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Please help...
I am about to take the plunge into rooting my Droid. I was hoping someone could offer up some advice.
I really just want a rooted stock 2.2. I dont really want to overclock past 800 Mhz. Of the most popular ROMs, which one will get me closest to what I want. I want one that doesnt have too much overhead...really just the stock 2.2 w/ wifi tether.
Also, of the most popular ROMs, what is the main differences between them. I am not referring to the aesthetics...I am more referring to the underlying code (source code???). I mean were these ROMs built from one source code and severely altered or just altered enough to modify the UI and add a couple features here and there.
Thanks.
To binging, both cm and sapphire are from the frf91 build. Both have wifi tether but sapphire which out of all three seems to be the most stable. Its more customizable than all three, which cm and sapphire you can use adw launcher or stock launcher, I don't like adw my self, it's laggy. Bb though comes from frf84b build which is older and is not from source build, its from a leak or so I read in a forum. Don't take that wrong, before I had switched to sapphire bb had been my favorite, its pretty stable just takes a little more work to customize or theme. Which you said isn't a big deal to but just a little info. All have developer apps that come with the rom. To upgrade or tweak the rom. Just a little note though, for wifi tether, you might have to install a custom kernel for it to work. Some roms state its needed but not all. Just flash and try I guess and if it doesn't work try different kernel. As far as closest to stock you might want rom check bb frf84b virgin froyo rom. Not too sure of the spacifics but may be rooted with tether. The other main bb rom would be bb v0.4. Sapphire is at version 0.8.4 for froyo which I might add again is very nice. The other thing to consider would be installing a stock froyo theme after flashing the rom. I know 928droidblackglass has one whick works with most roms. As far as cm I only had flashed for a couple minutes and didn't like it. It runs display mainly off adw launcher, was very laggy but customizine was a plus. As far as wifi and kernel, if the tether doesn't work. Most devs have an 800 MHz lv kernel whick should work. Also most roms are already overclocked to 800 MHz just the wifi maybe little issue. Also with kernel I would always recommended make sure it is compatible with the rom, I had tried a lot on bb but only a few worked. Sapphire is a little more spacific to there kernels but the ones that do work, I've had no issues what so ever with. Also I recommend a lowvoltage kernel for battery life, it helps alot. If your looking for more stock roms it may take a little more searching, there out there but not as popular I believe. Try looking in alldroid.org, droidforums, Droid life and there are others but the ones I mentioned are a little more moto Droid active. Other than that that most I can tell without writing a book but hope it helps
Sent from my Droid using XDA App
Thank u so much for the very robust reply...if u had to choose between cm and saphire...which one would u go with...
Sent from my Droid using XDA App
Well I tried both and found I liked sapphire more as well as being more stable. Just follow the instructions closely and install the Google apps as well as market hack app made for rom. Have had no issues and overclocked to 1.2ghz which I was never able to do with bb. Cm lasted about 5 minutes on my phone and switched again. Your welcome, any time.
Sent from my Droid using XDA App
There are also more people who are much more experience in this, they've tried more roms and might have a better opinion as well as more info. Alldroid and droidforums are much more active for Droid rom support and etc. You might get quicker responces. Xda doesn't have as much support for Droid. Just a little extra for ya.
Sent from my Droid using XDA App
CM has more tweaks, bb is moRe stable, and faster. Another stable, pretty rom is jrummys. Lots of customizations. These all come with a very conservative 800mhz base kernel that is plenty fast and has great battery life. Rom manager pwnz for the newb flasher.
Sent from my Droid using XDA App
Simple Rom is by far the best on my phone at 800mhz it's blazingly fast ... That being said, as soon as CM6 is ready for full release, I'm sure that will be the best out there. They're taking their time and getting everything perfect. The release candidate is not quite ready for prime time... but throw Simple Rom on... you'll be very happy.
I know it isn't one of the choices but it's worth adding in.
Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk
thanks alot guys...really appreciate it...
is there a difference in LINPACK scores between ROM's or does it really only depend on the source code???
I might give Simple ROM a try...for right now I have Sapphire 0.7.0 and it seems extremely stable and pretty fast.
