly better score using a custom rom. Plus i get themes, expanded desktop and pie control which is a must for this tablet. I hope more xda developers develop for this tablet. Will reward with donations
By "better performance" do mean higher benchmark scores? Because any of the 4.3 ROMs I've tried are generally smoother than Sony's 4.2.2.
Spartoi said:
By "better performance" do mean higher benchmark scores? Because any of the 4.3 ROMs I've tried are generally smoother than Sony's 4.2.2.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
4.3 too bugy for me
im using 4.2.2 cm rom FXP242-cm-10.1-20131021-UNOFFICIAL-pollux_windy.zip
i already sent team a donation hope to keep em motivated
Spartoi said:
By "better performance" do mean higher benchmark scores? Because any of the 4.3 ROMs I've tried are generally smoother than Sony's 4.2.2.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, the post was incomplete. Changed it.
r1ntse said:
Sorry, the post was incomplete. Changed it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I prefer 4.2 ATM. I get close to 30 Mbps download speed on this ROM where on 4.3 roms only 2mbps download? Also video cam recording, screen is squashed on 4.3. Other than that they run great but I personally cant feel a performqnce boost from 4.3 to 4.2. I also installed crossbreader and Supercharger V6 script which addresses screen redraw lags, so if there is a slower issue with 4.2 i would have addressed it with these two mods and may not be able to tell.
so I currently have an HTC One, and i love it, EXCEPT for one thing... the placement of the power button.
My hands arent that big, and the placement of the power button is horrible, at least for me it is.
So, if anyone has an LG G2 or has used one, Id just like to know from your experiences, is that single button on the back as cool as I think it is? or not. thanks!
kine42 said:
so I currently have an HTC One, and i love it, EXCEPT for one thing... the placement of the power button.
My hands arent that big, and the placement of the power button is horrible, at least for me it is.
So, if anyone has an LG G2 or has used one, Id just like to know from your experiences, is that single button on the back as cool as I think it is? or not. thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The back buttons are pretty cool I've gotten used to them. But I mostly just use the knock on feature which is amazing! My brother has the HTC one it's a great phone as well. But my g2 is better in just about every way not sure if it's worth upgrading though the next HTC one is about to come out soon
Sent from my LG-D800 using xda app-developers app
Right on bro, I appreciate the info.
I still might go with the LG G2. Cuz looking at the specs for the m8 makes me a sad panda.
O ya, forgot to ask in op but, the battery life on the LG is supposed to be awesome, is this true?
Thanks again bud
Battery life is ridiculous. Destroys any other android I've had. Even custom roms designed to save battery aren't as good as this. It's down to the 3000Mah beast inside it can go for ages. Also charges extremely quickly too!
And u can reorganize the menu buttons to your liking! (I prefer home button in the middle, menu on the left, back on the right)
Hope this helps
Sent from my LG-D802 using Tapatalk
Sent from my LG-LS980 using xda app-developers app
I hate HTC one
kine42 said:
so I currently have an HTC One, and i love it, EXCEPT for one thing... the placement of the power button.
My hands arent that big, and the placement of the power button is horrible, at least for me it is.
So, if anyone has an LG G2 or has used one, Id just like to know from your experiences, is that single button on the back as cool as I think it is? or not. thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here's a review for you...
HTC one - It's a very stable device that has some time behind its belt and still has a big community of active devs and alot of users using the device in a STOCK FORM and ROOTED form and both love the device overall, and only flaws are things like you said, the button placement and the only other bad review i've seen about the HTC one is about the new way phone manufacturers are creating them, with a built-in battery and unable to add a external micro SD card.
My personal review of the two devices (as I have both).
HTC One M7 (AT&T Default Carrier)
If you might search around you would notice a thread by me where I messed my HTC one up and needed assistance to fix and get my device back to normal, and now it's running smooth and it is a great device to have, and has tons of options, customizations, and is a very good overall device via hardware, and software.
I am currently running Android 4.4.2 (KITKAT) on my HTC One (Stock Google Play Edition)...
