Database Info

Improved Youtube with HQ

You may have seen my whining posts about the things that soured my captivate experience, and a big one was for some absurd reason (probably to eat up more data minutes) they made it show ****ty looking videos in the youtube player unless you navigate through a bunch of menus to make them HQ. See that way, you use more data.
Anyway, at least one thing is better because I put a youtube player from the Evo on there and it is a little bit better. Still not perfect because the stupid thing still shows low quality at first, but at least in this youtube there is a single HQ button on the player by the fast forward one touch and you've got HQ.
So I'll take that tiny victory, however shallow, over AT&T and Samsungs herculean efforts to f- up the nice chips, speaker, and screen on this device. Note I didn't say hardware because I'm not a fan of the case overall.

the player defaults to lower quality if youre not connected to wifi so you use less data and it loads quicker. this would be useful to people who have the 200 mb data plan. IIRC it was the same when i had an iphone 3g a couple years ago.

bwolmarans said:
You may have seen my whining posts about the things that soured my captivate experience, and a big one was for some absurd reason (probably to eat up more data minutes) they made it show ****ty looking videos in the youtube player unless you navigate through a bunch of menus to make them HQ. See that way, you use more data.
Anyway, at least one thing is better because I put a youtube player from the Evo on there and it is a little bit better. Still not perfect because the stupid thing still shows low quality at first, but at least in this youtube there is a single HQ button on the player by the fast forward one touch and you've got HQ.
So I'll take that tiny victory, however shallow, over AT&T and Samsungs herculean efforts to **** up this nice device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
"a bunch of menus"? You tap the menu button, hit more, then HQ. It takes less than a second. I usually have it hit before the low-quality version is even buffered. Three taps is more than one, but it's not like they were asking you to do analytic geometry. Maybe I don't care because my fingers are fast, or because I have a grandfathered unlimited data plan.
As for their herculean efforts, if you don't use the AT&T/Samsung stuff, you don't notice any of it once you've rooted and enabled sideloading. At least I don't.

Mine defaults to high quality. Whenever I hit menu -> more the option in there always says "watch in low quality". I've checked several times because I was thinking the video looked pretty bad, but then I realized it was already in high quality mode.

My old HTC phone used to pick the quality based on available bandwidth. This type of functionality doesn't seem like it should be beyond google and samsung with their latest and greatest phone lol. Google owns youtube for god's sake.

this sounds like a troll post...
Didn't realize there were wars between android phones

autoxer said:
"a bunch of menus"? You tap the menu button, hit more, then HQ. It takes less than a second. I usually have it hit before the low-quality version is even buffered. Three taps is more than one, but it's not like they were asking you to do analytic geometry. Maybe I don't care because my fingers are fast, or because I have a grandfathered unlimited data plan.
As for their herculean efforts, if you don't use the AT&T/Samsung stuff, you don't notice any of it once you've rooted and enabled sideloading. At least I don't.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What does sideloading do and how do I enable it. I too have an unlimited plan so I just want the best performance. I'm new to Android phones. I use to be a Nokia fan but got tired of waiting for the N8 or something nice from Nokia.
Not to Hi-jack this post but I'm open to any suggestions to make my Captivate a better user experience. So far I'm loving it !!

Qmotion said:
What does sideloading do and how do I enable it. I too have an unlimited plan so I just want the best performance. I'm new to Android phones. I use to be a Nokia fan but got tired of waiting for the N8 or something nice from Nokia.
Not to Hi-jack this post but I'm open to any suggestions to make my Captivate a better user experience. So far I'm loving it !!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are, very nearly literally, a million threads on sideloading here. It means the ability to load apps not found in the Market--a feature AT&T disabled by default, without the ability to switch it in settings. Search for it, and you'll find how to enable it. Once it's enabled, you have the only real handicap AT&T put on the phone out of the way.

