Help Samsung Firmware Updates

[tpuiatti]

I have an unlocked 02-germany Galaxy on Orange UK. This was all news to me today that the Galaxy users aren't entitled to Over-The-Air updates nor is it apparently a "Google" phone in the same way the HTC G1 is. (http://androidforums.com/samsung-i7500/9557-samsung-when-we-getting-donut.html). I'm not clear what the distinction is. Maybe someone can tell me. This is a big let down to be honest, I wouldn't have probably bought the device if I knew this. Even app updates nots don't come through and my bro has been showcasing Donut on his G1 (also on Orange UK) all morning to make matters worse. Any news on when we get donut now?

Is this the only non-OTA updated Android device. How does one confirm this? I presume the Magic is however.

Thanks guys - still learning the ropes.

 

[Rastaman-FB]

theres a few, its a google experience phone but cannot have ota.

its still a good device though and have a lot of custom devs working with it

donut will be coming start of 2010 as a manual update

so whats so good on your brothers g1 donut that makes you feel jealous?

 

[Nefser]

Let me respond to your post, although it probably applies to a number of other people, so don't feel singled out.

- - -
If there is a feature such as OTA updates, or DIVX playback, or XYZ that you feel you require (meaning, you would not buy a phone lacking one or more of those)...and it does NOT currently exist on the Samsung Galaxy?

Then you probably should NOT have bought this phone (or buy it, if you're planning to).
- - -

Seriously.

For such an expensive "we don't need it but we want it" device, I cannot understand those that will purchase a phone and then only afterwards complain that it doesnt do what they wanted.

There is always another review, blog, announcement just around the corner which will help to give you enough detail about what new phone is coming out that will meet your requirements - especially in these times of a massively explosive 'smartphone / touchscreen" growth.

For those of you who are not sure...you're probably fine with phone you currently have and can sit and wait just a little bit longer. If you're not sure, keep reading (you may want a Samsung Galaxy - I really like mine, esp. with Galaxo on it) until you are.

And for those of you who did actually buy this phone, can we keep the discussions focused on the functionality of what the phone actually has rather than what you wished it did?

Features the Samsung Galaxy does not have:
- OTA
- 1.6 (for now)
- DIVX
- flash in the native browser (but probably on the verge)
- radio

I won't go on, but hopefully we can keep this (and other) thread aligned on what the Galaxy can do or how we'd like to see the software improved rather than knock it for something it doesnt have ( or won't for the foreseeable future).


New thought: Enjoy the Galaxy for the good phone that it is and be happy there are as many helpful people around like Spam187 on this forum and Drakaz, etc.

 

[tpuiatti]

Thanks for the replies on both counts.

Nefser, thanks for the clarification. My post shouldn't be construed as a complaint more as an invitation for info, I don't pretend I can influence Samsung's policies but it IS a let down for me as I said. OTA updates ARE indeed important to me and was a contributing factor in my preference for Android over Blackberry (I initially had the G1). As I acknowledged in my 1st post, I probably wouldn't have bought and gone for the Magic instead which I think does what I want. I did read reviews, obviously I missed that bit. As for the device it's lovely, I would have preferred no dedicated side lock button as the software lock is as good as keyguard for me and I don't think it's necessary.

Rastaman - the indexed multi-sourced search, I think it's excellent.

 

[Rastaman-FB]

Rastaman - the indexed multi-sourced search, I think it's excellent.

quickdroid does this very well indeed can be got from the market, or source code from google. even better if you flash galaxo its there by default
quickdroid - Project Hosting on Google Code

OTA updates ARE indeed important to me and was a contributing factor in my preference for Android over Blackberry (I initially had the G1).

what is your reasoning for ota? while its convenient if it goes wrong its difficult to recover unless you have a desktop to re flash so there is still a desktop requirement.

In addition to this blackberries are completely different, they serve different purposes.

 

[tpuiatti]

quickdroid does this very well indeed can be got from the market, or source code from google. even better if you flash galaxo its there by default
quickdroid - Project Hosting on Google Code

Thanks - it does a decent job - doesn't search Places Directory which I use a lot but it's good thanks

I take your point they are very different devices.

My reasoning is this very situation where I want an update that I can't have. I realise the improvements are neither here nor there to some and the convenience, I don't want to mess around with desktop software unless I have to. Again I take your point aboutit going wrong on OTA but I never experienced probs with the G1.

 

[spottyelephant]

As I acknowledged in my 1st post, I probably wouldn't have bought and gone for the Magic instead which I think does what I want.

I am flabbergasted (never used that word before!) at the people who are choosing hero/magic over the galaxy. The galaxy is superior in every way, in particular the camera which the htc phones may as well not have because they're so rubbish! The senseUI is utterly undersireable i think. iPhone is so popular because it's so easy to use. Android keeps that useability, but adds a level of customisability ontop, while i think the senseUI just adds layers of complexity. Once you have a nice background on the stock android which the galaxy runs it looks excellent. I constantly have people oo-ing over it!

I would have preferred no dedicated side lock button as the software lock is as good as keyguard for me and I don't think it's necessary.

I will agree with you here. It is the one thing i hate about my galaxy. Literally drives me insane. Cant wait until theres an option to turn it off.

 

[pegasus21]

Wait... the camera is better? I thought the camera on the galaxy is downright terrible. Is the camera on the HTC phones worse?

One of the things that irk me is that Samsung has terrible software support. (Both sync-ing and firmware) We have to wait a whole 4 months before we even get donut while they are testing it. Thanks Samsung for the nice feature. I was under the impression that Google works with device makers in the OHA and hence they get early access to new builds even before the public does. It would be right to assume this since HTC managed to push out their donuts like a week or 2 after the public release of the source.

