[Nexus 7 General] jubei_mitsuyoshi:
Hi all

I very much doubt this post belongs here, but since i am a new member , have no chice but to put it here.

I have recently accidentally purchased a nexus7 (grouper) and decided to try some of the custom roms available, in the end i tried most of them.

Here are my comparison results.

As with all things putting an "order" on the roms is subjective, the "best" rom is the one that works for the individual,with that individuals particular needs and wants.

As an embedded design engineer i am obsessed with speed and efficiency, memory usage, putting as much data on the screen as possible, then finally compatibility and lack of bugs ( in that order ), my results are biased by that order.

Disclaimer........

1) Ok i know that android is not exactly ideal if looking for an efficient well written os ( who the F came up with the idea of running everything in a VM!!! a minimal linux system will run in 85 mb ram with a full xserver, android STARTS at 400mb+, sitting there doing nothing !!!, thats near my cut down windows7 running on an i7 ) but before a decent linux distro is ported to full touch am stuck with it

2) For the N7 the requirement to change the DPI is essential, it is VERY stupid that the os does not check and change this automatically, otherwise its like having your 1920x1080 monitor stuck on 1200x600 permanently, very stupid !!! So am assuming the roms without this facility will function at 160dpi correctly, i have not been able to check this for every rom

All roms were flashed by TWR ( latest ), wipe of cache, dcache, factory reset, system

Memory was checked by settings>apps>running , immediately after first boot, then after a clean reboot, then after a cache,dcache wipe and clean reboot

IMPORTANT NOTE.....

Google apps ( gapps)...... in terms of memory usage gapps is the worst peice of #%%#%%$#$% sh$%^%$%t bloatware i have ever encountered in my os experience ( and given that i spend most of my time in windows, that saying something ).

On any of the roms i have tried flashing gapps adds at LEAST 150mb of unneeded memory usage, and depending on the rom that can go up to 250mb. Even using a minimal gapps with only phonesky,framework,login and setup, still produces a significant 50+mb hit, unfortunately in many cases some of gapps is essential, and some os functions are broken without at least the framework.

This situation seems unacceptable to me, all the roms should function correctly without gapps, and without the bloat, if some dev does not address the situation i will.

1) Prime Grouper D03-06

Tablet ui...... yes

DPI changer ...yes

Size custom nav bar ....yes

Speed....... good

Response ... good

This is first on the list for 1 good reason, memory usage!!!

Before flashing any kind of gapps

First reboot 360mb

Second reboot 320mb

Cache wipe reboot 270mb

Subsequent reboots 266mb ( stable )

Obviously team Vanier know their sh**t, their os is running in nearly HALF the memory space of other roms , and on the whole with few bugs, but whats really impressive is the memory usage is incredibly stable for a android os, zero memory leaks, leave the device at 302 mb ( say you opened an app and it was cached etc ) for 24 hours check again and lo and behold its still roughly 320mb ( obviously internal processes are moving this number a little but only by <>5mb ), this is not the case with stock rom or many other custom roms.

Everything is not all roses though, using prime without flashing gapps at all, exposes quite a few bugs, notification panel does not work at all, clock settings is broken, a few apps fail ( mx player fails for a start ) and others.

Flashing a super minimal gapps, fixes most of the issues, notifications are back, a lock screen turns up, all the settings appear fixed, BUT it also knocks out vanires keybord and totally ruins the memory handling

After flashing "micro" gapps ( and going through setup, adding valid account etc )

First reboot 430mb

Second reboot 360mb

Cache wipe reboot 320mb

Subsequent reboots 360mb ( NOT STABLE, can vary up to 400mb+ with time )

Obviously would love to see PRIME fix the outstanding bugs, and produce a custom set of gapps apk's that dont screw this fine rom.

2) Smooth ROM v5

Tablet ui...... yes

DPI changer ...no

Size custom nav bar ....yes

Speed....... good

Response ... excellent ( the best )

Gapps are included

First reboot 470mb

Second reboot 4200mb

Cache wipe reboot 400mb

Subsiquent reboots 440mb ( NOT STABLE can go 500mb+ )

This rom is second due to a totall lack of bugs, after much mucking around i can not find a single setting or feature that does not work correctly, plus the UI is very very responsive, the best of all i have tried. It would be top but for the lack of a DPI change option and the fact that memory usage is nearly double that of PRIME.

will post the other 20 odd results later :)