C Rogers
New member
- Nov 11, 2012
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I finally Rooted and ROMed with CM 12.1 - The reason? App-switching lag. It drives me nuts that a brand new phone with a processor better than most laptops and 3GB of RAM has *any* app lag, much less 2 seconds or more (it's embarrassing, really). I got sick of it, so I finally did it. Here is my experience:
What works (or seems to)
1. sPen works just fine for 3rd party apps, even the pressure sensitivity works (I use Clover Paint for illustration work, which is my main reason for wanting a Note in the first place) there is no configuration needed, it just works. If you were expecing something to happen when you click the pen button, that's all Samsung stuff, but if you have a program that uses the buttons (like Clover Paint), it works just fine, and both buttons work as they should.
2. Camera works fine (not the Samsung one, but I actually find Open Camera much more useful (I take some of my company's product photography with it, and being able to lock the exposure and focus is awesome. I do miss the voice-activated shutter though.
3. Everything is faster, and there is almost no lag in app switching, which was my biggest gripe about Touchwiz, though I'm not a fan of their bright teal notification center colour that you can't change.
4. Bluetooth, Wifi, phone service, etc. they all work.
What doesn't work as well:
1. Fast charging with the original fast-charge Samsung charger heats up the phone more than it did before. I can only assume it's software regulated. I now use a regular charger instead, to prolong the over-all life of the phone.
2. Wireless tethering is a nightmare to get working. It sucks. Aside from the fact that it's removed from the notification options and you again have to dig through settings for it, it shows that it's on and does not show up on any of the devices I have. There is also no notification that it is turned on in the notifications panel until it's connected to something. It doesn't work very well.
3. Battery drain - Things seem to drink more power. Google play services flashed with the latest GAPPS (nano) used up 35% of my remaining battery tonight, and there didn't even seem to be any updating going on.
4.Camera makes the phone heat up much faster than the stock camera. I also found that the camera apps would sit in memory and continue to drink battery, so make sure you properly close them down after use. You will notice because your phone will be quite warm.
5.No ultra power saving mode. Not that I ever used it really, but still, have to find a 3rd party app that does it, if you want it.
6.Waking the device seems to be taking longer about a second to wake. There was no lag on Samsung's rom. It's kind of anoying, but not nearly as much as the app-switching lag, so over-all I'm "satisfied".
7.The one feature worth anything for me was the screen-capture to text feature contained in Smart-Select in Samsung's stuff. That's gone too, and I do miss it.
8.I occasionally used the pop-up sticky notes, but found they took a long time to launch, and the interface is ****-poor for anything more than a quick scribble (even lacking an undo button!). So it's only something I miss a little bit.
Cool stuff that you get with CM12 include multiple users on your phone (finally!)
Everything that comes with Lollipop, so Samsung has not crippled anything with KNOX, or outright removed it from menus or burried it so deep in settings you'll never find it. It's fast... really fast. Websites that made chrome browser hang for a second or two are now much smoother (though Chrome is still a big bag of wank compared to the smoothness of Safari, so ymmv. That's more Google's fault than Samsung's, and both companies need to whip out the butter and try again, imho. Still, it's faster with CM12, and Chrome gives you all the comforts of home on your mobile, so it's not all bad news. Also, screen-recording apps work 1000% better on CM12 than Touchwiz, so I may finally be able to do some proper Clover Paint tutorials.
There are also 3rd party apps that will give you multiwindow, etc, but it's always been a bit of a faff with such a small screen. The second you have to bring up a keyboard to type anything, it all goes to hell, and iPhone users (and other Android users) will rightly smirk at you for trying to show it off, and failing to do anything at all useful with it... because it's ****... I mean clearly ****. lol
Floating apps work as you would expect and seem to be a bit more on the useful side (I watch movies while drawing sometimes).
This may be my last Samsung product however. I'm just really tired of shelling out heaps of money for a second-rate user experience. There's no excuse for it after all these years. Samsung need to stop pretending like Tizen is a thing, and concentrate on their Android experience. I'll be happy to save the money, and proper tablet computers are getting cheaper, and may be better for drawing anyway. I'll skip the Note 5 entirely, and see what the 6 is all about. If there is still app-switching lag and unchangeable infant-pleasing teal all over the UI at that point, I'll go with a Nexus phone, or maybe even an Ubuntu phone (if it's any good by then), and forget about drawing on anything but a proper tablet computer.
I tried to like Samsung's sNote software but it's so horrendously slow, and drinks battery far more than it should. They keep adding features to it, and never address the fact that it's too damn slow.
TLDR: I love the hardware, hate hate hate the software. Clover Paint and CM12 are the only things that makes the Note 4 worth anything for me.
It's not without trade-offs, and honestly, I feel like Samsung owes me a bit of a refund (hundred quid or so) for the trouble of having to make the phone they sold me work as smoothly as a modern flagship smartphone should. The camera still lags terribly, even under CM12, which makes me think it's a hardware problem.
