lovedonator
Ambassador of Buzz
Introduction
What, a review of an year old cell phone? Either this lovedonator guy has gone mad or he had just bought a second hand device and is going to go all blah blah about how value for money it is. I’m sure many of you are thinking along the same lines after reading the title of this thread. Let me assure you it is nothing like that. Yes it is a review of more than a year old Samsung I9000 Galaxy S but it was purchased by me and has been my true friend since then. What I want to do is to point out to everyone the true essence of Android. To show you that when all the big companies including the manufacturer of my device are busy springing out new devices with almost PC like hardware, how my friend here has not let the thought of an upgrade cross my mind. So keep reading if you want to see an example of the power of open source and the tech community.
Hardware
Samsung I9000 Galaxy S
Chipset- Hummingbird
CPU- 1 GHz Cortex-A8
GPU- PowerVR SGX540
Sensors- Accelerometer, proximity, compass
CAMERA- Primary 5 MP, 2592 x 1944 pixels, autofocus
Features- Geo-tagging, touch focus, face and smile detection
Video- Yes, 720p@30fps
Secondary- Yes, VGA
DISPLAY TYPE- Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
SIZE- 480 x 800 pixels, 4.0 inches (~233 ppi pixel density)
MULTITOUCH- Yes
PROTECTION- Corning Gorilla Glass
MEMORY CARD SLOT-microSD, up to 32GB
INTERNAL- 16GB storage, 512 MB RAM, 2GB ROM
Those of you who were keeping an eye on the Mobile scene in the last 2 years probably remember that when released this was ‘the phone’ to beat. A 1GHz processor,512MB RAM(391 available),16GB inbuilt storage and that 4” work of art Super AMOLED. I remember just how awestruck I was when I saw this phone and worked in a MacDonald’s after my classes to save money for it.
Software
The phone came with Android 2.2 Froyo installed on it and was later updated to Gingerbread(Android 2.3). After that a few updates came but Samsung decided not to release Ice-Cream Sandwich for the device. But at that time I had travelled a lot in the Custom ROM bandwagon and I knew there was no turning back for me. At the time of writing this my phone is running Helly Bean which as the name suggests is a custom ROM based on recently released Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. The ROM is made by a senior member at Xda-developers who goes by the name DerTeufel1980.
View attachment 6668
Practical Experience
This is the part where all the fun is, isn’t it? We can talk about hardware, benchmarks, latest OSes all we like but if the phone lags as hell and drives you mad while using it then nothing is of use.
Fortunately for me this is not the case. Every option in my phone is customizable. From the clock speed of the processor to the range of strength of WiFi connectivity (for performance or battery saving). I can toggle which widgets I want displayed in the notification area, in which order and if I want icons or only text. I am using the latest Google Now and enjoying ‘Project Butter’ both of which were introduced by Google in Jelly bean.
Gaming is pretty slick. Angry Birds Space loads at the same time as friend’s Galaxy S2 and runs just as slick. All the applications load smoothly and work without any hiccup.
Rooting has given me the power to install applications which are not available to non-rooted phones. I use Titanium Backup to Backup all my apps automatically and sync them to my Dropbox at scheduled times. I use Root Explorer to view the internal file system of my file manager and have control over what resides in the root directories of my phone.
I use Market Enabler to change the region of my Android market and download apps which are available only in some specific countries.
These are just a few glimpses of what rooting makes your phone capable of. There is much and much more to explore.
View attachment 6670
View attachment 6672
Summary
I’m not here to claim that my device is better than a Galaxy S3 or a HTC One X. I wrote this because I wanted an average guy with an old android phone to see that with a bit of research and time he does not need to spend his/her hard earned cash on the ‘next big thing’. If all you want is that your device keeps on functioning smoothly then you should know that there are developers out there who are working their asses off just for you, so that you are not scammed by the rat race to buy the latest product just for the heck of it.
For More Screenshots go to lovedonator's albums - Imgur
Tips For Beginners
Go to Android Forums & Windows Phone Discussion @ xda-developers and select your device and give some time to reading threads in different sub-sections .
If you find a custom-ROM that you would like to install then always Read the instructions very carefully and 2-3 times to make sure you have not missed anything.
Always take a backup of important data.
Credits
Everything I have learned about development for android is because of people at xda-developers. Thank You for all the effort you do for the community.
The phone in screenshots is running a ROM made by DerTeufel1980 (xda-developers - View Profile: DerTeufel1980 )
The members of Cyanogen Mod team (CyanogenMod | Android Community Rom based on Ice Cream Sandwich) These guys are the always the first to build a ROM from source released by Google.
