Database Users

[Q] How is the new stock ROM working out?

I have the T-Mobile HD, and still have the original ROM, radio, etc. Not the newer stock ROM, but the earlier one, from several months ago.
I recall reading here, and getting a TMO text message as well, when a new stock ROM came out several weeks ago. Of course there were threads then, about how people liked it.
I was very busy at the time, and have been since, so I have not yet flashed to the new ROM. It is very time-consuming to do so--not so much the actual ROM-flashing, but reinstallling and reconfiguring apps, the phone, etc.
I am thinking of perhaps doing so soon though--flashing to the newest T-Mo USA stock ROM for the HD2. (I'm sure there are many good cooked ROMs for the phone too, with many threads about them. But I am not interested in going that route at this time, and so I would not like this thread to get into discussion of them.)
I would like to ask those who were using the prior T-Mo HD2 stock ROM, and updated to the newest one, now, a month or two after the new one came out, how has it been working for you over time?
What improvements have you noticed, compared to the prior one?
Are there any disadvantages to the new one?
Thank you for your input.

I installed elegancia rom at first, and after roughly 1 week. I hated it more than anything. I downloaded the latest stock rom from xda and it's light years better than elegancia and the rom that originally came on my phone. It's so smooth, quick, and efficient! I hate htc sense! it's a resource hog and is completely inefficient. I have it as the regular desktop like setup and my hd2 lasts all day long now! even watching 16 hours video! at 40% screen brightness. Before it would only last 4 hours roughly. The only thing that i don't like right now is windows media player and htc video player are much more efficient at decoding high quality .mp4s than coreplayer. I wish they had some kind of settings so i could adjust the colors, brightness, contrast at the least! Hope this helps.
thanks

I've ran the pre-release leaked official ROM when it first came out and was impressed with it from the get go. When I switched to the official release from T-Mo, I noticed not that much difference between the two in terms of performance. In my experience, it's well worth the time to flash to the new stock ROM. The biggest and most profound change is the HTC messaging client. Hell of a lot more smoother and efficient. You no longer have the lag when trying to reply to a message in the threaded view. Although, once you hit the 300 to 400 message length with one contact there will be a lag while the messages load on screen for the first time, but that's to be expected in my view.
The other big change has been the stability. I can't recall the last time I had to restart my phone due to lockup, freezes or just poor performance issues. I would have to say that the stability is better with the Official Stock ROM.
Since the release of the Official Stock, I've flashed an Energy ROM to compare. It's based in part on the 3.14 release and it's very smooth and efficient. It's like butter and cinamon sugar on a hot tortilla. But. I just am so damned used to the HTC message client that I can't stick with the Energy ROM. So I've since switched back to the official release.
The official release seems to be running even better since the last flash.
To sum up. Flash to the official release. You won't be dissappointed and it's well worth the trouble.
Good luck and I hope this helps you out.

[Q] [POLL]Which Gingerbread Rom are you Running?

Hi
Since there has been lot of activity in the Development of Gingerbread Rom for our Heroes( thanks to the wonderful Dev's).
Just wanted to find the popular as the days go by

good call
it does make sense to do it this way
I'm on ele right now. cronos is great but a couple of bug fixes still needed before I'm 100% happy. ele's is quite amazing. want to try tasty but waiting for known a2sd fix and I'm unfortunately not a fan of almost pure aosp. Some cm things are really useful like notification bar power widget etc.

wow over hundred views and not much votes... is it that people aren't using gingerbread roms?

I think I just wore out everybody's voting fingers in my all encompassing rom poll started a few weeks ago.
hahaha

I tried CM7, elelinux and TastyGinger and honestly i am gonna switch back to froyo. Within first hour or so, ROM works pretty good but as soon as i sync with Google (for contacts) and send/receive some text messages, keyboard slows down, my messaging slows down.

for now none ... waiting for a good custom rom, the final version.

I'm waiting for Feeyo to come back with his kernel in Cronos GB rather than Flykernel.

wow - ele's gb is great, totally finished feeling. tasty's pretty amazing from what I've read. cronos is possibly the most complete and really great too. cm nightlies are iffy as always - they're nightlies and that's how nightlies work - but beta3 or whatever his last official one was (lox) was pretty cool.
time to weigh froyo's speed but constant market issues and older features versus gingerbread's great features but slower UI speed.

