Related
Hey guys,
New to the board, new to the Ray. I used to frequent the Arc, Play, Nexus S, and Desire S boards under a different user name but I've not posted in a while so I've since forgotten my User info, so thought I'd make a new one.
Anyways...
I got my Ray, bought it out unlocked, and unlocked the boot loader. I was really excited to get my Cyanogen on and enjoy this beautiful device. Only...Cyanogen Rom for the Ray is HORRIBLE. The Camcorder is broken, the live wallpapers option is non-existant, and the control widget is completely useless for brightness control. Seriously, WTF is wrong with that ROM its is absolute garbage.
I can understand the Ice Cream Sandwich ROM being bug ridden, its early time, but at the very least I expected Cyanogen 7 to be fully functional. Geez.
Those are the only 2 ROMS I've tried so far, the rest look boring. MIUI I am not interested in, and outside anything that slightly alters the Stock firmware there is NOTHING AVAILABLE?
Where are the ROMS? Where is the support? Where are the quality developers?
All we have are half backed ideas, ROMS that don't work properly, and nothing else.
Maybe we should start up a fund and maybe donate a few Rays to some good developers that can actually provide because at this point, there is no point in using anything other then Stock Firmware.
The Ray is a capable device, similar to the Arc, there should be more support. I miss the great support that the Nexus S and the Desire S recieved. Especially the Desire S, the Developer from that board are truly amazing. Proxuser and Super kid were really really good developers, and we need developers like them who dedicate the time needed for quality ROMS. Our support is a joke compared to what they have, and I think we need to either put up some money or some incentive, like maybe donating a few Rays, to get the ball rolling.
I agree with you, it's pretty disappointing.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure the differences between Ray and Arc are minimal, so it's quite surprising that Arc gets tons of support and Ray gets basically nothing. Even more that inferior devices such as the Minis are more supported. Maybe the device is not selling well and not many people have it? I don't know.
Obviously I'm just a tinkerer and not a developer, so I don't know how hard it could be to port Arc stuff to Ray, but yeah, this devices needs more support. How to get it? I have no idea.
I think the stock rom is pretty good, I don't find any major problem with it, it look pretty good and it's decently fast (with Supercharger it's much better), so for now I don't really feel the need to install an unofficial one.
Also, many Arc mods to the interface work on Ray too, so check out those forums too and see if there is something you like. I installed the Xperia styled torch widget and the modded battery icon (with percentage) from the Arc board and they worked fine.
MarkMRL said:
I agree with you, it's pretty disappointing.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure the differences between Ray and Arc are minimal, so it's quite surprising that Arc gets tons of support and Ray gets basically nothing. Even more that inferior devices such as the Minis are more supported. Maybe the device is not selling well and not many people have it? I don't know.
Obviously I'm just a tinkerer and not a developer, so I don't know how hard it could be to port Arc stuff to Ray, but yeah, this devices needs more support. How to get it? I have no idea.
I think the stock rom is pretty good, I don't find any major problem with it, it look pretty good and it's decently fast (with Supercharger it's much better), so for now I don't really feel the need to install an unofficial one.
Also, many Arc mods to the interface work on Ray too, so check out those forums too and see if there is something you like. I installed the Xperia styled torch widget and the modded battery icon (with percentage) from the Arc board and they worked fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Re-reading my initial post I may have sounded a bit harsh. Its just very very disappointing coming from a device that had a TON of support to one that has virtually none.
I will take your advice and check out some of the Arc's mods.
I've owned a ton of Android devices (Xperia x10, Captivate, 2 Xperia Arcs, Nexus S, another Xperia Arc, HTC Desire Z, HTC Desire S, and finally the Xperia Ray) and this is by far the worst support I've ever seen.
Adreno said:
Re-reading my initial post I may have sounded a bit harsh. Its just very very disappointing coming from a device that had a TON of support to one that has virtually none.
I will take your advice and check out some of the Arc's mods.
I've owned a ton of Android devices (Xperia x10, Captivate, 2 Xperia Arcs, Nexus S, another Xperia Arc, HTC Desire Z, HTC Desire S, and finally the Xperia Ray) and this is by far the worst support I've ever seen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree with you!...even my previous worst phone...Se X8...got tons of support ...i am really disappointed seeing Ray being put aside...
Sent from my ST18i using Tapatalk
What are you guys on anyway? The X8, since it was mentioned, was released 1 year ago. With 1.6 on it... there have been, what 4 different versions? And Gingerbread is sub par on it.
