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Okay simple question here, have a chance to buy a brand new sealed Atrix HD for $350. Just looking for some input on what you guys would do, to help me decide. Thanks in advance!
rtg293 said:
Okay simple question here, have a chance to buy a brand new sealed Atrix HD for $350. Just looking for some input on what you guys would do, to help me decide. Thanks in advance!
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If you want a phone with Top of the line Hardware and ICS that runs smooth and looks pretty stock. Then yes, the Atrix HD is a sexy phone.
If you are looking for a development community and want to do some flashing and Rom'ing then look for another phone.
I'd write more on this subject, but you are asking a question we have gone over a million times since the phone was released.
Look through the Atrix HD General forum. You will see a lot of post from SGS3 owners and HTC One X owners who returned their phones for the Atrix HD.
Atrix HD Cons:
Battery life is acceptable. But weak.
No NFC chip. (oh darn)
No FM Tuner (meh)
Camera Quality is effected tremendously by lighting conditions.
Battery Cannot be removed, charge time is slow. (no options for extended batteries and no keeping spare around)
No Root access.
Locked Bootloader. ( because of this, we have no root, no custom firmware or tweaked Kernels, and no ROMS!!!)
Look through the rest of the forum please. There is so much on the subject already so check it out for yourself.
For that price? Definitely
Sent from my MB886 using xda app-developers app
Kedakari said:
Atrix HD Cons:
Battery life is acceptable. But weak.
No NFC chip. (oh darn)
No FM Tuner (meh)
Camera Quality is effected tremendously by lighting conditions.
Battery Cannot be removed, charge time is slow. (no options for extended batteries and no keeping spare around)
No Root access.
Locked Bootloader. ( because of this, we have no root, no custom firmware or tweaked Kernels, and no ROMS!!!)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Meh, the development side will come with time, both atrix(es?) had locked bootloaders, so I expected nothing less with this one. We all just get to sit around the campfire and sing kumbaya until the webkit is realeased . NFC or FM aren't really issues at the moment, I'm in rural (and when I say rural, I mean RURAL) Virginia, me and possibly 20 other people in this town even know what NFC stands for . About the ONLY issue I've read about so far is that darn battery! Come on now Moto!
colts187 said:
For that price? Definitely
Sent from my MB886 using xda app-developers app
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Click to collapse
LoL my thoughts exactly, almost too good NOT to get.
rtg293 said:
Meh, the development side will come with time, both atrix(es?) had locked bootloaders, so I expected nothing less with this one. We all just get to sit around the campfire and sing kumbaya until the webkit is realeased . NFC or FM aren't really issues at the moment, I'm in rural (and when I say rural, I mean RURAL) Virginia, me and possibly 20 other people in this town even know what NFC stands for . About the ONLY issue I've read about so far is that darn battery! Come on now Moto!
LoL my thoughts exactly, almost too good NOT to get.
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I didnt want to seem like a fan boy that would give you biased information. So I just gave you the cons and let you decide on your own.
I'm between Northern VA and Washington DC in the over developed Tysons area. So NFC and all that Jazz is picking up.
This area is like the east coast's version of Beverly Hills. EVERYONE around here either has the SGS3 or an Iphone.
Looking at the prices for off contract phones, I'd say you have a really good deal.
Get it, its a nice phone and it'll do what it was engineered to do.
As for boot loaders being unlocked, I think it was only the Original Atrix and the Atrix 4g that got unlocked. The Atrix 2 (The phone I upgraded from) Still has a locked bootloader, and STILL has no ICS.
My one and only complaint is that I had a lapdock that I could no longer use because Webtop OS was removed.
I could careless for the bootloader as I dont like messing with non-stock firmware and kernels.
I'd really like to see this phone being rooted because this phone has a lot of potential just in editing the build.prop to be a much better performing phone than the SGS3
Anyways, thats just my 2 cents.
colts187 said:
For that price? Definitely
Sent from my MB886 using xda app-developers app
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Click to collapse
Yea for that price, it's too good to pass up. Plus Motorola is the best when it comes to RF and call quality. I keep hearing the build quality on
the Atrix HD is excellent. It's coming to Canada next week! You bet I'll be getting it.
If $49 is all you can afford the Atrix is a good choice. If you can afford $199 the Gs3 is the superior device. Bigger screen, bigger battery, double the RAM, superior camera in all lighting conditions, more dev support, NFC. If you dont like touchwiz, plenty of free launchers. If you don't like the plastic, easy to put a case on. Much harder to fix the shortcomings on the Atrix.
350$ is a great deal for this phone. I wouldn't miss it.
My opinion when i got the s3 i missed my 1x like no other then returned the s3 and went back to the 1x i sold my 1x to get this and havent missed it yet. The only thing im not liking that much is battery life but i can live with that. With the 1x i could easily make it through a day with 5 hour's screen on time with root 3 without root. So im getting about the same time without root. The screen is amazing to me i like it better than fhe 1x and s3 but thats just my opinion. This is an amazing phone for the price
Sent from my MB886 using xda premium
I was in the same boat. I was selling my Atrix 4G with lapdock, car dock, standard dock and a few accessories for $350, planning on upgrading to a galaxy S3 with the proceeds. I got an offer to trade straight up for an Atrix HD (no contract renewal required!) and I took it. I have only played with the phone for an hour or two so far and all seems great.
And... if push comes to shove, I should be able to get at least $350 out of it!
Kedakari said:
If you want a phone with Top of the line Hardware and ICS that runs smooth and looks pretty stock. Then yes, the Atrix HD is a sexy phone.
If you are looking for a development community and want to do some flashing and Rom'ing then look for another phone.
I'd write more on this subject, but you are asking a question we have gone over a million times since the phone was released.
Look through the Atrix HD General forum. You will see a lot of post from SGS3 owners and HTC One X owners who returned their phones for the Atrix HD.
Atrix HD Cons:
Battery life is acceptable. But weak.
No NFC chip. (oh darn)
No FM Tuner (meh)
Camera Quality is effected tremendously by lighting conditions.
Battery Cannot be removed, charge time is slow. (no options for extended batteries and no keeping spare around)
No Root access.
Locked Bootloader. ( because of this, we have no root, no custom firmware or tweaked Kernels, and no ROMS!!!)
Look through the rest of the forum please. There is so much on the subject already so check it out for yourself.
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Click to collapse
Wow, HOX and GS3 users returned to get Atrix HD?! That is the perfect example of insanity. I wouldn't return my Atrix 2 for a AHD, let alone an HOX or my beloved GS3. Unlocked bootloader, removable battery, superior camera, incredible dev support, JB coming very soon, ridiculous aftermarket support.....who'd give that up for a device with pretty much the opposite of that?
