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[Q] Which ROM for best battery life but w stock Sense feel (for the wife's phone!)?

Hi,
I'd appreciate some advice (having searched as best I can first, and without hijacking another thread) - I'm a Nexus One user (running CM6.1, and very happy with it), but my wife's Desire (currently unrooted stock latest OTA update) has a sucky habit of running the battery down to zero every so often when she's not using it and I've been thinking a custom ROM is the way to go. However, there's a lot of roms for the desire, and I can't work out which meets the requirements best:
1) Must appear to be a stock Sense rom to the user (she's just got used to the UI, and I don't want her to get flustered) - I'd like something that seems as much like the stock rom as possible please.
2) Best possible battery life (happy to try uv if it's unobtrusive)
Any replies very much welcome, ta.
Jim

I prefer not to say which ROM is better compared to other ROMs as I think it would be unfair on the developers who have put in so much hard work to bring us such a great variety of ROMs, but in terms of battery life, I would personally say that I had the best battery performance out of OpenDesire. The only problem though is that OpenDesire does not have Sense UI. With it, I was averaging about 2-3 days (depending on usage) use out of it before I need to put it on the charger. At that time, I was also running a different Radio (5.10.05.23).
If you really need Sense UI, then I would suggest LeeDroid's ROM as it provides pretty good battery life as well.
Have you considered the MIUI ROMs? they are pretty new and highly customisable, with an iOS like interface with widgets, also provide impressive battery life and are very stable.
I'm sure many would disagree with my findings but this is just based on my own experience of using these ROMs.

MasDroid,
Many thanks for the advice - I've gone with LeeDroid and it's worked like a charm. A well supported and stable ROM, which I'll recommend to anyone in the same position.
Thanks again!
J

I second MasDroid's opinion about LeeDroid ROM.
I am glad you're enjoying such a good ROM. Hope your wife is happy, i know how important that is

Do you still like your Arc?

So i've had my Arc over 8 months now. I bought it for 2 reasons, the camera and it's size (slimness and screen), all other high-spec phones seem(ed) to be substantially bigger.
Now quite honestly the stock sony rom was bloated and slow, I think we can all agree, cue going down the CM route. However that took an eternity to get the camera working. Now we have 7.2 with a working camera but most people seem to experience significant battery drain which limits the usefulness of the phone, me included.
Cue waiting for CM9.0, all seems to be going well but it's not ready yet (credit to the devs on both of these releases). Now I think about it, i've been waiting all this time for a decent workable rom to make this phone as good as it should be. Shouldn't it have been released fast enough for the mass market? Do SGS2 owners have this? GN owners? I highly doubt it.
Anyway, just intrigued to know if anyone else has similar thoughts to me. Don't get me wrong, I still have hope that this can be the phone I want it to be but when it is it will be outdated and superceded. My 2 cents...

try acronium dude,fully stock,combine with doomkernel,have it supercharge,theme it a little bit,add this add that,it is not the phone itself made it perfect,its you who made it perfect,so my opinion is xperia arc was indeed perfect if you know how to perfecting it..
Sent from my LT18i

Arc is a nice phone, but only if you want to keep it stock.. don't install too many apps ( just very few )... the reason for this is the low RAM and Internal ROM... both making the phone slower and sluggisher when ever you install more apps...
Normally all Android phones have memory management, and all apps if you exit it will stay in the ram to make re-launching it faster... this is nice if you have plenty of RAM... but if you're running low on both RAM and ROM ( like with any mid-low phone ) then this will be hard, as in most cases the RAM will be almost full, the internal ROM will be like this... the phone will try to free some space in order to run any new app you want as the old apps keeps it self in the memory filling it up...
Xperia arc is a nice phone, but the main problem is it's RAM and ROM being too much low... you have to depend on 3rd party apps to free some space in order to make your phone run smoother and faster... you must move every app to the microSD to save the precious internal space... and for some cases this is not enough !! considering the phone comes already with pre-installed apps that most users won't use but they can't remove most of them without root !!
personally, I rooted the phone, installed Titanium Backup pro.. and removed all apps I don't want to save the ROM space, and installed my preferred apps but still running low !! currently I have only 50MB free for the internal ROM, and less than 60MB of free RAM...
using the phone more will make the RAM less slowing up everything in the phone !!
Yeah I know, the best way to use the RAM is to make it fills, but you MUST have free space to make the phone smoother for any new apps/work...
If you have plenty of RAM ( lets say 1GB at least ) then let it takes 700 - 800 meg but just keep some free for the UI, new apps and so on.. something like 100 - 200 is very nice...
that's why 512MB RAM is too low, while 1GB is very nice !! ( talking about GB and earlier, I don't know about ICS ) as the phone normally with a user that loves apps will require at least 600-700MB of RAM which is more than what is already available on the phone !!
this is the story of RAM alone, there's another talk about ROM !!, basically while I have 50MB free, it's on the edge.. any apps will need update will take the ROM, if the app is a system app ( pre installed ), it will be saved to the system app space, the update will stay on the user internal ROM, it will not be integrated to the system space.. so it will eat more of the internal ROM unless you integrated the update to the system space which requires root and a 3rd party app ( Titanium backup )... sometimes even with 50MB free if there's multiple apps to update I can't update them all as the ROM will get filled up and when it reach's 40MB and lower, the system will alert me of low ROM space... and depending on the app it might not be possible to update it as some apps needs to save the update on ROM first before going any where else !!

