Database Users

CM7 relevance on the Atrix

A little history: 4 years ago i bought and owned (still own) a G1 - HTC Dream - and ever since custom Android roms were available I have been very happy to try out the latest and greatest. I think jesusfreke being the first but cant remember now its such a long time ago. Then along came cyanogen with hhis rom, brilliant. There were so many new options and the speed increase was great. and because of this rom I kept my G1 for over 3 years as my main phone. When the time came that cyanogen stopped supporting the G1 I decided it was time for an upgrade and decided I would get the Atrix based on its powerful specs and all of the other amazing features it has.
So 8 months on I now have an Atrix on which I have tried nearly all available roms and am currently running the latest version of Aura. (not an endorsement for Aura, simply a statement). Included in my trials was CM7, which i was so excited about when i first heard that development was happening. However since installing CM7 and trying it out for around a month I have to say that amongst all of the other roms for the Atrix it is not the holy grail that it has been on other phones. In fact in its current incarnation its relevance it questionable on the Atrix particularly when reading that the devs are struggling to find solutions to getting some of the features working.
I know that there are many people that bought the Atrix because it was powerful. But, it does have other features that, although not unique are certainly what helps to give the Atrix an edge over the competition. Webtop for example is a feature that used only ocassionally is a valuable asset to the device and simply discard it at for a tweak that boosts performance by mere micro seconds is a poor trade. it would be the same as buying a convertible ferrari and removing the button that puts the roof down - it saved some weight and the car can now accelerate to 60mph marginally faster but you cant put the roof down anymore. So you might as well have bought a hard top ferrari which already went faster. The same theory as buying the Atrix, if you want that extra bit of speed, might as well buy the SGSII.
So, there it is. Thats why i run a different rom at the moment, because all of the features are available and quite honestly with a bit of tweaking i can no longer either see of feel any difference in speed to CM7 and my battery lasts a perfectly acceptable amount of time for a smartphone (Depending on my usage). For those of you who might start mentioning blur as being the reason to move to CM7 that is another area where devs of other custom roms have done a fine job of removing anything really noticable and anything else that I found annoying I simply used TB and personal preference to sort out. (Although i havent yet figured out the accounts manager and anyway of getting rid of that awful blur interface. Maybe one day)
In conclusion, no ROM is perfect and as much as I admire the devs work I simply don't think that CM7 is relevant on the Atrix.
Thoughts?

i think it greatly depends on what your needs/desires are for your phone. i bought my atrix with zero intentions of using the fingerprint scanner or webtop. in the months before CM7 came out, i never even tried them out on stock or custom ROMs.
i really enjoy the extra features that CM7 adds to my atrix (however small they may be). the only downside ive experienced is inconsistent battery behavior, but i cant narrow it down so im not even sure its a cyanogen thing.
any ROM is relevant if there are people who want to use it. it may not be relevant for you, or anyone who is set on webtop/FPS. but to each his own. thats the beauty of open-source right??

It's to each their own, I guess. If someone wants CM7 on their phone, they're going to go for it. Some people are benchmark fiends, others just like the feel of it.

Completely agreed with fischwrap. Many people bought the Atrix because it was the fastest phone at release date, or the best price/performance ratio one. That people might or might not care about the fingerprint scanner (a lot of people in fact don't like the power button placement and use volume to wake, some others don't even use a lockscreen, let alone a fingerprint scanner) or about webtop (believe it or not people without HDTVs or LCDs exist )
And I know the 'don't care or need' side has at least 5300 people on it

turl1 said:
Completely agreed with fischwrap. Many people bought the Atrix because it was the fastest phone at release date, or the best price/performance ratio one. That people might or might not care about the fingerprint scanner (a lot of people in fact don't like the power button placement and use volume to wake, some others don't even use a lockscreen, let alone a fingerprint scanner) or about webtop (believe it or not people without HDTVs or LCDs exist )
And I know the 'don't care or need' side has at least 5300 people on it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same here. I also purchased it with eager anticipation that devs would also get it for the same reasons and port CM7. You guys kick major ass. Took a bit more blood, sweat and tears because of the bootloader but our Atrix's are rockin' now!f

i think the Atrix can truly shine regardless of what ROM you use. it's an extremely powerful phone and that will show in any comparison. The kernel plays a very large part in determining performance as well though. Even if you are on standard clock speeds with one of faux's kernels you'll have amazing benchmarks and real world results, and even more so if you choose to overclock. CM7 is a great ROM for every phone, and i don't believe it's relevance to the atrix should be in question, but merely its relevance to you. i've been an android guy for quite a while dating back to the G1 days as well (Do you remember the ROM bible? we need one of those for the Atrix! ) and i shed a silent tear when those forums got moved to the legacy and low activity sections. but this is much like when Sense ROMs started appearing for the G1. Bluetooth and Camera commonly didn't work on them, and some people said they wouldn't use Sense until those were fixed. FP Scanner and Webtop are tenfold less essential than either of those, yet some won't use CM7 until those are fixed. it really just comes down to what you look for in a phone and what you use the most.

I don't use webtop (although no fingerprint took me a long long time to get over), as such CM7 offers some features such as notification power management, being able to adjust lowest screen brightness, having control over when the phone vibrates, etc. THe extensive control CM7 allows you that other Motoblur based roms does not alone is really worth it for me. I can see your point but it's rather ridiculous to suggest CM7 is not relevant. It is still by far the best rom on Atrix at the moment if you're able to live w/o webtop/fingerprint scanner.

