CM7 v Stock - Xperia Play General

Hi all,
for the last couple of days i've been thinking about giving CM7 a try. i've only ever used stock based roms so far and just wanted to hear peoples thoughts on the comparisons between CM7 and stock SE roms and what sort of experiences people have had with CM7.
many thanks
tom

basically both are ok but if you want the most gamepad compatibility stick with the stock SE firmware as CM7 tends to have more issues

tommoose said:
Hi all,
for the last couple of days i've been thinking about giving CM7 a try. i've only ever used stock based roms so far and just wanted to hear peoples thoughts on the comparisons between CM7 and stock SE roms and what sort of experiences people have had with CM7.
many thanks
tom
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
CM7 basically removes the playstation from your playstation phone, i've tried CM7 a few times, but always gone back to stock.
Sent from my R800i using Tapatalk

I really like cm7 but not being able to play ea games or gameloft games with touchpads on cm7 was a deal breaker for me.

s1l3nt said:
I really like cm7 but not being able to play ea games or gameloft games with touchpads on cm7 was a deal breaker for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know what your talking about. I can play EA and Gameloft games on CM7 just fine. Feels no different than stock.
Sent from R800x

marwen817 said:
汉语可以留言不 。;。。。
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Reported!
Sent from my R800i using Tapatalk

AndroHero said:
CM7 basically removes the playstation from your playstation phone, i've tried CM7 a few times, but always gone back to stock.
Sent from my R800i using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So would you reckon that its not worth putting on given that i'll lose the features of the phone that were the main reason for me getting it in the first place mate?
Sent from my R800i using xda premium

tommoose said:
So would you reckon that its not worth putting on given that i'll lose the features of the phone that were the main reason for me getting it in the first place mate?
Sent from my R800i using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah thats the conclution i came too, on the other hand, if you don't game that much, CM7 is super fast and has some great features!
Sent from my R800i using Tapatalk

It's not that dramatic, you can keep playing emulators and many current games, without any issue. It's a bummer for Gameloft and EA games though.

i like stock more because touchpads are not fully working on cm7

thanks everyone, been reading thru some of the posts on the cm7 thread and people seem to have random glitches that, although they can also happen on stock, have swayed me towards sticking with stock firmwares. add to that the possibility that the touchpads will be iffy at best. again, thanks to everyone who took the time to reply and offer their views on the subject
tom
p.s. the leaked ics rom had nothing to do with what i decided on. honest guv

Interesting thread.
I was going to switch over to a custom rom but this has kind of put me off.
Is this just for CM7? (regarding controls)
I have this phone only because of the controls, but feel like I'm not getting the best out of it with the stock rom. What rom should I be looking at if any?
Thanks!

I got fed up with the amount of bloatware and things I never used running in the background, so I gave the FreeXperia PROJECT rom a go, so far I'm loving it.
The only issue is the touchpads BUT there are games that have that driver built in (Age of Zombies, THE DEAD: Chapter One), apart from GTA3 I've yet to find a game I like that uses them (Dead Space and Fifa not my cup of tea).
I mainly use FPse (touchpads not needed) and have truly fallen in love with my Play.
Each to there own though

I just got CM7 FXP054 fully working, and overclocked to 1.6GHz, on my r800x last night. The touchpads don't work on GTA III, but do work every other game I play. I'm loving it and I'm getting suprisingly great battery life. I still wish r800x users had more roms and kernels to choose from.

the touch pads in gta3, the left one changes the radio station and the right one moves your aiming when your zoomed in the sniper rifle, so they are pretty useless,would be nice if you could move the camera or look behind,maybe steer.
ive been thinking about flashing since i want to overclock to improve gta3 and just have a basic functions, never tried CM before, does doom kernel have working touchpads?

republicano said:
the touch pads in gta3, the left one changes the radio station and the right one moves your aiming when your zoomed in the sniper rifle, so they are pretty useless,would be nice if you could move the camera or look behind,maybe steer.
ive been thinking about flashing since i want to overclock to improve gta3 and just have a basic functions, never tried CM before, does doom kernel have working touchpads?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried GTA 3 while on CM7 and it didn't even recognise when the control pad was slid out thus forcing you to use on screen controls, may have been fixed in recent builds though, really hope that touchpads get fixed asap, as soon as they do, CM7 is my daily driver forever!

This is with FXP054
There are things about CM7 that I love: the non-sony themes throughout, customisation options built into the ROM, custom kernel (could NOT get custom kernel working on my stock ROM) AND MY BELOVED CRT LOCK ANIMATION
There were three issues for me though that stop me from using CM7:
1. Battery life is atrocious! I can actually see the battery percentage dropping during normal use, nothing out of the ordinary running and it just drains, from 15 minutes of facebook, 10 minutes of twitter, 1 hour of watching shows with Moboplayer the battery had 20% left from a full charge 4 hours ago. With stock ROM the battery will be about 65% after all that (daily routine)
2. Sound output just sucks. I plug the phone into my car stereo for my drive to/from work, no matter how much I play with the equaliser and all of the sound settings audio playback sounds bad. The bass is distorted and it's a lot quieter than stock ROM. I experienced this same sound output phenomenon with a different handset running CM7 so I think it's a CM issue
3. Automatic screen brightness doesn't seem to work at all

juzza87 said:
This is with FXP054
There are things about CM7 that I love: the non-sony themes throughout, customisation options built into the ROM, custom kernel (could NOT get custom kernel working on my stock ROM) AND MY BELOVED CRT LOCK ANIMATION
There were three issues for me though that stop me from using CM7:
1. Battery life is atrocious! I can actually see the battery percentage dropping during normal use, nothing out of the ordinary running and it just drains, from 15 minutes of facebook, 10 minutes of twitter, 1 hour of watching shows with Moboplayer the battery had 20% left from a full charge 4 hours ago. With stock ROM the battery will be about 65% after all that (daily routine)
2. Sound output just sucks. I plug the phone into my car stereo for my drive to/from work, no matter how much I play with the equaliser and all of the sound settings audio playback sounds bad. The bass is distorted and it's a lot quieter than stock ROM. I experienced this same sound output phenomenon with a different handset running CM7 so I think it's a CM issue
3. Automatic screen brightness doesn't seem to work at all
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The only problem of these that I'm experiencing is the last one. The auto-brightness is all over the place. My battery life is a little bit less but not enough to bother me, and I'm guessing that's from my overclock.

