OK.
There's now 15 pages of messages in this thread and firstly I'd like to thank the OP for all the hard work he's obviously put into this. I've skim read all the messages and without giving specific examples there's sometimes conflicting info without a clear resolution.
So, here is my situation.
I picked up a S5e 64GB LTE version yesterday at a very good price as I intend to use it as a streaming media device so the Amoled screen was important to me, I knew that it would only support A11 officially and this forum would be my most likely route to A12.
I do have A12 OUI 4.1 on a couple of Tab S6 tablets and honestly love the improved performance and items like the colour template, they make the whole user experience much improved. However using a Tab S6 for this project made no sense financially.
So, right now I have a S5e 64GB 5G, stock, latest build and security patches (1st Feb 22 from memory).
Is the performance on A12 much better than A11 on the S5e? It is far improved on the Tab S6, thus the question.
Is the colour template option a function of A12 or of O UI 4.1? If it's O UI 4.1 I suppose it's not implemented on either Lineage or crDroid?
Has the encryption of the internal storage issue actually been resolved as it's unclear from the thread.
Is the A12L implementation working properly as there were some comments about the bar not working properly.
I only have access to 'nix PCs so does Heimdell work or is it still an unknown?
Is there anything else that's a known 'Not Working' issue right now that means I should hold off and wait? As this unit is in testing at the moment it's no problem to wait as it's not my daily device and won't ever be.
Personally I find performance to be much more consistent on LOS/crDroid, my S5e would run fine on oneui at first but frequently it would slow to an absolute crawl until I reboot and then it would be fine for a while again, which got very annoying when I use my tablet rather infrequently to just pick it up and have it not respond to almost anything. So far I haven't had the same issues on LOS based roms, but I've only had it installed for a couple weeks so far. Don't expect it to make the tablet feel like a Tab S8
A12 has color theming options, but they're different from OneUI, OneUI still has the more traditional "theme' system, whereas A12 has automatic color adapting based on background or you can manually select what colors you want.
Internal storage encryption is only an issue with TWRP, if you just put all your rom files onto an SD Card then it works fine.
Dunno about A12L or Heimdall, worst case you can spin up a windows VM or try WINE.
Only real issues I know of are Magisk issues and lack of HDR support; which was kind of an issue in OneUI as well, but in older versions could be tricked, but they removed it entirely in 4.1 it looks like, despite the screen being fully capable of HDR, not sure if there's some way to hack it back in.
And Magisk seems to break some things, at least on my SM-T727, when I install it I no longer have sensors or audio working and it requires a reflash back to stock to fix.
