Database Users

Is Jelly Bean really that good?

Hey guys when I got Nexus S it's official software update was at 4.1.1 so it didn't make sence to tri GB or ICS roms, it felt like a downgrade, everyone wants the latest stftware, right? But I recently got to thinking that when Galaxy Nexus came out with the first ICS people who had a Nexus S didn't really hurry to upgrade case they knew that they would be getting ICS asswell, but now with 4.2 not being supported ofitially it makes since to change the phone. My point is that eaven if GB and ICS are older the develpoment was more alive, so what are your thoughts? Should I try Gb or ICS? Whats the best experience you had in terms of music, video battery life gameplay (eaven if I never play games on a phone) regardless of the software wersion. I should mention that I'm a flashaholic so it doesent matter what rom I use case I get bored with it pretty fast, I'm always eger to flash something on my phone.

ICS is laggy. GB looks and feels outdated. Jelly bean is your best bet for a complete user experience.
1. Install carbon unofficial rom: http://goo.im/devs/Gingo21/Carbon/Crespo/CARBON-JB-EXP-17AVRIL2013-161548-crespo.zip
2. Install voodoo sound app and configure.
3. Enjoy a lag-free overall user experience (limited to most games) and great battery life (although i experienced the longest battery life on slim 4.2.1 v1.1, but not as fast as carbon)
4. Don't expect your NS to be as fast as a quad core device. But it can be on par with a dual core device in terms of UI and gaming experience.

ej8989 said:
ICS is laggy. GB looks and feels outdated. Jelly bean is your best bet for a complete user experience.
1. Install carbon unofficial rom: http://goo.im/devs/Gingo21/Carbon/Crespo/CARBON-JB-EXP-17AVRIL2013-161548-crespo.zip
2. Install voodoo sound app and configure.
3. Enjoy a lag-free overall user experience (limited to most games) and great battery life (although i experienced the longest battery life on slim 4.2.1 v1.1, but not as fast as carbon)
4. Don't expect your NS to be as fast as a quad core device. But it can be on par with a dual core device in terms of UI and gaming experience.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes I know a custom rom isn't going to do wonders, I was just curious about older roms that I didnt try, I'm actually on Carbon, the last nightly, but the unofficial seames to be better than all the nightly's put together, thank you

ICS is generally the most battery friendly (can last days), but laggy.

Difficult to answer
I've been using Carbon ROM with Marmite kernel 8.5(bigmem), the experience has been quite good, much better than these low end devices i have at home. UI is buttery smooth and fluid. Temple Run 2 is a bit slow-ish but i dont mind. Now the main factor, battery! yes its not that great, GB was the best i hear. I think my battery is faulty too, might go for a 2450 mAh battery.

Evander_F said:
I've been using Carbon ROM with Marmite kernel 8.5(bigmem), the experience has been quite good, much better than these low end devices i have at home. UI is buttery smooth and fluid. Temple Run 2 is a bit slow-ish but i dont mind. Now the main factor, battery! yes its not that great, GB was the best i hear. I think my battery is faulty too, might go for a 2450 mAh battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dosent that make the phone to fat...I dont mind up to 5-6cm but if its to much than I'd feel stupid to put it in my pocket

dark'em said:
Dosent that make the phone to fat...I dont mind up to 5-6cm but if its to much than I'd feel stupid to put it in my pocket
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think he's referring to this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/2450mAh-High-Capacity-Gold-Battery-for-SamSung-Nexus-S-I9020-/330840785414
I don't really know if it's legit and/or safe to use.

ej8989 said:
I think he's referring to this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/2450mAh-High-Capacity-Gold-Battery-for-SamSung-Nexus-S-I9020-/330840785414
I don't really know if it's legit and/or safe to use.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I see, nice it looks slim enough, as to roms I was thinking of trying this: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1425344 P.S: I'll thank you tomorow case acording to XDA I am limited to only 8 thanks per day

dark'em said:
I see, nice it looks slim enough, as to roms I was thinking of trying this: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1425344 P.S: I'll thank you tomorow case acording to XDA I am limited to only 8 thanks per day
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sign in from xda app, you'll be able to unlimited thanks per day:laugh:

Smart guy
ej8989 said:
I think he's referring to this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/2450mAh-High-Capacity-Gold-Battery-for-SamSung-Nexus-S-I9020-/330840785414
I don't really know if it's legit and/or safe to use.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Spot on mate! exactly what i want to buy
dark'em said:
I see, nice it looks slim enough, as to roms I was thinking of trying this: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1425344 P.S: I'll thank you tomorow case acording to XDA I am limited to only 8 thanks per day
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try Apex ROM with Matr1x kernel.

