Samsung Galaxy S2 4G

(This is taken from Whirlpool. You may have seen it there, but I am the guy that wrote it. This isn't copypasta 8)

I've had the phone for 24 almost a week now, and here's the info dump.

Summary: If you have easy access to a charger, or you're not in a 4G area, get this. It's much better than the SGS2 3G, and it's faster with HDPDA-DC. But if you're in a 4G area, it eats battery. Nomnomnom.

The major visible difference is: It's slightly wider, and it's as thick as the BASE of the SGS2 3G – if you have a SGS2 already, you'll see that the battery cover actually comes inwards from the base. The SGS2 4G is the same thickness all the way to the top.

MAJOR New stuff:

• 3G LTE 1800MHz – aka 4G. (well duh. That's the point)
• NFC (for Google Wallet, and other stuff – use your phone as a PayPass credit card, woot!)
• Significantly faster camera (seems to be as fast as the Nexus)
• Better designed back.

This 'better designed back' is one of the best thing about it. If you have a SGS2 you will notice that the rear camera area is actually the proudest part of the top of the phone, and lens is exactly flush with the case. This means that, if you don't have a case, every time you put your phone down with the screen up, the camera lens gets scratched. Eventually, it turns into something that looks like this (photo taken with the new SGS2 4G)

http://imgur.com/GYUaV

However, they've fixed this. The camera area is no longer proud from the back, and the camera itself is actually RECESSED behind a tiny flange. I'd estimate that it's roughly .2 -.3mm recessed into the case. Just enough that the lens isn't going to get scratched, as long as you don't drag it through sand or something.

Minor new stuff:

• Slightly larger capacity battery (1850mAh vs 1600mAh)
• HSPDA-DC (Dual Carrier 3G, so you get better throughput even if you're not in a 4G area)
• Samsung are now supplying in ear headphones.

Here is a picture showing the contents of the box. Note that this is taken with the SGS2 4G, and is unedited. It's a bloody good camera.

Geek Stuff:

• Phone Model: GT-I9210T
• Android 2.3.6.
• (Public) Facebook link to screenshot of some speed tests – you don't need to log into facebook to view this.
• Baseband Version I9210TDVLB1
• Kernel Version 2.6.35.11-I9210TDVLB3-CL959878
• Build GINGERBREAD.DLVB3

CPU Differences:
iceborg on whirlpool mentioned that the CPU is also slightly different. The original SGS2 used the Exynos 1.2GHz dual core CPU, whilst the SGS2 4G uses the Qualcomm APQ8060 Snapdragon Dual-core 1.5 GHz Scorpion CPU. This is a prime example of one of the times where MHz does not give the whole story.

I have a SGS2 running ICS here, _not_ Gingerbread, so this won't be an accurate comparison, as ICS is significantly faster than Gingerbread. However, in the interest of SOME sort of comparison:

• SGS2 3G running ICS – 4137. (CPU 5684, Mem 3790, IO 8475, 2D 590, 3D 3147)
• SGS2 4G running Gingerbread – 3722. (CPU 6005, Mem 3001, IO 6907, 2D 446, 3D 2252)

Note that IO and Memory are significantly improved in ICS. It may end up being faster, it may not. However, a gut feeling says that it feels about the same.

Rooting:
The second post on this page explains how to root the phone. It is taken from this thread on xda-developers. Note that if you use the files on XDA-Dev, you have to install the superuser.zip file three times. This is expected. DO NOT INSTALL ANY ROMS FOR THE I727. Whilst it is VERY similar, It is a different phone. The front buttons won't work any more. You'll need to restore, or, put a generic rom back on it.

Update: A user on Whirlpool reported that even WITHOUT changing the ROM, his buttons still stopped working. I have no idea how that happened. I'll make a new post about rooting this phone. If you DO root it, make SURE you do the CWM backup. That allows you to go back, no matter what happens. If you haven't, you'll need to use Odin to re-flash the whole original Telstra package.

ICS:
ICS isn't released for this phone yet. However, as all the Samsung GS 2's use the same UI and application codebase, there probably will be little, if any, delay between the release of the SGS2 3G and SGS2 4G ICS builds, as Telstra will be able to test them simultaneously. There is a Gingerbread source code dump on https://opensource.samsung.com and there's also one called 'I9210T_SEA' which I haven't investigated yet. is indeed the Gingerbread ROM for this phone. No sign of an ICS leak, either, sadly.

Battery Life:
Yeah. Well. I always knew it was going to suck. Whilst it's connected to 4G it's actually running 2 radios at once. That is always going to chew battery. However you CAN disable 4G on this phone (unlike a lot of other ones!) – Menu – Settings – Wireless and Network – Mobile Networks – Network Mode and set it to 'WCDMA Only'. That will give it a slightly better battery life than the SGS2 3G running the same things (.. that is an estimation, not a statement of fact, btw. The Snapdragon CPU is – apparently – more power efficient, and the battery is bigger)

Custom ROMs:
As far as I know, there aren't any yet. However, Samsung have done the right thing and released the source, so there's no real reason why people can't make them themselves. They've also, I must say, really turned themselves around with releasing source code. Whilst they're still not publishing GIT access, they are being scrupulous about releasing source code these days.