I started using CyanogenMod7 in Febuary last year. When I got my Play, I messed around with Stock ROM, and while it was slick, bloatware free and fast, and I was impressed, it lacked CM's little tweaks I had to have. The dodgy touchpad support is a nuiscance, but a minor one.

Leraeniesh said:
I don't know what your talking about. I can play EA and Gameloft games on CM7 just fine. Feels no different than stock.
Sent from R800x
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Noone besides you is able to. I gave the ROM you claim works with these games a try, and it didn't work at all for me.
I choose CM7 over stock since I don't play any games that are broken on CM. Would be nice if GTAIII worked, but it doesn't work well with stock, so I can give up that ghost until Rockstar better supports our device.

Related

Still using Enom's The Official. Anyone else?

I'm just curious. There are so many great ROMs out there for our nexus ones thanks to the fantastic devs. But my preference is still Enom's. I like stock builds so I've tried cyanogenmods and Geo's stock build as well. Great ROMs both. But at the end of the day my preference is still Enom's due to the ease of setting up a2sd and dalvik cache locations right from inside the modded spare parts, the ease of installing mods like FM radio, T-Mobile WiFi calling, dsp manager, HTC sense camera, audio boost kernel, HTC sense music and games, all right through the spare parts. I know that cyanogenmod can now do all these things (apart from apps2ext) but I like the implementation and ease in enom's. Also the ability to control CPU speeds and whatnot from spare parts as well.
The one thing which I don't understand though is performance. I'm not talking about benchmarks. I'm talking about noticing it in browser scrolling performance. Using dolphin mini in all ROMs. For some reason I find that Enom's ROM takes the cake there even over cyanogenmod. And I don't understand why. I'm using Enom's stock kernel and my CPU settings are very stock (998mhz max, 245mhz min, on demand governor). But scrolling on a webpage for most sites is like iPhone smooth on Enom's and the others is always very slightly stuttery. You have to really look to notice but the difference is there. This is with everything the same on all ROMs, flash on demand, text reflow not enabled.
Anyways just wanted to hear anybody else's opinions.
And Enom if you're listening, we miss you and your great work.
I am also still using the Enomther's rom
I think this is the fastest and the most efficient rom.
do you guys still watch vhs?
ksc6000 said:
I'm just curious. There are so many great ROMs out there for our nexus ones thanks to the fantastic devs. But my preference is still Enom's. I like stock builds so I've tried cyanogenmods and Geo's stock build as well. Great ROMs both. But at the end of the day my preference is still Enom's due to the ease of setting up a2sd and dalvik cache locations right from inside the modded spare parts, the ease of installing mods like dsp manager, HTC sense camera, audio boost kernel, HTC sense music and games, all right through the spare parts. I know that cyanogenmod can now do all these things (apart from apps2ext) but I like the implementation and ease in enom's. Also the ability to control CPU speeds and whatnot from spare parts as well.
The one thing which I don't understand though is performance. I'm not talking about benchmarks. I'm talking about noticing it in browser scrolling performance. Using dolphin mini in all ROMs. For some reason I find that Enom's ROM takes the cake there even over cyanogenmod. And I don't understand why. I'm using Enom's stock kernel and my CPU settings are very stock (998mhz max, 245mhz min, on demand governor). But scrolling on a webpage for most sites is like iPhone smooth on Enom's and the others is always very slightly stuttery. You have to really look to notice but the difference is there. This is with everything the same on all ROMs, flash on demand, text reflow not enabled.
Anyways just wanted to hear anybody else's opinions.
And Enom if you're listening, we miss you and your great work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Still on Enom myself. It just works, always. It never acts funky, no spontaneous reboots, no wonk, no chasing the latest nightly hoping some random bug is fixed..
I use CM7 on my tablet, but I need my phone to just work and it does rather well on Enom.
b1337 said:
do you guys still watch vhs?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Go play in traffic.
ksc6000 said:
I'm just curious. There are so many great ROMs out there for our nexus ones thanks to the fantastic devs. But my preference is still Enom's. I like stock builds so I've tried cyanogenmods and Geo's stock build as well.
....
Anyways just wanted to hear anybody else's opinions.
And Enom if you're listening, we miss you and your great work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Still on Enom's but I'm looking to switch to the Gingerbread.
I'm waiting for the next stable Cyanogen (without the so called wonk). I think I'll have to do a lot of tweaking to get it to the state I want. Enom's ROM needed very little to give me an aesthetically pleasing style. Cyanogen is pretty chaotic. (I think if it could be changed it was ... whether it needed to be or not!).
I'd like to find another ROM that was like Enom's in that it added sensible, useful enhancements and was still usable as a phone for everyday use... suggestions welcome!
khaytsus said:
Still on Enom myself. It just works, always. It never acts funky, no spontaneous reboots, no wonk, no chasing the latest nightly hoping some random bug is fixed..
I use CM7 on my tablet, but I need my phone to just work and it does rather well on Enom.
Go play in traffic.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
it was joke you douche go play with a horse ****
b1337 said:
do you guys still watch vhs?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Lol. No seriously though,
Are any of you noticing the performance difference? I mean try loading up androidcentral.com for example. And just scroll up and down. It's buttery smooth on Enom's ROM for me, whereas Geo's, Cyanogenmods, and the MIUIs are almost there, and to the untrained eye they are very smooth, but if you're looking for it, you can see the difference. (Using dolphin mini, no text reflow, plugins on demand).
vk2bea said:
Still on Enom's but I'm looking to switch to the Gingerbread.
I'm waiting for the next stable Cyanogen (without the so called wonk).
.....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The call wonk has been fixed for a few weeks at least now. The only glaring bug I have using build #87 is the lock screen wake/black screen, but that only takes 5 seconds till it turns right back on after waking it again. I don't know if that has been fixed but I have had no call problems at all.
b1337 said:
it was joke you douche go play with a horse ****
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're still here? Adults talking, go play outside.
khaytsus said:
You're still here? Adults talking, go play outside.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You sir are a ****ing idiot, get some more posts them talk **** u ****ing noob
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App
I mostly used enom till I moved over to the sgs2. That was before the wonk was fixed which I found pretty annoying. If it hadnt been for that I would have stayed on cm as it brought a lot to the table but for me the fundementals are important and one thing about enoms rom was that as already stated "it just works". I miss him and hope he got past the life issues he was facing.
krabman said:
I mostly used enom till I moved over to the sgs2. That was before the wonk was fixed which I found pretty annoying. If it hadnt been for that I would have stayed on cm as it brought a lot to the table but for me the fundementals are important and one thing about enoms rom was that as already stated "it just works". I miss him and hope he got past the life issues he was facing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agreed. 10char