Evander_F said:
Spot on mate! exactly what i want to buy
Try Apex ROM with Matr1x kernel.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Willl definitly try youir sugestion, now Ițm on hellybean 4.1.2 and I love it...the multiple lockscreens are cool

dark'em said:
Willl definitly try youir sugestion, now Ițm on hellybean 4.1.2 and I love it...the multiple lockscreens are cool
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
as long as were making suggestions, i recommend GamerzROM
im on it right now and its very good!

frenchie007 said:
as long as were making suggestions, i recommend GamerzROM
im on it right now and its very good!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tkank you but I read reports on the Gamers thread that it has lots of bugs, Im not searching for pure speed if it means performance or battery life suffer, but thank you for the suggestion

dark'em said:
Tkank you but I read reports on the Gamers thread that it has lots of bugs, Im not searching for pure speed if it means performance or battery life suffer, but thank you for the suggestion
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There's only one bug as of right now that i know of, and that's the copy/paste force close, which is hardly a dealbreaker

If you have too many apps, 4.2 will be very laggy and have a pour battery life.
But i dont know how! Gamerz ROM still feeling like im on 4.1! Its fast and the performance is the best for a 4.2!
I have tryed all of those ROM in development thread. This is my favorite .
ICS is good two. Is a little slow than 4.1. But i liked it.
Just try some ROMs for a day or two. You will be pleasured ;/
Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk 2

liborio99 said:
If you have too many apps, 4.2 will be very laggy and have a pour battery life.
But i dont know how! Gamerz ROM still feeling like im on 4.1! Its fast and the performance is the best for a 4.2!
I have tryed all of those ROM in development thread. This is my favorite .
ICS is good two. Is a little slow than 4.1. But i liked it.
Just try some ROMs for a day or two. You will be pleasured ;/
Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yup will do, I'm on the flash everything chapter now

just try it
amazing sys

Jellybean is great but using it on the Nexus S is a really bad measuring stick to gauge Jellybean.. If you use the last official 4.1.1 build the Nexus S runs fair if you keep it as a minimalistic smartphone. (defaultish). Still.. It's more than obvious there is some severe limiting of performance due the single core CPU and severely limited amount of RAM.. 4.2.. Eh.. Too much.. I tried keeping my Nexus S active as just an MP3 player but PowerAmp randomly hitches during playback.. I put the phone to bed...

I have to say that generally speaking JB 4.2 is the best system that our Nexus S can run and the best user experience. We all know different usages means different results in battery life, lags, amount if free ram but in any case I feel confident in saying that once you have flashed a 4.2 rom there's no reason to go back to ICS or even to GB. It feels like an overall better experience and performance. Still, I wish the OS were a little more light on the small stock battery but hey, it's a decent tradeoff. Most of the time I'm on 2G data only because that's ok for my kind of usage (mostly emails and twitter) and with that the battery is quite decent.
The only issue that I have seen with the 4.2 roms I have tried is that after a few days (4 or 5) the cached apps are not recalled very quicly when launched. I usually reboot once a week and the problem is gone but in any case I don't feel dissatisfied at all.

I love jelly bean works great
Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk 2

Custom ROMs - sharing a beginner's experience

As a long time Android user and general nerd, I often hear from some of my friends about new and cool custom ROMs. It ranges from "amazing customization" to "blazing speed" and even "far better than anything stock in general".
So this weekend I decided that since my warranty is no longer valid anyway, and Samsung won't be updating the Galaxy S2 GT-i9100 anymore, I can go ahead and try something new and shiny, which could help me with my job.
And thus began my research and tests on Android custom ROMs...and oh boy, that was one hell of an experience.
Everything I heard from people about nearly everything was shattered right then and there.
As a reasonable person, I decided to try some of the more popular ROMs, trying to stick as much as possible to stable builds since everyday use is a big deal for me. So now I present to you, my experience with what I was told are the top-dogs of the custom ROM world and my impressions of each:
Omni 4.4.2
This one actually surprised me in terms of it's video driver. As some might know, a bunch of Gameloft published games always show washed out colors on the Galaxy S2, but when used, this ROM showed the correct colors...quite shocking! ...however, it turned out to be highly unstable with apps crashing left and right all the time and often for no real reason. This ROM is not really advertised as "stable" so I guess that was understandable, so I decided to move on.
MIUI v5
This ROM was just impressive. I absolutely love the UI (and I didn't even try the customization stuff, yet I say that!). It seemed really stable and I almost decided to stick with it...until I found out that 3 apps in particular I very much rely on don't work properly or at all (overlay issues it seems). This got me really disappointed but I figured functionality is more important than looks so once again, I decided to move on.
CyanogenMod 10.3.1
This might be the biggest disappointment for all the wrong reasons. The buildup and hype I got from people about it created in my head "the ultimate ROM"...but after installing it and doing some tests...I have to say, the performance difference was just barely noticeable and i all honesty, not worth the trade for the bugs it also brings (although if it had the video driver from Omni I would've changed my mind). I really wanted to do a fair judgement since I know this is the top-dog of ROMs (or at least in popularity) so I even ran tests on it...and in games, the framerate difference between stock and CM10.3 was just 2-5fps.
Resurrection Remix 4.0.7
This was...let me just say it out loud - the installation for this ROM should be a standard - just incorporate some stuff and have people chose what to get or don't get. Having stock stuff and then 10 additional flashable ZIPs while not really a big issue is just a time-waster for a lot of people in my eyes (although it would've been nice to know more about the modems when it asks you for a choice). Anyway, this ROM's keyboard just refused to work so I got rid of it after 2 flashes.
ReVolt JB 4.5
...keyboard didn't work on this one again, and after another 2 flash attempts, I scrapped it aswell.
At this point I pretty much just gave up and went back to the Samsung stock ROM for my region and was left with an empty feeling that custom ROMs all seem to have at least one or more huge flaws.
All the buildup and "legends" (lacking a better term) weren't even close to what I experienced (except the MIUI...well, UI) and it got me thinking...are custom ROMs meant for everyday users or they were always aimed at people willing to experiment? Personally, I decided that my journey through the custom ROM world has ended here at least for the time being (maybe someday I'll go back to MIUI but who knows), but I wanted to ask, does anyone feel the same way I do? That custom ROMs, while a really cool thing to be able to have is getting overhyped to the point where unless you really know what you're getting into will lead to just disappointment?
I would really like to hear other people's views on this, especially if you're not an expert user.