A few seconds
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's enough time to ruin the video experience.
autoxer said:
As for their herculean efforts, if you don't use the AT&T/Samsung stuff, you don't notice any of it once you've rooted and enabled sideloading. At least I don't.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I still notice the dialer. Isn't that still Samsung? It sucks compared to the Aria dialer.
You'd need to have actually used a sense device for a while to know what I mean, it's all about the cool predictive algorithm htc used, whereas the dialer on the captivate is no better than on my old Tilt (although a little faster, thank goodness, and I do appreciate the huge buttons)
Don't get me wrong, there are 5 good things about the captivate: The screen, the screen, the screen, the screen, and the speaker. And those 5 are enough to keep me interested.

autoxer said:
There are, very nearly literally, a million threads on sideloading here. It means the ability to load apps not found in the Market--a feature AT&T disabled by default, without the ability to switch it in settings. Search for it, and you'll find how to enable it. Once it's enabled, you have the only real handicap AT&T put on the phone out of the way.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can't find these threads regarding sideloading. Can anyone provide a link?

is there a way to trick youtube into thinking your on wifi so that it defaults to HQ.
I know on iphones theres "3g unrestrictor" is there something like that for android?

bowbei said:
I can't find these threads regarding sideloading. Can anyone provide a link?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dude, it's a sticky in the development forum.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=738376
5 different ways to sideload.
Also, in case you didn't even bother looking in the correct forum, there is a sticky in this forum right above this topic about how to sideload:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=735482
Next time search around before posting.

Thoughts so far

So far I love the phone. The feel and weight of the phone just seems better then my Captivate(which I gave to my wife). After not getting data on the phone unless I had WiFi on kind of sucked, but if you make a new network. You will be able to gain data back.
The only thing I am not liking is when I set up my HTC sense with Facebook, it put all my friends from facebook into my contacts list in my phone. I do not want all my friends on the list. I have tried and figure out how to delete from the list but cant figure it out. Anyone know how?
I also side loaded a few apps using the SLW program, once you download HTC sync on your computer it was easy.
I cant wait until this phone gets rooted so I can go in and change some stuff around, like ringtones. You can have custom ringtones when the phone is not plugged in to the USB but once you plug the USB in, it reverts back to the stock ringtones because it thinks shuts off your SD Card. Well you know what, I guess I can have the option to only have it charge will plugged in. That might work.
Other then that me loves the phone. Glade my wife had an upgrade so I could get the phone for $79.99 from Costco and a free charger with it. She loves my old Captivate so I was like hell ya ill trade ya!

Ha I love it...got a feeling alot of wives will be getting a captivate tommorow
Sent from my Liberty using XDA App

Happy valentines day ......here's my old phone! lol yes there will be alot of this goin on
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

lol actually bought the wife a new Inspire to match mine, talked my parents into both getting them as well !

milleirish said:
The only thing I am not liking is when I set up my HTC sense with Facebook, it put all my friends from facebook into my contacts list in my phone. I do not want all my friends on the list. I have tried and figure out how to delete from the list but cant figure it out. Anyone know how?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the Evo for sprint which should be similar. Open your People/contacts app, hit menu, and you should see an option that says 'View'. Select view to choose which contacts you want displayed and deselect your Facebook account.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

abanh said:
I have the Evo for sprint which should be similar. Open your People/contacts app, hit menu, and you should see an option that says 'View'. Select view to choose which contacts you want displayed and deselect your Facebook account.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok so in the people and contacts it has my correct contacts. What am talking about is when you look at the phone on the homescreen you see the button that says phone. If you click on that it will show every one of my Facebook friends, even the ones they I dont have in my contact list. I dont want them there.

I haven't mentioned to my wife yet... she's gonna wonder why the hell I'm getting up early on a Sunday morning, probably think I'm having an affair, lol.

aimfire72 said:
I haven't mentioned to my wife yet... she's gonna wonder why the hell I'm getting up early on a Sunday morning, probably think I'm having an affair, lol.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are, with the Inspire 4G. hahaha

I dont regret it for a second, yeah no Real 4G but we have root, roms and radios NOW.
Also, for those that just want to install apps and leave the phone stock you can go to this thread created by me: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=943174
The phone feels so polished and the screen is awesome, no Craptivate screen but it will turn heads.
We have accomplished so much in so little time.
Thanks to all the devs and porters out there, this is already a more than worthwhile device and for the price you can not beat it.
Atrix is just a bad memory of Motoblur hell, good luck trying to even root that damn thing.. hahaha

milleirish said:
Ok so in the people and contacts it has my correct contacts. What am talking about is when you look at the phone on the homescreen you see the button that says phone. If you click on that it will show every one of my Facebook friends, even the ones they I dont have in my contact list. I dont want them there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok I know what you're saying, and I didn't even realized my phone did that until you just mentioned it. I didn't see a way to get rid of them either.
If this is bothering you because you have to scroll through so many more names to get to the contact you want to dial, have you tried the t9 smart dialer feature? Lets say you want to dial 'John', instead of scrolling all the way down to his name, just spell out his name via t9 (5 for 'j', 6 for 'o', 4 for 'h', etc). The contacts that match what you're typing will appear and you don't have to scroll through all the names. My Evo and other HTC sense phones do this ( stock android doesn't, but you can download other dialers in the market that do). If you already knew this and just don't want the names to appear, can't help you there.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

I really, really like this phone. My ear speaker is great, although the external speaker is a little weak. Not a huge deal though, just had to select the high pitched notifications to be sure to hear them.
Sent from my Inspire 4g using XDA app.

