Initial Setup:
Nothing of note in the initial boot process. I had 58 out of my 65 or so apps restore, with the rest quickly taken care of by TiBu.
However, there is an important note about the actual Flashing process. Sapphire does not flash for some people on newer versions of Clockwork Recovery (2.0.1.3 being the last know good version). Luckily Clockwork is very easy to flash back to older versions. So to avoid unnecessary pain and confusion flash CWR to 2.0.1.3 before booting into recovery. And while it never happened to me, some people have reported that they could only flash via SPR (again Clockwork will do that for you).
Features:
Sapphire comes packed with a nice feature set. Personally I love to see the care taken for those of us more likely to man the Terminal then open Root Explorer; Bash, BusyBox and plenty of scripts for system info, and memory management. Sapphire sports the original reboot to recovery option on power press that is quickly making it’s way into other ROMs. I am also glad to see a good collection of the “Switch .apk” style of scripts that are becoming popular upon ROM devs. I always thought that straight “delete this app” scripts never really offered much over the native remove (rm) command. It is really nice to see music control via the volume buttons as well. Unique to Sapphire is the ability to change the notification text colors via Gem Settings (like the BB app but with much less features).
There are not a lot of themes available, only about 4, but the theme Cooks seem to be making more and more themes Sapphire compatible. Best one? A theme just for a black notification bar. Awesome.
Performance:
Stock kernel comes over-clocked at low volt 1.0ghz, which is higher then one generally sees on a stock Kernel. While I’ve never personally had a problem at those speeds it is definitely possible depending on your own Droid. So if you are a low speed kind of Droid and are experiencing some funky issues, maybe try one of the low speed kernels. Of course the advantage to the stock kernel is that it is fast, not the quickest I’ve ever seen, but I was able to pull 1250+ quadrant scores during normal “use”. On the P3Droid-.32-.9-1-LV 1250 kernel (specially build for Sapphire I believe) I managed to top out at 1597
Bugs:
Overall, I have been exceptionally pleased with the stability of Sapphire 8.4 in a way I have been missing since I moved to Froyo based ROMs. It just seems to work, and work well. I haven’t seen any random reboots, zero problems with WiFi, GPS, or Bluetooth. However, I have moments where I will just loose USB disk connection to my computer; not often but it definitely happens. I also still have the same odd sporadic market issues I’ve seen on every Froyo ROM I’ve tried (download 100%, start to install and freeze).
Verdict
I’ll be the first to admit I have a bit of a finicky phone, but I cannot argue with the rock solid stability and performance I am getting from Sapphire. It doesn’t have as many features as Cyanogen Mod nor is it as quick and streamlined as Bugless Beast but it does manage to find a nice balance between the two that has left me very happy.
Originally I gave Sapphire the full 5 out of 5 but on a second thought I am lowering it to 4 out of 5. So, so close to 5 but incompatibility with Clockwork Recovery is just not acceptable for any major ROM these days.
Last edited by UBRocked; July 29th, 2010 at 02:15 PM.
Reason: Added Review
The Following User Says Thank You to gwwjpd For This Useful Post:
Device(s): See my signature...this section isn't big enough anymore!
Carrier: Not Provided
Thanks: 1,789
Thanked 1,590 Times in 860 Posts
Quote:
Originally Posted by VIO
someday my phone with sport the same ROM for more than 6 hours...
Yeah...keep telling yourself that! I think I said that 6 months ago and it hasn't become a reality yet! I don't want to flash...I just can't resist. I start going into anaphylactic shock...black out and wake up with a new ROM every damn day
__________________
Myself: Galaxy Nexus, Droid Razr M, Transformer, Logitech Revue, Sony Blu-ray Player with Google TV
Wife and Kids: Galaxy Nexus, Apple iPad, Galaxy Player 4.0, B&N NookColor
Retired: Thunderbolt, Droid Pro, Fascinate, Motorola Droid 1, 3 & 4, Galaxy Tab (7" WiFi), Archos 70
Device(s): Nexus S - Unbridled Android Baby
DROID - [Retired]
Carrier: Not Provided
Thanks: 38
Thanked 62 Times in 36 Posts
seriously this community is on crack or something. Our Devs are unbelievable, I never really noticed until we got a whole friggin forum for them. My word their is a ton of them...
