Database Users

Thinking of Getting an i9000

I'm thinking of getting an i9000, but have a few questions. I'll be honest from the start: I'm not much into tech.
My main purposes for this phone will be: 1. reading e-books, 2. a secondary internet device at home, 3. making phone calls and sending text messages. What makes me even stranger is that I don't want a data plan or any 3G services. Most of what I plan to do will be WiFi at home (although the option is there to get a data plan should I change my mind or find some use for it). I know about the GPS problem, but I don't think I have use for a GPS anyway. Music is not important to me, so I doubt I'd have more than a handful of MP3s I'd ever want listen to; movies and TV shows are a must; games are of no interest to me; photos are more of a perk than a necessity. I love, Love, LOVE the Super AMOLED screen, which is why I'm leaning towards this one rather than the HTC Desire.
1. The 8GB version is 2,000TWD (approx. 60USD) cheaper, which is worth it to me. Given my intended usage and the extra cost, why should I realistically consider the 16GB version? I'll have to buy an SD card anyway, won't I?
2. I still don't understand that thread about the device not having or not being able to see the full 512MB of RAM. How does this impact the performance? How does Froyo address this issue? Am I likely to notice any impact given my intended usage?
3. What is Launcher Pro, and why do some people feel it is better than TouchWiz?
4. I'm in a geographic area that doesn't have access to paid apps (Taiwan). However, there is a workaround. Given my intended usage, what paid apps would you suggest?
5. I'll have to hook up wireless internet at home (I'm running Windows XP on my PC). Without going into too much detail, what equipment and services will I need to set this up for both my PC and phone to share?
I know this may be a lot to ask. Feel free to just address one question if you like. I appreciate any help you can give me.
Thanks.

the SD card is optional, but definitely wort it to have more storage, if you plan to have a large MP3 and Video collection on the road with you
then leave the internal 8 GB SD for application use.
if you ever install a GPS software, it will automatically eat up 2 GB in one shoty
the 8 GB is really 6 GB, because 2 GB is used for ROM software, the remaing is aprox 5 GB of usable space
if you load a GPS software that goes down to 3 GB of free space, and some games downloads a few Hundreds of a MB to play, so games require a full 1GB... anyways it adds up really quickly.

Thanks. GPS is not important for me, nor are MP3s. Any video I watch will most likely be uploaded, watched, and removed within hours. I'll be reading on it if I'm ever on the road.
Looks like I'll be leaning towards the money-saving 8GB one.

SlowRain said:
Thanks. GPS is not important for me, nor are MP3s. Any video I watch will most likely be uploaded, watched, and removed within hours. I'll be reading on it if I'm ever on the road.
Looks like I'll be leaning towards the money-saving 8GB one.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If I were you, I'd almost definitely go with the 8GB. I think the main reason is that, my plan would be to store my e-books on the external sd card, so if my battery or device died I could easily move them to my pc or next device.
Besides that, I'd suggest, as much as I love my device. Thinking about iPhone 4 or the Dell Streak (if you can get them wi-fi only) and/or a Kindle (not great for internet, #2 on your list, but you'd also save money). IPhone 4 will, probably, be a better reading experience, I can't be sure. Dell Streak has 25% more screen real estate, it also has gorilla glass. Downsides being it's not Super AMOLED, I don't think it's wirelss N, probably has less battery life and is currently stuck on 1.6, though I think 2.1 is imminent.
Not trying to convince you to get a different device, I wouldn't trade my phone for either of the two devices mentioned above.
To answer your other questions, I'd think about:
E-book software...I'm not sure if this is your first e-reader. Kindle, Aldiko might be the two most popular (doesn't mean best).
I'd get brut maps because it'll cache Google Maps pages to your SD card so you won't need data but can still use Google Navigation, My Tracks (I think? can't remember), and Google Maps if you ever have the need (you'll need to look at the areas from your wifi first to get the pages to cache).
I'd probably get a wi-fi analyzer, wi-fi analyzer works well for me.
For your case, thats the majority of what I'd get. I'd think about looking into getting Flash enabled instead of waiting for FroYo if my phone's second functionality would be web surfing.

SlowRain said:
Thanks. GPS is not important for me, nor are MP3s. Any video I watch will most likely be uploaded, watched, and removed within hours. I'll be reading on it if I'm ever on the road.
Looks like I'll be leaning towards the money-saving 8GB one.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Also, spend money on your saved 8GB into extra 2-3 batteries, it's more important for your purposes than 8GB. I can nearly guarantee.

ALL I CAN SAY IS DEFINITELY GET ONE...
I have been using mine constantly for the last few days or so since I sold my Iphone 3gs and before that came from a touch HD2, windows phone.
I can't believe I didn't go across to the android world sooner to be honest and I think I have at last made the right choice of phone, this galaxy S is simply a joy to use, I love it.
I have 7 completely customisable screens that you can scroll between I bought beautiful widgets (highly recommend this) just simply because I am hooked to these widget things. I have Beautiful Live weather wallpaper which displays some grass waving about at the bottom of the screen and clouds with sun, rain etc..moving perfectly acrosseach of the 7 screens, I know this is all old hat to some of the longer Android users, but for me I Love it...I have also bought the Pure calender widget which displays all your up and coming appointments etc...this again is completely skin-able, brilliant...seconds screen has some of my shortcuts to applicaitons, live UK TV guide, market, appbrain market, maps, zedge, calc, youtube and mail, my third screen has all these toggle widgets to quickly turn on airplane, wifi, bluetooth, sound controls, volume and battery, Screen number 4 has my Days dairy which I quite like, screen number 5 has my feeds and updates which automatically updates my facebook and twitter stuff, then onto screen 6 with the BBC news and History widget, number 7 is blank so I can stare at the weather...
I can't seem to stop type , the Swype keyboard is just so easy and quick to use, I actually enjoy typing on a small screen these days, not that the Galaxy has a small screen in fact its the perfect screen and if your into reading books like I am, I am using the free Laputa ereader, simply import all your epubs into it, Aldiko comes already installed which is equally as good, but without the funky page turn effects. the screen is so clear reading books is very nice.
Will continue on later, got to get back to work for a bit....

no no no... if you moved to Android sooner, you would have not enjoyed it.
I was also waiting for the Perfect Phone, before moving to Android
If you moved to Android when it was Android 1.5 you would have most likely ended up hating it.
It was Raw, not many apps, phone hardware were rather not at part with the HTC hardware, etc.
THUDUK said:
ALL I CAN SAY IS DEFINITELY GET ONE...
I have been using mine constantly for the last few days or so since I sold my Iphone 3gs and before that came from a touch HD2, windows phone.
I can't believe I didn't go across to the android world sooner to be honest and I think I have at last made the right choice of phone, this galaxy S is simply a joy to use, I love it.
I have 7 completely customisable screens that you can scroll between I bought beautiful widgets (highly recommend this) just simply because I am hooked to these widget things. I have Beautiful Live weather wallpaper which displays some grass waving about at the bottom of the screen and clouds with sun, rain etc..moving perfectly acrosseach of the 7 screens, I know this is all old hat to some of the longer Android users, but for me I Love it...I have also bought the Pure calender widget which displays all your up and coming appointments etc...this again is completely skin-able, brilliant...seconds screen has some of my shortcuts to applicaitons, live UK TV guide, market, appbrain market, maps, zedge, calc, youtube and mail, my third screen has all these toggle widgets to quickly turn on airplane, wifi, bluetooth, sound controls, volume and battery, Screen number 4 has my Days dairy which I quite like, screen number 5 has my feeds and updates which automatically updates my facebook and twitter stuff, then onto screen 6 with the BBC news and History widget, number 7 is blank so I can stare at the weather...
I can't seem to stop type , the Swype keyboard is just so easy and quick to use, I actually enjoy typing on a small screen these days, not that the Galaxy has a small screen in fact its the perfect screen and if your into reading books like I am, I am using the free Laputa ereader, simply import all your epubs into it, Aldiko comes already installed which is equally as good, but without the funky page turn effects. the screen is so clear reading books is very nice.
Will continue on later, got to get back to work for a bit....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

