Database Develop

Froyo Slower Than Eclair?

Poll: Do you find Froyo (latest JS8) slower than Eclair? (JM9)
Going from Eclair to froyo originally felt like a good few steps backwards.
Things have improved lately now that samsung improved their firmwares, however go back to jm9 for a few minutes and you will see they have a long way to go to even catch up with the performance we used to have.
Eclair lagfixed JM9:
A smooth notification bar, with no lag, ever
An AMAZING browser, much better then even the froyo hardware accelerated one
Much better touch screen responsiveness
All we got from froyo was a few benchmark score improvements, performance as a whole is actually quite poor.
If community development had split equally with froyo and eclair, i would definitely have stuck with eclair.
What do the rest of you think?

I thought it was my imagination but when I was cleaning up my phone with jm9 before a flash to jv1 I was amazed with speed and smoothness on jm9. Js8 does feel a little slow but all the new minor tweeks here and there add up to a total better experience (Flash player). Jv1 improved will be off the hook I reckon. Almost kept it even with all the bugs as its so smooth and fast.
Lets hope someone's mate is right soon...
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

I'm not sure what firmware I was on, but i moved from 2.1 to 2.2 (JP5 - Australian) and I found it to be much slower overall. Just flashed to JS8 2.2.1 and it's much better.

I think, in terms of interface smoothness 2.1 is better, but filesystem lag is lower (but far from ideal, though) on 2.2.1. And 2.2 is the worst of them all.

android53 said:
Poll: Do you find Froyo (latest JS8) slower than Eclair? (JM9)
Going from Eclair to froyo originally felt like a good few steps backwards.
Things have improved lately now that samsung improved their firmwares, however go back to jm9 for a few minutes and you will see they have a long way to go to even catch up with the performance we used to have.
Eclair lagfixed JM9:
A smooth notification bar, with no lag, ever
An AMAZING browser, much better then even the froyo hardware accelerated one
Much better touch screen responsiveness
All we got from froyo was a few benchmark score improvements, performance as a whole is actually quite poor.
If community development had split equally with froyo and eclair, i would definitely have stuck with eclair.
What do the rest of you think?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Touch responsiveness?
I think that the responsiveness of the screens doesn´t have anything to do with the FW version.
At first use. After one day the performance in equal to froyo in that aspect. At first use eclairwas awesome but after installing 20 apps....
Instead some people with the latest JS8 or even JS3 don't even think of using any lagfix even with more than 100 apps.
I admit that the shutdown animation from JM9 is far more smooth.
Finnaly don't forget that JM9 was the latest eclair ROM. And Sammy is still updating Froyo.

Froyo faster than Eclair then 2.21 faster still and JS8 seems faster .
jje

froyo 2.2 was a terrible upgrade from speed point of view..... try in application list to pinch out(to get a full view of the tabs) and scroll between tabs! it just lags as hell.. 2.2.1 i way better...but yes jm9 lagfixed was lovely!!

I can confirm if u were talking about smoothiness a lagfixed eclair is alot better than froyo even its 2.2.1, you can see the major difference if you are using launcherpro..and eclair did perform alot better than froyo in terms of battery life..but of course froyo's browser performance is promising due to the flash player and its compatibility for latest apps and games..I came form JM9 and using JS8 now..performance aint convincing me to continue to use froyo lol..was thinking to revert back to eclair..but actually what bothers me the most is the battery life.froyo drains the battery even its in idle..i will stick with JS8 for the night..if the battery still drops like 4-5% for 8hours..Im going back to JM9 =)

About touch response, i am on about how long it takes the phone to scroll after you touch the screen.
On froyo it seems delayed and often laggy, you will try scroll something and only untill about half way through the movement will the phone react and scroll.
On eclair it was much better
On iphone it is instant
On a side note, the latest CM7 has improved on this, the notification bar and most menu's are very smooth. although as of now, poor browser performance and battery drain make it useless for daily use.

Indeed. The latest Eclairbuilds (JM8/JM9) were smooth as butter in combination with Voodoo. Browserperformance isn't reached by Froyo or GB since. And yes my impression is the same regarding the touchresponsiveness. But somewhere here I read how to adjust this in Froyo. Some weeks ago there was a thread.
Edit: If Eclair would support Flash I'd still use it

Nash123 said:
Indeed. The latest Eclairbuilds (JM8/JM9) were smooth as butter in combination with Voodoo. Browserperformance isn't reached by Froyo or GB since. And yes my impression is the same regarding the touchresponsiveness. But somewhere here I read how to adjust this in Froyo. Some weeks ago there was a thread.
Edit: If Eclair would support Flash I'd still use it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
are you talking about FuguTweaks or Damian's kernel's Touchscreen sensitivity?