Other Stuff:
I'm treating this thread like an XDA-Dev thread. I've reserved two posts underneath here, and I'll create and update them with specific rooting and bugs issues as we go. I'm giving up - yet again - on Whirlpool. If you want to speak to an android dev, this is the place to talk to one.

 

Rooting

IMPORTANT:
There have been various reports of the menu and back keys not working after rooting. I'm trying REALLY HARD to figure out what causes it, and, what the fix is. However, I'm heading up to Townsville for the next week, and will be hard to contact, and not in front of my desktop PC, with access to all my tools. So. Don't do this. If you HAVE done this, you'll need to install 'sshdroid' and let me poke around inside your phone to see what the problem is

TL;DR: Don't do this unless you're me.

Android 2.3.6 is immune to Zergrush and this phone is immune to psneuter, so we need to use a different method of rooting. As this is a Samsung phone, we can use Odin to do all the hard work. The method outlined below does NOT trigger the yellow triangle alert.

Firstly, you need to download Odin - if you don't already have it, here's a link to it on my dropbox.

Then you need two other packages. The first is the Skyrocket (I727) CWM Recovery, which is compatible with the GT-I9210T. And then you need the actual root package itself. Note: This has been updated to the latest SuperSU package, as of 10am, 31/3/2012

Step 1: Copy the SuperSU file onto the phone.
Plug the phone in, select 'connect to USB'. Copy the SuperSU file you downloaded onto the phones internal memory, or, to the SD card.

Step 2: Put the phone into ODIN Mode
If you have a USB Jig, turn the phone off, and then plug the Jig in. That puts it straight into Odin mode. (You can buy them from eBay for next to nothing. I bought 5 for $5, and have them scattered around).
If you don't have a Jig, turn the phone off, and then hold down (in this order) Volume Down, Home, and Power. Hold them down for about 5 seconds, until the warning screen pops up. Push Volume Up ("Continue") and you'll get to the 'Downloading...' screen.

At this point you fire up Odin, and select the SkyrocketCWMrecovery.tar file in the PDA section. Don't touch anything else. It should look like this:



Press start, and it'll write the recovery.img file to the phone. When it's finished, and is happy, it'll look like this:



The phone will reboot by itself. Let the phone reboot, and come up. Make sure all your front buttons are working (eg, menu and back). If they're not working, I don't know why, and we'll have to investigate further. Stop here, and don't do anything else. Post here and tell me EXACTLY what you did.


Step 3: Install root
Turn the phone off. While the phone is turned off, hold down volume up and volume down. Whilst holding those down (and don't let them go), push and hold the power button until the Samsung SGSII 4G screen vanishes. You can let go of the power button, but don't let go of the up and down until you get the CWM screen. The phone will vibrate a couple of times - this is normal. If you've installed CWM correctly, the screen should say 'ClockworkMod Recovery v5.0.2.6'
Using the up and down volume keys, select the fourth option - install zip from sdcard. Press the power button to select it.
Select the first option - chose zip from sdcard or, if you installed it to internal memory, pick the fourth option, - chose zip from internal sdcard.
Select the CWM-SuperSU-v0.87 file that you copied to the phone earlier, and press power to select.
This should install first time without any problems.

Select 'Go Back' until you're at the first screen, and then pick 'Reboot Phone'.

Congratulations, you've just rooted your SGS2 4G I9210T.

 

Problems, or, OMG Everything's broken.

The first thing to do is not to panic. It's REALLY REALLY hard to brick these phones. And note brick means 'has the usage ability of a brick'. Not 'Broken' or 'Misbehaving'. That is not bricking. And if it's NOT bricked (eg, you can still get into odin) the worst that will happen is that you go back to the standard Telstra firmware.

So that's what I'm going to tell you how to do.

First thing to do: Download the original firmware. That is a zip file that you need to open, and grab the .tar.md5 file. DO NOT CHANGE THE FILENAME -- that .md5 on the end is important.

Put the phone into Odin mode (see first post) and put the .tar.md5 file into the 'PDA' section of Odin. Again, don't change anything else. Push 'Start' and you're off.



It'll take a few minutes to go through and re-flash everything. I did notice that the MDM (Modem, aka all the radio software) took a long time. This is probably because of the complexity of the 3G LTE software. Nothing will appear on the phone - this is different to the SGS2, where you had a bar along the bottom.

Please note that this firmware may (or may not!) blow away everything on your phone. But, being that you're at the point where things are sad and you can't restore anything, I'm sure you're not going to be too upset about this. You at least get your phone back!

At the end, if all goes well, it should look like this:



The phone will reboot, and you'll be back to where it was before, but with all the changes removed.