I returned my hd and got another one x cuz the battery sucketh
Sent from my HTC One X using xda premium
I got the AHD cause I had to... All in all, I'm kinda sorry I traded in my RAZR (which was basically a small tab, since I couldn't afford Verizon's wallet raping) for this phone... If I can afford to, I'm returning it, and getting an S III. I don't want that one either, but the options are far better...
I chose the red pill... Now I'm in the mAtrix and I know Kung Fu...
http://android-gz.com
This phone seems like a good value, nice build quality, great screen and nice design. Hope you don't mind me asking a few questions since I've been an iOS user for years and am an Android noob.
1. If music is imported from iTunes to this phone using the Welcome Home apps that AT&T provides, will it play in its current file format, or do I need to change the mp4 to mp3 in iTunes before transferring?
2. I have several email accounts (Yahoo, Comcast, Go Daddy) including Gmail where my contacts are stored. Is the stock email app on this phone unified and capable of adding all the accounts or do I have to use individual email apps? And does it offer both POP and IMAP types?
3. I understand the boot loader is locked but it's important to me that whatever phone I get that it can be updated to JB. Is it at all possible that Moto will update the OS?
4. Is it possible to move apps to the microSD or just photos, videos, etc?
Thanks.
nuance4u said:
This phone seems like a good value, nice build quality, great screen and nice design. Hope you don't mind me asking a few questions since I've been an iOS user for years and am an Android noob.
1. If music is imported from iTunes to this phone using the Welcome Home apps that AT&T provides, will it play in its current file format, or do I need to change the mp4 to mp3 in iTunes before transferring?
2. I have several email accounts (Yahoo, Comcast, Go Daddy) including Gmail where my contacts are stored. Is the stock email app on this phone unified and capable of adding all the accounts or do I have to use individual email apps? And does it offer both POP and IMAP types?
3. I understand the boot loader is locked but it's important to me that whatever phone I get that it can be updated to JB. Is it at all possible that Moto will update the OS?
4. Is it possible to move apps to the microSD or just photos, videos, etc?
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. not sure, but aiff files definitely don't work on android phones
2. Yes, and yes, but gmail decides to also add any gmail email you add which can be annoying sometimes (turn off notifications on one of the two apps)
3. it's debateable
4. as far as i know not from stock, but if anyone knows an app that can do this, i would love to know about it.
Well, been away for a couple of days, so I figure everyone needs an update on my original thread topic. I ended up buying it because, well, I am a sucker for a good deal. Initial impressions were about like everyone's experience. Silky smooth, almost vanilla-"like" UI, so-so battery life. I've got to say though, after letting the battery cycle a couple of times, and installing Juice Defender (first app that goes on ANY new phone I get), the battery life has improved significantly. I've been unplugged since about 5:45am, charged about 15 minutes on my hour lunch break in the car, it's now 11pm and I am at 70% with about an hour and a half or so of internet use, about 35 minutes of Backstab HD , and about 15 minutes of Angry Birds.
nuance4u said:
2. I have several email accounts (Yahoo, Comcast, Go Daddy) including Gmail where my contacts are stored. Is the stock email app on this phone unified and capable of adding all the accounts or do I have to use individual email apps? And does it offer both POP and IMAP types?
3. I understand the boot loader is locked but it's important to me that whatever phone I get that it can be updated to JB. Is it at all possible that Moto will update the OS?
4. Is it possible to move apps to the microSD or just photos, videos, etc?
.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
2. I can answer this partly. The stock gmail app will let you add multiple gmail accounts, so I am assuming you can multiple email accounts also. And it does offer both POP3 and IMAP types.
3. I'm willing to step out on a limb and say yes it will receive an official JB update. If Google hadn't bought Moto, then I wouldn't be near brave enough to touch this topic lol, but I feel pretty secure saying it will receive the update.
4. I know you can do it with TI Backup on other phones, but that requires root, like all "good" android apps , so I'm assuming it may work when someone finally roots this thing. Don't let the "free app2sd" apps fool you though, I've tested about 7 or 8 of them on my AHD so far with no luck.
---edit---
Scratch that answer for 4, apparently app2sd was a feature taken out in ICS.
Yes or No
Thanks folks.. it appears nobody here has been a recent iOS user hence the unclear answer around whether I need to change the iTunes music format.. Am also wondering about ring tones since I created about a dozen using music from iTunes.
Meantime, I ordered a white AHD from Amazon and evidently due to lack of proper box labeling on Moto's part, I was shipped the wrong color twice, so we decided it was best to cancel the order until Amazon could get things figured out. It appears they have now, and showing some proper business etiquette they gave me two credits amounting to more than I paid for the phone
In the interim, I did some more research and read and watched some more reviews of which several reviewers thought the build quality was marginal and complained of flimsy power and volume buttons that were also loose. Has anyone here experienced this? Good to see that Juice Defender helps with the battery issue too since that is obviously another weak link.
And as you may know too, due to slower than desired sales of the HTC One X, the price is dropping to the same as the AHD on Sunday, making this is even more difficult choice, though the One X does not have a microSD slot and from what I've seen, has had some pretty major hardware issues along with a poor job with how Sense screwed up multi-tasking. Any thoughts or recommendations here? I have to wait a few days until my upgrade is reset anyway, so I'm going to take my time. Thanks.
rtg293 said:
Well, been away for a couple of days, so I figure everyone needs an update on my original thread topic. I ended up buying it because, well, I am a sucker for a good deal. Initial impressions were about like everyone's experience. Silky smooth, almost vanilla-"like" UI, so-so battery life. I've got to say though, after letting the battery cycle a couple of times, and installing Juice Defender (first app that goes on ANY new phone I get), the battery life has improved significantly. I've been unplugged since about 5:45am, charged about 15 minutes on my hour lunch break in the car, it's now 11pm and I am at 70% with about an hour and a half or so of internet use, about 35 minutes of Backstab HD , and about 15 minutes of Angry Birds.
2. I can answer this partly. The stock gmail app will let you add multiple gmail accounts, so I am assuming you can multiple email accounts also. And it does offer both POP3 and IMAP types.
3. I'm willing to step out on a limb and say yes it will receive an official JB update. If Google hadn't bought Moto, then I wouldn't be near brave enough to touch this topic lol, but I feel pretty secure saying it will receive the update.
