Database Users

My thoughts after two weeks (for what it's worth)

I have had my Galaxy S for about two weeks now, previously being a very happy HTC Hero owner for about a year. Below is a short list of the things I have learned during this time, some good, some bad.
1.) Firstly, this is a FANTASTIC device; easily the best handset I have ever used. From the Super AMOLED screen that to this day still blows me away every time I pick up the phone, to the amazing 3D performance. No doubt, the Galaxy S is a desirable piece of kit.
2.) Despite this, it is let down by a single CRIPPLING flaw that we all know so well by now... The RFS file system. Make no mistake, without a lagfix installed, the Galaxy S performs at about 50% of its potential. This is true of ALL firmwares, including xxJPK. I've heard people on the forums claiming that JPK doesn't need a lagfix... Well, all I can say to that is that they haven't played around for long enough to notice, or they haven't tried OCLF at all. The difference is like night and day.
3.) So the lagfix makes the Galaxy S a monster; truly a pleasure to use. Why then does Samsung not recognise this potential and fix the problem? Looking at xxJPK and the build-date, I would say it's a pretty safe bet that Samsung are going to be sticking with RFS in the upcoming official Froyo release. That fact alone is a huge disappointment for me, and one which weighs heavily on my mind. Why should we have to rely on 3rd party "fixes" from the community to get the full performance from our phones? All of the current lagfixes have their own negatives. What we NEED is Samsung to come to the party! I wonder whether the Galaxy Tab will suffer from the same problems...
4.) The GPS problems that are well documented on the net have not affected me at all. I have successfully navigated from point A to B using Google Nav (Brut), and I have recorded a 6km trail using My Tracks, all without a single problem. I'm not saying the GPS issue doesn't exist, but if it does, it hasn't affected me yet. If anything, I would concede that the GPS is "weaker" than that of my Hero, but still fine for day to day use.
5.) My biggest concern coming in was the plastic construction of the phone, and Samsung's legendary (at least in my eyes) poor build quality. I'm pleased to report that on the contrary, the phone feels great in-hand, the weight is perfect and build quality is just fine. Now, I am not sure I would WANT to go back to one of the beefier HTC handsets I have coveted for so long.
6.) AllShare + DivX Certification + Hardware video acceleration = WIN! I tell you, the fact that I can lie in bed and stream all my media to this phone wirelessly and watch it on that gorgeous display is worth the price of admission alone.
7.) TouchWiz > Sense. When I had my Hero, I couldn't stand Sense. It felt bloated, and I always preferred a vanilla Google experience. TouchWiz is light enough that it doesn't get in the way of Android, and the overall look and feel is actually better than vanilla Android in my opinion. I'm happy to stick with stock ROMs, provided Samsung keep churning them out (something they haven't done too well so far!).
And yeah, that's about it... Thanks for reading if you got this far. Hopefully my thoughts and opinions echo true for some of you and trigger discussion.

I think you shoulda posted in general ..

PaulForde said:
I think you shoulda posted in general ..
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Sorry, you are right... Too used to posting here in Dev. Can a mod move it for me?

StNickZA said:
6.) AllShare + DivX Certification + Hardware video acceleration = WIN! I tell you, the fact that I can lie in bed and stream all my media to this phone wirelessly and watch it on that gorgeous display is worth the price of admission alone.
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May I ask what kind of server you are using? A NAS or some software, if the latter, which exactly? I gave up experimenting with PS3 Media Server a while back, though that is by far the best solution for the namegiving media renderer (and compatible to some others).

PlanetJumble said:
May I ask what kind of server you are using? A NAS or some software, if the latter, which exactly? I gave up experimenting with PS3 Media Server a while back, though that is by far the best solution for the namegiving media renderer (and compatible to some others).
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Unfortunately, I could not get PS3MS to work either, no matter what I tried. I use it already for streaming to the PS3.
To stream to the phone, I use Media Player 11. It works fine, but obviously only for formats that the phone can play natively (which fortunately is most of them).
Ultimately, I'd like to find a way to get PS3MS to transcode ALL formats for me into something the i9000 recognises.