New Android User Questions

Hi everyone. I just purchased my Droid X last week, and I'm having some migrating pains coming from Windows Mobile 6.5 (HTC Touch Pro 2, Mighty ROM) over to Android. I'm wondering if the fine folks here at XDA can help me ease into the Android OS a little easier.
Here are the things I miss most about WinMo, maybe you can tell me some viable alternatives.
1) The Dialer. - Skip the next 3 paragraphs if you're familiar with HTC Sense on WinMo.
The dialer absolutely sucks compared to the TP2. Having to click different tabs juts annoys me. In the TP2, the dialer and recent calls were displayed in a single window, so if I wanted to dial Steve, I had 2 ways of doing it.
The first way was to dial 7(S), 8(T). The phone would recognize I am spelling out Steve, and list everyone who fits the ST criteria sorted by most recently called. The more I spelled out his name, the narrower the results got.
The second method was to dial his number. Pretend Steve's number is (123) 456-7890. If I dialed 123, it would sort all contacts with numbers who matched the area code, and it would narrow the results as I typed more of his phone number.
I really hate having to tap between Contacts (there is a contacts soft button next to the dialer anyway), I would just click that if I wanted to from the beginning.
Are there any dialers out there closer to the HTC Dialer?
2) Contacts.
There has to be a better contact manager. Not being able to quickly tap a letter to get to contacts is really dumb.
3) Ninja Applications.
Why do I keep seeing applications running that I never started when I load Advance Task Killer. It's really annoying when I load up an App, and go to close it, and see Skype and CityID running when I never launched either of them. I'm almost afraid to set up AIM on my phone at this point.
4) GPS.
If I keep my GPS on, my battery gets killed. With my TP2, it would only use the GPS when it needed it, so for weather updates, and Google Maps, otherwise it stayed off (or was in a suspend state). I turned the GPS on my first day and had 0 battery by around 2 (left the house at 8). Is there any way to set the GPS to only be used, as needed?
5) APPLICATIONS EVERYWHERE.
Is there anyway to sort these into folders? Also, is there anyway to add an X to the application so I can close it when I'm done with it rather than having to launch an App just to close the App I just used?
I really liked the Sense way of doing it, where I had an X in the Application, and a drop down on the home screen that would list the open Apps so I could close them 1 at a time.
6) MotoBlur.
Ugh, I really hate this UI. Has anyone had any experience with SenseX?
7) Custom Roms.
I've seen a handful of Custom ROMs, and I'm planning on putting one on when I have some time next week. I need a good way to backup contacts, after I just spent an hour linking everyone, but I'd like to know if there is a decent Apples to Apples comparison of the ROMs. They don't seem to be outlines as detailed as I'm used to.
On this topic, are there any problems setting up things like MMS once you install a Custom ROM? It was a nightmare on the TP2, but those ROMs were also made for multiple carriers, which isn't a problem with this phone, so I imagine it shouldn't be an issue.
----------------------------------
Thank you for taking the time to read this wall of text.
Other than the 7 things listed, I love the phone. Finding MortPlayer for Droid made my day. I'm looking forward to unlocking it's true potential, and I hope my list isn't a bunch of things I'm just going to have to adjust to.
Thank you again, have a great day.
EDIT:
Also, it's really annoying that every time I connect my phone to my PC, it launches a Verizon web site. Is there anyway to disable this?

Ok... I will take a stab at this.
FIRST, You DO NOT have to settle for the apps that come preinstalled on your phone! Just had to clear that up... Ok, here we go:
Check an app called "Dialer One" and see if that fits your needs... I haven't used it in a while... but heard it still a great replacement for the stock dialer.
Searching for a better Contact Manager is on my To-Do list.. hope someone comes in and help out a little more with that one
Don't worry about the "ninja" apps TOO much. Android Froyo has an amazing task manager and even though you SEE the apps as "running applications", they are not really RUNNING. They are more like... in a queue.. so they are ready for whenever you come back to them....but you still have to watch what the apps are doing. Some do not play nicely and hog memory. I'll link a good post here in a minute explaining that a little better.
There is a widget that can help you out here.. it's called "Power Control" put that bad boy on your homescreen and the option to turn on/off wifi, bluetooth, gps, etc is at your fingertips (for even more controls... check out "Extended Controls" in the market. It cost like $1 and some change)
I'm... not really following this one. For one.. you CAN use folders on your homescreen and put whatever your heart desires in them.. and label it accordingly. I'm not sure what you mean by the "X" in the app
SenseX?? What is that?? Anyway.. as you will find out soon, 99% of the Droid X community despise MotoBlur!! You can use a different Home Launcher and not use Blur. Two of the major Home Launcher replacements are Adw.launcher & LauncherPro... which one is better is a whole different story. They are both great and only YOU can choose which one is best. There many threads comparing them and they run neck to neck mostly. I'm on LauncherPro personally
Custom Roms?? Eh.. I personally do my own developments and theming on my phone and do not use them... there not really all what they cracked up to be because whatever they have on them... I can do myself. So I'm not much of an help on that one... Somebody else maybe will chime in.
P.S-To fix the Verizon thing, go to the "M" in the taskbar at the bottom of your screen by the clock on your PC and right click it.. there should be an option saying to tell it to NOT send you to the Verizon site when you connect your phone. I don't know the EXACT wording of the option menu.. I'm on a mac

Thank you for your reply.
I will check out the Dialer. Thank you very much.
Darn!
A friend of mine told me that, but it's hard for me to not be a bit OCD about background Applications. I've been a Windows user most of my life, and coming from WinMo, background apps really kill performance.
More than anything, my issue is with things like Skype loading when I do not want to be signed in. I want auto-login when I launch the Application, but I don't want the application loading when it feels like it, and me getting a random IM or call from someone when I didn't even tell it to log in.
It also bothers me that Amazon MP3, something I've never even loaded, has turned itself on. It makes me feel like I don't have control over my phone.
I do have a widget that lets me turn these things on and off, I was just hoping for a way to set it up so that the GPS is "pinged" and only used as needed, and turned back off. My TP2 did this, and was a great battery saver. Having to turn the GPS on and off just to get a weather update based on location is a bit annoying.
I didn't mean on the home-screen, I meant in the application list. So when I hit the application list, I can sort them by "Games", "Google", etc.
For the "X", what I mean is in reference to closing an App. In WinMo, the top right of the screen had an X, and if I touched that X, the app would close. Now, once I exit the App, I need to use an application killer to close said App.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=764840
Looks like Sense for the Droid X. In Beta now, so I'm waiting for a stable release.
Really, it's just to get rid of bloatware and take advantage of some performance optimizations that have been made.
A couple of other things that have come up.
I need a better keyboard. One with arrows so I can navigate text. Touching isn't precise enough, and I don't have a stylus with this phone. Today I voiced a text message, and I went to correct an error, but I couldn't get the curse to go in the exact spot I needed it to go into. My old OSK had arrow soft-keys I could tap to navigate with.
Also, I notice when I pull my phone out of the leather pouch I have, when I hit the power button it comes up in landscape, and the accelerometer doesn't pick up on the turn. I need to turn the screen off and turn it back on.
Finally, I'm having extender issues, but I think I need to call VZW for that. When leaving my house, I can't reconnect to Data without a power-cycle.
Thank you for the reply.

