What a difference a phone makes. Droid X is light years better than the Epic. The Epic's capacitive back button would always require 2-3 presses. I do have a question, with the Droid X I'm tempted to download the leaked 2.2, good idea or should I wait for the official version that seems to be "just" around the corner? My wife has the droid 2 and loves it. Froyo is awesome.
You can safely use the 2.2 leak, we have the sbf to flash back to 2.1
Here is how http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=7740791
The sbf and instructions to flash back to 2.1 are also in that thread
It also give instructions on Rooting 2.1 and keeping root for 2.2
And if you mess up by mistake, you can always use the Droid 2 root method, it works on the 2.2 leak for DroidX as well
In my opinion, keep in mind it's only my OPINION, but I would just hold up for the official 2.2. If Moto decides to follow it's deadline (which it's already slightly past), it should be out very soon. And the fact that there is a leak, I would take that as a hint it's here soon.
Thanks @zanix & @x.v_ for two valid options. Decisions...
There is a rumor that Moto/Verizon is patching up all the exploits in the froyo OTA though. Some think that if you want to root, then you should go the leaked froyo route. If you have no interest in being rooted, then waiting for the official froyo update is an option.
Apparently the 2.2 OTA is the same as the latest leak (2.3.15).
Hi all,
my first post here.
am really confused b/w Desire Z and Milestone 2. I neeeeeed a keyboard. tired of X10's onscreen keyboard rite now.
am not worried about the CPU clock speeds of OMAP and MSMs though.And not really worried about the Blur or sense stuff.
Any statistics on the GPU performance? saw the FPS on Desire Z's MSM7230 reached around 55. how much is Moto scoring in that area?
Has anyone here got a chance to play with both of these?
regards
Aj700
Another thing you should think about. Is that the milestone's bootloader is heavely locked. So all the costum roms, will only be with the kernels released officialy by motorola. So you will newer be able to upgrade proberly with custom roms, after they abandon the phone
You can see that in the Milestone forums. We are still waiting on the 2.2 upgrade. And they where actually considering not to release the 2.2 upgrade. Even though there are bugs in the pressent 2.1 firmware. (Very poor 2d framerate for instance)
ClausG76 said:
Another thing you should think about. Is that the milestone's bootloader is heavely locked. So all the costum roms, will only be with the kernels released officialy by motorola. So you will newer be able to upgrade proberly with custom roms, after they abandon the phone
You can see that in the Milestone forums. We are still waiting on the 2.2 upgrade. And they where actually considering not to release the 2.2 upgrade. Even though there are bugs in the pressent 2.1 firmware. (Very poor 2d framerate for instance)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's a completely fair point. I have the original Milestone, and actually wouldn't mind sticking with it if it weren't for their bootloader. Nothing wrong with the hardware itself, and the TI core is awesome. Still wont ever buy another device from Motorola unless they change their policies. Sure, HTC also has some restrictions, and you hear people complain about slow updates once in a blue mood, but they are easily the right choice, as the lesser of two evils.
ClausG76 said:
So all the costum roms, will only be with the kernels released officialy by motorola. So you will newer be able to upgrade proberly with custom roms, after they abandon the phone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi, does that also mean HTC Sense cannot be loaded onto a Milestone 2, or just that Motorola 'Motoblur' improvements won't be possible unless direct from Motorola?
(Excuse my ignorance, I've read through pages on the Milestone 1 forum, but don't understand much of it since I've been Windows Mobile up to now.)
icewall said:
That's a completely fair point. I have the original Milestone, and actually wouldn't mind sticking with it if it weren't for their bootloader. Nothing wrong with the hardware itself, and the TI core is awesome. Still wont ever buy another device from Motorola unless they change their policies. Sure, HTC also has some restrictions, and you hear people complain about slow updates once in a blue mood, but they are easily the right choice, as the lesser of two evils.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was under the impression that the rooting exploits which worked on Droid variants will work on Milestones too. So its not as u guys suggest. And above all, I am not sure I will get a OTA update from Moto here, as I have never seen a moto phone at stores here. Moto doesnt looks interested in markets here????
