I haven't had to flash a rom since my Galaxy Nexus! I am only considering flashing to get lollipop.
I do have a few questions. I know there are no xposed modules. I see that CM has the hotspot hack already built in.# 1. Do all the other verizon g3 roms have this baked in as well?
What about the screen redraw fix,# 2. is that issue fixed on 5.0?
Also, #3. would anyone care to chime in as far as a comparison between the few 5.0+ roms that are available?
G3 tweaks box will no longer be usable. That is sad to me. However I wont need to worry about nav/status bar tinting as its built into 5.0. I am worried about battery life though. Right now with greenify, cf lumen, and amplify, I get 4 hrs of screen on time with the stock battery. And less than 1%/hr idle drain.
I downloaded bump'd TWRP, extracted the recovery.img and flashed it using flashify. I am currently on rooted 4.4.2 10b.
Lastly, #4 here's an important question. If i use SoftCard (formerly ISIS), how will I be able to use something like RootCloak to prevent it from knowing my phone is rooted? If after December 31st SoftCard still offers $1 off per transaction, I will definitely need to use this.
EDIT: I have discovered a similar alternative called Cydia Substrate and Root Cloak Plus. But upon further investigation I have not seen any support for android after kitkat.
Thank you all for your time. Merry Christmas + Happy Holidays
I loaded up liquid smooth and it was pretty sweet. My one word of warning. The camera gets nuked. Deal breaker for me. Back to stick rooted with g3tweaksbox.
jfriend33 said:
I haven't had to flash a rom since my Galaxy Nexus! I am only considering flashing to get lollipop.
I do have a few questions. I know there are no xposed modules. I see that CM has the hotspot hack already built in.# 1. Do all the other verizon g3 roms have this baked in as well?
What about the screen redraw fix,# 2. is that issue fixed on 5.0?
Also, #3. would anyone care to chime in as far as a comparison between the few 5.0+ roms that are available?
G3 tweaks box will no longer be usable. That is sad to me. However I wont need to worry about nav/status bar tinting as its built into 5.0. I am worried about battery life though. Right now with greenify, cf lumen, and amplify, I get 4 hrs of screen on time with the stock battery. And less than 1%/hr idle drain.
I downloaded bump'd TWRP, extracted the recovery.img and flashed it using flashify. I am currently on rooted 4.4.2 10b.
Lastly, #4 here's an important question. If i use SoftCard (formerly ISIS), how will I be able to use something like RootCloak to prevent it from knowing my phone is rooted? If after December 31st SoftCard still offers $1 off per transaction, I will definitely need to use this.
EDIT: I have discovered a similar alternative called Cydia Substrate and Root Cloak Plus. But upon further investigation I have not seen any support for android after kitkat.
Thank you all for your time. Merry Christmas + Happy Holidays
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. Most have it baked in, but stability varies. Some have a tendency to cause a kernel crash every so often....at least they used to. Stability is getting better and better. Simple reboot fixed any potential crash.
2. I don't know what screen redraw fix you're referring to
3. I've tried quite a few different ones, and so far the slimlp beta has been the best as far as stability, with the new illusion rom following close behind and not being quite as stabile or oddity-free, but having a TON more features, so that's currently my dd. All others I either haven't tried for a while, had issues shortly after install, or couldn't stand the poor taste in boot animation (lol) and proceeded to uninstall haha
4. As you mentioned before, xposed is not compatible with the art runtime (aka the runtime 5.0 and beyond use). So, no art compatibility = no xposed. No xposed = no root cloak. No root cloak = no soft card. I fix the whole issue by using Google wallet, if for nothing other than the fact that I refuse to support Verizon any more than I already am forced to (coverage wise) as my hatred for them is sincere Lol
Edit: Referring to the above post - camera, wifi hotspot, mobile data, and bluetooth have been big sticking points for aosp on the vs985....however the current 5.0 roms have kicked about 90 percent (or more) of all the big rom breaking issues, so stability is definitely to dd status if you can live with occasional quirks, IMHO.
Yeah but the camera still hasn't been addressed. Stock camera takes ok pictures but laser auto focus doesn't seem to work. The OPO camera adds a few more features but still doesn't use laser focus. Both are slow to focus, featureless, and perform fairly poorly in low light. At least from my experience. The other past sticking points were non issues for me. I didn't try hotspot though.
Schaweet said:
Yeah but the camera still hasn't been addressed. Stock camera takes ok pictures but laser auto focus doesn't seem to work. The OPO camera adds a few more features but still doesn't use laser focus. Both are slow to focus, featureless, and perform fairly poorly in low light. At least from my experience. The other past sticking points were non issues for me. I didn't try hotspot though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, those points are true....camera definitely leaves a bit to still be desired. However, it does seems to at least fc and/or give me the "can't connect to camera" error much less, if at all currently. That's more what I was making....basic stability, not true usability lol
ohlin5 said:
1. Most have it baked in, but stability varies. Some have a tendency to cause a kernel crash every so often....at least they used to. Stability is getting better and better. Simple reboot fixed any potential crash.