Not another cm9 Thread!

No no, its not that. I just wanted to see how many people are using cm9, and how many tried it out but went back to cm7 and so on.
running it on my nook color. havent even tried it on my phone yet.
I tried CM9 and loved it, but CM7 is better as a daily ROM at the moment. Few more fixes to CM9 and I'll be moving over to it permanently.
I really like it Android keeps getting better every year
Exactly 45 people are currently using cm9. Exactly 23 went back to cm7 after trying it out.
* numbers reflect assumptions by the University of Sarcasm.
Aside from some visual tearing on videos and random discoloring in video recording it's running so perfect for me
Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk
my journy.. cm7 rc0 -> miui -> cm9 -> cm7 n34
I prefer miUI but cm7 just gets updated way more.. I feel like it has the latest everything while miUI is still based off of cm7 rc0..
I'll wait until more of the bugs are worked out. I'm still on stock GB (rooted BML) and it has been awesome for me. Battery lasts a full work day, I can go to work and come home with battery life to spare, GPS works without freezes, my music and videos work and play great, I takes great videos and still shots, and the few games I have on there (mainly to entertain my kids) work great too. There is nothing on CM9 as of yet that makes me want to switch until all the bugs get ironed out, which I know will be soon considering our devs have been cranking fixes as fast as lighting lately.
omair2005 said:
my journy.. cm7 rc0 -> miui -> cm9 -> cm7 n34
I prefer miUI but cm7 just gets updated way more.. I feel like it has the latest everything while miUI is still based off of cm7 rc0..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same here man!
wuts a cm9?
To be honest I have 4 ROMs on nandroids that I switch from at least once a day. I play with CM9 for a couple of hours in the evening trying to get it all set up the way I would like it but it seems signal strength is really poor for some reason. It shows wifi strength as poor 1 room away from my router. My other nandroids are CM7, Sleeper EL30 2.03, and Legendary MTD converted RC2.1.
kennyglass123 said:
To be honest I have 4 ROMs on nandroids that I switch from at least once a day. I play with CM9 for a couple of hours in the evening trying to get it all set up the way I would like it but it seems signal strength is really poor for some reason. It shows wifi strength as poor 1 room away from my router. My other nandroids are CM7, Sleeper EL30 2.03, and Legendary MTD converted RC2.1.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I wish nandroids didn't take up so much space, otherwise I could do that lmao.XD lol I used cm9, till I reinstalled the app I used to IM my girlfriend and realized it didn't support ICS -.- so restored cm7 backup lmao
Sent from my SPH-D700 using xda premium
Fire n mage said:
I wish nandroids didn't take up so much space, otherwise I could do that lmao.XD lol I used cm9, till I reinstalled the app I used to IM my girlfriend and realized it didn't support ICS -.- so restored cm7 backup lmao
Sent from my SPH-D700 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
4 ROM nandroids and 2 older ones take up about 4GB on a 16GB card. I trimmed down all the bad pix on my card and the backups some ROMs leave when installing and have 5GB left over on the 16GB card.
omair2005 said:
my journy.. cm7 rc0 -> miui -> cm9 -> cm7 n34
I prefer miUI but cm7 just gets updated way more.. I feel like it has the latest everything while miUI is still based off of cm7 rc0..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't really have that much time. I'm busy and doing a lot of work just to do the minor fixes that happen every week isn't really worth it for me. V4 should be better for updating, but realistically not much changes week by week anyway.
Zeinzu said:
Aside from some visual tearing on videos and random discoloring in video recording it's running so perfect for me
Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same here. CM9 has been dam near perfect since I installed it, it even seems to work better than CM7 did on my phone.
Really bummed over the video issues, but I think I may just live with it, as I rarely use video, I mostly take pics.
CM7 just didnt bring enough to the table to make me make a perm change from Legendary RC 2.2 w/ MTD, (which was flawless) but with CM9, I just cant get myself to restore my Legendary backup. Video issues are the only bug that matters (at least to me), and the rest of it was just so much better, I think CM9 is here to stay. Given how great it is now, I cant wait to see what it looks like in a month or two (which seems like a lifetime away, but will be here before I know it)
I can't believe my CM9 wish list has been reduced to:
Video recording fixed (major)
Built in theme support fixed (minor, given I was able to apply a theme by hand)
TV-Out enabled (yah, I know, I'm dreaming)
FM Radio (not needed, just would be cool)
So, with 2 of the 4 items being wishful thinking items, and themes being just a matter of time for it to added in, that leaves a single fix for me to have a flawless (IMO) CM9
I feel as giddy as a schoolgirl!! WOOT!