I thought it was interesting that Facebook .com thought my phone was a nexus one
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App

i went to check this out in the store today. a few thoughts
-size is great. i compared it to my nexus one w/seidocase and it is only slightly larger... like less than a .25" larger in width and length
-weight is great. very comparable to n1 w/case
-sense 2.0 looked pretty slick.
-very fast... zero lag.
-my only stickler was the screen. i could see the "grid" dots on the display unit. is this typical of slcd?

Love it already and havent had it 5 hours yet, beats my old htc surround hands down.

This kicks the captivates ass all around, even unrooted with stock rom. Soooo glad I pulled the trigger... nice to have a decent exchange email client as part of the basic package (sorry touchdown, but the integration is a big plus... I hated the separate address books).

The more I use my phone the more I realize everything works and works well.
Have installed pretty much everything there is and it plays or runs them without a hiccup.
Obviously the only apps it will not run are the ones that require root. My plan is to do this very soon so I can take advantage of those as well.
Every single game I've installed is smooth with no lag.
Emulators work with zero issues, my plan is to try the the psx one next.
You can not measure the battery life right away, it has to get used to a few charges first. See the Desire HD forums and they will say the same.
I've made some calls and can say that it sounds great, I've tried both the loudspeaker and the ear speaker and both sound fine to me.
Obviously the small speaker will not be that loud especially at first. Still planning to use DSP Manager to see if it fixes it.
I've still to try out the gps while moving in the vehicle as well.
Build quality is very satisfying and is what's expected from HTC.
Where I had trouble getting 3G I am now getting a constant H+ according to the phone.
What else can I say I made an excellent choice and with the Sideload Wonder Machine, root, radio and custom ROMs there's room to make this phone even better with those options.
Sent from my illmatic Inspire 4G / Desire HD

Things to do

I keep finding myself thinking I could do all this on a cheap phone. What do you use your smartphone for on a daily basis?
Sent from my HTC Glacier using XDA App

make myself look busy when im really not

Supamike88 said:
I keep finding myself thinking I could do all this on a cheap phone. What do you use your smartphone for on a daily basis?
Sent from my HTC Glacier using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well i have a Google Voice tied to my phone, that i use for my work line. I also have my work email tied to my phone. I also use Springpad for daily task and it syncs with my computer. I use Google docs to keep important files at my finger tips. the AD-HOC tethering is nice so i can have wireless access to my catalogs from anywhere on a table or laptop... i use mine more for business then i ever thought about with my blackberry.

stream music to my phone from my computer without having to put any music files on my SD card, tethering, wifi/wifi calling, youtube videos, flash for camera, "4G" speeds, and integrated email. didnt have any of these useful features on my previous sidekick 08 lol

Almost anything you can do with a computer or laptop I can do with my phone except its more convenient cause it fits in my pocket doesn't need to be connected to wifi and takes pictures and video so I think I would prefer my intelligent phone over my laptop anyday but of course the desktop wins cause it can run the games my Xbox360 can and it helps make things for my device lol

I think we're just one level behind where its total convenience. Right now it seems like voice recognition isn't too great outside of text messaging. I'm sure Android has a lot more to bring to the table though.
Sent from my HTC Glacier using XDA App

we'll see a legitimate siri clone very soon, but even so, I regularly use the voice command- "navigate to __" to gps my way around miami. more than anything, on a personal level, my phone has made my life so much easier regarding events. My phone calendar is the only reason I'm ever where I'm supposed to be.
i think most people with smartphones who see no use in them just haven't made the effort to see how they can improve their lives. I'm not saying they are for everyone, but I truly believe they can be. You just need to see how and why.

