samsung captivate android 2.2

rooftop59

Captivate owners! The upgrade finally came. You have to use kies mini. Took me about 10 minutes total. Flash is awesome. Text and email worksbetter. Overall a faster os. I havent had any probems thus far. Just fyi.

mdaudioguy

Gonna sit down and back everything up this weekend and then upgrade. Finally.

rooftop59

Yea i did it without backing up since there is nothing vital on my phone thats not already in my outlook or wmp files on my computer. The only thing i seemed to have lost r a few recent texts. But i havent done a thorough check yet...

AsSiMiLaTeD

I've been running a custom ROM with 2.2 for quite a while now, several months actually. 2.2 is quite nice, snappy and having Flash is a great feature.

I won't say I recommend a custom ROM for everyone because there is some minimal risk and work involved with installing one, but if you're willing to take half an hour to learn how to do it its great.

I run the Cognition ROM in mine, for me there are 3 BIG advantages to running a custom ROM over stock:

1 - I can tether over wi-fi, meaning I can use my phone's 3g internet connection and share it out via wi-fi, so any device like a laptop with wifi can have internet access. AT&T offers this service, but its expensive and its limited. Mine is free and unlimited.
2 - I can install any apps I want, I'm not limited to what AT&T thinks I should have access to via their marketplace.
3 - No AT&T and Samsung bloatware - with all that extra crap uninstalled the OS is even snappier.

There are other advantages as well (things like customized boot screens and unlock screens), but I'd put all those in the 'nice to have' category, whereas the 3 above are actually big functional advantages.

exalted512

Sweet. My wife has this phone, it'll be nice for her to get the wifi hotspot capability. I still have the Nexus One, which Google rolled out 2.3.3 for a couple days ago. I havent got it yet, but hopefully soon.
-Cody

rooftop59

I have thought about rooting for a while. I am fairly technically saavy, but I don't want to mess with the potential issues (which due to my lack of knowledge would take me 2-3 times as long to fix). Plus I am what I would call a moderate user, not a power user. Of the 3 that you list, only #3 would really matter to me. I rarely find myself in a situation where I just have to have internet on my computer and there is not wifi nearby (I teach on a college campus with wifi on the whole campus) and I really don't have/use an overabundance of apps. I have probably installed 25 or so and regularly use maybe 10 of those. But having said all that, I still find rooting tempting...

exalted512

I love the tethering feature. No longer have to pay $10/day when I'm at an airport or $20/day when I'm at a hotel in Vegas or the like.

I probably wont use it as much as I did with my old job, but its still a nice feature to have.
-Cody

mystik610

They just now released the update 2.2?

2.3 is a more signficant upgrade IMO. They cleaned up the interface quite a bit....much smoother overall. Plus the keyboard is quite a bit better.

I'm running a custom Android 2.3 ROM in my HTC HD2 (which is dual booting with windows phone 7!)

Tethering is a great feature too, and being able to do so without paying extra (by using a custom rom) is a big plus. Really useful when travelling with my macbook.

rooftop59

Yea I guess when I am traveling to conferences that would be really useful, but its not like that happens all the time. Hmm might have to think about it...

rooftop59

Yea just now...I don't know if 2.3 will ever happen, probably not. Hmm, maybe time to root...

AsSiMiLaTeD

You're not going to see 2.3 on the Captivate. Samsung will be launching the Galaxy S II series later on and they'll want you to buy that phone to get 2.3 and ultimately 3.0.

Installing a custom ROM is really not that hard, there are only a few basic steps:

1 - Install a clean, OEM ROM, which you already have
2 - Root your phone. This is easy and there are various ways to do it, I use the one click downloader every time and it works great.
3 - Install ROM Manager (once you root your phone you'll find this in the marketplace and be able to install it) and once installed use it to install ClockRecoveryMod for your phone.
4 - Transfter the custom ROM of choice down to your phone via USB and then use ROM Manager to install it
5 - Enjoy!

Personally I'd recommend the Cognition ROMs, they're the most stable ROMs out there and are super fast and look and feel the most like the stock ROM. basically you'll get the things I mentioned above without a bunch of curtomized interfaces and such that cause glitches.

