[OnePlus 7T Pro (Regular & McLaren) Guides, News...] SohrabHamza:
Hi,

I'm Hummusman and I've been flashing ROMs and modding my phone since the Galaxy S5 (KLTE) days. I'm making this guide in hopes that it makes it easier for you to pick a ROM as per your needs. I will not mention any ROMs that I haven't used.

OXYGEN OS 11

PROS

Decent amount of customization.

One of the best, if not the best fingerprint scanning implementation IMO.

Good Ambient display implementation.

Pretty smooth UI.

Dolby audio genuinely makes your earphone listening experience better.

OnePlus Camera works perfectly as expected. (Unlike some ROMs which have issues with video/portrait mode and on the lockscreen).

CONS

Poor battery life even while using naptime.

Heating issues even while using a custom kernel.

Pushy Oneplus account sign in and cloud services "ads".

No always on display (I don't use it anyway).

Dark mode is not black.

CONCULSION

I'd personally not use it based on the two inital cons. I have heard many people say that they do not have this problem but I do even after clean flashing and restoring using MSM multiple times over multiple updates. Use it if you're lazy or afraid of bricking your phone by flashing a ROM. (Highly unlikely)

OXYGEN OS 10

CONCLUSION

This is by far the best version of oxygen os so far but I would not use it and also don't recommend you use it for only one reason and that is thats its old and has older security patches.

Pixel Experience (Plus)

I'm not including the non plus version here because I haven't used it. But I presume that it is very similar and I recommend using the plus version.

PROS

Very stable

Excellent battery life. I don't use my phone a lot (~3.5-4 hours of SOT) so I get around 1.5-2 days on a single charge. Keep in mind that I use naptime (not very agressively)

OnePlus Camera Included

Good Fingerprint Scanning Implementation

Unlimited Photos Storage

Like the name suggests, mostly stock pixel experience

CONS

If it matters to you, there aren't many features in this ROM. Styles and wallpapers theming is also very limited with only a few accent colors. There is only one clock style.

Just like many ROMs, the Fingerprint scanning area is not as large as stock OOS.

CONCLUSION

This is the ROM I'd recommend if you're priority is stability and battery over all else. Not recommended if you're interested in tweaking your phone to the max.

DERPFEST

PROS

Best in class features and themeing options. Has lots of UI styles, accent colors and clock options. Lots of other tweaks are present.

Pretty stable with minimal bugs.

Above average-great battery life.

Good FIngerprint scanning implementation

Unlimited Photos Storage

OnePlus Camera Included.

All in all a well rounded ROM

CONS

Fingerpint scanning area is not as large as OOS.

Inlcuded OnePlus camera does not have macro mode as of now.

CONCLUSION

I initially had a bad impression of derpfest when it was a beta release as it had bad battery life and some heating issues. Now, since the release of the stable version, this is a very nice ROM and I recommend it for a good balanced experience. I personally use this ROM a lot.

CrDroid & XTENDED XR

To be fair, I haven't used these ROMs lately. I used to use crdroid as my daily ROM while derpfest was in its beta stage. Thus I will skip the pros and cons and jump to the conclusion. I recommend that you try them yourself first.

CONCLUSION

Both are solid ROMs and XTENDED has one of the most personal theming experience with lots of customization. But something feels off about this ROM and I can't put my finger down on what exactly causes this. My guess is that its something to do with it being based on Lineage OS and IMO something feels off about Lineage OS as well compared to AOSP. Its worth mentioning that both include the OnePlus Camera.

HAVOC OS

PROS

Pretty stable with minimal to no bugs.

Good fingerprint scanning implementation with the correct sized scanning area.

Has working screen off fingerprint. Keep in mind that this will disable ambient display.

Unlimited photos storage

OnePlus camera included.

All existing features are very polished and are well implemented.

All in all a very smooth ROM.

