Android Folks

[Ivan]

I'm about to get a new Android phone soon, probably the Note 2 or the S3, which will be my first Android device ever. 

I've been researching, following, and basically just checking out all the cool stuff Android and rooting has to offer, and I will definitely be rooting my device once I get my hands on it.

So I have a question here; how many of you guys are using CyanogenMod 10.1? Would you recommend switching over to a nightly build of CM10.1 over Touchwiz? (The device I'll be getting will be the international version)

Currently, the latest version of Android/Touchwiz is 4.1.2, and if I flash CM10.1 onto my phone I'd probably get stock Android 4.2. 

How has CM10.1 been so far? Does stock Android drastically save battery life? What are the pros and cons of CM10.1 on the Note 2/S3? What are the good things Touchwiz has to offer, that stock Android doesn't?

CM10.1 offers 'over-the-air' updates, so I guess using nightly builds would be hassle-free and just a touch of a button, and we wouldn't have to flash another ROM again, lose data, etc , but is it really usable, as a daily driver? Are there any major bugs? 

 

[concerto49]

Uses stock here. Not much time to play with custom stuff Galaxy Note 2 owner.

 

[Ivan]

Uses stock here. Not much time to play with custom stuff Galaxy Note 2 owner.

How's the battery like, depending on your usage, from morning until you go to sleep?

By stock, do you mean just normal out-of-the-box Samsung Touchwiz? 

To be honest, even without rooting, you can pretty much customize Android a lot. 

This guy's Note 2 isn't rooted and is running Touchwiz: 

 

[MartinD]

HTC One X owner... it's just better.

 

[kaniini]

I presently run CM 10.1 on my S3.  It works pretty well.

The default Samsung firmware is awful.

 

[HalfEatenPie]

Im running default Samsung Galaxy S4 LTE-A with the stock firmware. I personally love it. Having owned several android devices I can definitely say it all depends on your usage habit. If you use it constantly to stream youtube and such then batteries will drain pretty quickly. But if youre like me and uses it to send texts (an average of five every hour) and check up on vpsboard or reddit every once in a while then its no problem. Honestly my battery lasts me the entire day (I charge daily) but when I'm in a pinch my phone did come with a second battery to use. I'm not too sure what yours will come with but personally I love these products. Now I will admit certain things will require getting used to but I think it should suit whatever your needs are fine.


I'll add more later when I'm not in a rush to catch the subway.

 

[Ivan]

@HalfEatenPie sure thing.

My usage will probably be web browsing, YouTube, games, email, Facebook, Twitter, Skype, WhatsApp/WeChat, etc

Pretty heavy I'd say.. That's why I'll probably go for the Note 2 as it has a much better battery. 

 

[concerto49]

How's the battery like, depending on your usage, from morning until you go to sleep?

By stock, do you mean just normal out-of-the-box Samsung Touchwiz? 

To be honest, even without rooting, you can pretty much customize Android a lot. 

This guy's Note 2 isn't rooted and is running Touchwiz: 

Yes, TouchWiz, not rooted. Yes, do customize from what is out of the box. Games drain battery Battery life isn't bad. The charging times aren't as good, especially if you plan to USB charge from a computer. There's a bigger battery = longer charging. Samsung have their own charger that provides more amps. I quite like it.

 

[fisle]

I use SuperNexus on my S3, and I absolutely love it. Way better than stock firmware.

Uses CM Kernel.

 

[HalfEatenPie]

Alrighty!  So I personally have found no real reason to root my device because everything that I needed did not require rooting and on my mobile device I'm not really the guy to change up every single graphics/UI menu.  I also haven't really found Cyanogenmod that useful (I have it on another one of my android devices and I personally prefer the stock installation over Cyanogenmod's versions).  Regardless, the benefit of having an android device is fantastic!  It gives you the freedom to do... well... almost anything!  I am a guy who switched from Blackberry though so Android was a huge improvement for me.  I do have an iPod touch (latest generation) but I personally dislike iOS (just the way it manages your applications is what bothers me).  

 

[Ivan]

Alrighty!  So I personally have found no real reason to root my device because everything that I needed did not require rooting and on my mobile device I'm not really the guy to change up every single graphics/UI menu.  I also haven't really found Cyanogenmod that useful (I have it on another one of my android devices and I personally prefer the stock installation over Cyanogenmod's versions).  Regardless, the benefit of having an android device is fantastic!  It gives you the freedom to do... well... almost anything!  I am a guy who switched from Blackberry though so Android was a huge improvement for me.  I do have an iPod touch (latest generation) but I personally dislike iOS (just the way it manages your applications is what bothers me).  

Haha, well I was an iOS person before, then I switched to a Windows Phone 7 device and I hate it. 

Can't wait to switch to the Note 2/GS3 (still thinking which one I should get). The GS3 is nice and the size of it is pretty much perfect, but the Note 2 has better specs and a bigger screen, the only problem would be to have it to fit in my pockets.

