Android on the Bionic as it was meant to be, IMHO

[lm2]

I have loved my Bionic. I also like ICS, but the move from .905 to .246 left my phone sluggish and laggy, as evidently it did for many others. So I decided it was time to install a custom ROM to see if that would help. (I was new to custom ROMs, and found that installing one was really easy, as I'll explain below.) Well, I can't say for sure if it will help over the long term (it's only been a day), but I can say that the custom ROM is seems much snappier than even a newly reflashed and totally stock version of ICS .246 for the Bionic. More importantly, this new ROM is flipping awesome.

The ROM I chose (at the recommendation of forum member Deduct) is Blurry Maxx. I really cannot speak more highly of this ROM. There are just so many nice features that I really recommend you try it out for yourself.

Let me say first that I am not at all an expert, so you follow these instructions at your own risk. That said, I am just telling you where you can find other people's instructions, and I am confirming that as a n00b myself I followed these without a problem.

So here's what I did to install the Custom ROM

0. Make sure you are rooted. Search if you don't know how. I have a Mac, and this was the only method that worked for me.
http://blog.hash-of-codes.com/how-to-safestrap/1. Download the latest version (3.11) of Safe Strap. You can download the file at that link, and there are installation instructions here.
2. There is also a nice Youtube video [video=youtube;E8KOcnHJjHM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8KOcnHJjHM"]here[/video] that shows you both how to install Safe Strap and how to install your custom ROMs using Safe Strap.
3. Download the Blurry Max Rom zip file here (it is the second ROM linked to in the post).
4. Put both the Safe Strap APK file and the Blurry Maxx zip file on your external card, and follow the instructions in the Youtube video linked to above. I found that the APK file did not transfer correctly the first time (leading to a parsing error), so make sure that the APK file that ends up on your card is a 4+ mb file.

That's pretty much all I need to tell you here, since the youtube video does such a nice job explaining. I have had a blast exploring Blurry Maxx, and I am experiencing none of the sluggishness that I was still getting on a fully new install of the stock .246 ICS build. And given all the really sweet features in Blurry Maxx, I will never, ever go back to using a carrier's stock build.

Good luck!

 

[DoctorV]

This is a great thread. Please let us know how Blurry Maxx does in terms of battery life and signal strength if you can. My phone is silky smooth already and the battery life is fantastic with stock ICS. The only other thing I wish was better is signal strength. I've heard that Eclipse is great for that but I'd like to know how good Blurry Maxx is with it.

 

[deduct]

I have run both eclipse and blurry maxx extensively. I've found that eclipse gets slightly better battery life. Blurry maxx has better signal strength. Blurry is over clocked though and eclipse is not. That's mainly why eclipse gets better battery. Blurry has tons of add-ons. The animation manager makes blurry funner to use as well. While both ROMs are excellent I do recommend blurry personally. Here is a screenshot of my battery life on blurry. This was running 3g with extended battery:

http://db.tt/JEFTA3ux

 

[eye_dea]

Nice write up! Make sure to follow my threads at droidrzr.com or droid-hive.com for all update information.

 

[lm2]

Nice write up! Make sure to follow my threads at droidrzr.com or droid-hive.com for all update information.

Thanks eye_dea. Appreciate all you do to make these modifications happen.

 

[lm2]

This is a great thread. Please let us know how Blurry Maxx does in terms of battery life and signal strength if you can. My phone is silky smooth already and the battery life is fantastic with stock ICS. The only other thing I wish was better is signal strength. I've heard that Eclipse is great for that but I'd like to know how good Blurry Maxx is with it.

I did not realize that Blurry Maxx was over-clocked (deduct says below that it is). I suppose that helps explain how snappy it is.

Also, I really should've mentioned that I use an extended battery. So while battery performance is still important to me, I don't feel the hit as much as others. So far, I haven't noticed performance much different from when I was on stock ICS. That said, I'm in the market for a new extended battery (this one's been around for a year+) so that I really don't have to think about battery performance at all.

 

[Stingray71]

Installing now, important to note, you have to be rooted for safestrap to work. Link to the file you will need, don't forget to extract: http://t.co/mbIAmwH8

Here's a video on how to root: How to Root ICS Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0.4 on Droid Bionic official ota 6.7.246 Razrsedge - YouTube

 

[Stingray71]

My bionic was laggy and sluggish after ICS update. tried all the tricks to get it to work, nothing worked. Most if not all of those issues seem to be gone. Hotmail app would take forever to delete email, now it's instant. I also couldn't get audio to work when you tube was embedded on a web page. Now it works like a charm. Like it so far!

 

[lm2]

My bionic was laggy and sluggish after ICS update. tried all the tricks to get it to work, nothing worked. Most if not all of those issues seem to be gone. Hotmail app would take forever to delete email, now it's instant. I also couldn't get audio to work when you tube was embedded on a web page. Now it works like a charm. Like it so far!

Excellent. If you would, let people know how your battery performs. As I say above, I have an extended battery, and never have to be away from my charger for long. If you are a more standard case (e.g. if you have standard battery and must go several hours between charges), people may be interested in how you get on.

 

[Stingray71]

Excellent. If you would, let people know how your battery performs. As I say above, I have an extended battery, and never have to be away from my charger for long. If you are a more standard case (e.g. if you have standard battery and must go several hours between charges), people may be interested in how you get on.

Have the extended battery as well, usually have more than enough battery life at the end of the day, not expecting issues.
Had few hiccups with netflix (audio but no video) and the included camera (video would cause app to freeze). But a reboot seems to of fixed everything. CPU looks to be OC'd slightly. from 1.2 GHz to 1.25 GHz. After playing with my wife's Note II, my bionic really did feel like a peace of crap. Combined with all the other issues, I wanted to throw this thing out a window.

Not anymore, this rom has breathed new life into my phone, thanks for the post!

 

[lm2]

The other awesome thing about safestrap is the ability to easily clone one's current setup with the backup function. I tried this, moving my setup from slot 1 to slot 2, and it worked like a charm.

 

[Stingray71]

This is a great thread. Please let us know how Blurry Maxx does in terms of battery life and signal strength if you can. My phone is silky smooth already and the battery life is fantastic with stock ICS. The only other thing I wish was better is signal strength. I've heard that Eclipse is great for that but I'd like to know how good Blurry Maxx is with it.

Extended battery, 11.5 hours of moderate use, I still have 32% showing. I'm guessing a regular battery would be close to dead by now. I streamed at least 3hrs worth of music today via Google Music and Slacker. I also downloaded my Google Music Favorites Playlist (850 mb). Did a lot of installing and installing of apps while I continue to tweak this install to my liking.

In short, battery life is no worse than oem. I'd say maybe a tad better.

As for signal strength, seems real solid and strong, couldn't say that for oem ICS install. I went from WiFi, to 3G to 4G all while streaming Slacker, never lost connection. I'd hear only the faintest tick while streaming when it would switch signal source.

Overall, very happy with this ROM, gave my phone a good workout today, and it did not disappoint. Keeping this bugger longer than I intended to. dancedroid

 

[lm2]

Thanks for the update. In related news, I need a new extended battery.

 

[eye_dea]

Lets add a spark to this thread...

Blurry_Maxx_v3.8 is out!!!

 

[lm2]

Lets add a spark to this thread...

Blurry_Maxx_v3.8 is out!!!

Excellent! Here's the link to the new version (same as link in OP).