Last week I finally got rid of my iPhone. I got a Galaxy S4 instead. I googled a bit, but does any of you know a good site / forum / resource to find useful tips on how to customize the OS? So far I found a lot of feature by myself and I like it. You don't need to jailbreak the phone to get options, turn of features, etc. That's great. So far I like the phone a lot too. The only downside so far is that the battery drains really fast. It happens often with new models. However, I suspect that I have too many programs running in the background, etc. Any advice on that topic?
root it first and foremost download and install a custom rom (itll get rid of all that extra crap, some will be better with battery life, some will be faster) i use greenify and it helps with the battery
If you're worried about battery, go get JuiceDefender. If you don't like TouchWiz, you could always try other launchers. As for rooting, really...I did it with my S3, but ended up flashing it back to stock. My Note II, I've thought about it but in the end didn't bother. It runs great for what it does, and the S4 is an amazing piece of hardware.
I'll be getting the S4 as soon as Google has its I/O conference. If they give an indication of when the Xphone comes out and if it will be out within 2 months (I don't think it will) then I will wait. Otherwise I'll buy the S4 this weekend. I don't really care for a new phone, what I really want is to leave Sprint. What a laughably horrible cell phone provider... my god.
Nice! Seems like there's a lot of stuff on these forums. I'll browse them to see if I find something interesting. Trying Greenify / JuiceDefender.
IMO the biggest positive to rooting is being able to make your phone a mobile hot spot for free. I rooted and used a de-bloated stock firmware of my phone and use the app "open garden" to have internet access on my laptop when I am away from home.
rooting is really easy on the s4, check out galaxys4root.com i rooted mine just to use it as a hotspot.
Here I am, now rooted, cwm, and LiquidSmooth running on my Note 2. I honestly didn't think my phone could be any faster. And I installed Greenify on it as well.
This is good info for me as I just caved in and got an GalaxyS4 myself. I've been playing around with it instead of doing my usual early AM book keeping . This is totally all new to me but not hard to learn at all. keep the tips and tricks coming guys! I've been resisting a smart phone account for years now and finally gave in to the wife's nagging and bit the bullet. we got her an S3 and an S4 for me . The very first thing I did was disable the GPS [/:tinfoil:]
Verizon customers? as predicted years ago: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-records-verizon-court-order [/:tinfoil:]
As an avid tweaker I'll see if I can make this simple. Root: allows access to SU commands. The single best root app is ROM toolbox. It has a root file browser, terminal emulator, backup and restore capabilities, dns changer, ad blocker, and more. ROM: essentially the os. I have a S3 and there's two types for the most part, touchwiz and aosp/aokp. Touchwiz ROMs are based off the stock os, most Google aokp and aosp to find more about them. Probably the biggest single ROM is Cyanogenmod, and a lot of ROMs borrow positions of their code. Kernel: essentially controls your cpu voltage and frequency settings. Aka lower the voltage and get better battery life. Modem/radio: just like you have a modem to connect to the internet, your phone has a modem to connect to your service provider. Recovery: the stock recovery allows you to reset your phone to stock (no apps). Aftermarket recoveries allow more advanced features like backing up your ROM, modifying the sd card. For me there's clockwork mod (cwm) and twrp. I've heard a lot of good things about TWRP. Launcher: your desktop. Different launchers provide different things. This is the single most thing that can determine the look and feel of your phone on a daily basis. I recommend getting root access asap and tinkering with the phone before going all out. This way you have a feel for android before you mess it up and shit your pants. Using a WiFi connection will help battery life a lot. Also, get Swype. On my S3 I'm running Cyanogenmod nightly ROM, ktweaker kernel, cwm, and nova launcher. I had my phone rooted and a ROM on it before it was activated. The lady at the Verizon store when I activated it "your phone is different than ours." I started with eclipse Rom and moved to carbon, but I settled on Cyanogenmod because the development is constant and if there's something broken its usually fixed pretty quick. Depending on usage I can get 24 hours of battery life.
Turn off the auto bright feature? My buddy had the auto bright and it was killing his phone in no time.
It's off. I might add, that, due to the rural nature (and lack of ability to simply charge it up) of my business, I consider my phone out of fuel at 30%.
That's your answer right there. Rural Oregon has shit for coverage so you're likely seeing power loss through the phone looking for signal.
This is very true. I do however, achieve 4G speeds more often than not......probably 90% of the time. There's a shared tower less than 1500 feet from my house (Nextel/US cellular), but I sit in the shadow of the signal. I get a bounce-back from a mountain three miles away or I'd not get any signal at all.
