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Android |OT|
- Thread starter kehs
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because its not happening anymore, enough bugs to put a stop to the rollout, coupled with the holidays, i dont expect it to start up again until mid Jan
Al-ibn Kermit
Junior Member
Are there any good RTS games? What I would do to play Starcraft 1 or Civilization on the go.
Al-ibn Kermit
Junior Member
I know but I classify Sid Meier games in the same niche. I think Starcraft would be tolerable at least, not at a competitive level but that wouldn't bother me.
Dawn of War 2 for OnLive is touch-enabled; might be worth trying the free demo mode.
Probably don't want to play OnLive when not on wi-fi though.
shinshoryuken
Member
I've been debating if I should switch from GS2 to nexus galaxy....now I got both, till I get rid of one.
Early impression of rooted galaxy s2(exynon) running custom rom vs. GSM galaxy nexus.
Speed: S2 is still more snappier...its so unfair how fast and snappy the gs2 without ics. Well I did over clock to 1.4ghz...maybe if I over clock the nexus it will be a lil bit more fair..
Form factor: the nexus is huge! but feels more ergonomically feels nicer than the boring look of the S2
Screen: hmm....I wasn't too blown away with the nexus screen. I guess its a lil better? But the super amole plus in the GS2 seem to be more vibrant and more uniformed.
Battery life: So far nexus sucks compared to the GS2 but in the beginning when I got the GS2 it sucked too, so maybe I need to wait till the battery get properly broken in.
Camera: I like the nexus camera so far because of the zero shutter lag, I disliked the GS2 camera because of the 3 second shutter lag. I'm no camera expert but I think the 4s kills both cameras.
Browsing speed: Seem the nexus is a tad faster. Better browsing experience because of the bigger screen.
so far I don't know what else ...still too early to make a proper comparison.
GS2 is the still a beast of a phone, so I'll give it a few day to decide which one I should keep..
Early impression of rooted galaxy s2(exynon) running custom rom vs. GSM galaxy nexus.
Speed: S2 is still more snappier...its so unfair how fast and snappy the gs2 without ics. Well I did over clock to 1.4ghz...maybe if I over clock the nexus it will be a lil bit more fair..
Form factor: the nexus is huge! but feels more ergonomically feels nicer than the boring look of the S2
Screen: hmm....I wasn't too blown away with the nexus screen. I guess its a lil better? But the super amole plus in the GS2 seem to be more vibrant and more uniformed.
Battery life: So far nexus sucks compared to the GS2 but in the beginning when I got the GS2 it sucked too, so maybe I need to wait till the battery get properly broken in.
Camera: I like the nexus camera so far because of the zero shutter lag, I disliked the GS2 camera because of the 3 second shutter lag. I'm no camera expert but I think the 4s kills both cameras.
Browsing speed: Seem the nexus is a tad faster. Better browsing experience because of the bigger screen.
so far I don't know what else ...still too early to make a proper comparison.
GS2 is the still a beast of a phone, so I'll give it a few day to decide which one I should keep..
http://www.androidpolice.com/2011/1...ab-ice-cream-sandwich-upgrades-i-try-to-care/
Just SMH at the article
Just SMH at the article
I agree.
I loaned off my Nexus One to a cousin of mine who was having problems with her Blackberry and stuck on a two year contract with T-mobile. So just because a device is nearing a two year life cycle doesn't mean they shouldn't be updated, because you can always fine use for them. Besides the storage limit and no front facing camera, my old Nexus can still be used on a day to day basis for many things (not just as a phone).
That said, these companies want to sell hardware. But they always forget that brand loyalty is very important too, and you should keep your customer happy.
Samsung can easily gut the stupid touchwiz UI and make room for plain ICS.
I don't know why people are complaining, the Galaxy S just got an awesome update to Gingerbread!
Al-ibn Kermit
Junior Member
But they want to make their device seem unique to use compared to the other android manufacturers phones. Also I'd imagine more people would actually prefer to keep their phones on gingerbread with the touchwiz ui that they're used to than to upgrade to vanilla ics and relearn some things after 1.5 years.
Plus having the older phones get vanilla android while the newer ones get the touchwized version would create more fragmentation and confusion.
But I don't understand why galaxy tabs wouldn't get updated as they have tegra 2 processors, you would think that they could still run ics with some extra bloatware.
Robobandit
Member
They are referring to the original galaxy tab 7" that runs a 1ghz hummingbird processor (similar hardware to the original galaxy s ) the new galaxy tabs the 10.1 and the 8.9 will be getting the update.. as will the newer 7.0 plus model that just came out.
internet journalism sometimes makes me want to shoot myself in the face.