darinmc said:
we'll see a legitimate siri clone very soon, but even so, I regularly use the voice command- "navigate to __" to gps my way around miami. more than anything, on a personal level, my phone has made my life so much easier regarding events. My phone calendar is the only reason I'm ever where I'm supposed to be.
i think most people with smartphones who see no use in them just haven't made the effort to see how they can improve their lives. I'm not saying they are for everyone, but I truly believe they can be. You just need to see how and why.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1
informative and beautiful calendar widget is the reason why i'm using this "sense" smartphone. plus notes app also beautiful, and reader, beats, ds camera, alarm. hahaha this phone really make my life better.

darinmc said:
we'll see a legitimate siri clone very soon, but even so, I regularly use the voice command- "navigate to __" to gps my way around miami. more than anything, on a personal level, my phone has made my life so much easier regarding events. My phone calendar is the only reason I'm ever where I'm supposed to be.
i think most people with smartphones who see no use in them just haven't made the effort to see how they can improve their lives. I'm not saying they are for everyone, but I truly believe they can be. You just need to see how and why.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I totally agree, that's why I started this thread
Sent from my HTC Glacier using XDA App

They're good projectiles....Their slim design is quite aerodynamicky, the MT4G's weight gives it good stopping power. But seriously I use it for email, quick photos, some games, twitt, fb, gplus,etc...

Ace42 said:
They're good projectiles....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Back on topic, considering that this is my first smartphone, I find it useful, but I'm probably old school compared to many here and I've managed to live this long without a smartphone. I finally got on board not because I care to downsize my computing devices, but because I wanted a GPS-enabled device for navigation for the few times I need it. Also, a QWERTY keyboard in conjunction with Swype is a massive improvement over an alphanumeric keypad for composing texts or simply taking notes. That said, I still prefer using my desktop over my laptop over my phone, and the phone will never be a good interface for me to perform heavy text composition.
To me, what's nice is that the apps I did rarely use on my dumbphone like the calendar and calculator are much more spacious and intuitive to use now to the point where I'm willing to use them more often. It's also nice to have a specialized flashlight app and the ability to easily check my email and the weather. I really like the voice dictation and Swype inputs as well.
Also, yes, it is much harder to distract yourself with a dumbphone if should you find yourself stuck somewhere with someone/something to wait on and nothing to do. Ever since I flashed VU, I've spent more time scrolling the home screens and looking at the animations than anything else. I could easily waste time with this thing even without wireless data or Wi-Fi.

Supamike88 said:
I keep finding myself thinking I could do all this on a cheap phone. What do you use your smartphone for on a daily basis?
Sent from my HTC Glacier using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Uh this phone kicks ass...
Why don't you name something you can't do excluding playing Angry Birds in 1080p 3D HD?
Sent from my computer using keyboard

had a very similar conversation with the House Boss shortly after we got our first Android phones, (got snookered with the Samsung Behold2, almost made us go back to regular phones) once we got the MT3G-S we both fell in love with our phones (even though I jumped on the MT4G, needed more power and screen). she loves the keyboard for typing her texts and browsing web, the fact she now has Youtube on the go for watching funny vids and vids of our nieces and nephews, the great calender, games and with Pandora and her SD card no more need for her iPod.
I combine my MT4G and my Acer Iconia A500 Tablet to make my life way easier and much much less cluttered in my 18-wheeler between GPS, calender, notepad/office programs helping me keep everything inline for work and Hulu, Netflix and the games helping entertain me when I'm stuck somewhere and getting bored, I have saved money and was able to shave weight off the crap I carry in the truck allowing more cargo (means more money). Don't really know how I did this for as long as I did before.

anyone else disappointed with the GB update?

call me weird but i was expecting more. the update release said new widgets and icons and colors and all im seeing is a new color on the notification bar. i have yet to find new widgets or icons or different looking icons or widgets. the phone looks exactly the same except for the notification bar and that little yellow thing that pops up when you reach the bottom of a screen. yes im happy about the speed improvement. the phone is a lot faster then before but other then that its the same old charge

the color scheme is wack. FUGLY!

dennis- said:
call me weird but i was expecting more. the update release said new widgets and icons and colors and all im seeing is a new color on the notification bar. i have yet to find new widgets or icons or different looking icons or widgets. the phone looks exactly the same except for the notification bar and that little yellow thing that pops up when you reach the bottom of a screen. yes im happy about the speed improvement. the phone is a lot faster then before but other then that its the same old charge
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This was a software update, not a device refresh. They fixed bugs, revved the Android version, and improved the radios. I'm not sure why you (or anyone else) was expecting major changes to the look/functionality of the device.

