Related
I'm currently on Soulife's Ion Remix v1.0 and I'm very happy with the speed, and reasonably happy with stability/force closes. I'm not a prolific flasher (oo-er!) but I've tried a few ROMs (JF1.5/Ion R1/R2/Soulife Ion v1.0) and this is the best so far.
I keep on reading how Cyanogen is the fastest and most stable ROM around, and I'm getting tempted to try it, IF it's better than the ROM i'm currently on. I don't have much time at the moment to keep wiping and reinstallling apps etc, so I don't want to do this if there isn't a stability or speed improvement over Ion Remix.
Has anyone tried both? Can you give me your opinion which is better?
I don't use apps2sd (mainly because its another hassle i don't want). One thing I do want is the HTC_IME Touch Input keyboard, which doesn't seem to work for me on Ion Remix, so I guess this is another reason for me to change.
Any advice? Thanks!
I haven't used Soulife, so maybe you don't want my opinion. It's the internet though, so I'm giving my $0.02 anyway.
I don't think anyone, Google included, is pushing Android as close to the limits of how well it can run as Cyanogen is. You don't need to be a prolific flasher either - Stick with his stable build, update when he releases a new stable. Right now that's 3.6.5, and it has been rock solid in my experience (and the majority of the users posting over in development)
apps2sd isn't required - I ran without it for awhile, switched to it when I got my new card. No real difference, other than storage space available.
HTC IME is included and runs fine.
Cyanogens rom is the fastest out there period. Also when upgrading from a previous versin of his rom to a newer one there is no need to wipe, so you don't need to reinstall all your apps.
setspeed said:
I'm currently on Soulife's Ion Remix v1.0 and I'm very happy with the speed, and reasonably happy with stability/force closes. I'm not a prolific flasher (oo-er!) but I've tried a few ROMs (JF1.5/Ion R1/R2/Soulife Ion v1.0) and this is the best so far.
I keep on reading how Cyanogen is the fastest and most stable ROM around, and I'm getting tempted to try it, IF it's better than the ROM i'm currently on. I don't have much time at the moment to keep wiping and reinstallling apps etc, so I don't want to do this if there isn't a stability or speed improvement over Ion Remix.
Has anyone tried both? Can you give me your opinion which is better?
I don't use apps2sd (mainly because its another hassle i don't want). One thing I do want is the HTC_IME Touch Input keyboard, which doesn't seem to work for me on Ion Remix, so I guess this is another reason for me to change.
Any advice? Thanks!
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Click to collapse
Cyan runs the performance-related parts of ION that make it so fast, so at this point, it's already fast enough as ION. There are a lot of different things he does to his Kernal that makes it faster, along with tweaks to different apps to make them run faster as well. What you hear is true :]
lukekirstein said:
Cyan runs the performance-related parts of ION that make it so fast, so at this point, it's already fast enough as ION. There are a lot of different things he does to his Kernal that makes it faster, along with tweaks to different apps to make them run faster as well. What you hear is true :]
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Click to collapse
To be fair, if you read through Cyanogen's update thread ... It sounds like he hasn't really found much from ION that tweaks performance. ION's speed just comes from it being a real clean build of Android without lots of extras. Cyanogen's speed tweaks are mostly his own, with some patches from the cupcake and donut branches that haven't made it into the OTA releases.
switch to CM 3.6.5
I just did the switch a couple of days ago and I was also stand offish about apps2sd but I found the thread on how to do it in terminal emulator. It was extremely easier than I thought. The rom does the rest for you. I am constantly suprised how fast and user friendly the rom is. I even overlayed tehseano&moonsspoon hero theme over it with no problems. I am going to stay with this until I know something is better.
Just update your recovery image to 1.3.1 and then do the Nandroid backup. Run which ever rom you want and then if you use the 1.3.1 you can just reflash right back without much of any effort.
Of course you can if you want to use your PC and do the Nandroid rebuild, but thats so last month.
