I was reading the review of the Sprint version on Crunchgear (HERE), and I saw this odd sentence:
The phone runs on Sprint’s high-speed network; browsing was pleasant and email a breeze. A certain subset of users will also notice that the traditional rooting and tethering systems are disabled on this phone.
Can anyone clear this up? Is he saying that it's not possible or simply that it hasn't been done yet?
http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/09/17/review-htc-hero-from-sprint/
I think it's a case of not having been done yet on that ROM build.
Given enough time (and that probably won't take long), people will find a way to do it.
Yeah, that was my thought too. It's just strange that they would even add this little tidbit if there's not more too it.
It seems to me that the KINm phones (or atleast the TWOm) are the only product in a specific niche of the cell phone / smartphone market, namely they offer WiFi browsing w/o an expensive data plan.
I would suspect that there is a pretty big group of users who would want exactly that. But, they probably don't know the option exists, especially if Verizon doesn't really advertise this phone. (They don't even have it in Verizon stores that I have been to, only online, listed under feature phones). Of course, it's not really in Verizon's best interest to promote this, considering they _want_ you to pay for a data plan.
So, this leaves me feeling very uncertain whether this "relaunch" of the KIN phones will ever catch on?
Also, is anyone else on the board interested in this phone still? I thought Kin threads were fairly active, but maybe it's just me?
Jon
jon2012 said:
It seems to me that the KINm phones (or atleast the TWOm) are the only product in a specific niche of the cell phone / smartphone market, namely they offer WiFi browsing w/o an expensive data plan.
I would suspect that there is a pretty big group of users who would want exactly that. But, they probably don't know the option exists, especially if Verizon doesn't really advertise this phone. (They don't even have it in Verizon stores that I have been to, only online, listed under feature phones). Of course, it's not really in Verizon's best interest to promote this, considering they _want_ you to pay for a data plan.
So, this leaves me feeling very uncertain whether this "relaunch" of the KIN phones will ever catch on?
Also, is anyone else on the board interested in this phone still? I thought Kin threads were fairly active, but maybe it's just me?
Jon
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree that if Verizon would advertise this phone it would possibly catch on. As for the Kin in Verizon stores, that's actually where I got mine and I've seen Verizon's reps trying to persuade people into getting the phone.
The phone seems to be getting pretty good reviews and response from buyers, but like you said Verizon is doing a poor job of promoting it.
And there are a handful of us both here and on Microsoft's forum site that have been trying many different approaches, but unforturnately none of us are experts in routing phones. A few us have bricked phones now, and we still haven't made to much progress, but still hoping someone can make progress.
This link rates the twom as the best messaging phone.
Kin TwoM= Win!
I am switching to the kin twom from a HTC Thunderbolt. I have a xoom as well, so I really don't need to keep paying for data on my handset. I have had several android phones, and for that matter several winmo phones in the past. I am excited about this because this really is a great phone for a "feature phone". No data, but having wifi is really sweet. I want to hack it and port android to it, which may not be possible, but either way, I think this really is a win, especially if you have a tablet.
Spectredroid said:
I am excited about this because this really is a great phone for a "feature phone". No data, but having wifi is really sweet. I want to hack it and port android to it, which may not be possible, but either way, I think this really is a win, especially if you have a tablet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
that depends on the point of view. For me, even if i'm pretty naughty with it, it isn't a great phone, caused in most part by the software..
- Software lags a lot (should not for the "few" resources that we use).
More if you take in account that we are using a tegra device with a 0'6Ghz CPU. My crappy PDA with 203mhz can play Age of empires mobile without lagging, and this phone can't just run the menu smoothly (sometimes). I smell bad optimization...
- The browser support for rtsp is kinda lame (no flash support and just redirection to mobile sites to a streaming protocol). Browser in general is pure **add your favourite badword here**.
- The wifi detection is barely ok, but several times it can't find the ESSID even if it's near it (@ my home wifi router) and you have to turn on, turn off the wifi till it awakes.