NeatROM rulez, give it a try.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda app-developers app

I'm using slimbean 2.2. It's seems better them any other ROM.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

Resurrection Remix 4.0.7 worked fine for me. the only problem is the System UI that usually crashes when you messed up on something and it really need some reboot for that. ☺
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

Well, with custom roms comes both bugs and extended capacities.
First of all, having a rooted phone gives a lot of new possibilities.
Besides, custom roms give new content, like the latest android updates, which the constructors take time to port to their devices.
At last but not least, custom ROMs often let you.. customize as much as thou wish
I'm personally using Cyanfox (android 4.4), and I'm pretty happy about it
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda app-developers app

You schould try another 4.4.2 custom roms for egz pound rom(the best for me) or beanstalk which is good too
Wysłane z mojego GT-I9100 przy użyciu Tapatalka

warpgamer said:
Well, with custom roms comes both bugs and extended capacities.
First of all, having a rooted phone gives a lot of new possibilities.
Besides, custom roms give new content, like the latest android updates, which the constructors take time to port to their devices.
At last but not least, custom ROMs often let you.. customize as much as thou wish
I'm personally using Cyanfox (android 4.4), and I'm pretty happy about it
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I actually just root my stock ROM with the SuperSU flashable ZIP-thingie...though I only need it for a firewall ^-^;;
But to me one of the biggest deal-breakers is how all the ROMs I did like don't support MHL (if only MIUI was capable of that )

Since the warranty is gone i'm trying a bunch of roms to sede what nave to offer. So far i've only tried the omnirom and it's pretty good to me, except some minor bugs.
In my opinion you've to choose a stabile ROM if you don't want any problems

im using cm10.1 stable linaro build most nearly perfect rom for me.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk

iobling said:
Since the warranty is gone i'm trying a bunch of roms to sede what nave to offer. So far i've only tried the omnirom and it's pretty good to me, except some minor bugs.
In my opinion you've to choose a stabile ROM if you don't want any problems
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
dredremon said:
im using cm10.1 stable linaro build most nearly perfect rom for me.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's kind'a the thing, CM 10.3.1 is the one shown as stable and it seems to be...but it's missing features that the stock ROMs offer, and the performance difference is pretty much not noticeable enough to justify it for me.
All the ROMs except Omni were shown as "stable" but as i mentioned in my first post, all seem to have at least 1 big issue.
As a side question...I heard the newest version of MIUI actually had MHL/TV-out support on the S2...anyone know if that's true?

Dorimanx anybody ... ?

I only use my phone for basic stuff.So I just use a stock rom with a custom kernel.That way, everything works and I dont have to read 2000 posts to see what problems to expect.

Stock CM kernel isn't all that great IMO , Try coupling Dorimanx's kernel with CM or any other ROM... Adds a lot of power features with stability. stock Sammy Roms feel very caged and unoptimized thus the need for custom builds. Give it time... It grows on you eventually.
Just my 2cents

theunderling said:
I only use my phone for basic stuff.So I just use a stock rom with a custom kernel.That way, everything works and I dont have to read 2000 posts to see what problems to expect.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
After 2 years of trying to find a custom ROM that doesn't have one show-topping bug, I feel bad for not just staying with a nicely optimized stock ROM with a tweaked kernel that is 100% dependable when I need it.
So, +1 :good:

Well, I only recently got the S2. Before my S2, I've owned an HTC One V. The stock ROM on that thing was just a mess. It came with 4.0.4 ICS and... you guessed it... no update to JB. So I installed a custom ROM on that one... it improved nearly everything.
So, from my experiences with that device, I thought I could flash the S2 and get the same experience. And... well, not really. I have tried so many ROMs...
The AOSP based ROMs either drain battery like hell or have any other bug which is so impacting that I can't deal with it. For example, the Audio 50% bug. Just one word: Annoying.
SO, I could stay with a Samsung stock ROM, but well, that won't be an option for me. Why not? Simple, on the stock rom, using my phone for an hour, literally ONE HOUR, the thing is completely dead. Battery empty. The only stock rom which gives me two and half an hour of screen on time is the 2.3.3 GB stock. And well, that's a bit old nowadays.
The by far best combination for power, speed, stability and battery life for me is CM10.1 stable with the DorimanX 9.14 kernel. I've tried it once and I find myself going back to it pretty much everytime I flashed any ROM I do not like.
Currently I'm on CM11 unofficial nightly, tomorrow I will see for how long my battery can last. I know, my battery is probably broken, but it's not thicker than normal or something like that. It just drains and I have no idea why.

DerGraf1997 said:
Well, I only recently got the S2. Before my S2, I've owned an HTC One V. The stock ROM on that thing was just a mess. It came with 4.0.4 ICS and... you guessed it... no update to JB. So I installed a custom ROM on that one... it improved nearly everything.
So, from my experiences with that device, I thought I could flash the S2 and get the same experience. And... well, not really. I have tried so many ROMs...
The AOSP based ROMs either drain battery like hell or have any other bug which is so impacting that I can't deal with it. For example, the Audio 50% bug. Just one word: Annoying.
SO, I could stay with a Samsung stock ROM, but well, that won't be an option for me. Why not? Simple, on the stock rom, using my phone for an hour, literally ONE HOUR, the thing is completely dead. Battery empty. The only stock rom which gives me two and half an hour of screen on time is the 2.3.3 GB stock. And well, that's a bit old nowadays.
The by far best combination for power, speed, stability and battery life for me is CM10.1 stable with the DorimanX 9.14 kernel. I've tried it once and I find myself going back to it pretty much everytime I flashed any ROM I do not like.
Currently I'm on CM11 unofficial nightly, tomorrow I will see for how long my battery can last. I know, my battery is probably broken, but it's not thicker than normal or something like that. It just drains and I have no idea why.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I get up to 14 days with my battery if it's just on Standby [no actual use] and up to a full day if I play some games on it with the Stock ROM.
Also I wanted to mention that I tried DorimanX 8.43 earlier today and my god, my phone became unstable as hell [still on a stock ROM]...odd.
But yeah, you might want to get a new battery if you get less than 16 hours battery life

Hello. I want share my experience. I moved from stock because i want try 4.2 new features, specially widget on lockscreen.
I first tryied cm 10.2 but battery drained quickly and gaming was so sloooow.I tryied then cm10.2 linaro but experienced 4-5 reboot a day. Now I'm back on cm10.2 hoping that the guy working on exynos drivers will bring good news. In the meanwhile I will try gustavo or apolo kernel that seems the most stable kernels
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda app-developers app

Waiting S4 UI port into i9100G ...

I have found only 2-3 Roms that can be used
I can say that i have installed allmost all posible ROMs. For me every rom whit verson of android above 4.1.2 just didn't work ( i have SD CARD problems in most of the ROM's in other i have encored camera problems or bootloops ) The only ROM working realy good is snapdragon and s4fors2 .
IF ANY ONE KHNOWS HOW TO SOLVE MY SD-CARD PROBLEMS ON ANY ROM WITH ANDROID VERSION ABOVE 4.1.2 PM me PLS

CyanFox Rom is the most stable and worked for me as well. Give it a try!!
For Battery Backup, maybe you can use Voltage Control Pro App, Underclock to 1 GHZ if you are not a hardcore gamer. You can also decrease voltage,more Options over mv are also available in Pro Version, Decreasing Voltage will help lower power consumption of CPU.
You can also install Siyah Latest Kernel and do all of this using S-Tweaks!
Thanks!
@hellco what exactly is your sd card problem?? Can you elaborate??

Attention Devs - KIND REQUEST - Pure AOSP Rom

To all the devs.
First off, would like to compliment you on the great work you do, and putting in all the tme and effort for developing your roms.
I would please like to request, if you are interested, to develop a PURE AOSP ROM, either kitkat or lollipop, like you get on stock Nexus.
I think a lot of people would be interested in experiencing the stock Nexus look and feel.
I am adding a poll, so for all those interested please vote.

i can't see the point at all .......
you have CM11 (the last nightly is good ) ......and then CM12 .
Cyanogenmod is already "simple" and enought "pure" with lots of interestings things , really not difficult to understand why this rom work...........and very ergonomic !!!
CM is not like others customs with all theirs "frills" like Pie ,omniswitch ,exotics personalizations ......more or less useless for a standard use .
=> with that , i really don't think at all that a dev want to "spend energy" to make a "poor" AOSP pure ... and too many peoples are really not interrested by this sort of rom

