[Q] So I ordered an Xperia Active... - Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini, Mini Pro, Xperia Pro, A

pretty much based on size and its waterproof feature. I do a lot of hunting, fishing and snowmobiling. I primarily plan to use this device for GPS and mapping and wondering if I can rely on it in favor of my Garmin Dakota 20. There's not much on the web that addresses its capabilities in this specific manner. Will I be disappointed? Are there specific ROMS available that might improve my experience in using the device in this manner? I'd obviously be interested in optimal battery life. I did order a couple of spare 1800mAh batteries and standalone charger in hopes of getting me through a solid day on the trail.

HemRoyd said:
pretty much based on size and its waterproof feature. I do a lot of hunting, fishing and snowmobiling. I primarily plan to use this device for GPS and mapping and wondering if I can rely on it in favor of my Garmin Dakota 20. There's not much on the web that addresses its capabilities in this specific manner. Will I be disappointed? Are there specific ROMS available that might improve my experience in using the device in this manner? I'd obviously be interested in optimal battery life. I did order a couple of spare 1800mAh batteries and standalone charger in hopes of getting me through a solid day on the trail.
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Click to collapse
There are some roms, who improve battery life, don't know about gps. But if you install another rom, you will void your warranty and you won't be able to flash the specific original rom for your region, cause for most devices there's only the generic rom to flash (shouldn't be a problem if you have to take it to service, just that you know)...
If you want to use the active instead of your garmin, you will have to find a very good navigation app, because as I think, you need something for area where are no streets, too. And most navigation apps haven't got this feature...

I have an active myself. If you want to keep it down to it's basic functions (which is basically already set as an outdoors device) i would suggest that you don't upgrade to ics and keep the original gingerbread software which has far less battery draining than any ics based rom. About the GPS, i used it severalk times for travbelling and never for tracking so don't know how it works in deep thick woods, but always had speedy lock on and precise navigation. Unlike above user stated most navigation (one with offline maps would probably be best) apps are for trekking and offraod activities, what you can do is modify your gps.conf file to make it specific to your region or area so satellite lock time will be much improved. Just search the forum for gps speed fixes, there's also a patch for agps to help increase satellite locking time.

I own this phone and wanted to do the same as you.
All setups i tried were not stable. sometimes the external power cable got disconnected, sometimes just the app closed.
after months of testing, i reverted to gamin products as they offer a much more rugged and robust hardware. I never managed to track > 20 hours on my active-phone.
Sent from my Pro using xda premium

Thanks for all of your input folks.
I did receive the phone on Friday and had a chance to check it out over the weekend. My first impression is that it has a comfortable size and mass to it and I do not mind the screen size at all. It seems quite speedy and the (Gingerbread) OS operates like butter. I did have difficulty getting the GPS function to lock at first. After prolonged attempts, it wasn't until I installed an app called GPS Test did it finally lock - not quite sure what the difference was, perhaps AGPS may have been responsible. Since then however, I have been attempting to maintain GPS-only locating as I am certain that data would not be available in the majority of my usage areas. I looked at most of the GPS Mapping/Tracking apps and settled on the paid version of AlpineQuest - excellent app. I got my waypoints from my Garmin loaded onto my SD card and was quickly navigating the trails in the woods behind my house. Great stuff!
I got just over 8hrs of solid use out of the first charge on the stock battery, so the phone should keep up with a full day on the trails. I have also ordered a couple of spare batteries and standalone charger for backup. Since this first day of use, I have been using the GPS Test app exclusively to verify my satellite lock prior to using AlpineQuest. I did notice that after prolonged non-usage or following a charge cycle I did have some difficulty locking on to the satellites, however each time it was solved with a phone reboot - after which the GPS Test app would lock on within seconds (even inside the house). Each time I was in airplane mode with WiFi off. I will have to monitor the satellite locking for consistency before I am all in with this device but so far I am quite please with its (stock) performance.

the phone & the user may be active, but the battery is certainly not. the display is not that bright under bright sunlight situations :X

hi, i have the active as well and so far i am pretty satisfied.. not VERY satisfied due to Battery life.. but without that issue, I am satisfied...
I have dropped this baby 4 times already on concrete (2 waist level 2 chest level) and the phone just bounced without any cracked screen (it does have some dents on the silver lining around the screen though), but i can guarantee that this phone is shock proof because on those 4 times, the phone did not even turn-off or restart or even battery breaking out from its case...
I do not do trails but so far, the NavFree app has been very good to me with my driving direction needs... easy locking with GPS and pretty good directions...
Try also searching for build.prop tweaks in the development area of this forum because i think it can help in the phone's performance and a little bit of battery life.. i can do intermittent non-heavy image/flash website surfing and the battery could last more than 8 hours and if I just have my phone on stand by (just waiting for messages and calls and reply to them) battery could last more than 24 hours...
I have to ask you though, were those 1800 batteries better than the 1200 ? I was also thinking of buying spares...

rullean said:
I have to ask you though, were those 1800 batteries better than the 1200 ? I was also thinking of buying spares...
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Click to collapse
I haven't got them yet, but these are the one's I ordered.
I'm on the .62 build so looks like I have to flash an earlier firmware just to get root. I'd really like to get rid of some of this extra crap and get link2sd going. If you are rooted, what firmware are you running? I just hope the GPS performs just as well on an earlier build.

