We have a problem: there are a ridiculous number of ROMs available, spanning 6 different versions of Android, each with their own pros and cons. There are so many choices that I imagine it must be completely overwhelming to someone who is new to custom ROMs, coming here to try to breathe life back into their device. (I find it overwhelming and I've been on XDA since 2007.)
So, I'm asking those of you who have tried and tested the many ROMs available for the Xperia Ray to please share the wisdom of your experience for the benefit of all.
This isn't a "what ROM is best" thread, because I know that specific ROMs fit specific purposes, i.e. if you absolutely want the latest Android features, you want a Kitkat ROM (perhaps at the expensive of speed). The idea is more to give people a place to start looking, i.e. if they know they need FM radio they should rule out any ROM based on Android 4.1+, and some recommendations given specific needs. If you recommend specific ROMs, please try to mention at least 2 different ones (and if you're the author, please disclose that so we know you're plugging your own ROM).
To spark your thoughts, consider your answers to any of the following questions. If we get enough people answering, I'll edit this post to add in general consensus answers to have a quick guide in place for other users looking for a new ROM.
Q: What Android versions provide full functionality of stock hardware, i.e. FM radio, 720p video recording.
- My understanding is that for FM radio to work, you need to be on Gingerbread or ICS. (Not sure on 720p video.)
Q: What Android versions or specific ROMs are the fastest (as in quickly responsive UI)?
- My impression (from thread comments) is that Gingerbread is still the fastest, but suffers in terms of battery life.
Q: What Android versions generally have the best battery life?
Q: What Android versions or specific ROMs offer the best performance for gaming only?
Q: What ROMs offer the best combination of speed, stability and battery life for day-to-day use?
- For example, if you're giving the phone to your girlfriend, you can't go wrong with <insert recommendation> or <insert recommendation>.
If you can think of other questions to help people with their decision-making, feel free to mention them and I'll add them to the list.
These kind of questions aren't allowed on XDA, you'll just have to test them out like everyone else does. Just because I feel a certain ROM is better than another doesn't mean everyone else will agree.
As you said "it is not a best ROM thread" but the with the points you included the discussion will eventually reflect the same as being "Best ROM" according to someones' preference. And even If I keep this thread open suggesting all the users just to share their opinion it won't go good as it would expected considering the past history regarding the matter. So, I will close this thread to avoid any kind of anarchy and also to keep you out of the trouble in future, thanks for understanding..
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Hi all
first off let me just commend EVERYONE on xda-devs for the work they have put in to make this such a great site/resource/info store
I've been using xda-devs ever since i got my very first htc voyager device, then onto various other smartphones and then i discovered the wonderful world of ppc, way back with himalaya, through to magician/charmer/prophet/wizard/hermes and now of course, RAPHAEL!!!
if you've gotten this far then i thank you for listening to me rambling on
my request is simple:
Is it possible to add a poll to each of the threads for the roms with simple 'criteria' like:
Is this rom FAST
Is this rom STABLE
Good rom?
not so good rom?
simply because, i am hoping this will help avoid some of the most common 'what rom shall i flash' question and also it will give some sort of pointer as to some of the main points of the rom
its just a suggestion, i'd love to know what you all think of it and if it ever comes to fruition!
many thanks to all at RAPHAEL!
My Opinion: No
All the 4 points you mention are subjective...
The only way to find out is to try it yourself, and if that means flashing different rom's
and restoring your favourite programs, use UC or put them together in a directory on your sd card.
You can always get an idea by scrolling trough a thread, that's what I do with 30 messages on a page
Each ROM is very different, and a poll wouldn't work. Just the poll in the radio flashing thread, it doesn't really mean a lot as it's all dependant.
It's worth spending the time and flashing as many ROMs as it takes to get the one you want. I've flashed over 15 ROMs trying to find one I like...
Not only is it subjective, it is quite frankly dumb (if you'll pardon the term)
Every chef endeavors to produce a quality ROM, if bugs appear, they are usually fixed fairly quickly with an updated version (hopefully). Every ROM is a work in progress and the only time the Chef finish it, is when he becomes tired of attempting to improve it.
The best you could ask for is a poll in a separate thread that asks for what ROM you are running and if they follow up post with what they like and don't like about it. However, you will find Flashing Junkies here that will often flash a new ROM weekly if not more often... There would need to be a new poll every week/month and who has that much time.
Having recently purchased a Fuze myself, let me tell you what I did here as a complete newbie:
Sized up the available ROMs and prominent chefs using the wiki and this forum.
Scanned through threads here to figure out who was doing what.
Looked up the various chefs to see what else they've done here at XDA
Made my decision.
As a chef myself, I can say that everything is subjective. There really is no simple way to find the best ROM. The good news is that I found what I was looking for in a single evening.
I think its a descent idea if the Chefs put each new ROM Version in a new thread. If someone releases version 1.0 and it is buggy they may get a bad poll rating. Then by version 2.0 it may be the best ROM ever, but due to all the early bad ratings it would make their overall "score" low.
