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Galaxy Note 5

Fernandez21 said:
Yeah, don't hold your breath. Worst thing about Samsung is updates, specifically updating touchwiz.
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Yep, that's one of the worse things with Samsung. When you buy a new Galaxy phone, the Touchwiz you got with that phone, is the one you'll be stuck with for years. Yeah the Android version will get updated, but not Touchwiz 🙁
 
Tig Bitties said:
Yep, that's one of the worse things with Samsung. When you buy a new Galaxy phone, the Touchwiz you got with that phone, is the one you'll be stuck with for years. Yeah the Android version will get updated, but not Touchwiz 🙁
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This is true sadly, and It's more irksome when a new updated Touchwiz is implemented in a matter of only 12 weeks of your device launch and running on hardware essentially identical. That really annoys. My note pro 12.2 stuck on an older Touchwiz than the improved version for the Tab pros released just 12 weeks later. The new features and enhanced interface never actually coming to my essentially 3 month older device (but identical internals).

There is no excuse for that happening - that's crappy software support and should not happen.

So yeah, I'm hoping that things like 'app edge' comes to existing Edge devices, that the new 'stock' theme is likewise pushed out to existing S6/S6 edge devices which are essentially same internals... Yet I also realise this could just be wishful thinking and existing users may not see them ever.
 
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Tig Bitties said:
Went to Best Buy to check out the Note 5 ( currently have a Nexus 6, I'm very happy with ).


- Build quality and design is really top notch. Very good looking phone. And felt surprisingly light in the hand, looking at it all metal design, looks heavy, but pick it up and it's lightweight, in a good way.

- Screen / Display was jaw dropping good. I'm a fan of AMOLED and the Note 5's display is wicked awesome, just the best. Makes my Nexus 6 AMOLED look sad and with dirty whites, and less punch.

- I hate Touchwizz, but this version doesn't seem as bad as I thought. My last Galaxy phone I owned was an S4, and I loathed Touchwiz on that phone, but there also wasn't root on that one, so was stuck on a stock phone 🙁. My fav Samsung phone I owned, was my old ATT Note 2 that was rooted with Custom TW ROM, and I was very happy with Touchwizz then, but the ROM's made it much better.

- I walked away more impressed with the Note 5 than expected. But I could only buy one that could be rooted and allow custom ROM's. Which sadly seems ATT stopped allowing that starting back with the S4.

- Also interested in reading true real users opinion on battery life. If its doing at least 6h Screen On time, I may consider it. But if it's less, no way.
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Unless you get the Dev edition that should be out after release or the international version. There will be no custom roms. . That is just a niche market The security on these phones is just too good these days.
 
jamezr said:
Unless you get the Dev edition that should be out after release or the international version. There will be no custom roms. . That is just a niche market The security on these phones is just too good these days.
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Plus....if your root you can't use Samsung pay. Pretty Neat feature IMO.

Phones are just that good these days...rooting and rtf isn't necessary anymore.
 
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BlueGoldAce said:
Plus....if your root you can't use Samsung pay. Pretty Neat feature IMO.

Phones are just that good these days...rooting and rtf isn't necessary anymore.
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True. I stopped Rooting in the Galaxy S4 days, just didn't see the point anymore and I never did Root my Note 4 for anything but just to change CSC and then I Unrooted.
 
BlueGoldAce said:
Plus....if your root you can't use Samsung pay. Pretty Neat feature IMO.

Phones are just that good these days...rooting and rtf isn't necessary anymore.
Click to expand...

That's like saying there's no point to Jailbreaking an iPhone anymore. I had the 6 Plus and JB was an absolute must have, the iPhone 6 Plus was horrible plain jane stock out of the box, where the JB unlocked features and customization that are a necessity on a smartphone.

The Galaxy S4 which I owned back in the day, was one of my least fav Android phones, the stock Touchwiz on that phone was horrible, just so bad. Rooting and custom ROM's could turn that S4 into a GPE phone, meaning it was then running stock vanilla Android, and still officially supported by Samsung + Google. But even good Touchwiz ROM's made the S4 night and day a better device.

My old Note 2 on custom ROM's was ten million times a better phone, than running it stock out of the box.

