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Official Froyo vs. Custom Roms

C

charlie310

Well-Known Member
Yes, I know everyone is going to have varying opinions on this. Just wondering how the official 2.2 is compared to say Serendipity. I am contemplated on going to official 2.2 rooted. I think custom roms are nice with added apps and aesthetics.

I have been running an unstable Serendipity 5.8 since it's release, and have been to lazy to reflash to a newer version. I am SICK & TIRED of having to reflash roms! Sometimes, newer versions come out within 24 hours of the previous version release. So, I made a habit of reflashing no more than once every other week, and even that is a PIA. I think you should only need to flash a custom rom once. In the end, all that matters is having a STABLE Froyo.
 
charlie310 said:
Yes, I know everyone is going to have varying opinions on this. Just wondering how the official 2.2 is compared to say Serendipity. I am contemplated on going to official 2.2 rooted. I think custom roms are nice with added apps and aesthetics.

I have been running an unstable Serendipity 5.8 since it's release, and have been to lazy to reflash to a newer version. I am SICK & TIRED of having to reflash roms! Sometimes, newer versions come out within 24 hours of the previous version release. So, I made a habit of reflashing no more than one every other week, and even that is a PIA. I think you should only need to flash a custom rom once. In the end, I that matters is having a STABLE Froyo.
Click to expand...

well serendipity had what they called "updates" which wouldnt wipe your stuff but if youre pretty far behind now and would have to update several times. but serendipity 5.8 was stable when i used it but not all roms work on all phones.

if you go back to the official 2.2 you will get all the bloatware back which can be taken away, its also slower, the battery life will probably not be as good and you will be back on the unthemed froyo which i think looks very ugly but thats not a problem for everyone. it shouldnt be too hard to decide if you want to go stock or not
 
charlie310 said:
Yes, I know everyone is going to have varying opinions on this. Just wondering how the official 2.2 is compared to say Serendipity. I am contemplated on going to official 2.2 rooted. I think custom roms are nice with added apps and aesthetics.

I have been running an unstable Serendipity 5.8 since it's release, and have been to lazy to reflash to a newer version. I am SICK & TIRED of having to reflash roms! Sometimes, newer versions come out within 24 hours of the previous version release. So, I made a habit of reflashing no more than one every other week, and even that is a PIA. I think you should only need to flash a custom rom once. In the end, I that matters is having a STABLE Froyo.
Click to expand...

i don't blame you.

updates are great though.

serendipity 5.12 was just released not too long ago and i hear it's even better.
 
I love Cognition, and the newest release doesn't seem to have any bugs with it as of now...I haven't tried Sereprendity, but yeah, I think Cognition does have the most users and it is definitely better than the official release...
 
I switched to Serendipity from official 2.2, huge difference. My speed test jumped to 3.4 down and 1.2 up and no lag. It would be hard to go back to at&t's 2.2 :D
 
charlie310 said:
Yes, I know everyone is going to have varying opinions on this. Just wondering how the official 2.2 is compared to say Serendipity. I am contemplated on going to official 2.2 rooted. I think custom roms are nice with added apps and aesthetics.

I have been running an unstable Serendipity 5.8 since it's release, and have been to lazy to reflash to a newer version. I am SICK & TIRED of having to reflash roms! Sometimes, newer versions come out within 24 hours of the previous version release. So, I made a habit of reflashing no more than one every other week, and even that is a PIA. I think you should only need to flash a custom rom once. In the end, I that matters is having a STABLE Froyo.
Click to expand...

CrimsonPride said:
well serendipity had what they called "updates" which wouldnt wipe your stuff but if youre pretty far behind now and would have to update several times. but serendipity 5.8 was stable when i used it but not all roms work on all phones.

if you go back to the official 2.2 you will get all the bloatware back which can be taken away, its also slower, the battery life will probably not be as good and you will be back on the unthemed froyo which i think looks very ugly but thats not a problem for everyone. it shouldnt be too hard to decide if you want to go stock or not
Click to expand...

crimsonpride is correct, you can easily update your serendipity rom in about 2-5 minutes. Cognition usually offers updates too. If you don't like the stability of serendipity 5.12, then try cognitinon 4
 
Yeah Cognition 4 is the official KB1 2.2 for the AT&T Captivate, but hacked up by DesignGears. I don't use it, but it's sure to be good stuff if you want the best of both worlds.