Heres my two cents for ya...I was put off to try apps2sd as well, figuring the same, that id hafta keep redoing everything andf messing it up and starting over...not the way it went down, dude. Not at all. I was coming from the dudes 1.3RC1 to cyanogens...i updated to cyanogen's recovery, then installed CM3.6. I booted into recovery, ran A2sd (ctl+m) and when i rebooted it was all done. I never wiped, and for the first day i had a battery glitch where it didnt wanna hold a charge very long, but after i let it charge overnight it stopped and have not had a problem in the world since. And Im still on CM3.6, also not a "prolific flasher", and i plan on staying right where im at until somebody puts out something (personally) worth flashing again. Cyanogen is controlling the "market" right now, in case noone's noticed all the ROM threads stamped with "CYANOGENIZED". His is definitely the way to go, almost all the other roms out there are somewhat based off of, or including something from his. And its not a pain in the ass like you think as long as you pay attention and make sure all your bases are covered. BACKUP YOUR STUFF!!! just in case...
-BMFC
honestly
I did a lot of comparisons on ion and byte for byte, every binary except debuggerd is identical as adp1.51 or crb43 and the only difference is the compiled time, it looks like ions debuggerd was compiled 4 minutes earlier than adp1.51's. Same thing for all the library's, only difference is libreference-ril.so which I assume has something to do with it coming from sapphire. However, there is like 6 or 7 binarys excluded from ion (I'm not at my pc so I can't tell you which ones off my head). So if you ever hear this build has dalvikvm from ion for speed you can laugh cause its identicall to the one on a stock g1.
The ion remix v1 and 1.1 is using A LOT of cyanogens goodness, I can do this cause its all google based. What you are gaining by using cyanogens is whatever new is introduced in aosp revision 2. I'm running an unreleased beta 1.2 with cyanogens .29 kernel and squashfs and it flys. You can compare his description to mine (will be updated with 1.2) but your getting a lot of the same stuff.
Take advantage of cyanogens pimped out recovery. You can backup your phone, wipe and flash and if your not happy just restore it like you never left. Take advantage of advancement. Try some other builds out to measure your likes. Just not hero, its evil.
So Im running JACxHEROSkiv1.6r2B and I have a 4gig class 6 sd card. I have the fat32 set up, ext3, and linux swap at 32.
I had a class 4 before, but hearing everyone rant and rave how fast hero runs with a class 6 I went out and bought one. However, hero still seems to be a little laggy and slow..... at least for me. I'll get the htc screen and the loading screen.. I even reverted back to superhero v2 and that was the fastest hero for me, no lag, no loading screens nothing.
But the newer hero's seem to be slow for some reason even with a class 6. Can anyone help, I absolutly love hero, just want it to be fast like how everyone says it is.
Thanks in advance...
hang your head in shame...
the speed of hero roms will vary depending on the phone itself, the way the phone is used, the settings on the phone, the way people use their phone, how they choose to set up their linux-swap size and what they set swappiness to, in short, different people get different results with hero roms, some find them fast, some find them tremendously slow, its most likely a mind over matter type deal... so finally we reach the point of all this.... stop with the why isn't my hero blazing fast threads and how do i make hero make hero faster threads. basically you have 2 options for optimizing your hero build, set it up exactly the way the first post of the thread tells you to, or you can pm the people with amazingly fast hero roms and ask them what they are doing...
wow i was a smart ass and still managed to give a half way decent answer
I did follow ALL directions, i've flashed tons of roms and experienced different things with different builds. Kind of wierd how superhero v2 seems to run faster then the new builds. Even with the echo at 60, some threads say set it to 10, etc. Followed all directions, and still have these results. When a thread says FAST, you kind of expect it. I mean gimme a break going from checking the market to your home screen you get a loading issue, c'mon. There has to be something to alter to fix it. I know im not the only person having slow issues with hero EVEN on a CLASS 6
there was a post i just read where some one set there linux-swap to 96mb and swappiness to 100 and said it ran really fast, that was the newest jacski hero rom version b i think. you could always try that, though whether or not it will suffer future slow downs remains to be seen. I haven't tried a hero rom recently (since 3.6.8.1 was released by cyanogen damn that was a while back) because of the slow downs i would get after a day or so i don't know much other than to try what others are saying works.
