Hi Guys,
I have a T800 on the way (in the U.S.) and am doing my research on the device and OS/ROM options. I am relatively new to android but have a technical background (I'm a developer, and joined the xda forums back in the windows mobile days)
My main question is which ROM I should go with, options seem to include:
- Samsung's 4.4 or 5.0 releases
- Cyanogenmod or BlissPop (i.e. non-touchwiz based ROMs, if I understand correctly?)
- Ironrom or other tweaked touchwiz based ROMs, if I understand correctly
I bought this mainly as a browser / reader device to replace my (jailbroken) iPad 3, which now feels ancient and slow and has a cracked screen. The lack of RAM is pretty annoying. Also very annoyed with the brightness levels when trying to read at night, hence the OLED based tablet. I think I would like a stock android like option, however I am not super familiar with Samsung's custom UI and I would like some opinions at a high level on what the pros and cons would be going for CM vs a tweaked (de-bloated?) samsung experience.
Thanks in advance!
sethk said:
Hi Guys,
I have a T800 on the way (in the U.S.) and am doing my research on the device and OS/ROM options. I am relatively new to android but have a technical background (I'm a developer, and joined the xda forums back in the windows mobile days)
My main question is which ROM I should go with, options seem to include:
- Samsung's 4.4 or 5.0 releases
- Cyanogenmod or BlissPop (i.e. non-touchwiz based ROMs, if I understand correctly?)
- Ironrom or other tweaked touchwiz based ROMs, if I understand correctly
I bought this mainly as a browser / reader device to replace my (jailbroken) iPad 3, which now feels ancient and slow and has a cracked screen. The lack of RAM is pretty annoying. Also very annoyed with the brightness levels when trying to read at night, hence the OLED based tablet. I think I would like a stock android like option, however I am not super familiar with Samsung's custom UI and I would like some opinions at a high level on what the pros and cons would be going for CM vs a tweaked (de-bloated?) samsung experience.
Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Flashing a tweaked Touchwiz rom gives you some great things that can reduce lag and such. Those roms are for if you want a better rom whilst keeping all the Touchwiz features. Its smooth and such yes.
For CM based roms, those are what get you an stock android feel. But you will lose fingerprint scanner ability and multiwindow and some things that Touchwiz roms has. CM roms are great for the stock android feel, smoothness and has no stuttering, good battery life, customization and less ram load/usage from my experience.
I myself prefer liquid smooth rom since well it is butter smooth! Feels great and does most tasks easy and with no problems.
Sent from my SM-T800 using Tapatalk
Honestly I have no problems using the stock rom. Something like ironrom is a good stock option.
However just lately I've taken to running rooted stock and just debloating and removing stuff I don't need and modifying the kernel to my own needs.
Lately a ton of roms have popped up, so there's plenty of choice.
I won't use anything that loses functionality.
Thanks guys - I got my T800 and am just finishing up the stock Lollipop upgrade. Bought a 64GB microsdxc for backups etc., so I will try out common apps for a couple of days and with the feedback above I will probably give a custom ROM or two a go this weekend (after doing my homework/research in advance).
Related
I'm not a PRO in Android but still, why do some people say "Stock is the way to go"? Because of stability? Less bugs?
it just works.
Because a group of coders have decided what you can or cannot do; took away your freedom. As such, we are human beings and like being confined within boundaries.
So some people like going back to stock.
If you have chosen android, root and go custom and just muck about and explore and learn; the possibilities are endless
Mike556 said:
I'm not a PRO in Android but still, why do some people say "Stock is the way to go"? Because of stability? Less bugs?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
me personally, it isn't worth trading speed and stability for a few extra buttons. but this is all opinions. maybe you should try a few things and form your own opinion of it and not worry about it.
Mike556 said:
I'm not a PRO in Android but still, why do some people say "Stock is the way to go"? Because of stability? Less bugs?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Because no feature in a custom ROM is worth the time it will take constantly set it up, troubleshoot, endless flashing, and OCD like symptoms.
