Develop Bugs

ROM comparisons

Hi guys I'm pretty new to the world of Android after going through several generations of iPhones I got bored and love my GS2. Now I see that there's a bunch of roms to choose from and I was curious if there were any websites that specifically review them. In a non biased way. In reality I'm looking for the ROM that has the best battery life but is hard to know based on the individual room descriptions. Thank you in advance and thank you developers for giving us so many options.

Your best bet would be to skim the ROM threads and make a decision on which rom will suit you best based on pros and cons that users report. The number of hits each thread has gives you a vague idea of the popularity of a specific rom. Really the only person that can make unbiased reviews on these roms is you because in the end the "best rom" is entirely up to you and your specific needs
Sent from my SGSII using Tapatalk

FLASH THEM ALLLLLL
Honestly, all the roms here are quick and smooth.. my DD (daily driver) right now is dewizzed + faux kernel + gideon's script (incredible battery life)
I chose dewizzed because of the simplicity of it.
people say that synergy has good battery life with dewizzed, but you might encounter a few lag stutters here and there? not sure.. im actually testing it right now.
Okay now if you want it to be more stock, i recommend Juggernaut rom, that's probably the best touchwiz rom out right now.. battery life good but not as good as dewizzed.
If you want to see what an android is capable of in a theme category, check out thursday's rom, Tuesday. I played with it for a couple hours but the purple was too much for me. great rom though.
Haven't really tried any of the rest. good luck and welcome!

Since i got my gs2 about a month ago, i flashed the bombaridier 3.5 rom and i never look back.
If battery life is ur top priority this rom iss for u. I easily get 18-20 hours with moderate use everyday. Plus its stable and fast. All i have done is put the ics theme and thats it
Give it a try, u wont regret it
Sent from my SGH-T989 using XDA App

If you want a site that reviews roms and gives some good advice and tricks for the gs2 then go to galaxys2root.com they have stuff for all versions. Btw i am not afilliated with the site at all, i just use it to see the roms before i flash them
Sent from my SGH-T989 using Tapatalk

ROM comparison topics are not allowed in XDA
it discourages DEVelopments
and also fuels a lot of trolling

[Q] Sorry that I gotta ask but...

... which is the most stable ROM out there for this phone. This is my first time on the SGSII forum. My wife and I own Vibrants at the moment fully rooted running 2.2 Bionix 1.3.1 with the Bali 1.8.8 kernel (for those who might know that setup) and yes it is a old ROM but its straight from the source so it is 99% percent stable (Battery & GPS). We are going to upgrade to SGSIIs very soon and I don't want stock on either phone. YES I apologize for not taking my time to do my homework but I would like to install a KNOWN stable ROM right off the bat on my wife's phone cuz I don't want to hear her complaining that this **** don't work or this other **** is buggy...you guys get my point? I'm gonna experiment with mine but hers I just wanna flash one ROM that is gonna be good from the get-go so she could start using it right away.
...again I'm sorry for the "best ROM out there" question (which I myself hate) and THX ahead.

Never had any issues with juggernaut, no fcs or anything. Lots of nice themes for it too. As for kernels, the new darkside has been the best for me.
Sent from my SGH-T989 using Tapatalk

BeastMod. I get amazing battery life and never had any lag.

I love dewizzed, just an amazing ROM. It also includes customizable boot animation.
Sent From My Herculean Wizard

A similar thread is also going on which ROM, but you qualified it by mentioning your Vibrant setup. My wife also upgraded from a Vibrant running the same Bionix/Bali combo so I know what you mean by stability as well as performance. Luckily you have several choices as noted above but I've settled on Dewizzed as my main choice: based on stock, extremely stable, very fast data speeds, GPS locks in an amazingly short time, great battery life... I also know that the team are working on some exciting things for the next version and am looking forward to seeing what is offered up.

Beastmod 4.2 or Monhk's new rom
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA Premium App

You should use Juggernaut, it's a really nice rom- fast and stable.

I think juggs is a good choice as well. Needs tweaking though
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA Premium App

Thx everyone. As always everyone got their favorite that runs great on their phone. Based on these choices Ima read a little further on these ROMs.
... btw guess we upgrading even sooner cuz they stole my 13 y.o. son's phone today and I guess he's gonna get one of these Vibrants.