my .02
3. Break yourself from the taskiller need. If you have programs allways running that you dont need, ie skype or city id. Root and delete those SOB's. you can look around and there are plenty of articles of why not to use them. Android is a linux based os. Linux is far supirior to Win in memeory management. You dont need task killers.
4. if your gps is turned on its not always running. It only runs when needed. Is by chance your wifi on? that will run all the time by searching for access points. if not you might have maps running, make sure to always back out of maps and not just hit home. That way it closes and doesnt just run in background. (actually goes for most apps)
5 organization- you cant sort the app drawer, you can hide apps (just the icons) using launcher pro, not sure if ADW has that option. Useing folders or the app "app manager" is your best bet
extra. swype has arrows. swype from the swype icon to abc and it will bring up a new keyboard.

I came from winmo- so I know all about your "X" pains. But I say forget about a task killer or even killing tasks (except maybe maps and navigation). I did a little reading about pros and cons and decided to try the "no task killer" approach. I haven't had any problems. the task killer is a pain anyways. you can kill apps all day long and there are a bunch of them that are just going to repopulate themselves in like 5 minutes. I just said, "fegetaboutit". My phone runs great.
if you open the dialer and are on the contacts tab just long press the menu button (the physical button) and your keyboard will pop up. start typing and contacts will appear.
I like "Zeam Launcher". There is a thread here on XDA. I have Launcher Pro+ -but actually liked Zeam so much I use it. Just different preferences though.
that's all i got for now.

Thank you for your replies.
I will try to be a bit less OCD regarding my tasks. I did kill a couple of services of applications that kept starting, like Skype.
I'll check out those launchers and see if I like them better.
Any good stock widgets?
EDIT:
So I just tried to check my location on Google Maps with GPS turned off, and it says I need to turn it on.
How do I set it up to use the GPS as needed?

I leave location services on (GPS)
My theory is that applications will only enable GPS when they need them, so if you have a application running that wants GPS, it will use it.
The GPS icon appears in the notification bar when I'm using something that is using GPS, so I assume its only actually on when this icon is present. Leave it on in settings just makes is available.
Any widget or application that has a setting for manual location (Weather, IMDB) I use it, and disable GPS location, to keep GPS from running all of the time.
To exit an app you are using, either hit the back button or the home button.
If you are worried about "ninja" apps using cpu and memory, you can try a minfree adjustment application such as AutoKiller Memory Optimizer. It fine tunes android's inner memory manager to be a bit more aggressive in closing applications.
I use another Rom (rubiX, link in sig) that already has minfree adjusted (according to the author) and it does help in keeping the X smooth. It also removes all (well most) of Blur and default installed apps as well, so you start with a very clean X.
The default home screen (blur) is crap. I would also suggest replacing it with LauncherPro or ADW
For removing the pre-installed applications. Follow this guide
http://www.droidxforums.com/forum/d...ta-3-ways-super-easy-safe-safe-easy-free.html
Some apps in /system/app/ are not named what they are
(IE. mynet.apk = 3g Hotspot)
For a keyboard anywhere, you can hold the menu button, and it will pop up.
Swype is really a few keyboards. Swype from the icon to the SYM button, it will give you the edit panel (arrows, home, end, copy, paste, etc...) press the ABC button to go back.
Swype from the icon to the f key, it will turn into a number pad. Press the ABC button to go back to the normal keyboard.
Run the tutorial on Swype too, it will give you some very nice pointers on it's use. I used Swype on windows mobile and I found out a few things about Swype I never knew.
Also, as for touching where your cursor is in a text field, if you press and hold, and magnifying bubble will pop up. This makes moving the cursor easier

Did you find a dialer yet? I saw these posted and thought about this thread...
http://www.appbrain.com/app/kz.mek.DialerOne
http://www.appbrain.com/app/acontacts/kz.mek.aContacts
Haven't had a chance to try them yet.

bad4u6669 said:
.... swype has arrows. swype from the swype icon to abc and it will bring up a new keyboard.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OMG. thanks. been loving swype but that has been driving me nuts. Thanks for the info.

Thank you for the replies.
One of the things I liked about my TP2, is I could leave location services on, and it used very little battery.
I guess Weather Bug just SUCKS battery out like crazy. I turned on the GPS last night for something, and decided to see how well it did with battery today. It turns out that some grocery shopping app I wanted to try was sucking my GPS dry (no idea why)... yet another "ninja app" that just started up because it felt like it (this kind of **** really makes me , programs should only start up when I tell them to, not when a component of my phone turns on).
I live in an apartment that has really bad signal (I actually have a Network Extender), so that might be my GPS constantly trying to update when I'm at home killing my battery.
WeatherBug is set to update every hour, so I'm going to see what happens tomorrow with the GPS turned on. It would be nice if I could just set it and forget it, not need to turn it off every time I come home.
Thank you for the contact program, I might check it out. I've been pretty content since I got DialerOne and found out I can get the keyboard up by holding the options.
I tried LauncherPro, and I LOVED it at first, and my phones performance was fantastic!
Then I found out it charges me to resize widgets... WTF is that crap?
I'm going to try some other launchers and see what happens. I'm getting the hang of it, but I still do not like things starting up on their own. Regardless of memory management, my phone should not just decide to boot up programs on it's own.

the phone only does what the app or the user tells it to do. If theirs an app that you don't like, delete it.
And complaining that launcher pro charges for every thing it offers is ridiculous. Every thing it offers for free already ( 7 home screens, 10 rows and columns, unreal speed improvement, etc. ) then to get the extras its less than most people throw away on a daily basis. Where as this three dollars its money that pays off on a daily basis
Adw and lp should be paid apps from the start for all they offer.
You have 3 options, write your own program, use the stock launcher, find a free one.
-end rant
Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

I usually leave my location setting on "Use Wireless Networks" and don't bother with GPS other than for maps and navigation. Works fine for all of my other apps that need a location (e.g., weather).
There are apps out there that can turn GPS on and off automatically when you run a particular app, such as Tasker (which can do a whole host of things, but that is one one of them). Tasker is a paid app, but there might be something free out there that does something similar.
Also, I agree with the previous poster re: Launcher Pro. It's really a fantastic home launcher and well worth a few bucks to support the developer. The LP Plus widgets are also a lot better than any of the Blur widgets.

In the end, I probably will buy it, but I'm going to play around with some of the free ones first.
Tasker sounds like it might be worth it for that feature alone (being able to turn the GPS on and off at will). I'm just surprised a feature like this wasn't built in to begin with, considering WinMo has had it for years.
On an unrelated note, can anyone recommend a good media player? I'm going to be flying soon and want to test the battery out on Airplane mode while watching a movie from the SD card. I need something that can decode a variety of formats, mostly XviD for stuff like digital movie copies and TV shows.