StNickZA said:
To stream to the phone, I use Media Player 11. It works fine, but obviously only for formats that the phone can play natively (which fortunately is most of them).
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Transcoding isn't much of a problem, since the alternative I use is to download to the phone and play it natively anyway.
But having to feed WMP the media collection is cumbersome. On PS3MS, I just give it the base folder and then navigate on my PS3. Adding new files on the fly works just fine if they are moved somewhere in that tree. Maybe I am doing something wrong, but I seem to have to manually add each file for WMP and then I have them all mixed up in flat hierarchy, which sucks badly.

PlanetJumble said:
Transcoding isn't much of a problem, since the alternative I use is to download to the phone and play it natively anyway.
But having to feed WMP the media collection is cumbersome. On PS3MS, I just give it the base folder and then navigate on my PS3. Adding new files on the fly works just fine if they are moved somewhere in that tree. Maybe I am doing something wrong, but I seem to have to manually add each file for WMP and then I have them all mixed up in flat hierarchy, which sucks badly.
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Actually, I thought this to be the case as well. WMP seems to scan the mdia folders that you have added. And you don't need to browse using the library, which I agree is a pain.
In AllShare, go to Videos, then scroll down to Folders. From there you have the familiar layout you are used to from PS3MS.

StNickZA, I agree 100% with everything you have said! This should be in General though.
I haven't used AllShare that much, since I have a method that I prefer more:
First grab an app called 'File Expert' off the market. Set up an SMB file share to your movies and eps on your PC using normal windows sharing.
Then when you want something on your phone, just make sure you're on wifi, go to the SMB file share, hold down on the video and select copy. Then go back to local and paste it into the device. It will now say copying, and you can press the home button and go on with other stuff while it copies across.
The main benefit of this is that you don't have to worry about going out of range of wifi signal or anything, and it only takes a couple seconds to get the transfer started. Plus, no worrying about incompatibility or anything with streaming. Could be better, but it works.

If u have a nas like me, or wish to play videos from shared folders use CIFS Manager
No need to copy
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

I just use an HTTP server (HFS, installation is extremely simple) and the Browser to get the files on my phone.
But that is exactly what I want to get rid of, copying the files. Haven't tried CIFS Manager yet, but got that on my list.

True.. buut, another launcher, removing glasslock and taskmanager under touchwiz makes it an even smoother ride imo. )
Tapatalk, Sgs elite.

PlanetJumble said:
But that is exactly what I want to get rid of, copying the files. Haven't tried CIFS Manager yet, but got that on my list.
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That's the beauty of DLNA. AllShare works perfectly off Media Player 11, and streaming is flawless. Very happy with it indeed!

... let's shorten it! do you like your(!) xoom?

This is question is only for actual xoom owners !
... yes or no?

meta96 said:
This is question is only for actual xoom owners !
... yes or no?
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I bought mine at Costco this morning but I've had to work all day so I wont be able to use it until late this afternoon...but I think I will like it!

Hell yes
Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk

bwcorvus said:
Hell yes
Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk
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+1!!!!!!!
Sent from my Xoom using XDA App

It rules....

Anything you guys/girls don't like so far? Any real issues (not flash or sd card related)?

loving it!!!!

blozout said:
Anything you guys/girls don't like so far? Any real issues (not flash or sd card related)?
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I out in an sdcard and it didnt see it but hey we knew that going in right.