I'm not sure why they didn't at least take the Stratosphere's interface design/colors (which is more uniform), as that is essentially the same phone with a smaller screen and physical keyboard.

PeterDLai said:
I'm not sure why they didn't at least take the Stratosphere's interface design/colors (which is more uniform), as that is essentially the same phone with a smaller screen and physical keyboard.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 My wife just got a Stratosphere and the color scheme is what the Charge's should've been. Everything that's poopy and orange on our phones is green on hers. Jealous...
Sent from my Charge running Humble 5.0 using XDA App

bluevolume said:
This was a software update, not a device refresh. They fixed bugs, revved the Android version, and improved the radios. I'm not sure why you (or anyone else) was expecting major changes to the look/functionality of the device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The Verizon PDF said so, that's why.
I see this as a major rip off. It's the biggest case of false advertisement since the Marvel Comic "The New Fantastic Four" which stated on the cover that the Punisher makes a cameo appearance and the only place you can find him is in an ad for subscriptions.
I don't really care seeing as I'm running the ICS theme....but F-U Verisung.

Rominucka said:
The Verizon PDF said so, that's why.
I see this as a major rip off. It's the biggest case of false advertisement since the Marvel Comic "The New Fantastic Four" which stated on the cover that the Punisher makes a cameo appearance and the only place you can find him is in an ad for subscriptions.
I don't really care seeing as I'm running the ICS theme....but F-U Verisung.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
B*tch b*tch nag nag, if you don't like it, go learn how to theme.
Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk

One legitimate complaint that I have is they borked the built in screen capture function. You can no longer capture some screens (notification shade for example) because the phone lags while trying to produce a stupid animation before capturing the screen.
Yes, it would be possible to use an app from the market but I should not need to. They essentially removed a useful feature.
Also I find that the orange page limit glow gets in the way or certain things. It sometimes covers up what I am trying to look at. If I want to drag a photo to be able to see the edge in the gallery app for example when zoomed in. The stupid orange glow covers up the picture; having the glow cover up a web page is one thing but covering up the edge I am trying to look at is wrong. Essentially they removed the functionality of being able to drag a web page, image, etc., to the center of the screen and view it.
Sent from my SCH-I510 using xda premium

ilovesoad said:
B*tch b*tch nag nag, if you don't like it, go learn how to theme.
Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Some people don't have time to theme... Some people also don't root their device...
If you don't like their comment, ignore it. Don't insult other members.
Sent from my SCH-I510 using xda premium

Camera Issue
I was pleased with the update, and color scheme doesn't matter to me near as much as a more stable radio, and more responsive interface. Here is the reason I wish I would not have updated. CAMERA! I have a 2 year old and a 2 month old. Before, you could press and hold the shutter button to focus, and when you released it instantly snapped the shot. Now, that's a no go! A second + lag...... Hard to get the "good" shot that is hard to get. Bummer!

i love the speed improvements thats for sure. the phone is 100 times faster then it was but i think if verizon is going to publish documents claiming new icons and new widgets they should probably deliver on that.

I get FFC so I'm happy.
Sent from my SCH-I510 using XDA App

I'm not happy. They took away and broke crap while in the process.

Well I just got my Charge from FedEx man 20 minutes ago, and after turning on phone and it "activating" the GSB update was the first screen to pop up, no user setup, Google account, etc. So i can't say how well the old version worked :/ But The update downloaded off 4G FAST...first app off market was Speed Test, and it got blazing 23069kbps down and 14094kbps up!

neobigd said:
Well I just got my Charge from FedEx man 20 minutes ago, and after turning on phone and it "activating" the GSB update was the first screen to pop up, no user setup, Google account, etc. So i can't say how well the old version worked :/ But The update downloaded off 4G FAST...first app off market was Speed Test, and it got blazing 23069kbps down and 14094kbps up!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
nice!! welcome to the Charge and LTE lol... now root that biotch and debloat/rom it
sent from my Acer Iconia A500 beast of a tablet via XDA app

Root bear?
anoninja118 said:
nice!! welcome to the Charge and LTE lol... now root that biotch and debloat/rom it
sent from my Acer Iconia A500 beast of a tablet via XDA app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well heck ya I want to root. Looking at my options for ROMs...thinking mybe need to roll my own. Man we need move Devs

Go with Infinity.
Sent from my mobile office.

