Related
IF anybody is interested here is a great new launcher https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.buzzpia.aqua.launcher&feature=more_from_developer#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEwMiwiY29tLmJ1enpwaWEuYXF1YS5sYXVuY2hlciJd
Looks intressting!
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda app-developers app
I've tried it and it is really nice, but I uninstalled it because it consumed too much battery and ram. The final version when it comes out I will definitely try again
I use it, it works pretty good.
I installed this launcher to try the Chrome OS theme from mycolorscreen, The Launcher is pretty good, but i just cannot leave the fast and fluid stock one.
http://mycolorscreen.com/2013/03/23/os-transfer/
Likes good...has anybody got it to work on Nexus 7?
Edit: never mind I got it working on Nexus 7
Nice launcher, but it needs a bit more development.
This is amazing. Just downloaded it and it runs beautifully and love how it comes pre set up.
Rather confusing launcher, I think I will try it out again and try to get the Chrome theme on it, but honestly wasn't impressed.
This is not just another launcher. A completely new launcher.
Congrats guys, very innovative. More innovative than apple and Samsung all together
Gotcha, now after watching the tutorial video I see the potential this launcher has. Great work!
Just a very very good launcher, I'm impressed !
Buy it's very annoying to have to download a lot of gadgets for it to be perfect.
And some french traduction of the main app and of the widget are awful, that makes the application hard to configure.
battery
it indeed eats too much battery...but i have to admit, it does look good
freeintruth said:
it indeed eats too much battery...but i have to admit, it does look good
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1
Drain battery but overall really nice launcher :good:
vicino said:
+1
Drain battery but overall really nice launcher :good:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yea it does eat battery on more ram but wait till they sort that out i think mite be up there with nova apex ect one day
second thought: after a couple of days using this launcher and paying close attention to the battery usage, I have to say that it does not drain as much as i thought. I guess it depends on what homepack you download/use.
This launcher really makes my phone a lot better looking, with very little time and energy. And the customization freedom is huge!
I have now officially uninstalled Go Launcher.
freeintruth said:
second thought: after a couple of days using this launcher and paying close attention to the battery usage, I have to say that it does not drain as much as i thought. I guess it depends on what homepack you download/use.
This launcher really makes my phone a lot better looking, with very little time and energy. And the customization freedom is huge!
I have now officially uninstalled Go Launcher.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its alot closer to SSL Launcher but in a clean more user friendly interface. Can't wait for it to be stable now. I put the Chrome theme on it that was shared earlier and its sick! Trying to replicate the Chrome theme on other launchers like Apex and Nova using Multi-Live Wallpaper and its becoming even more tedious. This makes things alot easier when creating a theme for mycolorscreen.
Corrupt colors and textures.. I was seeing alpha channel instead with some textures.
Beautiful and innovative home screen, high battery+ram usage, boring app drawner
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2
This is a fantastic tool for customization, a congratulations to the app developers on this one. Let's hope it catches on and we get an influx of themes.
If you love TouchWiz tell us why.
If you don't like TouchWiz tell us why.
I look forward to hear your thoughts.
Cheers
I really don't mind TouchWiz myself. Since I came from an LG G2 which had a godawful stock interface this phone felt like a breath of fresh air. I use Nova Launcher so I'm not exposed much to a lot of TouchWiz but I think it is fluid overall. If Samsung would cut down on the bloat apps like Google has it would be great. I also miss the quick settings of AOSP, the implementation on this phone gets the job done though. Overall I'm alright with it but I hope we see improvements.
Sent from my SM-N900T using Tapatalk
alone-together said:
I really don't mind TouchWiz myself. Since I came from an LG G2 which had a godawful stock interface this phone felt like a breath of fresh air. I use Nova Launcher so I'm not exposed much to a lot of TouchWiz but I think it is fluid overall. If Samsung would cut down on the bloat apps like Google has it would be great. I also miss the quick settings of AOSP, the implementation on this phone gets the job done though. Overall I'm alright with it but I hope we see improvements.
Sent from my SM-N900T using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I hear you there.
quick settings of AOSP is awesome
What I noticed was the large storage consumption and not good for battery life. I remember reading one of the comments here in XDA that TW slow downed his beast phone GN3.