- Suffers from random reboots (if some software freezes). Happens to me sometimes, even with the phone playing the "i'm like a brick" game alone over my desk.
- It's battery is fastly drained by the OS, cause you cant close apps, and they are surely running in the background, like other windows ce OS's. If you open your browser after rebooting, it's there forever. If i could add only 1 app to a kin in the wooorld, i would add a battery/app ultraconfigurator to reduce so.
- Sometimes it can't even load some apps and shows a "loading..." window till it's... well loaded.
.....
On the other hand, the screen is pretty well done, imo. It detected my touchs almost perfect, whenever i tried.
At least, they solved the old bug that the original kin two had, where you set a wifi and can't reenter wifi settings cause the os hanged doing so (one or several reboots needed).
It would be so cool if it was sold unlocked & without contract for 100$. Then use dataplan with the company you want, and with installable apps.
Here's just a few questions I have about how people use their HTC Hero:
Is the Hero your primary phone?
If not your primary, is it used occasionally as a secondary phone or only as an emergency replacement?
Do you use the on-line activation to switch between your Hero and your primary phone? If not, how do you do it?
Do you randomly switch between phones or do it for specific reasons (like going hiking, taking a trip, etc)?
Is there anything about the Hero you like over your primary phone?
Do you expect to continue using your Hero until it finally dies, or do you plan to get rid of it soon?
If a company made an aftermarket circuit board for the Hero that provides an upgraded processor, would you buy it?
cytherian said:
Here's just a few questions I have about how people use their HTC Hero:
Is the Hero your primary phone?
If not your primary, is it used occasionally as a secondary phone or only as an emergency replacement?
Do you use the on-line activation to switch between your Hero and your primary phone? If not, how do you do it?
Do you randomly switch between phones or do it for specific reasons (like going hiking, taking a trip, etc)?
Is there anything about the Hero you like over your primary phone?
Do you expect to continue using your Hero until it finally dies, or do you plan to get rid of it soon?
If a company made an aftermarket circuit board for the Hero that provides an upgraded processor, would you buy it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. Until next week, it's my primary phone.
2. I would use this phone as a emergency replacement if my soon to be galaxy s3 should be damaged or not working, which i doubt will happen.
3. No I don't use this at all. Probably never will.
4. Nope
5. Just the trackball.
6. As soon as I get my galaxy, I'm burying this phone.
7. I wouldn't.
Is the Hero your primary phone? Not anymore
If not your primary, is it used occasionally as a secondary phone or only as an emergency replacement? Will soon be a secondary phone for business use
Do you use the on-line activation to switch between your Hero and your primary phone? If not, how do you do it? No
Do you randomly switch between phones or do it for specific reasons (like going hiking, taking a trip, etc)? No
Is there anything about the Hero you like over your primary phone? It was my first Android phone and is still an awesome phone. Thats all I got. My Evo3D is by far a better phone though
Do you expect to continue using your Hero until it finally dies, or do you plan to get rid of it soon? I will keep it till it fully dies and then toss it in with the rest of my dead phones. lol
If a company made an aftermarket circuit board for the Hero that provides an upgraded processor, would you buy it? Probably if the price was right.
cytherian said:
Here's just a few questions I have about how people use their HTC Hero:
Is the Hero your primary phone?
If not your primary, is it used occasionally as a secondary phone or only as an emergency replacement?
Do you use the on-line activation to switch between your Hero and your primary phone? If not, how do you do it?
Do you randomly switch between phones or do it for specific reasons (like going hiking, taking a trip, etc)?
Is there anything about the Hero you like over your primary phone?
Do you expect to continue using your Hero until it finally dies, or do you plan to get rid of it soon?
If a company made an aftermarket circuit board for the Hero that provides an upgraded processor, would you buy it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1) Yes, till the LG Nexus comes out
2) N/A
3) I have swapped hero's, but only in a corporate store
4) Only have my initial hero had a radio problem
5) N/A
6) I'll be moving to the next LG Nexus phone
7) I don't see this happening. From a hardware and software standpoint, it's just not feasible.
