Related
So I was wondering, I notice that there are several advantages of using Custom build Kernel over the Stock Kernel, such as extended battery life, overclock cpu, that gave smoother performance, etc.
However, if the kernel can be tweak and customize to that extend that give your phone to a very great performance, lag free, great battery life, why don't the manufacturer (Sony, Samsung, etc) apply these things to their Stock Kernel, the things that the freelance developer's been doing to their Custom Kernel? Is there any reason that blocking them from maximizing their phone's performance for the customers?
Because what oem after is stability, not perfomance. Many of the things applied in custom made kernel is not well tested, some dirty hack here and there.
If we compare ratio of we xda user, we the geek, we who like to flash our phone several times a day to all cumulative android users in the world, we are minority.
Many of them just want to use their phone as a phone, not to reflash it over and over to fix bugs that came with the custom made things.
Hi everyone,
I'm currently ussing the back-to-n00t v9 ROM (KitKat) together with Boeffla Kernel for a pretty long time. It was good at the beginning, although the rom had a few bugs (like the mobile data button not working sometimes and roaming mode disabling when disabling data causing roaming warnings). But for some time already, I'm getting kinda frustrated. The phone likes to lag sometimes, like when going out of some app to the home screen and everything loads again causing a terrible lag, or all the apps close in the background. Also many times when I want to unlock the phone I have to wait a few seconds because nothing works (can't draw the pattern). I'm looking for some simple ROM (not any Marshmallow stuff etc, I want to maintain stability and performance). I'd love to get some better performance, without lagging and having problems with the keyboard (like it's not showing because of low RAM or stuff like that). I'd also like to get some good battery life althought this isn't that of a priority because I have 2 batteries.
I don't want to flash Cyanogenmod because I want to keep the TouchWiz camera and stuff.
Which ROM would you suggest me? I saw some website recommending Revolutionary S5, although I don't like the idea of trying to make an old phone like the some new model, they claim it's super smooth and optimised. Is that true? I don't want to waste any more RAM because of some ****ty features from S5 that I'll never use.
Thanks in advance! Hope you can help me.
same here, I use RR + boeffla but it is sucking one and half battery a day, inactivity battery consume is the same as Whatsapp I use a lot, it seems to be active when not active.
Same problem with Lineage 14.1
Best ROM for me was a stock rooted ROM with unnecessary apps disabled.
UPDATED FOR MARCH SECURITY PATCH! 08/03/2017
Hey folks!
Today I decided to share my actual setup for everyone to try and report back.
Mind that is still WIP, absolutely far from perfect and it's based on my personal preference, since it's built around the way I use the phone. But it can be easily adopted for many people here since it's pretty flexible.
The main goal of this setup is to provide consistency, both in battery and performance. Also, I mind security a bit, this is why I update the phone often; Because of that I want to flash the least possibile .zip files in recovery after updating to the latest security image (I'm lazy and I like things done nice once, and I never do them twice when it's not needed)
With this setup you should go between 10%/h to 15%/h SOT, consistently. I've seen some of my friends dropping to 9%/h, but no guarantees
Also, added bonus: It DOESN'T trips SafetyNet, so you can use Pay and your beloved Pokemon go!
Also note that english isn't my native language, but I try my best to write as readable that I can. Sorry about that.
This require an unlocked bootloader, but not necessary a rooted phone.
The Setup:
1) First things first: Clean your phone from junk around (I suggest a pretty hard wipe) and since this require to be on the stock system (which IMO works best) flash latest N build.
2) Convert your data and cache to F2FS. It's pretty good, and even if in your opinion it doesn't boost performance THAT much, take in mind that it requires no trimming (which EXT4 does need). Mind not converting /system, this is UNSUPPORTED on stock system. It needs a custom rom.
3) Flash "Flash Kernel" from here. You can literally use any kernel you prefer, but I found this rich enough to use it. Mind it does support F2FS, if you converted to it in step 2.
4) Flash Magisk. This way you have root out-of-the-box and safetynet isn't tripped (for you Pay users!) Also, it plays nice with the mods in the next steps. Don't forget to activate "magisk hide" in the app!
5) Flash this magisk mod (increases media volume steps to 30, in call volume steps to 15)
6) Reboot your phone and set it up.
7) Install Magisk App, WakeBlock, and your kernel manager for the kernel you chose. In this setup, I use EX Kernel Manager.