2. I don't know what screen redraw fix you're referring to
3. I've tried quite a few different ones, and so far the slimlp beta has been the best as far as stability, with the new illusion rom following close behind and not being quite as stabile or oddity-free, but having a TON more features, so that's currently my dd. All others I either haven't tried for a while, had issues shortly after install, or couldn't stand the poor taste in boot animation (lol) and proceeded to uninstall haha
4. As you mentioned before, xposed is not compatible with the art runtime (aka the runtime 5.0 and beyond use). So, no art compatibility = no xposed. No xposed = no root cloak. No root cloak = no soft card. I fix the whole issue by using Google wallet, if for nothing other than the fact that I refuse to support Verizon any more than I already am forced to (coverage wise) as my hatred for them is sincere Lol
Edit: Referring to the above post - camera, wifi hotspot, mobile data, and bluetooth have been big sticking points for aosp on the vs985....however the current 5.0 roms have kicked about 90 percent (or more) of all the big rom breaking issues, so stability is definitely to dd status if you can live with occasional quirks, IMHO.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the fast reply. I really don't use my camera all that much. So the camera isn't a huge deal breaker for me permanently. Bluetooth would need to work most of the time for my lg g watch though. How has your battery life been?
This Cydia Substrate has me hopeful. Maybe there's a chance it will support 5.0+ sooner rather than later.
Schaweet said:
Yeah but the camera still hasn't been addressed. Stock camera takes ok pictures but laser auto focus doesn't seem to work. The OPO camera adds a few more features but still doesn't use laser focus. Both are slow to focus, featureless, and perform fairly poorly in low light. At least from my experience. The other past sticking points were non issues for me. I didn't try hotspot though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am almost wondering what the camera would be like using Focal (from play store) with a 5.0 rom. I always use focal for more tricky shots that require more manual adjustments. You could give it a try.
Related
I'm considering picking up a developer edition GS4 to replace my GS3 but I want to make sure I'm making this decision for the right reasons. Basically I'm looking for a near-perfect AOSP experience "where it counts". That means all primary functions working 95-100%. Does the GS4 have CM builds that fit this bill?
CM on the GS3 has a couple major unfixable issues that have me considering this in the first place:
- Very quiet camcorder recording volume. Didn't think it was a big deal til one of those rare moment experiences took place and I tried to capture it in video only to find the audio was barely audible.
- Flaky data connection in some regions. Being in certain areas would yield a poor 4G connection, often dropping to 3G. Flash back to TouchWiz and voila, strong and fast 4G in the same area.
There are a couple other issues which I don't consider to be primary functional issues like MHL not working and some Bluetooth weirdness (Google really needs to work on this) but those I'm less concerned about. I'm still curious about these things too though.
--
The GS4 seems to be the only device worthy upgrading to for my purposes. The Moto X was interesting but I kinda want a better CPU than what I have now... I'm a game emulator junkie and those push your CPU to the limit. LG G2 I'm more interested in but I really don't trust LG's software and I can't rely on the phone getting CM support or even unlocked for that matter. I highly doubt Verizon will ever see another Nexus device... GS4 DE seems to be the only choice.
Thanks for your time and I look forward to your responses
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 4
Div033 said:
I'm considering picking up a developer edition GS4 to replace my GS3 but I want to make sure I'm making this decision for the right reasons. Basically I'm looking for a near-perfect AOSP experience "where it counts". That means all primary functions working 95-100%. Does the GS4 have CM builds that fit this bill?
CM on the GS3 has a couple major unfixable issues that have me considering this in the first place:
- Very quiet camcorder recording volume. Didn't think it was a big deal til one of those rare moment experiences took place and I tried to capture it in video only to find the audio was barely audible.
- Flaky data connection in some regions. Being in certain areas would yield a poor 4G connection, often dropping to 3G. Flash back to TouchWiz and voila, strong and fast 4G in the same area.
There are a couple other issues which I don't consider to be primary functional issues like MHL not working and some Bluetooth weirdness (Google really needs to work on this) but those I'm less concerned about. I'm still curious about these things too though.
--
The GS4 seems to be the only device worthy upgrading to for my purposes. The Moto X was interesting but I kinda want a better CPU than what I have now... I'm a game emulator junkie and those push your CPU to the limit. LG G2 I'm more interested in but I really don't trust LG's software and I can't rely on the phone getting CM support or even unlocked for that matter. I highly doubt Verizon will ever see another Nexus device... GS4 DE seems to be the only choice.
