Database Users

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.

"Cleanest" ROM and most useful one

As in topic, what ROM is cleanest a.k.a. pure android? Is there something like Cyanogen for k3 note?
And which one in your opinion is most useful? (Like gestures, in-built applications, battery lifetime, performance etc.)
Is new VibeUI still loaded with tons of bloatware?

Kopytk0 said:
As in topic, what ROM is cleanest a.k.a. pure android? Is there something like Cyanogen for k3 note?
And which one in your opinion is most useful? (Like gestures, in-built applications, battery lifetime, performance etc.)
Is new VibeUI still loaded with tons of bloatware?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=66274565&postcount=5

Cyanogenmod 12.1 ST5 by Cheschkin the best for cm based rom . others you can search at needrom . almost 200 rom are there

I am currently happy with the Shenge s424 rom (twrp backup). Has both android stock and vibe UI launchers.
The latest one (was a thread here but its vanished) seems to not have the data connection issues of the earlier s424 update I had.. And all around its fast enough, light enough, feels like near stock android and battery seems ok in the last 2 or 3 days of testing..
The only 'odd thing' happen is I have had an issue where the battery reporting was wrong, eg either said it wasnt charging, or said (rapidly just a few minutes after a reported full charge) said it was near empty, but with a reboot then was full batt again.. This may be down to me using a biltzwolf high amp multi socket charger on my desk confusing the phone. I have used the stock lenovo charger since then and not had an issue so dont know if it was charger, rom, combination of factors or what yet.
All in all this ROM is fine for my daily driver.. Unless I find something serious with it, I will stay on this long term, its the first MM rom which has been 100% for me as I dont like the vibeUI ones.

I gave a try to vibeUI, even latest stable one, but it's a disaster. Bloatware everywhere, bad translations problems with connectivity while traveling (losing signal).
All I am looking for is simple ROM with very few but high quality applications, no bugs and decent battery use. Kinda like stock android. Is that Android 5 or 6, I don't care.

Best rom for xperia sp discussion

For users-
Hello everyone. xperia sp is old device with old functionality.
ram management is bad, shows 300 ram used while other phone with 1 gb ram dont have this issues.
touch issues and many other you people knows well.
there are a lot developers for xperia sp but which rom should i need to flash is a big question for me still now .
i am an old user of this phone.
this thread is a discussion thread welcomes all users share there experience or tweaks which they think should help each other.
please be friendly and help each other. this is only way to survive with this phone.
For Developers-
Hello Developers. we all love your work and this thread if you all take positively is for helipng the new users to not getting lost here.
i hope all will support.
please remember one thing before posting.
discussion is more about stability & features.

Hi
Please try all the ROMs, and eventually you will find the one that sorts out best for you. Mileage is vary for every person, and the "stability" is kind of a subjective placebo now, since the ROMs have been really mature thanks to the contributions of the developers in this marvellous forum. Basically what I am trying to say is that, it is now dependant on the user on how it feels about the particular ROM he/she is running..
I am a user of this device since December 2013.. It has been a really long journey, and I managed settle on a comforting setup.
This thread shouldn't be created under the Development subforum, but the General subforum instead.
Here, look at what i have in the attachments

Please avoid spamming in the development section :/

Hey there!,
There's always a lot of talk about the 'best ROM' and which one that is, and I get that question a lot via pm, meaning you're not alone on this one but I have a simple answer to that:
There's no such thing called the best ROM. Each ROM has different customization features, optimizations, etc. And the thing is, some people like customization and some like a stock feel. Also a few devices respond differently to different ROMs as well (strangely), some are fast and some are slow and horrible. If there was a 'best ROM', then other ROMs wouldn't exist.
In conclusion, if you want the best ROM, you're going to have to try a bunch of them and see which tailors to your needs the most.
Cheers
NOTE: You might want to contact a moderator and take down this thread or move it to General before Devs come running with pitchforks!

i won't repeat any talk from above because it's clear
no offense @Sam spancer but i reported this thread to moderator to move it to the general section
thanks for ur understanding
edit: thanks for the mod it has been moved (now it's in the right place)

Android Dev place is ze best place for things that are irrelevant. I'm probably going down along with this post because I can't do much these days

You know what the best rom is: multirom, so you can have them all!!