What, a review of an year old cell phone? Either this lovedonator guy has gone mad or he had just bought a second hand device and is going to go all blah blah about how value for money it is. I’m sure many of you are thinking along the same lines after reading the title of this thread. Let me assure you it is nothing like that. Yes it is a review of more than a year old Samsung I9000 Galaxy S but it was purchased by me and has been my true friend since then. What I want to do is to point out to everyone the true essence of Android. To show you that when all the big companies including the manufacturer of my device are busy springing out new devices with almost PC like hardware, how my friend here has not let the thought of an upgrade cross my mind. So keep reading if you want to see an example of the power of open source and the tech community.
Hardware
Samsung I9000 Galaxy S
Chipset- Hummingbird
CPU- 1 GHz Cortex-A8
GPU- PowerVR SGX540
Sensors- Accelerometer, proximity, compass
CAMERA- Primary 5 MP, 2592 x 1944 pixels, autofocus
Features- Geo-tagging, touch focus, face and smile detection
Video- Yes, 720p@30fps
Secondary- Yes, VGA
DISPLAY TYPE- Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
SIZE- 480 x 800 pixels, 4.0 inches (~233 ppi pixel density)
MULTITOUCH- Yes
PROTECTION- Corning Gorilla Glass
MEMORY CARD SLOT-microSD, up to 32GB
INTERNAL- 16GB storage, 512 MB RAM, 2GB ROM
Those of you who were keeping an eye on the Mobile scene in the last 2 years probably remember that when released this was ‘the phone’ to beat. A 1GHz processor,512MB RAM(391 available),16GB inbuilt storage and that 4” work of art Super AMOLED. I remember just how awestruck I was when I saw this phone and worked in a MacDonald’s after my classes to save money for it.
Software
The phone came with Android 2.2 Froyo installed on it and was later updated to Gingerbread(Android 2.3). After that a few updates came but Samsung decided not to release Ice-Cream Sandwich for the device. But at that time I had travelled a lot in the Custom ROM bandwagon and I knew there was no turning back for me. At the time of writing this my phone is running Helly Bean which as the name suggests is a custom ROM based on recently released Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. The ROM is made by a senior member at Xda-developers who goes by the name DerTeufel1980.
View attachment 6668Practical Experience
This is the part where all the fun is, isn’t it? We can talk about hardware, benchmarks, latest OSes all we like but if the phone lags as hell and drives you mad while using it then nothing is of use.
Fortunately for me this is not the case. Every option in my phone is customizable. From the clock speed of the processor to the range of strength of WiFi connectivity (for performance or battery saving). I can toggle which widgets I want displayed in the notification area, in which order and if I want icons or only text. I am using the latest Google Now and enjoying ‘Project Butter’ both of which were introduced by Google in Jelly bean.
Gaming is pretty slick. Angry Birds Space loads at the same time as friend’s Galaxy S2 and runs just as slick. All the applications load smoothly and work without any hiccup.
Rooting has given me the power to install applications which are not available to non-rooted phones. I use Titanium Backup to Backup all my apps automatically and sync them to my Dropbox at scheduled times. I use Root Explorer to view the internal file system of my file manager and have control over what resides in the root directories of my phone.
I use Market Enabler to change the region of my Android market and download apps which are available only in some specific countries.
These are just a few glimpses of what rooting makes your phone capable of. There is much and much more to explore.
View attachment 6670View attachment 6672 Summary
I’m not here to claim that my device is better than a Galaxy S3 or a HTC One X. I wrote this because I wanted an average guy with an old android phone to see that with a bit of research and time he does not need to spend his/her hard earned cash on the ‘next big thing’. If all you want is that your device keeps on functioning smoothly then you should know that there are developers out there who are working their asses off just for you, so that you are not scammed by the rat race to buy the latest product just for the heck of it.
For More Screenshots go to lovedonator's albums - Imgur
Tips For Beginners
Go to Android Forums & Windows Phone Discussion @ xda-developers and select your device and give some time to reading threads in different sub-sections .
If you find a custom-ROM that you would like to install then always Read the instructions very carefully and 2-3 times to make sure you have not missed anything.
Always take a backup of important data.
Credits
Everything I have learned about development for android is because of people at xda-developers. Thank You for all the effort you do for the community.
The phone in screenshots is running a ROM made by DerTeufel1980 (xda-developers - View Profile: DerTeufel1980 )
The members of Cyanogen Mod team (CyanogenMod | Android Community Rom based on Ice Cream Sandwich) These guys are the always the first to build a ROM from source released by Google.