4. I know you can do it with TI Backup on other phones, but that requires root, like all "good" android apps , so I'm assuming it may work when someone finally roots this thing. Don't let the "free app2sd" apps fool you though, I've tested about 7 or 8 of them on my AHD so far with no luck.
---edit---
Scratch that answer for 4, apparently app2sd was a feature taken out in ICS.
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Click to collapse
I was an ios user (ipod touch 4) recently, but i never bought songs from itunes, though all of my songs except the .aiff files uploaded to google music easily, so i say go ahead and try that on your computer first, if it works you should have no problem.
I'm a former iPhone user and currently have a HOX. I was able to use google play music on my mac to transfer my songs to google music and then sync with the phone the google play music app allows to store music on the device or cloud (similar to how the iTunes cloud worked).
As for which device is better, I have had no hardware issues with the phone. Actually the hardware is pretty impressive even without the microSD card and the camera is second to none (that includes my wife's iPhone4s). My only gripe is multitasking but that is fixable by flashing various ROMs and rumored to be fixed in the next software release based on a leaked update. And now that HTC had released source, development is likely to only pick up.
So why am I hanging out in the MAHD forum? I'm intrigued by this device and the slightly smaller screen, the unlock button on the side versus the top and new Motorola skin. In fact I'm using the MAHD launcher and widgets on one.
Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk 2
I had the hox and it was osm but something about this phone i dont miss the hox. I love the size and screen is osm. Prolly just my prefference
Sent from my MB886 using xda premium
I have worn out my Galaxy S Captivate (ill miss you ol' pal). It has a cracked screen, cracked 3.5mm jack (don't ask how lol), and it has never had a flash either. Also the camera lense is now cracked.
I am about to upgrade to a new phone, and have considered many phones, but I like the sound of the HTC One (not literally the sound), because it is a sleek metal chassis unlike the new, and very expensive, samsung galaxy S4.
I don't plan on going crazy with my phone, I just want to listen to music, have a good camera, and possible use the camera flash as a flashlight (is this possible?)
What are the chances of someone giving me a run-down on their personal experience with the phone, as well as some advice, such as "Is this a good phone to purchase if I want to flash a great ROM and root it? Remove all the bloatware etc.
Here's why I like the HTC One: ( or the idea of it)
It has a metal design
Its screen is under 5 inches
The pixel density
The audio quality (I know BEATS is not a great thing, but the phone seems to implement it well either way into the design)
It has a flash! *my cappy didn't*
It has a minimum of 32gb internal storage, I don't use microSD in my phone
the battery life is said to last super long!
gorilla glass (that's almost a must for me)
Anyways, all help/advice/opinions are seriously greatly appreciated. Please respond!
RJ287 said:
I have worn out my Galaxy S Captivate (ill miss you ol' pal). It has a cracked screen, cracked 3.5mm jack (don't ask how lol), and it has never had a flash either. Also the camera lense is now cracked.
I am about to upgrade to a new phone, and have considered many phones, but I like the sound of the HTC One (not literally the sound), because it is a sleek metal chassis unlike the new, and very expensive, samsung galaxy S4.
I don't plan on going crazy with my phone, I just want to listen to music, have a good camera, and possible use the camera flash as a flashlight (is this possible?)
What are the chances of someone giving me a run-down on their personal experience with the phone, as well as some advice, such as "Is this a good phone to purchase if I want to flash a great ROM and root it? Remove all the bloatware etc.
Here's why I like the HTC One: ( or the idea of it)
It has a metal design
Its screen is under 5 inches
The pixel density
The audio quality (I know BEATS is not a great thing, but the phone seems to implement it well either way into the design)
It has a flash! *my cappy didn't*
It has a minimum of 32gb internal storage, I don't use microSD in my phone
the battery life is said to last super long!
gorilla glass (that's almost a must for me)
Anyways, all help/advice/opinions are seriously greatly appreciated. Please respond!
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Click to collapse
This phone is definitely a good phone for rooting. A friend of mine is the manager of my local ATT store, and he helped me make your same decision. He kept telling me that if i were a normal user hed reccomend the S4, but because im a modder and a flasher, the One would be my better choice. Boy was he right. A month ago my sister got the S4, and boy does it feel like a piece of garbage in my hand now. I also came from an S3, and i can promise this is a step up in everyway. This phone has excellent hardware, a unique design, and lots of active development. My advice though is to definitely do your homework before trying to root or anything of the sort, because its a worlds different coming from a samsung. I cant think of a single complaint about this phone. Hope i helped, and good luck!
For the phone itself, I'd definitely, highly recommend it. It does have the fast processor, cool camera, excellent battery life and the speaker quality is a game-changer IMO. Plus it's just plain beautiful to look at and great to hold.
For rooting, I'm not sure what carrier you're on, but if it's Sprint, then I can't fully recommend it. The Sprint variant is still stuck on the older 4.1-based ROMs, so being rooted isn't as much fun on this phone as it's been for my past HTC phones. If you're on any other carrier, then you're good to go. I can't think of any compelling reason to not get this phone.
Thank you guys so much for the hasty responses. I'm going to go check this out tomorrow!
RJ287 said:
Thank you guys so much for the hasty responses. I'm going to go check this out tomorrow!
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Click to collapse
Firstly hold the One in one hand and the S4 in another you'll opt for the One in microseconds!
The choice of custom roms and mods available is large.... the only problem you'll have is which to choose.
You will find the ways to unlock the bootloader, obtain root, etc. quite different but there are plenty of guides available in the One forums and plenty of guys to help you along the way.... searching and reading will open a new world to you, take your time and you will pick it all up.
To end..... the One is the best phone I've owned by a long way.
Edit: A day or so ago I read in a review site somewhere where they said that if you want a phone to use out of the box without modifying then choose the S4 but if you want to customise then the One is the way to go.
Yeah, thanks again.
I have been reading some reviews about how terrible the HTC One is, but I don't think people are giving it bad reviews for a good reason.
All the weird/bad reviews have been mostly "iPhone is better" or just "Galaxy S4 is just better because its CPU is 200mHz faster".
I had a hard time deciding between the One and the S4 also. I went for the One based on the fact that
LCD Screen means no burn-in
Speakers are where they should be
Beats Audio chip makes a noticable difference
I'm a pixel junkie
There is a lot of truth behind the "UltraPixel" camera (I went to college for photography)
I'm 100% happy with my decision, and even though the S4 tops all the benchmarks (fully stock), it makes ZERO difference in real world use.