lilhyper said:
I don't use webtop (although no fingerprint took me a long long time to get over), as such CM7 offers some features such as notification power management, being able to adjust lowest screen brightness, having control over when the phone vibrates, etc. THe extensive control CM7 allows you that other Motoblur based roms does not alone is really worth it for me. I can see your point but it's rather ridiculous to suggest CM7 is not relevant. It is still by far the best rom on Atrix at the moment if you're able to live w/o webtop/fingerprint scanner.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Best rom for the Atrix is one that allows those 2 features. Phone is incomplete without it. Design wise
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App

n1ckr0th said:
i think the Atrix can truly shine regardless of what ROM you use. it's an extremely powerful phone and that will show in any comparison. The kernel plays a very large part in determining performance as well though. Even if you are on standard clock speeds with one of faux's kernels you'll have amazing benchmarks and real world results, and even more so if you choose to overclock. CM7 is a great ROM for every phone, and i don't believe it's relevance to the atrix should be in question, but merely its relevance to you. i've been an android guy for quite a while dating back to the G1 days as well (Do you remember the ROM bible? we need one of those for the Atrix! ) and i shed a silent tear when those forums got moved to the legacy and low activity sections. but this is much like when Sense ROMs started appearing for the G1. Bluetooth and Camera commonly didn't work on them, and some people said they wouldn't use Sense until those were fixed. FP Scanner and Webtop are tenfold less essential than either of those, yet some won't use CM7 until those are fixed. it really just comes down to what you look for in a phone and what you use the most.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Legacy devices, yeah that's where my beloved tilt(Kaiser) got moved to. I love Android but I do miss the kaiser days I remember running android from the sd card on the kaiser lol. At first touch screen was not working, no camera, no bluetooth, no wifi, and by the time I left the kaiser they had that stuff working.
Sent from my MB860 using xda premium

andrew.cambridge said:
Best rom for the Atrix is one that allows those 2 features. Phone is incomplete without it. Design wise
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I disagree. A rom may have those 2 features but run like a G1 while another can be missing those 2 features and run smooth as butter. It is dependent on taste but I'd pick the latter.

The thing that sets the Atrix apart was the FP and the webtop. I don't use either, and I use cm7.
But without those 2 features enabled, it just another phone. Fast phone tthough. But not the best rom, IMO.
Homebase is the best rom for THIS phone. Smooth as butter and full functionality of the phone. I love CyanogenMod, its fast as hell, very stable. But it does the same stuff my little Aria does.
I'm tired, don't know if this makes sense to anyone else.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App

rjmcloughlin said:
A little history: 4 years ago i bought and owned (still own) a G1 - HTC Dream - and ever since custom Android roms were available I have been very happy to try out the latest and greatest. I think jesusfreke being the first but cant remember now its such a long time ago. Then along came cyanogen with hhis rom, brilliant. There were so many new options and the speed increase was great. and because of this rom I kept my G1 for over 3 years as my main phone. When the time came that cyanogen stopped supporting the G1 I decided it was time for an upgrade and decided I would get the Atrix based on its powerful specs and all of the other amazing features it has.
So 8 months on I now have an Atrix on which I have tried nearly all available roms and am currently running the latest version of Aura. (not an endorsement for Aura, simply a statement). Included in my trials was CM7, which i was so excited about when i first heard that development was happening. However since installing CM7 and trying it out for around a month I have to say that amongst all of the other roms for the Atrix it is not the holy grail that it has been on other phones. In fact in its current incarnation its relevance it questionable on the Atrix particularly when reading that the devs are struggling to find solutions to getting some of the features working.
I know that there are many people that bought the Atrix because it was powerful. But, it does have other features that, although not unique are certainly what helps to give the Atrix an edge over the competition. Webtop for example is a feature that used only ocassionally is a valuable asset to the device and simply discard it at for a tweak that boosts performance by mere micro seconds is a poor trade. it would be the same as buying a convertible ferrari and removing the button that puts the roof down - it saved some weight and the car can now accelerate to 60mph marginally faster but you cant put the roof down anymore. So you might as well have bought a hard top ferrari which already went faster. The same theory as buying the Atrix, if you want that extra bit of speed, might as well buy the SGSII.
So, there it is. Thats why i run a different rom at the moment, because all of the features are available and quite honestly with a bit of tweaking i can no longer either see of feel any difference in speed to CM7 and my battery lasts a perfectly acceptable amount of time for a smartphone (Depending on my usage). For those of you who might start mentioning blur as being the reason to move to CM7 that is another area where devs of other custom roms have done a fine job of removing anything really noticable and anything else that I found annoying I simply used TB and personal preference to sort out. (Although i havent yet figured out the accounts manager and anyway of getting rid of that awful blur interface. Maybe one day)
In conclusion, no ROM is perfect and as much as I admire the devs work I simply don't think that CM7 is relevant on the Atrix.
Thoughts?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Bang On ..i have to agree..
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App

andrew.cambridge said:
Best rom for the Atrix is one that allows those 2 features. Phone is incomplete without it. Design wise
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree that CM7 is not the perfect rom and sacrifices are required. However, using Blurr-based roms you're also sacrificing the functionality of CM7. And judging from the number of people flashing CM7, at significant part of the community prefers the CM7 functionality over fingerprint and webtop.
I feel this both suggests there is a big part for CM7 and it should be in the conversation of one of the best roms. Hopefully one day Blur-based roms will integrate CM7's customizability (unlikely) or CM7 will get a working fpscanner and webtop.

I think CM is more than relevant for the Atrix!
I have bought the Atrix with the lapdock and I have tested Motoblur as well as Aura and have used the lapdock. Before I have used a htc Hero with CM for nearly 2 years.
I really like the possibility of the lapdock in connection with a kind of webtop or similar functionality. But due to my long experience with CM on my Hero, I have tried CM-7.1 despite the fact that I do not have webtop or at least hdmi-mirroring in a sufficient screen-resolution, because I have missed the score of customization of CM.
And I am absolutely satisfied with CM. At least for my personal usage, it IS the best available ROM. It is faster and smother than the other, have many more convenient settings like configurable screens, buttons and LED-notification. Everything in an efficient way. And CM has an exceptional battery-life, I got roughly 30% more battery time.
OK, I am a little bit missing webtop, but I am hoping hdmi-mirroring will be working soon ;-) I have used the FP on Aura, but I really do not miss it, because I was used to unlock with menu-button with my hero, so I stick to that, because it is faster than FP.

If I could acquire a cheap Lapdock I would, I really want to use this phone to it's full potential.

imhuy said:
I disagree. A rom may have those 2 features but run like a G1 while another can be missing those 2 features and run smooth as butter. It is dependent on taste but I'd pick the latter.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't think the CM7 mod can really be considered stable.
I have a good amount of trouble with lag, slow internet, fc's, and obviously the features that don't work.
Hopefully in time they can improve it more.

I've tried many roms on mine and finally decided to settle on stock 2.3.4 U.A.E retail. It is very nicely done.

