Rom, kernel, UC and UV.

Hi, I'd like to first start off by saying that it all boils down to personal preference in the end but I'm currently having a hard time deciding what to pick and what to do. There's so many choices and alternatives, so what I'd like to hear is what you yourself feel about the matter of about; Roms, kernels, underclocking and undervolting.

I should probably mention that I have a Google nexus 7 2013 (deb).
It's rooted, unlocked and flashed so many times but I keep coming back to stock due to the inability to make an educated decision in what I should have.

I'm currently running the stock Rom, rooted of course and currently with the elementalx kernel.
I've been trying several roms but none of them feel quite right.
I was going to try paranoid Android but as it stands now it appears it's without a lot of its intended customization that spoke to me in the first place. Leaving it to feel almost stock but with a few extra features, which led me to come right back to stock with gravity box.

What do you believe is a good Rom and kernel for the maximum battery life?
Note that I don't really game on the device, I mostly browse the Internet and listen to music and muck about in the settings, I like to tinker.

Does underclocking and undervolting make a difference in the end?

Please share your experience with all of the above, or any if you have tried it. Please try and not make any assumptions and keep it as civil as possible.

THEBANDIT420 said:

It really depends what you're looking for in a ROM/kernel. For you it seems you really care about battery life so you're definitely going to want both a custom ROM and kernel. I recommend purity ROM or clean ROM and either Franco or elementalx kernel for battery. As far as UC and UV underclocking can save heaps of battery but at the significant cost of performance while undervolting can save a bit at no cost to performance but may cause stability issues.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Free mobile app

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Yes, battery is probably the most important aspect for me and second to that I love customization and tinkering with stuff.

I've been running Francos kernel as well, I actually just reverted back to r16 from elemental.

As far as those two roms go, which one would you pick and why?
It appears I'm a sucker for AOSP, not sure why, but it seems widely more customizable, especially since I'm already very used to have the KK gravity box with the xposed framework.

Update; I've been mucking about with the voltages and I think I've found a pretty good balance so far, I have undervolted by -75mv across the board with Franco. I tried going to -100mv but I found out that Spotify can't start under those conditions, it crashes on boot.

I have also underclocked down to 1242mhz while keeping the lowest 384mhz.

It feels stable, the battery has been alright today, but I'd like to squeeze more out of it.
So how much more effect would having another ROM really have? I've read on this site that it's little to no effect at all. But then again, I've seen skeptical people writing that underclocking and undervolting doesn't really do that much.

I have to tell you, it's quite a noticeable difference, but people will tell me it's placebo.
Someone with a bit more ROM experience than me, feel free to step in and give me an educated review of what you feel works.

Update2; I have a follow up question, do the CPUs have to work harder when it's undervolted? I have seen a rise in the workload for them, very sporadic.
It's sort of like peaks and valleys in the diagrams.

Which brings me to the next question, if that's the case or not, will there be a decreased lifespan in them?