Database Users

Who will be moving on to a new phone soon?

So it is coming on two years that this phone has been out, which means that a lot of people will have upgrades available. Who plans on upgrading to a new phone and what are you looking at getting?

At this time, I'm sticking with this phone. CM11 is giving me all I need. The phone still works well, and if I were to get a new phone, I'd have to purchase it at full price, lest I lose my unlimited data.
So, no moving to a new phone, nor do I have a reason to. Just because this phone is two years old doesn't mean it's no longer good. As long as you have an unlocked bootloader, this phone will continue to work well, especially with CM11 pumping out nightlies like crazy.

Lol, I just moved to the Razr HD from the Droid 3. I was using a Galaxy S2 HD LTE while I was stationed in Korea a few months back and the Razr is by far a superior phone to both. I'm the one that likes to tinker, so I like these older phones. I got the wife a Moto X a while back and that phone runs great. Far better battery life than my Maxx and has all the cool little functions, the coolest being the Active Display. The new Moto X looks great too but I'm sticking to the Razr. I just need basic functionality, the most important being the wifi hotspot which my iPad Air is always tethered to. Both the Moto X and Razr were purchased off contract, the Moto X was purchased off the Motorola website and the Razr through Amazon used. I am really enjoying this phone so far and was extremely happy that I was able to unlock the bootloader. Just need to wait for the unlock to be available for the Moto X and the world will be perfect! Yeah, I know about the China middleman but would prefer not to go that route. So bottom line, don't care about the new phones... Quite happy with my Razr running VZW 4.4.2 and ART Runtime. But if I was to look for a new phone, that new Moto X looks really good.
Edit: back to dalvik, phone was running stupid with art enabled on the drive to the mall and back. Couldn't run any music player Bluetooth'd to the car without the music being choppy. Don't know if it is a Bluetooth issue or art issue but didn't happen again on a short drive after switching back to dalvik. Oh well, I can run xposed again, so all is not lost!!!

I lost mine and still got another one. Had mine for one year, plan on sticking to this one for at least one more, or until something a lot better comes around.
With cm11 on it, it does everything I need to, with headroom. Dont care about new phones, at least for now.
Maybe can consider if they release a good phone with earth-shattering battery life, but I really dont see it happening so soon..
Edit: Also:
iBolski said:
Just because this phone is two years old doesn't mean it's no longer good.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Let's put it this way - I'm getting at least 1.5 days of battery if not more. This morning, I'm at 77% with over 13 hours not charging. I've received and sent texts, played a game or two of Madden Mobile, read email, made and received phone calls. Battery life on my non-maxx RAZR HD is awesome under CM11 with Xposed modules Greenify, Unbound and AppOpsXposed. Never got this under stock.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

iBolski said:
Let's put it this way - I'm getting at least 1.5 days of battery if not more. This morning, I'm at 77% with over 13 hours not charging. I've received and sent texts, played a game or two of Madden Mobile, read email, made and received phone calls. Battery life on my non-maxx RAZR HD is awesome under CM11 with Xposed modules Greenify, Unbound and AppOpsXposed. Never got this under stock.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree, greenify and unbounce are amazing apps. The fact that notifications are still available while hibernated with greenify is awesome. Well worth the extra few bucks!! With unbounce, I'm running the old version before he went all fancy with the ui because it became too much. Just want something simple that does the job on its own like greenify. I unfortunately bricked my phone when I accidentally flashed a RAZR M ROM. I was so pissed that night that I literally went to the Best Buy page and ordered a Droid Maxx. I also ordered a new motherboard that night so now I have the RAZR Maxx HD as a backup. I plan on switching in between the two often!!

All of the new phones are going the way of obnoxious.
Screen too big, 4.7 is just right
No microSD slot, 8GB (ugh if ya haveta 16GB) base is fine...let me add my 64GB
No MHL, I want to connect an MHL to HDMI adapter and watch the movie(s) I loaded on my 64GB card on the hotel's LCD TV when I travel
No Miracast, would be much better than MHL port
No 3300maH+ battery, I like the juice time I have with my Franken XT925. The newer processing power would only greatly increase the runtime available
Too thin, The RAZR MAXX HD is just about right, just needs to be a little more sculpted like the Moto X
No Car Dock, I like an easy way to connect the charger to the phone while in the car...oh oh and I have a GPS if I want it
So basically there needs to be Generation 1 Moto X with the 805+ processor, 3300maH+ battery, microSD slot, removable back with replaceable battery (if design needed, I'm okay with putting the SD and SIM back inside with battery), 8GB onboard storage and 4GB RAM to keep up with OS upgrades for at LEAST 2 years.

not until may next year, i do want a new phone due to specs and such. android L snapdragon 810 deserve a wait and see reviews/prices of devices.
cm11 runs fine with me, just the random crash but i get 4 hours of screentime easy.
basically ill upgrade to 3000+mah 32/64GB + microSD S810 phone with 1080p/QHD under $650 USD. sony z4, lg g4 and htc m9 are on the shortlist due to their nice phones, but if sammy gets their act together with the ui in the s6 (comeon, just root, unlock bootloader and we're set with stock android L) and i might consider them. the s810 will support all lte bands so unlocked is a must. i pay $10 USD every 2 months for 100 min/texts/mb and that's all i need, no contract.

I'm looking at getting the Galaxy S5. I'm sick of Motorola being so restrictive with their bootloaders. Custom ROMs are the reason that I want an Android phone.

cschuck320 said:
I'm looking at getting the Galaxy S5. I'm sick of Motorola being so restrictive with their bootloaders. Custom ROMs are the reason that I want an Android phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You think Samsung on VZW is any better? On Verizon right now, the M8 is probably the best bang-for-buck if you want a non-dev model that can be modded.
Sent from my HTC6525LVW using Tapatalk

RikRong said:
You think Samsung on VZW is any better? On Verizon right now, the M8 is probably the best bang-for-buck if you want a non-dev model that can be modded.
Sent from my HTC6525LVW using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
After looking into it some more, I realized that it was being restricted by Verizon. Honestly, I'm going to wait for the Nexus 6

Droid Turbo or the corresponding GSM variant are starting to look real good.

Really liking the new Nexus 6 and the Droid Turbo, but...
Without a procedure for unlocking the phone, I'm not buying the Turbo. Without the Xposed Framework being updated to work with 5.0, I'm not buying the Nexus 6. I've become too dependent on root and Xposed (among other things root is good for) to go back to a locked down phone without rooting capabilities and no Xposed support. Also I'd much prefer the 5.2" screen to the 6" screen. Not ready to jump that high (yet...)
I am hoping a dev works his/her magic and figures out a way to unlock that bad boy Turbo before long. I've become so heavily dependent on Xposed to make this phone do every single thing I want it to that the RAM and processing power are sadly just not enough. And with the Turbo on 4.4.4, I could block (freeze, disable, whatever) the updates so as to not be bothered with 5.0 until Xposed is updated to run on it.
...plus I think the KitKat Moto built for this phone was half-a$$ thrown together, and the update did nothing to correct anything (made things worse from my own perspective). I may have to take the plunge into the world of Cyanogen or another custom ROM.
EDIT: Switched over to the new DirtyUnicorns ROM for my phone and everything is head and shoulders better than before - won't be updating to a new phone for a long long time now.

...instead of a new thread
It's been a roller-coaster trying to get good performance out of the XT926 and XT907. My wife and I picked them up about 6 months after they came out, and I've been following CM for most of that time. When my 907 died, she picked up a galaxy s6 edge. I kept the 926.
CM11 was great at first. Fast and snappy but missing some features and small issues. No big deal.
CM11 became bloated and slow leading up to the transition to LP. Battery life went down the drain. The phone was slower than dirt.
CM12 seemed great at first, but quickly deteriorated after a month or so of nightlies. I suffered through this for way too long before beginning the hunt for something new.
Dirty Unicorns 9.7 seemed like an improvement right after the first bootup but quickly revealed serious performance issues. I understand some older versions of Dirty Unicorns were great.
CM11 is still being maintained unofficially! Rejoice. Buttery smooth so far. Keeping my fingers crossed.
Wish I'd bothered to look back at CM11 sooner... I wonder at what point in the last 6 months the unofficial updates were able to get it running well, again. I think I'll have this phone for quite a while longer.

radiopayola said:
It's been a roller-coaster trying to get good performance out of the XT926 and XT907. My wife and I picked them up about 6 months after they came out, and I've been following CM for most of that time. When my 907 died, she picked up a galaxy s6 edge. I kept the 926.
CM11 was great at first. Fast and snappy but missing some features and small issues. No big deal.
CM11 became bloated and slow leading up to the transition to LP. Battery life went down the drain. The phone was slower than dirt.
CM12 seemed great at first, but quickly deteriorated after a month or so of nightlies. I suffered through this for way too long before beginning the hunt for something new.
Dirty Unicorns 9.7 seemed like an improvement right after the first bootup but quickly revealed serious performance issues. I understand some older versions of Dirty Unicorns were great.
CM11 is still being maintained unofficially! Rejoice. Buttery smooth so far. Keeping my fingers crossed.
Wish I'd bothered to look back at CM11 sooner... I wonder at what point in the last 6 months the unofficial updates were able to get it running well, again. I think I'll have this phone for quite a while longer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I may be on a jbbl, but its gotten smoother since 12.1 kernel commits started coming in. At least thats my perception of things based off of my experience. And you nailed it right on the head with 12, thats why i downgraded to 11
Sent from my ATRIX HD using XDA Free mobile app

Has anyone looked at the "Marshmallow" update for the XT926? Google pulls it up and there are a ridiculous number of surveys to fill out but ultimately it says to look around on xda dev.....yet I see nothing Marshmallow related here for our, now legacy, devices.