MeDroid ICS Official discussion thread!

As said in my other thread, we shall do the discussion of this ROM here so we don't bother the devs anymore!
What do you think of this ROM? I think it's really awesome.
It runs well for my purposes, though it's guaranteed to reboot on my phone when using Navigation which is unfortunate.
Great rom, good for daily usage. Even the Illico mobile app is working flawless for Canadian Videotron carrier.
Nicjfry said:
Great rom, good for daily usage. Even the Illico mobile app is working flawless for Canadian Videotron carrier.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Samauz states this ROM as alpha, but it feels more than that because of its incredible stability and of course usability
I moved to this one after trying out the Evervolv one since that one kept SoD'ing.
So far it's running really great.
I have used Samuaz's CM9 build for a long time now and I haven't ever experienced the screen of death bug. Not once.
mad props
Been using this Rom for a while now and I really have to admit that it does not feel like an alpha at all. But it's far away from being a final or RC.
But nonetheless it's good enough to work as a daily driver. Almost everything is working fine and it's quite smooth. Especially the new ia2sd is awesome.
But it has its downsides. I have a lot of random fc's and apps behaving strange. It may not be a Samuaz specific problem but an ICS problem. But it starts bugging me as hell.
And some features I really like at CM7 are not implemented or fully working yet. Most of them are really small things like no battery percentage in the notification bar (Battery Widget works as a workaround). But they add up.
Once I overcame the "wow-ics-on-n1-smooth-and-awesome"-feeling I started thinking about switching back to CM7. I just miss the stability of CM7 and the incredible smoothness. Don't get me wrong. This Rom is neither unstable nor stuttering (I actually get my highest quadrant scores so far with Medroid CM9) it just didn't reach the level of CM7 yet.
But I'm sure it will. A new kernel which makes full HWA possible seems to be on its way and with every version the rom is getting better.
Pommes_Schranke said:
Been using this Rom for a while now and I really have to admit that it does not feel like an alpha at all. But it's far away from being a final or RC.
But nonetheless it's good enough to work as a daily driver. Almost everything is working fine and it's quite smooth. Especially the new ia2sd is awesome.
But it has its downsides. I have a lot of random fc's and apps behaving strange. It may not be a Samuaz specific problem but an ICS problem. But it starts bugging me as hell.
And some features I really like at CM7 are not implemented or fully working yet. Most of them are really small things like no battery percentage in the notification bar (Battery Widget works as a workaround). But they add up.
Once I overcame the "wow-ics-on-n1-smooth-and-awesome"-feeling I started thinking about switching back to CM7. I just miss the stability of CM7 and the incredible smoothness. Don't get me wrong. This Rom is neither unstable nor stuttering (I actually get my highest quadrant scores so far with Medroid CM9) it just didn't reach the level of CM7 yet.
But I'm sure it will. A new kernel which makes full HWA possible seems to be on its way and with every version the rom is getting better.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Let's say we get full hwa tomorrow or sometime near tomorrow, I still feel it will take a long time to really optimize it for every aspect of our N1's. I mean, in ICS now, we need to prioritize making things works before optimizing them. Know what I'm saying?
I switched back to CM7 today for a brief moment but I quickly got bored of it. Will try later today though. It feels great not having to switch hboot as CM7 (at least Samuaz's build) plays nicely with it
I'm not concerned about the extra system space or so because with the 1gb ext4 partition, there's nothing to complain about ^^
Awesome rom... fast and stable... trebuchet launcher bis easy but apex launcher is better band faster... try TO install on System/appari tor better experience
Inviato dal mio Nexus One usando Tapatalk
SIP and T-Mobile Web2Go issues
I have had just a couple of issues.
One is that when I upgraded from CM7, I guess something flagged in my T-Mobile account. I have the $10/month data plan ("Phone First Web" aka Web2Go). While everything was peachy before I upgraded, now I can not get the data connection to work. Set up the same settings APN-wise as in CM7 and it just tells me the plan doesn't work with my phone
I tried flashing back to CM7 to no avail. So it must be a flag in my account or something.
The other problem that I had is that my SIP setup doesn't work anymore. I don't know if this is a problem with ICS, the ROM, or something in my SIP setup (pbxes.org/IPKALL/GVoice). I do know, that before upgrading to this ROM, it all worked fine. Again, I tried flashing back to CM7 and it didn't fix it. So I don't know if it is something about upgrading to ICS or what...
Update:
My SIP stuff started working again. So, I guess it was an issue with my setup.
I was also doing some reading and saw that apparently a lot of people are having the Web2Go thing crap out with their Nexus One. It seems that T-Mo finally caught on and is actively preventing N1s from using the Web2Go plan. Good news is that there is another $10/month plan available. Bad news is that it is only 200MB/month. For me, that's fine, since I use WiFi most of the time anyway. The unlimited option is $25/month (still cheaper than the Android plan, I believe).
As far as the ROM goes in general, I love the look and feel. The new recent applications is great as is the new browser interface.
eLar19 said:
Awesome rom... fast and stable... trebuchet launcher bis easy but apex launcher is better band faster... try TO install on System/appari tor better experience
Inviato dal mio Nexus One usando Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't see apex launcher in the market. where do you get it?
SiNJiN76 said:
I don't see apex launcher in the market. where do you get it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
here on XDA... link
try it, is very fast... a little bit heavy then trebuchet, but i like this... put the apk in system/app on the internal memory using a root explorer
I think Nova Launcher is the best ICS launcher
i will try nova launcher
eLar19 said:
i will try nova launcher
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1389071
Been trying this room since a long time ago. Awesome, except some random reboots and fcs. Switched to MeDroid cm7 when I wanted to stabil and smooth rom, and got my best quadrant there: above 2400. Switched back to this room when I wanted to feel new features of ICS. Overall, quite happy with this rom.
Sent from my Nexus One
Awesome rom, I use it since at least a month and it's great.
I just have an issue in these days about the new Cyanogen Music app, it drains my battery a lot.
Anyone know a tip to replace it with the original one? I tried to remove it with Titanium backup and install an apk of the original Music that I found on web but it FC.
I can't report the drain/ask in the developer too cause of my low post-counter.
Ikos said:
Awesome rom, I use it since at least a month and it's great.
I just have an issue in these days about the new Cyanogen Music app, it drains my battery a lot.
Anyone know a tip to replace it with the original one? I tried to remove it with Titanium backup and install an apk of the original Music that I found on web but it FC.
I can't report the drain/ask in the developer too cause of my low post-counter.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
PowerAMP maybe?
Ikos said:
Awesome rom, I use it since at least a month and it's great.
I just have an issue in these days about the new Cyanogen Music app, it drains my battery a lot.
Anyone know a tip to replace it with the original one? I tried to remove it with Titanium backup and install an apk of the original Music that I found on web but it FC.
I can't report the drain/ask in the developer too cause of my low post-counter.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The original music app in 4.0 is available in the market as "Google Music."

