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Getting bored of your smartphone?
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Getting bored of your smartphone?

by Vyncent ChanFebruary 17, 2015
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Recently I was on a roll customising my Padfone S, changing over to Nova Prime launcher, new icon packs and wallpapers… but it just wasn’t enough. It just wasn’t unique enough for me. Mustering all the courage I had, I rooted my phone. It is a very simple procedure nowadays, involving a single clicks using Towelroot. Now that I was rooted, I went on to install SuperSU and Busybox on Rails.

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Made it rain! (No idea why it says that)

After rooting, I went on to install Xposed. Before this when I was using my ol’ reliable HTC One X, I was on ViperX custom ROM by Venom, and it was so comprehensive in terms of customization I was never left wanting. However I was always curious as to what is this Xposed framework a lot of other people are talking about. Now I got the chance to try it for myself. As some of you may know, Xposed framework is only a framework, and relies on the addition of various modules in its repository to customize your phone.

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Sense 6 Battery Percent doesn’t actually work. I am not sure whether it’s something to do with Asus or Android 4.4 not allowing me to change the battery icon. Will disable it the next moment I have. XHaloFloatingWindow is not really useful because of the small screen size but it’s just cool to keep around to show off in case your Samsung friends decide to show off their MultiWindow :P

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This is Chrome with GMD Full Screen Immersive Mode. GMD FSIM works better than the Immersive Mode module in Xposed. It doesn’t require root. Paying for the full version – which I did – will allow you to choose which apps to apply immersive mode to. Downside is the keyboard will not work without the navi bar, so disable it for apps like Whatsapp where you do mainly typing. Very useful for games that don’t have immersive mode or just for a slightly bigger screen on Chrome.

Getting bored of your smartphone? 21

VolumeSteps+ adds more steps to your volume slider so the steps are more precise. Ever had the problem where one step louder was just too loud, but the current step is just a wee bit too soft? This module will solve that problem.

Getting bored of your smartphone? 22

GravityBox is like a compilation of tweaks. The tweak I use the most is the Navigation Bar tweaks. There is an option to reduce the height. I set it to 65% to save space on the screen. Less wasted space for the navigation bar, more actual content to see. There are a lot of other tweaks but I didn’t use most of them.

Screenshot_2015-02-16-23-23-52 (Large)Screenshot_2015-02-16-23-24-44 (Large)

 

Last but not least, SoftkeyZ. As you can guess by the name, it changes the softkeys and also the highlight. There are many to choose from on the Online Gallery, and if you are creative you can even create your own and import them into the app to apply. Restart, and enjoy the new look.

 

About The Author
Vyncent Chan
Technology enthusiast, casual gamer, pharmacy graduate. Strongly opposes proprietary standards and always on the look out for incredible bang-for-buck.

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