My LG G4 is dead and i need a good substitute ASAP on a tight budget ($200-$250 max). This pretty much limits me to 2015 era phones. Not getting another LG, Samsungs are too expensive and S6 has no microSD slot anyway. Narrowed it down to either an HTC One M9 and Moto X Force. Moto's limited development as well as an alarming number of nightmarish defective OLED displays has scared me off of it (shame as I love OLEDs).
So i'm about settled on an HTC One M9. I did my best to research any deal breaking hardware defects, any problems seem far less severe or common compared to G4 or Moto. Assuming I haven't missed anything...
So that said my question now turns to the software side- are there any carriers/variants of the M9 I should try to avoid buying? As the title says, I wish to unlock the bootloader, root, and eventually install custom roms etc. I'm prepared to pay for Sunshine if necessary provided all M9 variants are supported. I've done my best to read through as many threads and pages as I could before asking this. It SEEMS like i'd be safe buying pretty much any M9 and still be able to unlock bootloader, root and s off. Even Verizon models if i'm not mistaken? Am I correct in this assumption? I wanted to ask just to ensure I didn't miss any important caveats before buying.
I messed up buying an LG, many suffer from a motherboard defect causing unfixable bootlooping and mine finally succumbed the other day. Mine was also a region that didn't allow bootloader unlocking. I could root with some effort if I didn't mind being stuck forever on lollipop, but no custom roms and other annoying limitations.
I don't wish to repeat the same mistakes if I can avoid it, so any information regarding my query would be greatly appreciated. Any other advice or things to look out for regarding the M9 would be helpful too. Thanks very much in advance.
By the way, the version i'm looking at buying is listed as an AT&T model. From what I have seen, this variant seems to be pretty much perfect for doing all I want. But I still wanted to ask this in case I either get a different variant, or if the seller is listing the wrong version of the product. If all M9s are basically equal at this point, then I don't need to worry which kind I get.
Try to buy a worldwide edition. It's the sim unlocked from factory with region 401 ie x.xx.401.xx firmware version.
M9 is a solid phone. The camera isn't the greatest but it does take good shots. It can get a bit hot if charging and playing games at the same time and it is more than capable of draining the battery in an hour or two if you use resource intensive games or apps. The sound is very clear and boomsound is a major player in the satisfaction this phone gives, making the speakers significantly bassier than other devices on the market. The speakers 'can' be a little quiet at full but they ALWAYS stay crystal clear with no distortion at all.
You MUST get a protector case for this device as the front of the actual phone can crack if you apply pressure, by the front camera lens is cracked on mine. Tech21 make a good sturdy case for this device but it is a tad expensive at £30 GBP.
I Don't recommend using custom roms with this device as not only is the risk of a brick significantly higher it is also going to result in a slightly slower phone than stock rooted.
The different variants of this device are essentially the same but carrier locked versions can be a prick to find software to fix stuff.
In all you've made the right choice of phone if you plan on keeping it stock but the wrong one if you plan on modding it.
Beamed in by telepathy.
Sorry, but I have to disagree with some points of the post above this one.
If you live in the US then choosing either the unlocked/dev variant or the version of your carrier is the best choice. SKU 401 is optimized for the EU (in regard to supported frequencies and some GPS configurations). And it's important that you choose the correct hardware version for your carrier's technology (Verizon & Sprint: CDMA - all other variants: GSM). The firmware of CDMA devices and GSM devices isn't interchangeable. You can't even flash Sprint firmware on a Verizon device (or vice versa) without damaging it. However, you can change from one GSM firmware to a different one if you want to (S-OFF required).
Just for having it mentioned (I know that you don't need this information but who knows who else is going to read this): The Verizon version's bootloader cannot get unlocked via HTCdev (unlike the bootloader of all other versions). You need S-OFF for unlocking the bootloader of that version. Since sunshine needs root on the latest firmware version the only way to unlock the Verizon variant on the latest firmware is an xtc clip/java card. (This may change with a future update of sunshine.) Or you try to get a pre-Nougat Verizon M9 and use the temp-root of the sunshine app.