GB to ICS and back - mini review

My month with a factory unlocked Galaxy S2​
Bought this in mint condition from a friend for about half price with only 1 hour of use, an unwanted upgrade. Came with 2.3.4 as expected, so hooked up to Kies; no update at the time. As is my wont, I used the phone for a few days to get to grips with TouchWiz (TW) and the phone generally. All quite reasonable, no stability issues and TW is not bad by any means.
My thoughts and trials so far then:
Hardware
Well made, light and thin. Slippery, so a black rubbery skin bought and fitted and I popped a spare 8GB microSD card in, not that the phone needs it for my purposes.
Only criticism is the OLED screen, I'm used to higher resolution (Moto and Sony) and 800x480 looks rather "cheapo" in terms of detail on a screen this large, but no deal breaker. What I do find somewhat at odds with the price of the phone is the slight but noticeable shading and colour tints across the screen at low brightness levels and on some backgrounds. Plus, the screen's legibility outside on a bright day is no better than more run of the mill LCD screens. (I mean cheaper!)
My first GB update
I generally root phones straight after flashing a new firmware version, if it isn't already. I had already successfully rooted the original stock 2.3.4 firmware with Zergrush 4 and debloated that ROM.
I was keen to try a later GB version before trying ICS, and I found 2.3.6 for "Open Europe" on Sammobile and downloaded it. I had already tried Kies, so the USB drivers were present and working. I uninstalled Kies on the PC but left the USB drivers alone. Kies and Odin are not good bedfellows. I did a full factory reset on the phone and erased everything, allowed it to reboot and then powered off, got in to download mode and flashed XXKL1 (which is an engineering version and deodexed it seems). Rooted it via Zergrush 4, deleted known bloat and renamed possible bloat to xxx.bak to clean the ROM for my own usage, and deleted that very annoying start-up sound. Downloaded all the apps I normally use (about 22 of them), including the excellent CPU Spy to check for deep sleep.
I used/charged the phone over the next couple of days to let the OS bed in. No problems encountered at all, and a very pleasing battery life of 30+ hours of light use, with syncing and GPS, 3G, WiFi always on and occasional BT. Magic! Only thing I did is change the Modem to LPR - the KI3 Modem that came with the ROM is not quite as good at holding weak signals. Only just though...
My first ICS update
So, good phone, stable and very usable ROM in 2.3.6. Time had come to try this new ICS thing. Downloaded the LPQ version and installed it, after a full wipe, via Odin. Not impressed by all the automatic installation rubbish at first boot... Rooted via a hot boot CWM and SU/Busybox successfully and did all the same debloating and app installation as GB 2.3.6. Spent some time getting orientated and used to the new menus and so on.
Over the next day or so, I let the ROM settle and began using the ROM - I changed the Modem to LPR as LPQ was not as good, perception wise. ROM was stable and usable, didn't really look or feel much different from 2.3.6 and was worse on battery - I would say 18 hours at best with the same usage pattern.
Absolutely hate the new Exchange thing for live.com email.... real pain usability wise and battery unfriendly.
My second ICS update
So, not overly impressed with LPQ, although it was usable, I decided to try LP7, the UK generic one. Went through the same process as above, and again swapped the Modem from LPS (awful!) to LPR.
No obvious differences at all. Battery life was as poor, but it was usable.
My first CM trial - CM9
So, somewhat disillusioned by Samsung's ICS implementation, I decide to look around for another "mature" ROM. CM9 fitted the bill (I have used CM6 before on another phone) and was smack bang up to date in terms of kernel, AOSP and G Apps. After my usual clean deck start, installed fine, 23/04 build.
At first, I was quite impressed as I could configure more and to my liking. The ROM was stable and I set the phone up with the usual Apps and deleted some useless stuff (like GenieWidget).
Swapped Modem out to LPR - bit of a theme going on here...
I liked the fact that the Spirit FM radio worked (so bought the Pro version as it is that good). The ROM is very usable and never got bogged down, BUT, for reasons I never fully determined, the battery life would start OK and then decline faster during the day. I never saw more than 12 hours life, again using as per my normal pattern and after a few days to settle. There appeared to be various background activities going on that were preventing deep sleep sometimes, but BBS was not really showing me what. Note that I only use BBS as a last resort as it can increase battery use...
No other real problems, but the soft key backlights wouldn't play with NoLED and were somewhat counter-intuitive. A bit trivial, but a mess.
My second CM trial - CM7
I like GB, it is mature and well understood, so CM7 RC 2 was therefore of some appeal. It had been developed over months and must therefore be fairly sorted. Surely.
Installed without issue on a cleaned platform as usual, including G Apps. Did the usual debloat and installed the usual Apps from the Market/Play, and some that were missing, like GMail. LPR modem was already there, Hooray! Spent rather longer fiddling with the settings in CM7 than CM9 since they were less obvious at first, to me anyway.
Switched off and put the phone on wall charge overnight and was rather shocked to find the phone was noticeably warm and displaying "Kernel Panic" in the morning. The phone had only charged by about 5% in total (to 64%). Worry Worry. I put the phone on USB charge until 100% without incident.
Started to use the phone as normal, the phone UI and operation was very good, fluid even. But, first problem I had was in the car. I paired BT fine, as usual, and made a phone call. After the call, I couldn't end the call on the car or phone - it had locked up. Oh dear.
Later, I tried the FM Radio during my daily walk - doesn't work, so why is it there? I tried Spirit FM - no way would it work. Oh dear.
The following day, I noticed that the battery life was amazing! I had never seen this phone sip juice like this. Deep sleep was always easily achieved. That was until the afternoon. I noticed that the battery level was declining at a much higher rate than earlier. I hadn't done anything different, so BBS was called in again. Nothing obvious shown but I kept seeing the GPS icon winking at me from the Notification bar, and continually. I always keep GPS on, but for some reason on this ROM, no GPS signal meant the ROM just kept trying. I played with various settings like Location etc. and managed to stop this odd behaviour, but this was too silly. I use a Smartphone for all the smart features. This wasn't very smart at all.
CM7 was my biggest disappointment of all the above ROM trials. It was the lightest and most promising, and yet the least reliable or functional. Which is a huge shame...
