Snappyness - Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II

So I've seen this word thrown around a lot since switching to Android from my old iPhail 3G (yes, I actually lived with that horrible laggy device for ~4 years) and in comparisons between Android and iOS (which I'm not trying to get into here). I've also read lots of people saying Jelly Bean was supposed to be 'snappier' compared to ICS. I wasn't sure if they were referring to lag as in fps or a delay in reaction. My Note II is currently stock 4.1.1, but I'm definitely noticing some delay in games, such as Air Hockey, between moving my finger on the screen and the paddle moving in the game, for example. It's quite noticeable in apps like Maps too. I had the Galaxy S III for a short time before I decided I wanted the bigger (and better specs) Note II, but not long enough to make any comparisons. My question is, is there a way to increase the snappyness without doing anything too dramatic, such as flashing a different ROM, etc. Or will a ROM like beanstown106's Jelly Beans help? Or is this a problem that is inherently part of Android operating system/devices? Thanks in advance.

marcmy said:
will a ROM like beanstown106's Jelly Beans help? .
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I can tell you that flashing beans ROM made absolutely no speed difference whatever over my previous debloated/rooted stock ROM (and I didn't really expect it to)
One thing is, it is noticeably laggy when running the inferno galaxy live wallpaper, but pretty much instant response with regular WP.

The "snappieness" in individual apps is really down to the app itself combined with phone specs.
Poorly coded apps may have lag.
High end apps may push the hardware harder and cause lag.
I would bet its mostly the former when it comes to the Note 2.
Samsung also put touchwiz on these phones, which does affect overall performance to some degree. If we get the ability to remove much of it in favor of AOSP versions, then it should perform a little better overall.
The differences between iPhones and Android... is that Apple focuses on user interaction over all other things. So this means they will sacrifice performance in other areas to ensure that user interactions are kept smooth, or at least keep the appearance of smoothness. For example, iOS will stop loading web pages when you start to scroll the screen, so the CPU can focus on smooth scrolling. This means that the page will never finish loading if you keep scrolling around on the screen. Android does not do this or these kind of things. The new "project butter" implemented in JB is designed to help smooth out the interface and user interactions, without sacrificing performance in other areas. Its not perfect though, and it requires good specs and more power than the iOS way of "one thing at a time".

Great response ty very much. I guess next question is will we be able to get those AOSP versions later on or are we SOL in that department?
Sent from my SCH-I605 using xda app-developers app

Depends on which version you have.
I am on Verizon, so my device is locked down, other versions are not.
This device is also unique in the fact it has a Wacom stylus and functionality, so that must be considered.
Often times, you can swap things out without too much issue. AOSP lockscreen instead of touchwiz lockscreen... AOSP launcher instead of touchwiz launcher... without too much trouble. Problem is, underneath the ROM is still touchwiz... or at least that is how it worked on HTC Sense phones. (this is my first touchwiz device) HTC do a lot of work to the underlying framework which meant wholesale replacement of everything wasn't possible, so it depends on how much Samsung changed Android to put touchwiz on it.
Basically they "DE-Touchwiz" the phone and do some background tweaks for added performance, plus they "de-bloat the ROM. (they remove all the unnecessary crap that the carriers and Samsung put in, that served them some benefit, but not benefit the users) The advantage of this method is that you can keep much of the functionality of the stylus.
Another method is to use a ROM based on stock, but tweaked and de-bloated. This usually retains all the functionality of the device as it came out of the box... but the performance is usually only a little better than stock, and less than one where the AOSP stuff has been put in. This method does allow you to keep most of the stylus functionality.
As far as straight up custom ROMs based on AOSP...
They usually offer the best performance for a given device, having no extra crap, and being tweaked for performance... But you will lose most if not all the stylus functionality. Some ROMs may have limited stylus functionality, but they have to put that in themselves, meaning more work on their part.
As far as performance gains... I can only speak of HTC Sense devices with sureness. Where pure AOSP usually had significant improvements to performance/battery life. (mostly due to how extensive Sense is, touchwiz may be better in this regaurd) "De-sensed" ROMs where they removed all of the Sense stuff they could and replaced with AOSP equivalents, had good performance increases. "De-bloated" and tweaked but otherwise stock ROMs had some improvement.
But as was said, the stylus functionality is something that must be considered when looking at ROMs

After using AOSP ROMs quite extensively in both of my two Galaxy 3s, I have no desire whatever to run those type ROMs in my Note 2 (and lose things like pen functionality).
I could never see any performance difference whatever (except maybe in useless benchmarks) between a completely debloated TW ROM with all the features working perfectly and a buggy AOSP ROM in my G3s (and I tried every G3 ROM available at least twice).
Posters where constantly claiming this ROM is PERFECT when discussing any AOSP ROM but two posts later someone else would post "can anybody get NFL Mobile to work??" The next post would say "that has never worked in AOSP but I never use it anyway so who cares........"

Good call. I'd rather keep most functionality
Sent from my SCH-I605 using xda app-developers app

You could go into a store and try some of those games out on a DNA. Hopefully some are free so you don't have to put your google account in the play store and then clear the data. The DNA's gpu is much faster. It sounds like it's the app coding though. I don't have any input lag with on screen buttons playing GTA or N64oid, and emulators are pretty heavy on the processor.

Related

What's so great about CynagenMod?