8) Now, from your favourite root file manager go to /cache and create this directory structure: magisk_mount/system/framework/oat/arm64/ then place in the last folder (arm64) this file. It's from this mod, called WakeBlock. (It basically acts like amplify, but doesn't need xposed NOR root)
9) Reboot the phone.
The setup it's done, you can now tweak it as you prefer or just follow the below steps.
The Kernel tweaking:
1) Open up EX Kernel App and go to CPU, set both governors to Interactive and tick stick on reboot
2) Go to governor options and choose your governor. I use AmanuensisOne v1.0, which gives me around 6-7h sot. Load it, stick it on reboot and back to CPU.
3) Go to CPU Boost options, and disable everything (set everything to 0/disabled) and tick stick on reboot. Then back to CPU.
4) Enable core_control and disable msm_thermal, stick them on reboot.
5) Go to Memory and Disable UKSM stick on reboot.
6) Go to Miscellaneous set I/O Scheduler to FIOPS, stick on reboot, Readahead to 1024 with stick on reboot, disable fsync, also set it to reboot.
Done!
Blocking those nasty wakelocks and save the battery! (aka R.I.P. NlpCollectorWakelock):
It's reccomanded to use the phone for a while before doing this. Wakeblock collects informations on wakelocks only when they fire the first time, so a bit of use it's needed.
1) Open wakeblock app and check if it says "service bound". If it doesn't you may have missed something on the "The setup" part, check point #8.
2) Go to wakelocks and block this wakelocks (the time is expressed in ms in the app - Don't enter spaces, of course.) if you don't have a wakelock, skip it:
- NlpWakeLock -- 600 000ms
- GCoreFlp -- 600 000ms
- RILJ -- 800 000ms
- UrlDispSvcFastWL -- 600 000ms
- CMWakeLock -- 600 000ms
- *net_scheduler* -- 3 600 000ms
- Wakeful StateMachine: GeofencerStateMachine -- 600 000ms
- LocationManagerService -- 600 000ms
- SyncLoopWakeLock -- 600 000ms
- NetworkStats -- 800 000ms
- Icing -- 3 600 000 ms
- ULR_BarometerReading_WakeLock -- 600 000ms
- NfcService:mRoutingWakeLock -- 3 600 000ms
- NlpCollectorWakeLock -- 600 000ms
Take in mind that this wakelocks are blocked without impacting ANY functionality of the phone. You may want to increase the time if don't use geolocation at your own risk
More tweaks (improve smoothness and perceived UI speed):
This is a highly WIP part, setting anything different might break your system or get your phone into bootloop (happend twice to me). I highly suggest to have a backup if you want to fiddle more with these settings. You are advised. If you find something useful, please share.
1) Download HEBF and L Speed. These two apps have many tweaks to improve UX and saves a little bit more juice.
2) Open up L Speed and set it this way:
- Main tweaks: Activate Kernel sleepers optimization, Improve scrolling, Liquid smooth UI
- Battery: Activate Battery improvement
- LNET Optimizer: Activate all the tweaks and set NET Buffers to small (or big, but it wastes more battery)
- Seeder: Set to Enlarger mode
- Settings: apply on boot delay set to 60 sec.
3) Open up HEBF and set it this way:
- Set user type to "Chuck Norris" and proceed.
- Battery: Activate Google play services drain fix (Master) and usage report
4) Go into Settings > Developer options and scale all animations to 0.5x
Done, if you done all of this correctly you should see a dramatic improvement on battery life and performance.
I still reccomend to use Naptime, or better, Greenify to save some extra juice.
Have a good day, and enjoy your phone!
Please comment with your battery stats or suggestions if you wish to improve this topic.
Today's battery performance pic
Well, pretty good for me!
CappyT said:
Today's battery performance pic
Well, pretty good for me!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What's your average SOT?
Inviato dal mio Pixel XL utilizzando Tapatalk
giovanto98 said:
What's your average SOT?
Inviato dal mio Pixel XL utilizzando Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Normally i go for 6-7h pretty consistently, i touched 8h, but it was a day were i kept my screen on pretty much all the time with really quick screen offs.
The average sot may vary, but with my friends we've tested around 6h
As you can see from the screen i've installed accubattery few hours ago, but is already almost accurate in battery reading.
