Database Users

Making the Leap - Stock - > Cyanogen: Let's discuss

Hi Guys,
I've been with Android since truly day 1.
I lived with my G1 for a long time and together we endured lots of roms. Cyanogen is what most always ran on my G1. Finally, after all the bugs, slow downs and issues, I got a nexus 1 and kept it stock. It's been an amazingly unfrustrating experience and I truly fear any cooked roms.
I do however, have some gripes with stock android. One of the biggest is the lack of permissions controls in apps.
Today, I read that cyanogen is implementing permissions blocking at the app level on the nightly builds. I am VERY intrigued and want to give this a go.
http://www.androidpolice.com/2011/0...port-for-revoking-and-faking-app-permissions/
So to everyone, how stable is cyan compared to stock 2.3.4? Is it still the same old buggy, bloated, incomplete rom as it was, or have they been able to keep it light, stable and full of extra features?
Please let me and the other readers know!
Thanks!

DownloaderZ said:
Hi Guys,
I've been with Android since truly day 1.
I lived with my G1 for a long time and together we endured lots of roms. Cyanogen is what most always ran on my G1. Finally, after all the bugs, slow downs and issues, I got a nexus 1 and kept it stock. It's been an amazingly unfrustrating experience and I truly fear any cooked roms.
I do however, have some gripes with stock android. One of the biggest is the lack of permissions controls in apps.
Today, I read that cyanogen is implementing permissions blocking at the app level on the nightly builds. I am VERY intrigued and want to give this a go.
http://www.androidpolice.com/2011/0...port-for-revoking-and-faking-app-permissions/
So to everyone, how stable is cyan compared to stock 2.3.4? Is it still the same old buggy, bloated, incomplete rom as it was, or have they been able to keep it light, stable and full of extra features?
Please let me and the other readers know!
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I love it right now.. before it was bloated and totally incomplete and now they got it working pretty darn good you asked at a good time! but for some users.. still causing issues. For some like myself it is perfect right now absolutely no problems I took a while to stick with GB because of all the problems with CM7 I had an htc magic which was pretty similar to the dream and I understand most the problems you probably faced. I've tried a bajillion cooked rooms myself and ever since I moved to the nexus one I just stick with a few (I tried so many on the magic it was my first android and wasted so much time -_-) I would suggest you give this one a try it still has extra features but most of which I find useful

It makes it noticeably snappier and battery life is better. 99% win (wireless LAN reception is a bit worse). I went from stock 2.3.4 to CM7 and am kicking myself for not doing it 16 months ago lol. Maybe there were issues with cooked Roms earlier but the n1 is a mature platform and I haven't noticed any major issues with cyanogen 7.03, of course YMMV
Sent from my GT-P1000 using Tapatalk

I have been running the nightlies for weeks and they have been very stable for me. I have not had any significant problems and really like using them. #85 put the permissions blocking in yesterday and I tried it with a few apps. Seems to work fine. I liked stock rom, but personally could not do without trackball wake and lots of other wonderful features in cm.

Once you go custom you wont ever go back to stock.
Make sure you understand how to flash a custom recovery and how to get to it first.

he said he had cm on his hero so he must now about custom roms..
i think it is currently very stable and good apart from the wonk issue.

CM7 Nightlies have been gold for me. Except couple bootloops. I'm on #83 now with data throttle removed. I love my Dinc
Sent from my ADR6300 using XDA App

I have been running CM7 since shortly after the official Froyo was released from Google. I had to send my phone back for the powerbutton and so I rooted it right before and tried out one of the CM6 nightlies. It was amazing. The features in every subsequent version have only built on the quality of CyanogenMod. I have been a nightly user ever since (although I only flash nightlies every week or so).
It has been extremely stable for me and I have converted a few friends (most recently a friend with the Desire HD) and they don't know how they dealt with the stock crap for so long.
So in short, give it a shot. Do a nandroid beforehand if you are worried, as then you can go right back if you don't like it.

You can only control the permissions on cm7 nightlies. That feature isn't available in the stable release I believe.
Sent from my Xoom using XDA Premium App

cyanogen 7 starting at nightly #74 has introduced some new bug fixes which greatly improve standby battery life, so that now idle current with screen off is 3-4mA. its so good now, that you can leave your phone unplugged over night for 8 hours and only lose like 3% battery. and this is WITH wifi and email accounts turned on and syncing.
this makes the nexus one like a brand new phone and turned it into a proper normal device in the sense that you can now rely on superb battery life. you know that when you arent using it and the screen is off, when you come back to it you will have the same battery percentage as when you left it.
its a no brainer to use the nightly just because of this alone.

