Ringtones, battery life and native apps. Need a how to.

[jester369]

My battery life sucks. I use TasKiller pretty regularly and I still get less than twelve hours out of it...

Also would like a free ringtone download source? I had a blackberry curve and used crackberry forums for ringtones, haven't found a good one for Eris yet. (Haven't looked exceedingly hard either though...)

Anybody know how to get rid of native HTC or Android apps? Like MP3 store, stocks and Peep? Tried QuickUninstall and it didn't do the trick...

 

[Frisco]

A rooted Eris can be pared of its native applications, but not an un-rooted one at this time.

As far as the 12 hour battery life, that sounds pretty good for a heavy or even a moderate user.

Search on "ring tones" in Market, then click on the "free" tab.

 

[jester369]

excellent. thank you.

now. pros and cons of 2.1 rooted and standard?

 

[jester369]

Any positive or negative thoughts on TasKiller? Had someone say to stop using it on 2.1 and that it was partially the cause of my battery not having a good life... I was under the impression things running in the background was what caused battery life to struggle... and that taskiller helped remedy that situation?

 

[Frisco]

Those who've rooted talk about being able to tweak just about anything to their liking; it is quite similar to being the administrative user as root in a Linux computer environment which gives access to areas of the operating system that non-rooted users cannot and should not touch.

The risks of messing things up as root, or not, are directly proportional to the rooted user's knowledge of the system processes of the device.

The jury on task killers seems to be out (still ). Very knowledgeable users from both sides of the "to use task killers or to not use task killers" debate make good arguments for their respective cases.

I find no need for a third party task manager, having found the stock access to forcing stop or clearing caches sufficient for my needs and lack of deal-breaker issues in my Eris.

 

[ynozoe1014]

I use ringdroid to make my own ringtone. It's pretty sweet

 

[jester369]

I find no need for a third party task manager, having found the stock access to forcing stop or clearing caches sufficient for my needs and lack of deal-breaker issues in my Eris.

Frisco, how do you use the stock access? I did some research when I was on 1.5 but haven't really done much poking around in 2.1 I'm not familiar with how to force stop through the Android OS or how to clear caches. Unless you're referring to the manage applications tab to clear the cache, in which case that seems a bit much for day to day usage. Is it necessary to clear the cache often on any apps in your experience? Am I thinking of the right process? And how do I force close something that's using memory and battery, like the browser or google navigation?

 

[Frisco]

Unless you're referring to the manage applications tab to clear the cache, in which case that seems a bit much for day to day usage. Is it necessary to clear the cache often on any apps in your experience?

That is all I use, but in addition to cache clearing, which I do once per week, I also scroll down to the "force stop" button on apps I know I'm finished using for a while during the day.

I see numerous complaints in the forums posted by users who's devices have developed lag in various processes; mine never has and I attribute that to regular maintenance, similar to the things I carry out on my computers.

Having said that, I still believe that there have been some bad devices right out of the box sold to users. Quality control at the factories is the only explanation, besides inadvertent user abuse and lack of the maintenance I'm speaking of, for the wide disparity in reported function of the Eris.

 

[Demache]

I bought an extended battery (the 3500 mAH one). My phone can last one day easily and still have some battery to spare under moderate to heavy use. I also don't use a task killer.

I usually just make my own. Usually with Ringdroid or Audacity on my computer. If you find an MP3 on your computer, you can put it in the media/audio/ringtones/ folder on my SD card. Restart the phone and it should find them immediately. Sometimes it finds them without a restart.

And as Frisco said, you have to be rooted to remove stock apps.

 

[MOS95B]

I have downloaded a few ringtones from zedge.com

Carefully search for "mp3 ringtones". There's more than you could want out there, but be careful of the sites. Have a good AV running when you check them out

 

[jester369]

excellent information, thank you all