My first smartwatch ever was the original Sony Smartwatch 1. First of it's kind widely available, it was a pretty good product (if you compare the features to it's price). I bought Galaxy Gear few weeks ago shortly after startup for it's original price of 300 euros. I had it for few days and decided to return it, as this is a beta product with no support at all (at that time). So I returned the Gear and got Smartwatch 2 from Sony.. and that watch is really cool. It's waterproof to some point, it's very VERY light, super comfortable and you can even change the wrist stripe if you don't like the original one. It costs 150 EUR for silicon version, and 200 EUR for metal version here in Netherlands. So it's up to 50% cheaper than the Gear. Out of the box, you only have to install few applications to get messages, and notification to work. Installation is super easy and it works with nearly all devices running android 4.0 or higher. It's a nice device, but lack any kind of customization - and so far there haven't been any tools to change anything in the watch at all. Lately I got a chance to get a Gear for less than 200 EUR so I decided to give it another try, and here it is..
1. After using Smartwatch 2 for a while Gear feels more solid, but it's way more bulky. It doesn't rest nicely on my wrist, and I'm not a huge guy. I could survive uncomfortable top, but the metal bottom (where speaker and mic are located) is catastrophic. I can't stand having the watch on my wrist if I'm working on my desk, as it's touching the desk all the time and leaves scratches. Very annoying.
2. Installation. I had to change my custom ROM to original TouchWiz on my S3 to get Gear to work. Maybe it can work on custom - but there would be more troubles with it than stock so.. To get the full functionality, and don't run into endless troubles, you have to be stock, where SW2 works on custom roms without a single issue.
3. Out of the box experience.. it's a tragedy. The 'main menu' is really slow to operate, and even switching between apps can take few precious seconds. Notifications do not work properly. I have to use 3rd party app to get more notifications. No SMS forwarding to your watch. No replying to messages. No Gmail support. No keyboard. Simply nothing! Out of the box this is just a bluetooth headset with a clock. I don't know anyone who is really using S Voice on a daily basis. Samsung promised us making calls straight from our wrists, and Samsung did deliver that but..
4. Speaker quality - if you are using more than 50% of volume level, you can clearly hear a lot of buzzing. Sound is far from being clear. Not a huge issue though, it's a watch after all.
5. Hardware. Builtin camera that takes decent pictures and videos (as for a watch). Big plus! Loudspeaker so you don't have to hold your wrist to your ear - nice, although sometimes I would prefer to be the only one who can hear the other side (and look like an idiot, I don't care). AMOLED display with 320x320 resolution. Looks really sharp and vivid. Love it! Smartwatch is running a real Android 4.2.2, and that's great. You can root it, sideload apps and so.. but...
6. Usability - but it's pretty useless. There is no bluetooth tethering so you can't use any internet on your wrist (smartwatch 2 has a working internet browser!). You can install app like Tablet Talk to have messaging ability but it's really cumbersome, doesn't display your contact list, only the numbers are visible and generally, you can clearly see that it just wasn't designed for a wrist. I guess runninng Tablet Talk on Gear AND phone uses more battery which results in shorter battery life...
7. Typing. I can easily imagine typing short sentences/messages using Swype-like keyboard, or T9 styled. Display is big enough to send few words within seconds. Unfortunately that is not possible at the moment.
8. Future? There is definitely a future in smartwatches. This device is great, but Samsung tottaly ****ed up the software side. Nothing is working as it should, and if it does - it's cumbersome, and far from being user friendly. You can't get apps from Play Store, you have to use Samsung App Store which is really poor. There are very few apps that are actually somewhat usefull, but they do suck. I tried app like speedometer, that takes ages to start and catch a signal, and if it finally does - it's really ugly. SW2 to compare was displaying current GPS speed within seconds. When I was done with it, all I had to is just go back to home screen, or turn on the clock face, then GPS was stopped. On Gear? You have to open notifications, click on Speedometer, and FORCE STOP it in order to be closed. WHAAAAT?
I love the idea, I like the features (AMOLED, speaker, mic, touchscreen) but there way more wrong things with it than positive.. Media Controller doesn't always work properly, so you can't really shuffle songs etc. There is no SDK available to the publicity, so there won't be any dedicated apps from community anytime soon. Samsung didn't say anything that they will release it anyway so... if you buy the Gear, don't buy it cause it's gonna be "great in the future once XDA devs hack it". It didn't happen, noone knows if it's going to happen and what will come out of it...
I would really suggest waiting for next generation. But if you have spare cash, and can get the Gear cheaper than original price - go for it...
I don't think you would any of these problems if you use a samsung supported phone (N3, or S4 with latest update.)
skyline23 said:
I don't think you would any of these problems if you use a samsung supported phone (N3, or S4 with latest update.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm using official Android 4.3 firmware provided by Samsung. S3 is officially supported.
hurdlejade said:
I'm using official Android 4.3 firmware provided by Samsung. S3 is officially supported.
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Click to collapse
To each his own. I'm sure the camera, mic and speaker and ability to use S Voice to respond to messages all work wonderfully on the SW2.
mhoepfin said:
To each his own. I'm sure the camera, mic and speaker and ability to use S Voice to respond to messages all work wonderfully on the SW2.
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Click to collapse
out of the box, SW2 beats Gear in every aspect, if you forget the camera/mic/speaker. S Voice? i guess it's only widely used in USA. i see a lot of people on the internet asking how to actually turn this thing off. it's one of the first things i did when i installed official 4.3 rom.
this is not a hate post. i just tried both products, they are both far from being perfect, and although gear seems to be superior, it lacks the software. and we shouldn't wait months for basic functionality that hardware is fully capable of.
It's all personal choice. I have both Sony s2 and the gear and in my opinion the gear is far better.
Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk
ardsar said:
It's all personal choice. I have both Sony s2 and the gear and in my opinion the gear is far better.
Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk
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may i know why is it better? besides the camera/speaker/mic/svoice thingy.
It's my opinion and personal taste. .. It looks more like a watch rather than a big Square thing on your wrist. The Sony is only a second screen and is like a dumb terminal in that it can't run anything ( the Internet app you mention runs on the phone and relays the image to the watch) and you can't ignore the fact that it has a camera speaker Mike and svoice.
It's best to drop this thread like I said it's all personal opinion.
Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk
ardsar said:
It's my opinion and personal taste. .. It looks more like a watch rather than a big Square thing on your wrist. The Sony is only a second screen and is like a dumb terminal in that it can't run anything ( the Internet app you mention runs on the phone and relays the image to the watch) and you can't ignore the fact that it has a camera speaker Mike and svoice.
It's best to drop this thread like I said it's all personal opinion.
Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk
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i just wanted to find out why you prefer gear over SW2, that's it.
i do realise that the internet browser on SW2 works more or less on screenshots.. but it works! and there is no possibility to do so on Gear, although it's capable of real rendering.
Owning 2 Galaxy Gear I guess you can tell I like it. With more and more things being added to the ability of the Gear such as ATN and launchers, etc it is growing leaps and bound sans Samsung. There are 2 versions of Sony out there and this has been out weeks. I say write this after February when it has been thru a few updates. I don't need my watch to do everything the phones does or i wouldn't have bought a 5.7 inch phone. The great things is competition is great and I'm sure Apple is gearing up for theirs and then someone will come and beat theirs and so on and so on. Consumerism at it's best.
Oh yeah, it's not consumer ready at all. But for the hacker/maker crowd out there, it's by far and away the best.
Phone calls.. you can make phone calls from your wrist!!! Come ON that's so cool. You can hack out the click sounds and take super secret spy photos from your wrist....
I have a freakin' game boy emulator .. I can play pokemon on my watch!
HELLO this is like the dream
YES .. the speaker scratching is a problem on my mac book pro, I have to pull up my long sleeve shirt over the bottom to keep it from scraping across the laptop which annoys me as well.
Not sure how they're going to fix that.
There are already enough of these threads here...
The watch des exactly what it says. It is a companion to phone, not a replacement (Why does a watch actually need software?)
it also has mic/speaker/cam which all work surprising well. Didn't take long to adjust to bulky speaker when resting palm on flat surface (mind I wear it a little loose)
There are several default notifications that are sent that everyone has - sms, email, etc. Granted they could do with more detail (html emails, all text in notification), however that will have to come when apps start supporting it - 4.3 helps a lot here
it is waterproof enough - that whole thing seems to be a scare campaign. All the watches available can survive water, just not to the extent of swimming/diving
Gear looks the best out of the watches available and once you use it for a few weeks, then the chance of wanting to return is much lower. I'd say my Pebble does more currently (especially tasker integration!), however, I've not touched it since getting gear a month ago
It only supports 4.3 and Touchwiz, but if you look at the percentage of s3, note2, s4, note3, and future phones, there is no need to support others. Will people complain when apple come out with a watch and it only supports two devices like pretty much everything else they do? (latest and previous model)
Samsung really need to get a move on with releasing sdk though
Plus it is first gen, so it can't have everything. Just be thankful you aren't with Apple and have to wait years for stuff everyone already has
Still going to try out Neptune Pine when it is released, but it is a replacement not companion
blazespinnaker said:
Oh yeah, it's not consumer ready at all. But for the hacker/maker crowd out there, it's by far and away the best.
Phone calls.. you can make phone calls from your wrist!!! Come ON that's so cool. You can hack out the click sounds and take super secret spy photos from your wrist....
I have a freakin' game boy emulator .. I can play pokemon on my watch!
HELLO this is like the dream
YES .. the speaker scratching is a problem on my mac book pro, I have to pull up my long sleeve shirt over the bottom to keep it from scraping across the laptop which annoys me as well.
Not sure how they're going to fix that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm enjoying my Gear paired with Note 3. Still completely stock, and I can see how some might think the price is steep for what it currently does. But again, I am ok with what I paid for it, knowing what it does so far and knowing what lays in store for it in the future.
I need to read up on rooting and side loading. How effective is a gameboy emulator on the small screen? Seems like there wouldn't be enough room
Awesome
Sent from my GT-I9500 using Tapatalk
hurdlejade said:
I would really suggest waiting for next generation. But if you have spare cash, and can get the Gear cheaper than original price - go for it...
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Click to collapse
Snipped For Space!
At 73, I cannot play the waiting game. With smartwatches, women, and fastazz motorcycles..
I want and need it NOW!!
About you comments, they seemed to be like the case of one man's terrorist is another man's freedom-fighter..
BTW, can you answer and call from the SW2?? :fingers-crossed:
I also have a Sony Smartwatch 2. It's a great watch and the SDK support is superb. I recently bought the Gear and my first impression was
1. Wow, smaller than I thought. Because of the design less bulkier than the SW2. Way more stylish (up to a point even my gf thought that i didn't look like a total nerd)
2. Much better resolution and much clearer display
3. Touch response is so much better than the SW2
4. Awful charging method..
5. Miss the always on mode that the Sony has. The magical movement thing to wake up the Gear does work in say 75% of the time for me. The other 25% makes it a bad experience as a watch. Maybe I still have to get the hang of it and learn to make the movement work.. or maybe I have to adapt myself. Have the watch for 2 days now, I'm still learning and not ready to give an overall conclusion.
6 Apps.... yep the Sony has a lot more apps and yes there's a browser out there. But it also has a lot of weird amateuristic apps in the Play store (not made by Sony). I somehow am appreciating Samsung's approach now after a couple of days of using the Gear. They've teamed up with some good third party developers (a few not so good also) and seem to be very careful about what they release on the market right now. Seems like a good thing to me. I bet you can trash a potential goood product that still has to prove itself as a thing that could work by opening it for badly written and designed apps. Good thing to go easy on this. Nevertheless as a developer I love to jump on the bandwagon... But I understand that somehow one needs to direct the experience of a new product. Too many apps that do just half of what you can do can ruin the experience totally. (That said, they might have released the watch too early. On the other side, by releasing it early they now can work on a lot of feedback. It's a decision they've made and it is a decision that comes with a trade off (bad reviews), but in the end it might be the best decision. Nobody knows and nobody will know)
mike208 said:
I'm enjoying my Gear paired with Note 3. Still completely stock, and I can see how some might think the price is steep for what it currently does. But again, I am ok with what I paid for it, knowing what it does so far and knowing what lays in store for it in the future.
I need to read up on rooting and side loading. How effective is a gameboy emulator on the small screen? Seems like there wouldn't be enough room
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Click to collapse
Are you kidding me! It's AWESOME ... well I have long thin fingers though. I use gameboid.
They could probably optimize the control setup on gameboid for the watch a bit more.
Sideloading is easy to do, don't need to root. I highly recommend it.
1. Wow, smaller than I thought. Because of the design less bulkier than the SW2. Way more stylish (up to a point even my gf thought that i didn't look like a total nerd)
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Click to collapse
Agreed. People have commented that the watch looks great. Sony with it's geeky logo and buttons... come ON.
That being said, there are pros/cons to them all. I'd *love* the battery life of the pebble on the Gear, but I can't go without having Android on my watch. That's just a non starter (for me), but I'm a developer so my opinion is entirely unreflective of the market at large .. but I love it, so who cares.