[Q] What is the best rom to date

Ive been trying out a few roms here and there and when i first got the phone there were only a few now that the SGS2Epic4g is getting more popular i wanted to know users opinion about what they feel the best rom is me personally i prefer odex but i like themes so...there you have it

killhr said:
Ive been trying out a few roms here and there and when i first got the phone there were only a few now that the SGS2Epic4g is getting more popular i wanted to know users opinion about what they feel the best rom is me personally i prefer odex but i like themes so...there you have it
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Not to sound like a prick or anything, but you have to consider that you are posting in a very opinionated forum, with a very broad question. That being said, I also believe everyone is entitled to said opinion SO....
I have to go with Calkulins Rom. I have yet to find a more stable Rom, and I check frequently. Couple that with Overstews ICS theme and you have a match made in Android heaven. Hope this helps.
Epic-ly tapped from my Galaxy S II

Maddoggin's rom is great and very stable. There are a few themes out for it, two of which are linked in the OP for the thread.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=21060706
However, if you want an overwhelming support for themes then mijjah has you covered with his rom and the themes he ports and improves upon. It's also stable for me though others report issues.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=20166744
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium

I'm using the xplod ROM and even though it's still beta and has a few bugs I use it my dd. I've used pretty much everyone ROM and enjoyed them all, but this and the unnamed ROM seem to be the best. I just wish the dev for unnamed would come back. He did the same thing on the infuse 4g.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium

@Zoidpilot i agree with you about the opinionated part but thats what i think we need everyone's opinion because im pretty sure the new guys come here and wonder which should they try 1st or which is the best, like i did so let the opinions rain and i hope no devs take any offense

Blazer ROM. No doubt about it.
Have used it since v1.2, and current v3.7 has not disappointed me at all.

Caulks, 80% of roms are based on his.

I am currently on Blazer Rom, HAven't tried any others but love the ics look

Calkulin's rom is the base for so many other roms. Calkulins all the way

Seems like this is a pretty common question in the Q & A. And almost always, Calk's is at the top of the list.

If you prefer Odex and don't mind a very blue theme then you certainly want to try StrongSteve's ROM.

I 'm loving the Blazer ROM (ver. 3.7) so far. Stable snappy, great battery life and a cool ICS theme.

Jess813 said:
Caulks, 80% of roms are based on his.
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SantinoInc said:
Calkulin's rom is the base for so many other roms. Calkulins all the way
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Name other roms based off his. The only one I can think of is msturgs sensation themed rom.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium

I haven't flashed every single rom out there. I was using stock + rooted only for the first few months.. and definitely nothing wrong with that if that's your thing. Just get rid of the bloatware and you should get decent battery life.
Having said that, I'm on BlazerROM 3.7 and my wife is on Calks 2.8.1 ROM. Just flashed both our phones last weekend. We're both happy with them so far and have no problems with GPS issues, hot reboots, freezes, ect. We seem to get about the same battery life too.. maybe my wife's is a little better since she's under volted a bit.
I would say nandroid and flash away until you find something you like. Its not hard to do and flashing doesn't take too long. You'll probably take longer downloading the ROM's themselves.. lol. But for themes, Blend ROM seems to have a lot of support

Can't really say better/best as I've only run 1 rom since about 3 days after I got this phone... calk's. I've since added steadyhawkin's gunslinger kernel, and overstew's ics theme, and have nothing but good to say about any of it. Fast, stable, great battery life, and I love that he keeps the rom pretty close to stock so you can dress it up the way _you_ want (which is helped by the fact it seems most themes/mods support it) or stay with a pretty stock/tw look if that's your thing.
Again, nothing bad to say about other roms, or even to say that this rom is better -- it's just the 1st I tried, and it's done everything I want so I've never felt the need to even try anything else (as of yet -- looking like that *might* be getting close to changing but that's a WHOLE other story ).

I'm using ICS Passion on my vibrant, nice stock 4.0 feel.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

I'm going to have to go with Blazer 3.7. I found myself on Calkulin's for a while but I got better battery life with Blazer 3.7. I really like Phamtom's theme work with 3.7. Everything looks nice, runs smooth, and I like the toggle set up more than any other ROM or mod. I haven't quit trying different ROMs, mods, and themes, I just always seem to end up on Stock Blazer 3.7 because it's so "perfect" in my opinion.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using XDA App

Best Battery award I would have to give it to Calkulin's 2.8.1 - The Con is that I was having problems with deep freezes every couple days where I would have to reboot my phone and I would notice a little lag when opening the app drawer for the first few seconds. The freezing was most likely due to the undervolt and Haven't tried the other optional undervolts he has posted yet to remedy the Issue.
Best visuals I would have to give it to StrongSteve's ROM. That blue is straight eye candy!!! The con is that it was giving me worse battery life than I was use to on Calkulin's, but nothing really to complain about honestly. And I like how the keyboards was the swype with the dragon go option by default.
Best Rom so far award goes to Phantom Blazer in my book. This Rom ran the smoothest out of the three for me and battery life is very closely compared to Calkulin's 2.8.1 so far and looks very nice. My only request is that his swype keyboard had dragon go.