Arno is very correct!

Dear sp users this thread is for help. We should share what we experiencing with the rom.we have so for a person who is new here or want.to install a rom for daily use can have an idea about what to flash now. Thread will have rating feature also later.
Instead of critisizing or telling anything irrelevant does not help to any one.in any manner.
Guys instead of pasting that long messege is you would have said which rom.you.using and.how.satisfied.you are with that. Shared a little experience with other roms whould have helpd yet to a person who is about to.flash some thing.
If we do like this everyone.will be benifitted.

I stumbled upon this thread and it reminded me....that I'm yet to find "the perfect rom" for my xperia sp. I have this phone since April 8th, 2014. It's not the perfect phone, but I still love it as much as I did in day 1, plus it covers all my needs the way I want, so it's my daily driver, and it'll keep being so for a long time. Anyways, I've tried a.i.c.p. 10 (July 18th, 2015 being the best build of those I've used), which was fantastic. The multitasking is exceptional, the ram management is great (I'd say almost on par with the stock 4.1.2 - around 400+ mb of free ram), it was stupidly fast, super stable and also it had great built-in customization (imagine something like a built-in xposed framework or dirty unicorns' "dirty tweaks"). I was using this rom for around 3 months and was very pleased.
After around 3 months, I realised I miss the led bar's functionality level the stock firmwares offer (like, while making a call, if the display is on, the 3 leds will illuminate according to the theme color accent, also when recieving a call and the phone rings the leds illuminate again, etc.), so I reverted back to the stock 4.3, where I had begun with. However, after some time of using it, the stock 4.3 seemed somewhat....sluggish. I'd rooted it, removed all of the bloatware and was running a custom kernel (williams to be exact), so I was looking for a replacement. Having in mind that I didn't want to lose the functionality level of the led bar of the stock firmwares, so I looked for something based on that.
After a long time searching and trying out, I flashed the "original pure stock v3" rom, which is essentialy a quite trimmed-down version of the stock 4.3. I also made a Hatsune Miku theme as I admired (and I still do) the Japan-exclusive "xperia feat. Hatsune Miku" (here's a video about this phone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T751VmtMHPo) and its goodies, flashed a zip I found on xda that contained all the wallpapers (and the wallpaper changer that changes the phone's wallpaper everytime the phone is being unlocked), and also flashed williams kernel so I can have a better level of customization over my phone, and I was good to go. It was a better version of the stock 4.3, but still. Deep down I felt something missing......
Then I found the existenz ultra rom, which I found charming, and wanted to make my own version of the "xperia feat. Hatsune Miku" based on that. Flashed it, made the appropriate mods, and off I went again. This rom is actually stock 4.3-based, but with lots of xperia z2 goodies, so it's like having an xperia z2 with a led bar (which is working perfectly, the job done on that rom is quite good). After adjusting the ram management via the kernel adiutor and taking advice from a thread I found on these forums (if anyone's interested, take a look here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2751559), and of course, making the mods I wanted (mostly what I already described in the previous paragraph), I was in peace for quite some time....the ram management is around 300+/350+ mb free, so it's good I guess.
I'm currently rocking the existenz ultra, but I still feel something missing. I thought about reverting back to the stock 4.1.2 and its superb ram management (since I'm starting to have performance & compatibility issues with ppsspp - no idea if it's the app's fault or it's something else), but I'm not sure about that. I just don't know what to do anymore. The phone itself is awesome, but I've yet to find the appropriate rom to combine its hardware with. I'm looking for something that has the exact same led bar functionality of the stock firmwares, but also must be fast, smooth and that lets lots of ram free to take advantage of. If anyone has a suggestion, feel free to suggest. As for now, I guess I won't find peace until I find this "perfect rom".....anyway, these are my experiences with the phone. Hope I can actually help someone.

