[Galaxy S III I9305 (4G LTE + 2GB RAM) Android Deve] Oswald Boelcke:
Resurrection Remix N v5.8.0 Impressions

About 36 hours ago, I installed Resurrection Remix N v5.8.0 on one of our i9305, and I guess it's time to share my initial impressions. I'm going to update this post as soon as I've collected further information and experiences.

BLUF: I'm simply amazed how RR v5.8.0 is running as it is the first release of the Nougat derivate. RR v5.8.0 is already awesome. @rodman01: Congratulations to a job again superbly done and thanks very much for porting the Nougat version of RR to our device. If you have the chance please pass my serious compliments to the developer team of RR for their performance.

RR v5.8.0 is running extremely smoothly, fast as a fighter jet, sweet and tasty (in order to quote Rodman01) on my device. Not a single unintended reboot, no freezes at all, no "glitches", clear and stable screen. My initial feeling: This can become the best RR version so ever. Please find more observations below.

EDIT (2016-12-01): Booting time is so short I've never seen before: Only about 30 seconds!!!

And still no unintended reboots so far...

Initially, I had to root the device what I did by Chainfire's CF-Auto-Root. Afterwards, I installed/flashed TWRP-3.0.2-1.img via "Flashify". Proceeded as recommended by you i.e. I didn't flash ROM and GApps "at the same time". Wiped dalvik, cache, system, data (factory reset), and clean flashed RR v5.8.0, booted into system, back into TWRP, and flashed GApps Pico as well as Chainfire's SuperSU v2.76. By the way, different to preceding RR versions SuperSU was automatically flashed "systemless". The whole procedure went without any problems; I was even surprised by the really short booting times. And somehow, I enjoy the new booting animation.

The SIM card was immediately recognised; phone calls and SMS are working as advertised. MMS seem to create problems (as probably in previous versions, at least for me). It appeared that the MMS was sent but was never received by the recipient i.e. most likely not being transmitted. The issue isn't important to me, and when time available I'm going to dig a bit into this (using the experiences from v5.7.x).

Localisation is working well in all three modes, "saving" (i.e. WiFi/mobile data only), "sensors" (GPS only), and "high" (all together). Satellites have shown up quickly, and the calculation of the position occurred much faster than in previous RR versions (at least with GApps; using microG provides the same promptness).

Camera and video recording is working - for my purposes/with my applications.

From a first glance, RR v5.8.0 provides further possibilities to customise the system that preceding versions. It's taking me certainly a few more weeks to explore them all. However, I already realised that some customisation settings have been removed (:crying:) (or I didn't find them yet:o) like WiFi switch to 2.4 or 5 GHz band, colour customisation of statusbar (e.g. clock, battery bar; only provider can be coloured).

Battery charging is obviously very fast, although I didn't focus on the "95%-issue" discussed in previous posts. Battery consumption/drainage seems to be much higher than in previous RR versions - at least during times of utilisation; during "deep sleep" times it became acceptable probably because I used the new battery saving settings and WiFi was off during the night (see screenshots). I personally believe that the currently lacking capability to manipulate the settings of the RR v5.8.0 inherent kernel could reduce power consumption. "Kernel Adiutor (KA)" is no longer an inherent application of RR v5.8.0; actually, the current version of KA (v 0.9.4) isn't compatible with RR v5.8.0 - same applies to "L SPEED". Interestingly, I was able to install both downloaded applications but received immediate forced closures when trying to open them. I'm now looking forward to a custom kernel coming up that is compatible to RR v5.8.0 (and our device) for all the various well known reasons, and I'm convinced @limjh16 is already heavily working on this. Currently, I'm not using any other application to reduce battery drainage like Greenify etc. and I'm going to refrain from that until a Xposed version for Nougat is out i.e. XPrivacy is most likely also working on Nougat.

For whatever reason, AdAway has been removed as a system inherent application; however, the version downloaded from F-Droid works well with RR v5.8.0.

"AFWall+" is thankfully positively working on RR v5.8.0 (confirmed by the use of "Network Log"). However, in the advanced settings of the newly implemented "Privacy Guard" at RR v5.8.0 I'm lacking the capability to disable utilisation of WiFi and/or mobile data for specific applications. This capability was available in previous RR versions. Moreover, if you try to select e.g. Google Play Services in the Privacy Guard's advanced settings Privacy Guard immediately closes i.e. you aren't able to control this application. For me personally, a very severe issue!

I've another issue with the ROM inherent file manager: Despite having root access (and access to storage) granted the file manager doesn't allow me to access my external storage; other root explorer do e.g. "SD Maid Pro" (see screenshots).

Summary: Resurrection Remix N v5.8.0 seems to have the potential to eventually become my daily driver. I'm pretty satisfied by my first impression and am going to run it on my wife's phone. However, due to the current non-availability of a custom kernel and of Xposed (even more important to me due to lack of capabilities to guard my privacy) I'm continuing to use RR v5.7.4 Sammy with AGNi kernel and Xposed v87 on my very own i9305.

EDIT (2016-12-05): Please find below some remarks regarding battery drainage of the device. I used BetterBatteryStats v2.2RC3 by @chamonix and followed this procedure by @Celestial Fury.

Battery drainage with phone switched to off was 3% in 6 hours i.e. 0.5%/h. This is my battery only drain, without drain from Android OS, radio signal, WiFi, data, wakelocks, & alarms. I can't get a better drain than this without replacing my battery what I probably ought to do.

I check the drainage in airplane mode that provided me a drop of 9% within slightly more than 16 hours i.e. 0.6%/h and only 0.1%/h larger than my battery only drainage, which I think isn't bad. This is my battery drain, without drain from radio signal, WiFi, and data. I know I can't get a better drain than my battery only baseline (please refer to attached dump file "BetterBatteryStats-2016-12-04_111453467_FlightMod.txt").

Last but not least my idle dump (see attached file "BetterBatteryStats-2016-12-05_074500956_Idle_Dump.txt"). The device lost 24% in about 11 1/2 hours i.e. 2.1%/h. Taking into consideration that I'm currently not using any tool that is supposed to reduce battery drainage (e.g. "Greenify", "Amplify", "AppOpsXposed") and no custom kernel, in my very own personal opinion power consumption of RR v5.8.0 is really excellent. (Remark: In the attached file, I obliterated a few personal data.)

EDIT (2016-12-18): Update on battery drainage with Resurrection Remix® N v5.8.0-1 [10/12/16]. Loss of 1.5%/h within 16:52 hrs respectively 40:44 hrs. I personally think this is really excellent especially as no tool like Greenify, Amplify or what-so-ever is in use. For details, please refer to the attached two lasted idle dumps and the screenshots.

EDIT (2016-12-22): Five days ago, I did dirty flash v5.8.0-2 on top of v5.8.0-1. First, I flashed RR then wiped dalvik and cache, rebooted. That was all, didn't even flash GApps. All running fine since then.

Having observed the discussion among @rodman01 and @limjh16, I decided to try limjh16's kernel "boeffla-6.0-Alpha-CM14.1-i9305" yesterday, and it booted with RR v5.8.0-2; however, I had to remove SuperSU systemless before.

Immediately afterwards I initiated an idle dump to review the battery drainage. Idle time was 14.5 hours but the device only went to deep sleep 2/3 of that time! Battery drainage: 6.7 % per hour. And from my point of view, tremendous kernel wakelocks.

Nothing like Greenify, Amplify etc. in use on this device.I'm going to wait for the next releases, maybe a beta. Unless kernel wakelocks improve I'll go back to stock ROM kernel.	The idle dump is available in this post.