Galaxy S4 - Watch Thread....

I don't own the ATT S4 yet, but thinking on maybe getting it. But whats the status of root on the ATT S4 ? I am out of the loop, and confused. They say it is bootloader locked I believe ? Can we still root it, and install Clockword Mod Recovery, or is there no CMR until unlocked bootloader ? And what is the current status of getting Clockwork Mod Recovery ready for the ATT S4 ? Thanks.
 
Root is already available but bootloader is locked.

You can use root apps like Titanium Backup but you cannot install CWM/TWRP and custom ROMs yet (note that it's INSTALL, the software is ready to be flashed pending bootloader unlock).

The unlock is already done but will be released with the Verizon GS4.
 
skigz said:
So Verizon's S4 release date is approaching quickly this week. Today I read about a Device Payment Plan that Verizon is offering. I'm a grandfather'd unlimited data user and have toyed with the idea of just buying my phone outright to keep my unlimited data. Now that Verizon confirmed that customers who go this route will keep their unlimited data plan instead of being forced to use their share data plan structure on a new 2yr contract, I've been put in a place to rethink paying full price for a phone.

So the advantages for me are:
- Unlimited data on the best wireless network (coverage wise)
- No two year contract!
- I can upgrade to another phone in a year using either this payment plan or 2yr contract price (assuming both are still available)
- I can move wireless carriers in 4 months (my contract ends in September). Will still have to pay off the phone of course.

Negatives:
- Paying $650 + $24 for a phone over one year (compared to $200)

Currently I only use about 2GB/month of data. That will most likely increase when I get the S4. My question - is it worth the money to stay on an unlimited data plan with Verizon or should I just sign a 2yr contract?

I know Verizon has some announcement this Thursday so maybe they'll announce another type of non-contract option. I have a feeling they'll just talk about the S4 and maybe HTC One though.
Click to expand...

I don't see any reason not to try and keep your unlimited. The $2 a month finance charge is nothing in the grand scheme of it all. If i was looking for a new phone and wanted to keep the unlimited this doesn't seem like too bad of an offer. At least Verizon has given another option to keep unlimited.
 
skigz: Personally I'd say switch to Ting (or some other similarly well-priced MVNO). With 2GB usage you won't be saving as much as much as I am (I'm only using about 50-200MB of cell data a month because I can usually wifi, and I also use few minutes and 100-200 texts, and I pay about $25/mo with Ting). If you do use a ton of minutes it may not be worth it though (not with Ting, anyway).

Why do you guys let yourselves be talked into paying a ton more money for unlimited services that you don't need? If you're not using it, it's not worth it, period. Metered usage is GREAT, as long as you're getting charged accordingly. It's when unlimited services are changed to metered but the pricing structure screws anyone using more than 1MB of data that it sucks.
 
Last edited:
dandragonrage said:
skigz: Personally I'd say switch to Ting (or some other similarly well-priced MVNO). With 2GB usage you won't be saving as much as much as I am (I'm only using about 50-200MB of cell data a month because I can usually wifi, and I also use few minutes and 100-200 texts, and I pay about $25/mo with Ting). If you do use a ton of minutes it may not be worth it though (not with Ting, anyway).

Why do you guys let yourselves be talked into paying a ton more money for unlimited services that you don't need? If you're not using it, it's not worth it, period.
Click to expand...

Depends on usage, but that is a nice option. However, I just priced it and Ting for me is $77+surcharges. I currently pay T-Mobile $68+surcharges. I can also bring virtually any GSM phone to it that I want, whereas Ting has a more restricted selection.
 
TWISM said:
I don't see any reason not to try and keep your unlimited. The $2 a month finance charge is nothing in the grand scheme of it all. If i was looking for a new phone and wanted to keep the unlimited this doesn't seem like too bad of an offer. At least Verizon has given another option to keep unlimited.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply. I'm leaning towards the device payment plan. I'd have to pay 10 bucks more a month for 2GB/month for data. 10 bucks x 24 months is 240 dollars more I'd be paying if I'd sign a two year contract.
 