CM7 is plenty relevant to the Atrix. If it weren't, then there wouldn't be 5,485 people using it (according to CM's official device statistics page*). A lot of people bought this phone for its raw power, and could care less about webtop or the fingerprint scanner. The team doing the port said they want to add that at some point, and the fingerprint scanner at least on some level is working on unreleased builds.
This isnt to mention that once an official (by CM) release is out, CM could provide an excellent base for ROM developers who dont like blur. Blur is fast on the Atrix, but still isnt as fast as vanilla android. Once ICS comes out, we'll definetly get it before blur roms do as well.
At the moment, blur roms have an edge in that they fully support the hardware and have more chances of being bug free. But it wont be long before that all changes.
If you want guaranteed stability, webtop or the fingerprint scanner, use a blur rom. Otherwise, use CM7. If you dont care and just want a phone, use stock. Just because some people prefer one type doesn't invalidate the significance of the other.
* http://stats.cyanogenmod.com/
Look for Olympus

Jotokun said:
CM7 is plenty relevant to the Atrix. If it weren't, then there wouldn't be 5,485 people using it (according to CM's official device statistics page*).
* http://stats.cyanogenmod.com/
Look for Olympus
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How are they able to track this? That's cool.

treehumper said:
How are they able to track this? That's cool.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When you boot CM for the first time, you're given the option of sending them statistics data. That can be turned off at any time by going Settings > CM Settings > System > Anonymous statistics
Since its opt-in, there are probably more users than that.

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

Buying Nexus S 2nd hand, tips and things to look for?

I'm picking up a 1 yr old Nexus S. What are the things I should look for - other than obvious physical damage?
And the model I'll get is i9023 - does that model have any problems wrt custom ROM support etc? Or do all ROMs work for both i9020a/t and i9023?
Former Galaxy S2 owner here, so please let me know your Nexus S-specific tips, and fav ROM+kernel combo (prioritizing good battery life).
Also, any slim extended battery(not the ones with bulky extra rear plate) you recommend?

first of all, look for some scratches.
ROMs work with the 9023, too.
well, test it out.

Every ROM I've tried has given me pretty much the same exact screen on time if I really use the phone heavily( almost 4 hours on a good day). This phone doesn't have phenomenal life compared to other phones I've had, but I can make it through a normal work day. No one ROM fits everybody and you're honestly better off searching and experimenting(the joys of having a Nexus device!).
If you're looking for just a stock ROM with a few tweaks here and there, Bugless Beast may be what you're looking for, or Crossbones IIRC. Customizations, which is what Android is all about, you may be better looking at Cyanogenmod, AOKP, Codename Android(CNA), and a crap ton of others.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1171
As for the phone's problems, eh, I had an issue with my microphone. Not sure what was exactly wrong with it. I think the noise screen was messing something up or it was dirty. I ended up opening my phone and cleaning the piece. That was the only problem with mine(got it secondhand too). These phones also have an issue with their power buttons, so make sure that's good before you commit, although there are fixes on here for that. Make sure the phone is legit and not stolen I guess. lol.

Umm how to check for stolen phones?
Anyway the guy I'm getting it from works at a Samsung office itself, so I guess it is not quite as risky as the usual stranger-in-an-ally thing...

Quite few here, had problems with power button.

sumeshpremraj said:
Umm how to check for stolen phones?
Anyway the guy I'm getting it from works at a Samsung office itself, so I guess it is not quite as risky as the usual stranger-in-an-ally thing...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I guess if you were to try to activate it, it would let the person at the desk know. I forgot to add, kernels and governors will effect the battery life along with screen brightness(duh). I prefer ondemand over anything else.

Will experiment kernels, governor etc, I was changing ROMs daily until I found a good combo when I had the S2.
What were you saying about the 'desk'? This is an unlocked phone, so I'm not sure if even activation is required (didn't have any on my previous unlocked phones).

Oh, and any specific brand of extended batteries (specifically those with same dimensions as the original) you'd recommend?

See if don´t have any problems of lost IMEI...

Make sure the power button is in good shape, nice and clicky. These things are notorious for power button failures, and let me tell you it sucks
Sent from my Nexus S 4G using Tapatalk

Will check for power button, saw quite a few threads re the infamous button failure.
How do I check if the phone is stolen, any website to look up IMEI? I'll check if IMEI in settings and on the box matches.

@sumeshpremraj
How much did you get it for? (INR)
whats up with box and all accessories?
Even I am planning to get one used.

abrarabbu said:
@sumeshpremraj
How much did you get it for? (INR)
whats up with box and all accessories?
Even I am planning to get one used.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
13k INR, including box and accessories (no warranty left).

I personally think all custom ROMs are crap and do the same one way another
The only ROMs useful are:
Codename Android
Cyanogenmod
MIUI (http://www.miuiandroid.com) > they have multi language
Pete's Bugless ROM
But I found all ICS ROMs having a certain issue with the Nexus S with my messaging application crashing. That's why I went with MIUI. It was the only ICS based ROM not crashing.
The best kernel is Air Kernel for Nexus S. The rest is significantly slower. With stock ICS you won't notice much difference. But with resource-heavy MIUI it's plain noticeable
It's possible the bug I mentioned is fixed in latest ICS releases. I haven't looked.

djjonastybe said:
I personally think all custom ROMs are crap and do the same one way another
The only ROMs useful are:
Codename Android
Cyanogenmod
MIUI (http://www.miuiandroid.com) > they have multi language
Pete's Bugless ROM
But I found all ICS ROMs having a certain issue with the Nexus S with my messaging application crashing. That's why I went with MIUI. It was the only ICS based ROM not crashing.
The best kernel is Air Kernel for Nexus S. The rest is significantly slower. With stock ICS you won't notice much difference. But with resource-heavy MIUI it's plain noticeable
It's possible the bug I mentioned is fixed in latest ICS releases. I haven't looked.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the detailed reply, I understood as much about custom ROMs in my time on Galaxy S2.
I'll be trying Boot to Gecko first, just for the heck of it, then MIUI, bugless beast, CNA and CM9 in that order.
Thought of trying Matr1x, Trinity etc. but will add Air to the list of kernels.

