All Things Android - Apps, Phones, Tablets - Discussion

I just bought an Iconia Tab A100 to replace my Nook Color (CM7) yesterday. I'm not sure what other Tegra 2 users are experiencing, but I haven't noticed any lag at all (this includes playing ME: Infiltrator) in the ~5 hours I've used this thing so far. I just wish printing from tablets was better supported - the Brother "print" app is severely limited in what it can print, and Cloud Print refuses to work. Documents get sent to Google appear in my print queue, and are downloaded to my server (on 24/7 and interfaces with the printer via wi-fi), but they hang at "spooling" in the Windows print queue. Documents printed from the server itself print perfectly.

 

About the only lag I see with my Galaxy Tab 10.1 is using the keyboard in the browser.
Other than that it's pretty good - that includes playing a lot of games.

 

Does anyone know how long an SSD drive in a Tablet like an iPad or Galaxy Tab lasts?

I read there's a limited amounts of read and writes like 100K before the drive loses reliability.

 

Interesting. All the T2 tablets I've used have been stuttery and and I hate this word... laggy. The Snapdragon S3/OMAP-4/Exynos tablets have never even given me a stutter. Not a single one. The OMAP-4 tablets get bogged down with CPU activity, but the S3/Exynos tablets have been flawless.

If you guys are wondering, I have to deal with all these tablets at work. Tablets are the hot thing and everyone in the office is buying one. Surprisingly few are actually buying iPads. /shockedface.jpg

The NAND in tablets/phones is usually SLC or a subtype of SLC/OneNAND. They have very long lifetime estimates since the types of abuse they have to stand up to is much worse than notebooks/desktops.

 

Thanks HAL I didn't realize they are that tough.

 

According to what Samsung has told me, NAND is usually the absolute last thing to fail. Matter of fact, the NAND in most devices will outlive the screen's backlight lifetime.

 

Well, I guess it all depends on what different people are doing with it.

That and on the Tab 10.1, Pershoot codes a mean kernel.

 

Is that what the iPad 2 uses? I just bought a refurb from Apple.

 

Almost all mobile devices use NAND.

 

That's vary interesting right there

Sent From My Rooted EVO 3D

 

But the type of NAND is key. Apple uses either Toshiba eMMC or Samsung OneNAND. They both attach to the NOR headers the same way, it's just they behave a bit differently. Toshiba's NAND is MLC. Samsung is mostly SLC, depending on the device. Samsung devices use only SLC OneNAND.

 

Is one better than the other? I meant to ask is one faster than the other?

 

Technically the Samsung OneNAND has a big leg up since it's SLC, but I don't think there's anything to worry about with Toshiba NAND. Toshiba's NAND is right up there with Samsung's as far as reliability is concerned, and even their MLC should out-last most parts of the tablet. You would need battery replacements in your iPad long before you even came close to NAND failure.

 

So I take it the iPad 2 and iPad 3 uses Toshiba NAND after they pissed off Samsung?

 

Your NAND, no matter what type, will outlive your tablet. I have never even heard of an SD card failing, and I am sure they're the lowest quality flash you can get.

Sent from my Tricorder using Tapatalk

 

Do computer SSD drives use NAND or is NAND just for mobile devices?

 

NAND, in a nutshell, is flash memory. It is in SSDs, tablets, flash drives, SD cards, etc. There are two main types, MLC and SLC. SLC is faster and lasts like 5-10x longer, but MLC (at least in SSDs) will still last hundreds of terabytes in a 64gb drive. I doubt a tablet will write hundreds of terabytes of anything in its lifetime, and iirc even the SD standard supports wear leveling (early flash drives did not, and thus despite the capacity, only lasted as long as the first few cells which were always written regardless of file size).

Sent from my Tricorder using Tapatalk

 

No... Apple uses whoever can supply them with what they need. Samsung cannot meet Apple's demands in addition to their own, so Apple has to contract out to other OEMs. In this instance, Toshiba.

NAND itself is just a term for non-volatile storage. It's used in flash drives, memory cards, embedded in mobile devices, put into set-top boxes, SSD's... all kinds of things.

The type of interface the NAND has and whether it is Single Level Cell (SLC) or Multi Level Cell (MLC) is what sets it apart.

EDIT: I was ninja'd.

 

Got a chance to test drive some Android devices from work.

HTC Rezound: Great looking screen. It has Gingerbread on it and lags a bit. Installed the latest ICS leak for it and it is still laggy. This is the first phone I've seen where ICS might actually make the device perform worse. I see Rezound owners rant and rave on how great their devices are and I'm just not seeing it. Pass.

LG Nitro HD: Reminds me of the Rezound; great looking screen, but nothing else to write home about. Near zero community support but fortunately the leaked ICS build improves performance over Gingerbread. Unfortunately burns through battery like no tomorrow.

Samsung Galaxy Nexus (Verizon): Good looking, simple and elegant. Nexus experience + Verizon LTE = Great user experience.

HTC One-X (AT&T): This is the current overlord of AT&T's Android phone lineup. Great looking screen, simplistic, good battery life, excellent performance in whatever gets thrown at it. If you are with AT&T or Rogers and want a high-end Android phone, there is no reason not to go with it, period.