I've used CM7 but it got lag too much xD....

dkelley said:
time to weigh froyo's speed but constant market issues and older features versus gingerbread's great features but slower UI speed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you should really try cronos ginger instead of re-posting somewhere read bullsh.t. i'm using CG1.0.1 since it was released and there is no single problem at all.
which market issues are you talking about?

I'm back on cronos. ele's gps let me down big time for some strange reason (app locked up, couldn't quit, restarting phone bootlooped LoL).

I used the Elinux 2.3 and its great..
The Tasty is faster but the screen resolution still not compatible with beautifull gidget...
So i return to elinux!

Ele's hasn't let me down at all, only problems i had were due to me xD nice and snappy, stable. ^^

I have used 0.9 cronos and ele's one like bot of them but I seem to have issues with Gingerbread roms in general
Basically after a while the bottom keyboard Keys dont seem to work , an I have to press really hard. or not work at all
But works perfect If I flash original 2.1 rom so am back on the official ROM
But if new rom comes out I do a quick adb root and try em I love the excitment of rom flashing

tfn said:
I have used 0.9 cronos and ele's one like bot of them but I seem to have issues with Gingerbread roms in general
Basically after a while the bottom keyboard Keys dont seem to work , an I have to press really hard. or not work at all
But works perfect If I flash original 2.1 rom so am back on the official ROM
But if new rom comes out I do a quick adb root and try em I love the excitment of rom flashing
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
uh oh. gb might get warmer which is showing teh beginning of a touchscreen hardware issue with your phone probably.
definitely stay away from hot running roms on that phone

I have used the 5th and 9th nightlies of CM7 so far. Build 5 was slow in some areas, particularly with LauncherPro (I removed ADW because I honestly don't like it), but it was otherwise usable in day-to-day situations. Build 9 is significantly better so far; the only thing that would make me completely happy with it would be fully-working on/off animations (if it's possible on Hero hardware).

I wondered why there is no further development on the camera function for GB. I had tried the latest Elelinux GB and then Cronos GB. The camera pictures captured were just terrible (colour almost washout)! Camera on Froyo is still fairly good and very useable. Otherwise, GB really offers something nice for our Hero. Too bad for the camera (on GB), I'm back to Erasmux's Floyo again.

Elelinux is by far the best GB ROM.

I think Elelinix is great enough.........

Using the brand new Cronos Gingerbread 1.1.0 (the non animation version)
Sooooo fast now.

Froyo Source is released, better modem ?

Now the Froyo Source is released you think we will finally get a better modem that will improve the GPS ?
http://opensource.samsung.com/recept...attach_id=1014

I wouldn't think so, I upgraded from Eclair to Froyo not too long ago using the Samsung ROM, did it thru T-Mibile. It must have been the worst day of my life, at that point if my phone was a bed, it was infested with bed bugs and driving me sick. I flashed different custom ROM's and did notice difference in the GPS performance between ROM's. Now I'm running Trigger 2.5 on Froyo and am very happy with my phone again. As far as the GPS, it is faster and less bugged than it used to be with Eclair. Bottom line: I will not pull any software update from Samsung again!
Cheers!

Yall might want to try one of the many custom roms out here, I'm using Axura and get gps lock in under 15seconds most days

