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Ok, so I do not have internet at my house so my phone is my primary internet source via Wired Tether 1.4. Normally I can stay connected to data(3G) for about 30 to 45 minutes and then it will just shut off. Then when it shuts off I just pull down the notification bar and put it in airplane mode for a second or two then data restarts fine. I use my data heavyish if you want to say. (Youtube, XDA, Facebook, email and everything else you normally do) My signal is a solid 2 bars. I have tried *228 opt 1&2 and also swapping radios. Did not seem to help. Could be signal but just not to sure considering I can DL around 1mb/s
If it makes a difference I'm using Shed's 2.0 GSB w/2.42.01.04.27 radio and conaps unreleased kernel which generaly I keep oc'd at 729
It isn't a giant issue, its just kinda annoying.
Also I've attached the speedtest.net results for proof of speed.
wildstang83 said:
Ok, so I do not have internet at my house so my phone is my primary internet source via Wired Tether 1.4. Normally I can stay connected to data(3G) for about 30 to 45 minutes and then it will just shut off. Then when it shuts off I just pull down the notification bar and put it in airplane mode for a second or two then data restarts fine. I use my data heavyish if you want to say. (Youtube, XDA, Facebook, email and everything else you normally do) My signal is a solid 2 bars. I have tried *228 opt 1&2 and also swapping radios. Did not seem to help. Could be signal but just not to sure considering I can DL around 1mb/s
If it makes a difference I'm using Shed's 2.0 GSB w/2.42.01.04.27 radio and conaps unreleased kernel which generaly I keep oc'd at 729
It isn't a giant issue, its just kinda annoying.
Also I've attached the speedtest.net results for proof of speed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have a lot of experience with tethering as it was my only home internet for about six months until several weeks ago, finally (thank the lords of cobol - ugh, did I say that).
I have tried just about every snake oil imaginable to get tethering to work better, including switching back and forth from wifi to wired tethering. Sometimes it seemed for a while that one (usually WIFI) would work better than the other, but that would only last so long, too.
The longest I hardly ever had a problem with it continuously connected was actually about a week straight if I remember correctly. That was the best I ever had. The worse was disconnects every few minutes, or just as soon as I continued interrupted downloads after re-tethering.
My favorite and most common snake oil was using an app called APN OnOff to reset the APN to default. For practical purposes, it probably effectively did the same thing as you using Airplane mode, which I thought I had tried but I didn't think it worked as well for me, or even at all. Even after using APN OnOff, most of the time I had to reboot as well.
I had tried one without the other and it seemed like it required both for my tethering to work "reliably" again. I use that term loosely, of course.
I was using over 30GB per month data at my highest tethering use, and it was probably only that "low" because of the frustration and difficulty in depending on it.
I download A LOT so it really sucked at times, but it was better than dial up...sometimes.
I will say that one definite improvement was using Cyanogen Mod (v6.x and above) based ROMs which have support for built in WIFI tethering widget and using apps off the internet to use CM's built in wired tethering as well. These are implemented differently than the "old" Wired and Wireless tethering for root apps.
I highly recommend you explore them. One major difference, for me (and I tethered to two computers, my own and my girlfriends) was just how fast even the wired tethering would connect to the computer once I started it, versus wired tethering for root. Wireless tethering also turned on and off and actually connected much faster.
If you've never wireless tethered before, in my experience if you're going to depend on it at home constantly like I did, I kept it plugged in constantly anyway because it used a LOT of battery, and I also took the battery cover out (besides taking the Eris out of my body glove case I use) and kept a fan blowing on it to keep it's temperature down.
If you do decide to try this way, like I said, CM6.x+ includes "notification power widgets", which are widgets built into the pull down notification bar. They include a WIFI tethering widget but for some reason not a wired one. There is an app on the market called "Tethering Widget", though, which has both single widgets and widgets for both functions, in case you decide to try it's tethering ability.
Edit: I'm half asleep so forgive me for not paying attention that you're already on a CM7 ROM just like me, much less that I know you've been active in the GSB thread recently.
Lol sleep is a must for most if us. Idk, like I said its not that big a deal. Its just rather annoying. Expecially when trying to download junk. I'm familiar with wireless tether for root and my thoughts are that is a useful app when "out and about". But for home use I don't prefer it at all do to the heat and it seems that over a session of use it looses its speed. Almost as if its idling down. That is majorly why I prefer wired tether. Cool battery and it maintains speed. Idk. I guess it could also be some code somewhere that prevents extended periods of use OR it could be just the limitations of the phones hardware. Might have to run logcat and see if I can get anything to come up on the disconnect. Can wt and lg be ran at the same time? Guess we'll see.
Powered by: GSB CM7
wildstang83 said:
Lol sleep is a must for most if us. Idk, like I said its not that big a deal. Its just rather annoying. Expecially when trying to download junk. I'm familiar with wireless tether for root and my thoughts are that is a useful app when "out and about". But for home use I don't prefer it at all do to the heat and it seems that over a session of use it looses its speed. Almost as if its idling down. That is majorly why I prefer wired tether. Cool battery and it maintains speed. Idk. I guess it could also be some code somewhere that prevents extended periods of use OR it could be just the limitations of the phones hardware. Might have to run logcat and see if I can get anything to come up on the disconnect. Can wt and lg be ran at the same time? Guess we'll see.
Powered by: GSB CM7
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What's lg? If you're talking about two different methods of tethering, no. You can have as many ways of tethering installed at the same time, but you'll only be able to actually use one of the ways at a time. Let me know if you try Gingerbread/CM7's native tethering instead of the "for root" apps and if it treats you any better, as it did me in general.
roirraW "edor" ehT said:
What's lg?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry I meant LC. Logcat. I'm gonna run Logcat and wired tether and see if I can get something when 3G drops.
Powered by: GSB CM7
wildstang83 said:
Sorry I meant LC. Logcat. I'm gonna run Logcat and wired tether and see if I can get something when 3G drops.
Powered by: GSB CM7
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I hope you have luck finding out something useful!
I'm sorry if this has already been discussed in the Thunderbolt forums but I did a search and could only find posts in other phone specific forums.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=940190
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=943171
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=937925&highlight=throttle
I have LTE turned on in my area and when I use my wireless tether for root users I get awesome speeds between 2-3MBps but after about 150-200MB downloaded those speeds immediately drop off to just 10-20k or so. Now I rarely go over the 5GB soft cap and even when I do it's only by a few hundred MBs. Is there some sort of throttling going on and any way to stop it?
It has been discussed actually (and with that application), but anyways, at least you tried
Assuming your speeds are bad due to one application isnt exactly a very good test (more so since you did not say what version of the application you are running since that could matter). If you want to be certain, try internet connection mode via usb and download a test file from a location around you, such as from one of these data centers http://www.linode.com/speedtest/ and watch the speed. Doing that, you can eliminate plenty of variables, like the wifi connection on either end acting up for whatever reason and the application.
If it stays constant, then it's the app. If it doesn't, well that's not a 100% indication either. LTE is unstable speeds will fluctuate. If you're only testing from one location, that's not a very good conclusion either.
Whenever you have a problem, try to go through the total process of elimination only focusing on one variable at a time and try to keep everything else the same. Most likely it's you or the current setup on your phone or the application, not verizon. How do I know this? Because many have downloaded way more than you have and haven't been throttled (just from people I know locally with an LTE enabled phone).
Exusting all possible outcomes is a much better conclusion than wildly guessing you are being throttled though.