I guess Damian's kernel's Touchscreen sensitivity.

android53 said:
About touch response, i am on about how long it takes the phone to scroll after you touch the screen.
On froyo it seems delayed and often laggy, you will try scroll something and only untill about half way through the movement will the phone react and scroll.
On eclair it was much better
On iphone it is instant
On a side note, the latest CM7 has improved on this, the notification bar and most menu's are very smooth. although as of now, poor browser performance and battery drain make it useless for daily use.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Browser perfomance is due to flash.
I really don't notice ant diff in touch response. Maybe it's just me.

lol guys..lets come to an conclusion..the only highlight of froyo is just the browser that supports flash..nothing else.lol

lol guys..lets come to an conclusion..the only highlight of froyo is just the browser that supports flash..nothing else.lol
If that was true no devs would build Froyo roms .
jje

because there is no point developing an old firmware when it is about to be getting eliminated soon lol.
its something like will you still go n buy an Iphone2G when Iphone5 is releasing soon? same

yes froyo is slower than eclair and all of them slower than dark's

according to me jm8 and jm9 is the best!

questions about roms

im looking for a new rom i want something thats good on the battery like paragon. but when i run paragon my speaker goes out (i have tried it twice now) i tried firefly but the battery was awful on it but speaker never went out. so im looking for something new with a good battery and isnt to laggy and simple.

Give Apex 5.1 (formerly Twingerbread)a try. I get great battery life, has a great modem, and its really quick and responsive. Then I swapped the Speedmod kernel for Suckerpunch-Voodoo #11. I ran about a 1680 quadrant, 14.25 linpack ten minutes after install.
Good luck, and I hope this helps.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

Try Serendipity 6.3! It's got fantastic, minimalistic Gingerbread theming, and it's really fast. Plus, I get at least 2 days of battery life on it with moderate use.
Here's the link: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=900568

I'm gonna second the suggestion for Serendipity 6.3, although I'll also mention that just because someone gets good battery life on a ROM doesn't mean you will. Everyone uses their phone differently. What may be moderate use to one person may be heavy usage to another and light usage to another. So I state above all else, your mileage WILL vary!

i understand about the milage i started using continuum im liking it so far. ill give the others a try after a week or so maybe.

Just flashed to serendipity 6.3 this morning, i would recommend it for sure. I browse the web for 12 or so hours at a time and my battery life has been greatly extended compared to the leaked stock froyo. Everything loads much faster as well

Advantages of 2.3 vs 2.2 for Captivate

What is the advantage of 2.3 vs. 2.2 for our phone. I know everyone likes to have the latest and greatest, but is there any features that the captivates hardware takes advantage of. For example I understand that 2.3.4 adds video chat but the captivate does not have a front facing camera. I know that the update has to have security enhancements, but what are features to get excited for with 2.3?

The voice stuff. Much more full featured without third party apps. I can say things like "set alarm 15 minutes" and be alerted.
Other than that and the fact that most development has switched to 2.3, not much.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk

Battery life is HUGELY extended. Gingerbread does some automatic juggling with data connections to keep usage to a minimum. Pre gingerbread I would get 6-8 hours of battery life without using a program like Juice Defender. Now I easily get 30 hours of battery life.

I thought there was a battery drain issue, was that only with cm7 or I9000 roms?

I too experience massive battery drain with Miui which is a 2.3 cm7 rom.
asrrin29, are you suggesting other 2.3 roms that aren't based on cm7 will have the extended battery life?

I get 30 plus hours with Andromeda3 with about 30% battery left , so , if battery life is one of the few reasons to flash GB I'll just stay where I'm at.

MIUI and CyanogenMod have horrible battery life. Thats their own little bug, remember they are AOSP's and they still haven't worked out the kinks on Nexus S rom to galaxy S. But Gingerbread roms have HUGE battery life increase over froyo. I can get anywhere from 12-36 hours (12 would be heavy use). Sadly Android 2.3.3 has a small little bug where android OS would start eating battery like no one's business, a reboot fixes that problem. Android 2.3.4 fixes that issue.