In addition, HTC provides RUUs for its US devices. Therefore, getting back to stock is easier with one of them than with all other non-US variants.
And in regard to custom roms: They don't hardbrick your device. The worst thing that can happen is a soft-brick/bootloop and that will only happen if you try to flash a custom rom whose base is newer than your phone's firmware (and some nougat roms are even compatible with the marshmallow firmware so this happens quite rarely in the recent time).
Aside from that, my phone is as fast while I use Viper 6.1 as it has been while I was playing around with the stock rom. If there really is a difference then you need laboratory equipment for being able to detect it. And I'm pretty sure that you get the same performance on other (sense-based) custom roms, as well.
The only thing that you need to be aware of is that there are more and more reports of dying memory chips. These nand deaths happen on stock phones and on modified phones. As far as I read, no one has been able to repair such a dead device except for HTC itself. I don't know what's the cause of the problem since I know enough people whose M9's are still working fine without any issues.
Sent from my HTC One M9 using XDA Labs
Thanks for the reply from both of you. I'm surprised and happy a mod actually replied too!
My LG was locked out from installing custom roms and such, but I have experience installing some on a first gen Galaxy S (currently using it as backup in fact). I'm sure things have changed somewhat, but I am aware of the potential risks in flashing custom roms. I've bootlooped and soft bricked my device doing so more than once. I'm not a programmer, but I was able to fix them all with patience, research and the right tools/software. I assume there are also methods to deal with soft bricks and bootloops on HTC One M9 if you consider it less of a threat than a hardware brick (which my LG G4 got even without flashing anything). I appreciate the warning and advice either way.
I'm not concerned with the carrier compatibility that much. I don't have service with anyone at the moment and can use whatever. Seller says the device is a GSM unlocked AT&T device, if accurate then i'm perfectly content with using GSM networks. Listing says "new AT&T carrier overstock item", which I hope means the device is okay. It's being advertised as running 5.0 Lollipop, which I assume means the stock rom it came with when first released and also hope is an okay starting point for doing whatever rooting and customization I want.
I hope the NAND issue doesn't crop up on the one I get though, that doesn't sound good. HTC attracted me because i've seen fewer people complaining about widespread hardware defects compared to many other phones. It's difficult to find phones that are a good value, are reasonably free of serious problems and include features I deem important (microSD card support for instance, and having reasonably fast processors). My options are limited.
I'm not sure if i'll need s off. I'm new to that term and don't know much about it besides it being some sort of HTC security. Not sure what doors would open up by having s off, still researching. Assuming the model I buy is accurately listed as AT&T, it sounds like I should be able to unlock the bootloader, root, flash TWRP and even get custom roms without having s off. Am I correct? Not even sure if it's required to flash kernels such as ElementalX.
That can happen if you post in the forum of a device that's owned by a mod. Don't forget that we're normal members, as well, if we don't moderate.
If you face a soft-brick you only need to keep both volume buttons and the power button pressed until the phone reboots to its bootloader. From there on you can boot to TWRP and only need to flash a working rom or to restore a backup of a working (stock) rom and the problem should be fixed. Hard-bricks only happen if you flash a CDMA firmware on a GSM device (or vice versa) or a Sprint firmware on a Verizon device (or vice versa). The phone will still be booting but from what I observed here on xda your SIM card won't be detected, anymore, even if you re-flash your phone's original firmware. Aside from that you can "kill" this phone if you're impatient while it's installing an update and power it down during the process (there was a time when that happened quite often). Therefore, I suggest you to just let it do it's thing after you started the update process. Depending on which update you want to install it might take up to approximately half an hour and the phone might reboot (and therefore vibrate) several times.
Correct, for flashing custom recoveries/roms/kernels you don't need S-OFF on this phone (as long as it's not the Verizon variant). Take a look at the further reading section of the ReadMe thread. There's an article linked that explains S-OFF. And Sneakyghost's firmware thread in the development section should contain an explanation, as well. If I remember correctly it should be located in the 5th post. Be aware that you don't need to (re-)lock this phones bootloader like you needed to do on older HTC devices if you want to flash a RUU with S-ON as long as you use the SD card method. That's the recommended method, btw.
