[Q] A few questions from a newbie on the fence on what to flash.

[extragoodcat]

So after 2 awful years with a first gen Blackberry storm I decided to make the jump to android with the captivate. Originally I was holding out for the Nexus S as I really wanted a vanilla Android experience (I have a deep hatred for bloatware) but unfortunately around where I live it appears Verizon and AT&T are the only ways to go if you want any sort of decent coverage.

Anyways, I've been doing a bunch of research and watching videos the past week I've decided to flash either Perception (build 8) or Cognition (probably 2.3b6) and am leaning towards P8 as of now. I am wondering how much of these ROMs is vanilla android.

I realize from what I've read/watch that the touchwiz launcher is removed in both of these roms as well as the AT&T bloatware, but is much of the other base applications such as mail, media player, etc is still the samsung apps?
Basically, I'm wondering how close to vanilla android will the launcher/interface be with one of these Roms (obviously the roms include some additional apps, I guess I mean just the basic functionality/interface).

Also, is there a major difference between running a rom such as Perception or Cog opposed to simply unlocking/lag fixing and removing bloatware as far as general speed and lag. I know these roms are using leaked Froyo firmware opposed to the stock eclair I would have if I did not flash, but I'm curious how big of a leap in performance it is.

Thanks for the responses, hopefully my questions make sense, my captivates not coming till Monday (bought it through Amazon wireless) and I've been reading random android forums seemingly nonstop.

 

[koreancanuck]

So after 2 awful years with a first gen Blackberry storm I decided to make the jump to android with the captivate. Originally I was holding out for the Nexus S as I really wanted a vanilla Android experience (I have a deep hatred for bloatware) but unfortunately around where I live it appears Verizon and AT&T are the only ways to go if you want any sort of decent coverage.

Anyways, I've been doing a bunch of research and watching videos the past week I've decided to flash either Perception (build 8) or Cognition (probably 2.3b6) and am leaning towards P8 as of now. I am wondering how much of these ROMs is vanilla android.

I realize from what I've read/watch that the touchwiz launcher is removed in both of these roms as well as the AT&T bloatware, but is much of the other base applications such as mail, media player, etc is still the samsung apps?
Basically, I'm wondering how close to vanilla android will the launcher/interface be with one of these Roms (obviously the roms include some additional apps, I guess I mean just the basic functionality/interface).

Also, is there a major difference between running a rom such as Perception or Cog opposed to simply unlocking/lag fixing and removing bloatware as far as general speed and lag. I know these roms are using leaked Froyo firmware opposed to the stock eclair I would have if I did not flash, but I'm curious how big of a leap in performance it is.

Thanks for the responses, hopefully my questions make sense, my captivates not coming till Monday (bought it through Amazon wireless) and I've been reading random android forums seemingly nonstop.

I always click thanks button before quote button now! Oh well.

I know cognition has twlauncher, not sure about perception (I don't remember..)

All custom ROMs have bloatware removed at your convenience. I'd say froyo is definitely faster. Either voodoo lagfix from xcal's kernel or lagfix from SetiroN's kernel gives a big performance increase. Cognition is based on a captivate rom whereas perception is based on an i9000 ROM.

No ROMs right now provide complete vanilla experience. I believe I read it somewhere that the Galaxy S line devices use rfs loops whereas usual android uses ext and this causes a problem for devs to port over vanilla android or other skins like HTC Sense. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong?) As of currently all the stable ROMs are based on froyo leaks with captivate, vibrant, or i9000.

 

[quarlow]

I've tried many variations with stock roms, rooted, lag fixed etc. I currently use the cognition rom, latest one. It is much faster and better than the stock. It has voodoo lagfix built in. I haven't tried p8, because I like the cognition so well. I definately recommend giving cognition a try. I was also going to try Axura, but haven't for the same reason.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

 

[psai]

Try Assonance or Axura. IMO they're more vanilla than Cognition or Perception.

 

[extragoodcat]

Thanks for all the info all.

Honestly I haven't even looked into assonance or axura, are they as stable as Cog/Perception?

quarlow, when you say you use the latest version of Cog do you mean b6 or b7? I know b7 just came out a day or two ago. I'd stick with the non-oc versions, seems like they tend to have alot less issues from what I've read.

 

[quarlow]

My bad, I'm using b6, I didn't know there was already another version. Yeah ... I don't do the oc thing. I have a hard enough time between charges without adding oc. It really is screaming fast already.

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[psai]

Honestly I haven't even looked into assonance or axura, are they as stable as Cog/Perception?

I haven't really tried Cognition or Perception, but I've tried both Axura and Assonance and both ROMs seemed really stable.

 

[extragoodcat]

ah jeez, now that I've been looking into it, I think I'm gonna go with assonance. Seems like its alot more stable than either Cog/Perception from what people are saying.

Just curious though, how fast/smooth does it run? Compared to stock and/or Cog/Perception?

 

[mcord11758]

Axura gets my vote

Stable and fast without needing to overclock

Need to use google voice for vm notifications though

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[majinzen]

All 2.2 Roms are smooth and fast compared to stock. Assonance will be your most vanilla (least amount of Samsung apps). Auxura is heavily themed and no where near vanilla. Plus it's based off of leaked Vibrant and I'm not a big fan (though I'm definitely in the minority here). Personal favorite is di11igaf's Rom. It is also heavily themed, but all themes can be changed and it works the best as far as functionality (my opinion, of course).

 

[deanhatescoffee]

All 2.2 Roms are smooth and fast compared to stock. Assonance will be your most vanilla (least amount of Samsung apps). Auxura is heavily themed and no where near vanilla. Plus it's based off of leaked Vibrant and I'm not a big fan (though I'm definitely in the minority here). Personal favorite is di11igaf's Rom. It is also heavily themed, but all themes can be changed and it works the best as far as functionality (my opinion, of course).

I'll second this. di11igaf's ROM is the most stable and fastest I've used. It might not be "vanilla" since it is themed, but the dark theme on it is so nice. You'll like it. I've flashed this for friends at work and they all love it and they have no more forced close issues, whereas they complained frequently about FCs with Cognition.

 

[TheEscapist]

If you don't mind beta software, CyanogenMod is the best. It's actually built from AOSP code, with only Samsung drivers. All the other custom roms are just modified versions of the stock rom/leaked rom.

 

[borguesian]

I run perception 8 with gingerbread theme and vanilla apps injected in place of sammy ones... so I kinda feel like im running gingerbread

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