The battery drain on cm7 is nowhere bad as it was, I get around 18- 26 hours. and most issues have been fix as well.

speedy_11 said:
The battery drain on cm7 is nowhere bad as it was, I get around 18- 26 hours. and most issues have been fix as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I get about 6-8 max on MIUI.
I'll try a non-cm7 rom.

speedy_11 said:
The battery drain on cm7 is nowhere bad as it was, I get around 18- 26 hours. and most issues have been fix as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well I am basing my info from what I've read. I also think the battery issues have to do with kernel-modem combination. But when people say they are getting horrible battery life on GB rom, odds are they are on cm7 or MIUI =/

prbassplayer said:
Well I am basing my info from what I've read. I also think the battery issues have to do with kernel-modem combination. But when people say they are getting horrible battery life on GB rom, odds are they are on cm7 or MIUI =/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree with the kernel-modem combination
Cause i stay on the stock kernel, most other cm7 kernels tend get out date and break updates so i just stay way from them.
Miui seems to be the one with battery life issues, cm7 is getting pretty close to samsung rom battery levels.

Undervolting helps a lot with cm7/miui. I personally feel like gingerbread is smoother and the newer gb roms have some beautiful themes. Battery life is definitely better with the exception of cm7/miui.
Sent from my I897 using xda premium

Are you Happy With ICS?

So, ICS has been out for a while and people are getting it working on our phone quite well. Taking into consideration that most ICS ROMs aren't polished yet and most still have a few bugs to sort out, are you happy with it?
I'm not talking about what the devs here did to get it working on our phone (They are a bunch of little magicians, eh?), but what Google did creating it. I have tried a couple of ICS ROMs but I couldn't get it working properly on my SGS and went back to a stock Gingerbread ROM, so I am still not that aware of most of what ICS can do.
ICS is a big departure from Gingerbread and takes a bit of investigating to find where everything is, but that's part of the fun.
What would you change in ICS and what do you really like that wasn't there before, or has been improved?
I really like the Data Usage meter. It's a great tool for those who are always watching their monthly limits.
Ian

I enjoyed using ICS a lot, everything about it, from the look and feel of it to the smoothness and speed of the OS.
The only reason im back on GB is because of problems in the battery department, no matter what kernel I used, I had problems with the battery life.
Ill be definately making the switch once the roms mature more.

During last week I tried few ICS roms and finally I came back to GB JVU - SAUROM.
Last night i tested ICS CNA 1.4.0. It works quite well witch glitch kernel, but from my poiont of view it still not the same preformance what is in GB. I had some lags in app drawer. Settings menu was slow (with semaphore 0.8.1 very slow).
I overclocked to 1300 and it's improved performance but in AnTutu I reached 3008. In comparision to JVU Saurom it is over 400 less (in Saurom with Semaphore 2.5.0 my AnTutu results is 3480).
I like plays last "hi-end" games. I tried Modern Combat 2 under SAUROM and under CNA 1.4.0 (both overclocked to 1300Mhz) and under SAUROM JVU playing it's definitively better.
I'dont know what to do. I like ICS style, but I look for fast and stable system.
I'll join the question: how do you feel wit ics for SGS? and kind of ICS customs do you recommend for me?

Too bad we can't get the best Devs here to develop one version of ICS together. With all that firepower it should be no time before ICS ran perfect on the SGS.
I still don't understand why Samsung said they couldn't do ICS for the SGS when the Devs here can.
Ian

ics is smooth and a real eyecandy but actually i cant find a real lifechanging feature in it. was quite happy with 2.2, had unstable episode of stock kies 2.6 and endedup in aokp 2.1
ics works but im experiencing crazy bat drains from mediaserver and music playback on ics costs A LOT of battery
i guess i will flash 2.2 some day

Hello
I like the Slim version of ICS. I am currently using Slim 2.5 with the Semaphore_ICS_0.9.0 kernel.
With the CPU frequency set to 1100 (which is what I normally run) I get 3324* on the AnTuTu benchmark.
* 3335 + 3313= 3324 (average)
Note : One needs to be careful comparing AnTuTu scores using Semaphore_ICS_0.9.0 kernel. By this I mean that it is not necessarily a straight apples to apples comparison due to all the different kernel settings which are possible.
@+

I also use Slim with Semaphore kernel 0.9.0 and it has been an delight. ICS is so good that i would sell my phone if i had to go back to gb again Much of the bugs have been fixed by now, and really this custom roms are very stable. Onecosmio SGICS rc4.2 is also very good and polished. You could start with that one, also has great battery life in comparison with others.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

I think its a bit laggy
but i might need another kernel? I don't know.
It looks good and there are a lot more options but i don't like the stock internet browser the one on gingerbread is great. Does exactly what i need it to and when you press the more button everything is in the right place.

