Dr. Squishy reviews Energy ROM, Mighty ROM

[nerv666999]

AMEN! Though I have found many helpful people most of the sites dedicated to this pursuit are unusually obtuse and difficult to navigate. As you mention, there are many pages, especially those involving ROMs were files are referred to without any link in sight. Maybe it is like frat hazing rituals, I had to suffer and so should you. Too bad since it keeps many people out and it can only help the cause to have more people involved. I am sure this is but a small sampling of those that buy one of these phones only to be stunned at how locked in they are to the interface as it is.
Reviews that are as objective as possible would be a great step. Like airplane models, this ROM is equivalent to a snap together, no glue required, and this one here is like level 10 Japanese model with instructions written in Mandarin

[mswlogo]

Originally Posted by ModmyPPC

This is exactly why Im EVEN afraid of flashing a rom!



I personally dont have the time or energy to be fixing cooked roms. Eventhough its very tempting!

I thought I didn't either, but I'm sure glad I did. Ended up with Calkulin's Kitchen actually and once you get the hang of it, it's pretty quick and easy and you can set it up exactly the way you want. Lot's of folks customize the Kitchen but Calkulins Stock kitchen is plenty.

Don't tell Squishy though, his review would be 10 pages of babble not to mention noise on the Kitchen thread. I kind of agree with some of his conclusions though which is why I ended up on the Kitchen.

One tip I would give folks is pick a chef that is on the same carrier. That way they constantly are retesting Provisioning, Key Board mappings, ##Codes#, SMS/MMS etc. Yes they can all be fixed and Chefs work very hard to make it work for all carriers. Energy puts tons of effort into his ROMs but it was just to much of PITA to get it to behave PERFECTLY on Sprint.

[mxcrowe]

Marvelous! This was a great read and a wonderful opportunity to force us all to look in the mirror a bit...loved it. Clearly, lots of fun being had here, but where are we without humor? We all know the ROMs are free and the chefs freely donate their time and energy. If you felt poked a bit too hard by this "review", might want to take a harder look at your posts here...
On a more technical note, my experience could not be further from the squishy doctor's. Yes, I spent a significant amount of time searching threads, researching, sorting small bits of wheat from massive amounts of chaff, but overall, the flashing process for me went very smoothly and successfully. I used Mike's final version, not the projects, though everyone says War is just as stable. I have had zero problems and appreciate that some customization and app loading was left to me. (If I wanted bloatware, I would have just stuck with the stock ROM.) I didn't keep the VZW stock ROM on my phone long enough to know how bad it is, but if it's anything like the stock ROM from ATT on my Fuze, I'm happy to have the MightyROM on here from the start. Absolutely no problems so far!!
Great post. Great work from the chefs and those who support them and the forum. Leave room for a bit of humor, eh?

[Boo Boo]

yeap I dont update from the stock rom, no one cares about the end user they just want your money (donation) so they can toss out crap at every turn.

each rom should have a single page explaining whats in it not 15k replies

all the cookers do is just ad to the crap and never just stick with 1 build and explain how it works. but the mentality nowadays is lets see if we can shaft them like the carriers do

[redd214]

Originally Posted by Boo Boo

yeap I dont update from the stock rom, no one cares about the end user they just want your money (donation) so they can toss out crap at every turn.

each rom should have a single page explaining whats in it not 15k replies

all the cookers do is just ad to the crap and never just stick with 1 build and explain how it works. but the mentality nowadays is lets see if we can shaft them like the carriers do

yea cuz im sure there are plenty of chefs who make a living from cooking up roms so theyre just trying to jerk us for all out hard earned money.



seriously did you think before writing that?

anyways well done doc, def gots some laughs outta me!! cant wait for the next "reviews" haha

[fendi503]

