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What's the fastest (nearly) "lag free" ROM for the Hero, that you've tried?

xevious

Well-Known Member
Jun 12, 2010
188
11
Near NYC
Honestly, I'm starting to build some frustrations after initially having quite a bit of fun switching ROM's. So far, I've explored CM7.2, Zero Sense, MIUI, and TeamHeroC. Zero Sense is supposed to be built very lean off of CM7. And I do find that basically when things are "calm", it works a little better. But I keep running into "mysterious moments" where drastic lag appears, especially when loading the dialer, contacts, or even the camera.

At first I attributed this to the "GO" series of apps. While graphically nice looking, GO SMS Pro, GO Launcher Ex, and GO Contacts Ex were tending to get laggy under CM7.2. But I'm finding the same is true under Zero Sense. I am good about not loading many apps and use the Task Manager to kill any I don't need running. I've also transferred many apps to the SD card. But when I switched back to the standard Android dialer, I'm finding it is still coming up with periodic lag. When I go to make a phone call, I want my dialer to pop up within 5 seconds. Waiting 20 seconds on average for a dialer is unnerving, especially if I'm in a hurry!
 
Man, it always seems like each ROM has its own quirks or idiosyncrasies.

LiGUX is probably the fastest ROM for the HeroC, at least that I've seen thus far (having checked 4 so far). But I've run into some quirks. There's supposed to be a lock screen, but I have none. HOME and CALL buttons do nothing. And trying to access the Sound settings results in an Android process crash. Otherwise... it works quite well.

UPDATE: Those quirks were due to some instability on my phone. I had to wipe it and start over and the issues I was having with LiGux went away.
 
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Well, I believe what I'm beginning to see is that the launcher has a big influence on ROM efficiency. When using any custom ROMs so far, I've experienced lag when installing GO Launcher Ex, which is graphically heavy and feature laden. Probably the best thing is to install a very lean ROM and then a full featured launcher... or stick with a fast and light launcher with a standard ROM.

Today I installed Lightning Launcher on a CM7 based ROM (TeamHeroC) and I'm seriously impressed. This launcher is so massively featured and breaks the barrier on launcher conventions. It's definitely something that takes getting used to. However, you can make it mimic a typical launcher desktop with 3-5 horizontal pages. I'm finding my old HTC Hero so "normal" in performance when using LL. I can't recommend it enough.
 
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I have had good luck with ADW.Launcher and LauncherPro on the Sprint HTC Hero. I believe the latter is a bit smoother than the former.

Zeam Launcher is another really lightweight launcher you might want to try. I used to use that on my B&N Nook Color when it was on early CyanogenMod 7 ROMs. It looks like Zeam Launcher has not been updated in about a year though. It also requires at least Android 2.2.
 
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^ Yep, I've been using Zeam for a few weeks and it's great. Really no appreciable lag noticed. In my book, a launcher should be understated, leaving all of the graphical hoopla to the apps that are executed. Smooth page scrolling, app drawer display with no jittery effect, and a competent range of customization.

Zeam has a scrollable dock bar, and it's very smooth--even on an old Hero!

While I like LL, it's a little over the top for small screen real estate phones. Keeping it simple, to just 3 screens, seems to work best. And "Swipe Pad" really opens up more flexibility without having to resort to more screens.
 
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