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[Q] Should I consider a custom ROM yet?

So I'm looking over the current options and right now it's not really looking like it's promising. I have my Galaxy S3 rooted and with the help of tools like TitantiumBackup I've managed to clean up the stock ROM pretty well. Another thing of note is I actually get some surprisingly good sound quality out of my SGS3. I realize the US models aren't supposed to have the Wolfson DAC, but somehow mine sounds absolutely incredible with no noise that I can hear or anything (it's enough that I've been wondering if Samsung might have slipped the Wolfson into this one and perhaps there is variance in the DACs actually being used.) It even drives my headphones (modified HD555s -- basically you can consider them to be like the HD595s since of course I did the foam mod, but with the soundstage mod and a custom cable they're actually a bit better possibly) extremely well. It's worth noting that I have frozen the built in equalizer or whatever it was that I thought seemed like it was meant to mess with the sound (I like my devices to produce a relatively neutral sound.) Despite some complaints out there, I actually like the sound out from my US model SGS3 better than things like my Cowon D2 (which, btw, has a Wolfson DAC) and don't even use my CMoy (which has an AD8620 OPAMP that makes it sound far better than a typical OPA2132 CMoy IMO at only the cost of a bit of battery life) which I love the sound of because to me it sounds amazing on its own.
I only mention all of this because while I'm not a true audiophile per se, quality is of extreme importance to me all the same and I'm reading of issues with sound in the current custom ROMs which is not something I'm ok with. I want it to continue to sound this amazing. The idea of losing sound quality with a custom ROM bothers me. I like the idea of a few of the updates like Project Butter (though it's worth noting that mine does run fairly smoothly since I keep the number of programs running all the time as minimal as I can) and I really like the idea of having a custom ROM where I could maybe tweak more things (perhaps including better battery life options like maybe a better CPU governor built in? It drives me crazy how much my phone can run down over just a few hours while the screen is off even with SetCPU set to set the CPU to 384MHz and switch to the powersave governer with WiFi and mobile data both disabled and me not receiving any calls or texts.) For that matter, even while on it's not helping as much as it seems like it should, but I can't help but to notice that there are some more advanced CPU governors that I don't seem to have as an option and I wonder if perhaps a custom ROM could even help there as well. Plus I just plain like being able to tweak more things to my exact preferences instead and again a custom ROM helps. But, if I have to give up that sound quality that's a big problem. I think also it might be a problem to lose the camera. I don't use it a lot, but every now and then I really do kind of want to have it. Especially it would absolutely suck to lose the ability to scan QR codes or to have to do so via the front camera, but every now and then I do take some actual photos to share.
So my question is, have any of the custom ROM options out there reached that level of stability and quality to actually be worth updating and without losing those two things? The SGS3 has been out a fair while now, so it's hard for me to believe that there hasn't been a bit more progress along these lines, but I realize that it's no simple process to create a custom ROM all the same. (In fact, I only think more progress would have been made than what I've read thus far because the SGS3 is just so very popular. If it had been a less popular phone I wouldn't necessarily expect that much, but between its features, hardware, and etc, it's a pretty popular phone.) I want all the benefits of a custom ROM, but what I've read so far of them says to me that it's just not worth the trouble. Once I find one that really works I kind of want to stick to it as much as I can as I have a lot of apps installed and configured just so for my preferences. It sounds like I'm going to have to wait a good while yet though. Or have any of the custom ROMs finally "gotten there yet"?

ive been using CM10 roms for daily use and tehy do everything i need them to do without any limitations.
i suggest you make a nandroid of all your current setup and play with some custom roms. you can always revert back if you dont liek it or cant configure them match your usage. it made my S3 experience much better, btu everyone is dfferent.
---------- Post added at 08:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:07 PM ----------
there are also sound mods and stuff that are accessible with ROMs. ive never tried them but some people swear by them

You don't have any sound issues of any kind? Does the rear camera work perfectly?
BTW, I don't want any sound mod that actually changes the sound. I want it to basically leave the sound alone and produce it as well as it can without modification. None of that Beats or whatever like some do (I think that was what HTC was pushing?)

beats is a sound thing, yeah. it hink its just an equalizer though. i have used audio through headphone jack and over bluetooth to my headphones and the quality is fine for me. im not an audiophile though. it all kinda sounds the same to me lol
the only sound issues i have with my ROM are after flash some sounds do not function until you slide the volume slider from 100 to 0 then to 100 again. Its these types of quirks that come with custom rom sometimes.
my camera is working perfectly. its not as good as the touchwiz one however.
edit: heres a sound mod that might/might not interest you
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1883262
long as you do a nandroid you can always revvert back to your preferred current setup. you should also backup your IMEI

There are roms that are optimized stock. Maybe CleanRom. Don't think he adds sound mods but may be wrong. You may have used app to underclock CPU and it shows UC but probably not actually working on stock kernel as clocking must be enabled on kernel. Know this is true with overclocking.

I actually prefer to avoid all sound modifications whatsoever. Even equalizer. I like the results of a relatively neutral sound being fed to these headphones, it comes out just perfect for me. That's part of what I was worried about as some of the custom ROMs sometimes try to have stuff like that built in (and I guess that equalizer or whatever it was was Samsung or Verizon kind of doing that in the stock ROM even.)
About the camera, I actually have a commercial camera app anyway. If the only problem people have been having was the built-in app, that's a non-issue.
What's this about sounds not working until you go to zero and back though? Does this interfere with anything such as receiving phone calls (eg does it sometimes not ring because the sound isn't playing?)
BTW, where do I actually find the "official" CM10 for this phone?

no the sound works all the time after the adjustment. it takes 2 secodns to do. open volume, slide them all to 100, then all to 0, then all to 100 again.
http://get.cm/?device=d2vzw&type=snapshot
i think that these M builds are the monthyl most stable ones.

Personally I'm waiting for something built on the official VZW JB release. And yes I know I have months to wait... :-\
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app

There is no DAC from Wolfson but yes it sounds kick ass! Qualcom is a beast! There S4 chip is there pride and joy so they didn't want to lag behind when it comes to quality audio! God does it sound so much better then my galaxy nexus. Qualcom is making the best arm chips right now. Can't wait to see how insane the 4 core S4 is!
I COMPLETELY AGREE WITH MY FELLOW MEMBERS WHEN IT COMES TO AVOIDING ALL THOSE STUPID AUDIO MODS LIKE BEATS AND SOME OTHERS OUT THERE. THEY SUCK AND DISTORT THE AUDIO!
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda premium

ddurandSGS3 said:
no the sound works all the time after the adjustment. it takes 2 secodns to do. open volume, slide them all to 100, then all to 0, then all to 100 again.
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Ah, have I misunderstood? Do you just mean it only needs this to be done after the initial flash of the custom firmware itself? That's definitely no big deal at all...
prdog1 said:
There are roms that are optimized stock. Maybe CleanRom. Don't think he adds sound mods but may be wrong. You may have used app to underclock CPU and it shows UC but probably not actually working on stock kernel as clocking must be enabled on kernel. Know this is true with overclocking.
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Well, I want to try to do this just once or at least no more than minor updates after this hopefully, so if I'm going to go ahead I want to go ahead and go straight to Jelly Bean.
I think SetCPU wouldn't be sold as only requiring root access to do its work if it required a custom kernel. It probably just works with the internal power management features that should be built in more or less by default.
mike216 said:
There is no DAC from Wolfson but yes it sounds kick ass! Qualcom is a beast! There S4 chip is there pride and joy so they didn't want to lag behind when it comes to quality audio! God does it sound so much better then my galaxy nexus.
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Interesting... I do definitely wonder why some people have complained about hearing noise and such then. Perhaps a bad setting and/or that MusicFX app (finally had time to dig through the list to find out what exactly it was called and that's the one that I just assumed was probably an equalizer/effects processing thing that would modify the sound, but honestly I never had any use for it even if it's not and never bothered to try it.) I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one who thinks that the US SGS3 actually sounds good. I was beginning to wonder if my ears were maybe just getting that bad somehow even though I'm still far pickier than everyone I personally know, lol.
Let me ask you this, is the so called "Voodoo Mod" any good at least? I was never clear on exactly what it was supposed to do for audio. I know things like Beats probably mostly rely on a bit of processing to increase bass and probably play with things like stereo separation or something, but I've never been clear on what that one was trying to do exactly other than that people claim it's actually an improvement for many devices.
Anyway, back on the topic at hand, I think I'm more or less convinced to at least go ahead and give CM10 a shot. I'll use that newer monthly build from earlier this month after clearing enough space to make a full backup. (Besides CWM's backup option I've already backed up my apps and settings using TitaniumBackup, so in a worst case scenario it shouldn't be too painful if things go wrong and I have to go all the way back to a stock image with a factory reset or something. Is that option in CWM the correct thing, or must I use something separate for a Nandroid backup?) Also, it may sound silly, but how exactly do I backup my IMEI? I was looking for that already upon digging through a large tutorial thread a while back and it seemed to require something I couldn't get to work (when I try the numbers mentioned in the dialer I don't get any hidden menus, just a dialtone. Other than that I could only find something about manually restoring it if it has been completely damaged or lost which wasn't a fun looking process.)