Great hardware overall? Yes. But software isn't something one can foresee at the beginning. You can't blame people who dislike the phone because they realised that after getting it.

 

[skandalfo]

quickdroid does this very well indeed can be got from the market, or source code from google. even better if you flash galaxo its there by default
quickdroid - Project Hosting on Google Code

Actually QuickDroid fails miserably for me... it chokes on Spanish accented characters :-(

See this issue report. Hope it can be fixed soon...

 

[Bomberman]

Wait... the camera is better? I thought the camera on the galaxy is downright terrible. Is the camera on the HTC phones worse?

Absolutely. It's really, really bad.

 

[Rastaman-FB]

Wait... the camera is better? I thought the camera on the galaxy is downright terrible. Is the camera on the HTC phones worse?

One of the things that irk me is that Samsung has terrible software support. (Both sync-ing and firmware) We have to wait a whole 4 months before we even get donut while they are testing it. Thanks Samsung for the nice feature. I was under the impression that Google works with device makers in the OHA and hence they get early access to new builds even before the public does. It would be right to assume this since HTC managed to push out their donuts like a week or 2 after the public release of the source.

Great hardware overall? Yes. But software isn't something one can foresee at the beginning. You can't blame people who dislike the phone because they realised that after getting it.

the camera is bad on the samsung due to it using default android app. This is the same camera sw that is used on htc only the lense and filter is better on the samsung. What you have to realise by now is that a lot of the issues are due to android itself.

 

[pegasus21]

What camera apps have you tried that takes nice pictures?

Any that supports flash?

 

[Rastaman-FB]

What camera apps have you tried that takes nice pictures?

Any that supports flash?

ive tried camera pro which seems to be nice and has flash but it force closes sometimes.

camera zoom is also ok but all of them are a bit pants to be honest
camera pro is probably the better one but its still very basic some of the features also do not work like effects etc but the zoom, autowhitebalance shutter sound and flash all work as expected. slightly better end result than the normal camera
also you can tweak the brightness and contrast after the photo has been taken before saving it

 

[pegasus21]

I've tried a few and well feature-wise the 3rd party ones might be better but in terms of image quality, they are still the same as the default camera app.

So..
1. the camera driver is bad and doing too much post processing.
2. the camera itself is bad.
3. there's too much post processing at the os level

5 megapixel cameras shouldn't have such soft pictures and the jpeg compression even when set to 100%, produces images that are maybe 30-50% compression on other platforms.

Using no zoom.

 

[skandalfo]

So..
1. the camera driver is bad and doing too much post processing.
2. the camera itself is bad.
3. there's too much post processing at the os level

5 megapixel cameras shouldn't have such soft pictures and the jpeg compression even when set to 100%, produces images that are maybe 30-50% compression on other platforms.

Using no zoom.

I've observed the same behavior.

The "watercolor" effect you and me can see even in full-daylight photographs, with everything semi-blurred, is the typical result of applying a median filter to an image.

You can get the GIMP and try it.

This kind of filter has two main uses. One is reducing noise in a very noisy image (typically when the environment is very dark and you are working at the limits of the sensor sensitivity). Another one is masking dead pixels in the sensor, by replacing the bad values with the ones of the neighbor pixels.

I'd say Samsung went cheap about accepting sensors with defects and masking them with post-processing. But I think it's been really overkill.

I don't mind having a bunch of dead pixels on a 5 Mpx sensor, but blurring the entire image "just in case" is plain silly. It should be an auto-calibrated stage, in order to process only the areas in which damage is detected (for instance, pixels that never change their value).

 

[Rastaman-FB]

still its the best camera youll find on android tho
maybe theres an inherent problem with the qualcom chipset and the camera firmware?
just cos all of them are using the 7200a chipset so far

 

[Andronix]

BRAVO Samsung, another job well done.

 

[kam187]

I didnt read the whole thread, so sorry if i'm repating other replies

- OTA updates
It really isnt a big deal. Even if there were OTA updates i probably wouldnt use the feature. OTA doesnt mean its like windows update and you get totally up to date patches direct from google.
It just means that the firmware update that your operator _aproves_ can be sent directly to the phone over Wifi - instead of you downloading an update app, and running on your PC. Your operator still needs to offer the update.

We are lucky that the samsung is TOTALLY security unlocked. That means you can upgrade and downgrade as and when you like. The Hero isnt The latest hero rom can't be rooted! The sprint hero cant be rooted!

This means that you can use things like Odin to install the LATEST firmware thats released on any operator out there on your phone, even if your local operator doesnt offer it. And because there's no security lock, you can downgrade to your operators firmware if you need to use waranty. So be happy you have a samsung and not a HTC!

- Flash
Flash is coming to android very soon. The Galaxo custom rom has flash support, but like other android phones its not full support. Some flash sites dont work.
The Hero has its own HTC flash support which works on more sites, but its a memory hog and crashes alot. The official flash support from adobe is due really soon. Be patient!

- Camera
Depending on the firmware you have, the pictures can be really dark and horrible. The shutter and flash are not syncronised properly. You'll notice a nice clean picture on the camera but when you click it looks horible! I have no idea wtf samsung are doing here, but once the better camera apps work on the samsung that should work better.

- syncing
yeah its terrible You'll have to sync with google

 

[Andronix]

Flash is not supported, even on drakaz custom roms, unfortunately.

 

[kam187]

I read somebody said it was on the replacement browser, but its a very old version. I havnt checked myself tbh

 

[Andronix]

Htc is using flash lite 9 that's part of htc framework which means no flash for galaxy.