Sony Xperia Z Ultra

Forget about renders of Samsung Galaxy Note III: it's rumored to be smallish 5.5", possibly not powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 800 (=underpowered) and blissfully avid water sucker as they all Galaxies are.

Forget about Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3 inch underpowered and heavily overpriced phablet: it's a joke. Some Chinese fake Note II can outperform it for a half the price.

Here comes the new king of phablets: Sony Xperia Z Ultra. Here are some specs (as per Android Central, plus some additions and refinements):

• Colors: Black, white, purple 
• Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 2.2GHz quad-core CPU, 4G LTE
• RAM: 2GB
• Dimensions: 179.4 x 92.2 x 6.5 mm
• Weight: 212 grams
• OS: Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean
• Cameras: 8MP rear (“Exmor RS for mobile”, HDR for stills and video), 2MP front
• Display: 6.44-inch 1920x1080 TRILUMINOS display for mobile, touch panel cover glass with Super Hard Coat ASF
• Storage: 16 GB (up to 11 GB user-accessible memory), microSD expandability up to 64GB SDXC
• Networks: UMTS HSPA+ 900 (Band VIII), 2100 (Band I) MHz, 850 (Band V), 1900 (Band II), 1700 (Band IV), GSM GPRS/EDGE 850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz, 4G LTE
• Battery: 3,000mAh embedded
• Waterproofing and dust resistance: IP55/IP58-rated

Qualcomm's quad core Snapdragon 800 2.2 GHz with Adreno 330 is not just a beast, it's a top of the line SoC, equal or better than that nVidia Tegra 4 chip which powers nothing as of today.

1920x1080 FHD IPS Triluminos display offers a feature called X-Reality better demoed here:


This X-Reality mode deserves more thorough testing, but as demoed it can bring in a lots of improvements not only to color, contrast and details rendering in video playback, but to static image renditions as well.

Waterproofing and dust resistance of IP55 rating means Z Ultra withstands dust, moisture, water sprays. Rating IP58 implies Z can dive to up to 5 feet water depths up to 30 minutes. Eat it, Galaxies! (or should I say: Drink it?)

Super Hard Coat ASF cover of touch panel also deserves more testing and demoing, but as per Sony's own description, together with having a screen protecting features it also adds this "pencil-sensing" feature:

The Xperia Z Ultra is the ideal business partner thanks to the super responsive
screen with handwriting recognition which is compatible with any pencil and
selected stylus or pen (capacitive stylus or metal pen with tip diameter over
1mm). You can even write notes or sketches during calls so you’ll always be ready
capture your ideas as they happen. The easy-toggle keyboard makes it ideal for
one-handed input and multi-tasking, with small apps to help you improve
productivity so you don’t lose time browsing between windows.
 

Looks like needle-sharp pencils are out, but as long as squishy capacitive styli can be thrown out, it's a great feature for note taking and even drawing. "Super Hard Coat" moniker is supposed to state that this coat resists to marks left by relatively "soft" pencil and "soft" touch of metal pen. So, with this phablet you can write and sketch with any pencil and selected stylus or pen (capacitive stylus or metal pen with tip diameter over 1mm). Nothing is said about palm rejection though, so Note II has some breathing space left still.

Self-healing scratches on that Super Hard Coat are also remain to be seen and believed. 6.44 inches of very thin screen in very thin frame also looks like so much more chances to shatter or develop cracks by relatively "light" drops. Scratch resistant feature won't also help if the phone lands flat on screen (or glassy back) on some sort of tile. Think of screen replacement works that may cost in excess of $300.

However, if you're in the market for a combo of prime 7 inch tablet and prime phone, this device may easily serve as both.
(to be updated) 

Samsung Galaxy SII Skyrocket Resurrection From Insane Chip Grip

In my previous articles I described the procedure of reviving my Skyrocket from death caused by severe water damage. Now it must be cleaner than when first came out of the factory.

However, the problems with Skyrocket don't stop popping up: at one point, after flashing custom recovery (CWM Touch 6.3.x, look for it at XDA-Devs, could be also TWRP 2.5), wiping it thoroughly, and flashing a recent official CM10.1 nightly my phone has developed a pattern of freezing up every 5 minutes.

Thorough Google searches didn't bring much remedies for Skyrocket, but the similar bad eMMC chip aka "insane" chip has severely hit some models of Samsung Galaxy SIII.

As of today, there's no simple remedy to get rid of contaminated caches, even this radical procedure by FDisk80 may fail to keep freezes from returning:

OK guys, I am now 28 hours and 23 minutes up time without any freezes.