Got the Nexus S 12 hrs ago, power button is fine so I remapped power off to search key and made volume buttons awake it.
Tried Bugless beast, slimICS, CM9 and settled on the latter. Have to try out Boot to Gecko, Jelly Bean and MIUI v4 when I get time later this weekend.
Still don't have an slim extended battery, but I'm happy with the battery life so far that I'm having second thoughts on buying one.

Glad you like it. Enjoy! Happy flashing! :beer:
Sent from my Nexus S using xda premium

Yep that's the reason why I moved to Nexus S (after getting frustrated about lack of stable ICS ROMs on S2 back in the day)...

Basically reiterating what everyone else has said. I also got my Nexus S 2nd hand and I've had it for about 6 months now (coming from a nexus one) and I love it, other than I miss the trackball (I know I'm strange) for waking and LED purposes. Power button being clicky is a must. Obvious scratch marks, etc.
I've played around with many ROMS in my 6 months with my Nexus S. (Codename, Bugless, AOKP, CM9) After trying CM9 RC1 just recently for about 2-3 weeks, I finally just gave in and came back to AOKP (now build 40) and am loving it right now. AOKP just has really nice style, especially with this mod/theme. (thanks mixtapes)
Kernels: I love Voodoo sound/color, it really makes the phone both look beautiful and sound amazing, especially if you have good headphones/speakers. BLN (Back Light Notification) is a must for me as well in a kernel. I really like matr1x right now, tried air kernel few builds back and it was also nice.
Hope this helps Can't wait for JB.
Cheers.

Make sure the GPS works. I bought a second hand one and the GPS was faulty.

Movement Back to GingerBread

So after having been running ICS roms for the past 2 months or so, I decided to switch back to my favorite Gingerbread rom for the hell of it, to see exactly what I'd been giving up for ICS. And WOW, was I blown away. I remember GB was a lot faster than ICS, but geez I did not remember it being this fast. EVERYTHING opens and closes quicker, touch responsiveness is amazing, screens swipe lightning quick, and I'm sorry, even though I did realize ICS improved battery life a little bit from my initial impressions, GB is giving me better battery life than most of the ICS roms I have used. Most importantly to me though, my phone has simply just become more of a joy to use. And less of CHORE. ICS makes texting a pain in the ass. And not only that, but basically doing anything, browsing, having to constantly re-press anything, scrolling.......omg scrolling. Going down your facebook newsfeed is definitely a chore on ICS. Seeing as it goes up a little, half the time you scroll down. But typing is probably the biggest thing for me, since I text a decent amount. I even installed the same GB keyboard I'd used on gingerbread roms (it's a modified stock gb keyboard called "gingerbread keyboard") which I had been able to type so quick and so accuretly with (except for the occasional double letter that the keyboard puts in), but on ICS it was just as inaccurate as any other crap keyboard I'd try out. You just have to type slowwwww, and press hard. Who the hell wants to use their phone like an old person? I sure don't. ICS makes my phone a chore to use.
I'm looking to get some other impressions here, and from both sides (mostly ICS fans, if you don't mind), and just get an overall consensus of what the deal is. I knew I'd missed GB, but I didn't realize it was this much!
Things I'd be missing from ICS: brightness minimum and maximum (having a lower min is really appreciated in my room at night - some later GB roms have this implemented though), the updated Gallery (soo much better on ICS), some features that are nice to have but I don't really change anyway (screen mode, gamma sensitivity, etc.), Chome (LOL jk, chrome sucks **** on mobile), better default video player, having my phone say 4.03, 4.04, or 4.1.1 that's about it. Lemme know some other things you'd miss from ICS if you were to revert back.
Also, I have tried most roms for ICS, ranging from AOKP, AOSP based roms, CM9, Sammywiz ones, MIUI variations. Just for reference, I've tried Shishir, Ressurection AOKP, Foxhound's roms, Basically all of Kaffee's roms, cMIUI, RGUI, AdyScorp's V4, AOKP official, Rootbox, etc. My favorite of those personally was probably Ressurection, and cMIUI. Not a huge fan of AOKP (or the wole CM interface), so cMIUI a bit more.
Btw, the GB rom I'm referring to is AdyScorpius' MIUI GB. Fastest rom I've ever used, period. Battery life from what I remember was not even that good (I mean it's MIUI) even compared to other MIUI's. So considering that I'm noticing it to be on par, if not better than ICS I was running, is noteworthy.
Lay your comments down below.
EDIT: Oh and I've tried a few JB roms already, including CM10, Kaffee's CM10, and X-treme's CM10 based rom. To be honest it's really smooth (coming from ICS though), however it's wayyy too early in the game to compare it to GB for me. To be quite honest, it's really smooth and relatively fast, but since it's still based on ICS, I doubt it will ever feel as good as GB.

I do agree but i got used to ICS and the little problems bundled with it. When samsung decides to update our phones to JB, i hope it'll be a different story
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium

VanillaCracker said:
So after having been running ICS roms for the past 2 months or so, I decided to switch back to my favorite Gingerbread rom for the hell of it, to see exactly what I'd been giving up for ICS. And WOW, was I blown away. [...] I'm looking to get some other impressions here, and from both sides (mostly ICS fans, if you don't mind), and just get an overall consensus of what the deal is. I knew I'd missed GB, but I didn't realize it was this much!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, I'm not an pure ICS fan - both versions have their advantages - but I like CM, AOSP and MIUI - and Samsungs camera app. As almost everything here at XDA and other boards is about ICS and now JB I have not expected someone coming up with a thread like this, thanks
I must admit reverting to a 2.6.9 GB MIUI (external link to Fluxi's MIUI GB thread) quite often, too - It somehow just "feels" better than any ICS ROM I tried so far (only 2 months \w I9100, i9000 before, always working on kernels) - touch sensitivity and wakeup lag definately are two reasons for me, too. Battery seems to be almost equal to me.
I'm still looking for "the" firmware, currently testing MIUI 2.7.27 which seems to work quite well, too. But I have a feeling that I'll switch back to GB tonight...
Read in another thread you posted that the WIUI dev might update the GB version, may I ask where you have that information from? Interesting.

