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Former Nexus S owner. Used the N4 for about 2 weeks... should I root?

I'm coming from using a Nexus S for two years where I did a lot of ROM and kernel flashing. So far, the N4 has been solid and I haven't found a reason to root it or flash a new ROM yet. For those who have rooted and flashed a custom rom, what are your thoughts? Any notable improvements over the stock rom/kernel?

I asked this question here as well.
Pro's of rooting; adaway, better toggles, aosp browser. (watch paranoid android for buttonless navigation)
Cons of rooting; less social life due to flashing things constantly.

mokflurry said:
I'm coming from using a Nexus S for two years where I did a lot of ROM and kernel flashing. So far, the N4 has been solid and I haven't found a reason to root it or flash a new ROM yet. For those who have rooted and flashed a custom rom, what are your thoughts? Any notable improvements over the stock rom/kernel?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have had also used nexus s for 2 yrs,its a small phone compared to this I remember friends telling me nexus s is a big phone. I am also proud owner of nexus 4 for 2 weeks
My nexus 4 is rooted, before arrived I had all setup on my PC all the drivers, adb, clockwork, it was rooted before I opened the box
Its rooted mainly because of ads, i hate ads, and firewall, and titanium backup, few network tools...
I had flux kernel to try changing colors.
I have stock kernel and rom now and planing to flash AOKP JB4.2 v2 when it comes out.

I would root install a kernel of your choice to get better battery life. I'm on PA with Franco r31 and get over 4 hour of screen time. O. Stock , my screen time was under 3 hours
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

Go for it. If you like stock ROM then just flash kernel since franco and others have patch the wake lock bug that was killing battery life. I wouldn't go for a few custom ROM out there since it is unstable and could be unpleasant to use. Those ROMs are usually the ones with Linaro optimizations. If you want stock experience with customization, then try AOKP. I'm very impressed with AOKP so far.

5.0 Question. Is It Worth it?

So I'm currently running Rooted Stock Rom 4.4.4 on my Nexus 4, with Xposed Framework. I'm thinking about updating my phone but I'm wondering is it worth giving up Xposed framework?
I'm using XGELSettings and Gravity Box for major customization and a couple of Snapchat mods too.

NoRestrictions said:
So I'm currently running Rooted Stock Rom 4.4.4 on my Nexus 4, with Xposed Framework. I'm thinking about updating my phone but I'm wondering is it worth giving up Xposed framework?
I'm using XGELSettings and Gravity Box for major customization and a couple of Snapchat mods too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if your willing to learn to use your device in another way and you want a fresh look and better battery yes. the thing is that xposed is not going to come to android l for a long time maybe never. the developer has some serious problem with art (from testing on kit kat ) and said that is waiting for lollipop or cm12 for his phone to start the work, so you get the point. i would suggest make a backup of your device, upgrade to lollipop for a week or so to see if you like it. if not you have the backup.
P.S. use a custom kernel without it the battery life really sucks!

NoRestrictions said:
So I'm currently running Rooted Stock Rom 4.4.4 on my Nexus 4, with Xposed Framework. I'm thinking about updating my phone but I'm wondering is it worth giving up Xposed framework?
I'm using XGELSettings and Gravity Box for major customization and a couple of Snapchat mods too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Huge improvements in battery life and stability, I miss PA floating notifications and navigation bar quick shortcuts... try it

Well.......the battery life is better than KK if you use a custom kernel (4-5h SOT).......but KK looks sooooooooo much better.
Holo > Material

Personally I went from PA to a stock rooted version of 5.0 and don't regret it in the slightest. I think that L has a much nicer UI, is much smoother, has nicer animations, has better battery life and is just generally an improvement over 4.4. Then again, I stopped needing all of the features of PA a long time ago so if you're more of a power user than me then it might be worth not updating for now

This is the first phone I never ROM'D

Every phone I've owned ran a custom Rom. Since selling my 1p1 for this a month ago, I've been extremely happy. Just rooted and recovery.
Favorite feature is the ability to delay/time my text message with the stock app. Silly but i work shift work shop it's handy.
I use a Windows phone launcher.....I know....but I like it
Stock keyboard is great too however the swipe feature is hit and miss. No issue with speed either. I know everyone wants lp updates but I'll be holding off.
Good job LG.....especially with the way it feels in the hand.

