Devs like this is why I will be going back to HTC

[Andrew Ruffolo]

I'm not an android newb, my first android device was an HTC Hero that I had Since november of 2009 (still have it, its still getting updated). Its posts like this from XDA that shows how much stronger the dev community for HTC devices are. To put in perspective, the TBolt just got a GB leak, and without source, someone has made their own custom kernel. No matter how good the screen is on the Galaxy S phones (the HTC's 4.3" TFT LCD doesn't look bad), the community just can't compare. This is why I've been so negative for months. The Epic really does have some great hardware, but the software doesn't back it up. If you wanted me to compare stock epic vs stock HTC Evo straight up, I'd pick the epic any day of the week. But I'm a geek at heart, and I love tinkering with my phone. Combine my disappointments with Sprint as a carrier the past few months (its nice the see an AOSP phone, but WiMax flat out sucks worse then HSPA+, don't believe me? How many of you have your 4G on right now?). I'm tired of not being able to text at home or at work without the aid of an airave (airave not an option at work). I like how I've gotten both Hulu and Netflix working myself on the GB Leak, but to be honest, this leak is so laggy, both those options are pretty pointless right now. I will probably be heading to the Verizon store to defect to a Tbolt soon, if not tomorrow. My gf's family are all defecting to iPhones from Epics (3 more switching asap). It bothers them that the e-mail app hasn't worked since the day they got the phone (bothers me too). Its unacceptable to get the final releases of these updates being more broken than the previous. Very few of us can honestly say that the Epic runs faster on Froyo than it did on Eclair (and if it does, its probably due to EXT4, which isn't an option on GB for the Epic).
Sorry to rant and rant. I'm not trying to put down the few devs that actually do tinker with this phone, Paul is a stand up guy and produced one of the best functioning ROMs I've run to date.

 

[Paul627g]

Very few of us can honestly say that the Epic runs faster on Froyo than it did on Eclair (and if it does, its probably due to EXT4, which isn't an option on GB for the Epic).

We will have EXT4 it just doesn't seem to be on the high priority list right now with the leaks which I can fully understand. Its not worth it to the kernel teams to put work into the kernel to hack it for EXT4 only to have Sammy change something in the next build canceling out what they just did.

Sorry to rant and rant. I'm not trying to put down the few devs that actually do tinker with this phone, Paul is a stand up guy and produced one of the best functioning ROMs I've run to date.

Thanks Andrew, I tried my best to give you all something you wanted which bottom line was stability and reliability.

I sure hope in a few months we can make you eat your words for defecting to Verizon, or at least a HTC product. As for your family/friends defecting to the "fruit based" phone.. LMAO.. They can have it... I dont prefer to listen to some company tell me what I can and can't run and can't use openly on other devices without a conversion program.

We will see you around Andrew!

 

[Andrew Ruffolo]

We will have EXT4 it just doesn't seem to be on the high priority list right now with the leaks which I can fully understand. Its not worth it to the kernel teams to put work into the kernel to hack it for EXT4 only to have Sammy change something in the next build canceling out what they just did. Thanks Andrew, I tried my best to give you all something you wanted which bottom line was stability and reliability.

I sure hope in a few months we can make you eat your words for defecting to Verizon, or at least a HTC product. As for your family/friends defecting to the "fruit based" phone.. LMAO.. They can have it... I dont prefer to listen to some company tell me what I can and can't run and can't use openly on other devices without a conversion program.

We will see you around Andrew!

Well, first thing this morning I went to Verizon. Figured I'd put the Thunderbolt through its paces before making a full on switch to vzw. I like the phone a lot. Snappy right out of the gate. Comes with a lot of bloat though (working on removing that as I type). I get coverage in my apartment without the aid of an airave, which is nice cause I find the airave sometimes knocks out my internet. Unfortunately, I'm on the cusp of an LTE area. Maybe 2 blocks east and I'd connect. Just not going to happen in my apartment. The Epic never connected indoors either to wimax.

 

[Paul627g]

Well, first thing this morning I went to Verizon. Figured I'd put the Thunderbolt through its paces before making a full on switch to vzw. I like the phone a lot. Snappy right out of the gate. Comes with a lot of bloat though (working on removing that as I type). I get coverage in my apartment without the aid of an airave, which is nice cause I find the airave sometimes knocks out my internet. Unfortunately, I'm on the cusp of an LTE area. Maybe 2 blocks east and I'd connect. Just not going to happen in my apartment. The Epic never connected indoors either to wimax.

Yep its a nice phone, I played around with our babysisters TBolt and she likes it too but she told me shes charging about 5 times a day and lives with her charger cable in hand where ever she goes.

 

[trooper54]

Aww Rufflez, its sad to see you jump off the sprint ship... I too will be switching back to HTC, but in the form of the Evo 3D, i wish you would have held out and done the same.