Nazo said:
I think SetCPU wouldn't be sold as only requiring root access to do its work if it required a custom kernel. It probably just works with the internal power management features that should be built in more or less by default.
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It is sold that way. Depends on the manufacturer of the device. On stock HTC kernel it will lock 2nd core at max speed, kill battery life and cause heating problems. That is why I said it may not work correctly and without another app to monitor CPU you don't know what it is doing. How it works with Samsung I wouldn't know as I run custom kernels when possible and don't worry about clocking on stock kernels as they are under performing already.

Don't restore system apps with titanium backup! Only data apps (apps from the market)
CM is great good choice. I love the theme engine CM10 has and all CM10 based roms.
I'll tell you a super easy way to backup your IMEI! Need Root!
Download (terminal emulator)
Enter these commands. su (hit enter)
reboot nvbackup (hit enter)
It will reboot and create the backup on a built in backup partition on your SD card. The only way you could delete the backup is if you formated your SD. Super easy I just hope it works lol....
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda premium

Two quick questions before I take the final plunge.
1. Is the CWM backup to external flash function sufficient, or do I need something further for a true backup? (It says "Nandroid" in one part, but otherwise I'm not sure if it's truly "Nandroid." It seems like it just backs up each individual file or something and I get the impression that Nandroid is more of an image of the firmware? If it isn't sufficient, what should I use?
EDIT: Found this tutorial. Basically that's what I've done except instead of bothering with Odin I used the EZ-Recovery app to flash CWM directly from the phone itself (along with EZ-Unlock 1.2 from here to unlock the bootloader) as per another tutorial. The other tutorial just didn't call it a "Nandroid" backup, so I wasn't sure.
2. If anything goes wrong, is there a stock ROM image I can use for the Verizon SCH-I535 with Odin? So far my searching has taken me to a site that practically has every stock ROM for the SGS3 but that one... (Or at least if it has that one I couldn't find it on there, which isn't saying much since every single region was listed separately...)

The best way to get recovery is to get the latest recovery from the man who's created them all from the very beginning.
Get rom manager and flash the latest straight from that app. You must make sure your bootloader is unlocked. If you took the latest OTA from Verizon it locked your bootloader.
As long as your unlocked and rooted you can go straight in rom manager and flash touch recovery especially for your Verizon galaxy s3.
I've been using the latest touch recovery on my D2tmo, nexus 7,galaxy nexus and Asus infinity and it's worked perfect.
Make a backup of your current rom for safety before flashing. You can create a backup and rename it to whatever you want straight from rom manager!
I personally wouldn't back up to the external. It might work fine but when it comes to backups I just go straight to the internal
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda premium
---------- Post added at 08:33 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:26 AM ----------
I soft bricked my phone because after taking the latest OTA it locked my bootloader! Recovered it fully from here
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1840030
I seen the take to your local Verizon store bla bla bla.
Got in download mode at 4am and recovered in 15 minutes.
I wish I had someone that knew what I now know and that's why I'm here to help my fellow members!
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda premium

Hehe, funny thing about that. It tried to automatically update without bothering to ask. I presume because I had the FWupdate app frozen (for I guess fairly obvious reasons) it utterly failed and then complained, then demanded that I update again after a while, giving me an option to defer it. (I never did figure out how to get it to stop pestering, but I guess that's a non-issue.) So I didn't ever get a locked bootloader simply because it failed to do what it was trying to do.
Anyway, I've installed CM10 and so far so good. Well, I gave myself a good scare by forgetting to do a factory reset (*sigh* I wish I didn't have to do that, but, after all, it's a significant change going from a highly modified VZW infested ICS to a cleaner custom Jelly Bean) and it sat there stuck on the boot logo until I reread the instructions and rebooted to fix it (at least CM doesn't wipe out the CWM recovery like the stock ROM does...) I still have a LOT to do to get everything all reinstalled and reconfigured. I'm not going to be able to finish it all tonight, so won't really be able to comment about the results of the switch until tomorrow I guess. It's not helping that it's taking absolutely forever to download the Google Play package and all (and then I get to redownload a lot of the apps, though hopefully TitaniumBackup can safely restore a lot of it.)
EDIT: BTW, is it just me or do they really REALLY need to provide basic info on how to do simple tasks like the actual installation process itself, installing Google Play, and etc? I'm no stranger to googling for info, but wow what a pain to figure this all out (especially it never occurred to me that the gapps zip would have to be installed using CWM. I thought it was for the firmwares themselves only, not them and apps...)
EDIT2: Oh wow. I had no idea how much work this was really going to be! I said before that a full ROM install is something I wanted to do once. Well, I definitely want to never do this again. I'm having to fight all sorts of things. Google didn't even want to recognize my phone at first despite successfully connecting my accounts and registered apps such as, oh, I don't know, Titanium Backup Pro just for instance weren't showing up as already purchased... -.- I think I finally got it all restored and they now properly show up as owned, but I've lost hours just fighting with all of these various things...
It also seems to have serious issues with my WiFi. I haven't figured out what is going on exactly, but it seems like I'm having to turn wifi off and on a bit to get it to properly connect again -- I've put in my password so many times I'm about to go absolutely insane (unfortunately, for various reasons I'm still stuck on WEP 128-bit, so I have to type in a large hexidecimal encryption key and I'm just about ready to go postal.) Hopefully once everything is finally all setup and configured all will be well, but at the moment I've lost a pretty good bit of sleep while fighting this and barely have it up and running. I probably should have waited for an off day to do this.

Nazo said:
Hehe, funny thing about that. It tried to automatically update without bothering to ask. I presume because I had the FWupdate app frozen (for I guess fairly obvious reasons) it utterly failed and then complained, then demanded that I update again after a while, giving me an option to defer it. (I never did figure out how to get it to stop pestering, but I guess that's a non-issue.) So I didn't ever get a locked bootloader simply because it failed to do what it was trying to do.
Anyway, I've installed CM10 and so far so good. Well, I gave myself a good scare by forgetting to do a factory reset (*sigh* I wish I didn't have to do that, but, after all, it's a significant change going from a highly modified VZW infested ICS to a cleaner custom Jelly Bean) and it sat there stuck on the boot logo until I reread the instructions and rebooted to fix it (at least CM doesn't wipe out the CWM recovery like the stock ROM does...) I still have a LOT to do to get everything all reinstalled and reconfigured. I'm not going to be able to finish it all tonight, so won't really be able to comment about the results of the switch until tomorrow I guess. It's not helping that it's taking absolutely forever to download the Google Play package and all (and then I get to redownload a lot of the apps, though hopefully TitaniumBackup can safely restore a lot of it.)
EDIT: BTW, is it just me or do they really REALLY need to provide basic info on how to do simple tasks like the actual installation process itself, installing Google Play, and etc? I'm no stranger to googling for info, but wow what a pain to figure this all out (especially it never occurred to me that the gapps zip would have to be installed using CWM. I thought it was for the firmwares themselves only, not them and apps...)
EDIT2: Oh wow. I had no idea how much work this was really going to be! I said before that a full ROM install is something I wanted to do once. Well, I definitely want to never do this again. I'm having to fight all sorts of things. Google didn't even want to recognize my phone at first despite successfully connecting my accounts and registered apps such as, oh, I don't know, Titanium Backup Pro just for instance weren't showing up as already purchased... -.- I think I finally got it all restored and they now properly show up as owned, but I've lost hours just fighting with all of these various things...
It also seems to have serious issues with my WiFi. I haven't figured out what is going on exactly, but it seems like I'm having to turn wifi off and on a bit to get it to properly connect again -- I've put in my password so many times I'm about to go absolutely insane (unfortunately, for various reasons I'm still stuck on WEP 128-bit, so I have to type in a large hexidecimal encryption key and I'm just about ready to go postal.) Hopefully once everything is finally all setup and configured all will be well, but at the moment I've lost a pretty good bit of sleep while fighting this and barely have it up and running. I probably should have waited for an off day to do this.
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Strange that you are having so many issues. First off, when I flash a new ROM I put the ROM and the latest GApps on the sdcard. Do a factory reset, clear dalvik cache, install the ROM then the GApps. As far as wifi, I didn't have a problem when I ran CM10, but maybe there is something messed up in the latest version. Are you running the nightlies or the M versions?

