[Galaxy S II General] Tiu Fiu:
Ok lads, as promised, here is the "thorough" review I mentioned.

Now, first things first, I can't say this is an exact stock LPD review. I'm on XWLPD for the Nordic Countries (NEE), with SiyahKernel 3.2.2. A little bit of CPU UnderVolting (as described in my signature) and a little GPU OverClocking as well (step 3 clocked at 400MHz, steps 1 and 2 at stock 160 and 267 MHz). I was previously running the stock australian XWLP8 with the same configuration.

Usage

Currently at approx. 25h of usage - no forced closures, crashes, SoD or anything. Discharging for approx. 16h (unplugged since 05:30 AM - 100%) and currently at 16% of battery.

Now, since unplugged, I've used approx. 6h of FM Radio and +or- 2h30min of PowerAmp - known heavy battery consumers. I guess this new firmware has an improved way of dealing with such apps.

Other than that, I’ve got approx. 2h of screen time, 30min or so of talk time and 15min or so of GPS time - for all the tests I’ve been running. And I’ve got to include 4 Quadrant and 3 Antutu Benchmark tests in this, as they also are heavy battery consumers.

Tests

After flashing XWLPD (with just a cache and dalvik cache wipe), I ran a Quadrant Benchmark test and got 3400, which was a bit disappointing. At noon today I ran Quadrant again and got 4000 or so on 3 different tests, which was pratically the same as on XWLP8. On Antutu, I got around 6000 on 3 tests, at around 02:00 PM - again the same as XWLP8.

Now, GPS still requires us to fix gps.conf as it is still configured to the north-american NTP server. After changing to the BR server, at an open environment, I got a fix on 9 - 11 satellites at 15 seconds or so (15, 15 and 16 seconds on three tests). On XWLP8 I used to get similar results. What surprised me was when I was checking to see if GoogleMaps and NDrive 11 were OK (which they were) and I got surprised with a lock on 5 satellites at home (and I live in the 4th floor of a 10-story building - something I’ve never got with any previous firmwares - GB or ICS).

Now, as for the general UI, it is pretty much the same as XWLP8 - I guess I would have to say that any improvements I could feel could be seen as a placebo effect, so I’m not gonna review that particular item. Vertical scrolling on some apps is still a bit groggy, but not different than the previous ICS firmwares I’ve used (XXLPS -> XWLP4 -> XWLP7 -> XWLP8, all unbranded, if anyone is wondering).

Conclusions

As expected from a new firmware and one with such a huge changelist difference, this new XWLPD is an improvement and worth of a flash. Definitely suitable for day-by-day usage, and far less buggy than the previous ones I’ve used.

I honestly can’t feel much of a difference with this new 4.0.4 framework I’ve been hearing around on the forum - can’t even say for sure this ROM has this updated framework, but regardless of that, this is a good firmware and a definite improvement on the early ICS ROMs leaked out there.

Hope this can help anyone on doubt whether or not he or she should flash this firmware. And feel free to ask me anything I may have forgot. I’m pretty sure I missed something, but I can’t remember what right now.

---------- Post added at 10:23 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:12 PM ----------

One thing I forgot - I checked with BetterBatteryStats and I noticed some unusual kernel and partial wakelocks that I never had with XWLP8 on SiyahKernel 3.2.2. I'll check during the weekend and I'll update you guys on monday or so - along with another 3-day usage review.