So Verizon's BIG announcement was a partnership with Vivo Movil... a Latino wireless company. Don't think there's ever been a bigger dud in the history of announcements.
 
ChronoReverse said:
This is just a rooter not the bootloader unlocker.
Click to expand...

Oh, I thought some developers were going to release the bootloader unlocker last night, that they were waiting for Verizon's S4 release first, and then would release it, and buzz is all over XDA that the Verizon S4 is out now, and the unlocker is on the way ?

Guess just have to wait ?
 
The 23rd is the official release date of the Verizon model plus they'll probably wait for people to get their phones.
 
Zorachus said:
Oh, I thought some developers were going to release the bootloader unlocker last night, that they were waiting for Verizon's S4 release first, and then would release it, and buzz is all over XDA that the Verizon S4 is out now, and the unlocker is on the way ?

Guess just have to wait ?
Click to expand...

Yup. I'm not sure why he hasn't released it yet since people have started getting their Verizon GS4s. But I'm sure it will be out shortly. I doubt Verizon/Samsung will have a patch out for it in less than a month or so.
 
skigz said:
So Verizon's BIG announcement was a partnership with Vivo Movil... a Latino wireless company. Don't think there's ever been a bigger dud in the history of announcements.
Click to expand...

Xbox One reveal was a close second to big dud. Although hearing about the people who were streaming through their 360 and had a Kinect and having the stream stop anytime the word "Xbox" was said is pretty damn funny.

Zorachus said:
Oh, I thought some developers were going to release the bootloader unlocker last night, that they were waiting for Verizon's S4 release first, and then would release it, and buzz is all over XDA that the Verizon S4 is out now, and the unlocker is on the way ?

Guess just have to wait ?
Click to expand...

Rosenberg never promised a specific date. Everybody just assumed the 23rd. All Rosenberg ever said was he was waiting for official release on Verizon before releasing the exploit. That said I won't be surprised if the unlock method is released sometime today.
 
Traded in my S2 for $100..got me an S4 for my upgrade, promptly rooted and uninstalled all the AT&T and Sammy bloatware...running Nova Launcher. :)
 
I just picked one up from Verizon. I did the device payment plan so I can keep my unlimited data. This phone is a huge difference from my original Droid Incredible.
 
Is there anyone upgrading from a GS3? I'd expect not since most will be on contract, like I am. But would like to hear your thoughts.
 
Samsung Galaxy S4 Dev Edition hitting Verizon and AT&T
http://www.android.net/forum/androi...-galaxy-s4-dev-edition-hitting-verizon-t.html

So if you are on ATT or Verizon, and want to flash ROM's and kernels on the S4, without waiting for a hack to fix the lock bootloader, that can be easily patched away down the road, looks like we gotta pay full price for a phone, that is unlocked ? :rolleyes:

This next bit of news will come as a huge surprise to Verizon Wireless customers. Samsung has announced that it will be releasing their Galaxy S4 Developer Edition smartphone on both Verizon Wireless and AT&T. Yes you read that right. Verizon Wireless is actually going to allow a bootloader unlocked Samsung Galaxy S4 on their network. Keep in mind though that these phone will not come subsidized, so customers will be paying full retail for the handset. The handset will be available with 16GB of onboard memory and in one color (Black Mist.) There is no official word on release dates or how these handsets will be offered, but that info should be hitting the web sometime soon.

Anyone going to pull the trigger when this handset is released?
 
