Awesome work man! Can you tell me a little about how you were able to image the stock kernel? Can this method be used to image the other partitions as well?Yeah, talking to the Charge devs was the way to go. Two of them are helping me, one was able to get an image of the stock kernel, and it does work, so I have a backup to go with now.
Looks like we might get to root this soon!
Anyone interested in picking one up this Thursday?
- Thread starter rickhamilton620
- Start date
Actually, someone had a copy of the kernel from Samsung. Not sure who has the connections, but I got it through the Charge irc channel and was told to give credit to Team Black Hat. Not gonna question it, just happy we got it.
In fact, I was on the same track before they got me the kernel, but having the backup made me feel better about having a fallback to go to.
I don't like everything syncing with facebook, twitter, etc. I only keep contacts in my phone for people that I will actually talk to. I have my contacts already synced up with icloud because I had the iphone and I have an ipad. I literally have maybe.,..25 contacts with actual phone numbers in my phone. I just don't like everything syncing up.
I don't sync anything with gmail either. When I worked in wireless, I found a lot of ppl thought they had a broken phone, but they really just had a few bad apps on their phone. But, because they synced literally everything, a security wipe didn't do anything bc everything restored once they signed back into gmail. So I chose to have no apps sync, no contacts sync, etc. I stored everything on my sim card and I update through my ipad, just so I have a backup that is usually safe at home.
I got a chance to play with stratosphere today. I like the screen....its very vibrant. The keyboard is good, definitely somethng to get used to: it was on a tether so we all know how that makes typing on a sliding qwerty a pain due to low grip on the sides/back.
System seemed fast enough and I didn't notice any lag, definetly a good thing. I'm a bit bummed by the social hub not being there: its far better than Facebook for Android imo.
Didn't check out internet because there didn't seem to be connectivity: it was at a vz kiosk at the mall.
System seemed fast enough and I didn't notice any lag, definetly a good thing. I'm a bit bummed by the social hub not being there: its far better than Facebook for Android imo.
Didn't check out internet because there didn't seem to be connectivity: it was at a vz kiosk at the mall.
So you really liked the keyboard? Didn't end up with a lot of typos?
I gotta get back over to a store this week to try it again!
For me, the keyboard is THE feature that could differentiate this phone. There are lots of Android slate choices from VZW but very few sliders. And if you're avoiding Motorola like I am, then this may be the only real slider choice.
So if I like the keyboard I might just buy the Strato and overlook some of its other shortcomings, like CPU & RAM. Or if I don't like this keyboard, then I just have to settle for a slate, maybe even the pure-Google Nexus on the horizon, even if it is a bit of a behemoth. Or really settle and get an iPhone 4s.
Things could be worse I guess.
For the time I played with it I seemed to do well on the keyboard. Getting used to the spacing was the biggest issue for me, but I'm sure that if I owned the handset, that would come naturally.
If you want LTE, a non motorola device and a slider, this is your current only choice.
If you need help narrowing it down i'd look at it this way, given where we are on the phone release lifecycle:
Need a keyboard and can't live w/out it: Stratosphere
Thinking otherwise: Galaxy Nexus
I personally wouldn't consider any other handsets, unless you were in the "thinking otherwise" group and decided you didn't want to swing 299 for a Galaxy Nexus.
I have big fingers and the physical keyboard works great. Hell, Swype works great too. I owned an Eris before this phone and could never really crank out messages with any sort of speed. Now they rival my desktop typing skills. Also, if you have issues with errors and can't seem to get used to the keyboard, try Swiftkey X. It has physical keyboard support for it's predictive text and helped me greatly on my Eris.
I missed the subtle implication of what you wrote Dubbman. But last night I tried the Strato keybd a 2nd time and confirmed how there is no predictive support ("suggestions") for the slider keybd. Apparently that's only for the virtual keybd. Nice one!
Last night I made a few less typos I guess, but perhaps that was because I was slowing down and trying really hard to hit the right keys. Even so, the issue for me seems to be accidentally hitting the key just above/below the one you want, because the keys are pretty skinny vertically.
All in all, I'm not convinced this is a good enough keyboard to overcome the other limitations of this phone, e.g. CPU, RAM. So more & more I'm trying to convince myself to give up on my holy grail slider, and go with a virtual keybd on one of the many many slate phones that dominate the market.
I'm still staying away from MotoBlur. So I guess I'll wait a little longer to see if the new Nexus and its vanilla Android will make me jump.
Out of the box, no, it doesn't.
I use the HTC_IME keyboard and it has support for suggestions when using the hardware keyboard. They show up at the very bottom of the screen. It works pretty good too.
To run a keyboard app like HTC_IME, or SwiftKey (mentioned earlier) on a Samsung Strato, are they compatible with the standard Android build that comes with phone? (I don't know how likely I am to get into rooting, custom ROM, etc)
Yeah, they install just like regular apps. The only special thing you have to do is go into Settings -> Language and Keyboards and enable them. They are disabled by default since untrusted people could hack a keyboard to phish your keystrokes, like a keylogger. - Swift is trusted and HTC_IME is open source over on xda so they are safe.
