[XS] Battery life in stock vs. custom roms (nAOSPROM, Chroma) - Sony Xperia S, Acro S, Ion

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 So, no, besides JB being horribly outdated if you had LP in hands, it is just not viable anymore.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.

Related

[Q] Xperia Arc running very slow

Hi guys. I bought a Xperia Arc (LT15i) last year, SIM-Unlocked, T-mobile branded and lots of bloatware.The experience so far couldn't be better. I love the UI and the camera is great. Since the very beginning it has being laggy, but it was bearable. Recently I updated to ICS hoping I would get a bit faster. At the beginning it was nice, but now it crashes a lot, and I can hardly avoid throwing it to a wall. Moreover battery lasts 8 hours with hardly use, which is very annoying as I have to go everywhere with cables and chargers (not sure if the battery is actually working well. I haven't tested it or used a brand new one).
I would like to flash a good and stable rom, if possible with JB. Which one would you recommend. I unlocked once the bootloader, but I didn't really want a custom rom at the moment, but the ICS stock one, so I relocked in order to get it. Not sure if that was the best thing to do, but it was running at quite a decent speed. Now it is very very laggy (even doing trivial things such as searching a contact!!!), and when I got my sony smartwatch, the battery drain was overwhelming.
I want something smooth, a custom ROM would be very welcomed. I read about Jelly Sandwich. Seems really nice, but since I don't want have the time to read all the posts, can anybody tell me if there's any problem connecting to the smartwatch in a custom ROM? Also, some comments regarding performance and battery drain on such ROM would be very much appreciated.
I don't have any game installed, since the available storage is very limited (I have like 39 mb left). I use mail a lot, chat applications (such as whatsapp, IMO, talk, etc.), facebook and twitter.
I really want to get the most out of it before I buy myself another phone (Xperia V, maybe?).
Thanks in avance, a newbie.
I recomend you X Gamer or another GB Rom as Arconium 8.2, because JB and ICS will make your device slower cause they need more resources to run ok. If you want smoothness my recomendation is to use X-Gamer Rom from OmenHTX. Im using it right now and its go flashy
HerrJuancho said:
Hi guys. I bought a Xperia Arc (LT15i) last year, SIM-Unlocked, T-mobile branded and lots of bloatware.The experience so far couldn't be better. I love the UI and the camera is great. Since the very beginning it has being laggy, but it was bearable. Recently I updated to ICS hoping I would get a bit faster. At the beginning it was nice, but now it crashes a lot, and I can hardly avoid throwing it to a wall. Moreover battery lasts 8 hours with hardly use, which is very annoying as I have to go everywhere with cables and chargers (not sure if the battery is actually working well. I haven't tested it or used a brand new one).
I would like to flash a good and stable rom, if possible with JB. Which one would you recommend. I unlocked once the bootloader, but I didn't really want a custom rom at the moment, but the ICS stock one, so I relocked in order to get it. Not sure if that was the best thing to do, but it was running at quite a decent speed. Now it is very very laggy (even doing trivial things such as searching a contact!!!), and when I got my sony smartwatch, the battery drain was overwhelming.
I want something smooth, a custom ROM would be very welcomed. I read about Jelly Sandwich. Seems really nice, but since I don't want have the time to read all the posts, can anybody tell me if there's any problem connecting to the smartwatch in a custom ROM? Also, some comments regarding performance and battery drain on such ROM would be very much appreciated.
I don't have any game installed, since the available storage is very limited (I have like 39 mb left). I use mail a lot, chat applications (such as whatsapp, IMO, talk, etc.), facebook and twitter.
I really want to get the most out of it before I buy myself another phone (Xperia V, maybe?).
Thanks in avance, a newbie.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If u want to use your devices faster, your battery life time may lower. So, trying a custom rom which developer claimed how much fast their rom, sure the battery will drain faster. If u want to use battery longer, your phone performance will also slower. So try using the stock rom is the best as the sony developer team balanced all the properties. I would like to recommend you one thing is to use app like Advance Task Killer (for fast performance & battery lift) and Link2SD (for storage performance problem). And also Rom Toolbox Pro app. With this app, you can stop unwanted app from auto running. This can greatly reduce memory usage.
Good Luck Guy,