The M version from the link above (the 2012 10-11 one.) At first I thought the issue I was having was the one from before where it would decide that my network with the hidden SSID was out of range automatically the moment it lost connection (either me leaving the area or turning off WiFi) but I not only tried to use the hidden SSID enabler, but also even went so far as to just re-enable the SSID broadcast on the router, so it's no longer hidden. It seems like it's having troubles initializing the WiFi. Maybe I somehow managed to freeze/remove an app that did something or other along these lines (though I just can't see how given that it can work, it just has issues.) I'm having to turn it off and on once or twice to get it to finally reconnect. I guess it's not bad since I have the power widget in the notifications tray that makes this a bit easier, but that doesn't make this any more fun at all to deal with. EDIT: In fact, whereas the hidden SSID issue I ran into previously had it just show up as being out of range after it lost the connection until I "forgot" the network setting and reconfigured it again, it looks like nothing shows up at all until I turn it off and on -- but I don't have to redo the network setting, so this is definitely a completely different issue. I think actually it's like it's just not correctly enabling the wifi on startup if it was left on when I rebooted so I have to turn it off and back on to get it to truly turn it on in the first place.
And yeah, I cleared the cache and did a factory reset before installing. Well, bear in mind that it naturally was showing up as a different device and all. So some initial configuration was definitely going to be required to even get started, and I was switching from ICS to JB (and completely different sorts of ROMs besides) so some initial fight was inevitable even if CM10 were the most established and stable build ever made just going from the one to the other. Actually, one interesting feature of Titanium Backup Pro (once I finally got it to recognize that I had the Pro version in the first place) is apparently the ability to change the device ID to seem to be the same as far as installed programs and such go, so now Google Play among other things thinks this is the same exact device as before now as opposed to being a new device. It's actually weird because the "new" one doesn't even show up on Google Play's settings anymore (and Google still hasn't gotten around to fixing it such that we can remove devices, so I still have my old Archos 43 PDA listed in there for instance.) Between everything, Google now is letting me once again access my software without re-buying or relying on backups (which is especially good because a few things seem to just get stuck when I try to restore them -- it just sits there forever, not ever really installing.)
BTW, I lost all the Verizon-specific special numbers such as *86 for voicemail. Apparently CM10 doesn't bother to list them (but then as they are vendor specific I guess that's not a big surprise.) Is there any sort of list of the numbers Verizon uses out there -- maybe even including whatever special numbers that might be more specific to this phone itself (such as that hidden menu or whatever)?
EDIT: Ok, so far things are starting to come together slowly but surely. One oddity though, I noticed at the end of my work shift that, rather than the usual 10% or so of battery time lost, it seemed to have lost about 20%. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's double -- it might be more like 15% many times -- but it is very odd all the same. I thought I was seeing a bad trend along these lines last night, so went ahead and put SetCPU back on there with the profile to do powersaving and serious underclocking when the screen is off and in both cases I used the "conservative" CPU governor for the normal use with the maximum CPU speed at about 1GHz (conservative is supposed to be like ondemand with a better tendency towards power saving at the expense of taking longer to scale the CPU upwards when needed.) As this is CM10, there should be no room for doubt that the CPU is being scaled down -- in fact in the performance menu I often see the CPU at a mere 384MHz (which is my minimum setting) -- so I'm just not sure what to think just yet. The settings menu for the battery life shows mostly just basic system processes like the screen, idle, and etc being the main culprits for battery usage, so again odd since the screen is the main thing yet is off during my working hours (with the very short exception of my breaks.) I don't think the automatic brightness setting is any higher or anything either and, in fact, configured it to use generally lower settings until the maximum brightness.
Guess more tweaking and testing is needed to be sure, but it's odd all the same. If anything CM10 is running LESS all the time by way of hidden services and such (though as far as things that actually show up in the likes of Android Assistant I'm having to fight far more things including an "analog clock" that isn't even in the app list so I'm hoping is just the normal clock despite the fact that "analog clock" in normal firmwares is actually a separate extra thing.) Guess I'll still have to wait and see to some extent.
Edit2: Haha, I just read that you have to recalibrate the battery meter after flashing, so it'd probably just not being very accurate is all. I grabbed an app to help do that so hopefully this is all that was going on (and if I go by Android Assistant's voltage status I'd say that it definitely is off.)
Edit3: (Just kind of adding as I go along here.) Now that all the basics are in place and I had some time and the desire to drain the battery more quickly (as part of the recalibrate process you're supposed to drain it until it automatically shuts down) so I plugged in my headphones and started listening. So far so good. I was really hoping that one of the advantages of a custom ROM would be a more precise volume control (Google really dropped the ball on that one! Sometimes you're trying to get it just right and end up stuck between either a bit painfully too loud or annoyingly too quiet with no in-between) but other than some dissapointed wishful thinking, it seems sound-wise this release of the SGS3 CM10 is just fine. I don't really hear any bloat or distortion in the bass and in general the usual modifications that they do to the sound just aren't there (or at least if they are they are subtle enough to fool my, let's say "bronze" ears since I'm definitely at the bottom of the audiophile chain, lol.) In one thread where someone asked how the Qualcom compared to the Wolfson sound-wise someone said it was a bit tinny, but if it is it's far too subtle for me to notice (and this is bearing mind that these are headphones with a slight bass roll-off, so it does seem like I'd notice any significant loss in the lower ranges pretty quickly. In this respect I'm happy or at least satisfied that nothing has gone wrong.
Also, one way or the other the wifi issue seems to have gone away. I'm guessing it was an app I had frozen that I reenabled, but that's just a guess. It's so hard to be 100% sure with these things unless you apply a long painful scientific process every single step of the way...
I'm STILL trying to figure out a way to configure the haptic feedback level. It seems to be all on or all off with no ability to reduce strength of feedback that I've found so far.

Another word to the wise, backup your imei. Not sure if that was mentioned yet
Also, your ROM will work better after a charging cycle or two. It will initially scam for media and such I believe which maybe part if the reason you're seeing slightly higher usage at first. Also, in general you'll get slightly less battery life on aosp. I don't find much use in most battery stats though. They're easily manipulated.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda app-developers app

Well, I had a small accident. I was replacing some fonts and manually selecting which ones to replace with what when I threw in Arial Unicode and another font that was still slightly large. I'm assuming because the font files were so big, but it completely stopped booting. After fighting with it for hours upon hours (and I have since found what might be a font zip file for CWM now that it's far too late to do me any good -- though of course it would have had to replace those particular fonts and it seems like most of my attempts to replace them ended up replacing everything but them.) I just couldn't get a driver to install for the phone while CWM was running (I don't know if you can maybe get an adb shell or what, but without the driver you obviously can't.) In the end, I ended up having to reformat and reinstall CM10 from scratch. So far (knock on wood) none of the real problems I was having before have really repeated. (And this time around I just kept my font changes minor and no gigantic overkill fonts.) Sadly, TitaniumBackup can't restore all apps it seems (it just sort of freezes on some) but overall I've managed to restore most of it. I was waiting to make a backup in CWM until I had fully gotten everything configured and running the way I wanted it. Guess I should have done one sooner, but now I'm close to the original goal of having it basically right where I want it before making the backup (thank goodness TitaniumBackup at least was able to get the bulk of the work. And I love how it can even restore the device ID so that as far as everything is concerned this is the same phone I've always been using.)
It does still have a worse battery life compared to the stock ROM, but I guess it's not too bad. Still better than most phones no matter how you look at it. I'm not entirely sure it wasn't the battery being somewhat at fault though. I was using a third party battery by Anker. By the feel of it, it actually is surprisingly dense for a third party battery -- it weighs about the same amount as the stock battery -- so it might actually have a pretty good capacity, but at the same time I'm not 100% sure it truly is every bit as good. At first it certainly seemed to be, but maybe it's starting to wear down more quickly overall. For now I guess I'll switch back to stock (my original plan was to just store it at some 70% or so capacity so it should last and then punish these two third party batteries, but now I guess I'll consider them to be the backups instead. I don't like that the charge goes as high as 4.33V or so though. 4.2V is supposed to be considered pushing things pretty hard as it is, so I have a bad feeling about the overall lifetime of these batteries...) Again I have SetCPU hopefully helping out a bit (I like that CM10 has options for this that it can set on boot, but it doesn't have any other options than that and I like how I can have SetCPU actually lower things much further while the screen is off. I don't care if some processes take longer to, well, process while the screen is off after all, so there's no reason not to use a lower CPU setting IMO.) Actually, I was beginning to become quite concerned because the battery was actually going down just doing a few basic things like restoring backups while plugged into the charger despite having the governor on conservative, the maximum CPU frequency at 1066MHz, and the I/O set to SIO (which at least one person claims is better, though I wasn't 100% convinced from what little I could tell -- if anyone has any suggestions for the best balance between battery life and performance in this respect I'm curious. I try to keep it on something that kind of scales so that games and such still work fine without me having to change it specifically for each or something while it could still at least not kill the battery when it's not being pushed as hard.)
Interesting thing about the whole WiFi thing. I read on one thread where someone suggested changing the device name (in the developer options) to no longer have a dash in it to stop the intermittent WiFi dropouts. It's kind of ridiculous and should have absolutely no effect whatsoever on this, but so far it actually seems like it might have worked. Again, knock on wood... It's odd though because I never had that trouble with the stock firmware (then again, for all I know it didn't have a dash in its default device name and I doubt I ever changed it if it was even an option though I can't really remember one way or the other if I could have.) I won't know for sure for a while as it was kind of random before, but so far it's looking promising at least. And I haven't had any trouble with it picking up my network yet either.
BTW, I forgot to do the IMEI backup before somehow. Is it too late to for it to be any good now? I know, I know, but I was a bit excited about the prospect of going to CyanogenMod 10 in the first place and just forgot along the way I guess. I went ahead and ran it ("reboot nvbackup" from the terminal anyway -- it sure would be nice if it actually properly shut down first instead of doing a cold reboot -- but other than some tiny blue text in the corner that might or might not have said something to the effect of that it was making a backup it just flashed by and booted up normally. I was expecting a recovery menu or something.) But I don't know if it's going to do any good to have run it now. Is there anything other than the IMEI itself contained in that data that I should be concerned about? I think the IMEI is correct still (I checked the numbers in the settings at least and they seem to correspond to what I wrote down from under the battery) but I'm not sure about anything beyond the numbers themselves.