So far, I love the thing. Much more impressive than I was expecting.

meta96 said:
This is question is only for actual xoom owners !
... yes or no?
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Click to collapse
Yes, a 1000 times Yes.
Its considerably smaller than I thought it would be. A bit heavier as well.
As many have mentioned before, I wish that the auto-brightness setting were brighter.
Waiting patiently for the dev community to get crackin.

so far so good. No flash sucks but u know this.
Will have to go home to test mini USB charge/connect.
I dislike not being able to download .doc files from blackboard and key input lags.

gigglebox said:
Yes, a 1000 times Yes.
Its considerably smaller than I thought it would be. A bit heavier as well.
As many have mentioned before, I wish that the auto-brightness setting were brighter.
Waiting patiently for the dev community to get crackin.
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Smaller than I expected as well. These silly video reviewers and their little hands...

i just got it a few minutes ago and i love it!!

epik151 said:
so far so good. No flash sucks but u know this.
Will have to go home to test mini USB charge/connect.
I dislike not being able to download .doc files from blackboard and key input lags.
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Why can't you download the .doc file? Have you installed Astro File Manager and enabled browser downloads in the settings?

+1 but i purchased this morning from vzw and it has been sitting in my car all day.
from the few minutes i played with it at the store and in the car, i like it even more than i originally did.
it was also smaller than i was expecting which is a bonus.

Yes.
Called Verizon and got them to waive my activation fee, too.
I wish the screen itself had more contrast/brightness overall (I have Auto off and brightness on full, and its still only so-so).

epik151 said:
so far so good. No flash sucks but u know this.
Will have to go home to test mini USB charge/connect.
I dislike not being able to download .doc files from blackboard and key input lags.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As ridiculous as it is, no charging through the USB. With the emergence of USB 3 devices, it would have been nice to have USB charging.

No, DOA

Jrockttu said:
As ridiculous as it is, no charging through the USB. With the emergence of USB 3 devices, it would have been nice to have USB charging.
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yeah i really expected it to have the micro usb as at least a back up charging port so i dont have to carry another charger with me..

So far so good
Got mine this morning, copied over an mp4 movie and it plays very well. Don't like the default book reader because I don't know if its possible or not but I couldn't open my own epub files from it which would have been great because the app itself is actually nice. I'm still at work so I couldn't play with it as much as I would have liked to and the time I did have to spend on it I started installing some of my favorite apps (all free) like task manager, androzip, pandora, sketchbook...battery life has been great so far but again no real tests yet. I will def play with it more once I get home tonight and let everyone know if there are any issues. Sorry, forgot to mention how annoying the power button is as well as the extra charger that I have to carry around now.

What do you use your KFire for?

I know there are plenty of posts about this, kewl thing is that's ok.
Feel free to comment and specify.
I use my KFire for most of these, but mainly gaming. Currently obsessing on Words with Friends. Just finished Shadowgun. Good game.

I use mine as a tablet . Everything I can want electronically that cant be done on another device
Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk

Is it ironic that I use it to read about uses for it?
Sent from my Amazon Kindle Fire using Tapatalk

cgilstrap said:
I know there are plenty of posts about this, kewl thing is that's ok.
Feel free to comment and specify.
I use my KFire for most of these, but mainly gaming. Currently obsessing on Words with Friends. Just finished Shadowgun. Good game.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't really use it for much since my glaxy nexus is pretty much used for everything
Sent from my Kindle Fire using xda premium

Porn... It streams like a champ.

i read books on it. I play games on it. occasionally browse the web. Pretty much exactly what it was designed for.

Reading, note taking, drawing, music consumption, photo editing, gaming.

I used to use it for reading books - and it appears that ever since I came across this site, I use it to flash roms

Got if for my little kid, great for streaming videos, my lap and phone will saty safe for a while...

I use it for Pornography.
sent by your mom

porn really? Sorry screen is too small for me. Use my 50" lcd for that. Forgot to put reading as an option lol... guess that'll count as other. Just find reading a book on a tablet or e reader to take a lot away from the experience of reading a book for me. I need a book book. If we could get a fully fuctional rom out there that'd be great. Just seems all the ICS roms and misc other ones floating around have one or two major bugs still.

cgilstrap said:
porn really? Sorry screen is too small for me. Use my 50" lcd for that. Forgot to put reading as an option lol... guess that'll count as other. Just find reading a book on a tablet or e reader to take a lot away from the experience of reading a book for me. I need a book book. If we could get a fully fuctional rom out there that'd be great. Just seems all the ICS roms and misc other ones floating around have one or two major bugs still.
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CM7 has been working flawlessly for me, I don't have any bugs at all with it.

wheres the "all of the above" option?