If you're thinking about the S6 Edge...

I'm going to throw out a few brief observations here for those who are thinking about the S6 Edge which I picked up at Tmo. I'm currently running that device along with the Moto Maxx.
I missed that bigger battery the day after I bought the Edge and it died. It took me a second to figure out what had happened, I had kinda forgot to pay much attention to the battery symbol... Long story short I've become accustomed to making two days with the Maxx and the Edge will give you one if you don't turn it on, otherwise it will be less. lol No, I'm not kidding. Buy into the Edge and you will likely need to plug in during the day. And yes I've read the reports of people who are doing much better than that but don't by in. My guess is lighter users will make the day most days, medium users will need to plug in somewhere for a few (thank you fast charging) or barely scrape by, heavy users will hang themselves.
The S6 display just flat looks better. I've had the phone since release which is only a week but in that time I've had 3 people comment on the display and no one has ever said one word about the display on the max to me and I've had it since they rolled it out in Brazil. It isn't just the curve, the display is stellar. Easily the best I have seen on a smartphone.
Another thing that flat works better is the camera. Pictures pretty much turn out on the S6 without any effort whatsoever. The camera opens up instantly and can take pictures faster than a person can click. Those pictures stand a ridiculously high chance of being in focus with reasonable color balance and the like. Just excellent, if it wasn't nearly as good as it is it will still be a big improvement over the Maxx.
The performance in the GUI during daily use is very similar to the Maxx. In fact despite what you might read the S6 will hiccup occasionally in the GUI, more so than the Maxx. Yes, I'm saying the Maxx is the smoother device as I type this. I don't believe this will hold out over time as I've owned all but the S5 among the Galaxy devices and they all hugely benefited from getting on the debloated roms.
They say Touchwiz has been slimmed down and it turns out this means that TW has 4 more installed applications than it did on the S5. When you're using the word hundreds to quantify the total number of system apps it cant be good and so it is here, the whole slimmed down Touchwiz thing Sammy has been selling, ummm, nah. It is improved and I actually left it on my phone for 45 minutes or so but honestly the only reason TW doesn't get kicked to the curb by a user is they don't know better.
If you made it this far you've likely read about the nice build quality and this is no lie, sitting next to a cool-aid device it looks to be the more expensive piece of hardware. Sitting next to our phone it evokes a different response to me because they don't appear to be on the same mission. The Edge is like a beautiful woman that you want to get your hands on but you may not want to live with her every day. She is pretty as can be but a little fragile and she has some traits like sides which are so thin they can make your fingers sore before a youtube video is finished which detract from her beauty. The Maxx on the other hand isn't as pretty but she is not so bad either and a lot easier to live with. You might describe it as the woman you want to marry.
So those are my impressions of what stands out enough to mention after a week, obviously this is a lot of subjective information and I think that's the most important thing that comes to my mind when I think of these devices. I still have the device before the Maxx sitting here and it is exactly a year old. Going through the motions of doing its thing in an average day it performs subjectivly every bit as good as the Maxx does. Or the S6. I'm thinking the days of getting a new phone and thinking "Wow! OMG!! This is so much better!" are over. I'm a pathetic old man now and I can afford to play because I don't have debt and almost no bills. I'm thinking the younger version of myself that couldn't say the same would skip the S6.
I'm on the fence on the Edge, I have a few days left to either turn it in and move forward with the Maxx until the fall releases or keep it. I have to give cred to Motorola for producing a device which can stand in and punch with Sammy on their next gen device.

krabman said:
I'm going to throw out a few brief observations here for those who are thinking about the S6 Edge which I picked up at Tmo. I'm currently running that device along with the Moto Maxx.
I missed that bigger battery the day after I bought the Edge and it died. It took me a second to figure out what had happened, I had kinda forgot to pay much attention to the battery symbol... Long story short I've become accustomed to making two days with the Maxx and the Edge will give you one if you don't turn it on, otherwise it will be less. lol No, I'm not kidding. Buy into the Edge and you will likely need to plug in during the day. And yes I've read the reports of people who are doing much better than that but don't by in. My guess is lighter users will make the day most days, medium users will need to plug in somewhere for a few (thank you fast charging) or barely scrape by, heavy users will hang themselves.
The S6 display just flat looks better. I've had the phone since release which is only a week but in that time I've had 3 people comment on the display and no one has ever said one word about the display on the max to me and I've had it since they rolled it out in Brazil. It isn't just the curve, the display is stellar. Easily the best I have seen on a smartphone.
Another thing that flat works better is the camera. Pictures pretty much turn out on the S6 without any effort whatsoever. The camera opens up instantly and can take pictures faster than a person can click. Those pictures stand a ridiculously high chance of being in focus with reasonable color balance and the like. Just excellent, if it wasn't nearly as good as it is it will still be a big improvement over the Maxx.
The performance in the GUI during daily use is very similar to the Maxx. In fact despite what you might read the S6 will hiccup occasionally in the GUI, more so than the Maxx. Yes, I'm saying the Maxx is the smoother device as I type this. I don't believe this will hold out over time as I've owned all but the S5 among the Galaxy devices and they all hugely benefited from getting on the debloated roms.
They say Touchwiz has been slimmed down and it turns out this means that TW has 4 more installed applications than it did on the S5. When you're using the word hundreds to quantify the total number of system apps it cant be good and so it is here, the whole slimmed down Touchwiz thing Sammy has been selling, ummm, nah. It is improved and I actually left it on my phone for 45 minutes or so but honestly the only reason TW doesn't get kicked to the curb by a user is they don't know better.
If you made it this far you've likely read about the nice build quality and this is no lie, sitting next to a cool-aid device it looks to be the more expensive piece of hardware. Sitting next to our phone it evokes a different response to me because they don't appear to be on the same mission. The Edge is like a beautiful woman that you want to get your hands on but you may not want to live with her every day. She is pretty as can be but a little fragile and she has some traits like sides which are so thin they can make your fingers sore before a youtube video is finished which detract from her beauty. The Maxx on the other hand isn't as pretty but she is not so bad either and a lot easier to live with. You might describe it as the woman you want to marry.
So those are my impressions of what stands out enough to mention after a week, obviously this is a lot of subjective information and I think that's the most important thing that comes to my mind when I think of these devices. I still have the device before the Maxx sitting here and it is exactly a year old. Going through the motions of doing its thing in an average day it performs subjectivly every bit as good as the Maxx does. Or the S6. I'm thinking the days of getting a new phone and thinking "Wow! OMG!! This is so much better!" are over. I'm a pathetic old man now and I can afford to play because I don't have debt and almost no bills. I'm thinking the younger version of myself that couldn't say the same would skip the S6.
I'm on the fence on the Edge, I have a few days left to either turn it in and move forward with the Maxx until the fall releases or keep it. I have to give cred to Motorola for producing a device which can stand in and punch with Sammy on their next gen device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the write up. I've been curious about this phone. I too think I am too used to the battery. My only two complaints about the Turbo is the wifi and the camera. I don't think they are big enough to go back to TW though.

Thank you for your feedback, I personally don't envy anything on s6, specs wise, but i like the glass back, like you said, there are for different kind of audience.

Tldr;
I have both the Turbo and and S6 Edge. They are very different phones.
It is silly comparing them, as it is very subjective and depends on your individual needs...
Turbo has much better battery.
The S6 has a better screen (by far), better camera, and is definitely faster. But has TW and MUCH shorter battery life.
No right / wrong answer.