Zorachus said:
Samsung Galaxy S4 Dev Edition hitting Verizon and AT&T
http://www.android.net/forum/androi...-galaxy-s4-dev-edition-hitting-verizon-t.html

So if you are on ATT or Verizon, and want to flash ROM's and kernels on the S4, without waiting for a hack to fix the lock bootloader, that can be easily patched away down the road, looks like we gotta pay full price for a phone, that is unlocked ? :rolleyes:

This next bit of news will come as a huge surprise to Verizon Wireless customers. Samsung has announced that it will be releasing their Galaxy S4 Developer Edition smartphone on both Verizon Wireless and AT&T. Yes you read that right. Verizon Wireless is actually going to allow a bootloader unlocked Samsung Galaxy S4 on their network. Keep in mind though that these phone will not come subsidized, so customers will be paying full retail for the handset. The handset will be available with 16GB of onboard memory and in one color (Black Mist.) There is no official word on release dates or how these handsets will be offered, but that info should be hitting the web sometime soon.

Anyone going to pull the trigger when this handset is released?
Click to expand...

Most Verizon users here are going to be paying full price for their phones from now on anyways just so they can keep unlimited data.

But I see no reason to get this Dev edition since the bootloader exploit is already available for the Verizon/AT&T GS4. I doubt they'll patch it in the next month or so and even if they do, then Dan or someone will most likely find another exploit soon afterwards like they have in all the Note 2 updates since it has came out.

I was hoping to see a 32GB Dev edition available though. That would make it much more appealing since it doesn't look like any US carriers are going to have a 32GB GS4 available (yet).
 
I am on a budget, and sort of looking at the ATT S4, they have a trade in program now too, bring in any POS old smartphone, no older than 2010 model, will sell you a new S4 on contract for $99.

But I want to run ROM's, maybe the port of the Google Edition OS, that I am sure will come to the stock ATT S4 phone, and try out TW CleanROM, hopefully coming to the stock ATT S4 real soon.
 
T4rd said:
But I see no reason to get this Dev edition since the bootloader exploit is already available for the Verizon/AT&T GS4. I doubt they'll patch it in the next month or so and even if they do, then Dan or someone will most likely find another exploit soon afterwards like they have in all the Note 2 updates since it has came out.
Click to expand...

Actually, the current exploit is a bootstrap method that's significantly more clunky. At the very least, unlike the i9505, T-Mo, Sprint and Canadian models where it seems you can mostly cross-flash ROMs, AT&T ROMs and kernels need to be "LOKI patched".
 
Zorachus said:
Anyone going to pull the trigger when this handset is released?[/I]
Click to expand...

There is virtually no point in buying it for AT&T. The Verizon model is only worthwhile for those who were already paying full price to maintain their unlimited data plan. These are developer editions, meaning same Touchwiz found on the carrier versions (no Google Nexus experience), sans carrier bloatware and locked bootloaders. Since the bootloaders will be unlocked by the community (and seemingly have been already), you already have access to the same ROMs available to these developer editions, so why not also enjoy the $400-ish subsidy?

If the AT&T model doesn't have the same radio restriction as the AT&T subsidized model, then that would mean full T-Mobile support. If so, that's another option for TMO users due to the separation of phone and plan costs. You could pay up front and not have to get a carrier-bloated model. Hey, there are some that prefer Touchwiz over a vanilla experience.
 
Just got my s4 today. I did the 2 year renewal as I never use that m
much data anyway seeing as how I cant use my phone at work (I work in a SCIF). So far the phone is awesome compared to my Motorola droid X2. My wife traded in her droid 2 for an iPhone 4. :rolleyes:
 
ChronoReverse said:
Here's something interesting:
http://blog.gsmarena.com/battery-te...9500-galaxy-s4-complete-here-are-the-results/


Looks like even big.LITTLE can't make the A15 as efficient as a chip designed to have good power/performance in the first place (Krait).
Click to expand...

This was expected. Samsung's kernel doesn't take proper advantage of Big.Little and the handoff is a little less than ideal. Some kernel devs are playing with it, but Big.Little wasn't expected by most to launch until at least Fall 2013. Samsung made an early implementation of it and they're going to be the first ones to have to work through the bugs.
 
The thing is, the naive frequency switching mode still works and it's verified that a great deal of activities (including web browsing) mostly stay on the A7 cores (600MHz reported, 1200MHz actual). But it looks like even that isn't yielding that great a battery life.
 