Anyways this isn't a competition. If we start ranking and voting on the best ROM, it would make other ROM makers give up. People would say ROM-ABC and ROM-123 are the 2 best ROMS and no one can top them. Then all the other Chef's give up and we only have 2 ROM choices. Then these 2 ROM Makers have no competition so their work gets stagnant and they only release new ROMs ever 6 months. Then before you know it we are living in the world of Microsoft and Apple.
Many different ROM's have been cooked for our TG01's now and each ROM brings a new experience / something different. I've personally tried many ROM's on XDA just to name a few theres nosker's, ffboy's, mirom's, and stonrom's but i cant seem to stick with one since im always looking for something better. Now to be fair i dont think any ROM is final yet since theres still alot to be done with our TG01's but i and im sure others would like to know which is the best ROM to use at this very moment.
Now we all use our devices for different things, i personally use it for a bit of everything - browsing the web, checking my email, gps tracking, checking the weather, and of course phone calls ! I seem to find browsing the web needs alot of RAM though so ideally im looking for a stable ROM with plenty of free RAM. I do like sense but from experience its just impossible to get a stable browsing experience with sense installed so im willing to sacrifice those nice looks. My personal favourites have been noskers rom and mirom which has an amazing 96MB free so im likely to be going back to one of those next unless anyone can recommend a better one.
An ideal solution to finding the best ROM would be to post your own experiences with each one, what you've personally used it for ie browsing the web. So im going to suggest we do just that ! Ill be keeping track of this thread so when time allows ill add a list below with our favourite ROM(s) specific to device useage. ie best rom for browing the web, etc. I think its a good idea anyway .
Reserved ...
Quote from wacky.banana - Moderator Committee
For some time now we have been closing off "Best Rom" threads. The reasons for this are well known.
In addition to those reasons, asking what is the best rom is akin to asking 20 people what the best beer is; you will never get a single agreed answer from all of them. Its about personal need, personal choice and preference, which can only be defined by YOU.
If you are unsure as to which rom might suit you best, read the first couple of posts of each thread posted by the rom chef. That tells you all you need to know about a particular rom, then list the attributes and decide which ones you would like to try out.
I thought I would post this up here so that there is an awareness, especially amongst new members of XDA Developers, and to help those who wish to pose this question.
Best rom threads will, in future be simply deleted without further explanation.
Please help us to help you by not putting up posts that have to be deleted.
Thank you for your help and cooperation in this matter.
WB
Thanks for updating me on that i wasnt aware of that rule but it does make sense ... if a mod feels its right to close this thread please do so i just thought a thread for everyones favourite ROM would be a good thing. Each ROM would get a mention in the list for what its best used for according to the posts here and would be updated regularly. I havent seen a chef post what there ROM is best at so i personally think this is needed and it would save others having to try all the ROM's on here like i and others have done ... i guess its like a musician or an artist, a chef cant tell you what there ROM does best, only the users can.
[Discussion][Poll] Do you think we need "ROM Categories" for Gingerbread releases ?
Hi all, building upon a conversation started on this thread regarding the different Gingerbread ROMs that are being currently tested/released by our much appreciated developers, I'd like to start a discussion and poll to get your opinion about the need for "ROM Categories", that is, a small group (probably 3 or 4) of "Guidelines" so developers could focus their ROMs to target specific group of users or usage of the ROM, something like:
- Performance: Getting the most juice out of your phone and getting the best score for benchmarks, but perhaps with the sacrifice of stability and/or certain functions of the handset and battery life.
- Gamer: Focused on the best graphics and GPU performance for best results in games and graphics apps, but perhaps with the sacrifice of battery life.
- Stability: Stock-like ROMs that covers ALL the functions of the handset with the best battery life and stability, but with the added value of certain tweaks that gives you that "something extra" to justify rooting your phone and installing a custom ROM so you can enjoy those (I pretty much fall into this category)
(Those are just the few that comes to my mind, I think that if this proposal actually goes through the actual categories should be agreed on by the community)
I base this proposal on the following:
1.-) I've been testing many ROMs over the last few days and I've noticed that even though there's been many developers that have released custom ROMs over the last few months, only handful of them (those guys that we all know and love) have kept working on refining their work as the different Android versions had passed by, so at this point (with the official release of Gingerbread for the P500) I think it would be possible that developers could work together and focus their work with specific goals, like having a well polished ROM for each category and keep developing those. The idea is not to pretend that developers wouldn't have freedom to do their work exactly as they want to, essentially because they are doing this because they enjoy it, not because we're hiring them to do it. What I mean is that if developers "categorize" their ROMs then either themselves (or new developers) could easily spot what categories are being underdeveloped, and make the decision like "hey... nobody is doing anything for "X" category, so I'm going to do something about it". At this point they could agree to either work together for specific goals, or work individually knowing that one of them is working on fulfilling the need on a specific category.
