Sony Ericsson Xperia X8 rom: Froyo or Gingerbread, which you choose?

I have done some tests on Sony Ericsson Xperia X8 with different roms, I have compared serval roms that I have get these differences between Android 2.2 and Androi 2.3 on Xperia X8 below. I hoped this comparison can help you to find out which one to choose.

Maybe you would ask, why don’t you evaluate Eclair which is the sony ericsson official 2.1 rom, I would rahter to say, oh come on, don’t you realize the official rom is a littel boring and there is a lot of useless program eating your poorly battery? also the light sersor which drive the auto brightness being crazy.

I have taken Froyobread and kuyaDROID to compare, froyobread is based on CM6.1 and its latest version is v017 updated on 29 June, kuyaDROID is based on CM7.1 and its latest version is v2.4 updated on 26, June. Both of them is stable for daily use, fast, battery-saved. Now let’s see the differences between them. I will not use score software, just talking about the user experiences.

1.User Interface
Froyobread bring us most of the gingerbread ui, such as taskbar, icons, edge grow, ect, but there is a 16bit color defect on it, the edge grow for example, you can see some stripe in the grow while above white background, it’s a natural transition in gingerbread’s grow. kuyaDROID have true 32bit color picture, that is because it base on gingerbread. I don’t know pixel rendering in the CM setting can help Froyobread support true-color for applications, but it seems not. I think gingerbread have more beautiful picture.

btw, you can’t turn off the screen on and sreen off animation in Froyobread. I don’t like it make the phone turn on slowly.

So this part Gingerbread(kuyaDROID) wins.

2.Operation
Take the most usually operate: make a phone call, froyobread can reject incoming call and halt up the phone use “return” key, it’s an useful option heloing some big finger guys, I can’t find this option on kuyaDROID.

We all know about that Xperia X8’s camera works only in low resolution: VGA, but I think that’s enough for taking picture with the 320w no autofocus camera. Btw Xperia 8 takes bright picture in low light environment, my milestone takes a black picture in same place.

There is some bugs(?) in gravity sensor(response delay, playing doodle jump) and light sensors. for example, light sensor value always be -1 in custom automatic brightness setting, maybe it’s cause by disabling the light sensor in CM7.

In Froyobread, scrolling menu seems to more smooth than kuyaDROID, ture color issue.

3.Battery life
Froyobread seems to have battery drain when you turn on the custom automatic brightness, the light sensor works in every second, draining the battery when the screen is on. The battery drain from 92% to 78% in 3 hours, with normal operation, 3G off, backlight brightness is 8. kuyaDROID doesn’t have this problem with the disabled light sensor. Good news is both Froyobread and kuyaDROID only take 1% battery over the night in airplane mode.

4.Signal & Software support
Froyobread have no signal in poor signal environment, kuyaDROID seems have more strong signal. Need some more test.
Froyobread shows a GPRS connection instead of EDGE connection after the phone reboot. Disconnect and connect again fix it.

my daily softwares all well-supported, some HD games can’t run, but it’s not the rom’s problem.

At the end, many thanks and greatest respect to the code wokers who have contribution to this two roms.