Stock v20c thoughts

Ok i want to start off by giving much thanks to the few but proud devs we have left that are developing for our Nitro HD, and this little article is just my 2 cents and my general experience. By no means am I cutting down anybodys hard work for the Nitro HD.
Now onto the real story....
So for the last 2 months or so i have been a flashaholic junky and have tried every rom available for our dear Nitro HD. The multiple yet small selection of roms all have great perks and nice added features with lots of customization. Which in part each rom available for the Nitro HD is great but also each comes with its own negatives. I recently went through the unbrick guide and went back to the v20c ATT stock rom. And really to be honest its is very solid, and the battery life has been the best from any other rom i have tried. Ill keep this short and sweet. So my conclusion is that after probably 3 or more months "probably longer" of scouring XDA for anything new for the Nitro HD and after losing countless hours of staying up late to flash recoveries, roms, backup and recover data, and even a unbrick here and there, I can say that I am actually more satisfied with the Stock v20c rom. Although ATT bloatware is annoying and really not used the stability of v20c is honestly more satisfying than having reboots, and screen flickers, and jumbled pictures in multiple apps, and dead battery after 5 hours, and those are just a few bugs I have experienced on a day to day basis with custom roms.
Sent from my LG-P930 using xda premium
Honestly in my experience, the stock ICS firmware wasn't for me. I couldn't stand the default icons on the device and every launcher that I tried was laggy and annoying that I just ended up using the stock launcher. The stock launcher had some pretty nice scrolling animations though, that's probably what I miss most about the rom. That being said, I had tons of problems with it. I couldn't use the phone without it rebooting itself and this happened everyday. Also, there was this incredibly annoying bug that caused the screen to jitter around, lag and look distorted. Fixing this issue, you almost always had to reboot the phone, or at least force-close the launcher.
As for your issues, everyone experiences things differently. However, your complaints about screen flickers and artifacts can be consistent to running a non-stable rom. If you were to run CM9, I'm pretty sure that most of those problems wouldn't exist if you properly flashed the rom by clearing out your caches and wiping all data. As for your battery life, I believe that the Android operating system in general has a feature that can gradually see how you use your phone and eventually; say 2-3 weeks, your battery life will get better. I don't know how true this is, but it's something that I've read and maybe someone can confirm that it's true.
As for my current rom, I'm currently running CM10 M2 at the moment. I have a few problems like artifacts and this one annoying problem where my Alarm won't go off, but generally I'm happy. Especially considering that the rom is still in development. Generally, my battery-life consumption has been around 10-11 hours per day and I'm using the stock battery. I haven't even given the battery time to settle into this rom either, seeing how M2 was released on 10/11 and I flashed it 2 days later. Before, I was using cm9 and it was as stable as can be. I had a few resets within cm9, but those weren't even noticeable compared to the stock ICS restarts I was getting. As of now on CM10, I had one restart so far, with one complete crash. I'm still happy, since I know CM10 is in development and honestly, I was expecting it to be worse. Those crashes don't really bother me. What does bother me however, is that I can't get the pesky alarm application to work! On top of that, using swiftkey in landscape mode can be tedious because of the lag. It lagged before in ICS, but CM10 is much worse. I can't see myself using another keyboard, so hopefully performance improves. Other than that, I still prefer CM10 over stock any day.
The cm10 10/15 nightly is rock solid...this is someone coming from stock Bell ICS v20e. The artifacting issues are gone...and I haven't had any black screens or weird issues yet. Stock keyboard is fine...I have always found the android keyboard to be sluggish.
Sent from my LG-P930 using xda app-developers app
I'm like 90% satisfied with stock and that is what I'm running. My battery life has always stayed the same though, no matter what i'm running. I'm always getting a consistent ~10 hours of moderate use, and ~5-6 hours of heavier use.
This phone would be perfect if it had a battery that was just a it larger in capacity.
Victor B said:
I'm like 90% satisfied with stock and that is what I'm running. My battery life has always stayed the same though, no matter what i'm running. I'm always getting a consistent ~10 hours of moderate use, and ~5-6 hours of heavier use.
This phone would be perfect if it had a battery that was just a it larger in capacity.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I bought 2 extended batteries that I can get a full day of heavy use out of with brightness turned up. So I swap the batteries every other day, that way I only have to charge every 2 days.

