i has a droid

i'm trying the project elite 4.2 ROM, and it's light years faster than CM7, a few critical things don't work however (incoming calls straight to VM) so further work must be done. but yeah CM6 is totally an option too, we'll see..

never made it out of alpha, only about half the functions work and i need to actually have a reliable phone. i found one custom rom that stripped the bloat from the phone, but literally every app constantly force closed with it so no dice there.

  On 2/13/2012 at 2:27 AM, disparaissant said:

never made it out of alpha, only about half the functions work and i need to actually have a reliable phone. i found one custom rom that stripped the bloat from the phone, but literally every app constantly force closed with it so no dice there.

damn :-/

yeah the intercept was frustrating for my friend, she moved onto the LG Optimus V. still annoyed with that (frustratingly slow).

Motorola Triumph has been better, but still a bit shit. she's moving onto a Galaxy Nexus (GSM version) as soon as she gets her tax back.

i usually have my nook with me so i dont need it to do EVERYTHING just be a phone and send texts and provide tethering, which i just finally got working so hurrah.

seems like it'll do all of that, albeit pretty slowly. oh well! nbd.

My droid is still going strong, aside from the battery. I got a new galaxy nexus a few weeks ago, it's a little too big, and I don't like that android 4.0 doesn't have dedicated search or menu buttons anymore. Overall, it's significantly harder to use one-handed.

There are some improvements, like zoom in the camera app, much lower minimum brightness levels for night reading... it's a lighter phone, and in theory faster... the os looks a lot cleaner, and the new task switching system is nice. Editing text is a little easier thanks to a draggable cursor.

Battery life is still pretty bad, which was my main reason for upgrading..

I'm not sure it's progress as much as it's just a different set of tradeoffs.

  On 2/13/2012 at 6:23 AM, chaosmachine said:

android 4.0 doesn't have dedicated search or menu buttons anymore

yes it does, they're just not where you're used to them being.

Menu button in an app that has been built to Android 4.0 design standards

Menu button in an app that hasn't been built to Android 4.0 standards

Dedicated search button

(not all Android compatible phones have a physical Search button anyway, so this point is moot)

  On 2/13/2012 at 6:23 AM, chaosmachine said:

Editing text is a little easier thanks to a draggable cursor

Android has had a draggable cursor since Android 2.3.

  On 11/28/2011 at 3:18 PM, mcbpete said:

A tip for HTC Desire users - stick with 7.0.3 rather than the latest 7.1 as you'll end up 'losing' around 20mb of internal space and have a slower performance with booting and loading apps. I found that out to my cost - I mean it's still working a-ok and much better than with the Orange build but 7.0.3 was so good and lightweight that upgrading to 7.1 was a bit of a disappointment.

Update to this (mainly for HTC Desire users or those with little internal storage on their phones) - I've since switched to from a class 4 microSD card to a class 10 one, this speeded up both booting and app loading. I also partitioned the card to have a 512mb ext4 partition and used s2e to put all the cache and app data on there, this solved the space problem. So, erm, yay !

Aw, guys. My HTC Desire which I've had for ~2 years is broken. The charger-bit has been bent and pushed into the casing. O2 (provider) won't fix it for me so I'm going to have to try myself. It shouldn't be hard, but it still sucks.

I'm able to get a new phone on contract in April/May, though. I want to stay with HTC. There's a model with Beats headphones (which is interesting aside from the Beats headphones).

So, my question; is there a new HTC being released before May?

As for battery life being bad...this is par for the course, with any smartphone that has 'always-on' connectivity.

If you switch off all mobile data access, only having it as a phone, then the battery lasts ages.

It's a case of paring down which apps you must have polling data (or receiving push notifications), between which ones you don't mind checking manually.

Also it's worth remembering that packet switched data over a mobile network (for example, 2G, EDGE, 3G, HSPA, LTE, WiMax) is actually more power hungry than leaving your phone connected to WiFi all the time.

  On 2/13/2012 at 5:47 PM, oscillik said:

Also it's worth remembering that packet switched data over a mobile network (for example, 2G, EDGE, 3G, HSPA, LTE, WiMax) is actually more power hungry than leaving your phone connected to WiFi all the time.

I didn't know this until I accidentally left my wi-fi turned on for a few days and never had to recharge.

  On 2/13/2012 at 5:41 PM, Gary C said:

Aw, guys. My HTC Desire which I've had for ~2 years is broken. The charger-bit has been bent and pushed into the casing. O2 (provider) won't fix it for me so I'm going to have to try myself. It shouldn't be hard, but it still sucks.

 

I'm able to get a new phone on contract in April/May, though. I want to stay with HTC. There's a model with Beats headphones (which is interesting aside from the Beats headphones).

 

So, my question; is there a new HTC being released before May?

HTC were recently publicly saying that they're going to release fewer phones this year...

Also, it's never a good idea to 'wait' for the next phone, otherwise you'll be continually suffering from buyers remorse. Better to get the phone that suits your needs best and that is available for you right now.