Thanks...
cnp112 said:
thanks alot guys...really appreciate it...
is there a difference in LINPACK scores between ROM's or does it really only depend on the source code???
I might give Simple ROM a try...for right now I have Sapphire 0.7.0 and it seems extremely stable and pretty fast.
Thanks...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sapphire 1.0 is even better.
Yeah, I flashed 1.0 when it came out previously on 0.8.4. 1.0 is great nice customization and overclocking is built into rom in the gem settings. I'd recommend tryinging after reading the only difference so far seen between the frg22 build and frg01b build is some language files pretty much the best you'll get right now is the frg01b considering that's the base for Droid 2.2 upgrade.
Sent from Droid using, Sapphire v1.0.0/ 928Droid Black Glass 2.2 Theme/ Sholes 1.0 Ghz 7 Slot Kernel.
You only need a 800 MHz kernel to tether.
Sent from my Droid running UD 6.0 and P3Droid's 1100 GHz kernel
I am really starting to feel left out of the cool kids club(GSM Tab Owners). Owning the sprint galaxy tab is like buying a mustang V6. I mean sure you have a mustang, but any ordinary ricer with a decent tune could blow you out of the water. Sure you could strap on a short air ram(rooting), or even sport tune(rooted apps), but your still no V8(Roms). Yeah I like cars a little, but I am really sad about my Galaxy tab from sprint. I had very high hopes, and they were all crushed......So Devs if you find it in your hearts........bring us some Sprint tab LOVE.
Well im running hc alpha 2.5 on my Sprint tab i think thats not to bad ,of course all thanks to spacemoose!
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Tab using XDA Premium App
Your problem is that GSM technology is world wide, so you have people from all over the world working on roms.
CDMA is only in the US, so you have a much more limited set of potential developers.
Do you have a link to the rom? and does the market work?
krimsonice said:
Do you have a link to the rom? and does the market work?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is in the "Android Development" section of the Samsung Galaxy Tab forums. And yes, the market works. While the GSM crowd is still getting Gingerbread ROMs/ports, we CDMA users have HC now. There are some glitches as the developer is still in the early stages, but overall, it runs, it's a great move in the right direction, and it's on CDMA first. (The dev was working on CDMA and GSM simultaneously, but the development on CDMA for whatever reason wasn't as difficult. I don't know if the GSM HC works as of now, but I know the dev. was close....)
And if you hate it that much, put it on ebay, sell it, and get a GSM.
Thanks for the info,
I don't hate the device as much as sprint.....and the way they locked up all the goodness behind profit grubbing.
krimsonice said:
Thanks for the info,
I don't hate the device as much as sprint.....and the way they locked up all the goodness behind profit grubbing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're welcome, although I don't understand the part about all the goodness being locked up. You just have to root your tab, just like all other Android devices. Once rooted, the device, and experience, are what you make it
I have someone that wants to trade me their sprint gtab 3g (I use sprint) for my wifi 16g ipad. I have a nook color rooted running cm7 overclocked at 1300 and an evo 4g running cm7. Do you guys think that's a fair trade? I'm not a big apple fan but my wife gave me the ipad for my birthday and use it for Netflix only. I need to pull the trigger quick before this Guy changes his mind. I just want to make sure I'm not making a dopey trade.... thanks guys!
Sent from my Phiremod Nook Color using XDA Premium App
I have a question. I rooted my tab when I first got it, how did you install alpha 2.5, I have sprint and when I try it with rom mananger ,sprint is not in the recovery just att, verizon and tmobile. I tried to flash the verizon recovery, and it was a no go. It reboots into the samaung recovery. If you have a sprint tab how did you do it?
I have nothing but mad love for my Sprint Tab. Bear in mind I'm not doing nearly as much with it as you're wanting to do though. I don't have it activated with Sprint and I'm not flashing ROMs or anything on it.
If you want to make some changes to your Sprint tab, check out the informational thread I created.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=14917609#post14917609
I found a new love for my tab, I flashed it to 2.5 HC and it is neat again. It's buggy, but fun to toy with again........Yay Tab.
