Related
Hi folks,
I'm thinking of picking up the galaxy s, the samsung vibrant from t-mobile to use on my carrier.
i had a few questions and hope you fellas can help me out.
1st, what would be involved in unlocking it? Would I have any problems getting it unlocked?
Also i'm a total noob to android but i've been reading up. What exactly is "rooting"? will rooting allow me to put a stock 2.2 on it? is that even possible and is it recomended on this phone?
and lastly from people who have been using this phone, do you recommend getting it?
thanks
oh snap! i posted this in the wrong board. it should have been in the "Galaxy S I9000 General"
sorry mods.
Rooting allows you to get access to parts of the phone you otherwise wouldn't have access to. Compare it to having administrator rights on windows, you can access more files, do more stuff. Programs can perform more actions when your phone is rooted.
Putting 2.2 on it is completely seperate from that and at this moment is not possible. However, Samsung already stated that the first 2.2 update will be somewhere in august (not for euro/usa regions though) so perhaps withing the month after that it will also be available for other regions. Samsung has officially announced that it WILL be updated though, so no need to worry about that.
Without the 2.2 update it's already pretty damn fast though (with some tweaks its faster then the Nexus one WITH 2.2) so I would certainly already recommend it.
This is my first android phone (after symbian, windows mobile and more) and it's really easy to get used to and works just great. The screen is beautiful (good colors, vibrant although reading text on it is a less great experience) and it's very fast. Also feels light, in a good way, great screen, etc. I can totally recommend it.
ps. No idea what the status on unlocking is, mine was unlocked already so never looked into it.
you might want to make sure the frequency bands of the one you acquire will work on the carrier you want to use it on
if not, it may not work at all, or may not give you 3G data svc
personally i didnt think any phones are locked down anymore, at least not in the UK?
you should buy the phone, its the best ive owned, not saying its the best on the market but id like to hear of an arguement for why it isnt.
rooting was done on this device even before release, and with already 300k sales in south korea alone it looks like its going to have some great support and updates in the future
Hello everyone, I am new both to this site and to the world of Andriod, Ordered my first ever Andriod Desire-S after being in a huge confusion between Desire-S and Galaxy-S, i found Galaxy to be too common, relatively older model and err not sexy
I am reading on all this "rooting" stuff and at this time its beyond me, i hope i can access market place and install apps and games on my new phone without having to worry about rooting it? Or am i stuck with the stuff which comes on the phone only?
My confusion is what features would rooting give me? Should i stop worrying and enjoy the existing U.I and get used to it before trying to jump at this rooting stuff
you can access market withought rooting your phone.. the only reason to root is to change stuff that are build in the operation system.. including tweaks and more..
First enjoy the phone as it is..then think about changing
baqai said:
Hello everyone, I am new both to this site and to the world of Andriod, Ordered my first ever Andriod Desire-S after being in a huge confusion between Desire-S and Galaxy-S, i found Galaxy to be too common, relatively older model and err not sexy
I am reading on all this "rooting" stuff and at this time its beyond me, i hope i can access market place and install apps and games on my new phone without having to worry about rooting it? Or am i stuck with the stuff which comes on the phone only?
My confusion is what features would rooting give me? Should i stop worrying and enjoy the existing U.I and get used to it before trying to jump at this rooting stuff
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd say as a new comer you'll be plenty happy without root for a long while....and it should give you the ideal chance to learn the O/S and whats involved without any chance of doing any permanent damage to your phone.....
Enjoy...its a lovely device!
baqai said:
Hello everyone, I am new both to this site and to the world of Andriod, Ordered my first ever Andriod Desire-S after being in a huge confusion between Desire-S and Galaxy-S, i found Galaxy to be too common, relatively older model and err not sexy
I am reading on all this "rooting" stuff and at this time its beyond me, i hope i can access market place and install apps and games on my new phone without having to worry about rooting it? Or am i stuck with the stuff which comes on the phone only?
