Compression: Is it cool, or is it whack? - Touch Pro, Fuze General

Friends,
Since my first HTC phone I have, probably like the rest of you, either ticked off header compression and left software compression unchecked either because of something I googled or because some connection setup wizard made the decision for me. I've grown increasingly curious about this and bam here's a thread.
Presuming that any form of bandwidth compression would buy me more throughput, would that not come at the expense of additional CPU and battery to do the math? Would any additional throughput due to "software compresson" and or IP header compression be contigent on the type of data being transmitted (for example a thoroughly compressed file versus a big white BMP or the letter X a million times)? In addition to my own eccentric fascination with this, I do like to listen to Howard on SiriusWM5 and I'd like to know whether or not to check these boxes for the sake of my battery life and for the sake of being able to get the "CD quality" stream without it chopping up and buffering.
So I just did a little field testing on my Fuze running ROMeOS 1.70.3 (CE 21009) with radio 1.08.25.20, 100% signal in midtown Manhattan (near where that plane's taking a bath) at midnight EST with nothing but WMWifiRouter running for tethering with wifi power on full blast using multiple speedtest providers like dslreports.com/speedtest and speakeasy.net/speedtest both to NYC servers and to others across the country with no compression five times, header compression five times and header and software compression five times.
But the results are inconclusive. Without any compression I get an average of 1200Kbs/900Kbs, max 1339Kbs/1346Kbps. With both types of compression I got slightly slower download and slightly faster upload (1120Kbs/1427Kbs max). Probably not enough sample data not to chalk that discrepency up to an anonomly.
Back in my Kaiser days, I was able to break 2200Kbps without compression both on these speedtests and on very large tethered downloads. And now during the day I get substantially slower speeds than at night. So I'm thinking AT&T in my city is either over trafficked now versus six months ago and/or I am being throttled (though I am using the non-NAT elite isp.cingular WAP). So that suggests to me that for the purposes of providing any useful data regarding whether some kind of compression makes any difference for all of us, my wings are clipped.
But I'm still curious. Anybody know a thing or two about this?
If not, but you all share my curiosity and want to get to the bottom of this, I would be happy to set up a series of 10MB (or much larger) files on my mirror, some super compressed, some not at all, whatever, for you to experiment with as these short "speedtest" sites may burst just the right amount and type of data through for your carrier to give you deceptive results. Also with files that size on a fast mirror you can more accurately guage, if you have the right software, comparative battery drain and if there is a difference, does it add up, byte for mAh, to be the same deal either way.
Doug

