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Pros and Cons of your new Indulge

ickster

ickster

Android Enthusiast
I've had it since Saturday and there aren't a lot of cons.:D

Pros:
I like the way the phone reacts as I pull it away from my face while on a call. All my options are right there on the screen...End call, Speaker, Dialpad, Bluetooth and add call (which I'm guess is conferance call?). It's nice. Very intuitive and convenient.

Volume is more than adequate on the music and video playback.

It does everything pretty fast as far as cpu speed. On my old Huawei Ascend you could count to three while waiting for the keypad to come up. This phone does everything pretty much instantly.

I like some of the programs that Metripcs put on. There seem to be a lot of tools that will be helpful.

I'm a big fan of the seperate keyboard. It is easier than the screen ones for my fat fingers. Although I just figured out what swype actually does and am impressed. But that is a different post.

I really like the fact that when you pull down the notification bar, there are bttons for the various comm options. IE a button for Wifi, Bluetooth,GPS,Silent,and Airplane mode. Nice to have these options so accessible.

Over all, I'm in love with my new phone. I don't have as much experience with Android and Smartyphones as most. But based on my limited experience I give this phone a B+. (see my cons below)

Cons:
Not many.

Someone said there weren't a lot bloatware apps on here. I dissagree. There are too many IMO. I don't want nor need any of these stupid programs.

No root....see #1. I have no experience with rooting except for on my Ascend. It sure is nice to have more control over the apps.

No zoom on the camera is a bummer. It's not a bad camera. I'm hoping there is an App option on this. So far no luck on that tho'.

No root.

Battery gets used up very quickly. I realize this is an issue with most Android phones...more apps=less battery life. As I've posted here, I purchased an extra battery and charger which is working out quite well do far. Again I realize this is a problem with most Smartyphones.

It's not been rooted yet.

Apparently, without root (!) the icon for the Ironman2 movie can't be removed. So we're expected to keep the Icon for a 2010 movie on our phones for the life of the phone?? That's just stupid.

Theres my input....where's yours? What do you think of you new Indulge? If it's anything like with me, there are a ton of people hanging on every word on this phone.

I sure hope someone figures out how to get us Root. All that is way out of my league. But I like the control. It is my phone after all.
But I like my new Indulge better than any phone I've ever had. period.
 
Would have been nice if instead of a keyboard we used that space as a much larger battery.

Cons:
#1 LTE 4G consumes battery power to fast, aslo the wall charger doesn't even provide enough power to keept the phone running while using 4G.
#2 The phone gets really hot while using 4G
#3 Camera doesn't do good auto brightness control, and makes bright things seem blurry.
#4 Don't like the slide out keyboard, I wish they would have used all of that extra space for a huge battery.
#5 Some android features are removed like VPN
#6 Android 2.3 has been out since before the phone came out yet the phone shipped with 2.2.1 and we have no idea if we will even get 2.3 (Samsung please let us know!)
#7 Phone comes loaded with bloatware that can't be removed. Example: they advertise the phone as coming with the movie Iron Man loaded on the SD card. If they want to include a free movie on the SD card that is OK(i can remove that) but the move requires a preinstall IronMan app just to play the movie. This iron man app cannot be removed and is just using up space on my phones internal memory since I deleted the movie from my SD card.
 
Yeah, also the screen isn't bad, but AMOLED would have been nice. In all honesty i still don't get why they slapped the galaxy logo on it. Do they really think people are that stupid? That's almost insulting.

I would say for me the NUMBER 1, biggest con is the fact you can't turn off 4G mode, that's just flat out ******ed. Like if it had a function like the HTC EVO. I also seriously hate the touch wiz pro, that's the first thing I changed on the phone using launcher pro. All in all a lot of cons could be fixed if we could just root this beast! But it seems like no one has it.. :(
 
I looked around a bit. I think I've turned the 4g off and am using just the wifi. I just put it in airplane mode. The 4g icon is gone. And I can still turn on the wifi. I'm watching tv.com . No 4g icon. Am I missing something? And as far as making a call. Isn't 4g the only option on Metropcs? Are you talking about using Skype or googletalk ?? You mention that in your previous post on the 4g turn off issue.
No disrespect, Am I missing something here?
 
