Ditched my iPhone, just got a Samsung Galaxy S3. Please help

[sgreger1]

browsed through the thread. sgreger was all like -> -> ->
android is linux at heart. most people can't handle it, but a true nerd loves it. as mentioned, most large games will store their data on the sd card, and a small application on internal memory.
the real action happens when you install a third party rom. the preinstalled roms are always garbage, full of bloatware and fail. cyanogenmod is a really good and popular rom. i'm running cm10 (jellybean) atm, on a two year old phone. works great. the issue with moving apps to sd card has apparently been solved in cyanogenmod by changing a simple file permission.(i believe)
stick with it and you'll love it.

Yah I am going from angry to really happy and back again, this things got me all bipolar!

Now that I have played with it a little I am happy with it. I got startup manager to manage what starts w/ the phone, titanium backup for backup and some other great features, and watchdog light to automatically monitor apps that start spiking the CPU. I got rid of advanced task killer in liu of watchdog because watchdog allows me to set specific limits so that if one program start bricking itself and spiking the cpu (slwoing everything else down in the process) than it will automatically kill it or give me the option to kill it.

Between these I have things working pretty solid now. Though, on iphone none of this is necessary as this is all handled by the OS and no add-ons or paid content is required, but still I am just glad I got it sorted out.

I have ot say the thing that makes me so absolutely happy that I missed for so long on iphone but now finally have the ability to do is donwload things to the phone as though it was a computer. It has an actual file/directory structure and lets me just grab shit offline and put it onto a folder or sd card and then open it with any program etc. This simply does not exist in any usable form on the iphone. Just today I got an SNES emulator (free) and then went to a website and downloaded like every SNES game onto my sd card (again, for free) and then played all my old favorites. On IOS you can't just go online and download shit to a folder and then access it. This feature alone is just spectacular.

I am thoroughly happy with android now, though I realize it will have some shortcomings. It's sort of giving up some of the automated smoothness that IOS brings for a little more control, and I personally like that because it has less limitations.


@ Devilock:

I see your point, and I agree that standalone things are best (which is why I use ym computer for gaming since it is more geared towards that), but the phone I have (and any smart phone really) handles gaming, office stuff, and web browsing stuff (oh, and phone calls I guess) decent enough to be a good mobile all-in-one device. I don't play any of the crazy first eprson shooters or anything on my phone, like you said it's more like puzzle games, tower defense stuff etc, but it's a great time killed for when i am in the bathroom or waiting in line or in the passenger seat of the car on a long ride etc. It does it wonderfully.

I guess in the end I was just pissed that the AT&T guy lied to me but I guess it's not that big a deal. I guess Samsung had to hack their phones in a manner that makes the external SD card look like something else because they were the first to have an internal SD and so it was teh only way they could do it. It has 2 gigs of dedicated space for apk's etc and it can be made (somehow) to store other game data on the SD card. For now I will just load the SD card with all my ebooks, audiobooks, pictures, videos and other non-marketplace apps for now. With all that stuff in there I probably won't need the full 16 gigs for gaming.


I havn't changed the ROM yet because I have been trying to figure everything else out, but I will probably try flashing cyanogenmod on ther some time this weekend. This phone came with all kinds of bloatware from yellow pages and AT&T and I would like it all gone.

Question: I don't really understand exactly what a ROM is. The way I understand it it's kind of akin to a different distribution in linux, so it's still linux but with a different set of default packages and maybe a different UI etc. Is that correct? Will I be able to use LauncherPro if I get cyanogenmod and will everything (like the live store) still be available?

[TheJanitor]

Yes, when I started using androids the first thing I loved about it was being able to download files directly, without going through itunes. BTW, if you're looking for some "free" apk's 4shared is a great site.

Also, you can you even download atorrent and download torrents right on the phone, but this is always really slow for me, so I usually just transfer them from the PC if I'm at home. Bitgamer has a lot of android games.

When you root it you can even change the boot animation, I had this one on my last phone:

[Roo]

wait wait wait... SNES = Super Nintendo? Does this mean I get get regular NES games like mario 3, Castlevania, contra etc?

[sgreger1]

wait wait wait... SNES = Super Nintendo? Does this mean I get get regular NES games like mario 3, Castlevania, contra etc?

I have all of those on my phone currently, all free. It's amazing. There is an emulator for every system, but the one you want is "Super GNES Emulator" free in the live marketplace. It doesn't come with any roms. So what you do is on your phones browser goto www.roms4droid.com/, and then choose "Super Nintendo" from the "Roms" menu. There is a list of every super nintendo game ever made. If you forgot all the names you can sort the list by number of downloads or ratings etc. Anyways, find the game you want, click download, it loads another page, then downloads the ROM. Now when you open Super Gnes app, click the little sd card and it will say "scan sd card for ROMS?", click yes (and be sure to click "include cover art), and whatever you downloaded will automatically be added to it's library of games, cover art and all. It even emulates the controller pretty well. So by using this you can play, for free, any SNES game ever made. It's like a pleasant all expenses paid trip back to the early 90's.

Last night I was playing everything from populous to urban strike, super mario world, kirby, castlevania, Flashback, donkey kong country etc. There are emulators for other things like gameboy advanced and pretty much everything other than nintendo 64 stuff. All of its free.

I ahve used emulators before, but I had a moment last night when I got it all set up and I thought "I have waited 20 years for this. I can now have every videogame available in the world in the 90's on a single device and it's all free. THE FUTURE IS HERE."