My HTC One Device setup is...
DEVICE: HTC One M7 AT&T (Unlocked, Rooted, Bootloader Unlocked, S-OFF)
ROM: Android Revolution HD 61.0 by Mike1986 Google Play Edition.
MODS: Gravity Box [KK],
RECOVERY: TWRP v. 2.6.3.3
My overall thoughts of the device is, with the setup I'm running, I don't need any other phone... It's very fast, stable, and functional. Over any other devices I've been with or had none compare to the HTC One M7 that I'm currently running... I've had plenty of variety of devices from the Samsung galaxy S (2,3, and 4) devices, all of them rooted and non-rooted. I love the samsung S devices, but they don't even compare to the overall performance and comparison of the HTC One in my eyes, besides the fact that the S4 has a few things HTC dont with things such as Knox, and other different add-ons and features but then the Galaxy S devices dont have things the HTC one does like Beats Audio, and the speed hardware wise is much better with the HTC one then let's say the Samsung Galaxy S3 and S4.
Overall Rating:
Stock AT&T HTC One - 7.5/10.
(Not rooted, unlocked, Just brand new out the box coming from AT&T).
Rooted, Unlocked, S-OFF (mysetup): 9.2/10.
I rate the device out of 10 sections from software, performance, exterior, internals, speed, and build overall of the device, etc.
Now for my T-Mobile LG G2 (LG-D801) :
I purchased the T-Mobile LG G2 directly from T-Mobile about a month after it came out... When I first got the device, I knew it being brand new there was going to be some glitches and kinks in the device and software being that it was brand new and any new device that comes out, the first month or so always has some issues and has a updating coming shortly after, and I did receive some issues with the phone which I'll list and explain how to fix/and what temp fixes if your carrier hasnt sent out the fix yet.
LG G2 Issues I've faced.
- Screen Jump/Glitching:
My screen would jump around/glitch when I opened the app drawer with the home screen having the default background and the app drawer having mode set to Transparent background, when this is set the screen will jump and glitch around when you move to Page 2 of the App Drawer with these two settings set, LG already knows of the issue and it is suppose to be fixed in the next software update (which TMobile just got the update to 4.3 which did resolve some of the issues). But a fix for this issue to prevent it from happening is by changing the setting of the App Drawer background to a custom one or one of the default ones they provide and get it off of transparent, it seems that causes the glitch and it fixed after I did do this temp fix after goofing around with the device.
- Camera Lens:
The camera lens on the back of the LG G2, is very thin and not strong. A medium power flick with your finger will crack the glass. Be very careful with using the device to not drop or allow a pressure to be placed against the camera lens or the actual screen. It is not strong at all.
- Bloatware Apps (by Carrier & LG):
The bloatware that LG alone loaded this device up with is unreal. There is plenty pointless apps and features LG added with this device that I can promise you, you will never use it, unless your just looking around with the phone and want to learn about some of the things that it can do. LG did a good one with loading this device up to compete with other provide providers like Samsung coming out with Knox and Samsung Apps Center, etc... LG doesn't allow you to remove it either, but only Disable it, but even with disabling it, some still run due to other features require it. Then the carrier also loads up their known apps they include with devices as every carrier does (Besides if you purchased yours directly from Google Play Store).
- Knock On
There's been plenty of complaints that the knock on feature which is a feature I LOVE of the phone, is touchy where it doesn't want to work as they say it should with 2 knocks to turn on, and 2 knocks to turn back off, sometimes it takes alot more then two, and the pressure isnt always good that you need to use to turn it on.
- Sound Quality;
With headphones it sounds good but the playback speakers on the device are not that good. It isn't very loud at all even turned all the way up.
Now remember all this above is running a T-Mobile LG G2 (LG-D801) stock, out of the box device (Non-rooted, modified, etc).
My overall rating of the device...
