This is a question about custom ROMs...it's the first time I'm really looking for one, and before anyone suggests CM - that is useless to me due to lack of functioning MHL.
So I'm looking for a ROM that has all the phone features functional (as in "in a usable for daily life degree").
I'm an Android game/app reviewer and I've been looking at apps for screen recording, but seeing how none of them allow for a reasonable experience on a Galaxy S2, I'll stick with external capture...and since I can't afford any better device right now, I thought I'd turn to custom ROMs for a while.
...so any suggestions?
[btw, I'm using the Galaxy S2 GT-i9100 international variant]
Not gonna recommend a cusROM as that's against XDA rules....but as a general answer, have you looked at the 'hybrid' ROMs?..... Samsung based but without the bloat and with the added customizability of aosp/aokp.
If MHL is a Sammy standard, then they *should* include it
This might be my S2, or it might be my W...but it's definitely CM
keithross39 said:
Not gonna recommend a cusROM as that's against XDA rules....but as a general answer, have you looked at the 'hybrid' ROMs?..... Samsung based but without the bloat and with the added customizability of aosp/aokp.
If MHL is a Sammy standard, then they *should* include it
This might be my S2, or it might be my W...but it's definitely CM
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Technically, my question is about something pretty much no ROM developer ever addressed so it shouldn't be against the rules o_o
Anyway, is there any "list" topic of place where I can find hybrid roms only?
Look for alliance rom or biftor rom or neat rom ect ect. Sammy based roms are hybrid roms.
Related
I apologize in advance for being a noob and asking a very very silly question. I'm new to the Android platform and want to learn.
Here we go. I'm impressed by the UI of Stock Android that can be seen on Nexus devices (Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 4, they look and work so cool). No lagging, no fancy TouchWiz or anything. But Samsung Galaxy S2 has this touchwiz thingy. I recently got to know that the UI that I love (stock Android) is a part of CM10 (I mean, CM10 looks very much like it, and has added functionality compared to stock Android), and it can be installed on the Galaxy S2. Now there are a few things:
If I get an S2 and install CM10 on it,
- Will it be free of major bugs (there are a few bugs in every OS). But will it perform like the OS on those Nexus devices?
- Would it be a better decision, compared to getting a Nexus device (I don't want the Nexus 4 for some reason, and Galaxy Nexus, well, has slightly low-end hardware).
- Also, I was preferring a Nexus device only for the stock Android look and experience, but if I can get that on a rather flagship phone, why go for a Nexus?
I'll ask more questions once you fine folks post some replies. Please help me out... Thanks, help will be appreciated in non-Androidish terms (though I'm technically sound in all aspects, but i'm a noob when it comes to Android).
Thanks in advance
if you want bug free stock android buy a nexus *period*
gs 2 will have issues with future android updates sadly we havnt got butter on cm10 even after about 6 months of development
bluefa1con said:
if you want bug free stock android buy a nexus *period*
gs 2 will have issues with future android updates sadly we havnt got butter on cm10 even after about 6 months of development
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Thanks! What about other Custom ROMs? Are there any ones out there (apart from CM10) which look, feel, and work like Stock Android?
(not worth asking, but preferably with less bugs?)
iPhoneNexus said:
Thanks! What about other Custom ROMs? Are there any ones out there (apart from CM10) which look, feel, and work like Stock Android?
(not worth asking, but preferably with less bugs?)
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Bro in all honesty, CM10 is actually pretty good for this device and you probably wont really notice much of the bugs (ok there are some annoying niggly issues with the audio but definitely not a deal breaker or anything major, you might not even notice it) and it is a good alternative to AOSP (nexus roms). Yes project butter does not work but the ROM is still damn fast considering that its not implemented "yet".
Another good Nexus type ROM is AOKP, for me this is the better ROM because it has some damn fine swagger, and you will see what I mean if you install it. It is based of CM10 sources so very similar but still unique. Personally bro I would only stick with these two as they are very good quality ROM's, unfortunately as mentioned before, we are stuck with incomplete sources due to Samsung withholding them so we wont have fully stable ROM's until this is released.