HemRoyd said:
I haven't got them yet, but these are the one's I ordered.
I'm on the .62 build so looks like I have to flash an earlier firmware just to get root. I'd really like to get rid of some of this extra crap and get link2sd going. If you are rooted, what firmware are you running? I just hope the GPS performs just as well on an earlier build.
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Click to collapse
you have to tell me if you notice some increase in battery life with those 1800's...
regarding rooting, i followed this procedure with no problem: http://talk.sonymobile.com/message/241059
just follow it step by step.. also, if you are not aware, you have to flash the kernel using the flashtool before you can flash the rom through CWM.... in anyway, you should not be afraid of bricking your phone because I was able to always restore my phone through that link's procedure.. however, pls do not take my word on it because what works for me might not work for you even if we have the same phone... we still might have a different stock.. so rooting your phone is always at your own risk (my disclaimer, hehehe)...
regarding rom, i find the free experia rom's quite good... after initial loading of the rom, i got more than 400mb free internal space.. so they did remove a lot of bloated apps that you dont really use...

just as side note: i installed cm10 fxp138 on my active and the battery lasts for 36hours and more. i really like 4.1 jb.

Update
OK, so I am rooted and remain locked. I ended up flashing stock 4.0.2.A.0.42 and then this ROM:
ROM][GB][ALL MDPI] HASA v5 [2.3.7][27/9/12]
My prayers have been answered! This ROM is fast and lean! Thanks very much to sandy7 for his work on this! I followed his instructions exactly as in his first post, however did not need to install the revised camera lib as I had no issues with the camera. I've had absolutely zero issues and love the speed.
Now for the battery life. I finally got the spare batteries I mentioned in the previous post (shipped from China). My initial observation is that these batteries smoke the stock one by a large margin. I still need to spend a little more time on this ROM to be certain. As mentioned before, my goal is to replace my standalone GPS unit with this phone. I am not using phone or data, so I am in airplane mode all the time. I am using wifi a bit. With the stock battery I got about 1 day and 12 hours of standby and light use on wifi and gps with 10% remaining. On the replacement battery I got 3 days and 16 hours with 35% remaining before I decided to try the stock battery again. The stock battery began to drain as soon as I put it in and was down to 85% within the first hour. I don't know, perhaps these stock batteries are junk? I am open to suggestions on how to properly do a test and comparison.

omg.. really? so those china batteries work for you? damn.. I want those.. i will buy those..

Related

Flashing radio (scary stuff)

Okay, I haven't used my Hermes as a phone (since it's near to impossible to get a SIM-card in Japan), but now I got one and I noticed the battery drain really quickly. I can't even have it one for one day, but I used to have it on for two days before I had to recharge, and then I had beam and bluetooth running. So I need a new radio.
The question I have is, I have CRC's latest stable, flashed on a Swedish device. Can I flash any radio? (That's listed in the wiki) I've flashed ROM's and I figure the procedure is pretty much the same, but I can't find if I can use any radio? My operator i SoftBank if that's any help. Will this affect SoftBanks special text-service? (Mails instead of SMS, a real pain to get it working)
While we're at it, anyone got a recommendation for Tokyo? What I have now is 1.07.01.10.
Thanks for you patience! Please don't kill me, I just don't want to do something bad.
If you have HardSPL installed, flashing Radio ROMs is pretty safe, provided you do that from an SD card and not via a USB cable. Just avoid 1.54.x radios as they're known to be dangerous to the radio hardware. It's also a good idea to read the corresponding thread before flashing the radio ROM - people frequently provide their feedback as for stability, reception quality and power consumption.
P.S. They say 1.47.30.00 is quite good power consumption-wise.
Man, more 1.54.xx.xx bashing... I don't know why its said that 1.54.xx.xx is dangerous, I've been using here in Australia for as long as its been available. Never had a problem with the radio... I have 2 Hermes and they are both running 1.54.30.10.
Maybe it has a problem if the provider doesn't support it...
Anyway, if you know anyone in Japan with a Hermes, see what radio they're running... Unless one of our members knows what radio it is they use over there...
Cheers...
Thanks for your replies!
I tried the 1.47.30.00 and it's just as power hungry as the one I used before. Battery is now down at 43 % after 5 hours (completely charged in the beginning) and I haven't even really used it. I have to use 3G since GSM doesn't exist in Japan, which of course is a battery drainer, but come on... This won't last a day! Could be the battery since it's a fairly old phone (a year or two, not sure), but without the phone on it lasted easily two days with music running around 5 hours per day and some other daily use (looking up in dictionary, taking notes, etc).
Unfortunately as you said, 3G is a power eater... You might think about getting an extended life battery, 1500Mah or possibly a 3000Mah battery. Just remember though that the larger the battery the bigger the size and the heavier your Hermes gets...
Cheers...
Once again, thanks for your reply!
But is this drastical drop off battery time normal? I mean, it has more than halfed! The other normal phones I've had, worked atleast week one a full charge, using 3G, and the last one had a 880 Mah battery.
It's probably more convenient for me to carry an extra phone than using a bigger battery, cheaper and easier to find. >.<
I found an enabled data-connection setting in the Comm Manager that hadn't been disabled before. After a few hours of testing it would seem that the batterylife has greatly improved, but haven't done any real testing yet. Strange thing is, if I disable this Data Connection and leave the Comm Manager open, it will enable itself. But if I quit fast enough it's disable.
But what is it? I'm using a prepaid phone with no possiblities to access an internet connection with 3G, 3G is phone only. (And SoftBanks very strange text service)