Also, you can SAVE YOUR GAME, which is something I wish older games had. This is really cool so you don't have to start from the beginning or enter some secret code. Speaking of which, it also has cheats. So in the app in options to can select "cheats" and in mario for example it will give you infinite lives or a higher jump amongst other things to enhance the game. Very cool.

[sgreger1]

Yes, when I started using androids the first thing I loved about it was being able to download files directly, without going through itunes. BTW, if you're looking for some "free" apk's 4shared is a great site.

Also, you can you even download atorrent and download torrents right on the phone, but this is always really slow for me, so I usually just transfer them from the PC if I'm at home. Bitgamer has a lot of android games.

When you root it you can even change the boot animation, I had this one on my last phone:

I thought about torrenting directly from my phone but figured it would totally **** my data plan. What I do is I have an FTP server set up so I can access my torrent program (rtorrent) via a webpage interface (RUtorrent) and then add whatever torrents I want, then it is downloaded at blazing speeds to my ftp server, and I just use an FTP app to download it directly to my phone. This is the kind of shit I love android for, as this whole process was very difficult on iOs.

[devilock76]

I thought about torrenting directly from my phone but figured it would totally **** my data plan. What I do is I have an FTP server set up so I can access my torrent program (rtorrent) via a webpage interface (RUtorrent) and then add whatever torrents I want, then it is downloaded at blazing speeds to my ftp server, and I just use an FTP app to download it directly to my phone. This is the kind of shit I love android for, as this whole process was very difficult on iOs.

Yeah I would want to be over a wifi network to do a torrent and on a mobile device the most I can see downloading via torrent is an ebook or two.

Ken

[devilock76]

See and even I get some new tricks from here. I switched to watchdog, I like it. Also never thought about using a Startup Manager and sure enough that was a huge improvement. Time to make a new snapshot of the machines...

Ken

[sgreger1]

See and even I get some new tricks from here. I switched to watchdog, I like it. Also never thought about using a Startup Manager and sure enough that was a huge improvement. Time to make a new snapshot of the machines...

Ken

Yah I am very satisfied with both of those programs so far. Startup manager has pretty much everything turned off at startup except it launches my juice defender, watchdog, startup manager, titanium backup and my custom lock screen thing so that I don't have to manually load them. Great programs all around.

[devilock76]

Yah I am very satisfied with both of those programs so far. Startup manager has pretty much everything turned off at startup except it launches my juice defender, watchdog, startup manager, titanium backup and my custom lock screen thing so that I don't have to manually load them. Great programs all around.

I left a good amount of stuff on startup but killed all the VZW bloatware on startup and anything that was game related.

Hey a quick recommendation for another good app. Check out evernote. Yeah there is Google drive out there but evernote is very handy. Biggest thing I use it for is storing tab and chord progressions from Ultimate Guitar.com. I go to the site via a computer, then I have the evernote capture plug in. I use that to snap shot what I need and then I have it on my tablet. No more ridicuous song books with leaflets hanging out everywhere. Also my wife and I use it as a quick way to organize our grocery lists.

You can share with the free version but you cannot edit someone elses shared folders without the paid version. It is a monthly fee pay version as well. I figure if I really need to edit shared docs we go back to google drive at that point. However on an android table and the phone evernote is quick and simple and on the tablet it automatically makes everything available offline which is not something Google Drive does.

Ken

[sgreger1]

I left a good amount of stuff on startup but killed all the VZW bloatware on startup and anything that was game related.

Hey a quick recommendation for another good app. Check out evernote. Yeah there is Google drive out there but evernote is very handy. Biggest thing I use it for is storing tab and chord progressions from Ultimate Guitar.com. I go to the site via a computer, then I have the evernote capture plug in. I use that to snap shot what I need and then I have it on my tablet. No more ridicuous song books with leaflets hanging out everywhere. Also my wife and I use it as a quick way to organize our grocery lists.

You can share with the free version but you cannot edit someone elses shared folders without the paid version. It is a monthly fee pay version as well. I figure if I really need to edit shared docs we go back to google drive at that point. However on an android table and the phone evernote is quick and simple and on the tablet it automatically makes everything available offline which is not something Google Drive does.

Ken

I keep hearing good things about evernote but I have never jumped in and tried it. So it's like a dropbox for notes essentially? Like it syncs notes between devices, and notes can contain text, pics, video etc?

Edit; a
lso, waht is the point of leaving lots of things on during startup? I only have it launch all my bakcground programs like the battery life thing and the lock screen widget I use. Startup time is 44 seconds currently. Why would you need other things at startup, is there something I should be leaving on?

[devilock76]

I keep hearing good things about evernote but I have never jumped in and tried it. So it's like a dropbox for notes essentially? Like it syncs notes between devices, and notes can contain text, pics, video etc?

Sort of yeah, but it can be collaborative and it is awesome for using as a read later device or to move a snapshot of your web page to your device for later. That is how I am using it for organizing my song book on my tablet. There are plugins for most of the major browsers and it is the best I have seen, better than the now defunct Spool. Also there is a desktop app as well. Haven't gotten the desktop one to work on Wine in Arch Linux but not a big deal.

Ken

[devilock76]

Don't know if this was mentioned here but I recently ditched the stock launcher for GO Launcher EX. This was a huge improvement on my phone and tablet in features and performance.

Ken

[fleurdelisxliv]

hey man i also have an SIII ive had prob 7 or 8 android phones in the past year! this is everything you need to know best site on earth i go by the same name there http://forum.xda-developers.com/index.php hope this helps tons and tons of info here go launcher is ok i like adw ex! some rly good launchers out for ice cream sandwich and cm10 rom is out now (jellybean)