though with the way drizzy's new hero v1 is shaping up to look i might have to try it when he drops it. I remember trying jac's 1.4 hero, if you think the hero roms they have now have lag... but alas now i am reminiscing
I agree, his new hero rom is supposed to be the best to date, so we'll see, I just flashed over to cyans 4.0.4 since its fast. I also read about the 96mb and 100swap, but I want to see what happens in a few days with that.
cire253 said:
So Im running JACxHEROSkiv1.6r2B and I have a 4gig class 6 sd card. I have the fat32 set up, ext3, and linux swap at 32.
I had a class 4 before, but hearing everyone rant and rave how fast hero runs with a class 6 I went out and bought one. However, hero still seems to be a little laggy and slow..... at least for me. I'll get the htc screen and the loading screen.. I even reverted back to superhero v2 and that was the fastest hero for me, no lag, no loading screens nothing.
But the newer hero's seem to be slow for some reason even with a class 6. Can anyone help, I absolutly love hero, just want it to be fast like how everyone says it is.
Thanks in advance...
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Click to collapse
I had the same issue with my 32mb swap. I changed it to 96 and saw a HUGE increase in performance. No compcache. Just swap with 60 swappiness and I hardly ever see Loading or the HTC screen.
Here is a thread that discusses this issue:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=551643
It is among many, however almost everyone has their own opinion based on their own phone which is of course based on their own needs. The key is playing around with it and seeing what works best for you. Start with the swappiness and then try your swap partition size and see what works best for you.
Then there was a vague tweet from jac about a possible fix for bluetooth, and twisted zero is supposedly getting really close with the led's, also with the htc kernal that was made open.
It really wouldn't suprise to me to see in another month or so a hero rom that competes with stock cupcake, maybe i'm too optimistic though lol
david1171 said:
...maybe i'm too optimistic though lol
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Click to collapse
I think so too.
Binary100100 said:
I think so too.
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Click to collapse
well when you compare jac's 1.4 back when hero threads were getting thrashed left and right to what the hero rom's are now. there is a vast improvement. I remember when I couldn't use a hero rom for more than a few hours without having to go to a stable rom. now my friend has had a rom on his phone a few weeks and hasn't said anything to me about it running horribly so maybe one day...
david1171 said:
well when you compare jac's 1.4 back when hero threads were getting thrashed left and right to what the hero rom's are now. there is a vast improvement. I remember when I couldn't use a hero rom for more than a few hours without having to go to a stable rom. now my friend has had a rom on his phone a few weeks and hasn't said anything to me about it running horribly so maybe one day...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree that the Hero roms are stable enough for daily use provided that you make certain adjustments, but in regards to the LED and bluetooth I don't think they will be perfect for a long time. The LED will hopefully come soon since Twisted reported getting them to work. But I don't understand why we don't have fully working LED's like that was announce last week. Perhaps it was an accidental fix that couldn't be recreated? Perhaps it was a fluke? Who knows. What I do know is that the LED's still need work even after it was reported to have a fix. As for bluetooth... as far as I know and read it could only be initialized by manual command lines and not from the settings app. Even IF there is a fix... will it be full bluetooth (A2DP) or just enough to pair and use a headset?
The fact that the BT and LED's for Hero builds tend to work with MT3G and not the G1 tells me that it's hardware related and not so much in code or scripts. So if fixes to the LED and BT are developed and perfected then how will the MT3G work after flashed a ROM with these patches included? Will they conflict? Will we need different ROMs for different phones? I'm not trying to be negative or pessimistic but I'm just not seeing full fixes for these issues to be ready, available and implemented this week or next. Maybe in a month or two... but that's as far as my optimisism takes me. But I hope that I'm wrong.
I have an N1, but the G1 is my girlfriends, and apparently all the stuff I've done, something always is tweaking or wrong with it.
