Related
I know the screen, processor, etc is great...but i'm having doubts about all the radio issues (gps, signal, etc). I checked out the sprint forums and pretty much all of them were about gps and signal pretty much sucking. Are you guys having these issues with custom roms? Should i wait till the issues are cleared (or not)?
Signal is pretty good with custom roms
Idk about gps
I don't use it so often
But battery life is super amazing
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium
globalninja said:
I know the screen, processor, etc is great...but i'm having doubts about all the radio issues (gps, signal, etc). I checked out the sprint forums and pretty much all of them were about gps and signal pretty much sucking. Are you guys having these issues with custom roms? Should i wait till the issues are cleared (or not)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
new (SGSIIE4GT) user here, and loving (and I mean LOVING) this phone.
i'm not having those issue on stock, OOTB, even. (meaning, I am rooted, but still on the stock ROM, out of the box. I've only upgraded the modem, and no GPS/signal issues at all)
ever since kern/modem EK02 those were (mostly) non issues.
from what I read, most of the custom ROMs either only improve, or cause no worse.
and yes, CPU/GPU, RAM and storage (internal), screen, lack of Sense, all worth it.
kingdazy said:
new (SGSIIE4GT) user here, and loving (and I mean LOVING) this phone.
i'm not having those issue on stock, OOTB, even. (meaning, I am rooted, but still on the stock ROM, out of the box. I've only upgraded the modem, and no GPS/signal issues at all)
ever since kern/modem EK02 those were (mostly) non issues.
from what I read, most of the custom ROMs either only improve, or cause no worse.
and yes, CPU/GPU, RAM and storage (internal), screen, lack of Sense, all worth it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I concur... This phone is SICK! Been through quite a few phones, and this one is bar none the best yet. Haven't had too many issues with the radio, but they are there. Roam control and the 1115 PRL pretty much fixed any issues that I was having though. The only reason I would maybe wait would be for the Galaxy Note, coming out relatively soon. But if you do decide to go with the E4GT you always have 14 days to return if you don't like it.
Phone is awesome. The signal issue is with sprint not the phone....imo. If you already have sprint and are happy you should be fine. Gps works great for me. I use it everyday.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using XDA App
I thought they still had a 14 day period where you could try it out and still able to return without penalty? If so, why not try it for a week or 2 and see for yourself?
Phone is amazing and I am truly happy with what I have.
So, no one has problems with GPS and loss of signal?
the phone is worth it. I love mine hands down my #1 of phones right now even over the GNexus. I've got a few friends that wish they had early upgrades wanting this thing that are stuck on Evo's
Edit.
As for LOS/GPS I had LOS when the phone first came out here and there but with the newer updates it's been fine I've yet to see a LOS sign on my phone. GPs I've never really had an issue with but I do know others have I just have not run into it.
I got my phone 1 Dec and have never had a LOS once. I play "Life is Crime", multiple times a day, which requires GPS and have never had an issue.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using XDA App
No GPS issues and no LoS here... great phone. Super fast and slick. Do the upgrade, you won't regret it.
Wait for the GSIII.
This phone will be surpassed soon. Also the Galaxy Note may come out for us.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using XDA App
... the problem with waiting is you will get stuck in an endless loop of waiting. I agree this phone since the updates is now solid. at release it was iffy. but they were mainly software bugs.
Android300ZX said:
Wait for the GSIII.
This phone will be surpassed soon. Also the Galaxy Note may come out for us.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wait (at least) 6+ months for possibly a new "better" device that will have almost no dev roms?
No thanks.
Sent from my calculator watch.
I'm loving this phone too! As you can see in my sig, I've owned many Android phones. This is the best one yet. No signal problems here. I haven't used GPS on it yet though since I got a stand alone one ...
No problems for me at all, for the past 4 months. (That's how long I've had it so far)
It was a transition from my former iPhone 4. I love it greatly. No LoS for me ever, but I do have problems with GPS here and there. Although, as of recent, it's been able to pinpoint where my location is and such.