Take-away: If you don't mind the app-switching lag, there probably isn't enough reason to root and ROM to CM12. Don't recommend it for anyone who isn't adventurous either. Warranty voided, and you will probably run into one or more of the issues I mentioned. You'll also have to flash GAPPS to get your google toys back.
My 2p.
-C
What works (or seems to)
1. sPen works just fine for 3rd party apps, even the pressure sensitivity works (I use Clover Paint for illustration work, which is my main reason for wanting a Note in the first place) there is no configuration needed, it just works. If you were expecing something to happen when you click the pen button, that's all Samsung stuff, but if you have a program that uses the buttons (like Clover Paint), it works just fine, and both buttons work as they should.
2. Camera works fine (not the Samsung one, but I actually find Open Camera much more useful (I take some of my company's product photography with it, and being able to lock the exposure and focus is awesome. I do miss the voice-activated shutter though.
3. Everything is faster, and there is almost no lag in app switching, which was my biggest gripe about Touchwiz, though I'm not a fan of their bright teal notification center colour that you can't change.
4. Bluetooth, Wifi, phone service, etc. they all work.
What doesn't work as well:
1. Fast charging with the original fast-charge Samsung charger heats up the phone more than it did before. I can only assume it's software regulated. I now use a regular charger instead, to prolong the over-all life of the phone.
2. Wireless tethering is a nightmare to get working. It sucks. Aside from the fact that it's removed from the notification options and you again have to dig through settings for it, it shows that it's on and does not show up on any of the devices I have. There is also no notification that it is turned on in the notifications panel until it's connected to something. It doesn't work very well.
3. Battery drain - Things seem to drink more power. Google play services flashed with the latest GAPPS (nano) used up 35% of my remaining battery tonight, and there didn't even seem to be any updating going on.
4.Camera makes the phone heat up much faster than the stock camera. I also found that the camera apps would sit in memory and continue to drink battery, so make sure you properly close them down after use. You will notice because your phone will be quite warm.
5.No ultra power saving mode. Not that I ever used it really, but still, have to find a 3rd party app that does it, if you want it.
6.Waking the device seems to be taking longer about a second to wake. There was no lag on Samsung's rom. It's kind of anoying, but not nearly as much as the app-switching lag, so over-all I'm "satisfied".
7.The one feature worth anything for me was the screen-capture to text feature contained in Smart-Select in Samsung's stuff. That's gone too, and I do miss it.
8.I occasionally used the pop-up sticky notes, but found they took a long time to launch, and the interface is ****-poor for anything more than a quick scribble (even lacking an undo button!). So it's only something I miss a little bit.
Cool stuff that you get with CM12 include multiple users on your phone (finally!)
Everything that comes with Lollipop, so Samsung has not crippled anything with KNOX, or outright removed it from menus or burried it so deep in settings you'll never find it. It's fast... really fast. Websites that made chrome browser hang for a second or two are now much smoother (though Chrome is still a big bag of wank compared to the smoothness of Safari, so ymmv. That's more Google's fault than Samsung's, and both companies need to whip out the butter and try again, imho. Still, it's faster with CM12, and Chrome gives you all the comforts of home on your mobile, so it's not all bad news. Also, screen-recording apps work 1000% better on CM12 than Touchwiz, so I may finally be able to do some proper Clover Paint tutorials.
There are also 3rd party apps that will give you multiwindow, etc, but it's always been a bit of a faff with such a small screen. The second you have to bring up a keyboard to type anything, it all goes to hell, and iPhone users (and other Android users) will rightly smirk at you for trying to show it off, and failing to do anything at all useful with it... because it's ****... I mean clearly ****. lol
Floating apps work as you would expect and seem to be a bit more on the useful side (I watch movies while drawing sometimes).
This may be my last Samsung product however. I'm just really tired of shelling out heaps of money for a second-rate user experience. There's no excuse for it after all these years. Samsung need to stop pretending like Tizen is a thing, and concentrate on their Android experience. I'll be happy to save the money, and proper tablet computers are getting cheaper, and may be better for drawing anyway. I'll skip the Note 5 entirely, and see what the 6 is all about. If there is still app-switching lag and unchangeable infant-pleasing teal all over the UI at that point, I'll go with a Nexus phone, or maybe even an Ubuntu phone (if it's any good by then), and forget about drawing on anything but a proper tablet computer.
I tried to like Samsung's sNote software but it's so horrendously slow, and drinks battery far more than it should. They keep adding features to it, and never address the fact that it's too damn slow.
TLDR: I love the hardware, hate hate hate the software. Clover Paint and CM12 are the only things that makes the Note 4 worth anything for me.
It's not without trade-offs, and honestly, I feel like Samsung owes me a bit of a refund (hundred quid or so) for the trouble of having to make the phone they sold me work as smoothly as a modern flagship smartphone should. The camera still lags terribly, even under CM12, which makes me think it's a hardware problem.
Take-away: If you don't mind the app-switching lag, there probably isn't enough reason to root and ROM to CM12. Don't recommend it for anyone who isn't adventurous either. Warranty voided, and you will probably run into one or more of the issues I mentioned. You'll also have to flash GAPPS to get your google toys back.
My 2p.
-C
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