After that, just select it as your primary input method and start typing.
Cool. As for the keylogger potential, couldn't that be thwarted through the permissions that the app is granted? i.e. Why would a local keyboard input app need access to the Internet? IOW, if you deny that right, wouldn't an alternate keybd app be safe?
Note: I'm not yet an Android owner/user so I'm using a very minimal indirect knowledge of Android apps permissions as my basis.
Yeah, they'll need internet access in order to transmit anything. You can't deny individual permissions on standard Android (you can on CyanogenMod, though... another reason why I want to see it ported over).
Looking at HTC_IME, it only asks for permissions to access SD Card, Record Audio (speech to text), Modify Global settings (specify keyboard part), and control vibrator. Seems pretty safe to me.
So let me try to understand this (being a "pre-noob" as far as Android goes)...
Take HTC_IME for example. It wants those 4 permissions you mention. You cannot deny just 1 out of 4 (e.g. SD Card) and leave the other 3 allowed?
And if so, that's the way all apps work in official Android builds? You can either accept all requested permissions or say no to installing the app altogether? Nothing in between... no granular control?
You are correct. Its accept all or nothing on stock Android and all the phones I've used.
However, as I mentioned, it was a new feature on CyanogenMod to allow you to disable individual permissions. I had a game that always checked for updates and was slow at it, so I disabled the internet permission on it and it skipped that part from then on.
It would be nice if Ice Cream Sandwich has something like this built in.
I'm picking up the Stratosphere on amazon tonight. Anyone have any good case ideas?
For most keyboards like SwiftKey or Swype, you install them like any other app. I do know that to install the Samsung Keyboard on a non samsung you gotta flash it. The HTC is likely similar.
For most keyboards like SwiftKey or Swype, you install them like any other app. I do know that to install the Samsung Keyboard on a non samsung you gotta flash it. The HTC is likely similar.
Whoa, you're actually pulling the trigger? Not waiting for Nexus? What tipped the scale?
A few things tbh, haha:
*Price: Amazon has the Stratosphere for a steal of a price for upgraders: 39 bucks. That's a amazing deal for a 4G phone, hell the D3 is still 175 bucks or something.
*Reviews: Only Mobile Burn's review was a bit negative due to several characteristics of the device (It tries to get you onto Wi-Fi whenever possible so you don't use up your data if you're on a capped plan. You can disable this though. He also didn't particularly care for the action of the slider mechanism but I prefer a stiffer mechanism tbh. I also think his unit was defective due to some random bugs that I haven't seen anyone here notice or report.) everyone else said it's a decent device even if it's not a top tier phone. I can live with that.
*My Droid 1: My power button wasn't getting better, quite the opposite to be exact. I tried to flash a new ROM to try and solve some performance issues and was frustrated with the button not working in Clockwork Mod recovery. (Power button acts as a back button in the menu) I was also sick of having to tap it just right to get the screen to turn off, or end up accidentally pulling up the Power Options menu sometimes when I'm doing other things.
I also got tired of the random reboots: I tried to fix by flashing via the PC with a .sbf file (which apparently cleans out more junk then just wiping via CWM) but the stupid power button struck again preventing me from doing it. I managed to flash a froyo rom I had on a SD card but now the phone powers off randomly. I was experiencing random reboots before all this though in the camera, and anytime I was in the bootloader, it'll reboot if I don't complete the steps fast enough. It all became too much.
Finally, my headphone jack is broken like very bad. I hate not being able to use my phone for a mp3 player.
Ironically the D1 on even this somewhat broken Froyo install is snappier than Gingerbread. Oh well, time to move on from my 3 year old phone.
A shame that the keyboard didn't work out for you on the Stratosphere. Maybe the D4 would work better for you, especially if the exchange implementation is good on it.
Rick, keep us posted as to how you like it after a week or so of living w/ it. I hope things go smoothly. And let us know if you find a case that you like.
I haven't totally ruled out the Strato for myself, even though the keyboard didn't really do it for me.
I hope to switch phones before my old geezer finally gives out (like yours did) but so far I've been stuck in my old cellphone inertia.
I'm curious about the Amazon deal but I've a $100 credit at VZW coming (remnants of their old NE2 loyalty program) so I'm not sure Amazon would save me much $ right?
I haven't totally ruled out the Strato for myself, even though the keyboard didn't really do it for me.
I hope to switch phones before my old geezer finally gives out (like yours did) but so far I've been stuck in my old cellphone inertia.
I'm curious about the Amazon deal but I've a $100 credit at VZW coming (remnants of their old NE2 loyalty program) so I'm not sure Amazon would save me much $ right?
I totally will keep you all posted. This is exciting stuff lol.
Honestly, go through VZW if you have the 100 buck NE2. I have the 50 buck NE2 and decided to go with Amazon due to that. The catch with Amazon is that if you cancel within 180 days or something they'll charge you a ETF as well as verizon's ETF.
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