Unfortunately that's it. Our Security Administration team doesn't like the open-ended approach of Android and are not too thrill that the Exchange Security Policy can be overwritten easily. We just got the entire AT&T Windows Phone 7 lineup in today for testing.

 

Thanks HAL and Syberia for the NAND explanation.

Is there an Android and iOS app similar to CPU-z? It would be cool to see what's inside my Galaxy Tab and iPad.

 

I have an HTC Sensation 4G, and I have a battery from another HTC phone that fits and runs the phone, but It's 3.8v vs the original batteries 3.7v. Will it hurt my phone if I use the slightly higher voltage battery?

Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using Tapatalk 2

 

Well technically NAND is a type of logic gate (NOT AND) of which NAND memory is based upon (NAND cat says hi!)

 

After playing with a friend's One X for a few minutes, I've reached nearly the same conclusions. Only two big drawbacks to me: lack of microSD storage (this is crucial to me, so it might be a dealbreaker), and potentially HTC Sense.

 

I actually don't mind the Motorola Gingerbread software on my D2. In fact, I think it works quite well. It's a BIG improvement over the Motorola Froyo software at the very least. I am rather surprised and disappointed that they dropped support for the D3 like that though, especially considering I got an update for my D2 just under a month ago!

It's a big phone, yes--but again, the Droid RAZR is too thin for my tastes. It's only a smidgin bigger than the Droid Bionic, which is impressive considering the keyboard. The LCD doesn't seem any worse than the one already on my Droid 2 (but certainly not as good as on the Bionic or the RAZR), and I really don't care about a cell phone camera anyway (That's what my DSLR is for ). I don't ever plan on rooting my phone, so the lockdown isn't an issue for me. But a non-replaceable battery? I did NOT know about that one.... ugh.

Speaking of batteries, I almost forgot that I have a 2nd battery for my Droid 2, which I took from my mom's Droid 2 whose micro USB port quit working (actually, my mom slowly destroyed the micro USB port, but that's another story)

 

The geek in me uses SeePU (taskbar widget) to monitor CPU/RAM usage, but I'm not aware of anything that analyzes the hardware in your device. Of course, since phones/tablets aren't customizable, you could just locate the specs of your device on Google, since they will all be the same.

 

On Android you can use any number of things to see what's in your Galaxy Tab... though I can just tell you if you want to know. You can get VERY in-depth hardware reports on Android through logcat outputs/debug reports.

Your iPad likely contains Toshiba eMMC NAND, if it's the newest one. If it's an iPad 2 it's almost a 50/50 chance it's Samsung or Toshiba. As far as other components, those are relatively easy to list off as well if you want to know...

One thing I wouldn't ever mess with is voltages. Especially with the sensitive internals of a phone. Having a charger with a very slight off kilter voltage is ok, mostly, if the device doesn't start to heat up to uncomfortable levels when charging.

Thanks! I actually did think of your avy when I was writing that, but I admit I don't know the details on the gate level.

I'm still all in on this phone... as soon as they're in stock.

The "no-SD" thing is going to kill me. 100% factual statement. Sense... I could care less about. There is a bootloader unlock method for the AT&T One X, and I fully intend on unlocking as soon as it comes out of the box.

Have you ever used stock Android? If so and you still can confidently say you don't mind Moto's GB, you sir will be among the VERY few people I know of that would take that stance (I could count all of them on one hand and still have fingers left over).

Now, hardware wise I'll give you that one. It doesn't appeal to ME, and not everybody really uses the camera, but it COULD use some improvement. What you described about the USB port on the D2 is a common problem... not just on the D2, but on several Moto devices. As well as the power button and headphone port. I just wish Motorola's iDEN team would design an Android phone like they did the Nextel phones. Those things were indestructible.

I just HATE what Verizon has done to the "Droid" branding. It is the textbook definition of brand dilution.

 

Forgot about the lack of SD card slot, thanks for mentioning that. I can see how that affecting a lot of people's decisions, for me it is something that is nice to have but not necessary since I don't have a lot stored on the phone. I have never liked HTC Sense, but version 4 is a bit more tolerable as it isn't as invasive as the previous iterations.

 

Having used every version of sense, I'd say 4.0 is a step in the right direction. It has some good minor additions to ICS, but it's still clunky in some ways. (on a One S at the moment)

-Tapatalk

 

This used to be a big issue on honeycomb with the dock keyboard on the Asus transformer. Now with ICS I see no lag whatsoever with the dock. DOnt really use the virtual as the dock is just too good to pass up and also adds a nice stand, battery, 2 USB ports and full SD card slot.

I have nothing against the snapdragon series, in fact I used one for well over a year and half with little to no isses in my old evo shift. But the tegra in my tablet never ceases to work and do what I need the tablet to accomplish.

As for the ipad, well I think people are starting to realize there are more tablets out there then ipads and I think its only a matter of time when crApple looses market share in this category too.

