BlackHole Bionic ROM Review

There is a ROM for just about everyone out there, but one ROM has been missing. It’s a Blur-based, deodexed, debloated, optimized, light ROM that can be flashed in Safestrap. Why haven’t we seen one of these ROMs yet? Safestrap has a file limit, and all Blur-based ROMS are a lot larger than that limit, so they can’t be flashed in Safestrap. It was always thought that creating a Blur-based ROM for Safestrap would be next to impossible. If that’s true, DroidHive user sonofskywalker3 has just done the impossible. BlackHole Bionic is just that, a Blur-based ROM that has been stripped of all bloatware, been deodexed, and has all kinds of other features. Let’s jump right in.

Stability (10/10)

I’m not going to use a ROM as my daily driver if its going to crash ever 30 seconds or my favorite apps crash on a regular basis. So how was the stability in this ROM? Rock solid, that’s how it was. I had no crashes or stability problems at all, not even a hint of one. So, if you get scared when your phone suddenly reboots or your favorite app crashes for no reason, then this ROM is for you.

Performance (7.5/10)

When Motorola puts all of their Blur software on top of Ice Cream Sandwich, its obvious that it is going to slow down the device to some extent. Although performance was no where near sluggish, it wasn’t on par with some AOSP or AOKP based ROMS out there. Now, this mostly isn’t the developer’s fault, as Blur needs a lot of other frameworks and such that are required to keep the phone running smoothly. These are minor things against the ROM though. The ROM is still very responsive and very fast.

Battery Life (8.5/10)

I am really picky when it comes to battery life. I always want to squeeze every once of battery life that I can out of my phone. This ROM was pretty average for a Blur-based ROM and maybe a little better. I was able to get about 15 hours out of the battery with about 15% remaining. This was with about 8 hours of 3G connectivity and the rest on WiFi. The screen was on only about 2 hours. This kind of battery life with get most people through an entire day, but I have seen better in other ROMS.

Overall Experience (9.5/10)

This ROM is no disappointment. It's fast, light, and best of all, can be flashed in Safestrap. Animations are buttery smooth and everything is very responsive. Being built off of Blur, there aren't a whole of customizing that can be done without some extensive work. This ROM is by no means going to slow you down. There isn't much else to say about this ROM; it just works.

Wrap-up

If you are looking for a debloated, deodexed, fast ROM with a Blur base, this ROM is for you. This includes the entire Blur experience, Smart Actions and all, without all of the unnecessary bloatware that comes along with it. And there is no risk in trying the ROM, because you can flash it in Safestrap. This ROM is very polished and has almost no issues at all, which is promising to what we could see from this ROM in the future.

Overall Rating: 8.8/10
Would I recommend this ROM: Definitely
Daily Driver? Definitely
KrackFlashers Forum Link

Sparkyman216 Releases Overclocked, Super Fast CM10

dhacker29 ported CM10 to the Bionic at the end of July and brought hope to the Bionic community that they might just get some yummy Jelly Bean on their devices. Although data is a little flaky, the camera doesn't work, and Bluetooth doesn't work, the ROM is very well done. Its not going to be your daily driver until those problems are fixed, but Jelly Bean runs very smoothly on the Bionic just as it should. Sparkyman216, a well known forum user, has taken this CM10 ROM, overclocked it and added all sorts of speed tweaks. He has made some speed changed to the build.prop file as well as included the V6 SuperCharger script tweaks, which are very popular for squeezing every ounce of speed out of a device. If you pair all of this with the buttery smooth animations of Jelly Bean, you better believe this is going to be fast. Again, since this is built off of the alpha version of CM10, there is not working camera or Bluetooth, and you may or may not get data. I will be reviewing this ROM in the near future to give you guys an idea of just how fast this ROM is. If you want to try it out yourself, follow the link to the official thread on DroidHive.

Tormented CM10 Official Thread

Liquid ICS MR2.1 JMOD Edition ROM Released!

Liquid ICS has been a long time favorite ROM for the Bionic, and today it just got brought back from the dead. liquid0624, a well known user on many forums in the Android space, sort of abandoned the ROM. To be fair, liquid isn't the only one who worked on this ROM, but an update hasn't been released for over a month and a half. With all due respect, these developers are probably working on much newer projects and no longer have time for the Bionic variant of this ROM. DroidHive user SPJESTER has decided he was going to take the development of the ROM into his own hands and released Liquid ICS MR2.1 today. It is based off of the latest version of the original ROM, 1.5MR1. SPJESTER has taken the original ROM and given it a much needed an update and added his own twist as well. Liquid ICS has always been knows to be very lean and light on system resources. I will definitely be reviewing this ROM soon, so stay tuned for that! Want to know more about the ROM or just want to go download it, just hit up the source link below!

Official Liquid ICS JMOD Thread

Get Google Now with Working Voice on your Bionic!

The Galaxy Nexus and a few other lucky Jelly Bean device owners have had the privelage try out and use Google's Siri rival, Google Now. Then all of the pround owners of Android 4.0 devices said "Why is Google Now just for Jelly Bean?" The development community got to work and ported Google Now in all of its glory to an Android 4.0 device near you. Of course, if you have never tinkered around without your phone before, some of the things you may have to do to get Google Now may be a little confusing. Also, your device has to be rooted and needs to have some form of Clockworkmod Recovery on it to install Google Now. Meet all of those requirments? Visit the source link below and hack Google Now onto that Bionic!


Source: DroidHive