Ever since the 2.3.4, I've been happy with the battery life and fixes with the GPS. Currently my uptime is 190+ hours without the usual sluggish response that requires a restart.
Running CM7 I found more random issues from the call quality being distorted and random reboots, to other random bugs that I need something stable.
Sent from my Nexus One

i often go 550 hours between reboots on cyanogen.

Favorite Jellybean ROMS

Which ROM do you feel works the best for your Vibrant? Of course this is a matter of opinion, which is exactly what I want to hear. I'm running CM 10.1.3 right now and enjoying it. At times it can feel a little bit sluggish but I don't know if it's the ROM or my phone. I'd also be interested in hearing about your experiences with battery life in each ROM. I've been thinking of trying CyanAOSP because it's less cluttered and I have a hunch it would be more snappy.
Hopefully I'm not breaking any rules, I just wanted a really recent thread comparing the strengths and weaknesses of all the recent Jellybean ROMs. This isn't a question thread, it's more of an opinion thread.

I'm using CM10.2 build date - 10/15 for a day now. Have no problems. Everything works fine, including GPS after ds. Battery drain is normal.

selmandeli said:
I'm using CM10.2 build date - 10/15 for a day now. Have no problems. Everything works fine, including GPS after ds. Battery drain is normal.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What's DS? Also, have you tried 10.1.3?

oneupe1even said:
What's DS? Also, have you tried 10.1.3?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
DS is DeepSleep. Its a state in which the phone uses minimal battery and thus the battery is saved.

oneupe1even said:
What's DS? Also, have you tried 10.1.3?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you mean the official CM 10.1.3, yes I tried it. It is stable and smooth. You can use it as a daily driver.

selmandeli said:
I'm using CM10.2 build date - 10/15 for a day now. Have no problems. Everything works fine, including GPS after ds. Battery drain is normal.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just saw that you were using CyanAOSP. How would you compare it to CM 10.1.3 and 10.2?
Also, do you know where I can get the 1.75 ROM? I've heard the 2.0 has problems.

been running cyanaosp 2.0 since its release and its been fine beside a few random reboots, but im sure it was cause i had my device oc'd to high. this rom is perfect for me as i play alot of games.

Hi all,
New member of the forums, but I've been reading as much as I can about my Vibrant (Fascinate?) and I'm still kind of confused as to which model my phone really is. It's a Telus model sgh-t959d, but after flashing CyanAOSP 3.0.0 for the i9000, my phone info shows model GT-i9000. I understand there are similarities between these devices, but I was a little nervous about bricking my phone by flashing the wrong ROM. Well, it was a painless process that took less than 2 minutes! I upgraded from PassionICS, which was a good ROM, but kind of laggy. After a day of use, I can say CyanAOSP is much quicker, more refined and more fun to use. The customizations offered by Nova launcher are quite extensive and make it feel like a new phone. I highly recommend this ROM! Many thanks to the hard working devs!

Anybody have kernel recommendations to get more battery life out of CM 10.1 or 2?

CM
Im using CM 10.1.3 stable, think this is a best and stable ROM

I was using one of the CM 10.2 nightlies (10/25 specifically) for about a week before giving up on some serious battery drain and background android OS data usage issues... First time I ever exceeded my 5gig threshold pushing me down to slower speeds. Also USB data transfer simply stopped working after about a week... couldn't even mount via recovery.
Ultimately had to get new ROM files into my phone via the microSD/USB adapter and internally transferring to the internal directory.
That said, CM 10.2 itself is a very pleasant experience if you can avoid such issues - In hindsight I'd strongly suggest giving it a try but with a build that's known to be stable and without any such major issues if you intend to use it as a daily driver (the 10/15 build has been recommended more than once in my forum trawling). Lesson learned!
I made the switch last Saturday (6 days ago) to SlimBean Build 2 however, which is also based on 4.3.1. By comparison to my last experience, this has zero issues falling back to deep sleep, even after loading it down with all my favorite apps and sync settings. I've had one random reset to recovery in the middle of a phone call, and gps performance has been hit or miss so far, but otherwise there's a lot to like! Battery is back to respectable charging intervals and background data is in check. ROM itself is very zippy. Lock screen by comparison to CM 10.2 seems slightly sluggish to respond. I'll likely be sticking with this for a while.

