phone – TruXter Tech

How To Block The Spam on Your Cricket Phone

Posted on2016/05/102016/10/08AuthorTruXter2 Comments

Since the new Privacy Policy change at Cricket , they have allowed us to opt out of the advertisement types. Such as; web browser spam, and text message notifications.
We here at TruXter Tech decided to run through them all and opt ourselves out of them all. Here’s how we did it.

To opt out of “Relevant advertising” Click here

To opt out of advertisements on your phone based on your usage and locations Click Here

Phone Spam Opt Out

More Addvertisers to opt out from Click Here

You have opted out of relevant advertising on your mobile device.

To unsubscribe from Cricket’s Email spam Click Here

Federal Do Not Call list Click Here

To stop getting mail from Cricket and their affiliates Click Here

To Opt out of Cricket Text Messages Click Here

Opt Out Cricket Text Messages

Cricket Changing Privacy Policy

Posted on2016/05/102016/05/10AuthorTruXterLeave a comment

Cricket Cell phone carrier changing it’s privacy policy

In a text from Cricket

It’s Cricket Wireless here with an important service update. Effective June 16, 2016 we are changing our privacy policy so we can share your information with our parent company, AT&T. We are also changing the payment grace period. Please visit cricketwireless.com/june for more information.

Grace Period Change

Effective June 16th, 2016, the grace period to restore your service if you miss your Cricket Pay Date is changing from two (2) days to one (1) day. After the grace period you will be charged a reactivation fee to restore your service.

Basically Cricket and AT&T Merged a while back. and you’ve seen some changes. Well those changes aren’t over yet. You are in for a bunch of new spam.
Spam related on your browser history and your locations you frequent or frequently pass.

Cricket’s new policy change is based on AT&T’s policy since AT&T owns Cricket now.

Here is the current standing Privacy Policy of Cricket
any policy additions as of now are found here

How to opt out of Cricket Spam

I don’t like the idea that they can watch everything I am interested in, or things that freak me out so I check it out to see what it is then advertise to me based on my searches. I also don’t like the idea that I can be chasing my dog down the street to get him back home and get stuck behind a fish market trying to get him to come into reach and start getting advertisements based on seafood. Or that I can say the word “seafood” and BAM I am bombarded with seafood ads.

Hands On Galaxy S6 Edge

Posted on2015/06/252015/06/25AuthorTruXterLeave a comment

Samsung Galaxy S6

If the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge really does have Gorilla glass as I have been told, that did not feel like I expected.
The S6 Edge was very thin and light weight. The screen was wide yet narrow.
What I felt while holding that phone was in no way similar to the reviews I have been seeing. The Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge, though it felt smooth to the touch and nearly seamless, it felt kind cheap. Not inexpensive but felt poorly made. Almost like a doll house wide screen tv. as if it would just crumble the first time you set anything on it. Reminded me on the Sanyo Zio but much more costly. With the curved edges and the plastic feeling screen.

No idea how you put a screen cover on that phone. Or even a case that would be effective and still allow you to use that silly edge area.
Sure that gives you more tools to add but what if the screen was flat, that stuff would still work and a case would serve an actual purpose.
The menu system didn’t feel like anything innovative has been created either. and yes I am quite used to feeling teh sides of the phone while I navigate.
The battery Specs online say 2,600mAh in the system settings, while the comparable budget phone ZTE Grand™ X Max+ has a 3200mAh battery. the battery could be better.

Not interested in the Galaxy 6 Edge.

Review scoring:
Feel– 5/10
Look– 9/10
Navigation– 7/10
Durability– 4/10
Battery life– 8/10

Total review score = 5/10

Custom Lollipop Rom Testing – Videos

Posted on2015/02/152015/02/19AuthorCharles Wilborn3 Comments

***Note from site owner*** Be kind, this is a new writer for the site. He tests gadgets but doesn’t write much so this is kind of hard to follow***

Motorola moto g. I believe the original android version was Kitkat 4.3,
We will be testing 2 different versions of the same rom. Lolipop 5.0.2

1. Testing done on unlocked Motorola Moto G First Generation XT1031 from Boost Mobile Moto G quad core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400
2. Similar performance to Kitkat.
3. Game play nice and fluid.
4. Bandwidth test same speeds as kitkat
5. the interface of Lollipop is different. a little nicer.
First test with this rom different version. believed to be Asian retail soak test Google play edition for a dual sim.
(Android 5.0.2)
More Information found on XDA Dev
The boot screens are black and say Google, and is from XDA Developers
First Attempt with Lolipop 5.02

