Just wanted to say Thank you

[dirttrakker]

Hello everyone, I just wanted to say a few things because I am new here.

I have been reading on this forum for the past month or so, finally got around to registering within the past couple weeks I think, and wanted to say thank you to all of the helpful members, developers, questioners, answer's etc. It is great to see so many people posting at once and being proactive in the community for android users.

I recently switched to Virgin Mobile after being with Verizon (omg, what a waste of money). I hate contracts, lets leave it at that. I got the Optimus V right away, got my number switched over, and never had a problem since.

Well, I used to mess around with iPhones and iTouchs, jailbreaking everything I could. The g/f won't let me mess with her new iPhone 4 though Oh well one of these days I will get her to try it and show her the benefits. hehehe Anyways, I started reading up on Android phones and if there were similar mods/hacks. Of course, there are! Anyways, this is what I did.

First thing I did was read, read read. One of the things I read was never, ever, do a factory reset from within the phone itself. I will come back to this.

Second thing I had to do was root, like all other people. Easy enough. SuperOneClick did it for me, and man what a superb little program that thing is. Thanks for that.

Next was finding what rom to get. I ended up going with Zelfies (sp?) cm7 rom, I believe its the one they (or some other member) is updating. This one had everything working including wifi, data, etc. I got it all customized to my liking, and man it was awesome. The cyanogen (sp?) settings were fun to mess around with, and playing angry birds with the cpu setting up a bit made it lag no more! I was happy. hehehe

After reading through roms, I found an interesting topic on PRL's. Never knew you could do it, so what did I do, of course I downloaded the QPST program and got it all taken care of with the most up to date PRL. Seemed to work about the same in my area.

This is where my problem started coming into play. It has been running the cm7 rom and tweaks and prl stuff for 4 days. I decided to start looking into diff roms again, when I decided to (for some reason, dont ask my why) change my PRL back to where the VM prl's were set. 61007 or something or rather. Followed the instructions, and the PRL took change, but I kept noticing it said "Sprint" for the network being used. I got frustrated for some reason and decided to reload my first backup rom that was the stock Virgin Mobile rom with my few apps and settings I had on there. Went into Rom Manager and tried to restore my backup, and when I clicked restore the phone did absolutely nothing. I restarted the phone, turned it off, turned it back on, etc. Did the same thing each time. So I decided that I better download just a stock optimus v rom and try it through rom manager, of course it didnt work. uninstalled RM and reinstalled and still no luck. Thought maybe something was wrong with my SDCARD, so I formatted it. Oops. There goes everything.

So, not even thinking about the non-stock recovery image, I did a factory reset through the privacy. OMG I'm so dumb. Well thanks to this board, I was able to find the solution very easy. Downloaded xiona and followed that instruction and was able to get it back to factory stock, and seems like everything is back to where it should be if I bought it from the store.

All of you are probably thinking I am stupid for writing this all out, but point being, I truly respect each and every one of you on this board that contribute to this. It's amazing how much these little phones can do for us, and how much we can do for these little phones. Thanks.

Now for a few questions if you don't mind. I know the optimus v uses CDMA, so there is no SIM CARD. I am planning on going out of country sometime this winter (Australia) and was wondering if there were any possibility of still using my phone (whether it being unlocked or altered in Australia itself (Because there is a VM in Australia, correct?)) and being able to have data/voice/messaging/etc.

And I guess the only other question I have is what ROMs are you guys using and really, what is the best rom out there for the v right now?

Thanks guys,

Dirt.

 

[watskyhotsky]

there are going to be two answers for the "best rom"

first, the "Froyo" based Roms, the roms built around android 2.2, are the ones that have the MOST hardware functionality. These roms USUALLY have pretty much every feature working, at the cost of it being an older rom. many apps are losing compatibility with Android 2.2 in favor of the newer version.


then you have the Gingerbread based ROMs, which are built around the newest possible version of Android that is shipping on phones. Android 2.3.4

of these, I would say aospCM7 is the best, its basically a completely stock Gingerbread rom, with cyanogen settings baked into it, so you get neat stuff like power controls in the notification shade, all customizable, brightness slider on the notification bar. as well as ALL the benefits of android 2.3, like apps running faster, better text editing features, the stock keyboard is really nice, cool animations.

on aospCM7 the only features that are broken are bluetooth headsets (other bluetooth devices still work) and the voice search key.


in my personal opinion, I think android 2.3 is a MUCH better OS than 2.2, and that if you have the CHOICE, why would you ever NOT use it? (unless in this specific case where you would need a bluetooth headset often)

its like purposely choosing Windows XP over Windows 7 if you could have either. sure Windows 7 might need more time to get all the drivers, but at least people are working on it and its not a dead end like the older OS, XP. thats the best analogy I could think of that was relevant


I tried another 2.3 ROM (ath3nos) and it was not like stock android, it came with a custom launcher and wasnt as stable as aospcm7. I would say if you want to try all the roms out, go for it, you may like it. but I had bad experience with it.