Various nooby questions about the Galaxy Note - Battery, ICS, Insurance, Display, ROM

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).
Click to expand...
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
Click to expand...
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?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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?
Click to expand...
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

[Q] 1) Upgraded from 2.3.3 to 4.1.2 by Samsung. 2) Battery hates me. 3) :( :( :(

4) and it's very very annoying... so much so that I sometimes (multiple times in a day, actually) wish to get back to Android 2.3.3, which I had before updating to Samsung's (India) version of Android 4.1.2 for my GS2.
What could be the problem? I rarely ever connect to WiFi (am always connected to GPRS/EDGE, but that has never been a problem in the last 2 years... the phone still used to get nearly a day of battery life) and the brightness is almost always at the lowest. I rarely use Bluetooth, GPS, etc. I don't even use Facebook and WhatsApp anymore, so the screen isn't used to the max. I've turned off all the Location Sharing settings for Google Maps and/or other apps (I use very few apps anyway, but have a bunch of them installed on the phone... none that execute in the background though | also not more than a couple new apps after my OS upgrade).
It's been nearly a week since upgrading the OS on my phone. Last night when I hit the bed at 1.15AM my time, the battery was at 100% (after charging). With no activity whatsoever in the night, the charge had dropped to 88% by 9.35AM. That's less than 8.5 hours of no use and 12% charge gone. That never was the case earlier.
Also, for each minute of using the phone with the screen on, I notice 1-1.5% drop in the battery. That is, to put it very very mildly, PATHETIC!!!
I don't know what to do. Would a "clean rom" install help? If so, what exactly is a "clean rom" install?
Or should I be doing something else?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
P.S.: Please let me know if any other info is needed too. BIG BIG Thanks in advance to anyone reading this
5) Read about jb settings/issues.
Sent from the little guy
Hi OP,
I haven't been on the i9100 for that long, but have also been annoyed with short battery life. As have many others from what I read. A 12% drop over about 8 hours of sleep, I'm sorry to say, doesn't seem that bad actually for an SGS2 with stock jb 4.1.2 and stock battery.
Personally, I tried different lightweight ROMs that are known to spare your battery. The advice to turn off 3g and other core functions never made sense to me, as I want an operable phone, not some sort of deflated piece of junk.
After reading on xda I went through Slimbean , Liquidsmooth, and other ROMs to see if they would increase battery life.
My current ROM is NeatROM 4.8, which actually seemed to give better results. Please note that this is purely subjective, though, I have no fancy battery analyses to back up my statement.
What REALLY helped was getting a replacement battery.
I tried Qcell 1950 mAh batteries. Stay away from those. They are clearly not 1950 mAh. Now running with a genuine Samsung 2000 mAh which is worth every dime.
Now I imagine you would be frustrated having to buy a new battery just because you updated your firmware and I do understand. I never owned the SGS2 before jb, so my choice was simple I guess. That having been said, though, the 2000 mAh battery really turned the phone into a whole new sort of usable. It easily lasts through the day even with regular use.
Just my 2 cents.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda app-developers app
S2 battery life
jsiv said:
Hi OP,
I haven't been on the i9100 for that long, but have also been annoyed with short battery life. As have many others from what I read. A 12% drop over about 8 hours of sleep, I'm sorry to say, doesn't seem that bad actually for an SGS2 with stock jb 4.1.2 and stock battery.
Personally, I tried different lightweight ROMs that are known to spare your battery. The advice to turn off 3g and other core functions never made sense to me, as I want an operable phone, not some sort of deflated piece of junk.
After reading on xda I went through Slimbean , Liquidsmooth, and other ROMs to see if they would increase battery life.
My current ROM is NeatROM 4.8, which actually seemed to give better results. Please note that this is purely subjective, though, I have no fancy battery analyses to back up my statement.
What REALLY helped was getting a replacement battery.
I tried Qcell 1950 mAh batteries. Stay away from those. They are clearly not 1950 mAh. Now running with a genuine Samsung 2000 mAh which is worth every dime.
Now I imagine you would be frustrated having to buy a new battery just because you updated your firmware and I do understand. I never owned the SGS2 before jb, so my choice was simple I guess. That having been said, though, the 2000 mAh battery really turned the phone into a whole new sort of usable. It easily lasts through the day even with regular use.
Just my 2 cents.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yea.. u said it...even i have tried several custom roms ( NeatRom, WanamLite,RR etc) all give 15-19 Hrs max.. and this also by tweaking all the settings..
S2 is a undoubted beast, but the cost in terms of battery is very hight..my previous Android Motorola Defy was a Mammoth in itself..huge custom fanbase and loads of ROMS + Awsome battery.
Any ways i got no regretts for having a S2..but battery s a lil concern..
Currently am on Asnet MIUI V5 and its going good..fast, responsive, smooth and decent battery of 18 hours avg..
@jsiv - i wanted to ask u a question.. which country u hail from ?? because the stock 2000 mah battery is not available in India, my region.
Cheers:angel:
Do you calibrate battery after every ROM change?
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda premium
gastonw said:
5) Read about jb settings/issues.
Sent from the little guy
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you please point me in the "settings" direction? I think I'm doing all things right, going real low on app usage, sync-ing of apps, screen settings, etc.
vish91 said:
Do you calibrate battery after every ROM change?
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What exactly is battery calibration here? Please pardon my ignorance. I did a full charge when my phone hit got switched off the day after upgrading the OS. Is there something else I must be doing here?
I've had this problem right after the upgrade. So, I don't think it's an issue with my battery per se. It could just be JB.
How good is the Cynaogen Mod ROM in terms of battery life?
Or would it be wiser to switch to Android 4.0/ ICS?
I live in Denmark. I ordered it off Ebay, but I see now that the UK shop I got it from doesn't ship to India.
You searched Ebay for "Samsung genuine 2000 mAh battery" or similar?
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda app-developers app