|>/\nte said:
I stumbled upon this thread and it reminded me....that I'm yet to find "the perfect rom" for my xperia sp.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I find my story with the SP just like yours, tryied many different roms and mods for this phone, finally the best 4.3 version for my SP I've found was the leaked version from Doomlord (don't know why, I've runed .207, 205, 266 etc, they all was lagging too much after a week or so. About "best rom thing" don't really know if its the best, but with RR[bugfree] 5.0.2, I was having 595mb free on ram at boot, and after a day of usage it stays in 535mb free. Unfortunately the rom itself lacks of a good optimizations, I am no developer not even close to one and I admire a lot what they do since the days with my galaxy i5500. If I have the knowledge I would take a closer look on that rom.

|>/\nte said:
I'm looking for something that has the exact same led bar functionality of the stock firmwares.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
From my personal experience that started in February 2014 (the month I rooted my phone) and ended in June 2015 (the month in which I made the definitive switch to CM based ROMs), and given what you said in the part of your post I quoted, I'd suggest you eXistenZ. Under the hood, it's Android 4.3, but all the userspace features and apps have been ported from Kitkat, and, last but not least, it's rock solid. All the ported apps and things you'll find there are completely stable. Also next month I might bring to new life the stock kernel by modding it a bit so users that decide to go back to stock will have much better performance and RAM management.

Tomoms said:
From my personal experience that started in February 2014 (the month I rooted my phone) and ended in June 2015 (the month in which I made the definitive switch to CM based ROMs), and given what you said in the part of your post I quoted, I'd suggest you eXistenZ. Under the hood, it's Android 4.3, but all the userspace features and apps have been ported from Kitkat, and, last but not least, it's rock solid. All the ported apps and things you'll find there are completely stable. Also next month I might bring to new life the stock kernel by modding it a bit so users that decide to go back to stock will have much better performance and RAM management.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you have free time and you're willing to do this, consider doing it, and you could also retrain good battery life too with this kernel you might make. Also, I'm currently running eXistenZ 4, but do you know if the black version is still based on 12.1.A.0.266 build? As far as I know it's based on that, and 12.1.A.0.266 is the worst build of all the ones that this phone had received.

|>/\nte said:
If you have free time and you're willing to do this, consider doing it. Also, I'm currently running eXistenZ 4, but do you KNOE if the black version is still based on 12.1.A.0.266 build? As far as I know it's based on that, and 12.1.A.0.266 is the worst build of all the ones that this phone had received.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've got no idea. But I'd suggest you to stay with the normal eXistenZ 4 you have already installed.

thanks for share
to start my story is also same
i started with flashing stock roms , stock roms are stable a lot. when we do a action it completes always in stock. but fastness and performance problem is always there no matter it is custom stock or pure stock.
i have used existenz, neildownx pure xperia and many more.
i still flash some time stock but i get annoyed by bad performance in 2 days , what i love in stock is battery and stableness.
now about custom i used mateoo cm11, bagy all rom, slim i love but except cm11 no one is stable.
i love slim but its not syalltable and problems it has are not acceptable.
cm12 or 13 i actually dont prefer.
used adrian cm13 rro
good but i didnt find it as a daily driver. tgere are some bugs in it.
many times i faced a situation when i am using custom rom and i am with frnds about to take photo and camera not opening at all.
system ui crash, whenever this happen i get very anniyed and flash stock.
i never flashed or used stock 4.1
can any one tell me how it is.
i dont care about frleatures or look. everything can be achievlved by xposed. what i ant it a stable blazing fast dailydriver rom .
currently i love cm11 latest by bagyuse and i live his work