EtherBoo said:
In the end, I probably will buy it, but I'm going to play around with some of the free ones first.
Tasker sounds like it might be worth it for that feature alone (being able to turn the GPS on and off at will). I'm just surprised a feature like this wasn't built in to begin with, considering WinMo has had it for years.
On an unrelated note, can anyone recommend a good media player? I'm going to be flying soon and want to test the battery out on Airplane mode while watching a movie from the SD card. I need something that can decode a variety of formats, mostly XviD for stuff like digital movie copies and TV shows.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You might want to look into RockPlayer. That's the only one I found so far that decodes ALMOST anything on the spot.

The "Ninja Applications" are running because Android is a true multi tasking OS.
Sent from my DROIDX using XDA App

I hope necromancy isn't frowned upon on this board, so my apologies if it is.
I found a new problem because I had the nerve to attempt to update a contact photo after Facebook had saved it's picture to it.
This is especially frustrating because I'm going to want to override a lot of these photos very soon.
Apparently, updating the photo updates the Google Contact photo, but the phone only displays the Facebook photo. This is a bug confirmed by Moto that will be fixed in a future update.
This leaves me with 2 options.
De-Sync FB, which I'm not thrilled about only because I like getting the most recent status update prior to receiving a call, and There is a lot of info that FB fills in for me.
Copy down all the FB info, and fill it in manually. With Google Contacts not being the best contact manager (I'm very OCD about uniformity in the way things are formatted), I really don't want to do this.
So I figure I need a new contact manager. I tried AContacts, and it crashed every time I tried to edit a contact.
I would love something like the HTC one that comes with WinMo, or maybe even the iPhone one.
I would be willing to pay for this.
P.S.
I'm now rooted and running a custom ROM (zapX I think it's called). I'm loving my phone much more now. My battery life has skyrocketed, and my performance is amazing now. Very iPhone smooth (one thing I was always jealous of, and I hate the iPhone).

2.2 Review

*** True Story ***
I am a member on Dell's community forum and have watched Dell's mouthpiece, Amy-B, post the lies and put up the smoke and mirrors regarding this for a while now. When she first announced that the update would begin on 11/15, I paid closer attention. By the end of the week when there was no update, I commented that users may have a potential class action suit. With that, I got a scathing email from Dell saying I violated their terms of use, some left handed subtle threats, and my post was deleted. I still laugh about that.
End True Story, my ongoing review below
I put 2.2 on last night and played with it for a little while before bed, then really started putting it to the test today. here's what's happened until now.
First, when I applied the update, it kept a lot of previous settings and applications rather than clean wiping. It also bypassed forcing me to login to google account, so when I tried to use the market, it couldn't. With that, I used my credentials to login to my google account and immediately started having some google calendar syncing error. It became a loop, each time asking me to report it, then asking me to force close the app, and then over and over the same thing. So I rebooted the streak, and it came up with the same exact issue not allowing me to do anything with it. I had to pull the battery to shut it down this time and when I get it all together to power up, I simply held the up/down volume keys and told it to do a factory reset.
The rom cooks itself into the streak as the factory install and 2.2 came up on the next boot, this time asking for google credentials. It worked that time, and I was ready to put the phone through it's motions.
Issues I've found
1. Voice Dialer via Bluetooth crashes each time I try to use it. It crashes to the point that it tells me to restart my phone. This is without fail.
2. swiping to unlock the phone, or pattern unlock are flaky. it will start then stop as if I've taken my finger off. I have to do it multiple times and crazy ways to make it work. Pattern lock same thing. Especially after coming out of my pocket... as if the heat from my body makes my finger not be recognized on the whole screen. This build makes the touchscreen no longer responsive as it was in 1.6... update, I've tested this over and over and over. yes, it seems to be the temperature, because if I blow on the screen to cool it, or something similar, the screen becomes instantly responsive to my touch. I never had this problem with 1.6 regardless of when I pulled it out of my pocket.
3. sometimes, changing screens gets choppy or laggy.
4. No widget bar or tray/drawer that allows you to turn BT or Wifi on or off. You have to get something from the market to do this (updated, this is available as a widget, I should open my eyes a bit)
5. Can't change the number of screens; can't add or subtract screens, stages, rooms, or whatever you choose to call it. You're stuck with 7, the center one being the default.
6. Multiple FC's for variety of reasons, many are while simply browsing the market. With that Microsoft-esque error reporting thing always popping up, I think they anticipated feeding garbage to the masses.
7. Have tried a few alternate launchers. Some are better than others, more functional etc.. .but no matter how weak an alternate launcher appears to be, they pretty much ALL beat StageUI
Likes
1. Have always liked the live wallpapers that we were introduced to in 2.1
2. landscape mode rights itself regardless of which side is facing up. could be a caveat since it puts the home/back/menu buttons upside down on the left instead of right with the hard buttons on the bottom, but still kind of cool nonetheless.
4. Support for Exchange is native and doesn't require additional software/applications.
the long and the short of it.. Dell is useless as an OS developer/tweaker and StageUI blows.
Samsung hit the homerun with it on its Galaxy S series. I was just at best buy, and the Galaxy Tab is pretty sweet but the price tag is ridiculous. Comparing 2.1 of my Vibrant with 2.2 on my streak, the Vibrant wins. no contest.
Day one of having the new 2.2 update on there and it's clear that this OS needs some patching already. I can only imagine what the people on O2 in the UK had to go through with their 2.1 fiasco
more to follow...

Here's a couple of things that I like in this build but before I list the items I wanted to address the comment you made about being able to turn of BT, wi-fi, GPS, brightness, etc. Under apps you can select Power Control and that will give you those options in a form of a widget. You do, however, will have to delete one of the Stage widgets to free up the room. Or you can just open the widget via apps. For my use, I currently prefer a different launcher than Stage. I am using the LauncherPro but there are a lot of other free choices like ADW, Zeam and so on.
Here are the things I like about this build:
1. Ability to hang up the call by pressing the power button ( you have to go to Settings-Accessibility-then check the mark for that option)
2. Radio feature - is absolutely great. The thing I don't like is the web ad that seems to pop every time I start listening to a station. If anyone knows how to turn/block that pop-up you would make me very happy )
3. Keyboard is awesome. Love the size, the options to switch to symbols, just love it. Haven't messed with SWYPE but I love the Andriod KB right now.
4. Flash - yes it works and it works well.
5. Speed - significantly faster. Whether navigating or downloading. Wi-fi speeds are faster than 1.6 or 2.1 I use to have.
6. Bluetooth volume is louder. This one was high on my priority list.
7. Music widget - looks nice and clean.
8. Camera works fine. I don't see an option for 720p though.
9. Security is beefed up by adding the option for PIN or password on top of the normal sliding lock. My slider works without any issues. But I prefer the pattern lock which also works great.
10. Haptic feedback can't be completely turned off, or you can turn off certain features alone like keyboard. I have mine off so the three main buttons don't vibrate any more. I don't think that option was available in the previous builds but I could be wrong.
These are the ones that I can think of right off the bat. I may add more as I remember them.

streak4m3 said:
Under apps you can select Power Control and that will give you those options in a form of a widget.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Long press home, then under widgets, then power control... thanks tons. that's what I was looking for.