Regarding Adreno's note on HTC Devices.... As you are aware HTC makes phones for many companies, including T-mobile and Google. So most of these devices have almost the same internals. Hence development on those devices is really easy (you just copy paste files from one rom to another and bam you got your kang).
So on to the Ray... It was released 4 months ago. It has a different screen than most phones (480x854) so porting any generic rom onto it requires some smali editing skills. And... There is NO AOSP release for Xperia devices... at least so far. What makes other devices so "different" than the Xperia's is that some of them have been build on AOSP.
For example the DesireZ - Tmobile G2. One has Sense, the other is built on AOSP. So you have 2 completely different builds for the same device.
And some food for thought... Sony Ericsson needs about 6 months, an enormous team of developers and a ****load of money to build their own Firmware based on Already released Code. What makes you think you will see something "new" from some amateurs in less than 6 months time?
Yes i have built my "own" Rom based on the Stock Rom for the Xperia Active. I dont even consider my self an amateur. I am a total noob.
So, to finish this rant, since development for these devices is young, yet the android system as it is, is quite mature, I would recommend you to assist the people who have already developed a Rom for the Ray, in order to make something good from it. Creating a Thread in the development section, complaining about the development being "dissapointing"... then i rest my case.
/rant off
dumraden said:
So, to finish this rant, since development for these devices is young, yet the android system as it is, is quite mature, I would recommend you to assist the people who have already developed a Rom for the Ray, in order to make something good from it. Creating a Thread in the development section, complaining about the development being "dissapointing"... then i rest my case.
/rant off
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I personally don't want "assisting" of the developers that have been working on the Ray thus far, as I said my original post I don't believe that they are up to the job.
I want to entice more talented developers. What can we do to bring experienced developers that know what they are doing to the Ray?
At this point, rooting and unlocking the bootloader is pretty pointless. You are screwing yourself out of over the air updates, and there is nothing that can fill the void from the development community thus far. What. is. the. point.
This is where you are wrong.
What do you actually want from a Rom? Speed? Stability? Battery Life?
I have managed to do all these with no real coding at all. The Xperia Active with DooMLoRD's Kernel and various tweaks that i found on XDA, when on max OC ranks between the Sensation and the SGS2. Both are Dual core with a far better GPU than the Adreno 205. Oh and the OC is completely bulletproof.
For the time being, the best developers for these devices is Sony herself. It is stable, and battery efficient. You on the other hand can make it more "personalized" and fitting to your needs... Gaming-browsing... whatever...
dumraden said:
This is where you are wrong.
What do you actually want from a Rom?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Even if I had just Cyanogen working properly I'd be happy.
On the Desire S board Superkid had Ice Cream Sandwich ported (AOSP) to the desire S within 2 weeks, only being able to work on it on the weekends. Thats like 6 days.
On top of that, he had everything working flawlessly other than the camera by week 3.
Thats the kind of development I am talking about. Imagine how hard that was.
We don't have anything like that over here.
No it wasnt that hard. I say again. You need to be able to edit THE WHOLE DAMN BASE, if you want it in a different resolution than the one it was intended.
Yes some guys are simply amazing at what they do, but as i said earlier, most HTC devices use the same chipsets, boards, cpu's, modems etc. Sony uses a board (codenamed mogami i think) specific to the mini's. It uses a different one for the Ray, Play etc.
You will almost never have something like that. Be happy that the Cyanogenmod Team is actually working on these devices.
Hell, the mini's dont even have a MIUI build. Its either CM7 or Stock. But honestly i couldnt care less. I got bored of flashing a new rom every 2 weeks, just to see nothing different. The only difference was Sense 2.1 Sense 3.0 Sense 3.5. The rest ROMS use the same old AOSP build with an ADW launcher or a LPP on top... Big deal.
Now if someone gets sense on these devices... i'd be impressed
Complaint/rant threads about developers are not allowed at XDA. If you want something done, make it happen!
First of all I from what I saw so far that the forums for the Xperia devices are a bit messed imo. A flagship device out for 6+ months cannot have its own separate forums?
Also the S development section is pretty hard to navigate and find the right ROM to suit me. I will probably buy the device tomorrow and I was reading a lot in the dev section and I wasn't able to find a good Sony Stock based ROM with good explanation of functions and bugs, also AOKP and ParanoidAndroid are not having a quality port for this device. This matters to me a lot so it would be great if someone shares their experience with getting good custom ROM and kernels.
