With my old tablet the custom roms always meant a performance increase too, but:
I've tried pretty much well every single custom rom available for this tablet by now and i still havent managed to find one that actually increases the performance of the tablet. When im running the stock firmware i get about 7500-7600 on quadrant and my browser is really responsive and stuff. There's not been a single custon rom out there that has even performed better then 5600 on quadrant. Is it just me, or are the custom roms not hat good performance wise?
EDIT: By better performance i mean how snappy the tablet feels, using benchmarks as a secondary frame of reference.
Not sure if quadrant is doing a good job. I also am getting same results as you with 7xxx for stock and 5xxx for all CM based ones. Although the CM roms feel smoother here.
Sent from my SGP311 using XDA Premium HD app
I abstained the vote cause the question does not bear a black and white / yes or no answer anymore these days.
In my humble opinion, and I picked up the smartphone / PDA / mobile device modding bug back about when this site catered to the the original HTC XDA almost exclusively, and Steve Jobs was merely having wet dreams about his iPhone (*1)... nodded RIMs have gotten to a state where they are overvalued. Saying a custom ROM is always way ahead of stock is like saying "one device with a fixed featureless fits everyone perfectly".
Custom ROMs had their deserved heyday when the industry loaded up near every carrier distributed smartphone with scrappy bloatware that made you weep. Depending on the mobile OS at any given time it was nigh impossible to get rid of that stuff, unless you flashed the whole shebang. From there on the custom ROM scene kinda exploded along with the market distribution of smartphones and later on tablets, certainly owed to the introduction of Android over older generation closed source systems, which enabled much more in-depth possibilities of adding novel features, fixing stuff that was basically broken out of the box and integrating all of this nicely.
(For a frame of reference: I tossed my PalmPilot and Nokia phone when the HTC Wallaby (Telekom MDA or so)hit the shelves... Early adopter by nature and I thought combining cellphones and PDAs, bother which I used avidly was the most revolutionary idea since the combustion engine. This was generation Windows Pocket PC, basically a PDA with cellphone feature thrown in as an afterthought (the antenna actually doubles a stylus compartment). Phone integration was a PITA on good days. On bad, long work days it might just happen that your moody battery would jump from 35% to flat out dead within a mere six minute phone call. Yet, no biggie right? Well, it was, the devices had no non volatile storage. Dead battery means go home, pray your last phone backup is recent enough and restore the entire thing. I spent a lot of time fixing this device (windows style - shoehorning in binary OS components from newer PocketPC versions and prodding the registry on the phone (!)...) to a point where it was almost usable as PDA only device, supplementing telephonly with a Nokia.
A while later better devices came out, PocketPc was scrapped for Windows Mobile and in high hopes I got a HTC Charmer. This looked like a more solid platform and indeed proper custom ROMa emerged, adding real functionality and allowing to get rid of carrier branded crap, later even RIMs emerged with Windows Mobile version updates never intended for that phone, some even taking the recent cutting edge HTC front-end, the first incarnation of Sense (I think it was called vanilla). I figured the really bad conceptual problems were fixed and merrily went along. But, as god hates my guts, I drained the battery accidentally, only to find that the phone would still go dead, deaf, dumb and wiped despite a good three or four years of technological progress. I was so confident that I neglected backups with that model and basically lost the majority of my stuff again. The Nokia dumbphone was back in the game, the HTC left a dent in the wall that required plaster and a patch of new wallpaper.
TL;DR: The first gen smartphones (PDA with cell module afterthought were such flawed concepts, badly integrated, that keeping recent backups and maintaining it operational took quite an effort on user side, on that sort of negated the higher productivity of using one altogether. But bear with me now, I am still circling around the point or two I want t. Make.
Because a few months after I abandoned smartphones for good (or so I thought) Apple coughed up their iPhone prototype and a few months later pumped it to market. I was amazed (not because of the technological feat, they were more or less throwing R&D money bricks at existing tech and concepts, however they exactly figured out what went wrong in the early generations, fixed that stuff, added fingerdriven multi-touch in favor of stylus driven displays and, this is the real kicker, in a time and age when the cool cell to have was a Nokia 8 Series or a decent, very small flipphone or clamshell they managed to brainwash their customers into what PDA and smartphone adopters at that time already knew - it's totally worth to dump the train of ever smaller telephony only cells for a much larger, more fragile device because of all the freedom and power those things offer you.