LG G3 D850 CM12 Lollipop nightly review

This morning I decided I couldn't hold back from android 5.0 any longer and the update just couldn't come fast enough (it never can, am I right) so being the average android fanboy I looked toward CyanogenMod. I knew all they had was night lies and that was why I held off so long, but my curiosity gave in and I had to. So I headed over to cyanogen and grabbed my handy dandy .zip . I rebooted to recovery and went through the routine, and it just couldn't go fast enough, in reality it was the fastest flash I've ever done. First cm12, then my gapps. Waited for the phone to reboot blahdeeblahdeeblahhh, went through the upgrade process and BAMMM! 5.0 RIGHT IN MY FACE! First look at this nightly 5.0 and I couldn't get enough. The quadhd has definatley been put in effect and it shows. Everything I've used has been fully functional except updating su binaries (prob lack of support for 5 due to being new). The elegance and speed run perfectly along eachother, and my phone has never been faster. I may be speaking to soon, but this project must be somewhere close to a stable build. I'm currently running 1/21 nightly and i recommend it to others, I have found this ROM safe and will continue updating my phone with nightlies
and leaving feedback, feel free to leave your expierience

I never understood why people think that CM12 is so faster than LG's rom. For me both are blazing fast, CM12 could be even slower because it has longer animations (if we compare on 1x speed both). Speaker quality and volume is really lame on CM12 rom unlike on LG's rom. Only two things I dont like about LG's rom is crap lockscreen (CM12 has best lockscreen ever) and new Lollipop look. Kitkat looks much more elegant than Lollipop which looks childish and cartoonish. I bought G3 after having various Nexus devices with full stock google experience, and I gotta say it's nice to have some integrated useful features. CM12 is still missing many features, won't even think about switching to it right now.

Tomogitarist said:
I never understood why people think that CM12 is so faster than LG's rom. For me both are blazing fast, CM12 could be even slower because it has longer animations (if we compare on 1x speed both). Speaker quality and volume is really lame on CM12 rom unlike on LG's rom. Only two things I dont like about LG's rom is crap lockscreen (CM12 has best lockscreen ever) and new Lollipop look. Kitkat looks much more elegant than Lollipop which looks childish and cartoonish. I bought G3 after having various Nexus devices with full stock google experience, and I gotta say it's nice to have some integrated useful features. CM12 is still missing many features, won't even think about switching to it right now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm in agreement with speaker volume, I noticed after switching over that my phone wasnt as loud as it had been before. I believe a lot of people believe that the simple look of lolipop is what makes it so elegant, its more laid back. There are a lot of disadvantages with switching over to. If your a quickremote user you quickly miss not having it in cm12.

Long story short, custom ROM'S never be good as official ESPECIALLY for LG G3, you just need to understand that, for some people it's ok but for some don't. All you need is a root and MAYBE a custom kernel. PEACE.

Agreed on sound quality but CyanogenMod has many advantage's
I would argued on sound quality and maybe animations just because they are more much nice in CyanogenMod vs stock ROM. Everything else is just plain better in CyanogenMod. I am experiencing a randomly sound beep for about 1 to 3 seconds and dont know why. I am always on the lastest nightly.
Also I love the fact that I can see thr constants additions or fixes CyanogenMod is doing.

Tomogitarist said:
I never understood why people think that CM12 is so faster than LG's rom. For me both are blazing fast, CM12 could be even slower because it has longer animations (if we compare on 1x speed both). Speaker quality and volume is really lame on CM12 rom unlike on LG's rom. Only two things I dont like about LG's rom is crap lockscreen (CM12 has best lockscreen ever) and new Lollipop look. Kitkat looks much more elegant than Lollipop which looks childish and cartoonish. I bought G3 after having various Nexus devices with full stock google experience, and I gotta say it's nice to have some integrated useful features. CM12 is still missing many features, won't even think about switching to it right now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
B.s..... aosp is way, way faster. LG stock Rom is laggy as hell
---------- Post added at 12:48 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:43 AM ----------
LastSUper said:
I'm in agreement with speaker volume, I noticed after switching over that my phone wasnt as loud as it had been before. I believe a lot of people believe that the simple look of lolipop is what makes it so elegant, its more laid back. There are a lot of disadvantages with switching over to. If your a quickremote user you quickly miss not having it in cm12.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You realize that you can use quickremote on aosp right? Check the apps section here for a flashable zip