Serendipity is quite popular.
 
ironically after waiting for months for the official froyo release i decided to try out serendipity after just a couple days of official 2.2...

i have to say my phone is way faster and more responsive so far but i do seem to be getting some glitches here and there

i do not get push email notifications while on wi-fi which nobody seems to have an answer to, and some force closes i didnt remember getting on stock.

gps seems to work slightly better but nothing huge. the one big problem i am having is my battery is total crap on serendipity. my first charge lasted about 4 hours, recalibrated got about 16, but i used to get an average of about 24+ with stock. I thought my battery would increase with the new kernel and rom so im pretty disappointed but will try recalibrating and such to see if i can extend it

overall i think the ROMs seems to run much smoother and look better
 
I'm flawless on Serendipity 5.12! Updates are a breeze, as mentioned above, and DON'T require a full reflash! You install the update via CWM in less than 3 minutes and you are DONE!
 
You don't have to keep updating the ROM on your phone just because there is a new release each week. If they haven't fixed a bug that effecting you or have added a feature you want then there isn't really any reason to update. I'm still using a version of Cognition from last Oct because it works and I've been too busy to spend the time to update. I plan to upgrade to Cognition 4 when I get a chance though.
 
I guess I'll have to flash the new Serendipity when I get home tonight. Sigh...it's so tedious. My music player on 5.8 is so ****** up. It changed my phone ringtone all by itself to "More Than Words" by Extreme. That's one of my songs that I will only listen to with headphones on, and out of nowhere, someone called and it was playing as my ringtone at work. I am so embarressed, I might have to quit my job and go work someplace else. Haha. It also likes playing songs randomly when i'm navigating the menus.

I also get force closes, and other minor bugs & glitches. The funny thing is that I never had any big problems with some of the prior versions. It's like 1 step forward, 3 steps back with some of these roms.

steelcity said:
gps seems to work slightly better but nothing huge. the one big problem i am having is my battery is total crap on serendipity. my first charge lasted about 4 hours, recalibrated got about 16, but i used to get an average of about 24+ with stock. I thought my battery would increase with the new kernel and rom so im pretty disappointed but will try recalibrating and such to see if i can extend it
Click to expand...
Have you tried charging the battery to full, and deleting the "battery" file in the root folder. You need a program to do it (I think it's called root explorer or something).
 
My phone is stock, not rooted, no custom ROM, but updated to Froyo last week. I admit that I was VERY tempted to root and install a custom ROM like Cognition or Serendipity during the way too long wait for Froyo, but I was concerned that I may not like the result or have problems that I just didn't want to troubleshoot.

Before the Froyo update my phone worked well - no bugs, no shutoffs, GPS worked, but was weak, decent battery life.

After the update I still don't have any bugs or shutoffs and the GPS is decently improved and navigates well on the road, battery appears to be about the same.

I use ADW EX or LauncherPro for launchers (depending on mood) and I can hide the AT&T bloatware on my homescreens with them.

So - overall I'm happy with the stability of the stock ROM and I don't have to re-flash to the newest version of a custom ROM frequently. From the polls taken of the Froyo update, apparently there are a lot of stock phones still out there.

Just another viewpoint from the other side of the fence. :o
 
Welcome to the forums!

I've moved your post over here so you can meet some of your friendly, fellow Captivate owners and learn about your ROM options. :)

No doubt though, you're probably enjoying Froyo very much!

You might visit the capfaq, linked in sremick's signature, above, to learn a lot about your phone.

Again - welcome!