I personally don't use a custom kernel. They had a huge impact on my last device (the HTC One S - released in 2012) but HTC seems to be learning at least from some of its "mistakes" since the battery optimizations are much better on the M9. Therefore, I haven't been using a custom kernel since one of the early versions of ElementalX. On the other hand, that means that I can't tell you whether the current version got optimized that much that it actually has an impact, again.
In regard to the nand issue: Don't forget that 95% of the posts here get made by people who face problems with their phones whereas most people don't post if everything is working fine. That might cause that an issue seems to be more common than it actually is. And as said in my last post, I haven't seen such a dead nand in real life, yet, and I know a lot of people who own this phone.
And last but not least a little tip: Find out your phone's firmware as soon as you get it. If it's a pre-4.x version (everything before android n) then try to find the latest 3.x RUU for your SKU*. If you install that one you will save some time that would otherwise be needed for installing a huge amount of OTA updates. (A RUU only needs around 5 minutes if you use the SD card method.) You can't directly install a 4.x RUU since HTC changed the encryption keys between firmware 3.x and 4.x. Therefore, you need to install the 4.x update via the software update function of the phone since OTAs aren't encrypted. More information, some useful files and instructions can be found in the ReadMe thread. (It's a big wall-of-text but reading and understanding it is worth the time that you need for doing so.)
Edit: * = Here's a download link for the latest 3.x AT&T M9 RUU (directly from HTC's server). However, now that I think about it I actually can't tell you whether the AT&T variant already received android n...
Sent from my HTC One M9 using XDA Labs
Related
Hi
So, after my M7 died, I'm in a need of a new phone, and, of course, I was looking towards something similar, and (surprise surprise) stopped my eye on the M8 thing.
After looking around for a while, I was able to find two versions available, regular and dual sim version. At the same time that local dealer claimed they are completely the same, on the web I couldn't find any info whether Dual Sim version has QuickCharge available or not? I know that apart from regular M8 the Android 5.0 will come a bit later, but other than that, QuickCharge seems to be the only difference. Can anyone confirm that for me?
Also, for a matter of new customer, how is M8 performing out in the field? Is it worth buying?
And even though I know M9 is about to come out, and will feature much better and power-efficient 810 processor, I kinda like the idea of having field sensor (dual camera) that M8 has, while M9 seems to not have it included... (Nor ultrapixel at all..?) But then again, how is everyone finding this feature in real life? Is it as useful as it seems, or not?
Generally, for someone who had both - how is comparison to the M7 ..?
The final question though is,
is out there available some rooting process to gain root access on stock ROM, and be able to lock it back to the factory status (including recovery and everything) before sending it for repairs, in case if needed?
I rooted my M7 and had it S-On running stock rom, and I didn't miss a thing, as all I really needed was root access to the system files... But when trying to unroot, I was having hard time to figure all processes to gain back stock recovery and removing *tampered* sign...
Thanks for any info, as it would be really helpful before I go and actually grab one from the dealer...
I'm not going to advise on any other thing.
My advice is get the single SIM one if you think that you may need some support from XDA'er
Nothing much about Dual SIM here.
But seriously, I have a year-old review unit here and I don't use Sprint personally. So I can use it to play with Android distros, or as a very small tablet, or make it into a remote-control for my TV. What's the most amusement one can get from an off-the-air M8?
And is the Harmon-Kardon branding just advertising, or does it actually have better sound than other phones?
WyomingKnott said:
But seriously, I have a year-old review unit here and I don't use Sprint personally. So I can use it to play with Android distros, or as a very small tablet, or make it into a remote-control for my TV. What's the most amusement one can get from an off-the-air M8?
And is the Harmon-Kardon branding just advertising, or does it actually have better sound than other phones?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Use it as a phone.
And yeah, it's just an advertisement. Only difference is some addition of their software which can be installed on other M8s too.