Gingerbread was far better than ICS from a raw performance standpoint, i was 100 and 1% happy with the way my phone performed with GB and then i flashed to ICS and got used to extra features (and im the kind of person that doesn't like to be behind the curve).
If google had ported all of the new functionality to GB along with some of the work they did with project butter we would have a MUCH MUCH better platform than we are currently stuck with.
Having a device that doesn't respond the way you would expect to touch input and has noticeable jank and lag in this day and age is NOT acceptable when you have the likes WP7 and iOS out there.
Time is running out Google (& to a degree Samsung) , I've been an Android user since the G1 and 3 devices on my patience is growing short.

We already had these kind of threads before

i will downgrade to 2.3.3 if there isn't a newer 2.3.x of Nee which i believe there is but i ain't finding them
i downgrading due to lockscreen stopped work on Stock ICS but it seems to be working on gingerbread

The only reason why I am on ics is that I can not connect to my college's wifi network... On ics wifi works fine...
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda app-developers app

I downgraded from ics back to GB 2.3.4 due to ics bugs, lag on the touch screen (sometimes felt like a resistive screen) jerky swipes between home screens, black screen of death, random shut down and disappearing widgets. Like the op says, GB was a revelation again and the galaxy feels reliable, responsive and fast again. I'm staying put now till next year when my contact ends, I came from iPhone to android and maybe it will be wp8 next, or maybe a galaxy s3.....
I miss the face unlock, swipe to dismiss notifications and the task manager of ics, that's about all
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda app-developers app

ephraim033 said:
I do agree but i got used to ICS and the little problems bundled with it. When samsung decides to update our phones to JB, i hope it'll be a different story
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm hoping the same thing man haha. But honestly I'm not having my hopes up anymore. I know that the CM10 preview builds don't have HW Accelerator working, and that the sensitivity does seem a bit better than ICS (more in the 'ok-eh' category instead of 'bad' like ICS), but I've seen a couple builds that claim to have HW Acceleration working, so if that makes a drastic improvement we'll see. Honestly I thought when ICS came out that it was just early in developemnt and that they'd work out the jags and stuff....yeah no. It's 3 months later and performance-wise it's relatively similar. AOKP has gotten much smoother though, but there's only so much you can do.
mialwe said:
Well, I'm not an pure ICS fan - both versions have their advantages - but I like CM, AOSP and MIUI - and Samsungs camera app. As almost everything here at XDA and other boards is about ICS and now JB I have not expected someone coming up with a thread like this, thanks
I must admit reverting to a 2.6.9 GB MIUI (external link to Fluxi's MIUI GB thread) quite often, too - It somehow just "feels" better than any ICS ROM I tried so far (only 2 months \w I9100, i9000 before, always working on kernels) - touch sensitivity and wakeup lag definately are two reasons for me, too. Battery seems to be almost equal to me.
I'm still looking for "the" firmware, currently testing MIUI 2.7.27 which seems to work quite well, too. But I have a feeling that I'll switch back to GB tonight...
Read in another thread you posted that the WIUI dev might update the GB version, may I ask where you have that information from? Interesting.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I really appreciate your comments, especially coming from someone who has experience with kernels, it gives the whole discussion a little more validity. Wake lag is definitely annoying, honestly that's one of those things that by itself, you would think could be dismissed, but when added to the touch sensitivty, and sluggishness, just makes you think..what the hell.
Btw I was actually looking at WIUI last night by chance and also saw that he actually is updating his GB version. I had to re-read it a few times to make sure I wasn't mistaken. He's got a 6.29 version out, and in the comments he said he would do 8.4 (around there). I'll probably flash that, as my April GB rom is probably really outdated....hah.
sabianadmin said:
Gingerbread was far better than ICS from a raw performance standpoint, i was 100 and 1% happy with the way my phone performed with GB and then i flashed to ICS and got used to extra features (and im the kind of person that doesn't like to be behind the curve).
If google had ported all of the new functionality to GB along with some of the work they did with project butter we would have a MUCH MUCH better platform than we are currently stuck with.
Having a device that doesn't respond the way you would expect to touch input and has noticeable jank and lag in this day and age is NOT acceptable when you have the likes WP7 and iOS out there.
Time is running out Google (& to a degree Samsung) , I've been an Android user since the G1 and 3 devices on my patience is growing short.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree with you that it probably would have made a lot more people happy had they stuck with a thoroughly upgraded GB instead of making a new platform. However although ICS sucks performance-wise (interface, anyway), it is actually pretty good in terms of efficiency. If you notice while restoring text messages or installing something via titanium backup, or shutting off your phone, things run quicker on ICS. ICS is more efficient, for sure. Which is why I hate even more how it is, because it has potential but for some reason still just completely sucks.
I'm gonna have to rant on google: *these are new thoughts just realized a minute ago* Google is definitely behind the ball in terms of what they're releasing. Google has always been out of touch with the people[/B. I'm only 20 but I was able to pick this up over the last couple years. They suck at knowing what people want, or at least are too hung up with their own projections that they don't see the people in which they're serving. You can tell google doesn't know what they're doing because you see it in everything they do. Example 1) Changing Android Market to Google Play Store. Obviously, there are plenty of reasons for them to do that (main probably being to get their name out - not everyone knows android is google based, and also to put all their apps into one [google music, google books, ect]), but they could have done that without changing the name to something EVERYONE HATES. Example 2) Google chrome (desktop). I use Chrome on my home PC. It's really fast. Other than that, I hate everything about it. The interface is styled, but looks like it was organized by an amateur, and is poorly structured. Functinoality is splintered and not well thought out. Firefox beats it in every single category, except for performance. Wish I could go back to firefox. Example 3) Chrome (Mobile), this app is unstable, and probably the slowest browser on the market...and yet it is the only video playing browser available on JB (no flash anymore)... Firefox BETA is 300% more stable than chrome's Non Beta app.
GB was fine, but ICS's regression is total bull (and I'm not talking to official update - samsung), and honestly as mentioned above it is just debasing them for the future. Honestly, I had an itouch for a couple years, and have used countless friends iphones over the years, so I know what it's like. Just the simple fact that going back to MIUI GB has made me the happiest I've been in a while...is saying something. I hate to be the ass who brings up negative things, but if they had been doing things right in the first place, things wouldn't have to be mentioned. I'm not too picky, but I do demand quality. Although I've never even considered it in the past, I'm looking forward to seeing what they're rolling out for the iphone 5, cus it may actually make a difference in my next phone.
sahibunlimited said:
We already had these kind of threads before
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I saw one, but it does not discuss the same thing..it meerly has the same subject. This thread heads in a much different direction, also the former post is outdated with the progression of ICS currently.
LastStandingDroid said:
i will downgrade to 2.3.3 if there isn't a newer 2.3.x of Nee which i believe there is but i ain't finding them
i downgrading due to lockscreen stopped work on Stock ICS but it seems to be working on gingerbread
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You may find one! I know finding official releases past 4.x.x is hard. WIUI is pulling from somewhere though, I know that. Could be it's all just his own input.
Dark Emotion said:
The only reason why I am on ics is that I can not connect to my college's wifi network... On ics wifi works fine...
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know ICS has better range for WIFI, other than that I don't know the actual differences.
*Sorry for long post*