I'm currently the same way, I havent had the need to rom or root this device, LG has done a great job with the software, no lag, fast, great battery life and your right about the stock lg keyboard the swipe feature with it is terrible

Me too, first thing i usually do is slap a custom rom but love stock features like keyboard launcher knock code i like and DT2W / DT2S PS Glad to see a thread where someone ismt complaining love this device
Sent from my LG-D855 using XDA Free mobile app

On my D852 I've tried the only fully working custom rom (CloudyG3 rom), And I tried the only custom kernel that exists too (Rin kernel).
From my experience stock rom + stock kernel gives me the smoothest + longest battery by far on the G3.
Which is weird because custom roms + kernels usually give more performance & battery life, But for my D852 everything that currently exists in the custom community is just worse.
For example:
Ktoonsez kernel on my S4 INCREASED my screen on time by 30-50% over stock.
Rin kernel on my G3 DECREASED my screen on time by more than 30% vs stock.
At the current moment there is NO custom kernel for the D852 that has better battery life than stock.

Same here. Just root and xposed for g3 tweaks. Sadly they didn't do a 4.4.4 as L is a no go because of ART.

Same here, ROM-ed my all previous tabs and phone. But this one is beast by itself. Rooted on 1st week and Xposed , Tweak box has all things i need. Love it.

Just the same here... Rooted it with bumped TWRP, installed xposed, tweaksbox and that's it. No custom rom required. I just love this phone for everything. I didnt, however, liked the stock icons for the apps...so i installed Unicon and flashed an icon pack and voila! Tweaked heavily for lollipop look using tweaksbox though. Doesnt want lollipop cos i cant live without xposed framework.. If ART finally gets xposed support, then i will flash the stock update from LG.. Using even the stock launcher and loving it

Ditto

:thumbup:
Sent from my LG-V410 using XDA Free mobile app

Same here !!
I like LG's UI but I gotta admit that the Stock Android L UI is much better looking than LG's Lollipop update. I feel they didn't add much "Material Design' to it. I thought of flashing CM12 but then I would lose Knock Code and Warranty.
I wish we had something like this: http://forum.xda-developers.com/gal...eme-ics-domination-v4-6-4divine12-10-t1334922
Its a full AOSP theme for Samsungs Touchwiz ROM. I think when APKTool starts supporting Lollipop we will get something similar.

Stock w/Xposed vs. Custom Rom?

Hey everyone, so I am pretty new to the whole android scene and had a couple of questions.
Do you prefer to use stock w/Xposed or a custom rom? And what are your reasons for doing so?
Also, I had a OPO before and had it rooted and had Blisspop installed. One thing that I really liked was the fact that I could install the nightly updates from the Rom settings, and it did not affect my root status at all. Are there any decent ROM's that can do the same thing for the Nexus 6p?
Thanks for the time and sorry if these are dumb questions!

Mountainmohawk said:
Hey everyone, so I am pretty new to the whole android scene and had a couple of questions.
Do you prefer to use stock w/Xposed or a custom rom? And what are your reasons for doing so?
Also, I had a OPO before and had it rooted and had Blisspop installed. One thing that I really liked was the fact that I could install the nightly updates from the Rom settings, and it did not affect my root status at all. Are there any decent ROM's that can do the same thing for the Nexus 6p?
Thanks for the time and sorry if these are dumb questions!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your custom ROM had root included.; standard feature in every custom ROM. But that doesn't matter anymore, since SuperSU 2.60+ doesn't write to /system.
Stock ROM, franco kernel, Xposed for me. Because I can.

You can install a custom ROM of choice and xposed. Just be careful not to enable any modules or settings that conflict with your custom ROM. If you have any problems you can always flash xposed uninstaller in twrp and try again. This way you can have the best of both worlds. I'm currently running pure nexus with elemental x kernal as well as xposed.

Does pure nexus allow you to install updates through the settings without having to manually flash a new image?

As of now I'm running stock with Xposed. Stock has just been so damn smooth, fast and stable I feel no need for a custom ROM. Plus Xposed takes care of all the little tweaks/mods that make the phone look unique/custom to my liking.

Most of the custom ROMs we have are just the stock ROM with some features added, so what you really need to ask yourself is whether you want features built in to the ROM, or whether you want to lose some of the ART opportunities by using Xposed.

