Petey Posted March 27, 2014 Share Posted March 27, 2014 So, since carrier bloatware has officially fucked the Galaxy's after the Jellybean update, I'm biting the bullet and rooting. Wish me luck. What carrier do you have? Are you also going to unlock the bootloader and put on a custom rom? I've rooted/unlocked/flashed a bunch of devices before... OG Droid on Verizon, Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 7, my friend's GS2. It's really not too difficult as long as you follow the directions. Some devices are easier to root/unlock than others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raziel Posted March 27, 2014 Share Posted March 27, 2014 So, since carrier bloatware has officially fucked the Galaxy's after the Jellybean update, I'm biting the bullet and rooting. Wish me luck. What carrier do you have? Are you also going to unlock the bootloader and put on a custom rom? I've rooted/unlocked/flashed a bunch of devices before... OG Droid on Verizon, Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 7, my friend's GS2. It's really not too difficult as long as you follow the directions. Some devices are easier to root/unlock than others. AT&T. Finished the root easily enough, and grabbed a couple root apps. I was looking at custom ROM's, but nothing floated my boat that a few apps and using a root uninstaller app can't solve, it seems. I mostly want to increase the batter effenciecy as much as possible and kill off the bloatware. I'm also not in the mood to do a total data wipe then restore the data doing a custom ROM, so there's that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Petey Posted March 27, 2014 Share Posted March 27, 2014 Understood. I like to use Titanium Backup for uninstalling bloatware. I actually purchased it years ago, so I don't remember the differences between the paid v. free version. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raziel Posted March 27, 2014 Share Posted March 27, 2014 Now I read up on Quantum, and I decide I want to try that... Something to do tomorrow I suppose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Petey Posted March 27, 2014 Share Posted March 27, 2014 Is the S3 the device you're using? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raziel Posted March 27, 2014 Share Posted March 27, 2014 Yeah. New ROM works fine, just fighting to restore app data Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Petey Posted March 27, 2014 Share Posted March 27, 2014 This will sound weird, but is the reception affected? When I rooted and flashed Paranoid Android on my buddy's ATT S3, we had an issue where he couldn't get LTE for more than a minute before it'd drop to H+ (or H+ dropping to 3G) and when I did some research, apparently some of the S3's had that issue with non-TouchWiz based roms. So I flashed a rom that was TouchWiz-based (but it looked more like stock Android) and everything was fine just fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raziel Posted March 27, 2014 Share Posted March 27, 2014 I'll let you know. I'm in a spot that usually gets shit reception anyway, so I'll keep an eye on it when I get home. (because the wi-fi network here isn't the most reliable and I'm fighting with Play to DL my synched apps) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bustronaut Posted March 27, 2014 Share Posted March 27, 2014 Is there an S4 rom that keeps the camera gimmicks but is plain android for the rest? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Petey Posted March 27, 2014 Share Posted March 27, 2014 What carrier do you have for the S4? I'll scour the XDA forums and see if I can find anything. And keep me up to date, Raziel. I'm very curious if it's just a thing with my friend's particular phone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bustronaut Posted March 27, 2014 Share Posted March 27, 2014 It's on T-Mobile, but it's an unlocked AT&T phone, so I want to get all the ATT stuff off at least. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Petey Posted March 28, 2014 Share Posted March 28, 2014 It's on T-Mobile, but it's an unlocked AT&T phone, so I want to get all the ATT stuff off at least. Something like this might be what you want: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2280556&page=65 It's still TouchWiz based but it removes all the carrier bloat and there's an international version you can download which would completely remove all AT&T references. It's still the same camera with the same settings except going off the feature list, seems like the developer removed any sounds the camera/camera settings made. Most of the stock Android roms tend to either just use Google's camera app (which isn't great), or they use a custom one like Cyanogenmod's. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raziel Posted March 28, 2014 Share Posted March 28, 2014 Petey, I'm running an i747, and using the Quantum 3.66 ROM with its 3.5 Kernal, I've been running steady LTE. Dropped to H+ in a couple of known dead spots on the way home, but its consistant. Its actually running at about the same signal levels that its been since I got the Stock JellyBean update a few weeks ago (which is also when the batterys on stock OS' went to total shit.) I won't know the battery drain for sure until tomorrow, but if I make it to work with more than 60% battery in the morning, it'll be a significant improvement. And damn am I loving the speed of a ROM and lack of bloat. I'm still using the AT&T messaging app since it has Visual Voice Mail and SMS/MMS synched and the AT&T VVM app locks the phone. I still have to go through and cut out some carrier bloat that GooglePlay reinstalled in the synch, but the Samsung shit is gone. Only thing I really lost is everything that wasn't synched with my Google calender, and I can't find a new one that synchs with Facebook events. EDIT: As an aside, I was running around the modem firmware threads, and see that it could just be a network fakeout issue, like the TouchWiz and stock says its a step up from what it actually is. Although now that I know how the phone OS works and shit, I might roll back the modem firmware and see if that fixes up the signal problem I had since the updates. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Petey Posted March 28, 2014 Share Posted March 28, 2014 Custom roms really are wonderful. Glad to hear you haven't had any issues. For Facebook event syncing, I use an app called HaxSync (also does a wonderful job of syncing your contact pictures). It's $0.99 and syncs events and birthdays with my Google Calendar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raziel Posted March 28, 2014 Share Posted March 28, 2014 Cheers, that did exactly what I wanted it to. Most certinally going to flash back to previous modem firmware to see if my signal issue fixes. Also found a volume increaser, which I need since the ringtones on the S3 always seem too quiet. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raziel Posted March 28, 2014 Share Posted March 28, 2014 So yeah, anything but the latest modem update on the S3's don't work since the latest bootloader, or anything equivilant 4.3 or later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Petey Posted March 28, 2014 Share Posted March 28, 2014 The latest radios aren't compatible with the latest bootloader? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raziel Posted March 28, 2014 Share Posted March 28, 2014 Only the latest radio works with the current bootloader. I tried going back one version of the radio since I got better reception before the stock 4.3 push and no dice. Had to reinstall the latest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Petey Posted March 29, 2014 Share Posted March 29, 2014 That's odd. I've never really heard of that being an issue, although I think most people use the newer radios by default. Sucks that your reception dropped. It does make me wonder if the actual reception is the same and the rom is just displaying it differently. For example, sometimes the amount of bars displayed is actually inaccurate in terms of signal strength. In settings ---> about phone ---> status, that reveals the actual signal strength. The reason some phones inaccurate display the bars is to give the perception that the signal is better than it actually is, basically tricking users. I remember there being big thing when Android 4.0 first released because all of the Android phones pre-4.0 inaccurately displayed reception via the bars and for whatever reason, Google decided to go the accurate route and everyone thought 4.0 killed their signal when in actuality, it was the same reception, just a more accurate way of displaying it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raziel Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 Hey Petey, in your rooting travels, have you come across anything that is a reliable contact saver? My phone now keeps randomly dropping my contact list. I keep a .csv on the SD Card resident so I can just restore, but since my AT&T Sync doesn't work anymore, is there something that reliably syncs, since I can't seem to find one anywhere. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ace Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 I'm also looking for a new option in that regard. My phone's currently unrooted, but contacts are so bogged down for some reason. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Petey Posted April 3, 2014 Share Posted April 3, 2014 I just use Google Contacts. There's an option in settings ----> Google which shows all the things Google automatically syncs and contacts is one of the options. It works fine for me. I also like the fact that I can edit said contacts on the computer by going to Google.com/contacts and it still auto syncs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tabe Posted April 4, 2014 Share Posted April 4, 2014 MyBackup Pro works great for backing up contacts. It's the only thing I've found that backs up stuff on the phone as well as on the SIM and retains all the contact photos and stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bustronaut Posted April 17, 2014 Share Posted April 17, 2014 Say you have an unlocked AT & T phone, but are using it on T-Mobile. Would you upgrade to KitKat via At&T or T-Mobile? Should I just wait until it shows up on Kies, I guess? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raziel Posted April 18, 2014 Share Posted April 18, 2014 I can't fully comment, because Samsung's just upgraded to jelly bean, and the excessive bloat to the point that the battery dies in 2 hours on standby is what finally prompted me to root and custom ROM my S3. But for your upgrade, I'd say wait for Kies. Unless you want to custom ROM something based off of Kitkat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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