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Root Initial impressions of GV1.8

K

Kibbster

Android Expert
Erm... Urgh ;)
That about sums it up.

In more detail:
The Good:
It boots and shuts down much faster than LeeDroid.
It has toggles in the notification bar.
The Apps management window is 1000 times faster than LeeDroid

The Indifferent:
The keyboard is better and worse than the HTC one, it feels better to use than HTC but I miss the long press on all the keys and it's harder to spot suggested words in autocorrect.


The Ugly:
Boy it's one ugly mother*****, if it was a child it would be the one being laughed at for being plain and dull looking ;)
The Facebook integration is a bit fail (had to use market app to sync contact pictures.)
The calender is ugly and I'm having problems getting it to sync with Pure calender widget like the HTC one did.
The dialler and contacts... ewwww
The over-all white on black colour scheme is a bit unpleasant and will take some getting used to after Sense.
The GPS takes a lot longer to lock on than LeeDroid 2.4

I'm sure most things can be fixed by either getting the settings right or by downloading more replacement apps from the Market.
I'm also sure that some of the aesthetic things will grow on me as I get used to them.

TBH: the speed that the apps management window opens is lovely :)

I think I will keep it for for a few days and give it time, it's a massive change from Sense and even LeeDroid with Sense stripped out so it'll take some getting used to.
 
I don't find it that ugly!

Facebook integration isn't an advertised feature so I'm not sure why you find that a problem :P It's a ROM based on Android/cyanogen mod not HTC sense. The problem with HTC Sense is getting the contact pictures to update after the initial sync, which I usually ended up using a market app for anyway.

Again, that's the Android Calendar not really anything to do with Ginger Villain. It will be the same on other GB based ROMs such as Oxygen. Calendar syncs fine with pure calendar for me.

Again.. dialler and contacts are Android's own. I personally installed Go Dialler and Go Contacts which support all of the features Sense does.

Again.. white on black is the Gingerbread theme not Ginger Villain. :P I think the fact that black uses so much less power on AMOLED displays probably has something to do with the dark colour scheme.

GPS takes about twice as long to lock on for me but still tends to lock on in 10 seconds or less, nothing unbearable.

It takes some getting used to but AOSP ROMs are so much faster than Sense based ROMs.. I don't think I could cope with going back to Sense after using GV for about a month!
 
Yeah like I said a lot of it will just take some getting used to after Sense.
It's surprising just how much stuff is Sense-ified on the standard ROM.
Things you don't even realise HTC has played with.

The white on black theme would be great for my AMOLED screen if it wasn't SLCD ;)
 
White on black stands out pretty good even on SLCD, black is "turned off" on AMOLED which saves battery, it would be an idea theme if you're using an AMOLED device.
 
LOL. Those comments apply to any ASOP (non-sense) ROM - Oxygen, Redux, GV, etc. :)
Now you do realize how deep HTC has built the Sense UI over the "pure" Android UI.
Having played with both, I prefer the "pure" ROM, which for me at this moment is GV.
 
Kibbster said:
The Ugly:
Boy it's one ugly mother*****, if it was a child it would be the one being laughed at for being plain and dull looking ;)
Click to expand...
I sorted that by downloading the HTC.Elegance theme from xda forums. Between that and Launcher Pro, mine has a very slick look.

The 3D drawer in LP is also faster and nicer than the stock one. I'm pretty happy with GV at the moment.
 
Yes I should have said ASOP ROM rather than singling out GV, but GV is the first ASOP ROM I've tried.
I'm starting to tolerate the white on black theme - I may even get used to it eventually.
Can't fault the speed though, people weren't lying when they said it's quicker (I keep opening app management and smiling at it ;) , it's HUGELY faster than Sense when running off SD.)
 
If you don't like the white on black you can change it to the blufrost gingervillain theme using the villain setup app, that will give you a blue on black theme. There are also a few other customisations on there that you can apply.
 
Ran into another problem on GV1.8
Any idea why wifi keep alive was disabled?
Looks like my phone was running 3G all night rather than syncing in standby via wifi.
Also my wifi connection is much weaker with GV than it was with stock or LeeDroid.
 
Kibbster said:
Ran into another problem on GV1.8
Any idea why wifi keep alive was disabled?
Looks like my phone was running 3G all night rather than syncing in standby via wifi.
Also my wifi connection is much weaker with GV than it was with stock or LeeDroid.
Click to expand...

set wifi-advanced settings-sleep policy to never
 
kewlbuddy said:
set wifi-advanced settings-sleep policy to never
Click to expand...