My confusion is what features would rooting give me? Should i stop worrying and enjoy the existing U.I and get used to it before trying to jump at this rooting stuff
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
first of all welcome to the forums
as ben said if you are a new user you will be able to enjoy your phone without rooting for a long time & also get to know more about the OS
& also there is a certain risk involved while rooting & flashing new roms & radios so don't do it until you completely know what you are doing
you can read along in the net to get more info about the platform & all other things
here are a few pages explaining the rooting buisness
http://www.androidpolice.com/2010/04/15/rooting-explained-top-5-benefits-of-rooting-your-android-phone/
http://www.androidpolice.com/2010/07/13/8-great-apps-every-rooted-android-user-should-know-about/
i love the experience till now just few things bugging me ... coming from BB 9700 (which i still use) the battery life is very low (in comparison) so i am adapting myself to charge it every day and a half.
The default sms application randomly crashes on me so i have to use this another app i got from market place called Handcent SMS
Also i applied for swype beta and installed it but it does not seems to work across the board, it started working in few applications but not all, maybe swype is making the default sms application crash?
baqai said:
i love the experience till now just few things bugging me ... coming from BB 9700 (which i still use) the battery life is very low (in comparison) so i am adapting myself to charge it every day and a half.
The default sms application randomly crashes on me so i have to use this another app i got from market place called Handcent SMS
Also i applied for swype beta and installed it but it does not seems to work across the board, it started working in few applications but not all, maybe swype is making the default sms application crash?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Battery usage is about right. Try playing with how often things update and turn off data when you don't need it.
Handcent is better anyway!
Hence 'beta'. Doesn't mean it'll always work.
Sent from my HTC Desire S using Tapatalk
A day & a half from a modern smartphone is ok, I was getting a lot less when I first got DS - well, new phone, you're gonna play around with it some, no?!
Enjoy what market place has to offer & I would say don't get too sucked into rooting unless if course you have experience of flashing custom roms on other phones & someone nearby has use of xtc clip! Think it'll be a little while yet before software rooting is available for us DS users, and a while more before it becomes stable/reliable.
Peace, & enjoy
Sent from my HTC Desire S using XDA Premium App
have u encountered any problems with the phone thus far?
No problems at all so far. All native apps run smoothly, very smoothly actually.
Installed "Lookout" from Marketplace for security reasons, and installed then uninstalled an app-killer after reading that these actually cause more trouble than they're worth
That's all really apart from the occasional reboot - manual, not forced - which I think is a personal hang-up coming from blackberry!
Peace
Sent from my HTC Desire S using XDA Premium App
Hi
Been using this phone for a month now, coming from iPhone.
Truth be told, what is writen above about rooting is right. I have gone down this road and although it is fun to be able to customize almost every aspect of your phone, it needs a lot of time and involvement to get it right, not to mention the risk of damaging something.
So, I would agree in taking as must time as you can to enjoy it as it is, get to learn the OS before you tamper with it. Different mods / roms will always be here when you are ready to "play"
Have fun!!
I have a S-OFF device ... atleast the first line when i go into hboot says "SAGA PVT SHIP S-OFF RL"
errr so does this means i can do this root stuff if i want to?
Congratulations! You're one of the lucky few to have an S-OFF DS out of the box!
You can now root your DS. If you're wanting to go down the road of rooting take a look in the Android Development Section on XDA. The Gingerbreak method worked for me for gaining root access. There are risks involved with rooting so make sure you read around plenty first. If you follow the instructions carefully you shouldn't have too many problems!
Happy Rooting!
I am surprised as well I guess yeah I am lucky will read more on rooting to find what can I gain
Sent from my HTC Desire S using Tapatalk
Buddy I wud say atleasy for a week or two enjoy your stock and get a feel of desire s...
Once done you can go for rooting and flashing custom roms...