Another way you can test directly on your phone:
1) open up the terminal
2) type the 3 lines below: (downloads a file, gets the time it took and then removes it after)
cd /mnt/sdcard
time wget http://207.192.68.6/100MB-newark.bin
rm 100MB-newark.bin
*if the above doesn't work, then you need busybox, but nearly every rom/kernel has it that's not stock, so you should by default, have it. If not, search in the market for busybox installer. The reason you see an ip there is wget doesnt play well with hostnames on the android due to the way it resolves domains and busybox generally being statically linked. If you want to try another url, you have to get the ip like above (you can do that by pinging the hostname on your phone).
3)Note "real" the time it took in seconds and divide 100 by that to get Megabytes per second (MBps not Mbps) or by 102400 to get Kilobytes per second (I suppose you could get Megabits, but that's a pretty pointless measurement other than making your connection look fast compared to saying bytes, since your files all appear in bytes and browser downloads show in bytes). If you really care about mbps, multiple what you did above already by 8.
4) when it finishes you have an answer totally on your phone alone.
ignitros said:
I'm sorry if this has already been discussed in the Thunderbolt forums but I did a search and could only find posts in other phone specific forums.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=940190
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=943171
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=937925&highlight=throttle
I have LTE turned on in my area and when I use my wireless tether for root users I get awesome speeds between 2-3MBps but after about 150-200MB downloaded those speeds immediately drop off to just 10-20k or so. Now I rarely go over the 5GB soft cap and even when I do it's only by a few hundred MBs. Is there some sort of throttling going on and any way to stop it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I believe there is a problem with the "Wireless Tether" app. I don't think it plays well with the 4G, this could be a reason for it. Have you tried used the "Mobile Hotspot" app, that comes with the phone? Do you get the same results?
I have also used the stock mobile hotspot app as well as tether via usb and get the same result. For clarification... I am downloading large files (500mb or larger) from a work server so I know that it's a problem on my phone end and not a problem on the server end. I can be on my home computer and download the files and never drop below 5MBps download the whole time... usually never drop below 10MBps to be honest.
Android police says that the way wireless tether works.. there is no way to tell if you're tethering or not without digging deep into packets.. deep enough that it would be invasion of privacy
http://www.androidpolice.com/2011/04/27/psa-take-it-easy-att-isnt-targeting-unauthorized-android-tethering-and-may-never/
Sent from my ThunderBolt using XDA Premium App
joshnichols189 said:
Android police says that the way wireless tether works.. there is no way to tell if you're tethering or not without digging deep into packets.. deep enough that it would be invasion of privacy
http://www.androidpolice.com/2011/0...unauthorized-android-tethering-and-may-never/
Sent from my ThunderBolt using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's all good and well but there is definitely something going on here. I've run the same test same file all 3 ways once every 4 hours since my first post and at about 150-200mb downloaded my speeds drop to almost non existent and the same goes for files downloaded from Microsoft and Google among others. Downloading the same file from my home internet does not see this slow down at all. I've even tried letting it run for over an hour like that to see if it was something temporary. It seems to stay throttled down till I've let the phone sit for a few hours without using any data then kicks back up to normal speeds until I restart another large download.
Is there any way to do a more controlled experiment to see if I'm crazy, unique or what?
ignitros said:
That's all good and well but there is definitely something going on here. I've run the same test same file all 3 ways once every 4 hours since my first post and at about 150-200mb downloaded my speeds drop to almost non existent and the same goes for files downloaded from Microsoft and Google among others. Downloading the same file from my home internet does not see this slow down at all. I've even tried letting it run for over an hour like that to see if it was something temporary. It seems to stay throttled down till I've let the phone sit for a few hours without using any data then kicks back up to normal speeds until I restart another large download.
Is there any way to do a more controlled experiment to see if I'm crazy, unique or what?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yeah...backup your current rom, flash and restore your phone back to near stock (still rooted) and try without any meddling (custom stuff) http://www.multiupload.com/26WG1UZCXR http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1009423
you also never mentioned what android version and rom you are currently using. if it's anything other than froyo, that could be your problem since nothing else is anywhere as stable (by stable, i dont mean "oh it works" i mean as in tested throughly and was put out for non testing release).
Though the above suggestions stated above likely are the culprit, and will help you...there is also a chance that you are indeed being throttled occasionally. Infact, I'm sure we all have been. Verizon has several manned data centers throughout the state who monitor all the traffic happening, and can, and will, activately manupulate the speeds, thoroughput, etc depending on how conjestion things are. And yes, they can even pinpoint it on an individual level...though they rarely do that, tending to focus on what's happening on a more macro level.
I actually wasn't even aware of this until recently, but some guy who worked at Verizon who was also in school for that sort of thing let it slip when we started chatting for a second, to which he received a scathing look from the ***** manager, so that ended the conversation.
I was running DasBAMF 1.6.3 and I did return to stock without root this morning to try it out that way as well and I'm still seeing the same results.
ignitros said:
I was running DasBAMF 1.6.3 and I did return to stock without root this morning to try it out that way as well and I'm still seeing the same results.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Find someone else with a 4g device and have them download next to you at the same time. Only other option I can think of doing.
I'll try that.
Update:
I got with a few friends and tried a few different things. 3 people with Thunderbolts and 2 with Droid Charge. 2 in Seattle and 3 in Spokane. The Thunderbolts rooted and running DasBAMF 1.6.3 and the Charges fully stock. We tried the download using 3 methods for the TBolt's (wireless tether for root, mobile hotspot and USB tether) and the Charges used the mobile hotspot.
We all downloaded the same files. A 512mb video file, 400mb zipped picture file and a 300mb document file.
My Seattle friends who have had the "official" 4G LTE launch had no issues downloading at all... 1 TBolt and 1 Charge. Download went smoothly and never throttled down at all.
All 3 of us here in Spokane saw the same throttling going on. Could this be more an effect of LTE not being "officially" deployed in Spokane yet? It's not supposed to be officially launched till June 19th but we've been able to access it for several weeks now.
ignitros said:
All 3 of us here in Spokane saw the same throttling going on. Could this be more an effect of LTE not being "officially" deployed in Spokane yet? It's not supposed to be officially launched till June 19th but we've been able to access it for several weeks now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would say that's a possibility. I get around 130 kbit/sec down, and LTE was officially launched here in december but only at our airport. I've been checking for nearly two weeks now and it's stayed the same. the upload is normal, was 3.5mbit/sec today.
This is all good to know. I'll be in Seattle next week for work. Can't wait to have 4G for a week
PLEASE MOVE THIS THREAD TO GENERAL MY APOLOGIES
I know battery life issues have been talked to death but...Here's a new perspective:
so I have been doing some experimenting with my amaze in terms of battery life and asking my friend who works at T-mobile regarding his SGS2...He says his battery life seems to be pretty crappy too, marginally better than the amaze....so, I hard reset my phone and I did not sign into google, left my phone on airplain mode, basically I did not set up anything...I turned off wifi, and data everything was truned off...I went for 10 hours with only 2 percent battery drainage...then I signed into google....and in a matter of 10 minutes I went from 98 percent to 92... Watever is eating the battery up is not the phones hardware fault or the screens fault... I turned off background data sync and it seemed to make little difference...It seems the google programs or any program that needs internet connect regardless of syncing or not will have significant effect on your battery life...between 4g and wifi I saw little difference in battery life drainage...my phone signal is completely green so I cannot blame the signal... I cannot possibly kill gmail, market, maps etc...these are programs I use constantly...lets hope with the ICS update some of these sofware issues will resolve...
google needs to start managing applications better and not leave a bunch of applications running in the forground and background...