 

[notFound]

Galaxy S3 was a total dissapointment for me to be frank, it just didn't feel like the premium phone it was made out to be. After all of my little addons it was very slow too.  The S4 is possibly better, but I'm a bit paranoid about the face recognition software, I mean I know most phones can probably be exploited to use against my privacy but the S4 comes with it out of the box, and lots of those tools, and it being Google that makes Android meh.

 

[drmike]

The whole "smartphone" thing has about fizzled for me.

Battery life on all of them is bad, unless it sits idle.

Forensic collection sensors and software is way too infested in the OS.   These aren't features folks.

As for rooting the phone, best reason to do so is to block all the ads and malicious stuff you can (host file).

Frankly, the only Droid devices I touch are rooted and aren't connected to any cellular network.  In fact, going out of my way to see about disabling the cell transceiver in them for good.   I use them via wifi only and still don't trust them.  Purely used for streaming audio, occasional app use (Craigslist, Ebay)

Considering the rampant sentiment here and other places, a lot of people are going to start unsubscribing to these devices and going offline more. 

 

[Aldryic C'boas]

In fact, going out of my way to see about disabling the cell transceiver in them for good.

There was a guide on XDA for this awhile back.. I'll have to go dig for it as I don't recall the steps offhand. But tl;dr - flash a radio firmware that physically works on the phone, but is incompatible with the phone "carrier" network. A good example is the old HTC Touch Pro 2s. AT&T, T-Mobile, and a few others had them (plus you could get an unbranded one right from HTC) - and if you loaded the wrong radio, the device still functioned just fine but would not connect to any cell tower at all.

 

[terafire]

I'm a pretty big fan of HTC, mainly because Samsung's devices feel cheap to me. Originally I had my phone rooted running ROMs and used it as a hotspot. I got bored of all of it and after a few years ended up just keeping everything stock, as it was less of an overall headache

 

[HalfEatenPie]

I'm a pretty big fan of HTC, mainly because Samsung's devices feel cheap to me. Originally I had my phone rooted running ROMs and used it as a hotspot. I got bored of all of it and after a few years ended up just keeping everything stock, as it was less of an overall headache

See my issue with HTC phones was that the front-facing camera (well, at least on my phone (HTC Sensation 4G, it's like two/three years old)) was not part of the "forward-facing screen:" and instead had a hole in the back cover which came over to the front to be secured to the device (but because they placed the camera conveniently at the location where the back cover comes around they just decided to drill a hole there and be done with it).  Dust would easily get into the device through that hole and soon enough the forward-facing camera was practically unusable unless you regularly cleaned it.  This became a hassle to me and I very much dislike HTC phones because of it (I used the forward-facing camera quite frequently).  iPhone and Samsung phones had the forward-facing camera under the glass (next to the digitizer under the glass).  I know I'm being nit-picky but that's what really got me annoyed with HTC phones and basically keeps me away from it (last I heard HTC still has the forward-facing camera this way).  

 

[drmike]

I am fond of LG's phones.   Good solid workhorses in my experience --- after you cleanse them of carrier spyware and other nasty stuff (think they all require such though).

Both Samsung and HTC seem to be of rather high quality these days.  Samsung on paper leads on runtime/battery life specs.

I need a real hardened waterproof, shock proof, dust proof style phone.  The consumer stuff just doesn't handle so well. Knicks, scratches, ugly finger printing, filth all over it and rather impossible to clean up adequately.

 

[MCH-Phil]

In fact, going out of my way to see about disabling the cell transceiver in them for good.

Most androids you can dial *#*#4636#*#* and go to Phone Information and then down to Turn off radio.  If anyone didn't know etc.

Edit:  I use the Motorola RAZR with an external battery.  Only thing I'd switch it for would be a MAXX HD.

 

[drmike]

Most androids you can dial *#*#4636#*#* and go to Phone Information and then down to Turn off radio.  If anyone didn't know etc.

Well that's interesting.  Doubt it works with unactivated phones though.  Since it is a software feature disable, surely that can be overrode remotely.  

What I am more inclined to trust is as Aldy pointed to, a hadware disabling via the underlying software stack breaking for the cell transceiver. 

Still though, this 4636 disabling fascinates me.   What in the world was that intended for initially? Anyone?

 

[MCH-Phil]

Well that's interesting.  Doubt it works with unactivated phones though.  Since it is a software feature disable, surely that can be overrode remotely.  

What I am more inclined to trust is as Aldy pointed to, a hadware disabling via the underlying software stack breaking for the cell transceiver. 

Still though, this 4636 disabling fascinates me.   What in the world was that intended for initially? Anyone?

It will work on most phones no matter the activation state.  It's built directly into the android system and will ONLY not work if it's been specifically disabled (it's built into dialer.apk, IIRC).  Some GSM phones will disable this code.  Some Samsungs also have changed the code to another number that I forget.  Also OLDER Motorola will likely need to BLUROFF (google) before being able to use this code.

Aldy's solution will likely leave the radio on in a searching state which will cause battery drain.  The solution I've posted turns the radio completely off.

It's intended for debugging.  All phones have secret codes you can dial for certain things.