Semaphore ICS 0.9.0 unable to get network
Flashed my T-mobile Samsung Galaxy S (I9000 using on wind mobile) to Semaphore ICS 0.9.0 and unable to get on wind network...have tried practically almost a lot of things including flashing other ICS roms, used the radios suggested in the forums but am unable to get it to work. Can someone suggest me the correct modem file to be flashed?

I'm loving ICS I'm using TeamICSSGS rom runs perfectly I find everything to work well and I've ended up getting between 2-3days on battery depending on how I use it.
I have no clue what Samsung was every on about saying the Galaxy S will never get ICS well whats running pretty good on my Galaxy S then

I think it works great. I love the way ICS looks and feel and also the fact that my SGS its a bit different from most sgs's out there.
battery is still problematic but since being a heavy user I carry a charger where ever I go anyway.
bottom line... Love it
Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk

Few posts ago I wrote that I came back to GB. I was not happy with ICS becouse of many resons, but now I have to change my mind - RC4.2 runs great. I have one small issue with Gmail app (does not work) but I think that something could be wrong during installation becouse other users don't report this error. I have to reflash RC4.2 and test it again.

I like ics very much. The design, speed...but i hate is battery drain. When i had 2.3.6 I could be on phone 12 hours straight till 0% (massive gaming over 3g or wifi) it was great. But with ics max i get is 4 hours non stop...thats sad...I tryed everything from millions of battery apps to kernels to voltage and dont remember how many guides on utube/xda/android forums about it...
When that will be fixed im back to it, till than Ill be on stable 2.3.6 gaming

Kresh0 said:
I like ics very much. The design, speed...but i hate is battery drain. When i had 2.3.6 I could be on phone 12 hours straight till 0% (massive gaming over 3g or wifi) it was great. But with ics max i get is 4 hours non stop...thats sad...I tryed everything from millions of battery apps to kernels to voltage and dont remember how many guides on utube/xda/android forums about it...
When that will be fixed im back to it, till than Ill be on stable 2.3.6 gaming
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You have an unusual phone .... or battery. Since I bought my SGS I have to charge it every night. My best achievement was 24 hours (becouse I fell asleep and forgot to connect charger)

Ics feedback
from my exp dark knight 2.1 (4.0.4) is best more stable giving maximum battery life...ics is userfriendly,more smooth and more stable...
the only problem is battery life but it will not effects me more bcz i only use internet for mails and sometimes music plus it gives me 24 hour battery back up(gps off,wifi usage moderate,data plan always on)

I only have a few gripes about ICS (THICSSGS 4.0.3)
- The dialer is not idiot proof enough for me, I keep making unwanted calls.
- For some reason my photos keep showing up in duplicate or triplicate. Kind of pain since I use the camera for work and when I delete the duplicates they appear again the next day.
- Sound volume is to quite overall.
- Can't make an appointment in calendar without an Gmail or similar account to sync to.
- Did I mention the SOUND IS TOO QUITE?
Other than these few things the move to ICS has been a good one. Last week I got nearly 4 days on a single charge but its averaging out to 2 days now. With GB 2 days was pushing it.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using my GT-I9000

question to heavy-music-users:
1. do you experience high cpu usage on mediaserver?
2. any issues with screen off wifi connection used by interney radios or shoutcast? in my case winamp pauses every 20-30 seconds

Comparing ICS to Gingerbread, ICS wins in every single aspect for me, except for the ability of Samsung roms to play a wide range of media formats. ICS is faster, more ram-efficient, looks better and runs games more smoothly than Gingerbread.
However, I was previously on Froyo 2.2.1 ZSJPK before using ICS, because I preferred Froyo to Gingerbread. So, comparing ICS to Froyo, there are several things that ICS loses out to Froyo. To name a few, Froyo has way more free ram, hence better multitasking. On Froyo, I can have the browser running a desktop version of facebook as well as NOVA 2 running in the background, without either being closed. But on ICS, it's hard to even run Angry Birds and Contacts at the same time due to the fact that on average, there is only about 60Mb of free space.
Hence, ICS wins in all ways except multitasking, but that is due to the Galaxy S' limitations, not the actual ICS itself.

