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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
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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
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ROM comparison topics are not allowed in XDA
it discourages DEVelopments
and also fuels a lot of trolling
... 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.
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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
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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
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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.
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
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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.
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@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.
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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.
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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.
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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
I'm going to be flashing an SGS2 for someone I know and I was wondering what a good setup as far as ROM, kernel, recovery, radio is for stability and features.
They upgraded from a LG G2x running CM7.2 Nightlies so they have basic experience with custom ROMs, but they don't know all that extreme technical crap.
I'm thinking about Juggernaut because it has a lot of good tweaks and features or maybe CM7 since they aren't many thing on the non-working list.
Please reply with any helpful suggestions, I'm considering flashing an ICS ROM but I'm not sure if it would be stable enough for daily use.
Thanks
The ICS ROMs are suitable as DDs, so take your pick! Choose any of the T-Mo Leaks!
As of now, the kernels that come with the ICS ROMs are as is, so no worries there.
For Gingerbread, if you choose the Darkside ROM, it has a special kernel, made directly for the ROM, but you can still swap out for a different kernel.
With CM7, you can only use the kernel that's meant for it.
All other Gingerbread ROMs are customizable as you see fit.
I hope that helps!
Whatever ROM you choose, you can always ask more questions in its Thread!
I'd say
Dark side
Beast mod
Juggernaut
Not in any specific order
I'd lay off the ics unless your buddy is gonna update it often
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I think I'll go with one of those modified ICS leaks and stay away from the AOSP until it goes into RC quality.
Mostly from CM7 he liked the custom gestures, audio tweaks and such. He really just wants good battery to last a while and has zero tolerance for lag so V6 will come in good use. I'm a port dev so I'll be able to throw in the beats libs and dsp manager.
How is the battery stats on the ICS leak?
Sent from my SGH-T679 using Tapatalk 2
For ICS use [ROM][ICS] :ARKSIDE.EVOLUTION.2:: [BETA2 [UVLC8][WiFi CALLING][5.06.2012]. I run it as my every day ROM and its nothing short of amazing. If you don't want ICS use [ROM] Telus SGH-T989D Stock, Rooted, Lightly Tweaked, 100% [CIQ Free] with [KERNEL] Synergy v0.10 [CK3+, Autogrouping, OC, UV, BFQ, BLN, OTG] it gets crazy battery life but is getting old.
Also be sure to wipe your phone via [TOOL]:ARKSIDE::SUPER::WIPE[ext4][2.8.2012]
KemikalElite said:
I think I'll go with one of those modified ICS leaks and stay away from the AOSP until it goes into RC quality.
Mostly from CM7 he liked the custom gestures, audio tweaks and such. He really just wants good battery to last a while and has zero tolerance for lag so V6 will come in good use. I'm a port dev so I'll be able to throw in the beats libs and dsp manager.
How is the battery stats on the ICS leak?
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Personally, I'd take an AOSP GB build over leaked TW ICS builds. RC6 CM7 is rock solid stable with no real bugs and tons of customization. Every bit as smooth as TW ICS imo.
2hvy4grvty said:
Personally, I'd take an AOSP GB build over leaked TW ICS builds. RC6 CM7 is rock solid stable with no real bugs and tons of customization. Every bit as smooth as TW ICS imo.
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But the issue is he wants better than stock battery life and AOSP delivers the exact opposite of that. But I'll see what he wants between all this tomorrow. For most novice users that I flash roms for its about finding a perfect balance between performance, stability, and features. So in simple terms: Noobs always want everything to be perfect and don't understand the concept of how difficult debugging roms is.
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Personally. I wouldn't flash any ICS ROM's just yet. There are a few apps that I use daily that doesn't work with any of the leaked bases.
The GB ROM's that I liked were Darkside, Revenge of Macnut, Juggernaut, and Tuesday.