[/COLOR]
You realize that you can use quickremote on aosp right? Check the apps section here for a flashable zip[/QUOTE]
Wonderful news, im happy to hear that quickremote is still a possibility, I tried a apk from the stock ROM but it did not work, I'll hunt down the zip

Nightly 1/22 has slight WiFi issues, everything else remains working as far as I could tell, currently trying a more stable 5.0 ROM, illusion

LastSUper said:
Nightly 1/22 has slight WiFi issues, everything else remains working as far as I could tell, currently trying a more stable 5.0 ROM, illusion
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had wifi and data issues too on CM12. I could barely get 3G on some places at work.

LastSUper said:
This morning I decided I couldn't hold back from android 5.0 any longer and the update just couldn't come fast enough (it never can, am I right) so being the average android fanboy I looked toward CyanogenMod. I knew all they had was night lies and that was why I held off so long, but my curiosity gave in and I had to. So I headed over to cyanogen and grabbed my handy dandy .zip . I rebooted to recovery and went through the routine, and it just couldn't go fast enough, in reality it was the fastest flash I've ever done. First cm12, then my gapps. Waited for the phone to reboot blahdeeblahdeeblahhh, went through the upgrade process and BAMMM! 5.0 RIGHT IN MY FACE! First look at this nightly 5.0 and I couldn't get enough. The quadhd has definatley been put in effect and it shows. Everything I've used has been fully functional except updating su binaries (prob lack of support for 5 due to being new). The elegance and speed run perfectly along eachother, and my phone has never been faster. I may be speaking to soon, but this project must be somewhere close to a stable build. I'm currently running 1/21 nightly and i recommend it to others, I have found this ROM safe and will continue updating my phone with nightlies
and leaving feedback, feel free to leave your expierience
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's good to hear that CM12 is coming along. I tried it back when it was "unofficial" and my phone was overheating to the point that it actually scared me. Since then I have moved over to Cloudy G3 (which is based on stock). The Cloudy G3 Rom itself is very quick and with the Android L theme from @Kickoff it has a much nicer look that is closer to the stock android UI. I think I will stick with Cloudy G3. The main reason being that I am able to use ExFAT on my SD card and also the LG camera allows you to save to SD and all of the LG features are there if I want them.

Illusion ROM is extremely stable with a good build team, been using for two days now with NO PROBLEMS WHATSOEVER! Its the full lollipop experience.

I also moved as soon as CM12 become possible to use for daily use.
Room is incredible fast, every day less and less bugs. With the most of them is possible to live with.
Comparing to ****ty LG's android, i finally have feeling that i have good phone. Lag and terrible quality of official android make me to feel sorry for buying this phone (beside battery).

I reverted back to cm12. Running 1/26 right now and its flawless. DO NOT UPDATE TO 1/27! There are major speed issues and connection problems. Illusion ROM lacked features I enjoyed and there settings menu was a train wreck.
Sent from my LG-D850 using XDA Free mobile app

WARNING
DO NOT UPDATE PAST NIGHTLY 26!!! after nightly 26 almost all connection services such as WiFi and mobile network will not work or work extremely poorly. I have tested all the way up to nightly 29. All the zips are in some way corrupt. They give red code while flashing but proceed anyways (I'm not a proffesional sorry guys haha). Nightly 29 wouldn't even boot without the kernel crashing. Nightly 26 is running almost flawlessly. I hope someone sees this so they can address the problem. I have still not tried nightly 30. I might try sometime later tommorow, I'll continue updating.

Nightly 30 and 31 are working and everything is starting to get polished over. Nightly 31 received a new boot animation darker than before with a nicer ending. Both run very well with no problems noticed so far other than very minor lag between some animations.

Mind that CM12 is in its early Nightlies, issues will be fixed but it will take time.