GB to ICS and back - mini review

My month with a factory unlocked Galaxy S2​
Bought this in mint condition from a friend for about half price with only 1 hour of use, an unwanted upgrade. Came with 2.3.4 as expected, so hooked up to Kies; no update at the time. As is my wont, I used the phone for a few days to get to grips with TouchWiz (TW) and the phone generally. All quite reasonable, no stability issues and TW is not bad by any means.
My thoughts and trials so far then:
Hardware
Well made, light and thin. Slippery, so a black rubbery skin bought and fitted and I popped a spare 8GB microSD card in, not that the phone needs it for my purposes.
Only criticism is the OLED screen, I'm used to higher resolution (Moto and Sony) and 800x480 looks rather "cheapo" in terms of detail on a screen this large, but no deal breaker. What I do find somewhat at odds with the price of the phone is the slight but noticeable shading and colour tints across the screen at low brightness levels and on some backgrounds. Plus, the screen's legibility outside on a bright day is no better than more run of the mill LCD screens. (I mean cheaper!)
My first GB update
I generally root phones straight after flashing a new firmware version, if it isn't already. I had already successfully rooted the original stock 2.3.4 firmware with Zergrush 4 and debloated that ROM.
I was keen to try a later GB version before trying ICS, and I found 2.3.6 for "Open Europe" on Sammobile and downloaded it. I had already tried Kies, so the USB drivers were present and working. I uninstalled Kies on the PC but left the USB drivers alone. Kies and Odin are not good bedfellows. I did a full factory reset on the phone and erased everything, allowed it to reboot and then powered off, got in to download mode and flashed XXKL1 (which is an engineering version and deodexed it seems). Rooted it via Zergrush 4, deleted known bloat and renamed possible bloat to xxx.bak to clean the ROM for my own usage, and deleted that very annoying start-up sound. Downloaded all the apps I normally use (about 22 of them), including the excellent CPU Spy to check for deep sleep.
I used/charged the phone over the next couple of days to let the OS bed in. No problems encountered at all, and a very pleasing battery life of 30+ hours of light use, with syncing and GPS, 3G, WiFi always on and occasional BT. Magic! Only thing I did is change the Modem to LPR - the KI3 Modem that came with the ROM is not quite as good at holding weak signals. Only just though...
My first ICS update
So, good phone, stable and very usable ROM in 2.3.6. Time had come to try this new ICS thing. Downloaded the LPQ version and installed it, after a full wipe, via Odin. Not impressed by all the automatic installation rubbish at first boot... Rooted via a hot boot CWM and SU/Busybox successfully and did all the same debloating and app installation as GB 2.3.6. Spent some time getting orientated and used to the new menus and so on.
Over the next day or so, I let the ROM settle and began using the ROM - I changed the Modem to LPR as LPQ was not as good, perception wise. ROM was stable and usable, didn't really look or feel much different from 2.3.6 and was worse on battery - I would say 18 hours at best with the same usage pattern.
Absolutely hate the new Exchange thing for live.com email.... real pain usability wise and battery unfriendly.
My second ICS update
So, not overly impressed with LPQ, although it was usable, I decided to try LP7, the UK generic one. Went through the same process as above, and again swapped the Modem from LPS (awful!) to LPR.
No obvious differences at all. Battery life was as poor, but it was usable.
My first CM trial - CM9
So, somewhat disillusioned by Samsung's ICS implementation, I decide to look around for another "mature" ROM. CM9 fitted the bill (I have used CM6 before on another phone) and was smack bang up to date in terms of kernel, AOSP and G Apps. After my usual clean deck start, installed fine, 23/04 build.
At first, I was quite impressed as I could configure more and to my liking. The ROM was stable and I set the phone up with the usual Apps and deleted some useless stuff (like GenieWidget).
Swapped Modem out to LPR - bit of a theme going on here...
I liked the fact that the Spirit FM radio worked (so bought the Pro version as it is that good). The ROM is very usable and never got bogged down, BUT, for reasons I never fully determined, the battery life would start OK and then decline faster during the day. I never saw more than 12 hours life, again using as per my normal pattern and after a few days to settle. There appeared to be various background activities going on that were preventing deep sleep sometimes, but BBS was not really showing me what. Note that I only use BBS as a last resort as it can increase battery use...
No other real problems, but the soft key backlights wouldn't play with NoLED and were somewhat counter-intuitive. A bit trivial, but a mess.
My second CM trial - CM7
I like GB, it is mature and well understood, so CM7 RC 2 was therefore of some appeal. It had been developed over months and must therefore be fairly sorted. Surely.
Installed without issue on a cleaned platform as usual, including G Apps. Did the usual debloat and installed the usual Apps from the Market/Play, and some that were missing, like GMail. LPR modem was already there, Hooray! Spent rather longer fiddling with the settings in CM7 than CM9 since they were less obvious at first, to me anyway.
Switched off and put the phone on wall charge overnight and was rather shocked to find the phone was noticeably warm and displaying "Kernel Panic" in the morning. The phone had only charged by about 5% in total (to 64%). Worry Worry. I put the phone on USB charge until 100% without incident.
Started to use the phone as normal, the phone UI and operation was very good, fluid even. But, first problem I had was in the car. I paired BT fine, as usual, and made a phone call. After the call, I couldn't end the call on the car or phone - it had locked up. Oh dear.
Later, I tried the FM Radio during my daily walk - doesn't work, so why is it there? I tried Spirit FM - no way would it work. Oh dear.
The following day, I noticed that the battery life was amazing! I had never seen this phone sip juice like this. Deep sleep was always easily achieved. That was until the afternoon. I noticed that the battery level was declining at a much higher rate than earlier. I hadn't done anything different, so BBS was called in again. Nothing obvious shown but I kept seeing the GPS icon winking at me from the Notification bar, and continually. I always keep GPS on, but for some reason on this ROM, no GPS signal meant the ROM just kept trying. I played with various settings like Location etc. and managed to stop this odd behaviour, but this was too silly. I use a Smartphone for all the smart features. This wasn't very smart at all.
CM7 was my biggest disappointment of all the above ROM trials. It was the lightest and most promising, and yet the least reliable or functional. Which is a huge shame...
Today...
I'm now back on KL1 2.3.6, and it just works fine - day after day.
The future for me?
I would really like to use CM9 (or CM7 for that matter). They represent a number of ideals for me, including the open nature of development, the collaboration, a pioneering spirit and giving users a choice and a superb base to build on. I am no developer - I can split and modify kernels to a point, I can rehash ROMs with or without adb, I can amend frameworks. But little more.