Actually out of the 17 different Android phones I've owned since 2009, every single one of them I root within the first day, and typically install a custom Recovery within it''s first week. I just like the extra customization and complete total control over my gadgets, that Rooting + JB offer., I am not happy with just a stock device out of the box. It's like a car too, on an ///M5, I like my tinted windows, lowered suspension, new exhaust, new tires, upgraded suspension, short shifter, engine tweaks, etc...
 
Tig Bitties said:
That's like saying there's no point to Jailbreaking an iPhone anymore. I had the 6 Plus and JB was an absolute must have, the iPhone 6 Plus was horrible plain jane stock out of the box, where the JB unlocked features and customization that are a necessity on a smartphone.

The Galaxy S4 which I owned back in the day, was one of my least fav Android phones, the stock Touchwiz on that phone was horrible, just so bad. Rooting and custom ROM's could turn that S4 into a GPE phone, meaning it was then running stock vanilla Android, and still officially supported by Samsung + Google. But even good Touchwiz ROM's made the S4 night and day a better device.

My old Note 2 on custom ROM's was ten million times a better phone, than running it stock out of the box.

Actually out of the 17 different Android phones I've owned since 2009, every single one of them I root within the first day, and typically install a custom Recovery within it''s first week. I just like the extra customization and complete total control over my gadgets, that Rooting + JB offer., I am not happy with just a stock device out of the box. It's like a car too, on an ///M5, I like my tinted windows, lowered suspension, new exhaust, new tires, upgraded suspension, short shifter, engine tweaks, etc...
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Well....comparing root to JB isn't exactly the same...and android is as capable as a JB iPhone before you root it.

Anyway, I think you misunderstood my point. A few years back, sometimes, android phones were half backed. Rooting was almost necessary to make the phone run correctly. It allowed one to stabilize the phone, battery life, etc. Now today I know you can undervolt the processor and etc...but not everyone wants to mess with that.

Today rooting isn't necessary on mainstream flag ship phones. These phones come already on a iPhone-like stability level. Rooting now is a choice for further customization and etc. It's no longer necessary.
 
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You guys are nuts about customs roms the unlocked bootloader gs6s have huge rom support.

They already have all the big boys making custom kernels and they even have exposed boiting and almost working.
 
grkm3 said:
You guys are nuts about customs roms the unlocked bootloader gs6s have huge rom support.

They already have all the big boys making custom kernels and they even have exposed boiting and almost working.
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Yep. Just looking on XDA under the Galaxy S6 Development thread. It's very popular. The biggest ROM there has like 550,000 replies, and the other ones have like 200,000 views, and others in the 100k range.

I'd say rooting and ROM'ing Galaxy phones is still very popular.
 
BlueGoldAce said:
Well....comparing root to JB isn't exactly the same...and android is as capable as a JB iPhone before you root it.

Anyway, I think you misunderstood my point. A few years back, sometimes, android phones were half backed. Rooting was almost necessary to make the phone run correctly. It allowed one to stabilize the phone, battery life, etc. Now today I know you can undervolt the processor and etc...but not everyone wants to mess with that.

Today rooting isn't necessary on mainstream flag ship phones. These phones come already on a iPhone-like stability level. Rooting now is a choice for further customization and etc. It's no longer necessary.
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Exactly!

I remember my 1st Android, in 2010, I got one of the 1st big flagships of the time, the SE Xperia X10. It had this incredible 8MP Camera, a stunning 4inch 854x480 display, gorgeous design typical of Scandanavian design with great lines etc... 384mb RAM, 1GHz Snapdragon CPU etc... These were great specs at the time, but my goodness was the software poor, it came with a UI called 'Timescape' and a media UI known as 'Mediascape', the former was an awful lagfest often resulting in crashes and random reboots, it handled Contacts, Social Media, Phone Calls, Messaging etc..., while the latter was an incredible example of a Phone Media UI done beautifully and implemented well, resulting in a very inconsistent experience when put together with Timescape. One HAD TO Root the phone, get rid of Timescape and tweak the CPU.

Android Flagships have come very far from those times. I can now take any Android Flagship out the box, boot up and have it run beautifully without a single tweak. Crashes and random reboots are something I have not experienced since just before my S3. From the S3 onwards, I was very happy, but I would still Root and test ROMs for the fun of it.

Rooting has become something you do for fun, IMO, or if you have THAT ONE ROM you absolutely love e.g. CM, and just purchase the phone for the great hardware.
 