I kept my guard and obviously went for Android devices once I got back on the horse. HTC Desire, a backup Wildfire, Desire HD, Sensation, One S and a few tablets along the way. Now, here is the kicker. The Desire ran much better with a custom. The Wildfire could only be updated to a recent Android version with a custom ROM due to HTCs sometimes appalling quick update discontinuation. The Desire HD ran a basically stock custom ROM! But with lots of lovely icon eyecandy, so I stuck with that too. The Sensation benchmarked equally (give or take 5%) but the ROM added novel features, properly implemented, which I decided to stick with. But frankly, it was because I could. I would not have recommended a newbie to Android flashing to take the plunge. My current HTC One S has a recovery downloader and is rooted cause some essential apps I can't live without need it. Full custom ROM switch. I see no point. Android has come a long way. If today I have bloatware I can go to App Manager and disable them. Icon gone, runtime resource hogging gone. Many features that were the selling points for a custom ROM a while back are now natively incorporated.
This is just how I feel about my Sony SGP311 now. It runs 4.2.2 rooted, no recovery yet. This is planned, maybe at some point a stable, close to stock custom kernel to allow some overclocking on a per app basis for XBMC. But other than that it just Danny works. The Sony skin put over stock Androi. Is not that bad, and more to the point it never gave me the impression of hogging the system. Turn off what is useless to you, Office suite, walkway, etc and be on your merry way. It just comes down to what you do with the device, but as a custom ROM junkie who has just gotten off the habit, for me it makes no sense anymore.
Now, if you made it all the way here, I ran two benchmarks on my 4.2.2 root but stock. Maybe they aid you in your decision.
EDIT: the attachments are garbage. Here are proper links:
http://i.imgur.com/vMFEX1p.png
http://i.imgur.com/IEPVvMS.png
http://i.imgur.com/mB5MKSH.png
Also, none of the above is supposed to rain on the developers parade or something. I admire your skills and dedication over all those years, and there isn't a single custom ROM that went onto my devices withour a PayPal "crate of beer" donation ever. However, the fiddling, time spent reading up on custom ROM choice, issues and unlocking process etc is just not in relation for me anymore. Those thoughts are yours to reject, spindle, mutilate, adopt, oppose or plainly ignore... Just speaking for myself here.
Thanks for this! I was also trying to decide if I should be flashing a custom rom on my XTZ. I am itching to flash but couldn't come up with any strong reason to do so, probably for battery life and stock look?
Will be interesting to hear from another person who is a strong believer of flashing custom rom on XTZ.
Sent from my GT-N7105 using Tapatalk
i got slightly better score using a custom rom. Plus i get themes, expanded desktop and pie control which is a must for this tablet. I hope more xda developers develop for this tablet. Will reward with donations
By "better performance" do mean higher benchmark scores? Because any of the 4.3 ROMs I've tried are generally smoother than Sony's 4.2.2.
Spartoi said:
By "better performance" do mean higher benchmark scores? Because any of the 4.3 ROMs I've tried are generally smoother than Sony's 4.2.2.
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Click to collapse
4.3 too bugy for me
im using 4.2.2 cm rom FXP242-cm-10.1-20131021-UNOFFICIAL-pollux_windy.zip
i already sent team a donation hope to keep em motivated
Spartoi said:
By "better performance" do mean higher benchmark scores? Because any of the 4.3 ROMs I've tried are generally smoother than Sony's 4.2.2.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, the post was incomplete. Changed it.
r1ntse said:
Sorry, the post was incomplete. Changed it.
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Click to collapse
I prefer 4.2 ATM. I get close to 30 Mbps download speed on this ROM where on 4.3 roms only 2mbps download? Also video cam recording, screen is squashed on 4.3. Other than that they run great but I personally cant feel a performqnce boost from 4.3 to 4.2. I also installed crossbreader and Supercharger V6 script which addresses screen redraw lags, so if there is a slower issue with 4.2 i would have addressed it with these two mods and may not be able to tell.
Related
What is cynagenmod and what's so "great" about it?
Thanks!
