Database Users

Purchase Advice

So, I currently own an S6 on Verizon that I've left on whatever the most recent rootable firmware is. It has frustrated me to the point where I am about done with it.
I am looking into the S7 (or the edge, but we'll limit this discussion to the regular and assume that the discussions will translate to the edge), either the 930V or the 930U on Verizon. The cost is secondary to performance, features, and the ability to root the device and keep it rooted. Mainly I just need advice on the root front. I have skimmed the root threads enough to see that non-knox-tripping rooting is possible. I can deal with the lack of custom ROMs given the ability to install XPOSED and other general root stuff. However, I'd rather not end up with the same problem I've had on the Verizon S6, wherein I haven't been able to update past 5.02 in order to keep my root. What is the outlook for these devices in terms of root? Does it look like they will be able to take updates from Samsung or Verizon while maintaining root access (or reacquire root after updates)?
Secondly, given the desire to do whatever work is needed, is one or the other objectively better in terms of root ability, or in terms of features? I've read that some of the Verizon special network features aren't available on the U/V with U firmware, but that they might can be restored, however, this isn't a complete dealbreaker either way.
tl;dr: Given that staying on VZW is mandatory, and my concerns are: ability to root and also still take updates > performance and features > pretty much anything else, is either the 930U or the 930V the phone for me?

dustfinger314 said:
So, I currently own an S6 on Verizon that I've left on whatever the most recent rootable firmware is. It has frustrated me to the point where I am about done with it.
I am looking into the S7 (or the edge, but we'll limit this discussion to the regular and assume that the discussions will translate to the edge), either the 930V or the 930U on Verizon. The cost is secondary to performance, features, and the ability to root the device and keep it rooted. Mainly I just need advice on the root front. I have skimmed the root threads enough to see that non-knox-tripping rooting is possible. I can deal with the lack of custom ROMs given the ability to install XPOSED and other general root stuff. However, I'd rather not end up with the same problem I've had on the Verizon S6, wherein I haven't been able to update past 5.02 in order to keep my root. What is the outlook for these devices in terms of root? Does it look like they will be able to take updates from Samsung or Verizon while maintaining root access (or reacquire root after updates)?
Secondly, given the desire to do whatever work is needed, is one or the other objectively better in terms of root ability, or in terms of features? I've read that some of the Verizon special network features aren't available on the U/V with U firmware, but that they might can be restored, however, this isn't a complete dealbreaker either way.
tl;dr: Given that staying on VZW is mandatory, and my concerns are: ability to root and also still take updates > performance and features > pretty much anything else, is either the 930U or the 930V the phone for me?
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Buy a nexus. If you want to ensure root for a long time a nexus is your best bet.
Sent from my SM-G930V using XDA-Developers mobile app

That's definitely a possibility, but if the risk of losing root is moderate to low, I'd be willing to take the risk for the power and features that you get from a flagship. I have really liked the features my galaxies have had (quality of hardware like screen, camera, fingerprint sensor; hardware/ capacitive keys; even some of Touchwiz, such as the quick toggle format), and am hesitant to go backwards in those terms.

I just got a upgrade from the S6 to the S7 and the s7 is a much better phone. Battery life is much improved among things.
Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

wwonka69 said:
I just got a upgrade from the S6 to the S7 and the s7 is a much better phone. Battery life is much improved among things.
Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk
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Unlesd you really need to root, I would avoid it. The battery life is still suspect. Look at the U firmware if you are interested.
Sent from my SM-G930U using Tapatalk

