Database Info

CyanogenMod7 Review (as I see it)

I have been using this build for quite a while now and decided to write a review of the ROM. Please keep in mind I am not a developer !!! I am simply writing this from a user standpoint and cannot nor will not support your problems. This is a review based on my opinions and usage of the ROM.
Pros:
I do like the UI. It is fairly stable and I haven't had much trouble out of it for the most part. The combination of ADW Launcher and the Cyanogen settings are great. The speed of the ROM is pretty good for a ported ROM based on GingerBread. I can't complain much about that. General things that I like are the advanced menus for customizing the dock and theme settings. The themed settings change icons for contacts, mail, messaging, phone, browser,calendar, and videos ( I may have missed some). The cyanogen settings cover an array of things that you can poke at but in my opinion should be included with stock builds as well. Overall if you were wanting to use this on a daily basis I think you would be ok to go ahead and install this ROM... NOTE: Don't hold me responsible if you brick your phone trying. It isn't one of the easiest roms I've
ever installed. The sleep policy has been fixed so that the phone doesn't reboot on unlock...which on my first flash hadn't been fixed and really really turned me off from this ROM.
Cons: I have yet to figure out why this is (again not a dev) but your microSD card will not mount when connected to the pc. I'm sure they are working on this but I haven't downloaded an update or nightly (which is current at the time of this post btw) that has fixed it. I do have some random picky things that I can't get an answer to, and good luck if you do...feel free to send them to me also. Some of my .mp3 ringtones will not work period. Different ones of even larger file size work... I'm not sure how that works out. Text messaging (native) doesn't work for incoming or outgoing... But I will say that I was having issues with that before so I can't blame that on this ROM. There are a few apps that won't work with this build easy uninstaller is one, I just get a fc. Battery is another issue that may be addressed with future releases. I don't run GPS (so don't ask if it's accurate) but keep wifi on all the time. I get probably about 8 hours with wifi on all the time. Not the best but definitely not the worst. You also cannot charge the phone while it is off... really not sure why, and the extended power menu doesn't work. And for the most part is an in depth install procedure... Back to stock with odin, flash two kernals, then a couple of files... Pretty lengthy and you have to be precise or else it bricks. Here it is if your interested... Thanks to MobileTechVideos for the instructions and video.
How to install CyanogenMod7
Other than that I have had virtually no problems (that I consider major) with this ROM and do like it and will probably continue to use it. If you have any general questions please feel free to ask. Again, again... I am not a dev so questions of that nature should be posted here: CyanogenMod7

I tried it and liked what works but it is still alpha quality and so i will wait for a few weeks until i give it another shot.

surfed.tk said:
I tried it and liked what works but it is still alpha quality and so i will wait for a few weeks until i give it another shot.
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I agree, it is definitely still a beta build and as noted by Cyanogen... hasn't been put into the stable build section of their forums. I do look forward to a stable build. Perhaps the Dev's can address some of the weird issues that I mentioned above.

i also was not able to send multi media mms never would go through i tried for 20 mins to receive and send ,
this rom is great but here is why it sucks, i watch the cyanogen nightlies for the galaxy s phones, and with the types of updates im seeing on the cappy versus lets say the vibrant , there is no ****ing hope and this rom is dead.
the last update fixed an install file wtf. so at this rate cyanogen will be rc in o id say next year. ill have a new phone by then. my money is on miui

NightFalcon27 said:
I agree, it is definitely still a beta build and as noted by Cyanogen... hasn't been put into the stable build section of their forums. I do look forward to a stable build. Perhaps the Dev's can address some of the weird issues that I mentioned above.
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Click to collapse
Well you completely forgot to mention that, currently it cannot handle lots of video format, most importantly mkv and even if you find something like Rock Player, there's a lot of lag in it. You cannot charge the phone while its off (because it'll turn on as soon as you plug the charger in). Also, you might encounter a totally new problem which you may not have an idea about. If captivate is your spare phone then play with it else stay away for a while until a RC is released.
This is just my opinion from 3 days of experience on CM7.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

It was a total flop for me :/
It ran well when I first installed it, but started running "funny" (random crashing) after I installed gapps, then totally started crapping out after the 3/16 update.
I ended up ditching it for a 2.2 rom, mostly because I didn't feel I was gaining anything substantive and losing things I regularly use, like a feature rich camera app and divx playback support.