Now because I said all this doesn't mean it's not a good phone... The phone is a EXCELLENT and a new device in the market that competes with the big guy's now like Galaxy S devices and iPhone.... The rear-key buttons, is a LOVE of mine when I thought I would hate it, but I LOVED IT, but it is actually amazing. Also some really cool features is the Multi-background feature, 3-Finger Slideaway, Multi-Window Tasking (best one I seen on a stock-device so far), etc.
The performance is a 7.5 because of the BLOATWARE and Pointless features installed that are not needed or even useful/helpful, You be better off without half the stuff. I say this because it sucks down the memory of the phone with all this crap, maybe leaving you 980MB of Memory left from the moment you power the device on the first time stock. If you disable all the features and uninstall the updates for them, it improves for about a additional +256MB of more Memory.
The camera on the device is very good, one of the best I've seen, Very Clear, with plenty of features to take the best shot of you doing anything you want, or need a photo of, and some cool little tweak features you can use to maake a badass photo shot, or others. Same goes for the Front Facing Camera, one of the best I've seen on a mobile device for clarity and overall status it's a good camera.
LGHome which is the G2's "home setup", as where Samsung Galaxy S device's have TouchWiz, The G2 has LGHome which is cool for people who don't want to root their phone but want to customize their device from the style of the phone, icons, app drawer, fonts, keyboards, messaging display and all. It comes with a Default Theme, and 2 other additional themes preinstalled. Which is very easy to manage and use and don't need no skills to know how, it's right under the phone settings options under Theme; You can download the Theme's directly from Google Play Store, or LG's Store (A Copy-Cat (not a very good one) version of LG's own Google Play Store and Samsung's "Samsung App Center" app) called LG Store which has a small-app store but just LG apps, includes sections: Keyboard, LG Home Themes, FontPacks, Messaging Themes, and more... (But you actually have to download this LGStore App from LG's website, It isn't available on Playstore and doesn't come with the LG G2).
The battery life is great, It lasts me all day long from 9AM-12MIDNIGHT for me is when and how long I use the phone for from disconnecting it from charger to plugging it back up when going to bed. I haven't noticed any issues but for those that don't know this, The battery life will BLOW, unless you do the correct way when first getting your LG G2 Device. Once you open your device and power it on for the first time (if brand new, out of the box) should come with about 50% battery, let it RUN and use the device until it completely DIES, 100% dead and powers off on it's own, do not turn the device back on, just plug the device onto your charger, and leave the device powered off and allow it to charge to 100% (I suggest a full 8 hours), once done, unplug the device and then power the device on again, and use it. I also suggest doing it one more time after the first initial charge, after you unplug it and power it back on after letting it charge for the first time for 8 hours (100%) let it completely die out again and power off on it's own, then do it one more time. This ensures the safety of your battery and the life of it. I know a friend of mine purchased the same exact device as I did, and his battery wouldnt last longer then 5 hours (4.5 hours to be exact) before hitting under 5% battery charge, because when he first got his device and instead of doing what I said, he powered it up, used it, once died, plugged it up, turned device back on, and left it on and used it while on charger instead of letting it actually powerup and charge 100% your battery, and overall his battery sucked ass. Where my battery last around 10-12 hours on a full-charge.
The HD Screen is Awesome also, Great GFX setup on the device... Photos are beautiful, Games are amazing, and overall is just good.
Overall Rating: 7.5-8 (STOCK OUT OF THE BOX EDITION)
Now if you ROOT your LG G2 and load it up with a Stock Google Play Edition ROM, or a Stock LG G2 Rom (4.3 or 4.4) LG/Carrier which there is plenty of options to choose, so that basically, your phone is a STOCK LG G2 without the bloatware and crappy apps provided by them, itll just have the features needed and overall (My recommendation, I rooted mine and ran a stock G2 ROM (without the extra LG apps, and Carrier Bloatware) to where it succeed well, and performance was AMAZING, much more RAM, less CPU usage, etc.
Rating: 9.5
I hope this helps.
djay1127 said:
Here's a review for you...