My sincere advice is to buy galaxy nexus or nexus 4 if you can. Else I advice you to use CM9 till the time Samsung releases essential sources to make CM10 work better. CM9 will give you much better battery life than CM10. As it is the battery life of S2 is not that great.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda app-developers app
Thanks for all the replies guys, really appreciated. Actually I'm getting a Galaxy Nexus and a Galaxy S2 at the same price (almost $345). Since S2 is much better (in terms of hardware) as far as I know, it has less issues, better battery life and so forth. All it lacks is the OS that I want in Galaxy nexus, and since you're telling me that AOKP is just as good as stock Android, I can put AOKP (or even CM9 or Cm10) on it and use it. I just want a Galaxy Nexus for the OS, not for the hardware. As a matter of fact, the hardware of Galaxy Nexus is quite disappointing, so that's why I'm preferring the S2. The only reason I'm asking the questions is: whather I can flash a nexus-like ROM on to it and have a nexus-like OS experience. Is that possible? And is it worth doing?
choose which you think is best
ShadowArany said:
choose which you think is best
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I'm confused, and that's why I'm asking here!
iPhoneNexus said:
Thanks for all the replies guys, really appreciated. Actually I'm getting a Galaxy Nexus and a Galaxy S2 at the same price (almost $345). Since S2 is much better (in terms of hardware) as far as I know, it has less issues, better battery life and so forth. All it lacks is the OS that I want in Galaxy nexus, and since you're telling me that AOKP is just as good as stock Android, I can put AOKP (or even CM9 or Cm10) on it and use it. I just want a Galaxy Nexus for the OS, not for the hardware. As a matter of fact, the hardware of Galaxy Nexus is quite disappointing, so that's why I'm preferring the S2. The only reason I'm asking the questions is: whather I can flash a nexus-like ROM on to it and have a nexus-like OS experience. Is that possible? And is it worth doing?
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AOSP (in this case CM10) is already good enough to use, and you won't find major bugs as mentioned before (IF you can find them as you don't sound like a really heavy user but I could be wrong). So why waste money on a device if the S2 has better hardware?
AOKP is a modified version based on AOSP, but indeed has a lot more options.
Sent from the Matrix
Get a Sensation. Pretty much has a bug-free version of CM10 JB 4.1.2 and various renditions of it (MIUI, PA and even a fully-fledged stock AOSP ROM)
Sent from my HTC Sensation using xda premium
Jikstah said:
Get a Sensation. Pretty much has a bug-free version of CM10 JB 4.1.2 and various renditions of it (MIUI, PA and even a fully-fledged stock AOSP ROM)
Sent from my HTC Sensation using xda premium
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Because you think the S2 doesn't have these..?
Sent from the Matrix
Donnie Sins said:
Because you think the S2 doesn't have these..?
Sent from the Matrix
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Probably, sorry for the lack of knowledge. The mood of the thread said otherwise.
Jikstah said:
Probably, sorry for the lack of knowledge. The mood of the thread said otherwise.
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I can understand your thinking, but I think the development is both probably in the same stage
Sent from the Matrix
Hi guys,
can you help me understanding the main pros/cons for going with Samsung JB or an AOSP rom on the Galaxy S3?
I've tried searching the forum but without luck, anyone got a thread link where this is covered?
My first Samsung (S3) phone is on its way by mail, and I'm trying to decide which type of rom to choose.
Off course I see the obvious stuff like:
Open vs Closed source
Stock vs Custom UI
But, except for the above; why should I choose an optimized (de-odexed, de-bloated etc. etc.) Samsung JB rom over an AOSP rom?
From what I can understand custom kernels also exists for both rom types, so that wouldn't be an argument right?