So here's why I'm going with the s6 over the turbo. And it might sound silly but the ecosystem is one of my top reasons. If I want a, let's say case for my turbo. You will find a few. Most from cheap company's and it might be some what attractive. If you want it for the s6. Skys the limit. Walk in to best buy and have a whole section of the store just for the s6. I don't even think you could find something for the turbo at best buy. There are other reasons of course but this is one no one addresses.
And honestly. The build quality of the turbo is not that good. The cheap painted plastic around the rim. The loss power and volume buttons. The moto symbol that is just held in by some weak adhesive. The creaking back cover. I WANTED to love that phone. I just couldn't =(

I was not trying to compare the phones per se, just offering some observations for those holding one in the hand and thinking about making a move to the other. I find these things interesting because these kinds of thoughts from an ordinary user about the things that stand out are a different angle than that from a pro review.
I didn't mention the ecosystem because I think most people who surf this site and are considering trading a fairly new phone for the next thing are probably sluts when it comes to phones (yes, count me in) and they already know that the S6 will have a lot of available accessories and developer support.

krabman said:
I was not trying to compare the phones per se, just offering some observations for those holding one in the hand and thinking about making a move to the other. I find these things interesting because these kinds of thoughts from an ordinary user about the things that stand out are a different angle than that from a pro review.
I didn't mention the ecosystem because I think most people who surf this site and are considering trading a fairly new phone for the next thing are probably sluts when it comes to phones (yes, count me in) and they already know that the S6 will have a lot of available accessories and developer support.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Id you buy Verizon version no, and you never have a aosp rom in exynos device, be aware of that.

No, an ASOP rom may come, one did for the exynos S4 variant as an example, it just wont be very good lol This is one of the good things about having a phone like the S6, Sammy sells so many that the user base is huge and the development for the galaxy line has been very solid for each of the iterations. I don't think there is any reason to expect otherwise here? Still I agree with your point anyways, AOSP if it comes at all will be a long ways out and probably not as good as the stock based roms when not on snapdragon.
I'm not sure what you're asking or saying about Verizon? If you're asking if I am using them, no. I'm on Tmo, I own the Maxx and was using it on both AT&T and Tmo. Its unlikely I would use Verizon and certainly I would not buy one of their locked bootloader devices. I think the folks that read here are for the most part already aware that Verizon and AT&T S6s have locked bootloaders.

always same, no change, samsung no change

Pika71 said:
always same, no change, samsung no change
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Parroting.
Even I recognize the changes and I dislike Samsung.

krabman said:
No, an ASOP rom may come, one did for the exynos S4 variant as an example, it just wont be very good lol This is one of the good things about having a phone like the S6, Sammy sells so many that the user base is huge and the development for the galaxy line has been very solid for each of the iterations. I don't think there is any reason to expect otherwise here? Still I agree with your point anyways, AOSP if it comes at all will be a long ways out and probably not as good as the stock based roms when not on snapdragon.
I'm not sure what you're asking or saying about Verizon? If you're asking if I am using them, no. I'm on Tmo, I own the Maxx and was using it on both AT&T and Tmo. Its unlikely I would use Verizon and certainly I would not buy one of their locked bootloader devices. I think the folks that read here are for the most part already aware that Verizon and AT&T S6s have locked bootloaders.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
cm oficial drop support of exynos variants, never have fully working rom, s5 exynos dont have, note 4 exynos dont have too, i doubt s6 exynos will have a full working aosp

matheus_sc said:
cm oficial drop support of exynos variants, never have fully working rom, s5 exynos dont have, note 4 exynos dont have too, i doubt s6 exynos will have a full working aosp
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
CM isn't the only game out there. Don't get confused with CM vs. AOSP.

I don't get the hype for S6 or S6 Edge with the internet people when some of my customers brought their 3-4 days old s6 edge to trade with Droid Turbo just because of its good battery life and high end specs. We don't actually need to use cases for the Droid Turbo as we need it for any samsung or htc flagship. Our phones are for everyday usage, not made to put gently on the table.
ps : any phone with its manufacturer software will run miles better than any Cyanogenmod release official and unofficial.

matheus_sc said:
cm oficial drop support of exynos variants, never have fully working rom, s5 exynos dont have, note 4 exynos dont have too, i doubt s6 exynos will have a full working aosp
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I haven't been on Exynos since an S4 I imported in from South America to give an octa core a try. No question the Snapdragon variants of the S4 had an easier row to hoe and we on the Exynos saw much less development although more than the average phone. I did not say it will, I said "it may" and you could be right. It isn't really meaningful to this conversation but I doubt I would install an AOSP rom if it were available. I always had far better luck with stock based roms on the Galaxy devices. Faster, more stable, less bugs, etc.

krabman said:
I'm going to throw out a few brief observations here for those who are thinking about the S6 Edge which I picked up at Tmo. I'm currently running that device along with the Moto Maxx.
I missed that bigger battery the day after I bought the Edge and it died. It took me a second to figure out what had happened, I had kinda forgot to pay much attention to the battery symbol... Long story short I've become accustomed to making two days with the Maxx and the Edge will give you one if you don't turn it on, otherwise it will be less. lol No, I'm not kidding. Buy into the Edge and you will likely need to plug in during the day. And yes I've read the reports of people who are doing much better than that but don't by in. My guess is lighter users will make the day most days, medium users will need to plug in somewhere for a few (thank you fast charging) or barely scrape by, heavy users will hang themselves.
The S6 display just flat looks better. I've had the phone since release which is only a week but in that time I've had 3 people comment on the display and no one has ever said one word about the display on the max to me and I've had it since they rolled it out in Brazil. It isn't just the curve, the display is stellar. Easily the best I have seen on a smartphone.
Another thing that flat works better is the camera. Pictures pretty much turn out on the S6 without any effort whatsoever. The camera opens up instantly and can take pictures faster than a person can click. Those pictures stand a ridiculously high chance of being in focus with reasonable color balance and the like. Just excellent, if it wasn't nearly as good as it is it will still be a big improvement over the Maxx.
The performance in the GUI during daily use is very similar to the Maxx. In fact despite what you might read the S6 will hiccup occasionally in the GUI, more so than the Maxx. Yes, I'm saying the Maxx is the smoother device as I type this. I don't believe this will hold out over time as I've owned all but the S5 among the Galaxy devices and they all hugely benefited from getting on the debloated roms.
They say Touchwiz has been slimmed down and it turns out this means that TW has 4 more installed applications than it did on the S5. When you're using the word hundreds to quantify the total number of system apps it cant be good and so it is here, the whole slimmed down Touchwiz thing Sammy has been selling, ummm, nah. It is improved and I actually left it on my phone for 45 minutes or so but honestly the only reason TW doesn't get kicked to the curb by a user is they don't know better.
If you made it this far you've likely read about the nice build quality and this is no lie, sitting next to a cool-aid device it looks to be the more expensive piece of hardware. Sitting next to our phone it evokes a different response to me because they don't appear to be on the same mission. The Edge is like a beautiful woman that you want to get your hands on but you may not want to live with her every day. She is pretty as can be but a little fragile and she has some traits like sides which are so thin they can make your fingers sore before a youtube video is finished which detract from her beauty. The Maxx on the other hand isn't as pretty but she is not so bad either and a lot easier to live with. You might describe it as the woman you want to marry.
So those are my impressions of what stands out enough to mention after a week, obviously this is a lot of subjective information and I think that's the most important thing that comes to my mind when I think of these devices. I still have the device before the Maxx sitting here and it is exactly a year old. Going through the motions of doing its thing in an average day it performs subjectivly every bit as good as the Maxx does. Or the S6. I'm thinking the days of getting a new phone and thinking "Wow! OMG!! This is so much better!" are over. I'm a pathetic old man now and I can afford to play because I don't have debt and almost no bills. I'm thinking the younger version of myself that couldn't say the same would skip the S6.
I'm on the fence on the Edge, I have a few days left to either turn it in and move forward with the Maxx until the fall releases or keep it. I have to give cred to Motorola for producing a device which can stand in and punch with Sammy on their next gen device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Honestly iI will stay with turbo until 2nd gen of turbo comes out. I have faith Motorola will make it much better than galaxy s6 and the ffirst gen. Also the s6 and s6 edge both use Samsung's own cpu which is not as supported as a Snapdragon.

motodeveloper3800 said:
Honestly iI will stay with turbo until 2nd gen of turbo comes out. I have faith Motorola will make it much better than galaxy s6 and the ffirst gen. Also the s6 and s6 edge both use Samsung's own cpu which is not as supported as a Snapdragon.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not supported as a Snapdragon means little on Verizon. It doesn't make a difference if you cannot root and unlock the bootloader.

adrynalyne said:
Not supported as a Snapdragon means little on Verizon. It doesn't make a difference if you cannot root and unlock the bootloader.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I should've been more specific. What I was saying is that most app developers develop for qualcomm snapdragon line of processors. The s6 should face the same problem as the nexus 9 because they use lesser used chip which gives limited apps. GTA won't play on nexus 9 because of chip and either developers will have to put effort into making exynos versions of their apps(which is their choice and if they will benefit will decide this)or stay in the snapdragon highway and not risk/waste anyhting.

