Paranoid Android 4.3 Review

Paranoid Android Review:

I just recently downloaded Paranoid Android 4.3 onto my Galaxy Nexus Toro. Although it took some getting used to, I have decided that I like it, and here is why:

1.      Customization: You hear it all the time when people talk about Android phones vs. Apple or Windows, but it’s true: Android phones are more customizable. PA takes this feature we already love, and amplifies it. There are more customizations and modifications included than most people will ever use. However, don’t be discouraged by the daunting amount of features: one thing about this ROM that makes it superior to other ROMs is its ease of use. The Settings are simple and concise, unlike AOKP, and a first-time user isn’t stuck wondering how to reverse [some radio feature]. PA has found the perfect balance between overwhelming, complicated, potentially phone-damaging features and the simple-yet-beautiful stock Jelly Bean 4.3.

My experience with Paranoid Android gave me a great opportunity to experiment with the different features included, and 4 really stand out to me:

Pie and Full Screen- There is a feature included that lets you spread two fingers apart vertically at the home screen to enter full screen mode, getting rid of the notification bar and the toolbar and replacing it with Pie: a small semicircle that appears at the bottom of your screen when you swipe up that combines the toolbar and the notification bar, giving you all of your notifications and buttons you would normally have on your toolbar, without the added space. The Pie is easily navigated by using simple swipes and can be positioned at any side of the screen, resized, and edited in other ways to make it your own.

Quick Settings: Not a revolutionary idea by any means, but PA gives you the option to put just about anything that you could want on Quick Settings that is easily accessed by pulling down the right side of the screen. I realize this is standard in most ROMs, but the ease and practicality of Paranoid’s usage of the Quick Settings menu really stood out to me.

Floating windows: You’ve been there: you’re watching a video on Hulu+ and you get a text message. In the days of old, in order to respond to that message you have to exit out of Hulu and got to your messaging app. Not so anymore. Now, you just select floating window and type over your video and get back to it after your message is sent.

2.      Style: Paranoid Android has an eccentric feel to it, and the default backgrounds, live wallpapers, and daydreams are fun and exciting. There’s a wild spirit to it that really stands as a polar opposite to the vanilla stock Android experience I’m used to. Maybe I’m just tame and boring, but PA has a style that I just can’t get over.

3.      Simplicity: Paranoid Android is simple enough for you to use it and barely touch the more complicated features and still get an amazing experience. My first week of using it I changed very little and just let it run as it was, and I was anything but disappointed.

Just a few cons:

HALO is a little personal assistant that pops up every time you get a notification. It’s very easy to accidently touch it and end up calling your voicemail or going to Facebook. You can disable it, but I’m sure some users will want to use HALO.

I dealt with some lag whenever I was dealing with multiple processes at once, however the GNex only has 1 Gb of RAM and a 1.2 GHz processor. Someone using a higher-end phone will most likely not have these problems.

All in all, Paranoid Android 4.3 is a great ROM for all kinds of users and will definitely be worth the download.