Nazo said:
Well, I had a small accident. I was replacing some fonts and manually selecting which ones to replace with what when I threw in Arial Unicode and another font that was still slightly large. I'm assuming because the font files were so big, but it completely stopped booting. After fighting with it for hours upon hours (and I have since found what might be a font zip file for CWM now that it's far too late to do me any good -- though of course it would have had to replace those particular fonts and it seems like most of my attempts to replace them ended up replacing everything but them.) I just couldn't get a driver to install for the phone while CWM was running (I don't know if you can maybe get an adb shell or what, but without the driver you obviously can't.) In the end, I ended up having to reformat and reinstall CM10 from scratch. So far (knock on wood) none of the real problems I was having before have really repeated. (And this time around I just kept my font changes minor and no gigantic overkill fonts.) Sadly, TitaniumBackup can't restore all apps it seems (it just sort of freezes on some) but overall I've managed to restore most of it. I was waiting to make a backup in CWM until I had fully gotten everything configured and running the way I wanted it. Guess I should have done one sooner, but now I'm close to the original goal of having it basically right where I want it before making the backup (thank goodness TitaniumBackup at least was able to get the bulk of the work. And I love how it can even restore the device ID so that as far as everything is concerned this is the same phone I've always been using.)
It does still have a worse battery life compared to the stock ROM, but I guess it's not too bad. Still better than most phones no matter how you look at it. I'm not entirely sure it wasn't the battery being somewhat at fault though. I was using a third party battery by Anker. By the feel of it, it actually is surprisingly dense for a third party battery -- it weighs about the same amount as the stock battery -- so it might actually have a pretty good capacity, but at the same time I'm not 100% sure it truly is every bit as good. At first it certainly seemed to be, but maybe it's starting to wear down more quickly overall. For now I guess I'll switch back to stock (my original plan was to just store it at some 70% or so capacity so it should last and then punish these two third party batteries, but now I guess I'll consider them to be the backups instead. I don't like that the charge goes as high as 4.33V or so though. 4.2V is supposed to be considered pushing things pretty hard as it is, so I have a bad feeling about the overall lifetime of these batteries...) Again I have SetCPU hopefully helping out a bit (I like that CM10 has options for this that it can set on boot, but it doesn't have any other options than that and I like how I can have SetCPU actually lower things much further while the screen is off. I don't care if some processes take longer to, well, process while the screen is off after all, so there's no reason not to use a lower CPU setting IMO.)
Interesting thing about the whole WiFi thing. I read on one thread where someone suggested changing the device name (in the developer options) to no longer have a dash in it to stop the intermittent WiFi dropouts. It's kind of ridiculous and should have absolutely no effect whatsoever on this, but so far it actually seems like it might have worked. Again, knock on wood... It's odd though because I never had that trouble with the stock firmware (then again, for all I know it didn't have a dash in its default device name and I doubt I ever changed it if it was even an option though I can't really remember one way or the other if I could have.) I won't know for sure for a while as it was kind of random before, but so far it's looking promising at least. And I haven't had any trouble with it picking up my network yet either.
BTW, I forgot to do the IMEI backup before somehow. Is it too late to for it to be any good now? I know, I know, but I was a bit excited about the prospect of going to CyanogenMod 10 in the first place and just forgot along the way I guess.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No your OK you can get your IMEI underneath where your battery is. There's a tutorial on YouTube
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda premium

HTC for life?, One X has sent me packing.

I've always had an HTC phone everything from the EVO shift (yee yeah), to the Inspire HD, then got a Vivid, now I'm using this One X AT&T. I've been spoiled by Sense, I can't imagine having to use a Samsung. It's nice, fast yada yada but geeez its bubbly icons kill it for me.
This OneX I can't understand why the All the softkeys or home keys have been changed. The back key is for left hand people, Why does the recent apps button even exist and then put it in the most convenient place? No battery? What I mean to say is no extra battery. Ive always bought an extra battery so that if I don't have a plug-in or charger I got it covered.
Can someone give me any reason why the charge port is on the side?
No SD storage... This is probably the main reason Im done with HTC. A factory reset from the bootloader erases everything on your phone including backups. EVERYTHING ON YOUR PHONE! Not the recovery though...
Is there any way of securing the data so this never happens?
Now my camera has went out. No camera.. Ive tried everything, I even called HTC support they tried and they say "need new hardware". I really hate to tear into this phone.
I never write these vent posts.. I would fight someone lastweek if they talked trash about HTC phones. Maybe I got lemon, it's just One thing after another.
Although it seems like I'm trashing this phone I really love it. I just can't store anything important on it or take pictures, video.. I've read so many posts on replacing the camera but I just hate to tear into it. Any suggestions would be appreciated. I never knew how important it was..
No one can say anything bad about the screen on the One X. It's amazing..
Sound is great
Smooth running phone too..
I'm scared to spend money on another HTC product. Maybe there is a way to try out a phone for a couple days that would be great.
THOUGHTS?????
Sent using-
Sense5 HTC OneXL
unlocked, rooted, S-off
TurboCharged
Tampered like a mother f....er

You have the right to voice your opinion but this isn't really the place to do it. You're just knocking the phone. It's not a perfect phone, but it's really good once you get it rooted and all that. Stay respectful, everyone!
Sent from my evita

I'm wondering why you bought it on the first place.
Almost all of your complaints are hardware ones that you know about before buying the phone?
Personally I don't mind the hardware at all. External SD would be nice but not a big deal. And I like right side unlock buttons.
As far as the camera I think it was just bad luck or damage. Haven't heard about it happening much at all.
Sent from my HTC One X using xda premium

My niggles:
They put pogo contacts on the phone... but couldn't be bothered to make anything that actually uses them.
9.xGB of storage when I was expecting the typical 14.xGB for a phone advertised with 16GB.
HUGE pain to get root early on, though partially att's fault.
The phone loses signal if I leave it face up. (really gotta find time to get that fixed...)
Other than that, it's been an awesome phone.

I think HTC could've improved more in the music department and camera, but I agree with RollTribe. It's not a perfect phone, and there will never be a perfect phone imo. For me it was the software and hardware (GPS works!!) that made me stay.
Overall I would consider the XL solid. I'm going to look past the HTC One, though, and wait for the next generation.
Sent from my HTC One X using xda premium

I think the back button is in a perfect spot for right handed people, it is right in reach of my thumb when held in my right hand.
You complain about the recent app button, but I don't follow your complaint. It exists so you can multitask, you say it is in a convenient spot and I agree, easily accessed by the right thumb when held right handed.
Extra battery? I have never found myself wanting to buy extra batteries for any phone ever. I just charge mine when required. This phone lasts a full day easy if you are not playing games on it. I am a heavy phone user with maybe 30-50 calls every work day, sync an ics calendar every hour, use calendar, contacts, browser and email a whole bunch. The phone lasts the entire day. These days with my car dock I can play games all day without issue
Charge port on the side makes for easy landscape car docking, perfect for GPS. I slip mine into the car charger often these days, it is one of the easiest phones to get in and out of the dock as the charge port is on the side.
SD storage, again I use my phone for a whole bunch of things and have never gone close to using the full storage. I stream over Spotify via Bluetooth to my car head unit. I have about 20-30 user apps installed. I just can not fill the phone. I even have the 16GB model from Hong Kong while most around me who bought from Telstra have 32GB.
I have had my phone for 15 months now and the camera still works perfectly. My last phone(s) was a Nexus One and a Nokia E68(or something) I smashed the camera lens on the Nokia before 12 months, not sure how, but my One XL is fine.
Then the next user, Zodiac:
I like the unlock at the top, easy to reach with right index finger, but can not be accidentally pushed.
Then, antichamp:
pogo pin issues( I initially really wanted to use the pogo pins aswell just for the gimmick until I realized they only seem cool)
1)The pogo pins are used on the desk dock.
2)The USB port actually "locks" the phone in to the car dock, the car dock requires a locking mechanism unlike the desk dock.
3)The pogo pins would cause scratch marks along the back as the pins drag along the case as you slide the phone in and out of a car dock.
4)The pins on the dock would wear out because of #3
5)What is wrong with the USB port?
The phone is easy to get root on. All issues are AT&T, the phone in EVERY other region is a breeze to unlock.
My gripe is weird data issues, where you sometimes need to give the phone a kick (eg via airplane mode toggling) to reset data (3g, 4g or wifi).
This was been improved dramatically though the updates but is still a niggling issue that sometimes crops up.
Also originally I disliked not having a hardware menu key and being forced into the Android 3 dot menu thing. Ofcourse HTC listened and fixed that issue in an update.