motodeveloper3800 said:
I should've been more specific. What I was saying is that most app developers develop for qualcomm snapdragon line of processors. The s6 should face the same problem as the nexus 9 because they use lesser used chip which gives limited apps. GTA won't play on nexus 9 because of chip and either developers will have to put effort into making exynos versions of their apps(which is their choice and if they will benefit will decide this)or stay in the snapdragon highway and not risk/waste anyhting.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Most app developers don't target a specific CPU unless its a root app, and then that just refers back to my original comment.
I doubt there is anything specific stopping GTA from working on the Nexus9. Did you try sideloading it?
Or are you referring to something like this?
http://androidforums.com/threads/nexus-9-bugs-app-compatibility-issues-discussion.879365/
http://www.reddit.com/r/Nexus5/comments/2mmz66/question_gta_vice_city_and_lollipop/
That appears to be more of a Lollipop issue to me, considering that the Nexus 7 was also reported not to work in that thread and a couple other snapdragon devices were mentioned in the second.

adrynalyne said:
Most app developers don't target a specific CPU unless its a root app, and then that just refers back to my original comment.
I doubt there is anything specific stopping GTA from working on the Nexus9. Did you try sideloading it?
Or are you referring to something like this?
That appears to be more of a Lollipop issue to me, considering that the Nexus 7 was also reported not to work in that thread and a couple other snapdragon devices were
mentioned in the second.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No vice city does work for me but San Andrea's doesn't and many reviews on either the s6 or n9 state that app compatibility is ok but a few won't work because of different processors. Most app developers develop for snapdragon cpus as exynos has only reached certain areas and is not the default cpu in the galaxy line.. You can search reviews and many users experience this problem.

I feel like we will never agree on this, but I will drop this off here for your perusal:
https://www.google.com/webhp?source...&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=youtube exynos san andreas

Note 4 or LG G4?

Hi Guys,
I know I am bound to face some bias here, since this is a Note 4 forum, but I am owner of an LG G4, previously G3 and Note 2 and 3, but have also bought a Note 4. Now, of course, I should just sell my LG G4, which I happen to like very, very much. I just can't stand the less than 3 hours screen on time, and am longing for some AMOLED, larger screen, and finger-print scanner goodness on the Note 4.
Still, before I sell away my G4, thought I'd post here and get some of your experiences/opinions on this topic, especially if you have by any chance made the same decision as me?
Thanks in advance for all your advice!

I have had both since June, and honestly it's a tough call. I really like that the G4 is fully up to date, and has Stagefright patched, and overall feels much faster and snappier than the Note 4 after deleting carrier bloat. It's also smaller and lighter and sits in the hand better for me. The only thing I like about the Note 4 is the bigger and AMOLED screen (much better colors to me plus no on-screen navigation taking up space). Also, the G4 camera does better in low light - it captures more detail. With the spare battery, the G4 is fine for me, as I always carried a spare battery for my Note 4, too.

siraltus said:
I have had both since June, and honestly it's a tough call. I really like that the G4 is fully up to date, and has Stagefright patched, and overall feels much faster and snappier than the Note 4 after deleting carrier bloat. It's also smaller and lighter and sits in the hand better for me. The only thing I like about the Note 4 is the bigger and AMOLED screen (much better colors to me plus no on-screen navigation taking up space). Also, the G4 camera does better in low light - it captures more detail. With the spare battery, the G4 is fine for me, as I always carried a spare battery for my Note 4, too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Gotcha, thanks for chiming in bud! Have you rooted and custom ROM'd your Note 4? Wondering if that upped the performance on it, like the G4? I know Stagefright is also patched in Custom ROMs? Thanks again for your help!

ProFragger said:
Gotcha, thanks for chiming in bud! Have you rooted and custom ROM'd your Note 4? Wondering if that upped the performance on it, like the G4? I know Stagefright is also patched in Custom ROMs? Thanks again for your help!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh yeah, I'm on rooted, deodexed OG2 (5.0.1) ROM on T-Mobile, all bloatware deleted. It's fast, but not as fast as the G4. I'm sure that once 5.1.1 finally drops for it, whenever that will be, it will be as snappy as the G4, because people who got 5.1.1 (Sprint, and various international variants) report the performance improves vastly with the update.
Stagefright is not automatically patched in custom ROMs as they are based on the unpatched Samsung software, unless the ROM is AOSP/Cyanogen-based as far as I know. But maybe I'm wrong.

I currently own both. Staring at them right now and I can't decide which one to sell. I love them both because they each offer something different that the other doesn't. I am currently using my G4 because refreshing to hold. One of the most comfortable phones I have ever used. The other reason I'm using the G4 right now is because of battery life. Don't know what it is, but the G4 lasts a heck of a lot longer than the Note 4, bone stock and rooted. That's the one thing LG has always been good at, battery life. I remember when I had a G Pro that lasted 2 months on standby just sitting there with wifi and bluetooth on, emails were syncing and everything. Took 2 months to die. My G4 was up for 2 days straight last week when I got it and I got 5hrs of screen time. No video watching, just mostly work, texting, school(Schoology) and XDA.

siraltus said:
Oh yeah, I'm on rooted, deodexed OG2 (5.0.1) ROM on T-Mobile, all bloatware deleted. It's fast, but not as fast as the G4. I'm sure that once 5.1.1 finally drops for it, whenever that will be, it will be as snappy as the G4, because people who got 5.1.1 (Sprint, and various international variants) report the performance improves vastly with the update.
Stagefright is not automatically patched in custom ROMs as they are based on the unpatched Samsung software, unless the ROM is AOSP/Cyanogen-based as far as I know. But maybe I'm wrong.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know I am the noob to this community, but fairly certain, the 910T3 firmware especially comes with Android 5.1.1 Stock. I could be wrong though?
Jammol said:
I currently own both. Staring at them right now and I can't decide which one to sell. I love them both because they each offer something different that the other doesn't. I am currently using my G4 because refreshing to hold. One of the most comfortable phones I have ever used. The other reason I'm using the G4 right now is because of battery life. Don't know what it is, but the G4 lasts a heck of a lot longer than the Note 4, bone stock and rooted. That's the one thing LG has always been good at, battery life. I remember when I had a G Pro that lasted 2 months on standby just sitting there with wifi and bluetooth on, emails were syncing and everything. Took 2 months to die. My G4 was up for 2 days straight last week when I got it and I got 5hrs of screen time. No video watching, just mostly work, texting, school(Schoology) and XDA.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Jammol - Thank you for your response. I love my G4 in form factor and also looks too, I've got the Leather Back model. But my battery life is nowhere near what you said. On the G3, it was stock, debloated, Greenified, and I still could barely hit 4 hours of SOT. On the G4, rooted, debloated, not Greenified, I am barely able to hit 2.5 hours of SOT, and that is WITHOUT gaming, extensive videos and etc. Just WiFi most of the day and long conference calls for work. Example today: 5.5 hours on battery, 4 hours of calls, 1 hour 16 minutes SOT, WiFi, and no videos, I am at 51% already! Care to share your model/variant and battery set up?
Also, you forgot to mention the upside of your Note 4 ? Care to comment on it's performance and etc compared to the G4? Thanks!

ProFragger said:
I know I am the noob to this community, but fairly certain, the 910T3 firmware especially comes with Android 5.1.1 Stock. I could be wrong though?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
True, and there is a "hybrid" 5.1.1 ROM that you can theoretically use on the T variant, but I don't know how stable/reliable it is, given the baseband and bootloader are different.
Pesronally, I only run deodexed stock ROMs that I modify myself to my liking, as I don't like all the extra garbage and ****ty themes that most XDA devs bake into their ROMs, so I'm **** out of luck until Samsung releases the official 5.1.1 update for the T variant.
EDIT: Apparently I am out of the loop. There is Xposed for Samsung for 5.1.1 now: http://forum.xda-developers.com/xposed/unofficial-xposed-samsung-lollipop-t3180960

siraltus said:
True, and there is a "hybrid" 5.1.1 ROM that you can theoretically use on the T variant, but I don't know how stable/reliable it is, given the baseband and bootloader are different.
Pesronally, I only run deodexed stock ROMs that I modify myself to my liking, as I don't like all the extra garbage and ****ty themes that most XDA devs bake into their ROMs, so I'm **** out of luck until Samsung releases the official 5.1.1 update for the T variant.
Plus, there is no Xposed for 5.1.1 on Samsung devices, which is a deal-breaker for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am super "noob" confused, @siraltus - I thought 910T3 comes with Official 5.1.1 from T-Mobile US/Sammy and TEKXodous comes with Xposed 5.1.1 installer, no?

