[Galaxy S II General] :
CM10.1 -> Stock JB 4.1.2 = Win

I want to share my thoughts about the latest official Samsung ROM (4.1.2 I9100XWLSS) compared to CM 10.1. My point is that the official ROM has reached the perfect functionality and stability for daily usage with virtually no real issues or setbacks compared to CM 10.1 on this undocumented Exynos device. Actually with the stock ROM (but only the latest 4.1.2) I found every single feature I want supported and most importantly - it's stable. CyanogenMod is a wonderful project, but I faced the truth – I would use it with great pleasure, but running on a device with properly documented SoC. Exynos 4410 just runs the best with the proprietary drivers. I’m sorry, that’s the hard truth. Of course, I don’t want to discourage all brave devs. Thank you guys, you provided me with the best experience for the last year. In the meantime Samsung just produced a decent enough stock ROM. Let me explain why.

A little bit of history: I have my Samsung Galaxy S2 since year and a half. In the beginning I was using stock Gingerbread 2.3.6, which was very, very stable, but missing a couple of features. At this point CM 9 had its fair share of problems and I decided to stay stock. However it took ages for Samsung to release 4.x ROM and in the beginning it was very buggy. I had a couple of kernel panics, various Samsung apps used to crash and so on. I described the most profound problem for a small number of people here: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1653095 It made my phone absolutely unusable. Later it turned out a bug in ICS itself. I had the choice – switch to CM 10.1 (JB, bug fixed) or stay with Samsung 2.3.6 ROM.

This prompted me to switch to CM 10.1. Feature-wise CM 10.1 was light years ahead. It was more polished, had outstanding integration and functionality. I instantly loved the thought that went into CyanogenMod. So customizable, so accessible, just perfect! I never wanted to look back as the stock Samsung ROM was a joke compared to it. Especially considering that Samsung 4.0.x ROMs were rip-offs from their Gingerbread ones. They felt like Frankenstein – some parts from ICS, some from GB and at the end – one big bad mess.

The problem with CM was absolutely no support from Samsung. Exynos 4410 turned a complete black box. Everybody remembers how much problems CM had with this device. I tended to stay with particular nightlies for months and learned how to work around their issues. Newer nightlies fixed old problems, but introduced new ones. I completely understand the developers and don’t blame them at all. I’m an embedded developer myself and I suspect how many problems they faced, tried to reverse engineer and so on.

So from one side I had the perfect CM, but with low stability and many HW issues. On the other side I had the unbearable stock ROM. CyanogenMod team replaced more and more Samsung blobs with open source drivers. In particular the audio stack (Yamaha-MC1N2), the camera (M5MO/S5K5BAFX), sensors (K3DH), compass (AKM8975). Of course Replicant helped a lot: http://code.paulk.fr/article9/galaxy-s2-replicant-port-status-update

I was happy with each new part of Galaxy S2 having a new open source port, but… well… they were almost always less stable in the beginning or introduced new problems. The audio have always had low volume problems until lately (well, even the binary blob one), when only a simple change in one XML file of TinyALSA fixed it, many months later. But it took so much time during which I couldn't listen loudly to music. Sometimes sensors/GPS crashed and I had to restart the phone. Very bad if you wanted to do something quickly and have to wait for a reboot. The compass was unstable as well (I don’t know if it ever worked, but the 5 times I tried it didn’t). The latest open source camera implementation had long standing problems focusing and people reported problems with video stuttering. Missing EXIF information was also a problems for many and it’s currently being sorted out, but understand me – I want something that works.

Of course don’t let me start with video + related memory leaks and RIL problems!!! These were a real nightmare. I remember the days I had to reboot my phone every other day.

Feature N1 should always be stability. Nothing else. This is what I missed from CM10.0/CM10.1 on Galaxy S2 and the one to blame is Samsung, not the developers.

Well, 2 weeks ago I decided to give Samsung’s stock 4.1.2 ROM a chance and do you know what? It has improved A LOT since the last time I looked at it! Suddenly everything started working and worked well and reliably! For 2 weeks nothing ever crashed, hanged, was slow, unstable or in any way unusable. The stock ROM is absolutely perfect stability-wise. The audio is perfect, the camera has never been better, video is stutter-free, GPS works and locks faster, compass works, video performance is perfect (and I guess many games that have problems with CM 10.1 would work).

I’m pleased. Samsung has actually moved ahead. They’ve implemented many features I missed in their ICS ROM and the Frankenstein moments aren’t there anymore. It has battery percentage built-in as well as many small things I missed from their ICS ROM. Now it’s perfect for everyday usage.

At this moment I completely switched to I9100XWLSS + rooted stock kernel from PhilZ. I have CWM, installed Jelly Bean keyboard (disabled Samsung’s one), installed a flashlight app (was native in CM), file explorer and 1-2 small utilities whose functionality was part of CM. I found the perfect stability + features for me and if I don’t find out some really big issue, I’m staying with stock ROM until I sell the device later this year or in the beginning of the next one. Since many CyanogenMod devs left Galaxy S2 in the dust (and they had their good reasons), the development will most likely slow down. Jelly Bean 4.1 is “latest enough” for me and I’ll continue using it on this device and this will be its end of life. Currently there’s hard for me to imagine going back to CM considering how polished and stable the stock ROM is.

Developers, thank you very much. You provided me with a wonderful ROM over the time when Samsung couldn’t make it on their own. In the future I’ll always seek a device that’s perfectly supported by CyanogenMod so I can combine features and stability together. Something Galaxy S2 couldn’t quite achieve. Thank you.