I can't live with this thing anymore

The S2 was a good phone for it's time and the display is still pretty nice compared to many phones available now. But the battery life is really atrocious compared to the newer devices. I was using an Alcatel OneTouch Fierce before but I put it in my pocket with my keys and shattered the screen so I pulled the S2 out of a drawer and starting using it again. I loaded a couple of custom ROMs and currently have ParanoidAndroid 4.4 RC1.
What I have noticed is that both the screen and the GPS both take a ton of battery on the S2. On the Alcatel, the screen was down usually at the bottom of the list of things using battery. On the S2 it is always at the top of the list. I have the S2 screen turned down to minimum brightness, which is fine for indoor usage, and also set the screen timeout to 15 seconds, but still the consumption issues persist.
I do a lot of fitness logging and the most I have been able to log on the S2 is around 40 miles of bike riding until the battery runs out. This is from starting with the battery in the mid 90s percentage. With the Alcatel phone I had been able to data log over 200K/125miles before running out of battery.
Saturday I was out in the sticks riding my bike. I put it in airplane mode to save battery in case I needed to call home. After the 44 mile stop at a country store, I forgot to put it back in airplane mode and by the time we went another 30 miles to the next food stop (about 2 hours) the phone had drained from 70% to 14% percent. And I wasn't even using it, it was just riding along in my pocket as I pedaled.
Even with just web surfing on 4G data or WiFi takes a lot of battery. Seems like I can play with the phone for 30 minutes and the battery goes down at least 20%.
On top of this I've also been having problems with lockups. On the first ROM I tried, Liquid Smooth, it was getting android.systemui crashes pretty often. But if I waited a while, the system would right itself and I would be able to keep on going. When I first installed PA it was doing great but now I'm getting random lockups as well. On PA the lockups require a hard boot to fix. Perhaps a hardware issue, who knows. The S2 has not been dropped and is in excellent condition, but I suppose that's neither here nor there.
If it was just the battery consumption issues, I could try an extended battery and see how that went. But in the end I decided that I was going to bite the bullet and get a new phone. I thought about a refurb S4, or Nexus 4 which were both under $300, but in the end I went with the LG G2 as it was less than $400 new from T-Mobile direct.
Farewell Galaxy S2, your days are numbered.
:crying:
My wife has a s2 t989 running cm 10.1.3 with a new anker 2200 battery. Her phone flies, zero lag. And Her battery gets her through the day. This phone is a old little beast.
Lokke9191 said:
My wife has a s2 t989 running cm 10.1.3 with a new anker 2200 battery. Her phone flies, zero lag. And Her battery gets her through the day. This phone is a old little beast.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If it wasn't for the lockups, I might have tried a new or larger battery. The battery will last all day as is if you don't ask the phone to do anything and you have good signal. The screen and the GPS use so much power on this phone though. It's just older silicon.
I agree it's still a fast phone when you use a cm10 or cm11 ROM. It's just not meeting my needs.
Sent from my SGH-T989 using XDA Free mobile app
brons2 said:
If it wasn't for the lockups, I might have tried a new or larger battery. The battery will last all day as is if you don't ask the phone to do anything and you have good signal. The screen and the GPS use so much power on this phone though. It's just older silicon.
I agree it's still a fast phone when you use a cm10 or cm11 ROM. It's just not meeting my needs.
Sent from my SGH-T989 using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Get the M8
Rushing said:
Get the M8
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
too expensive!
I ordered an LG G2 for less than $400, and signed up for the payments divided over 2 years. So I'm trading a really old phone for a 1 year old phone
Funny thing is, the S2 has not locked up once since I ordered the new phone. Haha.