I've played with the HC 2.5 port, and it's just too slow for me. Stock, rooted with CWM (converted to ext4) seems to be the best thing out there for my uses thus far. Hoping we'll get a official gingerbread soon, or at least a functional CM7 port.. otherwise i love my tab! Sure there's not tons of roms to play with like the GSM tabs, but I'm happy with what i paid for it and my uses..
Now i know the sgs2 is supposed to be the best, but its also the most expensive. whereas the LG has a way better price point. so i was wondering a couple things; it would surely lead my to getting the Optimus.
anyway a couple questions;
1. is it true that there are models with 850/1900 3g bands? i've read around but nothing solid.
2. how hard is it to root? read it up on the dev threads and 1-click works fine?
3. when you use cyanogenmod, does it lag and FC like the stock firmware?
4. how's the camera quality using the 1080p 30fps mod? does it skip frames/double frames?
5. how is your battery life? please give 3g and screen on details.
sorry if these questions are really redundant and have been posted before, just getting to wits end as my N1 died and i can't decide this whole duel core debacle.
thanks to those who answer!
FaithCry said:
Now i know the sgs2 is supposed to be the best, but its also the most expensive. whereas the LG has a way better price point. so i was wondering a couple things; it would surely lead my to getting the Optimus.
anyway a couple questions;
1. is it true that there are models with 850/1900 3g bands? i've read around but nothing solid.
2. how hard is it to root? read it up on the dev threads and 1-click works fine?
3. when you use cyanogenmod, does it lag and FC like the stock firmware?
4. how's the camera quality using the 1080p 30fps mod? does it skip frames/double frames?
5. how is your battery life? please give 3g and screen on details.
sorry if these questions are really redundant and have been posted before, just getting to wits end as my N1 died and i can't decide this whole duel core debacle.
thanks to those who answer!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1.) No clue sorry :|
2.) One Clicks Work fine It's easy to root it with SuperOneClick for example
3) I wouldnt recomment CM7 roms, but rather Froyo optimized Modaco Roms.
I'm using the Fr17 Vanilla edition and all i can say is, its the most stable thing ive ever seen on a mobile phone. I didnt even have lag on stock either, it depends on how new your phone is.
4.) Working great, no skipping or smearing
5.) Fr 17 Vanilla Edition, Using stock baseband. Im using the phone on a daily basis, a few calls, lotsa Whatsapp, 10-15 sms a day, 2 hours of browsing when im on the train, my battery lasts 2 days. Pretty good if you ask me, especially considering its a dual core phone.
Dont expect a long battery life when playing Tegra 2 optimized HD games though, but thats self-explanatory
FreeZr said:
1.) No clue sorry :|
2.) One Clicks Work fine It's easy to root it with SuperOneClick for example
3) I wouldnt recomment CM7 roms, but rather Froyo optimized Modaco Roms.
I'm using the Fr17 Vanilla edition and all i can say is, its the most stable thing ive ever seen on a mobile phone. I didnt even have lag on stock either, it depends on how new your phone is.
4.) Working great, no skipping or smearing
5.) Fr 17 Vanilla Edition, Using stock baseband. Im using the phone on a daily basis, a few calls, lotsa Whatsapp, 10-15 sms a day, 2 hours of browsing when im on the train, my battery lasts 2 days. Pretty good if you ask me, especially considering its a dual core phone.
Dont expect a long battery life when playing Tegra 2 optimized HD games though, but thats self-explanatory
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
why would you say not to use CM7 roms?
thanks for the rest of the info!
In my opinion, CM7 builds arent really stable, just see the comments in the specific rom threads.
I don't want to badmouth all of them though, some people have issues with them, some dont. I can only speak for myself and im more than happy with modaco roms
For me is a lot more stable de CyanogenMod rc7.1.0 then the stock LG roms ... with officila rom, I got randoms reboots and freexes almost daily and now with the cyanogen, since the 27 that is was published i haven't had a single reboot or freeze!!! ... also the phone is faster.
