[Galaxy S II General] VanillaCracker:
Lol unfortunately I have an I-777 so I'm not aware of your different official firmware releases, but I think 2.3.5 was much better than 2.3.7 (hopefully that relates a little hah)

I will certainly hook you up with my opinion on a good GB rom for you, but I'm not sure what your preferences are on which type of rom. TW (samsung), MIUI (aosp), CM7 style (aosp). In my opinion if you're looking for general fast, smoothness, then definitely try UnNamed rom. Also ShoShock is similar, but in my opinion UnNamed is just smoother and a little better battery life. EDIT: Just flashed Foil from xfiles. Probably the best GB rom I've come across as of now. Very well put together, Sammy based, 2.3.6, TV4 launcher, ICS themed, and all the latest add ons. This rom was made only a few months ago, not a year ago. If you're looking for something blazing fast, grab WIUI (recommended first) or AdyScorpius' MIUI. I only ran CM7 once, so can't comment on smoothness, but granted what I know about CM9, it's probably pretty smooth. Doubt it's very fast though. I suggest Siyah kernel for UnNamed, ShoShock, MIUI.

No, Nova launcher only works on Android 4.0+ I'm pretty certain. GB launchers = ADW, Go Launcher, and maybe MiHome. Nova, Apex, Trebuchet, etc.

On CM10 (JB) everything works (camera, data, calls, msg, bluetooth) and I find it to be very smooth. In fact, with the kernel given (cm10 kernel) it's probably the smoothest rom I've ever used. It's a little slow for me atm though, and touch sensitivity annoys me, so I'm on GB atm. Where I can use my phone 300% faster than on ICS/JB, because I only have to press things once, and things open instantly.

Well if you find ICS that much smoother on your S2 versus your S1, then you might want to try out GB on your S2. I don't have an extended battery but text a lot too (also young), and battery is always a problem :rolleyes: . If by speed you mean smoothness than I agree. However the rom is slow as crap when compared to Hw accelerated GB roms like WIUI and AdyScorpius' MIUI. To give you a definition of speed, I'll give you an example: Get a phone with latest GB rom on it, and a phone with JB on it. Both start on home screen, with all apps in same place (messages, browser, etc.). Do the following series of tests on both at the same time: create a new message and send it to 123456789. Press home key, and go into settings, scroll to the bottom, go to about phone. Go into sound setting, change your media volume to max. Press back key 3 times (or however many needed) to fully close out of settings. Open browser (default one), and go to www.movietickets.com . Press home key, go into app drawer and find google play. Open it. Press home key. Done. If you were to have a machine do that series on both phones at the same time, I guarantee the phone running GB would be done at least 2 seconds before the JB one.

A matter of keyboards is purely individualistic. Swiftkey is great, I like it a lot, however it does not suit my typing style. I'm a really fast typer, so I do not use prediction. I can type out the entire word by the time I type two letters and then select the pre-written word provided. I use the standard GB android keyboard, and I cannot type anywhere near as fast with any other keyboard. Most keyboards simply lag because they cannot keep up with my typing speed. Swiftkey is the best, and I'd love to use it, but since I type words out fully myself, and am a quick typer, stock gb keyboard just registers quicker for me.

Yeah I've definitely flashed just about every rom (I've skipped maybe 10, cus they're similar to other ones I've used) for GB, and most of ICS. Good to know JB is running well for ya. I'm going to be moving back onto it soon. Really hoping some more legit roms start getting built from JB soon. Can't wait to use Resurrection's Jelly Bean.