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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.
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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.
Just received this phone and it seems pretty decent for having 4.2.2 but the battery drains like crazy on the phone and it seems that Cell Standby is using the battery the most on this phone at 86%. So is it worth putting Kit Kat on the phone or will battery drain still be a issue with the phone?
I see no reason why not.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda app-developers app
Worthy from most aspects, except for battery, where it's mostly decided by how you use your phone. I just couldn't see any difference in battery usage between JB and KK.
Sent from Google Nexus 4 @ CM11
I felt quite a bit of performance difference between stock 4.3 and CM11...for example, RAM usage which would restart the launcher quite often on 4.3 is nearly gone and there are really no bugs to speak of, even in this early stage (I am using the latest stable build, but still...)
YES, I've found performance to be GREAT and best my device has run in a while(had huge ram leak issues before installing KK which caused SERIOUS lag issues)
As for battery life, there isn't very much you can do short of putting device into airplane mode and toggle on WiFi only.(yes you can use wifi in airplane mode)
I don't use carrier anymore, and this is the only time I've gotten a nice boost in battery life. The cell radios in this device (especially the CDMA/LTE version) just gulps down battery life like no other.
You will also see a nice boost just from disabling the cellular data fully or only using 3g.
4.3, I wouldn't even waste time downloading... Gawd I got so used to having to reboot three times a day just to rectify lags caused by memory leaks. So horrid.
I'm loving using this thing again thanks to KK
I haven't noticed a battery life gain, but I have definitely noticed a better overall performance and satisfaction level. I personally like how 4.4.x works and operates better than < 4.3 Maybe I just got burned out on that interface, but 4.4.x is a nice change that is definitely smooth and stable enough to enjoy. My $.05
I also just got GN used and battery life seems fine on CM 10.2.1 (18-22 hours avg.). You might want to consider that your phone is in need of a battery replacement if bought used, or that you are getting a weak signal in your area, making the radio work harder to maintain coverage. Is the phone currently activated? Either way, try airplane mode for the latter case like others have stated.
If you try KK, you might benefit all around from using a custom kernel. Make a nandroid backup before flashing one, look up a few videos on undervolting/overclocking, and check out Nephilim's custom kernel settings thread.
Good luck!
Sent from my GNexus using xda app-developers app
FenderGuy said:
Just received this phone and it seems pretty decent for having 4.2.2 but the battery drains like crazy on the phone and it seems that Cell Standby is using the battery the most on this phone at 86%. So is it worth putting Kit Kat on the phone or will battery drain still be a issue with the phone?
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I used the OmniMetal ROM that is listed in the Android Dev section and was quite happy with the battery life. I could get up to 30-32 hours if the phone was left alone and only used to check the time occasionally. Then again, battery life is dependent on on phone usage, so mileage always varies.
Hakugin said:
I used the OmniMetal ROM that is listed in the Android Dev section and was quite happy with the battery life. I could get up to 30-32 hours if the phone was left alone and only used to check the time occasionally. Then again, battery life is dependent on on phone usage, so mileage always varies.
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There is a great sticky on the GSM GNexus development thread comparing the features of all the popular roms. It is very easy to miss if you have the verizon/sprint variant because those sections have their own set of sticky threads. Anyway, I highly recommend checking that list out since it will save you a ton of time
.
---------- Post added at 07:55 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:37 PM ----------
ashclepdia said:
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4.3, I wouldn't even waste time downloading... Gawd I got so used to having to reboot three times a day just to rectify lags caused by memory leaks. So horrid.
I'm loving using this thing again thanks to KK
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Click to collapse
Are you talking about stock 4.3 or a custom rom? If not stock, then which rom? I've had the home screen refresh on me a few times on CM 10.2 but not as bad as you describe. Maybe I should upgrade for KitKat's lower memory footprint alone.
Remix Rom
Try the Remix Rom, based on KitKat, fast, stable and the battarydarain is awsome! :good:
I've tried out ParanoidAndroid 4.2 and CM11, they both work smooth and stable. As for the battery drain, flash Fancy Kernel and use some of the settings to squeeze some more life and better sound!
hope it helps
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..
so im in a mixup of battery life.. i dont do alot on my phone, some texts, check some emails, fb is nill.. im on the stock battery at this point. im running DU 4.3.1 currently.. i work construction, im up at 4:30 am, an if i didnt charged i'd be dead by 3pm..