Overall Rating:
Stock AT&T HTC One - 7.5/10.
(Not rooted, unlocked, Just brand new out the box coming from AT&T).
Rooted, Unlocked, S-OFF (mysetup): 9.2/10.
Overall Rating: 7.5-8 (STOCK OUT OF THE BOX EDITION)
Now if you ROOT your LG G2 and load it up with a Stock Google Play Edition ROM, or a Stock LG G2 Rom (4.3 or 4.4) LG/Carrier which there is plenty of options to choose, so that basically, your phone is a STOCK LG G2 without the bloatware and crappy apps provided by them, itll just have the features needed and overall (My recommendation, I rooted mine and ran a stock G2 ROM (without the extra LG apps, and Carrier Bloatware) to where it succeed well, and performance was AMAZING, much more RAM, less CPU usage, etc.
Rating: 9.5
I hope this helps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
wow, yes, that was some GREAT information, thank you very much!
other than the camera lens being kinda iffy, I dont really even take many photos at all to begin with, I think Im going to wait for the g3, or the G Pro 2.
thanks again for the very informative reply though, much appreciated!
kine42 said:
wow, yes, that was some GREAT information, thank you very much!
other than the camera lens being kinda iffy, I dont really even take many photos at all to begin with, I think Im going to wait for the g3, or the G Pro 2.
thanks again for the very informative reply though, much appreciated!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I sugest taking a look at the LG G Flex ( I Currently Have One w/ T-Mobile ) stock, non-rooted, out of the box brand new. I currently love it too, my top fav phones are:
1st. LG G2
2nd. LG G Flex -- tied with first, i just received it yesterday in the mail.
3rd. Samsung Galaxy S4
4th. HTC One.
tekneekz said:
Here's a review for you...
Overall Rating: 7.5-8 (STOCK OUT OF THE BOX EDITION)
Now if you ROOT your LG G2 and load it up with a Stock Google Play Edition ROM, or a Stock LG G2 Rom (4.3 or 4.4) LG/Carrier which there is plenty of options to choose, so that basically, your phone is a STOCK LG G2 without the bloatware and crappy apps provided by them, itll just have the features needed and overall (My recommendation, I rooted mine and ran a stock G2 ROM (without the extra LG apps, and Carrier Bloatware) to where it succeed well, and performance was AMAZING, much more RAM, less CPU usage, etc.
Rating: 9.5
I hope this helps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is there GPE rom for G2?
Hi!
I have been a heavy user of custom ROMs for more than three years now on all my Android devices. Lately, although I have a phone that not so long ago was still Samsung's flagship (the galaxy S4, I9505), the pictures I get with it really suck. A couple weeks ago, the phone could not detect my SIM card (pure hardware issue), so I re-installed the stock firmware and took it to the repair shop to get the warranty repair. They fixed it and I got my phone back. Just to make sure it was working fine, I decided to use the stock ROM for a while, and oh surprise: the camera takes much better pics in low light conditions or indoor than the same camera with any custom ROM app (usually AOSP-based, AOKP or CM-based). I tried to download the Google camera, and the low light pictures really suck. Then I tried a bunch of camera apps from the Play store, but I invariably got similar results to what I got with my custom ROMs.
That got me thinking. I'm no dev nor programmer, so I won't get technical, but it seems to me that there can be two reasons for the samsung app to work better:
- Either it has access to (proprietary) hardware drivers that other camera apps cannot access, and therefore it can get everything out of the camera hardware
- Or Samsung (which is not known to be great for its software) has developed a great camera software.
I would think it's something along the lines of the first reason. So does that mean I am either stuck with a ROM I cannot stand (Touchwiz is awful, has always been, and may always be) and a decent camera, or a decent ROM but a camera that is kind of useless when I'm indoor?
If so, how are the cameras on other similar phones (I'm thinking Nexus 5, Sony Xperia, etc.), running on custom ROMs compared to the stock camera apps? Is there also a noticeable difference, or is it just with Samsung?
