All Things Android - Apps, Phones, Tablets - Discussion

interesting because i could swear the ghosting on GS4 was nearly the same as the SLCD on the HTC one. Only a fraction better. I took the contacts list and drags and the blurring of photos and words were almost identical...the GS4 was a hair better but nothing note worthy. Are you sure that is affected by a setting? How does that work?

Also the S600 is the same as the S4 pro from what i can tell so the Note 2 has same CPU but worse GPU? Any games in near future that will have an issue?

Snapdragon (system on chip) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

they say they are essentially the exact same

Do you know where i can find some benchmark comparisons to read up?

Also how does 720p vs 1080p affect android's usefulness. I know in windows the productivity level is vastly different between those two res but doe sit matter in android? Have you noticed it ebing able to read websites on one or the other? I use my phone a lot in down time to keep up on sites and stay busy. so i am trying to see if smaller screen adn higher res is better or bigger screen and lower res is better.

I am looking to upgrade now...asap but i am a little torn

Sprint has released some horrible plans and i am a little afraid they might try nixing the EPER program with these new horrible plans but when i was at the sprint store the guy was telling me that he just read an article about how softbank took over a japan telcom and dropped prices to suck up market share to get more people on board and the article talked about he might do that in the US....i am unsure if it would be beat the EPER program though. I can get 5 lines 1600 min subsidized phones with unlimited data for ~$225 that is ~45 bucks a line which is not bad. It also comes with the obvious 7pm-7am nights and weekend and unlimtied mobile to mobile so realisticly it is almost impossible to use the 1600 minus so it is like unlimited everything ^^

Plus with the ~$450 off a phone that is like another 18 bucks off a month per line ^^ Granted i could get cheaper off craigs list but still convenient

 

Finally, some common sense.

Not only is build quality not the same as choice of material, meaning that Samsung's use of polycarbonate had no bearing on the build quality of the S4, the One actually had pretty poor build quality - it just gets ignored because it's made of aluminium.

 

The Snapdragon S4 platform is Qualcomm's spinoff of ARM's Cortex A15 specifications and is definitely superior to the Samsung Exynos 4412 that is based on Cortex A9 clock for clock. The Adreno 320 is way faster than the Exynos' Mali 400, the equivalent of the Mali 400MP4 is the Adreno 225. Futureproof with the Mali 400 may be an issue as Android 4.3 will introduce OpenGL ES 3.0, which is only supported by the newer Mali T628 and forward, the Adreno is good to go in that regard.

The 1080p panels allow you to read smaller texts in the browser zoomed out, whereas you may need to zoom in a bit to get legible text for 720p panels. In terms of picture and overall clarity, I have a hard time distinguishing pixels between either resolutions on screen sizes five inches or smaller. You have to do a comparison between AT&T's Optimus G Pro and the Note II to really appreciate the difference. 720p gaming is a walk in the park for the Adreno 320 but at 1080p, some games like Real Racing 3 can strain it a bit.

 

Benchmarked: Snapdragon S4 Pro (Optimus G) vs Exynos 4412 (Galaxy S3)

i found and yea the note 2 is slower but not a lot...i wonder how much it will be affected.


again i am right that the S4 pro is = to the s600 right?

In the above i wonder when you count the res difference of the s600 (1080) vs the 4412 (720) if it really matters. I wonder if they balance out or if the 4412 actually is faster since the s600 has a crap ton more to compute

EDIT: i also tried to see what the various resale value was of each phone to see if i bought one and sold it for the other if i could come on top and i dont see much. The note II seems MIA on a lot of stuff. Honestly i like the note II due to the size but for 300 bucks on sprint i might as well get a different phone :/

 

Sadly, IRL you don't see much (if any) difference in CPU performance between 4412 and S4 Pro. Now, pull out a floating point bench and anything Qualcomm will walk all over the competition. S600 is a notable improvement all around, though. The Adreno 320, definitely though... MUCH faster GPU.

 

isn't anything above 300PPI pointless though? note 2 has 267 if i recall. the new ones have like 420 so do you actually see anthing more in the new ones or is it so small it is pointless.

 

Why would anyone need anything more than 512kb of RAM?