The way the rom had to be flashed, I had to have a custom recover and put the zip file on the phone the boot into recover and flash the zip file through recovery
300MB

Second Attempt with Lolipop 5.02
BUILD REQUEST INFO:
SW Version: falcon_retbr-user 5.0.2 LXB22.46-28 28 release-keysMSM8626BP_1032.3105.93.00R
MBM Version: 41.18
Modem Version: MSM8626BP_1032.3105.93.00R
FSG Version: MSM8626BP_FSG_01.94.00R
Build Fingerprint: motorola/falcon_retbr/falcon_umts:5.0.2/LXB22.46-28/28:user/release-keys
VERSION INFO FOUND UNDER ‘ABOUT PHONE’ SCREEN:
System Version: 220.21.28.falcon_umts.Brasil.en.BR
Model number: Moto G
Android Version: 5.0.2
Baseband Version: MSM8626BP_1032.3105.93.00R
Build Number: LXB22.46-28
Build Date: Wed Jan 7 00:31:42 CST 2015
OTHER MISC VERSION INFO:
Subsidy Lock Config: None
Blur Version: Blur_Version.220.21.28.falcon_umts.Brasil.en.BR
Version when read from CPV: falcon_retbr-user 5.0.2 LXB22.46-28 28 release-keys
500MB

This version I had to find in Google and got the fourth link from the top on FileFactory

The performance of both of them seemed pretty much the same as kitkat 4.4.4 the interface was more fluid like or smoother it seems. Downloading apps was faster but installing apps was different, slower for some reason but that could be due to I wasn’t using a rom build for the exact model I have.

Phone is now bricked.

Does Simple Mobile block Cricket Pictures?

Posted on2015/02/082015/02/13AuthorTruXterLeave a comment

cricket_android Okay, first encounter of this so i have to know if others are experiencing the same issue.
I have been sending pictures with my cricket phone to a female friend of mine who is using Simple Mobile and she has not been responding to them. So i ask her why she doesn’t respond and she says she never got them. She is sure it is cricket messing up. So I test sending her pictures with my work phone which is on Verizon and the pictures send fine. Next I send pictures from my Cricket phone to my Verizon phone and from Verizon phone to my Cricket phone and all goes well. Yet not one picture received to the Simple Mobile network.

From what i see all sms text messages transfer fine and fast but to send a picture from Cricket to simple mobile, no go.

Now understand that I am on the version of Cricket that uses the AT&T GSM sim card, not the old Cricket with no sim card (except 4g) using CDMA network.

So if you are experiencing or not experiencing this please respond below so I get a grip on what is happening.

**Update**
I contacted Cricket and this is the tip they gave me to check my my APN settings to verify i am connected correctly. Sadly I am connected correctly. but nonetheless

Cricket Help: I will send you the APN settings , but this will work just for Cricket devices
Cricket Helps: Tap Settings > Mobile Networks (or Mobile Data) > Access Point Names > New APN (may have to tap Menu button to see this option).
Enter the following APN info:
Name: Internet
APN: ndo
Proxy: Not Set
Port: Not Set
Username: Not Set
Password: Not Set
Server: Not Set
MMSC: http://mmsc.aiowireless.net MMS
Proxy: proxy.aiowireless.net
MMS Port: 80
MCC: 310
MNC: 150
Authentication type: Not Set
APN type: default,mms,fota,hipri,supl
Note: on the above APN type be sure to enter it exactly as it is listed& don’t include any spaces!
Tap Save for the new APN.
Go back one screen to the APN list and tap the dot to enable this APN.
Reboot the device.
Test data and MMS.

Nope, did not work.

Cricket’s ZTE Sonata 4G One Month Review

Posted on2014/09/242015/04/24AuthorTech Review Man8 Comments

My one month review of the Sonata 4G from ZTE from Cricket. Aka z740g

Battery – 1785 mAh
Processor – 1.4 GHz Dual-Core Qualcomm® MSM8230
RAM – 1 GB
ROM – 4 GB
Camera – 5 MP (backside only, No front camera)
Resolution – 480×800
OS – Android 4.1.2 (Jelly Bean)

Preface
So Cricket’s parent company got sold to AT&T and everyone who was on Cricket’s CDMA signal has to switch over to AT&T’s GSM phones. I was on the edge about moving from my Samsung Galaxy Admire II. I knew that we still had 5 months before we would have to make the switch, decided to just go right ahead and not wait until the last minute. I made the change.For more on the Cricket AT&T AIO Merger.
I shopped for the best processor, lowest cost, most storage fastest boot/reboot.