I've heard different theories regarding task killers...some say it actually worsens battery life since programs keep wanting to restart and some say it saves battery life...can anyone elaborate on this? I have juice defender ultimate, it seems to make minute difference in battery life as well.
PLEASE MOVE THIS THREAD TO GENERAL MY APOLOGIES
Display is the biggest factor obviously and then its data transfer or anything that has to do with transmitting signal.
like every other phone the 100% lasts for a long time then after it drops it drops quickly. So your analyses is flawed since it already dropped from 100% and then you switched data on. There are apps that are constantly sending data and the sense UI kills the battery a lot too. Thats why AOSP roms are better for battery life.
Juicedefender helps
setcpu helps
managing your apps helps
changing your background to black helps
I've tried juice defender, um... I would suggest you read about instructions on flashing a custom ROM I'm on quiksense and when 2.0 comes out I heard xboarder's got some really nice improvements with the 1.4.1 version I almost doubled my battery life. My phone used to go down to 50~60 idle over night, now it's about 90~ idle over night.
Teo032 said:
Display is the biggest factor obviously and then its data transfer or anything that has to do with transmitting signal.
like every other phone the 100% lasts for a long time then after it drops it drops quickly. So your analyses is flawed since it already dropped from 100% and then you switched data on. There are apps that are constantly sending data and the sense UI kills the battery a lot too. Thats why AOSP roms are better for battery life.
Juicedefender helps
setcpu helps
managing your apps helps
changing your background to black helps
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Juicedefender did help but then I was missing all my google talk messages, google voice messages, google voice voicemails and a bunch of stuff...ever going through the settings and setting it up to recheck background data every 5 minutes did not work with J/D...so I stopped using it...I need my data to come through...whats the point of having a phone if you can't get notification and use the features meant to.... I used to be a strickly no bloatware simplistic out of the box google experience guy...thus my nexus one...I LOVED IT...then dropped it and not worth fixing. nexus S was dissapointing, so is the galaxy nexus...I hate all the bloatware, and all the customizations t-mobile makes to the phone...like t-mobile inscription on the phone, t-mobile startup screen...etc...yes I know I could root and change all that stuff...honestly I just don't feel like going through all that crap!!! and also void my warranty...I don't undestand howcome the iphone is never branded!!!???/ wtf....I buy a phone and it's mine why does it have to come with a logo of the company....IT'S MY PHONE. THEY SHOULD INSCRIBE MY NAME ON IT. as for the bloatware I figured out how to temproot and freeze programs... I don't think you can change the startup screen to the original HTC one with temp root...damn T-mobile...you used to be so much better...
seansk said:
Juicedefender did help but then I was missing all my google talk messages, google voice messages, google voice voicemails and a bunch of stuff...ever going through the settings and setting it up to recheck background data every 5 minutes did not work with J/D...so I stopped using it...I need my data to come through...whats the point of having a phone if you can't get notification and use the features meant to.... I used to be a strickly no bloatware simplistic out of the box google experience guy...thus my nexus one...I LOVED IT...then dropped it and not worth fixing. nexus S was dissapointing, so is the galaxy nexus...I hate all the bloatware, and all the customizations t-mobile makes to the phone...like t-mobile inscription on the phone, t-mobile startup screen...etc...yes I know I could root and change all that stuff...honestly I just don't feel like going through all that crap!!! and also void my warranty...I don't undestand howcome the iphone is never branded!!!???/ wtf....I buy a phone and it's mine why does it have to come with a logo of the company....IT'S MY PHONE. THEY SHOULD INSCRIBE MY NAME ON IT. as for the bloatware I figured out how to temproot and freeze programs... I don't think you can change the startup screen to the original HTC one with temp root...damn T-mobile...you used to be so much better...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
use JD ultimate and set the apps to work with screen off.
you can get a telus or wind model without the tmobile branding
i think you can change the bootanimation with temp root because it's just a file? I'm not exactly sure about that one though.
apple sells their iphone to ATT
as htc sells their phone tmobile
tmobile probably request a branding on it with a higher cost.
att probably reject the higher cost because they're already losing money when buying the iphone from apple (i think i remember i read it awhile ago) and make money off data plans.
Teo032 said:
use JD ultimate and set the apps to work with screen off.
you can get a telus or wind model without the tmobile branding
i think you can change the bootanimation with temp root because it's just a file? I'm not exactly sure about that one though.
apple sells their iphone to ATT
as htc sells their phone tmobile
tmobile probably request a branding on it with a higher cost.
att probably reject the higher cost because they're already losing money when buying the iphone from apple (i think i remember i read it awhile ago) and make money off data plans.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did use JD ultimate with those apps enable, NO GO, MAYBE I SHOULD RESTART AND GIVE IT ANOTHER TRY...its only when that program requests it that it can initiate the data line, otherwise if someone sends you a text i will not get it since both wifi and data line are cut off permenantly during screen off that is how it saves battery....enabling programs are good for things such as pandora etc...once they end a playlist or something it automatically turns off....this is what I understood from the explaination...i temp rooted and removed some bloatware...hopefully I can change the startup screen as well, perhaps through adb push
P.S. where do I download the original HTC boot animation and sound and what folder is it in to push into? thanks
seansk said:
I did use JD ultimate with those apps enable, NO GO, MAYBE I SHOULD RESTART AND GIVE IT ANOTHER TRY...its only when that program requests it that it can initiate the data line, otherwise if someone sends you a text i will not get it since both wifi and data line are cut off permenantly during screen off that is how it saves battery....enabling programs are good for things such as pandora etc...once they end a playlist or something it automatically turns off....this is what I understood from the explaination...i temp rooted and removed some bloatware...hopefully I can change the startup screen as well, perhaps through adb push
P.S. where do I download the original HTC boot animation and sound and what folder is it in to push into? thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
for JD you want to click on the app thing twice so it goes to enable/screen off not just enabled. But yeah i noticed that sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't
not sure where the bootanimation and sounds is it at, i never played with it. You should check out the themes section, you can download the zip and browse through where it goes.... other than that there might be other threads with the instructions on where it's at.
You may want to try an AOSP based rom, (if you rooted)
I was getting 18 hours of use with 36% left, Medium usage (ie browsing, texting)
Teo032 said:
for JD you want to click on the app thing twice so it goes to enable/screen off not just enabled. But yeah i noticed that sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't
not sure where the bootanimation and sounds is it at, i never played with it. You should check out the themes section, you can download the zip and browse through where it goes.... other than that there might be other threads with the instructions on where it's at.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ya i clicked twice enable/screen off...still no go for those particular programs i tested and tested it....oh well..my batterly life is not bad at all...besides I have a car kit which charges it in the car. once i started using the thing tho, battery drains fast...its no mystery its got a big screen bigger than my old N1 which used to be amoled and this is lcd...also this uses 4g which consumes significantly greater battery...faster processor etc....its not a mystery!!! they need to come up with a new battery technology soon!!!!
One minor and a couple of major issues...
- Notification drop-down stops accepting touch input but can still be slid up and down. Reboot fixed
- Battery life is horrible. It's better with wifi set to turn off when the screen turns off, but I'm still losing about 10% per hour. With the stock 2.3.4 ROM I was able to go 16 hours and only drop to 80%. I've read maybe I need to let the battery discharge completely so that it can calibrate? I'll try that today.
- Cell connectivity is sketchy now. I've had problems making calls. Full bars, then it tries to connect and the bars drop to 0 temporarily, then come back up and the call fails. My SMS send success rate is about 75%, sometimes down to 25%. I've had multiple text messages fail to send and some texts I end up receiving minutes and sometimes hours later. This is a huge problem.