Well of course, I'm just recording bugs in each nightly so people will have a better idea whether or not they should move to the next nightly

I'm currently considering this rom. Comming from a Nexus 5 I really miss stock Lollipop. The only thing I was wondering is if it was possible to keep the LG Camera App and if the knock code still works? I don't really care about anything else from the official LG rom.
I notice there hasn't been any update recently to this thread. Are you guys still using Cyanogen? How is it comming along.
Thanks.

tenf00t said:
I'm currently considering this rom. Comming from a Nexus 5 I really miss stock Lollipop. The only thing I was wondering is if it was possible to keep the LG Camera App and if the knock code still works? I don't really care about anything else from the official LG rom.
I notice there hasn't been any update recently to this thread. Are you guys still using Cyanogen? How is it comming along.
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the activeness of this thread doesn't determine the stability of a ROM lol. flash CM yourself and find out. if you want your G3 to be as smooth and flawless as your Nexus 5 was on AOSP, over clock your GPU to 580MHz and it'll fix all the lag. you can do this on the stock CM kernel using Trickster Mod kernel tweaker.
also, no LG camera and no knock code. but there is Motorola camera which is really just as great, and there is double tap screen to turn it on.
Sent from my LG G3

another review can be seen here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJC9B0qa2RY

[SOLVED] Stock vs. AOSP - Is it really that bad?

EDIT: I've made my final decision, I'm not coming back to the G2 probably. A Stable ROM is much needed, especially on a recent version of Android. I'll have to give a bit more and opt for the G2. The feedback I got was amazing, thank you so much everyone!
ORIGINAL POST:
Hello,
I am looking forward to buying the LG G2 (again, I had the AT&T one with the bad signal bug - I'm getting the D802 now) and the only thing that is currently holding me back is the Custom ROMs. While right now, the G2 is at a great development state, I don't know how much this will be true in a few years when LG stops making updates for us. AOSP and CM based ROMs will be the only option for an up to date version of Android. The hardware is definitely capable of more than 3 more years of usage with a few optimizations here and there. However, my question is how is the experience on AOSP and CM ROMs compared to stock. How's the battery life? Is the audio worse due to the lack of those special drivers? I've heard the camera is awful, is it really that bad? I love the photos my G2 took and while I'm not someone that takes pictures often, I do like a great Camera for the vacations where I have some time to take photos. I'm especially concerned about all of this as my S2 USCC had an awful ROM development and wouldn't want to risk it all again. Not that Marshmallow wouldn't be fine for another 2 years, especially if we get Cloudy G2 4.0.
Thanks in advance,
Chris

AOSP 5.1.1 roms are just as good as stock in terms of everything except for camera quality. Battery life is stellar and all features work flawlessly without a single bug or app crash or anything. Try the latest SlimSaber for d802.

Thanks! I'll be definitely checking out SlimSaber when I get it. Is camera quality a lot worse or just a bit in your opinion?

AOSP is awesome. It is super fluid on the G2. I keep trying them out (Slim, RR, CM, DU etc) but there are always a couple showstopping bugs that send me back to stock:
• Random vibrations
• 5.1.1 bug: when screen is off, leave a WiFi zone and reenter the zone - the phone will not reconnect unless screen is unlocked (ie no push messages, whatsapp etc etc)
That's about it though. Camera is good, GPS works, QuickRemote with a bit of fiddling works great. But stock gives the full package still.

In my experience the only advantage of custom roms is customization - which isn't a huge advantage considering how customizable lg's roms already are. As far as stability and battery life, it depends on the rom - some are great, others( a lot) are downright unusable. At least with the stock rom you know that it will be stable with good(not exceptional) battery life. Since you mentioned that you take a lot of pictures, nothing beats stock since the developers that made it have access to proprietary data. If you have the time to mess with multiple roms over several weeks, go for it - you may find the one you're looking for. For me, stock does everything I need and then some so that's what I use.

Thanks for your response. As I am not someone that often switches ROMs due to me worrying that I'll lose data, I think I've made my final decision. See Original Post.

Awesome, thanks for the amazing info. I've made my final decision, see Original Post.

SnapDragon CyanogenMod ROM: which one suggested as daily driver?