Have been using Blazer ROM on it as well. I don't think I'd have it any other way. And with counterparts coming out (GSII Skyrocket/Note/etc.) I don't find myself WANTING those handsets. That's how awesome the phone has been to me, I just don't see a need to get anything else than this.
I've had NO problems with this phone. It's great, actually one problem and thats battery life. But thats because i use way too much (i just got an extended battery so that issue was solved). =D!!!! GET IT NOW!!!!
I decided on getting this phone. I had the Epic 4g so i am familiar with roms, kernels , and such. I actually would have stayed with the Epic if I wouldn't have dropped and broken it, but since I have an upgrade I might as well get an upgrade. I honestly thing a single core 1ghz proc was fast enough. A dual core 1.2ghz will last me years. Thanks for all the input!
globalninja said:
I decided on getting this phone. I had the Epic 4g so i am familiar with roms, kernels , and such. I actually would have stayed with the Epic if I wouldn't have dropped and broken it, but since I have an upgrade I might as well get an upgrade. I honestly thing a single core 1ghz proc was fast enough. A dual core 1.2ghz will last me years. Thanks for all the input!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Awesome! Welcome to the family...
No GPS or LoS here.
Did have some low signal issues in my house but a free airave solved that.
If I were you, and depending on when the Nexus comes out for Sprint, I would wait for that. LTE support and more update support. Although the hardware on the Nexus apparently is lacking compared to this.
Regardless I'm very happy with this phone.
I've had this phone since the first day is was available and its pros far outweigh its negatives. 4G reception is great, but 3G is not as good as it was on my Optimus S. Battery life is fantastic.
I wanted to try something new so I traded my iPhone 4S for a galaxy nexus GSM... Any advice on roms or anything to start out with? Should I just leave it clean?
I've had android before and ALWAYS have gone back to iPhone. But I really want to try out ICS
treypwns said:
I wanted to try something new so I traded my iPhone 4S for a galaxy nexus GSM... Any advice on roms or anything to start out with? Should I just leave it clean?
I've had android before and ALWAYS have gone back to iPhone. But I really want to try out ICS
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you like customization I'd recommend flashing AOKP
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
Ya, AOKP with popcorn kernel gives me best battery life by far and i've tried loads of combinations
Try liquidsmooth rom + lean kernel...very stable..very speedy..very light...craaaazy good battery life
I use AOKP m4 + Francos kernel
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA
Aokp and Franco's kernel for me. But honestly, don't believe me or anybody else. Look around at all the roms and choose the one with the features you'd like. Same thing goes for kernels.
You should probably even have some fun on stock as it's a relatively fast and stable rom for a few days then switch over to custom roms to get the feel for ICS.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
Be aware that your battery will be much less than your 4s. I too came from an iPhone. I didn't expect.battery to be much diminished but it's logical from the.screen size. With franco m1 and aokp M&A, I get around 4.5 hours screen time on wifi and low brightness. Which is fairly high compared to most. what are your guys screen times on other kernel/ROM combos
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA
I don't use my 32GB iPhone 4S as much since getting my GN. I have the Verizon version so I have a 32GB version with LTE. Having LTE allows way faster data speeds than I could ever get with the iPhone 4S. Even with AT&T's faster 3G the 4S can not touch the LTE data speeds.
This is my first Nexus device and I'm loving it. Just stock Android with no bloat. Enjoy your device. I have mine unlocked and rooted but stock. Its stock but smooth and polished .
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
Thanks for the suggestions. I've had the atrix, thrill, and infuse and they were all okay but I still ended up preferring my iPhone. I like both OS though. Hoping ICS will be good.
Anyone using theirs on AT&T? My phone won't be here until Wednesday and wondering what the DL and UL speeds are.
treypwns said:
I wanted to try something new so I traded my iPhone 4S for a galaxy nexus GSM... Any advice on roms or anything to start out with? Should I just leave it clean?
I've had android before and ALWAYS have gone back to iPhone. But I really want to try out ICS
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd leave it stock for a while.