I'm a fan of UnNamed Rom.
Stable, fast, and long battery life.

eao1991 said:
Name other roms based off his. The only one I can think of is msturgs sensation themed rom.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium
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agreed i have noticed that too even think some used his and just themed it and claimed it to be their's ...has any tried the asop roms

Best rom for T989

Im new here. I just saw a closed thread asking what teh best rom is for T989. Ive used a bunch and can say without a doubt the Juggernaut and Slick Mod 3.4 is best.
Dont even bother with the ICS roms cause they all have really bad problems.
When installing appps they would not work right . The camera wouldnt work right on some.
The audio would echo on some.
The screen would be ugly on some.
So.
Try out the latest Juggernaut and the Slick Mod 3.4

I run Juggs also but this is subject is pure opinion. For example, Juggernaut is not the best ROM if you want to try out S-voice, since that only works on ICS. I hear all sorts of great things about Darkside as well. That thread was probably locked because there is no real answer to this question.

Juggs doesn't work well for me. I've installed it a few times over the last few months. No workie. TDJ's roms OTOH are flawless.
That said, the reason these best ROM threads are always closed is because its subjective and personal opinion. Just like the op. Pure opinion.
In before the lock.
Sent from my SGH-T989 using XDA

^-What they said and, this community is based around development. The only way developers can truly improve their "products" is if good people like us test it out for them and report back any issues. That is the point of all of this. If you are fortunate enough to dl a ROM and everything works beautifully from day one, GREAT! However, you should consider that the exception and not the rule.
Asking others to avoid newer ROM's or those that are still in development only serves to hurt the entire community by breaking the development cycle at it's core. Software development takes time and dedication to make things come out right and the testing/debug phase is arguably the most important. Enjoy your "functional" ROM's but keep in mind, they work as well as they do because of this phase.

best rom right now
Jedi mind trick ROM is the ****** lol go get it!!!

^ What he said...Currently running JMT v4 and liking it...a lot.

it's all a matter of personal opinion and preference. My first DD was darkside evolution 3v8. But once JB hit the scene I really haven't had a DD cause I'm enjoying helping the community in a whole to make better new roms for new experiences on our device. So in a nut shell, just dive in bro and enjoy the ride. It's well worth it!!!!
But then again, that's just my opinion as I stated from jump.
SGH_T989 (Hercules)
TWRP 2.2.0
AOKP JB 8-14
TDJ's Venom 7.2 (AOKP)
UVLE1 Mod Radio

Darkside Evolution Venom for me - it allows for wifi calling as well.

jedi mind trickkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk trust meeeeeeeeeeeee lol hope yaa enjoy its stable to the max

^ See, he knows!

Jedi Mind Trick V5.1!!!!!!!
Its been running flawless all day today and very snappy!!!
Sent from my SGH-T989 using xda app-developers app

enosets said:
Jedi Mind Trick V5.1!!!!!!!
Its been running flawless all day today and very snappy!!!
Sent from my SGH-T989 using xda app-developers app
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i second that!!!!

TeamCS CM all day everyday here

Jedi-mindtrick v6 is what I'm running, and so far it's my favorite of the 10-15 roms I've tried

kmcclry said:
Jedi-mindtrick v6 is what I'm running, and so far it's my favorite of the 10-15 roms I've tried
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hahaaaaaa we everywhere shutting it downnnnnnnnnnnnnn :good:

Yea Jedi Mind Trick is definitely one of the best ROMs. It's super fast and looks great.

Jedi-mind trick!
it does not have all additional languages. I'd like to see Chinese language to this rom(it is in the list and can selected, but it isn't fully translated).

Ya know...best rom is in the eye of the beholder. I've used almost all of them and think that they all have their ups and downs. In reality that's something for you to decide for yourself. Its kind of like pepsi and coke. I like pepsi and you may disagree and like coke.
Have fun with it, shouldn't be about social pressures to have what everyone else likes. Play around and decide what did YOUR style.
K...stepping off the soap box.
:beer: cheers
sent from my T989 full of CM awesomeness and a touch of Venom from the Darkside!!

