I finally upgraded my Nexus One to CyanogenMod 7.0, which is based on Android 2.3.3 (from 6.0, which is based on Android 2.2), this weekend.  I've got mixed feelings about the upgrade, for a couple of reasons.

First, I don't see that much of an improvement.  There are no mind-blowing features that I've encountered.  The speed of my phone feels about the same as it did with CyanogenMod 6.0.  However, that being said, two things are faster: IMAP e-mail retrieval and Wi-Fi connectivity.  The phone will connect to my WPA'ed and hidden SSID at home within 5-10 seconds whereas before it would usually take a couple of minutes.  The same with IMAP e-mail.  After refreshing my inbox it only takes a few seconds to synchronize and retrieve new messages, even on HSPA, vs. a minute or two with 6.0.

Secondly, some things are broken or don't exist anymore.

The CyanogenMod-specific feature that first started annoying me is the lack of numeric signal strength indicator on the status bar.  I loved this feature, since the number of "bars" usually means nothing to me.  I could easily look at the status bar and see if my signal was really good (-75 dBm) or really great (-67 dBm), while I'd have full bars under both conditions.  This feature isn't included in CM 7.0.  Why?  Supposedly the themes engine had problems with it.  See this for some more information.

I don't think this is a CM problem, but SMTP via IPv6 doesn't work anymore.  Yes, you read that right.  I haven't dug into it enough to determine who's at fault, but Android is sending an IPv6 literal for the EHLO argument without brackets or the IPv6: prefix, so my SMTP server (Exim) is throwing a hissy fit:

220 nox.prolixium.com ESMTP Exim 4.75 Sat, 16 Apr 2011 11:54:35 -0400
EHLO 2001:48c8:1:106:3ae7:d8ff:fe18:e670
501 Syntactically invalid EHLO argument(s)

I'll probably end up rolling a custom deb of Exim to fix this myself, since the Android fix will probably take awhile, and I don't feel like flashing my phone again.  There are loads of Android and Exim postings surrounding this, so just Google for it to get more details.

Let's see, what else.. oh, the camera sound can't be changed anymore.  I recall with CM 6.0 I could change it from the annoying "snap" sound to a less-obtrusive "beep beep" sound.  With CM 7.0 I can still change it, but I have to change /system/media/audio/ui/camera_click.ogg after mounting /system as rw.  Annoying, but at least the camera sound can still be muted (by silencing the whole device).

This is an Android 2.3 issue, but I don't like the behavior of the status bar, anymore.  I have a full power control widget on one of my screens so I could do without the limited and unnecessary power controls that take up valuable space when the status bar is unrolled.  Also, the finger dragging motion to unroll or roll up the status bar seems to have been modified, since I'm having a harder time with it compared to CM 6.0.  Also, I don't like that it's black by default.  Many applications that put icons in the notification area seem to assume a gray status bar, and have non-transparent gradations as a result.  They look silly and have a white "hue" around them.

Overall, I'm happy to be running 7.0, but meh, I probably should have skipped this upgrade.

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