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Root Liberty1.5 vs. Apex1.4 comparison

JrzDroid

Android Expert
Nov 30, 2009
1,682
309
NJ
For the past 28 or so hours I've had two droid Xs in my possession and decided that I wanted to test the two latest and greatest ROMS for the X. Liberty 1.5 and Apex 1.4. I started out by SBFing both to stock 2.3.340 before doing anything and loading fresh installs of both.

1st thoughts - Without loading any accounts or applications, both are very quick roms, tool boxes on both are loaded full of options. for the sake of comparison I didn't load any toolbox options on either. Both phones were charged to 100% and then taken off.

Setup- I added my google account to both and let the application restore process commence. At the end of the process both were at 90% Battery. I don't have any task killers(bleck) and only have around 20 applications. I then went through the twitter and facebook account process and set up both phones with my GOLauncher setup w/ widgets and wallpaper. So both phones are still 100% mirrors of eachother(beside rom)[no themes]

Playtime- Recently my girlfriend and I have become addicted to the game Dropwords so we both took an X and played for an hour, playing one game after another. Everything was timed with an egg timer lol. After an hours of game play both were at a respectable 70%.

Toolbox- Like mentioned earlier, both have toolboxes with great features. Both make these ROMs a tier above the rest. Functionality and ease I would give to Liberty with the Liberty Toolbox. With the ability to simply click a button to add themes, blur apps, overclocking etc its much easier then reading font on the Emulator. The apex tool box also has great commands and isn't hard to use at all. Fabulous did a great job with the ApexBox.

Battery Life- There is a "patch" for Liberty that seems to improve the battery greatly, but it was not used in this test as it was not part of the original 1.5 release. I did the same things I both phones from the time I set both up to the time I went to sleep that nite. Didn't post anything on twitter or facebook, searched the same sites on both (gizmodo, phandroid, yahoo, d-life) In the time I started searching sites on both phones to the time I finished, Apex was 10% ahead of Liberty 60% - 50%. After another hour of dropword on both phones, we had Apex on 50% and Liberty on 40%.

ROMs- In terms of sheer performance, before I loaded GoLauncher and applications, Liberty it seemed held a speed advantage in terms of Applications opening and Boot time. Apex seemed to be faster in opening the settings menus and the market seemed to open faster too. After launchers and applications were loaded Liberty still held a slight advantage in applications. Apex however, didn't seem to like GoLauncher at first but got better after I reinstalled it.

The Final word- Both Roms are excellent, both are fast, both are loaded with customization options. Both are ahead of the rest IMO and thoroughly put Motorola's stock software to shame. Personally I can't really find a weakness in either, and both really give the user plenty of options. Battery life seems to be a bit better on Apex as people have discovered but with the tweak made by Kejar it might level the playing field. With all roms theres bound to be bugs and both seem to have been really streamlined into the smooth creatures we see now. Throughout the entire testing process I only had one hiccup that recurred twice. Both instances were with Apex and a strange keyboard action. I tried typing things on both and twice on apex letters did not process when hit.

hope you enjoyed my comparison =] If you have any questions, feel free to ask!
 
What patch for helping battery life are you talking bout?

Since I've gotten a few questions about it:

kejar31:

1. Are you one of the people who concerns themselves with battery life???

2. Do you want to help Team Liberty make Liberty the best ROM with the best battery life?

If both of these are true then read on...


I am attempting to tweak Liberty to enhance battery life... these tweaks, if they work well will make their way into the next release..

People who participate will be asked to follow the rules and directions in this post and will also be asked to report their battery life improvements.



1st... Some of the tweaks will involve changes to the framework-res so I will ask that you run only the default theme... I include a circle battery icon so we can track the usage better (credit to Tom108 for the images)

2nd... I will need you to wipe your battery stats..

3rd.. Please do not overclock or underclock your processor while running these tests


So lets get started

Install LibertyBattweak.zip
Download the LibertyBatteak.zip within this thread and save it to your sdcard
Open Liberty Tools and select -->reboot options-->Reboot Bootstrap
Select -->mounts and storage-->mount /system
you should now see unmount /system in its place
backout to the main menu by pressing the power button
select -->install zip from sdcard-->choose zip from sdcard-->"locate the file you save to your sdcard"
after the install is complete reboot


Wiping Battery stats
Charge your battery to 100%.
Open Liberty Tools and select -->reboot options-->Reboot Bootstrap
Select Advance--> Wipe Battery stats
Unplug your phone and select reboot.
Leave your phone unplugged and fully drain the battery. (Do not plug it back in, not to power nor your computer. Make sure it
 
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Installing a theme will undo the battery tweaks due to the framework in the theme. Wiping stats, etc, just tells the phone the battery capacity, something you should do if you have an extended (or aging) battery o/w could be considered optional unless you're participating in kejar31's test.