I can provide more accurate averages in a week or two
CappyT said:
Normally i go for 6-7h pretty consistently, i touched 8h, but it was a day were i kept my screen on pretty much all the time with really quick screen offs.
The average sot may vary, but with my friends we've tested around 6h
As you can see from the screen i've installed accubattery few hours ago, but is already almost accurate in battery reading.
I can provide more accurate averages in a week or two
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why don't you use a custom rom? Any reason in particular?
DEVILOPS 007 said:
Why don't you use a custom rom? Any reason in particular?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Using a custom rom has for sure some advantages, but:
- It may (and possibly will) be unstable or certain features bugged out
- Doesn't provide much more than stock rom already does (and if it does, are just secondary things like looks and customization that you can live without)
- No wakeblock for it, which saves a TON of battery (i might compile it, but hell, takes a lot of time)
- You can switch Android versions easily (and mostly without wiping /data)
- Much more support (even the official one)
- The feel and look of a clean android version
- I often don't like crap integrated with other roms based on stock
- Odexed it's faster and saves a little little juice (i don't do app modding, so...)
That's pretty much why.
Take in mind that this is my thought, and doesn't universally qualify as truth.
CappyT said:
Using a custom rom has for sure some advantages, but:
- It may (and possibly will) be unstable or certain features bugged out
- Doesn't provide much more than stock rom already does (and if it does, are just secondary things like looks and customization that you can live without)
- No wakeblock for it, which saves a TON of battery (i might compile it, but hell, takes a lot of time)
- You can switch Android versions easily (and mostly without wiping /data)
- Much more support (even the official one)
- The feel and look of a clean android version
- I often don't like crap integrated with other roms based on stock
- Odexed it's faster and saves a little little juice (i don't do app modding, so...)
That's pretty much why.
Take in mind that this is my thought, and doesn't universally qualify as truth.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay thanks, I appreciate your opinion. I mainly prefer custom roms not for customisability and features but roms (mainly Chad's uber) is faster and snappier than any rom out there and is on Clang 4.0 unlike any other roms I think. Also custom roms typically have less bloat and all and has more support for themes and stuff. Can you use substratum and what wakelocks do you block? If you do ever look at getting wakeblock on custom roms could you please look into Chad's uber. I contacted him but he hasn't responded. I'd be happy to help and do it myself but I don't know how to unfortunately.
---------- Post added at 07:03 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:58 PM ----------
CappyT said:
Using a custom rom has for sure some advantages, but:
- It may (and possibly will) be unstable or certain features bugged out
- Doesn't provide much more than stock rom already does (and if it does, are just secondary things like looks and customization that you can live without)
- No wakeblock for it, which saves a TON of battery (i might compile it, but hell, takes a lot of time)
- You can switch Android versions easily (and mostly without wiping /data)
- Much more support (even the official one)
- The feel and look of a clean android version
- I often don't like crap integrated with other roms based on stock
- Odexed it's faster and saves a little little juice (i don't do app modding, so...)
That's pretty much why.
Take in mind that this is my thought, and doesn't universally qualify as truth.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was also wondering, are there any great custom roms that currently work with wakeblock? So odexed custom roms
CappyT said:
Normally i go for 6-7h pretty consistently, i touched 8h, but it was a day were i kept my screen on pretty much all the time with really quick screen offs.
The average sot may vary, but with my friends we've tested around 6h
As you can see from the screen i've installed accubattery few hours ago, but is already almost accurate in battery reading.
I can provide more accurate averages in a week or two
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What % of battery health accubattery shows you?
Inviato dal mio Pixel XL utilizzando Tapatalk
DEVILOPS 007 said:
Okay thanks, I appreciate your opinion. I mainly prefer custom roms not for customisability and features but roms (mainly Chad's uber) is faster and snappier than any rom out there and is on Clang 4.0 unlike any other roms I think. Also custom roms typically have less bloat and all and has more support for themes and stuff. Can you use substratum and what wakelocks do you block? If you do ever look at getting wakeblock on custom roms could you please look into Chad's uber. I contacted him but he hasn't responded. I'd be happy to help and do it myself but I don't know how to unfortunately.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I understand custom rom may be compiled with different toolchains to be faster, but the speed gain is between negligible and placebo, to me. The stock with these settings is buttery smooth and fast. Also, to have a faster look, go to developer settings and set all the animations to 0.5x. I know it doesn't affect performance, but the percieved smoothness is increased.