It is not the range, it is wpa2 thing...
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda app-developers app

Oh no!! This thread is killing me for going back to Gb. Damn damn damn....
Sliding answering options, fantastic lockscreen, system wide font synchronization, what more I am missing....God knows....!!

i never use GB on my phone it came with ICS out of box but i want to try it, stock and custom just wanna see how different it is performance wise.

ithehappy said:
Oh no!! This thread is killing me for going back to Gb. Damn damn damn....
Sliding answering options, fantastic lockscreen, system wide font synchronization, what more I am missing....God knows....!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Lol I hope you're not trolling. Honestly I doubt GB has much of anything that ICS doesn't have. Except ICS option menu is dumb (although samsung's gb is RETARDED), and GB has more simple, intuitive button layout (delete, menu key layout, etc.)
heavens dragon said:
i never use GB on my phone it came with ICS out of box but i want to try it, stock and custom just wanna see how different it is performance wise.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah I mean if you haven't rooted yet you're definitely missing out on like 50+ roms to try. There's plenty of different categories and types. You'll probably be amazed when you flash one of the latest (or last) GB build roms. They're blazing. Ady MIUI is like iOS on steroids. Cept the battery is meh. That's the only problem. And of course GB seems outdated now, but it's still got higher usability, imo. Part of what kills ICS is it takes so much longer for you to do things on your phone. I bet it drives up screen on time

VanillaCracker said:
Lol I hope you're not trolling.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Whatever I do, I'll never troll.

after brick my phone with the so called chip bug and change the mb after paying 100 with the same chip with a bug, flashing XWLPO and then XWLPT I decided to go back to 2.3.4. My battery last +2 days (everything disabled and underclocked) and everything looks smooth enogh for me. If you want a cool interface like ICS has (I see no reason at all to run ICS other than the interface) just install the free version of Go Launcher

Yeah I mean if you haven't rooted yet you're definitely missing out on like 50+ roms to try. There's plenty of different categories and types. You'll probably be amazed when you flash one of the latest (or last) GB build roms. They're blazing. Ady MIUI is like iOS on steroids. Cept the battery is meh. That's the only problem. And of course GB seems outdated now, but it's still got higher usability, imo. Part of what kills ICS is it takes so much longer for you to do things on your phone. I bet it drives up screen on time
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
no my phone is rooted and i already flashed custom roms for more then 10 times( all ics expect 2 latest build of cmx) not a big fan of ios looks but im looking forward to try out other gb roms, but im keep coming back to stock based roms just b'coz of camera and that is wht i really want to see in stock gb : camera
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda app-developers app

ithehappy said:
Whatever I do, I'll never troll.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good to hear it :good:
heavens dragon said:
no my phone is rooted and i already flashed custom roms for more then 10 times( all ics expect 2 latest build of cmx) not a big fan of ios looks but im looking forward to try out other gb roms, but im keep coming back to stock based roms just b'coz of camera and that is wht i really want to see in stock gb : camera
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh I gotcha. Yeah honestly stock camera blows all the other cameras away. Stock ICS camera is pretty decent too, but the button on stock gb is the best. feels more secure, and focus is instantaneous with press. MIUI (GB) is decent too except I found the quality a little worse and instant focus a little less accurate. Anti-shake is terrible on MIUI camera too.

Wow GB. Amazing memories .I think the best GB was XXKI4. But what can I know... I had GB for 2 or 3 months since this year's winter and then Boom! Boot loop. You know why guys?? I had brand XWKI4 and there were battery mods for XXKI4.So I flashed those ;p. And then came XXLPS.Now I am on LQ7 but It's not the same. Thanks bro I was waiting for man wich will lead me to GB. BTW first rom for SGS2 is XWKDD so?! Coman guys we have Gingerbread to flash
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium

can someone link the "best" (in his eyes) gb roms ?
i would love to try a few if they are really faster than ics (smoother).
was so close to try cm10 but so much stuff needs to be fixed...
for me the most important thing would be cam and a smooth feeling.
and can i use nova launcher prime on gb (is it looking the same?)
i never tried gb (my s2 came with ics, so....)

I haven't used GB since I got my S2, but I used it exclusively on my original S. When I moved from phone to phone I found the speed increase of GB on an S to ICS on my S2 simply mind blowing. I know it's nearly a 200% processor boost, but still. Now I'm using JellyBean. I get a full day of near constant use with an extended battery. (I'm a teen, we text all the time, so it gets a pretty heavy workout.) and the speed BLOWS AWAY Gingerbread and ICS without question.
So no, I don't miss it personally. And I'm using SwiftKey, which is an absolute dream. Way better than any stock kb I've ever used.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda app-developers app