I can really relate to your frustration as I have had quite a bit trouble getting great performance out of this device in the 7 months I've had it. I've went through what seems a million ROMs and have had problems with every single one. To the point I believe it was just the phone and not the ROMs. The last month was really bad when CM made a lot of changes that seemed to adversely affect this device. Then I started trying JB ROMs that were even worse than KK ever was. I've had way over 2 years experience flashing ROMs and kernels so in nearly every case I wouldn't say user error was to blame either. That said, after nearly making a coaster out of this thing, PA RC1 really has come to the rescue along with the Wild kernel. Which is why I'm a bit surprised you are not even having good luck with that. The battery drain you describe is very extreme. At the worst my battery drains 3% an hour on standby. I always have everything on, such as Wifi, GPS and high accuracy location reporting too. Not to mention Viper audio mod with super quality driver which uses a chunk of battery as well.
Overall I can typically get 20 to 24 hours on an average weekday. If I use the screen for a couple hours, listen to music, browse the web and make a call or two, more like 10 to 16 hours. At any rate things are good enough I can live with this phone for while now, provided I do myself a favor and leave well enough alone.
i've had my s2 for almost 3 year, i believe, and i know the pain in the ass it can be. the screen issue happens to me, too, and there isn't a solution, so you learn to deal with it. seems like you may have a faulty battery? i still have the stock battery and it doesn't hold up well as it used to. i run carbonrom with wildkernel (testing) and it's not too bad. but it's a dated phone in techie age.
Yea PA RC1 was the best of the ROMs that I tried on the S2. But I've moved on and am super happy with my new phone. The LG G2 is the best phone I've ever had. 3000mAh stock battery, huge screen, blazing fast LTE and I love the volume buttons on the back!
Sent from my LG-D801 using XDA Free mobile app
The T989 may be difficult to deal with but with a few customizations (new battery and rom), it'll be faster.
HeadachePuppies said:
The T989 may be difficult to deal with but with a few customizations (new battery and rom), it'll be faster.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Too late, I already have the new phone and it is way better even with the stock rom. I might update the S2 again though just for kicks when PA goes stable. It probably does need a new battery also but there's no reason to go that route when I have another phone already.
Glad to see I'm not the only one that's having battery problems. It seems as if using Apollo for music and using Messenger to talk to a friend, the battery drains really quickly. Can't wait to upgrade in the near future.
Any custom ROM that i have tried are not to good for the battery life. I think the best ROM so far for battery life is SHADOW 1.5 ROM because it is based on Stock ROM and has the Power Saver feature.
Now i am using CM 11 and loving it, the features and speed are incredible. Thanks CM Team for your great work.:good:
The T989 is one of the best phones in his time. Now is almost obsolete, we grow ups, every months there are lots of new devices, sooner or late the time will come when we will let go the T989 and have a newer one. It's like a childhood girlfriend experience. I now have the Moto G LTE version, I keep my T989 in my archived electronic things, he is simple something not to forget.
I gave my old S2 to my wife after I got my Note 3. At the time all the Jellybean ROM's for it were unstable, so I put the Jedi ROM on it. For some reason it was ridiculously slow, despite being based on the stock ICS ROM. I had figured the phone's age was just showing and didn't think much about it.
Recently my wife asked me to upgrade the ROM on her tablet to KitKat, so I figured I would do her phone as well. To my surprise, KiKat runs amazingly smooth on the S2 - especially with Wild kernel (1.89GHz overclock + sio governor). Tried both SlimKat and Carbon. It's just liquid smooth and feels totally like a new phone.
Lorien_Silmaril said:
I gave my old S2 to my wife after I got my Note 3. At the time all the Jellybean ROM's for it were unstable, so I put the Jedi ROM on it. For some reason it was ridiculously slow, despite being based on the stock ICS ROM. I had figured the phone's age was just showing and didn't think much about it.