I tried many custom roms. It's mostly a fight than a good experience for me, so I gave up on it (I used to have cyanogemod on all my phones, for years and I was a big fan of it)
For WakeBlock, I don't plan to compile it for other roms, I'm just currently working on a LineageOS version, but that's it. It's up to your rom dev to integrate it.
BTW Yes, I can use substratum themes, but only in legacy mode. Keep in mind that this will OFC trigger SafetyNet. (like all substratum themes)
giovanto98 said:
What % of battery health accubattery shows you?
Inviato dal mio Pixel XL utilizzando Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
96%, right now.
Solid guide, similar to what i'm already doing but i use Uber as my ROM. Flash kernel is great, although for some reason i universally have a problem on my 6P where my android system usage is as high if not higher than my screen usage? Has anyone else had this issue regardless of their ROM etc? Tried multiples of combos, including stock/dark rom/Stock+ w/ different kernels. Any help would be appreciated!! Good guide none the less!
mrgenie1 said:
Solid guide, similar to what i'm already doing but i use Uber as my ROM. Flash kernel is great, although for some reason i universally have a problem on my 6P where my android system usage is as high if not higher than my screen usage? Has anyone else had this issue regardless of their ROM etc? Tried multiples of combos, including stock/dark rom/Stock+ w/ different kernels. Any help would be appreciated!! Good guide none the less!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Lot of users had this problem, check out the tread "nougat battery life" here on xda.
Inviato dal mio Pixel XL utilizzando Tapatalk
mrgenie1 said:
Solid guide, similar to what i'm already doing but i use Uber as my ROM. Flash kernel is great, although for some reason i universally have a problem on my 6P where my android system usage is as high if not higher than my screen usage? Has anyone else had this issue regardless of their ROM etc? Tried multiples of combos, including stock/dark rom/Stock+ w/ different kernels. Any help would be appreciated!! Good guide none the less!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had a similar problem and I found out that it was my WiFi signal too low.
I used "Battery Historian" to see that.
iI's a gui that helps you find what is draining your battery giving you a graph and very detailed stats.
You can also see the wakelocks that wake your device and how much you doze in screen off.
It's located in bathist.ef.lc and it needs a bugreport from your device(to get it you need to run "bugreport > /sdcard/bugreport.txt or you can use the dedicated function into "Developer options")
SimoIanni said:
I had a similar problem and I found out that it was my WiFi signal too low.
I used "Battery Historian" to see that.
iI's a gui that helps you find what is draining your battery giving you a graph and very detailed stats.
You can also see the wakelocks that wake your device and how much you doze in screen off.
It's located in bathist.ef.lc and it needs a bugreport from your device(to get it you need to run "bugreport > /sdcard/bugreport.txt or you can use the dedicated function into "Developer options")
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
okay thanks, ill look into it! my WiFi router is right outside my room, but i still get 3 bars so maybe that's the issue.. the wifi chip's dying or something similar.
mrgenie1 said:
Solid guide, similar to what i'm already doing but i use Uber as my ROM. Flash kernel is great, although for some reason i universally have a problem on my 6P where my android system usage is as high if not higher than my screen usage? Has anyone else had this issue regardless of their ROM etc? Tried multiples of combos, including stock/dark rom/Stock+ w/ different kernels. Any help would be appreciated!! Good guide none the less!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It could be even ART JIT, since in 7.x apps aren't optimized at installation time, but at runtime. It may take a week to have everything ok.
Anyway thanks, the only difference I made here is the fact that I'm using wakeblock, a mod that I co-developed in the absence of xposed (and amplify)
Saves a ton of battery, so if you are wakelocking, check it out
Do you use adaptive brightness, set it manually, or what do you do?
HTC_Phone said:
Do you use adaptive brightness, set it manually, or what do you do?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Adaptive/automatic, the bar is set just a little before the middle
Some updates on the average battery life
CappyT said:
Some updates on the average battery life
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Would you recommend using ForceDoze in place of Greenify/L Speed/NapTime?
I know ForceDoze works better with 6.0 since with stock Doze, it only works when the device is at a still position for at least 30 mins and ForceDoze has the ability to alleviate that, letting the device set into Doze mode regardless how much the device moves around, but with 7.0/7.1+, its like an improved Doze v2. So...
explorer-10 said:
Would you recommend using ForceDoze in place of Greenify/L Speed/NapTime?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I personally use greenify and l speed for some additional tweaks.