My budget (this is the budget tech review website so deal with it) was to spend between $80-$150. My total cost was $75.78 that covered the phone and my first month on the Cricket/AT&T GSM network.
First app I noticed was a task manager that none of my previous Android phones had, without me having to root the Sonata. Next thing I found is I can move apps to the SD to save storage space on the phone, and yes completely without having to root the phone.

Camera
Disappointing that I didn’t notice there was no front facing camera. but if you need a selfie, you can do a shelfie. Just set the timer (click the gear in camera mode you will see it) and set the camera to 3,5,10 seconds and back up and pose. When done, crop the image.This works well with my case that came with a stand. but again, it takes a whole lot of pictures before you get one decent photo. A BUNCH OF PHOTOS.

There was much more to learn. So I had to dig into the camera and see what it is capable of.
First 10 photos came out very poor.
I even tried a few of my best tricks. Like hold the phone braced firmly against a tree or a wall or rested on a table. Still blurry.
I tried a few changes in the setting but everything by default was set up to the best settings.
The zoom… the zoom was like the first issue of android. A slider bar at the bottom of the screen. No pinch zoom.
The video camera shoots at very high resolution and the slider zoom feature is great. but clunkier and has a bad focus rate as compared to pinch zoom cell phone cameras.
Do not shoot video footage of concerts. The audio is horrendous. The audio/noise filters (maybe???) seem to try too hard to cancel noise and you are left with what sounds like a concert in a wind storm. Here is a comparison of the Sonata ZTE Z740G camera verses iPhone 4s camera.

Actual phone function
Sounds are clear. When people speak you hear everything they say and no one ever asks you to repeat yourself. No chop in audio at all.

Video play back
This phone has the clearest video I have seen as of yet. Loads all sorts of sites and I didn’t have to load any apps to the phone. No plugins needed. Just right out of the box loading every video on Reddit and Facebook I would stumble into. There is a download button on one of the video players . This lets you watch and download a lot of different videos.

Web Browser
Web browser on the ZTE Sonata is frustratingly jumpy. Pages keep loading and jumping all over the place. I suggest you install Opera or Opera mini. Either will be fine and solve this jumping issue. Forget all of the other cell phone web browser. Opera is the king of cell phone web browsers.

Video Games
Have not yet found a game that will make this phone stutter. Every game plays well.

Video display
The screen frustrates me. You have only one angle to view from. Move too high up and you lose visibility. Move too far right and the screen gets white and fonts are hard to read. Move left and screen gets super dark.

Battery life
Ehh nothing special. battery drains just as fast as all of my other phones. You get around 8 hours of battery life if you don’t touch your Sonata. Play any games or browse Reddit or Facebook, you’ll be on the charger in under an hour, completely drained in 2 hours.

Resources
Not understanding this. The ZTE Sonata seems to not handle resources very well. I don’t see anything lagging or stuttering, but looking at the task manager, the Sonata seems to always be using more than half of it’s R.A.M., even if I go through the task manager tabs to disable applications.

Reception

The phone picks up a great signal and nearly never is without a signal. but this is AT&T so we are looking at dropped calls seemingly for no reason what-so-ever.

Function
Along with dropped calls, there is a constant need to reboot. Called Cricket and they told me to just pull the sim card out and replace it. Me being a person who has been on AT&T (who owns Cricket now) a few times, I know better than to do this. You will wear out that sim card pretty quick. The main trick is to get you to do a full shut down and take the battery out for a few seconds (go ahead and leave it out for about a minute) and replace the battery then reboot. This does it for you nearly every single time. No logic in taking the sim card out at all.

Final overall
IMHO this is a decent phone. Looks and feels like a strange knock off of the Samsung Galaxy Admire II.

The back button is in an unusual (sort of stupid) spot, unless you are left handed. In fact a few things about this phone would be beneficial to lefties. Like the power connector. If you are right handed and use the phone for wide screen while on the charger, the cable points straight up. So you are battling the power chord.
App shortcuts keep disappearing. Constantly. but they might just be the apps that have been moved to the sd card. and this could be during updates.

Review score of ZTE Sonata:
Cost: 10/10
Camera: 3/10
Display: 3/10
Video Playback: 10/10
Battery life: 7/10
Resource life: 5/10

Total Score of the ZTE Sonata: 6/10

**update**

Programs are crashing left and right. This thing loses wifi constantly. I get notifications of apps closing like every 20 minutes. I just turn the thing off when I am at work so I am not looking at phone every 3 minutes. There was an update about the same time the Starbucks app updated and everything crashed so I think it is an overall issue with the phone and whatever default programs are on it, one of them updated and is causing complications with other apps. because it isn’t just the Starbucks app crashing.

