[or, is there any budget device which is more future-proof?]
So, I recently sold my ZTE Blade to buy a (used) Motorola Milestone and payed something like 50 euros more than the price I sold the Blade for.
I got, though, quite disappointed by the phone's performance. RAM was full even when no real-world applications were running. The phone lagged and I thought this was an issue with the default ROM, so I flashed an aftermarket ROM. I still stood no chance. Performance was horrible and when I found that the bootloader is locked down I was even more disappointed. It seemed like a waste of money to me.
The bootloader being locked down is a bad thing. It also means that the phone can't have any future. At all. Also, all the drivers are closed source and can't really be applied to custom ROMs. It means it won't have any version above 2.3.7 too.
So, no ICS for me. I was really expecting it. What really dragged me down afterwards was that everyone said the phone is OLD. OLD? Can you believe it? I had just bought it and it was old? I think this is the worst buy I've ever made.
After all now, I'm quickly looking to replace my Milestone with a future-proof phone. When I say future-proof I really mean it. So, in my head future-proof means:
- ability to run Android 4 and even Android 5 when it gets released
- unlocked bootloader
- available kernels; last version of Linux would be appreciated
- good enough CPU and GPU
- much available RAM
After looking at the forums all I can say is that Galaxy S has the following:
- unlocked bootloader
- available Linux 3.0 kernel
- running Android 4
- 1GHz CPU
- no more Samsung support (no stock ICS)
And that's all I really know. I'd be genuinely interested on what you believe about the future of the phone and if it will be worth buying.
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gtklocker
No phone at all is future proof.
No one can tell you if any current phone will run, android 5. No one even knows what that is yet, or what power would be required to run it.
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greeced said:
No phone at all is future proof.
No one can tell you if any current phone will run, android 5. No one even knows what that is yet, or what power would be required to run it.
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You're right.
You understand here, though, that I'm not serious about Android 5, I'm just asking if it has the potential to run any newer software that what we might consider now.
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gtklocker
Anything that's out now SHOULD run, but without an official or leaked ics rom from Samsung, you're just hoping ported ics roms are ported correctly.
But at this point, without official drivers for ics for the i9000, it's hard to give a concrete answer. At least, until the Nexus S rom is officially available and given the i9000 love from developers. Seeing as it's the closest thing to the sgs.
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Hello.
I need advice/suggestions on choosing a Rom for my Samsung Galaxy S 4 (I9505/jfltexx). What I am looking for is a ROM that is stable and actively maintained with regards to bug and security fixes, preferably AOSP based. I have no need for neither all sorts of bells and whistles, fancy eye candy nor bleeding edge features. Rushing to the latest major android version is not a priority, having my phone fully working is, though.
Here is some "background data" om me in the hope of providing a more complete picture of what I am looking for based on my previous use/experience.
I have owned 3 android capable devices. HTC Legend, Samsung Galaxy SII and Samsung Galaxy S 4. One can argue these have been poor choice of devices but it is what it is. I have been running mainly Cyanogenmod since 6.1 I believe on all devices. Fact is, flashing CM has been one of the first thing I have done after buying a new device as I tend to "gag" on HTCs and Samsungs firmware. The first few years I used to tinker about with the devices a lot, flashing stable, RC, milestone and nightlies, different ROMs/kernels frequently but always found my way back to fairly default CM. It has been a bumpy ride on CM (yes, I realize this is in part due to my choise of devices) and while I am not here to lash out at CM in general, recent choices from the CM team and increasingly inconsistent support for my current device leads me to looking for alternatives while really appreciating the sheer amount of great work the CM team have done over the years.
So, what drew me towards CM in the first place? Well, mostly the flexibility/customizability of the ROM and the power/control I felt I had of it, the openness of it and what once was an active, positive community around it. Admittedly, SenseUI and TouchWiz probably pushed me towards it as well. The most recent year or two I have moved a bit away from tinkering and have had a higher need for a stable and maintained ROM that "just works".
I had decided to go for OmniROM, it seemed to be a decent alternative but I am under the impression that my device is no longer supported. Have been considering CopperheadOS as well.
Anyway, I am open to suggentions.
Cheers.
Slimsaber and Slim roms are constantly updated. They are also mantained by the same developer.