theultimate1 said:
Can you please point me in the "settings" direction? I think I'm doing all things right, going real low on app usage, sync-ing of apps, screen settings, etc.
What exactly is battery calibration here? Please pardon my ignorance. I did a full charge when my phone hit got switched off the day after upgrading the OS. Is there something else I must be doing here?
I've had this problem right after the upgrade. So, I don't think it's an issue with my battery per se. It could just be JB.
How good is the Cynaogen Mod ROM in terms of battery life?
Or would it be wiser to switch to Android 4.0/ ICS?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cyanogenmod roms are very fast ROM they are good as hell
Ur problem is genuine go to the playstore and download battery calibration app and follow the instructions in the app charge or battery up to 100 % and caliberate the battery u should have made an nandroid backup before upgrading
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
theultimate1 said:
Can you please point me in the "settings" direction? I think I'm doing all things right, going real low on app usage, sync-ing of apps, screen settings, etc.
What exactly is battery calibration here? Please pardon my ignorance. I did a full charge when my phone hit got switched off the day after upgrading the OS. Is there something else I must be doing here?
I've had this problem right after the upgrade. So, I don't think it's an issue with my battery per se. It could just be JB.
How good is the Cynaogen Mod ROM in terms of battery life?
Or would it be wiser to switch to Android 4.0/ ICS?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Battery calibration: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1312273
This has to be done every time you do a ROM upgrade or change ROMs.
CM has excellent battery life when compared to other ROMs.
If you are switching over to ICS stay away from version 4.0.4 as it has EMMC brick bug.Any other version would be fine.
theultimate1 said:
4) and it's very very annoying... so much so that I sometimes (multiple times in a day, actually) wish to get back to Android 2.3.3, which I had before updating to Samsung's (India) version of Android 4.1.2 for my GS2.
What could be the problem? I rarely ever connect to WiFi (am always connected to GPRS/EDGE, but that has never been a problem in the last 2 years... the phone still used to get nearly a day of battery life) and the brightness is almost always at the lowest. I rarely use Bluetooth, GPS, etc. I don't even use Facebook and WhatsApp anymore, so the screen isn't used to the max. I've turned off all the Location Sharing settings for Google Maps and/or other apps (I use very few apps anyway, but have a bunch of them installed on the phone... none that execute in the background though | also not more than a couple new apps after my OS upgrade).
It's been nearly a week since upgrading the OS on my phone. Last night when I hit the bed at 1.15AM my time, the battery was at 100% (after charging). With no activity whatsoever in the night, the charge had dropped to 88% by 9.35AM. That's less than 8.5 hours of no use and 12% charge gone. That never was the case earlier.
Also, for each minute of using the phone with the screen on, I notice 1-1.5% drop in the battery. That is, to put it very very mildly, PATHETIC!!!
I don't know what to do. Would a "clean rom" install help? If so, what exactly is a "clean rom" install?
Or should I be doing something else?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
P.S.: Please let me know if any other info is needed too. BIG BIG Thanks in advance to anyone reading this
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As reported before, it seems that many official JB ROMS are not as optimized as other national versions and are battery hungry. It was suggested to upgrade to the French release (XEF).
vish91 said:
Battery calibration: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1312273
This has to be done every time you do a ROM upgrade or change ROMs.
CM has excellent battery life when compared to other ROMs.
If you are switching over to ICS stay away from version 4.0.4 as it has EMMC brick bug.Any other version would be fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did this... and unfortunately, it did nothing in my case.
I went to the CM site, but I didn't find any stable build for SGS2. Is there a thread on this site I can refer to for the same?
Also, what's the best way to go about installing a different ROM? I have so many apps, sms messages, pics, mp3 files, 3gp files, etc. Sure I can take a back-up onto my SD card. But won't I lose all the apps once I flash the current Android installation and install a new ROM? Any article or video on YouTube that addresses these points? Please point me in the right direction. I practically don't use my phone even half as much as before and I'm having to charge it twice a day, as against once a day earlier.
Also, the rapid battery loss seems to be causing the phone to heat up a lot if I'm on a call longer than 15 minutes or having the screen on for 2-3 minutes straight.
theultimate1 said:
I did this... and unfortunately, it did nothing in my case.
I went to the CM site, but I didn't find any stable build for SGS2. Is there a thread on this site I can refer to for the same?
Also, what's the best way to go about installing a different ROM? I have so many apps, sms messages, pics, mp3 files, 3gp files, etc. Sure I can take a back-up onto my SD card. But won't I lose all the apps once I flash the current Android installation and install a new ROM? Any article or video on YouTube that addresses these points? Please point me in the right direction. I practically don't use my phone even half as much as before and I'm having to charge it twice a day, as against once a day earlier.
Also, the rapid battery loss seems to be causing the phone to heat up a lot if I'm on a call longer than 15 minutes or having the screen on for 2-3 minutes straight.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is no stable version of CM 10 on I9100 because of the some issues. You can flash one of the nightly builds.They might not be necessarily unstable.
No you wont be losing everything when you install a new ROM.You lose once you do a data wipe.It is suggested you wipe everything before you install a new ROM.
With a data wipe you'll lose the following - SMS,contacts,call logs,apps installed and respective data.
What you wont lose - Anything stored in the sdcard partition - Pictures, Videos, Music, Apk files and Anything stored on the Ext SD card.(unless you format them specifically)
Best solution is to use titanium backup app(You need root). This way you can backup your apps and resp. data,wipe data-install ROM,and restore the previous backup on the new ROM.
Tutorial : http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1972455
As far as the battery issue is concerned,do a clean ROM install through Odin.
Index of guides : http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1826497