Not sure if you understand how 4G operates, and specifically the 4G being used here is LTE. You think you use 4g speeds during a phone call? No, you don't. The idea is when you surf on the web, stream music, download whatever you use the 4G part of the towers. When just talking you don't. So say i'm just using the phone to txt, or talk to someone on the phone. I don't want 4G on, because it'll each the shit out of my battery.

I refered to the HTC EVO, because its the perfect example of this. It has a button on the home screen where you can disable blue tooth, wifi, 4G, and other modes. Say i'm in range of wifi, and I still want to be able to receive txt and calls. That's the whole reason for a button like that. Its the same thing with the Iphone, you can turn off the 3G data speeds, to save your battery. So forget wifi, i'm solely talking about turning off 4G when i'm not using it. Airplane mode cuts your tower connection complete. I'm talking about a button that turns the 4G to just X1, so i can save my battery that's all. Hope that makes more sense.
 
So the phone uses enough energy to be concerned about just standing by on 4g?
Is this a major contributor to the short battery life? I thought it was the Apps doing stuff in the backround that was the worst offender?
Thanks for the schooling LOL

Still loving this phone.
 
yeah the phone can go down to 2g data connection, but it doesnt give use the option to switch manualy, it only falls back to 2g when 4G is not available.

If we had the option to switch over to 2G data the battery life would be greatly improved. Most apps dont require 4G speeds, thats more for when your surfing the web or downloading/streaming.
 
I got my answer from Samsung....passing the buck. I sent a new inquiry scolding them for this total lack of customer service. What a joke.

"Thank you for your inquiry. Please coordinate with your service provider to get the settings and configurations about the 4G connections on your phone since it is an additional features on your data plan.
For the movie icon showing on your screen, please tap and hold on the application and drag it at the bottom of the screen wherein there is a trash can icon if you want to delete icons.
Thank you for your continued interest in Samsung products.
Sincerely,
Technical Support LOL
Marge"
No reference number, no way to reply. Did she really think I hadn't tried that? She never considered that I might have?
So I looked through MetroPCS's FAQs again.....no answer there. No way on the website to contact tech or customer support (LOL) directly...What a joke.
So I call. Say "representastive" over and over until finally I get one (?). Explain everything. Ask to speak to Tech.
Finally get to speak to Myrna in Tech. Explain my frustrations. Very polite lady. But doesn't know the answers.
Sends me to "Tech" store. Is that a Corporate store I ask. "Yes, they are the ones that program the phones, they should know" Wow............

So of to a Corporate store I go.......I'll let you know. I'm nothing if not a glutton for punishnent.
Silvist, got any input from a store reps perspective? Seems like a lot of hoops to go through. No one, as is typical these days, has offered to own these questions. Fail.
"Sir, I don't know the answer, but let me get back to you".....What a concept...Customer Service that actually serves the customer. ​
 
So as I read all of everyones posts on this phone. My question is. Is it really worth the money and is the LTE that kills the battery that much faster to be worth it all? Well I will prob wait and see what comes next but who knows. The data speed and lack of flash is an issue on my optimus but over all I like it and it roots. Hope you guys get that root/nand prob figured out on these.
 
Oh yeah, it's worth it. The 4g is real fast.
It's worth having a spare battery on hand. Hasn't been a prob for me. Just have to remember to keep a charge on it. I like this phone.

But apparently we're stuck with the Ironman icon.
Here is the pitiful 2nd answer from Samsung. Pathetic.
This after I specifically said "What, you think I didn't try to drag the icon to the trashcan?"


"Thank you for your inquiry. We sincerely apologize for your recent experience with our email response. With regard to your inquiry about deleting the ironman movie icon you can go to settings > application > manage application > tap the ironman movie application > tap uninstall.
Additionally, there is no configurable option to turn off the 4G connection on your phone. Please be informed that if you are in a 4G area this feature will automatically turn on.

Thank you for your continued interest in Samsung products.
Sincerely,
Technical Support
John"
Pitiful.​
 
ickster said:
Oh yeah, it's worth it. The 4g is real fast.
It's worth having a spare battery on hand. Hasn't been a prob for me. Just have to remember to keep a charge on it. I like this phone.