AFAIK diff b/w msm8255 (inside HD) and msm7230( in Z) is only the cpu frequency. If it crosses 1GHz then it goes into 8series.
but for the reduced CPU clock we get a phy keyboard with Z. And the reduced 256MB ram and display sizes should help with little less power consumption. may be thats why they included a lesser 1300mAh battery.
well then HTC desire Z is the chosen one form me, if am gonna buy a new one!
Despite this forum is young, this has been discussed previously
The Droid2/Milestone2 is a natural contender for the Desire Z
More news: The "DROID2 PRO" or "DROID2 WORLD EDITION" (Moto A956) will be 1.2GHz - more info and some benchmarks here:
http://www.droid-life.com/2010/09/2...marks-and-system-info-hello-1-2ghz-processor/
The Mileston2/Droid2 beats the Desire Z in every aspect (faster processor, 8 GB RAM, dual LED flash, slightly smaller and lighter... etc) BUT it is motorola, not HTC
HTC has more community support and developers/hackers devoted
Root, bootloader, whatever you name it, HTC will have it first
BUT as I stated in another thread, the Desire Z's 800MHz processor has me wondering if those supposedly "gingerbread (android 3.0) minnimum hardware specs" will be a major issue for a future upgrade to android 3.0
.
gtrab said:
Despite this forum is young, this has been discussed previously
The Droid2/Milestone2 is a natural contender for the Desire Z
More news: The "DROID2 PRO" or "DROID2 WORLD EDITION" (Moto A956) will be 1.2GHz - more info and some benchmarks here:
droid-life.com/2010/09/22/droid-2-global-benchmarks-and-system-info-hello-1-2ghz-processor/
The Mileston2/Droid2 beats the Desire Z in every aspect (faster processor, 8 GB RAM, dual LED flash, slightly smaller and lighter... etc) BUT it is motorola, not HTC
HTC has more community support and developers/hackers devoted
Root, bootloader, whatever you name it, HTC will have it first
BUT as I stated in another thread, the Desire Z's 800MHz processor has me wondering if those supposedly "gingerbread (android 3.0) minnimum hardware specs" will be a major issue for a future upgrade to android 3.0
.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
on Gingerbread side I am confident that it will definitely come to Desire Z. even if not official OTA update comes out, its the same CPU core(ARMv7) on HD and on the same chipset family (MSMs) so that should be more than enough for this wonderful community to port it across.
Thanks for pointing to the benchmark results. I ran a quick search for the same benchmark on MSM series and saw this smartphonebenchmarks.com/forum/index.php?/topic/83-msm8255-adreno-205-in-htc-desire-hd-gets-quadrant-benchmark-tested/
this is huge improvement.
you can see more benchmarks here. smartphonebenchmarks.com/
So with the kind of community tweak and fixes Samsung Hummingbird is getting, if it comes to the new gen MSMs we are looking at here, we may see more performance. feel free to say if I am wrong.
regards
Aj700
I used HTC device for over 8years, voice quality never improved, that why I jump to motorola, I need a phone more then a PDA.
It's been said before and I'll say it again. Despite the Droid/Milestone 2 looking like the tastier hardware, their software development and support leaves a lot to be desired.
Most Milestone owners will tell you they won't buy Moto again, despite their awesome hardware, because Moto do not give a sh*t about supporting their phones or bug fixing. Add in the fact the bootloaders are locked down, meaning noone else can fix their mistakes, and it starts to look like their is only one choice - the Desire Z.
I really, really want the Droid 2 World Edition that's coming out - that chrome and white just looks the business in my opinion. But I know I'll be sorry if I buy it.
http://phandroid.com/2010/09/22/dro...d-with-its-own-silver-and-white-color-scheme/
colala said:
I used HTC device for over 8years, voice quality never improved, that why I jump to motorola, I need a phone more then a PDA.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You must not have upgraded phones in 8 years then, I can tell a huge difference between my Kaiser to my Leo.