What is cynagenmod and what's so "great" about it?
Thanks!
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
At the time cyanogen brought a lot of features we now use everyday. Os optimizations apps to sd. Things lf that nature. It is fully opensource and open to anyone to use.
I am fascinated and captivated by the vibrant screen on my epic galaxy s.
Nabeel10 said:
What is cynagenmod and what's so "great" about it?
Thanks!
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
Click to expand...
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The ability to customize the phone, the stability, the speed, the battery life, and it gives phones the the g1/dream froyo which I guess was deemed impossible. It also gives users great support and updates quite frequently.
duboi97 said:
The ability to customize the phone, the stability, the speed, the battery life, and it gives phones the the g1/dream froyo which I guess was deemed impossible. It also gives users great support and updates quite frequently.
Click to expand...
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Plus it is a large group of people that work collectively together, they along with a few others are the ones that the leading "cutting edge" devs........ they blazed the trail and now all of us and the current devs benefit from their work.
Yea. Since its built from scratch it is faster than any roms here.
The g1 roms were same speed rooted or not
When cm came it was fast! And then a rom based on cm called super d was even faster and then a european rom was fastest!
So what I'm trying to say is, CM is and will be faster than the ROMs built here overclocked or not because the ROMs found here are based on the Official Froyo made by Samsung not a Vanilla Gingerbread rom built from scratch
So I think something built frrom scratch is better than something just modified and themed
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
It's built from scratch using the AOSP source, which a lot of ROMs are not (many ROMs are merely modified versions of existing stock ROMs).
It has an extensive amount of customization and flexibility beyond any other ROM I've ever used on an Android device.
I don't mind the ROM I'm running on my Vibrant, but I miss CyanogenMod. Since the CM7 release candidate for the MT4G just hit, I think it's time for me to change it up a bit. I'm tired of my short-range wifi (seriously, less than full bars when I'm only six feet away from my 802.11n router?), non-functional GPS and totally wonky compass, anyway.
I think one of its advantages is the sheer size of the community, if you've ever used various Linux distributions the same concept applies. When your user base expands to the point where you've got dozens if not hundred of loyal users posting guides, reporting bugs, requesting features, and answering new user's questions the community really feeds on itself and builds momentum. Cyanogen is largely responsible for a lot of the momentum in the rom community, and I know it's brought more people to the community than almost any other project.
A lot of things.
The cyanogenmod options alone are worth it - VM Heap, swap, JIT, compcache, et cetera. Granted these things are more relevant to lower end devices. Then there's the native ADW launcher integration. I've never been about to replace the stock launcher with ADW and get the same results.
It's really just its use in practice. Everything works, the interface is very instant/responsive (no jagged animations/scrolling, ever), no force closes, lots of mods/hacks for it from the community, which in general is very scrutinous about performance/stability hangups. Battery life twice what you're use to.
They're the only ROM team I've donated to. I flashed hundreds of roms when I had my Magic (one of the hardware-weakest android phones) but CM is what kept it up to par, giving me an extra generation's life out of it.
I personally love all the features built in, like pulldown menu modifications, as well as pretty much customizing every aspect, NO roms like that exist for our Vibrants..
It is Cyan in color, and mod like the british music scene duh!
hmm... I might have to give cm7 a try once they get it working on the vibrant. They are working on it right? If the manufactures were smart, they would give a pre-release phone to those guys before it's available to the public. Of course, the carriers may not like it. I just purchased my vibrant 3 weeks ago (former iphone 4 user). I tried a few darkyy's roms, then toxic, then finally I stuck with trigger. I'm very satisfied with it - mainly b/c everything works nice and smooth.
I see I'm a bit late but yes, Trigger is awesome. I tried flashing others and I always come back after 2days tops.... For some reason, Trigger runs so much smoother than the other ROMs on my phone... And I have tried 2.2.1(Honestly I dont get the difference) and I am not a fan of the 2.3.3 because most say the GPS doesn't work and I use my GPS at work, yes through my phone(I'm cheap). Plus that is one of my reasons for buying a "smart phone" It has everything at your finger tips, or supposed to at least right. Hope your having fun.,..... BTW, CM is freaking awesome on every device I have seen it on...... I'm actually curious to know why it's not on the Vibrant as an official build but eh..... It will come when it's ready I suppose

[Q] Jelly Bean 4.2?