Battery life in Lollipop goes down?

Hey guys. Just saw this article stating that the G3 has less battery life with lollipop: http://www.techtimes.com/articles/3...alaxy-s5-htc-one-m8-nexus-5-lg-g3-results.htm
Are you guys running LP seeing a drop in battery like the article??
Im not on stock but I am on Lollipop and the battery life for me has been about the same. I feel like Google really dropped the ball with Lollipop as far as battery life is concerned... like they were talking up project volta and how it was supposed to make battery life 36% better on lollipop for certain devices. Yet most devices seem to be struggling to keep the battery life they had before the lollipop update. I know there is a lot of factors and development isn't necessarily going to be perfect with such a new release but still...
I get at least the same if not better battery use, for me typically 80+ hours before charging, my record, 124 hours.
roirraW "edor" ehT said:
I get at least the same if not better battery use, for me typically 80+ hours before charging, my record, 124 hours.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
good god man. how are you getting 80 hrs? is it on standby the entire time??
I dont much difference until i tryed to talk on the phone browse facebook or the internet at the same time im stock lollipop
Badouken said:
Im not on stock but I am on Lollipop and the battery life for me has been about the same. I feel like Google really dropped the ball with Lollipop as far as battery life is concerned... like they were talking up project volta and how it was supposed to make battery life 36% better on lollipop for certain devices. Yet most devices seem to be struggling to keep the battery life they had before the lollipop update. I know there is a lot of factors and development isn't necessarily going to be perfect with such a new release but still...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
One thing everyone must remember. Not all apps have been upgraded to utilize any new programming APIs, etc based on Lollipop. Lollipop under the hood is a different environment. No longer is Dalvik around. It's now ART. Some apps still do things that are only available under Dalvik, hence they do not work under LP.
Also, APIs go out of date, also known as deprecated, as OS'es mature. Apps that continue to use old, out-dated API calls, or were improperly programmed from the beginning but could get away with it in older versions of the Android OS, are now showing their issues. This can result in either the app not working at all, or the app could drain the battery.
Android apps are a different beast from your normal PC Windows application/program. They should not run in the background if minimized/when a user switches out. They usually go into a suspended mode so that they are not consuming resources. Out of the box, when an app is written, all of that handling is set up automatically. However, it can be circumvented due to someone not understanding the Android app life-cycle, or they know it and don't care, and just do poor programming. Either way can result in an app that misbehaves and drains the battery, as well as consuming resources (memory, CPU, etc). That also leads to battery drain.
So, I think part of this is Google, but I also believe that most of it is due to apps that are not optimized for Lollipop. I would like to see, or know, if these tests were run on straight stock with NO user downloaded apps. That would give us a clearer picture as to whether or not LP truly does gain better battery life for certain devices (I read that as newer devices).
No battery life difference for me.
Only difference I've noticed would be the stock LP gives better battery life than AOSP
iBolski said:
One thing everyone must remember. Not all apps have been upgraded to utilize any new programming APIs, etc based on Lollipop. Lollipop under the hood is a different environment. No longer is Dalvik around. It's now ART. Some apps still do things that are only available under Dalvik, hence they do not work under LP.
Also, APIs go out of date, also known as deprecated, as OS'es mature. Apps that continue to use old, out-dated API calls, or were improperly programmed from the beginning but could get away with it in older versions of the Android OS, are now showing their issues. This can result in either the app not working at all, or the app could drain the battery..
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Click to collapse
Yeah I keep forgetting about the out of date API's but I practically use only Google Apps, I pretty much have everything I need on Google's platform. I only have a handful of apps that aren't google but I rarely use them. Still haven't noticed a change in battery. Not that the battery is bad per say my battery is actually pretty good especially compared to my S3 back in the day. Ive just been seeing other people complain in different forums. But you're right they are probably not using fully optimized apps for lollipop if they are having battery issues.
corz123 said:
good god man. how are you getting 80 hrs? is it on standby the entire time??