Lorettaa said:
What I noticed was the large storage consumption and not good for battery life. I remember reading one of the comments here in XDA that TW slow downed his beast phone GN3.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
TW isnt an issue for me though i do use Nova Prime. Before I put Nova on the Note 3 was supremely fast without any lag that i could notice. I then activated the developer options and i set all 3 animations to x.5, with that, no root needed and the Note 3 is probably the fastest phone out there. At least until there are SD 805's out there. once Nova is on the phone, forget it, it's as smooth as butter.
I'm really not a fan of ASOP anymore. I used to use it on my Bionic but with S4 and now the Note 3, I have enjoyed TW mostly. I just cant stand how ASOP just looks like a old and dated UI. It's so basic and boring (like settings and the toggles) that it just looks like something a 10 year old would make. lol to me it's like watching an old 70's or 80's TV show today. You look at it and you can tell it's not current. I just like how a UI looks, not like a fisher price look like the S5 but not bland like ASOP either.
Battery life on stock rooted and debloated i was still getting like 8 hours of screen time. So the battery wasn't an issue for me from the get go.
USBhost said:
I hate TouchWiz with all my mind.
I hate apple with all my mind and soul.
Well the reason why I don't like touchwiz is because it reminds me of apple
And its just so hard to work with and I'm bound by it because I need WiFi calling.
I grew up with the Google version of Android
Its so nice and fun to use. it looks complex but it's simple and in a nice format.
But TouchWiz looks too simple/complex and in a bad format.
Also TouchWiz is full of stuff I don't even know that its for and it takes so much
Room 1.5g+ but in Google version of Android its 150mb+ now that's a big difference.
It almost seems like TouchWiz ROMs are built with apps there are like 300+ apps in a
TouchWiz ROM, but in a true android rom its like 50+ apps. If your like me who deletes
Apps that I don't need that will be a problem with TouchWiz roms. The apps are the firmware that will make deleting apps with a lot more consequence. And with all those apps it will bring down the performance of your phone.
writing this down helped me relieve my frustrations with TouchWiz.
Share your experience with your TouchWiz experience so we can all suffer together.
If you love TouchWiz tell us why.
I look forward to hear your thoughts.
Cheers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wow...there are a lot of misconceptions here.
First you do not need a Touchwiz phone to have wifi calling. The Xperia Z1S, the HTC One M8, LG G2, Flex, Optimus and other phones support wifi calling...Google phones do not because they get their software from Google without the carrier files. So you are not stuck with Touchwiz.
The amount of apps on your phone do not impede performance. It would be the amount of apps running and syncing that would do that.
Touchwiz is a UI...not just apps or the launcher as someone mentioned using Nova...you are still on Touchwiz..just not the TW launcher.
So it is true that a UI sitting on top of a base OS can only slow things down a little...think Windows on top of DOS for us old folks.
As TW phones are made for the common folk, there are a lot of included TW tied in apps for the general consumer so they do not have to spend hours searching Play for that perfect Sticky note app, or music player, or whatever...These apps can certainly be removed or frozen.
Also included in the 1.5GB of OS is all the carrier support files and all the Google Apps...that 150MB you mention for AOSP has no Gapps included.
I, too have tried AOSP ROMs...and found them to be no different with how they operate except all the nice shortcuts are gone and all the TW apps and widgets too. All are very Apple-like to me. I always got the best battery life on ROMs based on stock (TW).
KennyG123 said:
Wow...there are a lot of misconceptions here.
First you do not need a Touchwiz phone to have wifi calling. The Xperia Z1S, the HTC One M8, LG G2, Flex, Optimus and other phones support wifi calling...Google phones do not because they get their software from Google without the carrier files. So you are not stuck with Touchwiz.
The amount of apps on your phone do not impede performance. It would be the amount of apps running and syncing that would do that.
Touchwiz is a UI...not just apps or the launcher as someone mentioned using Nova...you are still on Touchwiz..just not the TW launcher.
So it is true that a UI sitting on top of a base OS can only slow things down a little...think Windows on top of DOS for us old folks.