The camera is a bit better than I expected, there are tons of settings in the menu area, from iso to saturation to contrast setting. This camera is great really.
Dark settings ISO 1600
Bright settings ISO 60
Turn everything in the “image” section down to 1/3 or a tad bit less. Adjust accordingly with location and lighting.

Default image save file type is .png

Samsung Galaxy Admire 2 VS Motorola Bionic Antutu Benchmark

Posted on2013/07/31AuthorTech Review ManLeave a comment

Got my Samsung Galaxy Admire 2 just last night and took a few photos and a video. Posted the fresh out of the box very first boot up.
Decided to do a performance benchmark for my new Admire 2. To be fair, I had to put the Admire up against my Bionic. The Bionic is a couple years old, but a phone I have always considered to be pretty fast.
Now understand that the Galaxy Admire 2 is the budget Samsung Galaxy. It’s cost at launch through Cricket was just less than 1/4 of current Galaxy phones and less than 1/4 the price of the phone I putting against the Galaxy Admire 2.

Antutu Tests	Samsung Galaxy Admire 2	Motorola Droid Bionic
Ram	1804	995
Cpu Integer	1764	1322
Cpu Float-point	1367	1121
2d graphics	1190	519
3d graphics	3685	2670
database IO	555	75
SD card write	9.3MB/s 93	8.9MB/s 89
SD card read	22.2MB/s 191	16.8MB/s 168
CPU frequency	1188 MHz (x2)	1000 MHz (x2)

First to be tested was the Samsung Galaxy Admire 2 from Cricket that I got for $49

Next Tested was the Droid Bionic. That cost much more … Much Much more

Now for the two phones side by side.

Watching Antutu run, it was clear right away that the Admire 2 was about to stomp a smooshy spot into the Bionic. It did. FPS rates were different all across the board.

Samsung Galaxy Admire 2 VS Motorola Bionic Antutu Benchmark by Budget Tech Review on TruXterTech.Com

Samsung Galaxy Admire 2 From Cricket

Posted on2013/07/302013/09/03AuthorTruXter2 Comments

Built in the Axiom shell is the latest Android Galaxy. This means that if you need a new case or any accessories, you have a good chance of finding the parts you need by simply looking for Axiom. Or go into setting/about device and scroll to bottom you will see a model number SCH-R830c. Google that or search eBay for that number and you will find Axioms and Galaxy Admire 2 are the exact same phone, and share a lot of identical parts.
Video of first boot of my Samsung Galaxy Admire 2 From Cricket to show it’s boot time (scroll to bottom of page). Then pictures to compare the Admire to a Bionic and a Zio. ( Benchmark scores)
I received my Samsung Galaxy Admire 2 today from Cricket. and right away, put the phone on it’s charger. Battery was at about 50% charge upon arrival. (of course I didn’t think to take pictures until a bit after opening and charging)

Finally, No stupid logo in the front.

The sim card and micro SD already inserted. For the record, this phone does not require a special memory card to Cricket’s Muve Music.

Samsung Galaxy Admire 2 with back cover off

Now understand, I am upgrading from a very out dated Kyocera Sanyo Zio. Which is a decent phone for it’s time. But. Single core 600mhz little to no storage, Android 2.2.1. on the plus side, the phone is almost bullet proof. Been dropped countless times and still works fine, no cracks and less than average scratches. It’s a little tank.
Little is the key word. The screen is a bit small so the Samsung Galaxy Admire 2 will be a nice upgrade with near 1/4 inch larger screen.
Here is a front comparison of the two phones the Samsung Galaxy Admire 2 and the Sanyo ZIO

Which doesn’t look like that much pocket space has been compromised, but look at the slight difference in the screen size.
Here is a side photo of the two phones

Very little (if any) difference in thickness.

I do have to admit that for a couple months, I had a flashed Motorolla Droid Bionic from Verizon , but there was this stupid update notice that I was warned not to do. Well one day, I was typing a text…. and the notice popped up. yep… I clicked it. $50 for the flash right down the drain. but the screen on the bionic was huge. and the Android version was Ice Cream Sandwich. Some options and abilities from Froyo android 2.2, gone, but some things ran smoother with ICS. Also I had to replace the screen on the bionic on the second day after flashing to Cricket. Dropped the thing not even 2 feet. Landed on a corner.
Here’s a front view comparison of the Motorola Bionic and the Galaxy Admire 2.