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My wife and I aren't that popular, so we don't talk on the phone much. She does use hers a LOT for games. When we got our G3s, I picked up a Verizon LG G Tab 8.3 VK810.4G as well, so now I spare my phone battery a lot for music in the car, GPS, some gaming and quite a bit of TapaTalk or other web browsing. About the only time I do any of those on my phone is when I'm at work killing time sitting on the toilet, or waiting for my lunch to heat up in the microwave.
gosh one of the main reason i was going to upgrade to LP and reading this it doesn't seem worthwhile anymore. are there any reasons to upgrade to LP other than maybe material design? it seems sort to just be a ui makeover now...
corz123 said:
gosh one of the main reason i was going to upgrade to LP and reading this it doesn't seem worthwhile anymore. are there any reasons to upgrade to LP other than maybe material design? it seems sort to just be a ui makeover now...
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Click to collapse
ART instead of Dalvik. It's much smoother now.
Sent from my VK810 4G
Another thing to do is give it a few days after upgrading. At first, you might see poorer battery life but give it a few days and it might stabilize after that and you might see better battery life.
Also, once you've done this, start monitoring the battery section to see which apps are consuming the most battery life. This should give you an idea as to what is going on. That can help you pin point better misbehaving apps.
Also, I use the Snap Dragon Battery Guru app. That can also help pinpoint apps that might not be behaving correctly, plus it can do some managing of things to help preserve battery life. Not sure how much it helps, but it hasn't hurt, so I continue to use it.
Just some helpful hints that I've observed with this phone. I used to use Greenify, but I have found that I can get just about the same battery life without it as I did with it (at least on this phone), so I've since removed it. But, it's still an option to look at it, and it doesn't require root any more, which is nice for those that don't wish to root. And it has helped me in the past with other phones. I just haven't found that it helps that much with this phone.
iBolski said:
Also, I use the Snap Dragon Battery Guru app. That can also help pinpoint apps that might not be behaving correctly, plus it can do some managing of things to help preserve battery life. Not sure how much it helps, but it hasn't hurt, so I continue to use it.
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Note that stock LG Lollipop builds 23A & 23B result in the SnapDragon Battery Guru app claiming it's incompatible when you go to it's Play Store page, although I haven't tried sideloading/restoring it from Titanium Backup.
roirraW "edor" ehT said:
Note that stock LG Lollipop builds 23A & 23B result in the SnapDragon Battery Guru app claiming it's incompatible when you go to it's Play Store page, although I haven't tried sideloading/restoring it from Titanium Backup.
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Ahh. Since I haven't upgrade to LP (still on stock and happy as a clam), this is good to know.
Battery life does not change whatsoever. The display is always the culprit. Can get 5hrs of screen time sometimes 6 per stock battery.
Sent from my LG-VS985 adorned w/ Illusion ROM
jfriend33 said:
Battery life does not change whatsoever. The display is always the culprit. Can get 5hrs of screen time sometimes 6 per stock battery.
Sent from my LG-VS985 adorned w/ Illusion ROM
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Click to collapse
Which is why I believe, as I stated earlier, this points to misbehaving apps that are not "tuned" correctly for LP. It's always better to just wipe clean (FDR) and then start restoring apps one by one to see what might be causing it. But also, give it a few days to settle down too.
I'm still waiting for the "official" release and then, will wait to see if either root can carry forward or else, the latest root still works on the official release.
T-Mobile users can now upgrade via the software tool on their Windows machines (not available as an OTA yet for them). Seeing how the G2 is getting it already, I have to imagine the G3 is not far behind. I'd much rather they just give us 5.1 to fix the memory leak.
I have noticed much better battery life on 23B Lollipop. I'm not rooted or anything, but for example I can listen to Audible for my daily drive into work that takes me 1.5 hours and the battery will only drop to 99%. I got 23B following another thread here, but my wife got a replacement G3 and it offered the update to 23b before the SIM card or SD card had been put in the phone. My son has a G2 that got the official Lollipop and it actually required two updates to get there. 1 just installed some system prereqs.
I'm in stock 23c and battery life is the same as it was under kk which for me is a good thing as I got excellent battery life under 12b. I'm not rooted because I want to wait and see if/when another ota comes out to fix the Wi-Fi sync issue.
I just finally updated to 23c. Seems wifi works fine for me thus far. I'll see how battery life is tomorrow after a full charge /discharge. Everything seems pretty snappy so far. I didn't even do a factory reset. Hopefully I won't have too.

