Ok i want to start off by giving much thanks to the few but proud devs we have left that are developing for our Nitro HD, and this little article is just my 2 cents and my general experience. By no means am I cutting down anybodys hard work for the Nitro HD.
Now onto the real story....
So for the last 2 months or so i have been a flashaholic junky and have tried every rom available for our dear Nitro HD. The multiple yet small selection of roms all have great perks and nice added features with lots of customization. Which in part each rom available for the Nitro HD is great but also each comes with its own negatives. I recently went through the unbrick guide and went back to the v20c ATT stock rom. And really to be honest its is very solid, and the battery life has been the best from any other rom i have tried. Ill keep this short and sweet. So my conclusion is that after probably 3 or more months "probably longer" of scouring XDA for anything new for the Nitro HD and after losing countless hours of staying up late to flash recoveries, roms, backup and recover data, and even a unbrick here and there, I can say that I am actually more satisfied with the Stock v20c rom. Although ATT bloatware is annoying and really not used the stability of v20c is honestly more satisfying than having reboots, and screen flickers, and jumbled pictures in multiple apps, and dead battery after 5 hours, and those are just a few bugs I have experienced on a day to day basis with custom roms.
Sent from my LG-P930 using xda premium
Honestly in my experience, the stock ICS firmware wasn't for me. I couldn't stand the default icons on the device and every launcher that I tried was laggy and annoying that I just ended up using the stock launcher. The stock launcher had some pretty nice scrolling animations though, that's probably what I miss most about the rom. That being said, I had tons of problems with it. I couldn't use the phone without it rebooting itself and this happened everyday. Also, there was this incredibly annoying bug that caused the screen to jitter around, lag and look distorted. Fixing this issue, you almost always had to reboot the phone, or at least force-close the launcher.
As for your issues, everyone experiences things differently. However, your complaints about screen flickers and artifacts can be consistent to running a non-stable rom. If you were to run CM9, I'm pretty sure that most of those problems wouldn't exist if you properly flashed the rom by clearing out your caches and wiping all data. As for your battery life, I believe that the Android operating system in general has a feature that can gradually see how you use your phone and eventually; say 2-3 weeks, your battery life will get better. I don't know how true this is, but it's something that I've read and maybe someone can confirm that it's true.
As for my current rom, I'm currently running CM10 M2 at the moment. I have a few problems like artifacts and this one annoying problem where my Alarm won't go off, but generally I'm happy. Especially considering that the rom is still in development. Generally, my battery-life consumption has been around 10-11 hours per day and I'm using the stock battery. I haven't even given the battery time to settle into this rom either, seeing how M2 was released on 10/11 and I flashed it 2 days later. Before, I was using cm9 and it was as stable as can be. I had a few resets within cm9, but those weren't even noticeable compared to the stock ICS restarts I was getting. As of now on CM10, I had one restart so far, with one complete crash. I'm still happy, since I know CM10 is in development and honestly, I was expecting it to be worse. Those crashes don't really bother me. What does bother me however, is that I can't get the pesky alarm application to work! On top of that, using swiftkey in landscape mode can be tedious because of the lag. It lagged before in ICS, but CM10 is much worse. I can't see myself using another keyboard, so hopefully performance improves. Other than that, I still prefer CM10 over stock any day.
The cm10 10/15 nightly is rock solid...this is someone coming from stock Bell ICS v20e. The artifacting issues are gone...and I haven't had any black screens or weird issues yet. Stock keyboard is fine...I have always found the android keyboard to be sluggish.
Sent from my LG-P930 using xda app-developers app
I'm like 90% satisfied with stock and that is what I'm running. My battery life has always stayed the same though, no matter what i'm running. I'm always getting a consistent ~10 hours of moderate use, and ~5-6 hours of heavier use.
This phone would be perfect if it had a battery that was just a it larger in capacity.
Victor B said:
I'm like 90% satisfied with stock and that is what I'm running. My battery life has always stayed the same though, no matter what i'm running. I'm always getting a consistent ~10 hours of moderate use, and ~5-6 hours of heavier use.
This phone would be perfect if it had a battery that was just a it larger in capacity.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I bought 2 extended batteries that I can get a full day of heavy use out of with brightness turned up. So I swap the batteries every other day, that way I only have to charge every 2 days.
Related
I'm having a lot of data issues with my HTC One S on T-Mobile US, so I'm thinking about getting an SIII. I can either do a warranty exchange on my One S but the SIII looks like it can outperform the One S so here I am.
I wanted to know if there have been any issues with the SIII? From the various threads I've seen, there doesn't appear to be any but I just wanted to ask current users. I'd like some input on:
stock ROM performance (although I will root eventually)
data connectivity (data network and wifi)
camera performance
battery performance
GPS performance
how your root experience was (easy, difficult, issues laden?)
any gotchas?
Also, what's the difference between the 2 development threads? Why is one called Original and the other is not?
