possible buyer - Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

hey there, as the title says, I'm interested in the kindle fire.
I have a nook simple touch, rooted, but want to be able to get a bit more of a true tablet experience.
1) hows battery life? I mostly intend to actually read, view pdfs, some online browsing, and note talking. essentially, does the fire battery do well w a lot of usage?
2) how is cm7 or ics coming along? do these improve battery at all, or hurt it from stock?
3) why did you chose your kindle fire over what options you were considering?
4) is there an "updated" model coming soon that might replace the fire?
thanks guys!
Hercules was here
Hercules was here

1) usually lasts me a day and a half with an hour of two of reading, some youtube here and there, and checking email and stuff, with cm9.
2) cm7 is pretty much done and perfect.. battery can go for a day or two depending on usage. pretty much same with ICS depending on what rom you're running. hashcode's doing some excellent work on getting a full ICS experience, all that's left now is charging indicators and powering off from within the OS.
3) previously had a nook color, just found it too damn slow. sold the nook for $150 and got a fire for the same price. i was thinking maybe flyer, original galaxy tab 7, or playbook, but development is pretty dead for those. i just wanted a good, fast, stable aosp experience.
4) rumours are flying around about a 10 inch fire, but I personally think that's really unlikely.
if you really want a 7 incher (one-handed usage, won't kill your hand like an ipad or another 9-10 inch), i would say go for the fire now. if you don't mind waiting, see where the galaxy tab 7 2 will end up in terms of development. for $50 extra, you get pretty much a fully-fledged tablet out of the box. with a custom rom, that's sure to dent the fire's sales.

There's a thread on this in the general section about recommending KF as a tablet. Most folks posting about what they like/don't.

Related

[Q] ICS rom recommendations

Hi all,
First of all,I would like to thank all xda community for providing such dedicated forum.I love my kindle fire with cm7.So here comes the question,should I try ics roms ? if so,which is the most stable one as of now ? my main concerns are stability and battery consumption.
best regards,
I started a similar thread here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1621073 it may help you out a bit. I've tried many of the ICS ROM's and really like gedeROM. I've used it with Hash's #7 and #8 Kernel and have had 0 issues except what is stated by the dev. gedeROM is having some issues with not taking ADB commands, at least that's what I read. I suppose there is a little bit of risk involved with that. If you find yourself in a jam you may limit your options in finding a solution. Nonetheless many people are still using it and really like it.
Thanks a lot.
Sent from my Kindle Fire using XDA
I am running Reloaded CM9 from BiteBlaze and it works almost flawless with the 3.0 #8 kernel. I can get about 2-3 days before charging and that is with moderate to heavy usage.
I just posted this on a similar thread thats going on, im just gonna copy and paste it here as I think it applies.
"It's funny to me how these roms seem to work differently for different people. I mean shouldn't all of these devices be the same? gedeROM works perfect for me, no wifi issues at all, but I couldn't get Energy to run at all no matter what I did.
I think the real answer to your question is that there isn't one best rom, you just have to try them and see which one seems to like your device the best "
Aokp has been very reliable for me so far, and I've been charging normally from a wall charger. Reloaded seemed to eat battery and wouldn't charge whilst switched on. Other than that it was very good.
My pick has to be aokp milestone5 though. Seems very feature-complete (although some people have said that Google earth doesn't work on it), and the battery acts how I expect it to.
I've been using the CM9 ROM that Hashcode has up next to his kernel releases. Once I figured out how to get the android market installed and the amazon market installed, I've been all set. Every app I've installed from either market has worked without issue so far.
The only hiccups app-wise was the Swype installer detects the screen size is too large, but someone pointed me at a solution for that, and Chrome beta is..well, a beta.
I haven't run into the charging issues that people have had, but I'm using either the stock charger or my 3G Kindle cable plugged into a USB3 port. I have a general feeling that most of the charging issues are due to using ****ty cables or lack of understanding that the 3.0 kernel Hashcode is working on doesn't properly report battery/charging just yet.
Video is smoother than the stock Amazon ROM and apps in general feel snappier, even with it clocked to 800Mhz whereas most ROMs seems to run 1GHz by default, I'm underclocking a bit just to see how it'll react.
Overall, I'm 100% happier with Hashcode's CM9 ROM that I ever was with the Kindle Fire at stock. I'm sure I'm missing out on some of the Amazon integration features and content, but Jeff Bezos doesn't hold a monopoly on content, so I can get everything from other places.

[Q] Considering transition from Epic 4G Touch. Anyone else do that?

Has anyone here made the direct switch from the Epic 4G Touch (having LIKED the phone) to the Galaxy Nexus and, if so, can they give me general opinions about gains/losses in the transition?
After seeing Jelly Bean revealed today, I'm not sure I can put up with the multi-month game of waiting for people to hack together a mostly-functional build of the next OS for my phone anymore. I was just starting to get happy with AOKP and now we're going to be behind again. Getting official, early, supported access to the latest versions, plus source code to ensure faster CyanogenMod and AOKP on it, just sounds really appealing.
I'm aware I'd give up my microSD slot and non-Pentile display. I also know I'd be downgrading my GPU. What ELSE am I not considering in a transition here that could be a real problem? How's the battery life compared between the two directly? I already carry several extra batteries for mine, so I assume I'll need to do the same. What were the gains that were worth it?
I had the E4GT for 5 months before switching to the GSM GN. First off, sprint ruined the experience of the E4GT for me. That said. I felt the E4GT had an over all smoother and snappier experience. Not that the GN is laggy, but once in a while it stutters. Whether that's because of the higher res or just because the processor is lesser I don't know. I like the feel in the hand of the GN better. It doesn't feel as large and bulky despite having a larger display. I love the onscreen navigation buttons (which I thought I would hate). If you use a custom ROM like AOKP or CM9 you can add change and reorganize the buttons.
I feel I get better battery life on the GN than I did with the E4GT. Up to 1 more hour on screen time I would say.
I was happy to have NFC, but have never really used it. No places around here support google wallet yet despite the master card app saying they do.
The one thing I really miss is the SD card slot. I can deal with the 16 gigs, but I like knowing I had more if I needed it. And of course the dev support on the GN is much better. Any other questions regarding the 2 feel free to ask.

[Q] Which ROM for the 8.4 has the best battery life?

Since there are similar threads in other forums around here, let's try this here. Since we now have a selection of alternative ROMs available, I do wonder which one offers the best battery life.
Stock didn't make me too unhappy in that department. Never measured it but it didn't seem too shabby. Yet as long as Sammy's stock is what it is - making an otherwise fantastic device feel slow and laggy - it's out of the question to return to it.
Running CM11 now. Makes me very happy as a whole but battery life is lacking. Getting around four hours of screen time with brightness set to the lower third of the scale. Also, I recently switched from Chrome to Firefox on all my computers including Android devices. On the 8.4 it burns through the battery like there's no tomorrow, often using more than 25 per cent. It doesn't on my other Androids.
Any experiences with Carbon, Clean or any of the de-crapwared stock ROMs?
You can just try them for yourself and see which one suits your needs.
Thank you and thread closed.

I can't live with this thing anymore

The S2 was a good phone for it's time and the display is still pretty nice compared to many phones available now. But the battery life is really atrocious compared to the newer devices. I was using an Alcatel OneTouch Fierce before but I put it in my pocket with my keys and shattered the screen so I pulled the S2 out of a drawer and starting using it again. I loaded a couple of custom ROMs and currently have ParanoidAndroid 4.4 RC1.
What I have noticed is that both the screen and the GPS both take a ton of battery on the S2. On the Alcatel, the screen was down usually at the bottom of the list of things using battery. On the S2 it is always at the top of the list. I have the S2 screen turned down to minimum brightness, which is fine for indoor usage, and also set the screen timeout to 15 seconds, but still the consumption issues persist.
I do a lot of fitness logging and the most I have been able to log on the S2 is around 40 miles of bike riding until the battery runs out. This is from starting with the battery in the mid 90s percentage. With the Alcatel phone I had been able to data log over 200K/125miles before running out of battery.
Saturday I was out in the sticks riding my bike. I put it in airplane mode to save battery in case I needed to call home. After the 44 mile stop at a country store, I forgot to put it back in airplane mode and by the time we went another 30 miles to the next food stop (about 2 hours) the phone had drained from 70% to 14% percent. And I wasn't even using it, it was just riding along in my pocket as I pedaled.
Even with just web surfing on 4G data or WiFi takes a lot of battery. Seems like I can play with the phone for 30 minutes and the battery goes down at least 20%.
On top of this I've also been having problems with lockups. On the first ROM I tried, Liquid Smooth, it was getting android.systemui crashes pretty often. But if I waited a while, the system would right itself and I would be able to keep on going. When I first installed PA it was doing great but now I'm getting random lockups as well. On PA the lockups require a hard boot to fix. Perhaps a hardware issue, who knows. The S2 has not been dropped and is in excellent condition, but I suppose that's neither here nor there.
If it was just the battery consumption issues, I could try an extended battery and see how that went. But in the end I decided that I was going to bite the bullet and get a new phone. I thought about a refurb S4, or Nexus 4 which were both under $300, but in the end I went with the LG G2 as it was less than $400 new from T-Mobile direct.
Farewell Galaxy S2, your days are numbered.
:crying:
My wife has a s2 t989 running cm 10.1.3 with a new anker 2200 battery. Her phone flies, zero lag. And Her battery gets her through the day. This phone is a old little beast.
Lokke9191 said:
My wife has a s2 t989 running cm 10.1.3 with a new anker 2200 battery. Her phone flies, zero lag. And Her battery gets her through the day. This phone is a old little beast.
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Click to collapse
If it wasn't for the lockups, I might have tried a new or larger battery. The battery will last all day as is if you don't ask the phone to do anything and you have good signal. The screen and the GPS use so much power on this phone though. It's just older silicon.
I agree it's still a fast phone when you use a cm10 or cm11 ROM. It's just not meeting my needs.
Sent from my SGH-T989 using XDA Free mobile app
brons2 said:
If it wasn't for the lockups, I might have tried a new or larger battery. The battery will last all day as is if you don't ask the phone to do anything and you have good signal. The screen and the GPS use so much power on this phone though. It's just older silicon.
I agree it's still a fast phone when you use a cm10 or cm11 ROM. It's just not meeting my needs.
Sent from my SGH-T989 using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Get the M8
Rushing said:
Get the M8
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
too expensive!
I ordered an LG G2 for less than $400, and signed up for the payments divided over 2 years. So I'm trading a really old phone for a 1 year old phone
Funny thing is, the S2 has not locked up once since I ordered the new phone. Haha.
I can really relate to your frustration as I have had quite a bit trouble getting great performance out of this device in the 7 months I've had it. I've went through what seems a million ROMs and have had problems with every single one. To the point I believe it was just the phone and not the ROMs. The last month was really bad when CM made a lot of changes that seemed to adversely affect this device. Then I started trying JB ROMs that were even worse than KK ever was. I've had way over 2 years experience flashing ROMs and kernels so in nearly every case I wouldn't say user error was to blame either. That said, after nearly making a coaster out of this thing, PA RC1 really has come to the rescue along with the Wild kernel. Which is why I'm a bit surprised you are not even having good luck with that. The battery drain you describe is very extreme. At the worst my battery drains 3% an hour on standby. I always have everything on, such as Wifi, GPS and high accuracy location reporting too. Not to mention Viper audio mod with super quality driver which uses a chunk of battery as well.
Overall I can typically get 20 to 24 hours on an average weekday. If I use the screen for a couple hours, listen to music, browse the web and make a call or two, more like 10 to 16 hours. At any rate things are good enough I can live with this phone for while now, provided I do myself a favor and leave well enough alone.
i've had my s2 for almost 3 year, i believe, and i know the pain in the ass it can be. the screen issue happens to me, too, and there isn't a solution, so you learn to deal with it. seems like you may have a faulty battery? i still have the stock battery and it doesn't hold up well as it used to. i run carbonrom with wildkernel (testing) and it's not too bad. but it's a dated phone in techie age.
Yea PA RC1 was the best of the ROMs that I tried on the S2. But I've moved on and am super happy with my new phone. The LG G2 is the best phone I've ever had. 3000mAh stock battery, huge screen, blazing fast LTE and I love the volume buttons on the back!
Sent from my LG-D801 using XDA Free mobile app
The T989 may be difficult to deal with but with a few customizations (new battery and rom), it'll be faster.
HeadachePuppies said:
The T989 may be difficult to deal with but with a few customizations (new battery and rom), it'll be faster.
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Click to collapse
Too late, I already have the new phone and it is way better even with the stock rom. I might update the S2 again though just for kicks when PA goes stable. It probably does need a new battery also but there's no reason to go that route when I have another phone already.
Glad to see I'm not the only one that's having battery problems. It seems as if using Apollo for music and using Messenger to talk to a friend, the battery drains really quickly. Can't wait to upgrade in the near future.
Any custom ROM that i have tried are not to good for the battery life. I think the best ROM so far for battery life is SHADOW 1.5 ROM because it is based on Stock ROM and has the Power Saver feature.
Now i am using CM 11 and loving it, the features and speed are incredible. Thanks CM Team for your great work.:good:
The T989 is one of the best phones in his time. Now is almost obsolete, we grow ups, every months there are lots of new devices, sooner or late the time will come when we will let go the T989 and have a newer one. It's like a childhood girlfriend experience. I now have the Moto G LTE version, I keep my T989 in my archived electronic things, he is simple something not to forget.
I gave my old S2 to my wife after I got my Note 3. At the time all the Jellybean ROM's for it were unstable, so I put the Jedi ROM on it. For some reason it was ridiculously slow, despite being based on the stock ICS ROM. I had figured the phone's age was just showing and didn't think much about it.
Recently my wife asked me to upgrade the ROM on her tablet to KitKat, so I figured I would do her phone as well. To my surprise, KiKat runs amazingly smooth on the S2 - especially with Wild kernel (1.89GHz overclock + sio governor). Tried both SlimKat and Carbon. It's just liquid smooth and feels totally like a new phone.
Lorien_Silmaril said:
I gave my old S2 to my wife after I got my Note 3. At the time all the Jellybean ROM's for it were unstable, so I put the Jedi ROM on it. For some reason it was ridiculously slow, despite being based on the stock ICS ROM. I had figured the phone's age was just showing and didn't think much about it.
Recently my wife asked me to upgrade the ROM on her tablet to KitKat, so I figured I would do her phone as well. To my surprise, KiKat runs amazingly smooth on the S2 - especially with Wild kernel (1.89GHz overclock + sio governor). Tried both SlimKat and Carbon. It's just liquid smooth and feels totally like a new phone.
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is really surprising how kitkat can give new life to this old phones.. I've changed my T989 for a nexus 4 as a daily driver but still keep the S2 as a work phone, after using the AOSP of the nexus4 I tryied evervolv in a MyTouch 4G and really liked it then though of trying that on the S2 and wow that was an improvement. right know Im currently using Evervolv kitkat 4.4.4 with Cl3kerner on the T989 and I tell you is a really good combination if not perfect.
KB
I love this phone much like you guys but it's time for the sweet prince to nap!
One of the issues I had a few months ago is that my power button got stuck. My device kept rebooting every few minutes to the only option was to open up the phone and remove the power button entirely. This fixed my issue but now the only way to turn the phone on when it dies (or turns off due to crashes!!) is by plugging it via USB and going into download mode then cancelling. Talk about a hassle!
I also got some dust particles (I think?) on my camera lens so I have several black dots whenever I take a picture.
My battery life is also HORRIBLE. I can relate to OP. My phone can barely make it to lunch let alone get through a full day. If I want to get through a full day, brightness needs to be low, bluetooth/wifi/data/gps/screen rotate all need to be off and I can't expect much screen on time. Basically, I use my phone for communication (texting, calling, etc) and for listening to music. Nothing else really. I might also try flashing another CM rom. I've tried KitKat CM roms but they are all incredibly laggy, so I don't know. Perhaps a new battery could fix this but it's too late.
(By the way, if anyone can recommend a good KitKat rom [preferably CM based], I'd appreciate it. I plan on giving this away to someone who will mainly use it to listen to music, web browse, read. Nothing too major but I'd like to update it as much as possible before giving it away.)
Although there a number of problems, this phone has lasted me 2.5 years. I got it in May of 2012, about 6 months or so after launch. That couples with Cyanogenmod has given me one hell of an experience. This phone, without a doubt, has been one of the best phones I've owned. It just works, in spite of all odds. Heck, I've had it for several months with all of these issues and it can still go until the end of the year (or longer, who knows). But all good things must come to an end.
So good night sweet prince. You were amazing, will never forget! Also, thanks Cyanogenmod for supporting this device! Thank you devs and fellow T989 users for all the support!
As far as the future goes, I am putting all my eggs in one basket and hoping that the Nexus 6/X is solid. There are rumours that it is going to be nearly 6" which is just too big for me to use reasonably. I also considered the Note 4, but honestly, after almost 2 years of using Cyanogenmod, it's very difficult to go back to TouchWiz. The other phone I have considered is the Moto X (2014). If none of these work, I might settle for last year's Nexus 5. Who knows! All I know is that I'm getting a new phone soon!
Try also the new CM11 by Sultanxda:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/gal...rom-kernel-unofficial-cyanogenmod-11-t2885259
Seems to give best battery life for this device.
tuxx1337 said:
Try also the new CM11 by Sultanxda:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/gal...rom-kernel-unofficial-cyanogenmod-11-t2885259
Seems to give best battery life for this device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Absolutely, I no longer feel anything like I did when I posted the previous comment in this thread. I'm not ashamed to own this device anymore, LOL. Sultan did things with his kernel that made CM11 stable & fully optimized for the Hercules.
tuxx1337 said:
Try also the new CM11 by Sultanxda:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/gal...rom-kernel-unofficial-cyanogenmod-11-t2885259
Seems to give best battery life for this device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks for the suggestion! i was thinking about changing the ROM for my Hercules and this seems like a really good choice..

Objectively best ROM for the Gen 1?

I just got one of these fairly cheap and considered just selling it when I realized how cucked the stock OS was.
Decided against it and have already finished rooting, installing gapps, FFF and TWRP. I will admit that my computer took forever to recognize the device while it was in fastboot, had to let it sit overnight with the kindle off then it randomly worked the next day without another PC reboot... anyway...
I want to know what is the best ROM for the kindle. I've flashed roms in the past to other devices and most seem to have random issues, slightly too old but stable, latest **** that runs too slow, etc.
So, is there any kind of consensus all these years later for this Gen 1 Kindle? What is/are the best rom(s)?
(please don't start some argument like AR15 vs AK, Glock v 1911 grip angles, Prusa vs Ender, PC vs Cucksole gaming, etc)
did you find out ? i am looking to revive it , it still pretty funtional.
Unfortunately no, I didn't really find any great options and put this on the back burner. Likely just going to try to sell it

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