CM7 on Samsung Fascinate: Soooo cloooose!

Aside from the improper exapanditure of words and the creation of a new word to describe aforementioned word expansion, there is some really good things happening in the world. The biggest and most important of them all? World peace? Some senator embarrassing himself publicly? This? No, my friend. If you’re an active Android modder and happen to own a Samsung Fascinate (such as myself) then today is a great day. While technically released yesterday, I didn’t have a chance to write till today. Therefore, since I’m writing the news, I MAKE THE NEWS.

CyanogenMod 7 (nightly build can’t remember exactly which one) has now become about 90% complete for the Sammy Fascinate. Yes, really. The only thing not working right now is the MMS (who uses that?) or some issues with deep sleep. There’s a work around for the deep sleep (look up “soft lock” on the Market) so I’m gonna go ahead and start using this as my daily driver from here on out. I’ll let you know how it ends up working out in a long term ROM test later this week. For now, you guys can go ahead and get your hands on this hotness at the source links. Happy Modding Monday!

You stay classy, World Wide Web.

Droid 2: Your Patience has Paid Off!

Custom Gingerbread ROMs are abounding over at DroidForums.com! Yes, none are final but they are (in my humble opinion) finally ready enough for the real world. That means a featured post here on ADB! Both of the main ROM creators for the Droid 2/X have finally released some very decent, stable, and custom Gingerbread ROMs for your Motorola phone. Already got the OTA? No problem, these are just here to enhance your experience. Especially the Apex 2.0. His ROM had to be one of my favorites when I had my Droid 2. That favoritism continues with version 2.0 based on the latest Gingerbread available. His latest (RC2) build is really, truly 100% AOSP Gingerbread. No Blur whatsoever. This makes the pure Google experience of the Droid 1 totally possible and in my opinion is the ROM we’ve been waiting for. So long as there is at least one pure AOSP ROM for every phone, it will be a beautiful world. Bootloaders be damned, you can get a pure Google experience on your Droid 2 right now via the Apex forum here. 

Wanted: Gingerbread on your Galaxy S Phone

Solved: root it and install the CM7 ROM or the latest MIUI ROM. The CM7 one is actually a little more usable (accelorometer and compass sensors working for example). Neither have the proximity or light sensors working, so you’re kinda stuck there. But other than that the pure (enhanced) Google experience on the Fascinate is amazing as I can attest to with my short 3 days with it. Super fast, totally worth the few bugs. Only real sacrifice is the lack of GPS. So long as you don’t depend on it for daily travel, this shouldn’t be a total deal breaker. I can’t confirm myself if its the actual GPS system (I’m assuming) that’s not working so maybe some location based services will still work with the cell network.

Fans of MIUI from other handsets won’t be dissapointed with that ROM either. It looks to run really well (according to the forums) but I’ll be posting a comparison between the two ROMs as soon as my phone gets here. Could be tomorrow, Monday at the latest. Either way, it’s gonna be a long weekend. Hit up the source links to check out the respective forums and download these sweet ROMs yourself.

Sources: CM7 on Fascinate and MIUI via XDA-Developers.com

Promise: New Posts are Coming!

I know, I know. Promises are like nickels. They’re actually 75% copper! And easily lost. But I promise my promise is more of a promise than a transition metal. My phone is coming in Friday or Monday (here’s hoping to the former more than the latter) and as soon as its here I’ll be posting all about my second experience with this phone. I also did manage to obtain a white one (yay eBay!) and will allow you to live vicariously via all my random posts. If you happen to own one, let me know in the poll below, I’m curious to see how many of you are still here after the whole Droid 2 debacle. You guys enjoying the OTA Gingerbread? I’m gonna enjoy CM7.

You stay classy, World Wide Web.

ADB 3.0 is Here!!!

Oh yeah baby! Purple and black and looking fiiiiine. Not much going on now, I know I’ve been a little (read: a LOT) lax in getting this thing updated, but I’m kinda starting to get into a groove with work and should be able to add new posts more regularly. I also know I’ve said this several times before, so take this with a grain of salt. 😛 Anyways, my sexy white Fascinate really did seem to have seriously erratic 3G/radio behavior. Texts and calls worked fine, but signal strength was all over while standing still and 3G just seemed to cycle on and off every 15 seconds. The inconsistent data pretty much rendered the phone useless, so I’m getting a replacement hopefully sometime this weekend. I will definitely post when I get my next one. Hopefully we’ll have some breakthroughs for the bluetooth or camera drivers from Samsung. Stupid proprietary PITA’s. I did get a chance to run CM7 on it before I returned it and it was glorious. This phone really feels like the super phone it is. If only this thing had a front facing camera (“FFC” from here on out) it would be perfect. Love the 720p video, just kinda need that stable 3G connection. Hopefully this next one will be better. Any hints, tips, tricks guides to what NOT to do with ROM/kernel/radio flashing? Leave a comment, help a brother out!

Stay classy, World Wide Web!

New Phone, New ADB 2.0?

Believe it or not, I’m abandoning my Droid 2. Yes, I know tearful. But it had to happen. Why? To be perfectly blunt, Motorola is royally messing (like to use another word…) their phones with this locked down bootloader bologna. Samsung and HTC have taken the stance of being open to development and it was Motorola that even got this ball rolling! I don’t know what got into their heads (I’m looking at you Verizon) but I don’t like it. The inability to access core functions of a phone at the kernel level is crippling the ROMs available for the Droid 2/x. In all honestly, the fact that they have the incredibly customizable (Froyo) ROMs at all is amazing considering what they’re working with. I’ll still keep on the development side of things from time to time (a la Twitter) and post some significant things to happen here. But it will be significantly less, I’m sorry.

But then again I’m really not because my new phone is…

…Drum insert drum roll here…

Galaxy S II Annihilates the Competition (at Quadrant)

I try my best to steer clear of the temptations with synthetic benchmarks, but it’s hard to ignore the power Samsung plans on bringing to the table. Clocking in at a heart stopping 3053 with the stock software, the Exynos 1.2ghz dual core chip sets quite the bar for any super smartphone coming out this year. This certainly is impressive, but it also shows how little the app (or Android 2.3.3 thus far) is built to handle two cores working in sync. 3053 at 1.2ghz is great, but the Xoom at 1.5ghz only scores 3105. More info and comparisons after the break.