Loulou-13 said:
i can't see the point at all .......
you have CM11 (the last nightly is good ) ......and then CM12 .
Cyanogenmod is already "simple" and enought "pure" with lots of interestings things , really not difficult to understand why this rom work...........and very ergonomic !!!
CM is not like others customs with all theirs "frills" like Pie ,omniswitch ,exotics personalizations ......more or less useless for a standard use .
=> with that , i really don't think at all that a dev want to "spend energy" to make a "poor" AOSP pure ... and too many peoples are really not interrested by this sort of rom
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dont know why but has just always interested me. And Im too uneducated and dont have the resources to build myself. Pure aosp has just look interesting to me.

I second this , i would love to see a pure AOSP rom.

jnvdh06 said:
To all the devs.
First off, would like to compliment you on the great work you do, and putting in all the tme and effort for developing your roms.
I would please like to request, if you are interested, to develop a PURE AOSP ROM, either kitkat or lollipop, like you get on stock Nexus.
I think a lot of people would be interested in experiencing the stock Nexus look and feel.
I am adding a poll, so for all those interested please vote.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A pure AOSP is a pain in the ass ( u have to pick to many patch from caf), a CAF version will be easy or CAF based too like DU, SLIM

Miccia said:
A pure AOSP is a pain in the ass ( u have to pick to many patch from caf), a CAF version will be easy or CAF based too like DU, SLIM
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
personally think it would be worth it though to truly use android at its purest (no bloat, slowdowns or crap). and people who do want some customisations on this rom the xposed framework is available to lollipop now.

To be honest I prefer TW to AOSP am I the only one?

You_KS said:
To be honest I prefer TW to AOSP am I the only one?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
NO. I love twiz too, as it gives me best gaming performance and battery life.

sasank360 said:
NO. I love twiz too, as it gives me best gaming performance and battery life.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I thought TouchWiz is a "heavy" ROM compared to CM. How does it give performance for gaming?
Sent from my GT-I9195 using XDA Free mobile app

TiTAN-O-One said:
I thought TouchWiz is a "heavy" ROM compared to CM. How does it give performance for gaming?
Sent from my GT-I9195 using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, that is the case atleast on my s4 mini. The thing is i do not always run my s4 mini @ full 1.7 ghz
While gaming on stock rom i set cpu @ 1.3 or 1.2 ghz and plays it just fine. I play subway surfers, dead trigger 2 and asphalt 8.
All run smoothly @ low graphix settings. But on custom roms like cm I have to set cpu @ 1.4-1.5 GHz for same fluidity and
obviously battery drains a little quicker.

sasank360 said:
Well, that is the case atleast on my s4 mini. The thing is i do not always run my s4 mini @ full 1.7 ghz
While gaming on stock rom i set cpu @ 1.3 or 1.2 ghz and plays it just fine. I play subway surfers, dead trigger 2 and asphalt 8.
All run smoothly @ low graphix settings. But on custom roms like cm I have to set cpu @ 1.4-1.5 GHz for same fluidity and
obviously battery drains a little quicker.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Rly? I played Subway Surfers and Asphalt 8 (lowest graphix) @ 810mhz UV and its rly smooth as heck on RR Lollipop
On stock ROM I noticed battery drain and heating issues compared to cusroms
Sent from my GT-I9195 using XDA Free mobile app

JellyBean vs Lillipop / Stock vs Custom

First of all, this is not a childish "versus" topic to flame fanboys spirits. I just need some technical understanding of some issues.
So... I've run four or five Lollipop 5.1.1 custom ROMs on my C5303, including CM, AICP, XenonHD, Mokee. All are great and fast and developers made a tremendous job. Not all of them are so friendly with Tangerine kernel (I need a custom kernel for increasing in-calls phone volume), per instance, Mokee hangs and struggle like hell. AICP works well with T-kernel, but with some issues (reported by users), when the device will freeze for a few seconds. XenonHD loves T-kernel - no problem at all!
Still, all of these fantastic custom ROMs , with or without custom kernel, are sluggish compared with stock 4.3 Sony ROM. I've made a nandroid backup in TWRP of my XenonHD - T-Kernel installation and installed Binomical SLIM 4.3 base don stock. Just for the heck of remembering the Sony UI, I intended to restore XenonHD soon after. I'm still on Binomical 4.3. Man, this is FAST! This is a blazing rocket compared with any of the Lollipop ROMs!
On Lollipop ROMs I've had ~ 300 MB free RAM, on stock 4.3 (OK, deodexed and slim) I only have 150 MB, but Sony's ROM is way faster and smoother. It really looks like I have a completely new device in my hand. How is this possible? Why? The hardware drivers? Is X-SP really not able to handle Lollipop in a decent manner?
XDA developers worked so hard to gave us the Lollipop ROMs, and I praise their work, but looks like X-SP best choice is still the old JellyBean 4.3.