According to my box it says WCDMA 900/1900/2100 GSM 850/900/1800/1900
So 1 is a yes? Or is there some way i can check?
jaumerrr said:
For me is a lot more stable de CyanogenMod rc7.1.0 then the stock LG roms ... with officila rom, I got randoms reboots and freexes almost daily and now with the cyanogen, since the 27 that is was published i haven't had a single reboot or freeze!!! ... also the phone is faster.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you getting the alarm bug where the alarm doesn't work until you turn the phone on? That's crucial for me
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App
hi
u can see here too if u want i was planning to buy did not due to some personal fin problems
see this link : http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1128045
hmm im thinking of buying this phone but im very my confused because of its reboots problems ,,,! can this problem be sorted out ? or will it remain same ?
another question. really important... does the optimus 2x (specifically) work on AT&T(aka Rogers) 3g bands? cause i know for sure the g2x doesn't... but the optimus has that 1900 band. so just want to know if it works for any of you on AT&T/Rogers.
THANKS IN ADVANCE
There is a confusing model of Optimus 2X, that supports the frequencies you want.
It's still an Optimus 2X, but it is apparently a P990h, not a P990, so be careful what you flash on it.
Also, CM7 is brilliant compared to stock.
Rusty! said:
There is a confusing model of Optimus 2X, that supports the frequencies you want.
It's still an Optimus 2X, but it is apparently a P990h, not a P990, so be careful what you flash on it.
Also, CM7 is brilliant compared to stock.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
so would cm7 work on this P990h model?
Unknown yet, as no-one seems to have got one here.
Just a few questions before I make the switch:
Roughly when is official ICS going to be headed to N7000?
How well does it handle 720P MKV via DicePlayer?
Custom ROMs: What is the current state of development? Is there a stable enough ICS ROM I can use as a daily driver yet?
Can NFC be enabled via an NFC battery? (Ala GalNex)
Should I even bother with an i717?
Anyone want a MINT GSM GalNex + $$ for their White N7000?]
Thanks for reading.
ics is expected in March. The team rocket ROM is a daily driver.
Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk
+ Roughly when is official ICS going to be headed to N7000?
- ICS should hit before end Q1 2012, so sometime before the end of march, rumors has it early march, so fingers crossed, however there are a bunch of good daily use ICS roms based on the I9220 chinese leak (I use one with rare FCs), if you dont know/are scared to fiddle around with your phone, you might want to stay away from these, and settle for a nice root and wait for the official release which is right around the corner.
+ Custom ROMs: What is the current state of development? Is there a stable enough ICS ROM I can use as a daily driver yet?
- Yes, personally Iam using Rocket Rom ICS beta 1.5, its based on the I9220 chinese leak, works great with occasional FCs, there are a few out there, just make sure you follow the instructions, keep a good back up of stock etc, and you ll be fine, or just wait for the official release soon.
+ Can NFC be enabled via an NFC battery? (Ala GalNex)
- Dont think so, but dont take my word for it, im sure someone with more experience will give you a sold answer on that.
+ How well does it handle 720P MKV via DicePlayer?
- Not much of a clue, as i dont watch vids on mine, however a friend (also using a GT-N7000) of mine uses a different player (i believe its MX Player) and it runs very smoothly.
+ Should I even bother with an i717?
- Depends, the international GT-N7000 doesnt have NFC support, only runs HSPA+, while the i717 has NFC, and supports LTE, so if you really need NFC and your area has good LTE coverage (if you are planing to import it for LTE, make sure that the spectrum used in your country/by your operator is compatable FDD or TDD? 700Mhz or 900Mhz or 2100Mhz...etc).
Another thing to keep in mind, the N7000 has been out for a while, so you'll find more support the moment you get it, while the i717 is still new (however i hear the i717 owners are working hard to get roms and kernels out of the door, so this shouldnt be an issue down the road).
+ Anyone want a MINT GSM GalNex + $$ for their White N7000?]
- not for me thanks.