Zaraki_Kenpachi
Member
:lol Totally read that as Galaxy SII and was all pissed off they would really not update that new off a phone. Then I got to where he said year and a half old phone.
He's not even arguing the technical possibility of such an update, that's Sammy doing so. He's just flat out saying they don't 'deserve' the update.
shinshoryuken
Member
Hmmm...I don't get all the touchwiz hate. I think ICS is not all that...
Robobandit
Member
I'm not even talking about that shitty article.. I was only responding to the poster who thought it was odd that the tegra 2 models weren't getting the update when they are.
Touchwiz is the least shitty of shitty options.
Maybe when they show Touchwiz 5 I'll change my mind, but going from gingerbread 2.3 to ICS and maintaining the same interface is lame, even more as stock ICS now has almost all touchwiz features.
I found touchwiz to be an improvement over pure Gingerbread while using the Galaxy Note, and Samsung does add a bunch of useful features to their phones (I'll still looking for a clipboard keyboard utility that works on my Galaxy Nexus) but where ICS really shines is in the updated apps.
The prettier side of Android
A lot has been said about the lack of UI polish in Android (sometimes rather obnoxiously), but over the last few months I have started debating how much of that is still relevant. When I first saw Android (around version 1.6) I was not a fan, but over the last couple of years having it as my primary mobile phone, I realize that while a lot of the applications lack UI polish, there are a lot of parts of Android that can be customized with very beautiful options. Most of the time these seem to be the work of communities of passionate developers and designers and often lacks mainstream visibility. Thats what prompted me to write this post.
HomeScreens, Launchers and Icons
Nothing gets the point as immediately across as http://mycolorscreen.com/, a site dedicated to customized homescreens (regardless of Android, iPhone, etc). The number of entries under the Android category however completely outweigh iOS since iOS offers almost no homescreen customizations on non rooted devices. On Android however, you can use a variety of launchers, custom icons and homescreen widgets to create a pretty amazing experience. DeviantArt for example is a great resource for custom themes and icons for different launcher themes (for example LauncherPro themes)
MyColorScreen recently also posted a blog entry on the 10 best customizations for 2011, definitely worth a look for some inspiration.
LockScreens
LockScreens is another area of a lot of visual explorations in the Android community. For the last few months I have been using WidgetLocker as a lockscreen app which lets me not only use background images, but also widgets on my lockscreen. Additionally WidgetLocker also lets you create custom themes and apply them. This XDA link has a HUGE list (374 pages) of some good ones.
Recently however I also tried MILocker which seems to have even more polished themes (though lacks Widgets-on-lockscreen functionality). MILocker is a port of the LockScreen app from MIUI Rom for rooted Android devices (I talk a bit about that below)
Core Apps
One of the teams that do awesome visual work are the guys behind the Go Apps. All of their apps are completely themeable and often replace (or override) the default Android apps. For example Go SMS (which I used till I recently rooted my phone and swapped for the new MIUI SMS interface) works seamlessly overrides the default SMS app on Android, and has some really fantastic themes available for it. Go Apps are available for very core Android functions including Keyboards, Dialers, etc.
Live Wallpapers
I have also recently come around to Android Live Wallpapers which I originally considered useless and mostly a battery suck (turns out the battery consumption is not that bad at all). These are animated backgrounds that you can use on your launchscreen. While some of them are just beautiful visually, others are actually very functional. For example I used to use Go Weather that had different animated backgrounds for the desktop based on the weather at the location. This kind of ambient information is pretty awesome. More recently I have started using the Aurora Live Wallpaper (see my current homescreen below) since I find it very soothing to look at the Northern Lights every time I am on the home screen .
Custom ROMS
Finall, rooting your phone offers even more customization options since quite a few ROMs even offer themes that can be applied to the whole OS, though I imagine thats not for the faint of heart. I recently rooted my phone and am now using MIUI ROM that is just visually fantastic. It has customized all aspects of the OS like systemwide font, notifications and alerts and default applications for music, sms etc. The video below is a pretty comprehensive walkthrough of MIUI. Its just fantastic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRL0IRzdwgk
As a user interface developer who is passionate about design, I am pretty happy with my current experience on Android, but it took me a while to find a lot of the options to get there. There are a lot of communities like XDA Developers and ColorMeAndroid (on DeviantArt) that most people arent aware of. Hopefully these grow and Android gets more designers on the platform. The open nature of the framework and the apps that allow communities to customize them truly make the visual possibilities exciting.
shinshoryuken
Member
I've been going back and forth with the GS2 and the Galaxy Nexus today and I can't really find anything slick on ICS beside the webOS like task manager...but its only been a day..