Been running for 3 days. 0 problems.
I've ran into a few bugs. External SD, booting when usb plugged in. Only charging to 95% (apparently a feature not a bug). At one point my signal shot down to searching, then it recovered and grabbed a signal. Not sure what caused that, but it was random.
I also cannot get it to mount to my PC. Kind of annoying, but if I need to transfer anything I just use dropbox.
I like it, and I think I'll keep with it. Even though it isn't 100%, I love gingerbread, and it's working for me.

krips2003 said:
Well you completely forgot to mention that, currently it cannot handle lots of video format, most importantly mkv and even if you find something like Rock Player, there's a lot of lag in it. You cannot charge the phone while its off (because it'll turn on as soon as you plug the charger in). Also, you might encounter a totally new problem which you may not have an idea about. If captivate is your spare phone then play with it else stay away for a while until a RC is released.
This is just my opinion from 3 days of experience on CM7.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
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Click to collapse
I did forget that you cannot charge the phone while off and now that you mention it the extended power menu doesn't work either. It is fairly aggravating that Cyanogen updates the vibrant with "real" fixes other than this fixing little things but... All in all, it is still usable, just not stable or reliable.

Every time I try and warn someone that CM7 is not yet ready for primetime I get bashed for it, yet there seem to be plenty of people echoing my comments. Like I said in another thread, the people that are saying CM7 is stable and works great are either not using their device to its full potential or are willing to live without certain features. There is really no compelling reason to live with a ROM that has this many bugs or deficiencies when you consider how many really good ROMs there are available for our Cappys that have few, if any, issues. Yeah, they may not have Gingerbready theming or cutesy animations, but they just work. Andromeda 1.2 is one that comes to mind.

I am on it from I think last friday...Not a single problem...atleast how i use it...of course except battery life...which I am trying to solve...
Rock player worked well for me...I watched couple of movies when I was on road....never lagged just stopped couple of times....
great GPS...instant locks...i am amazed...But I also tried MIUI...and it is very very fast...and something different which I never experienced before...I think people should give it a try...ofcourse it has bugs too as it based on CM7...but they fixed camera bug and little stuff.....

Miami_Son said:
Every time I try and warn someone that CM7 is not yet ready for primetime I get bashed for it, yet there seem to be plenty of people echoing my comments. Like I said in another thread, the people that are saying CM7 is stable and works great are either not using their device to its full potential or are willing to live without certain features. There is really no compelling reason to live with a ROM that has this many bugs or deficiencies when you consider how many really good ROMs there are available for our Cappys that have few, if any, issues. Yeah, they may not have Gingerbready theming or cutesy animations, but they just work. Andromeda 1.2 is one that comes to mind.
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Click to collapse
I am by no means saying that it is ready for the masses... The only one that I would suggest without a second thought to someone who isn't willing to deal with at least some problems is Cognition Series by DesignGears. To my knowledge (and opinion) this is the absolute best rom for the captivate. IF ... Cyanogen gets to the point of a Cognition rom in function and use, then I might suggest it for the masses but not until then.

Miami_Son said:
Every time I try and warn someone that CM7 is not yet ready for primetime I get bashed for it, yet there seem to be plenty of people echoing my comments. Like I said in another thread, the people that are saying CM7 is stable and works great are either not using their device to its full potential or are willing to live without certain features. There is really no compelling reason to live with a ROM that has this many bugs or deficiencies when you consider how many really good ROMs there are available for our Cappys that have few, if any, issues. Yeah, they may not have Gingerbready theming or cutesy animations, but they just work. Andromeda 1.2 is one that comes to mind.
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Click to collapse
Your right in regard to it not being ready for most users (many are already praising the miui 2.3.3 also which is even less stable.....not saying it isn't promising). I think it breaks into 2 camps.
1. If you are a power user that wants all aspects of your device to function as intended...not for you. More specifically, If you use an external SD especially if your moving files to and from mounted to a PC....this is not the rom for you (this is my biggest gripe at this point). If you do lots of video in different formats...not for you as you will face compatibility issues. If you have to ask how your flash back to stock....this is probably not for you. If you value battery life as a top priority...not yet for you. Most of the other deficiencies or shortcomings had adequate work arounds but you until the major issues are resolved you will quickly find yourself flashing back to Phoenix, Firefly, Serendipity, Andromeda, etc.)
2. If you don't use and external SD and/or do much media vid/music then i can see why many view this as "stable" for their purposes. The UI, menus, and animations are smooth/fast and i never really had any issues with force closes while using it. Maybe its better linguistically to say its incomplete rather than refer to is as unstable and sorry if it offends the early adopters but if you are using it as your daily driver its pretty obvious you are using an inferior rom @ this point.