Many thanks
search 10char
stock ROM performance (although I will root eventually)
A. Amazing! The new touchwiz is smooth and very stable, it's partially the reason why I always go back to stock based roms.
data connectivity (data network and wifi)
A. It depends on where you live but I haven't had any issues with data at all, it's reasonably faster than it was on my Galaxy S2 so no complaints there!
camera performance
A. I think the camera is one of the best on the market, photo's are very sharp and clear from my experience.
battery performance
A. The battery on this device is good, I can make it through a day easily with moderate use.
GPS performance
A. I don't use GPS very much so I can't give you a good answer to that one but I haven't heard any complaints about it.
how your root experience was (easy, difficult, issues laden?)
A. My root experience was great, if you had a Galaxy S2 and rooted it, it's basically the same thing. If not it's still very basic if you follow the instructions correctly.
any gotchas?
A. Not sure what this means, if your talking about issues or something like that then I have one:
- The device can get warm from time to time when using data for long periods of time, other then that I haven't had any issues with phone.
I'd definitely recommend this to anyone looking to get a new phone!
Only problem I have is it warms up from heavy data use from time to time. Stock ROM was wonderful but I finally flashed cm10 last night to see how it is. I couldn't believe it but the phone became even faster Haha I highly recommend this phone
Sent from my SGH-T999 using xda app-developers app
Stock ROM: Nearly perfect. It's fluid. It's fast, it's useful. And you can switch most things on or off without rooting. You can get a newly Aosp experience without root.
Data: As good as any other recent phone. Data completely relies on where you live. The s3 will not give you any problems.
Battery: Good or very good. The phone lasts about 20 hours with moderate usage. It can easily hit 2 days with light usage. Jelly bean currently has no bugs but it does drain the battery slightly more than ics. Expect 17 hours average on jelly bean.
Gps: Best in class. Locks instantly, consistently within 20 seconds cold boot.
Rooting: Rooting is easy and takes 3 minutes.
CAMERA: Same as the iPhone 4s but i do believe the software is better. Pictures are some of the best for a smartphone. Only a few phones best it but it is not by much.
Other: Phone is ready for wireless charging of you want to solder 2 wires on it. Also, i have heard reports that the screen cracks on some drops so be warned and careful.
Overall. Super fast, super reliable, has bugless jelly bean,
Sent from my SGH-T999 using xda app-developers app
treklos said:
I'm having a lot of data issues with my HTC One S on T-Mobile US, so I'm thinking about getting an SIII. I can either do a warranty exchange on my One S but the SIII looks like it can outperform the One S so here I am.
I wanted to know if there have been any issues with the SIII? From the various threads I've seen, there doesn't appear to be any but I just wanted to ask current users. I'd like some input on:
stock ROM performance (although I will root eventually)
data connectivity (data network and wifi)
camera performance
battery performance
GPS performance
how your root experience was (easy, difficult, issues laden?)
any gotchas?
Also, what's the difference between the 2 development threads? Why is one called Original and the other is not?
Many thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the sgs3 and I absolutely love it. Was on stock form late July till about 2 weeks ago and it seemed to perform just fine. I'm not huge on the TouchWiz interface of the past but this one wasn't so bad. Was never at a loss for power even though we didn't get the Integra (le sigh). Here in Chicago the data is always smooth but I spend some time in rural WI, so up there it could be better but that is more local then phone performance related. The Camera was outstanding. Girlfriend has the HTC One S and she was a little jealous of the camera by comparison. I had a very smooth root transition and I did it about a week after I got the phone, now I can only imagine it will be smoother for you. Flashed to the cm10 nightlies and I have had a few issues but nothing that was major. Not to mention Cyanogen himself is developing on the T999 which is awesome. Only issues that I would be aware of is that when I rooted my phone there were some issues with people losing their IMEI... but that has mostly been cleared up if you search around the forums. I think it had something to do with people rooting for the international version instead of the US Carrier version. Not sure but I didn't encounter it. Best phone I have ever had. Like it even more then my old G2 that I refused to get rid of till it finally crashed.
Please don't get it.
The only issue I have had is the dirty looks from Apple fan boys
Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk 2
Stock works just perfect its stable and such however i notice that when data is turned on the phone gets a little bit hot but nothing too serious...
Battery life is okay 22hs unplugged and 3h30minutes screen on time ..
I dont see any major issues camera is really good in bright area but when it gets very dark whit no flash camera is taking pics whit lot of noise but its very responsive ..
Sent from my SGH-T999V using xda premium
bfranklin1986 said:
The only issue I have had is the dirty looks from Apple fan boys
Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You should be proud.. that you have a phone that doesn't break apart in the box during shipping.
My first S III had a dent in the metal beneath the battery and the second one had a significant scratch in the speaker grill. My third one was just assembled loosely or the pieces didn't fit together well so there were gaps in the seams under the battery cover and all three of these had poorly calibrated displays because white images appeared to be slightly yellow at times so I wouldn't poke fun at Apple if I were you...