Overall I think this is a great leap forward and the phone is very fast now, but with the battery life and sketchy cell problems I may have to go back to stock.
Anyone have any ideas?
Thanks!
I wish I could get this to be stable, and I understand it's still beta, but I have to go back to stock. If I didn't need the phone and SMS functions to be reliable then I'd stick with it, but I need my phone for work.
I'll keep an eye on how things progress and maybe try again down the road, but chances are I'll be upgrading to a Galaxy Nexus in a couple of weeks anyway. At least then I can use my X2 as a toy and not care about carrier stability.
I think these problems are rare, sorry. I do share the "wifi not reconnecting" but wifi fixer is a work around. This is a super daily driver. There was a screen blackout but I found non-compatable themes to be the problem.
We need a "This works check list kind of thread" so people know what does work. FWIW.
edit
This is the best battery life I have had on any rom.
Yeah, I also had the wifi not reconnecting problem but that was trivial. I'm back to stock now, the last straw was the phone not even reconnecting to 3G, I lost all data connectivity. I could deal with the battery and such, but the cell/data connectivity problems are a definite no-go for me.
skwoodwiva said:
I think these problems are rare, sorry. I do share the "wifi not reconnecting" but wifi fixer is a work around. This is a super daily driver. There was a screen blackout but I found non-compatable themes to be the problem.
We need a "This works check list kind of thread" so people know what does work. FWIW.
edit
This is the best battery life I have had on any rom.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe you can start one of those threads.
I also notice a fast battery drain but the rom hasn't settled in yet and it may need more time to do so.
Sent from my MB870 using xda premium
My issues are (minor):
One of my game can not be played (Siegecraft - after downloading the game data, the system ends with "network error") all my other games play fine, so I don't know why.
Gallery app constantly re-starts when trying to view pics. No work around it. If anyone can suggest a good gallery replacement app, please let me know, I tried Gallery Plus (I think that is what it is called) and it also did the same thing.
Major issue (Maybe not an issue):
My wife claims that some phone calls are not going through (it rings from her end, but I am not hearing the ringing on my phone for some reason - I had 5 missed calls listed on my phone). That said, 3 or 4 test calls I made came through without any issues so maybe it is the issue with the ringer not being high enough for me to hear?
Overall, so far, except for the missed calls (which may not be an issue at all) it is a very good daily driver and hopefully after things settle down a bit more it will get even better.
Navigation/Maps/Latitude issue with GPS
When I go into Navigation or Maps or Latitude, especially Navigation, there is a constant message at the bottom of the screen "Searching for GPS".
When looking at Maps, you see the current position but the area is in a fuzzy circle. It didn't happen when I was on stock rooted 2.3.4.
I did see an option to use an external BT GPS but the external is not enabled.
Any ideas?
[EDIT] [Solved] After a reboot, GPS is working fine.
Notifications Blah
hoganw said:
One minor and a couple of major issues...
- Notification drop-down stops accepting touch input but can still be slid up and down. Reboot fixed
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had this same problem, reboot fixed but only temporarily as it returned last night again. As of right now I can't get the notification bar drop down to accept input without a reboot. I'm borderline on this being a showstopper as I live off of the notification bar...
I've poured through the settings, but haven't found anything that fixes it. I have the notification bar power widget turned on, turning that off hasn't made a difference either. I'm going to leave it off and reboot, and see if it comes back.
Do you have the notification power widget turned on?
For everyone having problems with CM7, I HIGHLY recommend going in and wiping both cache and dalvik-cache. (Not a data wipe.) This has fixed pretty much every problem I have run into with CM7.
Now for downloading large files, I have found that I have to use tasker to create a "power profile" that never turns off the screen. I do not have the WIFI loosing connection issue that has been reported, however I have noticed (on stock as well) that when the screen times out, downloads all fail or stop. Just my 2 cents.
Ciao!
Moon Shadow - NM said:
For everyone having problems with CM7, I HIGHLY recommend going in and wiping both cache and dalvik-cache. (Not a data wipe.) This has fixed pretty much every problem I have run into with CM7.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Even though this was done after applying CM7 in BSR? Not sure why doing it again would make any difference, but stranger things have been known to happen.
Now for downloading large files, I have found that I have to use tasker to create a "power profile" that never turns off the screen. I do not have the WIFI loosing connection issue that has been reported, however I have noticed (on stock as well) that when the screen times out, downloads all fail or stop. Just my 2 cents.
Ciao!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not sure if people have tried this, but it works for me...
Settings -> Wireless and Networks -> WiFi Settings -> (menu button) -> Advanced -> WiFi Sleep Policy
By default it's set to turn wifi off when the screen turns off but can be set to "Never."
I would like to report the only problem I have had with CM7 on my DX2 is one of my apps not restoring data I backed up before flashing. Other than that, I LOVE THIS ROM! I used this ROM on my old Dinc and absolutely loved it then too. I feel at home with CM7, and since this is only a beta version, I can't wait for the final release!
Moon Shadow - NM said:
For everyone having problems with CM7, I HIGHLY recommend going in and wiping both cache and dalvik-cache. (Not a data wipe.) This has fixed pretty much every problem I have run into with CM7.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I wiped cache and dalvik (even though I did it in the install steps as well) and the frozen notifications problem has not resurfaced for me. I will post again if it returns, but thanks for the tip moon shadow!
Well, I guess I'll give it another shot. Getting back up and running is almost second-nature now, hooray for backups. haha
I'll wipe, flash, boot CM7, reboot, wipe again, and see if things behave any better. I just went back to stock a few days ago and I'm ready to kill it again. Only 2.5 weeks to upgrade devices!
So I've read through the CM7 development threads and through this one regarding some of the issues. I am currently running on Liberty. Since I am still learning the Android world (read: I'm freaking clueless), would you guys suggest changing over to CM7, or staying with Liberty?
Thanks! (from the girl who's trying to learn...)
BreatheALittle said:
So I've read through the CM7 development threads and through this one regarding some of the issues. I am currently running on Liberty. Since I am still learning the Android world (read: I'm freaking clueless), would you guys suggest changing over to CM7, or staying with Liberty?
Thanks! (from the girl who's trying to learn...)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have never run the liberty rom but i do recommend cm7. The only issue I've had is with wifi. It loses connection sometimes. I downloaded wifi fixer from the market. It doesn't fix the problem but it does reconnect wifi for me. Some have this problem and some don't.
Make a nandroid and give it a try. If you don't like it you can always go back to liberty.
Sent from my cm7dx2 using XDA App
maggard5 said:
I have never run the liberty rom but i do recommend cm7. The only issue I've had is with wifi. It loses connection sometimes. I downloaded wifi fixer from the market. It doesn't fix the problem but it does reconnect wifi for me. Some have this problem and some don't.
Make a nandroid and give it a try. If you don't like it you can always go back to liberty.
Sent from my cm7dx2 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks so much!! I found the directions to give it a try, and realized it was waaaaay more complex than what I felt comfortable doing on my own. Plus, it said I would have to install it from Gingerbread... so that would be 2 installs to complete. May have to wait for my tech guru for this one! However, I'm excited to check it out!
(By the way, I realized that on the couple posts I have, you have helped with both of them. Double thanks. )
BreatheALittle said:
Thanks so much!! I found the directions to give it a try, and realized it was waaaaay more complex than what I felt comfortable doing on my own. Plus, it said I would have to install it from Gingerbread... so that would be 2 installs to complete. May have to wait for my tech guru for this one! However, I'm excited to check it out!