I'm not familiar with the current HW support in AOSP rom's for the S3. Generally this has been where roms for my HTC phones have differed in the past. What's the status with the S3, do AOSP support most of the stuff or is there still some way to go?
Please shed some light for me :fingers-crossed:
And please don't compare specific rom's against each others. I'm trying to understand this at higher level, I will off course test several rom's and make up my own mind about what specific rom release is best suited for me.
Samsung roms will have all the things mentioned in the ads such as direct call, smart stay, multi window etc. Aosp won't have these as they are samsungs additions. Samsung will have touchwiz launcher as default, which comes with a lot of samsung only widgets. Aosp will have vanilla launcher (with some extra functions and tweaks).
Sammy roms generally have better camera than aosp. Aosp is considered to have better battery usage although I can't really tell from my experience of using both types.
Deodexed means it's easier to develop themes for, as the external odex files are repackaged into the apks directly. But it will take a while longer when booting, as odex files are meant to speed up this process. As for the actual usage, not much difference.
Debloated means getting rid of bloatware that come with your phone, sich as chaton, google talk etc. There will be quite a lot of apps that you don't use but will be present and wasting your phone resources. Debloating is done by some developers but you can do most of ot yourself as long as you're rooted.
Hope this clears things. But these are all general, as you wished it to be. Some aosp will have different launcher options etc, so will sammy roms. As for what you go with, I'll leave it up to you.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda premium
Thanks
xcly said:
Samsung roms will have ...
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Thanks a lot xcly, this clears up some stuff for me
You say that Sammy roms have better camera, what about the rest of the HW support on AOSP? The rest of the stuff (GPS, Accel, Gyro etc.) works ok?
From what I can gather from your post (and reading around) the choice boils down to two main points for me
HW support
Kernel (stability and performance, ofwhich battery performance is derived)
I don't care much for the 'Samsung features' (direct call, smart stay, multi window etc.) and the launcher can always be customized.
Additionally my previous experience is that the continious devlopment done on AOSP (with nightlies etc.) gives a nice feeling of continous improvement that you miss from manufacturer roms. For manufacturer roms you're relying on manufacturer relase schedules and leaks. But off course, one can argue that there is continous development through hacking, back-porting and kernel improvements for these roms as well..
Ultimately I think Ill just have to try out the most popular roms of both types before I'm able to decide what type I go with as a daily driver.
As for kernels most of then support both aosp and sammy so don't worry about it too much. Gps wifi and the lot work well on both as well.
Samsung didn't release any source code for its processor so aosp roms can never realise the full potential. Never had any trouble using aosp so I wouldn't say there is a huge difference, but I guess some advanced users will miss the hw side of things..
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Simple to say
TouchWiz UI and pure Android UI.
Other things basically are very similar
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Haha nice. All my words in a single sentence
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Here is some personal feeling about them.
As you can see from my signature that I had Nexus S and Galaxy Nexus before, and after I lost my GNex, I tried to buy a Nexus 4, but it kinda like mission impossible as it's serious outta supply, so I was forced to make compromise and go with Galaxy S III, which is very nice phone through some thing I don't like such as hardware button and soft key (because GNex uses virtual button on screen which is completely customizable ).
I have been using AOSP ROM for over a year (well, it's outta options actually as they are Google's sons but Samsung didn't make a ROM for them even they are manufactured by Samsung , and 3 month with Sammy ROM.
Even I got my S3, the first thing I have done is flash AOSP ROM and get my feeling about GNex back, but unfortunately due to some reasons, I couldn't make it become GNex-like and realize it is something fool, so I tried Sammy stock ROM.
My first feeling about it is a little prettier than AOSP ( through there's countless themes for AOSP, I am just talking about default theme ) and some Sammy features are very interesting and attractive. (IMHO, I'd say it is more user-friendly to users ) which is why I decided to stay with it , but after all these times, I didn't actually use these features much except multi windows and slide to dial...
OK, sorry for my non sense words and my bad English just can exactly express what I trying to say...
