[Q] Bringing my N4 out of retirement - Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

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!

Related

LG G3 D850 CM12 Lollipop nightly review

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

JellyBean vs Lillipop / Stock vs Custom

First of all, this is not a childish "versus" topic to flame fanboys spirits. I just need some technical understanding of some issues.
So... I've run four or five Lollipop 5.1.1 custom ROMs on my C5303, including CM, AICP, XenonHD, Mokee. All are great and fast and developers made a tremendous job. Not all of them are so friendly with Tangerine kernel (I need a custom kernel for increasing in-calls phone volume), per instance, Mokee hangs and struggle like hell. AICP works well with T-kernel, but with some issues (reported by users), when the device will freeze for a few seconds. XenonHD loves T-kernel - no problem at all!
Still, all of these fantastic custom ROMs , with or without custom kernel, are sluggish compared with stock 4.3 Sony ROM. I've made a nandroid backup in TWRP of my XenonHD - T-Kernel installation and installed Binomical SLIM 4.3 base don stock. Just for the heck of remembering the Sony UI, I intended to restore XenonHD soon after. I'm still on Binomical 4.3. Man, this is FAST! This is a blazing rocket compared with any of the Lollipop ROMs!
On Lollipop ROMs I've had ~ 300 MB free RAM, on stock 4.3 (OK, deodexed and slim) I only have 150 MB, but Sony's ROM is way faster and smoother. It really looks like I have a completely new device in my hand. How is this possible? Why? The hardware drivers? Is X-SP really not able to handle Lollipop in a decent manner?
XDA developers worked so hard to gave us the Lollipop ROMs, and I praise their work, but looks like X-SP best choice is still the old JellyBean 4.3.
Agree.
All lollipop roms are really fast in the beginning but after sometime,it begins to lag and become slow and sluggish.I have tried many lollipop roms but always returned to stock rom.It's been 2-3 months that i'm on stock and didn't flashed any other rom.
dude flash latest cm12.1 nightly nd ull forget stock
4.1.2>4.3>5.1.1
I dont think this, i not know what version you test of aicp and xennon, thes lasts versions of aicp are laggy and xennon has battery drain sometimes, but the others no, all depends of the rom, have lollipops roms laggy and have lollipop fast roms, have kikkat laggy roms and have kitkat fast roms, and the same of all android version, the rom stock have good performance but battery drains, now i in miui 7, performance and battery are awesome
I NEVER had battery drains on stock ROM. Yes, lots of bloatware on official stock , but not battery drains. I also didn't encounter battery drain on any of the Lollipop ROM's I've tried - AICP stable and about 10 version of nightlies, CM, XenonHD latest and Mokee. Yes, those were not so "green" as stock, but nothing so horrible, maybe 10-20% less battery power than stock. The issues regarding battery were on calibration of the battery percentage, per instance it used to go downward normally till 6%, then, bang!, the telephone turned off with 0% battery all of a sudden. Anyway, this is a insignificant issue, I don't care if I'm gonna recharge battery one hour earlier, the real problem that brought me back to 4.3 stock was the PERFORMANCE.
What I can't figure out is how come 300MB free RAM Lollipop is worst than 150 MB RAM JellyBean. Why? Xperia SP can't deal with ART instructions, it's Dalvik-only? I mean, OK, our developers have limited resources and most of them test their code on their own device, they have to be careful and not trying something risky; by contrast, Sony have unlimited resources to develop and tune their ROM. I know that, it's obvious, all my respect to XDA developers. What I'm trying to figure out is what's that bump in the road, what keeps X-SP Lollipop to be blazing fast? It's ART? It's drivers? I't Tangerine kernel, that most of us "married" with LP ROM's?
Thank you guys.
To be honest, you have answered your own question based on your newer question.
It is optimisation, man. 4.3 (or prior), those stock ROMs are made by Sony. Since it is made by Sony, you can expect a very great deal out of it, battery life, performance and all of those sweet things.
Since Sony lied to SP users and abandoned the SP with the last known version 4.3, we have problems on optimising ROMs because of no official blobs to refer to.
It has been until now. Everything is, thanks to the hard work of developers, our Xperia SP can still run newer Android versions while still maintaining the "blaziness" of the ROM.
Needless to say, its optimisations.
As always, you have the rights on which ROM to use, so choose the one that suits you.
Guys, I am thinking of buying Xperia SP to use with Cyanogenmod 12.1 instead of cheap budget phone like Motorola E 4G. Price for me is the same, actually SP is cheaper than Motorola E.
I like SP because fast CPU and GPU ( Adreno 320 ! ) so it's no slouch and it has official CM12.1 support. I don't want to use anything other than latest 12.1 but I'm worried about performance and battery. Is it really that bad ?
I cannot try out the ROMs myself as I have not bought SP yet.
Is any CM12.1 ROM stable, fast and with good battery performance ? I see you have custom kernels for CM12.1 but what is the Linux version - is it 3.10 or above ?
Does SP have heating issues and performance problems ( like so many claim here ) ? Or maybe that appears only after some years of usage ?
What about this screen flickering problem which seems to be present in all CM12.1 ? How bad is it ?
Thanks for your assistance !
"Does SP have heating issues and performance problems ( like so many claim here ) ? Or maybe that appears only after some years of usage ?" It has those issues, but I think it depends on certain devices. Mine for example overheats with any rom, no matter stock or custom, while there are people who never experience those problems. As for stock vs custom it's clear enough that stock is best optimised.