Check out xda-developers.com, literally everything you need and an answer to every question you can think of is there. They have forums dedicated to each specific phone, here's the section for the captivate:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=703

Here are a couple threads that will get you started:

Various Video tutorials on most of the basic stuff, including how to root your phone
General FAQ and Getting Started thread
Capticate Wiki
Cognition ROM Thread

Having said ALL that, I'm picking up an Atrix on the way home today :biggrin:

AsSiMiLaTeD

mystik610 wrote: »

2.3 is a more signficant upgrade IMO. They cleaned up the interface quite a bit....much smoother overall. Plus the keyboard is quite a bit better.

While I agree that 2.3 is better, I think that going from 2.1 to 2.2 is a more significant upgrade than going from 2.2 to 2.3.

rooftop59

I will probably stick with this for awhile for thanks for the guidelines in case I do decide to root. Right now I am pretty stoked with this very outdated upgrade.

mdaudioguy

AsSiMiLaTeD wrote: »

I've been running a custom ROM with 2.2 for quite a while now, several months actually. 2.2 is quite nice, snappy and having Flash is a great feature.

I won't say I recommend a custom ROM for everyone because there is some minimal risk and work involved with installing one, but if you're willing to take half an hour to learn how to do it its great.

I run the Cognition ROM in mine, for me there are 3 BIG advantages to running a custom ROM over stock:

1 - I can tether over wi-fi, meaning I can use my phone's 3g internet connection and share it out via wi-fi, so any device like a laptop with wifi can have internet access. AT&T offers this service, but its expensive and its limited. Mine is free and unlimited.
2 - I can install any apps I want, I'm not limited to what AT&T thinks I should have access to via their marketplace.
3 - No AT&T and Samsung bloatware - with all that extra crap uninstalled the OS is even snappier.

There are other advantages as well (things like customized boot screens and unlock screens), but I'd put all those in the 'nice to have' category, whereas the 3 above are actually big functional advantages.

Actually, I've been doing 1 & 2 and accomplished 3, only by rooting and running a few simple apps/processes - all with the stock 2.1 - no need for a custom ROM.

mdaudioguy

Also, my Captivate occasionally turns itself off when in standby mode. Plenty of battery left, but just shuts down. Doing some reading, I learned that this is a known hardware issue for devices manufactured prior to a certain date in November 2010. Supposedly, AT&T will replace it, so I'm planning on flashing to stock and taking it to a service center tomorrow. Despite the issues, I still love this phone.

wutadumsn23

I have had this phone since August of last year, and was able to update to 2.1 Update 1, but ever since everytime I have tried to update, or try to look for an update, it always says it is unable to connect to server?? I just tried it again now, and same thing. Worst part is I can only check for updates once every 24 hours, so now I have to wait a day to check again. What is this kies mini you speak of? I love this phone, but have had a lot of "issues" with it and am really trying to get 2.2.

-Jeff

rooftop59

You have to go the samsung website and download the kies mini software and drivers and then reboot your computer and connect yoir phone. The update can only be done that way not.over the air.

wutadumsn23

Thanks rooftop, I just found that info on one of the Droid forums. Looks easy enough, lol. I'll give it a try when I get home from work, after I back up my stuff. Intrested to see how it goes.

-Jeff

mdaudioguy

Here's the link AT&T put out: http://pub.vitrue.com/MLf

wutadumsn23

Thanks md, that's the exact one I got off the Droid forum. Gonna try it when I get home and see how it works.

-Jeff

exalted512

maybe I'm a tard, but when i turn the phone off, hold down the volume up/down keys while inserting the data cable, and the only thing that happens is the battery icon thing starts up.

How do I know if it worked or not?

rooftop59

I am pretty sure u do the upgrade with the phone on. At least thats how i did mine. It will then powere cycle a couple times during the process.

mdaudioguy

exalted512 wrote: »

maybe I'm a tard, but when i turn the phone off, hold down the volume up/down keys while inserting the data cable, and the only thing that happens is the battery icon thing starts up.

How do I know if it worked or not?

I think you might have missed a step - you first need to turn on USB debugging - go to Settings, Applications, then Development.

exalted512

i already did that. I went ahead and just said screw it and it seemed to DL the drivers when i installed the update. everything went fine. I forgot that the stupid thing has to be rooted anyway to use tethering on AT&T. Its her work phone, so I wont be doing that.
-Cody