emun.eee

Well, I’ve had my Samsung Captivate for a week.  Probably one of the most useful purchases I’ve made in quite sometime.  This will be real brief but in the past week I have done pretty everything on this phone.  I have paid bills, balanced my checkbook, listened to Little Brother’s entire album discography, wrote this WordPress article, recorded HD video, taken pictures, checked work email, updated my Facebook and Twitter statuses, waste my time playing paper toss, kept track kf appointments, streamed the Bob Marley channel on Pandora, etc.

A couple negatives.  First the phone will slow down for some unknown reason.  It just becomes really laggy.  This happens when the phone is syncing tweets sometimes.  The GPS is shot.  I can rarely locked on to GPS satellites, even when I am outside with clear skies.  Facebook syncing has been broken from day one.  This maybe a good thing because I don’t always need this social sites all up in face all day.  Hopefully Samsung can work out the kinks in the next update.  Battery life is also a but below satisfactory…but then again I’m always using this device.

The positives…there are just so much to list.  This thing has so much utility.  I’m probably able to conduct all the business in my life on this one device alone.

This was pretty informal, just want to put a few more thoughts out there.  Also those pictures might look terrible because they were uploaded using this WordPress app.

First of all -> all the credit goes to ‘chaoscentral’ for the rooting procedure and ‘maerlim’ for instructions on removing the “features” added by AT&T.

Disclaimer:  I am not responsible for any damage that may occur to your handset or your life following the procedure laid out here.

How to root

1. Download the following file -> http://www.emuneee.com/downloads/SGH-I897_root_update.zip
2. Copy it to the root of your internal storage card and rename it to ‘update.zip’
3. Turn off the phone
4. Hold the Volume Up & Down buttons  and the Power button simultaneously.  Release the Power button once the ‘AT&T World Phone’ logo appears
5. In the next menu, select ‘Reinstall Packages”.  Use Volume Up/Down to navigate the menu.
6. The phone will reboot automatically and now your Samsung Captivate is rooted

How to remove AT&T software (most of it anyways)

Prerequisites: Android SDK, a rooted Samsung Captivate, Samsung Galaxy S USB drivers – Windows (64-bit OS | 32-bit OS)

1. Turn on USB Debugging on your phone – Settings > Applications > Development > USB debugging
2. Open the command prompt on your PC and CD to to the Android SDK installation directory
3. Navigate to the ‘tools’ folder
4. type the following:

• adb shell
• su
• mv /system/app/ATTNav-Samsung-Vega-1488.apk /system/app/ATTNav-Samsung-Vega-1488.tmp
• mv /system/app/ATT_Radio_2.1.07.apk /system/app/ATT_Radio_2.1.07.tmp
• mv /system/app/MobiTV_800x480_320_20100610_1.0.0.15-118829.apk /system/app/MobiTV_800x480_320_20100610_1.0.0.15-118829.tmp
• mv /system/app/MobileBanking.apk /system/app/MobileBanking.tmp
• mv /system/app/attmaps20-1094.apk /system/app/attmaps20-1094.tmp
• exit
• exit

You are done.  This procedure will remove

• AT&T Navigation
• AT&T Radio
• MobiTV
• Mobile Banking
• AT&T Maps

You can reverse the procedure by typing the follwing after the ‘su’ command in Step 4:

• mv /system/app/ATTNav-Samsung-Vega-1488.tmp /system/app/ATTNav-Samsung-Vega-1488.apk
• mv /system/app/ATT_Radio_2.1.07.tmp /system/app/ATT_Radio_2.1.07.apk
• mv /system/app/MobiTV_800x480_320_20100610_1.0.0.15-118829.tmp /system/app/MobiTV_800x480_320_20100610_1.0.0.15-118829.apk
• mv /system/app/MobileBanking.tmp /system/app/MobileBanking.apk
• mv /system/app/attmaps20-1094.tmp /system/app/attmaps20-1094.apk

There are other items such as AT&T Family Maps and AT&T Hotspots that will remain although those appear to be links to web apps.  You can also enable sideloading of applications as well.  I haven’t completed that procedure, but the instructions are available here.

I am on my lunch break typing this post on my Samsung Captivate.  Just a few quick observations.

The Captivate is a very quick device. However as I soon found out, installing too many Widgets will slow things down.  You can definitely shoot yourself with all this freedom. The Android Market is full of apps though.  I am typing this article using the WordPress app.

The super AMOLED screen looks great.  The build quality is also pretty nice.

The software is nice as well.  I wasn’t a fan of TouchWiz so I installed LauncherPro beta.   So far so good.

Music sounds nice as well.  I used my Captivate in place of my now sold Zune HD during my morning run.

I’ll do some new articles down the road.

If you’ve been following me, you’ll notice I am somewhat biased towards the Samsung Captivate coming to AT&T on July 18th $199.99.  Just thought I would list all of the review and hands-on articles and videos that debuted this past week.

• Phonedog – Unboxing
• SlashGear – Unboxing
• TechnoBuffalo – Unboxing
• Mobileburn – Unboxing/Hands-on
• PhoneArena – Review
• IntoMobile – Unboxing
• Pocketnow – Unboxing
• Boy Genius – Unboxing
• Android and Me – Unboxing - GPU Benchmark – TouchWiz Walkthrough
• Engadget – Preview
• Android Police – Unboxing/Hands-on
• The Android Nation – Unboxing – Quick Review
• PC World – Review
• Laptop Mag – Review
• Mobility Minded - Review

I’ll update this as more reviews and hands-on articles are published.  Whenever I get mine, I’ll throw up a short review.