ChronoReverse said:
The thing is, the naive frequency switching mode still works and it's verified that a great deal of activities (including web browsing) mostly stay on the A7 cores (600MHz reported, 1200MHz actual). But it looks like even that isn't yielding that great a battery life.
Click to expand...

I remember being a SetCPU nazi back in the day. It was found that cutting your CPU usage in half didn't double your battery life, because things like the screen and radios still consumed their full power allotment.

However, in this case we're comparing two phones that are near identical except for the SOC. Asymmetrical designs have always been better for power consumption, but not power users. Until phones become desktop computing replacements, Qualcomm's asymmetrical approach will be superior to ARM's symmetrical approach in any efficiency comparison.

This is why you'll continue to see Qualcomm destroy their Cortex competitors in the mobile space (OMAP and Novathor are gone, Tegra 4 is nonexistent in a shipping phone, and the majority of Samsung's new devices are using Qualcomm as opposed to their in-house SOC). However, we're seeing more Windows 8 tablets and hybrids use Cortex over Krait (going as far as using Tegra 3 over Snapdragon S4/600) because true-multitasking is important in a desktop-based OS.

I've always stated that I prefered a Cortex-A15 design for my next phone, but I've also followed it up with, "But my usage is not common and Snapdragon is a better design for commonly used smartphones." Bottom line, I'm not surprised at all about these battery results. But for my needs, if I could choose between a Snapdragon 600-based S4 or the Exynos Octa for the upcoming Google Edition, I'd take the Exynos. But I'd also tell almost everyone else that Snapdragon is better for their usage.
 
Medion said:
I remember being a SetCPU nazi back in the day. It was found that cutting your CPU usage in half didn't double your battery life, because things like the screen and radios still consumed their full power allotment.
Click to expand...

This doesn't have to do with CPU frequency cutting. The A7 core was designed ground up to be more energy efficient but limited in how high it can scale in frequency. This is why the fact the Exynos 5 is still not doing too well, despite staying on the A7 for the greater part, is interesting. That there's such a large difference when the phones are so similar otherwise is surprising.




As for the asymmetric thing about Krait, I seem to recall you talking about that before. I don't recall but what are you saying the limitations of the Krait design are WRT to multitasking? The four cores in the quad are absolutely real after all so they should multi-task just fine.

[edit]Okay, I did some research and found the Android Authority article you might be thinking of. I believe it is incorrect. They've confused AMP with aSMP. Krait is still an SMP design but is "asynchronous" not "asymmetric". The four cores are still presented to the OS as symmetric cores.

In fact, my current governor even has settings ("sync_freq" and "up_threshold_any_cpu_load") to reduce judder if the OS decides to shift a task from a high frequency core to the low frequency core.
 
Last edited:
ChronoReverse said:
This doesn't have to do with CPU frequency cutting. The A7 core was designed ground up to be more energy efficient but limited in how high it can scale in frequency. This is why the fact the Exynos 5 is still not doing too well, despite staying on the A7 for the greater part, is interesting. That there's such a large difference when the phones are so similar otherwise is surprising.
Click to expand...

I apologize. In my rambling, I didn't fully address this. You're correct.

ChronoReverse said:
As for the asymmetric thing about Krait, I seem to recall you talking about that before. I don't recall but what are you saying the limitations of the Krait design are WRT to multitasking? The four cores in the quad are absolutely real after all so they should multi-task just fine.

[edit]Okay, I did some research and found the Android Authority article you might be thinking of. I believe it is incorrect. They've confused AMP with aSMP. Krait is still an SMP design but is "asynchronous" not "asymmetric". The four cores are still presented to the OS as symmetric cores.

In fact, my current governor even has settings ("sync_freq" and "up_threshold_any_cpu_load") to reduce judder if the OS decides to shift a task from a high frequency core to the low frequency core.
Click to expand...