But apparently we're stuck with the Ironman icon.
Here is the pitiful 2nd answer from Samsung. Pathetic.
This after I specifically said "What, you think I didn't try to drag the icon to the trashcan?"


"Thank you for your inquiry. We sincerely apologize for your recent experience with our email response. With regard to your inquiry about deleting the ironman movie icon you can go to settings > application > manage application > tap the ironman movie application > tap uninstall.
Additionally, there is no configurable option to turn off the 4G connection on your phone. Please be informed that if you are in a 4G area this feature will automatically turn on. ​

Thank you for your continued interest in Samsung products.
Sincerely,
Technical Support
John"

Pitiful.​
Click to expand...

This is why I dislike Samsung. Everything Sammy that I have ever owned has gone to crap in some way. I have also gotten responses like this from SONY who refused to fix (well for free any ways) my wife
 
Yeah, I hate crap like that. To be honest if you go to a Metro PCS corp store and find someone that knows more about android than me, i'll be suprise. In my district in fact there's probably 2 other people, and they 'RUN' stores lol. I'm just a rep though, and I go to school full time. I'm gonna say your wasting your time going in the store, because metro has had android since Nov 25 2010. Meaning unless people there owned a non metro android phone prior, they won't know anything beyond the metro service side of things. When I say "service side" i mean how to call/txt, and how to fix those problem if there's an issue.

If you actual want Samsung to do something about this then you need to escalate it. I had a DELL laptop for instance that was "lost" while being sent back to me after repairs. I seriously spent a week on the phone, until I reached the highest person in the chain of command of dell. He cut the crap, and the case and sent me a new laptop 1st class mail.

Point is if you want samsung to do shit, keep jumping managers. **** tech support, they can't help you with shit like this. Plus I can tell you from trying to root this shit, this is nearly impossible, because its encrypted more than ****ing high security prison made to hold world class criminals. I don't know if it was "samsung" or "metro" who encrypted this to shit. All i know is every other Samsung "galaxy" type phone has been rooted without nearly any problems.

So if I were you when you call samsung, just don't even explain your problem. Tell them flat out, you want there manager. After you speak to them, ask for there boss. So on and so forth. Then when you get someone as high as you can that knows a thing or two, then start demanding results. Yeah this dam phone isn't cheap, and as a provider and a customer I think its complete crap that they can't resolve stuff like this. Mike is trying really hard to crack this, but to be honest without a professional it'll be really hard.

I've rooted a total of probably about 100 phones or so, most being only two different androids, and most of them were customers who wanted me to do it for them. All of them I can flat out tell you never complained once after I rooted it. Most of them understood after I explained to them what it allowed them to do. If they ever came back it was "to find more apps" :D. So yeah i'm very pissed over this rooting, and i'm getting no support from the community of android users, or people who root. Its like the frackin Samsung Galaxy Indulge R910 LTE phone doesn't even exist...STILL after its been out for a week.

I figured people would crap there pants after seeing this kind of speed. Some guys even tested 3-5 megabits in full bar coverage. This is the first LTE phone in the world, yet WTF can't even root this....
 
I'm with you on that. I only see me, you, and mikestoolz posting here regularly. And I'm the fool of the group, as far as the tech.
Like you say I'm surprised as well that there aren't a shit-ton of techies falling all over themselves making this phone more accesible by rooting it.
Search the Android hacking forum at xda for Indulge, and nothing much comes up.....except your posts Silvist.
Are the techies waiting for Verizon and ATT 4g choices I wonder?
This is such a great phone.I want root, he said petulantly LOL.
 
But you're saying that the phones added on apps and locked down state aren't put on at the indiv. stores as Myrna, the MetroPcs Tech, told me? That is definately what she said. I thought that was strange.
My first thought when she said that was to go into my local corp. store and try to convince their tech to remove the bloatware from my Indulge (wink wink)...
 
LOL, tech at the corp store dont know jack about the phones.

samsung most likely ships the phones with the current metro apps and lockdown to the stores. They dont do anything at the stores to the phones.
 