ProFragger said:
I am super "noob" confused, @siraltus - I thought 910T3 comes with Official 5.1.1 from T-Mobile US/Sammy and TEKXodous comes with Xposed 5.1.1 installer, no?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, T3 comes with 5.1.1, but there is no offical 5.1.1 update for the regular T (not T3) variants, so we can only run a "hacked port" of 5.1.1 taken from the T3. The official update would include a T-variant baseband, bootloader, and other firmware bits (sbin, tz, etc.) that the phone needs matched up to the ROM version for trouble-free performance, the baseband being the most important.
As for Xposed, you're right - http://forum.xda-developers.com/xposed/unofficial-xposed-samsung-lollipop-t3180960 I had no idea.

ProFragger said:
I know I am the noob to this community, but fairly certain, the 910T3 firmware especially comes with Android 5.1.1 Stock. I could be wrong though?
Jammol - Thank you for your response. I love my G4 in form factor and also looks too, I've got the Leather Back model. But my battery life is nowhere near what you said. On the G3, it was stock, debloated, Greenified, and I still could barely hit 4 hours of SOT. On the G4, rooted, debloated, not Greenified, I am barely able to hit 2.5 hours of SOT, and that is WITHOUT gaming, extensive videos and etc. Just WiFi most of the day and long conference calls for work. Example today: 5.5 hours on battery, 4 hours of calls, 1 hour 16 minutes SOT, WiFi, and no videos, I am at 51% already! Care to share your model/variant and battery set up?
Also, you forgot to mention the upside of your Note 4 ? Care to comment on it's performance and etc compared to the G4? Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I touch the Note 4 first:
I love it, I really do, but for me when a dev has to release a custom Rom to fix stupid little bugs, that's a huge turn off for me. TekHD Roms are the best so far for the Note 4 and that's what I run. I love my SPen, though I don't use it every single day; I do use it for 2 weeks straight every quarter because of my job. Beats walking around with my laptop or tablet getting readings from machines. AMOLED; I don't get the hype about the blacks. I'm black and I don't even like the colour black that much(LOL, that was a pun). The screen is indeed beautiful and I love it to death, but there's something about an LCD screen that just tickles my pickle!(another one). Last but not least...the amount of Roms; DAMN!
G4:
I think it's your calls that are killing your battery. I have the T-Mobile 8511 version and I turned off VoLTE/HD Voice. It kills battery so bad when you're on a call. I was losing 5% battery for just a 10-15 minute phone call with my wife. That's ridiculous so I turned it off. I am running stock rooted, no bloat removed(there really isn't any), and I use most of LG's apps that are on there. I was using xposed at one point but that was also affecting my battery so I got rid of it.

siraltus said:
Yes, T3 comes with 5.1.1, but there is no offical 5.1.1 update for the regular T (not T3) variants, so we can only run a "hacked port" of 5.1.1 taken from the T3. The official update would include a T-variant baseband, bootloader, and other firmware bits (sbin, tz, etc.) that the phone needs matched up to the ROM version for trouble-free performance, the baseband being the most important.
As for Xposed, you're right - http://forum.xda-developers.com/xposed/unofficial-xposed-samsung-lollipop-t3180960 I had no idea.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's interesting bud... I haven't run across any threads saying that people are having trouble with the T variant phones on 5.1.1, maybe you've seen some? Otherwise, I am really not even sure which variant is "better" or to hope for tomorrow when I finally get the phone in hand ! Some say the T3 has a better GPS and feels smoother... I wonder if it's just big time placebo effect? Haha!
Jammol said:
I touch the Note 4 first:
I love it, I really do, but for me when a dev has to release a custom Rom to fix stupid little bugs, that's a huge turn off for me. TekHD Roms are the best so far for the Note 4 and that's what I run. I love my SPen, though I don't use it every single day; I do use it for 2 weeks straight every quarter because of my job. Beats walking around with my laptop or tablet getting readings from machines. AMOLED; I don't get the hype about the blacks. I'm black and I don't even like the colour black that much(LOL, that was a pun). The screen is indeed beautiful and I love it to death, but there's something about an LCD screen that just tickles my pickle!(another one). Last but not least...the amount of Roms; DAMN!
G4:
I think it's your calls that are killing your battery. I have the T-Mobile 8511 version and I turned off VoLTE/HD Voice. It kills battery so bad when you're on a call. I was losing 5% battery for just a 10-15 minute phone call with my wife. That's ridiculous so I turned it off. I am running stock rooted, no bloat removed(there really isn't any), and I use most of LG's apps that are on there. I was using xposed at one point but that was also affecting my battery so I got rid of it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Jammol, first of all, really funny response bud! I like a man who is able to take things lightly and joke around :good:! @TEKHD ROMs look like they absolutely, by far have the most users as demonstrated by it's Views and Responses! But, it's also possibly the most complicated ROM thread I have ever seen ! I really love the @TEKHD 's hard work, thank you friend! But I am not sure if it's the ROM for my needs, which, light, battery life, and just need enough tweaks to turn the Status Bar icon to Red, and change Toggle colors, and super bonus if Dialer could be black and red, and I am set! Wonder what kind of AnTuTu scores people get on that ROM?
Reading through, seems like Rapture maybe the best fit for my needs, but I just don't know. Care to share your experiences on different ROMs if you have tried those?
About the G4, I don't think AT&T offers VoLTE, but even if they do, I don't see an option to turn it off in the phone. Not to mention, how would it be working with my data off, any way?
Thanks again for your valuable input!

ProFragger said:
That's interesting bud... I haven't run across any threads saying that people are having trouble with the T variant phones on 5.1.1, maybe you've seen some? Otherwise, I am really not even sure which variant is "better" or to hope for tomorrow when I finally get the phone in hand ! Some say the T3 has a better GPS and feels smoother... I wonder if it's just big time placebo effect? Haha!
Jammol, first of all, really funny response bud! I like a man who is able to take things lightly and joke around :good:! @TEKHD ROMs look like they absolutely, by far have the most users as demonstrated by it's Views and Responses! But, it's also possibly the most complicated ROM thread I have ever seen ! I really love the @TEKHD 's hard work, thank you friend! But I am not sure if it's the ROM for my needs, which, light, battery life, and just need enough tweaks to turn the Status Bar icon to Red, and change Toggle colors, and super bonus if Dialer could be black and red, and I am set! Wonder what kind of AnTuTu scores people get on that ROM?
Reading through, seems like Rapture maybe the best fit for my needs, but I just don't know. Care to share your experiences on different ROMs if you have tried those?
About the G4, I don't think AT&T offers VoLTE, but even if they do, I don't see an option to turn it off in the phone. Not to mention, how would it be working with my data off, any way?
Thanks again for your valuable input!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can I ask how come you turn off your data?
I've tried a lot of the other Roms as well but I always went back to Tek's Rom. He does have a very little customized one for the T and T3 models. It's pretty much stock with just a few tweaks to it. I've tried DynamicKat and Pop, both are really awesome but the customization is rather small on the Pop version. Rapture is already also pretty good as well as PopRocks. When it comes to AOSP/CM, I always went with CM12.1 or XenonHD which is AOSP but with a few CM tweaks.

Jammol said:
Can I ask how come you turn off your data?
I've tried a lot of the other Roms as well but I always went back to Tek's Rom. He does have a very little customized one for the T and T3 models. It's pretty much stock with just a few tweaks to it. I've tried DynamicKat and Pop, both are really awesome but the customization is rather small on the Pop version. Rapture is already also pretty good as well as PopRocks. When it comes to AOSP/CM, I always went with CM12.1 or XenonHD which is AOSP but with a few CM tweaks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I turn off data because: I am on WiFi, don't have unlimited data, and when not using data, I like to turn off the data radios to save power. Would you agree those are good reasons to turn it off?
I am so tempted to start off with Tek's ROM on my Note 4, but let's see what variant I end up with. What kind of screen on time's have you seen with the Note 4 and which ROM and Battery saving set ups? Some people hear swear by 5+ hours of SOT which would be a dream for me!