Stock JB is just too good to mess with it. I unlock and root my devices once I stop getting official updates. I have tried many ROMs, kernels on my GNEX and Nexus 7 and I always go back to stock.
Locked bootloader, no root, encrypted. It just feels good. Plus, if you purchase a new device, all you would have to do is login to your Google account and voila!
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda premium
Stock ROMs are great, when JB first came out and before there were AOSP builds I rocked a rooted + BB stock image for a few weeks and thought it was great. I was able to fill in a lot of the missing ROM customization with apps (quiet hours, battery %, toggles, etc...). Smooth, fast, and reliable.
At the end of the day however a ROM built from AOSP source with some tweaks on top is the way to go for me.
Because stock is actually a really good stable feature-rich software package.
Stable, fast, no weird scripts nor heavily themed just pure android experience
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus
for me, it just worked. Nothing had to be fiddled with and no headaches about small details. Being able to enjoy your device for what it is, is such a great feeling compared to constantly flashing updates and whatnot.
I run TSF shell launcher so no need for UI tweeks and stock is fine although I do mix it up with a Franco kernel.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda app-developers app
I love stock ROMs. I wish more devs would simply tweak and compile straight aosp ROMs instead of cramming them full of features. Variety is a nice novelty but it wears off quickly reboot after reboot and fc after fc.
And on the same note I know its personal preference, but stock android looks so sleek and clean now that all themes seem just plain ugly. And it seems like most devs either include the theme engine or do some theming of the ROM itself. Just too much going on and affects performance/stability in my opinion.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
LAst time i pointed out this fact, that i like stock more than custom rom (on GNEX), i was told to get iCab and to buy Iphone....
I like stock... Rooted, so i can remove search bar (only that). I can customize in perfect way, without obligation to flash constant updates, without getting fc-s, without taking care which kernel fits best etc...
So had my note 2 for a couple of months now, and love it. I'm using stock (but rooted) 4.1.1.
I've got Apex launcher and most icons and stuff skinned to AOSP, though I miss some of the AOSP apps and the look and feel around the device of AOSP.
What would I miss if I left touchwiz? The rom needs to be *rock solid* stable as well - I'm only moving if it feels as smooth as stock!
Suggestions?
from my experience:
Stock advantages:
better Camera, Camcorder with slow motion video, everything regarding Spen that is going beyond simple gestures, Spen software even though you can get replacements for that (like Papyrus instead of SNote), Allshare Cast and working MHL and HDMI output through dock, multiwindow
AOSP advantages:
faster Speed, newer Android version including its features (for 4.2.2 you get lockscreen widgets for example), open community with many innovative design ideas like PIE Navigation or PA hybrid engine and the like, AOSP look (if that's your thing, it is for me), a lot less bloatware -> choose what you want to install
They are both as stable as anything you can get in terms of ROMs. In the end it's a question of what features you want to have, if you can live without the Samsung exclusive stuff or not.
+1 mrruin
I love aosp roms but im sticking to Tw rom just for the sake of camera features. .
Sent from my GT-N7100 using xda app-developers app
Which is the most stable AOSP rom? Carbon looks nice though there's no bug list or tracker that I can find?
Also just found my device has the SDS chip so not going to be doing anything while I'm still in warranty
Imo liquid smooth is the best.U can also try slim bean 3 !
Sent from my GT-N7100 using xda app-developers app
In general I find battery life a lot better on stock roms rather than AOSP.
Honestly, you'd miss a hell lot. It would just be another phone with massive screen with AOSP. I mean sure, you get the stock android experience and all that jazz, but on Note II, I would highly recommend sticking to TW based roms.
You'd miss: A hell lot of SPen features (like Airview), Multitasking, Motion, Camera app, S Note, other apps like Polaris Office if you use that. And from my experience, far more bug free than AOSP roms - again, that's purely my experience, might be way off here.
Just get a good AOSP themed TW based ROM and AOSP apps. I'm using Project AOSP now, AllianceROM is good too, from what I hear.