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
At the time cyanogen brought a lot of features we now use everyday. Os optimizations apps to sd. Things lf that nature. It is fully opensource and open to anyone to use.
I am fascinated and captivated by the vibrant screen on my epic galaxy s.
Nabeel10 said:
What is cynagenmod and what's so "great" about it?
Thanks!
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The ability to customize the phone, the stability, the speed, the battery life, and it gives phones the the g1/dream froyo which I guess was deemed impossible. It also gives users great support and updates quite frequently.
duboi97 said:
The ability to customize the phone, the stability, the speed, the battery life, and it gives phones the the g1/dream froyo which I guess was deemed impossible. It also gives users great support and updates quite frequently.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Plus it is a large group of people that work collectively together, they along with a few others are the ones that the leading "cutting edge" devs........ they blazed the trail and now all of us and the current devs benefit from their work.
Yea. Since its built from scratch it is faster than any roms here.
The g1 roms were same speed rooted or not
When cm came it was fast! And then a rom based on cm called super d was even faster and then a european rom was fastest!
So what I'm trying to say is, CM is and will be faster than the ROMs built here overclocked or not because the ROMs found here are based on the Official Froyo made by Samsung not a Vanilla Gingerbread rom built from scratch
So I think something built frrom scratch is better than something just modified and themed
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
It's built from scratch using the AOSP source, which a lot of ROMs are not (many ROMs are merely modified versions of existing stock ROMs).
It has an extensive amount of customization and flexibility beyond any other ROM I've ever used on an Android device.
I don't mind the ROM I'm running on my Vibrant, but I miss CyanogenMod. Since the CM7 release candidate for the MT4G just hit, I think it's time for me to change it up a bit. I'm tired of my short-range wifi (seriously, less than full bars when I'm only six feet away from my 802.11n router?), non-functional GPS and totally wonky compass, anyway.
I think one of its advantages is the sheer size of the community, if you've ever used various Linux distributions the same concept applies. When your user base expands to the point where you've got dozens if not hundred of loyal users posting guides, reporting bugs, requesting features, and answering new user's questions the community really feeds on itself and builds momentum. Cyanogen is largely responsible for a lot of the momentum in the rom community, and I know it's brought more people to the community than almost any other project.
A lot of things.
The cyanogenmod options alone are worth it - VM Heap, swap, JIT, compcache, et cetera. Granted these things are more relevant to lower end devices. Then there's the native ADW launcher integration. I've never been about to replace the stock launcher with ADW and get the same results.
It's really just its use in practice. Everything works, the interface is very instant/responsive (no jagged animations/scrolling, ever), no force closes, lots of mods/hacks for it from the community, which in general is very scrutinous about performance/stability hangups. Battery life twice what you're use to.
They're the only ROM team I've donated to. I flashed hundreds of roms when I had my Magic (one of the hardware-weakest android phones) but CM is what kept it up to par, giving me an extra generation's life out of it.
I personally love all the features built in, like pulldown menu modifications, as well as pretty much customizing every aspect, NO roms like that exist for our Vibrants..
It is Cyan in color, and mod like the british music scene duh!
hmm... I might have to give cm7 a try once they get it working on the vibrant. They are working on it right? If the manufactures were smart, they would give a pre-release phone to those guys before it's available to the public. Of course, the carriers may not like it. I just purchased my vibrant 3 weeks ago (former iphone 4 user). I tried a few darkyy's roms, then toxic, then finally I stuck with trigger. I'm very satisfied with it - mainly b/c everything works nice and smooth.