Recently my wife asked me to upgrade the ROM on her tablet to KitKat, so I figured I would do her phone as well. To my surprise, KiKat runs amazingly smooth on the S2 - especially with Wild kernel (1.89GHz overclock + sio governor). Tried both SlimKat and Carbon. It's just liquid smooth and feels totally like a new phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
is really surprising how kitkat can give new life to this old phones.. I've changed my T989 for a nexus 4 as a daily driver but still keep the S2 as a work phone, after using the AOSP of the nexus4 I tryied evervolv in a MyTouch 4G and really liked it then though of trying that on the S2 and wow that was an improvement. right know Im currently using Evervolv kitkat 4.4.4 with Cl3kerner on the T989 and I tell you is a really good combination if not perfect.
KB
I love this phone much like you guys but it's time for the sweet prince to nap!
One of the issues I had a few months ago is that my power button got stuck. My device kept rebooting every few minutes to the only option was to open up the phone and remove the power button entirely. This fixed my issue but now the only way to turn the phone on when it dies (or turns off due to crashes!!) is by plugging it via USB and going into download mode then cancelling. Talk about a hassle!
I also got some dust particles (I think?) on my camera lens so I have several black dots whenever I take a picture.
My battery life is also HORRIBLE. I can relate to OP. My phone can barely make it to lunch let alone get through a full day. If I want to get through a full day, brightness needs to be low, bluetooth/wifi/data/gps/screen rotate all need to be off and I can't expect much screen on time. Basically, I use my phone for communication (texting, calling, etc) and for listening to music. Nothing else really. I might also try flashing another CM rom. I've tried KitKat CM roms but they are all incredibly laggy, so I don't know. Perhaps a new battery could fix this but it's too late.
(By the way, if anyone can recommend a good KitKat rom [preferably CM based], I'd appreciate it. I plan on giving this away to someone who will mainly use it to listen to music, web browse, read. Nothing too major but I'd like to update it as much as possible before giving it away.)
Although there a number of problems, this phone has lasted me 2.5 years. I got it in May of 2012, about 6 months or so after launch. That couples with Cyanogenmod has given me one hell of an experience. This phone, without a doubt, has been one of the best phones I've owned. It just works, in spite of all odds. Heck, I've had it for several months with all of these issues and it can still go until the end of the year (or longer, who knows). But all good things must come to an end.
So good night sweet prince. You were amazing, will never forget! Also, thanks Cyanogenmod for supporting this device! Thank you devs and fellow T989 users for all the support!
As far as the future goes, I am putting all my eggs in one basket and hoping that the Nexus 6/X is solid. There are rumours that it is going to be nearly 6" which is just too big for me to use reasonably. I also considered the Note 4, but honestly, after almost 2 years of using Cyanogenmod, it's very difficult to go back to TouchWiz. The other phone I have considered is the Moto X (2014). If none of these work, I might settle for last year's Nexus 5. Who knows! All I know is that I'm getting a new phone soon!
Try also the new CM11 by Sultanxda:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/gal...rom-kernel-unofficial-cyanogenmod-11-t2885259
Seems to give best battery life for this device.
tuxx1337 said:
Try also the new CM11 by Sultanxda:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/gal...rom-kernel-unofficial-cyanogenmod-11-t2885259
Seems to give best battery life for this device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Absolutely, I no longer feel anything like I did when I posted the previous comment in this thread. I'm not ashamed to own this device anymore, LOL. Sultan did things with his kernel that made CM11 stable & fully optimized for the Hercules.
tuxx1337 said:
Try also the new CM11 by Sultanxda:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/gal...rom-kernel-unofficial-cyanogenmod-11-t2885259
Seems to give best battery life for this device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks for the suggestion! i was thinking about changing the ROM for my Hercules and this seems like a really good choice..