i had all time the Goa Rom on my SGS i9000 and now two weeks the ICS open kang Projekt and i was happy i find it is so much better we gingerbread the speed is very well
the apks open so fast it works very good for me
greetz nobody

Been using ics since Dec. Very happy with it and won't go back to gingerbread.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk

[Q] Why Upgrade to ICS... debate..

Hi Folks, I'm currently running JW4 on Semaphore 2.7.4bmfr, bloatware removed, custom theme, UOT icons and effects, various hacks. This Rom is very fast (no lags), fast accurate GPS, I can multitask due to lots of free memory, everything simply works, it never, ever has SOD's or FC's. It looks good and has great battery life.
I'm been considering upgrading to ICS and have been reviewing all of the ROM's. I've discovered that all ICS Roms all seem to have many issues, and to get to this hassled state, requires lots of flashing, wipes and rewipes.
Hmmmm, my (genuine) question is, why should I upgrade to ICS? What does ICS provide over my current fast, stable, long lasting ROM?
It has to be something more than the way it looks (I mean the OS only exists to run your applications) Guess you might say, just try it and you'll see (which means you have no solid reply, it also means I have to spend hours and hours flashing one or more ICS Rom's before deciding, Damn! I need to go back to JW4 as ICS is too slow/buggy/dodgy battery etc. Hence the reason for this question.

Very good question, i've been wondering the same myself as i'm still running cm7.
Sent from my android shizzle!

You should stay on GB . To be honest, I only stay on ICS, because my titanium backups don't work on GB. But I think the difference isn't big.
--------------------------------

I guess it strongly depends on your favors and focus. I'm using ICS since the first days of onecosmics and teamhacksungs ICS roms. ICS has a bunch of goodies and gimmicks but nothing for that you'd say: You can't use a smartphone without it!.
You're not wrong by still using GB, definetly not!

nitrous² said:
I guess it strongly depends on your favors and focus. I'm using ICS since the first days of onecosmics and teamhacksungs ICS roms. ICS has a bunch of goodies and gimmicks but nothing for that you'd say: You can't use a smartphone without it!.
You're not wrong by still using GB, definetly not!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
totally agree.ICS can beat gingerbread in many ways
Face recognizition (i know gingerbread have this but its better on ics)
better UI speed (because of Ui now can use GPU)
and many things i cant remember now.
and about free ram..236 mb free..
now which is better?only better way of gingerbread is multitasking.and ics can beat in several ways.
sorry for my bad english.

with regards to speed, i would have to say that ICS has the edge; I have never had such a smooth experince while browsing and multitasking on GB as I do on ICS. I am currently using DK3 with Devil2 0.71 sio w/ ondemand gov w/ sampling down step @ 5.

nitrous² said:
I guess it strongly depends on your favors and focus. I'm using ICS since the first days of onecosmics and teamhacksungs ICS roms. ICS has a bunch of goodies and gimmicks but nothing for that you'd say: You can't use a smartphone without it!.
You're not wrong by still using GB, definetly not!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can't use a smartphone without it. Ever since I changed over to ics I can't go a day on gb, even with the bugs.
If you like my posts hit thanks
Rom: Dark knight 4
Kernel: Devil Kernel
Keep it ANDROID!!!!!!!!

What about battery life? Does the usage of gpu for ui decrease battery life? How much of a hassle is it to switch from jw5 to ics: can you use your titanium backups at least for user apps?

DocMarc73 said:
What about battery life? Does the usage of gpu for ui decrease battery life? How much of a hassle is it to switch from jw5 to ics: can you use your titanium backups at least for user apps?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I get at least 24 hours usage with ICS. Switching isn't too much hassle, backup with titanium, do a nandroid in CWM, wipe, install ics rom, boot, restore titanium backups.
If anything goes wrong or you want to go back: flash stock JW5, flash kernel with recovery, restore nandroid.