Just pre-ordered an HTC One X + from AT&T today. Comes with JB 4.1 I believe. Coming from iPhone (jailbroken of course.) I see there was also a recent announcement, something about 4.2 being released by Google to VOSD. Read some of the improvements in 4.2 and would love to have them. But frankly, I don't want to spend hours futzing with my phone or risk bricking it. On the other hand, I don't want to wait 6 months for HTC to release a 4.2 update.
Without any prior experience can someone throw me a bone. Will there be a 4.2 ROM here I can download that will be stable and how long do you estimate before it is available versus waiting for HTC?
I've heard good things about Sense, but if I consider myself to now be a lifelong Android user, isn't it better to get used to using a vanilla version of the OS instead of using some manufacturer-specific overlay like Sense? So should I install a custom ROM no matter what from that perspective or will I loose to many conveniences/features specific to the phone?
Finally, will I be able to go back to stock HTC ROM (whatever is the most recent version) for warranty/resale purposes if I don't wait for the HTC upgrades?
I believe the JB 4.2 was only released yesterday with the sale opening for the Nexus 4/10. I am not really bothered as there are only "cosmetic" updates anyway like this orb pic shooting cam setting and dop down notification.
I got my HOX+ yesterday, after being very happy with the HOX since it was releases in April. And I have to say, so far unlocking/rooting the HOX + is not really necessary or a thing that needs to be done as soon as the batterry has charged to full the very first time you have it in your hands.
HOX+ with HTCs Sense is running very well, smooth as hell. And while I don't like the Sense launcher as it is restricting too much my daily use, I find alternative launcher much better..they provide amazing eye candy. In particular the Apex launcher is worth to have a look at.
But the integration of Sense is the background is just great, Contacts/phone/social media integration is basically perfect, as is the Google calender and in particular Google Now.
There also is a noticable improvement with the sound quality, and sound is mind blowing with the alternative player PowerAmp.
Development will take off for the HOX+ soon, and devs are already on it. Once CWM is up and running I will also unlock/root, if only for for the adblock
I am not a fan of AOSP as it is too stripped down for me. But that is pure personal taste.
Give the development a few weeks, in my opinion the HOX+ is already coming out of the box an amazing piece of technology, and Sense together with JB 4.1.1 is a very good user experience!
So in a way, it seems you could consider Sense a package of apps/features, that you might otherwise install over the vanilla OS anyway? I suppose when I think about it, I spent hours to jailbreak and install Cydia apps on my iPhone to customize how the lock screen works, notification works, the spring board works, the wallpapers work, etc. So even though iOS interface is consistent from version to version, I always modify it to my liking - essentially building my own "Sense" for iPhone.
One thing I don't like is bloatware - apps installed that I don't need but can't install. And I'm sure the AT&T One X+ comes with plenty of it? (At least in Windows PC's you can uninstall the stuff.) So my gut is telling me I will still probably end up rooting and going with a custom ROM anyway. I'm mainly looking for stability and consistency for years to come, despite what device I own. Not that learning a new interface "flavor" has a steep learning curve, but it would be nice to "standardize" on one "flavor" be it Sense or CM10 + some specific launcher app, etc etc. To be honest I don't have hours and hours to experiment anymore so it may be best to take what HTC gives me and be done with it. But I know I will crave 4.2 when available just to see what's improved (I've read about it - not groundbreaking but better), so I guess I'll probably cave and give at least one custom ROM a try. Makes the phone more unique too, which is kind of a novelty. But ya, this stuff we are talking about is foreign to probably 90% of the smartphone users out there. So the devices wouldn't sell as well as they do if they had issues or were hard to use out of the box!
hardstuffmuc said:
I believe the JB 4.2 was only released yesterday with the sale opening for the Nexus 4/10. I am not really bothered as there are only "cosmetic" updates anyway like this orb pic shooting cam setting and dop down notification.
I got my HOX+ yesterday, after being very happy with the HOX since it was releases in April. And I have to say, so far unlocking/rooting the HOX + is not really necessary or a thing that needs to be done as soon as the batterry has charged to full the very first time you have it in your hands.
HOX+ with HTCs Sense is running very well, smooth as hell. And while I don't like the Sense launcher as it is restricting too much my daily use, I find alternative launcher much better..they provide amazing eye candy. In particular the Apex launcher is worth to have a look at.
But the integration of Sense is the background is just great, Contacts/phone/social media integration is basically perfect, as is the Google calender and in particular Google Now.
There also is a noticable improvement with the sound quality, and sound is mind blowing with the alternative player PowerAmp.
Development will take off for the HOX+ soon, and devs are already on it. Once CWM is up and running I will also unlock/root, if only for for the adblock
I am not a fan of AOSP as it is too stripped down for me. But that is pure personal taste.
Give the development a few weeks, in my opinion the HOX+ is already coming out of the box an amazing piece of technology, and Sense together with JB 4.1.1 is a very good user experience!
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Just to chime in. I'm coming from 4 years of iPhone (still have my 4S and from the day I turned on the X+, I was in wow factor! Device runs SMOOTH as heck, responsiveness is more than I expected, just overall Great experience overall. That being said, I still want to be able to customize it even more. My iPhone had all the tweaks, theming, etc that truly made it my experience. So, i'm new to the whole "rooting" for Android devices as I'm a Mac guy also, but have a PC on standby waiting for instructions.
I'm really excited to actually take the dive in Android and especially with this particular device!
sense UI is the best for me among all the launchers.
i don't mind 4.1.1 vs 4..2 i don't think there's much changes anyways.
I have Jellybean 4.2 on my Nexus 7 and my old GNex. It is really buggy and the UI changes suck. There is battery drain, slow charging, instability and BT is broken. I rather have a stable Jellybean 4.1 and get a stable 4.2 in a few months on my Hox+.
Hellion said:
Just to chime in. I'm coming from 4 years of iPhone (still have my 4S and from the day I turned on the X+, I was in wow factor! Device runs SMOOTH as heck, responsiveness is more than I expected, just overall Great experience overall. That being said, I still want to be able to customize it even more. My iPhone had all the tweaks, theming, etc that truly made it my experience. So, i'm new to the whole "rooting" for Android devices as I'm a Mac guy also, but have a PC on standby waiting for instructions.
I'm really excited to actually take the dive in Android and especially with this particular device!
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I had a 4S for a time. Customising it was a pain in the arse. I'll be glad if I never see cydia again . You can customise a lot of android without needing to root. But some things like taskbar icons, transparency effects for system apps, bootlogo's, system transition effects ect. You need to be rooted for.
AndroHero said:
I had a 4S for a time. Customising it was a pain in the arse. I'll be glad if I never see cydia again . You can customise a lot of android without needing to root. But some things like taskbar icons, transparency effects for system apps, bootlogo's, system transition effects ect. You need to be rooted for.
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Is there a verified working root for us ATT users yet? Saw a lot of talk about one which is why I'm asking. If so, any moon steps on how to root? I need it mainly for titanium backup to backup data files too and more tweaks.
Also hope someone can fix the broken Steele headset controls for this dang phone. All u can do is pause and play tracks from your wired or Bluetooth headset. Can't change tracks nor adjust volume from your stereo headset, huge fail for me! At the gym 5 days a week for hours and nothing worse then pulling this link out of my pocket the whole workout to manually change tracks and adjust volume for certain songs.

[Q] Custom rom performances?

