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New to the LG Spectrum

str8blkcoffee

str8blkcoffee

Newbie
Howdy all,
I am in the process of jumping off my forever old HTC Hero and dumping Sprint for the LG Spectrum. While I was aware of rooting and what not I never really ventured into those murky waters.

So after trying to find a decent new phone I stumbled across the Spectrum and while it is not really played up real hard it seems like a very capable phone that will last. After finding the great deal @ Amazon my wife and I are now awaiting our new phones (placed the order last night).

I had been so tired of watching others do cool stuff on their new, faster phones. To me the Hero was a sad dissapointment after a while, I had such high expectations too. while I like the iPhone capabilities but don't like Apple's leash. The Android phones seem very capable and friendly. I know folks with the Droid Razr Max and they are able to do a lot of cool stuff, but EVERYone has a Droid and it just seems so passe. My wife likes a big screen and the Spectrum delivers there. Her mother has a Samsung Note and it is ginormous :rock: but it is an AT&T phone :eek: . We compared the Spectrum side-by-side to the Droid Razr Max and the Spectrum was the clear winner in quality and size. The slightly larger processor is a plus too.

I just wanted to stop by and say hey, read up a bit, listen to some good advice, and really enjoy my phone as it should. Any suggestions will be appreciated. I know a battery upgrade is on the list, got that covered. Thanks in advance!!
 
Welcome to the forum! I got my Spectrum about a week ago. The screen is truly amazing. Thanks to the guides on this forum, I rooted it, it is overclocked at 1.8ghz, and it is running nice! The camera is very good, especially outdoors. The folks on this forum are truly awesome and you will learn a lot from them (as I have). Hope you and your wife enjoy the Spectrum!

PS: Cool screen name. I can not drink coffee like that.:D Need my cream and sugar.
 
str8blkcoffee said:
Howdy all,
I am in the process of jumping off my forever old HTC Hero and dumping Sprint for the LG Spectrum. While I was aware of rooting and what not I never really ventured into those murky waters.

So after trying to find a decent new phone I stumbled across the Spectrum and while it is not really played up real hard it seems like a very capable phone that will last. After finding the great deal @ Amazon my wife and I are now awaiting our new phones (placed the order last night).

I had been so tired of watching others do cool stuff on their new, faster phones. To me the Hero was a sad dissapointment after a while, I had such high expectations too. while I like the iPhone capabilities but don't like Apple's leash. The Android phones seem very capable and friendly. I know folks with the Droid Razr Max and they are able to do a lot of cool stuff, but EVERYone has a Droid and it just seems so passe. My wife likes a big screen and the Spectrum delivers there. Her mother has a Samsung Note and it is ginormous :rock: but it is an AT&T phone :eek: . We compared the Spectrum side-by-side to the Droid Razr Max and the Spectrum was the clear winner in quality and size. The slightly larger processor is a plus too.

I just wanted to stop by and say hey, read up a bit, listen to some good advice, and really enjoy my phone as it should. Any suggestions will be appreciated. I know a battery upgrade is on the list, got that covered. Thanks in advance!!
Click to expand...

The spectrum is a great phone and I think you'll be happy with your purchase. You will definitely want to put a custom rom on it because the stock rom is just bad. And the phone is so much faster once you put a custom rom on it. Plus you will get better battery life and a generally better experience.

A lot of people complain about battery life but I have not had this experience. If you have the screen off then your phone will go for days without needing a recharge. If you are seeing noticeable battery drainage even with the screen off then something is wrong. Many of us get great battery life so it's hard to know exactly why so many experience terrible battery life. Just keep in mind that any smartphone that is being used a lot while off the charge is going to drain fast. I don't know of any phone with a standard battery that will make it more than a few hours with the screen on and heavy use.

You got the spectrum at a good time because we are really starting to get some good developers working on it. We currently have 2 roms and one more on the way. No news on a 4th but I'm sure once we get ICS we will get even more attention as (in my opinion) this phone is going to outperform any of it's generation after ICS is on it. The galaxy nexus barely outperforms it with a custom ICS rom installed while we are still on gingerbread roms.

Good luck and I hope you have success with your new phone!
 
The phone arrived last! I am blown away so far. I am coming off a craptastic HTC Hero to this-Wow!

I really would like to root it but I am scared :( Honestly, I do not know why. I did manage to update to ICS and that was smooth. I am not I downloaded some great apps mentioned here including Juice Defender. My screen is 65% of my battery drain so far but I understand the first few charging cycles will improve the battery life. I am planning to buy the larger battery too. I need to read more so I can better my phone skills.

So far I'm in love :)
 
str8blkcoffee said:
The phone arrived last! I am blown away so far. I am coming off a craptastic HTC Hero to this-Wow!

I really would like to root it but I am scared :( Honestly, I do not know why. I did manage to update to ICS and that was smooth. I am not I downloaded some great apps mentioned here including Juice Defender. My screen is 65% of my battery drain so far but I understand the first few charging cycles will improve the battery life. I am planning to buy the larger battery too. I need to read more so I can better my phone skills.