Related

48 Hour Review added to 24 hour review

48 Hour Review additional thoughts
==========================
OK the 5 row keyboard is REALLY worth it. Was doing a comparision of a lot of HTC product in a side by side with a few clients on Fri. The 5 row keyboard was the most wanted feature by all those who type seriously for meeting notes etc. The ability to produce numbers with out having to ALT - won this hands down for a few who ordered there and then.
Backlighting on keyboard - good and pretty even considering it looks like a point source is used to produce it. Numbers 5/6 are slightly brighter - the rest - evenly illuminated.
Battery life - I wish to clarify/confess to using the SaveBattery HTC Juno cab in creating the battery life figures I quoted earlier in the 24 hour review. I never even waited to find out how I did before.
I've been tweaking today with - Advanced_Configuration_Tool_v3.1.cab. Useful fine tuning tool.
Biggest annoyance - backlight going out 5 secs into a call. Real pain if you need to enter keys after call connects. There is a regitry tweak in the tweaks thread I'm going to try.
Original 24 Hour Review Below
======================
Coming from my TYTNII yesterday
Based in part on answering other comments and my own observations......
Criteria - it has to earn a living - it has to be a miniature office on the move 24 x 7 x 365. TYTNII worn out after 14 months - replacement needed.
WARM - yes - a lot of electronics packed in a small package to make space for the large (relatively) 1340mAh battery.
Battery life - less than my TYTNII but not dangerously so in a 07:30 - 18:00 business day, lot of Direct Push, long calls, Bluetooth all day, WiFi OFF, Screen brightness higher than default, 4Gb SD card in standard power management, 10 minute top offs in the car when driving. Finished at 30% instead of my more normal 40%.
Stylus - nice magnetic "snick" as it is sucked into the holder. You would have to work hard to lose it. "Soft" feel top - nice.
JETCET printer configuration tool - Wow! If you are Canon or HP there seems to be a good range of drivers. It WORKS too if you know how to set up printing on a network.
Screen - STUNNING with the higher resolution. Looks Cleartype without the cleartype turned on (which only makes it better).
Bluetoothed to the car (BMW I-Drive setup) with no problems and the address book synched to car FASTER than TYTNII. Sound quality slightly poorer than TYTNII but still very acceptable and streets ahead of the old i-Mate K-JAM.
Touchflo - very nice, very cute, very hard on my big stubby fingers and disabled. Probably helps the battery life. I would prefer HTC Home but available CABS don't work on the screen resolution (well they work but look too small!). Anyone working on one?
MS Voice Command - I'm working the threads and registry hacks on this. There is an error on install which I'm trying to figure. (edit) - Just discovered it is non fatal. VC works fine to make calls - I don't care about the rest. Used the extracted 1.6.19209 CAB you can find on RapidShare (end edit). Hah! For the first time EVER with VC when I asked "What is the time" it told me the time - instead of the date!!!!
Only one assignable button folks. Button 1 (HOLD). Rest are presumably used to create the various actions on the zoom and shrink touches on the buttons and cannot be made available.
YouTube - well get hooked to WiFi first!! It will do it over Edge but only really in Low Quality mode. HQ mode (if availble) is a matching 640x480 and looks super.
Ripped 320x240 pixel DVD's in WMV rescale to the screen and look great.
Teeter game - addictive!
It is small, slightly heavy and smacks of quality. Build Quality is good. A good "heft" in the hand and good in the landscape belt clip (T-Mobile accessory for the Wing). Already got a lot of questions from those who noticed - "New Phone?" followed by "Nice" .
Overall - The extra horsepower and RAM, turn off the "fluff" and this is what the TYTNII didn't QUITE manage.
Build 19965.1.2.3
ROM 1.90.401.1 WWE
ROM Date 8/1/08 (US)
Radio 1.02.25.19
Protocol 52.33.25.17U
Keeper.....
Thanks for the review!
graemesmith said:
Keeper.....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks for the review! i have a question.. the TyTN II is too big for me to slide out the keyboard and with one thumb reach the other side of the key board.. basically one handed typing.. how does the Touch Pro fit?
thanks!
Great review and I see you are in the US so I do have a question. How does the GPS work? Does the GPS updater work properly and does the A-GPS help with obtaining a lock? Just wondering how fast the unlocked version connects in the US right out of the box or if it requires tweaks to make it lock faster. Also, how long does it take to load a youtube on edge. I already know it degrades the quality like the iphone but I would still like to know how fast does it take and if it can stream on edge even with the lower quality. Thanks.
Jedidiah said:
thanks for the review! i have a question.. the TyTN II is too big for me to slide out the keyboard and with one thumb reach the other side of the key board.. basically one handed typing.. how does the Touch Pro fit?
thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well the form factor is smaller than TYTNII so my big (ex)sailor hands can push it open and single thumb type OK. Sitting in palm of hand, fingers curled around screen edge and keyboard nearest you. 5 row keyboard makes for smaller keys though - it is a good feel but I wouldn't want to do a lot of single thumb typing - but you can. Guess it depends on your hands!! But you are going to LOVE the 5 row keyboard - no messing around to get numbers anymore. This is already a HUGE plus for entering IP addressing etc.
Raspster said:
Great review and I see you are in the US so I do have a question. How does the GPS work? Does the GPS updater work properly and does the A-GPS help with obtaining a lock? Just wondering how fast the unlocked version connects in the US right out of the box or if it requires tweaks to make it lock faster. Also, how long does it take to load a youtube on edge. I already know it degrades the quality like the iphone but I would still like to know how fast does it take and if it can stream on edge even with the lower quality. Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
GPS - Yep this is the UK/EU unit through Expansys/Mobileplanet. GPS lock time in my part of the world (USA New England) is 30 secs after running HTC QuickkGPS to get satelitte updates. Comparable to TYTNII and tested with GoogleMaps "Use GPS" feature.
YouTube - Well - first understand that a lot of YouTube videos are available in Standard Quality and High Quality. I'm not 100% sure - but standard looks like HEAVILY compressed 320x240 or REALLY heavily compressed 640 x 480. High Quality is pretty much low compressed 640 x 480.
The player in the phone has an option to autoselect or force High Quality streaming.
In High Quality on Edge it takes about 5 mins to get a 10 min video (from the few I have tested). There is a clear "loading" icon that is a circle running around with a % indicator in the middle. When enough of the video is in - it gets to 100% and will start playing. 100% does NOT mean the whole video - just enough buffered to get going. If you view ahead of available data then it stops playing and starts buffering again. Just like on a PC with slow Internet. There is no permanent cache to replay a video from. Close and reopen and you have to start again - but that is just like YouTube on a PC - I'm sure it is designed to stop you "acquiring" videos! While I am sure someone out of sheer intellectual interest will figure a workaround. It is WAY easier on a PC with capture tools and a ton of horsepower.
Let's put it this way - YouTube in a neat extra. Go back to MY personal criteria stated at the start of my original review and it is not really important!
But that Teeter game....... Now there is a real time waster. I suspect as much as BubbleBreaker........