While for the past year I've been quite involved in the tinker'ing with the G1,
lately I've flashed the hell out of the G1, and now find myself trying to find a stable rom that works.
Im a heavy reader, but I simply just dont have time anymore to keep up to know a stable rom, its patches and whatnot.
Really, need the help.
Super D 1.11 good? or is a older copy a better way to go? 1.9.3?
Wanna get this done tonight, if anyone can offer advice,
You'll be awesome. I can donate if you anyone cares to elaborate .. I dont need details how to flash and stuff, Im just referring to proper setup between compcache, swap, swap partition size. ext2-4? , etc.
I've read shadow's guide, couldnt find information if overclock_upgrade2 worked on SuperD or not, and im just trying to get fast, stable 1.6
I have a transcend 8gb class 6 in there, and its not toast yet.
Also have Danger on her phone aswell.
Again, ill donate if someone can get this out of the way for me.
Been fighting a Windows install for a customer for 4 days now and just got piled with even more work.
i got atleast $5
---
really? no one?
Cyan's Donut build was quite stable for me. I had my 8 gb card partitioned as 512 mb ext-2, 96 mb swap with swappiness set to 60 using Swapper for Root, and the remaining as Fat32. That configutation ran good for me (although probably overkill on the swap).
Overclocking has not been as stable as I would like and probably not needed anyway.
If you want ultimate stability go back to stock firmware.
Pretty cool your gf has a G1, I got one for mine and she kept it for a week before taking it back and getting a blackberry. Thumbs down.
I tried CM 5.07 and I don't think it's ready to be a daily driver and his latest-donut was lacking in speed department so I found myself going back to Super-D. It kinda went downhill after 1.10.2 in my opinion... At this point I'm on 1.9.3 which I found to be unbeatable in terms of speed and stability. I also rm a lot of stuf to make it lighter: I remove VPN, Voice Dialer, Email.apk, Bluetooth.apk, SD-updater, Genie widget, etc. I also added some latest goodies (MusicMod and Phone.apk from 1.11, ADW Launcher, transparent powertop widget, etc). YMMV but it's working out for me so far.
Good luck.
I cannot neglect a fact after i tried so many roms by cyanogen: no one rom is so stable for everyday use.
for 1.6 , the 4.2.15.1 is the last version ,but you must wait a long time to make a normal call ,it is not standale, and it also had a missing sms issue.
for 2.1, i do not know if there is still a updated version after 5.0.8. the camera issue is still there , and also i encounter 2 times cannot-bootup issue (only reflash the rom again).
cyanogen's work is awesome , but i think the stable rom is so important for normal use. IS THERE ANY ONE?
I'd suggest downgrading to the engineering spl, downgrading to rc29 and then waiting for the official OTA to get back to the official ROM.
that's the only STABLE rom out there. the rest is put together, but I personally don't care as I like to make fun of my friends who bought the N1 because they said the g1 would never see froyo.
Living on the edge has it's costs
considering that you're probably using a G1 and I use first gen MT3G and the rate at which new improved phones are coming out in these quick and disposable times, I think it is absolutely amazing that we can stick with new phones, try out there interfaces before they're even released. You're not hacking and I'm not hacking hardcore, but we get faux hack thanks to work of all these people who aren't making a dime on these roms. All lot of these people start like you and me and by flashing learn more and more about these phones. For example, I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that you can go about using superuser terminal, which is thanks to quite a few people who made it possible for noobs to root their phone in the first place, anyways, in terminal you can decide how much priority you give to the phone apk. Google it. Hell there's a guy on the sapphire forum who's give instructions on how to build your own stock froyo so you can tweak it however you want, check it out, I'm thinking about it.