NightFalcon27 said:
I am by no means saying that it is ready for the masses... The only one that I would suggest without a second thought to someone who isn't willing to deal with at least some problems is Cognition Series by DesignGears. To my knowledge (and opinion) this is the absolute best rom for the captivate. IF ... Cyanogen gets to the point of a Cognition rom in function and use, then I might suggest it for the masses but not until then.
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Click to collapse
i would easily put a handful of roms on par with cognition:
Firefly, Supernova, Phoenix, Serendipity, Andromeda.

bames said:
Your right in regard to it not being ready for most users (many are already praising the miui 2.3.3 also which is even less stable.....not saying it isn't promising). I think it breaks into 2 camps.
1. If you are a power user that wants all aspects of your device to function as intended...not for you. More specifically, If you use an external SD especially if your moving files to and from mounted to a PC....this is not the rom for you (this is my biggest gripe at this point). If you do lots of video in different formats...not for you as you will face compatibility issues. If you have to ask how your flash back to stock....this is probably not for you. If you value battery life as a top priority...not yet for you. Most of the other deficiencies or shortcomings had adequate work arounds but you until the major issues are resolved you will quickly find yourself flashing back to Phoenix, Firefly, Serendipity, Andromeda, etc.)
2. If you don't use and external SD and/or do much media vid/music then i can see why many view this as "stable" for their purposes. The UI, menus, and animations are smooth/fast and i never really had any issues with force closes while using it. Maybe its better linguistically to say its incomplete rather than refer to is as unstable and sorry if it offends the early adopters but if you are using it as your daily driver its pretty obvious you are using an inferior rom @ this point.
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Excellent post.

Glad to see users sharing their experience on CM7. This is always good foe the community. I hope to see new users to read this thread prior to making any decision whether to flash CM7 2.3.3 or not.
On another note, I'm sure once Samsung do final release of Gingerbread 2.3.3 for i9000 series (last I heard that an early beta was released), we cappyites will see stable release.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

Regarding the phone turning on when charging, I believe it's a gingerbread "feature". It's been said that it is working as intended. Also, the iphone does the same thing so I don't really see it as an issue. It's probably google seeing behavior they like and implementing it.

You can not mount the external sd but you can transfer to your internal then on the phone transfer to external, so I am not certain it Is fair to say you can not use your external sd. Video is an issue, and battery is as well.
At this point in time it is a trade off, there are several things cm7 can't do well or can not do at all. there are also several things it does much better than any 2.2 rom or are not available on 2.2 roms.
Its all preference and priorities. Kinda like any best rom discussion.
Sent from my SGH-I897 using XDA Premium App

Miami_Son said:
Every time I try and warn someone that CM7 is not yet ready for primetime I get bashed for it, yet there seem to be plenty of people echoing my comments. Like I said in another thread, the people that are saying CM7 is stable and works great are either not using their device to its full potential or are willing to live without certain features. There is really no compelling reason to live with a ROM that has this many bugs or deficiencies when you consider how many really good ROMs there are available for our Cappys that have few, if any, issues. Yeah, they may not have Gingerbready theming or cutesy animations, but they just work. Andromeda 1.2 is one that comes to mind.
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Click to collapse
Largely it its because you have never used it, and have only tried one rom. That and you are compelled to jump on any thread that mentions it as if it is a personal mission. It its not as if you do not make some valid points, but it is not hard to see why it may rub some the wrong way after a while.
This is not an attempt to start something, but your comments make it seem like there is no warrant to people who go back at you.
Sent from my SGH-I897 using XDA Premium App

mcord11758 said:
Largely it its because you have never used it, and have only tried one rom. That and you are compelled to jump on any thread that mentions it as if it is a personal mission. It its not as if you do not make some valid points, but it is not hard to see why it may rub some the wrong way after a while.
This is not an attempt to start something, but your comments make it seem like there is no warrant to people who go back at you.
Sent from my SGH-I897 using XDA Premium App
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Click to collapse
Agreed... I was not trying to start a thread to bash any rom. However I do know that there are some hard feelings that are out based on certain features that work or don't and peoples impressions about the ROM itself. I also know that there is quite a bit of loyalty to certain ROM creators that no matter what they aren't going to be going to a new ROM simply because they are loyal to that dev... which is fine! I simply wanted to create an avenue for people who have used the ROM to pass along information and opinions on the ROM to people who are thinking about switching to it. People are entitled to their opinions and I am all for that... Just don't bash any of the devs or their work, it is not easy putting this stuff together and I for one am happy that I have a place I can go to that allows me to get away from stock. I hope that all will realize that

mcord11758 said:
Largely it its because you have never used it, and have only tried one rom. That and you are compelled to jump on any thread that mentions it as if it is a personal mission. It its not as if you do not make some valid points, but it is not hard to see why it may rub some the wrong way after a while.
This is not an attempt to start something, but your comments make it seem like there is no warrant to people who go back at you.
Sent from my SGH-I897 using XDA Premium App
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Miami_Son said:
Excellent post.
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The terminology might be better as incomplete instead of unstable. great post.