Got my Charge in May. I run stock because I don't care what the interface looks like. I need it to work, no time for bricks, make phone calls, txt, Google Docs etc. I was about done with Froyo because it was getting so slow, it seemed almost like it was being emulated on my phone. Was about to make a stink with Verizon.
Got the update. It fixed every single bug/complaint I ever had with the phone, and/or it enhanced every feature by fine tuning it.
Here is a short list of complaints fixed immediately:
GUI now hauls butt with little or no lag
bluetooth works perfectly and connects to my headset and stays connected
programs close on their own - don't have to constantly free memory
GPS works and is accurate
Yahoo Mail in email actually WORKS
The call quality is the clearest of any phone I've ever had (I do have great coverage here). 4G LTE hauls butt. With GB This phone makes my old iPhone looks like a piece of garbage.
Just my opinion.

i found the fancy new icons they were boasting about. the update available and download complete icons are new. ooohhhh aahhhhh.

dennis- said:
i found the fancy new icons they were boasting about. the update available and download complete icons are new. ooohhhh aahhhhh.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My phone doesn't show an available update yet, not sure why, perhaps it's because I'm running Humble 5.0 and not stock . . . Anyway, when I do get the new OTA, how do I get the new icons/widgets? Is it a separate download or something? Thanks!

I'm going to take the Windows Phone Challenge. Any advice?

A Windows Store recently opened near me. I figured I may as well give it a shot.
Currently running CM10, though I might switch back to AOKP Milestone 6.3 since things are a bit more stable there. Because the competition is done from boot, I can't have apps cached. It's probably a good idea to overclock this thing a bit, as well.
They can choose any challenge they want, and it's more than likely that they'll try to pick one that MS Corporate has identified to be a trouble area for my particular phone. Having a custom ROM on here might serve to level the playing field a bit, but by how much I don't know.
Certain things like disabling the lock screen and putting certain apps (Maps, Local, etc) on the main home screen are easy enough to do, but I was wondering if there was anything else to take into consideration. For example, the Facebook widget lets me update my status right from the home screen, a step less than needed with the Me tile on WP. Also, if I remember right, one of the challenges that has gotten a bit of notoriety is having to display two cities' weather data simultaneously. I think I can do this with a pair of widgets, but I'm not sure which.
Also, the prize is a $1000 MS Store gift card if I thoroughly smoke the Windows Phone (all six challenges). I'm not sure what they'll all be (I'd imagine a few of them would be lifted from the ads), but I know I can beat the Lumia 900 in a few of them.
Edit: Just thought of something - what if I were to use a WP-style launcher with some functioning live tiles to win? That'd really mess with them.

Lol they did the same thing 3 months ago but they are lame because they don't let you go in with such high end device like the hox. Make sure to have a widget showing the time in two cities, that's their favorite challange

I'm sure you've looked into it, but heres a list of the most common ones they use, plus some of the conditions:
http://slickdeals.net/f/4143624-NEW-Smoked-By-Windows-Phone-Contest-3-30-12-4-5-12-100-Phones-Per-Day-500-25-Gift-Cards
And if you can get a Windows Phone launcher set up and feel confident with it, please record it, I'm sure the looks on their faces will be priceless.

From the rules in the link above:
"Your smartphone must be using the original, unmodified operating system that came standard on your smartphone. Any entries for which the challenge task has been pre-loaded are not eligible."
Oh well.
Sent from my HTC One X using XDA Premium HD. In between Force Clo...

wondows phone challenge is stupid IMO, MS needs to stop the nonsense.
Heres a windows phone challenge, have a ton of apps in your app store

I'll have obtain a copy of the current rules from the store and pick through them. I'm not sure what the whole "can't have challenges pre-loaded" deal is, but if they disqualify me for having widgets while having live tiles pinned to the screen, that's a load of garbage.
Also, the part where it says I can't have an unmodified phone is at the least worded fatuously. Really? The version that came with the phone? Guess I have to go back to 1.85 and have nothing on it...
I don't think the employees would really be able to tell the difference if I came in with an AOSP ROM, but I suppose I could just pop the latest version of CleanROM on there and tweak it under the hood. Sense is pretty well-integrated into social networks, though I'm not sure if it's quicker than the multi-network updates from the WP me tile.

Vendetta-NY said:
From the rules in the link above:
"Your smartphone must be using the original, unmodified operating system that came standard on your smartphone. Any entries for which the challenge task has been pre-loaded are not eligible."
Oh well.
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Assuming thwy're smart enough to know. Just walk in with Apex / Nova / stock? I'm not sure how strict they are, but I wouldn't give them too much credit, their just sales reps.