The one huge problem with the gear, in my opinion, is the lack of compatibility. That's what is really pissing 99% of the world out there that doesn't have a Note 3, frankly. This bundling nonsense is so deeply arrogant. It's monopolistic and completely unnecessary.
It's what makes you root against a company and pray they fail as an enterprise. It's the same sort of arrogance that makes me despise Apple and why I take every opportunity I can to root against them even though my career is tied up with their technology.
I agree with you on the speaker buckle being annoying, but otherwise, it's not THAT bad.
Just got my not note yesterday. I've been playing and setting it all up today. All the scare tactics of people re: lagging, gaggape etc seem to have 0 merit.
It was fairly simple to transfer data from iTunes (not everything transferred smoothly but I didn't lose any photos etc). Amazingly easy to set up email etc.
I realised all this talk about Note Vs iPhone is BS. The Note is so much better than my iPhone 5 or my wife's 5S. It's incredible how good the screen and camera are. I tweaked it a little after watching some videos so its running even quicker than it was and I was very happy to begin with. There's 0 gap (Samsung must have fixed that issue it looks like they've filled the space with resin possibly? There's 0 lag.
I can't get my one-handed mode to work but everything else is running fine. Even the fingerprint scanner is working perfectly.
I haven't even begun to explore the business possibilities as a Jeweller the Spen is going to be very very handy during design consultations as I can use my note rather than my tablet now (as it's big enough).
Just thought I'd leave my thoughts.
Well surely it is better than last gen iPhones but calling it the best is kinda an overkill. I'm a hardcore samsung fan myself and I love my device but there are things to improve on hopefully Note 5.
Its the best for now even next year the note 4 will still hold its own right up till the n5
quadlt said:
Well surely it is better than last gen iPhones but calling it the best is kinda an overkill. I'm a hardcore samsung fan myself and I love my device but there are things to improve on hopefully Note 5.
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The iPhone 6's are just bigger, faster versions of the 5. I've tried them. They don't have a stylus or a 2k screen or 16mp camera.
Sure, there's phones that have individual better features than the Note (ie the Sony Z3 Camera) but overall I think it's the best phone out right now. There's no phones out right now with better screens or more powerful processors.
The best way to get the most out of your Note is learning how to use its features in your day to day.
Samsung has a nice 'key feature' app you can get on galaxy app store.
Anyways the phone's only going to get better with the release of lollipop.
ciscostud said:
The best way to get the most out of your Note is learning how to use its features in your day to day.
Samsung has a nice 'key feature' app you can get on galaxy app store.
Anyways the phone's only going to get better with the release of lollipop.
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Click to collapse
Would you recommend any in particular?
Do we have to redownload apps after the Lollipop update (sorry newbie question)?
No you don't have to redownload
I'm digging it. I traded in twice to get to where I am now, and went through customer service hell the last time I went into the Sprint store. So basically I paid $70 extra in restock fees to get this phone, but it's worth it. My LG G3 was suffering mild problems that I didn't want to deal with considering how much I spent on a brand new phone, and I didn't want to be locked into something I'm not perfectly satisfied with. The only thing I wish is that my phone is was black instead of white. They were out of black models, and said they didn't know when they were getting more in stock. Figured I'd suck it up and take it. I put the black flip case over it - it almost looks like an ice cream sandwich. I'm sure once I root it, I'll be in love with it. Still, I'm not sure how necessary it is for me to root it. I can remove or turn off almost all the bloat without rooting it, and there's really nothing much I feel like I'm missing out on.
The only thing is I'm not sure if I could ever actually use the S-Pen in real world situations to benefit me. I'd like to be able to take notes with it in school, but I'm just not sure how feasible it would be - and is it worth wasting the battery life instead of just using the good ol pen n paper? I tried playing some drawing multiplayer games, but they all seem desolate and empty as it takes forever to find any opponents who are actually trying to play the game. I'm not much of an artist, and I were, I'm not sure how often I'd find it practical to use the S-Pen instead of something else. I just installed the Lollipop keyboard - maybe if I try the new gesture typing with it, I'll dig typing with the pen.
Also, the screen is amazing. The difference between the G3 and Note 4 is night and day. It's great to see a 1440P phone screen not plagued by oversharpening. Games look amazing. The blacks are inky in their darkness. Screen goes 5x brighter than I'd ever need it to. The only thing I have to complain about is no cool 1440P videos preinstalled
ciscostud said:
The best way to get the most out of your Note is learning how to use its features in your day to day.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have any real world examples of what you mean by this?
I got my Note 4 yesterday so here are a couple things i disagree with, 1- you dont have to buy the fast charging adapter in came with it. 2-using the s pen to write is faster that using the keyboard especially if you have fat fingers like me.
Glad you said this as I have a G3 I'm looking to upgrade to a note 4.
I'll be sure to copy the LG pre installed videos. Those look amazing on the G3. Can't imagine how they'll look on the note 4 ?
t1337dude said:
I'm digging it. I traded in twice to get to where I am now, and went through customer service hell the last time I went into the Sprint store. So basically I paid $70 extra in restock fees to get this phone, but it's worth it. My LG G3 was suffering mild problems that I didn't want to deal with considering how much I spent on a brand new phone, and I didn't want to be locked into something I'm not perfectly satisfied with. The only thing I wish is that my phone is was black instead of white. They were out of black models, and said they didn't know when they were getting more in stock. Figured I'd suck it up and take it. I put the black flip case over it - it almost looks like an ice cream sandwich. I'm sure once I root it, I'll be in love with it. Still, I'm not sure how necessary it is for me to root it. I can remove or turn off almost all the bloat without rooting it, and there's really nothing much I feel like I'm missing out on.
The only thing is I'm not sure if I could ever actually use the S-Pen in real world situations to benefit me. I'd like to be able to take notes with it in school, but I'm just not sure how feasible it would be - and is it worth wasting the battery life instead of just using the good ol pen n paper? I tried playing some drawing multiplayer games, but they all seem desolate and empty as it takes forever to find any opponents who are actually trying to play the game. I'm not much of an artist, and I were, I'm not sure how often I'd find it practical to use the S-Pen instead of something else. I just installed the Lollipop keyboard - maybe if I try the new gesture typing with it, I'll dig typing with the pen.
Also, the screen is amazing. The difference between the G3 and Note 4 is night and day. It's great to see a 1440P phone screen not plagued by oversharpening. Games look amazing. The blacks are inky in their darkness. Screen goes 5x brighter than I'd ever need it to. The only thing I have to complain about is no cool 1440P videos preinstalled
Have any real world examples of what you mean by this?