Here's a link to the battery tweak: Increase Battery Life? You can help Team Liberty! - Droid Forum - Verizon Droid & the Motorola Droid Forum

Here's the Liberty forum: Liberty ROM DX - Droid Forum - Verizon Droid & the Motorola Droid Forum
 
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It may be the way I perceive it but Liberty is somewhat faster than Apex.
However... that speed came at a cost in battery life for me.
My first day with Liberty left me with almost zero battery.
Normally I have at least 50-60% with Apex at the end of a day.

Indeed, both are great roms.. and everything has a trade off.
 
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Excellent post and a fair and unbiased write up. I agree with your assessments completely, slight (very ) speed advantage to Liberty, slight (10% or so) battery advantage to Apex. Toolboxes are differently executed but both effective.

Jrummy, Kejar, and Fab all deserve big compliments. They are a great example of what open source software is all about as well as collaboration. These guys have helped each other out instead of going the "mine is better than yours" route and that takes class!

Both great ROMS, enjoy whichever you choose!
 
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I love both ROM's. I first was running Apex 1.3.1 and it truly made me hate the Motorola stock SW. All good blur features with all the customization you want. Ran great. I then tried Liberty 1.0. It took a while to get used to the missing blur but after a week I was addicted. I upgraded to Liberty 1.5 when it was released and love it. I recently tried the Apex 1.4 but went back to Liberty 1.5. Nothing against Apex what so ever. It's a great ROM but I just got too used to the Liberty ROM so I'm sticking with it. It's purely a personal choice. As was said by swagner53 "Jrummy, Kejar, and Fab all deserve big compliments. They are a great example of what open source software is all about as well as collaboration. These guys have helped each other out instead of going the "mine is better than yours" route and that takes class!"

All I can say is the Liberty team and Apex team rock!
 
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Thanks for the write-up. I've never tried liberty but have always wanted to. Your comparison almost makes me feel like I have.

I'd like to add one thing that really sets Apex apart from liberty and gives it a distinct advantage in my book: It's ability to run motoblur's full messenging suite.

This is essential to get corporate outlook email to properly sync for many of us that use the phone to get push work email.

No other rom has been able to do this for me except tranquility, which isn't as fast as ApeX (especially 1.4). Just the mere fact that this rom maintains a number of blur files and yet runs toe-to-toe with what many consider the fastest rom out (liberty) is simply amazing.

Somehow, my paltry donation when ApeX 1.3 came out just doesn't seem like enough.
 
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So I asked a friend of mine to run Apex 1.4 for a day on his rooted X while I run Liberty. These are his thoughts:

Apex is smooth, coming from stock motorola software to this is like getting an OTA directly from Google with an application that sends a thousand text messages to Motorola telling them how much they suck. Never before have I had so much control over what I can do in a rom. The toolbox feature is AMAZING! Why all roms don't have this is a mystery.

Before he ran apex he was on stock software with titanium freezing all the bloat apps.
His phone before the X was the G1 which I had rooted but really didn't do anything to cause he lives a bit far from me. His last text message said that he wants to try out Liberty cause he loves the whole toolbox option.

I've been running Liberty for a few days now and I can honestly say that its really running well. The battery tweak has made my phone last far beyond what stock Liberty 1.5 did. No random reboots, no FCs of any kind, no real issues at all. My friends with Xs and D2s all look to me for the greatest ROMS and i've sent links to both Apex, Liberty and this comparison and let them decide for themselves

I do have one issue though. I like the apex yellow and all but I want to run the UD theme but don't wanna have the yellow battery monitor that comes with the tweak. If someone could help a brother out I'd be very very happy
 
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I've been running apex for a few days now and I can honestly say that its really running well. The battery tweak has made my phone last far beyond what stock Liberty 1.5 did. No random reboots, no FCs of any kind, no real issues at all. My friends with Xs and D2s all look to me for the greatest ROMS and i've sent links to both Apex, Liberty and this comparison and let them decide for themselves

I do have one issue though. I like the apex yellow and all but I want to run the UD theme but don't wanna have the yellow battery monitor that comes with the tweak. If someone could help a brother out I'd be very very happy

Sounds like you are talking about Liberty... not Apex. Battery Tweak, Apex Yellow. If you are talking about Apex, what Battery tweak?
 
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Installing a theme will undo the battery tweaks due to the framework in the theme. Wiping stats, etc, just tells the phone the battery capacity, something you should do if you have an extended (or aging) battery o/w could be considered optional unless you're participating in kejar31's test.

Here's a link to the battery tweak: Increase Battery Life? You can help Team Liberty! - Droid Forum - Verizon Droid & the Motorola Droid Forum

Here's the Liberty forum: Liberty ROM DX - Droid Forum - Verizon Droid & the Motorola Droid Forum

Bummer on the theme thingy. I really like the watermark theme. What if I ran the tweak AFTER installing a theme?
 