I think wit the new firmware .69 we will have sony logo and cool xperia boot animation...
just like in Xperia s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbb8j...eature=related
---------- Post added at 12:46 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:40 PM ----------
I got my arc 15 days back
previously owned both x10 and galaxy s
x10 is good but is slow with low gpu
galaxy was blazing fast but i didnt like touch wiz
HTC sense looks good but eats lots of ram
Arc is slim, sexy, speed, smooth and powerful.
have been a fan of SE ui.
I haven,t rooted it yet and maintaining it stock

well the arc is not that fast i have to agree on that one.. but still it is the sexiest phone out there ! and dont worry about lags with low memory, ICS is optimized for a MUCH better memory management, so if sony does it right you won't have to worry about laggy or slow experience because of low ram

I prefer the SE ui compared to sense/tw, and modded stock roms like arconium or festa20's rom. Link2sd sorts out any internal memory issues, Dooms kernel lets you overclock(or underclock), supercharger script or juwe11s ram manager take care of ram issues, linux swap ensures smooth running during intense usage...and so on. Android is open source for a reason.
sinkster©

Thanks for the replies. I'm running 7.2 but maybe i'll move to Arconium. But regardless, that makes my point, I have to install a custom rom to make the phone fast. I don't mind so much about space, I don't install that much, I need it to be a phone, take photos and use a small selection of apps. I shouldn't really need to spend hours of my time unlocking it, playing around with custom roms etc. For us that can do it then great, but what about the 99% of normal users that don't have the knowledge to do any of this, I wonder how they feel, will they buy a Sony again having run with the Sony rom from day one? Unlikely...

honest answer:no
-i need repair it three times
-i got bad battery life only 3-4 hours browsing.
-the body is not solid like lumia/n9.
i hope ICS and a new battery will solve this problem.
and i can start loving my arc.

Had it for 9 months, liked it so much I bought an Arc S
Sent from my LT18a using xda premium

i have the japanese version of the arc for a year now
best phone i've owned
looks great
great in hand
never froze
reasonable battery
all apps work without any force closing
stayed on stock since day one
great sound
nice video streaming
nice cam
just missing the front cam
the xperia S has the same launcher lag as the arc
so lets hope this is fixed on ICS

I'm proud for buyng this phone...i like it bat i think gs2 is not better...i'm testing cm9 actually but it's full of buggs...the battery drain, the flash off the camera band the network...i'm gonna try to install miui...anyway i can't stand the stok rom too (even if is very nice)

I have Arc since April 2011.
It's basically a perfect device.
There are two issues:
1. Crack, which looks bad but doesn't influence anything else (shame...)
2. RAM too low, which can be dealt with by rebooting once a week.
3. The internal memory could be bigger.
I have like 60 apps or so and this phone flies, still on Stock ROM. Seriously, no single freeze or reboot since the .42 FW. It's just brilliant.
So, for the first time I'm not even anxious to get my Xperia S just because I think Arc could work for another year.

doministry said:
I have Arc since April 2011.
It's basically a perfect device.
There are two issues:
1. Crack, which looks bad but doesn't influence anything else (shame...)
2. RAM too low, which can be dealt with by rebooting once a week.
3. The internal memory could be bigger.
I have like 60 apps or so and this phone flies, still on Stock ROM. Seriously, no single freeze or reboot since the .42 FW. It's just brilliant.
So, for the first time I'm not even anxious to get my Xperia S just because I think Arc could work for another year.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I totally agree, and it can only get better with ICS
Sent from my Sony Tablet S using xda premium

I like it but since CM9 is buggy and there's nothing else new, I think I've already explored every nook and cranny of the arc.
Let's hope the ICS update will bring a totally new experience. I'm thinking of UXP NXT.