Jedi mins trick is one of the bet ICS ROMs. But I recently switched to AOKP JB ROM and it is really cool. It is butter smooth and has Google now completely working. I have been using this ROM for 2 days and so far no issues !
Sent from my SGH-T989 using xda app-developers app

nickcaper said:
Im new here. I just saw a closed thread asking what teh best rom is for T989. Ive used a bunch and can say without a doubt the Juggernaut and Slick Mod 3.4 is best.
Dont even bother with the ICS roms cause they all have really bad problems.
When installing appps they would not work right . The camera wouldnt work right on some.
The audio would echo on some.
The screen would be ugly on some.
So.
Try out the latest Juggernaut and the Slick Mod 3.4
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I'm using Jedi v.7 and I LOVE it. I was on Juggs for the longest time because I didn't feel the ICS roms were ready for prime time, but Jedi changed all that for me. It's butter smooth and Fast. Battery life isn't the best, but with such a responsive rom, I can sacrifice some batt life for performance.

Blazer ROM Vs. FreeGS3 ROM

I have been using FreeGS3 ROM from Clark44 for the last few weeks and I love it. I started at .0.6 and been updating ever since. Clark44 is constantly working on this ROM so you know it will always be up to date and he is always open resolving any issues with the ROM. The first ROM I flashed was Blazer ROM from PhantomHacker and that was also a great ROM. Ive only tried v1.5. I was wondering your guys opinion on the two ROMs and how they differ if they do. battery life. speed and such.

I have both roms waiting for me when i get home from work. I will definitely give them both a test drive and will report back. I just got this phone so I'm definitely loving touchwiz so I'm glad both those roms have touchwiz with some tweaks.

Are you kidding me?
Freegs3 ...
No slight to any other dev, ...but right now, Freegs3 is class of the field.

FreeGS3 is clearly the best ROM out right now. No other Dev is doing what Clark44 is doing. Updates regularly. Installing stuff on ROM no one else has. FreeGS3 is in it's own class.

Naddict said:
Are you kidding me?
Freegs3 ...
No slight to any other dev, ...but right now, Freegs3 is class of the field.
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+1
---------- Post added at 03:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:20 PM ----------
.Bambino said:
FreeGS3 is clearly the best ROM out right now. No other Dev is doing what Clark44 is doing. Updates regularly. Installing stuff on ROM no one else has. FreeGS3 is in it's own class.
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ditto

Blazer ROM, Best battery life of any ROM and very smooth and stable.

Both are excellent roms! I personally nandroid restore back and forth between the two. It's like Christmas in August
Sent from my SPH-L710 using xda premium

Team sonic is the way to go...I feel the guy from blazer rom,,would make better use of his time working with clark44...after all there both tring to get preformance and battery life...2 heads are better than one
Sent from my SPH-L710 using Xparent Cyan Tapatalk 2

tried every rom...lets just say.."seeggaaaa"

FreeGS3 Ftw imo
Sent from my SGH-T999 using xda premium

I've always been a fan of Phantom and Blazer Rom since the Epic Touch days.....although I admit he just hits my personal sweet spot with the features he includes....I like Clark's rom too....I kind of don't like the Aroma feature though. It's cool, but for an extra 200MB when I have to download my roms at work?
Anyway, I'd give Blazer's 1.7 a chance. I like Clark's a lot too but to me Blazer seems a little more polished.

metal82 said:
Team sonic is the way to go...I feel the guy from blazer rom,,would make better use of his time working with clark44...after all there both tring to get preformance and battery life...2 heads are better than one
Sent from my SPH-L710 using Xparent Cyan Tapatalk 2
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blazer 1.7 is superfast. No lag, battery last almost 2 days
this message brought to you by my GalaxyS3 running Phantom's Blazer

Just flashed FreeGS3 v.0.0.9 its so sweet....

I started with Blazer 1.5. So far its been great up until the latest 1.7 update. It broke a lot of things even AFTER being released with a 100% chance of bootloop. No idea how that got past him and the testers. Ill try FGS3 and see how it goes.
On a different note, it pains me to see so many people asking tiring, old or silly questions about their phone (it sounds like half these people this is their first phone). How much faster and cleaner would threads be without every day someone asking a question that can be easily asked in Q&A or using Search/Google or reading the OP. I hope our GS3 userbase matures a little bit faster.

