[AT&T Samsung Galaxy Note I717] tutusinghsohi:
As I said, I'm a noob when it comes to not the Galaxy Note but also the Android Operating system. Before switching to Android in April, I was stuck on iOS (iPhone 4) for more than 2 years; before that was the good old Symbian OS on a Nokia N95 8 GB. So far, since making the switch, the experience has been great. Themes, ringtones, tons of customization are just some of the things that are easily possible with "jailbreaking" on my former device.

That being said, I'm still adjusting to my new phone even after 3 months. Thats why I'm starting this thread; I need help on a few questions. So, here it goes (I did search for a lot of these, but no solid solutions) -

1. One of the great things about my old phone was the battery life. Even after using the phone's music function, checking facebook/emails/news/weather every now and then, I would still have around 60%~80% juice left after an 8~10 hour shift at work. None of that on the Note. Just having the 4G running leaves me with around 40%~50% juice after work, with no hard usage like going on the web, or using my phone as a music player. How come? I understand that most of the juice is used by the big-ass display; but there is a still a huge consumption even when the display is not turned on at all. I recently came across a term called deep sleep on the forum; I'm not sure if my phone goes to that or not. How do I check (keep in mind that I'm a noob; I installed CPU Spy, Battery Spy and BetterBatteryStats, but what am I looking for. I'll include a pic from all these apps)? Basically, how do I increase battery life?

2. Charging/Data cables - I dont understand this.. I have included a picture of 3 cables. The 1st one of my brother's from an old HTC phone. This is the only cable I can use to transfer date to and from my phone; that too with a lot care because if I move my phone around, the connection gets lost and I cant even charge my phone unless I unplug the cable, put my phone in a stationary position and replug the cable. The 2nd one is the cable I use to charge my phone. I cant use it to transfer data (I guess because of the little head converter); again, with this cable I cant move my phone around. I have to keep the phone screen-up for it to charge; cant pick it up or move it around or no charge. The 3rd cable is useless. It came with a pair of bluetooth head set. I cant transfer data, nor charge my phone. On some cables, my phone shows its charging; but it either charges very very slow, or shows its at a 100%, but as soon as I take the cable out, the % goes down to 60~85. The phone seems to charge fine on a car charger I have (not a USB car charger, this one has no removable parts). I think it might be the USB port on my phone, but not sure.

3. The 4th picture is of the Go Task Manager widget. Currently its showing 239 MB of RAM free. I closed Battery Spy, and it came down to around 300~325 MB free. Does Go Launcher take a lot of memory? How can I free more RAM? Didnt the Galaxy Note have 1 GB of RAM; what happened to the remaining 305 MB of RAM?

4. ROM - FLOODED = the only word I can use after I saw the Android Development section. So many choices. Is it worth flashing my phone with one of these? Which one do you recommend? Is the one for CyanogenMod good? What exactly does Nightly Built mean?

5. Flashing the phone with a custom ROM voids the warranty, right? Does the "flashing counter" thing work (I read somewhere that there's an easy way of flashing the counter in Recovery to 0)? I included a pic of a crack thats on my screen (long story short, I dropped my phone screen down on a rock). I'm about to send it to AT&T (since I have insurance from them) for the screen (hopefully they'll send me a new one, which will fix the whole charging/data transfer problem too). Will they check the counter too? Should I flash the counter? I have to pay $200 for a claim, be it water damage, accidental damage, theft, loss, etc; if they do check the counter, should the just drop the **** out of the phone so it dosnt work at all?

Long read, I know. Just wanted to cram in as much information as possible so that I can get answers as soon as possible. Any and all answers will be appreciated. Thanks a lot for taking the time to read through the whole thread and replying (if you do).