Thanks :)


The only thing that is left now is the Auto brightness, it's a bit erm... aggressive.
I've tried changing the settings in Cyanogenmod settings but in a fairly dark room the screen is still very dark.
So given up on auto brightness at the mo and just put it on 50%
Not sure the Sense one worked all that well either so not lost much ;)
 
As far as the basic GB look goes I tend to agree, it's not that pretty. I use Launcher Pro for the home screen, which gets rid of most of the stuff I don't like, and Theme Chooser (Green Hornet especially) to modify the appearance. You can also make modifications to a theme in UOT and flash them as a new theme, if you want to.

A lot of the HTC Sense stuff I did miss when I came over first. I use power control widgets now which are like the HTC ones (actual widgets, not just shortcuts to the settings page), and Jorte for calender which is way better than the HTC or Android version.

Auto brightness I'm still struggling with, currently adjusting the levels on a regular basis but still seems to be always too bright or too dim. I think the issue may be to do with the sensor though, as it does give surprising readings at times. I used a power control widget for a while with 4 customisable levels (10, 20, 50 and 100% were the ones I chose) which was OK, the only problem being when you come from inside to out on a sunny day, and find it's impossible to see anything on the screen.

Takes a while but I wouldn't want to go back now, I have so much more control over how my phone looks/acts than I did running Sense.
 
Linking Facebook to contacts is easy - go into the Contact, press menu>edit then menu>Join and select the contact. Voila, contact pictures! :D
 
Well I've got pretty much most of the kinks ironed out now (apart from auto brightness and sound on lock and unlock.)
I'm not happy with the shoddy implementation of Facebook in Android, but got round it.
The dialler still makes my eyes cry and I miss the HTC one where you can start typing a name or number and it will use the search all from the same dialler.
Such a simple idea I'm surprised it wasn't implemented as standard in Android.

But the thought of going back to a Sense ROM with it's long boot and shut down times and the 5 minutes it take to load the apps in apps management is keeping me in GV for now ;)
I'm even getting used to and starting to like the Android Keyboard, ok I really miss the long press on all the keys as I used that a lot on Sense but the Android keyboard just feels better to use

I'll start looking round for dialler replacements I think, ones that have the HTC functionality (and tbh they can't look much worse than Stock Android lol)
 
EddyOS said:
Linking Facebook to contacts is easy - go into the Contact, press menu>edit then menu>Join and select the contact. Voila, contact pictures! :D
Click to expand...

It didn't want to work with me.
I had to use syncmypix to do it - I did like the little facebook logo on Sense when it was using a Facebook pic though.
 
Downloaded the Bluefrost theme half way through applying it I thought "Oh wait lets check it doesn't overwrite my custom set up" and cancelled the installation about half way through.

Phone rebooted itself... broken...
Sigh... another recovery and setup.
It's certainly a learning experience using Gingervillian ;)

EDIT:
ROM very broken and couldn't reflash GV even with full wipe so had to revert to last backup.

LeeDroid 2.4 No Sense lol
*bangs head on desk*
 
As soon as I booted back into LeeDroid suddenly facebook notifications started popping up (obviously doesn't seem to work in GV.)
All the other little things that seemed a bit flaky or broken in GV are now back working.

I guess stay with LeeDroid for the mo and try to avoid apps management like the plaque after using GV ;)
 
I seem to be getting the opposite to you here, since 1.8 i seem to be getting notifications again from the facebook app. Not sure if they're quite push or not, but they tend to arrive quicker than the email notification in my Gmail. Does seem temperamental though.....
 
I cant be having an additional service monitoring facebook. I already have a widget to display all events and gmail will notify me anything I may want to know for facebook.
 
I'd forgotten they were switched on TBH, they haven't worked for me for quite a long while now. Like you i just rely on Gmail for notification but just thought i'd note that strangely, they seem to be working again since i've installed 1.8
 
My lock screen sounds are not working, they are set to play but logcat error says=

error (1, -2147483648)
playSounds: failed to load ringtone from uri: file:///system/media/audio/ui/Unlock.ogg

EDIT: lol file wasnt even in the directory, found it in another ROM and put them in .zip before flashing
 
Kibbster said:
But the thought of going back to a Sense ROM with it's long boot and shut down times and the 5 minutes it take to load the apps in apps management is keeping me in GV for now ;)
I'm even getting used to and starting to like the Android Keyboard, ok I really miss the long press on all the keys as I used that a lot on Sense but the Android keyboard just feels better to use
Click to expand...
There are some excellent Sense based roms over at XDA, I like AurauxTSense and teppic74's prerooted 2.2 (with a handful of his little mod addons), being able to have apps on sd-ext and wake the phone with the trackball button with Sense is great. Unfortunately most of the DHD/Z based Sense HD roms lag so badly.
 
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