[Q] Stock Deodexed KC1

I had a question on this Stock Deodexed KC1+Root ROM. My buddy Jager, helped me flash my SGS4G to this specific Rom and it worked flawlessly. But now I had a few question on what this whole thing meant.
What do these specific features do?
completely deodexed
Root
Busybox 1.19.0
All Bloat.
What can I do with all four of those things? Could someone give me a brief explanation on each of those I'd greatly appreciate it. and PS. This Rom is Froyo. So since I flashed it. when the official Gingerbread rom comes out OFFICIALLY for T-mobile. would I be able to receive the update via OTA (Over the Air)? Or do I go to "Software Update" in the settings portion of the phone. thanks!

hey man. im glad i helped with the flashing.
i gave you some info before (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1165560&page=2) on what those things are.
specifically, root allows you to change things on your phone that you normally couldnt. it could make it better..or you can brick it if you dont know what you are doing.
since you are not programming or modding, being deodexed shouldnt affect you too much; same for busybox. having them is only a plus but i you dont do anything directly involving them. you need busybox and once you root using superoneclick, you usually have it, so just know you need it and read that link i gave you.
bloat are those extra tmobile programs. many people dont like them because we dont use it and it takes up space, but some people find them useful.
when flashing a new custom rom, you probably wont get ota updates because the fota files are removed, because they take up a ton of space that you dont use 99% of the time. if you are on a stock rom, i think you can still update through kies, but honestly, i will probably never use kies again because this community updates faster and better roms than tmobile. even when the gingerbread update is officially released, i rather stay with teamwhiskey or team acid's roms until they decide to release something because i think their stuff is much better than whatever tmobile can come up with.
do you have any specific questions about the things you listed? or anything in general? we're all here to help

I see. And yeah Jager your awesome haha! But how can I get into those kinds of things. Like the teamwhiskey or acid. Do they have like gingerbread roms that are better than tmobiles? In your opinion do you think custom roms are better than original roms? And to be honest I have no clue what the roms do lol. Besides improved battery life lol. I dont even know what modem is.
Sent from my SGH-T959V using XDA App

jager555 said:
hey man. im glad i helped with the flashing.
i gave you some info before (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1165560&page=2) on what those things are.
specifically, root allows you to change things on your phone that you normally couldnt. it could make it better..or you can brick it if you dont know what you are doing.
since you are not programming or modding, being deodexed shouldnt affect you too much; same for busybox. having them is only a plus but i you dont do anything directly involving them. you need busybox and once you root using superoneclick, you usually have it, so just know you need it and read that link i gave you.
bloat are those extra tmobile programs. many people dont like them because we dont use it and it takes up space, but some people find them useful.
when flashing a new custom rom, you probably wont get ota updates because the fota files are removed, because they take up a ton of space that you dont use 99% of the time. if you are on a stock rom, i think you can still update through kies, but honestly, i will probably never use kies again because this community updates faster and better roms than tmobile. even when the gingerbread update is officially released, i rather stay with teamwhiskey or team acid's roms until they decide to release something because i think their stuff is much better than whatever tmobile can come up with.
do you have any specific questions about the things you listed? or anything in general? we're all here to help
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I downloaded kies. But it recognizes my phone but it wont let me update because the rom is custom last time I tried kies was when I had gingerbread 2.3.3 thats when I asked you how can I flash my phone back to froyo
Sent from my SGH-T959V using XDA App

honestly, its all up to your personal preference. i think the custom roms are better because 1)its made by our peers, 2) it addresses many issues that USERS face, and 3)they are awesome. but once again, it is all personal preference on what you want to do with your phone.
you can learn a ton from the following. read through it and you will know how mostly everything posted works:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1117554
http://cyclopscomputers.com/gs4g
i hope this helps.

I guess I agree with you there because tmobile releases stuff only they want us to have and our peers here create and improve their programs. So I guess I like having custom roms
Sent from my SGH-T959V using XDA App

jager555 said:
honestly, its all up to your personal preference. i think the custom roms are better because 1)its made by our peers, 2) it addresses many issues that USERS face, and 3)they are awesome. but once again, it is all personal preference on what you want to do with your phone.
you can learn a ton from the following. read through it and you will know how mostly everything posted works:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1117554
http://cyclopscomputers.com/gs4g
i hope this helps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
okay now I have another question for you haha, you've like told me so much about this rom stuff and make it sound all so cool. So in your opinion who do you think has the best Gingerbread ROM for the galaxy s 4g? in this like forum, because I'm searching through tons and I can't choose which is best haha. and if it says "contains all bloat" does that mean the programs Tmobile has on the phone is like removed to save space. and is it true if the rom is deodexed it makes the phone faster and a little cooler?

[Q] "Best" ROM for my company's CEO

Folks... double-edged sword here. The CEO of my company wants a phone with a big screen, and came to me for input. He's not interested in an iPhone (not sure why, but I didn't press the matter), and is open to Android. I've been using a Captivate for 9 months and have played around with tons of ROMs for that device, so I know the pitfalls with custom ROMs.
My question for you all is this: if you had to recommend a ROM for the Infuse, what would it be (including stock ATT&T)? He's pretty much the typical CEO, with the added bonus of being fairly approachable and willing to try new things. But I CANNOT piss him off. He's the CEO, after all.
Thanks!