Why not just use it as the great phone that it is or is this just a wind up?
ashyx said:
Why not just use it as the great phone that it is or is this just a wind up?
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Click to collapse
No wind-up, just that it's locked to Sprint, I have ATT, and so I'd have to SIM-unlock it before I could use it. It was a leftover review unit.
WyomingKnott said:
No wind-up, just that it's locked to Sprint, I have ATT, and so I'd have to SIM-unlock it before I could use it. It was a leftover review unit.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if your sprint m8 is s-off,then you can sim unlock by following this http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2718150
WyomingKnott said:
No wind-up, just that it's locked to Sprint, I have ATT, and so I'd have to SIM-unlock it before I could use it. It was a leftover review unit.
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Click to collapse
Review unit? Can you please link me the review?
And what phone do you use currently? It might be wworth to get it unlocked.
You can use it as a music player too. It's one of the best Android music phone.
Surely it would be well worth unlocking the phone, where else are you going to get such a top spec device for the small price of an unlock?
I paid a ton of money for this phone 12 months ago and it is still one of the best on the market.
@crazykas
Not s-off yet. I haven't found a method other than sunshine which is $25 and, from what I read, has a spotty reputation. A question: If I got it s-off, instead of that sim unlock (that article is in my list for the m8) should I change the CIM and (DIM?) so it thinks it's an ATT Developer phone? Would that let it use ATT?
EDIT: Now that I re-read this, the $25 isn't that much, and the worst that can happen is that I'm left with a brick that I didn't pay for! But do you know of any self S-off method?
@edios123
From Tom's Hardware.
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/htc-one-m8-features-review,26384.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/htc-one-m8-samsung-galaxy-s5-comparison-review,26373.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/htc-one-m8-e8-android,3871.html
A year later they're just dust-gatherers.
I'm pretty happy with my current Galaxy S4, but it's great having a phone that I can load anything on to and not worry that if I brick it I'll be left without a phone or lose a couple of hundred dollars. For example, installing assorted versions of TWRP on this particular phone makes it hang permanently, power and display on, entering recovery. But it works with Clockwork Mod. Now I'm playing with CyanogenMod for the first time.
WyomingKnott said:
@crazykas
@edios123
From Tom's Hardware.
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/htc-one-m8-features-review,26384.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/htc-one-m8-samsung-galaxy-s5-comparison-review,26373.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/htc-one-m8-e8-android,3871.html
A year later they're just dust-gatherers.
I'm pretty happy with my current Galaxy S4, but it's great having a phone that I can load anything on to and not worry that if I brick it I'll be left without a phone or lose a couple of hundred dollars. For example, installing assorted versions of TWRP on this particular phone makes it hang permanently, power and display on, entering recovery. But it works with Clockwork Mod. Now I'm playing with CyanogenMod for the first time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you're using an S4, IMHO, you must upgrade to this phone. It's plenty fast (I bet miles better in performance than S4) for 2015. Only thing you'll miss is the pretty cool camera in your current phone.
Thanks for the links.
Smelly feet! SunShine doesn't work with CyanogenMod; it asks for a stock rom. Fortunately, lots of stocks to choose from. Back to stock, run Sunshine, S-OFF, back to Cyanogen. Here goes...
EDIT: Well, I gave up. I've flashed four different ROMs and had startup hang at four different places. CyanogenMod works fine. Since I can't get back to stock (some idiot forgot to do a backup before flashing Cyanogen, no excuse, I've been in this business for decades) and Sunshine won't run under Cyanogen, no S-off.
If anyone can point me to a back-to-stock or a ROM that I can load with Clockwork or RUU, it would make me happy. I've got the Harmon Kardon Sprint model, which may be a problem. I've tried roms from Bad Seed, the ND8_STOCK_DEODEXED_ROOTED rom, Renovate_5.0, and cm-11-20141112-SNAPSHOT-M12-m8 . I got so frustrated that I didn't keep page links for these, which I know I should put for reference. The only reason I want to go back to stock is that Sunshine seems to require it. I'm awfully glad that, as I've posted before, this is a don't-care device.