I was diehard nokia fan up until they sold me a n95 that had 3g, just not here and told me there was nothing they could do about it. I thought their system was open....geez it was nothing compared to this android thing.
the one thing that bites my a** here is seeing response to roms where people have lost focus of important things like manners. I'm not saying this is you, but check it out. Guy like Chrome or such, works super hard releasing a rom every other day and somebody chimes in, wifi doesn't work, or camera is force closing, not a daily driver, I flashing back....What? I mean, how about a thanks for chance to check out something new or hey, how about asking why it might not work and learning the process. Think about it, these guys got to have a day job, cause they ain't making it selling roms or monitoring forums to teach some guy how to flash, but they do it and they don't complain. Very rare to find this kinda service today or even yesterday.
Welcome to the community and learn something about why your phone with a certain rom isn't functioning perfectly, I think you'll be glad you did.
Are you kidding me, how picky are you gonna be? Especially since we are still getting support for the G1. Maybe you would be better off with an iphone. I'm rockin CM6 and damn proud of it.
Sent from my HTC Dream using XDA App
a little peculiar,i admit. cyanogen did and does great job.
Sent from my HTC Dream using XDA App
I normally flash on a daily basis just for fun and I can tell there are many roms that can be used as a daily rom and stable
one of them is "Eclair" "Super D" for me everything I need is working and fast
there is also a Froyo Rom by LefeuDeDieu that work fast and stable
for 1.6 I found super E the fastest
so I would say You haven't found the right set up for your phone and your needs
Try cyas 6.0 (froyo 2.2) RC1 with the new gapps (FRF91-3).... it flys for me if you don't install too many apps and is very stable (in my opinion more stable than cyas 5.x). If you pump it with apps the internal memory gets low, no matter how much you move to sd or clear the cache (due to the froyo apps2sd method). You can try too get things better with setcpu (compcache made things worse for me), but with too much load cyas 6.0 turns very slow for me.
/edit ... with Firerats CustomParitions (solving the froyo apps2sd low memory issue) and the CM6 Build from studjuce (using launcherpro instead of adw) its as fast as hell :O even faster than Clay's CSDI ... oh man i guess i have a new daily driver :>
For donut (1.6) i prefer HTCClay's CSDI REMIX, which runs stupid fast no matter how much apps you install on your sd-ext. I personally found it faster than Super D / E. This is my daily driver since i randomly use Cyas 6.0.
I assume you have danger SPL since you installed cyas 5x. (if not ... beware )
Originalnexisone said:
considering that you're probably using a G1 and I use first gen MT3G and the rate at which new improved phones are coming out in these quick and disposable times, I think it is absolutely amazing that we can stick with new phones, try out there interfaces before they're even released. You're not hacking and I'm not hacking hardcore, but we get faux hack thanks to work of all these people who aren't making a dime on these roms. All lot of these people start like you and me and by flashing learn more and more about these phones. For example, I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that you can go about using superuser terminal, which is thanks to quite a few people who made it possible for noobs to root their phone in the first place, anyways, in terminal you can decide how much priority you give to the phone apk. Google it. Hell there's a guy on the sapphire forum who's give instructions on how to build your own stock froyo so you can tweak it however you want, check it out, I'm thinking about it.
I was diehard nokia fan up until they sold me a n95 that had 3g, just not here and told me there was nothing they could do about it. I thought their system was open....geez it was nothing compared to this android thing.
the one thing that bites my a** here is seeing response to roms where people have lost focus of important things like manners. I'm not saying this is you, but check it out. Guy like Chrome or such, works super hard releasing a rom every other day and somebody chimes in, wifi doesn't work, or camera is force closing, not a daily driver, I flashing back....What? I mean, how about a thanks for chance to check out something new or hey, how about asking why it might not work and learning the process. Think about it, these guys got to have a day job, cause they ain't making it selling roms or monitoring forums to teach some guy how to flash, but they do it and they don't complain. Very rare to find this kinda service today or even yesterday.
Welcome to the community and learn something about why your phone with a certain rom isn't functioning perfectly, I think you'll be glad you did.