Originally Posted by lbcary

I cant make my owm rom. But i can tell u if u want a fast stable WM 6.5 Sense 2.5 rom for Sprint then try Decks S3 R9 or R9.5 rom.The only difference is the R9.5 rom has the ereader tab on the bottom slider.Its a very fast,stable,rom.Ive used Decks Rseries roms for a long time and ive only ever dicovered one bug that has since been resolved in his newer builds.But if u want to try the newest Windows Mobile technology,the 6.5.X builds with Sense 2.5 then i would suggest the Plutonium V2 rom.Its build # is 23540 and ive been using it for about a week and it is the fastest,most stable WM 6.5.X rom that i have ever used.And yes i am one of those guys who will flash a rom or three a week to test out the newer or updated roms.Ive tried pretty much every rom on ppcgeeks at one time or another,and those are my favorite 2 roms for the TP2.But i like the Sense 2.5 roms which some claim arent as stable as the Sense 2.1 roms.but these days the Sense 2.5 roms are very stable,fast,and plenty reliable enough for daily use.Besides i dont like Sense 2.1 anymore.Right now im running the Plutonium V2 rom with WM 6.5.X and Sense 2.5.2012 and i am using Maxmanila 3.0 and it is compatible,even though Maxmanila 3.0 is supposed to be compatible with sense 2.5.2011.Maxmanila 3.0 wasnt compatible with Decks R9 or R9.5 roms that both have Sense 2.5.2012.But the Plutonium V2 rom with a WM 6.5.X build(23540) with Sense 2.5.2012 is compatible with Maxmanila 3.0, transparent fliplock, custom bottom slider that has the reader tab included(blue ash transparent slider),a custom CDMA bilboBrian 6.5.X taskbar,and alot of other customizations.and so far its running great with good memory and battery usage.And until i can cook my own roms im going to continue to customize the look of every rom to my liking with cab and zip files and try different roms.But so far my 2 favorite rom series is Decks R8.5(last of Decks roms thats compatible with Maxmanila 3.0),R9, and R9.5.But if u like the finger friendly 6.5.X rom builds then i like the Plutonium V2 rom.Both roms will need some setup but no more than the setup needed for my TouchDiamond,or Touch Pro,or Touch Pro 2.the rom is usually just up to ur specific taste.Try a few and see which u like the best.Thats what ive been doing.And ive been lookingfor a few months for a TP2 rom that i really love.The 420 rom looks very promising except for the cookiemonster app thats cooked in and the fact that its still in the apha stage and therefore rather buggy.But the 420 roms customizations look great and it is one of the nicest looking,clean and very customized look.The ETA for the rom is 4-20-10,hopefully.And i hope he removes the cookie monster app and just leaves it the regular Sense 2.5.No CookieMonster app.It ruins the the rom for me,but thats just because the cookiemonster app is not attractive and it tends to make the slider lag and it tends to make the links load slower.especialy with all of the quicklinks filled in with apps and programs.Its more trouble than its worth.Maxmanila is cool tho.And both cookiemonster and maxmanila can be installed via cab so that one can customize the rom to their liking.

Well look at this THING!!!

[Maxx134]

Boo Boo, you got it wrong, blame M$ for putting out so many OS Builds.
There is a price to pay for bleeding edge.
We do have safe rom chioses out there as well.
Us dudes see the world differently, we see it more analytical and technical,,
Were as you ladies have the benifit of processing events with both hemispheres of your brains, so your feelings and emotions have equal weight to the actual experience of your reality...
Dont tell Morpheus I told you about the matrix without giving you the red pill.

[Dr.8820]

the next person that qoutes a long-ass post just to say 1 or 2 words will answer to me!

[mswlogo]

Originally Posted by Boo Boo

yeap I dont update from the stock rom, no one cares about the end user they just want your money (donation) so they can toss out crap at every turn.

each rom should have a single page explaining whats in it not 15k replies

all the cookers do is just ad to the crap and never just stick with 1 build and explain how it works. but the mentality nowadays is lets see if we can shaft them like the carriers do

Boo Boo just made a big Boo Boo.

[BlaqMogul]

Originally Posted by Squishy

A summary of my experience with Energy ROM and Mighty ROM

by Dr. Squishy


Ok... first of all, I've been flashing ROM's for quite a while. When I received my TP2, I checked PPC geeks for the latest and greatest ROM... only to find that there wasn't an unlocker program out yet! Had the hackers found girlfriends? I was really depressed. So, I left it alone for about 6 months.