Agree.
All lollipop roms are really fast in the beginning but after sometime,it begins to lag and become slow and sluggish.I have tried many lollipop roms but always returned to stock rom.It's been 2-3 months that i'm on stock and didn't flashed any other rom.

dude flash latest cm12.1 nightly nd ull forget stock

4.1.2>4.3>5.1.1

I dont think this, i not know what version you test of aicp and xennon, thes lasts versions of aicp are laggy and xennon has battery drain sometimes, but the others no, all depends of the rom, have lollipops roms laggy and have lollipop fast roms, have kikkat laggy roms and have kitkat fast roms, and the same of all android version, the rom stock have good performance but battery drains, now i in miui 7, performance and battery are awesome

I NEVER had battery drains on stock ROM. Yes, lots of bloatware on official stock , but not battery drains. I also didn't encounter battery drain on any of the Lollipop ROM's I've tried - AICP stable and about 10 version of nightlies, CM, XenonHD latest and Mokee. Yes, those were not so "green" as stock, but nothing so horrible, maybe 10-20% less battery power than stock. The issues regarding battery were on calibration of the battery percentage, per instance it used to go downward normally till 6%, then, bang!, the telephone turned off with 0% battery all of a sudden. Anyway, this is a insignificant issue, I don't care if I'm gonna recharge battery one hour earlier, the real problem that brought me back to 4.3 stock was the PERFORMANCE.
What I can't figure out is how come 300MB free RAM Lollipop is worst than 150 MB RAM JellyBean. Why? Xperia SP can't deal with ART instructions, it's Dalvik-only? I mean, OK, our developers have limited resources and most of them test their code on their own device, they have to be careful and not trying something risky; by contrast, Sony have unlimited resources to develop and tune their ROM. I know that, it's obvious, all my respect to XDA developers. What I'm trying to figure out is what's that bump in the road, what keeps X-SP Lollipop to be blazing fast? It's ART? It's drivers? I't Tangerine kernel, that most of us "married" with LP ROM's?
Thank you guys.

To be honest, you have answered your own question based on your newer question.
It is optimisation, man. 4.3 (or prior), those stock ROMs are made by Sony. Since it is made by Sony, you can expect a very great deal out of it, battery life, performance and all of those sweet things.
Since Sony lied to SP users and abandoned the SP with the last known version 4.3, we have problems on optimising ROMs because of no official blobs to refer to.
It has been until now. Everything is, thanks to the hard work of developers, our Xperia SP can still run newer Android versions while still maintaining the "blaziness" of the ROM.
Needless to say, its optimisations.
As always, you have the rights on which ROM to use, so choose the one that suits you.

Guys, I am thinking of buying Xperia SP to use with Cyanogenmod 12.1 instead of cheap budget phone like Motorola E 4G. Price for me is the same, actually SP is cheaper than Motorola E.
I like SP because fast CPU and GPU ( Adreno 320 ! ) so it's no slouch and it has official CM12.1 support. I don't want to use anything other than latest 12.1 but I'm worried about performance and battery. Is it really that bad ?
I cannot try out the ROMs myself as I have not bought SP yet.
Is any CM12.1 ROM stable, fast and with good battery performance ? I see you have custom kernels for CM12.1 but what is the Linux version - is it 3.10 or above ?
Does SP have heating issues and performance problems ( like so many claim here ) ? Or maybe that appears only after some years of usage ?
What about this screen flickering problem which seems to be present in all CM12.1 ? How bad is it ?
Thanks for your assistance !

"Does SP have heating issues and performance problems ( like so many claim here ) ? Or maybe that appears only after some years of usage ?" It has those issues, but I think it depends on certain devices. Mine for example overheats with any rom, no matter stock or custom, while there are people who never experience those problems. As for stock vs custom it's clear enough that stock is best optimised.

I tested a lot ROMS.
I like the OMNI ROM (Android 4.4.4). It's really fast and stable. Maybe you should try it.
I like also the Xenon HD ROM (Android 5.1.1). It's fast. Not so stable, but still very good..
After a few days it gets a little laggy. I´d liked to know why to. Faced the same problem with AICP.