The whole "just because we don't need it" philosophy... not a good one.

Personally, I can tell the difference. I also have a lot better than 20/20 vision too, so that may be something.

 

ok your comparison of 512kb of ram was dumb no offense....

Hence why i asked it....the point was can you actually see a difference? If you open a webpage at normal dpi at a 1080p screen can you really read it on a 5 in screen? That was my point. If you can't than what would be the point between 1080vs720p on a phone. If there is a real world difference than that affects my decision on what phone i get. hence why i asked is there an actual difference. Same thing goes for your statement on real world differences in the s4pro vs the 4412. Even if i won't notice a difference in most if not all real world things now i may notice it in 1 year and be eating my dumb decision.

the phones didn't have Internet so i couldn't test some sites so i tried my EVO3d in portrait view gunbot.com and fitting the amount of information that i can fit on a 1080p screen in a 960p potrait mode was insane. It is i think relatively close comparison and i was looking at it in a 4 in long screen compared to what 3 inches. There is no way i would use that on a daily basis for me. Things are so small i can barely make them out. I personally don't think it would help me but i'll have to see what a friend has to get a good comparison.

 

@Hopelessly:

AT&T is one of my carriers in if I were to have to choose today between the 3 you listed, I would go for the GS4.

I have the Note II, and I really like it but it is large. It's not a problem for me because it's not my main "conversation" phone, it's more like a 4G tablet. But if I didn't have two devices, the GS4 is not too big, but gives you enough screen real estate to be very useful (esp with 1080p). A friend of mine got a GS4 (after owning 2 HTCs in a row, Hero(?) and the EVO3D) and can't stop talking about how much better it is.

I do think 1080p on a 5" is better than 720p on a 5.5", but I'm a pixel density activist.

 

Right. Try going to a store and seeing these devices. See the resolutions for yourself. Android operates on a DPI setting. You can make things bigger or smaller based on the DPI setting/screen size/resolution. For instance, 720p at 4.8" is 320 DPI, which is XHDPI (eXtra High DPI). The 1080p screens use XXHDPI, which is meant for anything over 400 DPI. For example, the HTC Droid DNA/J Butterfly, it uses 480 DPI. Your panel could be 5" @ 1080p and technically you wouldn't see any more information than 720p at 320 DPI. It's kind of how it was designed. But of course, with smaller pixels and anti-aliasing you'll see more detail in the image. You can manually lower the DPI through build.prop tweaks and make the UI smaller, fitting more on one screen. I run my GS3 at 260 DPI instead of the stock 320, which I find comically large.

And yes, you asked if it was pointless to have higher resolutions and that's why I made that comparison... I don't care if it was 880PPI, I still don't find it pointless. We can, therefore we will. Also, vision is highly subjective. Just because I can see a difference between 340PPI and 440PPI doesn't mean you will. You need to SEE the panels for yourself.

 

Quite true, on a daily usage basis you would be pressed to be able to tell the difference in performance between the Note II to the Galaxy S 4 or HTC One. When you start throwing heavy 3D games or emulators its way is when the Exynos starts to falter. One definite advantage to the Note II besides the screen size is the battery, I can get away with only charging twice a week if I don't play games or stream YouTube on it, that's something that can't be said for 95% of the current smartphones on the market.

 

And it's one of the things I REALLY miss about my Note II, though the HTC First gets pretty damn good battery life. My S3 gets about a day, if you're not pushing it hard.

 

On a somewhat related note, I am glad to see Motorola picking up the MSM8960T for the Moto X and the Droid RAZR replacements. Sony and Motorola gets it.

 

So I'm kinda looking for a ghetto tablet for my gf's daughter. Preferably under 80 dollars, it's just going to be used for games like Angry Birds, Minion Rush and taking photos.

I was looking at like a Nexus S, Galaxy S (original). Convel suggested the HTC Sensation, though they look kinda pricey but it's a dual core phone with half decent GPU.

I'd like the older Galaxy S platform as it will have very good dev support as its been out for awhile, accessories will be cheaper like a new battery.

Can anyone recommend anything else besides what I listed for my price range or are those the best options? I don't care about the carrier, as it will never be activated.



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Get the nook tablet since its on fire sale right now right?