I generally avoid journalists talking about tech specs because they usually have no clue. The weakness with Krait and similar ASMP designs (Sega Saturn was a famous one) is that the individual cores cannot access the same memory at the same time. The the difference bet SMP and ASMP in a multiprocessing environment is this.

If you give two separate tasks to a dual-core SMP system, both tasks can be handled simultaneously. But if you give two tasks to an ASMP system, the cores have to alternate the tasks rather than addressing them simultaneously. This is something the average user won't notice in general tasks, but makes it more difficult to do true multi-threading within one application.

This is addressed in Qualcomm's white paper on Krait, and we've had some discussions on it over at XDA.
 
Medion said:
I generally avoid journalists talking about tech specs because they usually have no clue. The weakness with Krait and similar ASMP designs (Sega Saturn was a famous one) is that the individual cores cannot access the same memory at the same time. The the difference bet SMP and ASMP in a multiprocessing environment is this.

...

This is addressed in Qualcomm's white paper on Krait, and we've had some discussions on it over at XDA.
Click to expand...

Do you have a link to that whitepaper? From practical tests I do not believe this is true. There appears to be only one memory pool for Krait as expected of an SMP design.

There's no reason SMP designs can't have per-core scaling (and it's been practiced on the desktop for years already) without resorting to actual asymmetric multiprocessing.
 
Last edited:
ChronoReverse said:
Do you have a link to that whitepaper? From practical tests I do not believe this is true. There is only one memory pool for Krait as expected of an SMP design.
Click to expand...

Here's a link to Qualcomm's specs for Snapdragon 600:
http://www.qualcomm.com/snapdragon/processors/600

Energy efficient LP process and dynamic GPU clock and voltage scaling
Click to expand...

Asymmetrical Multi-Processing (aSMP) dynamic CPU power control for power-optimized performance
Click to expand...

Google Link to download White Paper

Advantages of aSMP over SMP:
Cores can be locked independently to conserve power draw. So if you have one high-demand thread and a low demand one, you can have Core 0 at 1.5ghz to handle the higher-demanding thread, and Core 1 at 500mhz for the second thread. In an SMP setup, both cores would run at 1.5ghz (because one thread cannot be split between two cores).

Advantages of SMP over aSMP:
Cores in an SMP setup can address the same physical memory address simultaneously, whereas aSMP cannot. This means that in some multi-threaded cases, aSMP does not truly process tasks simultaneously, but has to alternate.

It's give and take, and aSMP long ago lost out for general computing. but it's made a comeback in today's mobile-centric environment. Despite this, SMP is still preferred for desktop applications (or even an attempt at desktop applications, like Win8-RT). As such, many OEMs are still taking Tegra 3 over Snapdragon S4/600 for their Win8 RT devices.

Some more information on it:

EDIT: Disclaimer - I haven't done any SMP or aSMP specific development. This is not an area where I have direct expertise, just something I'm well-versed in.
 
Last edited:
Medion said:
Advantages of SMP over aSMP:
Cores in an SMP setup can address the same physical memory address simultaneously, whereas aSMP cannot. This means that in some multi-threaded cases, aSMP does not truly process tasks simultaneously, but has to alternate.

...

Some more information on it:
Click to expand...
Asymmetric is not the same as Asynchronous.

Let me repeat that again because I've been saying this in my earlier posts already: Asymmetric is not the same as Asynchronous.

In fact, modern AMD and Intel CPUs are also Asynchronous. There's a reason why Qualcomm was careful to call it aSMP as opposed to AMP or ASMP. I believe that there's no basis for believing that Krait is Asymmetric. If you look at how the governors work, it can ONLY be Symmetric because otherwise there's no meaning to having provisions for threads being moved between cores "unexpectedly". With an Asymmetric design, any such move MUST be deliberate with an expensive context switch (the current Exynos 5 big.LITTLE limitations and vSMP designs like Tegra3 need to to this to switch between sets).


Now, the SoC as a whole is obviously AMP since it's a collection of different processors and DSPs but that's typical of SoCs in general.