Hope Verizon treats you well though =)
Cheers,

 

[Paul627g]

Looks like I'll be the one holding down the ship.. I have about 5-6 months before I'm eligible for my upgrade.... Right about November so we'll see whats on the menu for Christmas present this year

 

[anon(67968)]

Well if Paul is left holding down the ship I'm not that worried. I've been loving my Epic and at least in my Atlanta area have not had any problems with service. I thank Paul and everyone else that has allowed me to enjoy my phone to awesome levels. Paul, it looks like your contract is up right about the same time mine is so we shall see whats on the board then, but in the meantime I am still really enjoying my phone.

 

[sndplace]

Sorry to here that coverage in your area is bad. I have 4g on allday 3 to 4 times a week depending on where im working. I get full bars outside and 1 to 2 inside When I'm home.

As liquidjesus I'm looking at the HTC 3d . I never had a HTC phone so I am looking forward to checking them out but I have had samsung phones in the past and never had issues with them. IMO the instinct was a cool phone.

If VZN has better coverage for you then you made a good switch, You can't enjoy a great phone if you have to work so hard to use it. Enjoy your Tbolt .

 

[Andrew Ruffolo]

Sorry to here that coverage in your area is bad. I have 4g on allday 3 to 4 times a week depending on where im working. I get full bars outside and 1 to 2 inside When I'm home.

As liquidjesus I'm looking at the HTC 3d . I never had a HTC phone so I am looking forward to checking them out but I have had samsung phones in the past and never had issues with them. IMO the instinct was a cool phone.

If VZN has better coverage for you then you made a good switch, You can't enjoy a great phone if you have to work so hard to use it. Enjoy your Tbolt .

I have both phones still. So far so good though. I'll be at work next week where I can check out the coverage at work (its supposed to be in LTE location, but we'll see if it can penetrate into the dungeon of a hospital pharmacy).

As for the battery life... thats what the custom kernels I linked in the post are for. Cyanogen works very well, which I was pleased to see.

 

[Mo_Chedda]

I can't cheat on sammy she has been too loyal, besides I've never liked htc and with paul on the epic dev team, we an always count on amazing surprises

 

[IAmSixNine]

I too agree the super amoled screen on the EPIC is wonderfull. If it wasnt for the ACS Frozen 1.1.0 ROM i would not use the EPIC. Great hardware and lacking software.
I go back and forth with the EPIC and EVO. Each has its pros and cons. But the S-AMOLED always keeps me coming back.

 

[TexasEpic4G]

Gotta agree with Samsung EPIC over HTC ( anything ) ... the ROMs we have available to us now and with Gingerbread knocking on the door already , we will continue to have a better phone for at least several more months ( I really like the physical keyboard and better screen )

 

[caleb02]

Gotta agree with Samsung EPIC over HTC ( anything ) ... the ROMs we have available to us now and with Gingerbread knocking on the door already , we will continue to have a better phone for at least several more months ( I really like the physical keyboard and better screen )

our phone is outdate and as a true phone geek then you would realize the epic is crap as duel core phones are now out or soon will be in a few weeks. once a new phone is announced then you are no longer top dog. So i have to trade someone for a evo 3d or a galaxy s 2 perhaps. I can not stand have old hardware... its like saying you dont care at all, mine as well dress like a bum... Its am image thing. I wish the evo 3d had a 5.3" screen. My 11 year old son likes to meet girls over my phone, he shows them you tube, shows how fast wimax is.... Gotta have the best or nothing at all i say...

 

[caleb02]

ARM confirms 2.5GHz speeds for its next generation quad-core Eagle chipsets
Quad core all else is now crap!

ARM confirms 2.5GHz speeds for its next generation quad-core Eagle chipsets - Phone Arena

 

[Andrew Ruffolo]

So a little update... Tried gingerbread on the Tbolt... its far more functioning and could be used as a daily driver (both cyanogenmod and stock). Right now, my radio crashed on the Epic, so I'm going back to a 2.2 based ROM. Going back to stock is computerless on the HTC, which is convenient. Battery life is not an issue with the Thunderbolt. Using a battery saver kernel, and out of a Droid2Global and Incredible, I was the only one with battery life last night after going to the movies (in defense, it was 1:30am when the movie got out, so not typical usage). So far, so good.

 

[zerzat]

I understand your frustration with the poor signal you have been getting with sprint, that is why I bailed att. But as a big fan of what the epic is bringing to the table, hardware wise, I wish you didn't feel the need to vent and sound ungrateful in front of the quality devs that are trying their best to keep up to date even with the slow development on samsung's side. Enjoy the tbolt and Verizon but I wish you would just keep it to yourself or at least move it from the modding forum

 

[Paul627g]

ARM confirms 2.5GHz speeds for its next generation quad-core Eagle chipsets
Quad core all else is now crap!