 

A used Nook Color in good shape can be had for $70-$80, and it has a very strong development following on XDA, and the HTC Flyer can be found for around $100 as well.

 

I kinda didn't want an actual tablet, want more of a phone footprint.


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Ah. Alongside all the handsets mentioned earlier, I would look at the Atrix 4G as well.

 

You can usually get an Atrix HD for pretty cheap. It runs Jelly Bean and has a 4.5", 720p display. I'm selling mine for $140.

http://celltraderonline.com/showthread.php?t=5136

 

If you want to get an actual "tablet", you can go with some no name brand slate for $80-$100. That's what I did for my Uncle recently. The generic brands will run Android and whatever else you want very well, and don't cost an arm and a leg.

 

Oh man, my parents went to the mall, most probably to buy me a b-day gift.

I know they know I spoke highly of the Nexus 7, I just hope they don't get it, since the new Nexus 7 2 will be announced on my birthday... :|

Edit : Actually it seems they went for the WinRT surface because it's 150€ off. I think it's a good device nonetheless, at least for work, isn't it?

 

Actually I have a chance to snag a Sprint Galaxy Nexus 32GB with a bad ESN for 89 dollars. I think I will jump on that.


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what is bad ESN?

 

On CDMA phones you have an ESN, or Electronic Serial Number. CDMA carriers use it like GSM carriers use IMEI numbers.

When someone steals a CDMA phone or doesn't pay a past due balance on an account the ESN on the phone is blacklisted. Plus, since CDMA phones can really only be used on the network they came from (unless you get the ESN transferred to a different MVNO/prepaid carrier if possible), a phone with a bad/invalid ESN can't be activated.

 

ah gotcha

10 char

 

For the girlfriend's daughter?

 

Yeah. I'd also like to tinker with Android but not as my main phone/device.


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Awesome price, but it would depend on the condition (apart from the bad ESN).

 

It was listed as 7/10 some scuff marks and scratches.


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is there such a thing of a microtower for sprint with LTE capable? I am planning on dropping my horrible AT&T internet and run off my cell phone when i upgrade as long as i get a decent LTE connection. I am tired of having a 150GB limit and 250KBps speeds that get throttled depending on the site. When i use any HTTPS site at my parents with comcast they load instantly but when i access them on AT&T they take 5 mins to load a page.

Also TOR is throttled like hell. I just though TOR was slow...nope when i was my parents on comcast i was able to hit 400KBps and average 100-200KBps. Here i get a burst here and there at 100KBps and wait 2 mins for another burst -_- AT&T throttles like nuts...we need net neutrality so bad.

Anyways, is there a microcell i could buy?

EDIT: BTW i remember newegg sold a 3rd party one that had wifi and an ethernet port too so you could connect your computers to it. Though it only supported 3g...i am hoping there is a newer one with LTE but i haven't seen anything from a quick google search

ah found it on newegg.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16875997551

is there one of these that does 4g on sprint?

Found 4G for verizon one :/
http://www.amazon.com/Wireless-Exte...ie=UTF8&qid=1374443038&sr=8-6&keywords=zboost

 

Those aren't micro cells. Those are basically repeaters (to an extent). They just amplify the signal in the air. A microcell makes a local network, all it's own, connected to your internet service as it's backbone. Currently I don't know of any LTE capable micro cells.

Also, when you say you're moving to Sprint for their unlimited internet and dropping AT&T's DSL, I guess you don't know that it's not REALLY unlimited. If you download 150+GB of data on ANY cellular network, they will do one of several things... null your contract and disconnect your service, throttle you to 3G speeds (if you're on HSPA+ or LTE), threaten to disconnect you, or just outright charge you for your massive use of data. Sprint usually takes the first option and just nulls your contract and disconnects your service. You're seen as a massive drain on resources.

 

ok the signal boost thing...thats what i was referring to.

*Shrugs*

I have used 200GB on 3G before and sprint has never said anything :/ I used anywhere from 100-200GB for ~6 months straight and they never raised a peep. Only thing in their contract they reserve a right to screw with you is roaming. That is 800MB and 800 mins from last i read in a single month.

I have also never heard anyone getting dropped for too much data.