(By the way, I realized that on the couple posts I have, you have helped with both of them. Double thanks. )
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good luck with whatever you decide but it really isn't as complicated as it sounds. Moonshadow has created some great tutorials to guide you through each step. And you are welcome for the help.
Sent from my cm7dx2 using XDA App
Well, I guess I'll give it another shot. Getting back up and running is almost second-nature now, hooray for backups. haha
I'll wipe, flash, boot CM7, reboot, wipe again, and see if things behave any better. I just went back to stock a few days ago and I'm ready to kill it again. Only 2.5 weeks to upgrade devices!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Looks like the notification issues returned for me, great timing. I noticed this time, that one of the notifications that is stuck there is partially Swiped off to the left. I took a screenshot but I'm a nub here and can't post the link.
On another note, I continue to have the wireless problems... dx2 keeps trying to connect, sometimes says disabled. I have set it to never turn off in the screen timeout section. Very weird...
Sent from my MB870 using XDA App
Well, I went and reinstalled CM7 last night. I was diligent about clearing both caches both before and after install, and again a little later after reinstalling apps, plus I also cleared the battery stats.
Don't want to jinx it, but so far so good. Battery life has been very good, I easily went 16 hours and the battery was still > 50%. No call or SMS issues and no notification bug yet. We'll see how things work over the next couple of days...
I've got horrid battery life (down to 60% in 5 hours of LOW use) and some wifi issues (sometimes has a hard time connecting, sometimes not).
I'm going to try the davlic and cache wipe and report back.
As I said, I'm a noob when it comes to not the Galaxy Note but also the Android Operating system. Before switching to Android in April, I was stuck on iOS (iPhone 4) for more than 2 years; before that was the good old Symbian OS on a Nokia N95 8 GB. So far, since making the switch, the experience has been great. Themes, ringtones, tons of customization are just some of the things that are easily possible with "jailbreaking" on my former device.
That being said, I'm still adjusting to my new phone even after 3 months. Thats why I'm starting this thread; I need help on a few questions. So, here it goes (I did search for a lot of these, but no solid solutions) -
1. One of the great things about my old phone was the battery life. Even after using the phone's music function, checking facebook/emails/news/weather every now and then, I would still have around 60%~80% juice left after an 8~10 hour shift at work. None of that on the Note. Just having the 4G running leaves me with around 40%~50% juice after work, with no hard usage like going on the web, or using my phone as a music player. How come? I understand that most of the juice is used by the big-ass display; but there is a still a huge consumption even when the display is not turned on at all. I recently came across a term called deep sleep on the forum; I'm not sure if my phone goes to that or not. How do I check (keep in mind that I'm a noob; I installed CPU Spy, Battery Spy and BetterBatteryStats, but what am I looking for. I'll include a pic from all these apps)? Basically, how do I increase battery life?
2. Charging/Data cables - I dont understand this.. I have included a picture of 3 cables. The 1st one of my brother's from an old HTC phone. This is the only cable I can use to transfer date to and from my phone; that too with a lot care because if I move my phone around, the connection gets lost and I cant even charge my phone unless I unplug the cable, put my phone in a stationary position and replug the cable. The 2nd one is the cable I use to charge my phone. I cant use it to transfer data (I guess because of the little head converter); again, with this cable I cant move my phone around. I have to keep the phone screen-up for it to charge; cant pick it up or move it around or no charge. The 3rd cable is useless. It came with a pair of bluetooth head set. I cant transfer data, nor charge my phone. On some cables, my phone shows its charging; but it either charges very very slow, or shows its at a 100%, but as soon as I take the cable out, the % goes down to 60~85. The phone seems to charge fine on a car charger I have (not a USB car charger, this one has no removable parts). I think it might be the USB port on my phone, but not sure.
3. The 4th picture is of the Go Task Manager widget. Currently its showing 239 MB of RAM free. I closed Battery Spy, and it came down to around 300~325 MB free. Does Go Launcher take a lot of memory? How can I free more RAM? Didnt the Galaxy Note have 1 GB of RAM; what happened to the remaining 305 MB of RAM?
4. ROM - FLOODED = the only word I can use after I saw the Android Development section. So many choices. Is it worth flashing my phone with one of these? Which one do you recommend? Is the one for CyanogenMod good? What exactly does Nightly Built mean?
5. Flashing the phone with a custom ROM voids the warranty, right? Does the "flashing counter" thing work (I read somewhere that there's an easy way of flashing the counter in Recovery to 0)? I included a pic of a crack thats on my screen (long story short, I dropped my phone screen down on a rock). I'm about to send it to AT&T (since I have insurance from them) for the screen (hopefully they'll send me a new one, which will fix the whole charging/data transfer problem too). Will they check the counter too? Should I flash the counter? I have to pay $200 for a claim, be it water damage, accidental damage, theft, loss, etc; if they do check the counter, should the just drop the **** out of the phone so it dosnt work at all?
Long read, I know. Just wanted to cram in as much information as possible so that I can get answers as soon as possible. Any and all answers will be appreciated. Thanks a lot for taking the time to read through the whole thread and replying (if you do).
Ways to increase battery life:
- I hear using wifi as much as possible instead of data is a huge improvement as well as turning off auto sync and you can turn wifi off when the display is off. Also the typical of having it on a low brightness, finding out if you have any rogue apps that are causing more drain than they should. The last resort is to get either multiple batteries or an extended one with a different back case. Aside from those things, you are only going to get so much on time display from the note. I get on average 3.5 hours and can push my phone to about 22 hours from 100%. Milestone 6 Rom, KingKangKernel 5
About the cables:
- Buy a new usb cable. If you ever intend on modifying your phone or even transferring any time of data, you are going to NEED to have a secure and trustworthy connection. And by a new wall adapter. (most phone cables come with the little adapter head for outlets so just make sure it comes included). Pop it off for computer use, and pop it on for wall use. There are a ton of threads about those in the accessories section so you may want to give that a peek. They also have info there about possible substitution batteries.
Ram:
-I don't understand this too much because haha I suck with some techy stuff. But I believe that touchwiz uses a lot of the ram (could be completely wrong) But, I know that a lot of those apps that you are never going to use AT&T(insert name here) apparently constantly are using power and resources. I used to try to clear the ram all the time and it never really went down. Haha sorry I can't help more with this part.
Roms:
- Milestone 6 with KingKangKernel5 ALL THE WAY!!! I would be willing to walk you through the process step-by-step with all the files and such that you would need if you'd like. Other than that, you need to have an idea of what you want before going to the development side of things. Do you want Touchwiz, OC, UV, BLN (YOU WANT BLN lmao), miui, cm9, cm10 (haha), aokp, aosp, aocp, a stock feel, customization out the ying yang. Decide all this stuff and then your choices will narrow drastically to about two or three. From there, it is easy to experiment and possibly decide you had your requirements all wrong and start the process from the beginning haha.
Warranty:
- Get your next insurance claim through BB (best buy). Their black tie protection covers anything as many times as you want without that 200 dollar fee (might as well get a new phone at that ridiculous price!!!) for only ten dollars a month. : D
-Don't know how AT&T does their insurance stuff but I feel if your issues are physical (scratch/ port) that they have no reason to deny you a claim even if there is proof of modification because rooting doesn't crack your screen or break your port. Hahaha, but they can be uptight so I would suggest possibly getting the claim first and then delving into the developmental side of things. There is an odin flashable zip to bring your counter back to 0. I have never tried it personally but many people have had a ton of success with it so I would suggest checking out that thread and just reading carefully what other people do so that you do not make a mistake with anything.