I see I'm a bit late but yes, Trigger is awesome. I tried flashing others and I always come back after 2days tops.... For some reason, Trigger runs so much smoother than the other ROMs on my phone... And I have tried 2.2.1(Honestly I dont get the difference) and I am not a fan of the 2.3.3 because most say the GPS doesn't work and I use my GPS at work, yes through my phone(I'm cheap). Plus that is one of my reasons for buying a "smart phone" It has everything at your finger tips, or supposed to at least right. Hope your having fun.,..... BTW, CM is freaking awesome on every device I have seen it on...... I'm actually curious to know why it's not on the Vibrant as an official build but eh..... It will come when it's ready I suppose
So I've seen this word thrown around a lot since switching to Android from my old iPhail 3G (yes, I actually lived with that horrible laggy device for ~4 years) and in comparisons between Android and iOS (which I'm not trying to get into here). I've also read lots of people saying Jelly Bean was supposed to be 'snappier' compared to ICS. I wasn't sure if they were referring to lag as in fps or a delay in reaction. My Note II is currently stock 4.1.1, but I'm definitely noticing some delay in games, such as Air Hockey, between moving my finger on the screen and the paddle moving in the game, for example. It's quite noticeable in apps like Maps too. I had the Galaxy S III for a short time before I decided I wanted the bigger (and better specs) Note II, but not long enough to make any comparisons. My question is, is there a way to increase the snappyness without doing anything too dramatic, such as flashing a different ROM, etc. Or will a ROM like beanstown106's Jelly Beans help? Or is this a problem that is inherently part of Android operating system/devices? Thanks in advance.
marcmy said:
will a ROM like beanstown106's Jelly Beans help? .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can tell you that flashing beans ROM made absolutely no speed difference whatever over my previous debloated/rooted stock ROM (and I didn't really expect it to)
One thing is, it is noticeably laggy when running the inferno galaxy live wallpaper, but pretty much instant response with regular WP.
The "snappieness" in individual apps is really down to the app itself combined with phone specs.
Poorly coded apps may have lag.
High end apps may push the hardware harder and cause lag.
I would bet its mostly the former when it comes to the Note 2.
Samsung also put touchwiz on these phones, which does affect overall performance to some degree. If we get the ability to remove much of it in favor of AOSP versions, then it should perform a little better overall.
The differences between iPhones and Android... is that Apple focuses on user interaction over all other things. So this means they will sacrifice performance in other areas to ensure that user interactions are kept smooth, or at least keep the appearance of smoothness. For example, iOS will stop loading web pages when you start to scroll the screen, so the CPU can focus on smooth scrolling. This means that the page will never finish loading if you keep scrolling around on the screen. Android does not do this or these kind of things. The new "project butter" implemented in JB is designed to help smooth out the interface and user interactions, without sacrificing performance in other areas. Its not perfect though, and it requires good specs and more power than the iOS way of "one thing at a time".
Great response ty very much. I guess next question is will we be able to get those AOSP versions later on or are we SOL in that department?
Sent from my SCH-I605 using xda app-developers app
Depends on which version you have.
I am on Verizon, so my device is locked down, other versions are not.
This device is also unique in the fact it has a Wacom stylus and functionality, so that must be considered.
Often times, you can swap things out without too much issue. AOSP lockscreen instead of touchwiz lockscreen... AOSP launcher instead of touchwiz launcher... without too much trouble. Problem is, underneath the ROM is still touchwiz... or at least that is how it worked on HTC Sense phones. (this is my first touchwiz device) HTC do a lot of work to the underlying framework which meant wholesale replacement of everything wasn't possible, so it depends on how much Samsung changed Android to put touchwiz on it.
Basically they "DE-Touchwiz" the phone and do some background tweaks for added performance, plus they "de-bloat the ROM. (they remove all the unnecessary crap that the carriers and Samsung put in, that served them some benefit, but not benefit the users) The advantage of this method is that you can keep much of the functionality of the stylus.
Another method is to use a ROM based on stock, but tweaked and de-bloated. This usually retains all the functionality of the device as it came out of the box... but the performance is usually only a little better than stock, and less than one where the AOSP stuff has been put in. This method does allow you to keep most of the stylus functionality.
As far as straight up custom ROMs based on AOSP...
They usually offer the best performance for a given device, having no extra crap, and being tweaked for performance... But you will lose most if not all the stylus functionality. Some ROMs may have limited stylus functionality, but they have to put that in themselves, meaning more work on their part.
As far as performance gains... I can only speak of HTC Sense devices with sureness. Where pure AOSP usually had significant improvements to performance/battery life. (mostly due to how extensive Sense is, touchwiz may be better in this regaurd) "De-sensed" ROMs where they removed all of the Sense stuff they could and replaced with AOSP equivalents, had good performance increases. "De-bloated" and tweaked but otherwise stock ROMs had some improvement.