With my old tablet the custom roms always meant a performance increase too, but:
I've tried pretty much well every single custom rom available for this tablet by now and i still havent managed to find one that actually increases the performance of the tablet. When im running the stock firmware i get about 7500-7600 on quadrant and my browser is really responsive and stuff. There's not been a single custon rom out there that has even performed better then 5600 on quadrant. Is it just me, or are the custom roms not hat good performance wise?
EDIT: By better performance i mean how snappy the tablet feels, using benchmarks as a secondary frame of reference.
Not sure if quadrant is doing a good job. I also am getting same results as you with 7xxx for stock and 5xxx for all CM based ones. Although the CM roms feel smoother here.
Sent from my SGP311 using XDA Premium HD app
I abstained the vote cause the question does not bear a black and white / yes or no answer anymore these days.
In my humble opinion, and I picked up the smartphone / PDA / mobile device modding bug back about when this site catered to the the original HTC XDA almost exclusively, and Steve Jobs was merely having wet dreams about his iPhone (*1)... nodded RIMs have gotten to a state where they are overvalued. Saying a custom ROM is always way ahead of stock is like saying "one device with a fixed featureless fits everyone perfectly".
Custom ROMs had their deserved heyday when the industry loaded up near every carrier distributed smartphone with scrappy bloatware that made you weep. Depending on the mobile OS at any given time it was nigh impossible to get rid of that stuff, unless you flashed the whole shebang. From there on the custom ROM scene kinda exploded along with the market distribution of smartphones and later on tablets, certainly owed to the introduction of Android over older generation closed source systems, which enabled much more in-depth possibilities of adding novel features, fixing stuff that was basically broken out of the box and integrating all of this nicely.
(For a frame of reference: I tossed my PalmPilot and Nokia phone when the HTC Wallaby (Telekom MDA or so)hit the shelves... Early adopter by nature and I thought combining cellphones and PDAs, bother which I used avidly was the most revolutionary idea since the combustion engine. This was generation Windows Pocket PC, basically a PDA with cellphone feature thrown in as an afterthought (the antenna actually doubles a stylus compartment). Phone integration was a PITA on good days. On bad, long work days it might just happen that your moody battery would jump from 35% to flat out dead within a mere six minute phone call. Yet, no biggie right? Well, it was, the devices had no non volatile storage. Dead battery means go home, pray your last phone backup is recent enough and restore the entire thing. I spent a lot of time fixing this device (windows style - shoehorning in binary OS components from newer PocketPC versions and prodding the registry on the phone (!)...) to a point where it was almost usable as PDA only device, supplementing telephonly with a Nokia.
A while later better devices came out, PocketPc was scrapped for Windows Mobile and in high hopes I got a HTC Charmer. This looked like a more solid platform and indeed proper custom ROMa emerged, adding real functionality and allowing to get rid of carrier branded crap, later even RIMs emerged with Windows Mobile version updates never intended for that phone, some even taking the recent cutting edge HTC front-end, the first incarnation of Sense (I think it was called vanilla). I figured the really bad conceptual problems were fixed and merrily went along. But, as god hates my guts, I drained the battery accidentally, only to find that the phone would still go dead, deaf, dumb and wiped despite a good three or four years of technological progress. I was so confident that I neglected backups with that model and basically lost the majority of my stuff again. The Nokia dumbphone was back in the game, the HTC left a dent in the wall that required plaster and a patch of new wallpaper.
TL;DR: The first gen smartphones (PDA with cell module afterthought were such flawed concepts, badly integrated, that keeping recent backups and maintaining it operational took quite an effort on user side, on that sort of negated the higher productivity of using one altogether. But bear with me now, I am still circling around the point or two I want t. Make.
Because a few months after I abandoned smartphones for good (or so I thought) Apple coughed up their iPhone prototype and a few months later pumped it to market. I was amazed (not because of the technological feat, they were more or less throwing R&D money bricks at existing tech and concepts, however they exactly figured out what went wrong in the early generations, fixed that stuff, added fingerdriven multi-touch in favor of stylus driven displays and, this is the real kicker, in a time and age when the cool cell to have was a Nokia 8 Series or a decent, very small flipphone or clamshell they managed to brainwash their customers into what PDA and smartphone adopters at that time already knew - it's totally worth to dump the train of ever smaller telephony only cells for a much larger, more fragile device because of all the freedom and power those things offer you.
I kept my guard and obviously went for Android devices once I got back on the horse. HTC Desire, a backup Wildfire, Desire HD, Sensation, One S and a few tablets along the way. Now, here is the kicker. The Desire ran much better with a custom. The Wildfire could only be updated to a recent Android version with a custom ROM due to HTCs sometimes appalling quick update discontinuation. The Desire HD ran a basically stock custom ROM! But with lots of lovely icon eyecandy, so I stuck with that too. The Sensation benchmarked equally (give or take 5%) but the ROM added novel features, properly implemented, which I decided to stick with. But frankly, it was because I could. I would not have recommended a newbie to Android flashing to take the plunge. My current HTC One S has a recovery downloader and is rooted cause some essential apps I can't live without need it. Full custom ROM switch. I see no point. Android has come a long way. If today I have bloatware I can go to App Manager and disable them. Icon gone, runtime resource hogging gone. Many features that were the selling points for a custom ROM a while back are now natively incorporated.
This is just how I feel about my Sony SGP311 now. It runs 4.2.2 rooted, no recovery yet. This is planned, maybe at some point a stable, close to stock custom kernel to allow some overclocking on a per app basis for XBMC. But other than that it just Danny works. The Sony skin put over stock Androi. Is not that bad, and more to the point it never gave me the impression of hogging the system. Turn off what is useless to you, Office suite, walkway, etc and be on your merry way. It just comes down to what you do with the device, but as a custom ROM junkie who has just gotten off the habit, for me it makes no sense anymore.
Now, if you made it all the way here, I ran two benchmarks on my 4.2.2 root but stock. Maybe they aid you in your decision.
EDIT: the attachments are garbage. Here are proper links:
http://i.imgur.com/vMFEX1p.png
http://i.imgur.com/IEPVvMS.png
http://i.imgur.com/mB5MKSH.png
Also, none of the above is supposed to rain on the developers parade or something. I admire your skills and dedication over all those years, and there isn't a single custom ROM that went onto my devices withour a PayPal "crate of beer" donation ever. However, the fiddling, time spent reading up on custom ROM choice, issues and unlocking process etc is just not in relation for me anymore. Those thoughts are yours to reject, spindle, mutilate, adopt, oppose or plainly ignore... Just speaking for myself here.
Thanks for this! I was also trying to decide if I should be flashing a custom rom on my XTZ. I am itching to flash but couldn't come up with any strong reason to do so, probably for battery life and stock look?
Will be interesting to hear from another person who is a strong believer of flashing custom rom on XTZ.
Sent from my GT-N7105 using Tapatalk
i got slightly better score using a custom rom. Plus i get themes, expanded desktop and pie control which is a must for this tablet. I hope more xda developers develop for this tablet. Will reward with donations
By "better performance" do mean higher benchmark scores? Because any of the 4.3 ROMs I've tried are generally smoother than Sony's 4.2.2.
Spartoi said:
By "better performance" do mean higher benchmark scores? Because any of the 4.3 ROMs I've tried are generally smoother than Sony's 4.2.2.
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4.3 too bugy for me
im using 4.2.2 cm rom FXP242-cm-10.1-20131021-UNOFFICIAL-pollux_windy.zip
i already sent team a donation hope to keep em motivated
Spartoi said:
By "better performance" do mean higher benchmark scores? Because any of the 4.3 ROMs I've tried are generally smoother than Sony's 4.2.2.
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Sorry, the post was incomplete. Changed it.
r1ntse said:
Sorry, the post was incomplete. Changed it.
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I prefer 4.2 ATM. I get close to 30 Mbps download speed on this ROM where on 4.3 roms only 2mbps download? Also video cam recording, screen is squashed on 4.3. Other than that they run great but I personally cant feel a performqnce boost from 4.3 to 4.2. I also installed crossbreader and Supercharger V6 script which addresses screen redraw lags, so if there is a slower issue with 4.2 i would have addressed it with these two mods and may not be able to tell.