As TW phones are made for the common folk, there are a lot of included TW tied in apps for the general consumer so they do not have to spend hours searching Play for that perfect Sticky note app, or music player, or whatever...These apps can certainly be removed or frozen.
Also included in the 1.5GB of OS is all the carrier support files and all the Google Apps...that 150MB you mention for AOSP has no Gapps included.
I, too have tried AOSP ROMs...and found them to be no different with how they operate except all the nice shortcuts are gone and all the TW apps and widgets too. All are very Apple-like to me. I always got the best battery life on ROMs based on stock (TW).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes it's true there are misconceptions but that's how it see things.
But When you said I don't need a TouchWiz to have wifi calling sns/mms that's true but I don't have those phones
And what did you mean about "carrier support files"
So wifi calling uses a Giga of Space
USBhost said:
Well the reason why I don't like touchwiz is because it reminds me of apple
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No offence but this is the dumbest thing i have ever heard. Please do tell how vastly different and inferior TW reminds you of anything that apple puts out. Do tell.
Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk
nohcho said:
No offence but this is the dumbest thing i have ever heard. Please do tell how vastly different and inferior TW reminds you of anything that apple puts out. Do tell.
Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No offence taken but I just want you to understand
Every one has there different feelings
TW is different to Apple that's a given
Its just TW is closer to apples ui
I'm just Apple hater that's me
So if something is close to Apple I just don't like it
USBhost said:
Yes it's true there are misconceptions but that's how it see things.
But When you said I don't need a TouchWiz to have wifi calling sns/mms that's true but I don't have those phones
And what did you mean about "carrier support files".
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
nohcho said:
No offence but this is the dumbest thing i have ever heard. Please do tell how vastly different and inferior TW reminds you of anything that apple puts out. Do tell.
Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
lol sorry but i have to ask as well. You say "inferior" to Apple, I'd have to say that's inaccurate but subjective at best. If you mean inferior to an OS that is basically nothing but an app drawer, then ok I guess.
USBhost said:
Yes it's true there are misconceptions but that's how it see things.
But When you said I don't need a TouchWiz to have wifi calling sns/mms that's true but I don't have those phones
And what did you mean about "carrier support files"
So wifi calling uses a Giga of Space
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Carrier support files are all those wonderful things you guys like like CIQ, and can't speak for T-mobile but Sprint adds things like Sprint Zone, Sprint Connection Optimizer and many more..so T-mobile has their own brand of similar files.
You complained about Touchwiz...is this your first Touchwiz phone? You stated you had to have it..I guess if you are stuck with this phone then yes..even the Nexus 5 does not have wifi calling and there is nothing they can do about it..so at least you have a choice. If this is not your first Touchwiz phone then...why?
Wifi calling does not use a gig of space...however Google apps and Touchwiz apps and support files together do. Samsung is lazy...if you ever decompile one of their apps you will see 1000's of icons that are never used...because the same TW app works on the other carrier phones as well as many other models so the icon packs included have to cover many resolutions so there are redundant folders. It is not cost effective to them to trim down all these apps and custom tune them for each phone they include them on...and then they would have to do the same for each update. Regardless, they do steal a little less than a GB of internal storage space. If you were to take an AOSP ROM, add gapps, and also download an equivalent app from Play for what is included in Touchwiz ROMs you would start nearing the same size. Debloated TW ROMs are about half the size of full stock.
Don't like the idea of being stuck with TW. I actually prefer AOSP but on the note3, TW is just so much smoother and has everything I need and there aren't any problems. I love how I can use the full function of the phones (s-pen and things affiliate with it) without worrying to find good working apps that would be as remotely easy to use).
Even before my root and custom rom installation, my stock note 3 was as smooth as butter. So all in all, TW doesn't bother me as much as it does some people.
I don't see why you don't just flash a Aosp theme if you don't like the look of touchwiz. I'm all for AOSP but there are just things that touchwiz has that makes me want to stay like Pen window.