First of all, thanks to all of you, guys, who are trying to root/custom ROM the phone. Till then, it's premature to even start posting reviews, IMO. But still... I've had the phone for a about a week now and here's what I think: the phone is fast, indeed. but so far, that's its only advantage. weird location for the usb port, camera is crap, keyboard layout is very weird, too and will take some getting used to. small and below average screen... Where I'm at, I'm getting about ~1300/~1300 kbps up/down and ping is over 200 ms, which is still kind of OK but sooooo not was I was promised/hoping for. I mean, come on, in the same spot on my HD2 running Android on T-Mobile 3G network I'm getting almost exactly the same kind of speeds and about half the latency. Also, one huge deal for me is inability to talk and browse the web at the same time. This was the decision maker and metro's tech support is still saying that I should be able to, as the phone has a separate LTE chip with its own sim card, but as soon as I'm making/receiving a call, the 4G icon disappears and the Internet is on hold for as long, as I'm talking, just like the usual CDMA/PCS deal. Battery life has been bashed already, few other glitches is that the phone turns the screen off every 5 seconds regardless of what the screen timeout settings are. And the rotation doesn't follow you, if you grab it upside down (which happens to me quite often due to the location of the power/data cable plug). Lastly, the phone came with no software whatsoever and nothing is available for the download. One of the options for the USB mode in the phone is called Kies, which, I believe stands for the Samsung sync software called" Kies". However, when I download the latest version of this software and install the phone in my XP x86 system using drivers from some other phone that have been posted around here, Samsung Kies begins seeing the phone but tells me that it cannot sync this phone. And all that the metro tech support could come up with is "well, export contacts from your other android phone onto an SD card, then import them off that card into this phone..." I kind of knew what I was walking into, I just couldn't wait for another phone any longer but now I see that I should have temporarily gotten smth. like huawei ascend... I just never expected being unable to root this phone (an hence, being unable to USB/wi-fi tether). maybe if there's a different kind of ROM out there from another phone or something... I'm really hoping...
 
nickrussel said:
First of all, thanks to all of you, guys, who are trying to root/custom ROM the phone. Till then, it's premature to even start posting reviews, IMO. But still... I've had the phone for a about a week now and here's what I think: the phone is fast, indeed. but so far, that's its only advantage. weird location for the usb port, camera is crap, keyboard layout is very weird, too and will take some getting used to. small and below average screen... Where I'm at, I'm getting about ~1300/~1300 kbps up/down and ping is over 200 ms, which is still kind of OK but sooooo not was I was promised/hoping for. I mean, come on, in the same spot on my HD2 running Android on T-Mobile 3G network I'm getting almost exactly the same kind of speeds and about half the latency. Also, one huge deal for me is inability to talk and browse the web at the same time. This was the decision maker and metro's tech support is still saying that I should be able to, as the phone has a separate LTE chip with its own sim card, but as soon as I'm making/receiving a call, the 4G icon disappears and the Internet is on hold for as long, as I'm talking, just like the usual CDMA/PCS deal. Battery life has been bashed already, few other glitches is that the phone turns the screen off every 5 seconds regardless of what the screen timeout settings are. And the rotation doesn't follow you, if you grab it upside down (which happens to me quite often due to the location of the power/data cable plug). Lastly, the phone came with no software whatsoever and nothing is available for the download. One of the options for the USB mode in the phone is called Kies, which, I believe stands for the Samsung sync software called" Kies". However, when I download the latest version of this software and install the phone in my XP x86 system using drivers from some other phone that have been posted around here, Samsung Kies begins seeing the phone but tells me that it cannot sync this phone. And all that the metro tech support could come up with is "well, export contacts from your other android phone onto an SD card, then import them off that card into this phone..." I kind of knew what I was walking into, I just couldn't wait for another phone any longer but now I see that I should have temporarily gotten smth. like huawei ascend... I just never expected being unable to root this phone (an hence, being unable to USB/wi-fi tether). maybe if there's a different kind of ROM out there from another phone or something... I'm really hoping...
Click to expand...

phone is capable of up to 21MB/s so your speeds are 100% due to your Metro towers and if they have any speed caps set. I'm getting 5.4MB/s here in miami Florida.

as for the data/voice at the same time. The phone is capable of doing this however after looking at the paperwork samsung filed with the FCC metro requested that it not do this, and testing for this was not performed. (This can be fixed via software update but if the FCC never tested this functionality who knows if we will see this type of update) I two was disappointed by this.
 