I'd look for something by GTG, Entropy or LinuxBozo in the development section. They all look good to me. Go with something like stock but with additional features. Noone needs CM7 on their first android.

AdamOutler said:
I'd look for something by GTG, Entropy or LinuxBozo in the development section. They all look good to me. Go with something like stock but with additional features. Noone needs CM7 on their first android.
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Click to collapse
Thanks for the quick response. Have you any personal experience with any of them?

I'd suggest one of the initial Infused ROMs like 1.5.3. I know that's only going to be Froyo, but I think that would be more usable and stable for his uses than trying to go with one of the current Gingerbread builds. I doubt he's going to want to keep up with updates unless he's surprisingly tech savvy.

I'd go with infused 1.5.0 and personally still use 1.5.0 (no loopy, no slightly weird haptic feedback stuff that my phone got in 1.5.3)

+1 on infused 1.5.0. 1.5.3 does have a weird thing going on with haptic feedback. but loopy smoothness makes a difference, so maybe that could be added.
I also think the stable release of infused v2 is good. but if he hopes to use the hdmi mhl adapter then its a no-go. v2 is rogers based and they didn't get hdmi capabilities in canada for some odd reason. also the att rom and modem get better speeds, even after the "fix" I don't get quite the transfer rates that the att firmware offered but gingerbread seems to have much improved browsing performance so its not a big deal to me. other than that I can't think of any issues with it.

I'd say Infused 1.x. If he REALLY wants Gingerbread, Infused 2.x, but that's still a work in progress. Infused 2.x is my "daily driver" but it has some known issues. (I just don't care about said issues as they don't affect me - I'm still trying to help fix them if I can. Data speeds I can't work on as I live in the boonies, we've only had 3G for two years!)
There are no ROMs from Bozo and I - we're kernel hackers. (Exception: LB is working on a CM7 port but it is NOWHERE near ready).
Actually, any of the Froyo ROMs are very solid. There's only one Gingerbread ROM out now.
The nice thing about the Infuse is that our devs coordinate with each other. As a result, in terms of ROMs and Kernels, currently it's "quality not quantity". We don't have any "hey look I can deodex too!" ROMs. (at least not yet)

I'm loving Infused v2 and use the Bluetooth pairing daily in my car. Its been as stable, if not moreso, than stock. The browser also doesn't checkerboard like stock did - which is a big win if you're looking forward to browsing the web on this huge screen.

Entropy512 said:
I'd say Infused 1.x. If he REALLY wants Gingerbread, Infused 2.x, but that's still a work in progress. Infused 2.x is my "daily driver" but it has some known issues. (I just don't care about said issues as they don't affect me - I'm still trying to help fix them if I can. Data speeds I can't work on as I live in the boonies, we've only had 3G for two years!)
There are no ROMs from Bozo and I - we're kernel hackers. (Exception: LB is working on a CM7 port but it is NOWHERE near ready).
Actually, any of the Froyo ROMs are very solid. There's only one Gingerbread ROM out now.
The nice thing about the Infuse is that our devs coordinate with each other. As a result, in terms of ROMs and Kernels, currently it's "quality not quantity". We don't have any "hey look I can deodex too!" ROMs. (at least not yet)
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Click to collapse
well there is that one guy working on CM7 (but you have to compile it yourself)

hwaters said:
well there is that one guy working on CM7 (but you have to compile it yourself)
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You quoted me, but you clearly didn't read what you quoted...

I thought discussion of "best" rom was forbidden on xda?

Entropy512 said:
You quoted me, but you clearly didn't read what you quoted...
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Click to collapse
probably only skimmed it and saw "one" and "gingerbread rom" and mixed things the wrong way.
whoops.

Thanks for your input folks!
I really appreciate the input from everyone. Methinks I'll try Infused based on what you all have said. Here goes nuttin....

I know my post count is low... but I am a senior level dude w/ 10 years at my current company and am speaking from personal experience here (albeit from the iOS side). Unless your CEO is capable of flashing ROMs and troubleshooting issues on his own, my advice is to leave it bone stock. Show him some cool apps on the Market, point him to XDA, answer questions that he may have, hell maybe even suggest checking out the dev section and looking into aftermarket ROMs. But once you modify his phone, it now becomes your responsibility and CEOs work 24x7x365...
I guess I'm just really surprised that I'm the only one here who thinks this might be a bad idea, and maybe I'm just an old fart but I just wanted to provide some experience from the flip side of the coin. I assume you've already flashed - so good luck man!