I have the opportunity to get a white i9505 with 16 GB RAM for €150.
I would like to understand if a rock stable CM style ROM is available or which one is the most appropriate when this features have priority:
battery running time
phone call quality and app stability
camera app stability and best snapshot quality
GPS signal quality / car navigation quality
overall stability
overall speed
I would like to have at least CM 11 (KitKat) and I did find those candidates (for comparison I also added a stock/CM mix):
[ROM][6.0.1][OFFICIAL] CyanogenMod 13 Status: Testing; no issues reported in the OP; late thread issues: some apps&root, bluetooth reactivation, laggy lockscreen (pin lock),
[JDCTeam][6.0.1][12 March] Optimized CyanogenMod 13.0 builds Status: Testing; no issues reported in the OP; late thread issues: network change,
[ROM][5.1.1][OFFICIAL] CyanogenMod 12.1 Status: Testing?; no issues reported in the OP; late thread issues: calls, battery drain, BT issues, random reboot
[JDCTeam][STABLE][5.1.1][26 January] Optimized CyanogenMod 12.1 builds [EOL] Status: Stable; issues reported in the OP: ANT+; late thread issues: RRO, Snap.apk camera crash,
[ROM][Official][4.4.4] CyanogenMod 11.0 Nightlies for the Qcom Intl Galaxy S4 (jflte) Status: Testing; no issues reported in the OP; late thread issues: ? note sure if CM-Wiki is up to date;
[ROM] Super WizCyan - S6 Port [debloated - 543.7MB, rooted + Addon Package]-27-Feb-16 (5.0.1) Status: Stable; issues reported in the OP: Automatic brightness, model & device & product name; late thread issues: ?
Found some useful posts:
sh4z CM12.1, CM11, stock/modded, CM13, oCM12.1, oCM 12.1 a, b
Finatic downgrade CM12.1>CM11, KK is way better then LP or MM,
So it seems CM11 is the most solid and oCM12.1 also solid but not sure if my impressions are well for my requirements.
Any suggestion regarding the listed or other CM style ROM is appreciated. Thank you for your experience.

the xda philosophy is kinda try it and decide for yourself. or search each of those threads with the keyword "bug", the thing is even the exact same models have slightly different versions of the hardware so what works perfectly for one guy can be a nightmare for another.

The only way is to try for yourself.
All roms ran fine for me. It all depends on how you use your phone, really.
I'd say a good starting point would be Optimized CM13. Thanks to the custom kernel included, you can have performance and battery life, depending on what profile you have selected.

From my experience, CM11 usually promises more stability and battery life. I just got i9505 this morning and still testing but CM 12.1 build 20151117 doesn't seem so bad.

In my opinion CM12.1 Snapshot (2015-11-17) is the most Stable ROM for JFLTEXX.

I just got my S4 a few days ago (I paid 50€ ) and running JDC CM 12.1
It's awesome stable and if you install a 3rd party camera app it works just fine
Coming from a S2 witch was petty laggy and crashed quiet often this upgrade is awesome!
I had not even one crash, I'm experiencing no lag and it's really fast
GPS works great, outside it fixes in about 3 seconds
For a good battery review it's too early for me but so far I can't complain, got below 10% awake and in airplane more 0.2%/h loss
I really can recommend this ROM!
There is a more up to date version in the thread but it's not listed on the first page, it's from 25.02.2016 just look for it

Just a little feedback on Official Cm12.1 (CM 12.1 build 2015/11/17) - been using this as a daily driver for a few weeks now (using novalauncher for my homescreen).
Performance & battery has been generally fine - even with moderate use (wifi or mobile data constantly left enabled, plenty of screen-on time, lots of photos, frequent use of whatsapp & SMS, email etc - but not really anything particularly draining such as long trips with GPS, or extended media usage), I get a good 2 and a bit days from each charge...
I'm sure I'd find my battery taking more of a hit if I were using it as an MP3 player to/from work, or having to use GPS frequently, but for day-to-day usage, battery has been excellent.
The included camera is good - nothing special to report (which is a good thing imo). No bugs, no unexpected behavior for good or ill, and no need to change the camera app unless there's a specific need (for higher-end functions, etc..).
Nightclub, low-light photos have been acceptable, daytime "optimal circumstances" pics have been great.
My girlfriend's S5 (using Samsung-branded rom) camera is more annoying, taking longer to find focus, is more temperamental (sometimes will only find focus if flash is on) and more unpredictable in what the resulting image will look like.
I'm not a camera geek (unless we're talking film SLRs), but I prefer mine to hers.
I've tested the GPS a few times, from cold-start it's about as quick as my standalone tomtom unit (not enough difference for me to put them side by side to test), and definitely faster to locate my initial position than my Gal-S2 using stock rom.
No drop-outs yet, but I've only used it briefly for testing, I've not had to do any long distance trips yet.
Again, only my gut feeling, but if it had taken an inordinately long time to locate me, then I'd have done some further testing...
Stability has been wonderful - no reboots, no mysterious crashes, or hangs to date.
I did get an error when I first installed, because after flashing the rom I (foolishly) rebooted before flashing GAPPS (which I should have done *immediately* after flashing the rom before leaving recovery), but a quick factory wipe & reflash of GAPPS sorted this without even having to reflash the rom. Bonus.
The only annoying things I've found are;
A) Lack of USB mass-storage (UMS). This is intrinsic to android though, only going back to version (what? 4.2? 4.4? Something like that) would help as my understanding is that it is simply no longer supported as a whole, and not the fault of any specific rom.
There is a semi-hidden option to use UMS available when the device is already connected to your PC via cable, but so far this has been of little use as it still doesn't let me access the SD card like the old Mass Storage function used to.
B) USB OTG. Worked out of the box first time, but after that first use, my device no longer detected a USB OTG cable was connected.
To rectify this issue, I simply rooted the device, and used Chainfire's StickMount (or USB OTG helper, either app worked), and now USB OTG is again fully supported.
I can't give any constructive feedback on the other roms you suggested - I briefly tried Official CM13, but one of my "must have" apps (ACR - automatic call recorder) was not playing nicely with CM13, so I immediately switched to CM12.1, and the exact-same .apk now works flawlessly.
I can't say if it's to do with Marshmallow, the CM13 rom, or what, so that's only a tenuous, anecdotal report.
Anyway, hope this helps narrow it down for you - for me, CM12.1 has been perfect; Stable, good battery life, and no unexpected behavior - pretty much everything I want from a rom tbh...