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been using juggernaut5 for over a month now.....had the phone for about 4 hours before i had it rooted and rom'd. juggernaut has been very stable for me and i'm on the verge of trying out one of the ics roms built with the t989 kernel from tmobile-either romchicago or darkside.evolution
OK,
They want stability, performance, and battery life and I've heard about some recent superbricks in ICS for the SGS2 and Galaxy Note. So I think the best option for now is to stay on GB and go with Juggernaut 5 + Beats, DSP, V6 + whatever custom kernel. Final Decision. Or maybe ROMChicago if they feel lucky.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/tibt5/heads_up_superbrick_bug_present_in_ics_leaks_for/
Now since this should be flashed as fast as possible I've been thinking about how Samsung has ODIN and you can make custom images for it, so if I could just package the CWM, System ROM, kernel, and Blaze 4G radio into an ODIN package. Flash it in like 2 minutes, setup V6 and be done with it.
I've been searching for some guides to create packages but most of them only show how to create it as a backup from the current ROM.
personally, i love M&S's roms, especially Bombardier. It goes super will with Synergy kernel v.10, the battery life and performance is amazing!
OK, Let me just say that I'm sorry for this thread but it turns out the actual phone is a stock SGS 4G running Froyo.
I thank you all for your input anyway.
KemikalElite said:
OK, Let me just say that I'm sorry for this thread but it turns out the actual phone is a stock SGS 4G running Froyo.
I thank you all for your input anyway.
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Haha, nice!
xcrazydx said:
Haha, nice!
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On a closing note, Again I wanna thank everyone for their responses and I review and write guides for ROMs so what I learned here won't go unused. Plus I'm sure someone else I know will want a SGS2 flashed.
This is the ROM I flashed for the SGS 4G in case anyone was wondering.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1402966
The phone got stuck in ODIN twice (guide didn't mention to uncheck repartition) and I had to use the one click unbrick to get into download mode again. At first I almost had a heart attack because I thought it need JTAG to fix. So thanks to the devs responsible for that tool.
Development for that phone is almost dead but if there's one thing I liked about the SGS1 series they had some awesome stock ROMs.
The most important lesson I learned is that using ODIN is like playing with fire: It does cool s*** but it can ruin everything.
KemikalElite said:
On a closing note, Again I wanna thank everyone for their responses and I review and write guides for ROMs so what I learned here won't go unused. Plus I'm sure someone else I know will want a SGS2 flashed.
This is the ROM I flashed for the SGS 4G in case anyone was wondering.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1402966
The phone got stuck in ODIN twice (guide didn't mention to uncheck repartition) and I had to use the one click unbrick to get into download mode again. At first I almost had a heart attack because I thought it need JTAG to fix. So thanks to the devs responsible for that tool.
Development for that phone is almost dead but if there's one thing I liked about the SGS1 series they had some awesome stock ROMs.
The most important lesson I learned is that using ODIN is like playing with fire: It does cool s*** but it can ruin everything.
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Click to collapse
Yeah, if you have repartition checked for our phone its toast, with no fix. Except jtag or send in for warranty
Darkside evolution
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My signature.....I always end up going back
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Hi guys jus bought the galaxy nexus after a wonderful experience of galasy s .. plz suggest what should be my first rom on nexus..i like modifications.. i used slimics and teraslimics and sometime cynogen nightlies..
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Miui jb
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Codename android 3.3.0 jb 4.1.1 verzion gnex has sh1t tons of add ons and theme options
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AOKP Jelly Bean Build 1
http://aokp.co/index.php/releases/_/jellybean-build-1-r28
I suggest the official CM nightlies or Build 1 of AOKP JB.
Black bean
Like the others said,AOKP JellyBean Build 1
Is it necessary to flash bootloader and radio also when flashing a custom rom?
Basically thats the only thing holding me back now because im not sure.
I've already unlocked and rooted,just not ready yet for a custom rom :angel:
I'm new to the Gnex too, but spent two years trying to get an ancient Galaxy Spica 5700 to run CM7...