Reserved for "tips and hints"
Avoiding problems
Always data reset and wipe before doing anything major from one ROM to another, or follow the installation guide for any specific differences in approach.
Avoid Titanium Backup like the plague - it invariably leads to functional issues later if you cross flash. Use Google and/or airdroid for everything, it all just works. So many friends and other forums I contribute to have had too many backup issues to count. Go clean. Forget about Google paranoia.
ES File Explorer is very useful and recommended.
Don't bother "calibrating" the battery - it's an outdated practice and useless. Just use the phone normally, and anyone who claims the battery life is "great" 1 hour after flashing a newly announced ROM is a fool. Likewise NEVER fully discharge a Li-Ion battery. Just keep topping it up. See here: http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_charge_when_to_charge_table
Thoughts
Newer ROMs are rarely better ROMs. Better means different things to different folk of course.
ICS ROM core LPQ to LP8 are largely all the same, just variants of the same thing for different markets. Some users believe they perform differently.
Custom kernels and ROMs are always work in progress and should be treated as such. Check out the number of revisions. Some kernel cookers are (welcome) enthusiastic amateurs that assume more is better and cram "fixes" in that the professional salaried software engineers have mysteriously missed. If you only need your stock kernel to be insecure, learn how to make it so. You are running Linux on your box, right?
Deodexing is not a means to improve performance, on the contrary.
Undervolting is a mythical beast
I bought a phone with an FM radio because I want to use it!

And I totally agree. to all of it. Tried all iterations of almost all roms available. For some reason keep going to my VR 3.0 nandroid back up.
Except CM9, I don't really think there is any real development going on. Most are just cooked up roms OR stuff taken from the CM9 tree and implemented OR so called fixes that have actually broken something else OR just debloated rooted official firmware (that AFAIK is pretty easy to do with the fantastic dsixda's kitchen or on a rooted rom).
Now fanboy's may flame as much as they wish to, but seriously a stable CM9 (hopefully..!) or a VR 4.0 is all I am willing to wait for.
Till such time VR 3.0 it is.

LenAsh said:
Reserved for "tips and hints"
Newer ROMs are rarely better ROMs. Better means different things to different folk of course.
ICS ROM core LPQ to LP8 are largely all the same, just variants of the same thing for different markets. Some users believe they perform differently.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't agree with your final thought. Different ics rooms have really different feels. E.g. Look at scrolling from lpq to lp7.....and there are numerous others as well. If u want more specific thoughts and feedback, just browse through different ics threads in this section..

omeryounos said:
I don't agree with your final thought. Different ics rooms have really different feels. E.g. Look at scrolling from lpq to lp7.....and there are numerous others as well. If u want more specific thoughts and feedback, just browse through different ics threads in this section..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm... I have browsed through the sections, and tried various "revisions" or versions of Samsung ICS today while jotting this lot down, and my view, honestly, is there is no real difference. That isn't to say there isn't, I just can't see or feel it. I do accept that playing with 3 ROMs in a few hours is less than ideal. And a drag!
I suppose if someone could deconstruct the ROMs properly and thoroughly...
Anyway, thanks for your thoughts, appreciated.