 

[JerryScript]

ath3nos was built for the Optimus S and ported over with an StoV kernel conversion script, so bugs are to be expected.

The source for ath3nos is forked from the inferiorhumanorgans repo, which has branches for all the Optimus variants in development, including the V. A few of us are building from the VM670 source tree, and bugs are being squished every day by Blarf. If you like CM7, Blarf's repo is the way to go since aospbot seems to be on an extended vacation.

I don't think you can use the CDMA phones overseas, I believe that most other countries are not CDMA anymore.

 

[Kreatur3]

Another bug that aosp has, if you use wired headsets through your stereo or hands free type of things, that you can answer the call but your mic won't work. However it does with Ath3nos. It's easy to change the default launcher in the rom before you flash it, a step you shouldn't have to take I know. Also Ath3nos gives you some stupid extra features like screenshot from the power button menu and other rotation settings. But as watsky said you should try them all to see what works best for you.

Jerry and Blarf are doing a great job on his BACKside rom which will end up being the best cm7 choice.

 

[Retorrent]

Ive dropped using gingerbread ROMs until the optimus S gets there official version on which devs can build a good base ROM from. A lot of my apps actually worked horrible on asop and ant3nos so until we get a good solid base I will stick to 2.2 because I like to have all my apps work.

 

[watskyhotsky]

Ive dropped using gingerbread ROMs until the optimus S gets there official version on which devs can build a good base ROM from. A lot of my apps actually worked horrible on asop and ant3nos so until we get a good solid base I will stick to 2.2 because I like to have all my apps work.

weird, every app I use, even the basics. run way better on aospcm7 than on any 2.2 rom I try, everythings smoother, faster, quicker

 

[Retorrent]

weird, every app I use, even the basics. run way better on aospcm7 than on any 2.2 rom I try, everythings smoother, faster, quicker

I even tried several reflashes after I would flash the ROM I would wipe the SD card and start completly fresh and some apps still would run horrible.

 

[LeslieAnn]

its like purposely choosing Windows XP over Windows 7 if you could have either. sure Windows 7 might need more time to get all the drivers, but at least people are working on it and its not a dead end like the older OS, XP. thats the best analogy I could think of that was relevant

Sorry, but no.
Will it be better? Yes, but until then, you never know if the next patch will fix or break more things than are already broken.

Don't get me wrong, it's amazing what they have managed to pull off so far, but it's still far from perfect. Also, keep in mind that Foryo is still BY FAR the dominant system and unlike Windows XP, which is clearly over and done with, Froyo is still being shipped on new phones and still being supported. Normally, I would be with you on the idea of using the latest and greatest, I have done a lot of work with Windows betas (and other systems over the years), but CM7 for the OV is still not ready for prime time use.


Besides that, I honestly don't see what all the fuss is about, the extra features are stuff I rarely used. Which is exactly why Harmonia is built how it is, so you don't get any extra things you don't want or need. If I want a file manager, I'll download one. If I want an overclock utility, I'll download one...

 

[watskyhotsky]

Besides that, I honestly don't see what all the fuss is about, the extra features are stuff I rarely used. Which is exactly why Harmonia is built how it is, so you don't get any extra things you don't want or need. If I want a file manager, I'll download one. If I want an overclock utility, I'll download one...

I want the text editing that gingerbread has. I want the DSP manager that I actually use a lot. I want the fluff like screen off animations. I want the new underlying tech that makes all the apps run smoother. no app I use works as fast or smoothly on a 2.2 rom as it does on any of these 2.3 roms (aosp being the most stable)

 

[Whyzor]

I'm in about the same boat, reading a lot of the info here, I've narrowed the ROMs down to Harmonia (Android 2.2), or IHO/Backside CM7 (Android 2.3). I'm not in a hurry, so just seeing what develops and learn from other's experiences. I'll likely turn off a lot of the eye-candy in CM7 anyway, but do like some of the internals of Android 2.3, like better memory management/cleanup, security fixes, more efficient libraries? Also heard some report the Official Gingerbread released for the Optimus One had much better battery drain compared to Froyo. But in the end if CM7 breaks a critical app that I use regularly, I'll probably drop back to Froyo 2.2.

UPDATE: IHO/BACKside CM7 runs smoothly and without major problems for me, so I'm sticking with it. It also seems to have a lot of minor improvements over Froyo, such as SMS & Google Voice integration, Navigation not crashing like in stock ROM, and overall snappier feel compared to stock. I turned off most CM7 eyecandy though, except a few good features like the notification power widget, status bar brightness control, & battery percentage. also really like GB's battery usage graph, basically looking at the slope I can see what kind of activities drain the battery more.

 

[Kreatur3]

(aosp being the most stable)

I agree with everything but this statement lol. Ath3nos was as stable, for me, but the wired headset worked and the camera zoom and autofocus. On aosp it was one fix or the other. BACKside is pretty good so far, screams for me compared to aosp and it's still very early in development.
Plus they have a few options that aosp doesn't have. Custom pic on lockscreen is quite cool as is the built in screenshot option on the power settings.

