Remember years ago, how Evolution-X was many people’s go-to ROM, well — not anymore thanks to our guy “Joey”. Said “Developer” is apparently the nail in the coffin for Evolution-X. I recently discovered, his contributions aren’t really his and he’s so much trouble that a whole website was dedicated to him!

I discovered Evolution-X while looking for a seemingly decent custom ROM for my current phone, the Mi 9T pro (or Redmi K20 Pro for people in the East), the offerings seem nice on the surface. Quite frequent updates, the latest android version and exclusive features, which turned out to be stolen from other ROMs, and the ability to customize pretty much everything UI-wise. But below what looks quite pretty on the surface, almost like a street adorned for Christmas, we all know lie the sewers, and, what goes on down there? A river of garbage and excrements. And that’s basically what the experience feels like using Devolution-X, i can’t talk for the performance on other hardware, but on the mi 9t pro it is exactly like trying to walk in said river. Sluggish animations haunt your everyday use, on the lock-screen, the home page, the app drawer and even the settings. There’s also this funny thing about the display settings giving you 4 different color-profiles to choose from, and they all look the same except for “standard”. The others may as well be called “Saturation 200%”, “Saturation 300%”, “Saturation 400%”, and so on. Really. There’s no difference. They really look like someone who’s worked on Youtube video thumbnails for children set them up. And, tbh, Xiaomi should hire them, i hear the Redmi A2 is still flying off the shelves for parents who can’t afford better phones for their children. Yet another testament to how shit this ROM is, plus they could’ve really omitted the whole quick-settings “Image banner” customization. I hate it when my waifu’s nudes meet the eyes of a stranger in public. Happened to me once, i was devastated, real story.

Friendship ended with Devolution-X, YAAP is my new best friend

After realizing how dogshit Evolution-X is, i browsed XDA-Developers for a bit to find a worthy replacement candidate - the bar is really, really low on this one - and found quite a few people vouching for YAAP (Yet Another AOSP Project). Installing this ROM was a breeze and you don’t need to flash any specific recovery side-eye to Evolution-X, TWRP or OrangeFox work just the same. The experience is really smooth and although the latest update is stuck on A16 QRP1, personally, it’s not a deal-breaker. If you know where you look you can find test builds of A16 QPR2 going around. Overall, customizations are non-invasive and the ROM includes a few useful features not present in others, an Anti-flicker mode, High Brightness Mode and my favorite one, Increase touch sensitivity. Monet engine customization settings are kept under “Display Settings” -> “Theming Settings”, quite neat organization, and non-invasive unlike on Evolution-X. Under system settings you can also find quite neat customization menus: Status bar preferences, Quick settings and Miscellaneous. Status bar is quite self explanatory. Quick settings lets you customize the half-open curtain’s look, tiles and enable automatic actions for some. Miscellaneous lets you enable advanced reboot options, change backup transport layer and enable spoofing for the GMS client.