Interesting replies so far. I hadn't supplied mine, so here they are:
Is the Hero your primary phone? Yes, although I have a 2nd Hero on standby in case my primary is out of commission or lost.
If not your primary, is it used occasionally as a secondary phone or only as an emergency replacement? N/A
Do you use the on-line activation to switch between your Hero and your primary phone? If not, how do you do it? I once used the website activation to switch from my Hero to an LG Lotus for a temporary period, but that's about it.
Do you randomly switch between phones or do it for specific reasons (like going hiking, taking a trip, etc)? No.
Is there anything about the Hero you like over your primary phone? What I like about it over other phones I'm considering are: a) the form factor, b) the track ball.
Do you expect to continue using your Hero until it finally dies, or do you plan to get rid of it soon? I am in the market for a replacement, with the HTC Evo 4G LTE as my first choice at the moment. Once I get it, I'll keep the Hero as a stand-by phone.
If a company made an aftermarket circuit board for the Hero that provides an upgraded processor, would you buy it? Yes, if the price is reasonable.
cytherian said:
Here's just a few questions I have about how people use their HTC Hero:
Is the Hero your primary phone?
If not your primary, is it used occasionally as a secondary phone or only as an emergency replacement?
Do you use the on-line activation to switch between your Hero and your primary phone? If not, how do you do it?
Do you randomly switch between phones or do it for specific reasons (like going hiking, taking a trip, etc)?
Is there anything about the Hero you like over your primary phone?
Do you expect to continue using your Hero until it finally dies, or do you plan to get rid of it soon?
If a company made an aftermarket circuit board for the Hero that provides an upgraded processor, would you buy it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I got a used Hero for ten bucks off ebay. I'm still on a dumb phone because I don't care to pay the monthly data fees and smartphone fees. So I slapped CM7 on it so I could have a device to hop on wifi should I ever need it. So I purged all the cellphone/data items on CM7 and I have a battery life of between four to seven days depending on how heavily I use it (of course if I'm using it heavily all day it drains but I use it very sparingly).
It's been very handy for instances like these. Since I live in NY I'm often walking around and carrying a laptop or even a tablet really is a huge pain. So it was worth the ten bucks
Repurpose Until Dead
cytherian said:
Here's just a few questions I have about how people use their HTC Hero:
Is the Hero your primary phone? No
If not your primary, is it used occasionally as a secondary phone or only as an emergency replacement? No longer used as a phone. See below.
Do you use the on-line activation to switch between your Hero and your primary phone? If not, how do you do it? N/A
Do you randomly switch between phones or do it for specific reasons (like going hiking, taking a trip, etc)? Specific reasons
Is there anything about the Hero you like over your primary phone? Form factor
Do you expect to continue using your Hero until it finally dies, or do you plan to get rid of it soon? Until it dies or becomes too painfully slow.
If a company made an aftermarket circuit board for the Hero that provides an upgraded processor, would you buy it? I would strongly consider it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For the last year and a half, this phone has been used as a mini-tablet/media device for my daughter. An Otterbox is absolutely necessary and exceeded my expectations. My HeroC survived dozens and dozens of flights across the room. That thing would get disgusting with smeared food and snot over time, but a periodic disassemble and rinse was all it would need. I ran CM 7.1 & CM 7.2. I've installed the following apps: "No Lock" (as a lock screen added a pointless, additional step for a 2 year old), "Android Parental Control" (to lock down the device to only run three apps (camera, YouTube, and MxPlayer)), MxPlayer (movies), and an ad-blocker so no sketchy ads come up for her to click. I then stuffed the SD card full of movies for her. Had to split long movies into two parts due to the 1:20 freeze issue (which I never figured out how to fix). APC is ugly, but worked flawlessly. MxPlayer was intutitive enough for my 2 year old to navigate between movies and use, but she would occasionally get herself into trouble by entering the settings and randomly clicking. She was constantly accidentially turning off HW acceleration, but it was always easy to fix.
