[Lenovo ZUK Z2 (Plus) ROMs, Kernels, Recoveries, & ] NaXal:
Its been a couple of weeks since I have switched from AEX 6.0 (Pie) + Nameless R22 (EAS) setup to Pixys OS 2.4 and here is my experience so far. Before continuing, you may read my user review for AEX 6.0 setup.

If I may pickup from that AEX 6.0 review, although the ROM was working without any major bugs or issues but the experience wasn't smooth enough. Some how it lacked the polish and fine tuning and that promoted me look for something else. [MENTION=8273772]RaZoR747[/MENTION] at a PubG ROM related thread suggested me about Pixys OS and that drove me to this ROM.

So lets start,

Installation..

Coming from AEX 6.0, most of the baseband/firmware related work was already done so its a straight forward installation. Wiping everything and doing a clean flash of ROM + GApps (Nano). No hiccups, ROM booted up nicely and setup was straight forward. Nothing special to report. However if you are coming from Oreo ROMs with older baseband/bootloader/firmware, you may need to get the latest before installing this one. Refer to the first post of OP for further clarification.

I don't have ROOT or any extra mods, only ROM with default kernel. Little surprised to see this ROM using Nameless as its default kernel.

Regular Use / UI Feeling

Fluid and butter smooth. Two words are enough. Extremely satisfying experience. Better than Oreo Treble ROMs that I have been using before switching to Pie. It does remind me about that raw performance of non treble ROMs. Blazing fast operation just makes you fall in love with this phone again. Never even for once gives you the urge to feel jealous about that new Dual Camera device of your peeps. I do have another Xiaomi Redmi Note5Pro as backup device but this setup simply blows that away. As I keep on using and load up the apps and their backup (like for example, WhatsApp restored a few GBs of data), one may expect to see some performance hit, but no, this one seems to be utilizing the full benefit of SD820. System continues to be as fast as a clean slate !!

Unlike the issue I faced with AEX, the CPU core frequency isn't stuck at their respective highest clock speed but rather do come down to their minimum state for most of the time and thus, not surprisingly the device runs much cooler than my previous AEX installation.

Default launcher is butter smooth, but really simple and it takes bit of digging to find that option to enable on screen buttons. I dont use uTouch so had a hard time till I found the option to enable that on screen navigation buttons.

I stayed with Default launcher for a few days before moving to me usual regular using launcher, that is Apex Classic. However I do use Pixel Icon pack 2 but for some reason, with this ROM, Google Play Store isn't even showing me the app so stuck with the default icon set of this ROM.

I use this device for a lot of office related working, along side of social and financial apps. Most of them are working flawlessly, expect a few, as they refused to run on unlocked bootloader for security reasons. App load timing or app switching is multi tasking is butter smooth. If anyone switch from ZUI 2.5 (Indian) to this ROM, they may find it hard to believe this is to be the same device.

Customization..

If you are a fan of Resurrection Remix level of Customization, then look else where. This ROM pleases people like me who prefer a stable and simple setup. Options are very limited but you do get things which matters. Like notification, icons, battery or such. What I don't like are the way this customization options are hidden in menu. One has to dig deep to find them. Dev may want to rebel the options and put them under a separate more pronounced and easy to find menu item.

What is working / What is not

Under my regular use for last few weeks, I am unable to find anything which isn't working. Basically everything works. Let's go one by one in no particular order.

USB File transfer is working

WiFi Sharing is Working.

Bluetooth is working and I am able to pair it up with my car and make phone calls or enjoy music streaming via Gaana type apps.

Navigation / GPS is working fine, expect for those odd days when Google Map simple takes to a hellish off roading detour.

OTG is working with my USB-C adapter and pen / thumb drives

Proximity sensors are working.

Google Camera Mods / Portrait Mode / 120fps slowmo working.

Talking about Camera, default camera isn't that good, but thankfully Google Cam ports, Open Camera, are working fine. However the Videos are coming pretty dark in indoor location. Specially the slow motion videos are pretty useless under night shooting or indoor. One has to have desktop editing software to crank up the exposer to get some meaningful results.

Network / Speed / Calls / Performance

I have dual SIM setup. Running Indian networks of Jio 4G VoLTE (Primary SIM) / AirTel (2nd SIM). There are no visual indication of network fluctuations like Oreo ROMs with Jio. Network is stable and phone is able to detect all 3 available 4G bands of Jio (850/1800/2300MHz). Internet speed is also satisfactory, at par with any other ROMs. Easily clocking over 50Megs when ever network supports carrier aggregation (CA or 4G+).

Coming to WiFi, unlike few ROMs limiting the 2.4GHz link speed at 72 mbps, this ROM supports channel bonding by default and allows full 150mbps link speed. However for some reason, most of the time it stays at 72mbps with my home DLink router.

Phone calls are load and clear with both SIM. So much so that usually I have to keep the volume to lowest when ever I am in indoor office condition. I feel the ear piece volume is bit load. But completely opposite with the ring tone with external speaker. The ringing volume feels on lower side. Surprisingly the speakers seem to work better when playing movie via VLC. May be the ring tones are to blame for the lower volume and talking about ring tones, the options are really limited. I wish dev includes more ring tone options to choose from.

Gaming / PubG..

Devs feel irritated with our obsession with a poorly optimized game like PubG, but what can you when you are some what addicted and attracted towards it ?? ha ha.

Yeah, PubG is running good with medium settings without any GPU/kernel related mod. They new snow update seems to have made the game much smoother so default kernel and this ROM is giving really good performance. Heat is really well managed, and being winter, longer session aren't letting the fingers feel the heat or any sign of thermal throttling !!

Other games are not worth mentioning since they are well built app, they run butter smooth in anyway.

Battery / Backup / Charging Speed

My device is close to year old so someone with newer battery may get even better result than me. I strictly follow 20-80% charge cycle on regular use and I do full charge once a week. Having said that, at times, I do use power banks for those quick top up to 70-80% regardless of the percentage remaining.

By far the best Custom ROM when compare to previous Treble Oreo or AEX Pie that I have tried. When ever I am using the phone for mainly office/social/entertainment(streaming/youtube/movies) related work without any gaming session, it's easily giving 7+ hours of SoT with outstanding standby time. Deep sleep is working excellent, idle drain is really well controlled, less than 0.5% an hour with WiFi + Dual SIM on.

Now adding PubG or other games to this mix does effect the SoT. PubG is consuming around 35-40% per hour so one may end up with 2h30mins of SoT with continual PubG sessions. But a casual gamer like me with a couple of match before bed time or in afternoon ends up with around 5h30mins to 6h of SoT.

Overall outstanding battery backup if you ask me.

Moving on to charging, here there isn't much to talk about, since it is pretty much the same as like any other Oreo or Pie Custom ROM that I have tried. Default Charger is charging at rate of around 2250-2300 mA on average. As or if the Battery temps go high, the charge slows down. If we talk about this in real world, usually the phone is charging 2% or bit more per minute when battery is really low like around 15% till it goes up high 30s. From there it slows down to 1% per minute till it reaches mid 80s. The last 85-100 per, it slows down a lot and takes its own sweet time to do full 100%.

Overall Impression !!

Outstanding experience so far.

Yes there are issues, like camera shooting darker video, or limited customization but no ROM is perfect in that sense. All of them have their stronger aspects and negative issues.

This ROM is shining and giving out standing performance for people like me who prefer taking headache of fiddling, working, troubleshooting for once and find a stable setup and then enjoy the benefits daily. This ROM just does that. Outstanding Battery backup, no hiccups and fluid performance is making me fall in love this phone again.

Highly recommended from me if you can sacrifice on bit of default customization options.