Even then, I've yet to use a Motorola phone that doesn't have horrid battery life
aj700 said:
I was under the impression that the rooting exploits which worked on Droid variants will work on Milestones too. So its not as u guys suggest. And above all, I am not sure I will get a OTA update from Moto here, as I have never seen a moto phone at stores here. Moto doesnt looks interested in markets here????
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Rooting has nothing to do with custom ROMs and upgradeability. Rooting gives you root, and that's all. Nothing else. You can run apps requiring a superuser (screenshot apps, MarketEnabler,...) and that's it.
Second step in case of Motorola phones with locked bootloader is using a custom userland. That is - you can change anything in phone but the kernel. So you can put a 2.2 UI on top of a 2.1 kernel - but you won't have the JIT and many other cool stuff. And when Google releases 3.0, you won't have that either if some functionality will depend on new kernel. This is the main problem - you can make a semi-cyanogenmod, where you place all UI improvements into a update package, but that's all, it's not 2.2. It's 2.2 UI running on Android 2.1 on Motorola 2.1 kernel.
The last step are full custom ROMs, uncluding custom/new kernels, not made and/or signed by Motorola. This is impossible to do on Motorola phones, which means when Motorola stops providing updates for your phone you won't get any updates from anyone. No community updates, no Motorola updates.
This plus the support speed of Motorola (2.1 released in April, reboot bug fixed in September) makes Motorola a very, very, very, very bad choice. Also ask all DEXT owners what do they think about Motorola support for their phones (aka no Android 2.1 for DEXT).
Simply, Motorola is the evil company in the Android world, and no one should buy their phones. They made their point in non-US markets with DEXT and Milestone and get a lot of bad publicity thanks to this. US market is learning this now with Droid 2 and Droid X, they already got their first batch of bugs specific to Motorola phones which are going to be fixed slooowly (the SMS bug).
So, if you really want the better phone, get the Desire Z. It's not the hardware, but the support which really matters. What is all the better specs of Milestone 2 worth if it is plagued with bugs all over the place.
faugusztin said:
Rooting has nothing to do with custom ROMs and upgradeability. Rooting gives you root, and that's all. Nothing else. You can run apps requiring a superuser (screenshot apps, MarketEnabler,...) and that's it.
Second step in case of Motorola phones with locked bootloader is using a custom userland. That is - you can change anything in phone but the kernel. So you can put a 2.2 UI on top of a 2.1 kernel - but you won't have the JIT and many other cool stuff. And when Google releases 3.0, you won't have that either if some functionality will depend on new kernel. This is the main problem - you can make a semi-cyanogenmod, where you place all UI improvements into a update package, but that's all, it's not 2.2. It's 2.2 UI running on Android 2.1 on Motorola 2.1 kernel.
The last step are full custom ROMs, uncluding custom/new kernels, not made and/or signed by Motorola. This is impossible to do on Motorola phones, which means when Motorola stops providing updates for your phone you won't get any updates from anyone. No community updates, no Motorola updates.
This plus the support speed of Motorola (2.1 released in April, reboot bug fixed in September) makes Motorola a very, very, very, very bad choice. Also ask all DEXT owners what do they think about Motorola support for their phones (aka no Android 2.1 for DEXT).
Simply, Motorola is the evil company in the Android world, and no one should buy their phones. They made their point in non-US markets with DEXT and Milestone and get a lot of bad publicity thanks to this. US market is learning this now with Droid 2 and Droid X, they already got their first batch of bugs specific to Motorola phones which are going to be fixed slooowly (the SMS bug).
So, if you really want the better phone, get the Desire Z. It's not the hardware, but the support which really matters. What is all the better specs of Milestone 2 worth if it is plagued with bugs all over the place.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
so even with the new SuperOneClick root method, it's still not possible to get custom ROMs on the Droid 2/World Edition? Is this correct?