ProFragger said:
That's interesting bud... I haven't run across any threads saying that people are having trouble with the T variant phones on 5.1.1, maybe you've seen some? Otherwise, I am really not even sure which variant is "better" or to hope for tomorrow when I finally get the phone in hand ! Some say the T3 has a better GPS and feels smoother... I wonder if it's just big time placebo effect? Haha!4
Thanks again for your valuable input!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The T3 variant most likely exists because Samsung changed suppliers for one of the key parts, like the display controller, power management, or one of the radio chips (WiFi, Bluetooth, etc.) which required a separate version of the OS (different drivers, configuration). They did this with the Note 3 before - units manufactured after May 2014 had a different display controller chip that broke things like brightness control in custom ROMs and TWRP.
Functionally, they're most assuredly identical. I have had two T variants, one manufactured October 2014 and one manufactured April 2015 and my GPS has been rock-solid on both, so not sure why people are having issues. The T3 feels smoother not because it's a T3, but because it's running 5.1.1. People who had their international variants and Sprint variants updated to 5.1.1 reported it was much smoother after the update as well.

siraltus said:
The T3 variant most likely exists because Samsung changed suppliers for one of the key parts, like the display controller, power management, or one of the radio chips (WiFi, Bluetooth, etc.) which required a separate version of the OS (different drivers, configuration). They did this with the Note 3 before - units manufactured after May 2014 had a different display controller chip that broke things like brightness control in custom ROMs and TWRP.
Functionally, they're most assuredly identical. I have had two T variants, one manufactured October 2014 and one manufactured April 2015 and my GPS has been rock-solid on both, so not sure why people are having issues. The T3 feels smoother not because it's a T3, but because it's running 5.1.1. People who had their international variants and Sprint variants updated to 5.1.1 reported it was much smoother after the update as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the education again, bud. I can't believe the T variant folks haven't freaked out at T-Mobile yet for the lack of 5.1.1 upgrade! Wonder if ATT and sprint have given in their's?

I had this dilemma as well. When my wife broke her s4, I went and got g4 for her (she is a big fan of removable battery, so s6 was not considered, s5 did not make sense, and note is too big). I must say, i fell in love with it once I started setting it up and played with it for a bit. I liked it so much, that I got one myself 2 days later to replace my Note 3. And it was really great, I cannot complain. But. Ended up using Jump and getting Note 4.
So in my case:
- G4 has a great form factor. REALLY comfy to hold. 5.5 seems to be a sweet spot, still big but not too big. Slightly curved shape was great. +1 for g4
- camera is hands down better then N4. Its simply amazing. Manual mode blew my mind. Cant say enough about it. +1 for g4
- g4 felt really fluid. Stock, as is, without screwing with it. Has much less bloat. Happened to love UI a lot, its classier, for a lack of a better word (totally subjective of course). Loved the knock code functionality. N4 has fingerprint scanner, but one-hand unlock is really awkward and difficult in real-life use, so I have it turned off. Now that 5.1 is available for n4, things are better for sure, and there are custom roms star popping up, but if you compare phones as is, out of the box, again, +1 for g4
- Screen/picture quality. Using Sammys phones exclusively for last 5 years (starting from original galaxy), I am too spoiled by super amoled. as great as g4 LCD dispaly is, I found myself missing that extra "pop". +1 for n4
- battery life is not in a same league as n3/n4. By significant and noticable margin. Plus virtually no power saving functionality in OS. +1 for n4
- Sound quality better on N4 to my ears, lot of other people seem to feel this way as well. Also Samsung professional audio makes things like iRig for guitar possible. +1 for n4
- Dedicated vs. on-screen buttons. I am a huge fan of good ol' Home key and I am used to it a lot. +1 for N4
- Multitasking. Even though g4 has it, it has nothing on TW, especially on LP iteration of it, with a swap from a corner. +1 for N4
- I personally did not find myself missing s-pen a lot, but I suppose its still a +1 for N4
So, ultimately, better battery life, better screen/colors, better sound and to a lesser gegree physical keys/multitasking made me go back to Note. Miss G4 camera a lot though.)
Sent from my SM-N910T3 using XDA Free mobile app

ProFragger said:
I turn off data because: I am on WiFi, don't have unlimited data, and when not using data, I like to turn off the data radios to save power. Would you agree those are good reasons to turn it off?
I am so tempted to start off with Tek's ROM on my Note 4, but let's see what variant I end up with. What kind of screen on time's have you seen with the Note 4 and which ROM and Battery saving set ups? Some people hear swear by 5+ hours of SOT which would be a dream for me!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Was just curious why you turned it off. That's a good thing to do to save battery. I recommend using Tek's Rom most definitely. I noticed you said let's see what variant you end up with; are you referring to T-Mobile T and T3 or carrier variants? Definitely go with T-Mobile because of the Roms.
Tek's Roms come with the Emotion Kernel. I always use Synapse to tweak the settings to balance out performance and battery. Right now I'm using Intelliactive; sleeps like a baby.
I see someone posted that the G4 has no battery saving settings. That's totally negative. You can turn on battery saver to kick in at 15% or higher than that. Sorry but the G4 lasts a lot longer than the N4 on pure stock no mods on both.
Functionality: Note 4(SPen)
Longevity: G4.
Camera: G4
Roms: Note 4(for now as G4 community is very small at the moment)
Performance: Both
Temperature: G4(BY FAR. Stays way cooler than the Note 4)
This is all based on Stock.
Update: I decided I'm going to take my G4 back to T-Mobile; not because anything is wrong with it and I don't like it, but because I rather have the money. Looking back on my post here I realized I really just got it because I wanted to scratch an itch of having a new device. Started using my Note 4 again starting yesterday and man I did miss it, even if I gotta charge it up before the end of the day! Lol. I'm a very impulsive person when it comes to smartphones, it's the only thing I don't mind shelling out a ton of money for but then later I think back about the amount of money and just would rather have it. I can always borrow my wife's and use hers for a few days if I get the itch.

Most def Note4

Note 4 is the right choice.
Sent from my SM-N910T using Tapatalk

nib said:
I had this dilemma as well. When my wife broke her s4, I went and got g4 for her (she is a big fan of removable battery, so s6 was not considered, s5 did not make sense, and note is too big). I must say, i fell in love with it once I started setting it up and played with it for a bit. I liked it so much, that I got one myself 2 days later to replace my Note 3. And it was really great, I cannot complain. But. Ended up using Jump and getting Note 4.
So in my case:
- G4 has a great form factor. REALLY comfy to hold. 5.5 seems to be a sweet spot, still big but not too big. Slightly curved shape was great. +1 for g4
- camera is hands down better then N4. Its simply amazing. Manual mode blew my mind. Cant say enough about it. +1 for g4
- g4 felt really fluid. Stock, as is, without screwing with it. Has much less bloat. Happened to love UI a lot, its classier, for a lack of a better word (totally subjective of course). Loved the knock code functionality. N4 has fingerprint scanner, but one-hand unlock is really awkward and difficult in real-life use, so I have it turned off. Now that 5.1 is available for n4, things are better for sure, and there are custom roms star popping up, but if you compare phones as is, out of the box, again, +1 for g4
- Screen/picture quality. Using Sammys phones exclusively for last 5 years (starting from original galaxy), I am too spoiled by super amoled. as great as g4 LCD dispaly is, I found myself missing that extra "pop". +1 for n4
- battery life is not in a same league as n3/n4. By significant and noticable margin. Plus virtually no power saving functionality in OS. +1 for n4
- Sound quality better on N4 to my ears, lot of other people seem to feel this way as well. Also Samsung professional audio makes things like iRig for guitar possible. +1 for n4
- Dedicated vs. on-screen buttons. I am a huge fan of good ol' Home key and I am used to it a lot. +1 for N4
- Multitasking. Even though g4 has it, it has nothing on TW, especially on LP iteration of it, with a swap from a corner. +1 for N4
- I personally did not find myself missing s-pen a lot, but I suppose its still a +1 for N4
So, ultimately, better battery life, better screen/colors, better sound and to a lesser gegree physical keys/multitasking made me go back to Note. Miss G4 camera a lot though.)
Sent from my SM-N910T3 using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great analysis and break down Sir, and I mostly agree. I think for now, I will move on from the G4, and perhaps return to LG with the V10.
Jammol said:
Was just curious why you turned it off. That's a good thing to do to save battery. I recommend using Tek's Rom most definitely. I noticed you said let's see what variant you end up with; are you referring to T-Mobile T and T3 or carrier variants? Definitely go with T-Mobile because of the Roms.
Tek's Roms come with the Emotion Kernel. I always use Synapse to tweak the settings to balance out performance and battery. Right now I'm using Intelliactive; sleeps like a baby.
I see someone posted that the G4 has no battery saving settings. That's totally negative. You can turn on battery saver to kick in at 15% or higher than that. Sorry but the G4 lasts a lot longer than the N4 on pure stock no mods on both.
Functionality: Note 4(SPen)
Longevity: G4.
Camera: G4
Roms: Note 4(for now as G4 community is very small at the moment)
Performance: Both
Temperature: G4(BY FAR. Stays way cooler than the Note 4)
This is all based on Stock.
Update: I decided I'm going to take my G4 back to T-Mobile; not because anything is wrong with it and I don't like it, but because I rather have the money. Looking back on my post here I realized I really just got it because I wanted to scratch an itch of having a new device. Started using my Note 4 again starting yesterday and man I did miss it, even if I gotta charge it up before the end of the day! Lol. I'm a very impulsive person when it comes to smartphones, it's the only thing I don't mind shelling out a ton of money for but then later I think back about the amount of money and just would rather have it. I can always borrow my wife's and use hers for a few days if I get the itch.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks again buddy. I must be doing something wrong with Synapse, but whenever I try to overclock the phone, somehow, tried many different Governors like Lionheart, Performance and etc, the settings go right back to normal. Do you know what I am doing wrong?

