[T-Mobile Galaxy Note 4 Android Development] iunlock:
V5 Review!

So I told myself that I'd wait about a week for the ROM to settle in before writing up a review on V5 so here I am...

For those of you who have seen my write up on my ~9 Hours of On Screen Time, know by now that I am pretty extremely OCD in a good way LOL.

Here's the direct link to the most recent repost.

Initial Impressions on V5:

When I first CLEAN flashed the ROM last week (<--- CLEAN ROFL..this emphasis has proven to be necessary now haha---) after letting it settle, I had noticed an increase in general response time, which is amazing considering that I had V4 running like a champ. Apps popped up pretty much instantly, recent apps was noticeably quicker although it was already fast before and the load times of heavier apps were definitely notable. I've also kept an eye on the CPU / Battery Temp and this was another "wow," moment for me as it was running cooler than V4. All in all, I knew I was in for a crazy experience, once again for the 5th consecutive time...

Battery Life:

I didn't take much note on the battery life until after my 4th charge cycle. Then as each day progressed, I have been noticing an increase rate that is much quicker than that of my battery increase rate on V4. Again, following my usual protocol of charging with "Fast Charge," OFF and not letting my battery fall below 10% per my previous write up, I am confident that right now at this moment I'm on track to see some crazy On Screen Times as I did with V4. Again, the battery is running much cooler even with my daily use. As of right now at this random moment, I just got off the phone, uploaded a bunch of photos/videos to dropbox and am chatting via my chat client and the battery is at 63.7F/17.6C ...whereas before, I'd be closer to mid to high 60F, scratching 70F with normal use.

Brightness:

I really wanted to stress the very fact that the On Screen Times for me are with these brightness settings throughout the day:

100% for an Hour in the morning

75% for the rest of the day and occasional 100% when viewing photos, videos or YouTube during the day.

Average Brightness is at ~88% for the entire day.

However, the battery screen shots that I have shown on my previous post where I was at 50% is at full brightness at 100% ALL DAY.

Also, Mega's On Screen Times are all at 100% as well.

App Launch Speed:

My apps do launch faster on V5 than on v4, without a doubt. I have noticed this with the apps that I use the most like, Email, chat clients, tapatalk, firefox, etc... Although the increments may be small, in the phone world this translates to something big....big enough to notice. I usually have a lot of stuff in my recent apps...a lot...and with my RAM almost maxed out, there are occasions where it'll take >1sec. to all pop up, HOWEVER, I am convinced this is from my set up and not the ROM itself, because before at the beginning of my V5 set up, everything was instantaneous. Press, Pop...Press, Pop... literally. I know it's my tweaks and heavy lock down that is causing this, but the fact here is and the reason I even make mention of this is to show that this ROM is the fastest ROM I've ever experienced to date.

Sound:

During the evening on Thanksgiving, a bunch of us (family members) went together to claim the $199 - 50" flat screen TV's for black friday LOL...well, while waiting in line we were all on our phones and my uncle who has the htc m8 was showing off his phone saying how he loved it etc...all fine and dandy...then we started talking phones. This lead to the speakers and how he loved the boomsound dual front speakers on the m8. I said, "oh...that's cool, but check this out..." and I played a song for him to hear...ready? this is classic.... he then asked,.......... "The Note 4 has dual speakers too?" ROFL!!!!! I was LOL to the point where the people in line was curious what I was laughing at.....I literally had to look around and give the traditional hand wave/gesture saying, "oh nothing...not you...sorry" thing....

ENOUGH SAID! I will never forget this. The sound tweaks that Mega implemented in FireKat is truly amazing....Being that I listen to YouTube/Music everyday, I can clearly make out the improvements....(Mega, that quote about N4 having dual speakers needs to go down in the history books....ROFL)

Fluidity:

At any given time on average I have a million things open. Going from app to app and overall navigating around the phone is quicker. I can tell a transition improvement as well over v4. I play Modern Combat 5: Blackout and Xplane and those games seem to load a bit faster...the phone feels more seamless and less sticky on some areas where it wasn't really noticeable anyway to begin with. (Remember, this is all keeping in mind that my set up is heavily locked down and tweaked.)

Running with a parachute? Yet amazingly fast...

As mentioned before, my set up is very clean, minimal in terms of widgets and crazy mods, YET it is probably the most tweaked, locked down, privacy gone crazy phone out of the many on XDA (privacy/restrictions/system app/permissions wise), with an exception of a few who's phones are just as locked down, BUT I don't know that they are using FireKat, whereas I am.

I say this with all humbleness to prove a point here.

Whereas the majority of fellow FireKat users run this ROM on a normal set up without all the craziness (privacy/restrictions/system app/permissions wise), mine being extremely locked down would theoretically cause it to run a little if not a lot slower. All my apps are

individually

tweaked with a lot of them proxied through Tor and VPN. But with that aside as that would only affect the actual transfer speeds, what I'm referencing is on the actual permissions side of the app where I have things so locked down (some to even system apps wise) that this would usually cause a lot of performance hits, apps failing, and functionality.

However, even with all this my phone is running incredibly smooth and fast. Have I spent hours on trial and error to get my apps to run right? Absolutely....full days even....It has taken me collectively 3 Full days to configure my phone to run smoothly without any quirks due to my set up. The cleanliness, speed and modifications done on V5 allows me to run at max potential without taking any performance hits. Being able to accomplish this is what amazes me and what makes FireKat unarguably (IMHO) the best ROM available for our Note 4.

This leads me to my final comment for those experiencing issues. Keep in mind that if it's working for me on my crazy locked down set up, let alone 99.9% of the people here with flying colors.....then it ain't the ROM.

(((THE RESIZED IMAGES WHEN UPLOADED DOESN'T DO THE SHOTS MUCH JUSTICE....THE BACKGROUNDS ARE STUNNING ON THE PHONE IN REAL LIFE...)))

Notice how I keep things Dark....

This is my current set up on V5 .... I LOVE THE EXTRA ROW! SO MUCH BETTER....

Notice the random Phone Number! Haha! It does the same with the IMEI, Serial etc...

To be continued....

LONG LIVE FIREKAT!