[Moto X Original Android Development] hijax2001:
REVIEW

Lots of praise, and a sad twist...

REVIEW

I purchased the Verizon Developer's Edition (XT1060) to tinker and play with lots of custom roms. Unfortunately, I quickly found that there really aren't that many for the Moto X.

However, DU 4.4.4 v7.7 is extremely impressive and quite a step up from the others. Everything I could ever want is there; it's very polished and snappy, and seems to work well. Verizon signal strength has historically been a constant issue with every rom I've tried - except stock. To my pleasant surprise, and for whatever reason, DU 4.4.4 provided at least one bar more than CM11 and the other non-stock roms I've tested (even though DU is partially based on CM11 - weird).

I'll keep the review short, but feel free to ask any questions. The main reason I'm posting is because of the sad twist. And keep in mind, before I continue, that this scenario could have happened with any rom..but it has not happened to me like this before:

Ok, so I wiped data and cache before install. I had previously been running rooted stock 4.4.2 with the latest firmware update. After firing DU up for the first time, I let everything settle in and then started customizing and installing apps back to my personal taste. An hour or so later, I left for a destination I had never been to before.

I used Google Maps to guide my way. But about 10 minutes into my trip, I noticed that the rom started dropping my LTE signal to nothing. I looked in Settings, under Mobile Network, and found that it was defaulting to GSM...but I could manually change to CDMA/LTE and of course my signal would return.

I tried to reboot, and found that sometimes this setting would stick for a bit. But then it would revert back to GSM and drop the signal again. Of course, by this time, I'm stopped in a parking lot trying to gain a consistent signal to resume my trip. After fiddling for a bit, things started to become extremely unstable...DU froze and refused any further changes. I rebooted but it locked up before reaching the rom again.

At this point, I wondered if my phone hardware had just died. Again, I had never experienced anything quite like this before.

So then I booted into TWRP, wiped cache/data again...no luck. Then I tried to restore a TWRP backup of a prior rom...failed. Then I power-cycled and tried again...failed.

Then I power-cycled and tried to reinstall the original DU zip...failed. I'm still thinking that my hardware failed, or that maybe TWRP somehow also became corrupt.

Finally, I realized...I had my laptop with me - complete with RSD Lite and a factory image on the drive (whew)...

I flashed the stock image, and ~ka-pow~ everything started working again. Granted, I was back on pure unrooted stock, but at least I had a signal and could resume my trip!

In short, I can't blame being stranded for an hour on anything necessarily. But because it was unique with DU, I'm going to try again over a weekend when I'm home and comfortable. And I definitely want to wait a bit to see how the CDMA/LTE signal issue turns out. I suspect something will need to be tweaked in future builds.

Keep up the good work guys! DU is amazing! But I am certainly gunshy about version 7.7 right now...