Resurrection Remix. I use this rom for some time and I have no issues. But this depends from phone to phone.
It is pretty feature rich.
The GPE rom is also a good choice. But GPE 5.1 is still pretty new and may not offer a stable and bugfree experience. You might want to try GPE 5.0, but it is not mantained anymore, since the move to 5.1.
There is a pure AOSP rom. It's basically the same thing you find on a nexus device.
Let's be honest to ourselves here guys, out beloved Moto X Style was officially released in September which means this phone has now been out for at least 3 months and while all the effort that has since been put in this devices by key developers and people from day 1 up till now is very much appreciated and will continue to be appreciated, the development of this device compared to most flagships has been slow motion.
I am just trying to understand what the hell went wrong with this phone that made it end up with such super slow motion development, as when I originally bought the device I was thinking this phone would be at least in the top 20 most active phones on XDA development wise.
It had so much going for it, easy root, easy unlockable bootloader, a pretty much almost complete stock version of android, kernel sources released and motorolas good track record of updating their flagship phones in a timely manner and good hardware to accompany the great bloatware free stock software and a cheap price compared to some other flagships from other companies such as Samsung and Sony
With all this in mind I thought developers would flock to this device and we would have a massive development forum with loads of options between custom roms, mods, themes and other tweaks etc
But this is far from the case and I know the Nexus 6P being released probably had something to do with it, Still this should have been at least in top 20
At first I thought when Android 6.0 MM will be released development will increase then we needed the kernel sources as that was apparently not enough, then we had kernel sources but apart from 1 or 2 roms showing up being in alpha stages nothings changed too much.
This is such a disappointment to say the least.
If only I could understand why this is happening maybe something could be done to fix this or increase the development of this phone, I dont know maybe get some developers from the nexus 6p forums on here some how ...
Any ideas why this has happened and if anything can be done to increase development?
IS THERE ANY WAY WE AS A COMMUNITY CAN GET MORE DEVELOPERS TO WORK ON THIS DEVICE?
djsynth said:
If only I could understand why this is happening maybe something could be done to fix this or increase the development of this phone, I dont know maybe get some developers from the nexus 6p forums on here some how ...
Any ideas why this has happened and if anything can be done to increase development?
IS THERE ANY WAY WE AS A COMMUNITY CAN GET MORE DEVELOPERS TO WORK ON THIS DEVICE?
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Click to collapse
I think it's due to a combination of factors, such as :
1) The popularity of the phone/ manufacturer. These figures show Lenovo/Motorloa in 5th place for sales, having a 3.7% market share in Q3 2015
2) The OS (Android) has improved a lot over recent years, to the extent where a lot of people (like me) are happy to stay with stock
3) With phones getting more expensive, more people are put off from unlocking their bootloader due to warranty issues
4) I'm no longer convinced about the benefits of custom ROMs - seems a lot of the time they break more things than they fix. Maybe a lot of other people now think the same.
5) Some apps, for example ones for mobile banking or subscrition TV & Video, will not work with a rooted phone.
In the past I've had various phones from various manufacturers, and I'd say if you get your kicks from installing custom ROMs, then buy a Nexus.
When i had the one plus one there were so many roms that was a brain storm... I prefer some and reliable roms than a plethora where you get confused!!!
2) The OS (Android) has improved a lot over recent years, to the extent where a lot of people (like me) are happy to stay with stock
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4) I'm no longer convinced about the benefits of custom ROMs - seems a lot of the time they break more things than they fix. Maybe a lot of other people now think the same.
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IMO you hit the nail on the head. I love this phone. I had the MXPE 2014 as well, was not a fan. Also owned the original, Loved it.
This MXPE has been great in imo, the lack of development has not been disappointing to me. The stock rom is really pretty good, there are minor tweaks that can be done but most can do these on their own.
I used to be a flash-aholic, but like @GretaLewd has stated...custom roms tend to break things. I'm more in favor of kernel development. But how many different kernels can you have? One way or another they'll be the same.
I also own a Nexus 6P, but my MXPE is my go to device.
I see users complaining about this phone constantly, I really don't think it matters what phone you put in the hands of those users...they would still find fault and complain.
Motorola and Lenovo did good by this device, I just hope they keep up with incrementals for a while.
Isn't the 64bit cpu reason because it takes more work to get cm/aosp roms?