This may not be a good phone for your priorities (meaning any US S7): The s7 root relies on a bootloader exploit. We don't yet know if that exploit will carry over to/be renewed for Android 7. If not, then you may be stuck on Android 6 for S7 root. We don't yet know if future US builds will support the engineering boot-loader or the exploit as Samsung hasn't released a new US S7 carrier build since. We should expect all the new security features of the Note 7 to pass on to the S7.
dustfinger314 said:
So, I currently own an S6 on Verizon that I've left on whatever the most recent rootable firmware is. It has frustrated me to the point where I am about done with it.
I am looking into the S7 (or the edge, but we'll limit this discussion to the regular and assume that the discussions will translate to the edge), either the 930V or the 930U on Verizon. The cost is secondary to performance, features, and the ability to root the device and keep it rooted. Mainly I just need advice on the root front. I have skimmed the root threads enough to see that non-knox-tripping rooting is possible. I can deal with the lack of custom ROMs given the ability to install XPOSED and other general root stuff. However, I'd rather not end up with the same problem I've had on the Verizon S6, wherein I haven't been able to update past 5.02 in order to keep my root. What is the outlook for these devices in terms of root? Does it look like they will be able to take updates from Samsung or Verizon while maintaining root access (or reacquire root after updates)?
Secondly, given the desire to do whatever work is needed, is one or the other objectively better in terms of root ability, or in terms of features? I've read that some of the Verizon special network features aren't available on the U/V with U firmware, but that they might can be restored, however, this isn't a complete dealbreaker either way.
tl;dr: Given that staying on VZW is mandatory, and my concerns are: ability to root and also still take updates > performance and features > pretty much anything else, is either the 930U or the 930V the phone for me?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

I am in your boat. I have a rooted S6 running great on CleanROM/OE2 base. Phone has been rock solid for over a year - longest I've ever kept one phone and never been tempted to upgrade. It started to stutter and lag, so I did a data reset and its again running phenomenal with very few performance/battery tweaks.
I thought I'd pick up an S7, for the larger battery capacity more than anything, and also just thinking that a battery with a year less of use would be an improvement. So far I am not impressed with the S7. I followed all the guides (root, debloat, tuning) but have been getting pretty bad battery life.
I just reset back to stock last night and followed a different guide to de-bloat the phone on un-rooted firmware. We will see how it goes. If it doesn't work out great, I think I am selling the S7 and going back to the S6. I may experiment with the G930U firmware, but I appreciate HD calling.
I am going to try to do a somewhat comparative battery test using each phone for a day with similar use, and see what one performs better. Not sure the S7 will win, let alone justify a $150 price difference.
My CleanROM S6 is the best phone I have ever had so far. I was hoping the S7 would expand on that with better battery life.

Advice on firmware

This is a tough call but all things considered, I should really flash back to complete stock. It's definitely the 1st time I've gone without root.
I need a reliable phone right now. There's some great people trying to make the most out of this with the Eng kernel, but ultimately I running into problems (sometimes it'll run great for over a week but then the issues become apparent. )
That said, I'm told Ufirmware has a problem with getting Doze to work properly. The result is poor battery life.
So my question is what would be the best fw to use?
My model is SM-G935U
CARRIER: AT&T in the USA
***first samsung phone for me and the most confusing part is all the different variants. Should I download xxa?

If you want the best experience on the network, I'd suggest SM-G935A. Sure, it has the carrier bloat, but I don't have an issue disabling the ones I don't use.
Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

1) The U firmware does not have a doze problem. It gets far better battery life than the A version.
2) This device does not work well with root. You *can* root, but most people seem to go back to stock at some point due to all the glitches and patches required.
3) The U firmware will work just fine on AT&T, but you will lose carrier specific features. Specifically, WiFi calling, VoLTE, etc. (You can get most of the others back by installing APKs)
4) The A firmware obviously will work fine on AT&T, but AT&T really gimped the bajeezus out of the S7 Edge Nougat ROM. I was getting unacceptable lag on bone stock A firmware.
5) You *can* disable packages on either using various Knox-based tools, but in some cases this can actually make things worse depending on how the package is used.
You just need to decide which is more important. Fast and battery efficient, but "bare bones"; or full featured, but a hot, laggy mess?

I was rooted using the samsung u firmware on the att model. I lost my phone a week ago and the insurance sent me a brand new one thankfully. I really didn't have any complaints when I was using the rooted s7 edge. But when I got this new one full att stock. It is quite clear to me now it is night and day difference. The rooted version right now is ok and usable but i will not be rooting my new s7 edge. This phone just flies with stock compared to eng root which just putts along.