When you say sound is great are we talking about the same phone? Can barely hear my phone speakers from the back seat of my car.
That and spotty service/data issues are my only gripes on this phone.
Sent from my HTC One XL using xda app-developers app

cannonofcourse said:
Now my camera has went out. No camera.. Ive tried everything, I even called HTC support they tried and they say "need new hardware". I really hate to tear into this phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think I might be having the same issue as you. Does the camera app just freeze immediately and crash? Then says cannot connect to camera when you try to open it again. Happened to me on AOKP Milestone 2 (rohan said it was an issue in the mainline AOKP), but now I've run 3.18 RUU and flashed the latest CM10.1 nightly and had the same issue.
Sent from my S-Off, turbo injected AT&T HTC One X (evita), running AOKP 4.2.2 & using XDA Premium

cannonofcourse said:
A factory reset from the bootloader erases everything on your phone including backups. EVERYTHING ON YOUR PHONE! Not the recovery though...
Is there any way of securing the data so this never happens?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This only occurs after you have modded the phone, so you can't blame HTC for this. Factory reset from bootloader works fine on stock phones.
The way to secure your data is very simple: Don't factory reset from bootloader. Its been mentioned in countless places. So if you wiped your backups, its your own fault for lack of proper research.

Research? Lets just try and read before quoting...
redpoint73 said:
This only occurs after you have modded the phone, so you can't blame HTC for this. Factory reset from bootloader works fine on stock phones.
The way to secure your data is very simple: Don't factory reset from bootloader. Its been mentioned in countless places. So if you wiped your backups, its your own fault for lack of proper research.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would expect this kind of blasphemy if I posted a dumb video on YouTube, but the fact that this is a dev site full of "professionals". I posted a comment against my better judgement to try and find answers or suggestions about my phone. The first response is that
"This isnt the place for that" And then 2nd response is
"Why did you buy the one x, you should have known about these things"
First of all I dont think its constructive to rip someone down for a post when clearly alot of people are having the same problem. And I wish I would have found an honest review of this phone before I bought it. I wish I could have read my post before buying this phone. But for some reason Im a black sheep (to a few) for giving my opinion on very important flaws that anyone should be concerned with. I love HTC and have 6 devices prior to this one.
Im not sure who (the 5th reply) twist....? works for and to make statements like never having a storage issue and dont mind the internal card.? I never said anything about the storage. I am commenting on the fact you cant remove the sd card just to make sure the data is secure. And I would love to have a number of how many people use a car dock or computer dock.?? Maybe this guy works for a manufacturer/...///??
I always carry an extra battery and Im not the only person who does. To act like that is unreasonable is just ridiculous.
Of course not all phones are perfect Of course! Why would anyone feel the need to say that...
I love my ONE X It just annoys me that I cant take pictures of my little girl with it. Or store any important data on it. Ive had at least 5 people contact me about the camera issue and are having the same problem.
This last reply to my review and concerns and wanted suggestions takes the cake.
The last comment clearly says that if "you want to secure your data then dont do a factory reset from the boot-loader. It only happens on Modded phones". I have 6 HTC phones and none of them wipe the complete phone to include the external sd. NONE... I wanted to know if it was possible to lock the sd storage or "trick" it to thinking it had an external sd and dont wipe that. If you dont know the answer then fine. I dont see how that is irrational. And I dont think anyone comes to this site because they want to get information on "never modding or rooting there phone." This site is kinda geared towards people who enjoy learning and doing cool, great and ingenious things to make everyone's life better. Or awesome. But to get completely ripped by senior members and the comments being about something other than what I or other members even said is UN professional. This site encourages members to post on General Forumns. I think its 10 before I can move to the big boy pages. But at this rate what could I possible have to gain by it. If I make mistakes or brick my phone then why should I feel like an idiot for wanting people to know why and how it happened to save them a headache? I dont see how typing anymore will stress how childish most of the replies to my posts have been, cannonofcourse out...

You need to calm down. Redpoint was right.
Sent from my Evita

Bottom line, you want perfect stability, Don't root.

cannonofcourse said:
The back key is for left hand people,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm right handed and it really doesn't bother me. I can sympathize with having to get used to differences on devices. It always takes a while for me to get used to things.
cannonofcourse said:
No battery? What I mean to say is no extra battery. Ive always bought an extra battery so that if I don't have a plug-in or charger I got it covered.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I find that external battery packs are way more convenient. You can pick up a 10,000 mah Anker pack for under $50 and it'll charge your phone several times. And it works for any other devices that you might have that charge via USB. And it will work on the next phone that you buy.
cannonofcourse said:
Can someone give me any reason why the charge port is on the side?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No idea. It does however work very well with the iBolt car dock. Quick and easy to put the phone in and lock it.
cannonofcourse said:
No SD storage... This is probably the main reason Im done with HTC. A factory reset from the bootloader erases everything on your phone including backups. EVERYTHING ON YOUR PHONE! Not the recovery though...
Is there any way of securing the data so this never happens?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I found this out the hard way as well, but anything on my phone exists other places. I don't consider my phone to be a place to store unrecoverable files. My photos are automatically backed up to G+, contacts and email are on Google, anything else doesn't really matter.
cannonofcourse said:
Now my camera has went out. No camera.. Ive tried everything, I even called HTC support they tried and they say "need new hardware". I really hate to tear into this phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That just sucks. I had to get a warranty replacement at one point due to a bad SIM slot, but the AT&T service center swapped it out no questions asked, didn't even notice that the bootloader was unlocked.
With all of that said, I really do think that people here are trying to help.

cannonofcourse said:
I would expect this kind of blasphemy if I posted a dumb video on YouTube, but the fact that this is a dev site full of "professionals".
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So if anybody disagrees with you, its "blasphemy"??? Nobody here is a professional. Professionals get paid. If you mean courteous and polite, I don't see any responses to the contrary. Yes, several of us have disagreed with you. But not in any way that can remotely be considered a flame, personal attack, etc.
I was simply pointing out a FACT that the factory reset from bootloader bug exists due to the phone being hacked. HTC could have not have predicted every way user-implemented mods could harm the phone. You have some legitimate criticisms of HTC and the phone. But the factory reset issue isn't one of them.
You asked for our thoughts. We gave them. Or maybe you just wanted to hear from people that agreed with you?

I'm done with HTC as well if motorola steps up its game with the X but frankly i'll support anyone except samsung. I just want to see android evolve to more than just 1 oem (samsung).
I don't hold the past against any oem. If i like the new phone, i'll buy it.

twistedddx said:
Then, antichamp:
pogo pin issues( I initially really wanted to use the pogo pins aswell just for the gimmick until I realized they only seem cool)
1)The pogo pins are used on the desk dock.
2)The USB port actually "locks" the phone in to the car dock, the car dock requires a locking mechanism unlike the desk dock.
3)The pogo pins would cause scratch marks along the back as the pins drag along the case as you slide the phone in and out of a car dock.
4)The pins on the dock would wear out because of #3
5)What is wrong with the USB port?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is no desk dock for this phone...
For the international version there is, regardless of it's mediocre reviews.
I recently discovered the unfortunate truth of your 2nd point (I'm trying to make my own car dock).
On three and four, wouldn't that indicate a poor design of the phone? (blame the user ala apple's "you're holding it wrong")
There's nothing wrong with the usb port, I just think it would be convienient to both charge the phone and get analog audio out without connecting both the usb and 3.5mm jack.
fleabeard said:
I had to get a warranty replacement at one point due to a bad SIM slot, but the AT&T service center swapped it out no questions asked, didn't even notice that the bootloader was unlocked.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmmm, bad sim slot you say?
If I don't leave my phone face down it loses service. I have to restart it upside down and shake it before it will come back.
Think I could have the same problem?