Very nice review! +1
Keep up the good work

I broadly agree with the OP.
ICS/AOSP/AOKP/CM9 have improved over the last few weeks, but I'm back on GB, and will probably stay with it until I get the SGS3.
May be subjective, but for me the GB stock browser, camera and dialler are streets ahead of what the rest can offer. Scrolling is smoother too. And I like/need a radio.

B3311 said:
I broadly agree with the OP.
ICS/AOSP/AOKP/CM9 have improved over the last few weeks, but I'm back on GB, and will probably stay with it until I get the SGS3.
May be subjective, but for me the GB stock browser, camera and dialler are streets ahead of what the rest can offer. Scrolling is smoother too. And I like/need a radio.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Seems like you and the OP only tried the AOSP/AOKP roms? Give the roms based on the latest official a try.
The dialer is still as good as always (unchanged), camera is actually improved with higher bitrate recording and the ics stock browser...is untouchable at the moment in my opinion. (Granted I use "ICS Browser+" from the market which uses the best ui in a browser I've encountered)
I currently use Dynamic's ICS rom and it would be extremely difficult for me to go back to GB at this point.

Sigurd02 said:
Seems like you and the OP only tried the AOSP/AOKP roms? Give the roms based on the latest official a try.
The dialer is still as good as always (unchanged), camera is actually improved with higher bitrate recording and the ics stock browser...is untouchable at the moment in my opinion. (Granted I use "ICS Browser+" from the market which uses the best ui in a browser I've encountered)
I currently use Dynamic's ICS rom and it would be extremely difficult for me to go back to GB at this point.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
While I agree that in terms of loading websites, ics default browser is a little bit faster, scrolling and pinch and zooming is much smoother with stock gb browser. Also the dialer is worse on ics as it has removed the contacts section which means I have to put both the dialer and contacts shortcut on the dock.

I'm using Wanamlite v11.1, Siyahkernel v3.1, and Apex Launcher.
A winning combination in my opinion, that is now at least as good as the best GB ROMs in terms of battery life. 7 hours standby with 30 minutes screen time and i'm still on 87%.
In terms of fluidity and performance I think ICS /w Apex beats GB handsdown.

Thanks for the recommendation, but I avoid ROM mix ups, I can do that myself. The ones I have looked at have had some very dubious scripts and additions. I usually look at build.prop first, and generally find all sorts of hybrid attempts at adding stuff that is completely wrong. Lines taken from websites, other phones and so on.

LenAsh said:
Thanks for the recommendation, but I avoid ROM mix ups, I can do that myself. The ones I have looked at have had some very dubious scripts and additions. I usually look at build.prop first, and generally find all sorts of hybrid attempts at adding stuff that is completely wrong. Lines taken from websites, other phones and so on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Depends, it was like you say in Gingerbread days, not with ICS WanamLite nor Dynamic, only tried these + CM9
I am using Dynamic 1.4 LP9, it is as smooth and fast as CM9, but everything working because it is Samsung based
I tried the included NEAK and Speedmod kernels, similar performance and very good battery life, only 3% drain overnight, I dont play with processor tweaking

Sigurd02 said:
Seems like you and the OP only tried the AOSP/AOKP roms? Give the roms based on the latest official a try.
The dialer is still as good as always (unchanged), camera is actually improved with higher bitrate recording and the ics stock browser...is untouchable at the moment in my opinion. (Granted I use "ICS Browser+" from the market which uses the best ui in a browser I've encountered)
I currently use Dynamic's ICS rom and it would be extremely difficult for me to go back to GB at this point.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dialer is laggy if you compare it with GB. CM9 variants have slightly more response dialers but overall, GB dialer is way more responsive. There is a small but noticeable lag when pressing a key and the time it takes to register on ICS (CM9 & stock).
Camera recording with stereo voice recording...! Seriously how many people do shoot video with a phone's camera? For facebook uploads mono audio is just fine..
Browser is a definitive improvement yes, and the desktop mode is welcome but browser mods have been available on GB since long.
It is not that ICS is bad. It is actually very good, but the way it has been implemented on S2 is downright ridiculous...! And not one stable vanilla build isn't really helping..