So my quick review:
The good:
Loving the out-of-the-box Exchange support. Yay. Mobile e-mail/calendar/contacts without having to use Touchdown and the hassle of 'pushing' Touchdown contacts to the phone's contacts.
w00t. Ability to grab requiring apps from the market which require 2.x.
2.x features like portrait home screen, better multi-touch, etc.
The bad:
The Stage UI is just lame. Giving it a few days before I toss it in the bin.
I miss the old video playing app. I dunno what it was called, but there isn't even a shortcut for the new one. I installed ASTRO File Manager, browsed to my video directory and the file launched with some less-than-basic video player. What I liked about the old one was the order-by-date view which I have become used to but isn't the end of the world, the resume where you left off feature, and the delete from within the app feature. I guess Rock Player is the video player most people seem to be recommending, so I hope it has this.
For all its faults, I liked the old keyboard. I suspect it's still there, but I have yet to look. Using 2 (To/two/too) and 4 (For/four), etc in txt/IM/tweets now takes extra keypresses.
I never really knew how handy the Dell notification area was for 1.6. I'd turn off the cellular data and run Wi-Fi only, with just a couple of presses and it wouldn't interrupt the app I was in. Now I have to go to the home screen, press the menu button, and that's only to turn off wireless. I have yet to find the equivalent enable/disable for 3G.
Yet to check:
I've found the Streak's camera has taken pretty lame photos. I'm not photophile, but our 5 year old, 4MP camera takes better photos than the Streak. I've had the Streak set to the best quality (Lowest compression or whatever it was) and if you zoom in on a picture while viewing on a PC, it gets pixelated very quickly, while our 4MP pics are much nicer looking and they are twice the file size (4MP pic twice the file size of a 5MP pic?), so I'm interpreted this as 'The Streak takes crappy pics'. Been waiting to see what, if anything, the upgrade to 2.2 does for this.
So I guess it seems to lack polish, BUT, I think the reason for this is because it's actually near-to-bare Android, so I'm not going to criticise the roughness when the other option is more polish (Which one may or may not like) from Dell that means OS updates take 6+ months. I'm sure I'll be able to overcome anything I'm not liking with apps or through tweaking some options somewhere. Isn't this why we have Android?
But yeah. Stage is coming off pretty quick I suspect.
PS - You all might laugh: http://i.imgur.com/ULMLx.png

This build was far too laggy for my tastes. 1.6 was faster on some of the processes for me. I'm happily back on DJ Steve's build which is soooo much faster and has virtually the same features.
Sent from my Dell Streak using Tapatalk

Something I'm surprised is:
2.2 doesn't have separate sounds for incoming:
E-mail
Texts
Reminders
...I dunno if iOS does, but my old Windows Mobile device did. I'd like a different sounds for these events, as I'll respond to them differently. Now I don't know if it's a calendar reminder which I can't ignore, a text which I might ignore or an e-mail that I can ignore...

streak4m3 said:
8. Camera works fine. I don't see an option for 720p though.
.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I got fooled by this. check 'Custom' for 720p. I can verify it is 720p too. pretty good quality.
Edit: Check it out. cant post link so you'll have to type the youtube code in manually
watch?v=Xm-jbOqIUiU
Enjoy! pretty sweet.
Format : MOV
Dimensions: 1280x720px
Video codec: MPEG4
Audio codec: AAC

htnprm said:
I never really knew how handy the Dell notification area was for 1.6. I'd turn off the cellular data and run Wi-Fi only, with just a couple of presses and it wouldn't interrupt the app I was in. Now I have to go to the home screen, press the menu button, and that's only to turn off wireless. I have yet to find the equivalent enable/disable for 3G.
PS - You all might laugh: http://i.imgur.com/ULMLx.png
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try "Quick Settings" which puts an icon in your status bar so when in an app, just drag down the status bar click on it and all your settings are there. Or, try "QuickDesk". Not sure if this is out of beta yet but its also an awesome app for doing exactly what you are talking about.....and much more.
Cant wait to get my Streak and to start rockin this 2.2. Would love to have vanilla 2.2 though.

as you are on 2.2 now , can you check something for me ?
- can flashled from camera be used as torchlight ?
- it should have usb tethering now, but does it also do wifi-tethering ?
- can the flashplayer play activescript ?
- is activesync (not exchange) working ?

da_jojo said:
as you are on 2.2 now , can you check something for me ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah. I was wondering about many of these. Hopefully I get the first real sit-down with the phone sans-children jumping all over me, so I'll get back to you.

htnprm said:
Yeah. I was wondering about many of these. Hopefully I get the first real sit-down with the phone sans-children jumping all over me, so I'll get back to you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
cheers, appreciate it

da_jojo said:
as you are on 2.2 now , can you check something for me ?
- can flashled from camera be used as torchlight ?
- it should have usb tethering now, but does it also do wifi-tethering ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes the led can work as a flashlight. I used the N1 Torch app and it worked fine.
Yes it does have wifi tethering.
I really miss the 1.6 menu bar/notification bar. Stage blows compared to the old ui. The swype keyboard is great. I have mixed feelings about the update mainly because of the ui changes.
Sent from my Dell Streak using Tapatalk

Spectre51 said:
Yes the led can work as a flashlight. I used the N1 Torch app and it worked fine.
Yes it does have wifi tethering.
I really miss the 1.6 menu bar/notification bar. Stage blows compared to the old ui. The swype keyboard is great. I have mixed feelings about the update mainly because of the ui changes.
Sent from my Dell Streak using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thnx for the info
yeah me too, but you can allways install one of these :
http://myandroidworld.in/posts/android-launchershome-replacement-apps

da_jojo said:
as you are on 2.2 now , can you check something for me ?
- can flashled from camera be used as torchlight ?
- it should have usb tethering now, but does it also do wifi-tethering ?
- can the flashplayer play activescript ?
- is activesync (not exchange) working ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. Yes, I use StreakLight from Market (free)
2. Yes, there´s an option for this and I checked it, and it seems to work. But I haven´t connected a device yet.
3. How can I check this?
4. Dunno, cause I use Exchange and some Imap

gavelis said:
1. Yes, I use StreakLight from Market (free)
2. Yes, there´s an option for this and I checked it, and it seems to work. But I haven´t connected a device yet.
3. How can I check this?
4. Dunno, cause I use Exchange and some Imap
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thnx
ad 3 : http://www.playerversion.com/ and http://jrgraphix.net/research/flash-dock-mx-2004.php and http://flowplayer.org/plugins/streaming/rtmp.html

da_jojo said:
as you are on 2.2 now , can you check something for me ?
- can flashled from camera be used as torchlight ?
- it should have usb tethering now, but does it also do wifi-tethering ?
- can the flashplayer play activescript ?
- is activesync (not exchange) working ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Alright. Others have answered, but I'll pass on what I know. If you're talking Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) not talking to an Exchange server, a la Hotmail, I'm getting a "cannot connect to server" error... My EAS to work's Exchange is working flawlessly though.
And USB/Wi-fi tethering are working grand. I'm tethered by Wi-fi as I write this, so I can pass my 3G USB modem on to a colleague. w00t.
I am a little concerned about battery life. I haven't done that much with the phone today, unlike a normal day where I might squeeze in a few calls, texts, tweets, bit of web browsing, and three+ hours of video and have the battery at 20% at the end of the day. I'm at 20% left now, and I haven't done any of those things.

thnx
have you tried hotmail through POP3 ? it worked with k9 client.
what i meant is activesync on windows 7 64bit with office 2010 32bit.
yeah batterylife concerns me also. i have a habit of draining these in godspeed (A)

You can create a shortcut to the wifi & networks popup from launcherpro activities.
1. Long press on the desktop bsckground
2. Select shortcut
3. Select Activities
4. Select wireless & networks
You now have access to the old dell popup to disable data, 3g etc.
Sent from my Dell Streak using XDA App

this is exactly what people where missing , thnx

rodjordan said:
You now have access to the old dell popup to disable data, 3g etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Kinda. You still have to go from the app you're in out to the home screen, turn it on/off, and then go back to your app. But thanks for the info.