Thanks for your time and I look forward to your responses
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 4
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Before I got my phone replaced (and the new one got ME7 OTA), CM 10.1 was pretty stable for the last few weeks. It did have some bugs at first (with calling and Bluetooth), but those got fixed some time ago. Didn't have a chance to try the new 10.2, as I'm stuck with the ME7 bootloader = can't flash a custom recovery ;(
The AOSP camera was MUCH better than the TW one. The quality was absolutely astonishing on the AOSP.
As for MHL, didn't try it. I **think** that CM 10.1 even had a wireless display feature in the settings.
techben said:
Before I got my phone replaced (and the new one got ME7 OTA), CM 10.1 was pretty stable for the last few weeks. It did have some bugs at first (with calling and Bluetooth), but those got fixed some time ago. Didn't have a chance to try the new 10.2, as I'm stuck with the ME7 bootloader = can't flash a custom recovery ;(
The AOSP camera was MUCH better than the TW one. The quality was absolutely astonishing on the AOSP.
As for MHL, didn't try it. I **think** that CM 10.1 even had a wireless display feature in the settings.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I wouldn't put too much stock in CM10.2 at this point. It seems to be pretty buggy across all devices sans nexus. Regardless my research has yielded results similar to what you're explaining. It's just difficult to sift through the respective development and Q&A threads to try and find quality info. Lots of people report issues that others aren't having - something I see commonly (but don't experience on my device) in the GS3 threads as well.
Thanks for the info!
Just a word on my own experience regarding the upgrading of my Nexus 10.
Actually I have two because one was stolen and then returned to me - but after I replaced it.
Both of my tablets with 4.4 installed have been great. They did everything I wanted without any problem. Why did I bother to upgrade to Lolipop? Well because I love gadgets and the latest technology.
As soon as I went to 5.0, there was a huge deterioration in the quality of the wireless connection. I had my other non-upgraded Nexus to compare with and it was clear that there was a big speed difference, connection difficulties, and sometime wireless dropouts.
I was very pleased when 5.01 was released because I had read that this owuld fix the wireless problems.
It didn't. Exactly the same problems. No improvement at all - and I had my 4.4 tablet to compare with.
Last weekend, I finally found the time to revert to 4.4 using the WugFresh Nexus toolkit.
Absolutely brilliantly easy to do. Took about 20 minutes and I was restored to 4.4.
There has been an immediate improvement in the performance of the tablet so far as wireless connectivity is concerned. It's like night and day.
Frankly, I'm puzzled as to what benefits there are from a Lolipop upgrade. It's certainly not the next big thing, by any stroke of the imagination.
I understand that 5.02 will be released in sometime this month. I suppose that I will try it out but generally I would advise people to stay with 4.4. It is a well developed mature OS. Is there a need to change?
The upgrade quality is quite hit and miss by what I'm reading. Both my Oneplus one and Nexus 10 run a custom build of 5.0.1 and I haven't encountered any problems that are being reported everywhere. I wish with tech troubleshooting there was a "one size fits all" solution but that's utopian thinking. I've upgraded and am finding the tweaks in the functionality quite useful, but the main reason for the upgrade has been the looks. You could try a custom ROM based on 5.0.2 seeing that you're familiar with the rooting toolkit anyways
I think battery life on my nexus 10 has taken a slight hit but it's nothing that I would revert back to 4.4 for. Oneplus one just runs like a nuclear reactor with any ROM
I sideloaded 5.0 via Wugfresh shortly after it came out and then reverted to 4.4 two days later.I had no special problems aside from the unavailability of Xposed framework, which is a deal-breaker for me. I have 4.4 set up the way I like it (including many "Lollipop" UI elements) and didn't find anything in 5.x that would justify giving that up.
ace9988 said:
The upgrade quality is quite hit and miss by what I'm reading. Both my Oneplus one and Nexus 10 run a custom build of 5.0.1 and I haven't encountered any problems that are being reported everywhere. I wish with tech troubleshooting there was a "one size fits all" solution but that's utopian thinking. I've upgraded and am finding the tweaks in the functionality quite useful, but the main reason for the upgrade has been the looks. You could try a custom ROM based on 5.0.2 seeing that you're familiar with the rooting toolkit anyways
I think battery life on my nexus 10 has taken a slight hit but it's nothing that I would revert back to 4.4 for. Oneplus one just runs like a nuclear reactor with any ROM
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for this. I just want a standard rom - rooted. Improved looks would be nice but if it means sacrificing connectivity then I'll stick with 4.4.
I have to say that while I had 5.01 installed, I did get the impression that it was really just about looks.
I found the double entry screen - swipe to reveal pin screen - and then pin code to access - very lumpy and unnecessary.
I suppose that I will try 5.02 when it arrives but I'll be quick to revert if there is any deterioration in existing 4.4 functionality.
