Nexus 5: Stock or custom? Your thoughts

[LeoRex]

Running custom right now (Dirty Unicorns). I have run the stock rom, on occasions. But I like to fiddle and tweak and modify things. I was leaning heavily on Xposed modules to get to what I wanted to change. I started checking out custom roms since I figured that for every feature I could get moved back into the ROM and out of Xposed should reduce my chances of running into incompatibility or stability issues. I'd love it if I could get a ROM with everything I wanted baked and leave Xposed behind... so I could run ART. But the location consent disable module is kind of the deal breaker (I disable GLS in certain situations with Tasker.... and that pop up would be really annoying.).

Took me a while to find a smooth, stable ROM that had most of what I wanted... and now that I found it, I'm pretty settled.

That being said, if someone told me tomorrow that I'd have to go back to the stock ROM as a base, I wouldn't be all that upset.

 

[ConTejas]

I used to flash dozens of roms/kernels/mods a month from the NS to N4 (with some non Nexus devices in that mix...always AOSP on those beside a Note 3). As usual, I immediately unlocked/rooted my N5 out of the box but I had read about Xposed and Gravity Box. Decided to give that a try and I can't find any reason or feature to leave stock. You name it and it's very likely available with Xposed+GB with all the stability of stock/vanilla.My N5 flies and has great battery life (linaro version of Franco kernel) so I don't care about ART until Xposed is ready for it and L. Greenify and Adaway may be reason enough to root if I couldn't find others (I can...).

 

[LeoRex]

You name it and it's very likely available with Xposed+GB with all the stability of stock/vanilla.

OK... first off, let me preface this by saying that I think Xposed is one of the best apps/features going.... and the Gravity Box module is AWESOME (I use it and many other modules).

But, you can't say that using Xposed gives you custom ROM features with the stability of the stock ROM. When you run something like Gravity Box, you aren't really running the stock ROM anymore.... sure, you have the stock ROM installed, but by the time it runs, bits and pieces of it were hijacked by the Xposed framwork and replaced with a modified version. Now, it might be stable, but that's at the mercy of how well those modifications are written.

In application, it is no different than what a custom ROM maker has done, it's just that he added the features before compiling all the code and Xposed injects it in after it's been launched. Two means to the same end.

Again... not saying GB or Xposed is bad.... they're awesome (and I haven't had any stability issues in the least) But I see it miscatagorized quite often. XPosed lets your hijack the ROM and run custom ROM code without having to permanently modify the installed OS.... but you ARE running a modified ROM.

 

[Aglet]

Interesting thread, but some of it went over my head. I think I'll stay stock; it's part of the reason I bought the Nexus 5. I may be a bit conservative, I have downloaded a bunch of app but none really alter the way I interface with the phone (e.g. a launcher, although I used these on Palm and Windows Mobile handhelds in the pre-smartphone era).

 

[Yogi217]

Just updating my experience since starting this thread.... I'm back on pure stock. I enjoyed the customer room experience, but I was away one weekend for a wedding, and I had my first major f&@k up. The phone went crazy, crashed, wouldn't work, about an hour before the wedding. Not a good situation since my wife was at the wedding, I was in a different city, and had no way to contact anyone.
BUT, as you should always do, I had a Nandroid backup from the previous build, so I reverted and was able to use my phone.

Problem was I lost a bunch of texts because I couldn't back up my current texts when my phone went nuts. The texts had phone numbers saved in them that I needed, and it was a hassle to get them back, not to mention frustrating trying to fix my phone while away (I, of course, wouldn't settle with just restoring from backup.. I had to try and fix it first, which just resulted in failed frustrating attempts).

To be fair, I was on experimental weekly builds, and it was the only problem I had in six months. This isn't a complaint about custom roms.

After reflecting and realizing how much time I spent toying with my phone during those six months, I needed a break and went back to stock. I haven't even unlocked it!

There are features I am missing and definitely missing the better battery life I had, but I am enjoying not minding my phone as frequently with tweaks. If I get bored with my phone, I'll probably go back and stick to stable builds.

So please don't take this as a knock against custom roms. If you're curious, try them out. That's why a Nexus is so much fun. Just keep a current backup in case of trouble.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[LeoRex]

Just updating my experience since starting this thread.... I'm back on pure stock. I enjoyed the customer room experience, but I was away one weekend for a wedding, and I had my first major f&@k up. The phone went crazy, crashed, wouldn't work, about an hour before the wedding. Not a good situation since my wife was at the wedding, I was in a different city, and had no way to contact anyone.

Yep... your's is a dilemma for a lot of custom users.... What happens if my custom ROM goes all custom-y and craps its pants when I need it the most?

First... buy Titanium Backup... awesome backup app that can do app data, as well as your phone log and SMS messages data..... but....

MultiROM Manager

This app should have a place on the pantheon of AWESOME when it comes to apps on your Nexus 5.... EVERY Nexus 5 user that fiddles with custom roms should have it loaded. What it does is allow you to load ROMs without touching your primary ROM... Similar to how people can dual-boot a computer. If you are unlocked and rooted, the installer from the Play store handles the grunt work (including a modified TWRP recovery). The only ROM requirement is that the ROM's kernel supports the kexec boot method that MultiROM uses (most all do, and MRM will often be able to patch the kernel if it doesn't)

So everyone here running the an unlocked and rooted stock ROM can play around with custom ROMs and remain stock. Use it to check out other custom ROMs, use it to smoke test a nightly ROM that might have bugs.... load up a different ROM for each day of the week (provided you have the storage space). You can even use it to have a ROM for two different users.. the only thing you share is the internal storage.

I use it to play around with new ROMs... its great... I can flash a new ROM, start checking it out, boot back to my daily driver when I need it to be fully functional... then boot back to play around with it some more. I've loaded MIUI, Android L, Ubuntu Touch.... all sorts of odd-ball stuff I wouldn't run but would like to check.