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What Android version is on new Verizon Note 3s?

rushmore

rushmore

Extreme Android User
Cuious if still 4.3 and if it can be stopped from updating. 4.3 has card writes enabled and no need to be stuck if no root.

Getting this if the G3 is a battery sucking mess when using the gpu.
 
I doubt that you can find a new Note 3 with 4.3 still on it. The ones in the stores are probably all 4.42 by now. (If you do find one with 4.3, immediately put it into airplane mode and root it, or you'll get 4.42 eventually, even if you keep saying no. Or root it, put Safestrap on it and try a few different ROMs [and you can do nandroid backups and recover from all sorts of crashes].)
 
mine came with 4.4.2 on it. but with rooters and ROMers i guess any version is possible. some root and block the OTA due to known issues with KitKat. some run CyanogenMod (which sadly reduces the functionality of the S Pen to a lowly stylus) and it is on 4.4.3 currently.
 
I don't like SS since it takes up internal storage space for at least two OSs . I prefer just root to disable bloat and enable card writes.
 
All phones are a battery sucking mess when using the GPU, including... well... everything else.

There's no way to get around it though I can see how the G3's screen resolution would exacerbate that :-)

You aren't going to find any Note 3s from Corporate Verizon stores with 4.3 at this point. A reseller may have one that was in stock since before the update, which they haven't flashed to 4.4.2 yet, though.
 
The KK download was corrupted, so I got a replacement. It had JB, but as soon as I activated the phone, it downloaded and installed KK. Pretty much no was out of it at this point.
 
nickdalzell said:
mine came with 4.4.2 on it. but with rooters and ROMers i guess any version is possible. some root and block the OTA due to known issues with KitKat. some run CyanogenMod (which sadly reduces the functionality of the S Pen to a lowly stylus) and it is on 4.4.3 currently.
Click to expand...

Not necessarily, a lot of the functionality remains even when switching to ROMs like Hyperdrive :)
 
Digital Controller said:
Not necessarily, a lot of the functionality remains even when switching to ROMs like Hyperdrive :)
Click to expand...

without Air Command, Action Memo, Air Gesture, Pen Window, i do not see how. seems it would simply tap, scroll, or whatnot like your average capacitive stylus. Vanilla ROMs like CM strip out what makes the S-pen stand out.
 
i still cannot see how, since those features are part of the TouchWiz framework and cannot simply be sideloaded. there might be some third-party alternatives in a custom ROM like HyperDrive but i bet it is very unstable. i tried tacking on TouchWiz features from Google Play on a custom ROM and the results were horrible. such as Smart Stay EX Pro. it never could get it right. either it timed out or it kept the screen on all the time. lock screen voice commands via OpenMic +? battery sucker.

I might be an odd case but i actually prefer the Samsung 'bloatware' over the Google crap. if one tries them first, they will discover features that are either missing or removed in the AOSP apps. having custom sync scheduling in the Samsung Email app is very nice to name one, as are music player voice commands which is very handy when driving.

Also, S-Voice still kills Google Now with the added options. try asking Google Now to launch a non-google app, no go. try asking it to change screen brightness, enable silent mode, play your local music library, or toggle wifi or Bluetooth? nope. Google Now is useless since it lacks even basic voice commands that have been around for years.
 
nickdalzell said:
Also, S-Voice still kills Google Now with the added options. try asking Google Now to launch a non-google app, no go. try asking it to change screen brightness, enable silent mode, play your local music library, or toggle wifi or Bluetooth? nope. Google Now is useless since it lacks even basic voice commands that have been around for years.
Click to expand...

You can launch any app with google now.

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It also works just fine for playing songs.

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Adjusting brightness.
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As well as turning on WiFi or Bluetooth

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Have s-voice tell you when you need to leave for work, or when your bus will arrive ;).

Gnow is more than a voice to launch apps or adjust settings. Its a very powerful app. Something svoice hasn't matched yet. It may never because of googles integration with its apps.

I'm obviously a fan of googles apps, but the S-apps always seemed like shameless copies of whatever google was trying to do. Always the first things I disabled/uninstalled
 
nickdalzell said:
i still cannot see how, since those features are part of the TouchWiz framework and cannot simply be sideloaded. there might be some third-party alternatives in a custom ROM like HyperDrive but i bet it is very unstable. i tried tacking on TouchWiz features from Google Play on a custom ROM and the results were horrible. such as Smart Stay EX Pro. it never could get it right. either it timed out or it kept the screen on all the time. lock screen voice commands via OpenMic +? battery sucker.

I might be an odd case but i actually prefer the Samsung 'bloatware' over the Google crap. if one tries them first, they will discover features that are either missing or removed in the AOSP apps. having custom sync scheduling in the Samsung Email app is very nice to name one, as are music player voice commands which is very handy when driving.

Also, S-Voice still kills Google Now with the added options. try asking Google Now to launch a non-google app, no go. try asking it to change screen brightness, enable silent mode, play your local music library, or toggle wifi or Bluetooth? nope. Google Now is useless since it lacks even basic voice commands that have been around for years.
Click to expand...

All I know Nick is that all those work on HD8 because that ROM runs TouchWiz standard, as do most of the other ROMs for the VZW Note 3.

I, however, am running ObjectiveROM which is the slimmest ROM I have ever used, which has cut out everything. I still managed to sideload Action Memo and did some tweaking to get it to work :p
 
you are asking GNow to open Play Music. you still have to hit 'play' manually. S-Voice can actually start playback of any song. asking GNow to open display settings is quite different from asking S-Voice to actually dim or brighten the screen, which just happens on its own. asking Google Now to open sound settings is quite different from asking S-Voice to play the next song in a playlist or turning up or down the volume. Google Now can only open the settings menus and still require user interaction, which is not very convenient while driving or walking. Google Now sadly only uses its own TTS engine. it refuses to work with any i have installed which IMO sound far more professional. Also, unless you have a Moto X, you still cannot get Google Now to work from the lock screen. the widget does but it won't do OK Google without unlocking the phone first.