EDIT TWO: Anyone sick of my train-of-thought posting process can leave now. I left Renovate in its stuck mode for a while, and half an hour later it was on. Hurrah! Now to try Sunshine...
Update - it needed a recent RUU from HTC. Year-old firmware was slow with current ROMs and not compatible with TWRP at all. Recent RUU, good behavior. It's s-off, and I'll go for sim unlock tomorrow.
My deepest apologies if this is in the wrong place, but I need to ask this question some place. If this has been asked before, the search did not return anything that caught my eye, please feel free to point me in the correct direction! Considering that I have Verizon as a carrier and live in the US, I thought I would ask this audience to see what device has caught your eye!
My upgrade date is drawing near and I need to decide on a device that I want to give a shot next, and I would like to avoid being disappointed in my next device.
What is your next device going to be, and why?
I have been keeping my eye on the newest Nexus (now the Pixel) phones, but I really can't see myself giving up my sd card slot. I am also kind of partial to the removable battery.
I really like this phone, but the development has been poor due to Verizon's locked bootloader. I have a feeling this will be the case with ALL Verizon phones, but I have unlocked bootloaders in the past (Even my Note 3 finally got a bootloader unlock!).
My real pull to the Nexus/Pixel was the fact that it's a Google phone, it gets the latest Operating System updates, and AFAIK they were able to unlock the bootloader in the past (please correct me if I am wrong, as I have not really ever owned a Nexus device).
I really enjoy the ability to install a custom Rom and modify the OS (I LOATHE the stock DPI on most devices!!!) and I can't exactly get tethering on my package (but there is usually an app for that ). I would like to find something powerful enough to keep me happy for the next few months, because lets face it, we all start to long for a new device.
Thank you for your time and consideration!
b3y0ndd34th said:
My deepest apologies if this is in the wrong place, but I need to ask this question some place. If this has been asked before, the search did not return anything that caught my eye, please feel free to point me in the correct direction! Considering that I have Verizon as a carrier and live in the US, I thought I would ask this audience to see what device has caught your eye!
My upgrade date is drawing near and I need to decide on a device that I want to give a shot next, and I would like to avoid being disappointed in my next device.
What is your next device going to be, and why?
I have been keeping my eye on the newest Nexus (now the Pixel) phones, but I really can't see myself giving up my sd card slot. I am also kind of partial to the removable battery.
I really like this phone, but the development has been poor due to Verizon's locked bootloader. I have a feeling this will be the case with ALL Verizon phones, but I have unlocked bootloaders in the past (Even my Note 3 finally got a bootloader unlock!).
My real pull to the Nexus/Pixel was the fact that it's a Google phone, it gets the latest Operating System updates, and AFAIK they were able to unlock the bootloader in the past (please correct me if I am wrong, as I have not really ever owned a Nexus device).
I really enjoy the ability to install a custom Rom and modify the OS (I LOATHE the stock DPI on most devices!!!) and I can't exactly get tethering on my package (but there is usually an app for that ). I would like to find something powerful enough to keep me happy for the next few months, because lets face it, we all start to long for a new device.
Thank you for your time and consideration!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had the G4 for over a year and just upgraded to the HTC 10
pettigrew95 said:
I had the G4 for over a year and just upgraded to the HTC 10
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How are you liking it? And how is the development?
Are you a heavy phone user? What is the battery life like?
b3y0ndd34th said:
How are you liking it? And how is the development?
Are you a heavy phone user? What is the battery life like?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The phone itself is awesome but I'm having some battery issues and trying to pinpoint what is causing the poor battery life. Development is fantastic since S-OFF and root were achieved via the Sunshine APK. There are tons of ROMs and kernels to flash. I miss having a removable battery but the HTC 10 does have a micro-SD slot.
I'm not in the market for a new phone to replace my G4 yet, but after getting a bootloop replacement with the first gen manufacturing date, I probably will be looking sooner rather than later. I get to stay on the unlimited data family share plan through a corporate discount, so I'm kind of curious if VZW still subsidizes new phones on those lines. If so, I'd miss out on the savings if I were to get a Pixel, which I presume will only be offered at full price. I've been out of the loop since MM came out and made it harder to mod Android, so it's good to see that at least there are some non-developer version phones out there still.
Hello everyone, so I bought a "Brand new sealed in box" HTC 10 from a seller om ebay.
It happens to have the code m10h ( its appeared to be an unlocked Tmobile device as I have checked the IMEI with HTC). Htc said the device is legit.
The phone came with all accesories minus the warranty from HTC. The phone was in decent condition with no scratch or anything it looks completely brand new to me but when I checked the memory it seems to only have 3GB of RAM (2.7 to be exact). HTC told me that my device is indeed an HTC 10 not the Lifestyle version (with only 3GB of RAM and snapdragon 654). Mine came with the 820.
I wonder if you anyone can help me with this maybe a screenshot of your memory capacity would help greatly.
Thank you very much !
Here are the screenshots
imgur(dot)com/gallery/RQ7pT
imgur(dot)com/gallery/4IM8F
They gave you a QC reference phone. It's a prototype for development. You need to report that user to ebay and get your money back.
HTC 10 is 3.7GB ram
Download DevCheck system info and look at the specs that your device has. It should have around 3700 mb of ram.
tabp0le said:
They gave you a QC reference phone. It's a prototype for development. You need to report that user to ebay and get your money back.
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Click to collapse
+1 @kpha2 this person has obtained this either from a phone shop, prototype from R&D or from a HTC ambassador scheme. Either way it shouldn't be on eBay. hTC should have spotted that first if you've called them.
Performance wise it should still be ok but definitely dodgy.
Sent from my HTC 10 using XDA-Developers Legacy app
I contacted HTC several times. Non of the agent was able to define what was wrong this 3Gb thingy. They all said that they were not familiar to this weird spec.
Honestly, the performance is actually smooth besides the 3GB but the phone wasn't able to read any microSD card
Also, it gave me around 130k on antutu.
But I will definitely as for my refund. Seller hasn't replied to me for 3 days so hopefully ebay can jump in and work its magic
I also bought such a phone from eBay, though from a seller that has 72,000+ transactions and a 98%+ feedback rating. But the model number on the invoice was 10h. It shipped with a Taiwan ROM. However, after unlocking the bootloader, changing CID and MID and flashing a North American RUU, my memory page shows 3.7 gig. Perhaps if you have a TW ROM, the allocation is different? Can't say that's the case, just guessing at it. But if you're not satisfied, I'd deal with it right away by contacting the seller and resolving it, rather that wait it out. I guess it all depends on how much you paid... if you bought a $700 for $300, then you might want to allow for a little 'wiggle room'.
Well this is NOT the thread I wanted to see 3 days after getting my HTC 10 off eBay lol.
What were the seller's names? I bought mine from never-msrp. I initially had a problem with charging (wouldn't go past 69%) but that seems to have gone away now and everything is running smooth as butter. Only issue is that I received a Euro charger, even though they did throw in an adapter as well it's kind of annoying having to carry around 2 pieces of equipment with me.
nubreed000 said:
Well this is NOT the thread I wanted to see 3 days after getting my HTC 10 off eBay lol.
What were the seller's names? I bought mine from never-msrp. I initially had a problem with charging (wouldn't go past 69%) but that seems to have gone away now and everything is running smooth as butter. Only issue is that I received a Euro charger, even though they did throw in an adapter as well it's kind of annoying having to carry around 2 pieces of equipment with me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's who I got mine from. If you look at the storage page in settings, you'll see 3.7G RAM, which apparently is exactly what the machine is supposed to have.
Should you decide you don't like the Taiwan ROM, just unlock the bootloader (free via HTC Dev or for $25 with Sunshine which also gets you S-off) change the CID and MID, then flash a North American RUU. I stuck with MM because I need to run Xposed, but there are other great ROMs out there. I wound up with Maximus HD.