Take in mind that you can use whatever you feel it's right, depending on your needs (greenify for example is selective, while the others aren't)
Anyway all of these will provide only a little bit of reduction of screen off drain, so the difference (for me, at least) it's pretty negligible.
The real deal in screen off performance is limiting the wakelocks, this way you can doze a lot more.
Hello everyone, I just bought this phone and I wonder if it shows a lot of difference when installing any of the roms that I have seen through this same forum.
The aspects that interest me to know are above all that such is the quality of the cameras in other roms, is there much difference in the battery? And how about the overall performance of the phone?
Finally I would like you to advise me what would be the best rom for this device and if there are links to other posts to root and install twrp (I am currently in stock 10, in case the procedures change)
Thanks for reading!
https://forum.xda-developers.com/mi-a3/how-to/discussion-lists-best-custom-rom-xiaomi-t4106947
Install Evolution X
rafameli2019 said:
Hello everyone, I just bought this phone and I wonder if it shows a lot of difference when installing any of the roms that I have seen through this same forum.
The aspects that interest me to know are above all that such is the quality of the cameras in other roms, is there much difference in the battery? And how about the overall performance of the phone?
Finally I would like you to advise me what would be the best rom for this device and if there are links to other posts to root and install twrp (I am currently in stock 10, in case the procedures change)
Thanks for reading!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In my opinion, stock Android is really boring. You can't customize it or tweak it in any way. Evolution X has a better battery backup than stock ROM.
The camera performance in stock Android is fine. You can get even better quality with GCam. But, the oversaturated screen ruins the photography experience.
With evolution X, you can calibrate the screen. You can check out the values I use. ->https://forum.xda-developers.com/mi-a3/review/color-saturation-accuracy-t3962056/post82758721
In my opinion this greatly improves the overall phone experience.
I waited for a while before i flashed evox bcz I didn't want to miss on the ota updates and official support but those really suck and flashing a new rom is just much better and you don't loose anything really, for me everything works much better than stock rom, battery and performance are much better and the customisation is gold
I really liked the stock ROM, but for me the phone was randomly rebooting on Stock. This happened a few times while I was navigating while driving and it was infruiating so I made the switch. I'm quite happy with crDroid right now, since it has less bloat even than the stock ROM, but if you're not having any issues on stock, I'd suggest to stay on stock because there is a learning curve with flashing custom stuff on every phone, you will have to brick your phone a few times to properly install a custom ROM and that requires time + patience. For me it was worth it, since the phone doesn't randomly reboot anymore.
In my opinion, the best custom rom till now is MIUI 11 with Magisk installed. It's super fast + tons of great features. I'm sure we'll get MIUI 12 also, since its been released for CC9e. Give it a try and you'll love it.
Changing ROM is good, personally I bought this phone because of Stock Android with minimum bloatwares. However with stock Android comes a price of customizations. With a custom ROM, you can achieve all that and still control many features of your phone. I have changed ROM to EvolutionX and it's pretty good ROM which I am using as a daily driver. It got some bugs thought but so does stock Android 10 ROM.
Hey Everyone! This is the ultimate guide to running the Galaxy A5 of 2014 or better known as the SM-A500F, as a daily driver and hopefully its noob friendly enough. All links included below.
Story Time:
I currently daily drive a Galaxy S10 and it has never really ever let me down, that was until I dropped it and the screen fractured. Due to backlog at the Samsung Service Center, they said that it would be approximately a month and a half before the phone would be fully repaired. As such, I was stuck with the Galaxy A5 that I had bought maybe 6-7 years ago at this point, which I hadn't touched in years, as my only phone, and with a large chunk of money going towards fixing the shattered display of the S10, it was apparent that I was going to be stuck with this old, Snapdragon 410, 64bit CPU but 32bit locked bootloader, phone. This lead to a huge dilemna. There was no way on earth that I was gonna use stock on this phone, because although the stock firmware ran alright, it left a lot to be desired. And hence, began the conquest to find the ultimate ROM for the A5, which involved diving through many many threads, even more ROMs. In the last month and a half, I have gone through approximately, 14-15 ROMs, from various developers such as Srkndennis, a couple of Soft-Bullet ROMS (The ones that were still up anyways), and some Samsung Expereince Ports by Corsicanu and some Deadsquirrel ROMs. With an average time of a day each, I have come to a conclusion, on what are the definitive daily driver ROMs for this aging device.
