Custom ROMs for the OnePlus 7T

 

Custom ROMs for the OnePlus 7T

Custom ROMs have been a primary reason for many users to unlock the bootloaders of their devices and has been a practice that has been going on for a while now. There are many ROMs to choose from with some cult classics like AOKP, Resurrection Remix and OmniROM still actively supporting new devices. However, just like in most markets, there are newer ROMs just joining the game in the last couple of years. One I recently came across is TreskMod, which is a Pixel-esque OmniROM for OnePlus phones. This article is going to focus on the pros and cons of each ROM specifically for the OnePlus 7T, as well as how easy they were to install, overall stability, and, most importantly, any extra customizations it brings to the table. 

MSM Xtended | Download

MSM was the first custom ROM I tried on my device, and I had a little bit of trouble getting it working at first, largely due to the new A/B partitioning scheme. I had never even heard of this system until my device broke because of it, so I had to learn more about this implementation and how it worked in order to get it back up and running. However, once I did fix it and begin to understand the flashing process, I got the ROM up and running pretty quickly and began setting up. It took a good minute or two to boot up first time around though.

The first builds for this ROM were actually some of the buggiest I’d ever seen released publicly, with random reboots almost every time Chrome crashed, the System UI crashed every night, and the battery life was downright awful! I was lucky to get 2 hours of screen on time, even with auto refresh rate on. Thankfully, the latest v12 builds are a lot more stable, and actually feature some useful changes to the old daunting customizations settings menu. It’s not as much of a headache anymore to fully utilize the customizations available in these settings menus, but you do still need to try every one of them to see which one you prefer. And let me tell you, there are a lot of customizations available.

Regarding the fingerprint sensor and face unlock, both worked pretty well in the first week or two, but the fingerprint would eventually need to be re-registered, and sometimes the area around it would need to be cleaned to improve the readability. Face unlock also wasn’t always in the ROM, however that doesn’t make it bad in the latest builds. It actually works pretty well and I haven’t personally experienced anything wrong with it. The FOD customizations allow you to choose a custom icon, which you have many pre-installed choices or you can use your own, but don’t mess with the overlay colour because it will make the reading slower.

With the latest updates, the battery life also drastically improved, with screen on time nearing a much better five hours with forced 90 Hz, but some users still advise to install the AOSiP kernel (through flashing its boot.img) to improve upon it. I was fine with the battery life, so I didn’t worry about flashing anything further.

AOSiP | Download

This was my fallback ROM from MSM after I’d tried its early builds. While this ROM was more stable at the time, it still wasn’t OxygenOS or OneUI stable. It just didn’t constantly reboot or crash too often. All of these issues have been fixed though, to bring a spectacular experience to many devices. One thing many people love about this is the long-lasting battery life, the mostly clean UI, and very few pre-installed apps. It ran on about 2.3 GB of RAM, had a base install size of 25 GB, which is 1 GB less than Oxygen OS 10, and ran a Pixel-like experience without filling the device with unnecessary Google Apps. That is also one of its caveats though, as you need to find a balance between too much, and also too little. This ROM may push the boundary a little bit into too less, but still makes the best of it by improving on RAM usage and a good biometric system.

Overall, this ROM was built for the user who wants a clean, fast, and long experience using their device in one sitting, without thinking much on storage, apps closing, or a lacking battery. They take this type of functionality over the hundreds of customizations other ROMs may flaunt for better stability and an overall safe move on the way it handles the system. This was also the only ROM to allow you the option of GApps, or no GApps, denoted under the ‘official’ and ‘gapps’ variants on each device download page.

OmniROM | Download

OmniROM has been with us for quite some time now, and was the first ROM ever developed for the OnePlus 7T! This ROM has a pretty similar system management style to AOSiP, however it wasn’t quite satisfying enough in the battery life department, lacked face unlock, and did reboot a couple of times. I found the system to be a lot more boring when compared to all other ROMs, potentially getting the balance between features and feature-less a little wrong.

Not only was it not quite as satisfying, but the installation method was a little longer. I don’t have a Windows PC, so I cannot walk you through the exact steps to extracting the images from a payload.bin, but I can walk you through the steps on a Linux machine. It was a little more difficult than it really had to be, and even after I set everything up it was a little cumbersome to get the process started. The command is pretty easy to remember though, so once you do remember it should be easy to set up again, but will take a little longer than just executing a script. An upcoming article on the extraction process on Linux is in the works, and once I do get a Windows capable machine I will also make sure to complete the process for that system too.

Overall, I would recommend AOSiP over this ROM just because they are practically the same, but AOSiP has the edge over Omni with stability and features. OmniROM does have the classic name and a larger following, but not quite the same build quality we all know and love. 

 

 

Omni TreskMod | Download

After a little bit of searching, I came across TreskMod and immediately wanted to try it out. The website made it look so promising, being built on OmniROM and employing a Pixel-like experience exclusively to OnePlus devices. While the ROM certainly is a thing of beauty, at the moment the latest build (20200617) is from June 17th, with no plans of an update until Android 11. Don’t mistake the reasoning behind this, since there still are a few bugs, especially when you first boot up the device. Device Personalization Services Has Stopped will keep popping up until you update the app in the Play Store, and Netflix, Google Pay and some other streaming services do not work unless you are rooted and using Magisk Hide.

Since the ROM is based on OmniROM, it does have the same payload.bin step, but for some reason I did find it to be a bit more stable and feature-full than Omni. It was a little less boring than Omni too, but may have went a little overboard with the Google Apps. However, since this ROM is supposed to provide a Pixel experience, I don’t think we can really complain here. It even has the Pixel boot screen, both light and dark for the respective modes, the Safety app, and many of the default Pixel media, such as Sounds, live wallpapers, and static wallpapers. 

Resurrection Remix | Download

Another veteran in the Android custom ROM community, RR has served the OnePlus 7T pretty well, with the only thing bringing it down at the moment being the battery life. They just released an update to fix stuttering and lagging on 60 Hz refresh rate mode and the intermittent issues with face unlock. This version of the ROM is based on Lineage OS, somewhat suggesting that a Lineage OS build is coming soon.

I’ve been using RR for just under two weeks now, and it has been a nice experience generally speaking, providing a similar software experience to TreskMod and MSM Xtended. It does have a few different customization options that I do prefer however, such as the QS tile style options, the ability to toggle the alert slider UI, and, my favourite, the colour changing QS panel. I think once battery life improves, this ROM has a chance at battling AOSiP and MSM as the best ROM available for this device…

Upcoming ROMs

Lineage OS 17.1 - There hasn’t been much recently in the news of a build for the OnePlus 7T, but has been previously mentioned that a build will soon support this device. Hopefully it will give us two options for Gapps or no Gapps like AOSiP. 

 

Paranoid Android (Quartz 5?) - The Lineage OS team have said in the past that a OnePlus 7T build is in the works and coming soon, so hopefully we won’t have to wait too much longer for this awesome ROM to materialize. I, for one, will be so excited to test out this ROM.

 

Open Beta 7 - While some users are trying to get away from Oxygen OS, some may just want to give the Open Beat 7 a quick look, since it does improve upon the global stable version. It does so by improving upon the super slow-motion mode, bringing 720p960 to the table and a dark mode toggle in the quick settings panel. It also gives you the latest August 2020 security patch and some bug fixes from the previous Open Beta 5 and 6.


Are there any other ROMs for the OnePlus 7T, or features I may have overlooked in other ROMs? Please let us know in the comments or send us an email at kyrangough2019@gmail.com!