I bought mine with the intention of using it for school. A couple of the textbooks I needed were available in PDF form, and I actually saved money by buying a new gadget... win/win!
Realistically I've mostly been using it for development. I'm currently working on an app for tablets, and I don't have a tablet other than this one. I've also been trying to help out with the ICS development, and frankly this post is to help get me to the 10-post threshold so I can answer someone's question in a development thread (kind of silly if you ask me).

Web browsing, music, reading, planner, and some other stuff. Although I have to agree about the screen being too small for porn. Perhaps in an emergency situation...

RawRmon said:
Web browsing, music, reading, planner, and some other stuff. Although I have to agree about the screen being too small for porn. Perhaps in an emergency situation...
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Have you tried in portrait rather than in landscape?

For messing with Android. It's cheap enough that bricking it is really not an issue.

pretty useful in class to look at the powerpoint when I can't see the projector screen
Sent from my SGH-I777 using XDA App

un4givn85 said:
wheres the "all of the above" option?
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+1 on that... I use them all.

xmtsystems said:
Porn... It streams like a champ.
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Lol
Sent from my Kindle Fire using xda premium

[Q] view my Galaxy sII on PC?

hey, is there anyway to view my phone on the PC when playing games? ive tried through the SDK but its very laggy! is there any else software you can recommend? and remember that i just want to view it from my PC and not control it!

adellon92 said:
hey, is there anyway to view my phone on the PC when playing games? ive tried through the SDK but its very laggy! is there any else software you can recommend? and remember that i just want to view it from my PC and not control it!
Click to expand...
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So you want to see the game you're playing on your phone from your PC? Just use a MicroUSB -> HDMI adapter and link it directly to an HDMI monitor, it will work better!
Or maybe I didn't get what you need?

You won't find anything hat isn't sluggish, but try MyMobiler. It used to be pretty good on WM, but I haven't tried the Android version.
http://mymobiler.com/
Sent from my GT-P1000 using Tapatalk

[email protected] said:
So you want to see the game you're playing on your phone from your PC? Just use a MicroUSB -> HDMI adapter and link it directly to an HDMI monitor, it will work better!
Or maybe I didn't get what you need?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Iam actually using a laptop!

Archer said:
You won't find anything hat isn't sluggish, but try MyMobiler. It used to be pretty good on WM, but I haven't tried the Android version.
http://mymobiler.com/
Sent from my GT-P1000 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks man, will try it out! any more suggestions? and iam talking about playing graphically intensive games!

What you desire is not going to happen on your laptop, unless you fork out a whole lot of money for hardware to give you HDMI input.

whats ur atrix capable of?

share what all things you can do with your atrix. let others know how you are using your device. guide them to unleash the beast inside their atrix.

i connect my atrix to usb hub, tv, pendrive, ext hdd, mouse and keyboard......
Atrix - Neutrino Rom 2.6, Faux 1.45GHz Kernel. CM7 2.3.7

I'm kind of strange.........I use my Atrix as a phone!

I use it as a game console. connect it to my HDTV and use a wiimote classic to play snes. I also use it for Netflix and movies. Most recently I've been using it at work to save information quickly.

I use it to do my marketing homework cuz I'm cool like that.

Nice topic...
Sent from my ATRIX

It collects dust until cm9 is 100% complete for it.
I only used hdmi mirroring a few times like in hotels to watch Netflix. Now I just use my ipad2. Only played stupid games on it, nothing like gta3. That's what my ps3 is for.