OMG It's still not working!
Woah, calm down. You need to unpanic. Seriously. Boot into recovery mode (again, instructions above - hold down volume up, volume down, and keep the power button pressed until the 'Samsung' logo vanishes). Then select 'wipe data/factory reset' and then 'wipe cache partition'.

That brings the phone back to EXACTLY the way it was when it came out of the box. Everything should now be working.

But.. Occasionally it's not. Here's an extra-strong, super-duper wipe. Remove your SD card before you do this, because it blows away EVERYTHING.

*2767*3855#

If you were having soft button problems, after doing that, go through the setup, and then dial *#*#2663#*#* and select the bottom button.

Hopefully now it should be working.

 

LOL, that sounds like me, HAHA.

I followed the procedure to the letter (on XDA), from "FIRST STEPS..." all the way to "*Now you are rooted with CWM Recovery installed!" I did not install anything else. When I rebooted, the "menu" and "back" buttons didn't work.

I tried restoring – to no avail. Then I factory reset and couldn't set up the phone without the back button so I restored it via CWM back to the restore point so I can use the phone. I also tried flashing back the Telstra firmware you linked in the other thread via ODIN but it couldn't do it saying the parameters were corrupted. It's an MD5 file. Am I doing something wrong here? Can you please help me with this if you can. Much appreciated.

EDIT: Are you a developer???

- Can you develop apps?

 

Why this when apparently the S3 is 1-2 months away? Clearing old parts/stock?

 

Because my HD2 died 2 days ago and needed a phone between now and SGS3. Would've kept my HD2 till then. What an awesome phone it's been.

SGS2 4G is not a bad phone. Just lacks development. I hate the Samsungs UI, reminds me of iPhone. I wish I could run a plain GB or ICS on it. Apart from that, performs well.

 

The S3 hasn't even been ANNOUNCED yet, not to mention actually entering production. Also, there's no guarantee that they'll actually make a LTE 1800MHz one at the start.

 

Yep, that's exactly what I did.



I'm just browsing the net trying to find answers and wasting my time today because of that. I don't think there's much out there yet (for this Telstra device) as it's a new device.

This thread will be good for all those who encounter the same problems and I'm sure there will be more.

Rob, can you confirm that the "menu" and "back" buttons are working on your 2 devices after rooting.

 

Yes, they are. I've just updated the third post with instructions on how to re-flash back to Telstra stock firmware. Give that a shot.

--Rob

 

OK thanks. I'll give it another go.

 

Ok, as soon as I press Start in Odin, "The parameter is incorrect" comes up:



Why is it doing this?

 

I believe it's because you have Kies running somewhere. Uninstall it. If you can't get it fixed, I'll update with a howto for Heimdall (which is an alternative to Odin)

--Rob

Later Edit: The user thought I meant on the phone. I mean on the PC. This error is caused by either loading the wrong file, or, having Kies getting in the way on the PC.

 

I can't uninstall Kies. The phone's unrooted. Should I root it again and uninstall with TB?

Also, another thing I noticed. I can't see my phone when plugged into the PC, can't see it in order to open files. I'm running W7.

 

Thats a gingerbread thing. When you plug it in, a USB icon appears in the alert bar. Drag it down, and touch that. Then there's a button that says 'Connect to PC' or something similar. Push that, and the two drives appear (internal and external)

 

If the phone is unrooted, and your buttons are working, check to see if CWM is still installed (vol up, vol down, power). If it is, install SuperSU (first link).

You only need to install that once.

 

No go. Rooted it again, had to install SU 5 times till it went through this time.

Uninstalled Kies and Kies wifi, tried stock fiormware via Odin same problem, The parameter is incorrect.

This is driving me nuts now.

 

Wait - this is the NEW SU binary I put up? That shouldn't happen.

I meant uninstall Kies _from your computer_, not from your phone.

You can grab me on gtalk if you want - xrobau@gmail.com

--Rob

 

OK, my bad. I used the original one from XDA. Need to reinstall??? I do have access to root.

Oh, misunderstood as I don't have it on my PC at all.

EDIT: Just noticed when scrolling back through your posts, the original Telstra firmware you have showing on your Odin in the PDA section ends with .tar (and nothing after it). My file ends with .tar.md5 - Could that be the issue with incorrect parameters? OOPS! NO! That was CWM.

 

So. Currently you're rooted, but your buttons aren't working, right?

OK, that means there's something wrong with the file you've downloaded. Make sure that:

1. It's uinzipped (read the third post again)
2. You haven't changed the filename from .tar.md5 to .tar

That should just work. All the results I've found from googling that error seem to be people trying to load the wrong file, if it's not a Kies error.

Here's the properties for the .tar.md5 file:

 

OK, just changed the file, took the .md5 off from the end of it and tried again via Odin AAAAND.... VIOLA! It's working.

Just waiting now for the stock firmware to flash back on to see if the capacitive buttons work.

EDIT: All stock now... buttons don't work.