3G shutting down; can we still modify newer phones to improve performance?

Dark Penguin

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And if so, what are the ramifications?

Well, some of you might have noticed that I haven't been very active on here for the past few years. I bought a new Samsung Galaxy S8 four years ago, and all through this time its performance has been good enough that I haven't needed to think about tinkering with it to improve it. Now it's about to become obsolete because the 3G network is being shut down. Believe it or not, I only found out about this yesterday when I called my service provider for a different reason.

So now I have to get a new phone. Unlike the last time, I'm no longer in a position to buy the latest flagship model, and even if I were I would still be hesitant because the cost has gone up so much.

So I've been looking at the phones my service provider is offering on their website. It seems that, in order to upgrade to a phone that can use the 5G network, I will have to downgrade in terms of RAM, internal storage, and, apparently processing power too. Moreover, I'm not looking forward to going from 64G of internal storage down to 32G, although the newer phones do support larger external cards. But how much good is that when most apps can't be moved to the external card? At least, I remember that was becoming a major issue for some people while I was still active here. It looks like I'm probably going to want to root whatever phone I get and flash a custom ROM, if that's still a viable option.

And hells bells, will my next phone have a plastic body again, like the ones of years ago?

If you look at my old threads from five to nine years ago, you'll see that I became quite the veteran at tinkering with the relatively low end devices I used to have. By now, I have forgotten pretty much everything I used to know about installing recovery, rooting, and flashing ROMs. Is this still possible in the current environment, or will tripping the KNOX flag void the warranty and the insurance, and prevent system upgrades from being downloaded and installed?

I so did not need this right now!
 

mustang7757

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Welcome back!
You can still root Samsung , US version are harder because of locked bootloader, pretty much no point i see today doing so with the chips ,ram ,new One UI interface on Samsung now , touch wiz is long gone.
Usually developer settings turn animations to .5 and putting a launcher like Nova is about as good as u can get without rooting and Samsung Good lock app with more customization
 

Dark Penguin

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The S8 has 4G/LTE so it will not stop working when 3G is turned off. Your carrier was lying.


https://m.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_s8-8161.php

I must have the wrong S8, because its mobile data performance is degrading even as we speak. I just ran Speedtest on mobile, and got 1.35/.10 Mbps d/u. YouTube Music won't play, or at least I gave up waiting for it to, and even other apps that don't involve the constant streaming of audio or video, like social media platforms, barely work. Again, they might, if I wanted to wait five or ten minutes. I can sttil make calls.

Depending on the exact version of S8 that you have, it seems that some of them do allow you to choose 4G under Mobile Networks=>Network Mode, but mine doesn't have it. There are apps you can download to force set it to 4G, but they disable calls except for 911. When I tested it, it didn't seem to improve mobile data performance at all.

I can still make calls but not much else, unless I'm logged into a good wifi network.
 

mustang7757

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I must have the wrong S8, because its mobile data performance is degrading even as we speak. I just ran Speedtest on mobile, and got 1.35/.10 Mbps d/u. YouTube Music won't play, or at least I gave up waiting for it to, and even other apps that don't involve the constant streaming of audio or video, like social media platforms, barely work. Again, they might, if I wanted to wait five or ten minutes. I can sttil make calls.

Depending on the exact version of S8 that you have, it seems that some of them do allow you to choose 4G under Mobile Networks=>Network Mode, but mine doesn't have it. There are apps you can download to force set it to 4G, but they disable calls except for 911. When I tested it, it didn't seem to improve mobile data performance at all.

I can still make calls but not much else, unless I'm logged into a good wifi network.
Have you tried this app to force 4g lte only ?

https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...d=com.ray.samsungbandselection&token=JiNrSiUt
 

mustang7757

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Is that the right link? It just takes me to the top of my AC news feed.
If your using Forum app it might give that redirect
But this The one in play store
36286ebd3d161f52f32b4b024d058dbd.jpg
 

Dark Penguin

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No, same result. Calls are disabled, and I didn't bother to test connectivity.

In any case, this app seems to do the opposite of what I need. It enables newer 5G phones to downgrade to 4G, intended for areas where the 5G network is still sparse or nonexistent.
 

mustang7757

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No, same result. Calls are disabled, and I didn't bother to test connectivity.

In any case, this app seems to do the opposite of what I need. It enables newer 5G phones to downgrade to 4G, intended for areas where the 5G network is still sparse or nonexistent.
This for your Samsung s8 ?
Whos your service provider?
 

Dark Penguin

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This for your Samsung s8 ?
Whos your service provider?

Boost Mobile, which is a Sprint reseller.

I read somewhere today that Sprint's 3G network was supposed to go down on January 1, but I was out driving yesterday and the day before, and Google Maps GPS still worked. I doubt it would work now, though.
 

mustang7757

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Boost Mobile, which is a Sprint reseller.

I read somewhere today that Sprint's 3G network was supposed to go down on January 1, but I was out driving yesterday and the day before, and Google Maps GPS still worked. I doubt it would work now, though.
This where it gets weird lol boost mobile was by Sprint but since merged with TMobile Dish bought boost mobile which i believe run on Att network
 

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