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Good thread. Would love to hear more thoughts
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Ordered the device today. Hope slow development doesn't disappoint me on this device, as others have stated...
I have been using this device for 2 months now. I am happy with it an didn't face a single issue. I can do a little bit tweaking myself using Xposed.
So far the slow development doesn't bother me.
Only buy a device for what it can do out of the box, not what you hope it will be able to do with additional modding and development... Nothing else is guaranteed!
As it stands I'm very happy with my rooted stock Style, not need for custom roms.
chrisund123 said:
Only buy a device for what it can do out of the box, not what you hope it will be able to do with additional modding and development... Nothing else is guaranteed!
As it stands I'm very happy with my rooted stock Style, not need for custom roms.
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That's a good way to approach Android phones I suppose but I believe
it's still nice to buy a phone that's great out of the box and good development wise, usually flagships tend to have good development and then the mid range and low end phones tend to get smaller developments but I guess there's an exception to everything.
patt2k said:
Isn't the 64bit cpu reason because it takes more work to get cm/aosp roms?
Sent from my XT1575 using Tapatalk
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I doubt that's the reason since 64 Bit has been the standard since Lollipop and pretty much all the flagships have a 64bit cpu since the beggining of 2015 but that doesn't stop other development forums from flourishing.
GretaLewd said:
I think it's due to a combination of factors, such as :
1) The popularity of the phone/ manufacturer. These figures show Lenovo/Motorloa in 5th place for sales, having a 3.7% market share in Q3 2015
2) The OS (Android) has improved a lot over recent years, to the extent where a lot of people (like me) are happy to stay with stock
3) With phones getting more expensive, more people are put off from unlocking their bootloader due to warranty issues
4) I'm no longer convinced about the benefits of custom ROMs - seems a lot of the time they break more things than they fix. Maybe a lot of other people now think the same.
5) Some apps, for example ones for mobile banking or subscrition TV & Video, will not work with a rooted phone.
In the past I've had various phones from various manufacturers, and I'd say if you get your kicks from installing custom ROMs, then buy a Nexus.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for your break down on your thoughts of the subject and I must admit you've mention some very valid points here especially Point 1,2 and 5 but I think out of all of these its Point 1 and 2 that are the most significant, I suppose Motorola have a really small market share explains the lack of adoption between developers when comparing to some of the more prominent manufacturers such as samsung.
and The Android Stock OS has improved significantly within the past couple of years adding some new features that previously people had to root their phones to acomplish such as full app permission controls and backing up app data which google does for you now.
You need to follow development before buying a device these days. i.e. always wait at least 1-2 months. If you follow the development forums you would get an idea if developers are interested in said device or not. I for one, bought it right after I found out that AICP (CM12) rom was being developed. I was interested in running CM13 instead of other AOSP variations. And before I got the device the first (almost daily driver) builds were already uploaded.
Once cm is solid quite a few roms will pop up. Won't be long now.
Official MM has only been out for our phone for a little over a month. give it some time it may pick up. either way it's still an awesome phone out the box... and as stated above, once CM13 is stable im sure we'll see some of the other custom ROMs that are based off it.
GretaLewd said:
2) The OS (Android) has improved a lot over recent years, to the extent where a lot of people (like me) are happy to stay with stock
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Click to collapse
This is a great point, but I'd like to add that this is especially applicable to our MXPE. We're really close to stock as it is, so there's little motivation to go ROM to debloat like there is on Samsung, LG, and similar phones. On the flip side, we have a lot of really neat features (active display, approach, accelerator gestures, voice controls) that we would lose if we went ROM.
For me, these two points combine, leaving me with little motivation to ROM my phone, especially since I can could get most of the advantages of CyanogenMod with something like GravityBox, which will allow me to keep the Motorola features (I'm currently unrooted because of the warranty, but I'll be rooted in the future for sure) . Of course, these are my own personal opinions, but I suspect that they reflect at least some of the mindset of this community.
I agree with others, that custom roms are often more trouble than they're worth. The only reason to use them these days is if your device isn't going to be updated to the latest version of Android.
Ever since moto introduced 99% stock android + moto display, roms have been entirely unnecessary for me. I used to rom my phones to gain greater flexibility + customizability. Now that I have stock android + Xposed, I doubt I will ever flash another custom rom again.