Going back to Gingerbread - my experiences

So a few days ago I realized I just can't use JB as a daily driver. I *love* 4.x and am a big fan of almost every change introduced, so I've been using ICS and later JB builds as soon as builds were available (thanks, devs!). But on the DZ it just ain't cutting it. I haven't had a single day without freezes, spontaneous reboots, unbearable slowdowns, graphic glitches etc.
Well I'm back to ILWT CM7, which I haven't used for about 11 months. I've frozen almost every stock app, and have found a usable Holo-style replacement for almost all of them, except for the Browser and the hideous pre-ICS Calendar (any suggestions?). Also every 3rd party SMS app is so bloated.
So far, what I miss:
- I really miss pulling down the status bar in the lockscreen! But that requires a 3rd-party lockscreen replacement which is a huge PITA. Also no 4.x unified lockscreen music controls.
- 4.x Rich Notifications. I added music controls in the CM7 notification power widget, but it's a pretty crappy solution (reminds me of iOS)
- JB makes scrolling in apps (among other things) smoother, and some things were considerably more "fluid". JB wasn't *that* smooth anyhow, at least on the DZ.
- 2.x interface is hideous, "fixed" with ICS Mixer theme, Holo-styled apps and a font change.
- Overall UI polish degradations and papercuts, like the power menu, the loss of holo action bar and the ugly old icons of app menu options.
- Some newer apps don't support 2.x which sucks.
- Tons of 4.x improvements I didn't mention. ICS and JB are such vast improvements from GB. JB is so much more consistent, and it sucks that htc are assholes and dropped support for DZ and DHD.
What's better:
- Much more stable.
- Faster!
- Can actually multitask now because there's no need for the OS to constantly kill things in the background. lol at Titanium constantly getting killed in the background on JB.
- Better battery life.
- The proper drivers mean some apps work here but not in 4.x. For example, any app that uses the phone as a webcam.
So anyone else back on Gingerbread and can share their experience?

Most of the time im running a gingerbread rom. Never get the freezes you are talking about on any 4.x rom in 6 months or so, are you sure you had all partitions in ext4?
I do agree battery life is much lower than in 2.3.x and thats one of the main reasons i tend to stick with them. The ui is much better with 4.x but id rather have an ugly ui then a phone that isnt 100%
Overall ics and somewhat jb has been proven to be running almost perfect on the vision and right now im on an ics (a sense rom which i usualy hate!) But there are just too many things dragging me back to gingerbread, battery life being the biggest issue as im a heavy user
Sent from my Desire Z using xda premium

demkantor said:
Most of the time im running a gingerbread rom. Never get the freezes you are talking about on any 4.x rom in 6 months or so, are you sure you had all partitions in ext4?
I do agree battery life is much lower than in 2.3.x and thats one of the main reasons i tend to stick with them. The ui is much better with 4.x but id rather have an ugly ui then a phone that isnt 100%
Overall ics and somewhat jb has been proven to be running almost perfect on the vision and right now im on an ics (a sense rom which i usualy hate!) But there are just too many things dragging me back to gingerbread, battery life being the biggest issue as im a heavy user
Sent from my Desire Z using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have to say the battery life on the newest Andromadous JB test builds are amazing and much better than GB. I even have the CPU governor set the minimum to 800 MHz with maximum to 1500 Mhz and I can still run a full day without recharging (I do quite a bit of web browsing on my G2 and occasional calls).

Possibly between some gb roms it is better but the best battery life that i consistantly get is with elitemodcm7 and ilwtcm7, with heavy use i can get through a full day 18+ hours every time. If i use a little less on some of the ics roms i can get close but not always (elitemod cm9 kernel with mimicry seems to be the best battery life) i poor life on old jb test builds that slowy got a little better, have tried a build since around 90 something but im sure ill test again soon.
Sent from my Desire Z using xda premium

demkantor said:
Possibly between some gb roms it is better but the best battery life that i consistantly get is with elitemodcm7 and ilwtcm7, with heavy use i can get through a full day 18+ hours every time. If i use a little less on some of the ics roms i can get close but not always (elitemod cm9 kernel with mimicry seems to be the best battery life) i poor life on old jb test builds that slowy got a little better, have tried a build since around 90 something but im sure ill test again soon.
Sent from my Desire Z using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, definitely try the new test builds, I was really amazed at the big difference in battery life in the newest builds.

euhh, its not beacause of your DZ.
- On the galaxy sII, MOST of the ICS and JB roms are not smooth at all. Lot of crashes , etc. Even on the official update.
- on galaxy note, same thing. Looks like stock JB run better anyway, good thing.
- on nexus S it is the worst since the last JB update.
- on desire ( one of the most supported device) , lot of crashes with ICS.
- And I dont tell you about the milestone (very old device)...
^^^
All the phones mentionned above, are running GB right now.
They not all mine, most of them are my friends phone, they ask me to root it to try new roms. All of them complaining about ICS/JB stability.
I didnt try the big ass phones like the sIII, but they are so powerfull that you can't feel any slowdown.

Thanks for that info, overdose. I've been wondering how other phones with more dev support were handling JB. Here's hoping with the new Nexus phones soon we can finally have a device that handles stock Android decently.
I've ran into an old CM7 bug with the Lense lockscreen... basically what happens is that, for some reason, the software thinks pulling down the Lense should launch a custom app instead of unlocking the device. Since I didn't have any custom app defined, pulling down does nothing and there is no way to unlock the device
So I have to fix it with adb which is pretty pathetic. Ironically I'm typing this from a restored Jelly Bean ROM.
edit: I got it fixed, and in the process dropped my phone and severely cracked the screen. Hahaha. Oh well DZ we had a good run.

Pickx said:
Thanks for that info, overdose. I've been wondering how other phones with more dev support were handling JB. Here's hoping with the new Nexus phones soon we can finally have a device that handles stock Android decently.
I've ran into an old CM7 bug with the Lense lockscreen... basically what happens is that, for some reason, the software thinks pulling down the Lense should launch a custom app instead of unlocking the device. Since I didn't have any custom app defined, pulling down does nothing and there is no way to unlock the device
So I have to fix it with adb which is pretty pathetic. Ironically I'm typing this from a restored Jelly Bean ROM.
edit: I got it fixed, and in the process dropped my phone and severely cracked the screen. Hahaha. Oh well DZ we had a good run.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
DZ screen are cheap.
I have 2 in stock just in case, with the HTC logo. I paid them 30 $ ea. a year ago .