[Q] Newie with a couple of questions?

Got my Desire Z yesterday
Got a couple of questions if someone could answer them for me please?
1) If Wi-Fi is turned on and I browse the web etc, does the phone use the wi-fi (my home wi-fi this is) over the phone network, i.e. so I don't get charged as I'm currently waiting for my contract plan to renew and my free data does not kick in until next month.
2) Is there a way of closing off apps that I have previously opened, or do I need another app to do this as I assume leaving apps running in the background will be a bigger drain on the battery?
3) I have setup a HTC Sense account, does the phone remain connected to this the whole time? (just want to make sure nothing racks up my data usage as I'm not on free data as yet).
Thanks for any info.
Oh, and PS - can anyone recommend some good apps?

If your Wi-fi is on and you are connected to a wireless network, the traffic will go over this network. You can also edit your settings so that the phone doesn't use phone network to update facebook, weather, etc. This goes for all apps and functions, including HTC Sense, email sync, etc.
Task killers are not supposed to be used with Android. You can read more about that here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=849974
What a good app for you is, depends on what you're looking for. But as for games, I do recommend Angry Birds and Doodle Jump (Santa doodle is just too cute these days )

A couple of must-have apps for me:
ChompSMS - replaces built-in text messaging app
Winamp - media player
Astro File Manager - does so much more than file management
ScoreMobile - real-time updates on sports scores
BuzzBox - RSS reader
Kayak - itinerary manager and travel application
Barcode Scanner
Tim Hortons Finder - for Canadians jonesing for their cup of Timmy's
JuiceDefender -
setCPU - set up CPU profiles for
Battery Graph - tracks drain on battery
TED Mobile
Some games and lighter fare:
Air Control Lite - fun game
Paper Toss
Angry Birds
Hungry Shark
Kobo reader
Aldiko reader
Hope this helps kick you off in the right direction.

stiscooby said:
2) Is there a way of closing off apps that I have previously opened, or do I need another app to do this as I assume leaving apps running in the background will be a bigger drain on the battery?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You don't need to worry, Android handles this automatically. The app won't be doing anything to drain the battery unless there's something seriously wrong with the app.
3) I have setup a HTC Sense account, does the phone remain connected to this the whole time? (just want to make sure nothing racks up my data usage as I'm not on free data as yet).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can control how often the phone syncs with your HTC Sense account just like you control the other things is syncs with such as Gmail, Facebook, etc, etc. So you can set those to sync manually so you have more control, and then only go and sync particular things when you need them.
HTCSense.com doesn't work too well for a lot of people at the moment (though you might be lucky), see http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=849410

Thanks for the replies.
So is there one overall setting to turn the data off or is there a setting within each app, where I can turn it off (just for the time being).
Oh, and one other question is there a way of checking how much battery is remaining apart from the little symbol at the top of the screen? Only got it yesterday and it's showing about a 3rd remaining. Seems to have gone down quickly, although I have probably been fiddling a bit more than what I will do once I "get use to it".
Thanks

stiscooby said:
So is there one overall setting to turn the data off or is there a setting within each app, where I can turn it off (just for the time being).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Go into Menu->Settings->Accounts & Sync and you'll see all the settings in there. One overall setting to sync automatically or not, and then individual sections for each account where you can sync them manually.
Oh, and one other question is there a way of checking how much battery is remaining apart from the little symbol at the top of the screen? Only got it yesterday and it's showing about a 3rd remaining. Seems to have gone down quickly, although I have probably been fiddling a bit more than what I will do once I "get use to it".
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can also go into Menu->Settings->About Phone->Battery, and if you choose the "Battery Use" section you can see what's been using the battery.
There are loads of extra battery widgets you can install on the Android market, to give you a percentage display. I'm using this one - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=724778

stiscooby said:
Thanks for the replies.
So is there one overall setting to turn the data off or is there a setting within each app, where I can turn it off (just for the time being).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've installed the "Mobile Network" widget so I can turn data off and on at will.
Widgets > Settings... > Mobile Network

After only two days of using. This is what I hate.

What I hate about Samsung Galaxy SIII
Add to the list if you can.
-Social Networking: Phone has no built-in social networking app. You soon find yourself jumping in the market from one app to the other. Modern phones now combine the social networking experience and offer social networking hubs that combine all of your contacts from several social networks and email services in one single place.
-Text Messaging: Unlike most stock text messaging apps, there seems to be no built-in support for delivery reporting. So instead of a small icon on the corner of the text messages you send that display the status of the message (Delivered, pending, or failed) you get an annoying notification in the status bar along with the default notification ringtone whenever a message is successfully delivered.
-Task Management: There is no preinstalled stock app for managing running services. You would have to scroll through the android setting menu in order to be able to kill any task you need to. Motorola photon, for example, offers this really intuitive automatic task killer that kills user defined apps 2 minutes after screen timeout. You won't find that in any of the task killer apps in the android market.
-Stock Dialer: Stock dialer is anything but smart. Whenever you dial a part of a name or a part of a number you only get one entry to chooser or you will have to scroll down through a huge list. The order of the entries in the list is even strange. It does not show the most frequently contacted entries at the top of the list rather the closest match to what you have entered.
-TouchWiz: While the ICS has lowered the stupidity of the TouchWiz Interface (better way to add widgets than before and support for resizing and scrollable widgets), Samsung decided to change nothing else about the TouchWiz interface which is quiet strange because it does need a lot of fixes.
-WIFI: WIFI signal was much worse than all of the other phones I had in the house. And one time the WIFI got disconnected suddenly for no reason. It only happenned once but it's a bad indication never the less.
-GPS: Samsung claims that the support for GLONASS will help get better accuracy on the location results. I used gps test on two phones (GSIII and Xperia X10) both with a GPS cold start and it took the GSIII 30 seconds more time to get my location with an accuracy of 2 meters less than the Xperia.
-Hardware: Same annoying layout of the back and menu button. Despite the fact that google has given a default layout of the back, home, and menu buttons, certain manufacturers still insist on reversing the order of those buttons.
-Stock browser: Very poor support for flash. I played a video on CNN website using the latest version of Flash and the video streaming was not consistent most of the time.
-Camera: Yes. The camera is cool but only because it's a copy of HTC one X's camera. Still not a good camera for shooting in low light.
Well. That's about it. So if you're still looking for a feature-free quad-core ICS phone, you will want to buy SGSiii.

Sell it and stop wasting our time .
jje

Who paid you to post this ?

CyanogenMod 9 fixes many of the software complaints you listed.
I can't stand TouchWiz. AOSP-like ROM's on the SGS3 is perfect for me. Hopefully you feel the same.