[Q] whats the point of updating my Android OS if i'm using a launcher ?

I have a Galaxy S2 phone (running Ice-Cream-Sandwich), but i flashed a larger 'System partition' and 'Data partition' ( 1GB & 6GB respectively ), which is much larger than the Stock version.
Ok, imagine this comparison:
THREE identical GalaxyS2 phones:
* 1st phone: Adroid 4.0.3 (Ice-Cream-Sandwich), running Nova Launcher.
* 2nd phone: Android 4.1.2 (Jelly Bean), running Nova Launcher.
* 3rd phone: Android 5 (Lollipop), running Nova Launcher.
in ALL 3 cases, i will be using Nova Launcher. So my Visual experience will be identical.
so, what is the point of bothering to upgrade the Phone OS ?
- as far as I have heard, upgrading OS on the Galaxy S2 will slow down my phone anyway.
is there something I have missed ?
easybullet3 said:
I have a Galaxy S2 phone (running Ice-Cream-Sandwich), but i flashed a larger 'System partition' and 'Data partition' ( 1GB & 6GB respectively ), which is much larger than the Stock version.
Ok, imagine this comparison:
THREE identical GalaxyS2 phones:
* 1st phone: Adroid 4.0.3 (Ice-Cream-Sandwich), running Nova Launcher.
* 2nd phone: Android 4.1.2 (Jelly Bean), running Nova Launcher.
* 3rd phone: Android 5 (Lollipop), running Nova Launcher.
in ALL 3 cases, i will be using Nova Launcher. So my Visual experience will be identical.
so, what is the point of bothering to upgrade the Phone OS ?
- as far as I have heard, upgrading OS on the Galaxy S2 will slow down my phone anyway.
is there something I have missed ?
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You'll be less vulnerable to security hole that has been patch up in latest OS. There have been numerous report about hacker able to steal your phone data back on 4.0-4.2.
Also new features and possible bug fixes. Your question is like why to buy a new car when your 20 years old is the same color, it has 4 doors as well, etc.
By the way, pretty bad approach judging an os by just the visual appearance. Furthermore i don't believe samsung did not change the UI at least slightly between those versions. Not to mention the UI is not just your launcher.
Just one big change between 4.x and 5.x - in the latter, the apps run in ART, before they ran in dalvik. Art supposed to be faster as - and i don't remember exactly the technical details - but the code is pre-translated when they are installed and not upon run-time.
There can be no comparison of what launcher you have on what phone compared to what OS version it has.
I've used several phones over the last 18 months, the one I bought off eBay running android 4.0.4 ice cream sandwich was c***.
I then had several phones running 4.1 or 4.2 jelly bean, these where better, much more "stable"
I have a galaxy s1 running 5.1.1 lollipop, and a brand new moto e purchased with 4.4.4 kitkat but now upgraded to 5.1.1 lollipop and by co insistence I run nova too, and as far as I'm concerned, lollipop is streets ahead of anything else, with kit kat a close second, but my opinion is not based on what launcher each phone has, its based on a range of variables, calling, texting, ease of use, bugs, music, and internet browsing.
Running the latest software means a device is less vulnerable to security issues, will be running at peak performance and small bugs will be fixed.
For anyone to say I have three phones running nova so I don't need to update to a newer software is quite frankly naive, stupid and irresponsible, but that's your choice and just my opinion, its a bit silly to judge latest OS but how it looks, remember how it looks is just one small thing, Samsung haven't changed touchwiz much since the year dot have they?
I prefer a stock look on any phone I use that's why I went for a moto e, flashed omni ROM on my s1 and run nova to get rid of the awful touchwiz and run the latest OS on my phones.
Sent from my Moto E using XDA Free mobile app
Reidwan said:
You'll be less vulnerable to security hole that has been patch up in latest OS. There have been numerous report about hacker able to steal your phone data back on 4.0-4.2.
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Click to collapse
ivan39 said:
There can be no comparison of what launcher you have on what phone compared to what OS version it has.
.... the one I bought off eBay running android 4.0.4 ice cream sandwich was c***.
I then had several phones running 4.1 or 4.2 jelly bean, these where better, much more "stable"
I have a galaxy s1 running 5.1.1 lollipop,
.... and as far as I'm concerned, lollipop is streets ahead of anything else, with kit kat a close second,
its based on a range of variables, calling, texting, ease of use, bugs, music, and internet browsing.
Running the latest software means a device is less vulnerable to security issues, will be running at peak performance and small bugs will be fixed.
For anyone to say I have three phones running nova so I don't need to update to a newer software is quite frankly naive, stupid and irresponsible, but that's your choice and just my opinion, its a bit silly to judge latest OS but how it looks, remember how it looks is just one small thing, Samsung haven't changed touchwiz much since the year dot have they?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your replies guys:
i want to share my personal reasons (based on what you said):
i have had ALL THREE of the above OS running on my GalaxyS2. (IceCream Sandwich, JellyBean and Lollipop).
its currently with Lollipop running Nova. (but its way too slow on my phone and killing my battery).
so, my thoughts were to Downgrade to Jellybean (which I know will be much faster) for my phone and use a Nova Launcher.
- (I have a feeling that KitKat will also be slow on my device).
As for the issues you both pointed out:
- Security issues that you both mention. Seriously, I am not concerned by any security vunerabilities or people stealing my data. I have nothing important worth stealing on my phone. i am 0% concerned by security.
- However, if some small Bugs have been fixed, then obviously that is a PLUS. (from my memory, I didnt have many issues with Jellybean, though ICS seemed to crash a lot).
- You mentioned: "Calling, Texting, Browsing" is improved with more recent versions. BUT, arent these just Apps ? Browsing is Chrome. Chrome on jellybean or Lollipo is the same Chrome app. FUnctioning exactly the same, no ?
and SMS and Phone and contacts again are Apps.. part of the Google Apps (Gapps). and i can also download any 3rd party phone or SMS. so I didnt really understand how a latter version of OS can be better browsing, phone and SMS. (again, i am not concerned with security if that was your point).
