Newbie seeking to optimize performance

[v8440]

Hi all,

I just got a sprint samsung epic 4g a few days ago. There are so many things I don't know about these phones that I couldn't list them all, and I'm sure I'll have tons of questions occur to me as I get more used to the phone. I have a few I can think of now if you guys could help me get started.

I dislike clutter, unnecessary processes running in the background, and short battery life. So, I'd like to get rid of as much stuff as possible that I don't use. For example, I don't use any social networking sites. Anything related to those can be uninstalled as far as I'm concerned. For media, I only have mp3's transferred off my computer. I'd like to shoot video and take pictures with my phone, though I can't figure out how to save video I shoot.

I have an extensive, though old, background in overclocking pc's. I got into the scene back when we were hanging goldfinger cards off the back of amd athlon slot processors and jumping up and down about 150 mhz overclocks. I kinda got out of it about the time the intel core2 duo processors were getting well established. I understand that it's possible to tinker with the clock speed and cpu voltage of these phones. That sounds good to me. Is it possible to undervolt reliably at stock speeds, or even at overclocked speeds? Better yet, is there a way to scale clock speed and voltage to processor load? I remember tinkering with that sort of thing several years ago with pc's and getting some very good compromises between laptop battery life and performance.

Crap on the desktop-I don't know what you guys call it, but the home screen on the phone has a lot of stuff I don't want. It also seems to have added some stuff by itself after I went into the applications menu and clicked on them a few times. I'd like to know how to remove what I don't want, and prevent further additions to it without my knowledge.

If it matters, here are the specs on my phone:

Model number sph-d700
firmware version 2.2.1
baseband version s:d700.0.5s.ec05
kernel version 2.6.32.9
build number froyo.ec05
hardware version d700.0.5

The lady at the store that set me up with the phone apparently initiated the upgrade to froyo, so all I had to do was tell it to go ahead and install it.

 

[jrz5024]

I dislike clutter, unnecessary processes running in the background, and short battery life. So, I'd like to get rid of as much stuff as possible that I don't use. For example, I don't use any social networking sites. Anything related to those can be uninstalled as far as I'm concerned. For media, I only have mp3's transferred off my computer. I'd like to shoot video and take pictures with my phone, though I can't figure out how to save video I shoot.

I have an extensive, though old, background in overclocking pc's. I got into the scene back when we were hanging goldfinger cards off the back of amd athlon slot processors and jumping up and down about 150 mhz overclocks. I kinda got out of it about the time the intel core2 duo processors were getting well established. I understand that it's possible to tinker with the clock speed and cpu voltage of these phones. That sounds good to me. Is it possible to undervolt reliably at stock speeds, or even at overclocked speeds? Better yet, is there a way to scale clock speed and voltage to processor load? I remember tinkering with that sort of thing several years ago with pc's and getting some very good compromises between laptop battery life and performance.

Crap on the desktop-I don't know what you guys call it, but the home screen on the phone has a lot of stuff I don't want. It also seems to have added some stuff by itself after I went into the applications menu and clicked on them a few times. I'd like to know how to remove what I don't want, and prevent further additions to it without my knowledge.

Given your desire for a fast, battery sipping, stripped down phone, and your background in tinkering, I'd suggest you ditch stock, root, and install a custom ROM. Rooting will give you superuser access to the system files on the phone, allowing you to get rid of unwanted programs as well as install programs like SetCPU, which can let you OC/UV your processor.

There are many ROM/ Kernel combos to choose from, but the most recent have taken advantage of the latest EC05 modem from Samsung - I know Bonsai, MidNIGHT and SyndicateROM all use it. If you're looking for pure speed and a rom stripped down to the core, SyndicateROM is pretty barebones and blazing fast, but MidNIGHT also comes BYOR (build your own). Bonsai comes with TouchWiz, so go with that if you're a fan of it. Otherwise, our own in-house ACE rom is very fast and uber stable, and a good rom for beginners since it isn't overly ambitious or complicated. Plus, you can get 1-on-1 help from the dev (since he's a mod here).

All this stuff seems really complicated at first but it's quite easy once you get the hang of it Check out our Rooting subforum ( http://forum.androidcentral.com/epic-4g-rooting-roms-hacks/ ) where you can find out all the info you'll need.

 

[Paul627g]

Hi all,

I just got a sprint samsung epic 4g a few days ago. There are so many things I don't know about these phones that I couldn't list them all, and I'm sure I'll have tons of questions occur to me as I get more used to the phone. I have a few I can think of now if you guys could help me get started.

I dislike clutter, unnecessary processes running in the background, and short battery life. So, I'd like to get rid of as much stuff as possible that I don't use. For example, I don't use any social networking sites. Anything related to those can be uninstalled as far as I'm concerned. For media, I only have mp3's transferred off my computer. I'd like to shoot video and take pictures with my phone, though I can't figure out how to save video I shoot.

I have an extensive, though old, background in overclocking pc's. I got into the scene back when we were hanging goldfinger cards off the back of amd athlon slot processors and jumping up and down about 150 mhz overclocks. I kinda got out of it about the time the intel core2 duo processors were getting well established. I understand that it's possible to tinker with the clock speed and cpu voltage of these phones. That sounds good to me. Is it possible to undervolt reliably at stock speeds, or even at overclocked speeds? Better yet, is there a way to scale clock speed and voltage to processor load? I remember tinkering with that sort of thing several years ago with pc's and getting some very good compromises between laptop battery life and performance.

Crap on the desktop-I don't know what you guys call it, but the home screen on the phone has a lot of stuff I don't want. It also seems to have added some stuff by itself after I went into the applications menu and clicked on them a few times. I'd like to know how to remove what I don't want, and prevent further additions to it without my knowledge.

If it matters, here are the specs on my phone:

Model number sph-d700
firmware version 2.2.1
baseband version s:d700.0.5s.ec05
kernel version 2.6.32.9
build number froyo.ec05
hardware version d700.0.5

The lady at the store that set me up with the phone apparently initiated the upgrade to froyo, so all I had to do was tell it to go ahead and install it.

The link below will take you to the thread to "root" your phone which will allow you to use root access programs to clean up the bloatware and remove unnecessary programs you don't like.

Use procedure #1
[Root] Samsung Epic 4G Official Froyo EC05 w/Optional EXT4 *New Updated 2*

Then once you have accomplished installing root, you can go to the thread below and download the SDX application and remove the programs you don't want.

List: Stock Apps and their .apk files (for removal)

Also now that your rooted you can use programs like Titanium Backup or MyBackup Root from the Market to backup and restore your phones data/settings/apps.

Plus you have the option to do Wireless Tethering if you interested in that option, and for FREE.

[How To] Wireless Tethering for Root Users

Hope this helps.

 

[v8440]

Guys, thank you so much for the help. I'm gonna read through all that stuff and think about it. I may have some basic vocabulary questions before it's all over. When I say I'm new to smartphones, I'm not kidding.

 

[Paul627g]

Guys, thank you so much for the help. I'm gonna read through all that stuff and think about it. I may have some basic vocabulary questions before it's all over. When I say I'm new to smartphones, I'm not kidding.

Many basic questions can be answer in this thread too...

[FAQ] Q & A on Rooting/ROMs/Methods

 

[v8440]

I'm basically in the odd position of having a bunch of computer experience with windows 98 and xp machines, and wanting to translate some of that (the optimization part anyway) into working with my phone. Problem is, I have a college level understanding of windows machines and a 3rd grade understanding of phones. Makes for interesting conversations. By the way, did someone change the title of this thread? I noticed it isn't what I originally named it.