 

[dirttrakker]

Thanks for all the responses. I have re-rerooted today and installed the Harmonia 1.3 rom. I then did the 1.3 patch, and discovered some problems in the market when trying to buy or download apps. I have the LauncherPro app, and decided to get the plus version to support the developer, but I couldn't do it because the market was not working. So I re-flashed the 1.3 Harmonia rom and the market was fine again (So something must be wrong with the new market?) Love the LauncherPro, but having trouble theming it (I wish there was a one click or installation guide somewhere because I have yet to find it anywhere )

 

[blarf]

on aospCM7 the only features that are broken are bluetooth headsets (other bluetooth devices still work) and the voice search key.

Also: camera zoom doesn't work (autofocus won't unless you patch it), wired headsets don't work in call, no USB tethering, ringtones play through the earpiece, there's a phantom hardware keyboard that screws up the setup wizard, and there are probably a few more bugs.

I tried another 2.3 ROM (ath3nos) and it was not like stock android, it came with a custom launcher and wasnt as stable as aospcm7. I would say if you want to try all the roms out, go for it, you may like it. but I had bad experience with it.

CM7 is not stock Android, full stop. ath3nos is right now a CM7 ROM, altho he will be aiming for proper stock Gingerbread, I'm working on stock CM7. The only major change I appear to have made was to bundle ADW Launcher by default. Seems quite a bit like what aosp had, but *shrug*. I'm looking into reverting to stock. aospCMod is a CM7 ROM with the goal of getting closer to stock android at some point I think. AFAIK it's been abandoned.

Ive dropped using gingerbread ROMs until the optimus S gets there official version on which devs can build a good base ROM from. A lot of my apps actually worked horrible on asop and ant3nos so until we get a good solid base I will stick to 2.2 because I like to have all my apps work.

Which apps? Which build? I've seen a lot of people complain about bugs, complain about having to do a factory wipe, and then watch the bugs magically disappear with a factory wipe.

ath3nos has had to take a break to take care of some business, but on the VM670, I'd say Jerry's ROM is a much better choice. As for stability I've been fast and furious with the kernel changes, and will hopefully leave it alone for a bit to see if I can shake things out. I've made some pretty aggressive changes to the process scheduler that will likely need to be backed down a bit.

So far the only major problem app I've used was XDA's free tapatalk.

 

[blarf]

Thanks for all the responses. I have re-rerooted today and installed the Hormonia 1.3 rom. I then did the 1.3 patch, and discovered some problems in the market when trying to buy or download apps. I have the LauncherPro app, and decided to get the plus version to support the developer, but I couldn't do it because the market was not working. So I re-flashed the 1.3 Hormonia rom and the market was fine again (So something must be wrong with the new market?) Love the LauncherPro, but having trouble theming it (I wish there was a one click or installation guide somewhere because I have yet to find it anywhere )

I suspect LeslieAnn is female, but the ROM name is... er... Harmonia.

Normally, I would be with you on the idea of using the latest and greatest, I have done a lot of work with Windows betas (and other systems over the years), but CM7 for the OV is still not ready for prime time use.

I'll disagree. Even aospCMod was quite stable for me. Granted the IHO/BACKside stuff is based off of CM7 nightlies (which is where all the amusing little goodies come from), but core functionality has been rock solid for me and, if nothing else, the glaring bugs in the stock Virgin Mobile/Froyo contacts app were fixed either in Gingerbread or in CM7.

Edit: Lastly, I believe Australia has (or had) CDMA networks... but switching over a smart phone like the VM670 is a bit more difficult than with something dumb like a Nokia 5185i where you could just punch in your phone number, and do an OTA PRL update. You can probably futz with all the data settings as needed with the proprietary Qualcomm tools, but it's likely not worth your time. Virgin Mobile Australia uses Optus' GSM network, so the VM670 won't work with VMA.

 

[dirttrakker]

I suspect LeslieAnn is female, but the ROM name is... er... Harmonia.

Errr....yes. Harmonia. Thanks for that....I hope she doesn't rage on my mistake lmao

 

[LeslieAnn]

Better than how many have called it Harmonica.
I gave up correcting people on it, but most seemed to have figured it out now.

And before anyone asks, no, I'm not into greek gods or anything.
When I do an Optimus Black rom (or whatever I end up with next), the name will be quite different.

I want the text editing that gingerbread has. I want the DSP manager that I actually use a lot. I want the fluff like screen off animations. I want the new underlying tech that makes all the apps run smoother. no app I use works as fast or smoothly on a 2.2 rom as it does on any of these 2.3 roms (aosp being the most stable)

I'm not saying it doesn't have some nice things, just that I think people ooh and ahhh over it excessively. I never saw what the big deal was for all the hype surrounding it. And believe me, there is a lot of hype around it.

 

[Kreatur3]

Better than how many have called it Harmonica.
I gave up correcting people on it, but most seemed to have figured it out now.

LOL! Almost everytime I type out your roms name I have to backspace and fix from calling it Harmonica.