I am on a Galaxy S2 that has increased System and Data partitions. but its still limited by speed.
with every version of OS i go up, my phone slows down slightly.
is there something (apart from the above) that I am not aware of ?
IYes there is something else you are missing.
You have an s2, I have an s1, its not my daily phone, its my work phone.
I noticed like you that the higher version OS I used, the phone did indeed slow down.
It slowed down due to hardware limitations of the device, not the Newer OS slowing the phone, its was the phone slowing the OS down..........
In my personal experience, my s1 also drained the battery whilst on lollipop, kit kat didn't drain so much , but was very laggy, and jelly bean (4.3.1) was about the best choice between performance and stability, didn't lag but had much less in the way of tweaking options.
I also had a phone from a Korean manufacturer (huawei) that I hated the horrible ui, installing Nova over the usual ui, and after a few days the phone became laggy, froze and crashed a lot.
Now for the bad bit.
1. Are you mad?
You say you are 0% concerned about security?
HELLO!
Do you know what its like to be the victim of identity theft?
Dont you understand saying "I have nothing on my phone" is like saying there is no petrol in my car......
What about your contacts?
What about your own personal data like passwords and emails?
Your phone number?
Android constantly updates any security issues with things like this, it is very important and you should be concerned about it, not display such naivety in this nasty place of a world, someone will always try to take advantage of you or people that show no concern for their or their contacts security, believe me.
2. Again, you show no understanding and much naivety by suggesting browsing, calling and SMS are just the same app.
Let me correct you, its not.
The chrome I use on my moto e is not the same chrome that was on it before it upgraded from kit kat to lollipop, yes its a better, and improved version, but no, not the same, neither is the built in browser, the dialer or the messaging app.
You suggest you can use or replace the stock apps with 3rd party apps, yes you can, and no one or nothing can stop you doing that.......
But have you stopped for a second to consider the small fact that using Nova launcher and other 3rd party apps over the stock ones may been the cause of your problems?
Just because you have increased partition size does not mean throwing 100 apps on it will make it work faster or better than before, you are still limited by physical ram and processing speed, and I'm sure your s2 processor isn't anywhere near as fast as the processor on my moto e?
Yes you may have noticed a difference by increasing partition size but in my own experience, and reading lots other peoples experiences on here, lots of problems can be attributed to having too many apps bogging the system down, and nova is known to be a big ram hogger!
This is what crashed my Huawei
And I agree with the previous post that it may be a bad idea saying what your phone looks like is a reason or no reason to update the OS.
Its entirely up to you if you choose to update or not, no one can make that choice only you, but I fear by the nature of your post and what you have replied that you don't have that much experience and don't really know what you are talking about.
Its not my intention to offend or upset you, but you don't display the knowledge to press you argument, i suspect many here on xda will not even bother replying to you or may just laugh at you, I'm not going to lecture you, ive probably embarrassed you enough so I'll shut up.
Sent from my Moto E using XDA Free mobile app
---------- Post added at 03:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:37 PM ----------
I'm sorry if my reply was harsh, I was not meant to be harsh, but I want make you realise your phones performance is not dictated by the launcher, although the launcher you use can have a dramatic effect on your phones performance.
Have you tried other launchers?
Your post doesn't say if you have, so I suggest you try holo or L launcher, something lightweight, test and report how you get on, goto play store, have a good look around, mini launcher is another one to consider.
Forget nova, let's assume Nova is your problem.
Try other launchers.
Get rid of the 3rd party apps.
All of them.
Just keep essential apps, no bloat and nothing unnecessary.
Again, test for a few days, report back.
Downgrade your android version to 4.3, again, don't install anything unnecessary and test, see how you get on.
Report your findings after a few days.
Stop advertising the fact you have an increased partition, it won't have any effect on performance and just throwing lots of apps on your newly larger partitioned storage will still bog it down.
Forget it, but its still there, its not going to have any effect on your overall performance, so don't tell anyone about it, there's no point.
Please let us know his you get on, but promise to try my suggestions first, OK?
There is a reason I said things the way I did.........
That is when I started messing around last year with my S1 and had problems with lag, crashing and various other issues, I did not research what was causing my problems, it was only the fact I had a shed load of 3rd party apps slowing my S1 down and when I posted here on xda that fact, I was made fun of and people called me stupid, I'm not suggesting you are stupid, but take time to experiment and don't assume anything, this can be sorted but only with some time and effort from you.
Sent from my Moto E using XDA Free mobile app
ivan39 said:
It slowed down due to hardware limitations of the device, not the Newer OS slowing the phone, its was the phone slowing the OS down..........
In my personal experience, my s1 also drained the battery whilst on lollipop, kit kat didn't drain so much , but was very laggy, and jelly bean (4.3.1) was about the best choice between performance and stability, didn't lag but had much less in the way of tweaking options.
You say you are 0% concerned about security?
Do you know what its like to be the victim of identity theft?
What about your contacts?
What about your own personal data like passwords and emails?
Your phone number?
You suggest you can use or replace the stock apps with 3rd party apps, yes you can, and no one or nothing can stop you doing that.......
