Micromax A110 Latest ROMs, a review
A great many ROMs have been released following the release of Mobistel Cynus T2 ROM for Micromax A110 Canvas 2, the singular event which brought the fresh taste of jellybean to the mouth (and hands) of a great many users of this nice yet cheap phone. However, there are a few things to keep in mind while flashing new ROMs. Not all of them are 100% bugfree, no matter what their parent developers claim them to be. Besides, some of them are actually beta ROMs, released just for tasting. As such, unless you have a separate phone for general usage, randomly installing new ROMs just for sake of trying their features isn't suggested.
First of all, why are there so many ROMs being released for a single device? The answer is two-way, as I see it. Firstly, Micromax Canvas 2 introduced Indian users to the entire generation of cheap and affordable 5'' phones, lovingly called 'phablets'. A lot of these users got even more interested in pushing the limits of their device to get even more from it, and gradually evolved to superior beings called devs. ;)
Sesondly, Micromax A110 is a re-branded Chinese phone, as you all might be aware. The same device got re-branded a lot many times in different countries, incarnating as Mobistel Cynus T2 in Germany, MyPhone 919 in Philippines and so on.
I myself installed a couple of these ROMs, and found that many of them are not very much usable for day to day life. Some of them have low headset sound issue (if we try to use engineering mode to solve it, sound gets louder but cracked), some of them just eat away your battery and some are just RAM kidnappers. Yet again, a few of these ROMs have left a couple of essential features, just to reduce size. So, to choose a perfect ROM for your device might be tricky.
Now, lets get into business.
LEWA ROM
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| Lewa sports excellent theming support |
All in all, LEWA ROM could have been the best ROM for A110 Device, but there's one major glitch. The camera doesn't work nicely at all. No matter which app you use for shooting your photos, the camera is always on a focus spree. The developer has suggested trying Pimp My ROM and applying 'Camera Quality' tweak from within the app, but seriously, it doesn't work on a majority of devices (actually I haven't seen the process to work even once).
Advantages
- Beautiful UI, theme support to the extent that it practically resembles Samsung Galaxy S III UI perfectly.
- Lewa App store (in Chinese) in addition to Playstore.
- Pre-rooted.
- Uses custom Lewa kernel, that has arguably better stability than Cynus kernels.
Disadvantages
- Camera is always on a focus spree. The issue remains to date.
- Video recording quality is very poor.
- FM doesn't work on most devices. Even the fix doesn't work on some.
- Laggy UI even after animations are turned off.
- Presence of some bloatware.
DOWNLOAD AND PAGE: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2115509
Suvi ROM
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| Just too good not to mention |
This is indeed one of the best ROMs available for A110. It features an excellent balance between appearance and performance, sports an excellent camera quality (that can be even improved using CameraMX app or its likes for special effects). In fact, since I use CameraMX as my primary camera app, I can say that the auto-optimisation feature of the app works the best on this ROM.
One of the best features of this ROM is the sound output. Without additional tweaking, there is fabulous sound output both with and without headphones. 3D Sound effects work flawlessly and there is seriously no reduction in quality. The latest update pushes in BRAVIA engine, that vastly improves display quality. As per the dev, display can further be improved by changing display density to 200 DPI from 190 DPI (this also gives more real estate on screen).
Another great feature is that, Suvi gets regular updates on XDA. It has a great following, and you can join the group as well to request/suggest new features.
All in all, this is the best ROM for Canvas 2 as of now.
Advantages
- Beautiful display with BRAVIA
- Excellent sound quality
- 3D effects on headphone are the best
- Camera quality is stupendous
- No bloatware
- Excellent support and fan-following
- Pre-rooted
- Battery lasts much longer than most other ROMs
- Performance is very well, more than 130 MB of RAM stays free, usually
- Lockscreen features Google Now (after installing it, actually)
Disadvantages
- PimpMyROM doesn't work well with this ROM. It stops the GPS after applying any of the tweaks. Also, on some devices, data toggle options also fail to work after applying tweaks.
- There is no built-in text to speech support, and as of now it hasn't been fixed. Speech Synthesizer data fails to install, and the only way to fix is to install any of the IVONA TTS voices, but that takes around 250 MB of additional data.
PAGE ON XDA (WITH DOWNLOAD LINKS): HERE
JMP ROM Series
This is based on stock Mobistel Cynus T2 ROM, and is a fantastic one so far as performance is concerned. Since all the apps are dodexed and ziplined by default, there is an excellent speed to be enjoyed. One of the main features of this ROM is the addition of sound effects. It also solved Mobistel Cynus T2's modem.img issue that didn't activate the second SIM. In most ways, it actually is an enhanced version of Mobistel Cynus T2 ROM.
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| A cool, simple rom |
Advantages
- Battery saving tweaks
- Pre-rooted, as usual
- No bloatware
- No major bugs
- Good camera and sound quality, although less than those of Suvi ROM, I must say
- PimpMyROM works perfectly
Disadvantages
- Not much improvement over stock ROM
- Boot Logo isn't nice to look at
- Boot time is a bit more
- No additional theming support
- Low sound issue not fixed by default
DOWNLOAD AND PAGE ON XDA: HERE
DrBhokali's JB ROM
It is yet another ROM based on Cynus T2. The major improvement is that it can be flashed right away using the CWM recovery, and unlike Mobistel ROMs, it doesn't need stock recovery. Performance is good enough, and quadrant scores are a bit more than Mobistel ROMs.
Advantages
- Simple to install and use
- No major bugs
- Can be installed using CWM
- Pre-rooted
- PimpMyROM support
Disadvantages
- Proximity sensor actually works
- No other significant improvement (Xperia Z keyboard and other mods taken from Sony aren't the coolest)
DOWNLOAD AND XDA PAGE: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2025204
A few things should always be kept in mind before flashing any of these ROMs. These are:
- Backup your existing ROM: Always take a backup of your existing ROM using CWM, so that you can fall back to it in case you're dissatisfied with the result.
- Backup your data: Always use Titanium or another software to keep backups of your latest apps and data, so that even if you can't revert back to your previous ROM, you have your data left. This also saves you from downloading and configuring all apps again
- Familiarity: If you aren't tech savvy, or are just an ordinary user who wants to use his device to call friends, play a game or two and update facebook, then you'll be better not trying to get through these risks. Always remember any of these ROMs can potentially brick your device.
- One many devices, SIM cards aren't recognized after installing these ROMs. Using Mobile Uncle MTK app, remember to take IMEI backup of your existing installation, and then restore that to your new ROM. This solves the issue if just replacing modem.img fails.
- Regularly switching between ROMs can make your device slow and bloated. Occasionally clean your entire SD card, i.e copy all data to a safe place (maybe your harddisk), format the entire SD card and then move back the data. This keeps your installation clean.
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