ericdabbs

First of all, rooting doesn't delete any files from your phone. You can't make a nandroid backup with TWRP or use Titanium Backup to backup your apps unless you have root access. That is the dilemma. If you are referring to your pictures, music or documents then just use the LG Wireless Storage feature and back it up to your PC. Honestly if you do not know much at all about rooting, flashing custom ROMs, etc then you shouldn't be messing with rooting and custom ROMs. Just stay stock unrooted. The rewards are great but if you don't sacrifice the time to learn about it you will be in a world of hurt.

Yes. Ioroot v21 works to root your phone with the ZVA firmware.

Um Sprint, Tmobile, Verizon and ATT has always done this. You have NEVER received a discount on your service plan after your 2 years have been complete even if you bought your device outright. Sprint didn't give you a "horray" or "atta boy" after your contract ends. It is your responsibility to not hold onto your device past the 2 year mark once your contract to sign up for a new device. It is only now with the "new Tmobile" that you get a discount on your service bill after you pay off your device. You can't assume this was EVER the norm. In the case of Sprint, I see them making a big push for people to sign up for Framily plans when their contract is up especially if Sprint Easy Pay is the only way to purchase a device. They can't force you off of your grandfathered contracts but all they can do is just prevent you from getting a new device on a 2 year contract and not allow you to activate a device on that service plan even though you buy it outright. This way you are forced to switch to the new plan or don't ever get a new device. Now lets not kid ourselves here...you and I are not going to hold onto our current LTE devices for more than 2 years anyways so you will have to make a tough choice and will upgrade eventually. Personally for me I would just switch to the Framily plan because I can't have my current device for 5 years.

Question for you is do you want to pay phone subsidy price OR buy full retail in monthly payments like Tmobile? There is a rumor from a Sprint employee that Sprint may be killing the phone subsidy + 2 year service contract model around mid March and adopting the Sprint Easy Pay as the only way to purchase a device by financing it. This means that you won't be able to upgrade your device for $200 with 2 year contract. The GS5 and HTC One 2 phones won't be available until May. What that ultimately means in your situation is that if you want to upgrade using the phone subsidy + 2 year service contract model then you will want to upgrade your device with the current triband LTE phones. Now this is just a rumor but the post below is from a Sprint employee. You might want to pay attention in the near future about whether these changes are truly going to be in effect on March 14th. http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/5308-say-hello-to-the-framily-inexpensive-but-potentially-confusing-new-sprint-group-plan-pricing/?p=274813

Its already announced when its available. Did you read the press release that was announced 2 weeks ago? The LG G Flex will be available in stores on Feb 7th. I think preorders will go out on Jan 31st. http://investors.sprint.com/file.aspx?iid=4057219&fid=21651475

I may be greedy but I kinda hope that Sprint does whatever it takes to start discouraging Clear customers off the Wimax network. The Wimax network takes up precious backhaul and spectrum that can be better used to add more TD-LTE carriers. Sure Sprint has a lot of 2.5 GHz spectrum but the backhaul to these towers Clearwire does not. At the end of the day, LTE is the future and Wimax is dead in the US. But the dilemma of not having high speed internet at your house does suck especially if DSL or cable are not available options.

My only problem with LG's timing of the G Flex is that LG is rumored to come out with their sequel to the LG Optimus G Pro phablet called the LG G Pro 2 as shown in the link below to compete with the Galaxy Note and HTC One Max series. What I am confused about is what is LG's target audience between the two LG G Flex and LG G Pro 2 devices? Certainly I don't expect the LG G Pro 2 device to come with a S-pen feature to differentiate itself and be more closely competing with the Galaxy Note. Heck the LG G Pro 2 is even rumored to be a 6 inch device which is exactly the same thing as the LG G Flex. As far as I know the main difference between the two devices is the curved display on the LG G Flex. http://www.phonearena.com/news/LG-G-Pro-2-images-leak-reveals-volume-rocker-and-power-buttons-on-the-rear-cover_id51927

I hope so. I would love to see LG compete in the phablet space. LG was too hesitant last year to make a big splash with the LG Optimus G Pro and only sold it on AT&T. This year LG needs to take the same approach as they did with the LG G2 and LG G Flex and offer it to all 4 carriers.

Ok that makes sense. I guess its not used that often.

Wow that is a lot sooner than I expected. But I guess with the introduction of Framily plans, you kinda already know which direction Sprint is heading towards. I guess those that were thinking of waiting for the GS5/HTC One 2 probably would want to upgrade before the alleged March 14th date to lock in their Everything Data plans for at least another 2 years.

In order to get TWRP with the ZVA update, you first have to install the ZVA firmware which includes the ZVA radio. Then you have to flash the ZV7-aboot.img that doesn't have the anti-loki code that allows you to install TWRP. For now just avoid flashing custom ROMs until the devs can try to figure this out. Please read the XDA thread below. See this XDA thread that tells you everything you need to know about the ZVA firmware update http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2627765

AJ has a few beefs with the cell phone industry but what I was eluding to in my post before is the belief that the phone subsidy model going the way of the dodo. You are can already see the beginning steps already unfolding with the Framily plan that only has the Easy Pay method to pay for your devices. What you are talking about in this post is his other beef which is people abusing unlimited mobile data which is an entirely different topic.