kranti2064 said:
For some reason keep going to my VR 3.0 nandroid back up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is something I have been contemplating for quite some time now, quite possibly the last month. The only real thing stopping me is that for some reason alot of games (eg dead space and modern combat 3) don't seem to like it when i change roms, and even though all the ingame data is there, sometimes it decides I have to re-download.
I do miss it alot though.. and also red pill kernel
I might end up doing a backup of current my CM9 and take the plunge sometime soon. I've been using CM9 since around feb and lately I think my interest has plateaued and now I'm just beginning to get frustrated with little lags that are popping up more frequently (probably due for a wipe mind you!). The only thing about villiam rom is the bloody touch wiz launcher.. I just don't like messing with the launcher roms were made for either.
kranti2064 said:
Camera recording with stereo voice recording...! Seriously how many people do shoot video with a phone's camera? For facebook uploads mono audio is just fine..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mass lols to be had at the fact that a majority of the time they would be played on the device through the mono loudspeaker too

I also go back for GB..becoz i feel that ics so laggy at dialer,and PES2012 freeze and cant play on ics..but in GB all working great..
Daripada galaxy s2 non-G

melorib said:
Depends, it was like you say in Gingerbread days, not with ICS WanamLite nor Dynamic, only tried these + CM9
I am using Dynamic 1.4 LP9, it is as smooth and fast as CM9, but everything working because it is Samsung based
I tried the included NEAK and Speedmod kernels, similar performance and very good battery life, only 3% drain overnight, I dont play with processor tweaking
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
kranti2064 said:
And I totally agree. to all of it. Tried all iterations of almost all roms available. For some reason keep going to my VR 3.0 nandroid back up.
Except CM9, I don't really think there is any real development going on. Most are just cooked up roms OR stuff taken from the CM9 tree and implemented OR so called fixes that have actually broken something else OR just debloated rooted official firmware (that AFAIK is pretty easy to do with the fantastic dsixda's kitchen or on a rooted rom).
Now fanboy's may flame as much as they wish to, but seriously a stable CM9 (hopefully..!) or a VR 4.0 is all I am willing to wait for.
Till such time VR 3.0 it is.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Currently trying ninphetamine kernel (as per VR3 - thanks for the heads up) on my fave stock KL1 more for interest than anything. Seems OK, no obvious difference from stock running as is apart from it being insecure, need a couple of days to evaluate in real life use.

Bloody good post. I've been using CM9 since the video recording bug was solved, and thats probably the longest I've used any ROM on the SGS2, I really like AOSP but the problem is it does still have quite a few bugs, and isn't quite as fast or as battery friendly as I remember the likes of Hyperdroid v6 being.
This makes me tempted to go back to GB. For me, it is still the ultimate for a daily driver. But I'm lazy so I'll probably stick with CM9.

kranti2064 said:
Dialer is laggy if you compare it with GB. CM9 variants have slightly more response dialers but overall, GB dialer is way more responsive. There is a small but noticeable lag when pressing a key and the time it takes to register on ICS (CM9 & stock).
Camera recording with stereo voice recording...! Seriously how many people do shoot video with a phone's camera? For facebook uploads mono audio is just fine..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ICS dialer laggy , doesn't happen to me on stock LP9 or Dynamic based on LP9 and CM9 is as smooth as they come. Whilst mono audio is fine for you I quite like having stereo audio. Choice, not limitations my friend

tameracingdriver said:
Bloody good post. I've been using CM9 since the video recording bug was solved, and thats probably the longest I've used any ROM on the SGS2, I really like AOSP but the problem is it does still have quite a few bugs, and isn't quite as fast or as battery friendly as I remember the likes of Hyperdroid v6 being.
This makes me tempted to go back to GB. For me, it is still the ultimate for a daily driver. But I'm lazy so I'll probably stick with CM9.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cheers for that - I would definitely recommend the 2.3.6 KL1 off Sammobile if you want a solid GB.