(PS - some kinda server error - new user's post not appearing, fixed now)
 
We have 2 Captivates in the house - both bought the same day same time in August 2010. Currently, my wife's is AT&T Froyo stock - mine is Serendipity 5.12 with the Paragon kernel overclocked to 1200 mHz. Even without the overclock, Serendipity blows AT&T's Froyo away.

With overclock, my phone scores 1875 Quadrant and 16.94 LinPack.

As Sremick pointed out, the new Cognition 4 ROM is based on the Froyo for the Captivate.

I fully expect a new release for Serendipity from MikeyMike and the crew at XDA which will be based on the Captivate Froyo.

I won't go back to stock AT&T Froyo.

Mike
 
meohman1 said:
We have 2 Captivates in the house - both bought the same day same time in August 2010. Currently, my wife's is AT&T Froyo stock - mine is Serendipity 5.12 with the Paragon kernel overclocked to 1200 mHz. Even without the overclock, Serendipity blows AT&T's Froyo away.

With overclock, my phone scores 1875 Quadrant and 16.94 LinPack.

As Sremick pointed out, the new Cognition 4 ROM is based on the Froyo for the Captivate.

I fully expect a new release for Serendipity from MikeyMike and the crew at XDA which will be based on the Captivate Froyo.

I won't go back to stock AT&T Froyo.

Mike
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i doubt that because serendipity is based off the i9000, now they may make a whole new rom based off the official att version but it wont be in serendipity
 
I've read about more problems with the stock Froyo than with the custom ROMs. Could be several factors at play there but I'd rather stick with something where I can get frequent updates and problems are fixed as they arise. Waiting for AT&T/Samsung to send out an official update like this Froyo wasted so much time, I think they do it purposely to time it just before a newer phone comes out (Galaxy S II anyone?) so people just take the easy way out and upgrade their phone rather than the software. Its all about the $$ bills ya'll...
 
I tried Cognition 4.1.1 and Andromeda 2.0
Cognition was pretty quick and as someone already posted is based on the official KB1 release minus bloatware. Only problem I had with it was GPS did not work at all.
I had a non-working GPS until GPSRestore app came out from samsung which fixed it. GPS also worked fine in the official 2.2 release. In Cognition, no dice, not even using the fix that came with it.

Andromeda was a cool ROM, extremely fast and I actually liked the orange theme, but had all kinds of problems with BT devices. I actually had random shutdowns happen with it when I tried using a BT headset.

So I ended up switching back to stock 2.2. Yes, it's not as quick as custom ROMs, but everything works on it, including the GPS. As far the lag goes, it really isn't as bad as some people are describing it, we are talking about a tiny fraction of a second in time differences here. It's not a big deal.
As far as the batter life goes, don't listen to anyone here and only go by how your battery responds. If you read all comments about battery life here, you will see that 1 charge lasts anywhere from 4 hours to 5 days, according to different people.

I just tried that battery calibration trick that someone posted and my battery lasts twice as long as it did before.
 
I think what you can figure out from this thread is that everyone's phones are as different as the ROMs. Samsung hasn't seemed to master the manufacturing process so everyone's phones are much different than they really should be. That may be why everyone is having much different experiences with different ROMs.

The ROM I use is Paragon. I tried Cognition at first, but I didn't like how much it looked like Samsung's, who decided to make it look like the iPhone, for some reason. Plus, I wanted Bluetooth voice dialing, so I had to go to an i9000 ROM for that. Flashed Paragon RC3 in the middle of January and haven't turned back.

I am now running Paragon RC6 and updates are coming out about every two weeks. My battery life is great, especially since I don't feel like I have to carry around my charger to get a full day out of it. The GPS improved greatly with Cognition, but Paragon locks quickly and and tracks perfectly for me.
 
Gotta tell ya...I went from the ATT Froyo update to Serendipity 5.12 with Paragon's 1200hz kernel and OMG what a difference! Speed, colors, dynamics.. so much better! And no ATT bloatware. I'm totally in love with my phone all over again. No problems or issues with 5.12. Very stable and solid ROM.:D
 
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