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Click to collapse
Wow I gues you're tying to impress, being a newbie and all, but that's one aweome post... only part I don't get is the "welcome to the forums" in the last paragraph...
paaaaan said:
I cannot neglect a fact after i tried so many roms by cyanogen: no one rom is so stable for everyday use.
for 1.6 , the 4.2.15.1 is the last version ,but you must wait a long time to make a normal call ,it is not standale, and it also had a missing sms issue.
for 2.1, i do not know if there is still a updated version after 5.0.8. the camera issue is still there , and also i encounter 2 times cannot-bootup issue (only reflash the rom again).
cyanogen's work is awesome , but i think the stable rom is so important for normal use. IS THERE ANY ONE?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes. Unroot your phone and get the official updates from t-mobile, sprint, etc. Problem solved, too easy...
paaaaan said:
I cannot neglect a fact after i tried so many roms by cyanogen: no one rom is so stable for everyday use.
for 1.6 , the 4.2.15.1 is the last version ,but you must wait a long time to make a normal call ,it is not standale, and it also had a missing sms issue.
for 2.1, i do not know if there is still a updated version after 5.0.8. the camera issue is still there , and also i encounter 2 times cannot-bootup issue (only reflash the rom again).
cyanogen's work is awesome , but i think the stable rom is so important for normal use. IS THERE ANY ONE?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OP,
I am sorry for the flames you're receiving for asking a legitimate question. People on this board automatically make the assumption that users only want to use leading edge software. Xda has become very mainstream nowadays. News Media is driving everyday users here who just want an improved experience, but who dont necessarily understand the complexities of development. Does that mean they are not welcome? Absolutely not.
To answer your question, a rom based off donut or eclair will give you the results you are looking for. I specifically use zd donut 1.8 "got donut? " rom(ignore my signature)..... it is fast and stable. But so are the super e and supper d series roms. GivE them a go, you will be thankful. But every now and then flash a new rom just to check it out.
Good luck
Just my 2 cents
I am in the same boat, I like trying out new things but I need my phone for everyday use, that's why I picked up a spare G1 with cracked screen for less then $50 and use it to try out new stuff (currently CM6). My main driver - Super-D 1.9.3, the last stable version that you can actually call stable. I also removed whole bunch of stuff that I don't ever use and added some visual enhancements (clear settings widget, MusicMod, ADW latest launcher). Man, thant thing flyes and not a single FC in over 3 months.
All in all, it's inevitable that most of us will get new phones and these "improvements" will be oushined by stock roms but in the mean time be thankfull for what you get (for free!!!!) and learn enough to customize any rom to the point that it fits your needs.
Somebody else pointed this out earlier, but I'm gonna bring it up again. We're lucky to even have support for 2.1 on D/S. It's not meant for our devices and, yah, there are going to be some bugs, considering it was meant for a different devices. The same goes (pretty much) double for 2.2. When I got my Dream, I didn't imagine we would/could get past 1.6. I was freaking out when I got Eclair for the first time. Now we're on Froyo, same version as the N1, and (for me, at least) it's running better than Donut ever was for me.
While I do agree that we don't have many completely stable roms nowadays, I'm also grateful that we have developers like Cyanogen who still care about the lower income (I say that because I justt don't have the funds to purchase a higher end Android phone as of right now, and I suspect that may be the reason many other people have invested in one either) public enough to keep putting out solid, functional roms.
Count your blessings.
enomther "theofficial" roms are super stable.Keep coming back to them.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=538456&highlight=enomther
paaaaan said:
I cannot neglect a fact after i tried so many roms by cyanogen: no one rom is so stable for everyday use.
for 1.6 , the 4.2.15.1 is the last version ,but you must wait a long time to make a normal call ,it is not standale, and it also had a missing sms issue.
for 2.1, i do not know if there is still a updated version after 5.0.8. the camera issue is still there , and also i encounter 2 times cannot-bootup issue (only reflash the rom again).
cyanogen's work is awesome , but i think the stable rom is so important for normal use. IS THERE ANY ONE?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here's my top choices of roms that ive found to be extremely fast
and stable as heck.
Donut Roms: 1st choice - Htcclay's superbad/superfast
2nd choice - SuperD.