jshamlet said:
1) The U firmware does not have a doze problem. It gets far better battery life than the A version.
2) This device does not work well with root. You *can* root, but most people seem to go back to stock at some point due to all the glitches and patches required.
3) The U firmware will work just fine on AT&T, but you will lose carrier specific features. Specifically, WiFi calling, VoLTE, etc. (You can get most of the others back by installing APKs)
4) The A firmware obviously will work fine on AT&T, but AT&T really gimped the bajeezus out of the S7 Edge Nougat ROM. I was getting unacceptable lag on bone stock A firmware.
5) You *can* disable packages on either using various Knox-based tools, but in some cases this can actually make things worse depending on how the package is used.
You just need to decide which is more important. Fast and battery efficient, but "bare bones"; or full featured, but a hot, laggy mess?
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Thanks for the info!
Wish I'd waited just a bit longer. I wound up flashing xaa. Performance wise, it's good. Battery is also fine but I think right now WiFi Calling would be very useful. A family member just moved to an Island and the cell service is fair if it even works.
That's disappointing about 935A fw. Is it really laggy?
Also after flashing I couldnt write to my external sdcard. The system could but I lost those permissions and after much trial &error, I had to factory reset. Still not entirely sure why but it's been awhile since my phones had an sd slot. Think I recall removing it every time I flashed a new rom or even an update. Is that what you do?
Edit-it just occurred to me I downloaded the fw for my model G935U so I believe I am using the U firmware. I don't remember what xxa means. I think it applies to the region?

Looking to Root my S7 Edge

Looking to root my S7 Edge that is running on Total Wireless. The phone was a VZW phone. How much trouble is it root and what is the best non bloated rom to run on it.
Thanks in advance.

1fb17 said:
Looking to root my S7 Edge that is running on Total Wireless. The phone was a VZW phone. How much trouble is it root and what is the best non bloated rom to run on it.
Thanks in advance.
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The rooting is not very difficult if you're comfortable with using Odin or have used another image flasher before. The thing that sucks about it is that the current root is somewhat of a work around and has a huge performance and battery life issues. That being said, there are many "fixes" for this floating around. I say this in quotes because there seems to be a lot of mixed reports on these fixes working. Some have gotten their phones to be better than stock, others have close to stock performance/battery life but are left off a tad worse, others have phones that are left essentially unusable because of how slow the phone is and have to go back to stock. The silver lining is that I haven't seen anyone mention issues of bricking.
So while the root itself is fairly easy, it could be considered hard/annoying if you factor in all the CPU behavior tweaking you will have to perform afterwards to get the device to be usable again. Unfortunately this is all tied to the kernel so as far as I'm aware no change in ROM will help with these issues other than a tad of relief from the slowness if you use a debloated and optimzied ROM. So they don't directly fix the issue is what I'm saying.
I actually just made a post inquiring as to why this is, but otherwise if you just look at the "Verizon Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge Guides, News, & Discussion" section of the forums you will quickly get a good idea of the situation.

Can the Verizon S7 Edge with U firm be rooted successfully with the 8 in this build number?

Why is the Verizon S7 Edge root so crappy (serious, not being mean)?

Hey all,
First off let me just say great work to everyone involved with rooting this now "ancient" phone, especially klabit87 and jrkruse. Additionally, I do not mean to be ungrateful with this post, nor suggest that rooting a phone is easy, especially one with a locked bootloader, or that the users here are entitled to such a feature.
With that out of the way....
I haven't looked into rooting this phone EVER until now. Haven't even peaked at XDA or Googled anything, I didn't even know it was possible until yesterday. I've re-ROMed all my previous phones but was actually satisfied with the stock S7 experience other than a Launcher swap and dealing with the always laggy Google maps. Well recently I got a new car and got fed up with the obnoxious list/action limit that Android Auto has as the voice search can be quite unreliable, the letter search is somewhat bugged on the media player I use, and in the end all it does is encourage people to just use their phone to change songs/settings and send messages, thereby completely failing at its goal of being safer. So, I really wanted to get Xposed installed to use the module that makes AA a lot more usable; however, now that I've looked back into the scene a bit, I'm not so sure I want to move forward.
To preface my question: Every Android device I've had before was essentially either rootable or not and ultimately banked on a security exploit that was eventually found. There were never really any concerns about major issues unless you were changing ROMs, kernels, or testing major CPU behavior changes. Just rooting itself was almost always issue free other than a small bug or two or the need to reapply at reboot.
From what I gather, it seems to me that they only way currently to gain root privileges on this device is to install this ENG kernel that's talked about in a lot of more recent posts. Is it truly the case that someone had to write a kernel from scratch that was pre-rooted and as of right now there is no way to root the device as it is stock? Is it that the only known exploit is how to flash another kernel, and the stock kernel is still locked up tight? It sucks that the current root seems so unstable/slow. I know there are a plethora of fixes but there really is no one major fix (other than potentially reflashing the stock bootloader that for some reason seems to work), and its a matter of installing a boat load of CPU and resource management tweaks and even then the performance/battery life isn't quite stock. Additionally it seems like its definitely a YMMV kind of thing as some users seem to still have significant battery drain or slowness/heat even after trying tons of fixes.
Since I am just now getting familiar with the "homebrew" the phone I've had for 3+ years and know nothing about the work that's been done, I genuinely just want to know the technical implications that got in the way of a cleaner root and why the current root method is stuck as sort of a work-around so to speak. The people that manage these breakthroughs rarely post about the process they went through unless its pertinent to a guide on how to root, so I was just curious why the root for this device is in the current state it is.
I would really like to root my Edge so I can be done with the AA nonsense but after just getting a new battery put in I really don't want to go through ****ty battery life again haha.
Thanks to all who weigh in.