Device(s): Droid 1 (Dev Phone),
Eventually HTC Thunderbolt
Carrier: Not Provided
Thanks: 27
Thanked 118 Times in 72 Posts
Quote:
Originally Posted by UBRocked
Yeah...keep telling yourself that! I think I said that 6 months ago and it hasn't become a reality yet! I don't want to flash...I just can't resist. I start going into anaphylactic shock...black out and wake up with a new ROM every damn day
Lol. It's like my own sick addiction. It's like a hit, and when I'm finish flashing I'm on this high.....like a new ROM smell.
Device(s): Droid 1 (Dev Phone),
Eventually HTC Thunderbolt
Carrier: Not Provided
Thanks: 27
Thanked 118 Times in 72 Posts
This is weird.....my phone is freezing and rebooting. I wiped and reinstalled and now it won't make it pass the boot anim. If I flash coming from another ROM without wiping it'll make it to the lock screen, but soon as I unlock it freezes and reboots. I'm going back to Bugless Beast for a while til something changes. This is weird. i like Sapphire.
They finally added the feature I've been requesting since day 1. Guess I'll have to ditch the CM6RC and give this one a shot again.
What feature is that? I am completely in love with CyanogenMod 6.0.0 RC-1, but I don't mind flirting with Sapphire... might be worth a one-night-stand!
(it's been 2 WHOLE DAYS and my itch to flash a new rom is driving me crazy)
Device(s): Droid RAZR Maxx, Thunderbolt,
Droid X,
OG Droid
Carrier: Not Provided
Thanks: 51
Thanked 87 Times in 57 Posts
Quote:
Originally Posted by djkeller3
What feature is that? I am completely in love with CyanogenMod 6.0.0 RC-1, but I don't mind flirting with Sapphire... might be worth a one-night-stand!
(it's been 2 WHOLE DAYS and my itch to flash a new rom is driving me crazy)
The ability to completely remove the clock from the statusbar. Small detail, I know. I hate redundancy, though. I already have a 4x2 flip clock on my desktop, I don't need yet another one right above it. Besides, I hate cluttered statusbars, too.
I am a HUGE fan of Cyanogenmod and they always have tweak features I love, but the rc isn't playing nice. I get reboots every two hours. I flashed Sapphire 0.8.4 before I went to bed this morning... so far I am loving it. Rock solid stable, too.
Did you guys install with ROM manager? I just got an installation aborted for some reason... I guess Ill just download from sapphires site and try again
Edit: It was actually the updated clockwork recovery that wasn't working... a downgrade to v 2.0.1.3 made everything work again.
__________________
HTC Thunderbolt - Stock... for now
Last edited by BigMace23; July 17th, 2010 at 11:57 AM.
Reason: update
The Following User Says Thank You to BigMace23 For This Useful Post:
This ROM runs great, but the Froyo market issues are a no-go for me. I'm flashing back to a 2.1 ROM. I'll come back to Sapphire when the Droid gets official Froyo. Hopefully the market settles down by then.
Easily my favorite one I've tried so far (jrummy and BB as the others). Only thing I don't like is that it doesn't have a script for blocking ads like the other two do. For all I know, I could be missing it completely though...
Oh ya, the usual market issues too. Apps taking a while to start downloading and when they are finished, often times just sitting at 100% without installing. Gonna guess that will be fixed at some point though.
Easily my favorite one I've tried so far (jrummy and BB as the others). Only thing I don't like is that it doesn't have a script for blocking ads like the other two do. For all I know, I could be missing it completely though...
Oh ya, the usual market issues too. Apps taking a while to start downloading and when they are finished, often times just sitting at 100% without installing. Gonna guess that will be fixed at some point though.
It does have a script for blocking ads...
just type adblock on into a terminal emulator and then reboot
Did you guys install with ROM manager? I just got an installation aborted for some reason... I guess Ill just download from sapphires site and try again
Edit: It was actually the updated clockwork recovery that wasn't working... a downgrade to v 2.0.1.3 made everything work again.
I was having the same issue and that worked like a charm. thanks!
Last edited by monsterenergy22; July 18th, 2010 at 02:57 AM.