Techniques said:
I don't see why you don't just flash a Aosp theme if you don't like the look of touchwiz. I'm all for AOSP but there are just things that touchwiz has that makes me want to stay like Pen window.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dose Aosp theme change the look of settings to aosp
I am actually a major HTC fan and since I have owned my note 3 I have enjoyed the TW experience except for the fact that it is a ram hog
Sent from my SM-N900T using Tapatalk
R187J said:
I am actually a major HTC fan and since I have owned my note 3 I have enjoyed the TW experience except for the fact that it is a ram hog
Sent from my SM-N900T using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know
Well in my experience , touchwiz isn't all that bad at all. It does lag here and there but with the right kernel and rom, it is very much usable and fluid. I used to use Nova exclusively but after going back to touchwiz these past fewweeks, I realized it's pretty good.
messiahfreedom said:
Well in my experience , touchwiz isn't all that bad at all. It does lag here and there but with the right kernel and rom, it is very much usable and fluid. I used to use Nova exclusively but after going back to touchwiz these past fewweeks, I realized it's pretty good.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK...again...Touchwiz is a UI. Nova replaces the TW Launcher...not Touchwiz itself....the slide to call or message, settings options, the apps that are TW exclusive and much more is Touchwiz.
Oh my bad. You meant the touchwiz as a whole. Well, as a whole. Anyway touchwiz for the most part is simple enough. It takes some playing with in order to realize it's features, but for the most part it is alright. It's more simple than what the iPhone offers, at least in my opinion.
New Touchwiz
The new Touchwiz on GS5 is acceptable, closer to flat design, i like it.
good morning follow Note 2 users
I found something worth sharing for us permanently battery and resource thirsty.
I recently upgrade my Note 2 (N7105) to Stock KitKat 4.4.2 and immediately started checking the battery performance, which is quite impressive.
I have been using on 4.3 the TouchWiz Launcher but tried the Apex launcher on 4.4.2 battery performance went down significantly.
with Apex I managed to get barely 18 hours battery with normal use.
I have decided to test both touchwiz and apex with the same desktops (apps and widgets) over a single night without use.
the test with Apex led to a battery loss of 30%
the test with TouchWIz led to a battery loss of 7%
until I will find a better solution, I will stay with TouchWIz.
Any recommendations?
Jrevel said:
Any recommendations?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i am pretty comfortable with touchwiz and haven't tried anything elese in over a year. U can try go launcher. I used it earlier in my atrix 2 and it never had any issues.
Another one is nova.
Droiderr said:
i am pretty comfortable with touchwiz and haven't tried anything elese in over a year. U can try go launcher. I used it earlier in my atrix 2 and it never had any issues.
Another one is nova.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Go launcher will suck more battery due to its tons of plugins
Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk
I am using nova as well. Maybe apex has a wakelock problem. You should check it first. If phone can't get to the deep sleep it consumes much battery.
Sent from my GT-N7100 using XDA Free mobile app
I was using Themer and Aviate. I think themer is much better and battery consuming is little more than TouchWiz. But at the end I stay with TouchWiz
Even on a super fast device like this one, Touchwiz is still garbage in terms of fluidity and smoothness compared to Sense. 6
I just switched from HTC One M8, and it was smoother than Touchwiz in almost every respect. Sure, some scenarios are nearly indistinguishable on both devices in terms of smoothness, but some are really bad on Note 4.
For example, whenever something happens in the background that requires storage access, the Note starts to chug.
Do this test on your device. Start updating 5-10 apps in the Play Store, then go and scroll in some other app. You will see immediately that the scrolling becomes jerky and sometimes stops completely for half a second when a new app starts updating. Sense doesn't do that. If you've never played with Sense 6, I suggest you go to a store and check it out - it's completely smooth regardless of what happens in the background.
It's as if Sense can utilize only idle cpu cycles for background processes, so everything remains smooth and fluid at all times, while Note 4 appears to give full real time priority for certain routines of background processes. For a modern flagship devices, this is unacceptable.
I really hope we can get root very soon, so developers can possibly fix this travesty.
How do we get Samsung to care about this? I took their survey from the email I got. I focused on speed and performance. How else can we alert Samsung? That people who care about speed and performance should have a voice?
