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[Sprint] calling former og owners

AARONONE

Android Enthusiast
Dec 23, 2010
341
168
Los Angeles area
I know this isn't the right place to post this, but I want to stay specific to the sprint users. I wanted to hear the former og evo owners about their experience with the gnex so far. I read up on urge's how to root write up and seems really simple to root. Glad to see a user friendly Mac write up too. How's rom development so far? Anyone missing sense? I'm close to my upgrade and can't decide on gnex or evo lte. There's a lot of familiar people in both. Just wanted to see what your experience has been so far. Thanks.
 
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Thanks for the compliment on the root write up :) So far my experience has been great. I have found nothing major wrong with the device. My only complaints are the lack of SD card slot which it makes up for in having 32 GB of storage and the camera is a great camera for a mobile phone but its not the best (a lot better than the Evo though.) Once you learn how to use the camera it becomes a lot better and if you want to be able to take 30 pictures a second like the GS3 and Evo LTE than there is app in the play store called fast burst camera or something like that. Overall I believe that it is worth an upgrade and the fact that its a Nexus means you will always be up to date on the latest software. So far I am not missing Sense but I haven't even run Sense on my Evo in a long time :) CM and AOKP were the only things I ran since like a year ago.
 
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My experience has been great as well, and I honestly have no complaints. I've always preferred AOSP over Sense, so ultimately, this was my only option. Even though the EvoLTE has better hardware, I don't think it's something I'd really notice or believe was really substantial.

The ROM development is strong and is growing every day, we have some solid Dev's working hard to improve our devices and I love the fact that this is a Google backed android, that will remain up to date. I don't think you can go wrong with this choice.
 
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I moved from the EVO 3D to the Nexus over the weekend (had the original EVO before that). I really like this phone!

I did debate rather heavily between the EVO LTE, GNex and the upcoming SGS3.
Multitasking issues for EVO LTE made is unappealing, while the SGS3 was 'unknown' and I don't really like their UI much :)

I'm glad I got the GNex (bought used - got a great rate - excellent condition)

There were some minor issues (like notification LED) for which I found workarounds - thanks to the sticky posts on this site.

There are still a few features that I miss from the EVO series - still looking for workarounds for these
1. No smart dialer (I like the dialer UI on GNex, but wish it had the ability to dial the name of the contact directly
2. Contact pictures, on incoming calls - HORRIBLE! On the EVO, I had the same issue, but could assign a local image to that contact to get good resolution. Tried the same on the GNex, but the picture on the GNex still sucks
3. Flip to silence, pocket mode (increase volume) features from Sense
4. Clear app cached data option (not that big a deal)
5. No MAP profile on Bluetooth (EVO would allow text messages to be read out by my car)
6. No easy way to block callers (I'm guessing tasker app will let me do that - have to look into that)
7. No Sprint Visual Voicemail (only option appears to be to use sprint GV integration - I'm really not keen on that)

Do I regret my purchase? Absolutely not! I really like this phone (I knew about most of these shortcomings before I purchased it - didn't know about the smart dialer and the notification LEDs earlier)

I actually tried the GNex and the EVO LTE in the sprint store side by side and found their response to be identical (call me crazy, but I felt the GNex performed a little better, and I felt that the GNex screen was better - the deep black of the AMOLED is neat! I know, I know, product reviews and specifications disagree with me, but regardless, I like the GNex so far)
 
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I moved from the EVO 3D to the Nexus over the weekend (had the original EVO before that). I really like this phone!

I did debate rather heavily between the EVO LTE, GNex and the upcoming SGS3.
Multitasking issues for EVO LTE made is unappealing, while the SGS3 was 'unknown' and I don't really like their UI much :)

I'm glad I got the GNex (bought used - got a great rate - excellent condition)

There were some minor issues (like notification LED) for which I found workarounds - thanks to the sticky posts on this site.

There are still a few features that I miss from the EVO series - still looking for workarounds for these
1. No smart dialer (I like the dialer UI on GNex, but wish it had the ability to dial the name of the contact directly
2. Contact pictures, on incoming calls - HORRIBLE! On the EVO, I had the same issue, but could assign a local image to that contact to get good resolution. Tried the same on the GNex, but the picture on the GNex still sucks
3. Flip to silence, pocket mode (increase volume) features from Sense
4. Clear app cached data option (not that big a deal)
5. No MAP profile on Bluetooth (EVO would allow text messages to be read out by my car)
6. No easy way to block callers (I'm guessing tasker app will let me do that - have to look into that)
7. No Sprint Visual Voicemail (only option appears to be to use sprint GV integration - I'm really not keen on that)

Do I regret my purchase? Absolutely not! I really like this phone (I knew about most of these shortcomings before I purchased it - didn't know about the smart dialer and the notification LEDs earlier)

I actually tried the GNex and the EVO LTE in the sprint store side by side and found their response to be identical (call me crazy, but I felt the GNex performed a little better, and I felt that the GNex screen was better - the deep black of the AMOLED is neat! I know, I know, product reviews and specifications disagree with me, but regardless, I like the GNex so far)

Have you ever looked into rooting your phone? Rooting a Nexus is very easy, you can find a guide on how to root it in my sig. If you root you can easily fix #1 on that list by flashing AOKP which is a great AOSP ROM with lots of other features. Also #2 can be fixed with an app that I can't remember the name of, I'll try to find it, found it. #3 I don't know of a way other than switching dialers which you already said you didn't want to do. #4 theres an app for that on the market also can't remember the name of it I would just search for cache cleaner or something like that. #5 try this, it is like Siri but it is made to do stuff in the car like navigate and read text. #6 I have never done that but I'm sure there is an app for that. #7 try this, it is very much like Sprint VV.

