My M8 Experience So Far

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bah77

Senior Member
Apr 9, 2014
104
4
Bit of background....

Was never much a fan of android and had just about every iphone from day dot right up until the iphone 5.
I'd Jailbroke all the way through with each device, a lot of tweaks, modding etc.
Started to get very bored of the whole iphone thing but ended up losing it anyway (left it on a train)
That's what made me think, why not try something different? So claimed on my insurance and went for a Galaxy S3.

NEVER MISSED MY IPHONE ONCE. How android has improved over the years.

Loved the functionality of the S3, although not the build so much. Had it rooted with CM, gravity box, adaway and that was me happy.

Was very excited to wait for the M8 and upgraded as soon as it came out, wasn't disappointed, LOVE IT! :D
Fantastic build quality, great looks, great spec. Could hardly fault it anywhere.
Decided to jump in and root it to get some of my favourite things.... That's where my disappointment began :(

Unlike the Samsung, everything seems really difficult to achieve, some things impossible.
Unlocking the boot loader is a fairly long process but it was fairly straight forward... Job done
Rooting, fairly straight forward... Job done

HERES WHERE THE NOT SO FUN PARTS STARTS...
Adaway, kinda works but not. Keep having problems with it being disabled on boot up and not being able to copy host files
From my research it seems to be a problem with s-off not being active although I'm not sure?

Tried the s-off process and at the end was told it won't work on my device, no one seems to know exactly why?

Another app I wanted was gsam battery, again... Kinda works but not. Standard stats work but more advanced won't.
Tried the root companion, can't get that to work at all.

Something else I really wanted was gravity box through xposed. That won't work with sense.

In order to get that I believe I have to flash another rom that dos'nt have sense, think that only leaves the google play edition rom?
That I believe also loses me blinkfeed and ultra power saver which are both pretty good.
Not sure if I need s-off for that, if I do I can't get it anyway

May main reason for root was for gravity box and adaway, one of which I kinda have and one I don't have at all.

So overall, very disappointed now :(

Just thought I'd share my experience as it might help others decide on purchase choices.
Also if anyone has any tips to get around my issues I'd really appreciate it
 

boofhead

Senior Member
Oct 28, 2006
66
5
its for those reasons i now leave my phones stock. i used to customise my windows phones to get them to work but since switching to android i just use them and update the stock software when they become available. i also have an m8 and i have only installed gsam, chrome and epson printer apps. that is all i have needed so far. i seem to be able to do everything i need to do without any more apps installed. i had a htc one x previous and sensation before that and had so much stuff on them that they were litterely full of apps. i will probably end up adding heaps of apps as time goes on but the stock setup on the m8 is very powerful and capable (not to mention fast). i would recommend just installing the stock rom back and use it for a while. is there really any advantage to rooting these anyway.
 

bah77

Senior Member
Apr 9, 2014
104
4
its for those reasons i now leave my phones stock. i used to customise my windows phones to get them to work but since switching to android i just use them and update the stock software when they become available. i also have an m8 and i have only installed gsam, chrome and epson printer apps. that is all i have needed so far. i seem to be able to do everything i need to do without any more apps installed. i had a htc one x previous and sensation before that and had so much stuff on them that they were litterely full of apps. i will probably end up adding heaps of apps as time goes on but the stock setup on the m8 is very powerful and capable (not to mention fast). i would recommend just installing the stock rom back and use it for a while. is there really any advantage to rooting these anyway.


Xposed framework would be a huge advantage to me to get rid of annoying things, some small some not so small.

Even the volume warning really annoys me, there's no way to disable it without xposed working
Also on my s3 I moved the close all apps button to bottom left, much easier for me being a lefty
 

purple patch

Senior Member
Jan 19, 2008
551
256
Hi, ads can be blocked through modified hosts file (you can search how to do that). Have you tried a custom ROM with root already done. I use Venom and have always used adaway, both s-on and s-off with no issues.

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using xda app-developers app
 

ivicask

Recognized Developer / Inactive RC
May 25, 2009
5,091
16,416
35
Zagreb
Bit of background....

Was never much a fan of android and had just about every iphone from day dot right up until the iphone 5.
I'd Jailbroke all the way through with each device, a lot of tweaks, modding etc.
Started to get very bored of the whole iphone thing but ended up losing it anyway (left it on a train)
That's what made me think, why not try something different? So claimed on my insurance and went for a Galaxy S3.

NEVER MISSED MY IPHONE ONCE. How android has improved over the years.

Loved the functionality of the S3, although not the build so much. Had it rooted with CM, gravity box, adaway and that was me happy.

Was very excited to wait for the M8 and upgraded as soon as it came out, wasn't disappointed, LOVE IT! :D
Fantastic build quality, great looks, great spec. Could hardly fault it anywhere.
Decided to jump in and root it to get some of my favourite things.... That's where my disappointment began :(

Unlike the Samsung, everything seems really difficult to achieve, some things impossible.
Unlocking the boot loader is a fairly long process but it was fairly straight forward... Job done
Rooting, fairly straight forward... Job done

HERES WHERE THE NOT SO FUN PARTS STARTS...
Adaway, kinda works but not. Keep having problems with it being disabled on boot up and not being able to copy host files
From my research it seems to be a problem with s-off not being active although I'm not sure?