Elephone S8 [Rom]-Eragon

So i got my s8 a few days ago (yay) and noticed some of its horrendous issues within an hour of usage, so i started looking around for fixes and stumbled upon Eragon (Rom) and have been attempting to get that on to my phone with no luck. I have little to no experience messing around with phones. I followed the guide per Skeleton1911 and can't even get the Vcom driver's working properly. Pretty frustrated and confused at this point and decided to reach out for help/advice. Or any possible alternatives.
What issues are you experiencing that you hope will be solved by this ROM?
I only ask because it might be a hardware issue and therefore a sign to return the phone for a replacement from your vendor while that's still an option.
map002 said:
What issues are you experiencing that you hope will be solved by this ROM?
I only ask because it might be a hardware issue and therefore a sign to return the phone for a replacement from your vendor while that's still an option.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
4g connectivity seems to be pretty bad/unstable. Battery life is pretty meh. Most if not all of the issue with this phone is pretty much fixed by the Eragon rom hence why I'm trying so hard to get it installed.
the 4g connectivity along with the battery life a very lack luster, which are some of the fixes that come with Eragon.
OK, fair enough. I do understand battery life is improved under Eragon, and OS RAM usage is reduced.
I just read 'horrendous issues' and wondered what that meant exactly, as I've found the battery life on stock to be reasonably OK. The only 'horrendous' issues, in my experience, are the camera and the GPS, neither of which are changed or improved on Eragon. But we all have our personal measurements for such things.
map002 said:
OK, fair enough. I do understand battery life is improved under Eragon, and OS RAM usage is reduced.
I just read 'horrendous issues' and wondered what that meant exactly, as I've found the battery life on stock to be reasonably OK. The only 'horrendous' issues, in my experience, are the camera and the GPS, neither of which are changed or improved on Eragon. But we all have our personal measurements for such things.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can't confirm battery improvement with eragon rom. After a few weeks I had a massive battery drain of about 15% per hour without any heavy usage. The phone was in my pocket with wifi and bluetooth active. I didn't install any new apps and I already I flashed cache and dalvik. The only thing that helped was getting back to stock. Now battery is back to normal and I don't experience any major differences in performance, multitasking or ram usage.
A good example of just how different people's experiences can be, depending on their usage patterns and which set of apps they have installed. Thanks for sharing your experience, Steve.
map002 said:
A good example of just how different people's experiences can be, depending on their usage patterns and which set of apps they have installed. Thanks for sharing your experience, Steve.
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Click to collapse
It seems a matter of luck if you get a full working s8 or not. Maybe there are different builds, depending on where ist was made.
I am using gps from the first day without any problems, no matter if on stock or eragon rom. My s8 just gets warm when playing games but not hot. I think the perfomance is good (no matter which rom) but I would have expected a much higher antutu score from a deca-core chipset and 4gb ram. The battery performance is not better or worse (on stock rom) compared to my earlier smartphones like the oneplus one. I expected the lack of support from the elephone company just as it is, so I am not disappopinted at this point.
I think it's also worth keeping in mind that people are more likely to post when something goes wrong than when something goes as expected, so folks with a defective item are more likely to post complaints than someone who's phone just works.
That being said, I do expect quality control at a third-tier device manufacturer will not be as good as at one of the major players.
And yeah, the big battery is just there to provide adequate battery life despite the huge screen. In my usage, even with the brightness turned down, the screen accounts for 75% of my battery usage on average.
It's a great screen for a cheap phone like this, but it is a trade-off. No such thing as a free lunch.
Finally! Some people are talking sense here and not just complaining about their devices.
For me, I think it's pointless to compare this phone with flagship devices. You can't just say that "on my one plus/galaxy..." because you paid better bucks for those so they got to be damn better!
I have not got any complaints on my device because as I have read on another post here, "You sound set your expectations".
When you bought this, you have a certain use case and if the phone fulfills that, then the phone has already served its purpose.
Please don't expect our units to be top notch as the price won't allow that.
What kind of 4G issue was resolved by this ROM?
Scoundral said:
the 4g connectivity along with the battery life a very lack luster, which are some of the fixes that come with Eragon.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you explain what kind of 4G issues it resolves
After doing some research I found out that the ROM will NOT fix network issues.
Re Oreo
For what it is worth, from the Elephone forum today.