Got the Gnex about a week ago, and immediately started looking around here. I chose AndroidME CM10, because it looked good, and in the developement thread no one seemed to have problems, and they said the battery life was very good. I can't remember if it's GSM only though.... Anyway I'm very happy with it, no probs at all, and battery life is good. I see that generally in America all you guys who use Google Now and all that and have different network frequencies complain about battery life, but I don't really use the phone that much, and with this ROM I get a few days with minimal screen use. There are also two other ROMs by the same dev, a modded stock JB and an AOSP JB. I like the look of the new Codename android 3.3.1, but in the dev thread too many people have little problems, and after years of limited functionality on my old phone I just want something stable and nice, to relax for a while. At least until I get bored...
RE baseband, If you look around in the forum (General forum I think,) you'll find a page all about basebands and with packages to flash them all. On my GSM I had to change the baseband, because you can't use the original baseband with JB.
I dunno what modding the Galaxy S was like for you, but based on my past with my Spica I'm loving my first Nexus device, it's all so easy! Good Luck
Thats so easy!!!! Just go for CM10, then change to AOKP, then go all in Paranoid, then just flash Miui and be happy :highfive:
AndyGnex said:
Is it necessary to flash bootloader and radio also when flashing a custom rom?
Basically thats the only thing holding me back now because im not sure.
I've already unlocked and rooted,just not ready yet for a custom rom :angel:
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If you've already received the JB OTA, then the bootloader and radio are already up to date. You could always just flash a custom recovery and SU. I've been running rooted stock since I got my phone
Whatever you're first custom ROM is, BAMF Paradigm will be your last, because once you flash BAMF, you won't want/need to flash anything else
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
Yup go MIUI JB it's the best,I run it with the james bond kernel
Jellin' like a felon
ppog said:
I'm new to the Gnex too, but spent two years trying to get an ancient Galaxy Spica 5700 to run CM7...
Got the Gnex about a week ago, and immediately started looking around here. I chose AndroidME CM10, because it looked good, and in the developement thread no one seemed to have problems, and they said the battery life was very good. I can't remember if it's GSM only though.... Anyway I'm very happy with it, no probs at all, and battery life is good. I see that generally in America all you guys who use Google Now and all that and have different network frequencies complain about battery life, but I don't really use the phone that much, and with this ROM I get a few days with minimal screen use. There are also two other ROMs by the same dev, a modded stock JB and an AOSP JB. I like the look of the new Codename android 3.3.1, but in the dev thread too many people have little problems, and after years of limited functionality on my old phone I just want something stable and nice, to relax for a while. At least until I get bored...
RE baseband, If you look around in the forum (General forum I think,) you'll find a page all about basebands and with packages to flash them all. On my GSM I had to change the baseband, because you can't use the original baseband with JB.
I dunno what modding the Galaxy S was like for you, but based on my past with my Spica I'm loving my first Nexus device, it's all so easy! Good Luck
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Hey, I came from Spica too. That was so buggy and slow despite the attempts by various devs. Used it for 2 yrs. GNex is so much better.
Anyway for the OP. I wanted the stock experience initially. So i am on Android Revolution and stock kernel. Wifi reception is pretty poor. Many have reported that on different ROMS. Will have to try out different kernels or wait till google gives a fix. There are no other issues and battery life is good. But i am getting bored with stock. Might try Xenon HD.
Xenon is a great choice had it till the new MIUI came out. For kernels I have had the best battery life with james bond. Have not tried slim bean yet but I ran slim ics and it was great. I think the rom was only like 50 mb
Jellin' like a felon
Stock.
For the love of god, stop asking and start doing!
Aokp build 1.. so far good
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
Im using MiNCO right now on my GNEX and its running great and so far its the most stable ROM I've tried. I've tried XenonHD and RASCARLO. I've only had my GNEX for about a week and I'm about to try BAMF
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Codename is packed with features from many of the other ROMS. Been running fine for me, with Franco kernel
of course the CM10 nightlies!!