Was running BBv0.4 before giving this one a whirl.. and man, it's pretty smooth, stable and quick! Like BB, everything worked out of the box, but what I particularly like is the wealth of information on the Sapphire website.. wish the pages for other devs were as orderly (instead of going through pages and pages of forums!)
Functionality: Smooth with no real lag on my Droid - running p3's 1.2Ghz LV kernel @ 1Ghz and this thing flies!
Performance: Linpack scores are constantly in the 15s with Quadrant scores varying between 1400-1500. Battery life is also very good - currently at 70% after being off charger as of 7am with moderate usage (pandora, texting, email, web surfing)
Extras: The little extras are nice! Being able to reboot into recovery rocks as well as have a one stop shop (via GEM Settings) to change colors and looks for nearly everything you see on your phone!
All in all, a very stable and well put together ROM for 2.2. The Black Notifiction Bar is a nice touch too! (additional file)
Oh, and with regards to Swype, I have the current beta version and keep the installer file on my SD card. After flashing this ROM, I ran the installer and Swype worked fine right of the box.
I was never able to get this onto my phone - I've never had ANY problems putting ANY other ROM on my phone. I went through ROM Manager and then tried on my own both through Clockworkmod and SPRecovery. Same errors. I PM'd Sniffle but he never got back to me. Oh well...I don't to sit here and slam the guy/group, but if they want to be major players in the ROM world as they way, they will need to provide better support.
I was never able to get this onto my phone - I've never had ANY problems putting ANY other ROM on my phone. I went through ROM Manager and then tried on my own both through Clockworkmod and SPRecovery. Same errors. I PM'd Sniffle but he never got back to me. Oh well...I don't to sit here and slam the guy/group, but if they want to be major players in the ROM world as they way, they will need to provide better support.
MY EXPERIENCE EXACTLY. Except I haven't tried contacting the devoloper, though. I eventually gave up on Sapphire and went with Chevy's Simply Stunning 4.5.
I was never able to get this onto my phone - I've never had ANY problems putting ANY other ROM on my phone. I went through ROM Manager and then tried on my own both through Clockworkmod and SPRecovery. Same errors. I PM'd Sniffle but he never got back to me. Oh well...I don't to sit here and slam the guy/group, but if they want to be major players in the ROM world as they way, they will need to provide better support.
Quote:
Originally Posted by djkeller3
MY EXPERIENCE EXACTLY. Except I haven't tried contacting the devoloper, though. I eventually gave up on Sapphire and went with Chevy's Simply Stunning 4.5.
Not sure what issues you were having, but I use SPR exclusively and had no issues whatsoever installing both the ROM or the Black Bar Modification. I'd be more than willing to help if you could provide specifics..
Not sure what issues you were having, but I use SPR exclusively and had no issues whatsoever installing both the ROM or the Black Bar Modification. I'd be more than willing to help if you could provide specifics..
Appreciate the offer to help, but I'm on SS 4.5 right now and I've never been happier with my phone. If I decide to give this one another shot, I'll hit you up if I continue to have problems
Device(s): Nexus S - Unbridled Android Baby
DROID - [Retired]
Carrier: Not Provided
Thanks: 38
Thanked 62 Times in 36 Posts
Review - Sapphire 0.8.4
Initial Setup:
Nothing of note in the initial boot process. I had 58 out of my 65 or so apps restore, with the rest quickly taken care of by TiBu.
However, there is an important note about the actual Flashing process. Sapphire does not flash for some people on newer versions of Clockwork Recovery (2.0.1.3 being the last know good version). Luckily Clockwork is very easy to flash back to older versions. So to avoid unnecessary pain and confusion flash CWR to 2.0.1.3 before booting into recovery. And while it never happened to me, some people have reported that they could only flash via SPR (again Clockwork will do that for you).
Features:
Sapphire comes packed with a nice feature set. Personally I love to see the care taken for those of us more likely to man the Terminal then open Root Explorer; Bash, BusyBox and plenty of scripts for system info, and memory management. Sapphire sports the original reboot to recovery option on power press that is quickly making it’s way into other ROMs. I am also glad to see a good collection of the “Switch .apk” style of scripts that are becoming popular upon ROM devs. I always thought that straight “delete this app” scripts never really offered much over the native remove (rm) command. It is really nice to see music control via the volume buttons as well. Unique to Sapphire is the ability to change the notification text colors via Gem Settings (like the BB app but with much less features).