So far I'm in love :)
Click to expand...

rooting and putting a custom rom on the phone will greatly improve it's performance. It will run faster, smoother, and get better battery life generally. I would just wait for now anyway because none of the roms we have are based off the latest version of gingerbread. We should be having some updates ones soon though. I would just start studying up on everything until then though.
 
str8blkcoffee said:
The phone arrived last! I am blown away so far. I am coming off a craptastic HTC Hero to this-Wow!

I really would like to root it but I am scared :( Honestly, I do not know why. I did manage to update to ICS and that was smooth. I am not I downloaded some great apps mentioned here including Juice Defender. My screen is 65% of my battery drain so far but I understand the first few charging cycles will improve the battery life. I am planning to buy the larger battery too. I need to read more so I can better my phone skills.

So far I'm in love :)
Click to expand...

I'm happy you're enjoying it! I got the lg spectrum about a month ago and wow, i also love my phone :) I rooted my mothers old Samsung admire first and then my old lg optimus v for practice before ballsing up to rooting the spectrum. It's EASY I promise!

personally, i haven't switched to a custom rom because i'd rather just hang tight for ice cream sandwich and see what the devs come with on that base. However I also strongly recommend you change your launcher, LG isn't awful but. adw launcher would make your phone FLY .
 
Thanks for the advice and encouragement! I plan on rooting but I really need to get the courage. I am not totally ignorant of things such as this I can do some light Oracle patching and such so I know this willl be pretty simple. It is just sooo shiny and new ;)

I have installed GoLauncher and playing around with that. It was my first app I installed followed by Pandora. My wife was all jealous becuase I was rocking this kewl background and she had the plain LG stock version heehee XD. I had to load it on her's too. I have been customizing it most of the AM but this dreaded work thing keeps getting in my way. I am programming my phone people...gosh!

:lol:
 
Just my 2cents.
I rooted but stayed stock. I downloaded SuperUser and NoFrills CPU, and App Quaranteen. Froze/Quarenteened what I didn't want. Installed ADW Laucher EX, and JuiceDefender.

The phone is very nice. My only issue now is that when streaming Pandora and using Google Nave with the screen on in the car, it doesn't charge, it discharges. I think LG will get around to fixing the current limit when the phone is being charged by a more capable charger. Wish a DEV would provide a mechanism to change the current limiter in SW within the Kernel.

Since I was running stock, there was no issue picking up the most recent update to 2.3.6 (VS920ZV6) and installing it. Just had to re-root when the install was complete.

Very under-valued phone in my opinion.
 
str8blkcoffee said:
Thanks for the advice and encouragement! I plan on rooting but I really need to get the courage. I am not totally ignorant of things such as this I can do some light Oracle patching and such so I know this willl be pretty simple. It is just sooo shiny and new ;)

I have installed GoLauncher and playing around with that. It was my first app I installed followed by Pandora. My wife was all jealous becuase I was rocking this kewl background and she had the plain LG stock version heehee XD. I had to load it on her's too. I have been customizing it most of the AM but this dreaded work thing keeps getting in my way. I am programming my phone people...gosh!

:lol:
Click to expand...
I was scared to root mine, but I swear to you it's as simple as one click.. When I was practicing on my Optimus V, I was all :O THERE IS NO WAY because that root is a multistep process that was SKEERY.

But this is truly simple, just follow the directions! :)
 
The discharge issue is a known one. The charge rate is set lower than the discharge rate for streaming music. The theory is because the phone overheats with a higher charge rate.
 
Well I can say that the charge rate is pretty low. I've been messing with my phone and for the last 2 hours or so I've had it charging via USB to my PC. I know this isn't ideal set-up for charging, it is barely keeping pace with the discharge.

I can say without a doubt it is much better thatn my old phone. I wouldn't get 8 hours out of a charge mainly due to poor service. To be able to have a phone I could place call on during my commute home I would have to keep it charging all day. I'm @ 7.5 hours and I have 1/2 a battery. That is with me D/L apps and configuring most of the day, so I'm happy. :)

Yeah, I going to probably root mine but I'll wait until the new release. I'm pumped and ready do do it now!! Or is that all the caffene in me...regardless I'm ready! whoohoo!
 
Usb charging is far lower than using the wall plug. But generally, car chargers can keep up with the drain of the battery. For some reason, LG decided to prevent higher mv rates; mt set a higher rate in BrokenOut, but reverted it because some people experienced overheating.

In short, this phone isn't living up to expectations. I'm tempted to sell it for a Razr, since I know how to dev moto devices.
 
Default charge limit is 450mAh, broken out 2 has it set to 800mAh, broken out 3 has it set to 650mAh.

It appears that the phone uses approx 500mAh with the screen on and a constant internet connection via the cellular network. May or may not include GPS on.
 
just wanted to say wut up to the group here....

i'm coming from an lg revolution and i was running MT's gingervolt and Broken Out Revo.

Had a few problems with the revo after last updated and Verizon offered to swap for a new phone.

One reason i settled on spectrum was because MT was building ROMs for it. Great phone so far.

I'm loving the battery life for a dual core and a 4.5in IPS screen.
 
welcome aboard! Glad to have you here. I've heard a lot of bad things about the revolution. I think the spectrum is a better phone though. Probably a mistake that they called it the revolution 2 though lol. Why name a brand new phone after a previous model that has such bad reviews and comments all over the net.
 
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