Well wat can rooting give you...
absolute power to customise your cell as you want...
if you ever used a linux os wat a root login allows you to do...
Also for an android...if you dont root and customise...
Den its like having a Ferrari but driving at 60 km/hr speed...
Hope now you understand its significance...
Lol yeah I have worked on cli on different flavors of Linux and know what Su means although its been some time now, now I sit and give orders lol.
So far I have loved it and find it be so much better than the over hyped toy the iPhone.
Sent from my HTC Desire S using Tapatalk
Agreed man...
Even i used to think iphone was d Phone...
but wen i researched a bit realized y android is known as 'Iphone Killer'
Hey guys, I have acquired a contract up here for several motorola xoom tablets but need to completely lock them down before delivering them to the end user.
By lock down I mean, remove almost all applications, settings etc so they can not be altered.
Can someone point me in the right direction. navigating these forums is just insane now! The community seems awesome though.
I'm not opposed to loading a custom ROM on the device, in fact would prefer that. The devices I have ordered are Xoom 3G 10.1" GSM Unlocked.
ulchm said:
Hey guys, I have acquired a contract up here for several motorola xoom tablets but need to completely lock them down before delivering them to the end user.
By lock down I mean, remove almost all applications, settings etc so they can not be altered.
Can someone point me in the right direction. navigating these forums is just insane now! The community seems awesome though.
I'm not opposed to loading a custom ROM on the device, in fact would prefer that. The devices I have ordered are Xoom 3G 10.1" GSM Unlocked.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So, you made a commitment before researching how to fulfill the client requirements?
Seems a bit backwards to me.
The level of lockdown you're looking for simply isn't possible without extensive framework modification. Honeycomb's source isn't out yet, so it's not possible to modify the framework much.
The best you'll be able to do is remove apps, but that can make updating the device problematic.
Ya locking down the tab was an after thought and still is. It's not required for the immediate product launch but is something to be looking into afterwards. If the solution is just to remove apps that's extremely easy to do and I"m sure will be 'fine' for now. is everyone in the corporate world just giving these tabs to people completely wide open and letting them do whatever they want on the companies data plan?
How would I go about making a custom ROM of this after I have removed the apps I don't want and have the tab setup the way I would like.
Maybe looking for something along the lines of this?
http://www.air-watch.com/platforms/android/index.html
The device administrator stuff in Android is pretty crappy.
air-watch looks interesting if it works with honeycomb
As an aside, It's my experience that corporate clients hate the idea of rooting. It means voided warranties, and no support/accountability from a vendor.
Ya for sure I dont' want to root the device so much as lock it down however it seems that the 2 are kind of attached right now. Air-watch might be the answer I'll do some testing. Thanks.
Hey guys, just want to start off with an apology. I know these are stupid questions but I couldn't find an answer on the forums from searching that I could understand or that was made in the last 5 years. So here it goes.
I got a Samsung Galaxy S3 (SGH-T999) and like any new product it's stuffed full of garbage apps and bloatware. Well I want that all gone and I want full control of my device! I'm an electrical engineer, so I'm not an idiot I'm just not a software guy, so I need some very basic answers and I'll just google the rest I don't understand.
1. I know you can buy unlock codes and it lets me use other sim cards, I dont care about this, I'm keeping t-mobile for the next two years, not my choice. Does it do me any good otherwise?
2. I can install custom roms, I did this on my GS1 but it never worked out right and was really buggy. Is this the general idea of how it works? I want my phone to be as stable as possible and I want all its functionality.
3. The other apps you aren't supposed to have. I read an article in maximum PC about apps that aren't on the play store that let you under clock your CPU to get better battery life and make your phone more efficient. Do these exist, are they worth it?
4. WiFi tethering, I have T-mobile, and they want me to pay for tethering, this is bull****, if I don't go over my 2gb soft cap, then why should I be charged? If I unlock / boot load (what even is a boot load?!?!?) can I do that for free?