ARM confirms 2.5GHz speeds for its next generation quad-core Eagle chipsets - Phone Arena

Part I think everyone is forgetting is great so dual cores and quad cores are on the horizon and ready to be mainstream. Now tell me something out there that your doing that really requires this type of processor usage ? Watching movies? Don't need it, Epic already handles it.. Browsing the net? Speed connection has more to do with this than processor.. Gaming would be about the only thing I can see that would be taking advantage of this new found speeds and processor crunching power and even then are the game devs honestly on top of it and taking advantage of this power yet? I doubt it... Not to mention in all reality the true gamer isn't looking to jam hardcore gaming on his cell phone, for that reason he/she is going to go home and turn on his XBOX or Playstation.

I'm not saying what you stated is incorrect but in all reality the devs/programmers haven't even really begun to write code that utilizes this new technology so other than walking around saying I have a dual/quad core there isn't really any need for it ATM.

If you have the type of money to go dump every few weeks/months on the next best device then have at it friend. The average consumer doesn't go that route because its just senseless. Really if the cell phone industry wants to impress me then lets put out some technology in battery so it can keep up with this newer technology. Sure the newer processors control battery use better but its still not enough.

As far as walking around looking like a bum I find that statement insulting because I take great pride in my Epic 4g and keep a collection of all current and even older ROMs/kernels/themes/add ons on my sdcard so within 5 or 10 minutes I can swap out to whatever I want to suit my tastes for that day or week. I still to this day get people looking over my shoulder at the high quality of the display and the physical keyboard and other perks are more than enough to keep me happy for months to come.

Plus one more interesting fact, the best day ever on Android Central forums for most visitors and exposure..???? The day Froyo EB13 was officially released the Epic 4g and its members here at AC were the reason the all time best record was set for most users online over 10,000 mainly due to the mass exposure that myself and everyone else on the AC Team did to promote & push the official update to Froyo. Doesn't sound like much but it was I think a good showing of how big the Epic 4g really is... I expect official Gingerbread release to put on a great showing also.

These are just my thoughts, everyone is entitled to their own opinions but I think I do make many valid points here weighing in on your comments about the Epic 4g and similar devices in general not being as outdated as you claim just because some newer high speed processor crunchers hit the market. Example.. Look at the Droid, Hero, Moment and many others as old as they are people are still rocking these old dogs and getting tons of dev support to keep them secure in the "daily driver" scene.

 

[TexasEpic4G]

DITTO ! I still like my EPIC more than any HTC out there

 

[Andrew Ruffolo]

I understand your frustration with the poor signal you have been getting with sprint, that is why I bailed att. But as a big fan of what the epic is bringing to the table, hardware wise, I wish you didn't feel the need to vent and sound ungrateful in front of the quality devs that are trying their best to keep up to date even with the slow development on samsung's side. Enjoy the tbolt and Verizon but I wish you would just keep it to yourself or at least move it from the modding forum

I didn't move it here, I posted in the general section and a mod moved it to the ROM section. I've had the Epic since release and its left a bad taste in my mouth since about September when the promised Froyo update dates just flew by. Samsung didn't feel a need to support their phones back then. I mean no disrespect, and I'm sorry to took my post the wrong way. I hope the developers make progress on this device. But the notion has and always will be, "we're waiting for official source" instead of "got tired of waiting, so I made my own"... hence true development. That's what I was trying to point out. Official source isn't needed, that's how it was done back in the day. I have little confidence for official updates for this device coming soon (realistically, you all are about 2 months out if the EE19 update is decent). A big issue I've seen with gingerbread is the modem crashing rendering the device useless until restore (with all modems, not just EE03 and ED12). That's not "close to perfect" as what was meant to be believed in the original leaked EE03 thread. Also, there is a major battery drain issue with Touchwiz specifically. I got great battery life with the device once I removed it. Seeing as I don't see Samsung releasing the update sans Touchwiz, still more and more bugs. I do hope EE19 is it. They set a goal to have GB compiled by May 15th (EE15), and being 4 days late is much better than 4 months, especially since we don't notice the delay on our end.

 

[nmoreman]

Comments for multiple posts above =

To the guy who needs the best and newest thing out there for his 11 year old to pick up chicks - check out therapy forums and enjoy spending your money - I'm sure things will turn out well for you somewhere else beside this forum.

Quad processors on a phone are a marketing and cost thing - I'm sure they will be ridiculously pricey and people like you will buy them - its just like a computer - go to the store, you can spend whatever you want, but do you really need all that - its a marketing gimic - golf clubs, tvs - it has to be fancier, faster, more bells and whisltes or it won't sell.

This is an Epic forum for those wishing to learn and improve their products - I just jumped ship myself to the Nexus S - why? because I loved my Epic, don't use the keyboard and wanted the smaller phone - mission accomplished and running stock, a big change to the roms I have used and loved from here. But am still running 2 for the others in family and will continue to do so.

Yes, I am mad an Samsung for their updates, but with this and xda, who cares. And just upgraded both to EE03, so do that, it flies on stock. And will probably keep my Nexus on stock too, its open and rooted - but until some of my trusted developers from here start roms, I'm not willing to gamble on whoever is on xda.