I expect that 5.XX is really just intended to work correctly the new 64bit gen of devices
It sure is a mystery why there are such a variety of experiences switching to lollipop. Mine has been all positive, and the improvement in smoothness alone was worth it. In KK there was such a jitter or stutter that was most noticeable when scrolling through screens or app drawer. It's either gone or barely there at times. Which makes sense, there were supposed performance improvements in 5.0.
If you're unsure about upgrading don't assume your experience will be like anyone else's. It's worth it if your N10 likes the taste of lollipops better than kit kats. You can always make a nandroid backup before trying.
I too reverted to 4.4: WiFi issues on lollipop are a deal breaker, and being able to use xposed (pie controls plus a few minor tweaks) on 4.4 is a nice plus.
Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk
I had these same issues tried everything to sort the slow WiFi and the constant drop outs ,just by chance I changed the channel on the router and bingo! It cured all the issues I was having so something worth trying before giving up on lollipop.
I was hoping that 5.02 would fix the WiFi problems - it didn't. My tablet is downgrading to 4.4.4
Saw too many negative comments, and didn't want to lose xposed modules. Never upgraded!
P.S.
Lollipop is the Vista/Windows ME of Android!
Dead Cookies leave no trails...
Same issues for me. A few times a day I get dropouts, then authentication problem on my WiFi, but after a reboot it connects without any hicks. Worst update ever. I'm also thinking of going back to 4.4.4.
I have both Nexus 5 and Nexus 10. Been installed CM-Nightly build regularly. Only Nexus 10 experienced wifi issues. Just like mentioned here from different members, dropouts and authentication errors. Toggle wifi on/off will have it up awhile.
I live with this problems since 5.01 out. With now 5.1 on horizon, I hope we will have this issue fixed. Otherwise, I am going back to 4.4 in Nexus 10.
hornedfiend said:
Same issues for me. A few times a day I get dropouts, then authentication problem on my WiFi, but after a reboot it connects without any hicks. Worst update ever. I'm also thinking of going back to 4.4.4.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey. I'm considering buying G5, but I've been wondering about whether CyanogenMod work just as well as stock in terms of performance, stability, photo, video and call quality. I have some pretty bad experiences with custom ROMs on LG G2, so that's why I'm asking.
I had the best experience with custom ROMs on the G2!! What are you talking about? G2 still has amazing ROMs and dev support.
galr said:
I had the best experience with custom ROMs on the G2!! What are you talking about? G2 still has amazing ROMs and dev support.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Low quality camera pictures, low speaker and mic volume.
TH4N1X said:
Hey. I'm considering buying G5, but I've been wondering about whether custom ROMs work just as well as stock in terms of performance, stability, photo, video and call quality. I have some pretty bad experiences with custom ROMs on LG G2, so that's why I'm asking.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Check out root section of this phone. LG g5 fairly new still. There's a few stable 1s. Seems to be getting better day by day with others. If your in the States get Tmobile version.
Nick216ohio said:
Check out root section of this phone. LG g5 fairly new still. There's a few stable 1s. Seems to be getting better day by day with others. If your in the States get Tmobile version.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know that there's only CM right now, but if it already has problems that are related to closed drivers (camera) then it will never be fixed. And that's what I'm asking about.
TH4N1X said:
Low quality camera pictures, low speaker and mic volume.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Only CyanogenMod. On stock based ROMs none of these issues. And besides, except for camera i think the sound issues could be resolved on CM (manually).
EDIT: OK i get it, you were asking about CM. Got it.
galr said:
Only CyanogenMod. On stock based ROMs none of these issues. And besides, except for camera i think the sound issues could be resolved on CM (manually).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, yeah, but stock based ROMs are slow. And the issues cannot be resolved, you can only apply a .zip that will increase the speaker volume, but the quality is horrible. Anyway, it's about G5 and whether it suffers from the same problems on CM because I don't want another phone that takes a few secs to display recent apps (stock) or takes potato quality pictures (CM).
TH4N1X said:
Well, yeah, but stock based ROMs are slow. And the issues cannot be resolved, you can only apply a .zip that will increase the speaker volume, but the quality is horrible. Anyway, it's about G5 and whether it suffers from the same problems on CM because I don't want another phone that takes a few secs to display recent apps (stock) or takes potato quality pictures (CM).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Got it.:good:
galr said:
Got it.:good:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So, uh, are there issues on CM on G5?
TH4N1X said:
Hey. I'm considering buying G5, but I've been wondering about whether CyanogenMod work just as well as stock in terms of performance, stability, photo, video and call quality. I have some pretty bad experiences with custom ROMs on LG G2, so that's why I'm asking.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
CM works very well IMO. NFC (and probably WIFI tethering) don't work, but everything else does.
The call quality is OK, but the picture quality is not as good as with stock. But since LG does not help the developers by releasing the blobs, I am glad that it works at all.
I can live with the camera on CM, but your mileage may vary - I'm not a foto freak.