It's possible. Or it could just be the SIM carrier.
Sent from my One X using Tapatalk 4 Beta

Well....
fleabeard said:
I'm right handed and it really doesn't bother me. I can sympathize with having to get used to differences on devices. It always takes a while for me to get used to things.
I find that external battery packs are way more convenient. You can pick up a 10,000 mah Anker pack for under $50 and it'll charge your phone several times. And it works for any other devices that you might have that charge via USB. And it will work on the next phone that you buy.
Actually I bought one of the "power on the go" packs from radio shack and broke it apart, replaced the battery with a 3600mah I ordered for my evo on accident. It cost about 8 dollars (plus the cost of the extra battery 12 bucks I think) and it charges my phone incredibly fast and about 3 times before I have to charge it back.up. Nothing worse than hearing that beep noise when your trying to get something done.
No idea. It does however work very well with the iBolt car dock. Quick and easy to put the phone in and lock it.
I found this out the hard way as well, but anything on my phone exists other places. I don't consider my phone to be a place to store unrecoverable files. My photos are automatically backed up to G+, contacts and email are on Google, anything else doesn't really matter.
I do try to back up everything to the cloud, via Google drive or I have a media server but it always seems like the one thing I needed is gone forever. I just found out the hard way that a reset from the bootloader took out my whole phone. It just sucks not being able to pull the card out and hold it.
That just sucks. I had to get a warranty replacement at one point due to a bad SIM slot, but the AT&T service center swapped it out no questions asked, didn't even notice that the bootloader was unlocked.
It seems like a certain set of serial numbers are having a hardware issue. I hate to go without my phone to get it fixed but I guess thats what I have to do. Thats the price we pay to have it all wrapped up in one little cool device.
With all of that said, I really do think that people here are trying to help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know there are plenty of people that do a fantastic superhuman job. Just hours of searching to find out if someone has or is working on a fix or if I can provide info to contribute seems like so many people just lashing out for no reason.. But maybe Im being defensive.
Thanks

Unfortunately I highly doubt the issues you've brought up can be "fixed".
But...
I'm pretty sure you can change the location of the back button on certain aosp ROMs though.
Using battery case should mitigate the need for a removable battery.
The fact that doing a factory reset from bootloader wipes your phone can't be changed, but a little research on here warns of that in numerous places. And I don't think that's necessarily HTC's fault. It's up to us to educate ourselves about the risks we face when altering our devices.
For instance: TWRP 2.6 has an advanced wipe feature which makes it very easy to wipe your sd card while wiping the usual system and caches. I did that myself just recently, accidentally checked the wrong box and wiped my sd. I lost everything. Without a backup. So many photos of my kids gone for good. But I don't blame TWRP for making it easy to do that. I blame myself for working too fast and not being careful enough.
Sent from my Evita

cannonofcourse said:
I know there are plenty of people that do a fantastic superhuman job. Just hours of searching to find out if someone has or is working on a fix or if I can provide info to contribute seems like so many people just lashing out for no reason.. But maybe Im being defensive.
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did the factory reset thrrough bootloader cause your problems??
If so, all yous gotta do is plug yer phone right into your computer and let windows detect it. Once it finds it, it will send you a window that says something along the lines of having an error with the sd card, from there click the button that says fix errors, and your all set. This happened to me before and I couldnt play music, store or access anything, or use the camera. But now it works perfectly.
And as for the extra battery, the portable chargers provide more battery life with less money. It makes more sense to buy a portable charger even if we did have removable batteries. :good::good::good::good:

[Q] RCA RCT6773W22 8GB 7-Inch Touchscreen Tablet - Rooted, but now in bootloop!

We've managed to get this rooted (see other thread) but now after an adjustment I made, mine's bootlooping.
I did a ton of digging and while there's no apparent ROMs out there, this is a generically made tablet under several brands and makes beyond RCA. RCA and Voyager (RCA Tab parent) claim not to have the ROM for downloading, but that makes no sense for three reasons:
1) How did my tablet know if I had the latest firmware version, etc? It had to surf somewhere and do a check, why can't that also be public or can anyone determine it and we can snag a copy ourselves to distribute?
2) What're they going to do with it if we send it back for 'repair'? I haven't found anyone who has but I'd bet if you tracked the Serial # it'd just be different and they bulk the bricked ones back to China for reloading and resale as 'refurbished'.
3) How exactly did this sucker get MADE? If you had the ROM to load it, hand it built for you, why can't you get it (and back to the updating issue)?
I've discovered this is a Gigabyte based setup, they have a similar model showing but that doesn't mean they made it either - just the hardware states that's what it is. We can't do a ROM that doesn't work on an ARM7 CPU, so the Intel Inside stuff's worthless.
Here's a China declaration about this unit:
We company SHENZHEN ZOWEE TECHNOLOGY CO.,LTD hereby declares:
The product model(s):
DPM7828,DPM7827,DPM7826,TM7005,TM7006,TM7008,NB7856,NB7866 is
identical in the same PCB layout, interior structure and electrical circuits with
the model M7054 which tested in Shenzhen Huatongwei International
Inspection Co., Ltd, the only differences are the model name for commercial
purpose.
The trademarks TMAX, APEX, DOPO, NOBIS, DAGE, NUVISION will be
selected by different customers owing to commercial requirements.
I looked up all those models and brands, again similar stuff but customized for their resale and none have a ROM anywhere that seems to be close!
So any further info you find, tag it onto this thread and if anyone can find a ROM that'd at least get back to access I'd be grateful!
I can ADB, but only sideload.
I can use the microSD, can even push a load to the tab with something on the card but can't find anything.
Have done the wipes, etc. and regardless it keeps rebooting over and over endlessly.
Last change I did was to make Titanium Backup convert to a System file and force it thus I think that's what it's doing and I can't stop it. I'm not that experienced enough with Android (vs. Linux and servers, etc.) to be able to get to and edit some files others have noted that might get me back to normal booting, but without anything but ADB sideloading that may be kinda pointless anyways.
Open to any ideas, thoughts and otherwise! This is a nice, basic tablet with some decent power for the price so if you're hear to just bash stuff or make stupid comments please look elsewhere. Hundreds of us are looking so the solution finder would be a hero!

We've been discussing the root part of this here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/general/help/root-rca-7-voyager-rct6773w22-tablet-t2954669

Additional info on this unit from the other thread
Big thanks to another determined rooter/hacker on these RCA's!
n2locarz said:
Finally got my tablet today. Unable to root using Kingo. No way will I install iRoot. Google and AVG are detecting viruses.
My test setup:
- Windows 8.1 Laptop, USB 2.0 port - Detects correctly in Kingo, fails to root on reboot (WaitForDeviceTimeout)
Same results on USB 3.0 port:
- Windows 8.1 Laptop, USB 3.0 port - Detects correctly in Kingo, fails to root on reboot (WaitForDeviceTimeout)
USB View - Device Descriptor:
bcdUSB: 0x0200
bDeviceClass: 0x00
bDeviceSubClass: 0x00
bDeviceProtocol: 0x00
bMaxPacketSize0: 0x40 (64)
idVendor: 0x0BB4
idProduct: 0x0C02
bcdDevice: 0x0216
iManufacturer: 0x02
iProduct: 0x03
iSerialNumber: 0x04
bNumConfigurations: 0x01
Vendor ID is 0x0BB4
Here is some of my ADB testing.
Information: Checking ADB Status
adb devices
List of devices attached
YL9DDAF6RCIVNJ49 device
Information: Checking Fastboot Status
fastboot devices
Fastboot Status: Device Connected
Information: Booting TWRP Temporarily...
Bricked the tablet by putting it in fastboot, transfering TWRP.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

So far, no good...
At this stage it's just hitting walls and stuck in a bootloop. RCA/Venturer/ALCO 'support' is obviously screen-reading trained monkeys so you won't find help there. I've hit up the Hong Kong parent to see if I get really lucky, but everything I've tried is nothing but that bootloop.
I can add that I've found a ton of FCC filings by ALCO for this sucker including PDFs that show the insides, outside and everything they had to get US certified to import this specific tablet. The more interesting part of that is this thing HAS a CPU that includes WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS and an FM radio receiver! And they're simply just shut off for this version whereas the 'deluxe' apparently has software that turns these other features beyond WiFi on. Also, this tablet was submitted as a 1920x and NOT a 1200x resolution! So there's more hiding in there too, possibly limited in hopes the quad core won't overload. Also I'm seeing news of that CPU being clockable at 1.5Ghz and possibly 1.7Ghz naturally so there could be hidden speed inside.
The pics show a stock tablet, nothing fancy by any means and it looks like many others with just a case switch compared to some. So there are other versions out there, but it's not clear if the boot ROM is specifically and unchangably programmed with all these limits or if the bootloader can make changes if we hacked that up. I believe in my case I told Titanium Backup to make a move that fouled my bootloader up. My understanding now is that while the bootloader can be editable and get modified, the Factory Wipe/Reload only takes all the data files out and puts Android back to stock. Thus the bootloader IS NOT Android and that feature's rather worthless if yours is bootlooping or bricked til we get that figured out.
There is a backup, but so far loading one up may not work because it may not be signed. If someone can run a backup on an unrooted tablet and get it up here, testing on that can happen but the ones I've tried fail immediately. Some were for comparable tablets as well. The 'apply update' seems to only apply to Android updates which won't really take out the bootloop or a bricked one.
Open to any and all ideas, contributions and more!

