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So I got a new Phone......

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posted on May, 22 2012 @ 09:04 AM
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So let me preface this with the backstory.

Around 3 years ago my wife and I broken down and finally got cell phones (well, we had one years ago but whatever). So seeing as we're in Canada, we had limited options. We went with Bell. 3 year contract, two linked phones, samsung vice.

First let me tell you, those samsung vice phones are a piece of complete crap. It was barely a month in before my keyboard started crapping out, the phone would randomly freeze and not send notifications of incoming texts, sending gibberish texts, sending texts to the wrong contacts....

you name it. As well, the bell plan was horrible. Unlimited texting and calling between the two phones, unlimited local calling, 150 SHARED texts (wtf!?). The only bonus, or so I thought, was the fact that the texting plan covers all of canada, the US, and almost all other international numbers. This plan was costing us over 1004 a month, and that's without a dataplan.

So our contract is up in the middle of next month, and we wanted to keep our current numbers. So my wife contacts bell to let them know we aren't renewing and we need the numbers ported. Bell tells her that we must give 30 days notice, and 30 days before the contract ends, to contact the new provider with the phone information so they can port it. Well, we tried that, and if we did it like bell asked, bell would charge us 100$ termination fee! Even tried to screw us on the way out, amazing. the stories I could tell you about bell, man...

We went with Virgin Canada. I went with a smartphone plan, the wife went with a pay as you go plan. My plan is 50$ a month, plus around 3 bucks for 911 service fee. That plan includes:

500 megs a month data (cheap to pay if you go over as well)
Unlimited SMS/MMS to US and Canada (I think also some international numbers)
150 "anytime" talk minutes
Unlimited nights and weekends starting at 5.
email (sends from phone as your [email protected] and you can recieve emails sent to that email as a text on your phone! epic, all providers do this now)
A few other random features....
The samsung galaxy s2 phone cost me zero down (because of a instant credit) and apparently 10% of my monthly bill goes to pay for the phone.
And this is why that matters. With virgin contracts, if I want out before the contract ends, there is no fee, only the remaining balance on the price of the phone.

So that plan is 50$, where as the plan I had before was twice that, for considerably less features.

So now I'm rocking a samsung galaxy s2 4g, and I freaking love it. Love it. Android is great, I just can't find anything not to like about it.

The Galaxy s2 and the Galaxy Nexus are the only android phones (to my knowledge) that run android 4, ice cream sandwich (ICS) and was one of the reasons I was picking one of those two phones. The Nexus causes issues because it had removed some of the hardware buttons, making some apps unable to provide a settings menu.

Out of the box my phone was still running 2.3, but a quick download and install of samsun kies allowed me to update the firmware to ICS.

Sadly.... it's not full ICS. Some of the new features are there, the new lock screen, ability to unlock with a picture of your face, etc.... But the tapwiz system is still running ontop, for now, so the iOS style menus and drag and drop is still absent. I'm assuming they will update it when the s3 comes out.

So if anyone is looking at a new phone, I'm loving my s2. Every app works on it, it runs fast, the screen is just amazing, my poor ipod touch looks so washed out compared to it. Voice activation works great, sound is loud and clear.

But here is my advice to you all. If you get a samsung phone, do NOT link any social media accounts to "social hub". If you set up an account in the default "email" app, it will use social hub in the background, but I'm talking about the app that loads all of your im, social media, and email into 1 single app.

It will work once, then crap the heck out and short of wiping the phone clean and reinstalling social hub, there is no fix. Beyond that, I checked my data usage and after social hub crapped out (crashes the phone when trying to open it) it started ramming data in the background, around 40 megs over 2 days (facebook feed update)

Thankfully with ICS they added an easy to find and use data usage graph with limits you can place, but of course, expect your ISP to bill higher than what shows up there.

Side note, my master plan failed. I have a kobo e-reader tablet. It runs android 2.3, and since it's a piece of crap, it won't count as a android device linked to your gmail account, meaning, you can't use the app store/ google play. So my plan was, link the phone, then download my apps to the kobo.

Hah, they are way ahead of me. I setup the account on the kobo, download the app from the store and notice it's not downloading.... on the kobo. Nope, it automatically downloads to the phone.

Fail....

edit on 22-5-2012 by phishyblankwaters because: (no reason given)



posted on May, 22 2012 @ 09:07 AM
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My rule, if they advertise something as "smart", I run away. As fast as I can.
The last thing I want is a smart computer.



posted on May, 22 2012 @ 09:20 AM
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reply to post by Skewed
 


LOL. Well, smart in this case refers to the fact that the phone runs a full OS and is more of a tablet computer than anything. That was a must, I'm not a phone guy, but I text, and I like to be able to surf my sites regardless of wifi access



posted on May, 22 2012 @ 09:23 AM
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Get the Android SDK installed and you can pull the .apk 's from one device and batch install on another.

