JKeene Reviews-Paranoid Android ROM For Galaxy Nexus LTE!!
It’s been really interesting watching and tracking the growth of ROMs on the newest Nexus phone. Android 4.0 was certainly a game changer in the world of Android. From the redesigned UI giving ROM devs a new look to customize, to the softkeys giving us mods that no-one had even thought of till then, it has been an awesome trip. However for a little while now I have been in the words of Jack Johnson, “Sitting, waiting, wishing” for something new in the Nexus ROM world. Something fresh that really knocks my socks off. The other day my boy Alvin McClendon II(put him in your circles, trust me his posts are money) over on Google Plus clued me into a new ROM and my socks are officially across the room!!
A lot of ROMs try and bring you a tablet mode and usually it is a half assed after thought. The devs behind Paranoid Android have taken a different approach. molesarecoming, the dev behind this masterpiece is using what he calls Hybrid Mode, a melding of CM9 and a true tablet layout that takes full advantage of one of the GNex’s biggest asset, that beautiful screen. With all that space why can’t we rock a tablet mode? Why can’t we do more than a boring 1-column layout? We DO NOT and thanks to Paranoid we not longer have to. I admit after having to reflash ROMs that got stuck in tablet mode I was a little apprehensive about flashing this ROM and if you are too, DO NOT be. Paranoid straight works and the design is not only aesthetically pleasing but very, very functional as well! The ROM allows you to easily switch between Tablet, Phone, and Hybrid modes so you can set your phone up the way you want to. Many of the apps are nicely set up in tablet mode as well, Gmail, You-Tube and especially the Camera app are so much win I do not want to go back to the phone versions! One of the first things I noticed was the odd size of widgets on the screen when using tablet mode but fear not, all of them can be resized, so in true ROM fashion you can set up everything exactly as you want it! If you do not like the tablet layout of the app, you can easily switch just that app into mobile UI mode so no reason to be unhappy with any of the layouts! I am going to quote the changelog here as to the potential of this feature, “Allows you to switch between Phone mode (with curtain and bear paw buttons) and tablet UI seamlessly. PAD & PAL work in both domains. That means you can have 3d Youtube in 320 dpi standard Phone mode or mobile Chrome without those horrible tabs in 192 Dpi Tablet mode.” Trust me when I tell you, you need to use this to see how amazingly beautiful it is! While the ROM does not go crazy with softkey mods, it does have the usual battery mods and the like. However I was so busy setting up my phone and enjoying the new layout that I did not even notice this and if you have read any of my previous reviews, that is saying alot!
Review
1. App Test
Here I used a wide variety of games, Draw Something, Scramble, and Dead Space all worked seamlessly. The biggest news for me was GAPPS. The last few ROMs I have flashed while on the 4.0.4 update have had alot of issues with notifications from Google Plus and Gmail, even Facebook. Finally I have a ROM where all of the notifications just work when I need them too! YouTube works great and looks amazing in tablet mode. The camera with all of it’s tablet mods actually makes me enjoy the shooter on the GNex so big win in that category. Tweetdeck and Twitter handled my feeds just fine.
5 out of 5
2. Paranoid comes with a modified version of the Nova launcher. Those of you familiar with it know that is one of the best home replacements out there for the GNex. I had no issues with the launcher during daily use. The launcher features a very nice 3D screen transition and my widgets and notifications worked like a charm. ADW worked well and resized to the tablet layout pretty well, I did encounter a few quirks and freezes but nothing that was a deal breaker.
4 out of 5
3. Battery Life
This was another win for Paranoid. Now as usual I would not say that the GNex in general delivers exceptional battery life however well good use I got about 8 hours out of the phone on LTE. Using Wi-Fi I had no problem getting 12-14 hours before my phone needed to be plugged in.
5 out of 5
4. Sound Quality
Now here I encountered my first issue. While volume through my headphones was nice and loud the external speaker was a little on the weak side. This has always been a weakness of the GNex however the ROM did nothing to help this situation and since other ROMs have done a great job of addressing this issue I am going to deduct a point for the oversight. The volume is not by any means a deal breaker on this ROM but something that does need to be pointed out.
4 out of 5
5. Browser Testing
For this I used both Dolphin and Chrome. While both browsers worked very well for me at first even with my good vision I had some trouble seeing the small print. However a quick trip to the settings section and I had the font resized to where I had no issues reading the news. You-Tube worked very well when playing videos through the site and not the app. Sites loaded smoothly and swiftly on both browsers so no complaints there at all.
5 out of 5
So as I said before Paranoid brings some awesome new features to the GNex ROM world. I would almost go so far as to say this ROM is a game changer and I hope that other devs see the potential of a hybrid ROM such as Paranoid. To top off all of the benefits of the ROM, with the exception of ringer volume issue everything on this ROM just works. While it does not offer the huge array of mods that some ROMs out there have, trust me with all of the layout options I am pretty damn sure you will not miss em!! So hit up the source link below and check it out!!
Source-Paranoid Android ROM
JKeene, AndroREV Editor
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