LG G3 D850 CM12 Lollipop nightly review - G3 General

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Related

Bloody G3 - I need to rant

I know this is going to sound very much like a first world problem, but this phone is frustratingly ****. It is easily the buggiest, slowest, most laggy phone I have ever had.
I have tried just about all the LG based ROMS, only to find that each one, although not buggy, are all laggy. The lag is so bad that it gives my old S2 on Gingerbread a run for its money. At least with Samsung phones, you could get rid of the lag by using a AOSP ROM and it would still be functional.
To solve the frustrating lag issue, I have installed a CM based ROM. At first I was delighted. The lag was gone. The phone was now comparable to my super fast Nexus 5. But after a few hours, I noticed the same bugs that every other CM based ROM user has. Today, I had to restart the phone six times FFS! It is a little more stable on 777 Kernel, but the same issues still persist.
Has anyone achieved bliss with this phone? Is there any ROMS, AOSP or LG based, that are fast, (Nexus 5 fast), and bug free?
Don't get me wrong, I love devs and the work they do. Without them, my old Galaxy phones, (S1, S2, S3, S4), would have been poo. My Nexus 5 would have been boring. (Stock android is meh). I just don't understand why this phone seems to have so many issues. Help me understand why it is so hard to develop a fast and reliable ROM for this phone. I know it isn't from a lack of trying. There is heaps of support and devs working on various ROMS in the G3 threads already and all of them are very talented.
Is it hardware based lag or is there something else inherently wrong with the phone?
Thanks for reading and offering any solutions. I don't want to list the ROMS I have tried, as it will seem like I am an ungrateful twat to those devs that worked so hard. Suffice to say, I have tried all the popular CM/AOSP and LG based ROMS.
Stock 5.0 V20H fine for me no lag [emoji3]
I switched to note 4 whilst g3 was good I had a better experience with my note 3. So upgraded
-= Note 4 & Gear VR =-
hashcheck said:
I switched to note 4 whilst g3 was good I had a better experience with my note 3. So upgraded
-= Note 4 & Gear VR =-
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't want to switch so soon. There has to be a solution. I love the screen and size of this phone. The only other phone I would consider is the droid turbo, but it's so bloody expensive!
DoobyDroid said:
Stock 5.0 V20H fine for me no lag [emoji3]
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Compared to what? Which other android phone have you used? In isolation, this phone is barely acceptable. Then, after you use a nexus, HTC or Sony phone, this phone is comparably slow. Almost unusable.
I can't bring myself to try stock again until someone who has other phones to base their claims on can confirm it is lag free.
cubic25 said:
Compared to what? Which other android phone have you used? In isolation, this phone is barely acceptable. Then, after you use a nexus, HTC or Sony phone, this phone is comparably slow. Almost unusable.
I can't bring myself to try stock again until someone who has other phones to base their claims on can confirm it is lag free.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried the usual tricks?
1. Swap out the stock launcher for something like Nova or Apex
2. Switch your keyboard to a 3rd party keyboard
While it does suffer from the random stutter, my phone is generally very zippy and does not lag.
Done all that. On stock based ROMS, stutter and lag is unbearable. My wife, nexus 5 user, even commented on how bad it is. I'm actually embarrassed to use the phone in front of people. I know it isn't a hardware issue, because AOSP ROMS are lag free, but not bug free.
Yeah, the phone is nowhere near as quick as a Nexus. The notification bar is also **** compared to stock Lollipop. There are a few tricks I use to improve performance on a stock rom:
1) Turn off throttling/thermal daemon via the service menu.
2) I use setCPU to set the phone to use the "performance" scheduler whenever the screen is on, locking it at 2.5Ghz.
Still isn't perfect, but it helps substantially. Obviously this is in addition to changing the launcher.
It's just one of those things. As you say, CM12 just isn't stable and worryingly seems to be going backwards, getting less and less stable with each passing nightly. The camera is also completely crap on AOSP roms. Nexus devices are great but the N5 is old and the N6 is too big and expensive. The S5 lags too, and while Note 4 is supposed to be good, but I simply won't believe that Touchwiz lag is gone without seeing it with my own eyes. Even if it has gone, Touchwiz remains the ugliest skin I've ever seen. Sony phones are nice, but they aren't packaged anywhere near as tightly as the G3, which is it's biggest strength: 22mm shorter than an iPhone 6+, with the same size screen. That's impressive. HTC's are just ridiculously large for a given screen size. The 1+1 is old now, and doesn't support all LTE bands used in the UK.
There is no perfect phone. Whichever you choose, there are compromises to be made. However IMHO the G3 strikes the best compromise available today, at least once running the latest Lollipop build and with the tweaks I mentioned above applied.
Had most 2014 flagships and G3 is deff fav so far, didnt have KK as updated to LP out the box had little lag after ota but common just needed a factory reset and all good since
Just a tip you can use on any android phone, go to settings, developer options, and set all the animations to 0.5x. This drastically reduces the time the animations take, and it gives a very snappy experience. It makes a LOT of difference, trust me.