Sam spancer said:
thanks for share
to start my story is also same
i started with flashing stock roms , stock roms are stable a lot. when we do a action it completes always in stock. but fastness and performance problem is always there no matter it is custom stock or pure stock.
i have used existenz, neildownx pure xperia and many more.
i still flash some time stock but i get annoyed by bad performance in 2 days , what i love in stock is battery and stableness.
now about custom i used mateoo cm11, bagy all rom, slim i love but except cm11 no one is stable.
i love slim but its not syalltable and problems it has are not acceptable.
cm12 or 13 i actually dont prefer.
used adrian cm13 rro
good but i didnt find it as a daily driver. tgere are some bugs in it.
many times i faced a situation when i am using custom rom and i am with frnds about to take photo and camera not opening at all.
system ui crash, whenever this happen i get very anniyed and flash stock.
i never flashed or used stock 4.1
can any one tell me how it is.
i dont care about frleatures or look. everything can be achievlved by xposed. what i ant it a stable blazing fast dailydriver rom .
currently i love cm11 latest by bagyuse and i live his work
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The stock 4.1.2 is dated, BUT: it has superb RAM management (you easily get 400-430 MB of free RAM - it's on par with KitKat and lollipop aosp-based ROMs), it's pretty fast and rock solid of course. If you're interested in great multitasking you can take a look at that. Bear in mind though that being a now dated version of Android some apps might not be compatible with it. Developers are starting to abandon these versions of Android but I suppose you'll be fine about that. If you want to try something different, give it a shot.

i don't know about doomlord leaked rom,, can anyone provide a link?
also currently I am using bagyuse cm11 latest.. smooth bt slow when one or two app I open, battery not best.
more suggestions for roms needed. also we should compare that stock or custom we should use.

I've been using Carbon LP with Helium kernel for a while. It's the best rom I've ever used so far, and the least problematic one. Fast, stable, bugfree. I've used lots of roms but almost every one of them had problems. But after 3 months of usage, carbon is still in a perfect state and it's fast as it's supposed to be. I strongly recommend that one.

i wanted a rom with all xperia features , and got one from a Brazilian .. the rom is fast and stock modified.. works at best level for me

electro_nik said:
i wanted a rom with all xperia features , and got one from a Brazilian .. the rom is fast and stock modified.. works at best level for me
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
can you link that rom?

Stock Based, Custom Rom - Opinion

I have had many phones starting back with Windows phones. With my Moto G4, I find that I can use apps with my rom and get almost all features of custom.
I use Xposed:, Gravity Box(GB), Battery Home, Xposed Torch, Boot Manager and Native Clipboard. I use Nova Launcher too. Battery life is excellent. Phone is responsive. I don't think a deodexed custom rom would do better. PIE is available with GB but I never use it.
I was thinking of trying CM 14. I tried Nougat on other device and, in my use, it has no meaningful advantages. I'm blocking updates to the MM rom. I'll wait a while to see what others might find.
I'm not a gamer. I would describe my camera skill as a snap shooter. Rarely do video. Have Snap Camera but haven't had patience learn it.
Unless Lenovo gets a much larger user base, I don't think that many custom roms will be done for this phone.

Yeah. With a clean enough android that is supplied with the phone, after flashing the stuff you mentioned, it gives a stable and smooth experience.
Unless you actually want to try the latest development I too don't see the need to flash every custom ROM out there.
Yeah ROM based on stock are distributed as well( intact I might try something myself after stable nougat comes) and it will be my go back to ROM. I'm pretty happy with unmodified CM myself.
Regarding the development side I think its happening fast enough recently with new builds coming online almost every week. Give it time we'll get more(I hope).

stock vs LOS. any advantages?

can someone who's using LOS comment on any advantages over stock? Now that we can install magisk and xposed on stock roms, is there any advantage at all to switch to LOS? How are the comparisons on battery life and speed?

Just got the phone couple days ago. I m not new to rooting and custom rooms. But I think it is better to stick with stock for now. At least for next 3-4 months imo. The phone already has Oreo and is very stable. Battery life is pretty good as well. Barely any lag, if any. I mean things just work and this is basically stock Android. IDK. Just my 2 cents. Unless something revolutionary happens in custom rom community I will be rocking stock for a while.