Given the talk about lockdowns for the T-Mobile G2, is there any reason to suspect the HTC DeeZire Z wont also have lockdowns preventing custom ROMs?
jfwfreo said:
Given the talk about lockdowns for the T-Mobile G2, is there any reason to suspect the HTC DeeZire Z wont also have lockdowns preventing custom ROMs?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
it's hard to tell at this stage..but the device is not T-Mo, so there's hope!
skulk3r said:
so even with the new SuperOneClick root method, it's still not possible to get custom ROMs on the Droid 2/World Edition? Is this correct?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Correct. Root gives you only what it says - a root user, a ability to run the su command, ability to use applications requiring superuser privileges.
With all Motorola phones after Motorola Droid 1, you need a ROM with a kernel signed by Motorola private key. That means, you can right now change everything, except the kernel. In case of Milestone 1, you can put 2.2 UI on top of 2.1 kernel. When they will release 2.2 for Milestone 1, you will be probably able to put 3.0 UI on top of 2.2 kernel - but all the improvements at kernel level won't be available to you. For example in case of MotoFrenzy it means "Video Recorder + camera focus/audio" not working. And you will have problems like this every time you use a older kernel with newer UI.
Until someone comes up with a solution (get the key from Motorola, any of the solutions guys at http://and-developers.com/ are trying), any Motorola phone released after Droid 1 is a bad choice, as you are getting only updates from Motorola, and they don't have a good record in this area. Once you are left behind, you are left behind forever, no community support.
Of course HTC G2/Desire Z has it's own set of problems with this unwritable memory causing only a temporary root working, but this case is more likely to be breaked, as it's not key signing, just a hardware lockout, which will be IMHO solved with the first official update if not sooner (because at first update they will have to unlock the memory which is now locked).
faugusztin said:
Simply, Motorola is the evil company in the Android world, and no one should buy their phones...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you haven't tryed Sony Ericsson
at least there are "ROMs" for the motos,
but SE = no SPL, no bootloader, no ROMs for any of their android phones,
not even the xperia x2 got hard SPL
.
is it really a big deal worrying about when a company will stop supporting the phone?? ive been considering a milestone 2 or desire z myself so im interested in a comparision between the two. what difference does it make if motorola stop updates after a year...how often does the average user on here change phones? once a year...maybe 18months..2 years maximum. by then theres another super duper king dong phone out twice as fast lol. so its kind of pointless not buying a phone because motorola/htc/sony etc will stop providing upgrades in a year or two time. we wont have the phone by then! itll be someone elses problem lol. and if u do still have the phone, if they havent solved the major bugs within a year then theres no real hope and u might aswell ditch it and move on anyway.
its more relevant to make the comparison using information available today. most people just want a phone that works out the box, will run a few apps, make calls and wont crash every 10mins which is the better based on the performance, usuability and stablility right now? is the milestone 2 a buggy unusable mess that desperately needs custom roms and fixes? or can the average user quite happily make good use of it in everyday situations without worrying about roms, fixes and patches?
I made a comparison (desire z vs milestone 2)
The milestone 2 beats the D-Z on every aspect, except not being HTC...
Which one will I get ?? Easy:
The first one available with NAM bands
Sent from my X10a using XDA App
looked at afew milestone 2 videos and it actually looks laggy on the touchscreen changing from screens.
anothadave said:
is it really a big deal worrying about when a company will stop supporting the phone?? ive been considering a milestone 2 or desire z myself so im interested in a comparision between the two. what difference does it make if motorola stop updates after a year...how often does the average user on here change phones? once a year...maybe 18months..2 years maximum. by then theres another super duper king dong phone out twice as fast lol. so its kind of pointless not buying a phone because motorola/htc/sony etc will stop providing upgrades in a year or two time. we wont have the phone by then! itll be someone elses problem lol. and if u do still have the phone, if they havent solved the major bugs within a year then theres no real hope and u might aswell ditch it and move on anyway.