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Click to collapse
Verizon contract is up in a couple weeks so I'm jumping to T-Mobile (costs less) and getting the Nexus 6. I just have a few questions.
Are there any weird quirks with the phone? Anything I won't find out by playing with the phone in store for 10 minutes? Is the phone as powerful as the specs say it is?
I saw some of the older battery life charts in the other thread and they aren't terrible. Is battery life still decent? I'm looking for 4-5+ hours of screen-on time ideally.
Does the "quick charger" that comes with it work well?
Tl;dr Do you recommend the phone?
It's a loaded post, which is why a lot of views, but nary a reply.
However ....
Your title to me is better than jumping on a N6, which could be disastrous to the phone.
If you have looked over the threads, you'll get varying opinions, and mostly IMO it depends on two things:
What they had/came from
What they expect out of the N6.
I will only speak for myself; I came from a VZ GNex I hung onto for 3 years - anything I may have gone to would be a worthy HW upgrade, however I want to tweak my phone when I'm ready to, and that means a Nexus.
I love the phone, it was a bit of a letdown, as I was already running 5.0 on my GNex, so the experience was to a larger, faster smoother phone than what I had. Other than that, I'm loving every minute of having it, plain and simple.
I have one other person who transitioned to one, and he loves it as well.
I'm not going to tell you to get it, you have to go play with it and decide for yourself.
To your specific questions:
quirks - no more so than any other phone, I haven't found any yet myself - most who post I think have to do with not knowing what they set in Lollipop, I've already had it for a bit, so I'm used to it.
Yup, its fast and powerful, whether or not you decide to go unencrypted is up to you, which goes to what you had and what you expect - are you going to unlock root, mod? You can enjoy this phone for quite a bit of time before maybe even needing a reason to go mod it.
Personally, I haven't yet, nor have a lot of members here (check the what rom are you running on VZ thread) because again, I haven't (other than wanting to change my softkeys) had a good reason (to me) to invest the time to do it.
I'm sure it will happen, but not right now. right now I'm just enjoying the hell out of having it.
Batt time is always subjective, whether or not we care to admit it. No two devices are going to run the same, have the same app load outs, some have different memory it appears, and some may actually (gasp) have a bad batt on arrival.
Mine has ran terrific (remember again - what I had and what I expect), and the QC runs great to recharge if need be. I can say that I love not worrying about the batt right now on it daily, but that's for me and my usage.
Battery is fine and its quick. The fast charger works well. I'm not really a fan of them but its what it comes with. I came from a m8 which was a nice device but I like this one better.
Raikalo said:
Tl;dr Do you recommend the phone?
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My wife and I jumped from Sprint to T-Mobile, handing off our Evo 4G's when the Nexus 6 was released, and wouldn't look back. The Nexus 6 has been nothing short of awesome... the camera, speed, screen, everything - is awesome. We keep ours in thick iBlason "Armorbox" cases, and still enjoy our QI charging (I'm unsure how QI isn't a requirement in modern phones these days!). A lot of friends complained about the size, but those that got it anyway, ended up "getting over it" and now won't go back to the smaller screens, heh! It still fits nicely in my (male) jean pockets -- with the large case -- but you'd be hard-pressed to get it safely in female pockets (sorry ladies... you're not allowed to put stuff in the pockets!).
Quirks: one big thing jumped out at me, but isn't a big deal for most. The phone does have built-in RGB LEDs that sit underneath the top speaker, yet, they chose to block access to this functionality. I guess they reused the underlying board but didn't want the LEDs, but nonetheless, they are invaluable to me: I enjoy knowing if I have something waiting for me *without* having to look at the screen - whether while in bed, sitting on the desk, riding the bike, etc.! The plus, you can get at these LEDs if you're rooted. So... if that's possibly desirable to you, I'd recommend unlocking the phone as soon as you get it, so you can avoid the data wipe down the road. The Lightflow app can handle them quite well (though I believe it requires the "Pro" version, for a couple bucks). ...and as of now, the LEDs are "on or off" - no flashing... but hey, I'll take what I can get!
Oh, and not really related to the phone itself, but a Google-Nexus 6 quirk -- quite annoying at the time, for me -- Google's "My Tracks" app was broken for awhile (unable to acquire the GPS signal). There are a gazillion alternatives out there, but I'd been a long-time daily user of the app, and Google broke it!...for months. It was disappointing that they would break core app functionality on their *current* flagship device, for their own app, and choose to ignore it for such a long time. I think the 5.1 update fixed whatever problem they had, but that was a pet peeve.. On the plus side, I've enjoyed the feature-rich alternatives that I was forced to explore, ha!
We haven't messed with de-crypting ourselves, as the phones are super-duper-fast as-is, but we love them. These are our introduction to the Nexus world, and we love the fact that they no-bars-hold permit unlocking, and that the updates are, of course, front line.
Tl;dr I highly recommend the phone! Phone size is the only recurring complaint among friends.
Thank you everyone for the replies. Yes, battery life is subjective ...so long as most of the reviews say the battery is good enough, that's all I care about. First-hand reviews from users are always the best because I know everyone isn't just trying to sell me a phone . As far as the LEDs being unusable when not rooted, that isn't a big deal for me. My current phone (Razr Maxx HD, xt926 verizon) has the LEDs and fantastic battery life through various mods, but is simply not cutting it anymore for what I need. I've never heard of the My Tracks app, so I guess it's a good thing since I didn't know it was broken lol.
This will be my first Nexus phone... I have the Nexus 7 (2012) tablet that is currently running CM12 nightlies, so I'm familiar with the "Nexus experience" and Lollipop already. I like it quite a bit, but it did take a little getting used to. I was very much planning on unlocking and rooting the N6 immediately, but I'll play with it a bit and enjoy the stock experience first.
@vormund Do you like T-Mobile, now that you switched from Sprint?
@RW-1 Can you explain the encryption you're talking about a little more? This is the first I've heard of it.
Again, thanks everyone for the replies. I'm pretty much sold on the phone at this point.
Raikalo said:
Thank you everyone for the replies. Yes, battery life is subjective ...so long as most of the reviews say the battery is good enough, that's all I care about. First-hand reviews from users are always the best because I know everyone isn't just trying to sell me a phone . As far as the LEDs being unusable when not rooted, that isn't a big deal for me. My current phone (Razr Maxx HD, xt926 verizon) has the LEDs and fantastic battery life through various mods, but is simply not cutting it anymore for what I need. I've never heard of the My Tracks app, so I guess it's a good thing since I didn't know it was broken lol.