Rom and governor can drastically help battery life. my question os a combo of the two.
whats the best battery you've experienced in a stock case without problem, and the rom you used to do so..
i wont trade phone size for increased time yeah that 3600 or whatever.. aint happening.. thanks for the imput..
I got a bigger battery at Batteries Plus 3.6V 3000mAh. With Fox Star rom with synergy kernel V0.10 . I am able to 46 hours. Thats talking texting and playing on the web.
Sent from my SGH-T989 using xda premium
Turn off everything you don't need. Like GPS for sure. Keep the screen dimmer, manually. Maybe even toggle data off unless you want to check something....then toggle it on, then off after. You will still get calls and texts.
How much are you using it through the day? No reason why you shouldn't make it through the day....unless you're using it a lot...instead of working.
and eachken
KJ said:
Turn off everything you don't need. Like GPS for sure. Keep the screen dimmer, manually. Maybe even toggle data off unless you want to check something....then toggle it on, then off after. You will still get calls and texts.
How much are you using it through the day? No reason why you shouldn't make it through the day....unless you're using it a lot...instead of working.
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Yeah, make sure you're doing all this. Brightness is a huge battery killer, I try and keep it at the lowest whenever possible. Also, this phone has an AMOLED screen, meaning that anything that's black will use less battery than vivid colors. I set my wallpaper to solid black and use a theme that changes many menus/apps to a solid black background.
I've had great luck lately with new Kit Kat based roms and WildKernel
I might suggest waiting for the next version of WildKernal, as there might be (not sure) a small issue with second core control,
and the dev is also going to be releasing his own kernel control app in the near future.
Otherwise, the Slim roms have been fantastic for just plain snappiness, stability, and battery life.
They are on 4.4.4 now,
which is very nice (and stable), but if you're more comfortable with it, they have 4.3 and such as well.
Personally I'm using Validus 6.0, which I'm not sure is offered on XDA for our device, but there is a google group
for Ground Zero roms. It's 4.4.4, ok with battery life, but has a bunch of features.
External link to official Google+ post for Hercules Validus 6 rom
I'd really recommend a Slim Rom if you're not worried about a theme engine though.
knoxyouout said:
I've had great luck lately with new Kit Kat based roms and WildKernel
I might suggest waiting for the next version of WildKernal, as there might be (not sure) a small issue with second core control,
and the dev is also going to be releasing his own kernel control app in the near future.
Otherwise, the Slim roms have been fantastic for just plain snappiness, stability, and battery life.
They are on 4.4.4 now,
which is very nice (and stable), but if you're more comfortable with it, they have 4.3 and such as well.
Personally I'm using Validus 6.0, which I'm not sure is offered on XDA for our device, but there is a google group
for Ground Zero roms. It's 4.4.4, ok with battery life, but has a bunch of features.
External link to official Google+ post for Hercules Validus 6 rom
I'd really recommend a Slim Rom if you're not worried about a theme engine though.
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This. I ran SlimKat with Wild v008 for the longest time, got great battery life with a combo of SavagedZen and sio (256 read-ahead). It ran very smooth, but I ran into occasional issues like music stuttering while the screen was off. Besides that, though, it was great.
Oh, and no lockscreen lag.
Hey guys,
So school is starting again. Ugh. I've been trying out different ROM and kernel combinations (AOSP and stock), yet none of them really fulfill what I'm looking for in a daily driver. I know this is kind of a cliche request, but I want to know from you guys (the XDA LG G3 community) what ROM and kernel combo you guys use, and maybe give your combinations a try since mine haven't been working out for me. Priorities:
BATTERY LIFE (this one I cannot stress enough, I need somethings that'll last me most of the day with music, some light to moderate browsing, and some moderate social networking)
Stability (I hate having to troubleshoot my phone on the go when I'm studying or working on other things)
Smoothness (I guess this just depends on the kernel and the phone usage, but some ROMs tend to be overloaded with customization features that I don't use but still bog my device down)
Again, this is just to get an idea of what I could possibly try out on my phone - any help and/or suggestions are appreciated. Thanks!
I'm using BlissPop at the moment and it has good battery life and smooth compared to other ROMs. First thing is stay away from stock ROMs, they have awful battery life. AOSP is life.
Sent from my LG-D855 using Tapatalk
If you don't mind me asking, what kinds of apps do you use and what is the battery life on your phone (like hours and minutes wise?)
Sent from my LG-D850 using XDA Free mobile app