Tried the s-off process and at the end was told it won't work on my device, no one seems to know exactly why?

Another app I wanted was gsam battery, again... Kinda works but not. Standard stats work but more advanced won't.
Tried the root companion, can't get that to work at all.

Something else I really wanted was gravity box through xposed. That won't work with sense.

In order to get that I believe I have to flash another rom that dos'nt have sense, think that only leaves the google play edition rom?
That I believe also loses me blinkfeed and ultra power saver which are both pretty good.
Not sure if I need s-off for that, if I do I can't get it anyway

May main reason for root was for gravity box and adaway, one of which I kinda have and one I don't have at all.

So overall, very disappointed now :(

Just thought I'd share my experience as it might help others decide on purchase choices.
Also if anyone has any tips to get around my issues I'd really appreciate it

Sorry but i dont understand what problems you actually have or what you done/expect from your phone

Adaway and GSAM battery stats works perfectly on all custom roms for M8 without issues.

And roms like our Viper ONE M8 provides endless customization and tweaking options, can you tell me what can you do with that gravity that you cant in viper rom?
 

rquinn19

Senior Member
Feb 10, 2007
1,501
275
Phila
Gravity Box wouldn't work on a Sense based rom anyways. I think the main source of your issues is the lack of research (user error).
 

bah77

Senior Member
Apr 9, 2014
104
4
Sorry but i dont understand what problems you actually have or what you done/expect from your phone

Adaway and GSAM battery stats works perfectly on all custom roms for M8 without issues.

And roms like our Viper ONE M8 provides endless customization and tweaking options, can you tell me what can you do with that gravity that you cant in viper rom?

I've been looking at viper actually, considering flashing tonight

I mainly wanted to move the close all apps button to the bottom left rather than top right
Stop the volume warning popping up when increasing volume
Have the pull down go straight into settings rather then having to use 2 fingers
I had all that through gravity box on my s3.

I'm guessing they won't all be on viper but as viper isn't sense gravity box should work anyway, is that right?
 

Try4Ce

Senior Member
Jul 29, 2010
1,841
460
NRW
I've been looking at viper actually, considering flashing tonight

I mainly wanted to move the close all apps button to the bottom left rather than top right
Stop the volume warning popping up when increasing volume
Have the pull down go straight into settings rather then having to use 2 fingers
I had all that through gravity box on my s3.

I'm guessing they won't all be on viper but as viper isn't sense gravity box should work anyway, is that right?

First off: Sense isn't TouchWiz. All features of GravityBox which work on TouchWiz or AOSP wont always work on Sense.
Plus, Sense 6.0 is still VERY fresh and the devs of GB and similar are still looking into what can be done on Sense and what not.

Viper is already heavily customizable and may already feature most of the things you want. Then there is always GPE which replaces Sense with Vanilla Android most GravityBox features will work with - Tho you need to know that some exclusive features like a couple of camera things, dot view etc wont work as extensive as on Sense anymore.

Its all a matter of what you really need and what you really wanna do. I for one prefer to stick to Sense which is mostly stock (InsertCoin) with some customizable settings - keeps the system cleaner and snappier IMO.

You decide :good:
 

bah77

Senior Member
Apr 9, 2014
104
4
First off: Sense isn't TouchWiz. All features of GravityBox which work on TouchWiz or AOSP wont always work on Sense.
Plus, Sense 6.0 is still VERY fresh and the devs of GB and similar are still looking into what can be done on Sense and what not.

Viper is already heavily customizable and may already feature most of the things you want. Then there is always GPE which replaces Sense with Vanilla Android most GravityBox features will work with - Tho you need to know that some exclusive features like a couple of camera things, dot view etc wont work as extensive as on Sense anymore.

Its all a matter of what you really need and what you really wanna do. I for one prefer to stick to Sense which is mostly stock (InsertCoin) with some customizable settings - keeps the system cleaner and snappier IMO.

You decide :good:

Many thanks for the response, I will have a look into the different roms more over the weekend

I guess I was too naive, only on my 2nd ever android phone and that's from a hell of a lot of phones I've owned in the past
I guess I was thinking along the lines of a one android fits all but that's quite clearly not the case, there are lots of differences between one android phone to another
 

Try4Ce

Senior Member
Jul 29, 2010
1,841
460
NRW
Many thanks for the response, I will have a look into the different roms more over the weekend

I guess I was too naive, only on my 2nd ever android phone and that's from a hell of a lot of phones I've owned in the past
I guess I was thinking along the lines of a one android fits all but that's quite clearly not the case, there are lots of differences between one android phone to another

Hehe well yeah, every Android phone can be quite different to each other. Its with the hardware already. On the iDevices, its all streamlined and almost everything will work on the different iPhones. Its convenient, but nothing for me - I am a modder and toy around alot, and thats where Android kicks in.

Some things on Android can be annoying, since there are much more differences in Hardware and Software among all the devices running Android, but it actually can be quite interesting to see what all the talented Android Developers come up with.

I hope you find what you are looking for. The M8 is a hell of a great device and dispite of being so new, alot of customizations are already possible.
 
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