I'm still an Arc fan, have it for 8 months now. My only problem is the crack. Have it repaired 2 times now. Bought a cover so I don't have to see the crack again if it comes back.
But besides the crack it is perfect. Also stock rom, 75 apps installed and no lag. Perfect camera! I love it!
Sent from my LT15i using Tapatalk

well..
today i got a chance to try out the dual core HTC Sensation.
i have to admit, that occasionally, it is much snappier than the arc but it lacks something.
i don't know.. maybe is it the camera, the display.. but i just like the arc better.
i can get the sensation for a very low price (the price i could sell my arc for no problem) but i decided to keep the arc.
it's just... yes! It's a better phone! An all-arounder.

I have had my arc s for two weeks now before that I had a ray, nexus s and sgs after my x10
My arc s was sim locked and bootloader locked, I got jinx13 to unlock my boot and I installed miui
I love this phone, it is fast, looks awesome and I really really like it.
Should get my barely there case to protect it tomorrow, really happy at least till upgrade when I will get the Xperia S , all the moaning I did when I had my x10 about Sony and the Arc S is superb and the xperia S looks even better
Sent from my LT15/18i-Dimiui using xda premium

Good since rooting
I've had my arc for about 5 months now,
It had become really slow just from using it (loads of apps and all that)
So I rooted it about a month ago with the doomlord method. (never got my head around how to get CM on it though)
And since rooting I'm pretty much happy with it speed-wise.
Oh, and I hated the SE Interface so I run GO Launcher.
This has been my first post. Thank you.

Had my arc now for about 10 months (i think).
Using rooted stock ROM with a few tweaks here and there (v6 supercharger, appwidgetpicker, transparent dock). Deleted a fair bit of the bloatware.
The only problems i have with it are that it's still occasionally laggy, and could do with more internal storage (although its obviously not that much of a problem or i would've gotten around to using apps2sd+).
However, the camera is amazing, the screen is fantastic, we get regular firmware updates and it's the still best looking phone on the market by miles (including all of the new sony phones). It could do with a dual core CPU, more RAM, and more internal storage, but i knew that even when i bought it 10 months ago. Still love it.

never knew why any1 bothered with stock rom or any custom rom
Ok I been using the arc for 10 months had it rooted for 9. I am totally new to hacking phones but think iv done a sweet job.
I could never understand why any1 would waste time having a custom rom, if they all leave parts of the phone not working.
Personally iv been usong go launcher from the market since day 1. Used titanium to delete the bloatware and all stock apps including launcher.
Move apps to sd and have always got more than 150 available in rom. Ram is an issue seeing as there is so little but iv got 214 apps and hav 60-171 free depending what's running. This still proves lacking if you want to open a massive word or excel document. Simply need to break down the fiLe on a pc before putting it on phone that is a pain.
Battery life has always been gash until I found out about patching baseband this should be step 2 for all arc users the battery increase is phenominal,especially in standby. However using 3g with a bright screen and bravia still only3/4hours video playpack.
That being said I phoned tmobile and gave them an ear bashing about battery life on smartphones in general and they sent me another free of charge so 2 batteries works a treat.

[Q] What is the most full-featured 4.X rom?

I'm thinking about finally ditching the 2.3.4 stock rom that's served me well for so many years.
...but since I have been spoiled by 2.3.4, I'm coming in with some extremely high standards. I understand a lot of my Gameloft games will be broken, and I'm willing to come to terms with that.
Requirements:
- I don't want to sacrifice major hardware elements (touchpad/buttons, camera/720p recording, GPS, BT)
- Looking for battery life that will either match or exceed the famously spectacular battery life 2.3.4 users know of
- I'd like to have the new Xperia Play Game Launcher I've seen in the ICS previews
It's asking both a little and a lot at the same time... but with those requirements set in place, I'm not terribly picky about whether it's 4.0, 4.1, 4.2 or 4.3... as long as it's one of them.
Any suggestions?