I tested a lot ROMS.
I like the OMNI ROM (Android 4.4.4). It's really fast and stable. Maybe you should try it.
I like also the Xenon HD ROM (Android 5.1.1). It's fast. Not so stable, but still very good..
After a few days it gets a little laggy. I´d liked to know why to. Faced the same problem with AICP.
I've had similar experience as you guys with lollipop custom ROMS. As much as I wanted to like them, after trying few, I have switched back to stock. Lollipop roms look nice, they offer more features and battery life is amazing compared to stock. However, none of the roms are stable enough to be used as a daily driver. After few days every single one of them refused to boot up, forcing my phone into recovery mode, so the only way out was to reflash. It has been a nice experience, but XSP is my one and only phone needed for communication, not a toy, therefore I need something that works and does it reliably. I think I'd just get a nexus or motorola when it's the time to upgrade.
bulanula said:
Guys, I am thinking of buying Xperia SP to use with Cyanogenmod 12.1 instead of cheap budget phone like Motorola E 4G. Price for me is the same, actually SP is cheaper than Motorola E.
I like SP because fast CPU and GPU ( Adreno 320 ! ) so it's no slouch and it has official CM12.1 support. I don't want to use anything other than latest 12.1 but I'm worried about performance and battery. Is it really that bad ?
I cannot try out the ROMs myself as I have not bought SP yet.
Is any CM12.1 ROM stable, fast and with good battery performance ? I see you have custom kernels for CM12.1 but what is the Linux version - is it 3.10 or above ?
Does SP have heating issues and performance problems ( like so many claim here ) ? Or maybe that appears only after some years of usage ?
What about this screen flickering problem which seems to be present in all CM12.1 ? How bad is it ?
Thanks for your assistance !
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No heating issues, I mean CPU gets hot sometimes (with not regard of the ROM installed), but it's all at thigh as 60°C. Most Android devices are well in specs on that thermal level.
Performance regarded. CM Vanilla or most of the 5.1.1 custom ROM - it's fast for the day 1, then it gets little sluggish, you'll have to boot to recovery and clear dalvik/art cache to refresh you device. If you don't need kernel level modifications I recommend you to stay with stock FOTA, Tangerine kernel might cause some screen or device freeze and stutter.
Years of usage to get slower performance? LOL We're talking about hours!
Display flickering (or getting yellowish) I guess it's hardware related - some X-SP never experienced it (mine included).
OK. Thanks for your feedback guys. I cannot test myself since I don't have device.
Do you think developer support is strong enough that they will manage to get Android 6 working properly on SP ?
big dilemma
Hi guys,
I have big dilemma what to do. My wife liked to buy the XSP because of the LED lights etc. She uses the phone mostly for calling, texting and music listening. As she has the Deezer premium acc I went in big troubles with XSP because the known bad memory management. More than one year she have bothered with it(and me too . After the 2years waranty ending I have decided to root, UBL and test custom ROMs. First we have tried the lightered stock ArchXperia, which was not helping us. Now she is since August on CM12 nightly. Yes, Deezer works good now, but on the other hand she is missing the stock Sony apps, working LED bar(with music), stock FM radio and generaly dislike the 5.1 Android (she is little bit old school, not likes many new things to learn).
Please, could somebody recommend to me any rom, which is stable, close to stock look (apps incl.) and has good ram management, that Deezer will work good, without memory issues?
Was it maybe wrong, that I have skipped the 4.4.4 Android over?
Many thanks in advance for any kind of tip or idea.
BPavel said:
Hi guys,
I have big dilemma what to do. My wife liked to buy the XSP because of the LED lights etc. She uses the phone mostly for calling, texting and music listening. As she has the Deezer premium acc I went in big troubles with XSP because the known bad memory management. More than one year she have bothered with it(and me too . After the 2years waranty ending I have decided to root, UBL and test custom ROMs. First we have tried the lightered stock ArchXperia, which was not helping us. Now she is since August on CM12 nightly. Yes, Deezer works good now, but on the other hand she is missing the stock Sony apps, working LED bar(with music), stock FM radio and generaly dislike the 5.1 Android (she is little bit old school, not likes many new things to learn).
Please, could somebody recommend to me any rom, which is stable, close to stock look (apps incl.) and has good ram management, that Deezer will work good, without memory issues?
Was it maybe wrong, that I have skipped the 4.4.4 Android over?
Many thanks in advance for any kind of tip or idea.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try a slim stock ROM, just as Binomical, based o stock JB 4.3. .207. It includes Williams kernel and that might do the trick with RAM management.
Yes, thank you, I was thinking about exactly this one... good to have the choice confirmed. Just installed, look forward to try it and test it on my wife
BPavel said:
Yes, thank you, I was thinking about exactly this one... good to have the choice confirmed. Just installed, look forward to try it and test it on my wife
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Or maybe you can check out the cm11 last build. Used to be on cm11 for a year with William's kernel and was pretty good. With some apps you can have the disco lights fully functional.