TH4N1X said:
Well, yeah, but stock based ROMs are slow. And the issues cannot be resolved, you can only apply a .zip that will increase the speaker volume, but the quality is horrible. Anyway, it's about G5 and whether it suffers from the same problems on CM because I don't want another phone that takes a few secs to display recent apps (stock) or takes potato quality pictures (CM).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I find the stock Rom to be extremely fast. In fact I've owned every galaxy 1-7. .Note 3 and 4....G2 G3 and 4.....moto x pure.....the v10 and NONE of them are as fast as this phone......That's why I can't justify the shortcomings that CM has on this phone even though on all other phones I prefer CM and really want to use it for the theme engine alone.....but I just can't......stock is way too damn smooth.
carnivalrejectq said:
I find the stock Rom to be extremely fast. In fact I've owned every galaxy 1-7. .Note 3 and 4....G2 G3 and 4.....moto x pure.....the v10 and NONE of them are as fast as this phone......That's why I can't justify the shortcomings that CM has on this phone even though on all other phones I prefer CM and really want to use it for the theme engine alone.....but I just can't......stock is way too damn smooth.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have to agree that stock on the g5 is actually pretty smooth, runs really good and gets great battery life especially with a few tweaks (greenify and couple others). But CM runs pretty well now too although still a few things not working and couple things not as good as stock. Camera quality is good with CM although much better on stock, that will probably always be the case with lg. Also miss some things like lg dialer that has video call built in and lg gallery app that to me is better but it all depends on what you want to do. If you're more interested in camera quality and everything working including decent speed and battery life stay on stock and just root and do your custom mods, if you want a lighter OS and ability to customize more and are okay with a couple things not working for now use CM. Also I've always preferred cm based roms on every device especially g2 but with this I'm torn between stock and cm, although currently using cm as daily driver. Maybe if dual boot ever works with t mobile version i can have both.
jeffsga88 said:
I have to agree that stock on the g5 is actually pretty smooth, runs really good and gets great battery life especially with a few tweaks (greenify and couple others). But CM runs pretty well now too although still a few things not working and couple things not as good as stock. Camera quality is good with CM although much better on stock, that will probably always be the case with lg. Also miss some things like lg dialer that has video call built in and lg gallery app that to me is better but it all depends on what you want to do. If you're more interested in camera quality and everything working including decent speed and battery life stay on stock and just root and do your custom mods, if you want a lighter OS and ability to customize more and are okay with a couple things not working for now use CM. Also I've always preferred cm based roms on every device especially g2 but with this I'm torn between stock and cm, although currently using cm as daily driver. Maybe if dual boot ever works with t mobile version i can have both.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I totally agree with you. This is the first phone id choose stock over CM or any other aosp Rom for that matter....its just so fast and in actuality I had more hiccups on CM with the touch randomly freezing for a few seconds or delaying......and part of the reason i got this phone is for the camera quality to take pictures of my kids......if I could keep that on CM id probably go to CM because I love the themes. No theming on stock sure does get old quick.
carnivalrejectq said:
I totally agree with you. This is the first phone id choose stock over CM or any other aosp Rom for that matter....its just so fast and in actuality I had more hiccups on CM with the touch randomly freezing for a few seconds or delaying......and part of the reason i got this phone is for the camera quality to take pictures of my kids......if I could keep that on CM id probably go to CM because I love the themes. No theming on stock sure does get old quick.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think the touch freezing issues were with the first build as I've been running cm for a couple weeks now without any touch issues but camera quality just isn't the same as stock. Also there is some modding you can do on stock (g4 tweaks box, gravity box, build.prop edits and probably more, although not the same as cm ... ) Like I said before maybe if dual boot gets support for h830 we could have both then.
Thanks for the opinions, guys. I still gotta see it irl, but this might be a good choice.
jeffsga88 said:
I think the touch freezing issues were with the first build as I've been running cm for a couple weeks now without any touch issues but camera quality just isn't the same as stock. Also there is some modding you can do on stock (g4 tweaks box, gravity box, build.prop edits and probably more, although not the same as cm ... ) Like I said before maybe if dual boot gets support for h830 we could have both then.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I wonder just how much better the camera actually really is on stock though. I would like to know that. The major difference I seen is that it takes longer to actually snap a pic on CM.
The Cyanogenmod ROM on the G5 is great. There are problems still with the mobile hotspot and NFC, but other than that it's great
i dont need NFC (for what?) and the mistakes in Tethering... can wait
for me i hope the touch issue when Ambient Display enabled and open phone with Fingerprint is the badest Bug we have
But rest works fine and i'm happy to have Custom Rom was CM based.
gesendet von meinem LG G5 H850 AICP11.0
I'm currently on stock and contemplating the switch to CM. Not that there's anything wrong with stock + xposed/tweaksbox/gravity, mind you. I don't suppose anyone has some direct comparison shots between stock and cm?
carnivalrejectq said:
I wonder just how much better the camera actually really is on stock though. I would like to know that. The major difference I seen is that it takes longer to actually snap a pic on CM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think it takes about same amount of time maybe tiny bit longer to take picture in cm but not big deal. I think biggest thing would be if you used the manual mode as i don't think there's a way of doing that on cm, but not sure. Otherwise cameras pretty similar.