First of all, thank you that you dont open a thread with something like that:"What best rom for s4". Nice to see that you search for infos in the forum before you open up an thread! My favourite is CM12.1 last nightly!
My experience with other ROMs:
CM13 Nightly Bluetooth, Laggy UI and Bad Performance compared to CM12.1
Optimized CM13 network change, no EDGE only HSDPA and LTE, for CM12.1 performance you need "extreme performance" profile, touch issues
CM12.1 Snapshot/Nightly Sometime call issues (testing a solution)
Opzimized CM12.1 Snap Cam crash, huge BT issues with some drives, not best performance, touch issues
CM11 Nightly App crash in the background, than phone gets hot and takes down the battery in some hours.
Why CM12.1?
-Good batterylife
-Great performance (with l speed about 38.000P at AnTuTu)
-BT works to 99%
-no freeze and reboot in over 700h uptime
-smooth IU
-charging up to 1900mAh
-with faster GPS you get your postition in seconds

Thank you very much to all for your comments and statements. They help a lot and I think I will focus on CM12.1 variants testing.
I have a further question in my head: I wonder how CM12.1 is compared to the stock ROM regarding the features I care most for?
ChriMo said:
battery running time
phone call quality and app stability
camera app stability and best snapshot quality
GPS signal quality / car navigation quality
overall stability
overall speed
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

I've tested all ROMs from above and I have to say one thing - CM11 is the best ROM for daily usage. Without any custom kernels. And I will be use CM11 while it got updates.

..

MuF123 said:
When we are supposed to go that back into past, isn't it actually worth going for some lightweight TW ROM?
Any ideas which light TW rom to try? Do those have any BT issues?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OMEGA TW Custom ROM (4.4.2) with Aroma Installer can be lightweight ROM without most of bloatware. I've test it and havn't any BT issues.

zetcamp said:
I've tested all ROMs from above and I have to say one thing - CM11 is the best ROM for daily usage. Without any custom kernels. And I will be use CM11 while it got updates.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Personally, I like my Optimised CM 12.1
even if some points are really annoying me, and I might go back to TW...
- Screen is brighter
- Phone volume is louder
Are those problems present in CM 11? Can't remember.
Thanks

tanchette said:
Are those problems present in CM 11? Can't remember.
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As for me I havnt issues like above.

MY GT-I9505 personal ROMS experience:
I tested ALL roms:
CM13: It ROCKS! NO Bugs or so ever, smooth experience, snappy camera, (BTW I'm using CAMERA FV-5, which give you better image quality in settings, and advanced controlle), GOOD battery life, call and signal quality is perfect, gps and sensonrs work fine.
SUPER Wizcyan: In the beginning it seemed fine, until I installed all my apps, the the crapy lag beggined. NOT recommended.
CM12.1: SAME AS 13 BUT!: I prefer cm13 because it it more devolopped and has better software, even if it's still nightly builds.
HERE Begins your personal experience, Choose what YOU want and prefer, this is only MY review for this roms.