Today...
I'm now back on KL1 2.3.6, and it just works fine - day after day.
The future for me?
I would really like to use CM9 (or CM7 for that matter). They represent a number of ideals for me, including the open nature of development, the collaboration, a pioneering spirit and giving users a choice and a superb base to build on. I am no developer - I can split and modify kernels to a point, I can rehash ROMs with or without adb, I can amend frameworks. But little more.
Reserved for "tips and hints"
Avoiding problems
Always data reset and wipe before doing anything major from one ROM to another, or follow the installation guide for any specific differences in approach.
Avoid Titanium Backup like the plague - it invariably leads to functional issues later if you cross flash. Use Google and/or airdroid for everything, it all just works. So many friends and other forums I contribute to have had too many backup issues to count. Go clean. Forget about Google paranoia.
ES File Explorer is very useful and recommended.
Don't bother "calibrating" the battery - it's an outdated practice and useless. Just use the phone normally, and anyone who claims the battery life is "great" 1 hour after flashing a newly announced ROM is a fool. Likewise NEVER fully discharge a Li-Ion battery. Just keep topping it up. See here: http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_charge_when_to_charge_table
Thoughts
Newer ROMs are rarely better ROMs. Better means different things to different folk of course.
ICS ROM core LPQ to LP8 are largely all the same, just variants of the same thing for different markets. Some users believe they perform differently.
Custom kernels and ROMs are always work in progress and should be treated as such. Check out the number of revisions. Some kernel cookers are (welcome) enthusiastic amateurs that assume more is better and cram "fixes" in that the professional salaried software engineers have mysteriously missed. If you only need your stock kernel to be insecure, learn how to make it so. You are running Linux on your box, right?
Deodexing is not a means to improve performance, on the contrary.
Undervolting is a mythical beast
I bought a phone with an FM radio because I want to use it!
And I totally agree. to all of it. Tried all iterations of almost all roms available. For some reason keep going to my VR 3.0 nandroid back up.
Except CM9, I don't really think there is any real development going on. Most are just cooked up roms OR stuff taken from the CM9 tree and implemented OR so called fixes that have actually broken something else OR just debloated rooted official firmware (that AFAIK is pretty easy to do with the fantastic dsixda's kitchen or on a rooted rom).
Now fanboy's may flame as much as they wish to, but seriously a stable CM9 (hopefully..!) or a VR 4.0 is all I am willing to wait for.
Till such time VR 3.0 it is.
LenAsh said:
Reserved for "tips and hints"
Newer ROMs are rarely better ROMs. Better means different things to different folk of course.
ICS ROM core LPQ to LP8 are largely all the same, just variants of the same thing for different markets. Some users believe they perform differently.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't agree with your final thought. Different ics rooms have really different feels. E.g. Look at scrolling from lpq to lp7.....and there are numerous others as well. If u want more specific thoughts and feedback, just browse through different ics threads in this section..
omeryounos said:
I don't agree with your final thought. Different ics rooms have really different feels. E.g. Look at scrolling from lpq to lp7.....and there are numerous others as well. If u want more specific thoughts and feedback, just browse through different ics threads in this section..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm... I have browsed through the sections, and tried various "revisions" or versions of Samsung ICS today while jotting this lot down, and my view, honestly, is there is no real difference. That isn't to say there isn't, I just can't see or feel it. I do accept that playing with 3 ROMs in a few hours is less than ideal. And a drag!
I suppose if someone could deconstruct the ROMs properly and thoroughly...
Anyway, thanks for your thoughts, appreciated.
Very nice review! +1
Keep up the good work
I broadly agree with the OP.
ICS/AOSP/AOKP/CM9 have improved over the last few weeks, but I'm back on GB, and will probably stay with it until I get the SGS3.
May be subjective, but for me the GB stock browser, camera and dialler are streets ahead of what the rest can offer. Scrolling is smoother too. And I like/need a radio.
B3311 said:
I broadly agree with the OP.
ICS/AOSP/AOKP/CM9 have improved over the last few weeks, but I'm back on GB, and will probably stay with it until I get the SGS3.
May be subjective, but for me the GB stock browser, camera and dialler are streets ahead of what the rest can offer. Scrolling is smoother too. And I like/need a radio.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Seems like you and the OP only tried the AOSP/AOKP roms? Give the roms based on the latest official a try.
The dialer is still as good as always (unchanged), camera is actually improved with higher bitrate recording and the ics stock browser...is untouchable at the moment in my opinion. (Granted I use "ICS Browser+" from the market which uses the best ui in a browser I've encountered)
I currently use Dynamic's ICS rom and it would be extremely difficult for me to go back to GB at this point.
Sigurd02 said:
Seems like you and the OP only tried the AOSP/AOKP roms? Give the roms based on the latest official a try.
The dialer is still as good as always (unchanged), camera is actually improved with higher bitrate recording and the ics stock browser...is untouchable at the moment in my opinion. (Granted I use "ICS Browser+" from the market which uses the best ui in a browser I've encountered)
I currently use Dynamic's ICS rom and it would be extremely difficult for me to go back to GB at this point.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
While I agree that in terms of loading websites, ics default browser is a little bit faster, scrolling and pinch and zooming is much smoother with stock gb browser. Also the dialer is worse on ics as it has removed the contacts section which means I have to put both the dialer and contacts shortcut on the dock.
I'm using Wanamlite v11.1, Siyahkernel v3.1, and Apex Launcher.
A winning combination in my opinion, that is now at least as good as the best GB ROMs in terms of battery life. 7 hours standby with 30 minutes screen time and i'm still on 87%.
In terms of fluidity and performance I think ICS /w Apex beats GB handsdown.
Thanks for the recommendation, but I avoid ROM mix ups, I can do that myself. The ones I have looked at have had some very dubious scripts and additions. I usually look at build.prop first, and generally find all sorts of hybrid attempts at adding stuff that is completely wrong. Lines taken from websites, other phones and so on.