No lag whatsoever here. Im running Chupachups newest rom with rin kernel. I've previously owned htc one, lg g2, xperia z1 and this phone definitely outperforms them all.
Ive owned the Xperia Z1, HTC One M7, and tbh id rate this better than both, i would like the battery life to be better my Z1 was amazing for that buh im custom stock rom and i dont get lag, everything is as it should be.
cubic25 said:
I know this is going to sound very much like a first world problem, but this phone is frustratingly ****. It is easily the buggiest, slowest, most laggy phone I have ever had.
...
Has anyone achieved bliss with this phone? Is there any ROMS, AOSP or LG based, that are fast, (Nexus 5 fast), and bug free?
...
Is it hardware based lag or is there something else inherently wrong with the phone?
...
.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Because LL is still unstable and buggy? And so is any rom based on it?..
Stock firmware sucks because of LG's software - it's very badly written. Almost as bad as touchwiz is. (I used SGS3, trust me on that one...)
AOSP/CM based firmwares are better, but they still suffer due do LL newness. Wait till android 5.1, things may become better.
There is also a hardware issue: unbelievably bad heat management. They used 8974ac, but had not made any cooling system. No radiators, no heat spread throughout the case, and it's facing LCD panel - which is a very bad radiator. GG WP, throttling kick in, phone starts to lag, etc etc etc.
I think there may be problem with your unit... Try to send it back to get a replacement or have it serviced.
Sent from my LG-D855 using XDA Free mobile app
I agree that most of the stock LG-G3 roms, Lollipop/Kitkat, if not rooted and without any mods, LAG is unavoidable. The case is, some people can't root their phones and most of them will try searching why G3 stock rom is lagging... if I'm one of them and I happen to see this post, I would feel bad and feel stupid at the same time why I spend money buying a crappy phone.
Well anyways, try Crash Rom v2.0. It is a stock based ROM like chupachups. The animation is not as fluid as CM but I won't say that it's lagging. Compared to CM, I have not yet encountered any bugs and mostly the camera is better. If you're interested you can also downgrade the resolution to 1080p, this will enhance your g3, 3d and 2d graphics performance.
Hi im all so on lollipop 5.0 updated out of the box and its all good maybe some lag not much to notice. Still no root method yet for stock lollipop 5.0 and i dont want to downgrade to kk so il have patience and wait for new root method for me g3
Wow, I went from the nexus 5, to the htc m8, to the g3 all in year. My advice, play with this one to get the phone lag gone. This by far is the best. Like a previous person said, turn off animations and change the launcher.
mab71 said:
I think there may be problem with your unit... Try to send it back to get a replacement or have it serviced.
Sent from my LG-D855 using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can't be an issue with the phone, as it is lag free with CM based ROMS.
marfioso said:
I agree that most of the stock LG-G3 roms, Lollipop/Kitkat, if not rooted and without any mods, LAG is unavoidable. The case is, some people can't root their phones and most of them will try searching why G3 stock rom is lagging... if I'm one of them and I happen to see this post, I would feel bad and feel stupid at the same time why I spend money buying a crappy phone.
Well anyways, try Crash Rom v2.0. It is a stock based ROM like chupachups. The animation is not as fluid as CM but I won't say that it's lagging. Compared to CM, I have not yet encountered any bugs and mostly the camera is better. If you're interested you can also downgrade the resolution to 1080p, this will enhance your g3, 3d and 2d graphics performance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll give crash a go this afternoon and report back. Hopefully 5.1 ROMS fix the issue too.
dspcap said:
Wow, I went from the nexus 5, to the htc m8, to the g3 all in year. My advice, play with this one to get the phone lag gone. This by far is the best. Like a previous person said, turn off animations and change the launcher.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Already done all that. Animations are turned off, launcher animations are set to lightning fast, CPU throttling is turned off. I've tried all the tricks in the book. Fact is, LG based software is crap, just like Samsung.
So far today, the lock-screen has only frozen on me four times, which is good.
I'm not sure if I'd rather put up with a laggy phone or a buggy phone.
My phone is currently on V20h. Apart from the occasional Home launcher crash, I've not had any lag that I notice of. The last time there was any lag was on V10i. My phone is rooted but is not running any mods.
Prior to this, I've had the Note 3 and Xperia S. Compared to the G3, I would say that the smoothness is at the very least, on par with the Note 3 running on stock.
I've seen people complaining about the G3 being laggy too. Is your phone by any chance the 2 GB RAM version?
My phone is the 2gb version, but I always have at least close to 300mb free. Sometimes I have over 1gb free. Not that it should matter though, as I have read on numerous places that the 3gb version lags too, and that both phones are very close on performance. The extra 1gb of RAM is negligible.
Just flashing Crash ROM now. I think I'm going to regret it though, as I much prefer the look of AOSP anyway.
Ah crap. Just as I flash the ROM, I read that the dev is stopping support for our device. Based on the comments, it looks like a promising ROM.