I'm still waiting for custom super roms that will make this device best in the market. Why can we have a rom with 1080p display, tweak kernel with better control for heating issue for overall battery life and speed?
Sent from my XT1575 using XDA Free mobile app
The biggest issue is that developers don't support devices they don't own. With the launch of the nexus 6 (not the 6p) most developers got it and had no need to update to a y newer devices.
Also to the comment that all flag ships are 64 bit this is not the case. If you look the most popular devices as far as developers are concerned are non 64 bit.
Also as android matures you will see less and less roms. As it will be come harder. There are very few real development teams. Most are just kitchen sink roms. A base with tons of cherry picks and a new name. Nothing even worth looking at twice. But more developers are closing up the source of their projects because of these types of roms.
To be honest most users have no point in flashing roms. Only those that like the development side of it will continue to mod roms and flash things.
Hi. I am aware there is no such thing as The Best Rom for model X. I have installed ROMS before in other smartphones and I've always admired all the effort put on every rom version by their authors.
I'm just asking for personal opinions / experiencies regarding the latest ROMs released for the Galaxy Note 3 (N9005) to help me decide according to the goals below.
I know there is a lot of information in every ROM thread and I have read many of them, but the particular difference with the Notes against other smartphones is the S-pen functionallity. Many roms don't mention the S-pen so It's a little difficult to tell which ones really suport these features, which are important to me.
In my case, I would be very happy if:
- The ROM has pen support (the reason I have the Galaxy Note).
- I think the ideal ROM would be close to the Note line, say, a port of N7, N8 or so.
- Battery Life is good (and/or settings can be tweaked to have better batery. life than stock Lollipop 5.0, if possible.)
- I really like latest Android versions, the newer the better (Android 9), but I can live with an older one (6, 7, 8...) if it's really more stable, fast, or battery life is better.
I apologize to those that don't like this kind of posts. Just a short story: I owned a Note 3 Neo Duos (N7502) for some years, and I was really frustrated because there is just no development, no way to update it from kitkat. And I tried hard. I think I read every possible thread about the N3n duos here and outside. Many apps stopped working with Kitkat, and most notably MICROSOFT ONENOTE, one of the apps I use the most. Plus the battery was getting bad.
I ended up selling a bunch of used equipment last month and decided to give up and say farewell the N7502 for good so I sold it cheap.
To my surprise, two weeks later I was selling a (very) old notebook and out of nothing a buyer offered me a Galaxy Note 3 N9005 as a trade!
I gladly accepted and now I am very happy. The phone is in excellent condition, including the battery.
Now I see myself in the opposite situation. I had so little information and no ROM options for the N7502 and now I have so much and so many for the N9005 it's being very hard to decide. I've been reading the ROM threads for a week or so and I seem to have more doubts than answers.
So, I would like to count with the opinions or impressions of who has already tried some of the custom ROMS.
Thank you!
-E
Hello There i just tried to find a rom for my Gt-19500 and found the the latest supported rom was android 7.1.1 back in 2017 Yet all other S4 variants still get the latest roms can anyone tell me the technical reasons and if there any way whatsoever to find at least an android 10 rom for it?
The technical reasons? Probably nothing technical, but simply an issue of there being no developers working on the device. Unfortunately for you, this means if you want an Android 10 ROM for your device you will have to create it yourself.
I will note that 3G service is expected to be terminated in a year or two in most countries. You would be better served getting a phone with LTE capability.
Strephon Alkhalikoi said:
The technical reasons? Probably nothing technical, but simply an issue of there being no developers working on the device. Unfortunately for you, this means if you want an Android 10 ROM for your device you will have to create it yourself.
I will note that 3G service is expected to be terminated in a year or two in most countries. You would be better served getting a phone with LTE capability.
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thank you so much it's just that before that date it used to be all S4 variants together after that fate even TWRP stopped support for the device thanks again
It's a surprise to me that some models are still being worked on. After all the S4 is nearly a decade old now and many have gone through two or three devices since its introduction. Not to mention physically the plastic is cracking due to age; at least on my S4 it is.
It doesn't surprise me that TWRP development stopped. This device doesn't benefit from the newer features TWRP has that are geared towards the new devices. So there is little need to update.