Baked Blackbean 7 ROM (AOSP, 4.2.1)

[Wnrgway]

I wanted to write up a little about my experience with Blackbean 7. Essentially it's an AOSP Jellybean 4.2.1 rom with a dark theme. It seems to fly under the radar, at least on GS3 forums, with AOKP and Cyanogenmod getting most of the attention out there.

I've been on the lookout for a 4.2 rom for daily driver needs. This is the first 4.2 rom that's done everything I needed it to. I have yet to find a significant issue with it. I can't really compare the customization options to AOKP or CM10.1 as I haven't spent any time with those. I also can't comment on tethering as I really don't use it.

The kicker for me has always been A2DP bluetooth. This rom is probably 95% there as far as sound quality goes. It's not quite as good as Beans 9, but I'm still playing with audio settings. It includes DSP Manager as an equalizer. It's certainly acceptable though. I don't get any skipping whatsoever, which is actually an improvement over touchwiz.

Here are issues I've found so far:
-Option to kill all apps when holding back soft key is too sensitive
-Bluetooth can hang when cycling on/off

Here's the developer thread on XDA:
[ROM] BAKED d2vzw Blackbean #7 (1-19-2013) - xda-developers

After several days, I've started running it with Ktoonsez's KT747 kernel. If you're not familiar it includes KTweaker. An app enabling voltage and clock speed adjustments along with other options. I haven't been using it for long but do have it undrevolted. I'm also using the governor to set a max clockspeed when the screen is off.

KT747:
[KERNEL][VERIZON][AOSP/Touchwiz][JELLYBEAN & ICS][1/26/2013] KT747 - LJ7 - KTweaker - xda-developers

 

[truthfamilyfaith]

From your recommendation I just flashed this.super fast and zero screen flicker.lots of customization options too. Would you say the kernel your running is Better better than the stock one that comes with the ROM? Thanks for the review also.great ROM so far.love the theming.

 

[Wnrgway]

I haven't really had the time to say whether one kernel is better than the other. KTweaker with KT747 has a ton of options though. I won't pretend to understand every one. I'm more familiar with overclocking PC's and graphics cards.

There are settings posted on page 188 of the kernel thread. I did apply these last night after I did some initial undervolting. Seems to be working fine. I get no FC's or reboots. I had Bad Piggies running along with streaming music and syncing services and had no issues.

With some usage this morning I'm going through a little less than 3% battery/hr. I think that's pretty good.


The rom did fix an issue I was having with bluetooth. I have a blackberry A2DP adapter in my car along with the phone BT that's OEM. Before this, the phone would connect automatically with only one of these and I had to select the other manually. Now it connects to both right away.

 

[truthfamilyfaith]

Thanks for the info my good buddy.I'm gonna give those settings a try. Really like this ROM. I wonder if updates are common

like so much fonzy

 

[truthfamilyfaith]

Did you happen to try it with the v6 supercharger on it? I can't for the life of me figure out how to get that friggin thing on here.I read more than one how to also.

like so much fonzy

 

[Wnrgway]

No, not yet. I'm trying to get smart on governors and i/o schedulers. Ktoonsez posted links to several threads that talk about advantages and disadvantages of each. The settings I ran on KT747 got me a little over 15 hours of battery and 2.5 hours screen time. It's not bad, but I think it can do better.

I've further restricted screen off processor to 500 MHz and am running smartassv2 as governor and sio as scheduler after reading some more yesterday. I was also able to further reduce voltage. Now I'm waiting to see how she runs.

 

[truthfamilyfaith]

Dang your diving in deep.I would def love to hear about your results.

like so much fonzy

 

[johny2gunz]

Baked Bean is the shizzz. Dive in check it out for yourselves. Fast, tons of options, inverted theme throughout done mostly by TravP who is also the main Dev, with an excellent crew to fill out Team Baked.

 

[Wnrgway]

So, I'm back. Been learning about governors and how to apply adjustments. Lesson 1 is don't undervolt till you tweak your governor settings and undervolt slowly. Yes, obvious I know...this takes some patience.

Ultimately KTweaker would only FC and I didn't have a nandroid backup with the KT747 kernel. I've restored to stock baked kernel to compare results. I wasn't able to significantly improve my results, but that's due to my ignorance and phone limitations as much as anything else. The main challenge was getting a proper tool set to evaluate adjustments.

For those that aren't familiar, cpu governors regulate how your cpu reacts to loads placed on it. You can effect things like how fast your cpu ramps up through available frequency steps, how long it stays on certain frequencies and how fast it ramps down among some other things. Different governors allow adjustments to different variables. The idea being that you can tune the response to match your needs. You can emphasize performance or battery. For most people it's maximizing battery life while getting a smooth UI experience. At first it looks like an overwhelming number of choices. Figuring out what's available is as much a challenge as tweaking.

Also, despite having identical phones, response to governor settings and undervolting can vary by a fair amount. Tolerances on silicone chips for example may be tight, but there are still tolerances. They become more evident as you push your phone for increased battery life or performance.

Some of this is obvious to more experienced people here. But being as I posted an alternate kernel, I wanted to make sure people know what the story is. KT747 gives you a LOT of power over your CPU. It can change your experience with a ROM for better or for worse depending on your patience and ability to learn and understand the given variables.

Oh, I still love the ROM!! There's a very slight crackle in bluetooth sound on higher notes and some people report problems with bluetooth headsets. Devs are looking into the headset issue. I don't use one so I can't comment.

 

[truthfamilyfaith]

That was pretty interesting to read. Thanks for the run down and the time it took to learn it.

like so much fonzy

 

[Wnrgway]

Anytime. I've leanred a lot from reading here and just want to give something back.

Oh...one more thing. The kernel that comes with Blackbean 7 has several governor options as well. Default is interactive I think, which is a type of ondemand governor which ramps up processor speed quickly and provides a good experience, but isn't the necessarily the best for battery life. Most stock kernels use ondemand.

I'm using conservative now on that kernel. The adjustment variables aren't too hard to understand. It raises or lowers frequencies one step at a time depending on processor load. You can set the load to lower and raise as a percentage. The trick is a balance between performance and battery. If you set the trip level to raise frequency to low, you get good performance, but lower battery. If you set it too high, you get performance lag. On the trip level to lower frequency if you set it too low, you're wasting battery. If you set it too high, the processor won't keep up with demand and again you get lag.

I think 45% down-threshold and 65% up-threshold are a good balance to start with. I've been playing with 50/75 for the last couple hours this morning. You can see that the idle on screen off is working very well so far.

 

[papa54]

men all i can say is I tried the jellybeans black 9 and had good everything and as i was lookiing i noticed so things that were not normal, for instance there was an Sprint Icon on home screen and once I started watching closer i was indeed on sprints network so i am now looking for a program to flash that will be normal w/root of courseand get me back on vzw.. if it is a free ride and no conqeiences,,, hello verspri.. lol

 

[Wnrgway]

FYI...In order to make full use of governors mpdecision needs to be disabled. I did this by renaming the mpdecision file under /system/bin from mpdecision to mpdecision.bak. It exercises some control over governors so that the settings aren't fully implemented.

More info on ktoonservative and other tweaked settings here:
[Team Kernelizers] {how to} Ktoonsnative governor and I/O tweaks - xda-developers