its more relevant to make the comparison using information available today. most people just want a phone that works out the box, will run a few apps, make calls and wont crash every 10mins which is the better based on the performance, usuability and stablility right now? is the milestone 2 a buggy unusable mess that desperately needs custom roms and fixes? or can the average user quite happily make good use of it in everyday situations without worrying about roms, fixes and patches?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
that's pretty much the philosophy that most phone companies are selling their phones on today - and it's not incorrect! In fact, for most users, having the phone "just work" (even with some minor performance issues) is okay..in fact, the phone can still be great! (just look at the iPhone)
but xda-devs is a forum where a lot of the "hard-core" phone or "enthusiasts" go to try and squeeze everything out of their devices -which is why rooting and custom ROMs are in demand. My Touch HD would have been binned about 6 months ago were it not for the custom ROMs and mods that came out and made it a completely new and interesting device every 2 weeks. So that's why being able to flash a custom ROM on my future device is important - and that's why Desire Z is winning me over the Milestone 2..plus, 800MHz will /probably/ be overclocked to 1GHz+ and the performance benchmarks so far have been amazing
Atrix & Droid X Gingerbread pre-launch soak annouced days apart: Just coincidence?
I just read that droid x owners received word of a "pre-launch soak" update which as you know is days after word of the Atrix soak.
Just coincidence or could the 2 builds be that similar???
Which bring me to my next un-knowledgeable question: If the 2 builds are that close together to where only small changes are needed, how close could the droid x cm7 be to our Atrix?
Just a stupid, completely stupid, thought...
Well... i kinda doubt there's THAT much of a similarity between the Droid X and the Atrix. Different camera specs... Atrix has 1GB memory while the X has 512MB.... among other differences, including the addition of the fingerprint reader on the Atrix, not to mention a completely different CPU, and lack of dual-core on the droid x.
Droid X already had a soak test for gingerbread. This is probably a revision of it to fix more bugs. The Official gingerbread beta for DX has leaked for over a month now.
elementaldragon said:
Well... i kinda doubt there's THAT much of a similarity between the Droid X and the Atrix. Different camera specs... Atrix has 1GB memory while the X has 512MB.... among other differences, including the addition of the fingerprint reader on the Atrix, not to mention a completely different CPU, and lack of dual-core on the droid x.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not that stupid. I know feature-wise what their differences are. Im talking how similar they are when it comes to programing as a starting point or just being bootable.
edgeicator said:
Droid X already had a soak test for gingerbread. This is probably a revision of it to fix more bugs. The Official gingerbread beta for DX has leaked for over a month now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Na i believe they had a GB leak similar to our HKTW 2.3.4 we've had for almost a month if not more (also), which is not a soak or manufacture's private beta.
XCellPhoneSalesRep said:
Na i believe they had a GB leak similar to our HKTW 2.3.4 we've had for almost a month if not more (also), which is not a soak or manufacture's private beta.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope. HKTW was a gingerbread for a model similar to the Atrix in china. The Droid X leak was designed specifically for the DX.
http://www.droid-life.com/2011/05/27/droidx-gingerbread-update-soak-test-starts-tonight/
The soak test announced recently was for the D2X. Not the DX.
Well Dam, i guess i'm thinkin somewhat on the right track:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1176718
Makes me feel a lil bit better
edgeicator said:
Nope. HKTW was a gingerbread for a model similar to the Atrix in china. The Droid X leak was designed specifically for the DX.
http://www.droid-life.com/2011/05/27/droidx-gingerbread-update-soak-test-starts-tonight/
The soak test announced recently was for the D2X. Not the DX.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I didnt mean similar rom, i meant a similar leak.
Every likelyhood they are very different, as I would imagine there are 2 different teams of applications/software engineers working on GB for each phone. They may communicate options, ideas, etc., but I doubt they OS's are the same.
Mobile Sensei has created a new custom rom for the DX basically with the ICS theme entitled ICX. From my understanding tho, I thought ICS was only gonna be built for android phones with dual core processors such as the DX2.
I could be wrong but can someone provide me with some insight into this. Whats the possibility of the DX gettin ICS?
????????????