ashish replied at 2018-2-17 03:58 AM
"Plz update the android as almost every compay providing android oreo update but elephone s8 still ha ...
got this on Facebook .
(we do our best to release an oreo update for the S8 as fast as possible. Did you know, that our biggest competitor, that charges 3-4x the price of our S8, just canceled their release of Android 8.0 for their newest device? Google the news Why? Because their update was rushed and released way to early, causing a lot of trouble to many users. Do you want that to happen? We don't. That's why our update will only be released when it's done and can deliver a flawless experience to ALL users of the S8. Therefore we kindly ask for your patience. Have a nice day, your ELEPHONE Team)"
It is true many of the big players have pulled or cancelled their Oreo updates in the last few weeks. Be nice if Ele would try another 7.x update with another attempt to fix the camera though.
I suspect that their dev team has its hands full trying to get everything they got wrong on 7.x right on 8. And I doubt they have the resources to have two teams working on S8 firmware development.
Just my edjumakated guess, mind you. ?
map002 said:
the camera and the GPS, neither of which are changed or improved on Eragon. But we all have our personal measurements for such things.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
so it's normal thing that GPS do't work and camera makes meh photos?
Also, is there an option that phone screen will turn on for a while when I'm receiving a notification? I know there is something like that in android but I couldn't find it. Sorry It's my first android phone and I just feel lost
I did not say the GPS did not work. If your GPS does not work at all, you should return your phone to the shop where you bought it. It's defective.
What I did say is that the GPS isn't great, as is par for the course on Mediatek based phones. If you need great GPS, this is not the phone for you.
Spend more money and buy something better, maybe with a Qualcomm chipset. Or buy a used last-gen flagship phone with good GPS performance.
As for the camera, it's crappy. All the reviews I've seen have pointed out the focus hunting. It's sub par and mostly a problem with the software.
That being said, yes, sub par cameras on cheap Chinese third tier OEM phones do tend to be sub par in one way or another. This one's just notably bad at the moment. Maybe always, if they don't eventually release another firmware for it.
And if this is your first Android phone, I can understand the confusion. Especally if you're coming from fruit phones, where everything just works on pretty much all of them.
This is a terrible first phone for most people. This is a pretty bad device for a novice, it's more of a hobbyist phone. But XDA is a place for that kind of crowd, so my comments were framed accordingly.
I really like it, but I knew what I was buying. I don't use the camera and only make occasional use of the GPS. And I make heavy use of the screen for watching videos and I am not a fan of 18:9. The S8 is a big win for me there.
You probably would have been better served, in this price range, by a Motorola phone, to be honest. If you're still within your exchange window, I would recommend swapping it for something more mainstream.
Best of luck!
matizo said:
... is there an option that phone screen will turn on for a while when I'm receiving a notification? I know there is something like that in android but I couldn't find it. Sorry It's my first android phone and I just feel lost
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.nullgrad.glimpse
Install this and the screen will wake for notifications. You can also disable individual apps, like I did with Spotify, to prevent the screen from waking when listening to music on my Mac.
PRGS3 said:
Install this and the screen will wake for notifications. You can also disable individual apps, like I did with Spotify, to prevent the screen from waking when listening to music on my Mac.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you
map002 said:
And if this is your first Android phone, I can understand the confusion. Especally if you're coming from fruit phones, where everything just works on pretty much all of them.
Best of luck!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not even from apple family. I'm one of old guard of Windows phone, and everyday I'm more and more surprised that android won this competition.
I have no chance for fully refund, since I already own it few months, but I see I need to contact a seller. But I think they'll reject it because I dropped it once, and I have beautiful spider web at back -.- (It's not very sturdy). I think I need to revive my lumia for gps usage.
New to elephone s8 but not new to Chinese smart phones. I was hoping this ROM fixed some issues but hasn't thus far. Phone constantly drops signal to point where i can't receive or make calls. Still trying to figure out if that is due to phone not support on my network or not. Which is odd cause at times phone is fine, flying speed full coverage others its the complete opposite. One other bug I was hoping it fixed was screen being unresponsive. Like i try to swipe up to unlock or use fingerprint but it just vibrates to acknowledge I touched it and does nothing. I am looking for work around before i get fed up and sell it or something. I really love the feel of phone physically and how software works when its working.

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