On a side note, how would you compare this to the HTC One S? The screen and usb otg are the main thing making me want the XS and the snapdragon s4 on the One S over the xperia's s3 is making me thing a bit.
The one S is faster cuz it has a slightly better processeor and a lower resolution, so the phone doesnt have to do much to operate it self
Xpeira S isnt that big with roms , there are alot of cool things around , aokp and cm10 are geowing , but not fast
If you want your phone for roms and development , buy a galaxy nexus
If no , dont choose one S , xperia S will get better
Hope i helped
Well, this day should come soon or later.
I had a chance for trading my Xperia Ray for a phone with similar specifications, and I did.
I own now a LG Optimus Black (white version). If you guys check the specs of both phones you'll note that they're very similar, with only few differences. I miss the great quality of the camera, Optimus camera is crappy. But what I like most of this phone is the bigger screen and the unlocked bootloader, thanks to it I could install and taste (at last) Jelly Bean. Everything is working in a CM10 based ROM, the performance is very good, but the battery drain is a little bit faster than ICS, I guess this is caused by project butter.
That's why I don't understand why SONY won't give JB to our 2011 Xperias. I just can't believe that custom ROMs built by the community and devs are so good enough to use them daily, but SONY engineers can't (or don't want) to give Android 4.1 to Arc, Neo, Ray, etc. That has disappointed me a lot and it was one of the reasons to take the decision of trading my phone.
However, I still want to give a chance to SONY because, after all, I'm a fan and I love their devices (if you ask me, what I really like of this LG I own now is the unlocked bootloader and the screen, the physical design is ugly, so "iphoned"), so I'm waiting for CES this january 7th and see what they have to offer. I hope they don't disappoint us, and now SONY have to work harder since a new strong competitor is on his way: Ubuntu Phone. It really looks interesting, plus, I'm a Linux fan since 2004 and I've seen how this great system has evolved, until the point of being almost ready for smartphones. But I also love Android, so, we'll see.
Anyway guys, I can't say definitely "bye", I'm sure we'll meet again in some point, of course, If I decide to get another Xperia and if you also do and keep developing for these devices. For now I want to thank great developers such JJ doctor, MrTapa, arcatarc, xparanoidx, and everyone else (sorry if I don't mention all of you) for rescuing me of being stuck in Android 2.3.4 =P I learned a lot while I had my Ray and I was happy using 4.0.4 ROMs, your work is awesome and this community is just great.
So, see you later!
PS: pending projects (such banners and wallpapers) will be accomplished in sometime of the current year. Sorry about that, my free time is smaller now.
PS2: I post this here because most of the time I was in this section. But if moderators consider it's necesary to move it, OK.
El Brillantinas said:
Well, this day should come soon or later.
I had a chance for trading my Xperia Ray for a phone with similar specifications, and I did.
I own now a LG Optimus Black (white version). If you guys check the specs of both phones you'll note that they're very similar, with only few differences. I miss the great quality of the camera, Optimus camera is crappy. But what I like most of this phone is the bigger screen and the unlocked bootloader, thanks to it I could install and taste (at last) Jelly Bean. Everything is working in a CM10 based ROM, the performance is very good, but the battery drain is a little bit faster than ICS, I guess this is caused by project butter.
That's why I don't understand why SONY won't give JB to our 2011 Xperias. I just can't believe that custom ROMs built by the community and devs are so good enough to use them daily, but SONY engineers can't (or don't want) to give Android 4.1 to Arc, Neo, Ray, etc. That has disappointed me a lot and it was one of the reasons to take the decision of trading my phone.
However, I still want to give a chance to SONY because, after all, I'm a fan and I love their devices (if you ask me, what I really like of this LG I own now is the unlocked bootloader and the screen, the physical design is ugly, so "iphoned"), so I'm waiting for CES this january 7th and see what they have to offer. I hope they don't disappoint us, and now SONY have to work harder since a new strong competitor is on his way: Ubuntu Phone. It really looks interesting, plus, I'm a Linux fan since 2004 and I've seen how this great system has evolved, until the point of being almost ready for smartphones. But I also love Android, so, we'll see.