I like Touchwiz based roms on this phone a lot more, not back in the s1 and s2 days, cm was way better, but now Samsung finally got there act together.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317
best aosp for me - carbon ... they got nightly version as well haha
best tw based - ARHD or Wanam or Monxdified (cant go wrong with any of them)
best mix of both world - project aosp
I can confirm alliance ROM. I'm running it on a Verizon note 2 and it is the business! Keep coming back to it even during my own confusion on if I should run aosp or touchwiz
Sent From My Inverted Novella Rom VZW Note 2
I love aosp's thats what im using on my nexus 4, lol like i have a choice
_____________________
Via GT-N71OO using XDA_Elite_App
Personally I think you should stick to stock. All the hardware works properly then, especially the camera which has always been a problem with the open source ROMS. You DO end up with more memory and less "blo
In fact jonatton has already said it all clearly.
I'm a firm believer in the statement "My phone with custom ASOP runs so much faster, now that half the features don't work properly!!"
ASOP was a good choice on a lot of older phones where the stock ui was too heavy for the hardware. The Note II is not one of those phones. It's such a mighty beast that nothing much can really slow it down. Has anyone actually been able to fill the ram up yet? Not me that's for sure.
Sent from the mighty Note II
I have to agree that the Note 2 is a better phone running Touchwiz based ROMs. When I initially rooted my phone I went with the Note-orious Prime ROM with the Note2 Core kernel. I then decided to try another ROM so I ran my Note 2 on Pacman, Paranoid Android 3.
Sure the Paranoid ROM was amazing in its customization and had a buttery smoothness, but thats it.
I lost all pen features, s-voice which actually works brilliantly for me. I had random weird system issues. The camera sucked. Lost all voice command capabilities.
The other day I had enough, flipped back to Note-orious Prime and now wont look back.
The way I look at it is that it isnt bloatware if you actually use it.
EDIT: to add I also had atrocious battery life with the paranoid rom compared to the touchwiz.
Interesting thread.
I also might start off with a TW based ROM.
Sent from my Note II
+1 .....yup ....you are right ....hardware support is must ....im ARHD v17 ..best rom ever...few days ago posted the same post but some, so called critc's who think they are Developers ....did not like it at all :banghead:
Sent from my GT-N7100 using xda premium
Been messing around with note 2 roms, and I too must say that stock tw feels best for me. I thought I don't care much for Sammy stock bloatware, but as I installed AOSP roms I started to miss my s note, air view, s Pen gestures etc. Now I tend to stick with tw based. Love phoenix, bobcat, arhd, wanamlite and assassin.
Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk 2
to add on to what's already been said I've actually been bouncing back & fourth from AOSP to TW & I've ran into a little issue that has me staying with TW for permanent although I love the DPI options you get on AOSP the most important feature for me was that my Beats headphones would barely work on Aosp I'd always get complaints from people saying they could barely hear me..never happens on TW though..
*Yawn* Another best ROM thread
Thread closed.
Dear person reading this,
I've recently received an S4 mini, specifically the I9195 and I immediately got annoyed by the stock firmware. The sounds, the look, you probably know it. Since I've been using CM11 on my I9001 for a nice while I was wondering what the status of CM11 on this phone is like?
On the CM website I've seen there are no stable releases yet, so are the nightlies useable on a day-to-day basis? In other words, would you recommend flashing CM11? Are there any features which won't work?
As for the process of flashing itself, I've found this thread which seems to provide a nice overview, so I'm guessing that shouldn't pose any problems.
My apologies if this thread is a bit noobish, I've been reading around a bit but couldn't really find a nice up-to-date overview
Thanks and regards,
Marshian
If you use your S4 mini for anything serious, CM11 is still way too full of bugs. That's gonna change sooner or later, but for now I'd let CM11 wait unless you just use your S4 mini as a toy.
Check the opening post of this thread for a (long) list of bugs in S4 CM11: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2558702
Until CM11 is done squashing bugs, the best ROM for S4 mini is a rooted stock ROM, debloated by freezing/removing all the junk that Samsung slapped on, and modded with Xposed.