Pro-Con? Cyanogen?
siirus09 said:
... On a different note, it pains me to see so many people asking tiring, old or silly questions about their phone (it sounds like half these people this is their first phone). How much faster and cleaner would threads be without every day someone asking a question that can be easily asked in Q&A or using Search/Google or reading the OP. I hope our GS3 userbase matures a little bit faster.
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As forum regular, you'll always encounter that from those of us who don't come here often. The fact is, stuff is hard to find from scratch because people don't always title their posts for clarity, major issues are discussed via thread-creep, and the search engine just doesn't deliver.
I looked today for a concise, simple pro-con comparing some of these ROMs to each other and to stock, and I didn't find one. I imagine the topic's been discussed in bits and pieces within multiple within threads here, but I couldn't find it in 10 minutes via search. Unless you're a regular reader, stuff is just hard to find quickly.
On the general topic, what's the consensus about Cyanogen 9? I ran C-7 on my GX2 and really liked the extensive customizations and features. I've seen lots of vague posts about the pros of C-9 on GS3, but no one's done even a basic con piece that I can find. It DOES look like the C-9 ROM has a very basic camera app with significantly fewer features than the stock ROM. What else do you lose with Cyanogen?
It looks to this non-expert like the ROMs you're debating here are relatively minor tweaks of stock ROM, while C-9 is an entirely different animal. I'm not such a hobbyist that I'm likely to flash a ROM for cooler animations, quicker transitions, or better menu transparencies. I see anecdotal claims that battery life is improved. How much better is it? Anyone tested it? What real functionality do you gain with these ROMs vs stock? What do you lose? I watched a video or two, and I remain unmoved.
Steve

smartin737 said:
As forum regular, you'll always encounter that from those of us who don't come here often. The fact is, stuff is hard to find from scratch because people don't always title their posts for clarity, major issues are discussed via thread-creep, and the search engine just doesn't deliver.
I looked today for a concise, simple pro-con comparing some of these ROMs to each other and to stock, and I didn't find one. I imagine the topic's been discussed in bits and pieces within multiple within threads here, but I couldn't find it in 10 minutes via search. Unless you're a regular reader, stuff is just hard to find quickly.
On the general topic, what's the consensus about Cyanogen 9? I ran C-7 on my GX2 and really liked the extensive customizations and features. I've seen lots of vague posts about the pros of C-9 on GS3, but no one's done even a basic con piece that I can find. It DOES look like the C-9 ROM has a very basic camera app with significantly fewer features than the stock ROM. What else do you lose with Cyanogen?
It looks to this non-expert like the ROMs you're debating here are relatively minor tweaks of stock ROM, while C-9 is an entirely different animal. I'm not such a hobbyist that I'm likely to flash a ROM for cooler animations, quicker transitions, or better menu transparencies. I see anecdotal claims that battery life is improved. How much better is it? Anyone tested it? What real functionality do you gain with these ROMs vs stock? What do you lose? I watched a video or two, and I remain unmoved.
Steve
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It looks like you've been lurking here for a while. I can't really answer your CM9 question because I haven't tried it because, well, CM10 is actually very stable. I can't give you exact battery stats, but it can go for longer than twelve hours with a few hours screen time for me. You lose a lot of Touchwiz motion features compared to stock, but you get smoother animations and Google Now and just plain stock Android. You do lose a lot of extra camera features but the camera is fully functional.

I've been reading up on both, trying to figure out which one to flash on my phone. Am I right in thinking that FreeGS3 is more feature-filled with mods (like the custom notification toggles and Google Now), while Blazer is closer to stock?
Has anyone written (or YouTubed) a good comparison of the two?

Running blazers 1.7 rom. Seems kind of fast. What's the whole thing about "jelly bean" The anjmstions? I is that suppose to be like project butters improved frame rate? Sorry for my noobness.
Sent from my SPH-L710 using xda premium

deff would like to know the answer to this. i am currently using phantom blazer and its amazing but it does seem closer to stock. would freegs3 be able to do more alterations?
ive been personally trying to figure out how to change the amimations through roomtoolboxpro but still no luck with phamtom blazer.

jkvalentine88 said:
deff would like to know the answer to this. i am currently using phantom blazer and its amazing but it does seem closer to stock. would freegs3 be able to do more alterations?
ive been personally trying to figure out how to change the amimations through roomtoolboxpro but still no luck with phamtom blazer.
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Personally I prefer clarks. Why not just take it for a test drive, try it out for a few days and see what kind of mileage you get