TLRtheory said:
I'm thinking about finally ditching the 2.3.4 stock rom that's served me well for so many years.
...but since I have been spoiled by 2.3.4, I'm coming in with some extremely high standards. I understand a lot of my Gameloft games will be broken, and I'm willing to come to terms with that.
Requirements:
- I don't want to sacrifice major hardware elements (touchpad/buttons, camera/720p recording, GPS, BT)
- Looking for battery life that will either match or exceed the famously spectacular battery life 2.3.4 users know of
- I'd like to have the new Xperia Play Game Launcher I've seen in the ICS previews
It's asking both a little and a lot at the same time... but with those requirements set in place, I'm not terribly picky about whether it's 4.0, 4.1, 4.2 or 4.3... as long as it's one of them.
Any suggestions?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mission impossible...
Stock 2.3.4 firmware is most stable and fully-compatible for gamer like you.
And there are so many roms out there that you'll need a month to test them all...
I don't know what rom to recommend you, but i can say of some pros and cons of different ics/jb roms out there:
-Stock (Sony) based ICS roms are most compatible in terms of hardware features. Touchpads works in 90% of games (esspecially in gameloft games). All other hardware is almoust 100% in working state. But, ICS is little heavier in terms of memory managment, and whatever rom you choose, if you install heavy apps like facebook that are always on, you're gonna meet Mr.Lag very soon. Also, compared to stock GB, most of them have volume in around 90%, wich is acceptable. You can flash 480p Lupus kernel and getting some free RAM (fyi, 480p on GB is not same as 480p in ICS. Imho, in ICS, 720p looks like streched 480p). Also, there are few types of Stock (Sony) based ICS roms: ported from ics beta for play (little outdated), ported from Neo L's ICS (less features, but not so heavy) and roms ported from other devices (Arc, Ray, T, etc etc), with most features (including small apps)
-CM based ICS have (as all CM roms) lower volume in general (same as stock GB without xLoud), most touchgames works, some roms have problems with back/circle button
-I don't have much expirience with MIUI roms, i tested it few times, but didn't use it much (imho, it is little heavier on RAM, but it's eye-candy). worth a try, for sure
-JB roms are all CM10 based, generally have all features of CM (but not all features of sony apps). And even it works, on all JB roms there is lag when using touchpads. It is barrely noticeable at, for example, at Nova 3, but on heavy game like Modern Combat 4, framerate drop by 10 for sure.
If i missed any, i'm sorry, that is my experience from last (almoust) two years of testing/flashing roms in few words.
I guess you already know, but just for the sake of mentioning, check Xperia Play Index - ROM'S, FIRMWARE, KERNEL'S, GUIDE'S, THEMES, MOD'S. Smokerman had a great job of continuing Fma's work there.

TLRtheory said:
I'm thinking about finally ditching the 2.3.4 stock rom that's served me well for so many years.
...but since I have been spoiled by 2.3.4, I'm coming in with some extremely high standards. I understand a lot of my Gameloft games will be broken, and I'm willing to come to terms with that.
Requirements:
- I don't want to sacrifice major hardware elements (touchpad/buttons, camera/720p recording, GPS, BT)
- Looking for battery life that will either match or exceed the famously spectacular battery life 2.3.4 users know of
- I'd like to have the new Xperia Play Game Launcher I've seen in the ICS previews
It's asking both a little and a lot at the same time... but with those requirements set in place, I'm not terribly picky about whether it's 4.0, 4.1, 4.2 or 4.3... as long as it's one of them.
Any suggestions?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i'm using XPlaystation ICS V14 by Frago, it has smoothest ui IMO compared to the past ics rom i used b4 that is Xperia Play Z final v5 by Markphyton

@TLRtheory
MIUI v5 based on JB
from here.. 3.12.27 http://en.miui.com/thread-3182-1-1.html
or MIUI v4 based on ICS
from here.. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2077280
or wt say about MIUI v2 based on GB from here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2077280 and TURBO Gamers Edition MIUI v2 from here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2201338

Stay with gingerbread!
Almost all other roms out there are experimental and no one was able to perfect a fully compatible one, there's or there are bugs always! If in terms of gaming and overall performance, stay with stock gingerbread, root it and install a modified kernel, from there you can experiment further to even make it better!

im a big fan of ics+ myself
because i have some problems with gb that it doesn't support my router completely
i used most of ics roms around the forum and if you only need a rom full of futures use my Iridescent_Zed_One port but i wont suggest it for gaming or heavy using.
i turned on my hotspot shield on that and started web browsing and phone freezed completely(but gaming was fair enough for myself.i dont use my xperia play for gaming anymore.)
for gaming i will suggest you stock deblaoted rom without any tweaks

Well, I'm trying out xPlaystation v14 now. So far there's a lot I like, but it has this infuriating trend of randomly hanging for about a minute, and it happens frequently enough to where I'm probably gonna try out MIUI.
...if nothing else, just for a functioning Google Now,

Okay so I have MIUI now and OH MY GOD. It was like breathing new life into my Xperia Play.
I do have a couple questions though that I'd like to ask without getting into it's own horribly swamped topic.
1) Where can I access the Permissions Manager? I really need my Link2SD to survive
2) Can I customize the icons on the lock screen? If so, how can I?