Anyway guys, I can't say definitely "bye", I'm sure we'll meet again in some point, of course, If I decide to get another Xperia and if you also do and keep developing for these devices. For now I want to thank great developers such JJ doctor, MrTapa, arcatarc, xparanoidx, and everyone else (sorry if I don't mention all of you) for rescuing me of being stuck in Android 2.3.4 =P I learned a lot while I had my Ray and I was happy using 4.0.4 ROMs, your work is awesome and this community is just great.
So, see you later!
PS: pending projects (such banners and wallpapers) will be accomplished in sometime of the current year. Sorry about that, my free time is smaller now.
PS2: I post this here because most of the time I was in this section. But if moderators consider it's necesary to move it, OK.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
...i'm sure you'll back bro'!
Inviato da me!
Moved to General section
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2066898
bye.
Hi Guys,
Curious to know if any of the developers are working to bring kitkat 4.4 n Xperia P , since its made to work with low end devices too and Xperia P is having a decent hardware to support it . Can't rely on Sony's updates .
You must wait until is rom created.
Yes. It's a work in progress.
Look at THIS
there will never be a fully working rom because of sony...buy a samsung or whatever
Sony never offer support for they phones...and they never release sources for the chipset...so developers cant make fully working custom roms...so we will never have custom roms like others have...SO STOP BUYING SONY...BUY A SAMSUNG OR HTC OR WHATEVER
omymic said:
Sony never offer support for they phones...and they never release sources for the chipset...so developers cant make fully working custom roms...so we will never have custom roms like others have...SO STOP BUYING SONY...BUY A SAMSUNG OR HTC OR WHATEVER
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No Dude, sony is providing most good quality hardware, and they are now revealing their sources. It is 100% possible to built a custom ROM. But I agree their support to their phone in terms of android update is little bit vague when compared to samsung or htc
Out of all of the devices out there that support LineageOS, the Z5 Compact looks the most appealing to me, because of the good audio quality, nice design/build, and reasonable size.
But is it foolish to purchase a Z5C with the intention of using it to run a custom ROMs?
Are people here using custom ROMs purely as a stopgap until they can get a newer phone that supports Oreo? I don't need or want the latest, greatest hardware, but ever since buying my first smartphone (a Nexus) I've become accustomed to using the latest software. Is the Z5 Compact a dead end in that regard? Or is it likely that I'll be using Android P and Q on this device in the next couple of years?
"But Strobelite, if you're worried about being able to use the latest version of Android, why don't you just get something by Motorola? Those have a healthy, active developer community. Or, you could just be a normal person, and buy a new phone."
If it runs GApps, I won't use it
Audio quality is important to me
The Motorola phones are ugly, in my opinion
Hi, since a few weeks I'm running on LineageOS 14.1 with my z5 Compact and I don't miss the stock rom at all. I didn't test all features yet (e.g. MHL), but I'm very satisfied until now. It's stable (didn't encounter any random reboot), fast and battery life is ok for me (I use Amplify and Greenify with xposed).
I only can recommend this and if you want to run without GApps, this is the way to go. I'm using Yalp store and it's even faster updating my apps than the original Play store.
Phone has FM Radio, SD card slot, fast and accurate GPS and enough power (LOS doesn't seem to run as hot as the stock rom (you can choose between performance profiles), so it's another plus for me).
Just try it and see if it works for you.
The only thing that annoyed me is the camera, the quality is just bad and sometimes it doesn't focus (or too late)
If you dont miss the camera then yes.
Strobelite said:
But is it foolish to purchase a Z5C with the intention of using it to run a custom ROMs?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can understand your problem but of course it is imo.
Z5 line has never been widely supported by developers and the Compact is the one with less roms now. You can imagine what kind of future it would have.
Luckily in the past we had great guys who made stock rom root/mods/DRM restoration but the AOSP scene is completely different. As always you lose some features with non-stock roms, usually Camera quality (because you lose closed source vendor optimizations/software) and minor ones.
There will be probably 1 or 2 roms for future android versions (thanks to projects like SLim rom, PAC, Resurrection,...) but there are already few mantainers, especially for the Z5c, and some aosp roms are also unofficially maintained by one person...
Sony lost people (and developers) appeal after the Z3 line and this gets reflected in custom rom support for the newer Xperia lines. If you really want the latest OS on your phone for the next 4 years you should go for something else imo.
Z5c is still great device, refined materials and with good battery but don't expect a forum support like Samsungs, Huaweis,... Unfortunately the old days where flagship phones were < 4,5" are gone.
Maybe you already know it but GSMarena has a great phone-finder search engine which can help you refine your search for compact products.