JJEgan said:
Sell it and stop wasting our time .
jje
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1.....that's why they have display models in phone shops, so you can have a feel for the phone before you buy it. You've obviously missed this point....sell your phone if you don't like it and stop cluttering up the S3 forums with pathetic ****e like this....reported to moderator for encouraging flaming! Absolutely ridiculous!!
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda premium

You might want to do more research on task management in Android, particularly on ICS. You'll note Motorola has removed that task manager app from their ICS updates. You'll also note you can remove applications by swiping them away from the multitasking menu, and that there's a task manager available from within that menu.
Additionally, the S III's camera is demonstrably better than that of the HTC One X, which - naturally for HTC - uses a lot of compression. HTC's camera app itself is, I found, better than Samsung's, but it's the end results that matter.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda premium

Manar Aleryani said:
What I hate about Samsung Galaxy SIII
Add to the list if you can.
-Social Networking: Phone has no built-in social networking app. You soon find yourself jumping in the market from one app to the other. Modern phones now combine the social networking experience and offer social networking hubs that combine all of your contacts from several social networks and email services in one single place.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So you can go to the market and download the same app that other phones have built in and get the same functionality and feature set, only those people who dont use social media will not be annoyed by having an app they cannot remove running constantly without rooting
Manar Aleryani said:
-Text Messaging: Unlike most stock text messaging apps, there seems to be no built-in support for delivery reporting. So instead of a small icon on the corner of the text messages you send that display the status of the message (Delivered, pending, or failed) you get an annoying notification in the status bar along with the default notification ringtone whenever a message is successfully delivered.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The stock messaging app is ugly and poor. Swapped it out for the AOSP (Blacked out version) as soon as I could
Manar Aleryani said:
-Task Management: There is no preinstalled stock app for managing running services. You would have to scroll through the android setting menu in order to be able to kill any task you need to. Motorola photon, for example, offers this really intuitive automatic task killer that kills user defined apps 2 minutes after screen timeout. You won't find that in any of the task killer apps in the android market.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Long-press home shows recent applications. At the bottom of the screen is a huge "Task manager" button. Needless to say, you only need to kill applications that are frozen. You do not need any task killer from the market. You also do not need to kill apps after 2 minutes. They will sit in RAM using no battery. If Android feels RAM needs to be cleared, it will use its pre-defined "Out-Of-Memory" values and kill tasks according to a task status based rule set. Read about RAM in my signature.
Manar Aleryani said:
-Stock Dialer: Stock dialer is anything but smart. Whenever you dial a part of a name or a part of a number you only get one entry to chooser or you will have to scroll down through a huge list. The order of the entries in the list is even strange. It does not show the most frequently contacted entries at the top of the list rather the closest match to what you have entered.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not had any issues myself. Although to be fair, I usually pick contacts to dial from contacts. As I have done since the 1990's
Manar Aleryani said:
-TouchWiz: While the ICS has lowered the stupidity of the TouchWiz Interface (better way to add widgets than before and support for resizing and scrollable widgets), Samsung decided to change nothing else about the TouchWiz interface which is quiet strange because it does need a lot of fixes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Touchwiz is awful. Sense is awful. 3rd party launchers have always been my preference
Manar Aleryani said:
-WIFI: WIFI signal was much worse than all of the other phones I had in the house. And one time the WIFI got disconnected suddenly for no reason. It only happenned once but it's a bad indication never the less.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No worse than my HTC Desire
Manar Aleryani said:
-GPS: Samsung claims that the support for GLONASS will help get better accuracy on the location results. I used gps test on two phones (GSIII and Xperia X10) both with a GPS cold start and it took the GSIII 30 seconds more time to get my location with an accuracy of 2 meters less than the Xperia.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unable to comment. Not really used. Quoting to show I am not conveniently missing things
Manar Aleryani said:
-Hardware: Same annoying layout of the back and menu button. Despite the fact that google has given a default layout of the back, home, and menu buttons, certain manufacturers still insist on reversing the order of those buttons.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep, same layout I've had on my android devices. Missed the extra buttons on the desire but after a couple of days I found it quite intuitive. Back button is fine where it is for me. Where its always been as far as I am concerned.
Manar Aleryani said:
-Stock browser: Very poor support for flash. I played a video on CNN website using the latest version of Flash and the video streaming was not consistent most of the time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Again I cant comment. All I can say is the browser annoyed me in several ways and I had to swap it out almost immidiately.
Manar Aleryani said:
-Camera: Yes. The camera is cool but only because it's a copy of HTC one X's camera. Still not a good camera for shooting in low light.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not convinced any of them are.
Manar Aleryani said:
Well. That's about it. So if you're still looking for a feature-free quad-core ICS phone, you will want to buy SGSiii.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Erm.. Feature free? Thats a bit of a joke. The SGS3 packs in more technology than ANYTHING on the android market. Lots of cool stuff that the competition simply hasn't got. You're pretty aggresive about the SGS3.

Task manager: press and hold home button. Running tasks pop up, with a one click link to task manager. Hard? I think not .
Social media: Flipboard is preinstalled on mine. Doesn't yours work?
Had my SGS3 for less than a day, and while there are some annoyances, not these ones.
I suspect sir, you may be trolling just a bit ;-)
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda app-developers app

i believe you
Manar Aleryani said:
What I hate about Samsung Galaxy SIII
Add to the list if you can.
-Social Networking: Phone has no built-in social networking app. You soon find yourself jumping in the market from one app to the other. Modern phones now combine the social networking experience and offer social networking hubs that combine all of your contacts from several social networks and email services in one single place.
-Text Messaging: Unlike most stock text messaging apps, there seems to be no built-in support for delivery reporting. So instead of a small icon on the corner of the text messages you send that display the status of the message (Delivered, pending, or failed) you get an annoying notification in the status bar along with the default notification ringtone whenever a message is successfully delivered.
-Task Management: There is no preinstalled stock app for managing running services. You would have to scroll through the android setting menu in order to be able to kill any task you need to. Motorola photon, for example, offers this really intuitive automatic task killer that kills user defined apps 2 minutes after screen timeout. You won't find that in any of the task killer apps in the android market.
-Stock Dialer: Stock dialer is anything but smart. Whenever you dial a part of a name or a part of a number you only get one entry to chooser or you will have to scroll down through a huge list. The order of the entries in the list is even strange. It does not show the most frequently contacted entries at the top of the list rather the closest match to what you have entered.
-TouchWiz: While the ICS has lowered the stupidity of the TouchWiz Interface (better way to add widgets than before and support for resizing and scrollable widgets), Samsung decided to change nothing else about the TouchWiz interface which is quiet strange because it does need a lot of fixes.
-WIFI: WIFI signal was much worse than all of the other phones I had in the house. And one time the WIFI got disconnected suddenly for no reason. It only happenned once but it's a bad indication never the less.
-GPS: Samsung claims that the support for GLONASS will help get better accuracy on the location results. I used gps test on two phones (GSIII and Xperia X10) both with a GPS cold start and it took the GSIII 30 seconds more time to get my location with an accuracy of 2 meters less than the Xperia.
-Hardware: Same annoying layout of the back and menu button. Despite the fact that google has given a default layout of the back, home, and menu buttons, certain manufacturers still insist on reversing the order of those buttons.
-Stock browser: Very poor support for flash. I played a video on CNN website using the latest version of Flash and the video streaming was not consistent most of the time.
-Camera: Yes. The camera is cool but only because it's a copy of HTC one X's camera. Still not a good camera for shooting in low light.
Well. That's about it. So if you're still looking for a feature-free quad-core ICS phone, you will want to buy SGSiii.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hello.
i must say that i have my phone also for a very little amount of time.
the things you say are real.But thats the beauty of it.
you could allways improve your phone here in xda.
ruianast

Umm. I get GPS locks in under the second from a cold start. I've never had a phone do it that fast before. Either your phone is faulty or you live in a lead house.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