  On 2/13/2012 at 5:30 PM, oscillik said:

  On 2/13/2012 at 6:23 AM, chaosmachine said:

android 4.0 doesn't have dedicated search or menu buttons anymore

yes it does, they're just not where you're used to them being.

those aren't dedicated buttons, those are dynamic parts of the app that change and aren't always accessible. dedicated buttons can't be moved, and are always available. i particularlly like that they're at the bottom and easily thumbable on the droid. the galaxy nexus screen is so large it's hard to hit the top right setting button with my thumb.

  Quote

Android has had a draggable cursor since Android 2.3.

I'm coming from 2.1.

Another thing you can do with rooted phones to significantly increase battery life is to use a CPU profiling application (such as SetCPU - https://market.android.com/details?id=com.mhuang.overclocking ) to underclock the processor on the fly. When I've got the screen off it drops down to about 200mhz (nearly a fifth of normal) and thus lowers the demands on the battery. I'd say doing that has nearly doubled the battery life of my phone ...

  On 2/13/2012 at 5:49 PM, Gary C said:

  On 2/13/2012 at 5:47 PM, oscillik said:

Also it's worth remembering that packet switched data over a mobile network (for example, 2G, EDGE, 3G, HSPA, LTE, WiMax) is actually more power hungry than leaving your phone connected to WiFi all the time.

 

I didn't know this until I accidentally left my wi-fi turned on for a few days and never had to recharge.

I figured it out when I had a Nokia N900, which would literally chew through battery within 6-8 hours if it was only connected by 3G. On WiFi, it'd easily last up to 2 days. I have since found this to be the case with every phone I've come across.

It definitely pays to leave your phone connected to WiFi all the time. In Android, there is an option in the 'advanced' WiFi options screen that allows you to set the WiFi Sleep Policy to never (by default in versions prior to 4.0, this would be set to "turn off WiFi when screen is off", which would obviously just eat battery while the screen is off)

  On 2/13/2012 at 5:52 PM, chaosmachine said:

  On 2/13/2012 at 5:30 PM, oscillik said:

  On 2/13/2012 at 6:23 AM, chaosmachine said:

android 4.0 doesn't have dedicated search or menu buttons anymore

yes it does, they're just not where you're used to them being.

 

those aren't dedicated buttons, those are dynamic. dedicated buttons can't be removed.

Okay, but the point is still moot since not all Android phones had dedicated search buttons anyway

  On 2/13/2012 at 5:52 PM, chaosmachine said:

I'm coming from 2.1.

ouch. In that case then, you should be seeing quite a few more improvements in Android 4.0 over 2.1

  On 2/13/2012 at 5:55 PM, oscillik said:

Okay, but the point is still moot since not all Android phones had dedicated search buttons anyway

it's not a moot point because i'm comparing my old phone with my new one, not my new one with all possible android phone configurations.

that'd be like saying it's moot to compare two pairs of shoes because some people own sandles.

this is a thread started specifically about the original droid, afterall.

  On 2/13/2012 at 6:23 AM, chaosmachine said:

and I don't like that android 4.0 doesn't have dedicated search or menu buttons anymore.

sorry, I read that as a blanket statement, as if Android prior to 4.0 had dedicated search button.

  On 2/13/2012 at 5:50 PM, oscillik said:

Also, it's never a good idea to 'wait' for the next phone, otherwise you'll be continually suffering from buyers remorse. Better to get the phone that suits your needs best and that is available for you right now.

Just wonderin' as the phone which best suits me at the moment is the Beats version, but if there was something slightly better around the corner I'd probably wait. But I get your point.

  On 2/13/2012 at 6:02 PM, Gary C said:

  On 2/13/2012 at 5:50 PM, oscillik said:

Also, it's never a good idea to 'wait' for the next phone, otherwise you'll be continually suffering from buyers remorse. Better to get the phone that suits your needs best and that is available for you right now.

 

Just wonderin' as the phone which best suits me at the moment is the Beats version, but if there was something slightly better around the corner I'd probably wait. But I get your point.

there's rumour going around that HTC will announce a quad-core Tegra based handset at MWC in March

http://www.gsmarena.com/htc_to_announce_the_quadcore_endeavour_at_mwc-news-3811.php

but it's not set in stone. That would be a beast of a phone though. You'd likely have to get either a really expensive contract, or pay some money up front for that one.

Currently running CM9 beta on my sensation, pretty stable, a few minor bugs

I am looking to buy a used android when I have some spare cash. what are your guys' thoughts on the HTC Inspire?

  On 2/13/2012 at 6:02 PM, Gary C said:

 

Also, it's never a good idea to 'wait' for the next phone, otherwise you'll be continually suffering from buyers remorse. Better to get the phone that suits your needs best and that is available for you right now.

 

i agree, it's kind of like waiting for the next fastest intel processor, there really is no point at all

  On 2/14/2012 at 3:11 AM, Awepittance said:

  On 2/13/2012 at 6:02 PM, Gary C said:

Also, it's never a good idea to 'wait' for the next phone, otherwise you'll be continually suffering from buyers remorse. Better to get the phone that suits your needs best and that is available for you right now.

 

 

i agree, it's kind of like waiting for the next fastest intel processor, there really is no point at all

Gary C didn't say that