This month we are upgrading her to a Nexus 7. I'm now looking for new ways to repurpose this device. I'm leaning in two directions: Automotive PVR/Navigation/Torque or IP Camera for my front door.
abcdave said:
For the last year and a half, this phone has been used as a mini-tablet/media device for my daughter. An Otterbox is absolutely necessary and exceeded my expectations. My HeroC survived dozens and dozens of flights across the room. That thing would get disgusting with smeared food and snot over time, but a periodic disassemble and rinse was all it would need. I ran CM 7.1 & CM 7.2. I've installed the following apps: "No Lock" (as a lock screen added a pointless, additional step for a 2 year old), "Android Parental Control" (to lock down the device to only run three apps (camera, YouTube, and MxPlayer)), MxPlayer (movies), and an ad-blocker so no sketchy ads come up for her to click. I then stuffed the SD card full of movies for her. Had to split long movies into two parts due to the 1:20 freeze issue (which I never figured out how to fix). APC is ugly, but worked flawlessly. MxPlayer was intutitive enough for my 2 year old to navigate between movies and use, but she would occasionally get herself into trouble by entering the settings and randomly clicking. She was constantly accidentially turning off HW acceleration, but it was always easy to fix.
This month we are upgrading her to a Nexus 7. I'm now looking for new ways to repurpose this device. I'm leaning in two directions: Automotive PVR/Navigation/Torque or IP Camera for my front door.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Was just reading this and I have to say thank you. My 3 1/2 year old is the primary user of my hero now for some learning games and stuff and I never really knew of any parental apps or even really thought to look for any really but I will be looking into the one you posted here as my kiddo will always get a fat finger and then comes running to me cause its not on his game anymore. lol
As for the IP camera, I was/am using that here and there and love it. Are you using that yet and if so, what app(s) do you like best?
Struck out again.
Hippie459MN said:
Was just reading this and I have to say thank you. My 3 1/2 year old is the primary user of my hero now for some learning games and stuff and I never really knew of any parental apps or even really thought to look for any really but I will be looking into the one you posted here as my kiddo will always get a fat finger and then comes running to me cause its not on his game anymore. lol
As for the IP camera, I was/am using that here and there and love it. Are you using that yet and if so, what app(s) do you like best?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No problem. I'd be curious to know which parental control software that you ultimately choose. I haven't gone down the IP cam road yet. That will probably be next. Maybe I'll write a round-up of as many apps as I can?
I chose the car computer route and it didn't work out. Torque connecting to a cheap eBay ELM327 Bluetooth OBDII transmitter worked flawlessly, but the screen was just too small to be usable. The "black box" DVR was also hit and miss. I tried DailyRoads Voyager and I believe the software is top notch. Although GPS and motion sensor data logged just, the DVR video framerate & quality was too poor to be usable. It was very "jelly cam" and I could not even read the license plate of the car in front of me on the video. After having used it, I'm a believer in the Car Mode app. It very much makes switching between apps and using the phone safer and I will use it again if I ever get a spare Android device with a good camera.
Oh, well. Back to the drawing board. I'm determined to find a use for the Hero with some real-world value.
Code:
[FONT="Fixedsys"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DeepSkyBlue"] First and foremost, Thanks for stopping by, you may become intreged if you continue reading my thread.
This Idea came to me a long time ago but I am unable to do anything with it as I am not a developer/programmer so I would never be able to create this on my own.
However, being the MadScientist I am (likely only in my own mind) I feel the only thing to do is to pass on the idea to somebody, anybody with the skill set, talents, abilities, or even the right friends list to make my dream a reality. So to the big idea.