LenAsh said:
Thanks for the recommendation, but I avoid ROM mix ups, I can do that myself. The ones I have looked at have had some very dubious scripts and additions. I usually look at build.prop first, and generally find all sorts of hybrid attempts at adding stuff that is completely wrong. Lines taken from websites, other phones and so on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Depends, it was like you say in Gingerbread days, not with ICS WanamLite nor Dynamic, only tried these + CM9
I am using Dynamic 1.4 LP9, it is as smooth and fast as CM9, but everything working because it is Samsung based
I tried the included NEAK and Speedmod kernels, similar performance and very good battery life, only 3% drain overnight, I dont play with processor tweaking
Sigurd02 said:
Seems like you and the OP only tried the AOSP/AOKP roms? Give the roms based on the latest official a try.
The dialer is still as good as always (unchanged), camera is actually improved with higher bitrate recording and the ics stock browser...is untouchable at the moment in my opinion. (Granted I use "ICS Browser+" from the market which uses the best ui in a browser I've encountered)
I currently use Dynamic's ICS rom and it would be extremely difficult for me to go back to GB at this point.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dialer is laggy if you compare it with GB. CM9 variants have slightly more response dialers but overall, GB dialer is way more responsive. There is a small but noticeable lag when pressing a key and the time it takes to register on ICS (CM9 & stock).
Camera recording with stereo voice recording...! Seriously how many people do shoot video with a phone's camera? For facebook uploads mono audio is just fine..
Browser is a definitive improvement yes, and the desktop mode is welcome but browser mods have been available on GB since long.
It is not that ICS is bad. It is actually very good, but the way it has been implemented on S2 is downright ridiculous...! And not one stable vanilla build isn't really helping..
kranti2064 said:
For some reason keep going to my VR 3.0 nandroid back up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is something I have been contemplating for quite some time now, quite possibly the last month. The only real thing stopping me is that for some reason alot of games (eg dead space and modern combat 3) don't seem to like it when i change roms, and even though all the ingame data is there, sometimes it decides I have to re-download.
I do miss it alot though.. and also red pill kernel
I might end up doing a backup of current my CM9 and take the plunge sometime soon. I've been using CM9 since around feb and lately I think my interest has plateaued and now I'm just beginning to get frustrated with little lags that are popping up more frequently (probably due for a wipe mind you!). The only thing about villiam rom is the bloody touch wiz launcher.. I just don't like messing with the launcher roms were made for either.
kranti2064 said:
Camera recording with stereo voice recording...! Seriously how many people do shoot video with a phone's camera? For facebook uploads mono audio is just fine..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mass lols to be had at the fact that a majority of the time they would be played on the device through the mono loudspeaker too
I also go back for GB..becoz i feel that ics so laggy at dialer,and PES2012 freeze and cant play on ics..but in GB all working great..
Daripada galaxy s2 non-G
melorib said:
Depends, it was like you say in Gingerbread days, not with ICS WanamLite nor Dynamic, only tried these + CM9
I am using Dynamic 1.4 LP9, it is as smooth and fast as CM9, but everything working because it is Samsung based
I tried the included NEAK and Speedmod kernels, similar performance and very good battery life, only 3% drain overnight, I dont play with processor tweaking
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
kranti2064 said:
And I totally agree. to all of it. Tried all iterations of almost all roms available. For some reason keep going to my VR 3.0 nandroid back up.
Except CM9, I don't really think there is any real development going on. Most are just cooked up roms OR stuff taken from the CM9 tree and implemented OR so called fixes that have actually broken something else OR just debloated rooted official firmware (that AFAIK is pretty easy to do with the fantastic dsixda's kitchen or on a rooted rom).
Now fanboy's may flame as much as they wish to, but seriously a stable CM9 (hopefully..!) or a VR 4.0 is all I am willing to wait for.
Till such time VR 3.0 it is.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Currently trying ninphetamine kernel (as per VR3 - thanks for the heads up) on my fave stock KL1 more for interest than anything. Seems OK, no obvious difference from stock running as is apart from it being insecure, need a couple of days to evaluate in real life use.
Bloody good post. I've been using CM9 since the video recording bug was solved, and thats probably the longest I've used any ROM on the SGS2, I really like AOSP but the problem is it does still have quite a few bugs, and isn't quite as fast or as battery friendly as I remember the likes of Hyperdroid v6 being.
This makes me tempted to go back to GB. For me, it is still the ultimate for a daily driver. But I'm lazy so I'll probably stick with CM9.
kranti2064 said:
Dialer is laggy if you compare it with GB. CM9 variants have slightly more response dialers but overall, GB dialer is way more responsive. There is a small but noticeable lag when pressing a key and the time it takes to register on ICS (CM9 & stock).
Camera recording with stereo voice recording...! Seriously how many people do shoot video with a phone's camera? For facebook uploads mono audio is just fine..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ICS dialer laggy , doesn't happen to me on stock LP9 or Dynamic based on LP9 and CM9 is as smooth as they come. Whilst mono audio is fine for you I quite like having stereo audio. Choice, not limitations my friend
tameracingdriver said:
Bloody good post. I've been using CM9 since the video recording bug was solved, and thats probably the longest I've used any ROM on the SGS2, I really like AOSP but the problem is it does still have quite a few bugs, and isn't quite as fast or as battery friendly as I remember the likes of Hyperdroid v6 being.
This makes me tempted to go back to GB. For me, it is still the ultimate for a daily driver. But I'm lazy so I'll probably stick with CM9.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cheers for that - I would definitely recommend the 2.3.6 KL1 off Sammobile if you want a solid GB.
Dude, if you have not tried CheckRom RevoHD V6, then you have not tried the BEST gingerbread rom for sgs2.
This is why I can not use ICS (yet). Checkrom is just too perfect of a Rom.
Try it, tweak it to your liking, use it for a week or 3 then try and go back to stock.
CheckRom XDA thread