Oh man....you didn't read XDA did you? Number 1 rule of rooting and customizing your phone is NEVER take the OTA unless you do you research on what has changed. Yes LG has sneaked in a new aboot.img file that finally kills the Loki exploit (the exploit that TWRP relies on to allow flashing of custom ROMS). Since you flashed the OTA the aboot.img recognizes that the custom recovery is not compatible with it which is why it has trouble booting up. It does a series of checks before it allows you to boot your phone. I guess its kinda LG's way of punishing you for having incompatible system files. There is probably 2 methods to try to fix this issue. One involving typing a few ADB commands that are explained in the XDA thread below and the alternative is to flash back to stock ZV8 firmware so you are on a clean slate (unrooted and stock recovery) and then take the OTA. PM me and I can try to get this worked out for you. Here is the XDA thread that talks about this bootloop issue. If this doesn't work out then the alternative way is to flash back to stock ZV8 firmware. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2451696

Are you talking about the Nexus 4? The Nexus started off at Android 4.4. I think unfortunately that since the Nexus 5 has such a wide appeal due to the numerous amount of LTE bands it supports, tweaks needed to be made to improve a few LTE bands which appear to be weaker than the rest but at the same time inadvertently affecting other LTE bands (B25 in this case). That could have part of the reason why the radio update had a weaker signal. I don't necessarily think it means a downward trend but rather the perception of weaker signal levels will vary between firmware updates. Maybe since the next Nexus 5 firmware update will be geared towards Sprint in enabling B26 and B41 that LG might try to overcompensate to ensure the RF performance is great for all 3 LTE bands. Who knows...you just have to wait and see.

For now any of the legacy plans including Everything Data will continue to honor 2 year contracts with the phone subsidy model. However what AJ is referring to is that at some point in the future, maybe very soon in 2014 or it could be as far as 2015, Sprint could cut off allowing customers to re-upp their contracts with their legacy plans and phone subsidy model. Sprint won't force you off of your legacy plan but if you want to upgrade your device (which you eventually will) the Framily plans might be the only plans available. Maybe Sprint won't even allow you to activate a device you buy off contract onto your Everything Data plans just to try to kick people off of the Everything Data plans. I hope that is not the case but we can't predict the future.

Or he was trying to snap the football.

Which radio update are you referring to? Btw the Nexus line will not have a specific Sprint Spark update that will only go out to Sprint customers. The Spark update will be sent to all Nexus 5 users on AT&T and Tmobile as well. Its not going to be phrased as Spark update but rather the changelog will read something about enabling B26 and B41 or just enabling other LTE bands. Remember the Nexus line is used on multiple carriers so perhaps the firmware update you are referring to made a change for AT&T or Tmobile that could have inadvertently affected other LTE bands such as Sprints. I don't know how many people reported "worse" signal levels after the update you are referring to. In your case it might have been worse and to someone else it could have been the same for them. Signal level quality is just hard to gauge just because there are just so many factors that can affect it. You just have to wait and see.

That is not necessarily true. The LG G2 and N5 do not use the same radios. Any Spark improvements will be built on top of the N5 radio. We don't know if it will provide better reception but I am sure most N5 folks are happy currently with the radio so reception is not the issue. Just throw in multiple bands and N5 users are happy. I guess people need to stop assuming that the G2 and N5 are the same product but in a different casing and software build. The placement of antennas and other electronic components are different between the two devices that can contribute to signal reception. My guess is that the N5 Spark update will not make the N5 LTE reception worse and if anything it will remain the same way as it is now but just have B26 and B41 enabled.

Hey Mike. I remember our little discussion this morning about sending diagnostic information to you to help you isolate the MNC-MCC issue and something dawned on me. I have never used the Send Diagnostics button before so I couldn't find the stinking "Send Diagnostics" button until I hit the "About SignalCheck" menu. I think to me the "Send Diagnostics" button needs to be more transparent so I guess my suggestion maybe for a future version is to move the "Send Diagnostics" option from the About SignalCheck window TO an option called Send Diagnostics in the same area where it has About SignalCheck, Help, Preferences, Reset Data Connection, System Shortcuts, Exit. This is your app so I'll leave that up to you. Just passing on a suggestion that I just noticed today.

I guess one guy on XDA did some research on this topic and he found that at least for the LG G2, the Spark update provided new APNs, new radio and an updated APK that allows the phone to use multiple bands for datas. Here is the link on XDA. Could be a good explanation. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=49873795&postcount=8

Im willing to give Sprint a pass on updating their old on hold recording if they can just speed up NV progress. With the way Sprint is creating new products/plans left and right, it might be best to hold off on making new recordings anyways. Imagine that One Up on hold recording get killed after 3 months.

I am curious to see the results of this testing. Hopefully it means that coexistence can occur and that the 600 MHz auction can be a success. I know Sprint and Tmobile really are depending on the availability of this spectrum. But after the 600 MHz auction, the FCC should stop and leave the remaining low band spectrum to the TV broadcasters.

When you look at the NV complete sites downtown Denver seems like there has been very little progress or Robert hasn't been getting updates from that market. However there is plenty of B41 LTE live there in Denver so I don't know what the reason behind not being able to connect to LTE. Have you updated profile and PRL?

It just means its an idle connection. Think of the Spark icon as the data arrows in previous builds. When data is not being sent or received with the data arrows, it is gray as well. Probably didn't notice that since the 3G icon was always blue. I guess with the Spark icon the .png files were created where its either all white or all gray depending on data status. With the Spark icon, if data is being exchanged the icon will be spinning. I still think the Spark icon is lame but I haven't looked at the new LGSystemUI.apk to see if it can be modified. Maybe Ascertion is already on this case and modded his already.

I agree with you. On my route to work, there are 2 sites that only have B41 LTE live. One of the B41 LTE sites on my route doesn't even have NV equipment upgraded yet and the other B41 LTE site is Nextel/Clearwire colocated. I tested it this morning driving along these 2 B41 LTE sites without having to do an airplane mode recycle to search for the LTE signal and it automatically connected to B41 with no issues. I was very satisfied with what Sprint has done with this update. Its finally great to see LTE along my driving route to work instead of just when I leave my house and when I get to my workplace.