The one X was a great phone, although I love sense Im more inclined to go for the vanilla ICS on my Gnexus. While I have had bad luck in the past, these last few days have been great. Honestly between these 2 phones its a tough decision on which to pick if neither are lemons.

I thought this would be a problem on my Gnexus, but the 28GB is close enough to a 32GB SD that its not an issue. But I could see some having a concern, despite the fact that anything bigger then 32GB causes issues with very large files.

I thought it would but sense really doesnt ruin the ICS experience. But Id still prefer pure android though. I kinda like the multitasking in sense as its closer to cards in webos, but thats really only the swipe direction and seeing a full app as opposed to a slightly smaller and swiping to the side.

 

It's ironic because the Motorola enhancements on the D3 + devices show moments of brilliance (their quick contacts widget is stunning in it's animation and natural use of gestures for example) but it's blinded by horrible performance.

 

Anyone have a recommended extended battery for the LTE/VZW Galaxy Nexus? I broke a tooth off the side of my battery cover playing around with it a million times, and figured it'd be a good excuse to get an extended battery with a new battery cover. My problem is that it seems that extended batteries are extremely split selection wise. The official Samsung battery doesn't add much thickness, but barely adds capacity. Then there's the 3800 mAh monsters. Great capacity but way too big. I was hoping for say a 2500 mAh or so battery with NFC. Thickness wise the thickest I'd be willing to go is if the rest of the phone is smoothed out with the lower hump.

 

There really doesn't seem to be anything between the ~2,000mAh of the OEM batteries batteries and the reputable third-parties like Seidio and Mugen and the enormous ~4,000mAh batteries from the same people.
At least not from anyone reputable.

As for your thickness requirements, that basically limits you to the Samsung battery I think.

It's a shame, I kinda hoped Mugen or someone similar would produce a ~2,500mAh battery to fit the official extended battery cover.

 

http://imgur.com/a/JTh5r#0

i took some comparison pictures for you as i have the 3800 mAh seidio extended battery. it is a bit thicker than i'd like, but it lasts me roughly 2 days of moderate to heavy use, so its a compromise.

 

^Mother of battery!

That thing is huge! I really wish energy density would increase.

 

lawl. its either large battery or less than 9 hours of battery life. not happy with really short battery life, so i went for the larger battery.

 

9 hours? Im able to easily get a day or more on my standard battery nexus.

 

thats what i was getting with the regular battery after using it for a week on the stock rom, switched to AOKP rom w/franco.kernel and it got slightly better, switched to CM9 rom/kernel and that got even better, but i still wasnt satisfied with it for my usage.

 

SGH-i747

Dual-Core Krait MSM8960
2GB LP-DDR2
4.8" S-AMOLED HD
Dual-Band A/B/G/N --------BCM4334
Bluetooth 4.0--------------""

Welcome to AT&T.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5874/samsung-makes-canadian-sgs3-variants-with-krait-official

 

You know... it sounds like you have a lot to say about the One S and sense, perhaps even enough to fill a full written review! If only there was an outlet for you to express how you feel about the phone ...

 

Is there an fraps equivalent for android, I only want to see my fps when playing a video, I have google, and the only thing that comes up is an app called "SeeMeGaming" , but i cannot find it, is there any other apps?

I am using DicePlayer , can you enable fps displayed?

Thanks

John.

 

So that essentially places the NA version of the Samsung Galaxy S3 as more or less equal to the One X in terms of processing power (I don't think the 2GB of RAM will make too much of a difference, at least with ICS?). Just a matter of choosing the form factor, screen, microSD card, etc.

 

Anyone knows how I can use my Razer Megalodon with my S2? Can't find any USB to 3.5mm... What about USB to micro USB?

 

Indeed it does. The two GeeBee's of RAM are icing on the cake, but there's nothing Samsung can do about the GPU. This is going to be MSM8960 with Adreno 225. Exynos 4412 with a fully implemented and normally clocked Mali-400MP4 walks all over the Adreno 225.

One thing that nobody but Samsung and Apple seem to understand is that GPU's matter. A LOT. When you're talking 720p phones, that's a lot of pixels to scoot around. You want the muscle to do it competently, and while the Adreno 225 is a bit better than the 220 from MSM8660, it's still not a match for anything from Samsung or Apple.

wat.jpg

 

wat?

What I would like to know is that if I can use my Megalodon through a micro USB adaptor and dock it in my GSII?

 

Oh... I had to Google the Razer thing.

As far as USB audio, the GS2 kernel doesn't support it. The GS3 MIGHT, but that's the S3.

 

Damn it Then why is there a "USB Audio Dock" option in Dock settings?!

Any other way I can use my Megalodon?

 

Of course. That will have to wait until after next week though.

-Tapatalk

 

So I updated from Gingerbread 2.3.3 to 2.3.5. I noticed they blocked Sound effects in the Music Player for my bluetooth headset saying, "Sound effects not supported by bluetooth". 2.3.3 supported it, I don't understand why this update doesn't. Now I can't turn on Bass Enhancement.

 

You and CyanogenMod's DSP Manager would get along famously.

 

Alright, I'm going to look that up.