MikesTooLz said:
phone is capable of up to 21MB/s so your speeds are 100% due to your Metro towers and if they have any speed caps set. I'm getting 5.4MB/s here in miami Florida.

as for the data/voice at the same time. The phone is capable of doing this however after looking at the paperwork samsung filed with the FCC metro requested that it not do this, and testing for this was not performed. (This can be fixed via software update but if the FCC never tested this functionality who knows if we will see this type of update) I two was disappointed by this.
Click to expand...

yeah, lucky you with over 5 mbps down. If I had that, perhaps, I wouldn't be bitching so bad... Re everything else: sounds like we're going to have to look for some verizon (samsung continuum) / sprint (samsung epic 4G) ROMs for our phone. That's the kind of deal I got with my HTC HD2 that was originally runing Windows crap. I flashed the HTC Desire Android 2.2 based ROM and ever since then the phone rocks. Just gotta figure out a way... And by the way, HTC Thunderbolt that is coming to Verizon IS capable of talk and LTE-browse... So much crap we're put through... like "yeah you could do that but we don't allow it". Funny thing that even metro data support center people from WA and OR have no clue and just think that smth's wrong with my brand new phone...
 
I hope i never meet the phone center people in person EVER. I still dread when my stores systems were down and I actually had to use it. Took them 10 min to do what I can do flawlessly in 5 seconds. Heck I can probably do it with my eyes closed.
 
I am in the SF Bay Area (Near Berkeley), and only in certain spots (in certain cities) do I get 4G speeds and when I do, it's very inconsistent, often dropping to 1X for no good reason. That's my largest problem with this phone (yes, I have done a PRL update as of today). Another thing I don't like about the phone is that the menu, home, back, and search buttons are not backlit (but the keyboard is). I am also having another problem where I put music folders full of mp3's in the My Music folder, but for some reason, the folders are not there after the media scan. This is strange because the LOST.DIR directory that seems to be the same size as the folders that are missing....
 
I had to return my phone yesterday. It was acting up with regularity. I got disconnected twice. Twice the screen locked up and could only be fixed by shutting it down. I had to take it in when the computer would not see it. I had the previously reported resets. Just generally acting hinky all the time.

And what prompted me returning it yesterday was the fact that I could not pull down my notifications bar unless I opened the keyboard first. This was happening no matter what I did reset-wise.

The actually gave me a new one (I think)! It wasn't in a box, but had all the protective stickers and was pristine.
I still like the phone. Especially after researching the alternatives.
 
Just dropping by to say you CAN disable the 4G with Anycut (there's another thread right on this forum about that), the problem is it won't stay disabled after you make/get a phone call.

Given it CAN be accessed all we really need is someone with basic Android coding experience to make a Widget that monitors this, and turns it off/on as needed.

I'd gladly pay money for it and I bet many other Indulge users would as well. Someone? Anyone?
 
I would say the cons are:

1) Short battery
2) Freezes occasionally
3) USB port seems janky and I have problems connecting to a PC

Oh, and the fact that my phone just ****ing shut off for no reason, and now it won't turn on. Period.

I am going to MetroPCS first thing in the morning.
 
ickster said:
I had to return my phone yesterday. It was acting up with regularity. I got disconnected twice. Twice the screen locked up and could only be fixed by shutting it down. I had to take it in when the computer would not see it. I had the previously reported resets. Just generally acting hinky all the time.

And what prompted me returning it yesterday was the fact that I could not pull down my notifications bar unless I opened the keyboard first. This was happening no matter what I did reset-wise.

The actually gave me a new one (I think)! It wasn't in a box, but had all the protective stickers and was pristine.
I still like the phone. Especially after researching the alternatives.
Click to expand...

Man, the phone I "tested" for a week trial started doing the same thing towards the end. I thought it was just me. I was able to get the notification shade to pull down after a battery pull, but I was afraid it might get worse. I didn't get to test it any more, my 7 days were up and I had to return it. I really, really still like this phone though and will most likely still get another one anyway, but this worries me.

Also, I may have started having problems getting GPS signal when WiFi was disabled. But maybe I was just in a bad area, or maybe it was just me, so I can't swear on that.

Anyone else experiencing similar "jankyness"?
 
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