FCC files link (too big for here) of tablet
Use these links to get to the FCC files (PDFs) of the Interior (2), Manual and Specifications for this tablet!
Specs:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/sfag3332vw2ahgf/RCA Tablet FCC Specifications.pdf?dl=0
Manual:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/jik79ljfqwfrh0y/RCA Tablet FCC Manual.pdf?dl=0
Internal Images 1 of 2
https://www.dropbox.com/s/lrk9rcd6ov5alqu/RCA Tablet FCC Interal Images.pdf?dl=0
Internal Images 2 of 2
https://www.dropbox.com/s/75hkwijrqmaz60g/RCA Tablet FCC Interal Images 2.pdf?dl=0

Battery looks like a 1000mAh (or less). But it maintains pretty good (50% charge even after 3 days):
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It's said they underamped the battery to be cheap, but I've had the same results (when it was working) with longevity of the battery and that's with everything cranked up like the brightness, etc. to max. Standy's about the same, I can turn it on and leave it in sleep for hours on end and come back to a 60-75% charge. That's what kills me even worse that it's bootloped, I LIKE this stupid thing and loved using it! Hopefully we have a solution (another thread) and it may turn on other options hiding inside.
Big trick is the bootloader seems to be corrupted from the system app setting of Titanium Backup, so replacing it's the first hurdle. And as restricted as this tablet is for recovery booting, that ain't easy.

They might also have under-clocked the 1400 Mhz cpu (actual hardware spec) to 1300 Mhz to stretch battery life. But it is still faster than my 2012 Nexus 7 - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2304369

Happy holidays ppl!!!! :sly:

Nate2 said:
They might also have under-clocked the 1400 Mhz cpu (actual hardware spec) to 1300 Mhz to stretch battery life. But it is still faster than my 2012 Nexus 7 - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2304369
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually we've found the Cube GT25/GT27 version of this (same tablet) has gone up to 1.7Ghz and 1920x1200 resolution so I'm dying to get back inside!

PSCGOhio said:
Actually we've found the Cube GT25/GT27 version of this (same tablet) has gone up to 1.7Ghz and 1920x1200 resolution so I'm dying to get back inside!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The U25GT looks fairly identical - http://www.cube-tablet.com/cube-u25...-tablet-pc-bluetooth-gps-fm-hdmi-1gb-8gb.html
The U27GT uses a different processor and has a 3G radio - http://www.cube-tablet.com/cube-tal...ore-android-4-4-bluetooth-phone-call-8gb.html

Nate2 said:
The U25GT looks fairly identical - http://www.cube-tablet.com/cube-u25...-tablet-pc-bluetooth-gps-fm-hdmi-1gb-8gb.html
The U27GT uses a different processor and has a 3G radio - http://www.cube-tablet.com/cube-tal...ore-android-4-4-bluetooth-phone-call-8gb.html
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep, my bad upon further digging;
The U27's are NOT the same and a different underlying MediaTek part that would cause issues with the ROM.
The U25 though, is an exact duplicate from the same manufacturer, the main difference being the outer case and the looks of the back with speaker holes, etc. Otherwise inside's the same from the docs I'm finding. That pic shows the HDMI port that we don't have, we're only missing the socket and the hole - the mobo's are duplicates. There's a GPS, FM and Bluetooth setup hiding in there to be released as well if we can and I've read others who have.
Still, the way mine's freaking out there doesn't appear to be a way to short-boot before the preloader or the dalvik cache to get a ROM in there or at least not an exact match from the RCA setup. The Cube may be signed differently and therefore not seeming to work.
I'm still after anyone who can figure that part out regardless of ROM, I hit up ALCO in Hong Kong and so far, nada. But I expected that too. At this point from what I've found on Androids, the core ROM portion that gets us to the Recovery only screen is hardwired but the NVRAM has the dalvik cache and the programming that cause the bootloop from some bad instruction/install. That could be modified, but we can't get shell ADB access to snag and push corrected files back. Far as I can piece together, there's 2 caches both the Dalvik and the running cache. When we factory reset and wipe the cache, we only get the 2nd one and NOT the Dalvik and that could be where the bootloop issue is.

I read through all 15 pages of the other thread as well as this one in hopes that someone would've come along and figured it out, lol. My girlfriend, sister and I all got one of these for Christmas, with only one fully working, which I gave to my girlfriend. My sister's loves to reboot, and mine has been in bootloop since day one. It had occasionally pushed past the loop, but when it got to the initial setup screen Google Play Services would immediately force close 4 times in a row and then restart. I tried factory recovery a few times but to no avail and ended up getting frustrated and leaving it on the charger for a few days, hoping some magic may happen. I pulled it out again today and now it enjoys freezing on the black RCA screen. It has made it to the startup screen a few times but touch appears not to work. It feels like an electronic photo frame that I can't load pictures into
I'm super anxious for any sort of fix to come out because of how great this tablet seems it could be. Thanks for all your research!

xChowderrrx said:
I read through all 15 pages of the other thread as well as this one in hopes that someone would've come along and figured it out, lol. My girlfriend, sister and I all got one of these for Christmas, with only one fully working, which I gave to my girlfriend. My sister's loves to reboot, and mine has been in bootloop since day one. It had occasionally pushed past the loop, but when it got to the initial setup screen Google Play Services would immediately force close 4 times in a row and then restart. I tried factory recovery a few times but to no avail and ended up getting frustrated and leaving it on the charger for a few days, hoping some magic may happen. I pulled it out again today and now it enjoys freezing on the black RCA screen. It has made it to the startup screen a few times but touch appears not to work. It feels like an electronic photo frame that I can't load pictures into
I'm super anxious for any sort of fix to come out because of how great this tablet seems it could be. Thanks for all your research!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry you're having the trouble! We've been trying to get this figured out and it's been frustrating. We HAVE rooted it in a variety of ways, but then you have to be careful with settings on the root tools afterwards not to send it flying into a bootloop.
The one that's rebooting, I'd return/exchange that! You've got 30 days if it came from WallyWorld, even online you can get a return form to print and take into a store (even though the price went up there, it's an even exchange). But that sounds fully mechanically defective, no doubt.
The one that's looping, yah that's just weird. They shouldn't do that and we've found a good percentage of them were damaged in shipping even though it wasn't obvious or defective and never tested in China. I believe some even just overheated in the container shipped over here as well or at least were banged around getting loaded and unloaded to cause some of this. If you can get a good one, never let it go!
Subscribe to at least this thread, we'll post more as we hopefully find some results!

PSCGOhio said:
... There is a backup, but so far loading one up may not work because it may not be signed. If someone can run a backup on an unrooted tablet and get it up here, testing on that can happen but the ones I've tried fail immediately. Some were for comparable tablets as well. The 'apply update' seems to only apply to Android updates which won't really take out the bootloop or a bricked one.
Open to any and all ideas, contributions and more!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can do the backup. I'm guessing you mean through adb right?

Xactot said:
I can do the backup. I'm guessing you mean through adb right?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
We're limited on ways to do it, so it'd have to be something that can be loaded through the Recovery menu.
In this case, there's a Backup and Restore option in that Recovery Menu that should work because the tablet won't know the difference (AFAIK). ADB will only work with sideloads and Updates. The lack of signatures to the 'update' you'd have to load via ADB, Cache or from the SD is why it's believed we're hitting the failures.
If you can run the Backup in Recovery mode and send that file, it'd be great! I believe it'll have everything you have so be careful of any personal data, etc. and PMing it or contacting me to send it by email is totally understandable to see if it'll even work. The only concern with a backup is that it may only cover the data portions that a normal wipe/System Restore would do and not fix the cause of the bootlooping and other errors some of us are getting.
There's instructions around here on doing a full ROM dump and turning that into an installable ROM that we would actually put in thru ADB or the other two methods, but no one's made one yet that's worked! LOL

PSCGOhio said:
We're limited on ways to do it, so it'd have to be something that can be loaded through the Recovery menu.
In this case, there's a Backup and Restore option in that Recovery Menu that should work because the tablet won't know the difference (AFAIK). ADB will only work with sideloads and Updates. The lack of signatures to the 'update' you'd have to load via ADB, Cache or from the SD is why it's believed we're hitting the failures.
If you can run the Backup in Recovery mode and send that file, it'd be great! I believe it'll have everything you have so be careful of any personal data, etc. and PMing it or contacting me to send it by email is totally understandable to see if it'll even work. The only concern with a backup is that it may only cover the data portions that a normal wipe/System Restore would do and not fix the cause of the bootlooping and other errors some of us are getting.
There's instructions around here on doing a full ROM dump and turning that into an installable ROM that we would actually put in thru ADB or the other two methods, but no one's made one yet that's worked! LOL
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just finished the backup now. I'm not too worried about personal data since I just started using it. What's interesting is that it (for me at least) appears a the HTC Dream in under ADB Interface in Device Manager. Could that help figure out anything?

Xactot said:
I'm running the backup now. I'm not too worried about
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LOL, well thanks! I hope it works! I always like to mention the fine print though so nothing bad happens. My backup didn't work because it was after I got the bootloop, so it would've just put it back. I'm just dying to get back inside, rootings easy enough now that we know how and the FIRST thing on the list is ClockworkMod so I have a real backup in the future! And, of course, not doing stupid things like I did.

