Smartphones

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Bugalugs

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Re: Smartphones
« Reply #30 on: May 08, 2011, 03:16:35 AM »
Root it. Rooted Desires are bloody amazing. Plus you get the updates sooner with the custom roms.
Good girls are made from sugar and spice, I am made from Vodka and ice

Do you have and ID Ten T error??

Re: Smartphones
« Reply #31 on: May 14, 2011, 05:27:39 AM »
So what happens to Chinese language support when you flash a rom?

I reckon I'll root my desire (oo-er) over the weekend and see what that's like, and since I use ADW.Launcher anyway and also want to take a look at Android 2.3, I'm thinking I might flash Cyanogen 7 too.  But I've never done these things before and I'm wondering how hard it is to get Chinese characters working again.
when ur a roamin', do as the settled do o_0

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Bugalugs

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Re: Smartphones
« Reply #32 on: May 14, 2011, 06:41:26 AM »
Cynogen is great and there are plenty of chinese character support apps in the market.
Good girls are made from sugar and spice, I am made from Vodka and ice

Do you have and ID Ten T error??

Re: Smartphones
« Reply #33 on: May 16, 2011, 06:32:34 AM »
Well that was distressing.

Rooting was easy.  The details are lost in the hazy mists of romming, but I recall rooting took, like, five minutes.  But then I flashed a rom.  Cyanogen 7, to be exact.  And that was fine too.  It's a nice rom.  Android 2.3 is an improvement on 2.2.  And there's a lot of nice bits and pieces in Cyanogen 7 too.  It'll be a shame to see them go, should I make my way back to a stock rom.  Which might not be as easy as I thought it would be.  Ladies and Gentlemen, do a nandroid backup before you flash a rom.  Yes.  Do.  If you root, like I did, using the unrevoked method, the nandroid backup option is right there, in little tiny green letters, on the recovery screen, right next to the flash a rom option.

I forgot to do a nandroid backup.  Because I did a Titanium Backup and a Mybackup backup, I forgot.  But the nandroid backup backups... everything.  Those others back up your data and apps.  Nandroid backs up everything.  You can go back to what you had before if you have a nandroid backup.  I haven't.  I'm going to have to learn to live with Cyanogen.  (There's stock roms out there if you ever do want to go back but can't.  I may use one.)

See, two issues, core issues I find: one, SMS, and two, keyboards.

Seriously, talk bubbles in SMS conversations?  What do people developing Android do all day?  Almost every popular SMS app uses talk bubbles.  I've never liked them.  I have long liked the HTC stock app.  Cyanogen doesn't use the stock app.  It doesn't use talk bubbles either.  But it does have a few tiresome, and unalterable, settings, like contact pictures, and shades of blue.  I want the stock app back.  And the stock keyboard.  Which is to say, the stock phone keypad keyboard, the one with nine large keys that works like a feature phone keypad.  Who uses qwerty?  Only Blackberrys use qwerty.  typing on a touch screen is hard enough with big fat keys, and it's damn near impossible with itty bitty qwerty keys YOU CAN'T FEEL!!  Cyanogen has a stock qwerty.


It's not so bad.  I just didn't want to spend nearly 36 hours learning way more about Android than I ever wanted AND still not succeeding in replacing the messaging ap (MMS.apk) and the keyboard (HTC_IME.apk).  I've settled on GoSMS as my SMS app, which approximates the list format of the stock app; and installed a HTC_IME_mod that, basically, is an earlier, slightly more clunkily laid out cell phone keypad keyboard.

The rom modding world is not yet out of the geek phase.  You can screw around with your computers and your laptops all you like, because usually you can know what you're getting before you get it, and you can mix and match.  Phone romming is still geektown: you have to know what you're getting before you get it.


Late last night peering hopelessly at a cell phone that now wasn't what I wanted, I was a little bit hoping to brick the thing and have a reason to buy a new Desire S instead.  But it didn't happen.  I still have a phone.



Ai.

Now for some actual school classwork preparation.
« Last Edit: May 16, 2011, 06:40:02 AM by Calach Pfeffer »
when ur a roamin', do as the settled do o_0

Re: Smartphones
« Reply #34 on: May 17, 2011, 06:29:00 AM »
Has anyone tried MIUI?
when ur a roamin', do as the settled do o_0

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Stil

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Re: Smartphones
« Reply #35 on: May 17, 2011, 01:15:38 PM »
A friend was using it on his Galaxy S and loved it. He doesn't use it any more only because he bought a new phone - Motorola Milestone or something like that, and there's no port for it yet.

Note: I'm not sure about any of the names of the phones. I just use an iPhone.

Re: Smartphones
« Reply #36 on: May 19, 2011, 08:33:36 AM »
Re MIUI... meh.

I wanted it to be better than Cyanogen, but it's not.  It's nice that it exists, but Cyanogen looks better and runs faster.  


*sigh* I just watched my reflashed Cyanogen start up... it's in Chinese now.  Same thing happened when I flashed MIUI for the first time.  The language settings are in there somewhere though and it's just a matter of finding them to switch it to English, or whatever.  This's gonna take a while...