Question about AT&T Fuze vs Sprint TP and a comment on tethering detection

First post although I've been lurking for a while trying to decide what I'm going to do. I'm currently with AT&T off contract so I'm free to move. I've looked at the Fuze in several AT&T stores and the overall impression is that it's very sluggish. I know that loading one of the cooked roms helps by removing the useless stuff they add but when I went to a Sprint store this morning, my impression was very good. The Sprint version was very snappy and quick to the point where I could launch a you tube video in a couple of minutes where at the AT&T store, I wasn't able to do it even after an hour. I learned last night I have to find the youtube viewer for the Fuze to work.
Here are my questions:
1. How big of an impact is the network speed for this perceived difference in speed? I live in SF Bay area which AT&T says is 3G enabled.
2. Would loading a trimmed down rom resolve these issues?
3. Does the cooked roms allow me to view flash video and youtube videos with reasonable speed and ease of use?
Please advise.. I'm trying to make a decision today.
Now, I've read a bit about tethering and people's concerns about the provider detecting it. I work in network security field and can say for a certainty that they can detect it. Whether they act on it or not is another matter. Google "OS fingerprinting" or "TCP fingerprinting". The short description of the technique is to look at the TCP handshake packets (mainly the SYN and SYN-ACK) to look for certain default values and features. Every OS has a slightly different set of default values when a new TCP connection is step up. This can be used to detect what os is doing the connection setup. A common tool that does this is nmap. There are ways to make your OS undetectable or harder to detect but what we need for the tethering case is for the tethered OS to look like WM6.1 stack. That can be much harder to do than simply hiding. I'll try to figure out what a WM6.1 stack looks like compared to vista or linux for instance.

Please recommend rom for new Fuze...

I'm getting my Fuze Monday and have 2 days to prep it before leaving for a trip. I want to see what my best options are to get the following functions working while I'm away:
1. tether for my notebook
2. web browser
3. email access
4. maybe some chat/IM
I don't have much use for text messaging or GPS navigation. My primary concern is usability and speed along with the ability to use it as a modem for my notebook since there's no broadband access while I'm away. Since I've only got two days or so to get it ready, that may factor in to how much I can do. I'm pretty comfortable hacking things but don't want to brick the thing before a long trip. It seems to me that I've got two options. First option is to leave the existing ROM and apply some of the "speed up" mods in the registry and such. Second, load one of the cooked ROMs. If I go with loading a ROM, what would be my best choice given my requirements above? I played with several and various AT&T stores and the interface was just too sluggish so I'll need to do something to make it usable.
Thanks in advance for any advice.
Right before a trip with only 2 days to prep I would just hard reset and bypass the bloatware (there are instrucitons in the forum) and do the speed up tweaks and hsdpa/hsupa tweaks. This is what I did and the performance is light years beyond what it was out out of the box and I am getting donload speeds of 2200 kb and upload speeds of 1400 kb in Long island and Queens in NY
Please read the threads regarding the different Roms, they all list features & goals of the Chef within the first few posts.
Asking strangers to recommend a Rom is like asking them to recommend underwear. Your personal preferences and reactions to anything will vary from mine.