[edit]Stupid Qualcomm marketing. They switch up between Asynchronous and Asymmetrical. The description clearly is Asynchronous in the manner of Intel and AMD's modern multi-core CPUs though
 
Last edited:
ChronoReverse said:
Asymmetric is not the same as Asynchronous.

Let me repeat that again because I've been saying this in my earlier posts already: Asymmetric is not the same as Asynchronous.

In fact, modern AMD and Intel CPUs are also Asynchronous. There's a reason why Qualcomm was careful to call it aSMP as opposed to AMP or ASMP.
Click to expand...

I would appreciate it if you would educate me on the difference with some links of your own.

EDIT: Specifically, I'd like to see any of the following:

-evidence that modern aSMP designs don't have memory address limitations with each core.
-evidence that current AMD and Intel x86 implementations are asynchronous, given that Intel shut down their asynchronous project in 1997 and even talked about the failure of that project as recently as 2009.
-Given that asynchronous and asymmetric multiprocessing are interchangeable terms, any whitepapers illustrating their differences would be educational to me.
 
Last edited:
Medion said:
I would appreciate it if you would educate me on the difference with some links of your own.
Click to expand...
For now I'll give you an example to make it clear:


First, do you agree that AMD modern and Intel's CPU's are true SMP? They also can scale cores separately and even take them offline (hotplug).

Second, do you notice that the primary description in your links mention that Krait can scale the cores separately and thus is AMP? This doesn't describe AMP at all though given the first premise!

Third, it then goes on to say that since Krait is AMP (which isn't proven) therefore it has non-homogenous memory access which is the hallmark of AMP. But it doesn't follow because it hasn't proven that Krait is AMP (beyond the marketing term which we know has little to do with strict technical definitions) in the first place!



[edit]As far as I know, asynchronous is not interchangeable with asymmetric. Synchronization refers to clock while symmetry refers to how the OS sees the cores. Symmetric Multiprocessing merely means all the cores are identical as far as the OS is concerned and thus is able to freely assign and move threads between the pool of cores.
 
Last edited:
Chrono, we're debating on stuff we agree on. For example...

First, do you agree that AMD modern and Intel's CPU's are true SMP?
Click to expand...

Absolutely. Never debated this.

They also can scale cores separately and even take them offline (hotplug).
Click to expand...

I'm well aware that they can hotplug. However, I have not seen a case where the cores can scale to separate frequencies while running. Cores that are enabled can get clocked higher as other cores are disabled, but that's not the same as aSMP.

Second, do you notice that the primary description in your links mention that Krait can scale the cores separately and thus is AMP? This doesn't describe AMP at all though given the first premise!
Click to expand...

I noticed this, pointed it out, referred to it as aSMP, and Qualcomm refers to it as aSMP in their whitepaper. What's the question?

Third, it then goes on to say that since Krait is AMP (which isn't proven)
Click to expand...

Qualcomm's white paper uses aSMP in their description. What page(s) are you seeing AMP?
 
The links that you've posted are unfortunately marketing materials. I had hoped you had actual technical papers (it's notoriously difficult to get them from Qualcomm). You'll notice that in some places it uses Asynchronous and in other places it uses Asymmetrical. I've reverted to using the technical terms to avoid confusion:

SMP Symmetric MultiProcessing
AMP Asymmetric MultiProcessing

aSMP (appears to be a marketing term, just terrible) asynchronous Symmetric MultiProcessing or aSymmetric MultiProcessing


But the technical definition of Symmetric Multiprocessing is simple: all cores is seen as identical by the OS and assigning a task to one or another is equally valid (valid but not necessarily optimal since we have stuff like SMT, AMD's "CMT" and asynchronous cores).

In fact, if Krait had really been AMP, it'd wreak havoc in Android. Android can and does arbitrarily assign threads to cores as well as moving them. The penalty for doing so on an AMP would be rather noticeable ;)
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top