But as was said, the stylus functionality is something that must be considered when looking at ROMs
After using AOSP ROMs quite extensively in both of my two Galaxy 3s, I have no desire whatever to run those type ROMs in my Note 2 (and lose things like pen functionality).
I could never see any performance difference whatever (except maybe in useless benchmarks) between a completely debloated TW ROM with all the features working perfectly and a buggy AOSP ROM in my G3s (and I tried every G3 ROM available at least twice).
Posters where constantly claiming this ROM is PERFECT when discussing any AOSP ROM but two posts later someone else would post "can anybody get NFL Mobile to work??" The next post would say "that has never worked in AOSP but I never use it anyway so who cares........"
Good call. I'd rather keep most functionality
Sent from my SCH-I605 using xda app-developers app
You could go into a store and try some of those games out on a DNA. Hopefully some are free so you don't have to put your google account in the play store and then clear the data. The DNA's gpu is much faster. It sounds like it's the app coding though. I don't have any input lag with on screen buttons playing GTA or N64oid, and emulators are pretty heavy on the processor.
Hi,
I've read that KitKat would need less resource compared to JB.
Since there are already ROM's based on JB for the Legend, do you think that a custom ROM will rapidly appear based on KitKat for this phone?
Thanks.
No.I don't think there are any developers left on this forum.
I too believe this won't happen, sadly. JB for Legend wasn't such a good idea, it simply can't run smoothly on that device. But, if what google says is true (about the hardware requirements), then 4.4 could be the greatest thing that has happened to this phone in a while. I still use my Legend as an mp3 player, but i would just love it if it was more functional, so i could use it in some high-risk situations (to avoid breaking my GN4). This could be Legends last chance to die with honor
Personally I have the Baked Blackbean Rom on my Legend (JB thus) and I'm rather satisfied of this Rom (thank you to the team BTW).
It lags a bit and there are some bugs but it allows me to play with the latest versions of the apps (I love the latest version of gmail for example).
Give it a try if you haven't already. The Legend deserves a better end than as a mere MP3 player .
mr.death7 said:
Personally I have the Baked Blackbean Rom on my Legend (JB thus) and I'm rather satisfied of this Rom (thank you to the team BTW).
It lags a bit and there are some bugs but it allows me to play with the latest versions of the apps (I love the latest version of gmail for example).
Give it a try if you haven't already. The Legend deserves a better end than as a mere MP3 player .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm also using JB on my Legend, but it is not really that stable (don't get me wrong, congrats to the developers, they did a great job), but it just feels too "heavy" on the phone. My biggest problem was the low amount of internal memory - yes, i know you can create a partition on the sd card, but i've never managed to accomplish it. Tried everything, just wouldn't work. So I really can't use the latest app version, as i can have about three apps installed at a time xD
Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. The app that launches 10 sec after you put your finger on it...
For the internal storage, I use Link2SD, which actually works pretty well. When I check, it tells me that I got something like 280MB in use and still have 70MB free.
I just created like you said a second partition (using a soft [named Mini-Tool if I remember correctly] in Windows while my phone was plugged in USB) and then using this second partition to install my apps.
Are you interested in trying again ? You have another phone but, anyway...
I've been part of legend community for about 2 years now, never got into full blown deving, rather doing relatively small mods, tweeks and stuff for personal use only (read, cutting my teeth with android).
Activity in legend has unfortunately died over the past 3-6 months and I haven't seen much from our last major Dev zeubea for long time, so unless there is a skilled Dev equal or better than zeubea out there that loves the HTC legend, its not going to happen. Even then given that jb version never really got finished to stable version, I very much doubt KitKat would come anywhere near the level that jb reached simply due to lack of source code for the required harware drivers...
Ya never know your luck in a big city...
Sent from my GT-I9505 using xda app-developers app
Well, let's hope such a developer exists than...
KK has been ported to the HTC Desire so there's hope
and sorry to hijack, but is anyone willing to test some gapps? Would be appreciated, cheers!
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=47101145&postcount=204
Ah cool! That's indeed a good news!
Thanks for the info.
KK was said to be optimized for devices with 512 MB+ RAM via Project Svelte. The Legend unfortunately doesn't even have that much.