I've had similar experience as you guys with lollipop custom ROMS. As much as I wanted to like them, after trying few, I have switched back to stock. Lollipop roms look nice, they offer more features and battery life is amazing compared to stock. However, none of the roms are stable enough to be used as a daily driver. After few days every single one of them refused to boot up, forcing my phone into recovery mode, so the only way out was to reflash. It has been a nice experience, but XSP is my one and only phone needed for communication, not a toy, therefore I need something that works and does it reliably. I think I'd just get a nexus or motorola when it's the time to upgrade.

bulanula said:
Guys, I am thinking of buying Xperia SP to use with Cyanogenmod 12.1 instead of cheap budget phone like Motorola E 4G. Price for me is the same, actually SP is cheaper than Motorola E.
I like SP because fast CPU and GPU ( Adreno 320 ! ) so it's no slouch and it has official CM12.1 support. I don't want to use anything other than latest 12.1 but I'm worried about performance and battery. Is it really that bad ?
I cannot try out the ROMs myself as I have not bought SP yet.
Is any CM12.1 ROM stable, fast and with good battery performance ? I see you have custom kernels for CM12.1 but what is the Linux version - is it 3.10 or above ?
Does SP have heating issues and performance problems ( like so many claim here ) ? Or maybe that appears only after some years of usage ?
What about this screen flickering problem which seems to be present in all CM12.1 ? How bad is it ?
Thanks for your assistance !
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No heating issues, I mean CPU gets hot sometimes (with not regard of the ROM installed), but it's all at thigh as 60°C. Most Android devices are well in specs on that thermal level.
Performance regarded. CM Vanilla or most of the 5.1.1 custom ROM - it's fast for the day 1, then it gets little sluggish, you'll have to boot to recovery and clear dalvik/art cache to refresh you device. If you don't need kernel level modifications I recommend you to stay with stock FOTA, Tangerine kernel might cause some screen or device freeze and stutter.
Years of usage to get slower performance? LOL We're talking about hours!
Display flickering (or getting yellowish) I guess it's hardware related - some X-SP never experienced it (mine included).

OK. Thanks for your feedback guys. I cannot test myself since I don't have device.
Do you think developer support is strong enough that they will manage to get Android 6 working properly on SP ?

big dilemma
Hi guys,
I have big dilemma what to do. My wife liked to buy the XSP because of the LED lights etc. She uses the phone mostly for calling, texting and music listening. As she has the Deezer premium acc I went in big troubles with XSP because the known bad memory management. More than one year she have bothered with it(and me too . After the 2years waranty ending I have decided to root, UBL and test custom ROMs. First we have tried the lightered stock ArchXperia, which was not helping us. Now she is since August on CM12 nightly. Yes, Deezer works good now, but on the other hand she is missing the stock Sony apps, working LED bar(with music), stock FM radio and generaly dislike the 5.1 Android (she is little bit old school, not likes many new things to learn).
Please, could somebody recommend to me any rom, which is stable, close to stock look (apps incl.) and has good ram management, that Deezer will work good, without memory issues?
Was it maybe wrong, that I have skipped the 4.4.4 Android over?
Many thanks in advance for any kind of tip or idea.

BPavel said:
Hi guys,
I have big dilemma what to do. My wife liked to buy the XSP because of the LED lights etc. She uses the phone mostly for calling, texting and music listening. As she has the Deezer premium acc I went in big troubles with XSP because the known bad memory management. More than one year she have bothered with it(and me too . After the 2years waranty ending I have decided to root, UBL and test custom ROMs. First we have tried the lightered stock ArchXperia, which was not helping us. Now she is since August on CM12 nightly. Yes, Deezer works good now, but on the other hand she is missing the stock Sony apps, working LED bar(with music), stock FM radio and generaly dislike the 5.1 Android (she is little bit old school, not likes many new things to learn).
Please, could somebody recommend to me any rom, which is stable, close to stock look (apps incl.) and has good ram management, that Deezer will work good, without memory issues?
Was it maybe wrong, that I have skipped the 4.4.4 Android over?
Many thanks in advance for any kind of tip or idea.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try a slim stock ROM, just as Binomical, based o stock JB 4.3. .207. It includes Williams kernel and that might do the trick with RAM management.

Yes, thank you, I was thinking about exactly this one... good to have the choice confirmed. Just installed, look forward to try it and test it on my wife

BPavel said:
Yes, thank you, I was thinking about exactly this one... good to have the choice confirmed. Just installed, look forward to try it and test it on my wife
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Or maybe you can check out the cm11 last build. Used to be on cm11 for a year with William's kernel and was pretty good. With some apps you can have the disco lights fully functional.