RGX521 said:
I'm currently on stock and contemplating the switch to CM. Not that there's anything wrong with stock + xposed/tweaksbox/gravity, mind you. I don't suppose anyone has some direct comparison shots between stock and cm?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Both stock and cm are great options. Stock is smooth with good battery life and cm is very customizable with not as good battery life. I've been using cm ever since they fixed the camera not working when cm first came out, but have since switched over to RR which is still cm based but way more customization. I'm happy with cm wish battery life was better and miss built in video call feature stock has but everything has tradeoffs. Anyways I recommend doing nandroid and trying cm or RR and see what you like better.
Hey guys! I've been using LG G3 VS985 on 4.4.4 for quite a long time and i didn't like stock rom at all. I am considering to flash custom rom but i don't know which one to choose as i am new to this custom rom stuff.Here's a list of what i want in a custom rom:-
1-It should be stable because i want to use it on my daily driver
2-Performance is my main concern.Stock rom was choppy in animations
3-Battery Life
4-Camera should be usable as i've heard you've to compromise camera for nice custom rom.OR just suggest an alternative camera app.
I wanted to flash CAF AOSP[6.0.1] but the reviews were not good as it had number of issues. Also i am OK with older version of androids.Don't want the Android N.
Why not just stay with stock but update to 6.0 ? I've kept mine stock for over 2 years (taking the OTAs as they come). AFAIK an update to 7 is not availabe yet, and given the age of the phone it may never be.
To address your points:
1. It's STABLE. I can't remember the last time I had to reboot.
2. Performance is fine to me. Granted I don't do any gaming (that's what tablets are for!), but I haven't run into any issues with streaming video, email, photos, or reading.
3. Battery life is so-so, and always has been. I haven't really measured it because I have a wireless charging back. When I come home or to the office, I just place the phone on the Qi pad. A collateral benefit is that I always remember where the phone is!
4. Get Open Camera from the Play store. It lets you set things like ISO, color balance, focus type, scene mode, etc. Works fine with the G3 on 6.0
The only real problem I've had is that the battery died after about 18 months (same thing happened to my wife's G3). That may well be a result of heat generated by the wireless charging, but since the battery on the G3 is replaceable, the fix was a $20 battery from LG.
I don't particularly like the stock interface, but Nova Launcher took care of that.
tjupille said:
Why not just stay with stock but update to 6.0 ? I've kept mine stock for over 2 years (taking the OTAs as they come). AFAIK an update to 7 is not availabe yet, and given the age of the phone it may never be.
To address your points:
1. It's STABLE. I can't remember the last time I had to reboot.
2. Performance is fine to me. Granted I don't do any gaming (that's what tablets are for!), but I haven't run into any issues with streaming video, email, photos, or reading.
3. Battery life is so-so, and always has been. I haven't really measured it because I have a wireless charging back. When I come home or to the office, I just place the phone on the Qi pad. A collateral benefit is that I always remember where the phone is!
4. Get Open Camera from the Play store. It lets you set things like ISO, color balance, focus type, scene mode, etc. Works fine with the G3 on 6.0
The only real problem I've had is that the battery died after about 18 months (same thing happened to my wife's G3). That may well be a result of heat generated by the wireless charging, but since the battery on the G3 is replaceable, the fix was a $20 battery from LG.
I don't particularly like the stock interface, but Nova Launcher took care of that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As for why I'm looking. Magisk framework and MagiskSU can't modify the stock ROM boot.img and verify even when bumped. For why that matters, no netflix now or very soon if rooted. Custom ROM can use a script to bump the boot.img after flashing seSuperUser and avoid the SafetyNet DRM checks.
For why that matters, no netflix now or very soon if rooted.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, but the OP didn't say he needed to be rooted. In fact, since the G3 is my "daily driver', I prefer to keep it stock unrooted (with Nova /launcher to take the rough edges off the LG UI.
Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against rooting per se; I have three tablets (Nexus 7, Nexus 10, and Samsung S2 8.0) that are all rooted. Unlike the G3, however, they are not "mission critical" for me. When I break something (and believe mei, I have! ) I can afford to take the time to figure out a fix.
Yes, yes, it's possible to love a phone. Heck, you sleep next to it, don't you? Rate this thread to indicate your love for the Lenovo Zuk Z2 Pro, all things considered. A higher rating indicates that the Lenovo Zuk Z2 Pro is an incredible phone that you enjoy tremendously. You love it.
Then, drop a comment if you have anything to add!
