Initial Setup:
LFY remains one of the fastest booting ROMs, taking only about a minute to bootup. Was happy to see my fav animation back, but that's just a matter of preference. Market synced up pretty fast at just over 15 mins and restoring 97 apps out of around 110. This would be the second most a Froyo ROM has ever restored.

Appearance:
It's pretty much a stock ROM until you flash one of the included themes. You've seen the screenshots, not much else to report there. I do like that Beautiful Widgets has available skins and LauncherPro has a couple dock images. Would like to see a Weather Widget Donate skin available, as most of us have one or the other.

Performance and Goodies:
There's not a lot in terms of extras, which probably doesn't matter too much with most of you. So when comparing to ROMs that do, it's got to compensate with tremendous speed, which this ROM has done in all builds. This ROM, however does have some hiccups.

I scored pretty high on Quadrant, netting a high of 1626 at 1.1GHz, and consistently in the high 1500s. Generally, the ROM seems pretty fluid and scrolls beautifully, but then there's times where it seems to lag. Apps don't always open and close beautifully, and screen transitions can seem stiff occasionally. Sure, I've got some GPU intensive widgets and such, but even with very little installed the same problem persists. Reading through the comments, I'm apparently not alone.

It feels like there's something causing it more than just being a "slow" ROM. Sometimes when you're scrolling through your apps, or a webpage, it's just butter. But other times, it seems like it's just sticking. Like when you first wake it up, it kinda takes a few seconds to get rolling. And when surfing the net, it seems to take a few seconds longer than it should. And it really doesn't like performing two tasks at once. Getting a text while surfing the net cause horrible lag and the same thing happened while multitasking in call.

That's another thing, calls take a second before they let you respond. You won't be able to wake your Droid or answer for more than a few seconds. This is receiving or making calls. As a matter of fact, while trying to call in a radio station for one of their daily contests, the process took so long that I knew by the time I actually completed the call that it was already too late.

App and System Function:
Most things seem to be in order, haven't noticed any apps that didn't work, but there were a couple issues that did occur. I did have a FC while viewing the Market, and Swype seems to lag a lot, and consistently with this ROM. Even the stock keyboard seemed a lil sluggish.

Battery and the GPU seemed to stay pretty cool for the most part. Even while really putting this ROM through the ringer, the GPU never went past 104F and the battery never above 98F.

Overall battery life, though, is rather unimpressive. With heavy use, I drained the battery completely in 4 hours after flashing (I don't start testing until completely charged). After normal use, I was down to about 40% after 8 hours, but after less than an hour later of heavier use it dropped to 15%.

Overview:
I'm kinda disappointed in this version. While it's not a bad ROM, I was hoping for increased performance that just wasn't there. It sounded like they really had this optimized, and the benches I've gotten confirm that. But real world application tells a diff tale. It might be one of the most fluid ROMs I've ever tried when it's not lagging. Problem is, it lags quite often.

For me, it seems that every build that ends in an odd number (1.1, 1.3, 1.5) seem to not do well, while the even numbered ones perform near outstanding. So while this ROM left me disheartened, I very much look forward to seeing if this trend continues with the next build. And understanding that this was the first ROM that Liquid collaborated with slayher, perhaps they'll have everything worked out for the next go round.

Rating:
2 out of 5 stars

Review - Liquid Frozen Yogurt 1.5


Installation & Setup
LFY 1.5 installed as expected. This rom possibly has the coolest boot animation I’ve ever seen! It also came with Titanium Backup installed making restoration very easy. I tried to restore all missing apps from TiBU first, maybe 35 apps. TiBU restored about half of the apps before the phone rebooted. I started restoring apps individually using TiBU, that worked fine. I then signed in to the market and it did not restore any missing apps but there were only 3 that I hadn’t already restored. I flashed the 1100LV Slayher kernel and thebowers’ black n bold theme. I also decided to use the LP dock, beautiful widgets skin and icons provided by Liquid and team. Its beautiful




Maps, browser, and camera are all working, although I do have a small Bluetooth problem. I cannot make phone calls via Bluetooth dialer. There is also an FC when going to settings->sound->volume. I’m not sure why but all other methods of controlling volume seem to work.

Speed & Performance
Stock kernel was smooth. Not blazing but certainly good as far as included kernels go. I flashed the 1100LV Slayher kernel, first day was laggy on Interactive or Performance although performance was slightly better. The second day was much better. I also disabled Compcache and felt that it improved my performance.I tried running on Interactive, I began experiencing some lag when receiving a phone call, time to answer was just over 4 rings on the calling end. The phone was idle for maybe an hour beforehand.

Slayher 1100LV
Short: 181
Long: 455
Quadrant: 1554

I then decided to try some other kernels. I’ve heard of many great experiences with Slayher’s kernels, but I think my phone doesn't get along with them. I tried almost every 1.4 – 1.6 with CM6 RC3 and couldn’t get my phone to stay on for longer than a minute (albeit, they were made for the CM nightlies so it was a long shot). I had the same issue with P3’s 2.1 kernels. The first kernel I tried was a jdlfg 1100LV. Performance was much better but I suffered random reboots and poor battery. I then flashed a P3 1100LV and it has turned out to be a great combo! Everything has been stable and fast. I’m currently running on Performance at 900MHz.

P3 1100LV
Short: 183
Long: 455
Quadrant: 1506

Features
This rom seems more focused on speed and stability than features. As such, there is not much in the way of features outside of scripts.

Themes
There are some very nice themes that are available for this rom. There are at least 4 options right now with more on the way. I decided to go with thebowers’ Black N Bold theme and I am enjoying it very much!

Conclusion
It took me some time to find the right setup for my phone but once I did, everything has been very stable and fast. Set up was very smooth and there are some great themes to choose from. If you flash this rom and feel that it is laggy at all, try disabling compcache or even try a different kernel. I’ve read great reviews regarding Slayher’s kernels and I am sure they perform very well with most phones. If your phone has been finicky like mine, try a different kernel. I do feel that this rom is very good, on the verge of great, but does have some small issues that I am confident will be ironed out for 1.6. I’m excited to see what the Liquid Team puts out next!

Overall: 4/5