The reason I say this is that coming from an iPhone I don't think you'll be happy with all the bugs and annoyances that come with custom ROMs (if the G'nex is anything like the EVO, Stratosphere and the OG Droid).
True Story: I had a friend who I convinced to switch from an iPhone to Android and first thing he does when he gets the phone is have me root it and put on a custom ROM (since I kept showing him all the things my rooted phone could do). He's happy for a few days but then the random reboots start happening - among other little ROM-related bugs. Finally he says he is going back to the iPhone before his 30 days are up because Android isn't stable enough. Had we not rooted it right away he probably would have been happier and maybe stuck around with Android. We just tried too much too fast. Of course, since I showed him my G'Nex (and AT&T sucks in his area of Chicago) he is switching to Verizon so he can have the Nexus, too.
Enjoy the stock OS for a couple of months then decide if you want to root and tinker. Stock is plenty great as-is; I just finally rooted mine this weekend (ONLY to get wi-fi tether) and I'm the type to play around with everything.
Stock is good. No need to mess with it.
I'll just be giving everyone a little history on my experiences with the Epic 4G Touch and it's OS iterations since release.
Purchased brand-new on 10/1/11. It came with 2.3.6. When mid 2012 came I heard about 4.0 ICS coming around, so I kept checking every 5 minutes for the new update implementation. Read that it's been delayed... not confirmed; Sprint said that they've no idea... blah blah blah, that sort of nut-shell...
So, when it FINALLY got to my phone, I was excited only to figure out these 3 issues.
1. It wasn't ANYWHERE as smooth, responsive, or as fluid as 2.3.6.
2. Had much... much worse battery life (FL27 barely fixed that....)
3. Had the infamous "Sprint ID has stopped responding" issue (FL24 fixed that?) - it went away when I got FL24.
So, within the last week or so, I got sick of waiting for 4.1.2 OTA from Sprint and or Samsung, so I decided to do what we all here do. We take matters into our own hands; so I did, and threw the GA10 Build 4.1.2 with Nature UX onto my Epic 4G Touch.
Now, I love it. It's smooth, and is as good as any UI overlayed Android flavor.
I would keep it...if me, I, personally didn't get horrid battery life from it. (4G off, auto-sync off, most "useless apps and programs running in the background were disabled. I had GPS off, and 50% or so screen brightness.
Guess what mmy battery drain rate was? 30% an hour.... using the phone for mid-use texting would bring battery life from 99% to 20% in about 50 minutes.
As you guessed, I had to do something about that...
Oh what about custom ROMS you might ask? Man you guys here at XDA are on the ball today. Thanks for asking.
I used AOSP Alpha 6 4.1.1 and TBH I loved it. That from what I've experienced on my handset was an OTA worthy build. No known bugs or issues to me... but it still had bad battery life (20-40% an hour drain..)
And I tried AOKP 4.1.1, which was HORRID overall in my experiance. Slow, and bad battery life.
So, if it's OK here... I've come to the conclusion that Android 2.3.6, overall, is the BEST ANDROID version to date.
It offers the best combination of speed/smoothness, and battery life.
I have a Nexus 7 with Android 4.2.1, and my stock Epic 4G Touch running 2.3.6, is JUST AS FAST, and JUST as responsive..
Tl;DR: I think GB is better then JB or ICS generally speaking, and I'm curiorus on what the XDA input is on all this..
Strange, my battery life on GA10 stock rooted is similar to GB. I get 18-24 hours with 2-3 hours of screen time most days. My batteries are both new 1800mah. I occasionally use gps nav, regularly use bluetooth and have email sync every 30 minutes. No facebook or twitter type apps.
The touchwiz experience is definitely better in JB as well. I was on AOSP roms for 6 months before this and never thought I would go back.
My thoughts ill sum it up quickly. Gb was is great. Fast and works. Ics is a joke and very glitchy. Stock jelly bean ga10 now were talking its flat out amazing. The new google search and refinement is top notch. I recieved new phone under warranty. Ga10 is so good I flashed it as soon as I pulled phone out of box. I just pulled 7 hour screen on time- 3.5 hours of tiger woods 2012 with cheapo extended battery.