I always had the cheap generic phones that were free with the contract, I would go through these phones like water and I came up with an idea that if I could put two phones or even three phones together and make them run as one phone it would be a pretty great phone [¿¿some Dr. Frankenstein ****??lol]
Over the past couple years I've always been interested in developing and apps in programming computers and how they work and operate so I now I'm in love with the expensive flashy phones and I currently have a Samsung Galaxy S6 and the S7 both Android 6.0.1 O.S.,
Both fully functional. (I'm afraid trying to customize ROM I'll turn my $500 BEAUTY into a fragile useless brick) (or even worse ruin the security features) because of my ignorance in Android Development.
None-the-less if anybody can come up with a way to join two phones to run as one without tearing them apart even if they only communicate with each other through Bluetooth or through Wi-Fi and can even Share/Clone to the partner phone screen through an encrypted nonbroadcasted network or connection that would be neat but it would be great to be able to share processors and sensors or leave on in my car in the parking lot at work and have it relaying a signal to the one in my pocket. I'd love to have them setup where I could use either number on either phone or share one number between the two. If there is any possible way this can happen I would really appreciate some feedback or I might just on a crazy rant and just happened to be the world's smartest retard.
I appreciate you reading the entire rant I appreciate any feedback positive or negative dream Weavers and dream killers is all welcome.[/COLOR][/FONT]
[FONT="Courier New"][COLOR="red"]Coming live from the other side.
This has been a rant from the MadScientist EvilGenius[/COLOR][/FONT]
[FONT="Book Antiqua"][SIZE="4"][COLOR="purple"][I][U][B]MrEcho666[/B][/U][/I][/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
[COLOR="yellow"][FONT="Comic Sans MS"]Asking you to "[U]Stay Classy and Assey[/U]"[/FONT][/COLOR][/SIZE]
I am currently looking for an alternative OS or ROM on a phone. My big challenges are I have a great grand fathered in at&t data plan. I don't want to loose and There is no good phone that is both on their list and seems to give me the option to try different ROMS or OS's if one dose not fit my needs.
I truly believe if there is a place that linux could fit best it is on my private device. I don't mind windows for my Daily desktop but in the past few months I have watched the location data icon flash on the top of my phone despite having turned location data off. It would be nothing for google to truly allow us to make this choice on our own. An it always felt wrong to get a google phone hack it and then side load a ROM like copper or even lineage.
I haven't looked into Paranoid Android user yet. The real thing I keep bumping my head against is compatibility with AT&T so I guess I am here to ask the following questions.
If I do a custom OS like Post Market OS, Sailfish, even Ubuntu touch. Will some screw with my AT&T plan while others don't. Its not like I am going to tell them I switching the OS but I imagine there is something in there that allows them to throttle remotely and prevents tethering etc? perhaps one of the choices spoofs that. What is the best ROM/OS for this? Crapy call by the courts on that one BTW when that decision was handed down, and kudos to the absolute BOSS who went after AT&T. Funny thing is I am not even that big of a hot spot user. I have no problem with cafe wifi. It's not like I am doing banking there and I air gap that Laptop from my home wifi. The rare occasion that I have needed it was a recent business trip and even that wasn't allot of data. But I digress.
Second question I want to support the linux community that are building new OS's for existing devices as I think that is really the week point for adoption at this time. I have been thinking about it and I think the best way to do it would be to hire a new developer to give a hand to an existing project for a few weeks. Fresh eyes and all that. Any recommendations on how to select one?
It's not that there is anything wrong with ROM's but they all use AOSP and allot live hardware designed for there retail version android meaning they get at least a licensing fee for each one. I am big believer in actual capitalism in divers markets with real consumer choice. What we have today is not it and supporting the behemoths in any way isn't really the key to success. I could take you down the rabbit hole of how the problem is the government and things like the CIA investment corporation AKA In-Q-Tell. Picking winners and loser's and taking free market's to the wood shed and shooting it in the head. However I think that is enough and it gives my disposition. So, you might Have a good Idea on how to guide me.
Thanks for any help.
WoW no response at all. Did I post this in the wrong place maybe it should be someplace else.
As per the mod bump i guess