[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.

Should I upgrade to Android M?

I'm asking this question because I want input from users who did upgrade and I'm not sure if I need the upgrade or not.
I'm currently going by the logic: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." I'm quite happy with how Android L with the stock Kernel works on my device and after looking at the features that Google advertises for M I discovered that I can live without most of them.
I'm mostly interested in the new battery management system, app permissions, overall performance improvements in apps and general usage and some misc things like the new copy/paste thingy.
So let's say that of all the above, I'm mostly interested in the new battery management system. How well does it in you experience work? How much more usage do you get out of your phone? Do the new Doze and App Standby features really work as well as Google advertises them?
Also how stable is Android M on the Nexus 4? This is the main thing that is keeping me from upgrading. I would rather stay on stock then get a few new features that may or may not work well or even worse, get a phone that crashes every 5 minutes.
I'm currently looking to use the Pure Nexus Project ROM (because I want the pure Google experience) and the TAURUS Kernel (heard a lot of good things about this Kernel and it works well with the ROM I've chosen by the reports of some users).
So what do think? Is it worth it to upgrade to M or should I wait for the next major Android version?
Thank you for reading.
I have been using One Of A Kind ROM (OCT 31, Build) and it has been rock solid for me. My phone's battery definitely lasts longer than stock Lollipop ROM. We are talking a couple of hours extra. The Doze feature works well, there is very little battery drain on standby. You will see that from battery stats. You will be waiting for a while until next iteration of Android. As you know Google has stopped supporting Nexus 4, it will be at least few weeks to a month before we get anything going for our beloved Nexus 4. Even then, the stability won't be guaranteed.
I think there are a few stable ROMs out there. Back up everything and give it a try. Worst case scenario, you go back to what you had.
I tried M, and I am not going back to Lollipop.
Yes, you should. Doze makes a difference for me, and the permission stuff is always useful to have. If you find yourself confortable with stock L, then you should flash "stock M", which is, in my opinion: Fake Nexus ROM.
I had same doubts one month ago, and I tried with a few ROMs out here, searching for stability, battery life, without compromising performance. I stopped on the ROM I linked you, try it!
Thank you both for your input.
I have decided to not upgrade for the time being.
It does have noticeable improvements, the system is smoother, battery life is longer (you should probably install Grennify to further improve the new Doze mode and App Standby functionalities),
and it comes with app permission control.
With regard to stablization, I have been using the PureNexusProject rom and the TAURUS kernel for nearly a month, no reboot no crash, no bizarre behaviors, everything seems fine and I really enjoy it.
I personally recommand you to try it, anyway it's the new Android!
I'm loving android M, Doze is really working to me!
So I think you should give it a try.
LORD MJ said:
Thank you both for your input.
I have decided to not upgrade for the time being.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why?
TheArt. said:
Why?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For a number or reasons. It's mostly that I'm happy how things are working right now and I don't have time to upgrade. Also, I don't have enough space to fully backup my apps.

My first!