Gradually, my stock ROM started eating away at my brain. SMS message order somehow became all messed up... alarm clock worked *sometimes*... occasional lock ups, crashes, etc...

So, yesterday I decided to check into the wonderful world of ROM cooking, to see what was new and great. Lo and behold, an unlocker program existed, and what used to be "This thread reserved" was now full of lots of posts from ROM chefs. Rubbing my hands together, I started doing research to figure out what I'd install first.

Now, your experience may be completely different than mine. Here's how you'll know if this review will help you. Ask yourself the following questions:

1. Are you type A personality? Is everything in your life organized, clean, tidy, and well oiled? Or do you lay around in a pile of pizza boxes and cigarette butts?

2. Do you change your own oil in your car, simply because you enjoy fixing stuff? Or do you just "turn the key and go" without even knowing what a dipstick is?

3. Does it bother you to spend $50 to go to a movie, then be forced to watch commercials? Or do you just idly float through life without bothering with details such as who is president or where your next paycheck will come from?

If you answered yes to these questions, then you're probably technically minded like myself (I'm a PhD Engineer) and you probably have similar expectations from your phone as I have for mine. If you are the kind of person who piles garbage on their doorstep and frequently miss paying your electric bill, you probably have totally different needs from your phone, so go find a thread that focuses more on "twitter", "facebook" and whatever else the 14 year old girls on your block are obsessing about.

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Unlocking the phone
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Unlocking and modifying your ROM is a "gentlemen's club" of sorts. You don't get much pity from the locals if you don't know what you're doing. And, let's face it, the instructions aren't for the technically faint of heart.

I downloaded the latest HardSPL unlocker for my CDMA Sprint phone, and followed the instructions TO THE LETTER. (I'm Type A, remember?)... of course, it didn't work.

Every time I ran the executable with my phone plugged up, it would shut my phone down, and it wouldn't complete. After 3 or 4 attempts, I finally figured out that you have to start with the phone UNPLUGGED from your computer, run the unlocker, and THEN plug it in just before it starts the unlock process.

To make matters worse, I kept getting the warning that I could only do this one time, because the software "phones home" and tells big brother everything you're doing. Now, I have never been a fan of "phone home" software. If you were to look at my hosts file, you would see about 500 servers listed, most of which belong to Adobe. Having a limit to use is like saying "here you go- here's the only phone you'll need for the rest of your life". Uh... NO... I go through phones like I go through girlfriends. I don't want to have to ask a 16 year old kid permission to unlock my phone every time I get an itch for the latest piece of hardware. Remove that feature, and I'll gladly throw you $20 for your hard work. Sorry, that's the way it works in my world.

So in the time it took to write the last paragraph, my phone was unlocked and ready to go.. now the hard part: choosing a ROM

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Which ROM is for me?
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When I was big into trying ROMs, there were three main ones that seemed to stand out from the others in terms of stability, speed, and ease of use: Energy ROM, Mighty ROM, and Juicy ROM. These were the "Super Walmart/Target" of the ROM world, while the others seemed like "Dollar General". I can't be more specific than that- I've slept since then. But I was glad to see that these were at the top of the upgrade subforum, as usual.

So I started with Energy ROM.... and HOLY WTF what happened? Suddenly, there's

* Energy LEO 21892 Sense 2.5
* Energy LEO 23541 Sense 2.5
* Energy LEO 21892 Sense 2.5 with MaxManila
* Energy LEO 23541 Sense 2.5 with MaxManila
* Energy LEO 21892 Sense 2.5 with Cookie Hometab
* Energy LEO 23541 Sense 2.5 with Cookie Hometab
* Energy Phoenix2 21892 Sense 2.1
* Energy Phoenix2 21892 Titanium
* Energy Phoenix2 23541 Sense 2.1
* Energy Phoenix2 23541 Titanium

Are you kidding me? Used to, when I went to the store to buy chicken, there was just CHICKEN. Now there's free range chicken, antibiotic free chicken, organic chicken, refrigerated grilled chicken, and the politically correct chickens that prefer the term "yard birds". Sheesh I miss the good old days.