4th one's the charm though. I'm happy with this one.
Sent from my SGH-T999 using xda premium
The GS3 is the best phone I have ever had. Don't have any problems. Only thing I miss is no FM radio.
Yes it leaks.
Best phone period.
Well, until the next big thing arrives
-stock ROM performance (although I will root eventually)
Rooting doesn't necessarily mean that you have to switch ROMs, but anyways, stock ROM seems to use a bit more battery than lets say CyanogenMod but other than that, I enjoy the motion controls on the stock rom. I always have better bars than my friends and everything works like a charm
- data connectivity (data network and wifi)
wifi and data both work well. one time I had a problem where data wasn't working that well but i fixed it by reverting back to stock kernel.
-camera performance
i love taking pictures with the camera. the features are pretty enjoyable too. my aunt really loves the "beauty" feature on the camera where it clears up blemishes and makes you look really nice 8D really enjoy being able to take pictures while recording video as well.
- battery performance
typical day I can get 4 hours of screen time in the full day. that is with some light gaming, lots of texting and some social networking. pretty good for a heavy user. my old phone nexus s, would always get low battery and I would have to watch my usage.
- GPS performance
before i switched carriers, I had unlimited data on mobilicity so that worked really well with the GPS. I could always locate myself and sometimes when I wasn't too sure about the area, i could pull up google maps and it would find where I am within seconds.
- how your root experience was (easy, difficult, issues laden?)
rooting the s3 was pretty simple. It just involved using Odin to flash a custom recovery and then installing superuser. it was a lot easier than my nexus s where I had to use adb and fastboot
- any gotchas?
there is the occasional lag and glitch here and there but then again after rooting you can't expect everything to run perfectly. hopefully you get the s3 and enjoy
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
So I have been looking around the forums lately and I have noticed there is some talk about the difference in battery life with the screen on. Apparently touchwiz roms do better with the screen on and both roms go into deep sleep just fine. Does anyone else feel the same way about this? I for one feel I like the latest version of pa gets ok battery life (I can go for a whole day with moderate use) but i do see it dramatically drop when I'm using it (mostly reading this forum )
Share your thoughts.
I find that when I switch to a touchwiz rom I get better screen time at first, but after a week or so it gets progressively worse from all the bloat running. However the difference for me is maybe a half hour in my personal use. To me however it isn't worth it, I will always prefer AOSP.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 4 Beta
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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thanks for the suggestion! i was thinking about changing the ROM for my Hercules and this seems like a really good choice..
Greetings,
so I have been running nAOSPROM (most recently b24) for about two months now. And I reluctantly switched back to the latest stock firmware. Reason being that, while battery life with screen off was amazing with the LP roms, it was horrible when I was actually using the phone for surfing or light app usage (no games). I swear I could watch the battery go down in steps of 2 and 3 percent as soon as the screen was on. With stock firmware I feel that the phone actually allows being used.
And now I'm in a bit of a pickle. Because having seen what my beloved XS can do on Lollipop, I really want to keep that experience. On the other hand it's no good to me if I have to carry around a backup battery charger just out of fear the battery will break down in the middle of the day if I use the device too much. Also I have seen that the XS can do everything I expect from my phone, I really want to avoid buying a new phone just for battery life.
I am now asking for your experience that is certainly further reaching than mine: Is this something that can or will get better? I.e., is it natural due to the increased complexity of Lollipop, or is it something that can be remedied by optimized builds, optimized CPU governors or similar? Or even has already gotten better with Chroma (which claims battery optimization but I haven't gotten around to trying yet)?
Thank you for any insight, I appreciate it.
Alright, to answer to myself, maybe it will help others in the same situation:
Going back to the stock ROM was not an option anymore. It installed fine alright, but obviously even light use of contemporary apps (Google Maps, Facebook) brings it to a screeching halt. I've had multiple occasions when I would exit an app, and the stock launcher would groaningly launch all over again, bringing up widgets one by one. On a completely fresh factory install. So, no, besides JB being horribly outdated if you had LP in hands, it is just not viable anymore.
Now I'm running Chroma and I must say, as impressed as I was with nAOSPROM, I like Chroma more. If you go by perception alone, nAOSPROM runs a little "smoother", it feels a little zippier and more fluid. However, I can't shake the feeling that it comes at a steep price, and that Chroma is much easier on the battery, especially in active app use which is backed up by my battery stats. Asides from probably a few days with screen off, I get between 4 and 6 hours of active app use out of the system, which is perfectly fine for my needs -- I didn't keep logfiles of nAOSPROM, but it seemed considerably shorter. Also, having already only flashed the Pico gapps, I feel right at home with the minimalistic installation of Chroma. So for the time being, I'll stick with that one.
The only thing I actually miss from the stock ROM is its snappy, lightweight stock camera that starts quite a lot faster than anything on an AOSP ROM. But, eh, if that's the price to pay, I'll happily accept it.
My thanks go out to the developers of both ROMs. Thank you for keeping my device alive.