If you don't want to learn a little code you can instead get the app Titanium Backup, run the backup and pull the apps from the Titanium folder that will be created on your phone's SD card.

Any Android device can run ICS (including the original Android device, the G1) you just have to be willing to learn a few things and decide to own your phone.

If you want to learn about some of the amazing things you can do with a rooted Android device, check out www.xda-developers.com!

Oh, also it sounds like you guys really have some poor options for cellular.. Sorry to hear that. I have 3 phones on my family plan, unlimited minutes and texts, with unlimited 5gb bandwidth data on two of them.. And I pay about $160 a month (USD). I've speed tested on 4g at nearly double that 5gb transfer rate though. =D



edit on 22-5-2012 by TinkerHaus because: (no reason given)



posted on May, 22 2012 @ 09:29 AM
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Originally posted by TinkerHaus
Get the Android SDK installed and you can pull the .apk 's from one device and batch install on another.

If you don't want to learn a little code you can instead get the app Titanium Backup, run the backup and pull the apps from the Titanium folder that will be created on your phone's SD card.

Any Android device can run ICS (including the original Android device, the G1) you just have to be willing to learn a few things and decide to own your phone.

If you want to learn about some of the amazing things you can do with a rooted Android device, check out www.xda-developers.com!

Oh, also it sounds like you guys really have some poor options for cellular.. Sorry to hear that. I have 3 phones on my family plan, unlimited minutes and texts, with unlimited 5gb bandwidth data on two of them.. And I pay about $160 a month (USD). I've speed tested on 4g at nearly double that 5gb transfer rate though. =D

Yay for rooting - I was hoping someone had gotten to this.

I'd say root that sucker, pull off the social hub, or at least go ahead with root for full access on Titanium Backup and freeze these processes. Then might as well go ahead and get rid of all the other bloatware the carrier likely installed as well.

The smartphones are definitely handy - they just come with too much crap preinstalled.



posted on May, 22 2012 @ 09:47 AM
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reply to post by Praetorius
 


Virgin added 1 widget that I removed pretty fast, the samsung stuff is stuck there unless you root it, part of social hub is the system that pulls down your email, so you can't kill it entirely unless you are using a 3rd party email app...

Any device "can" run ICS. This doesn't mean they will run it in a way that doesn't remind you of installing windows 2000 in a 486. Honestly, when it comes to the kobo, I just wanted to dump drawsomething on there for a bigger screen, other than that, it's just an ereader for me, it's too underpowered to be of any use really.

I'm pretty pleased with ICS, they added in tethering right into the settings now, no need for a 3rd party app.

As for cell providers, we have more options now than we did back then, but virgin wins hands down on all accounts, plus not having to buy out the contract if I move is a very useful feature.

....

As "rooting" a device is in that grey area... are we allowed to talk about this? I still might do it myself, and similar to when I modded my wii, I'l probably document the entire process start to finish. Keep in mind, I'm not going to root my device to install pirated content, for two reasons.

First, I don't have to root the device to do that, there is a nift option in the settings to allow installing from non official sources. 99% of apks work fine that way.

Second.. I haven't seen anything I'd even consider pirating, and even if I did, certainly not on a cell phone with limited data plan, as they'd nail me with usage and probably premium sms .

ETA




The smartphones are definitely handy - they just come with too much crap preinstalled.


It's funny, it's through virgin, but they are on the bell network here, and the phone actually had 3 preloaded bell apps and only a single virgin widget. I found it funny, I was expecting more bloat myself, hell, samsung loaded more crap on there than anyone else.


edit on 22-5-2012 by phishyblankwaters because: (no reason given)



posted on May, 22 2012 @ 09:59 AM
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reply to post by phishyblankwaters
 




The HTC One-X also runs Android 4.0 (ICS)

Not sure if it's called that (One X) in the states?


I love this phone.

It's Quad core (yes QUAD CORE), 1.5 ghz processor..... 32gb of storage... an amazing HD camera... and insanely beautiful screen.

Internet is rapid, screen is gorgeous and everything just works... no issues at all.



posted on May, 22 2012 @ 10:01 AM
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reply to post by phishyblankwaters
 

Virgin added 1 widget that I removed pretty fast, the samsung stuff is stuck there unless you root it, part of social hub is the system that pulls down your email, so you can't kill it entirely unless you are using a 3rd party email app...

