FroYo on EVO: A brief review for people new to Android

[mhespenh]

FroYo on EVO: A brief review for people new to Android.
Or; How I learned to love Android for Android​

I had been looking for reviews from people running the hacked-together FroYo ROMS now floating around on the various dev forums before I flashed it myself, but didn't find much in terms of what to expect. So now that I've done it, I thought I'd throw together a quick review for anyone considering the jump to FroYo, or just plain curious about how it looks/works and what to expect in the future.

I'm coming at this as an Android n00b- the EVO is my first 'droid phone, so my experiences (before this ROM) have been Android covered in Sense. A lot of my notes below are intended to highlight where FroYo without Sense is different from Eclair with Sense- the real Android experience. Keep in mind this is a (very) unofficial ROM, and things will change significantly from this ROM to anything HTC releases.

I've been running AvalaunchMod's EVOlutionV8 FroYo ROM for about 24 hours now, so I won't comment too much on battery life yet, but I expect to revisit my review with more detailed battery experiences after I get a few days of average use. To anyone who wants to give this a try for themselves: I used this fantastic guide to do it. Obviously the normal disclaimers apply: YMMV use at your own risk.


I'll get this out of the way first: The cameras do not work. People are hard at work trying to fix them, but as of this writing no love. I won't comment on 4G since I don't have it in my area. MMS works fine for me, and seems for most as long as you use Handcent instead of the stock app.

So first impression is simply this: WOWFAST. Seriously, everything flies. Animations are quick with no lag, swiping around from homescreen to homescreen is quick. Where there used to be lag in launching some (especially Sense'd) apps, there is no more. Mail loads instantly, as do the dialer and contacts.

Obviously you get the standard vanilla android lockscreen:

Swipe to the right to unlock, swipe to the left to turn off system sounds/ringers. When a call comes in, swipe right to answer, left to ignore/send to voicemail.

You also get the stock dialer, which is MUCH quicker than the sense'd dialer in 2.1:

The new recent apps screen (hold home button) gives you 8 recent apps now, and has a nice fadein/out animation:

The apps screen is a nifty cube-like thing. The animation is EXTREMELY smooth.

Likewise, the dock application (which launches when you click FancyWidget's clock) is very clean and very nice looking. It works in landscape and portrait.

Another MUCH improved area is the stock music app. I don't know if Sense or Android is to blame for the terrible performance of the 2.1 music player, but the new one is blazingly fast. No lag moving from Now Playing to Artist view. While the now playing screen isn't the prettiest thing I've ever seen, but it has all the functions I would want.

Post broken into two to allow for more than 10 images.

 

[mhespenh]

Continued from above:


You get 5 homescreens in this ROM, but no pinch-to-zoom out to view all at once. Instead, long press on the screen indicators (the little dots off to the side of the launcher) to get a little thumbnail view on the bottom:

As we all know 2.2 is mostly under the hood improvements, and they show in Linpack. We get a nearly 6x improvement from stock.

The settings have a few nice updates, too. The Applications option in the settings has been expanded to show not only all apps installed, but also what is running and allow you to kill apps with a simple tap! The Running Services screen now has a nifty little memory-usage meter at the bottom. Again, to highlight general speediness improvements throughout the phone: The Applications page opens instantly- not the 3-5 seconds it took on 2.1- Sweet! Also, the (in)famous "Always on data" option is gone- not sure what that means, but at least we won't have to debate it anymore

Finally, a quick note on the battery: I've noticed that the display is the major source of drain for me as shown below. I'm not sure if this is just a bug in the ROM, but it does stand to reason that the improvements made in FroYo mean the "cell standby" and "system" are more efficient. Thus: Display isn't using more battery, Android is using less! This is just a theory for now, it might just be because I'm playing with it so much, a few days use will flesh this all out.

All in all, the speed and stability of this ROM (and FroYo in general) have really shocked me. So much so, that losing the cameras is a sacrifice I'm willing to make- it's that fast! Cameras aside, I've found this ROM is definitely stable and full-featured enough to use as a daily driver- and the developer is making huge strides every week. Did I mention how fast it is? The improvements in FroYo make Sense unnecessary in my experience- I really don't miss anything from Sense- EXCEPT Facebook contact sync. I really miss that.

If you have any questions about specific apps or phone functions, or want a screen-cap of something feel free to comment below and I'll do my best to provide any info I can. Problems and bugs you experience should be posted over at the developer's thread at XDA so they can address them.

-Michael

 

[spiicytuna]

All in all, the speed and stability of this ROM (and FroYo in general) have really shocked me. So much so, that losing the cameras is a sacrifice I'm willing to make- it's that fast! Cameras aside, I've found this ROM is definitely stable and full-featured enough to use as a daily driver- and the developer is making huge strides every week. Did I mention how fast it is? The improvements in FroYo make Sense unnecessary in my experience- I really don't miss anything from Sense- EXCEPT Facebook contact sync. I really miss that.