I believe the Nexus S is only single core but I could be wrong. A couple weeks ago there was a leak of the Nexus S running ICS. I'm positive that theyll be a port of ICS to the DX
It's uncertain. The Droid X is closing in on being 2 years old. Google already forced Motorola and others to make sure they provide GB updates to this point. ICS may not be something Motorola will roll out for us.
If Motorola doesn't provide an ICS update (that whole point is very debatable), ICS will have its full source released like all AOSP releases (Except Honeycomb).
With the 2nd init process of Rom Booting now avail to us, we will certainly get builds of ICS (CM8?)
I also hope (again, very debatable) that Google's acquisition of Motorola will eventually lead to an unlocking of the bootloader, which would make true AOSP projects even easier.
silversonic1 said:
It's uncertain. The Droid X is closing in on being 2 years old. Google already forced Motorola and others to make sure they provide GB updates to this point. ICS may not be something Motorola will roll out for us.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes this is exactly what I was thinkin as well. Not to mention how long it took for an OTA of gingerbread to be released for the X.....
Zaphod-Beeblebrox said:
If Motorola doesn't provide an ICS update (that whole point is very debatable), ICS will have its full source released like all AOSP releases (Except Honeycomb).
With the 2nd init process of Rom Booting now avail to us, we will certainly get builds of ICS (CM8?)
I also hope (again, very debatable) that Google's acquisition of Motorola will eventually lead to an unlocking of the bootloader, which would make true AOSP projects even easier.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was thinking this as well. As you said all of this is very debatable. It will be interesting to see how this unfolds. I'm leaning more toward the X not gettin the ICS (saying this hoping somewhere the droid gods will show their power and give us ICS, proving me wrong lol) just for the simple fact that the X is really on its last leg pretty much. In which I'm sure developers will create one.
Hey Folks,
Anyone tested out the Droid 4? I used to have a G1 and loved it. Now I am contemplating switching back to android but want a qwerty. G2 would be great but it seems a bit old/outdated..
Has any G2 user switched to a droid 4 (seems like the best qwerty, with little plans to make a super smartphone with a qwerty) and how is it??
Thanks.
I love my Droid 4, the keyboard is a lot better than the G2.
Pros:
Bigger Screen
Higher Pixel Density
Dual Core 1.2 Ghz CPU
1GB of RAM
Amazing Keyboard
SD Card Support
Eventual ICS
Cons:
Locked Bootloader (Still have the ability to install Custom ROMS, but no Custom Kernels)
Pentile Display (Makes some colors look more dotted)
Still on Gingerbread
Non-Removable Battery
Thanks!! Super helpful.
Hmm unfortunately the locked bootloader is quite unfortunate. Might be a dealbreaker. (Also no sim card) I swung by a VZ store today to check out the galaxy nexus and also played with the droid 4. Honestly wasnt that impressed with the keyboard, although its probably because I have been spoiled by my blackberry 9900 which has the best keyboard ever. Suppose its going to be hard to find a better keyboard.
I am now swinging towards the gnex with a prepaid plan through tmobile for $30/month (!!). Gosh I am so indecisive.
PS- check your phone OTA for updates, the guy in store was updating the Droid4 there to ICS.
Was thinking about getting a droid 4 myself but the support for it is minimal on xda, maybe its a little better on roots wiki?
The bootstrap n the names they have for recovery is a bit confusing why not just say recovery, bootloader etc.
austriker27 said:
PS- check your phone OTA for updates, the guy in store was updating the Droid4 there to ICS.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The only official ICS for the D4 are the leaked builds, but not official OTA yet. The only Moto phone that is getting updates right now is the Droid Razr/Razr MAXX to ICS. The guy at the VZW Store must be updating to the leak builds lol.
smile_ppl said:
The only official ICS for the D4 are the leaked builds, but not official OTA yet. The only Moto phone that is getting updates right now is the Droid Razr/Razr MAXX to ICS. The guy at the VZW Store must be updating to the leak builds lol.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh sorry perhaps he was updating the droid razr, etc rather than the droid4. It was the OTA update as I watched him do it (obviously not that carefully lol). Sorry for the false hope