Thanks for the help, if you are kind enough to help me out, could you please not use short hand, I can't really google acronyms and expect an accurate result. Saves me and you time.
I am accustomed to using and working within the generic android environment. I generally like it. I am pretty much exclusively a Samsung guy but I just recently got my wife a G3. I have read all the things about how I can make my phone lightning quick without all the bloatware and I can be entitled to all the event driven programming that stock android allows me but I have to say, I 90% like what I get out of the box. Sure, there are little annoyances that come up but mostly what I want to gain is the 10%. I don't want to reinvent the wheel and put in a new launcher and then have to get accustomed to a whole new way of doing things. Or worse, my camera might not work as well etc.
I am mostly sold. I don't care about voided warranties. I am going to drop $800 on a Note 4 in the coming weeks when it finally rolls out and frankly I would like to really access the power of that processor and ram (whether it is 3 or 4 gigs - only Samsung knows right now). A big part of my buying the phone is the compatibility with the SPen. I am a business man so it would negate me buying it, to root it and then see the SPen go bye bye. In short, this phone is to be a simple tool for my business but I am afraid of what I am about to get.
Let me go back a bit. Last week, I bought my wife a G3. Another top of the line phone. I bought it and am considering the note 4 for the same reason, they can do split screens. I thought I might be able to do limitedly with the phone on the go what I do with my laptop, drag and drop from email to email, files. The note 4 is going to be a powerful phone but who knows if we are there yet. Regardless, from these forums and around the net, it seem the technology is there. So what is there to do? I like the bulk of Samsung's programming but it really angered me when I started toying with the LG G3 and I discovered that I could not open all apps in their duel mode. I mean what the H E double hockeysticks! How does LG know what I would find valuable to have open at once?
So, I am committed to the Note 4 because I know I will get top of the line. I am assuming that I am going to be restricted from using the phone like I want, like the LG and will be faced with: to root or not to root. What I am saying is, can I root the phone and still keep all the stuff I like? yes I know one of you nifty busy-bodies have not even gotten your hands on the phone yet to discover how to mess with it and get by knoks etc but do you feel my pain and understand my quandary?
It is not that I am afraid to root. I am adventurous at heart but I need to make money. I am a business man. I don't make money by the hour but by the opportunity. When I see something that can help me be productive, I try to implement it into my way of doing things. I like tinkering like you guys. I appreciate you but I only have limit time to do these things, otherwise they become distractions. So I don't have hours to figure out why my main camera is now only taking selfies on the face of the phone instead or why the SPen doesn't work. I want what I want but the move needs to make sense to me.
So the basic question is: if I go down this path (with any phone) can I root and still have touchwiz experience, for instance just so I can mess with the phone ever so slightly? A side question would be - am I going to find many disadvantages for the right of having full control of my phone such as having to update the phone or having bugs? I guess, the simple short question is: Do the challenges outweigh the benefits?
I have currently an old S2 that is working. I am using a galaxy LTE awaiting, the note 4. But, I assume I am going to get pretty angry when I find that an $800+ phone won't what a hack can make it do. I just don't want to lose everything else for the sake of one entitlement. So, I can practice seeing what it is like doing these things with my S2 or even my recent LTE. I just have not seen anyone bring this up. People go on about the romance of blanking out a phone for total freedom but they don't tell me much about how close the new launchers are going to be to what I am used to.
Thanks, community for all that you develop. You are cool. I only wish I had countless hours to mess around with this stuff but money has to be made. Believe me, I am looking for any excuse to have a "lightning fast" phone or to do some funky things like you guys do, but give me the war stories. Tell me if I have to decide to compromise. Recommend a launcher maybe. Yes I know the Note can't even be developed yet but it will someday. Anyway, thanks.
