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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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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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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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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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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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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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.

Hi guys

Sup xda, my names Bilal and this is my first time posting here. I do have a question though but I've got a lot I want to talk to you guys about
I got my tmobile mytouch 3g about 4 days ago. On the first day my cousin had already told me about this site and how beneficial it would be to me real soon xD. The next day I had already begun looking up important things i needed to know to end up with a custom rom on my phone. I looked up the specifications to my phone (like checking the radio and SPL versions) I found out my phone was a 32B and had new SPL and Radio. I found out the Roms that would be compatible with my phone as well as the method to go about doing it. the next 2 days basically consisted of my going through over like 15-20 different methods over my phone (but all of them basically had the same routine). I mean, you have to root it then get a custom recovery than flash the custom rom. But this is simplified as I'm pretty sure i searched and found 3-4 different ways for the simplified root recovery rom steps. Anyways it was real frustrating since I failed many times on all 3 steps . Anyways with the new SPL Radio 32b Mytouch phone 2.2.1 (since i idiotically upgraded it to 2.2.1) just flashed cyanogenmod 6.1.0 about 30 minutes ago. Haha I'm so excited to see the possibilities.
I wanted to thank this whole site and the people from the unlockr because i searched a ton of guides and Google'd over 50 questions to figure out the process suited for me and even though it ended being extremely easy compared to the people who had to work hard to develop all the things involved in making Rom Manager, Clockworkmod and Armons Custom recoveries, and every easy step in the process that we take for granted. I didn't have a clue in programming scripting developing software or ROM's for anything before flashing my phone. After doing it I still don't have much of a clue even though I feel like I did learn a whole lot I know I'm way more interested in learning how things work.
You could have probably skipped this whole essay and went straight to the question though xD.
My question at this point was what exactly are all the possibilities (or some that I'm not aware of) that my phone has now that it has flashed cyanogenmod 6.1.0
One thing that I have definitely noticed and feel that alone, was worth the 4 days of tirelessly failing, is that my phone has become a lot faster, and I mean in everything that it does, from opening applications to loading videos on youtube. I know I could probably search this as well but I just wanted to advice directed towards me as far as what to do next? Ive been messing around with the themes (can only use ADW as far as I know) but was wonting to find a live unlock pattern screen? I found one on youtube and I'm 90 percent sure the guy had the exact same phone as me. Also any advice on details for upgrading the overall performance on my device would be great help.
Thanks guys glad to be here

Glad that you learned some stuff. Stay around here for a while and you'll learn alot more. Anyways, yes, there are many possibilities available for you. For one, I would advise updating to CyanogenMod 7. Just go here: http://www.cyanogenmod.com/devices/htc-slide and choose a category to suit you. NB: The "Experimental" build category is not as "dangerous" as it sound. These build are actually Release Candidates which mean they are almost (if not) good enough to be a Stable build. Since you're just beginning, you may just want to use a stable build for now. But later on, you may change your mind. There are also many apps you may want to try like: SetCPU (to make your device even faster than it is now and/or to save battery life, Titanium Backup, Rom Manager, etc. ADW is NOT the only launcher you can use. It just came as the main launcher for your rom. There are many other launchers like Launcher Pro, etc. For the "live lockscreen pattern, you could try Ripple Lock (Honeycomb Lockscreen) or the sense 3.0 lockscreen found here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1190071 . Cheers!

[Q] What to expect when flashing to custom ROM

So I'm an Iphone convert. I got an infuse, and love the freedom to customize and do cool things with apps and the like. I've spent a lot of time customizing etc.
Now I'm reading more and more into the whole custom ROM thing. I'm just looking to get an idea of what to expect from the process of changing to a new ROM
Will it be faster and have better battery life if I switch from stock to CM7?
Will I have to reinstall all my apps?
How will future software updates and stuff be handled?