sms, minutes and data monitor software

right, soz for being crap, but i just haven't the time to learn how to develop.
so this is a request...
i'm seeing more and more people (including me) needing to monitor used minutes/sms/data.
there these two freewares homescreen + + and LCminutes
both of which have lots of complications and/or irrelevant stuff. i don't know with freeware if you're able to use the coding/language of these softwares to just use the applicable parts and make them your own - with owners permission of course
don't know how 'easy' it would be, but i'm thinking of a short cut in progs folder that opens up the basic info. you put in (under settings) the date your contract minutes etc renews itself each month, and the software shows you your consumption for the month so far. say, 436mins, 153sms, 236MB gprs data used.
or even add another option in settings where you put in the allowed mins etc and an alarm sounds when you're say, 3mins from the end of your 500. or 2MB left.
no daytime, weekend, off peak, prices or any other bells and whistles, just a nice simple black and white bubble theme, add it your homepage shortcuts and it's there. just runs in the background at startup.
any chance!?? (i do appreciate, it's not just a case of 'bish, bash, bosh, there you go) i see lots of people adding things to freeware sites, often users from here, and often apps that are just repeats, thought this might be a handy/popular one for people in the programming know

the meizu mx 4-core review

gee i wonder a special someone will come and close my thread again. i read through the forum rules and just couldnt quite match up the reason he gave
right anyway i've completed my review.
im going to post a few points here... those who want more details feel free to ask or visit my blog..it's in my sig
pluses are Pros and minuses are Cons
+++++ battery life is absolutely solid. 1700mah is no longer considered big these days- just look at the GS3’s 2100mah and the Razr Maxx’s 3000mah. And yet on Low CPU (800mhz) setting, the phone lasted 30 hours. on High (1400mhz) the phone lasted 24 hours. This is with autosync off, native email client synching every 15mins, 3 benchmark tests per charge cycle tested and other normal usage scenarios. in other words, other than gaming, there is no need for any frugality whatsoever.
++++ native browser is very fast, smooth and speedy. feels faster than Chrome, even.
++++ notification area is the most minimalistic and yet the most functional yet- the notification comes down only as much as is needed, and within it, there is quick access to all available wifi signals, 2G, 3G and auto network selection options and you can also toggle wifi on or off, data connection on off, GPS, autosync..
+++ FlymeOS is wonderfully user-friendly. Meizu has gone the extra length to ensure most the unnecessary complexities of Android are left out.
++ excellent viewing angles from the ASV (Advanced Super View) panel. colours are fine and contrast levels are as you would expect of any regular LCDs.
++ the 4 inch display resolution (640x960) may not win any awards for having the highest PPI as is the current unhealthy obsession these days, but it was impossible (without extra equipment) to discern the pixel differences. More so, coming from the One X, I no longer need to zoom and adjust for slightly larger text which is what I’m more comfortable with. This may be something to consider for people who don’t have perfect eyesight.
++ native voicemail (it actually bypasses your network’s if you set if to do so) and automatic call-recording are nice features and works seamlessly. To play them back, you either tap the new vmail notification or open up the Recorder app.
------ OS has stability problems- phone crashes and restarts once a day (when I was looking). At first I attempted to find the app that was causing it but really, there’s no reason why the OS can crash and burn because of one little app. There’s got to be something wrong deep down. Meizu needs to fix this.
----- unable to set defaults- that includes Launchers, browsers etc.
----- native browser does not support sharing to other apps- a very odd but an obviously deliberate decision.
--- audio / system stutters slightly when the phone’s been in use for around a day without a reboot. this happens especially when 3G data is in use. Makes for a rather unpleasant media performance, mostly.
-- FlymeOS is overly user-friendly and hid or moved a lot of the useful under the hood features. Fear not- an official vanilla ICS ROM has been promised.
-- glossy display exhibits excessive glare. it doubles as a mirror very well. (as you can probably see in the embedded hands-on video)