Entropy512 said:
Data speeds I can't work on as I live in the boonies, we've only had 3G for two years!)
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Click to collapse
We just got 3g about 8 months ago...
Also, no development occurs in a one Rom per niche town. That's not a good thing that there are no can deodex too Roms.

bahumut075 said:
I know my post count is low... but I am a senior level dude w/ 10 years at my current company and am speaking from personal experience here (albeit from the iOS side). Unless your CEO is capable of flashing ROMs and troubleshooting issues on his own, my advice is to leave it bone stock. Show him some cool apps on the Market, point him to XDA, answer questions that he may have, hell maybe even suggest checking out the dev section and looking into aftermarket ROMs. But once you modify his phone, it now becomes your responsibility and CEOs work 24x7x365...
I guess I'm just really surprised that I'm the only one here who thinks this might be a bad idea, and maybe I'm just an old fart but I just wanted to provide some experience from the flip side of the coin. I assume you've already flashed - so good luck man!
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Click to collapse
agree.
If you or your boss can handle any issue that may arise,say,boot loops
If you both are noobs then stick with stock.

bahumut075 said:
I know my post count is low... but I am a senior level dude w/ 10 years at my current company and am speaking from personal experience here (albeit from the iOS side). Unless your CEO is capable of flashing ROMs and troubleshooting issues on his own, my advice is to leave it bone stock. Show him some cool apps on the Market, point him to XDA, answer questions that he may have, hell maybe even suggest checking out the dev section and looking into aftermarket ROMs. But once you modify his phone, it now becomes your responsibility and CEOs work 24x7x365...
I guess I'm just really surprised that I'm the only one here who thinks this might be a bad idea, and maybe I'm just an old fart but I just wanted to provide some experience from the flip side of the coin. I assume you've already flashed - so good luck man!
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I could not agree more. I am a Senior IT Support Engineer and my CEO is a gadget guy who has to have to the newest toys. I would NEVER load a custom ROM on one of his devices EVER as this would put me in a very bad position especially if his device suddenly started acting flakey. Keep it stock and show him some apps and he will be perfectly happy using the phone and if you are like me get him to buy you an Infuse and you can play around with yours and when you find a good stable platform then upgrade his device to that. I always get an identical device to the CEO because he wants me to be able to assist him with issues. I know everyone isn't as lucky as me but it can sometimes be a serious PIA as he will call me constantly with stupid questions.

Blackberrynomore said:
I could not agree more. I am a Senior IT Support Engineer and my CEO is a gadget guy who has to have to the newest toys. I would NEVER load a custom ROM on one of his devices EVER as this would put me in a very bad position especially if his device suddenly started acting flakey. Keep it stock and show him some apps and he will be perfectly happy using the phone and if you are like me get him to buy you an Infuse and you can play around with yours and when you find a good stable platform then upgrade his device to that. I always get an identical device to the CEO because he wants me to be able to assist him with issues. I know everyone isn't as lucky as me but it can sometimes be a serious PIA as he will call me constantly with stupid questions.
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+1 to Stock.
Unless he and you want to be tinkering all the time with each other.

Go for refuse 1.7. Good first ROM

Agreed on staying stock
Believe it or not, I was seriously considering staying stock anyway (for all the stated reasons), but wanted to get an idea of what some of the 'better' (a highly subjective term, I know) ROMs were based on people's opinions, as a means of comparison. Fortunately for me, he got called out of town so I now have a week to live with the device for awhile and learn it's idiosyncrasies and whatnot.
So, unless stock proves to suck, (which I doubt), I'll keep it that way.
Thanks all for your input.

[Q] When can new roms be used?

I am a jailbroken iPhone convert. I am loving this phone so far and have heeded the warnings to not mess with the phone too much. My question is, when is it safe to use the roms that are available? Is there that big of a difference in performance? I jailbroke my iPhone to get features Apple wouldn't allow our have. what do I gain with custom roms? Thanks for all that has been done so far and look forward to what its to come.

I don't know of there is a time period to use them but most custom roms freshen up your desktop icons as well most of them improve battery life and add the ability to overclock.

You can gain quite a few features with Custom Roms. Such as overclocking, custom ui's, much better performance (snappier). I highly recommend flashing a custom ROM. Currently CM9 and CM7 are a work in progress and should be released sooner than later, (CM7 is currently in it's testing stage). Also to do all of this you have to root your device. A guide can be found here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1327741&highlight=how+to+root Keep in mind many features can be gained once rooted, but as you probably know the warranty is voided.

