*** The Official Samsung Galaxy S4 Thread ***

Just upgraded to S4. Have i done the right thing??
Coming from a Nexus 4

Anyone got a YouTube link to unlocking the UK version?

Best ROM? Need something which will give me a Nexus experience (currently use PA on Nexus 4 and love it!)
Is CyanogenMod 10.1 available for the S4?

Do these take any SD cards? Or is it SDHC?
 
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How do you install the extended power menu? I flashed the zip file in recovery but don't get the extra options in the power menu.

EDIT - never mind. It's there just didn't realise you had to choose restart first.
 
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Has anyone got ES File explorer Root explorer mode to work?

Mine is coming up with this even though I'm rooted:

iWEiRDa.png



edit - used Root Explorer instead - worked fine
 
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How risky *is* rooting in terms of being for anything more than warranty reasons?

Really want to get my PS3 pad wirelessly syncing and working with the phone for gmes that can be mapped and then played through the TV, but irc you have to be rooted for wireless pairing with the controller.
 
Rooting is fine I think and you can unroot if you wish.

I spoke to soon. Contacts crashes when I try to add recipients to a message.
 
photoshop said:
Are there any stable AOSP ROMs for this which look stock? Is CM10.1 stable enough?
Click to expand...

I would say so yes, I was using the last CM10.1 unofficial nightly, they've gone over to official ones now which ironically I think were less stable to begin with but that was a few days ago so I expect they've sorted that out now.

I couldn't find anything NOT working on my S4 with the last CM10.1 I used which is quite a revelation in comparison to previous CM builds.

One thing to note is that some kernels, and I never really spent too long figuring out which, knock out the wifi on a reboot but it's a very simple string you need to enter into the terminal emulator on the handset to get it switched back on again and then it stays on until a reboot.

The final very niggly issue I had was that my carrier came up as something like 23654 not vodafone, thats also easily changed so it ended up saying Matts Galaxy S4 instead of Vodafone :)

Very small issues and if you're on the official nightlies you can just keep flashing the latest over your old version.

So I tested.. Wifi, 3G, bluetooth (including bluetooth calling which is often an issue), camera, gallery etc etc.. the only thing I didn't test was NFC (but who cares right?)..

After all that, I came back to wanamlite with jb domination because once you've turned the greens to blues and gotten the stock font, some of the samsung extras are actually worth it (smartstay for example) plus whilst the CM10.1 battery life was fine.. I could get to the end of a day just about (I use my phone for work so a lot of screen time and calls) I can breeze past a day with wanamlite, it's very impressive.

I came to the conclusion that on balance using wanamlite with nova launcher with the JB icon pack, holo locker (stock lock screen), stock messaging apk and jb domination was far enough away from the cartoony samsung software to make the extras worth it.
 
Thanks for that in depth post.

So apart from the WiFi issue on reboots CM10.1 is pretty stable.

I use a theme on my Nexus 4 which is BlackOut X from the play store. It turns everything black and white which I love. Would this still work on the S4?

I'm assuming Widget Locker works too? I heavily customise my phone using Nova, icon packs, widget locker, minimilistic text, icon themer, LEDBlinker, Llama, etc so its important for me that all these work on the S4.

As for Kernels, do you have to mess about and change them? I was hoping to keep the kernel stock if possible. I've not once changed the kernel on my Nexus 4.
I just want to unlock/root and install CM10.1. Don't want to Gonner with anything else.

Is there a guide/tutorial/YouTube vid of how to root/unlock the UK version of the S4? I'm on 02.

Link to where to get latest CM10.1 Roms official?

Cheers.
 
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photoshop said:
Thanks for that in depth post.

So apart from the WiFi issue on reboots CM10.1 is pretty stable.

I use a theme on my Nexus 4 which is BlackOut X from the play store. It turns everything black and white which I love. Would this still work on the S4?

I'm assuming Widget Locker works too? I heavily customise my phone using Nova, icon packs, widget locker, minimilistic text, icon themer, LEDBlinker, Llama, etc so its important for me that all these work on the S4.

As for Kernels, do you have to mess about and change them? I was hoping to keep the kernel stock if possible. I've not once changed the kernel on my Nexus 4.
I just want to unlock/root and install CM10.1. Don't want to Gonner with anything else.

Is there a guide/tutorial/YouTube vid of how to root/unlock the UK version of the S4? I'm on 02.

Link to where to get latest CM10.1 Roms official?

Cheers.
Click to expand...

you could search youtube for a guide and then you'll be in the realms of the XDA forums which I find irritating but they are where all this sort of thing is discussed and the latest ROMs are posted.

Also don't assume you'll have the wifi bug, it's far from 100% of people, you also don't need to mess with the kernel, I tend to ignore that side of things myself.

XDA 9505 forum http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=2167
Root/recovery guide http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2192841
CM10.1 nightly thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2317040

Alternatively just grab the latest CM10.1 from here http://get.cm/?device=jfltexx&type=nightly and flash through CWM with the latest gapps file which you can get from here http://goo.im/gapps and ignore XDA if you like once you've got yourself a custom recovery.

If you struggle with rooting I think you can get a pre rooted stock firmware and flash as PDA through odin which should stop any other issues.

I'm assuming you know what you're doing here using CWM/Odin etc, I'm far from an expert and I found it pretty easy.

Then I came back like I said :)
 
Thank you again for a very detailed responce :)

I know how to root and flash ROMs on my Nexus but there is an all in one app that pretty much automated the whole process (Nexus ToolKit).
I'm assuming installing ROMs is the same as its done on the Nexus....reboot into recovery, clear cashe, dalvik cashe, install rom, install gapps...?

When I got my Nexus I made a few glaring errors. I remember a few times I wiped the whole phone and then struggled to send the rom and gapps files to it. Finally managed using nexus toolkit app which sent them over and flashed automatically. Saved my bacon a few times that app! Is there a similar app for the S4 where you can create backups, root, unroot, transfer files, flash ROMs etc etc?
 
Just a quick check before I install the Domination theme on top of my wanam Rom.. Vertumus has a number of warnings in his installation steps not to have any mods, etc, installed; is it safe to install Dom on top of a standard Wanam Room? Also, the steps mention use of CWM, but I guess TWRP is fine aswell?
 
Tom: cool.. one last thing then, if I didnt like the theme, could I uninstall it in any way? Or would I just have to install the Wanam room again to get rid of it?
 
Just make a backup in TWRP first then if you don't like it you can just restore that, it's probably the easiest way.
 
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