If you need any help, just PM me.
BTW, no need to use the adapter and charger supplied, any USB-C cable will do the trick.
Sent from my HTC 10 using Tapatalk
BillTheCat said:
That's who I got mine from. If you look at the storage page in settings, you'll see 3.7G RAM, which apparently is exactly what the machine is supposed to have.
Should you decide you don't like the Taiwan ROM, just unlock the bootloader (free via HTC Dev or for $25 with Sunshine which also gets you S-off) change the CID and MID, then flash a North American RUU. I stuck with MM because I need to run Xposed, but there are other great ROMs out there. I wound up with Maximus HD.
If you need any help, just PM me.
BTW, no need to use the adapter and charger supplied, any USB-C cable will do the trick.
Sent from my HTC 10 using Tapatalk
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Click to collapse
Thanks!
I didn't even know that the ROM was Taiwanese. I suspected that it was from somewhere outside of North America though, but so far I haven't noticed anything different (not like I would know what to look for). I think I'm going to refrain from rooting/ROMing this phone for a while. Every phone I have owned I rooted within days of owning it, but after my last phone I completely lost interest in all of that. I guess I just couldn't be bothered to go through all that again (learning how to root that device, flashing a ROM, then trying to unbrick my device/fixing a bootloop issue, then trying to figure out why xyz doesn't work the way it should, etc etc etc.). I'm still running stock MM out of the box! So I will try to hold off on rooting this one for the time being.
And this is actually my first USB C capable phone. I tried plugging the cable into a 2A Samsung charger from my Galaxy Note 8 tablet, and the phone got very very hot very fast. I think I'm going to have invest in some Anker gear. I have a bunch of their Micro-USB cables and they're really high quality. Any experience using their chargers?
Ps. what's "S-Off"?
nubreed000 said:
Thanks!
I didn't even know that the ROM was Taiwanese. I suspected that it was from somewhere outside of North America though, but so far I haven't noticed anything different (not like I would know what to look for). I think I'm going to refrain from rooting/ROMing this phone for a while. Every phone I have owned I rooted within days of owning it, but after my last phone I completely lost interest in all of that. I guess I just couldn't be bothered to go through all that again (learning how to root that device, flashing a ROM, then trying to unbrick my device/fixing a bootloop issue, then trying to figure out why xyz doesn't work the way it should, etc etc etc.). I'm still running stock MM out of the box! So I will try to hold off on rooting this one for the time being.
And this is actually my first USB C capable phone. I tried plugging the cable into a 2A Samsung charger from my Galaxy Note 8 tablet, and the phone got very very hot very fast. I think I'm going to have invest in some Anker gear. I have a bunch of their Micro-USB cables and they're really high quality. Any experience using their chargers?
Ps. what's "S-Off"?
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If you check, some of the apps won't work (like the HTC Club, or something like that) because you're in a different region of the world. However, what concerned me more was what else might be 'under the hood' that I wasn't aware of, and didn't want to suffer any incompatabilities. For example, I'm told that the TW ROM does not display all the apps in the Google Play Store that a North American will.
Like you, I also waited about two weeks, but decided to take the leap. I flashed a stock HTC North American ROM, and it worked great. That got me to the latest firmware versions with all the fixes on MM necessary for the camera, and so on. Eventually, I went with MaximusHD because that is the closest to stock but with some very nice optimzations for speed, thermals and thus most importantly, battery life.
Fortunately you bought an HTC phone, which is very developer friendly and HTC enables you to unlock the bootloader for free. It's very easy and there are even a couple kits here that will help you do it automatically. By changing the CID and MID, you'll be able to flash a stock HTC North American (or any other ) RUU. Rooting gives you access to be able to use certain utilities like Titanium Backup and Xposed/Xprivacy, which has been a lifesaver for me.
As to 'S-Off', that is a security 'switch' in the radio that enables you to flash firmware independently of the rest of the ROM. When you unlock and root, the ability to receive an OTA (Over-The-Air) update is disabled, so future improvements can't be downloaded. Having S-Off enables you to flash firmware updates downloadable from XDA here, directly to your phone to keep up with the latest fixes.