G2 still relevant and, if not, what are the alternatives?

Not sure if this fits the forum but I don't know where else to post this question.
I like my G2 for the big screen on a compact size but it is getting old. Battery isn't what it use to be although it still has great battery life. I'm getting a bit of lag and sometimes stuff won't work for some reason... alarm failed on me a couple of times and I can't replicate the issue, not sure if it was user error but I suspect it wasn't. It's an AT&T G2 running Android 5.0.2
So was thinking that maybe it was time for a new one but here comes my problem... all the good phones I get recommended are huuuuge!! The G2 is very slightly over my size limit already, making it usable with a single hand but sometimes I already have a tough time using it that way, I'll have to move it on my hand a different way to reach something on the very edge of the screen. New phones like the G4 also seem to have worst battery life, having bigger screens with higher resolutions but the same MAH capacity.
I've just seen there are newer Android versions for this phone, including Marshmallow via CyanogenMod. So, is there a phone with similar size, screen and battery life as the G2 or should I try to hang on to it a bit longer? Or just forget about this and get a newer one and get used to it? Maybe a Nexus 6p, seems like a good battery life phone and going pure Android would be nice after spending this much time with a US carrier phone that isn't supported here in Portugal...
Thanks!

S6 got exactly same size(even more slim) with G2 with better cpu, camera, design and screen. However, battery probably won't be as good.

TheEndHK said:
S6 got exactly same size(even more slim) with G2 with better cpu, camera, design and screen. However, battery probably won't be as good.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, I thought about that one. Would mean a different sort of use because I know that the battery life is pretty bad comparing it to the G2 but I believe it has fast charge, so....

Kutusov said:
Yes, I thought about that one. Would mean a different sort of use because I know that the battery life is pretty bad comparing it to the G2 but I believe it has fast charge, so....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To be honest, all octa-core cpu isn't battery friendly as SD800/SD801 and Exynos 7420 is already better than SD810/808 and MTK x10 in terms of battery life. S7 got 450mAh more battery but according to leaked info it also a bit bigger than S6 in size.

TheEndHK said:
To be honest, all octa-core cpu isn't battery friendly as SD800/SD801 and Exynos 7420 is already better than SD810/808 and MTK x10 in terms of battery life. S7 got 450mAh more battery but according to leaked info it also a bit bigger than S6 in size.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Had to Google Exynos as I think my tech stuff knowledge stopped at around the Galaxy S1 or S2. Bought a new PC on xmas and had to ask for a straight out recommendation on the store, like "So, from all of these PCs, which one is the best?" (suprise, suprise, the answer was the more expensive one... )
I don't know... I think I'll try flashing something like CyanogenMod and try dragging it a bit more. Maybe what I'm looking for on a phone is now buried in some midtier lineup, I don't know. I bought this one from a friend in an emergency after drowning my HTC OneX in the ocean and I still love it. Liked HTC's Sense a lot more than this LG UI but bigger screen on a similar size phone and tons more of battery life trumps it all.
Uhm, now that I wrote that, "biggest battery life android phone" is a good place for me to start googling. I really don't care about a ton of features or ultra quick cpus if you end up needing to have it always plugged to the wall.

Check out gsmarena they have a good battery checker page for most phones.
The G2 compares well to a lot of the newer more expensive phones.
Sent from my LG-D802 using Tapatalk

Treboeth said:
Check out gsmarena they have a good battery checker page for most phones.
The G2 compares well to a lot of the newer more expensive phones.
Sent from my LG-D802 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for that, knew the site but never had seen that tool! Very helpful! Galaxy S6 Active is always mentioned as one of the best ones but it came up with a Xiaomi Redmi 3 also, which I never heard about and assume it's some Chinese brand. 4200mah battery if specs are to be trusted and a quad-core 616, which should save on juice as TheEndHK was saying.
Right, at least now I have some pointers from where to look around. Thanks guys!

Kutusov said:
Thanks for that, knew the site but never had seen that tool! Very helpful! Galaxy S6 Active is always mentioned as one of the best ones but it came up with a Xiaomi Redmi 3 also, which I never heard about and assume it's some Chinese brand. 4200mah battery if specs are to be trusted and a quad-core 616, which should save on juice as TheEndHK was saying.
Right, at least now I have some pointers from where to look around. Thanks guys!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Regular single sim model of S6 got CM12.1 on xda board, not sure about S6 Active though. Redmi3 is only 720P screen and I've just played around with SD615 last week on other phone, the speed is real low compared to SD800 or 7420. SD615/616 is just a slightly faster clocked of SD410. There is no real alternative other than S6 as of now.

TheEndHK said:
Regular single sim model of S6 got CM12.1 on xda board, not sure about S6 Active though. Redmi3 is only 720P screen and I've just played around with SD615 last week on other phone, the speed is real low compared to SD800 or 7420. SD615/616 is just a slightly faster clocked of SD410. There is no real alternative other than S6 as of now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, the S6 is not an option for me, battery life is way too short and I find myself away from a wall plug too often to be comfortable with such a device. But that sort of answers my question... Yes, the G2 is still very relevant, at least until flagship phones start coming out in normal person's sizes
I'll just flash CyanogenMod13 when a stable version becomes available and see what else comes out. I find it hard to believe that it will take long before one company figures out that it's all very well to come up with big, impressive screen flagship phone but a lot of people don't want to cart around a phablet. Something to compete directly with the one hand handling of an Iphone 6s (or whatever the smaller and latest iphone name is).

You better start flashing as we already have a few MM ROMs for our G2
CM13,AICP,Bliss,Crdroid, ResurrectionRemix all are IMO daily drivers.
Sent from my LG-D802 using Tapatalk

Treboeth said:
You better start flashing as we already have a few MM ROMs for our G2
CM13,AICP,Bliss,Crdroid, ResurrectionRemix all are IMO daily drivers.
Sent from my LG-D802 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I saw the Bliss one and seemed like stable enough. CM13 is still a Nightly release, so I'm a bit scared to try that one yet. I'm not all that into highly customized or customizable roms, I prefer reliability and the closest to stock and simplicity. Oh, and solid support and OTA supports would be nice... any ROM in particular I should look into, giving these preferences? (...long time since I flashed a phone, I glanced through the development threads and it was pretty much gibberish to me )

Well CM13 is the base for them all and if you only flash builds from 2 or 3 days before( flash the 20160207 for example) you have the most recent without being on the edge.
I like AICP(I like customising my ROM)and CM13 as well.
I find it fairly easy to flash different ROMs so hop between them
Sent from my LG-D802 using Tapatalk

Kutusov said:
Well, the S6 is not an option for me, battery life is way too short and I find myself away from a wall plug too often to be comfortable with such a device. But that sort of answers my question... Yes, the G2 is still very relevant, at least until flagship phones start coming out in normal person's sizes
I'll just flash CyanogenMod13 when a stable version becomes available and see what else comes out. I find it hard to believe that it will take long before one company figures out that it's all very well to come up with big, impressive screen flagship phone but a lot of people don't want to cart around a phablet. Something to compete directly with the one hand handling of an Iphone 6s (or whatever the smaller and latest iphone name is).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Battery life isn't such worst in my case. I've got S6 and Z5c dual flagships now (considering to sell out either one indeed), their battery is just identical. The real problem on S6 got poor memory management and during heavy multi-tasking the apps at background will keep reloading to waste extra battery, light to medium user like me should be fine. The battery and memory management been fixed on 6.01 and international model of 920F/925F just started to roll out Marshmallow today in Poland.
However, if your G2 is in good condition and still satisfied with the camera and don't care about Marshmallow. I don't see much points to leave G2.

TheEndHK said:
However, if your G2 is in good condition and still satisfied with the camera and don't care about Marshmallow. I don't see much points to leave G2.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I hear Marshmallow should greatly improve battery life on any phone, so I do care about that. I think the problems you mentioned for the S6 also happen to certain extent on the G2, I know I used to have battery for significantly longer when I had it on Jelly Bean. But could also be the case of a fresher battery or a lighter usage, I do use it more nowadays.
Camera was always pretty bad IMO. Hardware might be good but the how it encodes the picture just messes everything in most situations. I would like it to do a better job but it's not something that will determine me letting go of a phone. I would never own an Iphone unless I went full Apple but I'm yet to see an Android doing a better job with pictures than an Iphone. And it's not the lens, I'm pretty sure it's the IOS...
But yes, I think I'll stick with this G2 for a little longer. Somethings are starting to give in but maybe I can drag it enough until I come across a phone that gives me some confidence. Besides, I really got used to those buttons on the back Thought they were nonsense the first day I used it but now I would hate to go back to Samsung or HTC way of doing things!