There are not a lot of themes available, only about 4, but the theme Cooks seem to be making more and more themes Sapphire compatible. Best one? A theme just for a black notification bar. Awesome.
Performance:
Stock kernel comes over-clocked at low volt 1.0ghz, which is higher then one generally sees on a stock Kernel. While I’ve never personally had a problem at those speeds it is definitely possible depending on your own Droid. So if you are a low speed kind of Droid and are experiencing some funky issues, maybe try one of the low speed kernels. Of course the advantage to the stock kernel is that it is fast, not the quickest I’ve ever seen, but I was able to pull 1250+ quadrant scores during normal “use”. On the P3Droid-.32-.9-1-LV 1250 kernel (specially build for Sapphire I believe) I managed to top out at 1597
Bugs:
Overall, I have been exceptionally pleased with the stability of Sapphire 8.4 in a way I have been missing since I moved to Froyo based ROMs. It just seems to work, and work well. I haven’t seen any random reboots, zero problems with WiFi, GPS, or Bluetooth. However, I have moments where I will just loose USB disk connection to my computer; not often but it definitely happens. I also still have the same odd sporadic market issues I’ve seen on every Froyo ROM I’ve tried (download 100%, start to install and freeze).
Verdict
I’ll be the first to admit I have a bit of a finicky phone, but I cannot argue with the rock solid stability and performance I am getting from Sapphire. It doesn’t have as many features as Cyanogen Mod nor is it as quick and streamlined as Bugless Beast but it does manage to find a nice balance between the two that has left me very happy.
Originally I gave Sapphire the full 5 out of 5 but on a second thought I am lowering it to 4 out of 5. So, so close to 5 but incompatibility with Clockwork Recovery is just not acceptable for any major ROM these days.
Last edited by VIO; July 29th, 2010 at 01:46 PM.
Reason: spelling error(s) 'Doh. slight rating revision
The Following 3 Users Say Thank You to VIO For This Useful Post:
Anyone know what the kernel modules (CIFS, UFS, XFS, EXT 2/3/4, FUSE, NFS, RAMZSWAP, SQUASHFS) are or where to find more info about them? These are listed on the p3droid sapphire kernel download page at the bottom.
RAMZSWAP peaked my interest, but would like to know what the others are for as well.
Device(s): Nexus S - Unbridled Android Baby
DROID - [Retired]
Carrier: Not Provided
Thanks: 38
Thanked 62 Times in 36 Posts
Quote:
Originally Posted by JM33
Anyone know what the kernel modules (CIFS, UFS, XFS, EXT 2/3/4, FUSE, NFS, RAMZSWAP, SQUASHFS) are or where to find more info about them? These are listed on the p3droid sapphire kernel download page at the bottom.
RAMZSWAP peaked my interest, but would like to know what the others are for as well.
Any info would be greatly appreciated
I'm not sure they do anything. I took a visit to the sapphire IRC to ask about ext2 and they said that it is disabled in the ROM, so the same may be true for the other modules as well
OK thanks VIO. I thought RAMZSWAP may be necessary for compcache to work so I ran the zip. Turns out the errors I saw in terminal emulator were still popping up after. My error was forgetting to su before the script (doh!).
Interesting though because the errors mentioned ramzswap file not being found, though from what I read it seems any of those kernels have compcache enabled.
But running with compcache turned on seems to have really smoothed things out. It was great before, but flawless for me now. Can't wait for more Sapphire goodness!
Device(s): See my signature...this section isn't big enough anymore!
Carrier: Not Provided
Thanks: 1,789
Thanked 1,590 Times in 860 Posts
Due to the release of Sapphire 1.0 the poll for this ROM has been closed. The final average score of this ROM was 4.36 and the RRS sticky thread has been updated.
I think I said that 6 months ago and it hasn't become a reality yet! I don't want to flash...I just can't resist. I start going into anaphylactic shock...black out and wake up with a new ROM every damn day 