I understood that you cannot run the Samsung camera apk on a custom ROM (even one on a Samsung phone), because the camera relies on some kind of Samsung proprietary framework.
Does this mean I should be looking for a phone that is running not only on open source software, but also open source hardware, does that even exist?
Anyone has noticed something similar? Am I the only one to be bothered by this?
I'll post here a couple pics taken in the same ambient light conditions. One with the Samsung camera (Auto setting), one with Google camera, and one with another camera app from the market (don't remember which one, but I tested about 15 of them and their results were quite similar).
Anyway, even if you don' have a solution to the problem but can point me to information that could help me understand how to choose my next phone, I would really appreciate. Thanks!
Cheers,
Fa
fabecoool said:
Hi!
I have been a heavy user of custom ROMs for more than three years now on all my Android devices. Lately, although I have a phone that not so long ago was still Samsung's flagship (the galaxy S4, I9505), the pictures I get with it really suck. A couple weeks ago, the phone could not detect my SIM card (pure hardware issue), so I re-installed the stock firmware and took it to the repair shop to get the warranty repair. They fixed it and I got my phone back. Just to make sure it was working fine, I decided to use the stock ROM for a while, and oh surprise: the camera takes much better pics in low light conditions or indoor than the same camera with any custom ROM app (usually AOSP-based, AOKP or CM-based). I tried to download the Google camera, and the low light pictures really suck. Then I tried a bunch of camera apps from the Play store, but I invariably got similar results to what I got with my custom ROMs.
That got me thinking. I'm no dev nor programmer, so I won't get technical, but it seems to me that there can be two reasons for the samsung app to work better:
- Either it has access to (proprietary) hardware drivers that other camera apps cannot access, and therefore it can get everything out of the camera hardware
- Or Samsung (which is not known to be great for its software) has developed a great camera software.
I would think it's something along the lines of the first reason. So does that mean I am either stuck with a ROM I cannot stand (Touchwiz is awful, has always been, and may always be) and a decent camera, or a decent ROM but a camera that is kind of useless when I'm indoor?
If so, how are the cameras on other similar phones (I'm thinking Nexus 5, Sony Xperia, etc.), running on custom ROMs compared to the stock camera apps? Is there also a noticeable difference, or is it just with Samsung?
I understood that you cannot run the Samsung camera apk on a custom ROM (even one on a Samsung phone), because the camera relies on some kind of Samsung proprietary framework.
Does this mean I should be looking for a phone that is running not only on open source software, but also open source hardware, does that even exist?
Anyone has noticed something similar? Am I the only one to be bothered by this?
I'll post here a couple pics taken in the same ambient light conditions. One with the Samsung camera (Auto setting), one with Google camera, and one with another camera app from the market (don't remember which one, but I tested about 15 of them and their results were quite similar).
Anyway, even if you don' have a solution to the problem but can point me to information that could help me understand how to choose my next phone, I would really appreciate. Thanks!
Cheers,
Fa
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So here come the pics. Of course XDA compresses them, but you'll get the idea.
Fa
That is the example difference between things that are built for the device over using open-source options. Software will always be better from the OEM. You see the same thing with HTC and Sony devices. Take the m7 and m8. They have great cameras as long as you use HTC Sense. Other wise all you get is a basic 4 mpx camera that sucks. If you want one that works the same no matter the rom then get a nexus. This is something OEM are doing to make people want to use their software
Thanks @zelendel,
A Nexus could be an option, but the screen size of the Nexus 5 was already too large for me (and so is my current phone, the Galaxy S4), so there's no way I'm getting a Nexus 6 (plus it's prohibitively expensive, at least here in Europe). When will Google make a Nexus mini or compact? That would rock, especially if they go the Sony way (not compromising too much on hardware features). The only downside of Nexus phone is their lack of MicroSD card slot, but that's off topic.
