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Root XTR vs Cyanogen/Kaos Froyo

Frisco

=Luceat Lux Vestra=
Jan 19, 2010
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androidforums.com
Rooted 2.1 vs rooted 2.2, in many ways, but I have to emphasize that I've had only Kaos and Cyanogen Tazz in my Eris as far as Froyo goes, and over a dozen 2.1 ROMs.

XTR has always proven the fastest, even not overclocked, and most stable of the 2.1 ROMs I've flashed, but now I have had a chance to see its performance as compared to two great Froyos, and I dare say that when I recovered 3.0.3 this morning I was startled as to the speed (again); getting accustomed to the overclocked and tweaked to death Tazz, I was certain I'd achieved similar quickness and efficiency in menu handling, app starting and camera operation as with XTR.

I was wrong, and by a long shot, which speaks well to how we do become accustomed to our rooted ROMs as we optimize them and toss apps we don't want, overclock and make our menu selections for speed, etc.

Having said all of that, I have to reiterate something: Froyo can work fairly well wrt speed on an Eris as long as it is overclocked a bit and as long as the rooted user attains some savvy as to what stock apps should be replaced for daily use.

- Camera Magic works in 2.2, the stock camera will have you wondering what to do about pics).

- Mms works fine in some Eris devices running 2.2, but posted reports show a majority with non-functionality.

- Gallery will load and properly display its contents after a live battery pull, but then the strange, Peter Max-like thumbnails will re-appear with a simple turn of the device to landscape mode and back; a big disappointment and also a useless app since the thumbs, at that point, lose their screen-touch response and banging on the screen gets you nowhere. ;)

Froyo ROMs we see around are a testament to the cleverness and resiliency of developers out there; my hat is off to them.

However I think that, for the Eris with its limited resources as compared to the devices 2.2 was conceived for, Froyo will have to be changed in a fashion which brings its core a step back in the direction of 2.1 if it is to fully take advantage of what rooting has to offer. For now, rooting gives us light-speed in 2.1, but in 2.2 it gives us tolerable speed at best.
 
I did like XTR, but I still had the problem I've had with all 2.1 ROMs (including Sense before I rooted). I can't hook in to my wireless connection at home. Not a big problem, but annoying.

With the Froyo ROM, my wireless links instantly. Everything else works great (with the exception as noted of the camera). I'm back at V1, my favorite, because it has everything I need. V5 was very good, except the MMS problem.

I would probably be more inclined to switch back and forth more, if not for the different needs with the partitioning/not-partitioning of the sd card. Too much of a PTA to keep changing it, so I'm staying with 2.2 for now. An extra card is on my shopping list, though :p

I'm not crazy about the gallery, either. If you open it up landscape, it should display properly. It is the switch that it doesn't like (or so I'm told).
 
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Thanks for that great write-up, Frisco.

I've been using xtrROM for a while now and sometimes look at other ROMs just to see what else was out there...but I usually come back to good ol' faithful. I had been tempted to use the 2.2 ROMs, but they don't seem quite ready for every day use yet.

It's amazing what the devs have been doing though, both with the 2.1 and 2.2 ROMs! Keep up the awesome work, guys!
 
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+1 to the OP, as they say. I keep coming back to XTR. It has some things that bug me; I hate the HTC lockscreen with a passion, but the replacement Nexus transparent one looks even worse - I need it to display against a blank wallpaper, not all of the stuff on my homescreen, or whatever I last left open. I also don't love the HTC dialer, the HTC browser will eventually start force closing on me after the phone has been running for a while.

All that said, though, XTR, with or without Sense, is what the Eris stock should be.
 
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I'm using XTRSense... I even uninstalled SetCPU and my phone never lags anymore.

Discovering a ROM which negated the need for overclocking was huge to me, as I was willing to overclock, but reluctantly, being aware of taxing the CPU, compromising battery life and generally forcing performance artificially as to its design.

3.0.3 is about to give way to 3.1 when it comes out of beta. My hope is that the finished 3.1 does not stray from the speed of its predecessor.
 
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+1 to the OP, as they say. I keep coming back to XTR. It has some things that bug me; I hate the HTC lockscreen with a passion, but the replacement Nexus transparent one looks even worse - I need it to display against a blank wallpaper, not all of the stuff on my homescreen, or whatever I last left open. I also don't love the HTC dialer, the HTC browser will eventually start force closing on me after the phone has been running for a while.

All that said, though, XTR, with or without Sense, is what the Eris stock should be.

Have you looked at this thread? It worked for me with XTR. You'll have to use the vanilla alarm instead of the htc alarm, though. Otherwise, you won't be able to turn it off since the htc alarm uses that htc lockscreen. :)

[THEME] Vanilla Lockscreen NON-Transparent Background [UPDATED: 07/05/2010] - xda-developers
 
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Have you looked at this thread? It worked for me with XTR. You'll have to use the vanilla alarm instead of the htc alarm, though. Otherwise, you won't be able to turn it off since the htc alarm uses that htc lockscreen. :)

[THEME] Vanilla Lockscreen NON-Transparent Background [UPDATED: 07/05/2010] - xda-developers

I did try it, and MetaMorph gave some sort of failure or fc - it's been a while since I tried. Maybe I will try again... though, perhaps I'll just wait for 3.1.

I have to say that a non-transparent Nexus lock (or the rotary lock) is great, as it adds the ability to quickly switch to vibrate only/silent as well as unlocking, and the HTC lockscreen motion is just too easy to swipe when you pull your phone from your pocket, say.