2.-) As far as I can tell Gingerbread 2.3 is the last official version that LG is going to release for the P500 line, so I believe that once developers get to stabilize their custom versions of it (ROMs and Kernel) the P500 community will start to fade away as we all (developers and users) start to move on the newer handsets, so I guess that probably the best legacy that we can all leave for this community would be a handful of custom ROMs that we could keep using on our phones depending on the type of use that we give to it, until it's time to move on to another handset.
3.-) Having specific categories could help a lot when it comes to testing (and gathering results of those tests), essentially because most of us on the "user side" would surely focus their testing upon the way that they use their handsets, and that would translate on more people doing the testing for a handful of ROMs, instead of everyone testing everything (which usually translates into nobody testing anything).
Well I guess that's enough to make my point, the rest is up to you all to either vote and give some comments here or just say: "Hey n00b, what the #(=$/# your're talking about dude!!!" LOL, don't worry I can live with that
We should definitely have this.
Sent from my LG-P509 (Optimus T) with Void Gear using XDA App
Well actually we do have a thread like this. The repository sticky on dev subforum. It has all the roms, kernels, guides, mods etc sorted nicely with short and informative descriptions ( Repository ) and since ciaox started to maintain the thread it is always up to date with the latest stuff. If you got any suggestions or something for repository to become better you could just post it there.
Hey people, I want to know what is the best rom that the majority thinks is the best ICS rom with the best battery life. There were so many roms to choose from and I am unable to decide which one to settle for. Maybe xda should create a chart for the top 10 best roms for S2? Sorry for sounding off like a noob.
Or a chart of the top 10 daily noobs.
There is no such thing as the "best ICS rom with best battery life". You have your phone setup differently to everyone else, you use your phone differently to everyone else and your phone came out of the factory slightly differently to everyone else's.
A rom that runs well for me might not run well for you.
I suggest you go the development sections of the forum & read the first few pages and the the last 10-20 pages of the particular threads devoted to different roms. That way you will get an idea of the features/pluses/minuses of each rom, and also see other users' experiences with that rom.
Then you can test different roms for yourself to find one that works best for you.
Edit to add - How bout you do the community a service, test a few dozen rom & make the 'top 10' list you're after instead of expecting other people to do it ?
Just try one until you find one you like
Closed
Hi everyone,
I'm trying to decide what ROM I should use to root my new S3 with. The phone came with 4.1.2 installed on it, but I'm fine with either a 4.1.x or a 4.2.x rooted ROM.
The main reason I'm rooting is to be able to use AdAway, so all that I really want from the new (rooted) ROM is to not be worse than the stock ROM, including overall stability and performance, battery life, connectivity etc etc. I figured that if I am to void my warranty, I might at least do it with a rooted ROM that has the minimal amount of known problems.
I read various forum threads in the hopes of finding some 'user reviews' for each of these ROMs, in order to see how happy people have been with each of them over a longer period of time - but it's very hard to compare and come to a conclusion. On the other hand, dedicated websites such as galaxys3root.com and androidrooting.com all recommend different ROMs.
The S3 rooting video on this website seems very well made, but it refers only to various US carriers' versions and to the International version, whereas I have the UK version of the phone.
I am therefore undecided between the many options out there that can be used to root the S3, such as Cyanogenmod, DroidS3, CarbonROM, Metropolis, etc.
I've gotten some good advice in the past from people on this forum, so would much appreciate some advice on this question as well Many thanks in advance!
1) We cannot recommend roms. All recommendation threads turn into "best rom" threads, which turn into arguments. This is why "best romn" threads are not allowed
2) You do not root with a ROM. I think you have a gap in your knowledge. Please read General > Sticky roll-up thread > Understandign teh basics before rooting. All your answers are there.
Thanks for your reply! I've now started reading the sticky thread.
My intention was not to get people to post their opinion on which is the best ROM (it makes sense that such a thread wouldn't go anywhere), but rather I was wondering whether there are polls/user ratings of such ROMs, such that each person can see how the figures of each ROM fares against the others and decide for themselves which one they will use.
Further into your rooting tutorial... I guess I was confusing the terms ROM and kernel.
I followed the steps in your tutorial, I now have a rooted S3 with no custom ROM. Thanks again for all your help on this website.
longtalker said:
Thanks for your reply! I've now started reading the sticky thread.
My intention was not to get people to post their opinion on which is the best ROM (it makes sense that such a thread wouldn't go anywhere), but rather I was wondering whether there are polls/user ratings of such ROMs, such that each person can see how the figures of each ROM fares against the others and decide for themselves which one they will use.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To be truthful the most popular rom would not be the best it is more likely to be the one that is updated daily and has multiple themes and add ons.
Their are no polls neither is their a single best rom what rom thread . Simple reasons is users will start another what rom best rom thread and ignore the one posted for all such questions ..
best method is to start with the rom that you understand how to flash .
jje
Thanks guys, all rooted and happy now, hope it stays that way. I really appreciate the help that this excellent community provides!