Zaraki_Kenpachi
Member
I have a question, all these cool features like the ones listed above (live wallpaper, widgets on lock screen, etc.) do these significantly harm battery life? I here people in the Nexus thread complaining about seemingly smaller things like facebook absolutely beating the shit out of the battery and makes the phone almost unusable with how quick it drains. Are these perks of android also like that? Some of this stuff seems really cool but if it significantly lowers the already somewhat low battery life it seems pointless. Thanks.
Since I'm in the same boat and can't really decide either, I would be interested in hearing what your impressions are as time goes on.
Since I'm in the same boat and can't really decide either, I would be interested in hearing what your impressions are as time goes on.
shinshoryuken
Member
I did a first impression comparison a few post back in this page. Earlier its GS2>>>GN.
Now its GS2>GN.
I kinda miss the menu button...
Zaraki_Kenpachi
Member
Ya, I'm just curious if once you have it a little longer if you still feel the same way since you don't seem as slanted towards the GS2 but obviously still think it's better.
Yeah something like that, thanks. The touchwiz clipboard was embedded right in the paste icon (there's also a similar tweak for jailbroken iphones :|) — can I get that for ICS? Or do you know of any clipboard keyboards?
... you really can't see the difference between the apps?
Gmail
Gingerbread
ICS
Youtube
Gingerbread
ICS
Calender
*shrug* I was never happy with Gingerbread so a choice between the GII and the Galaxy Nexus only has one winner in my mind. The only reason I even bothered with the Galaxy Note was the pen feature...gingerbread
ICS
:|
Zaraki_Kenpachi
Member
Won't it look exactly like that on the S2 once it gets the ICS update? Touchwiz doesn't affect apps like that right?
Sure, but we are talking about the known future here
shinshoryuken
Member
Right now I have a hard time deciding which screen is better.
The super amoled plus on the GS2 is so much more vibrant in color which make image seem 3D, remind me of my plasma TV.
The super amoled HD pentile on the GN is more neutral, not as washed out as the 4S, still vibrant but softer than the GS2 screen..makes picture looks more natural?
Skin tone seem to be yellowish on the GS2 while its pinkish on the GN.
yes, but it'll be months before the update arrives. By then there'll be faster phones than the S2 and GN launching with ICS anyway. I personally couldn't wait. It was ICS or bust.
The standard color profile on samsung devices is equivalent to torch mode for selling tvs in a department store. Both the nexus devices have accurate color pallette's not neon
Jazzy Network
Member
Battery on my Epic 4G Touch has been amazing since I got it, but today for some reason the battery was draining faster than usual. Trying to figure out which app is doing it. Even tried to restart the phone, but it was about the same.
Zaraki_Kenpachi
Member
Ah, ok. Well hopefully the update comes soon since it's supposed to be in January right? Looks like I may have to wait until the end of January to decide anyhow depending on when T-Mobile gets the Nexus. :/
I thought it was supposed to come in January? That's not true anymore?
Ah, ok. Well hopefully the update comes soon since it's supposed to be in January right? Looks like I may have to wait until the end of January to decide anyhow depending on when T-Mobile gets the Nexus. :/
I thought it was supposed to come in January? That's not true anymore?
? where did you hear that?
It should tell you under Battery Use in the about page of the settings. Anything that uses above 2% is listed.
shinshoryuken
Member
I didn't say I don't see the difference....its just like I'm not completely blown away..maybe its just me but I don't see much improvement on the so called apps. Switching back and forth I couldn't tell which one is better. But its been a days.
I'm just deciding which one to keep. I can choose either one and not really gain or lose much money wise.
Zaraki_Kenpachi
Member
I thought there was some tweet going around that said for s2 users to rejoice that in Jan 2012 they would start making full use of the gpu (It said the name but I forget what it was) and everyone said it meant the ICS update? I guess it didn't then? I saw it when I was googling that and the nexus the other day. I can try to find the tweet again if you want.
Not all people buy phones the day they come out.
Zaraki_Kenpachi
Member
I couldn't finish watching that video, it gave me too much of a headache.
Im sending my n1 back first thing in the morning.
Zaraki_Kenpachi
Member
What was it even about? I got 6 minutes in and all I got was him repeating it invades your contacts which he never explained what it meant and how he can't show you and zoomed in so far you couldn't see anything.
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