I only access my Gmail account from my phone, and I've got the standalone app for that. ASSUMING social hub came on my Captivate as I believe I recall seeing it, but has been long-since removed.


I'm pretty pleased with ICS, they added in tethering right into the settings now, no need for a 3rd party app.

As for cell providers, we have more options now than we did back then, but virgin wins hands down on all accounts, plus not having to buy out the contract if I move is a very useful feature.

Glad you've got someone you like - I don't have any experience with Virgin or ICS myself (still running rooted Gingerbread on mine), but I'll admit I don't really like AT&T much...so I make a point of never having to deal with them. Set it and forget it!


As "rooting" a device is in that grey area... are we allowed to talk about this? I still might do it myself, and similar to when I modded my wii, I'l probably document the entire process start to finish. Keep in mind, I'm not going to root my device to install pirated content, for two reasons.

First, I don't have to root the device to do that, there is a nift option in the settings to allow installing from non official sources. 99% of apks work fine that way.

Second.. I haven't seen anything I'd even consider pirating, and even if I did, certainly not on a cell phone with limited data plan, as they'd nail me with usage and probably premium sms .

Understood - and there shouldn't be any issue with discussing rooting as it's not illegal - just gives you root/administrator access to your device - biggest problem is possible warranty issues with your carrier, and honestly if you're ever going to need them to look at your phone...just flash it back to stock first. I'm not aware of any way it can be detected once that's done.

I insist on rooting mine since I like getting all the bells & whistles available (any sort of firewall capability, additional options built into Titanium Backup and all sorts of others) as well as yanking off the crap the carrier and manufacturer themselves stick on there that I can replace with better options.

That bit said - data's not much of a problem for me since I'm usually connected to wifi when I get to do any real playing on my phone anyway. If I really want to get something free on the phone, I'll do it on my desktop and then just transfer it over.

Enjoy.



posted on May, 22 2012 @ 10:06 AM
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reply to post by phishyblankwaters
 


I've run a few different flavors of ICS on my rooted HTC Evo, and it's not slow at all, in fact, I prefer an AOSP Rom anyday. It's that ICS on older devices has "broken" stuff. No video cam, for example, is a Rom killer for me.

The eye candy is awesome on ICS, and I'm just waiting for them to fix things.

Rooting a phone is not illegal, it just voids your warrenty. Ergo, I don't see why the mods would have a problem. It's not hacking, just changing software to suit your needs.



posted on May, 22 2012 @ 10:33 AM
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Originally posted by phishyblankwaters
reply to post by Praetorius
 


Virgin added 1 widget that I removed pretty fast, the samsung stuff is stuck there unless you root it, part of social hub is the system that pulls down your email, so you can't kill it entirely unless you are using a 3rd party email app...

Any device "can" run ICS. This doesn't mean they will run it in a way that doesn't remind you of installing windows 2000 in a 486. Honestly, when it comes to the kobo, I just wanted to dump drawsomething on there for a bigger screen, other than that, it's just an ereader for me, it's too underpowered to be of any use really.

I'm pretty pleased with ICS, they added in tethering right into the settings now, no need for a 3rd party app.

As for cell providers, we have more options now than we did back then, but virgin wins hands down on all accounts, plus not having to buy out the contract if I move is a very useful feature.

....

As "rooting" a device is in that grey area... are we allowed to talk about this? I still might do it myself, and similar to when I modded my wii, I'l probably document the entire process start to finish. Keep in mind, I'm not going to root my device to install pirated content, for two reasons.

First, I don't have to root the device to do that, there is a nift option in the settings to allow installing from non official sources. 99% of apks work fine that way.

Second.. I haven't seen anything I'd even consider pirating, and even if I did, certainly not on a cell phone with limited data plan, as they'd nail me with usage and probably premium sms .

ETA




The smartphones are definitely handy - they just come with too much crap preinstalled.


It's funny, it's through virgin, but they are on the bell network here, and the phone actually had 3 preloaded bell apps and only a single virgin widget. I found it funny, I was expecting more bloat myself, hell, samsung loaded more crap on there than anyone else.


edit on 22-5-2012 by phishyblankwaters because: (no reason given)


There is no "pirated" Android software. It's all open source, hence the name "Android Open Source Project." Rooting gives you r/w access to the device's "Root" directory, which allows you to change system files. Your device is running Samsung/Virgin's custom ROM for this device. I like to root so I can install an Android Open Source Project ROM and kill all the bloatware on the phone. This also gives you the ability to pick and choose the appropriate radio, manage battery consumption in various ways, and install and backup images of your device. In a world that wasn't run by corporations, these devices would come without root restrictions in the first place. T-Mobile tried really hard to break away from this with the G1, via the Open Handset Alliance, but it just didn't pan out. Cellular providers want to shape your mobile computing experience - well I'm just not ok with that.