Stable Releases?

I hate to be a moaner, and don't get me wrong what you devs do is awesome, but I really can't seem to grasp why everyone puts so much focus towards making sure their s4 has the latest version of android on their phone, even though, it's not really anywhere near stable enough for convenient every day use yet...
You'd think people would be more on the lookout for roms that are fully stable and fully harness their phone's potential instead of constantly flashing builds that could ruin their afternoon suddenly because something broke unexpectedly that they're used to having work perfectly?
I get that there needs to be development and testing, and it's all great work that's being done, but seriously, is there only this little number of stable S4 builds?
I don't care what anybody says, I haven't tried an LP rom yet that's been 100% stable, something always breaks and leaves me rolling back to KK just to have more peace of mind
rynoism said:
I hate to be a moaner, and don't get me wrong what you devs do is awesome, but I really can't seem to grasp why everyone puts so much focus towards making sure their s4 has the latest version of android on their phone, even though, it's not really anywhere near stable enough for convenient every day use yet...
You'd think people would be more on the lookout for roms that are fully stable and fully harness their phone's potential instead of constantly flashing builds that could ruin their afternoon suddenly because something broke unexpectedly that they're used to having work perfectly?
I get that there needs to be development and testing, and it's all great work that's being done, but seriously, is there only this little number of stable S4 builds?
I don't care what anybody says, I haven't tried an LP rom yet that's been 100% stable, something always breaks and leaves me rolling back to KK just to have more peace of mind
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This things differ from user to user and phone to phone.
A rom might work 100% stable for me and might be very unstable for you. Happens all the time. I see users, running the same rom as me, who have issues that I don't have. Or vice-versa.
And I don't think "Stable" means necessarily bug free. I think it means more in the direction that it won't crash and won't give you random reboots, and that most of the stuff works (only minor problems).
People upgrade due to the performance improvements, battery life improvement potential and, possibly, because of new features and additions the rom and/or kernel has. And some people simply like to have the latest software.
If you have problems, you just go back to the previous version using the backup you (hopefully) made before flashing and wait for a fix.
So far I have run these roms: 5.0.1 GPE, CM12 Optimzed builds, SaberMod CM12 Builds, SaberMod CM12.1 builds and now Resurrection Remix, and haven't had any serious issues or issues that couldn't be fixed.
The only serious problem I ever had was with an early build of SaberMod CM12.1 where the sms app I was using (hello sms) kept crashing when receiving a message. This caused the notification to not show, meaning I could only see that I received a text message when I opened the app.
The most stable and bug free (for me at least) was Danvdh's 5.0.1 GPE rom.
rynoism said:
I hate to be a moaner, and don't get me wrong what you devs do is awesome, but I really can't seem to grasp why everyone puts so much focus towards making sure their s4 has the latest version of android on their phone, even though, it's not really anywhere near stable enough for convenient every day use yet...
You'd think people would be more on the lookout for roms that are fully stable and fully harness their phone's potential instead of constantly flashing builds that could ruin their afternoon suddenly because something broke unexpectedly that they're used to having work perfectly?
I get that there needs to be development and testing, and it's all great work that's being done, but seriously, is there only this little number of stable S4 builds?
I don't care what anybody says, I haven't tried an LP rom yet that's been 100% stable, something always breaks and leaves me rolling back to KK just to have more peace of mind
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's because you assume everyone wants a bugfree rom. Some people just want cutting edge technology. Also if something is a bug for you, it doesn't mean that someone else is annoyed by it.
And I have to disagree with you. There are plenty of roms that are stable running Lollipop. Look for example at the CM 12.1. It's ready for daily use and rock solid. Sure there are some minor bugs, but nothing that annoys me.
Bottom line: It comes down to personal preference.