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda premium
FoxHound rom is all you need.
crDroid is the most stable Sammy Tom out there with the option of having an AOSP theme & not installing all the bloatware that Samsung Roms are notorious for.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda app-developers app
don't turn this thread into a best rom one
A quick follow up question
Just a quick follow up question regarding HW support:
Whats the status for AOSP roms regarding MHL, does it work?
I recently saw a video where a guy paired his phone with a PS3 controller and played games on his HD TV. Would this possible on non-Sammy roms?
Can't help you much on that. Never tried mhl on my s3, aosp or otherwise. You're better off asking/searching in cm thread. If it works on cm, it'd probably work on other aosp roms too.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda premium
Pedro80 said:
Just a quick follow up question regarding HW support:
Whats the status for AOSP roms regarding MHL, does it work?
I recently saw a video where a guy paired his phone with a PS3 controller and played games on his HD TV. Would this possible on non-Sammy roms?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You need to read the relevant rom threads or logically ask in those threads .
jje
Hello guys, I've recently upgraded from a Galaxy Nexus to a Galaxy S III, skipping the Nexus 4 for reasons I should explain only if asked.
I've been reading a lot of posts from AOSP advocates defending Samsung's TouchWiz, which makes for a rather worrying reading.
Now, I'm quite pleased with stock TW Jellybean, it's really smooth, fast, stable and not bloated at all. However, I wanted to try some AOSP roms since developers clearly had some time to work on them, and Samsung has certainly released JB source code to overcome some driver-related issues that there might have been. My question is: is TW still the best option or are there some AOSP roms that are stable, fast and working on every aspect? I'm talking about tethering, data connection, auto-brightness, battery life, bluetooth, camera... the stuff meant to work at its best on a stock TW rom.
Thanks for your help.
Well actually for me the AOSP ROMs are smoother and have all the features I could probably need....but
Samsung didn't released the sources as they told us and because of that (and a couple of proprietary reasons with Microsoft)
We can't make a fully functional camera(slight camcorder/flash stuff that have never affected me)
Can't have exfat sdcards
Can't have native FM radio
(Reason why we are not really officially supported by Cyanogenmod in their M builds)
But that's about it...I would really recommend you to try them...unless you need a Samsung specific feature like AllShare or AllShare control if you have a SmartTV...or want the extra features in the camera (BurstShot ShareShot) that I really never used..... and a lot of those features are now in CM10.1 like HDR and that stuff.
Those are my two 2 cents of the theme
Sent from my GT-I9300 running AOKP Build 6
I have been using CM based ROMs for a year, but now I am curious about the Samsung based ROMs (Rooted, deodexed, without bloatware and such) I have read the FAQ thread, but it does not offer me a proper explanation about the differences between CM and Samsung. Only that Samsung ROMs are "smoother". So I am asking in this thread for a wider explanation and to solve some questions I have:
-Why are there more Samsung ROMs than AOSP? Sure that the CM ROMs get more updated, and that people here love open sourcing, but I am curious about this fact.
-Are AOSP ROMs more suited for a "liberated" device? Samsung has closed the hardware sources of the GS3, and thats why the AOSP devs can not release a full working AOSP ROM. At least until Samsung decides to release the sources...
-Also, the Samsung based development is depending on the official updates provided by Samsung right? So the day Samsung drops the service, should we use AOSP instead?
-What is the cuality of a Samsung based ROM? Its much better that the official Touchwiz ROM?
-Its true that the Samsung ROMs have a much better sound than the CM ROMs, or it is vice versa? I am quite an audiophile, so this point interests me.
Lastly, I would like that you could solve me a question. One day, I changed from a CM10.1 ROM to a custom 4.1.2. When I did this, I could not use the Google Backup on my apps, and, for example, I could not recover the Whatsapp conversations. Moreover, I could not access to the SD card through the File Explorer in that ROM. So, is this a common compatibility problem between AOPS and Touchwiz or it is more of a ROM issue?
bungoss said:
-Why are there more Samsung ROMs than AOSP? Sure that the CM ROMs get more updated, and that people here love open sourcing, but I am curious about this fact.
