Opinions: Newer ROM for a regular user? Based on ROMS available November 2012

[Guest VelocityCS]

Hi guys

I dont want to start any "this ROM is better than that ROM" arguments, but I'd like your opinion on what would be a good ROM choice for a regular user (me!) - one who doesn't want to flash every few weeks

I bought my Blade with the last stable CM7.2 already flashed onto it, and I love it. Had phones since the very old Nokia housebricks, through WM devices, everything but the iPish which I've so far avoided. I flashed my WM phone a good half dozen to a dozen times with mixed results - often GUI enhancements came at the expense of performance

Now, I've spent the last few days (quite a few hours) reading through this forum on the various ROMS available, and am of course interested in JB or ICS just to give my Blade a cosmetic facelift

I've seen that CM9-based ones seem to have hardware acceleration which apparently improves performance over the stock ROM (and of course therefore over my CM7.2 ROM), and it looks like folks like burstlam, KonstaT, tilal etc have put in alot of effort and hard work to bring us these updates

My uses:

Text (alot - long conversations regularly upto 2000 texts), and SMS Quick Delete to clean them up

Phone (duh!)

The News and Weather applet (that's my newspaper when I erm "sit down" in a morning :) )

iReader to read my MobiPocket eBooks

LiveScores and RacingUK

Sometimes both USB- and WiFi-tethering when I'm out and about so my lappy can check work stuff. This is essential (both tether methods - I dont mind paying a few £ for an app if there isn't a free one)

All 3rd party apps installed on the SD card with the app built into CM7.2

A few misc bits and bobs used occasionally - web-stuff including Flash

I have seen that most of the up to date ROMS dont support Tethering natively, but some tethering apps available on Play

So, would you suggest from my usage that I am okay to switch to either a JB ROM or an ICS ROM, or just accept that ICS/JB aren't complete enough for a non-tinkerer and stay with my CM7.2?

Appreciate your opinions, and if any of you reply, could you at least "I suggest XXX, *because of*..." rather than you simply like one over another?

Thanks in advance

[Guest gourav35]

You can use aokp cm9 bustlam. Or konsta cm9 rom they have lesser consumption of ram compare to cm10. And they are stable.. with cm9 I aokp I had install approximately 400mb apps in my phone and still it was working fine with me.. whereas in cm10 it lags

[Guest wuiwu]

bustlam AOKPCM10 RC 2.3.4

[Guest VelocityCS]

You can use aokp cm9 bustlam. Or konsta cm9 rom they have lesser consumption of ram compare to cm10. And they are stable.. with cm9 I aokp I had install approximately 400mb apps in my phone and still it was working fine with me.. whereas in cm10 it lags

Thanks gourav35, first answer, and a sensible one :)

So, burstlams and KonstaTs CM9s are more memory efficient than CM10-based ROMS at this moment in time, and from the threads, run faster than the standard CM7.2 because of the HA

Any issues running older apps on newer ROMs?

wuiwu: Thanks, I read the entirety of that thread over the weekend, but I wasn't asking for a simple link - I was asking what ROM you prefer and why

[Guest slumslayer]

USB tethering isn't working on CM10 roms.

[Guest jventura]

Well, I think I shouldn't do publicity to my own builds, but you can check:

Eco CM7

Eco CM9

The cm7 is because sometimes I need to go back to gingerbread, mainly because of battery consumption, and because everything works as expected. I tweaked some things regarding speed and the rom is pretty snappy. I get 4/5 days of battery usage with 2G only and no data connection, some phone calls, some sms/mms.

The cm9 is the version which "my girls" have installed, and I'm updating it as needed. Stability and performance (i.e., no lag) is an important criteria for me. Read that thread to check it out. Some things such as videos and youtube HD are still not working, but in time I will introduce them if and only if those changes don't cause lag on the device.

I wouldn't recommend cm10 for now, because for what I've been building (based on Konsta's sources), the latest patches to fix hw decoding seem to introduce some lag which wasn't there before. But you should try to see.

[Guest gourav35]

Thanks gourav35, first answer, and a sensible one :)

So, burstlams and KonstaTs CM9s are more memory efficient than CM10-based ROMS at this moment in time, and from the threads, run faster than the standard CM7.2 because of the HA

Any issues running older apps on newer ROMs?

wuiwu: Thanks, I read the entirety of that thread over the weekend, but I wasn't asking for a simple link - I was asking what ROM you prefer and why

All cm7 apps works fine with cm9..

[Guest VelocityCS]

USB tethering isn't working on CM10 roms.

Thanks SlumSlayer. Not even with 3rd party apps?

[Guest slumslayer]

Thanks SlumSlayer. Not even with 3rd party apps?

I don't know. AFAIK, there isn't any free app available and paid apps like Easy Tether are quite expensive for something that might not work or be fixed in a couple of months.

[Guest kingpair]

Stick to cm7.2 (eco cm7 is the best). After a lot of experimentation with the various cm9 and cm10 roms I went back, because like you, my main usage is with texting and what almost nobody seems to mention is that the lag using any keyboard on cm9 or cm10 is infuriating, especially coming from the super smooth stock gingerbread keyboard on cm7. The text prediction on the jb keyboard is excellent but still not a trade-off. Sure the UI is great and its certainly better looking than cm7 but with the keyboard issue and with apps like youtube and fm radio not working and the constant RAM hogging, I gave up on cm10 a few weeks back and I'm sticking with the hassle free low maintenance CM7 for the foreseeable future. Our blades werent built to handle ICS or jellybean unfortunately.

[Guest Snap.IT]

I don't know. AFAIK, there isn't any free app available and paid apps like Easy Tether are quite expensive for something that might not work or be fixed in a couple of months.

As stated by KonstaT wifi tether for root users work fine and that is a free app.

[Guest slumslayer]

As stated by KonstaT wifi tether for root users work fine and that is a free app.

I know that WiFi tethering is working, I'm talking about USB tethering which is not supported by this app.

[Guest gourav35]

Stick to cm7.2 (eco cm7 is the best). After a lot of experimentation with the various cm9 and cm10 roms I went back, because like you, my main usage is with texting and what almost nobody seems to mention is that the lag using any keyboard on cm9 or cm10 is infuriating, especially coming from the super smooth stock gingerbread keyboard on cm7. The text prediction on the jb keyboard is excellent but still not a trade-off. Sure the UI is great and its certainly better looking than cm7 but with the keyboard issue and with apps like youtube and fm radio not working and the constant RAM hogging, I gave up on cm10 a few weeks back and I'm sticking with the hassle free low maintenance CM7 for the foreseeable future. Our blades werent built to handle ICS or jellybean unfortunately.

I use TouchPal keybord it's almost as fast as cm7. And I never had problem with Ram in aokp cm9 rom.