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My Optimus Elite Review

Curtis1973

Curtis1973

Android Expert
Hi everyone,nice to meet you. I normally frequent android central,but this seems to be the place for the optimus elite. Been reading the root procedure,think I understand it fairly well. Seems the tricky part is the msl and making sure you are on the correct com port. May try it later,but for now..this phone.

Pros : Speed is nice
Extra memory is nice
Thats about it lol


Cons: Oh man,the crap launcher to start with..constantly stealing away control of my preferred launcher upon reboot. What a TURD this stock launcher is! Been so steamed over it I called corp and flat out told them I intended to root warranty or not JUST to remove the crap launcher.

Lets see..hmm..the bloat,crap,garbageware of course. Of course elite users already know these things so I wont go any further. This device needs a rom sorely lol. Anyway. Ive been spoiled by my V and the developers who made it a true gem to own. My sister is the lucky one. Shes getting my V lol.. Im stuck with this 1.blah blah gigamegaduper hertz optimus elite :( lmao. But I shall overcome!! Nice to meet everyone.
 
I am not rooted and have never had a problem with the stock launcher once I installed a replacement except when I update the replacement, but that is standard.
 
if i reboot the phone after installing any launcher,the stock launcher will default itself as the one to use versus whatever i select as my default to use. then it will proceed to launch into redownloading the bloat garbage from vm all over again. (mind you i do delete the crap after it downloads,that may be causing this issue. not sure.)
 
Hello Curtis,

Nice to see you over here, too. Since I had a bad experience rooting my V to remove bloat, I am leaving rooting alone for now on the Elite. My needs are small. I like the Elite and am happy with my purchase as an upgrade from the V. I like that I can remove most of the bloat from the Elite without having to root it. I checked in advance on Google Play to make sure that anything removed can be re-installed in case it may be needed later.

The only things I feel are bloat, and not available on Google Play, that I have not removed are:

Application Stubs
Polaris Viewer
VMU Icon Pack

Do you know what these are or do, and can they be removed without fear and regret? I have found little or no info online about them. Also, I agree about about the Mobile ID. What an unwanted piece of crapware. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks!
 
I am not rooted either and I am using Holo Launcher with no problems. It is fast and beautiful and stays as my default launcher upon reboot.
 
As soon as that app that downloads the stuff once you're activated downloads I go to Settings -> Apps -> Manage apps and clear data/cache for it and it leaves me alone until I reboot.

Once rebooted I turn on airplane mode right away and it fails to download anything.
 
i had no problems with ADW EX when i didn't have root, and now that i do and uninstalled the bloat, i can honestly say i love this phone.granted, the only other android phone i have owned was a Samsung Intercept, which was nightmarish at the best of times.

in any case, this is a lot of phone for so little money.
 
I had the launcher issue as well, it does that up until you download the "essentials" (which happens when you activate) then it works like normal. At least that was how it worked for me, but yeah, the stock launcher stinks.
 
RealFastOne, I use the Polaris Viewer all the time. Its a file manager/explorer that works really well. I use it to move files around quickly amongst my "favorite" folders. It is not as functional as something like Astro file manager, but I think it has a cleaner UI and the few things that it can do, it does them well. I am not sure about the Application Stubs and VMU Icon Pack. I uninstalled both of those, but I wished I had kept the Icon Pack as Holo launcher allows customized icons, so maybe there were icons that I could use. As I recall they're both fairly small apps and of course all of these ID packs are available for download again.
 
RealFastOne said:
Hello Curtis,

Nice to see you over here, too. Since I had a bad experience rooting my V to remove bloat, I am leaving rooting alone for now on the Elite. My needs are small. I like the Elite and am happy with my purchase as an upgrade from the V. I like that I can remove most of the bloat from the Elite without having to root it. I checked in advance on Google Play to make sure that anything removed can be re-installed in case it may be needed later.

The only things I feel are bloat, and not available on Google Play, that I have not removed are:

Application Stubs
Polaris Viewer
VMU Icon Pack

Do you know what these are or do, and can they be removed without fear and regret? I have found little or no info online about them. Also, I agree about about the Mobile ID. What an unwanted piece of crapware. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks!
Click to expand...
i removed vmu icon pack without issues. but upon reboot of phone. the phone will default launcher control back to stock launcher and just reinstall through essentials pack. but you can delete it. as for Polaris. ive not checked ut. actually been using it.
 
I'm using Go Launcher EX and the stock launcher/mobile ID pack has forced itself to be reinstalled once, but that was the only problem I've had.
 
I'm new to the owning-a-smartphone world, but not new to Android smartphones (e.g. extensively playing around with various makes, models, and versions of Android and its respective phones), and despite the specs I'm actually quite happy with my Optimus Elite. I hadn't had any problems OP has had, before AND after rooting it. And even with GO Launcher EX installed, there's rarely any bit of lag - even switching between apps, using Dolphin or visiting the Play Store, it's all quite snappy, speedy, and lag free. I didn't have any trouble switching launchers nor the defaults, no being forced reinstall anything. Removed bloatware easily. In fact, the only issue is the pan-persistent Maps issue where it restarts itself for no reason (even tried signing in and out of its Latitude feature), but I've found a workaround which is to force stop Maps, then freeze it with Root Uninstaller until you need it running again. It's obviously a budget smartphone, to be sure, but for me it's performed quite admirably the entire time I've owned it.

So.... perhaps I'm just lucky?
 