Ive been using the moto x 2013 for some time now. I was going to get a S4 or G2, I just cant stand how big the new flagships are these days. I finally ended up on buying a oneplus x. Ordered 2/29 and should arrive today 3/2....pretty fast shipping I think!
Im excited to try it out. I do like CM but going to wait for a stable official CM 13. Ive never tried oxygen, any tips or tricks to make it better? Any bugs that I should be aware of?
Thanks.
Enjoy with oxygen os . Few minor things are there but nothing which hampers normal usage. I wouldn't point it out now because then you will specifically look out for those issues. Enjoy it, its a nice experience and with oneplus team working hard on, it will get better .
If you look for customization,mod and seemless experience, we have dedicated, awesome developers who are continuousuly working on Kernels, ROMs and other stuff . I had not thought of this fast development for this phone. Definitely a great feeling.
mario24601 said:
Im excited to try it out. I do like CM but going to wait for a stable official CM 13. Ive never tried oxygen, any tips or tricks to make it better? Any bugs that I should be aware of?
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Personally, I prefer CM13 over Oxygen. It's stable enough for using it as my daily driver. I've tried every rom available for the OPX and always go back to CM12 or CM13 by MasterAwesome..
If you decide to root, there are many options for tweaking. I use the blu_sparks kernel, tasker and secure settings, viper4android, xPosed, greenify, busybox, ad away...
My screen-on-time varies from day to day, but I always make it through the day with normal usage.
There are bugs on any device, it depends what rom you're using. Some get resolved faster than others, but there are no perfect devices.
I'm moderately happy with the OPX. It's the right physical size for me and looks great with the rounded glass. It feels great in the hands. I love having the sd card.
I have had an issue with the magnetic sensor tripping and shutting off/locking my screen repeatedly, but that was "resolved" by using a non-flip-cover case.
If I wasn't as comfortable as I am flashing and rooting devices, I probably wouldn't be very happy with this device.
When the time comes to upgrade again, I doubt I will buy another OnePlus. They have atrocious customer service. It's basically non-existent.
Cheers
I've tried so many ROMs and to be honest they're all great. Oxygen by itself is a bit stale. I recommend flashing Boeffla and checking out the configuration thread I made
http://forum.xda-developers.com/oneplus-x/general/boeffla-configuration-make-oxygen-fly-t3326054
As for what I prefer to run most, I can't really answer that. Right now I'm enjoying Tipsy with Blu Spark, AICP is great in terms of customization, FlexOS was amazing when I gave it a shot, Tameseks is really good and is probably my favorite implementation of CM, RR has the features, and CM is... CM. You can't go wrong there.
I highly recommend checking out a few ROMs
I'm running Tipsy as aforementioned and I'm loving it so far. The Layers theme is great, it has a great community on G+, and the features aren't bloated by any means. Just needs a feature to to display a memory bar in recents
Have fun with your new device. I love mine. As a matter of fact, its my favorite (coning from using a G4 for a bit too)
OxygenOS is fine. I have been using it since Dec 2015. It is clean and very close to AOSP Lollipop. I will stay with stock for official Marshmallow update from OnePlus. Hopefully the developers community will have similar AOSP based ROM available to play with.
RJDTWO said:
I've tried so many ROMs and to be honest they're all great. Oxygen by itself is a bit stale. I recommend flashing Boeffla and checking out the configuration thread I made
http://forum.xda-developers.com/oneplus-x/general/boeffla-configuration-make-oxygen-fly-t3326054
As for what I prefer to run most, I can't really answer that. Right now I'm enjoying Tipsy with Blu Spark, AICP is great in terms of customization, FlexOS was amazing when I gave it a shot, Tameseks is really good and is probably my favorite implementation of CM, RR has the features, and CM is... CM. You can't go wrong there.
I highly recommend checking out a few ROMs
I'm running Tipsy as aforementioned and I'm loving it so far. The Layers theme is great, it has a great community on G+, and the features aren't bloated by any means. Just needs a feature to to display a memory bar in recents
Have fun with your new device. I love mine. As a matter of fact, its my favorite (coning from using a G4 for a bit too)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well its too early to call for favourite ROM. CM13 is good but RIL is little weak on that. WIfi, mobile data issue. Its as close to daily driver but depends on person to person. Since all of them are close to pure android, It would be hard to pick a favourite . Btw right now I am sticking to OOs for manual camera mode, it comes pretty handy sometimes. Though there are few bugs, smoothness makes me happy. Btw I am rocking Boeffla kernel, greenify, amplify and xposed.
Thanks all for recommendations. Been using it for few hours and so far I like it. I do wish the size was smaller like the moto x but I'm sure will get use to it. One thing, wow is this phone slippery! I use to have nexus 4, that was also all glass but I never felt like I would drop it. Maybe it's the metal edge of the OP. Any good cases, something slim and light?