Eclair Roms: 3rd choice - Chromatic 3.9.1
(Extremely fast and stable for a eclair rom but is nothing compared to those Donut roms.)
paaaaan said:
I cannot neglect a fact after i tried so many roms by cyanogen: no one rom is so stable for everyday use.
for 1.6 , the 4.2.15.1 is the last version ,but you must wait a long time to make a normal call ,it is not standale, and it also had a missing sms issue.
for 2.1, i do not know if there is still a updated version after 5.0.8. the camera issue is still there , and also i encounter 2 times cannot-bootup issue (only reflash the rom again).
cyanogen's work is awesome , but i think the stable rom is so important for normal use. IS THERE ANY ONE?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey paaaaan!
I totally understand where you coming from, I (and probably many users here) have exactly the same problem. When i got my MT3G and first rooted it (more than a year and a half now) i was trying out a different ROM everyday, just polaying around and having fun. Cyan's ROM's never really worked out for me and i think i got a bit traumatised about it (although i recognize the invaluable contribution he's been to the Android community - it just couldn't possible be the same scene without him and Google should, if it hasn't already, recognize this fact. But after some time i started wanting to have a stable rom, just something that wouldn't hang out on me or lagged all the time - this was quite some time ago, mind you, the Hero sense ROMs were coming out for the first time and 1.6 had just been released. after many tries i stuck with Dwang's Donut build (no longer developed) which at the time was the fastest and most stable ROM i found. I stuck in my head that none of the latest versions of Android would run as smooth in my phone so i stayed with Dwang's (flashing it every month or so) until very recently actually.
I don't really remember why but i decided to give a go to the newest ROM's after reading so much praise for them in here... and i must confess i was really taken back by how far the development had come and what i had missed. I've tried Cannon202 Complete Eclair 2.2, Clay's SuperBad 1.6 & 1.7 and now on Chromatic 3.9.1 and i must say they all are stable enough for everyday use, according to my standards. Now, you must note that many times what makes the ROM unstable is not the ROM itself but how you flash it and how you fill it. I ALWAYS wipe completely before flashing a ROM - and don't just do a complete wipe in recovery but actually use fastboot to wipe the system as well. Another thing you must note is the amount of apps you throw at it, and how fast i do it. If i install or recover all my apps after install no ROM holds stable... instead i go installing them little by little, as i need them... i found out that with the exact same ROM this makes a HUGE difference! Also, after you flash, wait for it to settle down before you start configuring it... i normally also do one or two reboots before i start tweaking anything or installing apps. Compcache and swap never really worked for me so i don't use it (though i do have the SD partioned for that). SetCPU and the right configuration on the settings of the phone (try Chrome's post-boot set-up on his Cromatic thread) make a huge difference.
I must confess i really like Clay's SUPERBAD ROM (1.6 actually works better for me then 1.7) but it seems it has been discontinued, unfortunately; and i still haven't tried any Froyo build (waiting for it to mature, let some problems be solved.... nothing really in it that i can't live without); but i consider all Eclair ROM's i've tried based of Cyan's 5.0.8 perfect for everyday use. I mean, they are faster than the stock Vodafone ROM it came with the phone. Of course, you will have problems after a while and need to rewipe and reflash but that is exactly why you rooted your phone right?
I bought my gf a Sprint Hero to see if she likes using Android. Might buy an Evo or whatever comes next if she likes the platform (this is her first smartphone, I've been using them for a loooong time - since the iPaq days!)
Anyway, the used one I bought her has stock 1.5 ROM on it, and I know that the Sprint 2.1 ROM is also available. I've searched all over and see mixed opinions on if its worth upgrading or not. A lot of bugs seem to crop up in the 2.1 version, but also some new features and better app compatibility in the market.
I'm a long-time HTC device user, but always WinMo, so I'm no stranger to flashing/modding etc. But I don't want to get into that at all with her phone, she'll get angry if I try to do something and then something else breaks, so I just want whatever stock ROM "just works" best. I don't want to have to "maintain" this device.