Heisenberg said:
Most of the custom ROMs we have are just the stock ROM with some features added, so what you really need to ask yourself is whether you want features built in to the ROM, or whether you want to lose some of the ART opportunities by using Xposed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What exactly do you mean by losing some of the ART opportunities by using xposed? Is there a downside to it?

Mountainmohawk said:
Does pure nexus allow you to install updates through the settings without having to manually flash a new image?
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Click to collapse
With pure nexus you have to download a new update and flash in twrp. So far I've been able to dirty flash all updates except the 6.01 upgrade. It only takes a couple minutes to do.

Mountainmohawk said:
What exactly do you mean by losing some of the ART opportunities by using xposed? Is there a downside to it?
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Click to collapse
When Xposed first came around it would only work on the Dalvik runtime. When Android switched to the ART runtime with Lollipop I remember reading that the Xposed devs had to mess a bit with the ART optimisations to get Xposed to work with it. It probably isn't all that noticeable in the real world. But really, most custom ROMs for Nexus phones are based on the stock ROM anyway, they're both derived from the same aosp builds. So the argument that stock is smoother is pure placebo. You can choose to have features built into the ROM, or choose to add features yourself via Xposed, the native option seems like a better choice to me.

I'm also on stock + xposed. I thought this would be the most stable, but I seem to get apps crashing at least 10 times per day, ie "App X stopped working. Close or Wait?".
Does anyone else have a similar problem, or would this be addressed if I installed a custom rom?

qwertyuiop89 said:
I'm also on stock + xposed. I thought this would be the most stable, but I seem to get apps crashing at least 10 times per day, ie "App X stopped working. Close or Wait?".
Does anyone else have a similar problem, or would this be addressed if I installed a custom rom?
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Click to collapse
I'd certainly try a custom ROM, you won't know until you try unfortunately.

Best Kernel for Stock (Non-Rooted)

I used to be an avid ROM flasher, changing ROMs daily on my old Moto X. Now that I'm using Android Pay religiously I need to keep my phone non-rooted, but would still like to run a custom kernel. I have been looking at FrancoKernel and ElementalX (sp?), but not sure what is best for the stock ROM without any tweaking (as most kernel tweaking apps need root). What's the community think?

grimez said:
I used to be an avid ROM flasher, changing ROMs daily on my old Moto X. Now that I'm using Android Pay religiously I need to keep my phone non-rooted, but would still like to run a custom kernel. I have been looking at FrancoKernel and ElementalX (sp?), but not sure what is best for the stock ROM without any tweaking (as most kernel tweaking apps need root). What's the community think?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Franco kernel
Flash it forget it
Cheers

I would also say Franco...

Never used Franco so I cannot comment on it. I use ElementalX, stock, rooted and it works awesome.
Sent from my Nexus 6P using XDA-Developers mobile app

Got Franco's kernel flashed with TWRP as recovery and everything else stock. Can already see battery life improvement, can't wait to see how it compares in the long run.

I hate using Franco Kernel.
For some reason everytime I use it I get more battery life then I should, and everything works faster than stock. I don't plug in my phone more than I have to. It's just the worst kernel out there if you want low OST and crashes.

Didn't think that you can replace boot.img on an uprooted phone.

grimez said:
I used to be an avid ROM flasher, changing ROMs daily on my old Moto X. Now that I'm using Android Pay religiously I need to keep my phone non-rooted, but would still like to run a custom kernel. I have been looking at FrancoKernel and ElementalX (sp?), but not sure what is best for the stock ROM without any tweaking (as most kernel tweaking apps need root). What's the community think?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm rooted with custom ROM and systemless root and Android Pay works 100%. Can add cards and pay at terminals without issue.
Just a little FYI.
Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

Can we change the kernel if not rooted? If yes, can you share the procedure?

GroovyGeek said:
Didn't think that you can replace boot.img on an uprooted phone.
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Click to collapse
dharish said:
Can we change the kernel if not rooted? If yes, can you share the procedure?
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Click to collapse
Root has nothing to do with the ability to install a kernel. All that's required is TWRP recovery, which in turn requires an unlocked bootloader.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/nexus-6p/general/guides-how-to-guides-beginners-t3206928