Hope this helps. Hahahahaha, sorry it's so long.
Custom roms improve batt life greatly because on a stock phone u have tons of apps running in the background if u root and flash a rom u can freeze all of them that u want plus now we can over clock our kernels to make r note fly as far as the rom for u ....well u just have to try them diff strokes for diff folks lol i use cm9 roms alot u got to remember ur note has a huge screen so its gonna pull more batt...i also use jucie defender ultimite ...bigjoe has a super everything thread for this phone u can find all ur answers there
sent from memosphere remix
1. Battery life varies strongly with usage, in CPUSpy each bar represents how much time the phone processor has spent at each speed. The more time spent at lower speeds the better for your battery life.
If you scroll to the bottom of the list the lowest speed should either be: 384 MHz or Deep Sleep
The phone only enters Deep Sleep if the phone screen is off, and no apps are calling for CPU time. This speed saves the most battery. Rogue apps could be preventing your phone from sleeping. BetterBatteryStats is a tool to help you discover these apps and either: change your usage patterns or uninstall them.
Check CPUSpy first. If Deep Sleep is not at the bottom, or its bar is relatively small then check BetterBatteryStats for the rogue app.
However even if it's in Deep Sleep if you get around the city a lot during the day the phone will be switching radio towers often, switching uses quite a bit of battery. If you stay in a single place for a while you should be able to leave it on a desk for 8 hours and find that you have lost none or almost no battery at all (Such as at night when you are sleeping).
This is a "4G" phone, carrier coverage is spotty and if you are in an area with bad reception or poor coverage, your phone's radio must switch to a higher power level to maintain a connection with the cell tower thus using more battery. 4G towers are more sparse, and therefore 4G has worse coverage compared to your previous phones.
2. You should be using the cable included with your phone. Charging cables obviously will not carry data. But data cables will do both, get yourself a good cable.
3. Don't worry about ram at all. Android has one of the finest ram management systems out there. The phone has 1 GB of ram, 200-300 MB is reserved for the kernel and kernel processes. Therefore you actually have around 700MB, the phone uses the remaining space to caches apps and other required data so that your experience is more fluid and "Lag-free". Not to mention the ram background services and apps are using. Which brings me back to my original point. Don't worry about it, fiddling with it could ruin your experience with the device and use more battery. Don't use apps to clear it, Google has already stated that this doesn't do much.
4. The original rom is your best bet if you want all of the features of the phone. Cyanogenmod is your second choice, Cyanogenmod does not have S-pen support and some of the services provided from Samsung. Cyanogenmod is very lightweight and is the most popular choice among all android devices.
Nightly-Built means that the rom is basically updated every night, so that you can receive the latest features and improvements. You can check every day and there will be a new update for your phone with the latest additions and fixes. However not all nightly builds are stable, but they are reliable at the moment.
5. The counter only counts when you use ODIN to flash bootloaders and kernels I believe. When most of us say "flashing" we mean flashing through ClockWorkMod or CWM for short. CWM does not advance the counter I believe. There are no reports of anyone being denied warranty because of the counter. Do not flash the counter reset, this does count as a "flash" and it is still detectable by AT&T.
tutusinghsohi said:
As I said, I'm a noob when it comes to not the Galaxy Note but also the Android Operating system. Before switching to Android in April, I was stuck on iOS (iPhone 4) for more than 2 years; before that was the good old Symbian OS on a Nokia N95 8 GB. So far, since making the switch, the experience has been great. Themes, ringtones, tons of customization are just some of the things that are easily possible with "jailbreaking" on my former device.
That being said, I'm still adjusting to my new phone even after 3 months. Thats why I'm starting this thread; I need help on a few questions. So, here it goes (I did search for a lot of these, but no solid solutions) -
1. One of the great things about my old phone was the battery life. Even after using the phone's music function, checking facebook/emails/news/weather every now and then, I would still have around 60%~80% juice left after an 8~10 hour shift at work. None of that on the Note. Just having the 4G running leaves me with around 40%~50% juice after work, with no hard usage like going on the web, or using my phone as a music player. How come? I understand that most of the juice is used by the big-ass display; but there is a still a huge consumption even when the display is not turned on at all. I recently came across a term called deep sleep on the forum; I'm not sure if my phone goes to that or not. How do I check (keep in mind that I'm a noob; I installed CPU Spy, Battery Spy and BetterBatteryStats, but what am I looking for. I'll include a pic from all these apps)? Basically, how do I increase battery life?
To increase battery life you can do a few things. Obviously, use as low brightness as you can stand using, and also try to use wallpapers with lots of black, as black pixels do not draw any power on amoled displays. Next, from your CPU spy pic it looks like a rogue may be holding your device in partial wake lock, as your 384 MHz stage has twice the time of your deep sleep stage. Uninstall any apps you dont need, like benchmarks and other one time use apps like that. Also, if you have stuff constantly syncing, that will drain battery with the screen off too. If you need push email, leave sync on, but change the sync settings of less essential apps to manual sync only, so your phone only syncs those when you use the app. Along with the syncing, if you are in an lte area, data usage will eat much more battery than the iphone for the same data usage. Lastly, if you have crappy cell service, that will also contribute to faster drain.
2. Charging/Data cables - I dont understand this.. I have included a picture of 3 cables. The 1st one of my brother's from an old HTC phone. This is the only cable I can use to transfer date to and from my phone; that too with a lot care because if I move my phone around, the connection gets lost and I cant even charge my phone unless I unplug the cable, put my phone in a stationary position and replug the cable. The 2nd one is the cable I use to charge my phone. I cant use it to transfer data (I guess because of the little head converter); again, with this cable I cant move my phone around. I have to keep the phone screen-up for it to charge; cant pick it up or move it around or no charge. The 3rd cable is useless. It came with a pair of bluetooth head set. I cant transfer data, nor charge my phone. On some cables, my phone shows its charging; but it either charges very very slow, or shows its at a 100%, but as soon as I take the cable out, the % goes down to 60~85. The phone seems to charge fine on a car charger I have (not a USB car charger, this one has no removable parts). I think it might be the USB port on my phone, but not sure.
Buy the stock Samsung wall charger/cable. It will do wonders for you. Solid connection, full speed charging, and data transfer.
3. The 4th picture is of the Go Task Manager widget. Currently its showing 239 MB of RAM free. I closed Battery Spy, and it came down to around 300~325 MB free. Does Go Launcher take a lot of memory? How can I free more RAM? Didnt the Galaxy Note have 1 GB of RAM; what happened to the remaining 305 MB of RAM?
Don't worry about ram usage, android as an os manages it just fine by itself. No need to constantly kill apps or use task killers other than the stock one if you absolutely need to kill something. Constantly killing apps/clearing ram can actually decrease your battery life as well, as constantly killing and restarting apps uses far more resources than leaving them running. Also, if you're constantly killing apps that have push syncing or interval syncing, they will just restart anyways, essentially just killing battery every time you clear ram. Lastly, use as few Widgets as possible. They are nice and pretty, but unless you need them they're just another service that is running, and will slow down your launcher performance if you have too many.
4. ROM - FLOODED = the only word I can use after I saw the Android Development section. So many choices. Is it worth flashing my phone with one of these? Which one do you recommend? Is the one for CyanogenMod good? What exactly does Nightly Built mean?
Remember, there's no rush, and no "best rom", so just take your time reading how to flash each rom, and try each one out that looks appealing to you. Nobody can tell you what will suit you best, and since all of the roms are great around here, you really can't go wrong trying any of them until you find what fits you best. Custom roms are totally worth it, as they have all of the fat trimmed and are really fun to play with. Be careful though, you may find yourself developing an addiction after you get the hang of things. =].