Opening wifi settings is not the same as having it turn on wifi. or bluetooth. you just open the settings menu and need to hit on/off by finger or stylus. S-Voice can turn it on or off without touching it.

Google Now still cannot open some of my games. it cannot open '1Mobile Market' it tells me it's not installed. asking it (in the latest version) to 'turn on wifi' gets me 'hardware functions not currently supported' (WTF Google, that's a very basic function!)

Google now does well at telling you commute times, which is my only use for it. it is too limited for anything else until they add more into it.
 
nickdalzell said:
you are asking GNow to open Play Music. you still have to hit 'play' manually. S-Voice can actually start playback of any song.
Click to expand...
In that example I told it what song to play, it played that exact song. No button presses needed.

As far as opening menus versus/taking direct action, if I'm going g to turn up the volume or WiFi off its going to take much less time to do it manually than talking to any app.

In fact. I'll admit I never tried turning off WiFi or adjusting brightness before your post, because either one of those is a simple swipe on the screen and a tap away.

Just different strokes for different folks. :) I don't use gnows voice control features. Its value to me is the rest of the app.
 
while i prefer science-fiction style voice control. especially if it does common tasks without taking out the S-pen or getting fingerprints on my beautiful screen :)

Google Now just is not a proper replacement for something i feel has outclassed Google tenfold, which most of Samsung's offerings have done. hence why i never stay on a custom ROM for very long, and why i get bored really fast with 'stock' android. i rarely use Google Now except to check travel times or how late i should leave home for work each morning. (it does well at calculating how long it takes when i'm riding my motorcycle vs my new car, etc) but it is no replacement for S-Voice. Google tends to focus on this flat design minimalism, but i want more, not less, and i love a polished UI myself. sadly with how flat design/minimalism and lack of features seems to be getting extremely popular, it's harder and harder to maintain the level of features, control and innovation these days. i would really be saddened if i had to live with something lacking features and having to live with a pastel, 2-D UX because some people think it's the Next Big Thing, to coin a phrase. that was what happened between me and Apple, and why i chose Samsung in the first place. I can only hope Google reverts to innovating and not becoming another Apple and locking down Android where every device has their hideous UX on it.

What bothers me more than the whole modern design and minimalist movement is how Google thinks adding in redundant steps to do something common (tap-n-hold to select emails vs ticking a check box, backing out of a YouTube video and then having to swipe it away to completely dismiss it vs. hitting back and dismissing it all in one click, etc) to the point where it is nothing but useless animation, useless showy gestures that are unnecessary and increase the amount of steps for no reason but to show off. sure, swiping away a YouTube video looks cool, but it has no value other than looking cool. it adds in another step to dismiss a video that is not needed.

Isn't the argument against skeuomorphism all about useless things in the way? is not the unnecessary gesture to completely dismiss a YouTube video, or the tap-n-hold to select emails (which does a little select animation) along the lines of unnecessary eye candy? it reduces efficiency and adds extra steps to a common task, which could be construed as a form of unnecessary skeuomorphism. a polished, beautifully rendered and easy to identify UX (an icon, app, etc) that uses the full capability of our super AMOLED HD displays is not.
 
I am pretty sure that S-Voice still exists on some of the custom ROMs as well.

At least Hyperdrive 8.

I am not positive, but I think it does :)
 
oh S-Voice's APK can be installed on ANY custom ROM. but it is only half as functional (cannot set alarms for example, no lock screen wake-up, etc) and the TTS engine from Samsung (sounds more like Siri) does not work and it can only use the 'Google Now' voice engine. without TouchWiz Framework you lose most of the coolness. and it just becomes another voice assistant like SVox or Andy.

I use, no, i PREFER the Samsung 'bloatware' over Google anyday. i must be their target audience as i have enjoyed Nature UX and its half flat/half skeuomorphic UI since the Galaxy S3. Samsung can provide while Google cannot, and this in turn reduces any need to root.
 
nickdalzell said:
oh S-Voice's APK can be installed on ANY custom ROM. but it is only half as functional (cannot set alarms for example, no lock screen wake-up, etc) and the TTS engine from Samsung (sounds more like Siri) does not work and it can only use the 'Google Now' voice engine. without TouchWiz Framework you lose most of the coolness. and it just becomes another voice assistant like SVox or Andy.

I use, no, i PREFER the Samsung 'bloatware' over Google anyday. i must be their target audience as i have enjoyed Nature UX and its half flat/half skeuomorphic UI since the Galaxy S3. Samsung can provide while Google cannot, and this in turn reduces any need to root.
Click to expand...

Hey nick, to each of us their own.

I just know that a bunch of the ROMs that are available for the VZW Note 3 actually are built around having TouchWiz :)
 
With the exception of stripping some of the SAMSUNG features I like though, otherwise what would be the point of a custom Rom?
 
nickdalzell said:
With the exception of stripping some of the SAMSUNG features I like though, otherwise what would be the point of a custom Rom?
Click to expand...

Not necessarily stripping, but adding more features ;)

I know a decent amount of the preloaded (bloatware in my book), that verizon put on my device is still there in Hyperdrive 8.

Maybe check it out Nick before thinking that it gets rid of everything :)
 
i would be happier to have a TouchWiz ROM on my Nexus 10. i already have it on my Samsung stuff so an identical one which involved tripping Knox ain't an option.
 
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