Manar Aleryani said:
What I hate about Samsung Galaxy SIII
Add to the list if you can.
-Social Networking: Phone has no built-in social networking app. You soon find yourself jumping in the market from one app to the other. Modern phones now combine the social networking experience and offer social networking hubs that combine all of your contacts from several social networks and email services in one single place.
-Text Messaging: Unlike most stock text messaging apps, there seems to be no built-in support for delivery reporting. So instead of a small icon on the corner of the text messages you send that display the status of the message (Delivered, pending, or failed) you get an annoying notification in the status bar along with the default notification ringtone whenever a message is successfully delivered.
-Task Management: There is no preinstalled stock app for managing running services. You would have to scroll through the android setting menu in order to be able to kill any task you need to. Motorola photon, for example, offers this really intuitive automatic task killer that kills user defined apps 2 minutes after screen timeout. You won't find that in any of the task killer apps in the android market.
-Stock Dialer: Stock dialer is anything but smart. Whenever you dial a part of a name or a part of a number you only get one entry to chooser or you will have to scroll down through a huge list. The order of the entries in the list is even strange. It does not show the most frequently contacted entries at the top of the list rather the closest match to what you have entered.
-TouchWiz: While the ICS has lowered the stupidity of the TouchWiz Interface (better way to add widgets than before and support for resizing and scrollable widgets), Samsung decided to change nothing else about the TouchWiz interface which is quiet strange because it does need a lot of fixes.
-WIFI: WIFI signal was much worse than all of the other phones I had in the house. And one time the WIFI got disconnected suddenly for no reason. It only happenned once but it's a bad indication never the less.
-GPS: Samsung claims that the support for GLONASS will help get better accuracy on the location results. I used gps test on two phones (GSIII and Xperia X10) both with a GPS cold start and it took the GSIII 30 seconds more time to get my location with an accuracy of 2 meters less than the Xperia.
-Hardware: Same annoying layout of the back and menu button. Despite the fact that google has given a default layout of the back, home, and menu buttons, certain manufacturers still insist on reversing the order of those buttons.
-Stock browser: Very poor support for flash. I played a video on CNN website using the latest version of Flash and the video streaming was not consistent most of the time.
-Camera: Yes. The camera is cool but only because it's a copy of HTC one X's camera. Still not a good camera for shooting in low light.
Well. That's about it. So if you're still looking for a feature-free quad-core ICS phone, you will want to buy SGSiii.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sell it. Go buy a perfect phone.

So you hate everything about the phone... why didn't you try it out before purchasing? Could have saved yourself from all this whining...
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

Everything has been covered so far by others with the result: get the apps you want and customize the heck out of your phone.
Well nearly everthing except this:
GPS: Samsung claims that the support for GLONASS will help get better accuracy on the location results. I used gps test on two phones (GSIII and Xperia X10) both with a GPS cold start and it took the GSIII 30 seconds more time to get my location with an accuracy of 2 meters less than the Xperia.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are multiple methods for starting satellite navigation. (GPS is not really correct since GPS is the US-version of satellite navigation which does not include the russion GLONASS. I'll however restrict myself to the GPS system in the post to keep things simple)
When your phone has internet connection it will use A-GPS supl-Servers which calculate the phone's accurate position from the raw data it sends.
Based on that information and the also downloaded satellite trajectory prediction it gets a predetermined location. Using that information it can then continue on it's own. Usually this takes less than 3-5 seconds depending on your view.
Without active supl-servers, the phone can download or use a cached version of the satellite trajectory prediction and calculate it with it's own chip from scratch. That usually takes anything from 2 seconds to a minute depending on your view and signal stability.
If neither is available, the GPS receiver has to download the satellite prediction data from the satellites themselves. Each satellite transmits the whole prediction data within ~10 minutes in a cycle. The more satelllites your phone "sees" and actively uses, the faster the download.
As soon as it has the data, it will use it. In total it can take anything from a few seconds to several minutes before a first fix is determined.
It's noteworthy that the prediction data is afaik kept across reboots, so you'll have to disable any network connections (even disconnect from your carrier) use special apps to remove the data, reboot the phone and try again.
Usually a cold-start with active data connection gives you a fix within 5 seconds, without active within 30.
Accuracy as determined by the phone is just an educated guess based on a simple formula. It's rather easy to change it so it displays 0.001 meters....
It's technically impossible to get a less-than 5meter accurate fix with such a GPS receiver, usually you are between 10 and 15 meters. Now tell me, which is more accurate; a max-12 satellite algorithm or a max-24 satellite algorithm?

d4fseeker said:
Everything has been covered so far by others with the result: get the apps you want and customize the heck out of your phone.
Well nearly everthing except this:
There are multiple methods for starting satellite navigation. (GPS is not really correct since GPS is the US-version of satellite navigation which does not include the russion GLONASS. I'll however restrict myself to the GPS system in the post to keep things simple)
When your phone has internet connection it will use A-GPS supl-Servers which calculate the phone's accurate position from the raw data it sends.
Based on that information and the also downloaded satellite trajectory prediction it gets a predetermined location. Using that information it can then continue on it's own. Usually this takes less than 3-5 seconds depending on your view.
Without active supl-servers, the phone can download or use a cached version of the satellite trajectory prediction and calculate it with it's own chip from scratch. That usually takes anything from 2 seconds to a minute depending on your view and signal stability.
If neither is available, the GPS receiver has to download the satellite prediction data from the satellites themselves. Each satellite transmits the whole prediction data within ~10 minutes in a cycle. The more satelllites your phone "sees" and actively uses, the faster the download.
As soon as it has the data, it will use it. In total it can take anything from a few seconds to several minutes before a first fix is determined.
It's noteworthy that the prediction data is afaik kept across reboots, so you'll have to disable any network connections (even disconnect from your carrier) use special apps to remove the data, reboot the phone and try again.
Usually a cold-start with active data connection gives you a fix within 5 seconds, without active within 30.
Accuracy as determined by the phone is just an educated guess based on a simple formula. It's rather easy to change it so it displays 0.001 meters....
It's technically impossible to get a less-than 5meter accurate fix with such a GPS receiver, usually you are between 10 and 15 meters. Now tell me, which is more accurate; a max-12 satellite algorithm or a max-24 satellite algorithm?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
haha quoting 2 fast 2 furious I see XD. good series. can't wait for the next film!

usually people who buy the phone , using it less then a month is to criticise the phone haha nothing new , next please....

Sounds like an HTC fanboy to me lol
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda premium

He may not have even bought the Galaxy S III. He might have gotten the original Galaxy S or an old LG phone running LG's UI.
|Trolling with a smile|

-Social Networking: Don't care, less bloat is always good
-Text Messaging: Changed it to AOSP.
-Task Management: No task management? You need glasses.
-Stock Dialer: I enter a combination of numbers, press call, works as I expected it to.
-TouchWiz: It's ****. This has been common knowledge for years.
-WIFI: Stronger than my gnex and nexus s.
-GPS: Works fine, 5-10 seconds.
-Hardware: Don't care, they're only buttons.
-Stock browser: ****, don't like scrolling with it.
-Camera: Great. We must remember that its a phone, not a dslr.
-You: Complaining asshat.
That is all.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda premium

I enjoyed reading threads like these. I really do. :good:

anyway real samsung user will too busy searching for improvement for S3 , not a stupid hate list with no solutions, guess is other brands supporter is idle free since their flagship phone is not out ,hence more hate list threads surfacing , hmmm find something else to do ..maybe go take a walk in the park or something