how it's lollipop working for you?

I have the Verizon flavor and passed on the upgrade due to my experience on my lg g2. My battery life went all to hell so i rolled back to kitkat and am quite happy to stay there. I'm curious as to how the upgrade is working for you on this device.
I personally love CM12.1 right now. It very (as in never) rarely crashes and for some reasons, apps seems to be more stable than on other roms. I have not experienced any battery issues and it seems to be the contrary for me because I am getting noticeably better battery life than before. Just to clarify things, I am running a V500, rooted, and running TWRP 2.8.
mach01 said:
I personally love CM12.1 right now. It very (as in never) rarely crashes and for some reasons, apps seems to be more stable than on other roms. I have not experienced any battery issues and it seems to be the contrary for me because I am getting noticeably better battery life than before. Just to clarify things, I am running a V500, rooted, and running TWRP 2.8.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That was not his question...
Although I recognize some things I don't like in official Lollipop for the VK810.4G, I like it. Smoother, faster, especially [insert plug here] on my maximum debloated stock ROM in my signature below [/insert plug here]. ?I'm a function over form guy, though.
Sent from my VK810 4G
Thanks for the reply. Hopefully some more will reply.
I upgraded my VK810 (Verizon) and I am not very happy with it. The battery life is similar to kitkat during normal use, but it is terrible at idle - burns 1.5%/hour overnight. It lags pretty regularly, sometimes even on the pin unlock screen for a few 5-10 seconds in the middle of entering.
I have done a full factory reset and set it up from scratch, which didn't improve the performance.
I am considering a flash of KK or even going back to JB. 4.2.2 was the most stable and bug-free version, in my opinion. I am reluctant to flash it, because it's a work tablet and I'd rather not risk bricking it. The only real reason I upgraded to LP was for the proper handling of trim on encrypted devices.
(I am not usually one to bash new releases. My Sony Z1c is incredible with LP, though it needed a factory reset to get there.)
rjkmadison said:
I upgraded my VK810 (Verizon) and I am not very happy with it. The battery life is similar to kitkat during normal use, but it is terrible at idle - burns 1.5%/hour overnight. It lags pretty regularly, sometimes even on the pin unlock screen for a few 5-10 seconds in the middle of entering.
I have done a full factory reset and set it up from scratch, which didn't improve the performance.
I am considering a flash of KK or even going back to JB. 4.2.2 was the most stable and bug-free version, in my opinion. I am reluctant to flash it, because it's a work tablet and I'd rather not risk bricking it. The only real reason I upgraded to LP was for the proper handling of trim on encrypted devices.
(I am not usually one to bash new releases. My Sony Z1c is incredible with LP, though it needed a factory reset to get there.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same here. Upgraded and not very happy with it. Has more issues connecting to hotspots in my house (issues I didn't have with KK) and it lags, a lot. Some things are certainly better, but I don't think it's any faster - if anything, just the opposite. Is anyone else having the lagging issues? I find it mostly when I'm playing games or doing things that tax the processor.

Make me feel good about my Moto Z Play purchase.