This will be my first Nexus phone... I have the Nexus 7 (2012) tablet that is currently running CM12 nightlies, so I'm familiar with the "Nexus experience" and Lollipop already. I like it quite a bit, but it did take a little getting used to. I was very much planning on unlocking and rooting the N6 immediately, but I'll play with it a bit and enjoy the stock experience first.
@vormund Do you like T-Mobile, now that you switched from Sprint?
@RW-1 Can you explain the encryption you're talking about a little more? This is the first I've heard of it.
Again, thanks everyone for the replies. I'm pretty much sold on the phone at this point.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am currently using MeanPop 2.11 on my Nexus 6 and it has a blinking LED light for notifications, a blinking red light for while your phone is charging and a green light for when the device is fully charged. I had the phone a couple of hours tops before I rooted it, so I can't really provide an opinion on the device out of the box. My brother is using a non-rooted Nexus 6 and he loves it as well. We both came from the Note Edge, but enjoy the Nexus 6 more than any device we have used up to this point. Out of the box, the device is encrypted (which some people have stated that their performance suffered compared to being unencrypted). You can easily unlock the phone and decrypt it. There is a solid guide for this in the development section. If you have any questions, feel free to PM me or ask them here and I'll assist where I can.
slimc84 said:
I am currently using MeanPop 2.11 on my Nexus 6 and it has a blinking LED light for notifications, a blinking red light for while your phone is charging and a green light for when the device is fully charged. I had the phone a couple of hours tops before I rooted it, so I can't really provide an opinion on the device out of the box. My brother is using a non-rooted Nexus 6 and he loves it as well. We both came from the Note Edge, but enjoy the Nexus 6 more than any device we have used up to this point. Out of the box, the device is encrypted (which some people have stated that their performance suffered compared to being unencrypted). You can easily unlock the phone and decrypt it. There is a solid guide for this in the development section. If you have any questions, feel free to PM me or ask them here and I'll assist where I can.
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Click to collapse
That solves the LED issue. I will probably decrypt the device since I don't know why I would need it encrypted. Thank you. I will definitely message you with any questions, but I won't have the phone until closer to the end of April (24th or so), so it will be a bit yet. I'm just glad the phone is shaping up to be as great as I am expecting it to be.
Out of curiosity, what are the benefits of leaving the phone encrypted?
Raikalo said:
@vormund Do you like T-Mobile, now that you switched from Sprint?
@RW-1 Can you explain the encryption you're talking about a little more? This is the first I've heard of it..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
T-Mobile has been equal-to-or-better than Sprint in Tucson, AZ... their customer service is dreadful (store reps are absolutely useless), but if you're persistent, you usually come out alright - which I'm happy to do with the difference in cost (+$10 to join my sister's plan versus $30+ for Sprint's split... among the other (contract, discount, etc.) considerations! Data is hit-or-miss on the outskirts of the city, but so is Sprint (and ATT)...Verizon seems to have solid service out there, though...(then again, you pay for it!)...
Data speeds are almost always slower when compared to Verizon (a friend with Verizon did some speed tests with me...we're both usually LTE, but he'd consistently get 3-4x faster speeds...this probably varies greatly by locale and their networks), but it's sufficient for me. If you're one to watch Netflix or download a ton, it'll probably be quite the downgrade.. but me - I'm on wireless for any big data usage, so network-wise, I'm just mapping, a little music streaming, geo tracking and such.
Encryption: For the extra paranoid or those with ultra-sensitive information on their phones, perhaps?
I suspect it would make things a little more difficult for law enforcement, too... depending on backdoors and such? Actually, yeah, that looks to be the case!
After seeing the speed comparisons, I'd definitely switch over now, even though the phone is fast-as-can-be as it is, ha. One of these days maybe... but for now, it's a few more minutes in a already-crazy day.
slimc84 said:
I am currently using MeanPop 2.11 on my Nexus 6 and it has a blinking LED light for notifications...
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Thanks great to know, thanks for the info! +1 for a custom ROM. I think the reason Lightflow can't do it directly - with rooted stock - as it'd have to keep the phone awake. There well may be ways around that by now... I just wish they'd enable direct access without (there's just no good reason to take away a hardware feature... disabled by default, but come on! ).
vormund said:
T-Mobile has been equal-to-or-better than Sprint in Tucson, AZ... their customer service is dreadful (store reps are absolutely useless), but if you're persistent, you usually come out alright - which I'm happy to do with the difference in cost (+$10 to join my sister's plan versus $30+ for Sprint's split... among the other (contract, discount, etc.) considerations! Data is hit-or-miss on the outskirts of the city, but so is Sprint (and ATT)...Verizon seems to have solid service out there, though...(then again, you pay for it!)...
Data speeds are almost always slower when compared to Verizon (a friend with Verizon did some speed tests with me...we're both usually LTE, but he'd consistently get 3-4x faster speeds...this probably varies greatly by locale and their networks), but it's sufficient for me. If you're one to watch Netflix or download a ton, it'll probably be quite the downgrade.. but me - I'm on wireless for any big data usage, so network-wise, I'm just mapping, a little music streaming, geo tracking and such.
Encryption: For the extra paranoid or those with ultra-sensitive information on their phones, perhaps?
I suspect it would make things a little more difficult for law enforcement, too... depending on backdoors and such? Actually, yeah, that looks to be the case!
After seeing the speed comparisons, I'd definitely switch over now, even though the phone is fast-as-can-be as it is, ha. One of these days maybe... but for now, it's a few more minutes in a already-crazy day.
Thanks great to know, thanks for the info! +1 for a custom ROM. I think the reason Lightflow can't do it directly - with rooted stock - as it'd have to keep the phone awake. There well may be ways around that by now... I just wish they'd enable direct access without (there's just no good reason to take away a hardware feature... disabled by default, but come on! ).
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A wakelock is triggered with the flashing LED even in the custom Rom (burns 1-2% per hour that the LED is flashing). It's definitely worth having though. The ROM is solid and I haven't had a single issue with it yet.
After reading the benchmarking for encryption vs decryption, I'm definitely decrypting the phone when I get it. I'm not overly worried about the LEDs (does seem weird though that it's not like all of the other android phones I've had, where they just work, regardless of ROM). I'm in the middle of the East Coast where (according to coverage maps) 4G is more available, so I'll definitely run some speed tests and see how T-mobile's data speeds stack up on this side of the country. I really just need a fast browser with good, stable internet speeds. I won't complain if it's faster than 3G.