Ics has some features that take your device to a next level.The only think that I don't like is the battery drain.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA Premium App

sebxtreme said:
Ics has some features that take your device to a next level.The only think that I don't like is the battery drain.
You forgot to mention that the camera is much worst in ICS
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

~UnderTaker~ said:
totally agree.ICS can beat gingerbread in many ways
Face recognizition (i know gingerbread have this but its better on ics)
better UI speed (because of Ui now can use GPU)
and many things i cant remember now.
and about free ram..236 mb free..
now which is better?only better way of gingerbread is multitasking.and ics can beat in several ways.
sorry for my bad english.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
what rom is that?? is it slim ics

yahyoh said:
what rom is that?? is it slim ics
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ICSSGS RC4.2 + Devil2 XL kernel.

Im comparing Slim ICS with Darky 10.4.2
With ICS you get better UI experiences.. Smooth and fast..
Browsing is much, much better..
Easy customizable toggles
Easy screenshot
What I dont like:
Camera sucks(less features), cant silent
Battery drains faster
1 lockscreen
Cant join contacts
When ppl call in, picture gets truncated
Default Gallery cant play my AVI files
I will try other ICS roms and decide whether to stick with ICS..

Sure you can join contacts use contapps! I find it the best to sync and join contacts.
+ it has free sms to other contapps users
Tapatalk on S2 "where's the beef"

gila2 said:
Im comparing Slim ICS with Darky 10.4.2
With ICS you get better UI experiences.. Smooth and fast..
Browsing is much, much better..
Easy customizable toggles
Easy screenshot
What I dont like:
Camera sucks(less features), cant silent
Battery drains faster
1 lockscreen
Cant join contacts
When ppl call in, picture gets truncated
Default Gallery cant play my AVI files
I will try other ICS roms and decide whether to stick with ICS..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You don't know what you are saying.
I already used several releases of ICS (AOKP, AOSP, DK, MIUI) and the camera is great and you can silent. About drains, it happen, but depend the type of use. Why you need a different lockscreen? You can join contacts, i already done that. About contact pic, there is another method to override that, it calls HaxSync, by default google don't store high-res pic in contacts.

I'll stay on stock XXJW4.. Satisfies my needs and camera is awesome xD. And I can play several HD games that won't run on ICS
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA

Both have qualities and lacks... with GB and its roms come a superb battery-life, ICS lets you reach evening with a (not much) strong use, but nothing more.
I upgraded to ICS for curiosity, and the only thing i miss is ofc that feature. Wouldn't ever return to GB though: the rest is better on ICS, from UI to browsing

I could never think of going back to a GB rom...
First, with ICS, I finally have that feeling of maturity that the OS wasn't able to provide with previous release.
Second, hardware acceleration alone is worth the switch IMHO.
Third, RFS on Samsung's roms... can't stand it's performance degradation over time and lagfixes are just like Band-aid on an open fracture.
Fourth, kernel devs have pretty much all moved to developping ICS versions of their kernel leaving GB versions to lag behind.
Yes there are a few glitches here and there, but nothing that can prevent me from doing whatever I used to do on Eclair/Froyo/Gingerbread.
The biggest issue with ICS is with deep idle and that's only if you use your phone to listen to music... which is not my case. But then again, if you take some time to read carefully, it is possible to make work quite easilly.
As for the camera thing... you need to compare apples to apples!
As far as I can tell, the camera app used in each and every ICS builds out there is the AOSP camera whereas the camera app in Eclair/Froyo/Gingerbread roms is the one developped by Samsung... not the AOSP one.
Finally, with respect to battery life, i'm using team ICSSGS RC4.2 with Semaphore 1.0.0s kernel and, really, I can't really see any difference. I get the usual 24-30h of battery life I always had before.

There is a lot of truth in many of the posts for and against GB/ICS. I was extremely happy with Darky's ROM, but after seeing the amount of devs playing with ICS I finally took the plunge. ICS I have to say has not been smooth. Many things work well as has been mentioned already e.g. smooth UI etc. But for me few of the many ICS variants work 100% compared to the stabilty of DRom 10.4.2 or JW4 with Semaphore.
My vote for the best ICS variants are Slim ICS as it is stripped down and works and EXTRAOrdinary ICS which is an AOSP. However even with these, the battery life is not as good I have found with GB. Also using a bluetooth car receiver somehow keeps on FC ICS.
I believe the Semaphore Kernel is still the best although I am now trying Icy Glitch.
Watch this space........