Overclocking it makes everything even more considerable keeping up with newer phones but still so beautiful
IP certification would be perfect
I'm gonna post this here; I sent this originally as a private message since someone was asking about buying a Z2 Pro, and I figured a "here's kinda how it is as of September 2017" roundup might be useful for others looking at buying one, or trying to decide between the Pro and Plus.
So I own a Z2 Pro, and after several months of trying various options for custom and factory ROMs for it, and then getting a regular Z2 Plus for my wife, and setting THAT up...
Frankly, if I were going to get one now, I'd get the Z2 Plus Z2132 instead. Bigger battery, MUCH better custom ROM community with more stable & official builds, official TWRP, better-supported camera... to me, the extra $150 for the Pro has only meant more headaches trying to get something stable to work as a daily driver with regular security updates - and the AMOLED screen, UFS vs eMMC internal storage speed, and supposedly better camera haven't really ended up being as much of a difference as I thought. Yeah there's more storage & RAM, but... for daily use, at least on Nougat, 4GB RAM / 64GB storage is still plenty.
ZUI (factory firmware) issues:
Long story short, the official ZUI is an annoying mess for me, even with root (I use Magisk so I can have root utilities like Titanium Backup but still keep playing Pokemon Go with my wife)... the dialer and settings and built-in calendar app and lots of things still have Chinese showing up around the edges even when the system is set to English. Trying to disable built-in apps and use Google Dialer & Contacts doesn't quite work right, you can't actually install something like OpenGapps but have to piecemeal it together with packages from apkmirror or similar, and Google contact sync stops every week or two without warning - since I need contact, calendar, and email sync to work for business purposes, that's a show-stopper for me.
Seems like the Plus gets updates to ZUI before the Pro does, by a couple weeks.
Custom ROM issues:
The Pro camera really only looks & performs great under ZUI. It's not Camera2 HAL compatible and, unless Lenovo decides to pursue that with their own sources, never will support fancy HDR+ modes or zero shutter lag with Google Camera apps. AEX recent builds are starting to get really close to stock ZUI quality, since they imported & shimmed the ZUI camera blobs somehow, but some others like Mokee might still accidentally mechanically jam your camera trying to enable OIS. Ouch.
The U-Health app on stock ZUI is the only thing that can talk to the heart rate/blood-oxygen sensor on the back of the phone under the flash. Nobody has got U-Health working under a custom ROM since it requires the ZUI framework and integration with Lenovo's user login ecosystem. But the step sensor is apparently generic and supported by Google Fit, so if you just want to see if you're hitting 10K steps per day, you're all set. All the other sensors (gyro, orientation, proximity, magnetic, GPS/GLONASS, pressure, gravity, etc.) seem to work fine in custom ROMs.
You'll hear a lot about the "blue LED of death" - that's a hard freeze, the screen goes blank and the notification LED goes blue (with a 50% duty cycle, which looks different than just being "on"). You can restart from there by holding the power button for 8-10 seconds, so don't panic. Unfortunately, it seems to be reeeeeally easy to hard freeze the phone by doing some things with Bluetooth, or entering/exiting deep sleep (like if I have a clock alarm and a calendar reminder or two that would all go off simultaneously, and it's plugged in to charge, trying to wake itself up and play all those notifications at the same time has actually made it freeze instead and I've slept through an alarm that never went off) or other stuff that involves switching CPU states too much... I don't know. It seems like, at the end of the day, the stock (ZUI) thermal-engine.conf might have something to do with it... it sets super-low limits for temperatures, and the CPU ends up throttling, and it'll try to crash out perhaps as a safety measure instead of getting too hot... or maybe the constant state-switching leads to instability. Anyway, it's not too hot. They're just being super-conservative. Not sure. You can pull a different thermal config that'll ease up a lot, get you better benchmarks, and still isn't actually putting the hardware at risk.
Custom ROMs:
LineageOS 14 - there isn't a current build. I mean, there IS, and theoretically work is still being done on it, by a couple different people (long story and some drama involved there...) but there's no daily driver with working sound and no progress reports being made in XDA forums.
Mokee 7 - continues to be a thing (based on LineageOS sources), but... I don't know, it's all nightlies in terms of stability (at least when I tried it). Everything mostly works, it's just crashy. Wouldn't recommend. However, the maintainer is a guy whose name you'll see a lot: SY/Siyang. He's basically THE guy on the Lenovo Chinese forums responsible for building Z2 Pro ports of various custom/aftermarket ROMs like Resurrection Remix, AICP, Flyme, MIUI, HydrogenOS, etc. Apparently being a kernel developer means you know how to play around. But that's all it really is; playing around - he doesn't actively maintain any of them, just kinda builds them & throws them out there, but isn't in it to do active bug fixes. He also includes 3-4 packages of Chinese bloatware that involve some kind of adware/affiliate marketing to try and make some money - I don't begrudge him that, and you can disable/freeze them, but it's still not "clean".