When I recommended rooting, it was so that you could use the SDK to batch pull .apks from the device.. Even Titanium Backup requires this for some apps.

Installing an app from outside of the Android Market is completely different from rooting your device. Of course you can install apps from non-official sources on a vanilla device..Every. Single. Android device from day 1 has had this option under Developer Settings.

And ICS runs great on my G1. Also on my MT3G, Glacier, my Asus TF101, and my LG P999.

I like to get rid of bloatware and customize my ROM.. Others are happy with the crap the carrier gives you. It's a choice you must make.

Protip: Killing processes is bad for Linux/Android OS. Better to remove background apps (bloatware) than to kill them in real time. You can't remove system apps without being rooted.



posted on May, 22 2012 @ 10:46 AM
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reply to post by Druid42
 


And even though it voids your warranty, that's only if they know.

The great thing is you can ALWAYS revert to a stock, unrooted ROM, and the carrier will never know. If you ask me.. I bought the damn device, I should be able to do anything I want to it from a software perspective without voiding my warranty should the phone physically break due to a design or manufacturing flaw. Does this seem unreasonable?



posted on May, 22 2012 @ 10:47 AM
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reply to post by TinkerHaus
 


I keep a folder full of my favorite .apks, and have been collecting them for a while, picking and choosing which to put in a Rom. I don't have a favorite Rom yet, as I am still learning.

Sending that u2u......



posted on May, 23 2012 @ 08:35 AM
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reply to post by TinkerHaus
 





There is no "pirated" Android software. It's all open source, hence the name "Android Open Source Project."


I think you misunderstand. I'm not talking about android itself, I'm talking about paid apps from the market that you can get from less than legal sources... 99% of which do not require rooting.



posted on May, 23 2012 @ 08:38 AM
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reply to post by blupblup
 


I should clarify.... when I said my choice was between the nexus and s2 because of ICS, those are the only two offered by virgin in this region running ICS. The s2, and I think the HTC "one" or whatever it is, are still waiting list only from them.

Granted, I could have bought a phone anywhere then just bought a simcard from virgin, but I didn't want to fork out 400$ for the phone up front, this way, 10$ of the bill goes towards the phone price.

You can put ICS on just about any android device, this doesn't mean it will work great.

I'm well aware of the difference between rooting and installing from non market sources. I'm also aware that rooting doesn't enable piracy and isn't illegal. Yet, neither is bittorrent, and neither is softmodding my wii, two things I've been warned against talking about, that's why I mentioned it.



posted on May, 23 2012 @ 08:42 AM
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reply to post by TinkerHaus
 





I like to get rid of bloatware and customize my ROM.. Others are happy with the crap the carrier gives you. It's a choice you must make.


Guess I'm lucky, there is next to no bloatware, the only stuff I didn't want was social hub, and that's installed by samsung. There are two apps for it running in the background. One is to dump all your media feeds into that 1 widget (the one that crashes your phone out constantly). So I unlinked most of it and now use the separate gmail and facebook apps. I'm still using the "email" app to pull down my hotmail as I really dislike the hotmail app.



The other is apparently tied to the gmail push system, as both my gmail widget and the built in "email" widget fail once that service is stopped. I'm not worried about voiding my warrenty, but I'm also not stupid, I don't own this phone yet, I'm leasing it basically, so it's not actually mine to tamper with....

But all android devices offer a system reset, and hell, I even backed up mine fresh out of the box before upgrading the firmware to ICS.

Send me that u2u I'd love to take a look at your apps.
edit on 23-5-2012 by phishyblankwaters because: (no reason given)



posted on May, 23 2012 @ 08:50 AM
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reply to post by Druid42
 





It's that ICS on older devices has "broken" stuff. No video cam, for example, is a Rom killer for me.


From what I was reading, and this was only to help me decide between the nexus and the s2, was the nexus removed the hardware settings button, and for some apps, this creates a problem. I wouldn't try to put ICS on my kobo, it would install and "run" but the thing is way underpowered, hell, it doesn't even get access to the android market because it sucks so much.

I can force windows 7 onto my old desktop. This doesn't mean I should lol. I'm still thinking about rooting it, not sure if I really need to, I haven't found anything I'd need root access to do yet. The only thing was the camera shutter sound, and with ICS, it's muted on silent mode.

But... ICS on on the s2 isn't completely ICS and I would like a peek at it, options options



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