For a list of what you can freeze/remove (with an explanation of what you freeze/remove): http://android.site666.info/indexapks.htm
Essential (imo) Xposed modules for S4: Downloads2SD, Pictures2SD, Wanam Xposed, XPrivacy, and XVolume.
If you have a KitKat (stock) ROM you'll need HandleExternalStorage too.
Essential app to get rid of annoying sounds: Ultimate Sound Control.
I'm using CM11 on my GT-I9195 and its the only phone I have. The bugs don't hinder everyday use (WhatsApp, chrome, phone calls, SMS) generally except for the odd nightly that causes bootloops or FCs. You can avoid that by waiting for someone to post in the discussion thread whether the latest nightly is bootable or causes any FCs.
As for flashing CM11, the guide you linked is good if you don't care for the warranty. Since you bought your phone recently its likely to have the KNOX flag which signifies whether the phone has been custom-flashed before and I'm most countries this KNOX flag, if tripped, will render your warranty void.
To check if you are on KNOX boot loader, boot into Download mode and see if there is any mention of KNOX.
If there is, there is a guide on how to not trip the KNOX flag while rooting.
IMHO any of KitKat's custom ROM is not mature enough. Still many things to implement for the developers, regardless of being stable or not. Though if better OS resource management is what you after than KitKat is unbeatable. After all, it was Google's intention.
However, any of the JB custom ROM variant are relatively stable and mature, despite some still has the 'beta' tag.
As for TouchWiz ROM, there's a limit to what you can do in terms of optimizing/de-bloat. Unless it a heavily modded TW based ROM. That my experience coming from S3.
TNCS said:
IMHO any of KitKat's custom ROM is not mature enough. Still many things to implement for the developers, regardless of being stable or not. Though if better OS resource management is what you after than KitKat is unbeatable. After all, it was Google's intention.
However, any of the JB custom ROM variant are relatively stable and mature, despite some still has the 'beta' tag.
As for TouchWiz ROM, there's a limit to what you can do in terms of optimizing/de-bloat. Unless it a heavily modded TW based ROM. That my experience coming from S3.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your input! (This also applies to everyone else who replied )
In terms of warranty, I don't have any anyway. Though it's a brand new phone, I got it as a prize from a competition so there's no way for me to go back to the store and prove I bought it there. Therefore, I don't mind triggering the KNOX-flag.
For now I'll stay away from CM11 then (though it runs really nicely on my S+), but would it be a better idea to mod the stock ROM until it stops sucking or flash CM10.2 (or another version?) on there? It looks like the bug-list for CM10.2 is quite small. Do you know of any features missing there?
Marshian said:
Thanks for your input! (This also applies to everyone else who replied )
In terms of warranty, I don't have any anyway. Though it's a brand new phone, I got it as a prize from a competition so there's no way for me to go back to the store and prove I bought it there. Therefore, I don't mind triggering the KNOX-flag.
For now I'll stay away from CM11 then (though it runs really nicely on my S+), but would it be a better idea to mod the stock ROM until it stops sucking or flash CM10.2 (or another version?) on there? It looks like the bug-list for CM10.2 is quite small. Do you know of any features missing there?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would recommend any custom ROM based on JB. There's no feature missing as I'm aware of. Personally I'm on SlimJB which I've modified a bit myself. KitKat simplay requires time to mature. Even at AOSP the swtich from davilk requires time. Just my two cents.
Marshian said:
For now I'll stay away from CM11 then (though it runs really nicely on my S+), but would it be a better idea to mod the stock ROM until it stops sucking or flash CM10.2 (or another version?) on there?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am very happy sticking with the last stable 10.2. It is reliable, quick, and battery drain is minimal (I use Gravity Screen Pro but the main power savings come from using Cyanogens advanced wifi settings).
You can always backup everything and try out a CM11.
xbin said:
I am very happy sticking with the last stable 10.2. It is reliable, quick, and battery drain is minimal (I use Gravity Screen Pro but the main power savings come from using Cyanogens advanced wifi settings).