MIUI/Flyme/HydrogenOS - I think they're all Android 6 (MM) based, so I haven't looked into them. Built by Siyang.
AICP - Built by Siyang. This was actually pretty good, but it crashed out on me with an alarm set twice and I was late for work. Ditched.
Resurrection Remix - Built by Siyang. This was also pretty good, but the 5.8.4 builds have problems. 5.8.3 was best, but got blue LED a couple times and ditched it too, not interested in moving backward in security patches.
...which brings us to AEX (AOSP Extended) - this is the only working Nougat ROM being actively developed & maintained for the Z2 Pro as of this writing that's stable for daily driver use, but it's REALLY good. @davidevinavil has done a fantastic job and is very responsive on the XDA forums. Since he's just using the same thermal-engine.conf as ZUI it doesn't score as high as possible on benchmarks, but you can grab the one from void23's kernel and use that (void hasn't updated his kernel for AEX 4.6 yet and doesn't seem to plan to with the release of Oreo "real soon now", so I don't recommend actually using his kernel anymore).
Works well with Magisk (for root, root hiding, and making Google Play Store like your weird-ass Chinese OEM phone, etc.), supports OMS/substratum themes, has current security patches, generally non-crashy, and camera quality is pretty good (both the built-in camera app, and with Open Camera and CameraNextModV7). F2FS support for /data & /cache might work, but the dev doesn't use those (even though, in theory, it makes a notable difference since the Pro has UFS instead of eMMC 5.2 storage) so plan on using ext4 for everything. Haven't tried device encryption yet, but if I were going to, it would be on this one.
Custom Kernels:
Void kernel - Void23 did some nice work based on AEX 4.5, and some people successfully use it with other ROMs as well. It works best with most current AEX 4.5, but from the reading I've done I wouldn't use it with 4.6. However, you can grab his thermal-engine.conf file from his installer package, and put it into /system/etc/ of a clean AEX 4.6 install and that'll give you a little more headroom before CPU/GPU/chipset throttling occurs.
TWRP:
There's a few, but @davidevinavil has the only 3.1.1 release, and it works the best as far as I can tell. There's a 3.1.0 release on the zukfans.eu German language forum (reasons...) that mostly works well but sometimes can't install some ROMs, and a Chinese release of 3.1.0 by wzsx150 that seems to work best for installing all the Lenovo forum ports by Siyang plus has a few extra goodies (like rebooting directly to EDL/port 9008 mode for QPST/QFIL flashing). As much as I'd love to have my /data partition encrypted, I haven't bothered testing lately. I'm guessing best compatibility would be using AEX and @davidevinavil's TWRP, but haven't actually tested. Again, F2FS is hit or miss.
But you know what's even better about @davidevinavil and AEX for the Z2 Pro? It's essentially a port of his work on AEX for the Z2 Plus! And on the Z2 Plus, it's only one of many actively supported and maintained custom ROMs! And there's an unofficial EAS-enabled version of AEX on that phone, so that bigger battery will go even farther!
So yeah. I like being able to quickly run a nandroid backup & restore and all, and have more room for video files & music, but as far as actual daily driver quality of life... not sure if the extra $150+ is worth it for the Pro, especially when you have the same CPU/GPU and bigger battery on the Plus. The every-so-slightly nicer camera seems to actually be a problem that delays getting working custom ROMs, and the other differences don't translate into noticeable daily quality of life improvements for me - I mean it's not like the plus is SLOW by any stretch. But it's got more RAM & storage, and USB 3 transfer speed, so if you use it as a glorified thumb drive a lot, or tend to load up lots of movies/music, then maybe it's worth it. And the AMOLED screen is pretty.
Oh, and there's a LOT more protective cases for the Z2 (plus) than the Z2 Pro.
So there you go. If you have any other questions about daily life with a Z2 Pro, feel free to ask me!
---------- Post added at 02:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:09 PM ----------
It's fast, and it's working pretty well for me, but it took a LOT to get to where it's actually a reliable daily driver for work.
I have owned mine for 15 months and paid $400. If I broke it right now I would buy another one for the $260 it is selling at.
Got it 25 months so far, since October '17, bought 215€. In my eyes, it is like a the OnePlus 3 6/128 of its time, except the silly multilanguage chinese "stock" rom in which I have stucked yet (a modified MM version). I was about buying a new phone and change battery, root-rom-kernel etc at this one, and just change battery, root-rom-kernel etc this one. Decided to stay because even at 50€ more , it's impossible to find anything else equipped with just OIS, 6 GB ram, amoled, UFS, though I'd expected to be able to buy much more, such as >=8 ram, cooling, macro & wide, as we are two years after.
Sooo no. One more year will be good enough with it. That's the only (main) device I have kept for more than 10 months What more could I want? :angel: :highfive: :victory: