[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] ashclepdia:
I have been very fond of DirtyV by [MENTION=4608636]bsmitty83[/MENTION] lately. The constant tinkering by him and [MENTION=4544860]osm0sis[/MENTION] has given such a beautiful result(and I would be remiss if I didn't mention that it has seemed to turn into a nice community driven kernel, with all devs pooling together and being very helpful to each other). And Os's work with the Synapse control support has been awesome.(I haven't personally used Synapse control application yet, but will be very soon. I usually use Trickster, but with all the work done to give large amount of control availability through synapse in this kernel I wouldn't feel right if I at LEAST didn't give her a shot lol!)

Personally I use the Smitty builds of that kernel. There are a couple versions, all are the "same" EXCEPT that smittyV builds do not have the RAM reclaimed from some system things. The others will give more ram available to user, the amount depends on which version you choose(details are in the OP)

Don't be afraid to try em all. See which suits you and your usage best.

Same goes for any of the other kernels available. Askp, hybridremix, and more. I have used pretty much every kernel available. I can't say that ANY are bad at ALL. We have solid developers. Don't be afraid to try em all lol.

In regards to battery life, I've personally never seen any huge gain or loss based on only changing kernel. It is just how it is with the Gnex ;)

For performance, again, they all perform great. Some have different levels you are able to over clock to, or use slight different frequency tables. But NONE of them should degrade performance on your device. Unless it has a bug of course.

But even THEN the stability of all the kernels is STELLAR imho.

So personally right now I am using SmittyV, I WAS using build from 4/12. But [MENTION=4328678]metalspring[/MENTION] hooked up a little build for me/us to play around with that has higher IVA freqs enabled(I believe is based on the SmittyV 5/3 build.... by the way, most kernel builds are referred to by the users with their build-date, to make it easier for debugging purposes and clarity amongst everyone when posting about their experience just FYI :) )

And everything is running beautifully of course.

Another highly praised kernel is Franco kernel. As well as Faux. Franco just put out an update recently as well.

If you ever plan to go back to an older version of android(like 4.2, 4.1) a couple of my Favs would be GlaDos kernel(I believe can only be found on the Rootzwiki.com forums), AK, trinity, and Lean Kernel for SURE(as well as Franco and faux again lol) I'm not sure if Lean kernel has been updated to work on 4.4 or not.

Oh and Tiny Kernel is damn solid as well.

And my fav/best might not necessarily be the same for you. Its honestly a personal preference thing now since we have such crazy solid amazing developers here on this device. They are all fairly consistent. Gone are the days(IMHO) of one kernel reigning supreme due to other devs being less experienced, since many of our devs share their works closely and are constantly popping in each others threads to help directly when needed. We don't see much (if ANY) bashing from one dev to another or anything like that.

Wow, I'm rambling and didn't really give you a "good answer" lol.

Personal opinion::: Start with DirtyV. Don't be afraid to OC/tweak the living crap outta it(or just run it stock if u prefer). Then make a backup(you can backup just the kernel with app like trickster! Or just backup 'boot" in a nandroid) and give another a whirl.

And ABOVE ALL ELSE: HAVE FUN! I got addicted to kernel flashing and tweaking when I came to the Galaxy Nexus from the DroidX2 which we couldn't change kernel versions on. I just LOVE being able to change everything about how the device runs. And learning what each advanced setting does(like all the governor controls and timings, scheduler tweaks, sysctl tweaks, anything!). And I STILL don't know exactly what they all do. But I ain't afraid to change it and find out lmao. Cuz the gnex is so easy to bring back to life (as you've found out already) :D

EDIT:::; how Did I forget to mention Fancy kernel as well?!? Sorry boype! This is ANOTHER great one available to us!!

As always, if you have any specific questions about a kernel or something, just shout it out

---------- Post added at 03:58 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:54 AM ----------

Also, in reply to earlier post asking about tablet mode and such, check out what this guy says recently,

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=52376505

And then peruse through that thread (which is a newer one) to checkout what others thoughts are on different kernels being used. (And ROMs, but they are also talking kernels there too) it might give you a better idea as far as different choices.

And remember, you can grab your kernels from the "Galaxy Nexus Android Development" section, that is where the most active kernels development threads are since kernel will work on ANY variant exactly the same :)