Any advice is appreciated, thanks in advance.
Hi there. As far as what "just works"...I have used both 1.5 and 2.1 stock...some people have experienced multiple problems. I used 2.1 stock for awhile before rooting...and quite honestly, the only problems I had was occasional lag...not drastic like some have reported....and rapid battery drain. I've since rooted 2.1 and use an overclocked kernel. Now, with GPS location off (still use cell service loc.), and no task killer whatsoever...i get almost 24 hours of battery with moderate to high usage. I experience no lag whatsoever. And, quite honestly, the rooting process and installing the OC'd kernel are VERY easy. I don't know about your girlfriend, but the skeptics I know...given a few days running straight stock unrooted...came back in a couple days begging me to root and make their Hero "run like mine".
Thanks for the info. I might go that route. Are you running a ROM with Sense? Did you just root the stock Sprint Sense ROM and OC it?
Any more help would be appreciated, like I said I've done a lot of ROM flashing and modding in the past but always on WinMo, I'm new to Android but have been reading up on these forums so I think I have a good sense of what needs to be done now. I'm not afraid of rooting / flashing processes, but I really don't want to put on ROMs where little weird glitches are going to piss her off. I don't mind dealing with that on my own phone, but this really does need to be a one-time job where I can just had it off to her and never have to deal with it again
I am running a ROM with Sense. It's the actually the HTC ROM that has been rooted. Here is a link to the thread. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=703267 It runs sweet. I also formatted the stock 2gb SD card to ext for use with Apps2SD and it worked flawlessly after flashing the ROM. There are plenty of straightforward instructions here in this forum. Like I said, I think your g/f will be very pleased with the speed and battery life using this message. I flash a couple roms now and then to try something new, but always come back to this 'cuz it "just works".
1.5 is faster & more stable imo...but outdated. 2.1 provides a few new features but it's really up to her which one she wants to use. try them both out.
for 2.1 id use the stock rooted sprint rom
for 1.5 id suggest the pancake rom.
If you flash one of the OC kernels, just know that not all phones can handle the OC speeds, especially on bootup. If you decide to flash an OC kernel, MAKE SURE you nandroid backup first in case that phone goes into bootloops or freezes after the new kernel. Start with the 691mhz one just to test, then if all is good you can move up to 710mhz or 768mhz if you want more.
Also, to answer your initial question, I personally think stock 2.1 is much better overall than 1.5. Without even considering OC kernels, extra apps, widgets, etc....Android 1.5 didn't even have native CDMA support, so it had to contain a lot more code/tweaking for our Sprint build, which is why it runs so slowly and laggy. 2.1 includes CDMA support which automatically makes the code smaller and it means the OS automatically runs more quickly and smoothly on almost all HTC Heroes.
The only big consistent issue I've heard of on stock 2.1 is terrible Bluetooth functionality. Most other issues are hit or miss cases that aren't very common.
Hope this helps.
Thanks for the info, this has all been helpful.
To update, I dove in and just updated to the latest 2.1 Sprint official ROM (.6). I don't really think she has a current need to be rooted, as she doesn't use many apps, and doesn't need tethering.
If the need arises in the future for these things, I'll just flash the ROM linked above, or flash back to .5, root, and re-flash. Maybe by then there will be a root for .6 anyway and it will be even easier yet.
I'd also like to post my experience with 1.5 vs 2.1 I am not sure why everyone feels 2.1 is so much slower. I'm guessing it's because they haven't applied the .6 patch, which in addition to fixing the root exploit, also adds a bunch of speed enhancements in the UI.
2.1 is much faster on her phone than 1.5, especially scrolling in long lists, using the dialer, and even swiping between homescreens. She's quite happy with it, and I don't have to hack any fixes due to broken stuff in ROMs, so I'm happy too
I'm liking Android enough that I think I'm willing to buy another phone to play with, I got sick of dealing with flashing and hacking on my WinMo devices, so I went to iPhone. But I want a new Android HTC phone to play with, I think I'll buy a Nexus One or something.