But, I ask, why would everyone ideally want to have their Legends running Android 4.x? I don't understand why because although Gingerbread is now running on less than half of all Android devices, it was the last OS on our phone to run fluidly and with stability. With JB and above, Google's cramming more and more features into Google Play services, which really brings down the space the Legend has in its internal memory for apps. KK just won't run like Google intended to on this device. I just don't understand why people want the latest and greatest on a ~4 year old device. Maybe you have your reasons, and I'll respect that, but I can't think of any reason why personally.
It hurts to say, but with the Legend nearing four years since announcement, this phone isn't worth being developed for anymore. It wasn't that huge of a hit, like the original Desire or the Sensation. Therefore, it tends to be more forgotten. It doesn't have the computing power of neither of these devices, nor does it even come close to it, so while the aforementioned devices are slowly getting the bleeding edge, we'll be getting it slower, if at all.
It's a harsh reality, but if you want the best experience in Android possible, it's time to upgrade. ~Four years, that's around two two-year contracts. For Legend owners in Canada, your contract should have been up just this past summer.
This phone will always be a classic, guiding HTC through its brilliant design language with the HTC One flagship and its variants. Its legacy is shown on the devices that succeeded it. Unfortunately, I don't believe it has anything more to bring.
Hi Asovse1,
Thank you for your opinion.
You're right when you say that 4 years are an eternity for a smartphone but personally right now I can't afford a new device that would have for example the screen quality of the Legend (which has an amoled screen while even recent phone still use LCD). If I buy a new phone around 99 $ (my budget) I would have a screen with a poor resolution so the change is not worthy.
I have a JB Rom on my Legend and I can enjoy the last version of GMail for example that has really cool stuff. And this version of gmail runs rather smoothly on my phone, so why not ?
The Legend doesn't have 512MB RAM, for this reason he wasn't supposed to support ICS, but it worked, so while it works with the new version of Android, I will hope that a talented developer will build a Rom for this fantastic phone .
Or maybe I can wait just a few days ans see what the Moto G has to offer...
Cheers.
Hear hear, someone in the same boat as myself. Still using my Legend for daily use. I am on CM7.2 stable. Only GPS is not reliable. Tried a lot higher roms, never worked out well.
I am looking into importing a Chinese phone. Nice specs and an affordable price. Only risk is a broken phone within 2 years...
Sent from my Legend using xda app-developers app
Hi Wim,
Have you ever tried the Baked one as I mentioned earlier?
I have it on my Legend and use it daily without any problem. And the GPS works too, even if sometimes it needs some time to find itself, once it's done, it works perfectly.
Hello there,
I have great news for all the fans of the Legend: it might get KitKat !
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1905588&page=28
Let's cross our fingers !
Cheers!
It's been 5 years, any news?
Hi guys, I'm a jailbroken iPhone 6S+ user. I'm currently a slave to Apple's ecosystem (iPad, Apple TV, Watch but not a Mac) I apologize for the wall of text below, but I know you guys are always glad to give a helping hand.
I've been using iOS since the iPod Touch 2G, taking a break for a couple months only in the Galaxy S3 days, which was my first and only android experience. Many iOS users are in the same boat as me.
Android was a whole different thing back then. Nowadays, when I see the curved, bright and saturated screen of an S7 and how well it pairs with the material design, I feel like I'd love to give that a spin. My problem is that I've been fed constant complaints on behalf of android users, using different handsets and at different times. Here are my main concerns:
I've always heard that, after a "honeymoon" period, almost without fail, all android handsets start to experience stuttering, freezing, rebooting, framerate drops, etc. (maybe one of those at a time, sometimes all of those are common occurrences) does this happen? This is the most important one for me, because if there's something that none of my iPhones ever suffered from, was reduced performance.
Software glitches which are mostly hardware-specific. I've visited the 6P subreddit, only to find a plethora of people complaining about the camera app freezing or crashing, some focus issue I believe as well, or maybe just reduced performance in other parts of the OS (which is the purest form of android). I've also heard that Samsung's bloatware, although only a fraction of what it was back on the S3 days, still causes the phone to feel sluggish at times. Haven't heard about Huawei or HTC bloatware, but I have watched reviews which mentioned some lag here and there.