Dude, if you have not tried CheckRom RevoHD V6, then you have not tried the BEST gingerbread rom for sgs2.
This is why I can not use ICS (yet). Checkrom is just too perfect of a Rom.
Try it, tweak it to your liking, use it for a week or 3 then try and go back to stock.
CheckRom XDA thread

Back to GB. Phone is Like New!

Okay, so I was on official ICS, several actually. I kept hoping one would prove not to have the Super Brick bug. It seems nobody knows, still.
After working myself into a panic worried I would do something normal and suddenly have a brick on my hands, I flashed back to Gingerbread 2.3.6, Europe Open version (XXLA4). I decided to stick with Touchwiz launcher
After messing around with ICS and several different launchers I guess I had forgotten how smooth the stock is.
Apps are now opening and closing fast, the scrolling in the launcher is super smooth and overall, the phone is working very well. It's like a new machine!
It could help that now that I'm on a safe kernel, I've wiped data and basically started new, but I'm very impressed.
I still wish ICS would come out from Samsung with an announced fixed version. I miss the resizing of widgets and the ICS Voice to text engine. It really is much better.
I would rather feel safe in operating the phone, however, and give up those small ICS features I'm missing.
Has anybody else done the same? What do you think?

Just use Franco kernel or Speedmod kernel for your stock ICS rom and you'll have a "safe" kernel.
Or flash CM9 rom.
Since you are on GB, you can flash a CM9 rom and be perfectly fine easily.

I have to agree alittle with you , always when i reflash to a stock rooted gb, i always feel WOW its so smooth, but thats until i start installing all my apps i use.
I must say that batterylife is better for me on ICS, dunno why.

BTW, is there any significant speed difference between stock ICS (LPY for instance) and CM9? I'm on LPY and Franco r5 and even when overclocking to 1.6 GHz I haven't noticed any speed change.

lukabike said:
BTW, is there any significant speed difference between stock ICS (LPY for instance) and CM9? I'm on LPY and Franco r5 and even when overclocking to 1.6 GHz I haven't noticed any speed change.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've not tried CM9.
Currently its in nightlies but even still from past experiences with stock rom vs cm7 etc i got noticable stability and speed increases. different phones and roms though but generally the idea still applies.

Can't understand all the drama about the ICS update. I just installed mine OTA as instructed, installed Apex Launcher and I couldn't be happier. Everything seems a little smoother too.
Stock email widget works a treat (7x7 grid and above) and with the Smooth Calender widget I am in home screen heaven. Leaves TW on both Gingerbread and ICS.
Just gone from a great phone to a fantastic phone for my needs

I on the other hand still stick with GB right know.
I'm planning to flash CM9 this weekend.
Because I'm getting bored with GB, everyone seems already tried ICS.
I was waiting official save kernel from Samsung, but I just cannot wait anymore to try the ICS.
I will try CM9 mod first I guess, although Franco and CF kernel already release their 'safe' kernel but I still a bit worried since we're not yet sure if there's other reason of the hardbrick

Also back on GB stock with root
I have to agree with this that stock GB is alot more stable than ICS and smoother aswell.
I have tried nearly all the stock ICS releases and all the custom roms based on stock ICS that are in the development forum. Also tried with different kernel combinations and both full wipe / no wipe. Initially most of it seems great then you start using a few apps and it all goes downhill from there.
So GB ftw (well atleast till I get that flashing craving again)

Hi,
Using stock ICS update, had a bricked device after my inability to read, read, read, read & read more, lucky enough to find a solution (not able to disclose, not a technical solution - retail) I use Apex pro launcher & all runs like a dream.
Run chainfires got brickbug? & not happy x19. Rooting may have to wait, confidence bit dented (rooted & flashed my last HTC units & my SG2)
Will read, read & read for a while longer yet.
Sent from my GT-N7000 using xda premium

I also don't understand the complaints for official ICS, I have updated mine and everything is running smooth...there seems to be a problem for people who did not factory reset before upgrading?

i had a lot of restarts - over and over again
i unplugged my battery and it kept happening
since upgrading to ICS - its quite a lot better but still sometimes i get the restarting issue - battery life on ICS is ok - maybe a bit worse than GB

ilegales said:
i had a lot of restarts - over and over again
i unplugged my battery and it kept happening
since upgrading to ICS - its quite a lot better but still sometimes i get the restarting issue - battery life on ICS is ok - maybe a bit worse than GB
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For the restart thing, there maybe an apk which is incompatible? I had this problem after installing several apks from the market when I was on GB once and did a factory reset to solve it.