I'm not sure you understand exactly what root does. Root gives you "root" level access, aka Superuser, aka Administrator access. Think of Android like a computer in a public library. Lots of things (settings, certain programs, certain directories mainly) are locked down and inaccessible by people who don't have the password or an admin account, because they don't want people messing around with them. Android is the same way. Many (most?) people think of smartphones as just that - phones. They don't think of it as a computer, even though that's exactly what it is, in every aspect of the word. Without restrictions, it would be very, very easy for the average user to completely screw up their phone.
And that is why Android comes with these restrictions (which carriers exploit to install unremovable apps). Rooting your phone removes many of these restrictions, which is also why rooting typically voids your warranty. You might want to root to get rid of useless bloatware like NFL Mobile or Verizon Navigation or Samsung's browser because you only use Chrome. But it's just as easy to (accidentally or stupidly) delete a core Android program, and now your phone is stuck in a crash loop and you've got a $700 battery powered paper weight.
That said, root gives you Superuser access. And that's it. Root doesn't change anything, for better or worse.
It's what you do with that access that matters. Freezing/deleting bloatware that would otherwise be constantly running in the background can improve your phone's performance. You can install the Xposed framework to clear up your notification panel and status bar, add functionality to your buttons, and port features from other brands to work on yours. Tasker is a very powerful (and very confusing) app that you can use to make your phone do things automatically depending on where you are, when it is, etc. You can block ads within games and browsers. You can do back-ups of your apps and data and share them between devices, or when moving from and old phone to a new one. With root sometimes you can bypass restrictions imposed by the carrier because they want to milk you for more money (like wifi hotspot).
I'm also not certain you understand what a launcher is. The launcher is merely the interface. Homescreens, app drawer, dock, icons, etc. I honestly don't know what a 3rd party launcher like Nova, Apex, or Go does to S-Pen functionality on the Note series. But it's merely a different interface, which can be disabled or uninstalled without issue.
What you might be thinking of is the ROM itself. ROM is a bit of a misnomer (meaning Read Only Memory, like a CD_ROM or DVD-ROM), but in the Android world, the ROM is what we have taken to call the operating system. For example, a TouchWiz ROM is heavily modified, and very different than the ROM of a Nexus, which is 100% "stock" Android. Then you have custom ROMs like Cyanogenmod. Installing a different ROM on your Note 4 will absolutely kill your S-Pen functionality, unless it's based on the stock N4 ROM (for example, stock, but debloated, streamlined, and tweaked a bit) and retains those features that Samsung built into it.
With a launcher you can make one phone's homescreen and app drawer look like another's. But when you go into the settings, they'll look different, because that's the ROM, not the launcher you're looking at.
One thing to nota bene is that Samsung has become increasingly restrictive about root and unlocked bootloaders. An unlocked bootloader is required to flash a different ROM (although running different ROMs in Safestrap is usually still possible). Samsung flagships from AT&T and Verizon are notoriously restricted. Google "towelroot" to find out just how restrictive they're getting. Of the "big 4" US carriers, T-Mobile is undoubtedly the least restrictive. With AT&T and T-Mo you also have the option to buy an "unlocked" device, but you won't get the pay-over-time benefits of a subsidy or payment plan. "Unlocked" refers to carrier compatibility, not the bootloader (although carrier unlocked phones are typically easier to unlock the bootloader). But if you subsidize a phone from VZW or AT&T, particularly one from the Samsung Note or Galaxy S line, it's entirely possible that root might never be achieved, or might take a long time. We're talking about rooting a phone that isn't even out yet, and we have no idea what kind of "security" measures are in store.
Root is a powerful tool, but the most powerful tool for your phone other than root is knowledge. Read, read, read, read, ask some questions, and read and read. Find some "for dummies" guides and read those. Watch some youtube videos. The problem with XDA, if there is one, is that stuff like this doesn't have a learning "curve" so much as a learning "sheer cliff made of buttered ice". Lots of acronyms, jargon, technical terms, and other gibberish. Grab some coffee or Red Bull, and start learning.