Android Thread

[Phillip V]

I've had the Galaxy S III for almost 2 weeks now. Love it, great upgrade from my old first gen galaxy.

I like mine a lot.  I just wish Sprint would hurry up & roll out LTE here in Cincy so I can actually get 4G on it.

According to Sensorly map, Sprint LTE has started to pop up in Cincinnati.

http://sensorly.com/map/4G/US/USA/Sprint/lte_310sprint

[Grey Fox]

My Nexus 4 just got upgraded to 4.3 JB.

[derspiess]

I've had the Galaxy S III for almost 2 weeks now. Love it, great upgrade from my old first gen galaxy.

I like mine a lot.  I just wish Sprint would hurry up & roll out LTE here in Cincy so I can actually get 4G on it.

According to Sensorly map, Sprint LTE has started to pop up in Cincinnati.

http://sensorly.com/map/4G/US/USA/Sprint/lte_310sprint

I know-- that's what I keep hearing.  But for some stupid-ass reason they started in all the parts of town I don't frequent.  Heaven forbid they start downtown (where maybe I could actually use my f-ing phone during a game) or the east side where I live.

[derspiess]

Anyway, I picked up my Nexus 7 yesterday.  Blazing fast and a beautiful display.  Gonna root it tonight if I have time.

[Weijun]

Does anyone have any thoughts on whether it is worthwhile to flash a Galaxy S4 to Google Play Edition?  Would you go with 4.2.2 or 4.3?

[Caliga]

My Nexus 4 just got upgraded to 4.3 JB.

Hasn't been available for my Galaxy S4 yet but got pushed to my Nexus 10 a few days ago.  Can't really tell a difference except it seems slightly faster and there appeared to be a new notes writing app.

[lustindarkness]

What is the advantage, if any, to root a phone?

[derspiess]

What is the advantage, if any, to root a phone?

To most people, not much.  But rooting gives you the ability to do wireless tether to turn your phone into a wifi hotspot-- that's the biggie for me.  Plus you can run custom ROMs if you don't like the look and feel of whatever version of Android you're running.  And there are some other things, like overclocking your processor, mods/tweaks to increase battery life, etc.

Drawback is that you technically void your warranty in doing so, but you can un-root and revert back to factory settings if need be.

[derspiess]

Does anyone have any thoughts on whether it is worthwhile to flash a Galaxy S4 to Google Play Edition?  Would you go with 4.2.2 or 4.3?

4.3 has some cool features-- one apparently eliminates the Android version of "bit rot" to prevent your phone from running slower & slower as time goes on.  But you may run into an app here or there that does not support it yet.  My MLB at bat app doesn't stream video on my Nexus 7 running because it's not quite ready for 4.3 yet, but that may be an isolated incident.

[lustindarkness]

Ok, I get it now.
I can already use my phone as a hot spot, hell, I had an app on the old one that i could use to tether my laptop with. Yeah, for me, there is no need to bother with rooting/hacking my android.

[Weijun]

Does anyone have any thoughts on whether it is worthwhile to flash a Galaxy S4 to Google Play Edition?  Would you go with 4.2.2 or 4.3?

4.3 has some cool features-- one apparently eliminates the Android version of "bit rot" to prevent your phone from running slower & slower as time goes on.  But you may run into an app here or there that does not support it yet.  My MLB at bat app doesn't stream video on my Nexus 7 running because it's not quite ready for 4.3 yet, but that may be an isolated incident.

Much to be said for preventing slowdown.  I had also read that Samsung loads a huge amount of bloatware on the s4.  I guess I will need to comb through the Samsung software and see how much of it I actually use.

[derspiess]

Much to be said for preventing slowdown.  I had also read that Samsung loads a huge amount of bloatware on the s4.  I guess I will need to comb through the Samsung software and see how much of it I actually use.

They had a lot of bloatware on the S3.  Thankfully there wasn't much Sprint bloatware, but still a ton of Samsung apps I'll never use.  I can delete them (or "freeze" them using Titanium), but I keep meaning to try them out to see if they're useful for anything. 

[lustindarkness]

The only T-Mobile app I use is the account My Account one, takes me staright to my account. The rest are not needed. Samsung has a few other apps I don't use, of the already installed ones, I use the basic browser instead of chrome (I may jump to chrome later, maybe), google maps, the music player, and alarm/calendar/clock, etc widgets. Accuweather app it brought sucks, I use weatherbug.

The most used apps for me are the yahoo email, Kindle app, facebook, browser, maps, solitaire . What else do y'all use?

[Grey Fox]

Maps, weather, Canadian Tire App & Chrome.

[Liep]

The Samsung smartwatch doesn't look very smart. Clunky menus, it looked slow and it's not really very good looking.

I don't think I'll ever get a smartwatch, but I did say that about smartphones, too...