Edit 2: Found the call screen app, it looks like it might do some of the other stuff you want like flip to silence as well. Here it is.

EDIT: The reason you may have felt like the Gnex is faster is because there is no Sense slowing it down.
 
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@An UrgeTo Dance Thank you :)
I was planning to spend some time this weekend searching for solutions to these (relatively) minor issues, but your post has helped tremendously!

Yes, I do plan to root (though I'm not planning on flashing a custom ROM unless is offers a noticeable benefit over the stock ROM. With non-Nexus devices, that would be the first thing I would try to do - just to get rid of memory hogs like sense) :)
I read that I'll lose all the data when I root (while unlocking the bootloader) - but I wanted to play with this first to see how happy I was with it! lol!

Regarding #5, while driving, I prefer having my phone stowed away and letting the calls, SMS etc getting read aloud by the car's BT system. Don't have to even take the hands off the steering wheel. I read that some ROMs have integrated MAP support, so I may just end up flashing a new ROM instead (need to research it more)

While I like the GNex dialer, I'm ok with replacing it for one that offers smart dialing. Pity Google didn't include that in the stock ICS dialer.

The call screen app looks pretty good - I will try that out for the flip to silence and contact picture features :)

Once again, thank you!
 
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@An UrgeTo Dance Thank you :)
I was planning to spend some time this weekend searching for solutions to these (relatively) minor issues, but your post has helped tremendously!

Yes, I do plan to root (though I'm not planning on flashing a custom ROM unless is offers a noticeable benefit over the stock ROM. With non-Nexus devices, that would be the first thing I would try to do - just to get rid of memory hogs like sense) :)
I read that I'll lose all the data when I root (while unlocking the bootloader) - but I wanted to play with this first to see how happy I was with it! lol!

Regarding #5, while driving, I prefer having my phone stowed away and letting the calls, SMS etc getting read aloud by the car's BT system. Don't have to even take the hands off the steering wheel. I read that some ROMs have integrated MAP support, so I may just end up flashing a new ROM instead (need to research it more)

While I like the GNex dialer, I'm ok with replacing it for one that offers smart dialing. Pity Google didn't include that in the stock ICS dialer.

The call screen app looks pretty good - I will try that out for the flip to silence and contact picture features :)

Once again, thank you!

No problem, I'm here to help. You will lose data when you root but it is worth it and if you are worried about not being able to return the phone or what not after you root, it is easy to unroot and make it look like you never rooted :) AOKP offers a lot of advantages over a stock ROM. such as themes, better dialer, and a lot of tweaks and settings.
 
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Thanks for all the detailed responses. The community for this phone seems to be pretty supportive too. A whole list of dislikes was already fixed. I agree with most that AOSP is MUCH better than sense. I need to head down to sprint a play with both to see which I like better.

Keep us posted!
 
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Kinda in the same boat here. OG Evo owner. Limping along with a bad battery til July 1st. My dilemma is between the Gnex or the GS3. I can get the Gnex for $99 online vs $179 for the GS3. I really like the idea of a pure easy to root Nexus. What would be a better buy? Am I really going to notice the lower end CPU in the Gnex and the less ram? Does the Sprint NASCAR app work on the Gnex? I do love it on my Evo. Thanks. I really need a new phone but I am very torn.
 
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I'm definitely happy with the Galaxy Nexus, coming from an og Evo. Unless you plan on doing some heavy gaming, you aren't going to notice the CPU/GPU differences a whole lot. I've never really understood the point of making phones way over-powered just because you can. This phone has plenty of power for what I need it to do. Hardware specs aren't the single thing to look at when deciding what to buy. I know one thing people have complained about is the lack of an SD card. IMO, the benefits of having more shared internal storage instead of an SD card far outweigh the benefits of a few extra gigabytes. Since SD cards have to be formatted in a way that multiple operating systems can mount them, you end up in a situation where some of your data can go on internal storage and some can go on the SD card. I'm sure all the og Evo owners are familiar with the work-arounds. Having a single shared partition for all of your apps and data makes way more sense. It's true that you can't mount storage on your computer anymore, but MTP is seamless enough as far as I'm concerned.
 
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Thank you for the responses! I'm leaning heavily to the Gnex and using the savings on case and battery. I'm still worried about overheating and weak wifi issues. It seems like for every two people who have great luck with the phone, there are five who don't. Also, I guess it would be stupid to make it a deal breaker but I love the NASCAR app, I don't see anywhere if it would work or not. I love how sexy the Gnex is though, so much nicer than the GS3.
 
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Well its official, I'm going to order my gnex tomorrow from amazon wireless. So probably Monday or Tuesday, ill be flooding this sub forum with questions. I'm definately rooting right away.

Fire away with those questions, I am ready to help as well as probably everyone else here. When you root make sure to follow the guide.
 
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