I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE IF YOU DAMAGE YOUR DEVICE ANY MORE THEN IT IS. SO DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK!
Also I recommend you backup your EFS. Just to be safe.

This is what I did.

What you need:
Galaxy i9300 International.
Root
CWM Recovery
Android SDK
USB debugging enabled in Developer options

1. Uninstall all your large games and applications. This is so this process would go much faster and not freeze on you in the middle.
I recommend that you leave around 7 to 8GB of free space on your internal sdcard.

2. Connect your phone to your PC and install the drivers if you don't have them installed already.
Open My Computer and go to Phone (internal sdcard).
If you want to save your data copy everything from internal sdcard to a directory on your PC.

3. Right click Phone and format the internal sdcard.
If you want back your data you can now copy it back from your PC to your sdcard.
Do not copy the flowing directories:
Android/data/flipboard.app/files/cache/ (only if you have Flipboard installed.)
/Android/data/com.google.earth/ 
There could be thousands of files in those directories.
Disconnect your phone from the PC.

4. Install Android SDK.
Go to /android-sdk/platform-tools
Open CMD in this folder

5. Reboot in to CWM Recovery
Go to Advanced and unmount all your mounts.
While you are there. Format your cache. DO NOT FORMAT ANYTHING ELSE.
Also Delete dalvik cache.
Leave the phone in Recovery mode.
Connect your phone to your PC while in Recovery.
Let it install the ADB Driver.

6. Go to the CMD you opened and execute the following:

Code:

adb shell

Next execute the following commands: (If you get a prompt that asks to restore missing directories answer YES.)

This will force a filesystem check even if it's marked clean.
It will check for bad blocks and add them to the bad block list.
And will automatically repair without prompts. (you can remove "-p" if you don't want this to be automated.)
"-v" just shows you the results on screen.

EFS Check and Repair

Code:

e2fsck -f -c -v -p /dev/block/mmcblk0p3

CACHE Check and Repair

Code:

e2fsck -f -c -v -p /dev/block/mmcblk0p8

SYSTEM Check and Repair

Code:

e2fsck -f -c -v -p /dev/block/mmcblk0p9

DATA Check and Repair

Code:

e2fsck -f -c -v -p /dev/block/mmcblk0p12

If your DATA mount could not be unmounted in Recovery execute this code in ADB. Then execute DATA Check and Repair.

Code:

umount /dev/block/mmcblk0p12

That's it. Disconnect your phone, reboot it, let it boot and optimize the applications again.

I recommend that you also run fstrim on all your partitions before you start filling up your sdcard again. It will clean the free blocks on your internal storage and will increase it's performance.

I'm lazy. ODIN/Kies keep failing for me, to perform some extensive ADB commanding like shown above. There's a simpler routine to employ, it's called Dummy File Generator by nomunomu5678. There's no "official" manual/HOWTO text on use of the routine at least in English (it's a Japanese app), but the obvious guidelines are:

1. Create and delete dummy files 5...10 times (some report success after 20 such uses of DFG) in ROM and eMMC (internal SD card).

2. Try not to use your usual external SD card while cleaning your phone with this DFG. Otherwise you'll be compelled to use this routine for external SD card, too. You just never know where the stray defective cache writes can go ending in bad unreadable blocks.

3. For Skyrocket in service, flashing incompatible modem and turning off WiFi for the period of cleaning might be advised. You can always flash correct radio back when you satisfied with the result. OTA services are the bitch when you perform some house cleaning, and quoted 10 or even 20 repeated uses of DFG may be the result of OTA contamination of the process.

Talking about bad blocks, today's custom recoveries like CWM and TWRP are sadly missing an ordinary e2fsck routine, as the one described in above quote. And yes, addition of fstrim to recovery advanced tools may further improve performance of your Skyrocket. Or Samsung Galaxy SIII. Or Samsung Galaxy Note.

As a thank you, you can send me your freezing Samsung Galaxy SIII or freezing Samsung Galaxy Note any day. I accept also a water damaged Samsung Galaxy Note 2.

UPDATE: The remedy with dummy files was a temporary one: it worked for maybe 48 hours after 10 applications. So, I did another full wipe, replaced TWRP by touch CWM and restored to this CWM flashable stock (official AT&T firmware repackaged to be flashable by CWM) The problem of bad eMMC has gone and never returned in the last two weeks.

It might take the latest CM10.1 nightly (or stable) now, but I'm preparing this phone to cell, so the best I can do for it is supply also a flashable T-Mobile radio as an option.