Software updates. The whole ordeal of having to choose a phone thinking about whether it will get updates in the future or not is pretty sad. I know that Nexus phones are guaranteed to get updates for two years I believe, but as I stated before, visiting the 6P subreddit, I've seen people complain about Google updating the OS but leaving bugs unresolved for several iterations of it. How do you handle this when choosing a phone?
Customization. If there's one area that I've been always convinced Android was leaps and bounds ahead of iOS was this. However, as a jailbroken iOS user, I find that I get most of what you guys can get out the box, but in a prettier package. As in, jb tweaks are very tightly integrated and always match the OS look and feel. In Android, you work with apps or, after rooting, with "modules" I think they're called. How do these differ from JB tweaks (stability-wise as well)? How different is the process of waiting for root vs waiting for a JB? Is rooting as necessary as jailbreaking?
Lastly:
Apps. I am aware of the differences in general app quality when comparing the App Store and the Play Store. Big names such as FB, Twitter, Instagram, etc are mostly the same. But when you start digging a little bit deeper, you find that there's a big difference in not only availability, but also variety and polish. At least, that's how my experience was and what I tend to hear from Android users. How's the Play Store these days? Has this changed a bit?
I apologize once again for the wall of text. If you could answer each point with one or two lines I'd be immensely grateful. Honestly, since these points are big question marks in my head right now, I wouldn't even know what handset to look into, because I don't want to be unpleasantly surprised later on. Android screens though... Damn. Most of them are sexy.
Anyway, thank you very much for your time. Any help is deeply appreciated.
Stuttering/Freezing. You might find this on some low-end devices but the "flagship" devices that I've used haven't suffered from this. This would generally be caused by lower end hardware (lower clocked CPU and lower RAM).
Software glitches. I own the 6P and have never had the camera crash or freeze, never had any software issues with this phone actually. Samsung phones are pretty well known to suffer from being sluggy, this is due to their Touchwiz UI which hogs quite a bit of RAM. The HTC devices I've owned haven't had this issue. Can't speak for Huawei's own UI. The Huawei 6P uses pure Android, I don't notice any real lag issues on this phone.
Updates. If you want guaranteed software updates your best bet is a Nexus. I've noticed no major bugs on the 6P apart from a 4G bug that was specific to an Australian carrier but that was patched pretty quickly. There have been things in Android that people label as bugs that haven't been patched immediately though. Even if you choose a device that may not be updated officially you will very often be able to update via a custom ROM, custom ROMs are often developed for devices long after official support has stopped.
Customization. Android is definitely far ahead in terms of customisation. Most people find customisation via a custom ROM (a customised version of the OS, sometimes based on the stock OS, sometimes based on AOSP (Android Open Source Project or "pure Android"), sometimes based on something like CyanogenMod). A ROM will almost always have extra features and tweaks, these features are usually very well implemented and tie in very nicely with the OS. When speaking about modules you'd be referring to Xposed Modules which are used with the Xposed Framework. Xposed basically opens up a lot of customisation ability, it requires root, it can be used on a stock ROM with root or with a custom ROM. There are a plethora of modules available, too many to even begin to list, the best way to see what they can achieve is to look in our Xposed Modules section. As for root in general, you don't generally need to wait for root like you would with jailbreaking. Having root access is also far more flexible than jailbreaking, you can pretty much do anything with your phone, you have full access to the otherwise blocked system partition. Root methods will vary from device to device but you'll usually need an unlocked bootloader. The easiest devices to root and modify are the Nexus devices, they're designed to be tinkered with, development phones first and foremost.
Apps. In the early days of Android, and even up until a few years ago, the Play Store really lacked in terms of availability and quality. The last few years have seen a dramatic increase in both areas though, there's a wide variety available and the quality has become top notch.
In summing up, it looks like the worries you have are misconceptions commonly held by Apple users.
As a former board level apple technician who used the first ever apple products in kindergarten nearly 30 years ago, I must say I can't even use an iPhone. With all respect, most of your thoughts are not accurate.
Sent from my Nexus 6P using XDA-Developers mobile app
Years ago I rooted a phone I had to the latest Android, only to find that the hardware wasn't up to running a more complicated OS, even the Cyanogen version that was equivalent to the original Android version didn't exactly breath much life into the old dog.