Check out the Socialite Beta (read: free) for Facebook contact sync. It also has the stockish looking widget that kinda matches the sense version. To setup contact sync you've got to activate it in the settings.

 

[trooper54]

Damn, you beat me too it!

I figured i would add a few of my own things.

3g Speed Test

Linpack Bench

Quadrant System Info

Quadrant Stats

Basic build information

 

[mhespenh]

Damn, you beat me too it!

I figured i would add a few of my own things.

Haha! I had a little extra free time, what with it being the longest day of the year Thanks for the additions, please feel free to add your own impressions and thoughts!

Check out the Socialite Beta (read: free) for Facebook contact sync. It also has the stockish looking widget that kinda matches the sense version. To setup contact sync you've got to activate it in the settings.

[strike]That's great, thanks! Installed- doesn't work, "Unable to connect to SMG server." [/strike] Took a couple tries, but it works now! Thanks!

 

[trooper54]

Its fun to play with, no doubt, and it flys in comparison to everything else i've used.

But...

1. No camera
2. Having trouble importing data and settings and apps with titanium.
2.5. Clockwork still kinda iffy
3. No Gigantic calendar widget.
4. No sense...
5. No sense widgets, not that i use many, but FB and Calender (see 3.)

 

[mech1164]

Have you been able to test the framerate for the Evo. Is it still locked at 30fps or has it gone higher?

Thanks

 

[trooper54]

I saw the frame rate statistics while running quadrant, it doesn't let you display them however... It stuck at 30, though let myself think some of the quick digits flashing were 38's and so fourth.

 

[mhespenh]

Have you been able to test the framerate for the Evo. Is it still locked at 30fps or has it gone higher?

Thanks

Still locked. Apparently the restriction is much lower-level than ROM. Developers think they'll be able to crack it open, but no idea how or when.

 

[mhespenh]

A bit more info on the email client:


The calendar and email apps are very clean and FAST. Seriously, this is a major point of improvement in my eyes. Mush snappier.

​

 

[spiicytuna]

3. No Gigantic calendar widget.
4. No sense...

Check out "Android Agenda Widget" by Everybody All The Time ... it mimics the gigantic calendar (using the 4x4 setting) from Sense the closest.

 

[nlowhor]

Could you post some more pics of the calendar app? I'm really looking forward to getting rid of sense...I love the plain, simple, fast apps. Can't wait until they fix the cameras in this ROM....at least the rear one.

 

[mhespenh]

Could you post some more pics of the calendar app? I'm really looking forward to getting rid of sense...I love the plain, simple, fast apps. Can't wait until they fix the cameras in this ROM....at least the rear one.

You bet.

 

[spiicytuna]

Could you post some more pics of the calendar app? I'm really looking forward to getting rid of sense...I love the plain, simple, fast apps. Can't wait until they fix the cameras in this ROM....at least the rear one.

or were you referring to the Calendar widget I was referring to?

 

[ZombieRace]

Any issues running Clockwork ROM Manager? If so, how serious?

 

[nlowhor]

or were you referring to the Calendar widget I was referring to?

That's exactly what I was looking for. Thanks! For some reason I've found it hard to get much info online about the default Android calendar. Can't wait to move to standard Froyo, but I need the camera's working first.

 

[MrDSL]

Any issues running Clockwork ROM Manager? If so, how serious?

I use ROM manager with no issues..

Sent from my EVO via Tapatalk

 

[ZombieRace]

Awesome. Going to flash Froyo tonight and poke around. Thanks everyone!

 

[pathtologos]

I don't want to be the "party-pooper" here, but I have Fresh .3, bugless beast, and EVOlution v8 in my phone. Froyo is REALLY nice to look at, especially, as mentioned already, the calendar, email, and launcher. Now, I don't know if I did something wrong (and maybe some of you can answer this) but, first thing I noticed when I flashed EVOlution (and revA, by the way), I didn't have Flash player!! I was pissed. I had to install it from my sd card. Thank God it worked. Also, the Browser keeps pulling up mobile versions of websites (which I find sooooo irritating). I did the "about:debug" and that seemed to correct it. But, sometimes it still reverts to mobile view of things. And finally, the whole speed thing? I don't get it. Bugless Beast flies!!! I find the phone responding faster to swipes, loads pages faster, etc. Also, I couldn't assign ringtones to particular people (WTF?). I had to download Ringo lite to do it. I'm keeping Froyo for novelty and b/c it looks cool, but I find that I'm still getting better results overall with custom roms on 2.1. Call me crazy.

 

[trooper54]

You can change the mobile browser prefs in the the browser app permanently.