Hello Vibrant Community
I am a 40-something former Female Techie and I have had my Vibrant for 90 days. I have Build Number ECLAIR.UVJI6, Firmware version 2.1-update1, and my last software update was around the end of September.
I came from MyTouch3G, can't remember the build or the firmware but I believe I was on 1.9(??) in July when my dear phone hit the deck one too many times. I need some help with changing environments. After 90 days I am still having some "transition" issues (yes, user error I am sure!). While Vibrant and MyTouch are essentially the same OS, the packaging and "custom" interfaces HTC and Samsung use are a little confusing. There were features on the MyTouch I absolutely loved and relied on that I simply can not find on the Vibrant... even in searching for apps, I still can not recreate some of the features. So I am coming to the best place I can think of - to the men & women who create the applications. What I love most about my Android is the Apps, and it is people in this forum who could best explain how to find what I want.
My search of the forums over the past few months hasn't netted the results I am looking for, so if you know of a thread that will answer my questions, please direct me!
My questions:
The dialer & contacts on the Vibrant with the Gmail/Twitter/Facebook synch. I am unable to assign ringtones to contacts from either app if the contact is "coming from" gmail, and not a saved contact on my phone. Even if I create the contact and save to phone, then go back and synch manually, I lose the ability.
I have downloaded several apps to try and fix my issue, but so far I can't find anything to work correctly with the resident dialer.
Visual Voice Mail - a TMobile package app. I simply can not get it to work since the last firmware update. I have removed, reinstalled updated, you name it - and nothing works. Do any of you have any info?
Battery. Is there anything I can do? Any new insights? The last thread I saw on this topic recommended App Killers, and mentioned a few specific apps. A TMobile rep recommended TaskOS I kill apps through out the day with TaskOS, but lately it's been 3-6 hours before it dies completely, whereas before the last update I could get nearly 12-16.
Thanks for your help. The MyTouch was my epiphany into Android - and I am never leaving. I have joined the Borg and I have assimilated. I got my first Droid at the MyTouch Online LAunch in 2009. A TMobile sales rep convinced me to wait instead of buying an iPhone to run on TMobile's network. Honestly, the lack of support and equipment protection was the clincher, but I am so glad I listened to that young lady. I beat the crap out of that phone, constantly dropping it... in water.... on cement.... MyTouch was a champ, usually surviving 3 drops before I had to call the insurance. I truly thought I would never leave MyTouch, but.... the Vibrant has stolen my heart and you will have to pry the device out of my cold dead hand.
And thanks to all the developers. Without you my phone would be a brick!
Accidental Duplicate
Hello, I thought I would try and offer some answers, but thanks to your post I now realize I also am not able to assign a ringtone to a specific contact.
I also came from a MYT3G and completely love my Vibrant.
For visual voicemail, is your phone rooted? If it is I may have an idea and am looking now to see if it will work, I don't use the app myself, but may be able to assist.
Battery life, we will start with task killers do more harm than good. There is a very good write up about it on XDA, being a noob, I am not able to post links. Basically the OS is designed to multitask and will kill apps as needed. So there is no reason to worry about this.
Having said that, the latest update will cause considerably more drain as it boosts the antenna signal, but you should still be getting more than 3-4 hours from your phone.
Do you have tons of widgets running, each time a widget updates, you are using battery, have you tried turning off wifi and gps when they are not in use.
Also I have noticed that when I am in a area that doesn't have a strong 3g signal, the phone will bounce from 3g to edge and that will cause the battery to drain faster. If this is happening, just set the phone to use only edge networks.
We can also try to recondition the battery. To do this, drain the battery down to about 5-6%, charge all the way up with the phone turned off. Then drain again, turn off phone and charge, this will recondition your battery and give you considerably longer life.
After making the changes I have listed, I now go from 7AM to Midnite with only 30% drain on an average day.
It is also possible that you may have a rogue app that is killing your battery. If you go to settings>about phone> battery use, you will see a list of what services/hardware is using resources on your phone. You can also go to settings>applications>running services to see what services are running. There could be something here that is causing you extra battery drain.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
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!!!!
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?
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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.
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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?
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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
Today I wished I had a ROM to flash that would turn my phone into a dumbphone. Something that strips almost all functionality in the hopes of extreme battery life with just telephone capabilities.
Something that only allowed for:
Phone
Text messaging
Voicemail
Contacts list
Does such a ROM exist? Would anyone else be interested in such a ROM?
Lol. Go get a dumbphone.
No really, the most stripped ROM is probably cyanogen with no gapps.
You have to renew remember. Your RAZR didn't have a dual core cpu, gpu(nerds don't shoot), proximity sensor, always on data connection, 4.7 inch touch screen, gyroscope, GPS, etc. If you turn off data and strictly use your phone for calls and text, you'll probably get 2 days out of a charge with your phone.
Unless you're a troll though, I'm not sure why you have a $550 phone when you want to turn it into a $10 phone?
Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2
Not trolling and I wouldn't want to use that ROM as a daily by any means. I love my smartphone too much to lose all the functionality permanently. A bare bones, no frills, just phone option would be nice to have available though. However, I could see how I'd be in the minority in wanting the choice to switch back and forth.
Are you just basically wanting your phone to last a long time when you aren't going to be using it for long periods of time, like during work(no emails, notifications, etc)?
Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2
Pretty much.
Extreme battery life at the cost of everything but the ability to use it as a phone with texting capabilities.
I think you would be surprised at how much battery you will save by turning off data. And all the primary functions will still work.
Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2
It's very possible that the most efficient route is to just go to the toggles and just switch everything off to operate in dumb mode. It's not like dumb mode is needed all that often and if it were then a smartphone wouldn't be a good fit (as you pointed out earlier).
Exactly. Like I said before, I guarantee with no data connection, sitting in your pocket, making a couple calls, your phone will be at least 60% by the time your day is over.
Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2
I had a customer recently that had such a thing on his phone (company supplied) it ran off of sd card
Had never seen it before nor could I find out where they got it
Sent from my EVO using xda app-developers app
louched1 said:
Today I wished I had a ROM to flash that would turn my phone into a dumbphone. Something that strips almost all functionality in the hopes of extreme battery life with just telephone capabilities.
Something that only allowed for:
Phone
Text messaging
Voicemail
Contacts list
Does such a ROM exist? Would anyone else be interested in such a ROM?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You could install Clean ROM, which is the most stripped down sense ROM I've seen, and use titanium backup to go on an uninstall spree to get rid of everything you don't want. When you've got it the way you want it, take a nandroid and restore it whenever you wanna use it.
Sent from my EVO LTE
premo15 said:
You could install Clean ROM, which is the most stripped down sense ROM I've seen, and use titanium backup to go on an uninstall spree to get rid of everything you don't want. When you've got it the way you want it, take a nandroid and restore it whenever you wanna use it.
Sent from my EVO LTE
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Click to collapse
This is a really good suggestion. And you could change all your settings to bare-bones before you make the nandroid so you don't need to deal with individually them later on; bluetooth, background data and GPS off, screen on the lowest brightness, screen timeout at the minimum, etc. You'll get plenty of battery life like that.
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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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..