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

EDIT: I've made my final decision, I'm not coming back to the G2 probably. A Stable ROM is much needed, especially on a recent version of Android. I'll have to give a bit more and opt for the G2. The feedback I got was amazing, thank you so much everyone!
ORIGINAL POST:
Hello,
I am looking forward to buying the LG G2 (again, I had the AT&T one with the bad signal bug - I'm getting the D802 now) and the only thing that is currently holding me back is the Custom ROMs. While right now, the G2 is at a great development state, I don't know how much this will be true in a few years when LG stops making updates for us. AOSP and CM based ROMs will be the only option for an up to date version of Android. The hardware is definitely capable of more than 3 more years of usage with a few optimizations here and there. However, my question is how is the experience on AOSP and CM ROMs compared to stock. How's the battery life? Is the audio worse due to the lack of those special drivers? I've heard the camera is awful, is it really that bad? I love the photos my G2 took and while I'm not someone that takes pictures often, I do like a great Camera for the vacations where I have some time to take photos. I'm especially concerned about all of this as my S2 USCC had an awful ROM development and wouldn't want to risk it all again. Not that Marshmallow wouldn't be fine for another 2 years, especially if we get Cloudy G2 4.0.
Thanks in advance,
Chris
AOSP 5.1.1 roms are just as good as stock in terms of everything except for camera quality. Battery life is stellar and all features work flawlessly without a single bug or app crash or anything. Try the latest SlimSaber for d802.
Thanks! I'll be definitely checking out SlimSaber when I get it. Is camera quality a lot worse or just a bit in your opinion?
AOSP is awesome. It is super fluid on the G2. I keep trying them out (Slim, RR, CM, DU etc) but there are always a couple showstopping bugs that send me back to stock:
• Random vibrations
• 5.1.1 bug: when screen is off, leave a WiFi zone and reenter the zone - the phone will not reconnect unless screen is unlocked (ie no push messages, whatsapp etc etc)
That's about it though. Camera is good, GPS works, QuickRemote with a bit of fiddling works great. But stock gives the full package still.
In my experience the only advantage of custom roms is customization - which isn't a huge advantage considering how customizable lg's roms already are. As far as stability and battery life, it depends on the rom - some are great, others( a lot) are downright unusable. At least with the stock rom you know that it will be stable with good(not exceptional) battery life. Since you mentioned that you take a lot of pictures, nothing beats stock since the developers that made it have access to proprietary data. If you have the time to mess with multiple roms over several weeks, go for it - you may find the one you're looking for. For me, stock does everything I need and then some so that's what I use.
Thanks for your response. As I am not someone that often switches ROMs due to me worrying that I'll lose data, I think I've made my final decision. See Original Post.
Awesome, thanks for the amazing info. I've made my final decision, see Original Post.