Though, I also must ask: does this change the lockscreen when you receive a call?
 
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Frisco, I have been using the XTRRom for about 2 days now, enjoying it, but I was wondering with this rooted rom do you still back out of each program or just hit the home key? I have been trying to re-train myself to just hit the home key to see if it changes speed or lags on me but I find more often than not I hit the back button. Just wondering what your experience has been.
 
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Why did you have it for a "brief time?" :D

Kidding aside, I went back to my default following a testing period for the beta as planned.

Like I mentioned, the lack of Gmail sync made me go back to 3.0.3. Otherwise, I would have stuck with it.


I did try it, and MetaMorph gave some sort of failure or fc - it's been a while since I tried. Maybe I will try again... though, perhaps I'll just wait for 3.1.

I have to say that a non-transparent Nexus lock (or the rotary lock) is great, as it adds the ability to quickly switch to vibrate only/silent as well as unlocking, and the HTC lockscreen motion is just too easy to swipe when you pull your phone from your pocket, say.

Though, I also must ask: does this change the lockscreen when you receive a call?

When you receive a call, two boxes pop up side by side...eitehr answer or decline (or something like that). You don't have to slide down or anything. I think that's the vanilla way of answering calls.
 
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..do you still back out of each program or just hit the home key?

I use the back key rather than the home key.

With the browser, however, I go to menu > bookmarks and select my home page so that it loads when I next open the browser, then I hit the home key.

Those are the same habits I acquired on 1.5 after I saw a posting of OTD's many months ago reminding users of resource drag many apps can cause when using the home key to leave them.

I see it as a way of getting the most out of the device, irrespective of whether or not it is rooted.
 
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Frisco,

I tried the xtrROM 3.1 beta (not xtrSense 3.1), and was happy with it - except for the Gmail push failure problem. There were also problems with the phone thinking that it did not have a Gmail account for other Google Apps (e.g. Google Listen).

Because I have been ROM-hopping, I use the phone as a cloud device only (I do have some "junk" POP3 accounts, but those are read-and-delete,no-contacts accounts), so having Gmail not notify me is a deal killer. I'm not sure if this problem is unique to 3.1 or not. Maybe I should give 3.0.3 a spin?

The camera behavior in Tazz Froyo V5 is just barely tolerable - I have to restart Camera Magic for every picture, otherwise it freezes. BarCode scanner refuses to focus, and Google Goggles uses the native camera app which freezes my phone.

Somehow I got lucky and MMS works for me on Tazz V5. I did a full wipe install just as you did, but had to do the "manual fix" thing (rather than APN Restore) to get it to work.

I would like to stick with a Froyo ROM, but I'm probably going to go back to base camp - which for the moment is Aloysius V12 for me. I'll be keeping a close watch on camera developments in Froyo ROMs, though.

eu1
 
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I would like to stick with a Froyo ROM, but I'm probably going to go back to base camp - which for the moment is Aloysius V12 for me. I'll be keeping a close watch on camera developments in Froyo ROMs, though.

Funny you would mention Aloysius; that is the one I was finding hard to leave once I had XTR in there. I went back and forth in opinion about which was the "best" a few times.

I like the name, Aloysius, too. :D

Somehow XTR won.. I think it was when I got hip to how the mflops, which I measured too often to admit, mean so little in all of this about speed in rooted ROMs; user experience rules over numbers from a benchmarking app, in my opinion, not to mention that we're really splitting hairs when we try to go from 3.8 to 4.1 or whatever.

The Froyo foray has been interesting and fun, knowing it's an OS being forwarded to more expensive and better equipped devices than the lowly Eris; it's great that rooting has provided a way for Eris users to experience it.

But for a serious, default Eris that is used daily for calls, messaging and whatever playing and other things we all do with it, rooted 2.1 is a leap or three ahead of 2.2 in more than one area, I've found (and posted about in #1 ;)).
 
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Frisco, what type of battery life do you get with the xtrROM?

Because overclocking is not necessary running XTR, battery life is very good. It's so good that I'm thinking that the coded efficiency of the ROM has to have something to do with it.

Keep in mind, I never had bad battery life in 1.5 or un-rooted 2.1, plus I take other resource saving measures as many have learned to do and reported about it.
 
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The Froyo foray has been interesting and fun, knowing it's an OS being forwarded to more expensive and better equipped devices than the lowly Eris; it's great that rooting has provided a way for Eris users to experience it.

But for a serious, default Eris that is used daily for calls, messaging and whatever playing and other things we all do with it, rooted 2.1 is a leap or three ahead of 2.2 in more than one area, I've found (and posted about in #1 ;)).

I couldn't disagree with you more, respectfully :D. Using 2.2 (Nonsensikal) has been an absolute joy for me. To each their own I guess......
 
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Have you looked at this thread? It worked for me with XTR. You'll have to use the vanilla alarm instead of the htc alarm, though. Otherwise, you won't be able to turn it off since the htc alarm uses that htc lockscreen. :)

[THEME] Vanilla Lockscreen NON-Transparent Background [UPDATED: 07/05/2010] - xda-developers

I did try it, and MetaMorph gave some sort of failure or fc - it's been a while since I tried. Maybe I will try again... though, perhaps I'll just wait for 3.1.

Ok, I tried it again. I run MM, I try to apply the theme, it asks me if I want to reboot - the screen is unresponsive. It reboots shortly anyway, and the phone remains with the HTC lockscreen. I'm still trying to figure out what I am doing wrong. I did go into settings of MM and set the delay to the highest, and it still doesn't change anything.
 
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