Generally people flash Lineage to get a more stock Android experience on their phones. The Essential already runs stock Android. The only advantage Lineage could possibly have while stock Android is still being updated on this phone would be whatever features Lineage offers that aren't included in stock Android. You can make the Essential faster by rooting the phone and flashing a custom kernel. You don't need a custom ROM to do that.
But there are significant disadvantages to installing Lineage on this phone. For one thing Lineage doesn't offer an official build for this phone. Unless something has changed over the last couple of days Lineage for this phone is only available as an unofficial build. That doesn't just mean no official support. Lineage doesn't sanction unofficial builds and there is no way of knowing if the build is poorly coded or not. Anyone can compile an unofficial build. You can watch a YouTube video and learn how to do it yourself. If someone making an unofficial build actually knows what they are doing there is a process with Lineage to make the build official as long as both the DEV and the build meet specific standards. Flashing an unofficial build of any ROM on any phone is a risk.
Then there is the fact that custom flashing on the Essential phone can reportedly lead to hard bricking the phone pretty easily. The a & b partitions make custom flashing a lot more difficult than on single partition phones and people with a lot of previous flashing experience have managed to hard brick their Essential phone within hours of taking it out of the box.
I don't personally think custom flashing on the Essential has enough upside to be worth the risk right now but it's your phone. Unless you don't mind turning your phone into a paperweight you should at least read the entire XDA rooting guide from beginning to end (including all of the comments from people who followed the guide) and also go through the Essential Telegram group which seems to be aimed at people who are flashing on the phone. That way you will have a good idea of what you are getting into and reduce the chances of bricking your phone.
Good luck whatever you decide.

Didn't flash lineage because heard about 360° isn't working so far...
For me an showstopper

AOSiP and Lineage run fine for me. Many bugs that need to be worked out, but they still run okay. Currently running stock however as I am trying to pinpoint what is killing my battery life. One day I am running great, the next I am leaking % left and right.

I can't stand stock rom at alllll. RR is the best the phone has ran for me. I can't stand the way touch works on stock, the scrolling feels like wading through molasses.
Plus true immersive mode. Honestly I see zero benefit to stock, but that's just my opinion.

RR is pretty far from the purpose and philosophy of LOS. LOS attempts to create a stock experience with some additional features. RR is for people who want to mod their phones with as many custom options as possible. I tried RR on my OP5 and wasn't a fan but I can definitely understand why someone who doesn't like stock Android would enjoy it. But the Essential phone is a terrible choice if you want to run custom ROMs. There's almost no development for this phone and I don't know if any custom ROM other than AOSIP even has an official build. If you want to run custom ROMs you would have been much better off with an OP5T. Not only are there a ton of official custom ROMs including RR but the phone is super easy to flash on and pretty much impossible to hard brick.

LOS runs smoother than the stock ROM and I it has more advantages.
LOS:
Immersive Mode : It's very easy to hide navbar and statusbar. That and an modded Youtube app and you are ready to really use the full screen. Not just till the notch.
It's very helpful in games too where you need apps or adb with the stock ROM.
Feel: It's just smoother and more responsive thant the stock ROM
Essential Apps works just normal
It has a few bugs like app dosen't start correct but stock rom can have that too and maybe it's just my installation.
Updater : You get many Updates and you can just download and install it in the background. Then you restart and you just installed an update without any waiting time.
Stock ROM:
It's official. You get updates that are suited to this phone and the softwar knows that there is a notch.

I'm on stock because all hardware works. I want full camera including 360 to work.