CONS

HORRIBLE BATTERY LIFE. Idle drain is ridiculous even with naptime installed. I slept with 90-95% battery left at 1130PM. Woke up the next day with 72%. If you sleep with 20-30% left, YOUR PHONE WILL BE DEAD WHEN YOU WAKE UP.

Fingerprint animations are turned on by default and this causes fingerprint to not work at all for some reason. (Turning animations off makes it work)

CONCLUSION

I had been using havocos daily on my OnePlus 3 and I felt that it was one of the best if not the best ROM in existence. I am severly dissapointed that I cannot use havoc os daily because of its poor battery life. :(

DOT OS [Update 17/10/2021]

PROS

I love the unique material you port that this ROM offers which picks an accent color from your wallpaper.

Good feature selection. Has all of the essentials with some goodies.

Interesting MIUI based theme (can be considered a con based on your preference but IMO its a breath of fresh air from all the generic AOSP ROMS)

Decent Performance (some lags in the qs panel) and decent battery life (~3 47mins with medium to heavy use (16%left)) (Have only used it for one cycle at this point)

CONS

Fingerprint scanning implementation is hit or miss. Works fine now with the white scanning icon.

UI can be a tad buggy at times. I feel that the MIUI skin contributes to this.

Hasn't been updated in a while. (5.2 has been announced and not yet released)

No OnePlus camera app currently.

CONCLUSION

Nice ROM which is let down by the poor implementation of core features. I would daily drive this ROM if the fingerprint implementation was good and OnePlus camera app was included. (I hope both of these are fixed with the 5.2 release)

Paranoid Android Ruby Beta

I've only used this rom briefly becuase of its single and old release and the lack of the OnePlus camera app. Its a good ROM but I wouldn't recommend you daily drive it as it seems pretty dead in its current state.

Android Ice Cold Project

Again, I used this ROM only briefly as

Installing it was a pain in the ass.

No Gapps included.

Developer came off as a bit hostile

Lacks some core features while focusing on niche features.

All this might have changed as the last time I used this ROM was a atleast 5-6 months back. Try it if you want and if you know what you're doing.

Lineage OS

Lineage OS is Lineage OS. Nothing more to say.

My Personal Favourites

PIXEL EXPERIENCE (BEST STABILITY AND BATTERY LIFE)

DERPFEST (AMAZING CUSTOMIZATION AND GOOD STABILITY AND BATTERY LIFE)

Flashing Tips

Since this phone does not have a fully working TWRP, it might be tricky for people to figure out how to flash ROMs for this device. Many ROM developers tell you to extract the payload.bin and flash each partition to each slop separetely. This is very tedious and boring and I hate doing this. It is not even foolproof and doesn't work many times.

So, the most foolproof and easiest way to flash a ROM is...

Using the guide on the lineage os downloads page.

You can skip some steps if you are alraedy on a custom ROM. (Pre install instructions and before)

Just replace the lineage os ROM zip with your prefferred ROM and flash. I have tested it to work with every ROM in this guide.

How I switch ROMS (Custom -> Custom not OOS -> Custom)

Use Migrate to back up all apps and their data. (Requires Root) (Don't forget to copy zip to your PC)

Boot to recovery. Enter fastboot (in advanced)

Perform fastboot -w

Boot to recovery and format data

Adb sideload ROM

Set up ROM

Boot back to recovery and flash magisk using adb sideload.

Install migrate helper to restore all my apps and data.

Some things to note:

You can use the lineage os recovery to flash magisk very easily. Rename magisk.apk to magisk.zip (get it from github), go to recovery and abd sideload it. You will have to skip signature verification.

If for some reason, your ROM does not boot after you have sidealded it, go back to the recovery and click on format data. This fixes it 99% of times.

Tweaks I Use

Youtube Vanced and YT Music Vanced

Naptime and servicely

Rboard themes (get from telegram)

Franco Kernel Manager to reduce vibration intensity in some ROMS. I also sometimes apply an underclock.

Thank you for reading. Please ingnore spelling and grammar mistakes as I'm to lazy to install grammarly and I'm not a native english speaker.