[Q] Warranty is up, time to unlock and install a custom rom+kernel. Suggestions?

I'm using stock .96 on my Xperia S, and I'm pretty satisfied with it. I installed the new Home and Walkman, rooted, and for me it's pretty much perfect already.
Since my warranty is up, I want to improve the phone to the max with a custom rom and kernel, but there are a lot of those on here, and I don't really have time to test them all.
Which one do you guys think is faster than stock and with more features and the least amount of bugs (or no bugs at all)?
Thanks in advance.

none,if i say seriously.i was like u but tried almost all roms.all are good and have different advantages but u use ur phone for camera,video and for heavy use like me,dont move to a custom rom for sure.u can try them after making a cwm backup and restore if u dont like.cm10 for locked bootloaders have everything working with few negligible minor bugs

If you like pure stock then I would highly suggest ExistenZ. I am really enjoying it at the moment and has been running fine. I really enjoy my Ion and with the new themes and stuff I don't even want a new device lol. The camera is a issue and if you do try this rom I suggest you also flash advance stock camera before initial boot. The newer camera is cool but with so many bugs its kinda pointless.

Ok then, I've decided how to upgrade... I bought a Samsung Galaxy S4. Found a really good deal on a used one and decided to get it.
Gave my XPS to my father so he upgraded from his god awful Xperia Arc S on ICS (a phone so slow it's literally unusable).
Honestly, I vastly prefer the interface, looks, build, and screen of the Xperia S, but the Galaxy S4 is way faster and the screen is bigger (colors are unrealistic because of OLED, I preferred the screen on the Xperia S), camera is also much better. If I was richer I would have bought a brand new Z1 though.

[XS] Battery life in stock vs. custom roms (nAOSPROM, Chroma)

Greetings,
so I have been running nAOSPROM (most recently b24) for about two months now. And I reluctantly switched back to the latest stock firmware. Reason being that, while battery life with screen off was amazing with the LP roms, it was horrible when I was actually using the phone for surfing or light app usage (no games). I swear I could watch the battery go down in steps of 2 and 3 percent as soon as the screen was on. With stock firmware I feel that the phone actually allows being used.
And now I'm in a bit of a pickle. Because having seen what my beloved XS can do on Lollipop, I really want to keep that experience. On the other hand it's no good to me if I have to carry around a backup battery charger just out of fear the battery will break down in the middle of the day if I use the device too much. Also I have seen that the XS can do everything I expect from my phone, I really want to avoid buying a new phone just for battery life.
I am now asking for your experience that is certainly further reaching than mine: Is this something that can or will get better? I.e., is it natural due to the increased complexity of Lollipop, or is it something that can be remedied by optimized builds, optimized CPU governors or similar? Or even has already gotten better with Chroma (which claims battery optimization but I haven't gotten around to trying yet)?
Thank you for any insight, I appreciate it.

Alright, to answer to myself, maybe it will help others in the same situation:
Going back to the stock ROM was not an option anymore. It installed fine alright, but obviously even light use of contemporary apps (Google Maps, Facebook) brings it to a screeching halt. I've had multiple occasions when I would exit an app, and the stock launcher would groaningly launch all over again, bringing up widgets one by one. On a completely fresh factory install. So, no, besides JB being horribly outdated if you had LP in hands, it is just not viable anymore.
Now I'm running Chroma and I must say, as impressed as I was with nAOSPROM, I like Chroma more. If you go by perception alone, nAOSPROM runs a little "smoother", it feels a little zippier and more fluid. However, I can't shake the feeling that it comes at a steep price, and that Chroma is much easier on the battery, especially in active app use which is backed up by my battery stats. Asides from probably a few days with screen off, I get between 4 and 6 hours of active app use out of the system, which is perfectly fine for my needs -- I didn't keep logfiles of nAOSPROM, but it seemed considerably shorter. Also, having already only flashed the Pico gapps, I feel right at home with the minimalistic installation of Chroma. So for the time being, I'll stick with that one.
The only thing I actually miss from the stock ROM is its snappy, lightweight stock camera that starts quite a lot faster than anything on an AOSP ROM. But, eh, if that's the price to pay, I'll happily accept it.
My thanks go out to the developers of both ROMs. Thank you for keeping my device alive.