PSCGOhio said:
LOL, well thanks! I hope it works! I always like to mention the fine print though so nothing bad happens. My backup didn't work because it was after I got the bootloop, so it would've just put it back. I'm just dying to get back inside, rootings easy enough now that we know how and the FIRST thing on the list is ClockworkMod so I have a real backup in the future! And, of course, not doing stupid things like I did.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not even going to touch the idea of rooting when it comes to this tablet for the time being lol. I'll just stick to being content with my rooted EVO 4G until a recovery has been confirmed to work for sure. And yeah, I think it only covers what will be cleared by a Factory Reset; I have two of these tablets, one used one not. The backup size of the unused tablet is 82 MB while the backup of the used table is already 540 MB lol. I just uploaded the 82 MB one to my Google Drive and the link is below
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6Yc110W0bfmVlFNQzVhX0k4elE/view?usp=sharing

Xactot said:
I'm not even going to touch the idea of rooting when it comes to this tablet for the time being lol. I'll just stick to being content with my rooted EVO 4G until a recovery has been confirmed to work for sure. And yeah, I think it only covers what will be cleared by a Factory Reset; I have two of these tablets, one used one not. The backup size of the unused tablet is 82 MB while the backup of the used table is already 540 MB lol. I just uploaded the 82 MB one to my Google Drive and the link is below
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6Yc110W0bfmVlFNQzVhX0k4elE/view?usp=sharing
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So far, no good. It's hitting a 'checksum compare fail' and I've researched how to screw with that - none have worked either. But in that search I found mention that this is just the user data, not the ROM which would relayer what's causing my bootloop situation and others who've bricked theirs as well. Looks like we're going to need a proper ROM to shove in there to have a shot, but I appreciate this effort! At least we can rule this one out. It may've worked wiping out the rooted stuff, but the MD5 blockade's the situation.
Side note on that, I got into that file - blanked it even - still mismatch. Then I decided to go for the actual backup.
CHINESE. 100% string of pure language symbols, so no way to even see patterns in it to attempt to make an MD5 replacement! Gotta love China junk.
I have a ROM, but it fails on the signature from RCA. I think. Might be the MD5 but that just errors out instead of a mismatch, I may hack on that a bit.

Encrypt whole phone, considerations

Hi!
I'm very satisfied with the latest (1 March) 6.01 stock rom with cata mod on top of it.
I have never encrypted whole phone, I need to hear some pros and cons.
For example, if I encrypt it, I couldn't use any more swipe to unlock, only pin, that's OK. If I loose the phone, I will have less worries if it was encrypted, that's OK.
But what about speed, will I loose some speed (in everyday work, boot time) if enc?
Most important, will I be able to perform backup and restore from TWRP?
If I choose to enc, what is the procedure, I understand internal sdcard will also be encrypted?
Thanks in advance.

I have only Nexus devices (5 & 6), so I can't answer your SD card question.
I have used a N5 & N6 both encrypted and unencrypted, and I've read the report saying that there is a 50% performance hit (or whatever the figure is - it's supposed to be enormous in statistical terms) but in real-world usage there is no difference whatsoever that I can see. No stuttering, no lagging, no slow startup, absolutely nothing. If it takes an extra second to boot, I can't see it.
On the other hand, my wife lost her unencrypted Galaxy S2 a couple of months ago, so some slimy scumbag somewhere has access to our photos. No big deal, nothing embarrassing, but nevertheless I don't like the idea of some filthy lowlife creep looking at our personal family photos.
I tried Android N for a few days and didn't like the many apps that didn't work (including root, now resolved with SuperSU v2.70), so I restored my TWRP M backup. No problems whatsoever.
Go for it. I unreservedly encourage everybody to encrypt their devices. An imperceptible 5% hit is nothing to pay for peace of mind.

dahawthorne said:
Go for it. I unreservedly encourage everybody to encrypt their devices. An imperceptible 5% hit is nothing to pay for peace of mind.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Very useful experience, thank you. By internal sdcard, i meant internal storage, not sdcard actually.

Ah, in that case, yes. I wasn't thinking...
Since the internal sdcard *is* the phone's data repository, it wouldn't make sense to leave it unencrypted...

htc u11 water damaged

hello,
please i want a solution to get my data from htc u11 after water damaged,
the sea water entered the phone before one month and i sent it to service center but they said it didn't work, after one month i plug the charger and it worked just on the boot screen and stuck there and the buttons are not working , and all the pictures were taken in the service center,
please help me to get the data

Hello there my friend. Sorry to hear that you lost your data. May be its a good lesson and you back it up now to the cloud, and specially when you wet your phone (not waiting a month to it). THERE IS NO PHONE THAT IS 100% WATER SUBMERSIBLE, most of cases is half an hour on non deep normal water.
Not sure in what country you are but that paper seems not to be from HTC. You should send the phone to HTC, and for sure U11 its pretty new, it should be under warranty still.
Back to your main problem. If the phone doesn't boot up, its complicated since the internal memory is encrypted, and you don't have a easy way to access to it not even having your buttons working. Sorry. Easeus (company that make great software for recovery and cloning), has an app for HTC for recovering data, may be you can give it a try: https://www.easeus.com/data-recovery/mobile-device-recovery/htc-data-recovery.htm
From now, try to use free services like google photos or if you have amazon prime the amazon drive that will give you unlimited space for photos backup. Saving photos to SD its better than internal, but if you lose the phone you lose the SD too. Crossed fingers that may be the app can recover something for you.

Assuming the USB port works but the buttons and touchscreen do not, if you can somehow get back to download mode you could try to unlock the bootloader and temp boot a special TWRP pack to dump the data(it would have your encryption password so you'll need to pack it yourself). I'm suggesting unlock and TWRP because it seems like the current ROM is not booting. Most service centers would wipe data before working though, hopefully you aren't that unlucky.

In all honesty it looks to me like the camera board is knackered, which contains the nfc chip and camera hardware.
The fact the phone can get as far as it can is almost promising. You must try to select download mode if your buttons still work. If not then you're stuck. If they do work then try flashing the stock firmware zip from an external sdcard. If it takes then it might boot. Reflashing the same firmware doesn't wipe any data. It just resets the firmware as stock, leaving your apps etc intact.
I believe it is running marshmallow august update, previous to nougat so your internal memory may not be encrypted, as previously stated, unless you encrypted it yourself. You will need the full Marshmallow 2gb update ruu zip, rename to 0pja10000.zip, copy to a class 10 microsd, place in phone and boot to download mode and flash it.
You might get somewhere, you might not. If it fails to flash then the phone is finished. If it flashes but doesn't boot its finished, if it boots BONUS!. There is also the possibility that the phone has been wiped in the store. If so your data may be gone forever BUT.. THERE'S AN APP FOR THAT!!.
Im not specifically promoting this app in any way its just that it is the only one I know of that does this and actually works, "Diskdigger". Its worth trying but it may not have any data to recover and if it does have an sd card in that is 64gb or more.
Only USA and Taiwan have "uh oh protection". A one time unconditional swap for another phone within, i think, 12 months.
Hope this helps.

deftoner said:
Hello there my friend. Sorry to hear that you lost your data. May be its a good lesson and you back it up now to the cloud, and specially when you wet your phone (not waiting a month to it). THERE IS NO PHONE THAT IS 100% WATER SUBMERSIBLE, most of cases is half an hour on non deep normal water.
Not sure in what country you are but that paper seems not to be from HTC. You should send the phone to HTC, and for sure U11 its pretty new, it should be under warranty still.
Back to your main problem. If the phone doesn't boot up, its complicated since the internal memory is encrypted, and you don't have a easy way to access to it not even having your buttons working. Sorry. Easeus (company that make great software for recovery and cloning), has an app for HTC for recovering data, may be you can give it a try: https://www.easeus.com/data-recovery/mobile-device-recovery/htc-data-recovery.htm
From now, try to use free services like google photos or if you have amazon prime the amazon drive that will give you unlimited space for photos backup. Saving photos to SD its better than internal, but if you lose the phone you lose the SD too. Crossed fingers that may be the app can recover something for you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think comtel is the authorized service provider for HTC phones in the emirates.

deftoner said:
Hello there my friend. Sorry to hear that you lost your data. May be its a good lesson and you back it up now to the cloud, and specially when you wet your phone (not waiting a month to it). THERE IS NO PHONE THAT IS 100% WATER SUBMERSIBLE, most of cases is half an hour on non deep normal water.
Not sure in what country you are but that paper seems not to be from HTC. You should send the phone to HTC, and for sure U11 its pretty new, it should be under warranty still.
Back to your main problem. If the phone doesn't boot up, its complicated since the internal memory is encrypted, and you don't have a easy way to access to it not even having your buttons working. Sorry. Easeus (company that make great software for recovery and cloning), has an app for HTC for recovering data, may be you can give it a try: https://www.easeus.com/data-recovery/mobile-device-recovery/htc-data-recovery.htm
From now, try to use free services like google photos or if you have amazon prime the amazon drive that will give you unlimited space for photos backup. Saving photos to SD its better than internal, but if you lose the phone you lose the SD too. Crossed fingers that may be the app can recover something for you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you
But i sent it to service center htc asked me to send it there