Touchwiz is sorta like windows vista lmao
I doubt anyone on XDA uses Touchwiz versus Nova and the other choices.
chamberc said:
I doubt anyone on XDA uses Touchwiz versus Nova and the other choices.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Touchwiz here refers to the entire Android "skin, " not just the launcher. You will have jerky performance of the kind I described in the op with Nova and any other launcher.
I have used Nova for years and the performance blows TW out of the water. No "jerkiness" at all.
chamberc said:
I doubt anyone on XDA uses Touchwiz versus Nova and the other choices.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tons of people use the TouchWiz launcher. Nova is nice, and I used it on my g3, but I need the stock widgets that can't be replicated.
OP. I agree to a point. Touchwiz is much more fluid that in the past. It has hiccups, but it's a trade off for feature rich software. It's odd, because the g3 lacked features and lagged worse than any phone I've owned. The m8 is buttery smooth, but it's also boring.
chamberc said:
I have used Nova for years and the performance blows TW out of the water. No "jerkiness" at all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You didn't even read what I wrote did you?
Rippley05 said:
Tons of people use the TouchWiz launcher. Nova is nice, and I used it on my g3, but I need the stock widgets that can't be replicated.
OP. I agree to a point. Touchwiz is much more fluid that in the past. It has hiccups, but it's a trade off for feature rich software. It's odd, because the g3 lacked features and lagged worse than any phone I've owned. The m8 is buttery smooth, but it's also boring.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't think it's a trade off. It feels like there's a fundamental problem with the way the skin is programmed by Samsung.
But I'm not an expert. It would be nice if a developer could chime in.
nabbed said:
You didn't even read what I wrote did you?
I don't think it's a trade off. It feels like there's a fundamental problem with the way the skin is programmed by Samsung.
But I'm not an expert. It would be nice if a developer could chime in.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You bet... Nova is far less laggy than touchwiz.
chamberc said:
You bet... Nova is far less laggy than touchwiz.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Please stop derailing the thread. Touchwiz is an android skin, not just the launcher. You can't use Nova while scrolling in a web browser, can you?
nabbed said:
Please stop derailing the thread. Touchwiz is an android skin, not just the launcher. You can't use Nova while scrolling in a web browser, can you?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LOLOL he is just not getting what you're saying dude... give up on him... the rest of us understand exactly what you mean... cannot wait for root.... hopeful after reading the last few posts of this thread ---> http://forum.xda-developers.com/note-4-verizon/general/talk-root-t2908919/page18# we may be getting somewhere...
nabbed said:
You didn't even read what I wrote did you?
I don't think it's a trade off. It feels like there's a fundamental problem with the way the skin is programmed by Samsung.
But I'm not an expert. It would be nice if a developer could chime in.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not an expert either, but it's obvious, at least to me, that the more you cram into an OS..the more it taxes the hardware/software.
It is a tradeoff because everyone who has owned a Samsung device knows it will be this way..so we trade off butter smoothness for software features. Maybe Samsung will figure it out one day, maybe they won't.
HTC was the same way until they stripped Sense down to barebones. While it is nice to scroll on the m8, it is also boring for me to have such a generic feeling device. It's all about preference.
My N4 is very smooth. Especially compared to my G3. Only thing that lags is the recent apps button up, which is a bit disappointing as I use that all the time.
I agree with the issues with tw. Part of it has to do with the work on the Java threads which is why the choreographer process always drops frames which is the jitter. The kernels are also tuned differently and more for stability than anything else.
Rippley05 said:
I'm not an expert either, but it's obvious, at least to me, that the more you cram into an OS..the more it taxes the hardware/software.
It is a tradeoff because everyone who has owned a Samsung device knows it will be this way..so we trade off butter smoothness for software features. Maybe Samsung will figure it out one day, maybe they won't.
HTC was the same way until they stripped Sense down to barebones. While it is nice to scroll on the m8, it is also boring for me to have such a generic feeling device. It's all about preference.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Since you've made it abundantly clear that the launcher is a separate issue, how is sense boring, not counting the launcher?
Just about every Android Ive ever used gets herky jerky when apps are installing. Thunderbolt, GNex, Note 3, etc.