Artine I'm pretty much in the same camp as you. While I am no lightweight user, a *nix geek by trade, my phone to me is just a tool that I use when I'm not at a 'real' computer. (Plenty to say about what is and what is not a real computer these days but I'll defer that lengthy discussion to another time.)

I've been overall very happy with my OE. However I do understand that everyone is going to want something different out of there devices. And if the OP and other users are looking for that from this phone, given that it is a lower end phone (and a damn good one IMO), sometimes that path might be a bit difficult.

However this forum is a great place to start that path and gl on your journey OP.
 
This is my first smart phone and got this one because it and VM was the cheapest and in would fit my budget. So I don't have any other smart phones to compare it to. I really like it and have had no problems with it. I have and Android/Koby pad and this thing runs circles around it speed wise.

From reading this post, I have a couple questions.

I've seen the "Application Stubs" in the app uninstall area - what is it?

If I install a launcher like Holo launcher, can I easily uninstall it and will it go back to the OEM launcher (I'm not rooted)?

Thanks
 
Currently I wouldnt recommend this phone for purchase by anyone looking for a reliable android device that will get decent network performance. No android device can run properly on a network experiencing the sort of issues this one is in my area. Below dialup speeds that fail constantly,device struggles to keep a connection and frequently loses signal and has to reset itself and can be seen doing so in the status bar with complete drop out of 3g and other data speed icons switching over to x with no bars and then trying to regain its connection,even files as small as 1.5 mb start out with 11 or so kb a sec and steadily and quickly lose speed down to complete failure of download which results in download errors eating up your data allocation allowance. Battery life is horrible. The device starts out with a full charge and steadily falls to nothing within the matter of 4 to 5 hours and you dont have to be really using it at all. I give the phone a 3 to 4 rating if rooted and all the virgin mobile/lg garbage removed. But that drops to a 1 or 2 rating with the network issues and battery problems it has even after rooting the device. And depending on how the development scene progresses for this device (which is slow at best) I may drop this turd to a 0 rating and not suggest it to anyone not looking to get a lemon for a phone.
 
I'm having the same set of problems with my second OE. The first one was actually good, but I decided to exchange it after I accidentally broke one of the leads to the NFC antenna. It's been a pain troubleshooting the phone since there have been outages and fluctuations in my area lately, and I didn't even know that I have been throttled until CS told me. I was only able to confirm that my OE was messed up after comparing it to my mom's OV and my brother's One V. I don't know if it's just me, but I think it's stupid that the OE only displays "3G" even when an outage is occurring, the other devices would show "1X" or something else if there were problems.

As far as the battery goes I think it's comparable to an OV or a One V if the OE is optimized. I haven't rooted it, but all I had to do was uninstall the "Essentials" ID pack, use wireless networks instead of GPS satellites, reduce brightness to 40%, and use apps like Go TaskManager EX and Go Power Master. I hardly get a red or yellow battery indicator now, and that's even when I listen to music, use YouTube, or play with my PS or GBA emulators. :)

Anyway, I called VM CS and I should be getting a new OE in the mail tomorrow. I just hope that I'm getting another one of the good OE's... Are you sure it's even possible to get the "next level phone" since these are more expensive androids? I told the lady that I would pay the price difference if she would send me a One V instead, but she put me on hold and then gave me a weird explanation... :D
 
rickyx32 said:
I'm having the same set of problems with my second OE. The first one was actually good, but I decided to exchange it after I accidentally broke one of the leads to the NFC antenna. It's been a pain troubleshooting the phone since there have been outages and fluctuations in my area lately, and I didn't even know that I have been throttled until CS told me. I was only able to confirm that my OE was messed up after comparing it to my mom's OV and my brother's One V. I don't know if it's just me, but I think it's stupid that the OE only displays "3G" even when an outage is occurring, the other devices would show "1X" or something else if there were problems.

As far as the battery goes I think it's comparable to an OV or a One V if the OE is optimized. I haven't rooted it, but all I had to do was uninstall the "Essentials" ID pack, use wireless networks instead of GPS satellites, reduce brightness to 40%, and use apps like Go TaskManager EX and Go Power Master. I hardly get a red or yellow battery indicator now, and that's even when I listen to music, use YouTube, or play with my PS or GBA emulators. :)

Anyway, I called VM CS and I should be getting a new OE in the mail tomorrow. I just hope that I'm getting another one of the good OE's... Are you sure it's even possible to get the "next level phone" since these are more expensive androids? I told the lady that I would pay the price difference if she would send me a One V instead, but she put me on hold and then gave me a weird explanation... :D
Click to expand...


vm finally told me that it was due to upgrades and maintenance in my area and had no date on when it would clear up. two months to do upgrades? wow..anyway i had stopped taking cs calls..hanging up on them pretty much. when i try out my network this morning and the speed is where it should be and has been steady most of the morning. i hope it stays that way. maybe after the slowest network upgrades in history...my service is back to normal. although im not holding my breath lol.
 
Curtis, with all due respect, you have unrealistically high expectations from a small pre-paid phone service provider and a $130 phone.

Personally, I haven't experienced anything like your problems with my elite, and I found it to be a worthy upgrade from my rooted/CM7 OV.

I just wish the root/rom support was as extensive as it is/was for the V. :( And I wish to god that the alleged phone software "bug" that the VM CS rep told me was the cause of my Error 67 code after simply installing quicksettings gets fixed...
 
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