Tig Bitties said:
Yep. Just looking on XDA under the Galaxy S6 Development thread. It's very popular. The biggest ROM there has like 550,000 replies, and the other ones have like 200,000 views, and others in the 100k range.

I'd say rooting and ROM'ing Galaxy phones is still very popular.
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They even have duel booting os with 2 different kernels and 2 roms on device lol

I wish I had an unlocked bootloader and hoping someone will crack it but its not looking to good.I'm still on 5.02 because 5.1.1 can't even be rooted yet on locked bootloader gs6s and they hard coded it that you can't downgrade from 5.1.1 once inatalled
 
BlueGoldAce said:
Well....comparing root to JB isn't exactly the same...and android is as capable as a JB iPhone before you root it.

Anyway, I think you misunderstood my point. A few years back, sometimes, android phones were half backed. Rooting was almost necessary to make the phone run correctly. It allowed one to stabilize the phone, battery life, etc. Now today I know you can undervolt the processor and etc...but not everyone wants to mess with that.

Today rooting isn't necessary on mainstream flag ship phones. These phones come already on a iPhone-like stability level. Rooting now is a choice for further customization and etc. It's no longer necessary.
Click to expand...

I would say with the introduction Xposed Framework, installing a custom ROM has become almost pointless. With Xposed modules, you get the exact customization you want instead of a complete custom ROM (that may have features you don't care for). For instance, if you only want Imersive mode in certain apps (like Chrome) that don't have it built in, or if you want Ad-Away for YouTube, then Xposed has you covered. No need to flash a whole custom ROM. That being said, I run complete stock and love it for its stability. I simply don't need root anymore, but can still understand some that do.

That being said, check out another hands on video of the Note 5. I like this one as it's a little more thorough than the others.

 
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Sevanw said:
I would say with the introduction Xposed Framework, installing a custom ROM has become almost pointless. With Xposed modules, you get the exact customization you want instead of a complete custom ROM (that may have features you don't care for). For instance, if you only want Imersive mode in certain apps (like Chrome) that don't have it built in, or if you want Ad-Away for YouTube, then Xposed has you covered. No need to flash a whole custom ROM. That being said, I run complete stock and love it for its stability. I simply don't need root anymore, but can still understand some that do.

That being said, check out another hands on video of the Note 5. I like this one as it's a little more thorough than the others.

Click to expand...

Totally agree on Xposed framework, it is an absolute must have on all Android devices. I have it on my Nexus 6, just for battery helpers like Amplify and Greenify. I now average like 5.5h to 6h Screen On time. A stock Nexus 6 could never get this kind of battery life.

Plus I used Xposed for AdAway and YouTubeAdAway = no commercials or adds ever on my phone.

So for me a Note 5 needs to at least have Root available for it.
 
I love stock rom with root.you get stability and the ability to permanently freeze and delete apps you don't use or need along with disabling services that stock has no option to disable
 
I'm like a few others here who still appreciate what rooting can offer but have tended to do so much less than I used to. In the Note 2 / Find 5 days I was a flashaholic and non-stop tinkerer modding ROMs just to my needs.

Now even stock TW let's me disable stuff and Package Disabler helps further without rooting. I'm more likely to explore rooting once warranty is out but tend to change phones before that happens.
 
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spriter said:
I'm like a few others here who still appreciate what rooting can offer but have tended to do so much less than I used to. In the Note 2 / Find 5 days I was a flashaholic and non-stop tinkerer modding ROMs just to my needs.

Now even stock TW let's me disable stuff and Package Disabler helps further without rooting. I'm more likely to explore rooting once warranty is out but tend to change phones before that happens.
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Yep I won't root because I fear losing warranty and hence resale value as I go through that many phones it's important I preserve resale and saleability.

As you say the small cost of Package Disabler on PlayStore pretty much takes care of doing the stuff you would normally need to root to do and it's quicker than rooting and doesn't break features like fingerprint scanner or Samsung Pay.
 
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BlueGoldAce said:
Plus....if your root you can't use Samsung pay. Pretty Neat feature IMO.

Phones are just that good these days...rooting and rtf isn't necessary anymore.
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Samsung totally got it right with Samsung Pay. Can't wait to use it. I love how the Beta testers were told just to go there and use it without the retailers having to do a single thing. Brilliant.
 
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