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They're easy to create, plenty of updated versions from samsung and a lot of people prefer them
bungoss said:
-Are AOSP ROMs more suited for a "liberated" device? Samsung has closed the hardware sources of the GS3, and thats why the AOSP devs can not release a full working AOSP ROM. At least until Samsung decides to release the sources...
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Question doesn't make sense. IMHO, there are more useful and configurable settings in aosp. Downfall of closed sources are camera quality and possibly battery life
bungoss said:
-Also, the Samsung based development is depending on the official updates provided by Samsung right? So the day Samsung drops the service, should we use AOSP instead?
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Yes we need rom bases and kernel source code from samsung. Once samsung drop kernel source for the s3, aosp development will slow down considerably
bungoss said:
-What is the cuality of a Samsung based ROM? Its much better that the official Touchwiz ROM?
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What? If you mean quality,.its much the same with some tweaks to enhance performance, user experience etc. If you're rooted and not using a samsung based custom rom, you're missing out
bungoss said:
-Its true that the Samsung ROMs have a much better sound than the CM ROMs, or it is vice versa? I am quite an audiophile, so this point interests me.
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Apparently but I've not noticed a difference. I listen to a lot of music and am completely satisfied. That said, if there is a difference - it would be understandable
bungoss said:
Lastly, I would like that you could solve me a question. One day, I changed from a CM10.1 ROM to a custom 4.1.2. When I did this, I could not use the Google Backup on my apps, and, for example, I could not recover the Whatsapp conversations. Moreover, I could not access to the SD card through the File Explorer in that ROM. So, is this a common compatibility problem between AOPS and Touchwiz or it is more of a ROM issue?
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This is an android 4.2 thing. Follow link in my signature to sticky roll-up. I wrote a thread about 4.2 sdcard data you should read
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 4
Top and bottom is its users choice . With a nandroid it takes a short time to test .
Personally i cannot stand AOKP/AOSP .
Sound you have got to give this a try IRS open up a whole new world of sound outputs .
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2191223
I bought my Galaxy S5 a couple of months ago and I still have this S2. I'm really not sure what to do with this phone. Not gonna sell it away because it is an awesome phone.
But here I'm planning: (I'm sure there are a lot of people like me, not sure what to do with their old S2 now.)
- build a media center.
But this requires sammy ROM so it could be connected to the TV using HDMI.
- try out new ROMs.
Yeah awesome idea.
- use it as an IP Camera.
- use it as an "iPod"
I have some questions regarding these choices.
1) shall I stick to sammy jellybean or upgrade to KitKat? I'm currently using kikat on this S2 but I would like to use it on the TV
2) will it have any problems if I let my S2 stick on he charger 24/7? If only I would like to use it as an IP camera. Will it have any effects on the battery/motherboard?
I hope fellow S2 members can discuss all this here. Thanks!
Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk
I am not an s2 user anymore for 1,5 years but.
1) you can stick to jellybean stock if you want it for your tv but I suggest to use a custom rom based on stock jellybean, look in the dev forums there are a couple of it.
2) I am not sure or you will have any problems but just like on a laptop and other devices its not good to let a battery charge for 24/7 so google it for sure for your own safety/phone life.
I also hope for you that other s2 member are going to discuss here with you
I dont see the point to stay on kitkat if you already have the s5. So I suggest to downgrade to an custom stock base rom since it would be also probably more bug free.
I really recommend using a custom stock rom such as neatrom for pure stability. If you prefer a little extra performance (and some new features), go with a kitkat rom such as cyanogenmod or paranoid android (and the list can go for ages).
I decided to go with JB NeatROM. Thanks for the advice guys! I find it more stable and faster as compared to KitKat. (Probably because I didn't use JB for months)