If there were no rules I would : any 4.0.3 ROM to use beast mode kernel. OC to 2.1 ghz and use performance governor so it stays at max. Use dual core mod so both cores are always active, and last but not least go into developer and disable animations. And keep an ice pack near by so you don't have anything catch on fire.
[email protected] windows app store. Very true. Luckily play store in my opinion is as good as app store for iOS. I think its a little superior since it loads much faster and doesn't require a password to update and download apps. I hate visiting the app store on my iPad. Unbelievably slow. The whole os is sluggish compared to this...

Make sure fastboot is enabled. Many of the challenges are from power off....
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Would fastboot allow for quicker initialization of apps from startup? I'm pretty sure the reboot is just to clear apps from RAM, and that boot time isn't part of the challenge.

Protogon said:
A Windows Store recently opened near me. I figured I may as well give it a shot.
Currently running CM10, though I might switch back to AOKP Milestone 6.3 since things are a bit more stable there. Because the competition is done from boot, I can't have apps cached. It's probably a good idea to overclock this thing a bit, as well.
They can choose any challenge they want, and it's more than likely that they'll try to pick one that MS Corporate has identified to be a trouble area for my particular phone. Having a custom ROM on here might serve to level the playing field a bit, but by how much I don't know.
Certain things like disabling the lock screen and putting certain apps (Maps, Local, etc) on the main home screen are easy enough to do, but I was wondering if there was anything else to take into consideration. For example, the Facebook widget lets me update my status right from the home screen, a step less than needed with the Me tile on WP. Also, if I remember right, one of the challenges that has gotten a bit of notoriety is having to display two cities' weather data simultaneously. I think I can do this with a pair of widgets, but I'm not sure which.
Also, the prize is a $1000 MS Store gift card if I thoroughly smoke the Windows Phone (all six challenges). I'm not sure what they'll all be (I'd imagine a few of them would be lifted from the ads), but I know I can beat the Lumia 900 in a few of them.
Edit: Just thought of something - what if I were to use a WP-style launcher with some functioning live tiles to win? That'd really mess with them.
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Seems pretty intresting, lol I'd love to try as well . Well anyways what i can help you with is for the ROM does it have to be stock? If not just pick somthing like CleanRom 4.2 and overclock it to 2.1Glz or 1.9 (Whichever works better for you). Second choice would be to use a Vanila rom like what your using. Other than that all i can say is good luck!
EDIT: Some reason, it didnt load anything other than the OP.... Oh well, only if you could mod...

In the videos I've seen some of the challenges included booting the phone from power off.
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Don't take it. They minus will call it the: we compare our flagship phone to your outdated one and choose challenges that we have selected that specifically target the weaknesses of your phone in order to get more people to buy our phones.

atticusmas said:
Don't take it. They minus will call it the: we compare our flagship phone to your outdated one and choose challenges that we have selected that specifically target the weaknesses of your phone in order to get more people to buy our phones.
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Well, the idea is to overcome the weaknesses by eking out as much performance as I can and setting up my UI in a way that lets me do things as efficiently as WP can, like you can with Android. I could pop the latest CleanROM on there and the MS store employees would be none the wiser.

beaups said:
In the videos I've seen some of the challenges included booting the phone from power off.
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in which I'm sure sense's fast boot would win
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Protogon said:
Well, the idea is to overcome the weaknesses by eking out as much performance as I can and setting up my UI in a way that lets me do things as efficiently as WP can, like you can with Android. I could pop the latest CleanROM on there and the MS store employees would be none the wiser.
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Well then why not pop in a kernel too
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I think that the Windows Phone challenge is just plain dumb. The fact that they dictate exactly what the challenge is just seems to rigged to me

You're going to lose, and even if you win, they're going to find a way to get out of giving you anything. People have tried this, and MS has screwed them out of it.

TheNightHawk223 said:
Well then why not pop in a kernel too
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It's supposed to be "Stock" which can mean a lot of things, too vague.

vioalas said:
It's supposed to be "Stock" which can mean a lot of things, too vague.
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Yeah, this is what I'm worried about the most. They could weasel their way out of losing by claiming most any modification I make the phone has taken it from stock. I'm not safe from this clause unless I run a 1.85 RUU, relock the bootloader and make no changes to the phone except from the initial setup.