-- no app drawer- FlymeOS plays the iOS card a little too close to the chest by repeating the bane of MIUI (well, and itself?). what compounds the issue is that unlike MIUI, Meizu does NOT let you pick an alternate launcher as the default.
Not Happy with Meizu MX4
I hope someone cooks a new ROM so I can get rid of Flyme. I have the International vesrion (Non-Chinese)
Bad
Their Flyme email client is only in Chinese
Their catalog of software is only in Chinese
Their personalization Icon only displays in Chinese
It does not come with a Manual?
The Meizu website is in Chinese
Their predictive dictionary seems like 5 to 7 years ago (it doe snot display simple words and does not remember when I have already corrected something.
Good
Camera access on first screen and time between photos and taking pictures is great
Speed of phone phone because of the better processor is remarkably fast
PLEASE can someone come up with a way to either roll back to Android 4.4 on this device with Flyme of cook a new ROM?
Thanks
yellowchilli said:
gee i wonder a special someone will come and close my thread again. i read through the forum rules and just couldnt quite match up the reason he gave
right anyway i've completed my review.
im going to post a few points here... those who want more details feel free to ask or visit my blog..it's in my sig
pluses are Pros and minuses are Cons
+++++ battery life is absolutely solid. 1700mah is no longer considered big these days- just look at the GS3’s 2100mah and the Razr Maxx’s 3000mah. And yet on Low CPU (800mhz) setting, the phone lasted 30 hours. on High (1400mhz) the phone lasted 24 hours. This is with autosync off, native email client synching every 15mins, 3 benchmark tests per charge cycle tested and other normal usage scenarios. in other words, other than gaming, there is no need for any frugality whatsoever.
++++ native browser is very fast, smooth and speedy. feels faster than Chrome, even.
++++ notification area is the most minimalistic and yet the most functional yet- the notification comes down only as much as is needed, and within it, there is quick access to all available wifi signals, 2G, 3G and auto network selection options and you can also toggle wifi on or off, data connection on off, GPS, autosync..
+++ FlymeOS is wonderfully user-friendly. Meizu has gone the extra length to ensure most the unnecessary complexities of Android are left out.
++ excellent viewing angles from the ASV (Advanced Super View) panel. colours are fine and contrast levels are as you would expect of any regular LCDs.
++ the 4 inch display resolution (640x960) may not win any awards for having the highest PPI as is the current unhealthy obsession these days, but it was impossible (without extra equipment) to discern the pixel differences. More so, coming from the One X, I no longer need to zoom and adjust for slightly larger text which is what I’m more comfortable with. This may be something to consider for people who don’t have perfect eyesight.
++ native voicemail (it actually bypasses your network’s if you set if to do so) and automatic call-recording are nice features and works seamlessly. To play them back, you either tap the new vmail notification or open up the Recorder app.
------ OS has stability problems- phone crashes and restarts once a day (when I was looking). At first I attempted to find the app that was causing it but really, there’s no reason why the OS can crash and burn because of one little app. There’s got to be something wrong deep down. Meizu needs to fix this.
----- unable to set defaults- that includes Launchers, browsers etc.
----- native browser does not support sharing to other apps- a very odd but an obviously deliberate decision.
--- audio / system stutters slightly when the phone’s been in use for around a day without a reboot. this happens especially when 3G data is in use. Makes for a rather unpleasant media performance, mostly.
-- FlymeOS is overly user-friendly and hid or moved a lot of the useful under the hood features. Fear not- an official vanilla ICS ROM has been promised.
-- glossy display exhibits excessive glare. it doubles as a mirror very well. (as you can probably see in the embedded hands-on video)
-- no app drawer- FlymeOS plays the iOS card a little too close to the chest by repeating the bane of MIUI (well, and itself?). what compounds the issue is that unlike MIUI, Meizu does NOT let you pick an alternate launcher as the default.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Meizu had a aosp rom or something back then, I've not kept up with the news so I don't know what happened to that..
battery drain is still a problem to this day, sadly.

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