The screen area of the Bionic is nearly the same size as the entire Admire 2.
Thickness comparison between the bionic and the Samsung Galaxy Admire 2.

The Samsung Galaxy Admire 2 is a considerable amount thinner than the Bionic.

Took me too long to figure this out, but the tiny button on the right side of the Samsung Galaxy Admire 2 is the power button. Not the big skinny button in the front.

Now for the initial boot up

Very fast boot.
Shockingly fast.

: First Screen

: Balloon Tip

: Trying to load location for weather

Big issue I have run into repeatedly is the back button and menu button. They buttons are too close to the edge. My fingers barely ever make proper contact. and then add the edge of the case I recently added. Plus, for some reason that space between the buttons and the glass, is somehow active and sensitive. So whatever is on the screen above that space activates when you hit that space.

When did Tech Forums Become So Useless?

Posted on2013/05/01AuthorTruXterLeave a comment

Found myself in a tech support forum looking for help, leaving there very unhelped, unsatisfied and kind of bullied. Tech forums seem to have become the guy that argues the best, is the go-to guy for tech help these days. and that seems to have killed off a lot of people’s desire to visit tech forums. This is my experience with the latest forum I went to… and a little back story.

I was gifted a Motorola Droid Bionic by a coworker. This Phone was built for the Verizon network. The network I have my cell phone service from is Cricket. After some research, I find that I can get my bionic flashed to Cricket’s network.
At the time, I also had a roommate who had an android cell phone, that was on the Verizon network, and she was wanting to try Cricket. Since I didn’t have the money to get my Bionic flashed just yet, we took her Android to the local Cricket store and had it flashed to their network. We compared her phone signal, to the signal I was getting with my old phone. Her signal was a considerable amount better than mine. and my phone was built for the Cricket network. So I decided that I was definitely flashing this new Bionic to Cricket.
That night, my roommate got an update notice to her phone. So.. Like any normal person would do, she clicked the “accept” button for the update request. Next morning my roommate had no signal. She was not receiving text messages and she was not receiving phone calls. She was unable to send a text massage and she was unable to make a phone call. So, back to the Cricket store we went. The clerk was very helpful and asked my roommate if she accepted an update notice, and my roommate like a trooper admitted this with a smile. The clerk said “yep, that’s what kills our flashings. First one is free for you ma’am, but please do not accept the next update or you will be in here again getting your phone flashed back to Cricket and it will not be free”. We thanked the clerk and came back a few hours later to pick up the phone. Sure enough, there was an update notice on her phone, she hit cancel and then fiddled around with the phone a bit and then disabled the notice.
After seeing that, I booted up my Motorola Bionic, connected to my router and searched for an update. No update available. A few days later (pay day) I booted the phone yet again and checked for any software updates I could. None except Facebook but nothing for the operating system of the phone. I take my phone into the Cricket store and pay my $75 to get the phone flashed, come back an hour later to pick it up. Sure enough… Update notice. at the very exact second I saw the notice, the clerk told me “Do not update the operating system (may have said firmware but I have my doubts)”.

So I go home and search for ways to disable the update notice. I came across cricketusers.com . I posted a simple question trying to find where the heck my roommate went in her settings to disable the update notice. This turned into a bunch of over zealous tech tards trying to get me to reflash the phone. all I wanted to know, is where in the menu did she find the setting to disable the notice. Since the roommate wasn’t very techy, she really has no clue what she did. and that is brain murder in it’s self. but she got it done.

So now I know why that place is empty and no one goes there. Techy dudes that get angry because people do not want to follow their misguided misinformed advice. I don’t care if that guy was Dr. Jacob W. Cricket. He wasn’t listening to the issue and how simple the solution could be. Just in a mindset of “I know better, listen to me…. rebuild everything”.

and this is what killed forums. Newbies.

Phone Demos CES 2013

Posted on2013/01/082013/01/08AuthorTruXter

Firefox Phone OS DEmo

Ubuntu Phone OS Demonstration

These two look like great phone operating systems. The Ubunto phone though surely has more developers and would most likely have a greater chance of surviving the market. but if the Firefox phone makes it out to enough people in the market, we could see a huge drop in phone prices and an increase in advertisement (sponsored by) but the question I have is “Does the firefox phone run on a Linux kernel?”. If this is a fact then lots of my fears of Microsoft and Apple consuming Linux, can be put to rest. Unless the Linux group is building up (fattening up) the market for sell off.

but that has very little to do with phones.

Sorry I didn,t have anything to write so I popped out opinions. These phones look like they will be great options/alternatives over the big three. Sorry rim lovers, you don’t make the list.

ubuntu_phone