But have you stopped for a second to consider the small fact that using Nova launcher and other 3rd party apps over the stock ones may been the cause of your problems?
Have you tried other launchers?
I suggest you try holo or L launcher or mini launcher, something lightweight
Forget nova, let's assume Nova is your problem.
Get rid of the 3rd party apps.
All of them.
Just keep essential apps, no bloat and nothing unnecessary.
Downgrade your android version to 4.3, again, don't install anything unnecessary and test, see how you get on.
Please let us know his you get on, but promise to try my suggestions first, OK?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
wow!! really, i wasnt expecting such a detailed reply.
honestly, thank you very much for the time and effort you put into your reply. (really, no offence taken at your harshness).
and hopefully others that stumble on this subject (in my position) will learn from the input on this thread.
OK.
the only thing that you wont like to hear, is about security, i'm still not worried about it as much as yourself...
(but everything else you said, I agree with)
[About the Security topic]
my reason:
i know tonnes of people who are on ICS or Jellybean still (because that is what came with their phone). they maybe upgraded once (from Gingerbread to ICS, or from ICS to Jellybean).
all these people i know are way less technical than I am !! and they wouldnt have a clue how to update their phones that they have been carrying around for 4+ years.
there must be litterally millions of people around each country (grandparents, non-tech people, kids of around 8 to 12 years old with a smart phone). and all on the same stock version of android that originally came with their phones.
(Android Version 'Market Share', currently shows 50% of the market using kit-kat and beyond... and the remaining 50% using jellybean and before).
[source: wikipedia Android Version Page]
so, not wanting to have the latest android version (coz of improved security) means I am in the same boat as half of all the worlds android users.
anyway... no point wasting time about security. that is the only part I am of a different opinion with you. (and even if you feel I am being silly,,, I am not a worrier,,, even if they get my contacts and start annoying my friends or emailing whoever or deleting my facebook or reading my emails. or even pleasuring themselves to my family photos,, honestly i am not gonna lose any sleep over it).
i'm sure most people dont want that. and of course i dont either. but also i'm not sacrifice the speed of my phone (which I use so many times per day), just coz I feel safer about security with a more recent OS that my phone is trying to keep-up with (resulting in a slowly user experience).
Everything else that you said really ressonated with me.
i only know the TouchWiz and Nova. so Yes, I will try holo or L launcher or mini launcher.
Currently I have Lolipop and Nova and a basic Gapps package and about 50 apps downloaded.. (though many are not being used).
i have this hunch, that (for me) my best option will end up being a simple return to a Jelly Bean Custom (unbloated) Rom, with a launcher that doesnt hog the RAM too much.
My 50 Apps on the phone will probably end up being more like 30 in the end after I have weeded out the bad ones.
if I can find a good KitKat Rom that is stable, unbloated and highly recommended, then I might be happy with that too
PS: Ok, i wont bragg about my amazing supersonic 1GB system partition and 6GB of data.. Lol .. (ok,, sorry,, couldnt resist)..
PPS: seriously,, this lollipop is crazy battery drain on my phone! it ran out in under an hour!! just one photo was eating up 1% each time!
i had way more apps (with ICS and Jellybean last month) and never had this kind of battery drain !
sorry for the long winded reply.
(kind of a thanks for your original replies)
I will report my findings here.. but it may be slow,, coz I dont have much time for app data saving, and backups this next week.
Well at least we agree!
I can't really compare my S1 to your S2 (mine has a super extended 9gb partition that some people say having is total madness) since I updated it to lollipop the battery drain was mad, totally crazy.
But for a 5year old phone that was officially only supposed to run android 2.3 gingerbread, I had an amazing time boasting to my work colleges I had the latest version of android, but was humiliated and embarrassed by the 5hr battery time (on stand by with data and WiFi on)
I too used nova with a lollipop theme, uninstalling nova smoothed out general running, it was a tad more stable, but i like you assumed the launcher was the be all and end all, I had no idea that some launchers absolutely killed the battery or consumed so much ram.
I also wrongly assumed having such a large internal partition was fine to put loads of apps, themes, ringtones ect.
I had around 40 apps on my S1 when general stability was lost, it was laggy, crashed, rebooted and force closed all the time.
So after being made fun of in the omni ROM forum here on xda, I took the plunge and downgraded to kitkat, again, I lost general stability but going through my own investigations and testing and retesting, i found my gapps package was the culprit.
I flashed a smaller gapps package and general stability was restored, but I still had laggy start ups and force closes.
I downgraded again to cm10.2 (android 4.3.1) and that cured my problem once and for all.
I had similar issue a fortnight ago when I got my brand new moto e on contract, I got a bootloader unlock code from Motorola and didn't waste anytime rooting and flashing cm12.1 (android 5.1.1) but after a few days it became unstable, so I'm now testing other custom roms, the best for moto e I've found being paranoid android lp 5.1.1 and cr droid lollipop that I'm running now, but I'm not running nova on my moto e, as the trebuchet or launcher 3 whatever it is called is just as configurable as nova, I'm running a cm12.1 theme and I'm very happy with my set up, but I only have about a dozen apps like Facebook, YouTube and gmail installed, and it is the most stable configuration I've ever found in a custom ROM.
I do wish you well, im very glad you agreed with my reply, and I do wish you well, I just think its a shame I don't have an S2 to hand so I could help you out, there's nothing worse than having problems with our phones!
Good luck
Sent from my Moto E using XDA Free mobile app