Disclaimer: This is my opinion. This entire threads description on what the two best ROMs for this device, are purely based on my use case scenarios, and how I utilized it. Your mileage can and will vary and your devices performance will also vary. I have just selected, which again in my opinion, is the best possible ROM for this device, and for my use case scenario.
Pre-requisites:
Latest Stock Firmware:
https://samfw.com/firmware/SM-A500F/XSG - You'll want to be on the latest possible firmware and bootloader to begin modifiying and flashing different ROMs.
Recovery:
Now this is a bit more complicated. There have been many recoveries released for the a500f over the years, with various improvements. The best one I've found however is ashyx's recovery, which is one of the few, if not the only recovery that supports MTP. The only other recovery that you would need is if you plan to use the a5 with f2fs ROMs.
Ashyx Recovery: https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/...ung-galaxy-a5-2015-sm-a500f-fu-g-h-m.3360802/
Deadsquirrel's F2FS Recovery: https://androidfilehost.com/?fid=817550096634793304 (Note: Not all ROMs support F2FS, and on the ROMs that did, I had to modify the installer script).
Odin 10.6:
Well, you need this to flash recoveries in the first place, so its essential.
Link: https://odindownload.com/download/Odin3_v3.10.6.zip
Magisk:
This is needed for root access as well as to pass safetynet. I used primarily the canary builds, as they have the highest pass rate, but this is preference.
Link: https://github.com/topjohnwu/Magisk - Just scroll down and you'll see various versions that say "Magisk", "Magisk Beta" and "Magisk Canary". Select whichever you prefer.
Samsung USB Drivers:
Samsung Android USB Driver | Samsung Developers
You need the driver only if you are developing on Windows and want to connect a Samsung Android device to your development environment over USB.
developer.samsung.com
Key Note: Remember that downloading will give you an apk. To get the installer, just rename "Magisk.apk" to "Magisk.zip".
Gapps:
This is essentially for Google Apps. This should never be flashed on ROMs that already have GAPPS such as Samsung Experience ROMs and Pixel Experience ROMs. Honestly, I would refer to the Lineage OS Gapps Guide. They tell you which Gapps work best with stock android ROMs. Just remember, to choose the lightest package always, unless you absolutely need something else from the other packages, since this little a5 only has 2 GB of available RAM, and Google Apps can very easily eat through that. In the case of Open Gapps for example, pick pico.
Link: https://wiki.lineageos.org/gapps
Thats about it for the pre-requisites. Its now time to get to the actual problem.
The problem with a device this old, and this underpowered:
The hardware of this device does leave a lot to be desired, in basically all areas, except build quality. It is a strange feeling to hold a phone with a metal unibody, but thats where the plus sides end. This phone is quite severally underpowered. The Snapdragon 410 in this device was weak when it launched, and is still very weak by today's standards. It scores 85 on the single core of Geekbench, and 305 on its multicore, which is quite staggeringly low. On top of this, Samsung have done something quite silly with this phone's bootloader and locked it to 32bit, for a 64bit processor. While this means that apps can never run on 64bit mode, it does mean we achieve slight memory savings at the very least. On the topic of memory, this phone has 2GB, which wouldn't be so bad, if it just wasn't really slow, as well as really old. Its storage isn't much to write home about, being quite slow as well. All in all this means that the ultimate ROM for the A500F, would have to be light on memory, be quite optimized in terms of applications installed, and have a good kernel/drivers. Heavy ROMs can run on this device, but it is upto you whether or not, you want to deal with the repercussions of being constantly low on memory, and the additional CPU cycles needed to run the additional bloat.
The Trifecta:
Well, at the very least, there is some good news. We have 3 potential daily driver ROMs, after extensively testing every ROM, XDA has to offer. These ROMs in my opinion, perform the best in terms of sheer performance, battery life and just overall usability.