If you have any more questions feel free to ask, and good luck ^^.
oh, Also forgot to mention, the i717 has a 1.5Ghz dual core Snapdragon rather than the 1.4 dual core exynos on the intl. N7000.
also another thing to keep in mind is that AT&T/whichever carrier will rollout ICS at a later date than the intl. version, just things to keep in mind.
the motorola milestone was my favourite phone. the retro sci fi looks and awesome keyboard really did it for me. I then decided to upgrade to a more powerful modern phone but because I am in the UK choices were limited. the htc z was not really a big enough leap forward so I tried the latest BB Bold with touch screen and physical keyboard. it lasted 2 weeks and I sold it. There were no other physical keyboard phones out in the UK that were modern specs so I decided to give up and buy a Samsung galaxy note, and then a note 2 which I currently use.
the trouble is I suck at typing on a screen, I NEED a physical keyboard back and have been searching for options. I have settled for two potential sliders, the droid 4 and the samsung relay s t699.
the droid 4 is cheaper for me to find at about £50 or £60 delivered to the UK from the states while the relay is at least twice the price. due to this and my previous love for the OG droid (even with that locked bootloader) I am looking into the droid 4 first.
do you think the downgrade from the note 2 to the droid 4 is gonna be a steep one? I cant look or hold one in person to know because we cant buy them here. I dont mind a bit of a downgrade though because I really want a physical keyboard. I was hoping with a decent rom and other tweaks I could get the most out of a droid 4 and be happy. can some current droid users give me some honest opinions on how they are holding up towards the end of 2014?
many thanks
I can say that I'm really happy with the keyboard of the droid 4. The fact that it a full QWERTY keyboard makes typing quite easy on the phone. You can also install my Hacker keyboard for enabling the rest of the keys.
Performance wise there are still some, and I stress, SMALL issues here and there but nothing serious. I'm using Cyanogen Mod and it works way better than the stock ROM but there are still some small bugs. For example GPS is not working for me, but I haven't really investigated the issue so maybe is fixable, or I did something wrong.
The good thing is that the SafeStrap recovery used for droid is really nice and you can also keep the stock Rom.
So if you want you can choose to boot the stock ROM.
Overall I'm satisfied with the phone and I would recommend you to buy one.
If you have any questions I would be happy to help
many thanks for your reply
can I ask, how bad is the screen? consider I would be coming from a Note 2. A lot of reviews mention ghosting of text when dark text is displayed on light backgrounds. How bad is it? Do custom roms make any difference?
I don't have any issues with the screen, but to be honest I haven't given a close attention regarding what you said.
I'll have a look in the coming days and if I find something I'll post.
mo0n_sniper said:
I don't have any issues with the screen, but to be honest I haven't given a close attention regarding what you said.
I'll have a look in the coming days and if I find something I'll post.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi mo0n_sniper,
I've just got a Droid 4, and I'd like to use CM11 too. Do you (or most people) use the official rom from the cyanogenmod site, or use one of the roms posted in the android development section on here?
Thanks
Hi moodroid,
I use the one from the Cyanogen Mod site.
You can follow this howto: http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Install_CM_for_maserati
i like the droid 4 a lot and the keyboard is insanely comfortable compared to droid 3. performance wise id say its a capable phone but if you wanna do higher end gaming on android then its gonna struggle. cm11 has been great to me and GPS works just fine and i dont have any problems with the screen.. honestly i dont ever want to go back to stock or previous versions of android because of how comfortable 4.4 is
you can get the latest builds from the official cyanogenmod site because thats where theyre pushing all the updates
one thing thats a big negative (at least for me) is that droid 4 cant use LTE outside of the US (or verizon) so youll only have 3g.
a secondary negative is battery life but you can have workarounds for that and both of these cons depend on how you intend to use the device
Thanks for your replies. My DROID 4 arrived today and we'll the screen might take some getting used to but I look forward to rooting and flashing a rom tonight!
Any reccomendations for custom ROMs?
Slimkat or latest official CM11 snapshot. I personally use Slimkat with Apex launcher for the low memory usage.
CM12 is close to DD-able, but it has a few bugs and lollipop doesn't bring our phone much over the 4.4.4 roms with ART enabled.
Well I finally got my phone rooted and custom ROM flashed so thanks a bunch fellas!
I rooted following this guy's video [Root] Droid 4 (XT894) Jellybean with SafeRoot as @mo0n_sniper 's link to the cyanogenmod site was bit too much for the brain at the moment, need to learn all the new lingo!