I don't have a desire z but a nexus one and did have 2 regular desires before (my ex gf had ICS spazedog ROM - working pretty good) now I'm running spazedog jellybean rom on the n1 and its smooth than cm was maybe a bit slower to open apps but no real lag or freeze or reboots after a couple weeks. Only problem is no video camera and had to install an app from play store to take pictures without a soft reboot and still the pictures don't look great. That and can't play YouTube videos in app or browser or its reboots. Other than that its pretty reliable and the desire z should be a slightly better phone. Maybe something else causing the issues?
Sent from my Nexus One using xda app-developers app

@createpassword...
Everyone use their phone differently, I agree with much of what you are saying but I highly disagree with bettery battery life on 4.x compared with 2.x, no matter how much you tweak or change things the best roms (for battery life) on 4.x have never been able to compete with the best 2.x in that regard. I will say that the improvment have been incredible over the past 6 months or so, but I'm a heavy user, and maybe its the way I use my phone that runs the battery fast but I easily can get a day with 2.x (about 6hours screen on) and I'm always struggling even with the best 4.x to do the same, (max maybe 4~4.5hrs screen up)
But again, we all use our phones differently. Right now I'm on an ics Rom, about 6hours up, 56% left of battery with just under 2hrs screen on. Granted this is not the best ics rom for battery life but let's I was using say mimicry or elitemod ics, I would be @ maybe 65 @ most, with certain 2.x is be well over 70 right now
Sent from my Desire Z using xda premium

Fair enough, but like I said we all use phones differently, and I will disagree that screen on time is meaningless being the most power is being used when screen is on. I'm sure I could have my phone on, with screen off, put it in airplane mode and let it sit for 3days to see it still has 30% (or whatever) juice left, no matter the os. But that dosent matter to me as I want my phone to last when I'm using it
Listen, you may get the best life out of ics or jb on your phone, I get better life on 2.x, I'm not saying these newer roms are inferior, I'm saying that one of the most important features is battery life to me and I have always gotten the best life in older operating systems. Having said that, I'm a flashaholic and I try nearly every Rom available for any phone I have. Mimicry is amazing, fast, stable, and pretty good battery life. If I absolutely need to be sure I have power left by the end of the day I'm not running mimicry (im a heavy user and the ways I use my phone it just isn't going to happen) and don't say I have bad apps with memory leaks and wake locks because I've been around long enough to know to test for all this. I don't use Many different apps and the ones I do use I know are good (and the same ones I use not matter the os)
Let's just agree you have different experiences with your phone as I have with mine, I'm not steering anyone away from using
Ics or jb, and ill continue to use thenm too. But I (not you) get bettery life with 2.x
Sent from my Desire Z using xda premium

demkantor said:
Fair enough, but like I said we all use phones differently, and I will disagree that screen on time is meaningless being the most power is being used when screen is on. I'm sure I could have my phone on, with screen off, put it in airplane mode and let it sit for 3days to see it still has 30% (or whatever) juice left, no matter the os. But that dosent matter to me as I want my phone to last when I'm using it
Listen, you may get the best life out of ics or jb on your phone, I get better life on 2.x, I'm not saying these newer roms are inferior, I'm saying that one of the most important features is battery life to me and I have always gotten the best life in older operating systems. Having said that, I'm a flashaholic and I try nearly every Rom available for any phone I have. Mimicry is amazing, fast, stable, and pretty good battery life. If I absolutely need to be sure I have power left by the end of the day I'm not running mimicry (im a heavy user and the ways I use my phone it just isn't going to happen) and don't say I have bad apps with memory leaks and wake locks because I've been around long enough to know to test for all this. I don't use Many different apps and the ones I do use I know are good (and the same ones I use not matter the os)
Let's just agree you have different experiences with your phone as I have with mine, I'm not steering anyone away from using
Ics or jb, and ill continue to use thenm too. But I (not you) get bettery life with 2.x
Sent from my Desire Z using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Obviously battery life varies with the way you use your phone. If you're ever interested in trying JB again, definitely give the test builds a shot. Remember to do a full wipe though, I assume you do anyways. I was shocked at how much the JB test builds improved battery life and responsiveness compared to the Virtuous G-lite I was using for a while.

well thats somewhat a relative point. you see when i consistently get (im picking #s here) 24hrs of battery use with 6 of those hours being screen on time with 2.x. then i compare the use of 4.x where i consistently get 18hrs of use with 4hrs screen on.
this compares not only the screen on time but also the overall time the phone lasts between charges. i feel most people comparing batteries understand that this is over a course of time and that the first day they flash a new rom will not give the best overall picture of what the battery consumption level is.
true the most power consumption is happening when the screen is on, but noting the amount of screen on time along with how long the battery lasts (consistently) will give anyone a good idea of whats going on. see if there is a day that i use my phone less, the battery tends to last longer (you get that) noting how long screen on time is gives a general picture of how frequently the phone is used that day.
also comparing what operating systems do in deep sleep is useful, again that hopefully is not the best way in determining battery life as you are lacking realworld use of the phone. yes its important to note, but like i said if i stuck the phone in a sock drawer for three days with the sim pulled and wifi off, i couldnt care much the results because my use of my phone will never be compared to it sitting in a sock drawer for any period of time.
so one of us is not getting the other, or there is some **** comparing going on over battery life testing. either way i say its best not to waste time and electronic ink over this. lets just say your right for the sake of i dont really care.

I've been in somewhat the same boat having gone back to CM7 many times for speed and stability. Mimicry was very nice but Skype would crash in it and it was an app that I always used. Now that Skype has made some major updates, I'm considering either installing Mimicry again or Jelly Baby. The latter is going to be updated soon from what I've been reading so I'll likely wait and try that.

rizzers said:
I've been in somewhat the same boat having gone back to CM7 many times for speed and stability. Mimicry was very nice but Skype would crash in it and it was an app that I always used. Now that Skype has made some major updates, I'm considering either installing Mimicry again or Jelly Baby. The latter is going to be updated soon from what I've been reading so I'll likely wait and try that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Honestly scrolling in cm7 looks laggish to me compared to flinnys don't know why . how is jelly baby compared to flinnys in terms of performance?
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

Just my 2 pence but, frankly, any and every CM9.x/CM10.x rom I've ever tried on my DZ has been laggy/buggy after some time. On the other hand, the AOSP counterparts have ALWAYS been faster in general and didn't slow down, unlike CM. Hell, it was the same even with CM7 (with some exceptions, primarily ILWT CM7). This is obviously logical since CM has more things going on unlike AOSP which is pretty light on the feature side (nothing you can't take care of with a couple of apps, mind you). From my experience, CM9+ roms just don't work on the DZ. Whatever I do, they always end up slowing down to the point where I can't even use the phone. As for battery life...I don't have much to say in particular, it has always been below average whatever rom I was running (again with a few exceptions, like G-Lite).
Just as I said though, just my opinion so don't take my word for it.