Anyone taken this pony out for a run?
(Last time I brought up UD, the resulting chaos was unimaginable! It's just a question, not meant to inflame)
***** ROM Reviews *****
Review by YankeeDudeL
(Last time I brought up UD, the resulting chaos was unimaginable! It's just a question, not meant to inflame)
***** ROM Reviews *****
Review by YankeeDudeL
Initial Setup:
Didn't take but a couple minutes to boot up, which is always nice. First thing you notice, like in previous builds, is there's a diff font (which is easily customizable, more on that later). And then when you try to sign in, you'll notice there's a keyboard issue. Luckily, I had just come off a ROM with the same issue and was prepared for it this time. This is due to having the Droid 2 keyboard, which is easily fixed.
The Market synced up within a half hour and actually loaded more apps than any previous ROM has. The previous holder of that title was UD6, so I guess that shouldn't come as a surprise.
Appearance and Goodies:
There's more than a few options here, folks. Just about everything is customizable, from the fonts, to the live wallpapers, boot animations and even the lock screen. All these are accessed from the Settings menu where there's an added Ultimate Droid Settings at the very top, and these are very easy to implement.
From that same menu you can apply scripts, launchers, add or remove built-in or modified apps, change colors, your notifications, and this list goes on. I can't even possibly cover all the tweaks and level of customization that this gets into, but this is a wet dream for a guy like me.
Performance:
This isn't a ROM that blows you away with benchmarks. The stock kernel and provided kernels top out very average. But similar to the LithiumMod ROM, while it doesn't score the highest, you wouldn't tell from actual function. Screen transitions are very fluid, and apps open and close with no issue. However, like CyanogenMod, the ability to heavily modify make it seem a step behind ROMs like Liquid Frozen Yogurt and Succulent Desire (both of which pride themselves on amazing speed).
After flashing slayher's 1.2GHz kernel (which completely blew me away when I tried it with LFY1.4), I did get better benches. I topped out at 1587 with Quadrant, which is more reflective of the kernel than the ROM. This was at 1.1GHz. 1.2GHz was actually stable, but like with jdlfg's, I couldn't get Quadrant to run. I was able to run a short and long bench, getting 149 short and about 440 long.
App and System Function:
I didn't encounter any app errors, but others have reported occasional difficulty with some of the modified apps you can apply. There's also the aforementioned Droid 2 keyboard issue, which didn't last as a problem for me because I can't live without Swype (changing to Swype eliminated the problem) (I do prefer the Droid 2 virtual keyboard over the stock one and HTC_IME, so I hope to see more development from the devs and themers there).
Everyone should be happy to hear that I was pleasantly surprised with the battery life. While it wasn't horrible in other builds, it certainly wasn't the best. There are some known widgets that really hurt battery life that I run for the purpose of testing (such as Temp Monitor) and it still performed well, running cool after taking quite a bit of abuse.
Overview:
This ROM's biggest feature is that it's level of customization is only rivaled by CMs, but it outperforms it with more speed and better battery life (I have NOT, however, tested the new RC3, in all fairness). It doesn't quite reach the speeds of other available ROMs, but it's what you want to get out of a ROM. I would say that this ROM currently has the best balance of everything, and I highly recommend it, based on that. However you feel about the dev, well, that's another story.
Rating:
4 out of 5 stars
Didn't take but a couple minutes to boot up, which is always nice. First thing you notice, like in previous builds, is there's a diff font (which is easily customizable, more on that later). And then when you try to sign in, you'll notice there's a keyboard issue. Luckily, I had just come off a ROM with the same issue and was prepared for it this time. This is due to having the Droid 2 keyboard, which is easily fixed.
The Market synced up within a half hour and actually loaded more apps than any previous ROM has. The previous holder of that title was UD6, so I guess that shouldn't come as a surprise.
Appearance and Goodies:
There's more than a few options here, folks. Just about everything is customizable, from the fonts, to the live wallpapers, boot animations and even the lock screen. All these are accessed from the Settings menu where there's an added Ultimate Droid Settings at the very top, and these are very easy to implement.
From that same menu you can apply scripts, launchers, add or remove built-in or modified apps, change colors, your notifications, and this list goes on. I can't even possibly cover all the tweaks and level of customization that this gets into, but this is a wet dream for a guy like me.
Performance:
This isn't a ROM that blows you away with benchmarks. The stock kernel and provided kernels top out very average. But similar to the LithiumMod ROM, while it doesn't score the highest, you wouldn't tell from actual function. Screen transitions are very fluid, and apps open and close with no issue. However, like CyanogenMod, the ability to heavily modify make it seem a step behind ROMs like Liquid Frozen Yogurt and Succulent Desire (both of which pride themselves on amazing speed).
After flashing slayher's 1.2GHz kernel (which completely blew me away when I tried it with LFY1.4), I did get better benches. I topped out at 1587 with Quadrant, which is more reflective of the kernel than the ROM. This was at 1.1GHz. 1.2GHz was actually stable, but like with jdlfg's, I couldn't get Quadrant to run. I was able to run a short and long bench, getting 149 short and about 440 long.
App and System Function:
I didn't encounter any app errors, but others have reported occasional difficulty with some of the modified apps you can apply. There's also the aforementioned Droid 2 keyboard issue, which didn't last as a problem for me because I can't live without Swype (changing to Swype eliminated the problem) (I do prefer the Droid 2 virtual keyboard over the stock one and HTC_IME, so I hope to see more development from the devs and themers there).
Everyone should be happy to hear that I was pleasantly surprised with the battery life. While it wasn't horrible in other builds, it certainly wasn't the best. There are some known widgets that really hurt battery life that I run for the purpose of testing (such as Temp Monitor) and it still performed well, running cool after taking quite a bit of abuse.
Overview:
This ROM's biggest feature is that it's level of customization is only rivaled by CMs, but it outperforms it with more speed and better battery life (I have NOT, however, tested the new RC3, in all fairness). It doesn't quite reach the speeds of other available ROMs, but it's what you want to get out of a ROM. I would say that this ROM currently has the best balance of everything, and I highly recommend it, based on that. However you feel about the dev, well, that's another story.
Rating:
4 out of 5 stars