My first and only tablet, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. Recently I was getting a bit annoyed by it. I tried some custom ROMs already a year back. To get from Ice Cream Sandwich to Jelly Bean and later Kit Kat. I felt never so confident about my own decision. The Samsung TouchWiz UI is not bad and it comes with some neat application. I also loved the eBook app, with this nice page flip effect.
After flashing a custom ROM, all TouchWiz stuff was over of course. At the beginning I was excited getting a more up to date Android on my tablet. But the first thing I noticed, was that HD YouTube videos were not really smooth. An issue all ROMs had, some worse some better. I tried different flavors and also Android versions. Latest was KitKat with the “Nameless” ROM. Still beta and full of bugs. My tablet had terrible lags, sometimes it took two minutes to switch into the browser and I started to hate using it. Whatever ROM I flashed, it doesn’t really seemed to improve it.
Sometimes the solution is to go backwards. I found versions of the stock ICS ROM deodexed, zip aligned and already rooted. They should feel more fluid and when I tried it, I was more than happy. The pad feels responsive and its fun to use. Also YouTube HD videos are played smooth. My recommedation is, to try one of the ROMs (according to your tablet version/region) from this thread at XDA Developers:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/show….php?t=1831040
Another good performance boost can come via a custom kernel. I am very happy with the A1 Kernel and there is also a version for the stock ROM:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/show….php?t=1833136
The A1 kernel also reclaims additional 64MB of RAM from the system. So instead of 722MB available RAM, you will have 786MB! Almost a 10% increase for free. I am overclocking my pad to 1.4Ghz. The kernel also overclocks the GPU to 400Mhz.
What I don’t like about the stock ROM is the old keyboard, without the digits etc. when you long press a key. You can find an up to date Android keyboard here, which also looks a lot better:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/show….php?t=2657791
When you are coming from Jelly Bean or Kit Kat, you should move the file from the “0” folder back to the root of the “sdcard”. I just used ES File Explorer to do that. Or you open a terminal window and use the shell. You should also install something like Trickster Mod, to overclock the ROM. I overclocked to 1.4Ghz and it works very well.
Procedure for flashing is simple as usual with TWRP Recovery:
1) Full Wipe (factory reset, contents of the sdcard partition remain intact)
2) Flash the ROM
3) Wipe Dalvik/Cache
4) Reboot
5) Flash A1 Kernel
6) Reboot and enjoy