My Opinion: M vs N as of September 2016

Hi everyone,
Now that N is underway you might be wondering whether or not you should switch from M and I'm here to help you with that. Do keep in mind that I recommend everyone try everything for themselves. I'm just leaving my thoughts here to aid the undecided.
Should I drop CM 13 for 14?
Yes! Please do. Unless you use CMTE, I see no reason to not switch to CM 14. It's maturing at a really fast rate and is ready to be used as a daily driver in my experience. It's great for the majority of you. I recommend giving F-AOSP a shot too while you're at it considering the amount of time that went into getting it to work, and the simplicity of AOSP.
What if I'm using Sultans build/Sultanized RR?
I would stay honestly. His kernel is awesome, he's quick to fix things, and delivers a ROM in an entirely different league. Besides AOSPA and Citrus, it is the only ROM for the OnePlus X that is truly complete CAF right now, and it's great.
What if I don't like CM/AOSP?
We'll firstly, your a moron as every ROM ever uses them as a base. Secondly, stick to M if you need features. Most ROMs are going to be similar at this point if they're N based. Give them time to adopt features.
What if I work for the government?
And you bought an Onyx? Your an idiot. GTFO. Restore to stock lol. But seriously, a bug is expected here and there....
My recommendation
I switch ROMs incredibly frequently. I flash what I feel like. You have to try everything in order to find out for yourself however I can say without a doubt that...p
The winner, for me, is Cardinal AOSP
EVERYTHING is done subtly and really well. It's based on AOSP OMS and adds a lot of stuff that is cleverly put into place. It doesn't feel cluttered and it runs amazingly. Stick to the M builds for now as they are a proper representation of what @rohitporoli and Adarsh can accomplish. It's the pinnacle of what's been done, and I can't say that for most ROMs here. Citrus is their CAF counterpart with CMTE and it's great as well.
Honorable mentions
Zephyr by Sarthak Narang
Tesla/Tipsy/Validus by Martin Coulon
Exodus by RajaM
Dirty Unicorns by Rohit and Vatsal maintains his own with Tipsy trees instead of CM ones
PS
Use whatever build of CM 14 you feel like using. I used Sarthaks for testing personally, and it's held up well. Fabio did an excellent job on F-AOSP too, and Cardinal will take a while to be ready for prime time, but they'll get there!
Thanks for reading everyone, and as usual, enjoy!

I got bored, okay?

As funny as this may seem, I actually get the best performance (with less stutters, not gaming performance) with oxygen marshmallow (with a few kernel tweaks). I don't know if it's because it's odexed, but everything is very fast. Apps open quite faster than any custom rom (from what I read around, that is actually one of the advantages of being odexed). I tried cm14 and and aosp and initially everything seems great, but after a bit I start to get stutters. I really hate lags and stutters and probably are aware of minor stutters that don't bother 99% of Android users, I'm very picky. But honestly oxygen (and h2os) were the best roms for me. I think I tried nearly every rom there is for our device lol. Everyone on XDA is obsessed about battery life and I'm the opposite, I care mostly for a lagfree(and stutter free) experience, I don't care for a laggy phone with 10 hours SOT

migueldbr said:
As funny as this may seem, I actually get the best performance (with less stutters, not gaming performance) with oxygen marshmallow (with a few kernel tweaks). I don't know if it's because it's odexed, but everything is very fast. Apps open quite faster than any custom rom (from what I read around, that is actually one of the advantages of being odexed). I tried cm14 and and aosp and initially everything seems great, but after a bit I start to get stutters. I really hate lags and stutters and probably are aware of minor stutters that don't bother 99% of Android users, I'm very picky. But honestly oxygen (and h2os) were the best roms for me. I think I tried nearly every rom there is for our device lol. Everyone on XDA is obsessed about battery life and I'm the opposite, I care mostly for a lagfree(and stutter free) experience, I don't care for a laggy phone with 10 hours SOT
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Totaly agree. You covered almost ever I wanted to write.
Sent from my ONE E1001 using Tapatalk

@RJDTWO
Thanks for your opinion, much appreciated. But where can we find Citrus? I thought it'd be dead...

migueldbr said:
As funny as this may seem, I actually get the best performance (with less stutters, not gaming performance) with oxygen marshmallow (with a few kernel tweaks). I don't know if it's because it's odexed, but everything is very fast. Apps open quite faster than any custom rom (from what I read around, that is actually one of the advantages of being odexed). I tried cm14 and and aosp and initially everything seems great, but after a bit I start to get stutters. I really hate lags and stutters and probably are aware of minor stutters that don't bother 99% of Android users, I'm very picky. But honestly oxygen (and h2os) were the best roms for me. I think I tried nearly every rom there is for our device lol. Everyone on XDA is obsessed about battery life and I'm the opposite, I care mostly for a lagfree(and stutter free) experience, I don't care for a laggy phone with 10 hours SOT
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm at a school for around 12 hours. Lag free, I can agree with, but I gear my kernels for battery life in general. I don't like having to charge it every 3 hours of use. That's my explanation

bunnahabhain said:
@RJDTWO
Thanks for your opinion, much appreciated. But where can we find Citrus? I thought it'd be dead...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's on Rohits Android File Host

RJDTWO said:
It's on Rohits Android File Host
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can't find it

Bro, can you add your thoughts on the differences, pros and cons? haha

bunnahabhain said:
I can't find it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
https://www.androidfilehost.com/?fid=385026487222273352
---------- Post added at 11:32 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:29 AM ----------
I'm personally enjoying sultanized rr. Its a great balance between features of rr, stability and battery life of the sultan. Thanks to @romilprah for his frequent updates and support.

Tiongkia said:
Bro, can you add your thoughts on the differences, pros and cons? haha
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tonight I will do that