I managed to install [cm-11-20141207-NIGHTLY-maserati] and it seems to be working great! I installed it into the stock-rom slot as I read that it was ok as long as I had a recent version of safestrap. I do have a query though. I come from the Note 2 where there was no such thing as safestrap and having multiple slots for roms. I always overwrote the stock rom and never had an issue. Now on safestrap it appears as though the stock rom slot is not using all of the memory available on the device. I don't want to be able to install multiple roms at once, I would like to use the device to it's full potential, utilising all available memory. What is the best way to do this? Or am I already doing it? What do those partition sizes actually mean? If someone could be kind enough to drop some knowledge that would be awesome!
As I am in the UK I also used [cdma_to_gsm_patch_for_verizon_phones_v3.3_by_mentor] and that let me use my network just fine.
Oh and just incase any other newbies are interested, for GAPPS I used [pa_gapps-modular-pico-4.4.4-20141207-signed] and it works great, just the bare minimum google stuff.
P.S. @mo0n_sniper thank you for your hacker keyboard, I have that running. Can I ask, is there a way to do an exclamation mark without moving both my thumbs over to the left side of the keyboard to hold [shift] and [1]?
Thank you guys, it feels so good to be back on a solid keyboard!
Elanzer said:
Slimkat or latest official CM11 snapshot. I personally use Slimkat with Apex launcher for the low memory usage.
CM12 is close to DD-able, but it has a few bugs and lollipop doesn't bring our phone much over the 4.4.4 roms with ART enabled.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
May I ask what version of slimkat you are running? I had a look but had no idea what to go for. Also what is ART and how does one enable it? Thanks
rattymon said:
May I ask what version of slimkat you are running? I had a look but had no idea what to go for. Also what is ART and how does one enable it? Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
https://www.androidfilehost.com/?a=show&w=files&flid=8820 from this post: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2491855
8.10 is the latest. ART is a new compiler for Android, basically enabling it makes programs load faster as everything is pre-compiled instead of compiled-at-run. It's enabled by default on Android 5.0, but you can turn it on in developer options in 4.4.
Rattymon if u change Safestrap to BootMenu Manager (and Patch it) you can use Cyan11 on unused partitions (like /webtop) and you save a lot of memory (on /sdcard)
Fervi
Do any of you have any problems with the screen?
I bough a D4 from ebay, but the screen on it is just awfull, even compared to my crapiest phones.
I have a very bad ghosting effect. Is there any way to make it better?
Oh and BTW, right now Im using CM12, working great.
BFG9000D said:
Do any of you have any problems with the screen?
I bough a D4 from ebay, but the screen on it is just awfull, even compared to my crapiest phones.
I have a very bad ghosting effect. Is there any way to make it better?
Oh and BTW, right now Im using CM12, working great.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nah, the screen is naturally crappy like that and there's no way to fix it. Almost all reviewers of the Droid 4 remarked on it's poor screen. I've ordered a Motorola Photon Q with modded sim slot to replace my Droid 4, since it seems like there isn't going to be any Droid 5 anytime soon..
Elanzer said:
Nah, the screen is naturally crappy like that and there's no way to fix it. Almost all reviewers of the Droid 4 remarked on it's poor screen. I've ordered a Motorola Photon Q with modded sim slot to replace my Droid 4, since it seems like there isn't going to be any Droid 5 anytime soon..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When you have both phones, can you compare the screens and the bulkiness of each one and tell me if the upgrade is worth it?
I have a kinda broken milestone 1 and its build quality is way better, and also it doesnt feel that heavy on my pocket.
BFG9000D said:
When you have both phones, can you compare the screens and the bulkiness of each one and tell me if the upgrade is worth it?
I have a kinda broken milestone 1 and its build quality is way better, and also it doesnt feel that heavy on my pocket.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sure. It's going to be a month or so before I get the Photon Q though, as it's getting mailed from the seller in USA to czech republic for modding then to canada to me. Their form factors are almost the same, the things that will make the upgrade worth it are reduced bezel on the display and the CPU/GPU in the Photon Q is nearly twice as fast. A sim modded photon Q is also definitely more "region free" than a Droid 4 in the sense that you can use it on any american provider as well. When I go down to the US I can't actually use my Droid 4 at all because the roaming is not linked to Verizon, so I get forced to bring another device with me.
They will both be bricks with a case on them, but that's the cost of having a nice keyboard.
Just got my Photon Q modded by CornholioGSM for the SIM slot. He did an excellent job and the slot actually looks like it came from the factory.