Final5k said:
I also don't understand the complaints for official ICS, I have updated mine and everything is running smooth...there seems to be a problem for people who did not factory reset before upgrading?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I wasn't complaining about ICS. In fact, I really liked it. Especially the additional widgets, and the voice search improvements.
I was just paranoid that something I did in everybody function would cause the super brick bug. While people seem to thinkI they know what triggers it and what doesn't, we just don't know for sure.
So for me, I'm staying on GB until Samsung admits and fixes the emmc bug.

Back to GB for me too.
I agree with the OP, I have gone back to GB.
For me the advantages of ICS do not outweigh the stabilty of GB.
ICS:
I lost 40-50% battery life but I gained Chrome ( a little bit buggy but good nonetheless). I also ran the risk with the EMMC bug.
GB : I get my battery life back again, have to use the standard browser but at least I can't brick my phone.
I use the note quite heavily for the web, notes, email and following tweets. It has become an excellent companion and I really don't want to lose it just for the sake of running the latest OS.
I have enough patience to wait until an "official" patch comes out that can repair the bug. After such times I will go back to trying the various ROMs on the site.

Me too recently on ICS Dxlp9 now back to more safer ROM stock GB 2.3.6 unrooted! loving it! gonna miss the resizble widgets and those new features but its worth to wait LOVE MY NOTE
Sent from my GT-N7000 using xda premium

I'm back to stock UK XEU LA4 rom and all the better for it. The stability of GB definately outweighs the few advantages (that I've experienced anyway) with ICS.
My main issues with stock UK XEU ICS where
1/ Bluetooth connectivity problems with my car Nissan Connect system
2/ Adobe Flash player was unstable & some websites I frequent didn't work properly at all
3/ Screen responsiveness reduced
4/ Battery life was worse

heading back to gb too. Cant find any reason for using ics. and tw is so ugly. Waiting for the official Miui

I tried LPY and didnt like it - battery life awful and unpredictable then reverted back to GB - I think I will keep it this way until a much better ICS is available maybe CM9?

Likewise I've gone back from XXLQ2 to XXLA6. There wasn't enough good new stuff in the Touchwiz version of ICS to outweigh the battery drain and keyboard problems. And I did do a full wipe before flashing.

mingonn said:
Can't understand all the drama about the ICS update. I just installed mine OTA as instructed, installed Apex Launcher and I couldn't be happier. Everything seems a little smoother too.
Stock email widget works a treat (7x7 grid and above) and with the Smooth Calender widget I am in home screen heaven. Leaves TW on both Gingerbread and ICS.
Just gone from a great phone to a fantastic phone for my needs
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Main issues people have are:
1) TWizzed ICS is a horrible disappointment compared to an actual ICS experience. Samsung basically reverted half of ICS to a legacy Gingerbread UI.
2) Samsung did a ****-poor job of software quality control with their ICS releases. It's utterly stupid that the launcher force closes if you debloat unrelated apps - but that has been the case since the first I9100 ICS release. (There's a reason most custom firmwares use Apex instead of TWLauncher.)
3) Last but not least - Samsung has had a latent defect in the eMMC chips shipped in nearly all of their Exynos-based handsets up till now, and the kernel developers for the SPH-D710, SGH-I777, SHW-M250S/K/L, and GT-N7000 were stupid enough to enable the trigger condition for a known and documented MMC chip bug. The I9100 kernel development team was smart enough to remove MMC_CAP_ERASE from the MSHCI driver or not enable it in the first place.
Final5k said:
I also don't understand the complaints for official ICS, I have updated mine and everything is running smooth...there seems to be a problem for people who did not factory reset before upgrading?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In general - if you perform a wipe data/factory reset on any stock ICS kernel, you run a significant chance of permanently trashing your phone's internal storage.
It's a MAJOR bug that Samsung should NEVER have allowed to go out the door.