Thanks for the help so far. The only question still remaining for me is; at what point are these roms considered stable enough for someone new to start using. I have read the warnings and really don't want to have to reinstall everything over and over again because of instability issues. thanks

ed20910 said:
Thanks for the help so far. The only question still remaining for me is; at what point are these roms considered stable enough for someone new to start using. I have read the warnings and really don't want to have to reinstall everything over and over again because of instability issues. thanks
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It really all depends on what you are after.
I will say that even the stock ROM on the Atrix 2 is not that stable, and there are a TON of bugs in it.
All the ROMs that are here are in a beta format and are not even at a 1.0 revision yet. If you are not technical at all, and don't really like playing with your device a lot, and flashing ROMs, to try and get a feature that the stock ROM is missing, then I totally advise against flashing anything. These "ROMS are completely safe and stable enough", but both lfaber06 and are I always trying to "improve" on them, no matter what revision that the ROM is at, as well as requests for new features. That really is why it may seem that people are flashing all the time, not really because of instability.
Since he and I are really the only two devs in here right now, there is not going to be a lot of choice in ROMs and since this phone is still fairly new, everything is still "new" and in beta/alpha. Since you are coming from the iphone, and flashing ROMs is not really something that you do, I say you wait until you find something you really want that is not available in the stock ROM, and has been put into one the ROMs available here, then try flashing that. Until then just hang tight for a while. There are plenty of hacks that can be done to the stock ROM, to fix things, and make that better at this time. Also take some time to learn a little about android and flashing and how it all works, not intimately, or on a very technical level, but that might save your "you know what", if you have an issue during a flash or while running an unfamiliar ROM.

Thank you VERY much. That was the answer I was looking for. I am technical savy, just haven't done much with android so far. I am one that likes to tinker and get the most out of any of my electronics.

Flashing habits?

Something I've noticed is that I slowly become frustrated with whatever rom I'm on, be it cyanogenmod or liquidsmooth, cleanrom, etc. But as soon as I flash back to stock, I remember all the things I didn't like with stock, and want to flash back.
Where is the sweet spot? I find myself jumping back and forth, getting frustrated and tired no matter what rom I'm on. It could just be a personal problem :silly:
But I'm still kinda hoping for answers. For all the people out there who aren't modders, or devs, or who just barely know what they're doing: how do you survive with all the choices, where there's so many unique options of so many devs hard work (each with their own frustrations)? How do you choose?

SirProudNoob said:
Something I've noticed is that I slowly become frustrated with whatever rom I'm on, be it cyanogenmod or liquidsmooth, cleanrom, etc. But as soon as I flash back to stock, I remember all the things I didn't like with stock, and want to flash back.
Where is the sweet spot? I find myself jumping back and forth, getting frustrated and tired no matter what rom I'm on. It could just be a personal problem :silly:
But I'm still kinda hoping for answers. For all the people out there who aren't modders, or devs, or who just barely know what they're doing: how do you survive with all the choices, where there's so many unique options of so many devs hard work (each with their own frustrations)? How do you choose?
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Just a heads up, this thread is going to get shut down quickly, so I'm just going to lead you in the direction I think you want to go. There is no "sweet spot".
AOSP is made for many phones, and because of that fact you're going to miss a lot of features you're going to get from touchwiz that makes the s3 unique. It's fast, smooth, and debloated. Nice experience, but not for everybody.
Touchwiz has a range of different kinds of roms. You have heavily modded ones and some that are as bare as possible. These run drastically different on people's devices, and because of this fact you're going to get people swearing that their rom of choice is the best. However, just because a rom runs perfectly on someone's device, you might not have the same experience.
You choose by looking at the features you want and comparing them to the roms. If you want a heavily modded interface then roms like hyperdrive, goodness or jellybeans would be a good choice. If you want a more bare bones rom then bonestock, CleanROM, or tkrom would be solid choices. If you want a completely debloated experience, then aosp would be your option.
Basically, there is no real answer to your question. Flash one rom, give it a few days, if you don't like it then flash another.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

BadUsername said:
Just a heads up, this thread is going to get shut down quickly, so I'm just going to lead you in the direction I think you want to go. There is no "sweet spot".
AOSP is made for many phones, and because of that fact you're going to miss a lot of features you're going to get from touchwiz that makes the s3 unique. It's fast, smooth, and debloated. Nice experience, but not for everybody.
Touchwiz has a range of different kinds of roms. You have heavily modded ones and some that are as bare as possible. These run drastically different on people's devices, and because of this fact you're going to get people swearing that their rom of choice is the best. However, just because a rom runs perfectly on someone's device, you might not have the same experience.
You choose by looking at the features you want and comparing them to the roms. If you want a heavily modded interface then roms like hyperdrive, goodness or jellybeans would be a good choice. If you want a more bare bones rom then bonestock, CleanROM, or tkrom would be solid choices. If you want a completely debloated experience, then aosp would be your option.
Basically, there is no real answer to your question. Flash one rom, give it a few days, if you don't like it then flash another.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2
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One of the things that frustrates me is that I can't solve these issues on my own. I'm trying to learn linux and a lot of basic things like that, but it doesn't come naturally. If I could just know how to fix things, then I'd be happy.
I just learned about flashing radios not a few months ago. Before that I was having a ton of issues getting google voice search and my camera to work, and I didn't know why.
So many people write guides and such, but they never give the deeper explanations. Just the quick, easy answers. Take the one-click root for D2VZW. Does it work amazingly? Yes, I used it earlier today, and it was flawless. But I want to learn more in a way that's doesn't require 200% commitment and prior knowledge of things like how to use the linux terminal.
I don't like being a noob, but it's impossible to learn this stuff on your own unless you dedicate yourself, body and soul...