For the most part I agree with this guy who's also done a comparison between the Droid 4 and Photon Q: http://forum.xda-developers.com/photon-q-4g-lte/general/photon-q-vs-droid-4-mini-review-t2991956
Build quality is far better on the Photon Q. Buttons feel better and general feel in hand is better. The slider kind of springs all the way open after you've opened it half way which feels nicer than the Droid 4 that requires you to push it all the way. The screen is -a lot- better and doesn't have that noticeable ghosting that the Droid 4 has. The software buttons take up some of the screen space vs hardware on the Droid 4, but in full-screened applications (ie: movie players) the buttons are hidden so you can utilize the 0.3in larger screen, although resolution of the 2 phones is the same 960x540. I also noticed that the Photon Q has pocket detection, I've never seen my Droid 4 instantly turn on the moment I pulled it out of my pocket, but this may be a CarbonROM function on my Photon Q.
Performance difference is night and day. Boot time is roughly 1/3 of the Droid 4. Everything opens quite fast and multitasking is easy. Skype in particular took anywhere from 2-3 seconds to load the interface, while on Photon Q it's less than a second. Camera opens instantly on Photon Q instead of waiting 2-3 seconds like Droid 4. For some reason, the camera has always been very slow for me on the Droid 4 regardless of what ROM I'm using. Quality of pictures is better also, seems easier to get a focused picture.
Ran a few benchmarks..
Droid 4 (Lucize JBX kernel, Slimkat 4.4.4 ART):
Antutu (5.6.1)
Stock (1.2GHz CPU, 307MHz GPU): 14776
Overclocked (1.4GHz CPU, 384MHz GPU: 18296
Geekbench
Stock: 342 single / 636 multi
Overclocked: 394 single / 737 multi
Photon Q 4G (arrrghhh kernel, CarbonROM 4.4.4 ART)
Antutu (5.6.1)
Stock (1.5GHz CPU, 400MHz GPU): 19122
Overclocked (2.0GHz CPU, 480MHz GPU): 21130
Geekbench
Stock: 495 single / 792 multi
Overclocked: 521 single / 832 multi
On Antutu, Photon Q has roughly 50% faster CPU scores, and 100% faster GPU scores. For whatever reason, Photon Q does not gain much from overclocking, while Droid 4 gets a good boost. The storage score is also 50% less than the Droid 4, but since Photon Q has only 8gb internal storage you will probably put most things on SD.. this would be why the Antutu scores are so close, individual scores show the Photon Q is much faster.
It's a shame Motorola never properly marketed either phone to a global audience. Droid 4 being stuck on Verizon in US, and Photon Q being stuck on Sprint (unless modded). Photon Q has almost no value, mine was $70 brand new but I have seen them for $20... which is quite funny because it has the same chipset as the US Galaxy S3 that still sells for about $150 on ebay for some reason.
after struggling to find a fully functional droid 4 from ebay again i considered a photon Q only to learn that its impossible to use it on verizon so droid 4 is the only option for me because im not giving up the unlimited data
everything looks nice except the lack of hardware keys on the screen so pretty jealous.
im assuming the photon q only has 3g outside of sprint like the droid 4 outside of verizon?
Puppymang said:
after struggling to find a fully functional droid 4 from ebay again i considered a photon Q only to learn that its impossible to use it on verizon so droid 4 is the only option for me because im not giving up the unlimited data
everything looks nice except the lack of hardware keys on the screen so pretty jealous.
im assuming the photon q only has 3g outside of sprint like the droid 4 outside of verizon?
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Unfortunately, the Photon Q has a Sprint sim hard-soldered to the board, it doesn't even have a sim slot out of the box, so you can't use the phone at all in any other country unless it's roaming from Sprint.
There is a modification you can do to the phone (or have someone else to do it, CornholioGSM did mine for a 70 euro donation) that consists of removing the sprint-sim and installing a sim slot on the board. The Photon Q with sim mod is completely unlocked and the photon Q also has an unlockable bootloader unlike the Droid 4. It should work on Verizon as it supports all the same CDMA/GSM bands as the Droid 4, however you won't get LTE because the photon Q uses an incompatible band.