When installing a new custom ROM you need to look at it as a fresh install of a new OS. In other words, yes you will lose your installed apps, however there are plenty of apps available which can help you with the restore process. One that i like to use is Titanium Backup, however you will need to be rooted for this to work. If you have not already rooted your stock ROM, then you may want to download an app from the market that creates an "app list" rather then an actual backup of the apps themselves.
One thing to keep in mind though if you are using Titanium Backup, when restoring make sure to only select the "restore App" option, rather then "App + Data". Restoring data will attempt to restore app data that references your previous ROM, which will almost always break your installation and cause things to go wacky. Installing app only basically does a fresh install on your new ROM without causing any issues.
Will it be faster? It depends on which ROM you install, but the short answer is most likely yes. I can tell you that CM7 and MIUI will be faster as i have tried them myself. Benchmarks will show this to be true, but take this with a grain of salt. The real test is "real world snappiness", and i can tell you that in practical real world application, CM7 and MIUI feel a heck of allot smoother and responsive then the stock Rogers ROM that i was coming from.
Will you get better battery life? I don't know, it depends again on what you install. But my current experience is that i am getting better battery life on MIUI vs stock. I did however disable some of the built in extras on MIUI like network data monitoring, and battery monitoring. You may or may not have to do this, but i found that turning off any background monitoring processes provided me with the longest battery life. About 20+ hours to 5 -10% with moderate to heavy usage.
Future updates. This all depends on the cook or dev of the ROM. Generally though you will want to follow their install instructions to the letter to avoid any issues. Many times though when updating from one version of MIUI to newer version of same MIUI, you can simply install without "full wipe" and this will keep your installed apps intact. However if the dev specifically calls for a full wipe, then you should do it to avoid issues that could otherwise be avoided.
One thing to keep in mind however, is that when installing custom roms you need to understand that you are joining a community of testers. You should always approach it as such, and keep in mind that for the most part these releases are coming from people who do this as a hobby. You also need to keep in mind that you may likely run into bug's, so if you absolutely don't want to deal with this, please stick with stock. However if your adventurous and don't mind a few possible issues while trying out the latest and greatest that the community has to offer, then dive right in! When reporting issues, please do so with the utmost respect and keep this in mind that the Dev's do this on their spare time for our benefit, and they do not get paid for it. So please try to keep the reports as constructive as possible for everyone's benefit!
Lastly, welcome to the android community agent888 and glad to hear you dropped the iphone and left the collective for a community that offers you freedom of choice!

I got Infused 1.6 installed. I chose this one because I found a nice how to video on youtube and followed it step by step. I think it was a nice way for a first timer like myself to do so, to get me over those initial gut wrenching fears of bricking the phone.
All in all, I am more satisfied every single day that I've chosen android over iPhone.

agent888 said:
I got Infused 1.6 installed. I chose this one because I found a nice how to video on youtube and followed it step by step. I think it was a nice way for a first timer like myself to do so, to get me over those initial gut wrenching fears of bricking the phone.
All in all, I am more satisfied every single day that I've chosen android over iPhone.
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Click to collapse
First rom I installed as well. It's a great beginners rom and I never had any issues with it.

[Q] Beginner's questions

Yikes, I feel terrible for asking questions at such a basic level, but despite my tries, I haven't found an answer on the forums. If I missed anything obvious, please do point it out!
I've got a fairly new Samsung Infuse from AT&T, and I've been trying my hand at customization for a fair bit - graphic design is, in the end, the one thing I can say I'm actually good at. But between launchers, widgets and icon packs, there's only so much you can do, and the device does feel rather sluggish. At 109 apps, opening the app drawer takes up to 20 seconds, which is far from ideal.
I've been reading into custom ROMs and their possibilities, but I'm not entirely sure I understand their functionality and how to install one, so I'm hesitant to use one. Could anyone point me to some more information regarding this?
For the record; the device is rooted, and I'd like to think I know my way around a PC.

Here ya go bro.....
Maybe this will help...read carefully..
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1293751
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using xda premium

verticae said:
Yikes, I feel terrible for asking questions at such a basic level, but despite my tries, I haven't found an answer on the forums. If I missed anything obvious, please do point it out!
I've got a fairly new Samsung Infuse from AT&T, and I've been trying my hand at customization for a fair bit - graphic design is, in the end, the one thing I can say I'm actually good at. But between launchers, widgets and icon packs, there's only so much you can do, and the device does feel rather sluggish. At 109 apps, opening the app drawer takes up to 20 seconds, which is far from ideal.
I've been reading into custom ROMs and their possibilities, but I'm not entirely sure I understand their functionality and how to install one, so I'm hesitant to use one. Could anyone point me to some more information regarding this?
For the record; the device is rooted, and I'd like to think I know my way around a PC.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Welcome. Know that you have a decent phone with a gorgeous display.
Pick a thread and start reading.
Look around the themes and custom designs.
Read my post in the q,a section to get an idea if you wanted to were interested in flashing

20 seconds sounds ridiculous ._.
custom ROM's are fast, much faster than the stock one thanks to their being optimized. whilst i'm running on MIUI right now cause i got bored, i personally recommend the latest build of CM7 with the thunderbolt tweaks, definitely the fastest setup right now.
since you're already rooted, that makes things easier. you can simply hop onto the market, download ROM manager, load it up and flash CWM and you'll be ready to flash a different rom. just download the zip, copy it onto your phones internal memory, reboot, and follow the threads instructions (typically just wipe data/cache and then select the zip you want to install).

Thank you all for your posts!
Your links have cleared up a lot of things, and I'm currently getting ready to flash the latest CM7. I'll look into the thunderbolt tweaks as well, it looks rather interesting. Once again, thank you.

In my experience the stock rom is pretty snappy. I tried infused a long time ago with its voodoo file system and it was noticeably slower. Now I'm runnning miui and its damn quick. I just hope I can get this garbled font problem resolved.
Install miui and you'll understand why you would want to root. Alot of these roms are pretty close to stock aand overhyped but miui is a total rework and full of awesome.
Sent from my SGH-I997 using XDA App

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.
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Click to collapse
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...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
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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.
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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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Click to collapse
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...
Click to expand...
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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Click to collapse
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