Verizon requires most if not all manufacturers to lock the bootloaders. This is also Samsung choice as well. The T-mobile S7/edge and newer have locked bootloaders as well. Difference is T-mobile leaves it up to the OEMs whether they want to lock it or not. With some U.S. businesses and enterprises using Samsung Galaxy devices. They focus on being "enterprise ready" which makes sense from a business standpoint.
Believe it or not, Samsung used to be developer friendly when the S II came out. They even gave away Galaxy S2 devices to some XDA devs.
So, if you want a Samsung device with an unlock able bootloader. Get one that has an Exynos SoC or the Chinese Snapdragon variant.

Anything new with Samsung?

So about 6 months ago I finally did away with my 10+ after losing root constantly for stupid reasons. Didn't want to go with any newer Samsung because I'd only heard negative with respect to modding. I decided on a downgrade and went with the Oneplus 8T5G. To say there are more modding options is an understatement and I've had no problems keeping root. However, after using a high end Samsung for the past 10 years or so it is noticeable when downgrading to a cheaper phone. In my case, it's mainly the camera I miss and is enough to make me switch back, ONLY IF there is a Galaxy with easy root options(and keep root) with a good camera like what's on the 10+ and later Galaxys. I haven't kept up with the Samsung forums for about a year so I'm relying on people to help me out with real world experience and what they would recommend. Thanks in advance

The reason's to root have diminished. Samsung and Android in general have given us tools that they've learned from the rooted environments. Obviously, that still remains a personal matter.
If you want to insist in root, and crave a good camera, then go for an Exynos variant S22 Ultra, since that will most probably be that last Exynos phone, S23 will be internationally Snapdragon.
I assume you kept "losing root" due to Snapdragon's way of obtaining root?

PlutoDelic said:
The reason's to root have diminished. Samsung and Android in general have given us tools that they've learned from the rooted environments. Obviously, that still remains a personal matter.
If you want to insist in root, and crave a good camera, then go for an Exynos variant S22 Ultra, since that will most probably be that last Exynos phone, S23 will be internationally Snapdragon.
I assume you kept "losing root" due to Snapdragon's way of obtaining root?
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I kept losing root because I procrastinate and let the battery die. Still shouldn't lose root though, right? It was a 975F. Exynos. And I really only want root for Adaway and Termux root functions.

For ads, i can recommend the Shield app, the firewall does a good job in blocking ads.
I understand the termux part, however, if you flash a custom recovery, you shouldn't have problems having Magisk persisting.
Sorry for my input if things have changed that much, last phone i rooted was my Note 8.

PlutoDelic said:
For ads, i can recommend the Shield app, the firewall does a good job in blocking ads.
I understand the termux part, however, if you flash a custom recovery, you shouldn't have problems having Magisk persisting.
Sorry for my input if things have changed that much, last phone i rooted was my Note 8.
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I appreciate the recommendation. Things have changed, in my experience anyway.