Feel free to PM me to discuss sidebar. Don't want to go too far OT on this thread.
BillTheCat said:
When you unlock and root, the ability to receive an OTA (Over-The-Air) update is disabled, so future improvements can't be downloaded. Having S-Off enables you to flash firmware updates downloadable from XDA here, directly to your phone to keep up with the latest fixes.
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Just a correction but unlocking the bootloader does not prevent you from taking OTA updates. Neither does having s-off for that matter. What does prevent you from taking OTA is having a custom recovery and a modified system partition. Using the classic method to root by flashing supersu is one way of modifying your system and blocking OTAs. But rooting with Magisk on the other hand does not modify your system, and you could still take OTA.
Tldr: You don't need S-off to be able to update your phone through OTA, just root with Magisk and flash the stock recovery before taking an OTA.
Tarima said:
What does prevent you from taking OTA is having a custom recovery and a modified system partition. Using the classic method to root by flashing supersu is one way of modifying your system and blocking OTAs. But rooting with Magisk on the other hand does not modify your system, and you could still take OTA.
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Point taken, though most are going to flash TWRP. In this user's case, he's looking to go with a MM North American ROM which no longer receives any OTAs so far as I'm aware. We bought the same phone from the same vendor, and since I just went down this path not even a month ago, I figured I'd save him from the mistake I made of forgetting to change the MID to be able to flash the HTC RUU.
Thanks for that clarification.
I've done a ton of research on how to unlock bootloader on my verizon M9 (f*** you verizon), and it seems only feasible option is sunshine and 25 bucks. That being said, I updated to nougat before wanting this, and I'm reading that sunshine may not be able to s-off the phone with this latest verizon update. I tried to downgrade to marshmallow v. 3.37.605.7 using RUU 0PJAIMG_HIMA_WL_M6[email protected]60105_CNV_1.26_002_release_469809_signed_1.zip and it fails using the SD card fat 32 method. Am I doing it wrong?
1) Can sunshine s-off with latest nougat update?
2) If not, is there any way to downgrade to a version that sunshine can s-off?
3) Am I screwed? No custom roms for me?
If you can't downgrade, Sunshine can't get temproot and thus can't s-off.
The device is old (the community has moved on long ago) so it isn't a priority for the sunshine team; when j asked, the reply was something to the effect of it not being on the radar. Hard to blame them; dev time is limited, and they can help more people focusing on other phones.
You can supposedly send it to someone with an HTC Java card or XTC2 Clip, but I can't verify that. I can verify that Kingo and similar do nothing for you. So no, no custom ROMs, no root, and you're stuck with Verizon and Google's bloatware. but
Also, be warned batteries on the M9s are dying (like, nearly all of them; if you don't have a newer battery, yours will soon), and some of them fail spectacularly if you try to charge them during/after actual death
(If you do like I did and change phones and carriers, confirm before you buy; I thought "huh, T-Mobile is good about rooting, and I've heard great things about how easy unlocking Samsungs are." It turns out one of those two has turned on us, probably Samsung, though I'm still not clear on why.)
VerizonSucksman said:
Also, be warned batteries on the M9s are dying (like, nearly all of them; if you don't have a newer battery, yours will soon), and some of them fail spectacularly if you try to charge them during/after actual death
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When you say "some of them fail spectacularly" do you mean the battery or the phone?
I'm having battery issues but am afraid to try to change it out myself. The video looks complicated.
feralicious said:
I'm having battery issues but am afraid to try to change it out myself. The video looks complicated.
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Honestly, it's not as bad as it looks. I've replaced two screens and that repair job requires some extra steps. As long as you have a backup phone I'd say give it a shot.
Exokan said:
Honestly, it's not as bad as it looks. I've replaced two screens and that repair job requires some extra steps. As long as you have a backup phone I'd say give it a shot.
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I found a place that will do it for only about $25 more than it would cost me to get the battery and tools to do it myself, so I'll let them do it.