5. Flashing the phone with a custom ROM voids the warranty, right? Does the "flashing counter" thing work (I read somewhere that there's an easy way of flashing the counter in Recovery to 0)? I included a pic of a crack thats on my screen (long story short, I dropped my phone screen down on a rock). I'm about to send it to AT&T (since I have insurance from them) for the screen (hopefully they'll send me a new one, which will fix the whole charging/data transfer problem too). Will they check the counter too? Should I flash the counter? I have to pay $200 for a claim, be it water damage, accidental damage, theft, loss, etc; if they do check the counter, should the just drop the **** out of the phone so it dosnt work at all?
Yes, flashing roms does void your warranty but only temporarily. You can set it back to stock firmware again and be just fine returning or replacing it. People have also returned their phones with the counter tripped, as it seems that as of right now, neither att or Samsung cares about it. Have you flashed anything yet? If not, get your phone replaced before you do just to be sure, then when you get your new one back, you can have already read and downloaded everything you need to root and rom it as soon as you get it back. =].
Long read, I know. Just wanted to cram in as much information as possible so that I can get answers as soon as possible. Any and all answers will be appreciated. Thanks a lot for taking the time to read through the whole thread and replying (if you do).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using Tapatalk 2
tutusinghsohi said:
3. The 4th picture is of the Go Task Manager widget. Currently its showing 239 MB of RAM free. I closed Battery Spy, and it came down to around 300~325 MB free. Does Go Launcher take a lot of memory? How can I free more RAM? Didnt the Galaxy Note have 1 GB of RAM; what happened to the remaining 305 MB of RAM?
4. ROM - FLOODED = the only word I can use after I saw the Android Development section. So many choices. Is it worth flashing my phone with one of these? Which one do you recommend? Is the one for CyanogenMod good? What exactly does Nightly Built mean?
5. Flashing the phone with a custom ROM voids the warranty, right? Does the "flashing counter" thing work (I read somewhere that there's an easy way of flashing the counter in Recovery to 0)? I included a pic of a crack thats on my screen (long story short, I dropped my phone screen down on a rock). I'm about to send it to AT&T (since I have insurance from them) for the screen (hopefully they'll send me a new one, which will fix the whole charging/data transfer problem too). Will they check the counter too? Should I flash the counter? I have to pay $200 for a claim, be it water damage, accidental damage, theft, loss, etc; if they do check the counter, should the just drop the **** out of the phone so it dosnt work at all?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok first keep in mind I came to android with almost the same background as you and about the same time.
Question 3: anything with Go in the name I have seen huge team usage... also custom Roms will be a great thing for your ram you will see big changes if you go with anything like AOKP AOSP or AOCP. These are as close to basic unmodified android as you will find with little to no extras.
4: cyanogen mods are good in my opinion, nightly builds are not finals they are updated nightly... as for a Rom I tried a few and have found my favorite is the collective builds.they just came out with the AOCP (newly updated coming soon) and there is one member of the team that likes ultra slim builds and he slims them down to the bear bones. When ready to flash give them a shot.
5: flashing will void warranty, with that said so did the crack you have. This counts as physical damage. So insurance is the best option. I do agree best buy ins is great but as you have att ins might as well use it. With a crack screen I think you will get a different device to fix charge port but will most likely get refurb phone. I would root and flash with this one so you can do it and IF anything goes wrong you need an instant replacement any way and your not out anything
Other 2 questions I didn't feel I was the one to answer nor am I a expert on any of this, just the info I have
Sent from my AoCP Note
Battery life isn't the greatest on the Note, but it's acceptable. If you use it a lot, the battery will drain. You can try using a different CPU governor (lulzactive, smartassv2, etc. in custom kernels) to improve battery life or just use powersave (which decreases performance but improves battery life). You also have to account for the huge screen which is OLED, not LCD. With an LCD (like the iPhone 4 has) there is an array of white LED's that illuminate the screen. There's probably 8 or so of them. The LCD glass is a color filter which colors the white light from the backlight. The LCD itself uses little power, and the LED backlight only has 8 or so LED's. The Note uses an AMOLED screen (Active-Matrix Organic LED) in which each individual pixel is four independent LED's (RGBG). They're small LED's and use little power on their own, but you have 1280x800x4 of them (well, not quite due to the pentile arrangement staggering pixels). When they're all on (white screens) it uses a lot of power, especially when brightness is up. On the plus side, when they're all off (dark screens) they use much less power. To save power on an AMOLED, use a darker background/theme.
As for RAM usage, the Note has 1GB and you really don't need to worry about checking it. Android manages RAM very well, especially when it has 1GB to work with. When you leave an app in Android it isn't closed, merely pushed back in an application stack. Only when Android determines that RAM is filling up does it start removing stale apps from this stack.
Personally I've used my Note with many different cables without issue. The included Samsung charger and cable work very well, and I think has the most solid connection of all of them, but I've had success with a cord from my Archos media player as well as my HP TouchPad tablet. The TouchPad's wall charger also gives a slight charging boost as it provides more power (2A vs. 1A) but the Note's highest charge rate is around 1.1A so you don't see a huge difference. It does need a bit more than a standard 500mA USB port provides, so if you plan to charge it off your PC or a 500mA charger, you need to turn off the screen and leave it off, otherwise the screen will eat up the power, leaving none for the battery.
My favorite ROM is CyanogenMod 9. This is a built-from-scratch (Google's source + modifications) ROM that includes a lot of nice features while retaining the stock Android look and feel. I personally do not like TouchWiz or the customizations that Samsung added to their Note ROMs but many people do. It's all about personal preference. A nightly build means that a new release of the ROM is posted (usually by an automated system) every night. This is what CyanogenMod uses for most devices, as their project has many developers and is constantly updating. You don't need to update every day, but a nightly ROM means that you always have access to the latest updates if you want them.
As for the flash counter, I would warranty the phone before flashing a custom ROM. I generally don't take warranty into account on my tech purchases because with all the hacking I do it's often void, but usually if you restore the stock firmware they will fix hardware issues obviously not caused by your ROM flashing..
Thank you all for the quick replies.
Regarding the cable, I've come across this on amazon - /gp/product/B007JZGO6S/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&smid=AR2TEZS0WRV7S
Good to buy?
@Ph0n3D0rk - Thank you. Due to the short battery life I've been experiencing, I always use my phone on brightness all the way down with "Automatic Brightness" option turned off. I only have 200 MB per month data, so wifi's the only way to go . I've been looking into extra (or extended batteries); maybe soon. I read into Milestone 6; seems pretty interesting. I might give it a go (maybe when I get the replacement). I'll private message you about it.
@JB calhoun - Thank you. I've started looking into different kinds of ROMs. Is it possible to try out 2 different types or ROMs at the same time? What I mean is that say if I install CM9, then I want to try Milestone 6; will I have to remove CM9 to try Milestone 6? Also, does installing a new ROM every time (almost all instructions say to do a "Wipe data/factory reset") means all my data (on the phone ofcourse and not on the SD card) will be lost? I'm mainly worried about my text messages and whatsapp conversations (I think all other data settings are saved by Google, and reapplied once the app is installed back again, right?)
@SkyStars - Thank you. I tried using BetterBatteryStats, but I have no idea what I'm looking for. Should I be looking at Processes, Partial Wakelocks, Other or Kernel Wakelocks; and then what in these? I've heard a lot about CyagnogenMod. When you say it does not support S-pen, does it mean that the phone has no use for it at all? Can we still maneuver the screen with it, or take screenshots? Or does it just stop working? So, I should stay away from flashing the counter? My counter (I think) right now says 4.