Hi all,
For about 8 years I've enjoyed having Android devices and modding them. I've been on ATT during most of that time and have gone with whatever flagship Samsung had at the time. My current device is a very dated GS5 and honestly from the locked bootloader to what I feel is disappointing hardware I decided a while ago that I would be trying a different manufacturer next. Right now ATT's android offerings are lacking to be generous. So I decided to buy the first off contract phone in a while an unlocked Moto Z Play.
I decided a long time ago that the best thing to do was purchase a flagship model no matter what but the lack of a headphone jack in the force and the battery capacity of the Play made me go this route. I don't do mobile games I just want a seamless experience from apps to browsing content heavy Internt pages.
If I do a total strip, unlock, root and flash of my Moto Z Play using a stable kernel and good ROM build will it make me feel good about my purchase?
Thanks in advance
Considering how the phone at stock is and what you want from it: "I just want a seamless experience from apps to browsing content heavy Internt pages", how is it not performing that?
Your post is very confusing. Other than it not being a "Flagship" phone, you offer no actual issues you are having with the z Play. Here's what I like about The Z Play. Like you, I only ever had Flagship Sammys. My last 2 Were Note 7. After I returned it I decided to get this phone to hold me over until the Note 8. This battery is insane. Yesterday I had almost 7 hours of SOT and the battery was at 50%, the screen brightness at 50% as well . Other than heavy gaming, there's no noticeable difference in the chip performance from the 820 in the Flagship phones. The stock system /UI takes a little bit to get used to if you had one of the more recent Samsung phones, which you haven't. The battery mod I got with this phone is great for a little extra juice on the rare occasions I need it. Overall, this is a solid phone with a great price tag.
Unless you have a particular need for a root-required feature (ad blocking options, certain apps) or you aren't willing to wait a little bit for Nougat, you probably will lose more than you gain by rooting and romming. Unlock kills your warranty, and depending on where you go ROM wise, you'll lose Android pay and anything else that requires safety net, unless you go one of the few routes that seem to support magisk.
Performance wise there doesn't appear to be much gain at this point, and if you go to a non stock based custom ROM, you may have camera issues, and you definitely lose Moto mod support.
The stock ROM on this phone is pretty clean, just includes the Moto stuff that is pretty functional for minimal overhead for most people, and you can always turn it off if you don't like it. Throwing in an SD card more than makes up for the small amount of extra storage you gain from a mild debloat.
Based on your post, I didn't see anything that indicates you would benefit from root and ROM. Keep it stock. It's awesome.
The MZP is a great performer and everything is smooth, except demanding 3d games (regular 3d games are just fine). Don't recommend messing with the firmware
Also, wait till you see how long it goes on a charge
It's the most powerful 32-bit phone ever.
Judging by the tone of some people I guess I stepped on some toes. I'm sorry if my post triggered you.
I don't even have the phone yet so yeah, maybe it'll be everything and more I could ever dream of in a device right out of the box. Who knows.
Thanks to the folks who provided some helpful info I very much appreciate it.
adam_l_c said:
Judging by the tone of some people I guess I stepped on some toes. I'm sorry if my post triggered you.
I don't even have the phone yet so yeah, maybe it'll be everything and more I could ever dream of in a device right out of the box. Who knows.
Thanks to the folks who provided some helpful info I very much appreciate it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You will not be disappointed. This is the first phone I have where I don't really see the need to change anything. Buttery smooth, great battery out of the box and it has nougat already.
Maybe root to install adaway but i now use dns66 thanks to whoever recommend it to me a few days back and that too is gone.
I'm used to owning Nexus phones.
The Moto Z play combines raw Android along with Moto actions which are pretty great. It's a premium feel, build and design. I average between 10-14 hours SOT....The battery life is untouchable
vietkao said:
Maybe root to install adaway but i now use dns66 thanks to whoever recommend it to me a few days back and that too is gone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It was me. Glad to hear it is working fine for you.
There are still two points which make rooting advantageous if you are not interested in modifying the system. First is, backup is difficult if you have no access to your own data stored by the apps. There is a way (adb), but it is not that convenient compared with Titanium backup. Second is, if you copy or move files, the timestamp can't be kept without root. You can't sort files by age once you move them, and syncing and revision control gets more difficult.
@adam-l-c I'd also say stripping should be done carefully if it is really seen as necessary. There often are services waiting for another service. If you only disable or remove one service and don't recognize the dependant, it may cause system load. You seem to have an idea what you're doing, so I wish you good luck and would be glad to hear what you find is really worth disabling. The device is working smooth as it is, at least for me (still using Marshmallow).
Believe it or not I gave my unlocked pixel XL to my wife and took her Moto z play. I needed proper ms exchange services that AOSP doesn't have. Nougat would be nice. The pixel camera is slightly better. The z is pretty heavy but built like a tank. Typical Moto. I don't notice the lower res screen or slower processor. I live in a world of good enough apparently.
tag68 said:
It was me. Glad to hear it is working fine for you.
There are still two points which make rooting advantageous if you are not interested in modifying the system. First is, backup is difficult if you have no access to your own data stored by the apps. There is a way (adb), but it is not that convenient compared with Titanium backup. Second is, if you copy or move files, the timestamp can't be kept without root. You can't sort files by age once you move them, and syncing and revision control gets more difficult.
@adam-l-c I'd also say stripping should be done carefully if it is really seen as necessary. There often are services waiting for another service. If you only disable or remove one service and don't recognize the dependant, it may cause system load. You seem to have an idea what you're doing, so I wish you good luck and would be glad to hear what you find is really worth disabling. The device is working smooth as it is, at least for me (still using Marshmallow).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ADB backup does not work on the lastest Moto phones, AFAICT. Ditto Helium which is just a front end for same. ADB disable apps quit working with one of our patches, December I think, VZW anyway.
TY for DNS66 mention.
To Op,
Moto pulled a whopper on this phone. While the screen brightness is better for daylight viewing on the sisters and they have VR and better gaming. Yet I would not trade to those.
adam_l_c said:
Judging by the tone of some people I guess I stepped on some toes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're not stepping on anyone's toes. Sounds like you're a bit sensitive.. People are just saying how good the phone is and I agree with them.
It's fast, battery life is damn good, and Moto actions are pretty awesome.
Nice performance
Awesome battery life
Gaming is also fine

Categories

Resources