[Q] Bringing my N4 out of retirement

My current phone, HTC M8 has almost died on me. The speakers are shot and to be honest the battery is getting worse, it really isn't worth fixing considering it's beaten up condition.
For now I need speakers, so I'm thinking of digging out my mint condition Nexus 4. It is unlocked etc so it is ready for flashing away. The last rom on it was the fantastic Mahdi rom, but of course that was Kitkat.
I hate asking the best rom question, it's done to death and annoys people. So I'll ask a different way!!!
Would I be correct to assume Lollipop roms are likely the most stable, battery efficient roms or is the consensus that Kitkat was better? I won't mention Marshmallow as it's not "official". Oh wait, I just did!
Thank you.
Purenexus or chroma are very stable on marshmallow.
Thanks for that, will take a look later.
It will be like stepping back time firing up the old Nexus. Still a fantastic piece of hardware, quite ahead of it's time back then I think.
I would also recommend Chroma, Marshmallow works really well on the Nexus 4 even if it is not officially released for that device. I wouldn't go back to a previous version.
About Pure Nexus, personally I've had some issues with it. If I remember well it was Bluetooth audio playback stutettering and/or frequent WiFi disconnections. It was an older version however. Maybe it is fixed now.
Unfortunately, the developer is only going to be releasing one more update to Chroma for the Nexus 4 and that is it, so it doesn't make sense to install it . I am currently on Chroma and love it, so that is a shame. I think I am going to go with CM13 next.
After enjoying a 64gb storage phone, I just realised my old N4 was only an 8gb. That said, I don't recall ever running out of space. I don't do music, install many apps or store much junk such as pics so I might get away with it. I simply need a working phone for talk, text, mobile web etc.
Dirty Unicorns is a solid ROM..
For marshmallow I recommend Pure Nexus. The best I've used performance, stability and battery life wise, was Purity kitkat.
I would recmend Sailfish OS + sfdroid. You can run android apps and have the best multitasking out there. Sailfish OS is almost pure linux on your phone. It's faster then android and without sfdroid and google apps does not drain battery. You will have amazing battery life with just sailfish os on your nexus 4. Trust me i have nexus 4 with Sailfish OS only. It does 4 hour SOT at least with full day battery life.
Thanks for all the advice. The old N4 is now up and running, with the latest Pure Nexus. All is well, although it will take some getting used to not having bass speakers from the htc!
Good to have a working phone again. Hope it lasts a while until I can afford another phone or get my htc repaired. Might have a play around with different roms.
Anyone still on Kitkat?
Chroma, installed it in both my mom and brother nexus, no problem whatsoever.
The ROM isn't the only thing you can do to make the N4 up to "modern standards".
My advice is to find a ROM you like. I use DirtyUnicorns since it stills get updated regularly (but it sucks because they recommend you clean flash each time).
Next, flash the HellSpawn kernel (and control it with the Kernel Aduitor app, from the play store).
Then go find the latest Viper4Android app and flash that. This will boost your sound performance immensely (seriously, it's like a different phone) - note, if you get audio bugs then just increase performance in the kernel.
Finally, get some nice icon themes or layers so you can make it as you want it.
(for more advanced stuff, you can flash xposed as well and add some nice modules to improve the look and usage of the phone).
Oh, and AdAway!

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.

Categories

Resources