SirProudNoob said:
One of the things that frustrates me is that I can't solve these issues on my own. I'm trying to learn linux and a lot of basic things like that, but it doesn't come naturally. If I could just know how to fix things, then I'd be happy.
I just learned about flashing radios not a few months ago. Before that I was having a ton of issues getting google voice search and my camera to work, and I didn't know why.
So many people write guides and such, but they never give the deeper explanations. Just the quick, easy answers. Take the one-click root for D2VZW. Does it work amazingly? Yes, I used it earlier today, and it was flawless. But I want to learn more in a way that's doesn't require 200% commitment and prior knowledge of things like how to use the linux terminal.
I don't like being a noob, but it's impossible to learn this stuff on your own unless you dedicate yourself, body and soul...
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It's all part of the learning experience. You can't expect someone to give you answers all the time. I learned so much from not being happy with some aspect of my phone, searching for answers, and applying fixes for my problems.
You can learn anything without dedicating time, you learn as you go along. I was brand new to all of this a year ago, and now I'm able to fix nearly anything that happens to my phone.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

BadUsername said:
It's all part of the learning experience. You can't expect someone to give you answers all the time. I learned so much from not being happy with some aspect of my phone, searching for answers, and applying fixes for my problems.
You can learn anything without dedicating time, you learn as you go along. I was brand new to all of this a year ago, and now I'm able to fix nearly anything that happens to my phone.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2
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Just needed to vent some frustration at this lol...
Thanks.
On the bright side I know how to use odin, so I can almost never kill my phone
Sometimes I feel like I need two phones though. One to mess with and one to actually use for being a phone.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1950824
This is a great guide. Just thought of it and couldn't remember where I saw it but it's worth skimming through.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

SirProudNoob said:
Sometimes I feel like I need two phones though. One to mess with and one to actually use for being a phone.
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This is exactly why I haven't flashed a single rom/kernel on my phone since I had it (run debloated stock with a few mods). I need my phone functional 100 percent. I was a flash-a-holic with my OG Samsung Epic, and learned from this that you can't have both variety and function. Do I miss the experience? Sure, but right now I can't afford to have a phone that isn't functioning the way I need it to be. Speajing of two phones: just upgraded to GNote 3, so may finally got to mess around with the S3 once the Note is activated.

SirProudNoob said:
One of the things that frustrates me is that I can't solve these issues on my own. I'm trying to learn linux and a lot of basic things like that, but it doesn't come naturally. If I could just know how to fix things, then I'd be happy.
I just learned about flashing radios not a few months ago. Before that I was having a ton of issues getting google voice search and my camera to work, and I didn't know why.
So many people write guides and such, but they never give the deeper explanations. Just the quick, easy answers. Take the one-click root for D2VZW. Does it work amazingly? Yes, I used it earlier today, and it was flawless. But I want to learn more in a way that's doesn't require 200% commitment and prior knowledge of things like how to use the linux terminal.
I don't like being a noob, but it's impossible to learn this stuff on your own unless you dedicate yourself, body and soul...
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Click to collapse
Might I suggest XDA-University to help you learn these things?

I've bookmarked those links. Thanks for the help. I didn't know about the XDA university, since as you can see I'm new here.
If it was shown to us during registration (along with that one video), sorry I missed it.

SirProudNoob said:
I've bookmarked those links. Thanks for the help. I didn't know about the XDA university, since as you can see I'm new here.
If it was shown to us during registration (along with that one video), sorry I missed it.
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The video is probably older than the university...it just opened about 3 months ago.

i'll be honest...I love cyanogenmod and would (almost) die for it...I have found my happy rom to be (Carbon) and while i have no issues with it, i live in a bad signal area...long story short, we don't have Verizon Coverage (Altell) atm...There was a lawyer issue that created a problem back in the seventies and that was just lifted about a year ago...Verizon's towers are being put up everywhere and i can't wait till they are activated...That being said i get data drops in the town i live in and sometimes have better experience on Touchwiz...But i cannot stand being on 4.1.2 and to be honest even though i might have data on touchwiz i can't really get it to work...so...
My experience is that when cyanogenmod in its current state is more honest about connectivity....because where cyanogenmod has none touchwiz has a connection that can't do anything.... If we had touchwiz with the latest android version i would probably be fine with an aosp theme....but not really... xD