Anyway, what about the Google Edition phones? As I understand, they have the same hardware as their OEM counterpart (don't they?), but instead of running on proprietary stock ROMs, they ship with a pure Vanilla Android. Does this mean they ship with a camera that sucks, or is there some kind of tweak included to get the most of the camera with those editions, too? If so, would flashing that ROM help (if I can get my hands on it)? Unfortunately it seems the whole Google Edition concept has not gained a lot of traction (maybe because of the unavailability of the handsets in many places, maybe thanks to the OEM who did not play fair game and rather managed to get their crappy proprietary stock versions in the hands of customers), so I'm trying not to get too excited about this either.
I guess I will have to go to my local phone shop, spend time there with different devices and see if some of them have less heavily customized skins than TouchWiz. That means I'll no longer go for a Samsung, which have been my only devices so far. The end of an era...
fabecoool said:
Thanks @zelendel,
A Nexus could be an option, but the screen size of the Nexus 5 was already too large for me (and so is my current phone, the Galaxy S4), so there's no way I'm getting a Nexus 6 (plus it's prohibitively expensive, at least here in Europe). When will Google make a Nexus mini or compact? That would rock, especially if they go the Sony way (not compromising too much on hardware features). The only downside of Nexus phone is their lack of MicroSD card slot, but that's off topic.
Anyway, what about the Google Edition phones? As I understand, they have the same hardware as their OEM counterpart (don't they?), but instead of running on proprietary stock ROMs, they ship with a pure Vanilla Android. Does this mean they ship with a camera that sucks, or is there some kind of tweak included to get the most of the camera with those editions, too? If so, would flashing that ROM help (if I can get my hands on it)? Unfortunately it seems the whole Google Edition concept has not gained a lot of traction (maybe because of the unavailability of the handsets in many places, maybe thanks to the OEM who did not play fair game and rather managed to get their crappy proprietary stock versions in the hands of customers), so I'm trying not to get too excited about this either.
I guess I will have to go to my local phone shop, spend time there with different devices and see if some of them have less heavily customized skins than TouchWiz. That means I'll no longer go for a Samsung, which have been my only devices so far. The end of an era...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The GPE device dont come with stock android completely. I have a GPE HTC M7 and the gpe software has some of the closed sourced drivers and such for things like Beats audio and the camera. As I run pure AOSP I wind up with a 4mpx camera that really sucks. While i agree alot of the newer devices have huge screens that make it almost pointless for me. The m7 is not bad at about 5in. But then again it doesnt have an SD card slot but comes with 32gb of storage which I think is plenty for my use. Part of me misses my old samsung devices but I made the mistake once of getting the one with the Samsungs chip and not the snapdragon which killed development.
zelendel said:
The GPE device dont come with stock android completely. I have a GPE HTC M7 and the gpe software has some of the closed sourced drivers and such for things like Beats audio and the camera. As I run pure AOSP I wind up with a 4mpx camera that really sucks. While i agree alot of the newer devices have huge screens that make it almost pointless for me. The m7 is not bad at about 5in. But then again it doesnt have an SD card slot but comes with 32gb of storage which I think is plenty for my use. Part of me misses my old samsung devices but I made the mistake once of getting the one with the Samsungs chip and not the snapdragon which killed development.
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Alright! Well, if I could find the GPE edition for my phone (I9505), then I would get all the camera features and none of the TouchWiz crap, which would already be quite an improvement over what I have now (complete TW stock). I guess another possibility would be to flash a stock based ROM that is rooted and from which I could remove all the bloatware...
OK, the hunt is on for a new ROM!
Cheers!
Fa
fabecoool said:
Alright! Well, if I could find the GPE edition for my phone (I9505), then I would get all the camera features and none of the TouchWiz crap, which would already be quite an improvement over what I have now (complete TW stock). I guess another possibility would be to flash a stock based ROM that is rooted and from which I could remove all the bloatware...
OK, the hunt is on for a new ROM!
Cheers!
Fa
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If you want all the features of the camera then yes I would run a stock de bloated rom. I used to run Samsung devices and you can remove most things which will give you the camera app which has all the best features.