You can always backup everything and try out a CM11.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll be going with the same solution once my microSIM and new microSD arrive, thanks!
Could anyone running "stock" CM 11 on their T-Mo S3 comment on the experience? Is battery usage better/worse/the same as the stock TW 4.3 ROM? Any issues with screen auto-brightness, sensors, etc? Are there any stock Samsung apps that you miss?
I'm on the fence right now- I've been stock & unrooted since I got my S3 almost 2 years ago, but now starting to get the itch to move away from all the Samsung bloat. I know there are some little things I will miss about the Samsung version of some apps like email, but having a more uniform and less junked-up experience is appealing. I know I could root & get rid of the bloat too...
Just curious as to folks' impressions- I've used CM 7-10 in the past and enjoyed it...
Thanks in advance!
Quiet out there! Well, I've run across some reports of camera issues, but that's about the only negative I see with CM11 vs. TouchWiz so far. Oh, and losing WIFI calling, which has never been a big deal to me, but I do like having the option.
Everyone has their own preferences. Personally I am a TW guy. But there's plenty of folks on both sides. Great thing is you can try it and if you don't like it, just flash back to stock based.
Yup just try it, its nice, but up to personal preference.. I think camera and WiFi calling is one of the only downsides. I didn't experience much trouble with camera it was very stable, just that the touchwiz camera app is much better and takes superior photos IMO, also has more options.. You could always try a 3rd party camera app of course, so again its personal preference
DocHoliday77 said:
Everyone has their own preferences. Personally I am a TW guy. But there's plenty of folks on both sides. Great thing is you can try it and if you don't like it, just flash back to stock based.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Me too. I like the camera, color point is a neat feature that no other camera seems to offers, I find the launcher works well and flows nice. I keep trying other ROM's with 1534534534543 features that I don't really ever use or need and come back to the stock ROM. Running 4.4.2 from my carrier, rooted with towelroot, KT kernel for power tweaking, can uninstall all the bloat I want and I'm good.
It's a choice, but sometimes, there are too many choices. XXX Rom has all the best (our option of the best) features of A,B,C,D,E,F,G. Ya, well our rom YYY has all the best features of A,B,C,D,E,F,G and H. Ooooo. Does it really matter? lol. I like being able to update my Gapps when I want, not have to run a special version.
XDA did a test a while ago against the Linaro toolchain compiles vs gcc and found no real difference in speed of apps or battery life. XDA or some other Android site did a test of ART vs dalvik, not a huge difference, ART performing worse in some cases. Same with all the build.prop tweaks that others tout. In reality and in testing, most don't do anything, or worse in some cases.
There is too many, I guess rumors out there about Android that everyone jumps on like "tweaks", "compile flags", "odex vs deodex" that keep going around, and don't seem to change anything other than offer bugs. Hard to find a custom ROM that isn't updated all the time to fix this issues or reports of random reboots, etc, all the time in the threads.
To each their own, but in reality, I don't think there is much difference between all the different ROM's. All small, small, variations on a theme. And half the difference or added in things, not many people use anyways.
Hi All,
I have just purchased a one plus 3 after my nexus died a slow death.
I have seen a couple of post and comments online saying that i should ROM the handset and install a copy of Android "pure"? Is this best way to get the most out of the phone or should i stick with Oxygen? I've never used a phone with Oxygen so i don’t know much about it.
Would installing a copy of "pure" have an effect on speed, battery, camera etc?
Thanks
Darren
The purest android experience, paradoxically, is now offered by OxigenOS.
Most of the rom you can find here, are generally heavy modded by various teams (cyano, omni, slim, paranoid ecc..).
Instead, OxigenOS is mostly stock android with some small, fair modifications that allow you to better enjoy the device.
Moreover, with a custom rom not derived from the stock rom (like OP3Lite), you're always gonna lose something in terms of camera performance.
So, my advice is to enjoy the stock rom for a couple of weeks...
There's always time for modding..