I have used about 100GB on wimax in a single month and no issue. I was downloading steam games for a few days in the month when i was towards the city. I also was downloading in my car. Tethered with PDAnet and connected my R4 to the car lighter ^^

I would assume they would kick you off using 200GB of 3G before they would kick you off for using LTE. I assume 3G is more expensive.

Sprint appears to be more liberal with bandwidth than straight talk. They cut you off with 5GB.....that is the amount of keeping your apps up to date in a month -_-

 

Resources are allocated based on geographical location, and also population. If you're in a rural area with an LTE connection, you might be able to get by with the kind of data you're talking about. But in areas with higher populations, you will definitely be disconnected.

Also, they reserve the right to terminate your service at any time for any circumstance. Trust me.

 

BTW check my post again i added more. I know that but i am just saying...roaming is the only thing they especially state. Also i was doing that in Jacksonville NC (not really rural per say) for the 3G. The wimax recently with 100GB was in chicago-naperville area...no issue.

 

All I can say is that with that kind of data usage, you're walking a thin line. Especially since Sprint will have to increase their tower backhaul for their new LTE cells. More bandwidth = more money they have to pay, which is one of the two main reasons they usually disconnect or throttle users with extremely high bandwidth tabs.

Also, the way LTE works is just like other standards... only LTE has a much more efficient encoding scheme. It can fit MUCH more information onto the same RF band. You'd think that with that being true it would be easier and cheaper on Sprint's part to manage, but it's not yet.

 

Ah Sprint a wonderfully cheap phone provider run by morons that can't plan far enough into the future to save their own hid

 

Indeed. T-Mobile is actually taking the route that I wished Sprint would have taken a while back. The whole WiMax thing was a massive failure, and it cost them mucha mula.

All in all though, CDMA is what is killing Sprint. It had no reasonable evolutionary path and there wasn't anything that wasn't a massive waste of money available in the interim between EVDO and LTE. Verizon felt that pinch too, but luckily they're cash flush and the minute they could start deploying LTE, they jumped on it. I remember when AT&T's 3G was like 3-4x faster than Verizon's. It's because GSM had a very well planned evolution. EDGE-->HSDPA-->HSPA+-->LTE.

 

No, there are no Sprint femotcells in existence that broadcast LTE (yet). I have a Sprint Airvana. But it's only 3G, which is fine. At my home, I only care about cell coverage. They probably won't make a femtocell which broadcasts LTE anyway. LTE sucks up way more power than WiFi anyway, so it would stand to reason to make a femtocell which broadcasts the cellular signal and WiFi.

 

yea i corrected what o said and was referring to the repeater type thing. They only have T-mobile, Verizon, AT&T LTE repeaters. No Sprint ones yet :/

Anyways HAL i googled around and can't find anyone getting kicked off for too much data. It has only been for too much roaming. I might have found one or two but i can't remember*. I thought it was for roaming. Also i see no one starting online of what number they start screwing around with. I see nothing. Have you heard of anyone getting disconnected? I have never had an issue with all of my PDAnet use :/


*I think i remember reading one got kicked off in 2012 but i forget where i found that. There was no mention to how much he actually used so i am going to see if i get LTE in my house and roll with it. Worse comes to worse i'll spread the bandwidth between the two phones (mine and my wife's) I have called and harassed (figuratively) them like 5 times in the past to see if i could get any number out of them and got no where lol.

BTW HAL in NC when they ugraded the tower i went from 50KBps to 200-300KBps...3G can be super fast with a good backbone but they don't have it...that is the real issue i guess. After like 2-4 weeks i dropped to 100-200KBps but i was fine with that. Plenty for hulu netflix and downloading my steam account. That crap ran 24/7 minus when i was at work. Thats when for 3-6 months i hit 100-200GB a month ^^

BTW on paper wimax is faster than LTE originally. It offered like 144Mbps compared to the 140Mbps on LTE...forget the exact numbers. Remember reading it in wikipedia at work when i was bored.

 

If you really need a Sprint Airvana, call them up and tell them you are getting no signal at your residence. As long as your sort of it a weak signal area, they will send you an Airvana free of charge (with the stipulation that you'll return it if you ever cancel your Sprint service).

