[Captivate General] sremick:
Man, I'm so frustrated.

On other forums some people have mistakenly thought I'm against flashing custom ROMs. I'm not. I'd flash a custom ROM in a heartbeat. In fact, the reason I hang out here is I'm watching for "That ROM". I'm just not comfortable with the state of things on the Captivate. Here's the deal... it seems every single ROM is a compromise. I'm not talking about differences in themes, or what apps are included, etc... I'm talking basic functionality. Sometimes it's little things, sometimes it's big things... but always, you need to give stuff up. And I'll get the response, "yeah well stock is buggy too, so what's your point?". You know... sometimes the little things count. The details add to the experience. Maybe we want all the little things to actually work. Maybe you don't care about bluetooth, but I do. Etc.

Bluetooth. Haptic feedback. Battery life. Cell reception. GPS. Stability. Performance. Voice quality/Audience support. Pick the 3 you don't care about and are willing to give up.

Frustrating.

And a lot of it seems to come down to these "modem" files. Dozens floating about... everyone has their favorite like they have a favorite color. And they themselves come with compromises... use one, and A B and C work but X Y and Z don't. Use another, and it's the other way around... or maybe there's D E and F now. What works for one person doesn't work for another... and yet these are the same model phones. Oh, but wait... now it's passe to say "every phone is different". Like they are? They're the same hardware. But now we just accept for some reason that every Captivate is some random assembly of different chips and so using a ROM is an assumed matter of modem-roulette and deciding what features you want and what ones you're willing to sacrifice.

Why is this "ok"?

It's important to mention at this point that this is absolutely nothing against the hard-working developers here. I don't doubt for a moment that they are doing their absolute best with what they have available to them. It's not that, it's the culture... the community... the mindset. Are we being hypocrites? I mean, if we're just accepting now that every Captivate is unique hardware and no one ROM/modem will work ideal on all of them, why do we hold Samsung to a higher-standard like they themselves could ever produce an official and universal 2.2 firmware for the Captivate where everything actually works for everyone?

Something's not right here. I don't doubt that people get different results with different files... but these are different environments, and the testing not done consistently or scientifically. I don't think it's appropriate to act like the differences come from varying hardware when it's far more-likely that it's differences in other more-random things. Some people are in a primarily 1900 MHz area, some primarily in an 850MHz area. GPS is also environment-specific and someone with a modem that offers below-average GPS performance might report that the GPS is "amazing" simply because they're in an ideal spot. The hardware is the least likely aspect to vary. Surely there must be a solution... a better answer... a potential for a modem that actually works amazing for everyone. Where all bands are supported, GPS works amazing, Audience chip is supported, etc etc.

I just felt the need to vent. I'm not sure what the solution here is... I just feel we've gotten to casual just "accepting" a situation as something it's not, and shouldn't be. One shouldn't have to play modem-lotto just to get basic decent performance from their ROM, or decide what basic features they're willing to sacrifice. I know this is a huge discouragement for me, and why I'm still on stock. I want to flash so badly... but every ROM thread I read through I eventually hit at least one (if not several) deal-breakers, and the casual acceptance of them is just frustrating.

Anyone feel the same way? Thoughts?