Given how shockingly poor the experience on my T820 can be on the stock ROM, I find myself once again tempted to give a custom one a go, but was wondering if the newer ROMs place significant additional load on the hardware? Is it worth the effort? Does it make them responsive?
I don't use the tablet for anything heavy-duty; mainly what I want is responsive browsing, Skype and some basic apps...
imacleod said:
Years ago I rooted a phone I had to the latest Android, only to find that the hardware wasn't up to running a more complicated OS, even the Cyanogen version that was equivalent to the original Android version didn't exactly breath much life into the old dog.
Given how shockingly poor the experience on my T820 can be on the stock ROM, I find myself once again tempted to give a custom one a go, but was wondering if the newer ROMs place significant additional load on the hardware? Is it worth the effort? Does it make them responsive?
I don't use the tablet for anything heavy-duty; mainly what I want is responsive browsing, Skype and some basic apps...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
@imacleod,
Based on the views and comments I see for custom ROMs for your tablet, this ROM:
[ROM] SM-T820 TWEAKED....................[rom] sm-t820 tweaked
SM-T820 TWEAKED 5.1 ***** PIE ***** 20JUN2020 T820_CTD5_TWEAKED_5.1_DB4_by_rorymc928.zip Based on latest stock CTD5 firmware Tweaked, stable, zip aligned. SU/D Forced encryption disabled Deknoxed Debloated (GPU driver updated to latest...
forum.xda-developers.com
appears to be the best choice for improving your tablet's performance. If you are serious about installing it, check out the most recent posts in the thread. You will find a very useful post that goes into great details about how to install the ROM properly.
I feel you regarding sluggish performance on a stock Samsung tablet. I had a Samsung tablet a long time ago and it felt like watching paint dry when I tried to simply play a video. Also, what is it with the HUGE bezel size on Samsung tablets ? I recently bought a Lenovo Tablet and it has a very thin bezel.
In any event, good luck with your tablet !!
Thanks. I was hoping for some feedback from people that had applied a ROM to the S3, whether they found it transformational - or perhaps not - and whether the best idea is to go for the latest and greatest, or stick at the lowest level that's got general support.
I'm not one who's installed a custom firmware, but I see you've not got much response. This device was very expensive at launch, so was a hard reach for many people. Fewer people means fewer developers.
The custom firmware available for this device is quite sparse. In addition, there seems to be troubles getting all of the hardware to work correctly. They're not placing any load on the device as its the same kernel version as stock.
That being said, I do believe the S3 is past its support period, so will not be getting new firmware from Samsung.
Reading the fora for the custom firmware show that the device can be more responsive than stock (as long as you don't need the hardware that isn't working).
Additionally, rooting and debloating the stock firmware has shown increased performance for those who have done it (including myself). I'd recommend this route prior to attempting a custom firmware unless your primary goal is to ditch samsung and google.
undrwater said:
I'm not one who's installed a custom firmware, but I see you've not got much response. This device was very expensive at launch, so was a hard reach for many people. Fewer people means fewer developers.
The custom firmware available for this device is quite sparse. In addition, there seems to be troubles getting all of the hardware to work correctly. They're not placing any load on the device as its the same kernel version as stock.
That being said, I do believe the S3 is past its support period, so will not be getting new firmware from Samsung.
Reading the fora for the custom firmware show that the device can be more responsive than stock (as long as you don't need the hardware that isn't working).
Additionally, rooting and debloating the stock firmware has shown increased performance for those who have done it (including myself). I'd recommend this route prior to attempting a custom firmware unless your primary goal is to ditch samsung and google.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the reply. I did actually take the plunge through the week and installed rorymc928's rom. So far, I'd say that it's more usable than stock - e.g. it's not so slow that entering a PIN after a restart hits the screen lockout out before I'm done - but not overly stunning when browsing (perhaps my expectations are too high). It has made me a lot less inclined to reach for a hammer/put it on eBay, and it may be the best balance between what's available and losing functions/features. If I feel brave I may try a more advanced tinker at some later point in time...
If you want to get an idea what Samsung thought was important for this tablet, watch some HDR content from youtube. Gorgeous!
But... Not really useful. Android tablets are a teeny niche, but someone should be able to produce something for the market!