Samsung should be able to tune the response in things like recent apps though. I was using a DROID RAZR M recently and recent apps pops up instantly on that old thing. The Note 4 takes a good second or three to bring up recent apps depending how many recent apps are in there.
deefster said:
Since you've made it abundantly clear that the launcher is a separate issue, how is sense boring, not counting the launcher?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually. Where did I make it abundantly clear? May want to pay attention to what you read. Wasn't me.
Sense is boring to me. It's generic, doesn't offer a fraction of the software features and customization that samsung/LG offer. That's the tradeoff for being so smooth..and that's what I was talking about. Not the launcher.
I'm enjoying touch wiz. I don't see how u guys don't like it. If u don't like it then just don't buy a Samsung phone.
It's more of a fundamental issue with android in general. Here is an older article, but it explains the issue pretty well.
http://techland.time.com/2011/12/07/is-android-doomed-to-lag-more-than-ios/
Maybe lollipop will change how the UI is rendered , maybe not. But I don't think the lagginess is the sole product of touchwiz. Touchwiz does not modify the deep level coding that controls CPU access prority, ISR behavior, etc. Seems like Samsung is trying to do the best with what they got.
Here is some follow up on the guys original post where google developers comment.
https://plus.google.com/app/basic/stream/z13fzt2wrwaxwjqxc04cdx0jsve5hhl4b04
While I'm not a software engineer, I am an electrical and computer engineer. I quit my full time job and went back to school at 30 because I was tired of not being educated enough to understand the things I had questions about.
It's funny.. the more I learned the more I realized how astonishingly difficult it was/is to build the technology we have today. The amount of engineering that goes into designing today's modern processors is incredible. Now that I am "in the know" with exactly how these things work, it's a lot easier for me to understand the milestones and why things are the way they are (heat dissapation in modern multicore CPUs is one of those things that is hard to solve and even harder to explain to the layman why it's hard to solve, a commanding grasp of quantum physics and modern microscale transistor design theory is needed) and I don't get bothered by it, I realize that it's being worked on and I can identify the subtle improvements and I recognize the significance of those improvements.
The point is, it's easy to "blame" samsung or Google for the stuttering you are experiencing, but it's better to recognize the progress that's being made. The problem is not trivial to solve and to think it is or that "it should have been fixed by now" is really naive.
crazed_z06 said:
Just about every Android Ive ever used gets herky jerky when apps are installing. Thunderbolt, GNex, Note 3, etc.
Samsung should be able to tune the response in things like recent apps though. I was using a DROID RAZR M recently and recent apps pops up instantly on that old thing. The Note 4 takes a good second or three to bring up recent apps depending how many recent apps are in there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is really the thing that bothers me the most. Bringing up recent apps is SO SLOW. There is a huge delay when you press that button. It really makes that feature useless for the stuff I use most, because I can just hit the home button and the app shortcut faster than using recent apps.
So I bought this tablet a few days ago and was very disappointed with the lag especially in all the browsers.
Is there any negatives to installing CM11 or 12?
Is battery life better or worse?
What features do I lose?
Does it affect 3g/4g reception (Australia)
Also does iron rom get rid of lag? And does it affect battery life?
I use the tablet for work and the main apps I use for work is the browser, email app, camera app and gallery app.
Only things I've done to this tablet is rooted to get app settings from xposed and greenify.
I was wondering about some of what you asked also. I noticed the annoying lag/stuttering in web browsers using the stock firmware.
Negatives installing cm12- Lowers chances of getting defective hardware fixed on your tablet. If your tablet works fine then your good.
Battery- Battery does get better.. Probably not much but it does. See my screenshot. But standy battery times is amazing!
Features you lose- samsung stuffs. Ex, multiwindow, fingerprint scanner and more.
3g connection- Cm12 does not work on LTE devices and only wifi models.
Iron rom- No lag or its smoother in my opinion.
Iron rom battery life- Its awesome! You can tweak the kernel settings for more battery life without decreasing performance.
Screen shots of battery on cm12. I own the SMT800. White background=cm12 Iron rom= Blue background
Using the stock rom, I found that if I disabled the Javascript in the browser it is much smoother scrolling. Although that causes problems for some websites. If I keep the tablet I'll probably end up trying one of the custom roms. My tablet is refurbished for a good price, but it looks brand new.