Credit to LG - I also have the G2 and have given up finding a replacement for it. Will wait till it dies then find something less satisfactory. Samsung are bloated and have major battery issues so I wouldn't buy one.

jasminder said:
Credit to LG - I also have the G2 and have given up finding a replacement for it. Will wait till it dies then find something less satisfactory. Samsung are bloated and have major battery issues so I wouldn't buy one.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I ended up getting an S7 and I'm very pleased with it. UI has been greatly de-bloated, battery life is great. The other phone I considered at the time I bought it was the just released Huawei P9. Got a P9 Lite for my father the other day and, after playing with it, even the Lite is a fantastic phone.
LG hasn't been great... the G2 was a beast at the time but every other one was a big fail. G4 had a manufacturing problem on the motherboard that affected something like 90% of the phones and most would die within 6 months. Took them forever to admit and fix the problem,

jasminder said:
Credit to LG - I also have the G2 and have given up finding a replacement for it. Will wait till it dies then find something less satisfactory. Samsung are bloated and have major battery issues so I wouldn't buy one.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I went from G2 to G3.
When the screen went bad on the G3, I got a warranty replacement and sold that.
Now I have an Octa Core version Note 4 and another G2 as a backup.
The Note 4 Octa core is a huge upgrade from the G2 and is coming down price wise vs. newer Samsung's yet delivers similar performance removable battery and Micro SD card.
I'd look at that or the new One Plus 3T which is also good too

tiguy99 said:
I'd look at that or the new One Plus 3T which is also good too
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would also seriously consider that one too if I was in the market for a new phone. Sounds a bit like Apple with their "S" versions, they seem to have improved and fixed the negatives on that one.

G2 works really well and smooth for me except I have an occasional reboot out of nowhere. IDK what's causing it, it's stock rooted ROM.
If you're looking for a new phone recommendation you have to take price into consideration cause otherwise just go with Galaxy S7 (5.1 inch).

srtjko said:
G2 works really well and smooth for me except I have an occasional reboot out of nowhere. IDK what's causing it, it's stock rooted ROM.
If you're looking for a new phone recommendation you have to take price into consideration cause otherwise just go with Galaxy S7 (5.1 inch).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's odd, never happened with mine... maybe a factory reset if it starts to bother you that much, at least you would be able to tell if it's software or hardware related.
I did end up getting an S7 but it was pretty much out of frustration, other phones all had some small thing that was a no-no for me (mainly battery life). Touchwiz is miles away from what it used to be, I don't like a pure Android feel and it ends up being just about the right amount of UI skin. Huawei P9 is a really nice one for a lot less money and I bet the next P10 (if they call it that) will be on par with Samsung from a normal user point of view.

What made you choose the moto z force?

i am just curious what made you choose the moto z force. i am deciding between this and the lg v20. coming from the note 7.
Sent from my SM-N930V using Tapatalk

The battery mostly, plus, to a lesser extent, the mods and reading how fast and smooth it was.

Battery life, Shatter Shield, and Moto's seeming desire to remain as stock android as possible.
The Mods, especially the external battery mod, also played a big part. Being able to add on extra juice... I tend to be a heavy user of my phone and always kinda worry that I'm going to run out of juice.

I got it because I have had motorola in the past and like them. I had the Note 7 which I loved, but couldn't keep due to the fire issue. This phone had good reviews, fast, large battery. It is a very smooth phone. The negative is that I don't think that there are too many out there so development support may be less than with other phones. It is a good phone.

Most because the LG G5. I had 3 generations of Gs but considered the 5 a wrong step and looked for something else.
The Moto Zs are as unique as the Gs were.

Smithfolk4 said:
I got it because I have had motorola in the past and like them. I had the Note 7 which I loved, but couldn't keep due to the fire issue. This phone had good reviews, fast, large battery. It is a very smooth phone. The negative is that I don't think that there are too many out there so development support may be less than with other phones. It is a good phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
@Smithfolk4 i am so disappointed about the note 7. i can't seem to choose a replacement because nothing compares. how do u like it compared to the note 7?
Sent from my SM-N930V using Tapatalk

12iVaL116 said:
@Smithfolk4 i am so disappointed about the note 7. i can't seem to choose a replacement because nothing compares. how do u like it compared to the note 7?
Sent from my SM-N930V using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree it is not the Note 7, but the Z Force is a very good phone. Maybe the next best. You might like the S7 Edge, but I am not a fan of the curved screen and the Edge has a more pronounced curve. Maybe the Pixel XL? I haven't seen one of those. I do really like the Z Force. I wish it had an LED indicator, but I am getting used to the notifications on it and they are fine once you get used to them. I certainly recommend this phone as very good.

I had an original Moto X and loved the ecosystem. The battery was a plus, and definitely why I chose the Force over the non-force Z. The mods are cool, but really had nothing to do with the decision.

I did not have a Note, but had the galaxy phones 2-5, I can say it is hard at first to get used to coming from touch wiz, but a million times better when you get used to it. My coworkers who are note owners...or past note owners envy my phone and talk about how much better and more responsive it is.
I guess to better answer this question it would be helpful to understand your typical usage but my overall experience with it is amazing.
The camera is amazing for a non dslr including low light photo and video. I took a video recording at a concert and was blown away by the audio and video quality.
I played minecraft on max settings hosting a multiplayer world and using a bluetooth controller and performance felt on par with the PS4.
I have used it for running a bluetooth scantool for automotive diagnostics and was impressed by the speed at which it could perform a full scan. Rivaled only my high level ($1,000+) scan tools.
I use it for remote desktop use at work while in the field with a bluetooth keyboard for true desktop computing with no issues.
Project cars has apps which run with the video game and the response is great with no noticable latency.
Controlling Chromecast works extremely well as well as screencasting to include emulators.
Runs fPSe, a playstation emulator with not problem at all.
As you can see I use it for a wide range of things, I could go on but dont want to bore you with irrelevant information based on your needs and expectations of a device.

I too am trying to decide between the LG V20 and the Moto Z Force. Anyone regret the Force? think maybe you should have got the regular Z or the Z Play instead?

CadillacMike said:
I too am trying to decide between the LG V20 and the Moto Z Force. Anyone regret the Force? think maybe you should have got the regular Z or the Z Play instead?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i ended up goong with the v20. will try it out and if i dont like it, i can restock it for $35 and get thr z force.
Sent from my SM-N930V using Tapatalk

12iVaL116 said:
i ended up goong with the v20. will try it out and if i dont like it, i can restock it for $35 and get thr z force.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No way for me to compare to a V20, but I've had a Z Force since the first week and have been very happy with it. I had a LG G4 before and there's no comparison in terms of build quality. My G4 failed twice under warranty and always felt cheap. The Z Force feels like a slab of steel in your hand, it's awesome.
I had gotten used to the LG style Android., but the Moto's nearly stock approach is really nice. The only thing I really miss is that you can't switch the "back" and "menu" buttons, which I did because I prefer the back button on the right for easier one-handed operation. Can't do that on the force (without root, which isn't possible yet/ever on my Verizon phone) but I got used to it soon enough.

I do not regret the Force and feel I should have gotten the others, and I am on verizon prepaid the only place that would let me pre order was best buy for $800 said the jbl mod was free but just added the price to the phone. I am glad I got that though, I was going to get the incipio mod and dont feel I have the need for it now.

fr4nk1yn said:
Most because the LG G5. I had 3 generations of Gs but considered the 5 a wrong step and looked for something else.
The Moto Zs are as unique as the Gs were.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you and i are on the same boat. I left motorola for the lgg2, then g3, upgrade was coming up and g5 disapointed me then i saw the moto z force and started to love it

I like the Moto take on Android. Shattershield has value to me (I didn't feel the need for insurance). Good battery life. Only have the speaker mod but it's good. Camera may be a tick behind the very best, but quite good. The phone is very fast and fluid.

I'm a Moto fan, using the Z force it's one of the best Moto handsets I ever used, design wise, performance and the Moto mods, really it's unique.
Sent from my XT1650 using XDA-Developers mobile app

I have had Motorola since bag phone days, and law enforcement radios prior to that. They know radios, hence phones. Tired of rooting and looking for something for a couple of years. Really like the Z Force.
Sent from my Pixel C using XDA-Developers mobile app