Sent from my ONE E1005 using Tapatalk
I recently bought few phones and don't know which one to keep to replace my old 2013 moto x. I got galaxy alpha, oneplus x, and Z5 compact. To be honest none feel as good ergonomically as the moto x. The oneplus is nice, good screen and speed but a Lil big. The z5c is really nice but darn thing si hard to hold without a case. Just way too slippery. And loli on it not very fast in my opinion. Also gets pretty warm with light surfing. Not terribly hot but the hottest of the bunch. The alpha is good all around. Nice size, weight is awesome... So light! Speed seems good. My first time using Samsung, it's not as terrible as I thought would be. I switched to Nova prime and feels good. No SD card is a bummer but not deal breaker. It's also slippery but best grip of bunch without case. Screen is good but a bit yellow and not as sharp next to oneplus.
What do you all think, which would you keep?
Thanks.
Sent from my E5823 using Tapatalk
I am the type of person that nitpicks all the imperfections in phones. every single phone that been out for the past 6 months i have tried it. so i basically had a try of every kind of software. i had a iphone 6s plus but i felt that i paid to much for what i was getting. so then i was hesitating getting the one plus x because it said it was missing bands. but i was lucky to live in a area where lte is supported. i feel the one plus x is a well rounded device. and the community for this phone is pretty amazing. i was also coming from honor 5x but there was development on it yet. for me the size is not an issue i actually i wish it was a little bigger. alpha and compact i haven't tried them. but what your getting for in the one plus x is definitely a win in my book. if you think its too slippery buy a skin from dbrand or slickwraps. Hope i made your choice a little easier. @mario24601
dgrasley said:
Personally, I prefer CM13 over Oxygen. It's stable enough for using it as my daily driver. I've tried every rom available for the OPX and always go back to CM12 or CM13 by MasterAwesome..
If you decide to root, there are many options for tweaking. I use the blu_sparks kernel, tasker and secure settings, viper4android, xPosed, greenify, busybox, ad away...
My screen-on-time varies from day to day, but I always make it through the day with normal usage.
There are bugs on any device, it depends what rom you're using. Some get resolved faster than others, but there are no perfect devices.
I'm moderately happy with the OPX. It's the right physical size for me and looks great with the rounded glass. It feels great in the hands. I love having the sd card.
I have had an issue with the magnetic sensor tripping and shutting off/locking my screen repeatedly, but that was "resolved" by using a non-flip-cover case.
If I wasn't as comfortable as I am flashing and rooting devices, I probably wouldn't be very happy with this device.
When the time comes to upgrade again, I doubt I will buy another OnePlus. They have atrocious customer service. It's basically non-existent.
Cheers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm glad to see that you're having a positive experience with CM13. May I ask how battery life worked for you? — as I'm seeing battery life as a con for a majority of the ROMs available for this device.
I have previously used CM roms on my phones so I isntalled CM 12.1 by MasterAwsome right after I got the OPX. Of course like it , but encountered a bug in volume call. So decided to give a try to Oxygen OS 2.2.0 and I can say I am more then happy with it. Missed some CM customization but nothing I can not handle. On Oxygen , I encounter the bug related to the missing button to close all opened apps - I had to reboot to safe mode then reboot normally to fix it.
I use wifi on work and home, 3g and location always on during day, gps and sound while walking - and I can make it through 2 days before charging, since I watch videos rarely and as long as screen brightness is not set high (I set it at 25%). During the night battery-saver option comes handy.
arukemo said:
I'm glad to see that you're having a positive experience with CM13. May I ask how battery life worked for you? — as I'm seeing battery life as a con for a majority of the ROMs available for this device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's the best in comparison to any other ROM out there. 6)-7 hours of SOT easily
I'm liking the X more and more as I use it.
When I'm using SD card, every time I reboot, I have to enable SD card in camera to use it, is this normal?
Sent from my ONE E1005 using Tapatalk
arukemo said:
I'm glad to see that you're having a positive experience with CM13. May I ask how battery life worked for you? — as I'm seeing battery life as a con for a majority of the ROMs available for this device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, battery life is relative. Some days i get 4 hours SoT, sometimes i can get 7. It depends on so many things: whats apps i used that day and for how long, the strength of my wifi/cell signals, screen brightness etc.
On some roms, ive noticed the battery draining very quickly even while not being used.
Right now im using the new CandySix rom and it also has pretty decent battery life.

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