@welchertc - Thank you. I found out about keeping a black wallpaper to decrease battery use a few weeks ago; I've had a black wallpaper since. I'll remove useless apps, then lets see what happens. Is the link I provided in the beginning ok, or should I search for something else? I was wondering about killed apps popping up after some time (Facebook for example). I have email sync turned off. I've been trying to turn off sync for a few apps, but some of them dont give me such an option (eg. The Drudge Report). I have started looking for some ROMs. But I ask you the same question I asked JB about ROMs - Can I have only 1 ROM at a time? And, will have to erase everything every single time? The warranty problem's the same with Apple. Just like you said, it seems to be the same with Apple - just reinstall the stock iOS, and you're ready to go (I had my iPhone changed after I went back to stock from a jailbroken firmware after it also developed battery issues; the new phone I received was brilliant in the battery department). I think my counter is up to 4.
@spade1031 - Thank you. Milestone 6 is an AOKP release. I'll look into the other releases you've mentioned as well. I've been using the Go Launcher because I tried AWD, and didnt like it. Any other nice ones out there? (But maybe I wont need them after a ROM install).
@CalcProgrammer1 - Thank you for the very informative and in-depth writing. What exactly is a CPU governor? If it is what I think it is, then I think I used one back when AT&T hadnt rolled out ICS, and I had (somehow) rooted the older version. I installed an app (dont remember the name) that basically let me create profiles in which I could set the max and min CPU usages; is that it? So I shouldnt worry about closing apps using any witget? The reason I ask is because the phone tends to get a bit slugish when a lot of apps are open, and available RAM (as shown on Go Taskmanger is around ~75 MB). I'll try not closing any apps from now on and note the difference. If I do go with CyanogenMod, what exactly will I be losing in terms of TouchWiz? I have flashed before (tried ICS before it officially came out), so my flash now is at 4. Should I take a chance and turn it in as is and see if they still change it; or should I try flashing the counter before turning it in?
Once again, thanks everyone for the replies.
tutusinghsohi said:
Thank you all for the quick replies
@spade1031 - Thank you. Milestone 6 is an AOKP release. I'll look into the other releases you've mentioned as well. I've been using the Go Launcher because I tried AWD, and didnt like it. Any other nice ones out there? (But maybe I wont need them after a ROM install).
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Click to collapse
Dude your gonna hate me but this thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1538926
Best launcher for the Note? Has a ton of info.. most people will still use a custom launcher after a Rom but it is all personal pref. I like apex (got the paid version) nova isn't bad but not for me... I'm now playing with sslauncher, like this as landscape and portrait can be set 2 different ways and has text icons built in and also NO GRID you have to follow for the icons
Sent from my AoCP Note
spade1031 said:
Dude your gonna hate me but this thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1538926
Best launcher for the Note? Has a ton of info.. most people will still use a custom launcher after a Rom but it is all personal pref. I like apex (got the paid version) nova isn't bad but not for me... I'm now playing with sslauncher, like this as landscape and portrait can be set 2 different ways and has text icons built in and also NO GRID you have to follow for the icons
Sent from my AoCP Note
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Click to collapse
Thanks a lot for the link.. I'm going through the thread now..
Go Launcher is alright (for now) because of all the widgets they make.. They turn out pretty crappy when used with other launchers..
Just tried Nova Launcher. Seemed good, but I think I've gotten used to Go Launcher.. But I will definitely make a switch soon..
Also, one of the very first replies to the thread you posted about suggests overclocking. Will I be able to do that when installing custom ROMs?
Regarding how to read Better Battery Stats, the developer of the app is very active on xda and you can actually get help reading the logs from the app on the app thread on xda.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1179809
Make sure you read the OP to see how to post the logs and also it'll give you insight into how to understand what the app is telling you.
tutusinghsohi said:
@welchertc - Thank you. I found out about keeping a black wallpaper to decrease battery use a few weeks ago; I've had a black wallpaper since. I'll remove useless apps, then lets see what happens. Is the link I provided in the beginning ok, or should I search for something else? I was wondering about killed apps popping up after some time (Facebook for example). I have email sync turned off. I've been trying to turn off sync for a few apps, but some of them dont give me such an option (eg. The Drudge Report). I have started looking for some ROMs. But I ask you the same question I asked JB about ROMs - Can I have only 1 ROM at a time? And, will have to erase everything every single time? The warranty problem's the same with Apple. Just like you said, it seems to be the same with Apple - just reinstall the stock iOS, and you're ready to go (I had my iPhone changed after I went back to stock from a jailbroken firmware after it also developed battery issues; the new phone I received was brilliant in the battery department). I think my counter is up to 4.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To turn off all auto syncing, like I do, Just go into accounts and sync under settings and there should be one box or slier to uncheck to turn off all auto syncing. You can also leave it on and configure your individual accounts such as email, twitter, and facebook to sync automatically or not. =]
And yes, you can only truly run one ROM at a time. You could make a nandroid of one ROM, flash another and configure it, then nandroid the second once you have it set up, then keep restoring those two nandroids every time you want to switch. Although that is pretty ineffective if you like to keep switching things up on your homescreens, as the nandroids stay exactly the same.
You also don't need to erase everything per se. All of your pictures and stuff are a good idea to backup, to your computer or an sd card, if you're flashing a rom that requires a full wipe. Your apps and app data will be wiped, so definitely buy titanium backup pro if you haven't already, as that will allow you to restore all of your apps between flashes. Also, there are various sms backup apps, though I've never used one so I can't recommend any. email you can obviously resync quite easily, same with contacts once you have them all synced to your gmail account. Other than that, about the only thing you can't restore afaik is exactly how you have your homscreens/wallpaper setup.
tutusinghsohi said:
4. ROM - FLOODED = the only word I can use after I saw the Android Development section. So many choices. Is it worth flashing my phone with one of these? Which one do you recommend? Is the one for CyanogenMod good? What exactly does Nightly Built mean?
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There is really only like 3-4 unique roms in there. The majority of them are peoples themed versions one of those.
CM9 is by far the smoothest but I am having problems with GAPPs 7/19 build. Im currently running AOSPxXx until I can sort out the GAPPs issues Im having.
tutusinghsohi said:
Thanks a lot for the link.. I'm going through the thread now..
Go Launcher is alright (for now) because of all the widgets they make.. They turn out pretty crappy when used with other launchers..
Just tried Nova Launcher. Seemed good, but I think I've gotten used to Go Launcher.. But I will definitely make a switch soon..
Also, one of the very first replies to the thread you posted about suggests overclocking. Will I be able to do that when installing custom ROMs?
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Click to collapse
To be honest I tried overclocking only once am I was on a super light weight Rom, with that I didn't see much improvement but I have noticed the people do see am improvement are also using bigger Rom s. Again I'm sure you will see this many times more you are on here "flash it and find out" the reason is no one has done every combo out there. But over clicking will help at times just keep in mind your not happy with the battery now? And your gonna run your phone harder? Lol
Sent from my AoCP Note
Just wondering how it going? Get your new phone? Flash anything? If so what and what do you think of it?
Sent from my AoCP Note
My two words of advice is
1. Get extra batteries/wall charger I bought 3 batteries and charger for like 12 bucks
2. Get cm9 its amazing
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using xda app-developers app
My personal impression regarding Go launcher is that its very complete (widgets included) but for my experience its a heavy battery drainer so unfortunately i had to uninstall it
Sent from my GT-N7000 using xda app-developers app