Hello my fellow googlers. Today I present to you a new firmware that took the community by surprise. I myself didn't even think it to be possible so soon. But here it is KitKat.
A few days ago the developers of Omnirom made a breakthrough. KitKat came available for the Galaxy Note 2 N7100, Galaxy Note 2 N7105, Galaxy i317 and Galaxy T889.
I have to say a lot of things are working... The following I can confirm for the N7105:
3G/4G data
Wi-Fi data
No graphics issues
Sound and music playback
S-Pen
Motion sensors.
Calls incoming and outgoing
and everything else
AWESOME BATTERY LIFE!!!!!
Only 2 things does not working:
Video playback
YouTube videos
and camera :(
But lets not worry about those two things. Let's hope the developers see this post and make a plan making this a working daily driver for all of us :)
So now let's skip to the good stuff and indulge in some KitKat chocolate. Oops sorry the firmware I meant :P
Let's start of with the home screen and some stuff that might look when you unlock your phone.
Lockscreen
The Home Screen
As you can see the layout is perfect clear and smooth to the eye. Icons look shaper and smooth around the edges. Folder icons have also improved making them round and transparent white. When you swipe the screen to your left you'll be presented with Google Now. The Google Now application have improved as well. Common options appear where they should be.
Your home screen are limited to number of them. They are only available when you put a widget on one or a new one. Once you remove all widgets from a home screen, it will remove it self. The calendar widget has also changed and looks more transparent with a month view instead of the daily agenda view.
Active listening feature is available on this rom. If you managed to get voice properties corrected on Google Keyboard you can be able to use the hotword "OK Google" to use the search feature from the home screen or within Google Now itself without touching a button.
When you need to place widgets on the home screens, there is only one place to do them. On the home screen you have to press and hold on a empty area to call the menu options for personalisation or you could simple press the menu key. When you press on the Settings icon it doesn't take you to the normal device settings. Rather it opens the Google Now settings for you to change if you like.
If you press the Wallpaper icon you are presented with the wallpaper changer app. The stock wallpapers of KitKat seems simply beautiful and radiant to behold. There is even something better with the live wallpapers. The live wallpaper below you can simply change its colour by swiping your finger from left to right.
The widgets browser has also got a new layout. It looks fresh!! If you have been noticing from until this point you might perhaps seen that the new system font is also easier upon the eye.
Next let's hop over to the dailer. As you can see, the dailer presents you already the contact list in the Contacts app. You can also press the dailer icon at the bottom of the screen to bring up the dailer for manual input.
Let's see the stock email application that also has improved. The new layout of arrived email in you inbox looks exactly like the Gmail application. It has icons representing the contact that mailed you.
As you also can see, the menu of the application looks similar to that of Gmail. The notification panel of the status bar on top of the screen is the same as that of Jellybean 4.3. The toggles is a different story. It if you swipe over the Wi-Fi icon you'll be able to see the gateway IP address you are connected to receiving your streamed internet. This is a good and handy feature if you are a developer.
The settings application has also improved with a few new features. Looking at the interface Bars and menus has become a option you can customise. Buttons is also presented to change button behaviours. At the bottom of the settings menu, you'll find printing. This is one of new built-in features Google made possible as stock.
Going to About phone, here we can see that this rom was from the beginning of this post not a lie (giggle). As you can see it runs on my N7105 with the normal Baseband version. The Wi-Fi and mobile singles have not changed from the original stock Samsung firmware, so this rom is really good to go for more improved development for a daily rom soon. If you managed to find the built-in game, you'll find there is no more jelly beans to toss around the screen like in Android 4.3.
Nice to see KitKat isn't it :P
Now lets move on to more technical things. You'll see there is an option call performance. For those who have had CM roms before this is nothing new but here comes the surprise. Tab layouts have been implemented with a ton of new stats fields to monitor your device performance.
There is also a notice in the storage option that KitKat is more RAM friendly with your device, which is always a big plus!!!
Back to the home screen. I have changed the clock widget with a anther one. This clock widget has more useful information, like the weather, and other important common notifications you might want to pay attention to. I also open a folder showing that the background of the folder is now transparent white and not black like the standard Jellybean 4.3.
Last but not lease let me show you how the app launcher menu looks like. Pretty much standard except it looks more appealing with shaper and bigger icons with new system font.
Well I hope you enjoyed seeing the KitKat interface as much as I did. My only wish is that the developers of XDA and Omnirom will continue improving this rom to become a daily driver. If video playback and YouTube and camera got fixed than by jolly this would be the most awesome rom there out in the world. Good luck developers and make us (the community) proud!!!
If you like to research more on Omnirom with KitKat make your way to the XDA website. Please, once you have perfected something share on xda more about your experience. Please work on the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 N7105 model to become finished with KitKat Omnirom.