Speedup Tweak on CM10.1 emmc

Hi Guys,
I'm new to this forum. Recently bought a refurb HD+ for ~90 bucks on Rakuten. Played around with stock for 10 mins and then decided to get rid of it because it was irritatingly slow. Got CM10.1 on the emmc quick and easy, wayy better than stock B&N ROM (great job devs!)
Anyway, to get to the point, CM10.1 is still somewhat laggy in the homescreen, transitions and in app scrolling. Then I flashed the following zip made by the folks out in the GSII forums
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2360985
There are two versions of the mod available, I flashed the CM version.
Everything is so much faster now! Scrolling, animations all feel zippier. Maybe you guys can check it out and perhaps include it in a future ROM if you think it has anything more than a placebo effect.
PS: In case you guys don't like the mod there's an uninstall package in the linked thread on page 16.
will it drain more battery ??
williamlaw said:
will it drain more battery ??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm still testing it out, but it doesn't seem to be draining much more battery than usual. I've also put this mod on my one x and atrix HD phones, the mod actually seemed to improve battery life on both devices.
lolkat123 said:
I'm still testing it out, but it doesn't seem to be draining much more battery than usual. I've also put this mod on my one x and atrix HD phones, the mod actually seemed to improve battery life on both devices.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ok, thanks !!
let's try on my nook hd+, but seems not support 4.3, cos network broken after flashed on my n7
Wow, sounds great! I'm a little bit scared of flashing it. Can you guys update on your battery life and stability after applying this? I'll keep an eye out on this thread. Also, how would one remove it if it doesn't work out so well? This sounds very promising.
I turn animations off, so not an issue for me. The device still lags anyway, if you put one app or two hundred. Same lag issues. 1080p, 723mb non allocated ram and the 4470 do not mix well. Maybe it would have done better with 1GB more ram.
Thanks - just tried it against several synthetic benchmark tools and games.
Improvements vary between apps, but its definitely there - no placebo effect here.
Bench tools tried:
- Antutu gained 300 of 9600, not much but it's there.
- Quadrant gained 10%
- Basemark gained slightly more.
- Epic Citadel now gets 43fps at default high performance setting.
Sprite/blitz based games seem to improve a lot for my case;
- Vincent is one (not really a game, but its a fun stress-reliever, useful after reading garbage comments on forums, LOL)
- Shopping Cart Hero is another one. Very smooth, no more lag.
- Candy Crush, a big smoother, but not as much as the other games I tried.
Less noticeable effect on GPU-exclusive games like RR3, Crazy Taxi or MC4
No comment on UI improvement since I disabled all animations and only has 1 home screen.
I just flashed this, and seems to work well so far.
will update again though.
Thank you!!
I flashed the CM version and now my HD+ keeps booting into CWM when I press reboot system. And yes I am using verygreen's emmc ROM. I wonder what I'm doing wrong?
EDIT: Nevermind, flashed it again and it works, gonna take it for a spin now ... wow working very well so far (I noticed as soon as I swiped through my homescreens, UI has a lot less lag now), thanks for the heads up OP!
What is the point of this if you can simply turn off animations in dev mode? Is the lag when activating apps gone? Seems a bunch of settings not indigenous to the hardware could create issues as well as perhaps help some.
rushless said:
What is the point of this if you can simply turn off animations in dev mode? Is the lag when activating apps gone? Seems a bunch of settings not indigenous to the hardware could create issues as well as perhaps help some.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I always have all animations off on all my devices. (Main reason why I left iOS)
Still getting noticeable improvements with pure perf installed.
How is the battery drain in sleep mode?
looks good so far
I've not had much time with it after flashing this zip, but so far it has improved responsiveness when going quickly from app to app. It took a while after reboot for things to settle in (was a bit jerky at first), but it now wakes up faster and is less laggy throughout the UI. I usually get 3-4hrs per 1% drain when in sleep (wifi-on), so I should be able to tell right away if this is better or worse.
Anyone try this with Carbon?
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda app-developers app
jpisini said:
Anyone try this with Carbon?
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did, worked well but had a few FCs on the tweaked Carbon edition.

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