I use mine for games and all the usual stuff but mostly as my mobile office
Sent from my MB860 using xda premium

I use it for a mobile office, games, mp3 player and Webtop sometimes sms etc

I am now up to 7 months of using nothing but my atrix/lapdock when not in home/office.
This includes some long trips when I needed to be able to connect back to the office and do real work.
When out of touch I can do some dev locally on it (most of my work is just C code, fairly light weight). But in general I can just VPN home and all works fairly well.
Worst case is when I have to RDE into a Windoze VM back on my office system. Slow, but works.
Sometimes I even use it for phone calls

CaelanT said:
I'm kind of strange.........I use my Atrix as a phone!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+ 1 and for web surfing and video watching
Sent from my MB860 using xda premium

I use my atrix for mostly the communication part of the phone for school and work. Like email, messaging, calls, and Lapdock. The phone calendar is the thing the keeps me on task. I use the atrix almost like a business tool.
.......the you have all those fun apps you have to try......
That's a whole other story.
Sent from my ATRIX using the Premium XDA App

anybody tried full ubuntu inside atrix and connect to an HDTV?

I use my atrix for...
Well this is my first "power-phone" I've had. I don't consider my iPhone 3gs a power-phone. So tonight I will attempt to install backtrack Linux on it (Debian variant) for pen-testing remotely. Should be interesting. The hardware can BY FAR support it, and there are multiple ported arm versions available. Wish me luck. If anyone else has done it, regardless of distro please pm me you're experience!

I always use my Atrix to watch Despicable Me all over again!!

I use my Atrix as a pocket notebook (springpad), music player and mobile browser.
I also have offline navigation map installed, but never used it.

deface31337 said:
Well this is my first "power-phone" I've had. I don't consider my iPhone 3gs a power-phone. So tonight I will attempt to install backtrack Linux on it (Debian variant) for pen-testing remotely. Should be interesting. The hardware can BY FAR support it, and there are multiple ported arm versions available. Wish me luck. If anyone else has done it, regardless of distro please pm me you're experience!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I run a debian made from scratch via debootsrap and it works fine and was fairly easy to do.
If you are just running this as command line (no X), it is fairly easy to do. Just follow any standard ubuntu chrooting guide (or look up "ubuntu on android"). From a 'droid terminal chroot over and you are there.
One catch, if you run as a non-root user you must be in grouup 3003 (it's in the 'droid kernel) to use IP sockets. 3004 to use raw sockes, and 3001 if you care about bluetooth (took me an entire day to find that comically stupid issue).
If you need an X interface, there are 2 ways to go. Either use the Moto webtop ubuntu to get X up, then chrrot over to your stuff over. Or run a VNC server in your 'nux and use the android VNC viewer.
As I presume you know what you are doing on the linux side, this will not be difficult.
There are a few threads over in the dev section that go into a lot more detail.

Design icons in inkscape? Build websites? Contact anyone any time? Considering its 960 landscape it also allows you to easily browse almost any webpage. Its a damn awesome phone.
I just wish they'd done webtop right as opposed to than weird virtual thing its doing. Ubuntu screams on a 1ghz processor with 1gb ram. Webtop however sort of whimpers =/
Needs room to grow I guess.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA

Thanks for the advice your setup looks like exactly what i need. Command prompt and a root user, the rest is trivial and ill play with it for giggles. Thanks again for the reply.
Sent from my MB860 using the XDA mobile application powered by Tapatalk

Design icons in inkscape? Build websites? Contact anyone any time? Considering its 960 landscape it also allows you to easily browse almost any webpage. Its a damn awesome phone.
I just wish they'd done webtop right as opposed to than weird virtual thing its doing. Ubuntu screams on a 1ghz processor with 1gb ram. Webtop however sort of whimpers =/
Needs room to grow I guess.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hrm.. webtop seems to run nice for me. Streaming movies or youtube is lag free. My vnc sessions seem fine. Not sure. I am writing some more advanced html5 web apps to test with webtop to see how well it utilizes the newer functions. But then again it is firefox, i expect it to pass with flying colors.
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