AS far as WiMax goes, it was a pipe dream to say the least. The biggest flaw in WiMax was it can operate at higher bitrates or over longer distances but not both.

But WiMax theoretical speeds do rank up there with LTE:
WiMAX - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

How many people do you know that are using ~150GB of cellular data? I average around 280GB's on a 50Mbps cable connection.

BTW, I'm not meaning to toot my own horn, but you're arguing with a former AT&T RAN Engineer. Your use case is extreme. If 200-300Kbps is super fast for you, ok. AT&T's 3G tops out around 800KB/s, LTE around 2-3MB/s (possibly more if you're on a new cell). Also, 200-300Kbps is best case scenario for EVDO Rev A. You were very lucky to see those speeds.

Also, just the convenience of a landline connection outweighs the minor speed bump you'll get, as Sprint's LTE network is even spottier than their already spotty CDMA network. Do you have Sprint LTE where you live?

EDIT: Yes, I've seen MANY people getting kicked off from excessive usage. From all the major networks.

 

I though Sprint only recently started to put up LTE towers? I've seen my gfs GS3 say LTE like twice and not once in NJ.


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Chicago-DeKalb-Wisconsin is covered with LTE "according" to their map so I'll have to wait and see if i get it in my house. If i do i am dropping my crap Internet connection. I doubt they'll kick me off if i push 100GB on two separate phone lines. On a side note if they "drop" me do they blacklist the ESN?

Also that 800KBps is not the standard 3G that is the HSPA+ or whatever. The AT&T 3g GSM was originally only 1.5Mbps When i had 3G on AT&T i was lucky to see 50KBps whether i was in chicagoland area, CA, or in NC.


As i said i'll see if i can get LTE in the house but if i do I am dumbing this BS DSL. Even if i don't start using more bandwidth than i do now i'll get faster speeds and better latency. To acess TOR, Sprint, Chase, USAA, and several other sites takes 3-20s per page....AT&T does some zany crap to mess with the internet....it is horrible. Amazon is also slow -_-

As of right now i can only use like 130GB of data before i have to stop in fear of going over...since it somehow takes 3 days to update the site....garbage! Plus there numbers never match my router so i stopped trying to monitor it with my router. I wish they would at least give you roll over data if a BS cap on a home line....i wish i had MegaPath (Speakeasy) No data cap. The last DSL company with no data cap. WOW cable has no cap either but they don't go anywhere -_-. What i wish i had was Surewest Fiber 10/10Mbps FTTP mmmmmmmmm for 90 bucks

 

I thought we were talking current networks. Which Sprint's network is still ~200Kpbs on 1xEV. Almost the entire AT&T footprint is HSPA+ 21.1 as of now. The 14.4 sites were soft-upgraded to 21.1.

If they drop you, they shouldn't blacklist the ESN. But it will be noted on your account, if you ever try to sign up for service again with them.

What DNS are you using with AT&T? Their default DNS servers are horrible.

 

Considering she'll be using it like a gameboy, that's a heck of a deal.

They've been equipping LTE to their towers for some time now, but they've only turned them on for full usage only recently (Fall 2012-present).

 

DNS??? i don't know do i need to do a tracert to find out? i see SBC stuff when i do that. The service is horrible.

 

There's probably at least part of your problem. Use OpenDNS, GoogleDNS, or LVL3...

OpenDNS: 208.67.220.220, 208.67.222.222
GoogleDNS: 8.8.4.4, 8.8.8.8
LVL3: 4.2.2.1, 4.2.2.2, 4.2.2.3, 4.2.2.4...

LVL3 is what I use. They work extremely well.

 

How do i program that? is that the stuff i put into the settings in my computer? With win7 i have no idea where that stuff is anymore. I used to use static ips on my computer and internet but haven't done that in almost a decade. So is that modem, router, or computer.

 

Set them in the router, that way whatever connects to the router will pull those with DHCP.

With Windows 7 it's: Settings--> Network and Sharing Center --> Change Adapter Settings --> Right click whichever adapter you're using and select properties --> Double click IPv4 --> Specify to use your own DNS Servers --> Profit $$$

 

I'm really looking forward to this one, the One Mini is a bit too crippled for me.