ETA: eh, it's not that bad.  The main difference seemed to me to be in what-you-see.  The default MIUI interface is chunkier than Cyanogen (or more specifically, ADW.Launcher).  Cyanogen (or ADW.Launcher, for that is the interface) has an app drawer, MIUI has screens to populate off to the left and right.  Cyanogen icons are somewhat fussy, MIUI's are fatties.

There's some kind of vaguely 80s kitsch vibe to the default theme too.

Meh, it's fine.  Don't mind me.

Go team.
« Last Edit: May 19, 2011, 09:11:29 AM by Calach Pfeffer »
when ur a roamin', do as the settled do o_0

Re: Smartphones
« Reply #37 on: May 21, 2011, 12:54:16 AM »
For anyone who was wondering...

What MiUI looks like.



(I wonder if one is supposed to pronounce it "Me, You, I")
when ur a roamin', do as the settled do o_0

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Bugalugs

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  • If we are what we eat, I'm easy, fast, and cheap.
Re: Smartphones
« Reply #38 on: May 21, 2011, 01:12:35 AM »
Looks nice i prefer GO Launcher myself.
Good girls are made from sugar and spice, I am made from Vodka and ice

Do you have and ID Ten T error??

Re: Smartphones
« Reply #39 on: May 21, 2011, 03:00:16 AM »
Huh, reading around a bit, I've discovered people are saying HTC is making it harder, possibly impossible to root their newer phones, the Desire S included.  (The Desire S is, as far as specs go, basically a Desire but better--smaller, lighter, faster, but with the same size screen--and currently in China, just a few hundred more.)  People seem to be saying, as far as rooting goes, Samsung is where it's going to be at for a while.  And supposedly, current "best" cell phone in the world is Samsung Galaxy S II.  (Pffft, it's the size and shape of a dinner plate.)
when ur a roamin', do as the settled do o_0

Re: Smartphones
« Reply #40 on: May 23, 2011, 05:48:28 AM »
I'm going to go back to stock HTC Android 2.2 for a while.  After trying a few ROMs (not that many actually: LeeDroid, Oxygen, MIUI, some Chinese dude(s) called hiapk, and Cyanogen) I decided I like Cyanogen best.  The interface and bits and pieces are nicer than HTC Sense UI, in my estimation, but...

Android 2.3.3 makes my poor ole Desire run quite hot, the battery doesn't last as long as it used to, and none of the custom ROMs have every issue worked out like stock does (Cyanogen in particular is currently having problems with Bluetooth FTP).  

Ironically too, in my root-emboldened internet and installation travels I discovered it is stock Android messaging that I don't like.  In all that hunting around for a better messaging app, what I kept coming up against was the pungent limitations of stock... specifically, the itsy-bitsy text window you get to work with when composing SMS.  I am, perhaps sadly, not a person who spells people "ppl".  I use full sentences in SMS.  So far as I am aware, it's only HTC Sense UI that gives you more than four lines of text to look at when you're composing.  Non-windowed.


... in case you all were interested.
when ur a roamin', do as the settled do o_0

Re: Smartphones
« Reply #41 on: June 02, 2011, 06:59:43 PM »
Could somebody please explain what 'rooting' means? It sounds interesting...

Also, I guess you guys are the right types to ask about this. I am moving to China soon and I'll be bringing a smart phone with me. Is it easy enough to get a Chinese sim card that's easy to top up credit (the phone will be unlocked)?

Also, are there internet plans? like, pay a certain amount per month and have unlimited internet on your phone?

thanks guys...

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jpd01

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Re: Smartphones
« Reply #42 on: June 02, 2011, 07:23:48 PM »
Just keep in mind that CHina does use a different phone system than most other countries. A couple of years ago I brought a phone from back home (Australia) which the sales man swore was unlocked and would work overseas no problem, suprise surprise it didn't work here and I had to buy a new phone.
"I don't understand what I did wrong except live a life that everyone is jealous of." Charlie Sheen.

Re: Smartphones
« Reply #43 on: June 02, 2011, 07:45:08 PM »
Just keep in mind that CHina does use a different phone system than most other countries. A couple of years ago I brought a phone from back home (Australia) which the sales man swore was unlocked and would work overseas no problem, suprise surprise it didn't work here and I had to buy a new phone.

I see. So any ideas how I could make sure I'm buying a phone that works in China? I will be buying a new smartphone in a few weeks.

Re: Smartphones
« Reply #44 on: June 04, 2011, 02:11:23 AM »
Caveat lector: I only started learning about this stuff recently myself. 

Nonetheless:

Rooting an Android phone is a process by which you, the user, gains root access to the phone's operating system.  You, the user, can now alter potentially any file or directory on your phone.  It's a bit like on Windows when you first try to look into the C:\Windows\System directory: the operating system warns you there are files in there that control the operating system itself.  On an unrooted Android phone you don't even see the operating system directories, much less their contents.  Once the phone is rooted, you see it all.  To actually make use of that access, you do other things, like flash roms or hack kernels or whatever.

As for making sure a phone works in China... you could buy the phone in China.  Otherwise there's the question of frequency, I guess.  Look up your phone on GSMarena and see what frequency it sports.  Then check if it matches what's available in China.  And also something about making sure the phone is not locked to some given network already, but I don't know how to do that.

As for internet on your phone... there are plans and there are plans.


What phones are you looking at?
when ur a roamin', do as the settled do o_0