FYI from my limited time playing around with it. 3G works just fine for streaming. As mentioned I only had one brief buffer incident. Only real reason to worry about using WiFi is if you have data caps...then I can see the benefits. As for searching and queueing it's not full function. You can search for and add streaming titles to your queue using this app. You cannot however add to your DVD queue. I did some test searches of newer movies I know NF carries but that do not stream....often it came back w/ 'title not found' responses. So you cannot search the entire NF library here; doesn't matter anyway because as mentioned there is no function for adding to your DVD queue. What it will do in some cases is find non-streaming titles and then go on to recommend simlar titles that do stream. Maybe that's part of the algorithm: it will find a title if something similar is available to stream. I had been using the Movela app for managing my DVD & Stream queue, and I guess I will keep it for the DVD side of things. Perhaps this new NF app will become full function w/ future updates, but for now it's strictly streaming-focused. Stay tuned.
The number one thing I have read that will save battery life is to disable the "always on mobile" function under settings. Also turn off the GPS setting. It will still work when you use maps or navigation or something. Then go to your weather and mail settings and make sure they only update every 4/6/8 hours or whatever you choose. Doing these three things turns off the main sources of constant cell tower "pinging" and significatly improves battery life. I have changed these settings and my phone can go two days of normal use without a charge. However I charge it everynight because often I go beyond "normal use". PanChango I'm curious what you think of your Hero now. The first three months I owned it about 1 1/2 years ago I loved it. Thought it was a great phone. It was also my first introduction to Android and sold me on it as a platform. However once they rolled out the Evo and forced the updated software version to all Hero users the phone went to hell. Everything slowed down, significant lag times when pushing buttons, herky-jerky motions, etc. Frankly I felt it rendered the phone virtually unusable. I'm not alone either gauging by the Hero forums I frequented on the Sprint website at the time. I finally gave up and went w/ the Evo which I love but still, what they did to the Hero was a crime. It was never meant to handle the Froyo software update intended for the newer phones. If they'd have stuck w/ ver. 1.56 I might even still be using it. What's your experience been?
I went ahead and rooted and bootstrapped my phone. The first thing I did was run bloatware remover. The phone is faster now and I don' have all the preinstalled, uninstallable / unstoppable apps running in the background. Further, I set my phone to kill dang near every other app when the screen goes dark. My battery life is now significantly improved.
Battery update: so I've been using the chunky extended life battery for a few days now and I have to say that it's really a huge improvement! I don't notice the giant bulge when I'm carrying it around, but it does make it slightly more awkward to hold. I kind of end up doing the balancing on the end of my pinky thing like with my XL Progress.
Amazon Free Paid App of the Day: TweetCaster Pro Seems pretty nice, I wouldn't pay $5 for it, but for free? Heckes yeah, I'll try it!
Who would have thought that by killing the background transfer on my phone, my battery life is significantly improved. I guess when I don't have gmail checking for new mail and trying to sync itself every 3.8 seconds, my battery lasts a bit longer. It is still going south, but the Compu-Global-Hyper-Mega-Net replacement should be here soon enuff.
My battery life has really went south since I upgraded to 2.2. From what I read, a factory reset might fix my troubles. Anyone ever experienced this?
My phone started with 2.2, but recently the battery has taken a serious decline in its ability to stay charged. I am wondering if the new home screen is part of the fault in my case. I loaded a battery manager program, but the batteries just zapped even faster.
Weird; like Justin, my phone started out with 2.2, and my battery life actually increased with the GoLauncher home screen. (Side note: I'm still really peeved that Verizon store worker accused me of rooting my phone voiding the warranty....you'd think they wouldn't just look at the "desktop" and assume "oh, I've never seen that before, it must be Gingerbread...". Idiots - can't live with 'em, can't shoot 'em....legally)
Seeing your post got me to check the version I was running and I realized that I was still running 1.5. Oof. Backed everything up and going for the upgrade to 2.2 now
You might have missed my post above, but I would seriously consider not doing this. The new version of Android is not user friendly to the Hero. Go to the forums on the Sprint website and check out all the complaints. Once you upgrade they don't allow reverting back to 1.5 or 1.56. You're just stuck.
I did indeed miss your post above and probably would have stuck it out with 1.56 if I had read it. One of my thoughts before doing this was that it would be like sticking the pig Vista on a Win2k box. I've had the phone for 19 months so far and it has been fairly solid for me. I did crack the housing near the usb connector and my battery is on it's way out. It definitely isn't the fastest phone out there, but it wasn't a complete dog either. Since I have done the update, I will have to see how it goes from here. I've been running 2.2 for the last few hours and it seems fairly stable aside from my mobile network seeming to drop out when attached to the market. I will have to look at it after work when I have more time. I've kept bluetooth, wireless, wifi, and gps turned off since I have had the phone and just turn it on when I need it. I do keep an Advanced Task Killer icon on my home screen and frequently kill applications. I think now that I upgraded it, I will probably also root it and dump alot of the bloatware on the phone. I've been resigned to the fact that I will probably need a new phone soon, but would like to keep this going as long as long as the hardware doesn't break.
Well I'm learning all sorts of stuff today. Thanks. I upgraded from 1.5 to 2.2 of the Sprint version of the OS. Once I got there, the mobile network kept cutting out and it was the same garbage again. So with nothing else to lose, I rooted the phone and installed a 2.3 gingerbread rom and am installing the things I use. It feels like going from kde to icewm. It's a very minimal feeling install compared to what I was running, but appears to be doing alright so far. Mobile network is going strong and I have most of what I use or a suitable replacement installed. It feels like a completely new phone and I have a bunch more learning to do.
Don't! I did the same thing some time ago and didn't know why my phone was sooo slow. That stupid ATK eats up your processor and this affects your battery life as well. Without it it's much better.
Today's free app is 100 pushups. Several of us were doing this program a couple of years back. I am thinking about giving it another go. However, my shape is far worse now than it was then. I have gained at least 40 pounds between knee injuries, tendinitis, and stress eating. I might just download this tonight and see what happens. Anyone else want to give it a go as well?
I need to finish up my thought from up there... I'm definitely jumping back in on it. I was halfway through it...again, but this time fully committed to finishing it...when I had to have that arm surgery last year (wow, it's been a year already, this month). I need to check if they have the 100 situps and 200 squats apps available, too