1. A8 2018 Port by Prototype74:
This may come as a surprise to most of you, but yes, if Samsung Experience is something that cannot be lived without, then this ROM does it all. Not only does it offer all the glorious features that Samsung ROMs offer, it still offers quite decent performance with great camera performance to go with it. The built in Samsung Theme engine works, so this means it is possible to theme the device to give it, its own dark mode, after selecting an amoled theme, which is great for a daily driver. There are a couple of downsides which I will list down below, but this ROM by far, is the best performing Samsung Experience ROM out of all of them. However, do remember I did this testing, by selecting the lightest possible bloatware selection, but still keeping the theme engine alive.
+ Positives:
- All the Samsung Features you'll ever need
- Debloatable Installer
- The best functioning camera out of all three ROMs
-Great Idle and Standby time and overall decent battery life
/ Negatives:
- RAM Management - Obviously with the amount of features of a Samsung Experience ROM, RAM suffers. This ROM manages it well, but it is still noticeable, with apps left in memory too long closing, and overall sluggish performance the more apps that are opened.
- Performance - Now I did state that performance is great for a Samsung Experience ROM, but this is excluding the next two options. In comparison, this ROM can suffer at times from stutters, app load times, scroll jitter and overall lag sometimes. The reason I've recommended this ROM is because it is genuinely few and far between, and performs the same, if not better stock most of the time.
Link: https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/...1-1-v6-0-seperience-rom-a8-2018-port.3754851/
- Side Note: To keep the theme engine alive, you will need to keep installed, Samsung Account and Samsung Themes itself. It also important that "Gameoptimizer" service is deselected as it has been proven to ruin performance than actually improve it, and I'm not just referring to games.
2. Srkndennis's SlimROM Android 7.1.2:
Well, its in the name. SlimROM is famed for being light, incredibly light, and this takes the equation of speed to a whole new tier. The ROM in itself is from the ground up, built to meet one goal, light. It is incredibly fast, incredibly memory efficient, and almost everything benefits from it. Now this being stock android, there are a lot of "Samsung" comfort features that just won't be there, but honestly, the pefromance and battery gained from just running something light, is immeasurable.
+ Positives:
- Stellar Performance, best out of all three
- Stellar Battery and Standby, again the best out of all three
- Lightest of the bunch, and holds the most amount of apps in memory
/ Negatives:
- Lacks some features and customization found in other ROMs such as Lineage OS and Resurrection Remix:
Link: https://mega.nz/folder/7s0CnQpL#OpPDOEsGA5APizajXRZ32A/folder/v4Ug3YLD
Other ROMs, especially those on higher android versions:
After heavy experimenting on ROMs of newer android versions, it is apparent that the A5 peaks, at Android 7.1.2. Any android version after this, while not having any hardware issues necessarily, will just not function anywhere near as quick, nor as responsive. The only firmware that even gets remotely close to being partially usable is srkndennis's Android 10. When I state usable, I mean in term's of UI switching, application performance and overall speed with battery efficiency. This is NOT
because the ROMs aren't made well, this is genuinely just the limitation of the hardware on the A5. Remember that this device can barely run most basic apps, due to the bare minimum requirements of these apps slowly increasing due to the addition of more modern features.
That being said, this little device can still function, and quite well at that too. You just need to select the right firmware for it. It's Magnus Opus.
Installation guide for any of the ROM's listed here today:
1. If stock start from the top, if not go from step f.
a. Power down the A5, and once it has shut down, hold the volume down, power button and home button simultaneously.
b. Once the warning show up, press volume up, and enter download mode. Once this is done, plug your phone into your laptop.
c. Open the Odin zip, and extract it into a new folder. Once this is done, run the setup for Samsung USB Drivers and let it install.
d. Once that is done, open Odin, and in AP select the needed recovery. Ensure that the recovery image you downloaded is in a .tar zip file and the recovery image inside that .tar file is renamed recovery.img
e. Once it is selected, start the flash, and wait till the program finishes. Right when the screen goes blank on the phone, quickly hold the volume up, home and power button simultaneously till recovery boots.
f. Now that twrp is booted, click on wipe, and select, system, data, dalvik cache and cache.
g. Once the wipe is complete, copy over Magisk, the ROM you require and the GAPPs (if needed).
h. First select the ROM and install it. Then Gapps (if required. it is not recommended on Samsung Touchwiz ROMs). Then finally, install Magisk.
i. Click on reboot system, and that's it, you've installed your ROM. Just wait for the device to boot now.
Thanks for reading, hope ya'll have a good day!