Now on batteries. If there old and getting crappy life like you well replace it. I have multiple batteries and wall dock charger. That being said my phone never is plugged in to charge. Most people smart phone habbits is plug phone in all the time. Trying to cram a few %. That kills a battery. Destroys them! If you can fully charge on dock and fully discharge in phone then dock charge your dead batttery. They last much longer and keeps android battery meter happy. I have 2 stock samsung batteries that came with the phone. 1 is 14 months old and the other is 1 week old that came with replacement. The old one dies very fast while new one last all day. Amazon is your best friend
Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk 2
I've come to the conclusion that Android 2.3.6, overall, is the BEST ANDROID version to date.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well good for you!
Hope you got your flame suit on.
I guess all the devs contributors and regulars here must be idiots or something. You know, trying to continually improve the OS, applications and experience. What's that all about? We should probably just take what we were given and be happy. I mean my old 66 VW bug was great, why would I want or need my new car?
After reading the 2 posts you've put up recently I think your problem is lack of understanding what you're doing. You should probably do alot more reading before you brick your phone, then the best Android version will be "none" cuz your phone's gonna be dead.
I like to break stuff!
Yeah, you didn't even try 4.2.1... Which is 10x better than GB. Touchwiz ICS I agree is atrocious.. but you only tried a couple AOSP JB ROMs and are condemning it as worse than GB. Now that is a joke!
And I am sure you didn't try to apply any kind of battery tweaks or even try ds battery saver. Idk for me GB was lacking in so many departments. But to each his own
-EViL-KoNCEPTz- said:
After reading the 2 posts you've put up recently I think your problem is lack of understanding what you're doing. You should probably do alot more reading before you brick your phone, then the best Android version will be "none" cuz your phone's gonna be dead.
I like to break stuff!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm a noob when it comes to ROOTING and all things involving modification of them, true.
But, I know enough to come to the conclusion that Gingerbread has worked the best for me.
Perhaps I should have stated that the OP was subject to personal preference and bias.
I'm not trying to pass off anything I've said as absolute fact. Im just expressing my own two cents, so take what I say with a huge truck load of salt.
The OP says what I did, and what I experienced. Nothing more.
bilgerryan said:
Yeah, you didn't even try 4.2.1... Which is 10x better than GB. Touchwiz ICS I agree is atrocious.. but you only tried a couple AOSP JB ROMs and are condemning it as worse than GB. Now that is a joke!
And I am sure you didn't try to apply any kind of battery tweaks or even try ds battery saver. Idk for me GB was lacking in so many departments. But to each his own
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I never said 4.2.1 is worse then GB. I said that GB has proven to be faster, and more responsive then 4.2.1.
I have a Nexus 7 running 4.2.1.
With my stock phone, and stock tablet, GB runs just as smooth really. But I'd give the advantage to GB.
You are correct that I never tried any battery tweaks. I may have to when I learn how to.
But a stock GA10 ROM getting the lack of battery life I had?
If other people are reporting better battery life then even GB (Or even equal)
This means either I just did something wrong, or maybe it's not working for me.
I can accept either way.
Just saying how it all is... for me.
leaderbuilder said:
Well good for you!
Hope you got your flame suit on.
I guess all the devs contributors and regulars here must be idiots or something. You know, trying to continually improve the OS, applications and experience. What's that all about? We should probably just take what we were given and be happy. I mean my old 66 VW bug was great, why would I want or need my new car?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In my personal experiance, GingerBread has been the best FOR ME.
someguyatx said:
Strange, my battery life on GA10 stock rooted is similar to GB. I get 18-24 hours with 2-3 hours of screen time most days. My batteries are both new 1800mah. I occasionally use gps nav, regularly use bluetooth and have email sync every 30 minutes. No facebook or twitter type apps.
The touchwiz experience is definitely better in JB as well. I was on AOSP roms for 6 months before this and never thought I would go back.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
See, your results are something I wish I had. I also use factory 1800Mah batterys. I have 4 total. 3 purchased on Amazon for just shy of $10.00, and one factory original.
What are you doing right? Or, what am I doing wrong? XD
OP, I know what you're trying to say and understand how you reached your personal conclusion and insight about the state of custom and official roms available for our phone. With that said, I think you should give the stock rooted FL16 rom an install and try it out. For me personally, it's the best Jellybean I've tried so far.
I tried in the past Gingerbread (EL29 OEM, Calkulin v3.0), ICS (OEM and Blue Kuban), and Jellybean (FK23, FL16, and GA10). And among those, I've had the smoothest experiences with OEM EL29, Calkulin v3.0, FL16, and GA10. GA10, however, had the call waiting bug and faster battery drain than FL16. So I went back to FL16. The battery life of FL16, though good, wasn't as good as Calkulin v3.0. So I bought myself a Gorilla Gadget 3500mah extended life battery and everything is perfect now.
I hope you can derive more fun and usage pleasure out of our phone in the feature.
I'll chime in. The feature set in Jelly vs. Ginger is no contest. Even if Jelly had a bit of lag and slightly less battery life (which I have none in GA10) I'd still use it over Ginger hands down. It's 10X more powerful. It's like comparing an xbox to an xbox 360.
A side note on battery life. Sure it was longer with ginger, that was when my battery was new. A year later, no rom is going to have equal battery life. Buy a new battery and then see how many hours you get off Jelly.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda app-developers app
gatesmarch123 said:
I'll chime in. The feature set in Jelly vs. Ginger is no contest. Even if Jelly had a bit of lag and slightly less battery life (which I have none in GA10) I'd still use it over Ginger hands down. It's 10X more powerful. It's like comparing an xbox to an xbox 360.
A side note on battery life. Sure it was longer with ginger, that was when my battery was new. A year later, no rom is going to have equal battery life. Buy a new battery and then see how many hours you get off Jelly.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have 3 batterys that are like-new. Maybe 20 charge cycles through 'em.
Also, GA10 has horrid battery life for me.
What did I do wrong?
Mansevolver said:
See, your results are something I wish I had. I also use factory 1800Mah batterys. I have 4 total. 3 purchased on Amazon for just shy of $10.00, and one factory original.
What are you doing right? Or, what am I doing wrong? XD
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I really jusy use my phone like normal with some minor adjustments for better battery life. I removed a few stock apps but nothing really significant mostly sprint and samsung bloatware. I don't use connection optimizer, removed it, but I am very good about manually toggling gps, bluetooth and wifi when not in use and backing out of apps. Default brightness with auto setting 1 minute off and I use notification light with blink app, fast blue for sms so I can see it quickly.
Email is set to sync schedule to check every 30 mins on weekdays with nights and weekends every 4 hours. Only email, gmail, calendar, contacts, and internet sync. Weather widget is updated every hour. Location services use wireless networks but not gps or google and google now is off.
I get a pretty 3g good signal most of the time. No 4g here in KY so its always off. I use wifi at home but not at work and at least an hour of my screen time is over 3g daily. I also use an external charger and run my batteries down to about 10% then power off and pop in a new one. Hope that helps you or somebody else.
Just get yourself a new phone with a bigger battery that will solve your problem thats what I did. For me I felt like GB was the best for the e4gt and well iCS was a joke snd well JB is great snd all but waiting for an update and for source just to make roms much better and kernels to get better battery is just taking too long. I solved my problem by getting a note 2 that runs JB real good and battery life is lovely especially when you dont have to carry extra batteries or a charger which is silly to me but thats just my 2 cents and plus im just a phone whore cuz im pretty sure when tge s4 or note 3 comes out ima just sell the note 2 and buy the latest best thing lol but that's just me.
Sent from my SPH-L900 using Tapatalk 2
miketucky350 said:
My thoughts ill sum it up quickly. Gb was is great. Fast and works. Ics is a joke and very glitchy. Stock jelly bean ga10 now were talking its flat out amazing. The new google search and refinement is top notch. I recieved new phone under warranty. Ga10 is so good I flashed it as soon as I pulled phone out of box. I just pulled 7 hour screen on time- 3.5 hours of tiger woods 2012 with cheapo extended battery.
Now on batteries. If there old and getting crappy life like you well replace it. I have multiple batteries and wall dock charger. That being said my phone never is plugged in to charge. Most people smart phone habbits is plug phone in all the time. Trying to cram a few %. That kills a battery. Destroys them! If you can fully charge on dock and fully discharge in phone then dock charge your dead batttery. They last much longer and keeps android battery meter happy. I have 2 stock samsung batteries that came with the phone. 1 is 14 months old and the other is 1 week old that came with replacement. The old one dies very fast while new one last all day. Amazon is your best friend
Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Amazon totally IS my best friend, when it comes to objects.
sent from my ET4G on Paranoid Android using XDA Premium HD in hybrid mode
My experience was opposite interestingly enough. When I first got my phone I took it back to the sprint store twice because the UI was so laggy I couldn't take it.
Decided to root and ROM. Flashed ICS and all lag was gone. JB is even better.
Gingerbread was horrendous for me.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium
gb was ok. no lag or anything but I had flashed to page plus on stock el29 gb and was so afraid of upping to ics for fear of losing flash, I learned how to flash phones myself for the most part, which I didn't need personally because u never lose flash for it is stored in nvram and anyway best ics rom is either shadow God's universe, or sniper's lightweight, or the infamous blu kuban. best jb rom = shadow god's jellyverse for tw based, sniper's black beans rom for 4.2.
my personal favorite rom that I always come back to = PACman!
anyways, I didn't really experience much lag or anything from gb, ics, or jb
Sent from an Apple killing JellyBean
I understand this is personal preference and bias, but you have to understand that these are still leaks. They have imperfections.
As far as battery life on gb vs jb, without tweaks, think of it like this.
You have a lawnmower engine (your battery) that runs great on your lawnmower (gb), then you decide to put that engine into a truck (jb) and you can't figure out why it doesn't work the same. Obviously the truck is much bigger, has more features, requires more resources right?
Its apples and oranges here man, a little research through existing threads will take you a long long way:beer:
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium
Stryke_the_Orc said:
I understand this is personal preference and bias, but you have to understand that these are still leaks. They have imperfections.
As far as battery life on gb vs jb, without tweaks, think of it like this.
You have a lawnmower engine (your battery) that runs great on your lawnmower (gb), then you decide to put that engine into a truck (jb) and you can't figure out why it doesn't work the same. Obviously the truck is much bigger, has more features, requires more resources right?
Its apples and oranges here man, a little research through existing threads will take you a long long way:beer:
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
but u can tweak the motor to handle the bigger load
Sent from an Apple killing JellyBean
Are you content with what you paid for? The galaxy s3 is an amazing device, but are you happy with it? would you buy it again? just wondering about your thoughts on the device... are you happy with development and roms on the device? Was it worth it?
Yes, and no. I loved my s3 when I 1st got it but after awhile I got bored of it. I picked this phone because of development and ROMs. That's why I didn't bother with the droid dna. Now that I look at the dna forums I wish I could find someone to trade :/
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda premium
I like it, would rather s3 than s4, because of svdo only working with 4g. I'm overall super happy with the S3.
message brought to you by my GalaxyS3
I picked one up for my wife in December for 50$ I had a Gnex which I was happy with. Most of the people I knew from the OG EPIC4G where here already. I played with my wife's phone for two hours went back to the store and got myself one. I am really happy with its performance, development here here and the fact it just a great piece of hardware.
Sent from the future via Tapatalk 4
I would but it again. Several times over. I feel that all other phones are way too overpriced for the random extras they put in.
As someone stated in a thread in general, if you remove all the little software additions the S4 has, you get the S3.
I'm completely happy! Bought me and my wife one on black Friday. I came from HTC evo3d. I'm outta town nightly and don't always have 4g so being able to surf the Web and talk is a huge bonus. I was considering a gs4 till I found out it couldn't do that. The Roms here are great also....not to mention the Devs who help out noobs like me on a daily basis. Finally talked my wife into rooting and now she's on moar and is always showing what she can do. So the answer is yes totally happy. Can't beat two s3s for 80 bucks
Sent from my SPH-L710 using xda app-developers app
I would get it again in a heartbeat . One of the Best Devices out when I got it, and still one of the best out there. It's never disappointed me.
I would buy it over and over... S4 is only slightly better, and we are getting alot of those features (If we haven't already thanks to our great dev community). So why spend the extra $$$? The other thing that makes this phone what it is..happens to be our Devs... We have a talented team of devs floating around here for the S3, they give us all the options and customization features you could really want. No need to seek out another phone after that fact.
I bought my gs3 and sold my evo lte last November and I'm happy with it. I've had one issue with the one I bought and got a replacement and all has been good for 6 months. This is the first phone I've owned that hasn't made me look for another (the grass is greener syndrome). I'm going to keep it until my upgrade which will be just in time for the gs5.
my wife and i each got one the day after thanksgiving for $0.99 each if we renewed our sprint contract. So yeah I'm happy with what i paid for this phone. I love it although i think i may tinker too much with it, i'm constantly switching roms, adding mods, and tweaking it trying to find the perfect experiance for me ( i don't think that is ever going to happen )
I would absolutely buy this phone again. It is my 1st Android device and it has been amazing to learn things on. I've looked around and it seems that this is one of the easiest phones to root and flash ROMs on. Plus the dev support here for this device has been awesome.
Heck Yes ! Got as a gift this past Father's Day ( $50 @ BestBuy ) and we have LOTS of ROMs to choose from ... and like Ed mentioned earlier , most of our buddies from OG EPIC4G land have this phone ( I just happened to be the last straggler to upgrade )
Sent from my SPH-L710 using xda premium
Yeah, pretty happy with it. I think it's still a relevant phone, and I'm planning on getting a couple of years out of it.
I'm happy and I would do it again. I only paid 99 cents for this GS3 so I'd say I got my money's worth by the time I turned it on.
I came from the evo3d and I can't think of one area that the 3d beats the GS3. The GS3 battery is way better, the screen is bigger, the screen is brighter, it's smarter, more mem, more ram, better ui, lte, better development, easier to root, I could probably go on.
Only drawback I've noticed about the GS3 is that it seems like there's more of them out there than iPhones,
Yes I am very happy with it, it's handles opened apps very well even tried to keep opening NFS most wanted and some others apps in my phone memory and it's handled it absolutely with no lag and without any redraws.
Only two the biggest minuses that I don't like it's battery and scrolling lag in some apps. So my main problem is not RAM memory but battery it's drains so fast.
Simonna said:
Yes I am very happy with it, it's handles opened apps very well even tried to keep opening NFS most wanted and some others apps in my phone memory and it's handled it absolutely with no lag and without any redraws.
Only two the biggest minuses that I don't like it's battery and scrolling lag in some apps. So my main problem is not RAM memory but battery it's drains so fast.
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Really? My battery lasts about 12-14 hours with around 4 hours screen on time.
EDIT: Stock battery too.
CNexus said:
Really? My battery lasts about 12-14 hours with around 4 hours screen on time.
EDIT: Stock battery too.
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So you're lucky then and my battery dies in approx 8-7 hours on hard usage.
Simonna said:
So you're lucky then and my battery dies in approx 8-7 hours on hard usage.
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No he's not lucky, he's learned to take advantage of XDA and all the information found here. There are lots of tweaks and kernel changes that can extend your battery life. In conjunction with some great apps like Greenify. I average 15 to 16 hrs with 4 to 5 hrs on screen time on a stock battery as well. There are many here who do. You should do a little research you could profit from it.
Sent from the future via Tapatalk 4
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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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
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Get the M8
Rushing said:
Get the M8
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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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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.
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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.
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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..