As someone who has been using iOS for years, I'm currently VERY intrigued by Android

Hi guys, I'm a jailbroken iPhone 6S+ user. I'm currently a slave to Apple's ecosystem (iPad, Apple TV, Watch but not a Mac) I apologize for the wall of text below, but I know you guys are always glad to give a helping hand.
I've been using iOS since the iPod Touch 2G, taking a break for a couple months only in the Galaxy S3 days, which was my first and only android experience. Many iOS users are in the same boat as me.
Android was a whole different thing back then. Nowadays, when I see the curved, bright and saturated screen of an S7 and how well it pairs with the material design, I feel like I'd love to give that a spin. My problem is that I've been fed constant complaints on behalf of android users, using different handsets and at different times. Here are my main concerns:
I've always heard that, after a "honeymoon" period, almost without fail, all android handsets start to experience stuttering, freezing, rebooting, framerate drops, etc. (maybe one of those at a time, sometimes all of those are common occurrences) does this happen? This is the most important one for me, because if there's something that none of my iPhones ever suffered from, was reduced performance.
Software glitches which are mostly hardware-specific. I've visited the 6P subreddit, only to find a plethora of people complaining about the camera app freezing or crashing, some focus issue I believe as well, or maybe just reduced performance in other parts of the OS (which is the purest form of android). I've also heard that Samsung's bloatware, although only a fraction of what it was back on the S3 days, still causes the phone to feel sluggish at times. Haven't heard about Huawei or HTC bloatware, but I have watched reviews which mentioned some lag here and there.
Software updates. The whole ordeal of having to choose a phone thinking about whether it will get updates in the future or not is pretty sad. I know that Nexus phones are guaranteed to get updates for two years I believe, but as I stated before, visiting the 6P subreddit, I've seen people complain about Google updating the OS but leaving bugs unresolved for several iterations of it. How do you handle this when choosing a phone?
Customization. If there's one area that I've been always convinced Android was leaps and bounds ahead of iOS was this. However, as a jailbroken iOS user, I find that I get most of what you guys can get out the box, but in a prettier package. As in, jb tweaks are very tightly integrated and always match the OS look and feel. In Android, you work with apps or, after rooting, with "modules" I think they're called. How do these differ from JB tweaks (stability-wise as well)? How different is the process of waiting for root vs waiting for a JB? Is rooting as necessary as jailbreaking?
Lastly:
Apps. I am aware of the differences in general app quality when comparing the App Store and the Play Store. Big names such as FB, Twitter, Instagram, etc are mostly the same. But when you start digging a little bit deeper, you find that there's a big difference in not only availability, but also variety and polish. At least, that's how my experience was and what I tend to hear from Android users. How's the Play Store these days? Has this changed a bit?
I apologize once again for the wall of text. If you could answer each point with one or two lines I'd be immensely grateful. Honestly, since these points are big question marks in my head right now, I wouldn't even know what handset to look into, because I don't want to be unpleasantly surprised later on. Android screens though... Damn. Most of them are sexy.
Anyway, thank you very much for your time. Any help is deeply appreciated.
Stuttering/Freezing. You might find this on some low-end devices but the "flagship" devices that I've used haven't suffered from this. This would generally be caused by lower end hardware (lower clocked CPU and lower RAM).
Software glitches. I own the 6P and have never had the camera crash or freeze, never had any software issues with this phone actually. Samsung phones are pretty well known to suffer from being sluggy, this is due to their Touchwiz UI which hogs quite a bit of RAM. The HTC devices I've owned haven't had this issue. Can't speak for Huawei's own UI. The Huawei 6P uses pure Android, I don't notice any real lag issues on this phone.
Updates. If you want guaranteed software updates your best bet is a Nexus. I've noticed no major bugs on the 6P apart from a 4G bug that was specific to an Australian carrier but that was patched pretty quickly. There have been things in Android that people label as bugs that haven't been patched immediately though. Even if you choose a device that may not be updated officially you will very often be able to update via a custom ROM, custom ROMs are often developed for devices long after official support has stopped.
Customization. Android is definitely far ahead in terms of customisation. Most people find customisation via a custom ROM (a customised version of the OS, sometimes based on the stock OS, sometimes based on AOSP (Android Open Source Project or "pure Android"), sometimes based on something like CyanogenMod). A ROM will almost always have extra features and tweaks, these features are usually very well implemented and tie in very nicely with the OS. When speaking about modules you'd be referring to Xposed Modules which are used with the Xposed Framework. Xposed basically opens up a lot of customisation ability, it requires root, it can be used on a stock ROM with root or with a custom ROM. There are a plethora of modules available, too many to even begin to list, the best way to see what they can achieve is to look in our Xposed Modules section. As for root in general, you don't generally need to wait for root like you would with jailbreaking. Having root access is also far more flexible than jailbreaking, you can pretty much do anything with your phone, you have full access to the otherwise blocked system partition. Root methods will vary from device to device but you'll usually need an unlocked bootloader. The easiest devices to root and modify are the Nexus devices, they're designed to be tinkered with, development phones first and foremost.
Apps. In the early days of Android, and even up until a few years ago, the Play Store really lacked in terms of availability and quality. The last few years have seen a dramatic increase in both areas though, there's a wide variety available and the quality has become top notch.
In summing up, it looks like the worries you have are misconceptions commonly held by Apple users.
As a former board level apple technician who used the first ever apple products in kindergarten nearly 30 years ago, I must say I can't even use an iPhone. With all respect, most of your thoughts are not accurate.
Sent from my Nexus 6P using XDA-Developers mobile app

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