D4rk_nVidia said:
LOS runs smoother than the stock ROM and I it has more advantages.
LOS:
Immersive Mode : It's very easy to hide navbar and statusbar. That and an modded Youtube app and you are ready to really use the full screen. Not just till the notch.
It's very helpful in games too where you need apps or adb with the stock ROM.
Feel: It's just smoother and more responsive thant the stock ROM
Essential Apps works just normal
It has a few bugs like app dosen't start correct but stock rom can have that too and maybe it's just my installation.
Updater : You get many Updates and you can just download and install it in the background. Then you restart and you just installed an update without any waiting time.
Stock ROM:
It's official. You get updates that are suited to this phone and the softwar knows that there is a notch.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If there was an official build of LOS there would be a lot fewer issues. The unofficial build is probably just the ROM code auto compiled for this device with no further tweaks or fixes. You can do the same thing with any open source ROM. Have you tried AOSIP? I would think that would run better since it's actually official. That was also a solid ROM when I ran it on other phones. Not a lot of features but very stable fast and smooth.
Is updating a custom ROM difficult on this phone? Do you need to reflash the stock system image and TWRP on a computer or can it be updated like a simple OTA?
---------- Post added at 09:28 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:16 PM ----------
tech_head said:
I'm on stock because all hardware works. I want full camera including 360 to work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
360 isn't likely to work on any custom ROM because the code for it is probably proprietary. Phone manufacturers rarely release code for something like that. The camera code is probably the only thing on the Essential that isn't stock Android. This phone could easily run faster but Essential seems to have opted for better battery life in their stock setup. Google does exactly the opposite. They maximize performance so much that their phones run too hot and tend to burn out after a couple years. That's happened so far with the 5X, 6P & XL. Three flagship phones in a row dying from heat damage after a couple years is a pretty consistent track record.

When I was running LOS earlier this month the 360 camera worked...
Sent from my PH-1 using Tapatalk

jhs39 said:
If there was an official build of LOS there would be a lot fewer issues. The unofficial build is probably just the ROM code auto compiled for this device with no further tweaks or fixes. You can do the same thing with any open source ROM. Have you tried AOSIP? I would think that would run better since it's actually official. That was also a solid ROM when I ran it on other phones. Not a lot of features but very stable fast and smooth.
Is updating a custom ROM difficult on this phone? Do you need to reflash the stock system image and TWRP on a computer or can it be updated like a simple OTA?
---------- Post added at 09:28 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:16 PM ----------
360 isn't likely to work on any custom ROM because the code for it is probably proprietary. Phone manufacturers rarely release code for something like that. The camera code is probably the only thing on the Essential that isn't stock Android. This phone could easily run faster but Essential seems to have opted for better battery life in their stock setup. Google does exactly the opposite. They maximize performance so much that their phones run too hot and tend to burn out after a couple years. That's happened so far with the 5X, 6P & XL. Three flagship phones in a row dying from heat damage after a couple years is a pretty consistent track record.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You have NO idea what the hell you're talking about...
Shut up... Flash the ROM... Then give your critique... You obviously haven't done that...
The 360 cam has worked for months...
The only reason this device isn't official... Has to do with Jenkins and gapps...
Sent from my PH-1 using Tapatalk

rignfool said:
You have NO idea what the hell you're talking about...
Shut up... Flash the ROM... Then give your critique... You obviously haven't done that...
The 360 cam has worked for months...
The only reason this device isn't official... Has to do with Jenkins and gapps...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LOS has no quality control over an unofficial build. If it runs fine great. If 360 cam works even better. If I wanted to run a custom ROM I would have just stuck with the OP5. LOS was official on that device. I bought the Essential specifically because it runs stock Android. Buying a phone that runs stock Android and has virtually no development community so you can run a custom ROM on it doesn't make much sense to me but it's your phone.

LineageOS is great but it could be much better if we had a better Support with the essential phone.
It has many advantages.
I just installed the stock ROM and can say
- battery life is better with stock
- UI runs smooth enough but apps like Facebook runs better with Lineage
- Instagram runs better because I had the bug in Lineage that videos getting skipped while playing
- whatsapp voice messages sounds awful sometimes because the sound crackles (no problem with lineage)
- no expanded desktop mode with stock rom
Both have advantages and disadvantages.