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Liberty took over my phone last night causing me to freak out and try SBFing my phone, which then froze and I freaked some more thinking I had a permabrick on my hands. JRummy and Kejar have lost this noobs trust and ill be flashing to Apex to check that out in a couple of minutes.

So in closing Apex > Liberty because there hasn't been reports of apex hijacking 500 dollar DXs. Liberty will never be on my phone again.
 
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im gonna say it over and over again, but you won't get as good battery life as stock.

believe me, i tried em all, rubix, apex, tranquility, liberty, everything.

i'm currently running stock 2.2.1 with gingerbread theme and the batt life is amazing. and btw i'm running at 1.2 ghz.

I used 2 additional tweaks. 'Autokiller' and 'Droid X Overclock with sysctl enabled'

Thats it. I'm getting over a day of battery life with heavy usage.
 
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im gonna say it over and over again, but you won't get as good battery life as stock.

believe me, i tried em all, rubix, apex, tranquility, liberty, everything.

i'm currently running stock 2.2.1 with gingerbread theme and the batt life is amazing. and btw i'm running at 1.2 ghz.

I used 2 additional tweaks. 'Autokiller' and 'Droid X Overclock with sysctl enabled'

Thats it. I'm getting over a day of battery life with heavy usage.

Every phone is different. What may give you great battery life may be horrible for others. I couldn't get a full day on stock if i sacrificed a virgin to the battery gods. Liberty + the tweak has been quite damn good for me.

as for the theme deal, you can flash a theme then the tweak, it'll just change your battery icon. The only reason I haven't flashed UD theme then the battery is cause the yellow wouldn't go well with UD black and red.

@matt.burns21 The Liberty debacle was resolved last night. I think Jrummy and Kejar lost quite a bit of respect and users with what happened and the way it was handled immediately after. Honestly I'm sticking with Liberty for the time being as I really love how it runs.

I also plan on having a few of my friends run some of the other ROMs:
Fisson,
Rubix
Simply Stunning
ZapX
KennedyX
Fitzgerald
Cobalt
UD
to make a solid comparison with the front-runners of the DX. Good thing I have a lot of friends with Xs
 
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I read what happened and it kinda pisses me off even more. I change my battery icons, reboot, and I can't do anything. I don't like that the devs of liberty had THAT much control over my phone. I couldn't do ANYTHING. Lets hope Fab doesnt break my trust. Ill run apex for a few days and see how I like it. Thanks for the good comparison though. Look forward to more!
 
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The devs who create these roms can easily put in things like this. this is really a taste of the power they have over the stuff they give out. I've said before that there should be some sort of ROM verification process to check for things like this. Don't know if it'll ever happen but it'd be pretty sweet for us users
 
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Every phone is different. What may give you great battery life may be horrible for others. I couldn't get a full day on stock if i sacrificed a virgin to the battery gods. Liberty + the tweak has been quite damn good for me.

Yes, every phone varies to some degree, but I wouldn't go so far as to say each phone behaves completely differently.

I had the opportunity to test 3 different Droid X's, all refurb phones.

They all behaved the same, so as long as one does not tinker with stock settings. I have issues with some of these 'ROMS' as theyre merely a collection of modifications into one zip file. Sure the toolbox is a great means to change UI settings, but I prefer a clean stock build with gingerbread theme on top.

I have issue with Liberty because it does not support HDMI. I would recommend making your own custom build of stock 2.2.1.

1. Get the .340 sbf and flash your DX using rsdlite 4.8 or 4.9
2. Root your Droid X using z4root (easily available on the web, just google)
3. Remove bloat via Root Explorer in \system\app (rename *.apk to *.bak)
4. Install gingerbread theme over stock.
5. Buy Droid X Overclock (it costs money, but its the best app purchase you'll ever make on your DX)
6. Enable sysctl, and undervolt 300mhz VSEL to 16. (Varies depending on the phone)
7. Install 'Autokiller' and set preset to 'Aggressive'

Voila. Its long, but this gives me great battery life without losing any features on the DroidX.
 
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Awesome write up! I'm jealous you have 2 DX's to play with. My wife is due an upgrade from the Storm 1 and I'm trying to convince her to go with the X but she doesn't like the size of it. She also wouldn't let me do what I do with my phone. She doesn't understand it.

Just my opinion but I personally get better battery life with Apex 1.3 and 1.4. Than I did with Liberty 1.0 and 1.5. With Apex at the end of the day with my normal use I have 70% left. With Liberty I had usually 50-40% left. I really like Liberty and my phone was amazingly fast OC at 1.15 but it had little bugs/glitches that aggravated me. Then Apex 1.4 came out and other than LPP being a tad laggy I'm really enjoying it. I also like the dialer on Apex vs Liberty. Apex has just enough blur to make the phone enjoyable.

Again awesome write up.
 
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