So, I did like most people do I'd imagine... I searched for a thread called "which fukin ROM do I use", and of course, I didn't find one. Then, I did what most people do, and selected the one with the biggest numbers, since big numbers usually mean "more bugs fixed, faster, etc". In this case, it's just a newer core OS release the ROM is based on, and it may or may not be better than the last... you just have to try it and see.

So I selected "Energy LEO 23541 Sense 2.5" (not knowing what MaxManila or Cookie Hometab were yet). Oh joy. They're on hotfile. Can I tell you how much hotfile sucks? Imagine you're in the worst part of town, and there's pawn shops on both sides of the street. There's two nice, brightly lit ones called "Megaupload" and "Rapidshare", then there's this one dingy, dilapidated one called "Hotfile". It's slower than AOL dialup and makes me cringe.

Anyway, using my 25Mbps super download speed, Hotfile was glad to give me 1% of my file in about 10 minutes (averaging around 0.9 bps I think). I poked around the internet and finally found a mirror (thank GOD) that gave it to me quicker. Otherwise I would have chewed all of my fingernails off.

Next, I unzipped the files and again, attempted to follow the instructions TO THE LETTER. (Type A, remember?). Step 1: run "CustomRUU.exe". Ok what's the joke here? Am I on candid camera? Why do the instructions say to run a file, and it's NOT EVEN INCLUDED IN THE DAMN ZIP FILE?!? At this point I was about ready to skip Energy all together and try the next ROM. But, I'm a trooper, so I read... and read... and read... I found post after post after post that looked like this:

"Where is the CustomRUU.exe file? I don't understand! Help please!"

followed by:

"OMG U R SUCH A N00B! We should have a contest to hit the n00bs with rocks every time they ask that question!"

or:

"Why do the instructions say to run the CustomRUU.exe file, but it isn't there?"

followed by:

"This question gets asked at least ONCE A DAY!! STUPID N00BS!!"

I was really getting frustrated at this point. Let's get a clue, here people. If it's asked EVERY DAY, there's a FUKING REASON it's asked. The damn thing doesn't work without it (unless you want to go through the trouble to copy the nbh file, rename it, figure out how to hard reset, etc etc etc... fuk that it should work as a single program, from within windows, and it should be user friendly. It's NOT THAT HARD to include the CustomRUU.exe file in the zip, is it?!? I mean REALLY?!?) It's gotten to where the locals are using the old "punch bug" game to make fun of people that don't understand why it doesn't work. (If you see "Punch ROM" then you know you're being made fun of... the school bullies are about to take your lunch money and stuff you in a locker. This is what happens when geeks try to subdue their ingrained inferiority complexes.

Here's how they probably treat their mothers:

"Eugene, could you come over and help me program my VCR? I'm getting to old to figure this stuff out."

"Punch VCR!"

"uh.. what?"

"OMG mom you're such a noob"

(sobbing) "what happened to my sweet boy who used to care for his mom?"

"OMG GO READ!! You are so STUPID!!"

(crying and hangs up)

"ROFL STUPID NOOB"

So, I did some breathing exercises, and searched for the file I needed, finally locating one, and copied it to the Energy folder. Then I kept getting an error: "File Not Found" when I ran CustomRUU.exe. Then that program proceeded to delete everything in my Energy folder. WTF!!!!! If I had a heavy object in my hand, it would have sailed through my LCD monitor at this point.

Finally, after rebooting my computer, the CustomRUU.exe program decided it would run for me, and it installed Energy ROM on my device. THANK M-F'n GOD. Is it this hard for everyone? WHy am I the only one who makes posts like this?!? sheesh.

-----------------------------
Trying Energy ROM
-----------------------------

I like the look and feel of Energy ROM, but there were a few "fixes" that had to be done first. "Here's your new car, sir! Oh but before you drive it, you'll need to fix the steering linkage assembly, calibrate the transmission, inflate the tires, activate the fuel pump, blah blah blah blah..." .

w h a t. So... it doesn't work right out of the box. ohhh... kaaay.... things sure have changed. But, I don't mind installing a few cabs, so let's get to it.

First, I had to repair the MMS. I tried 4 cabs before I found the right one (MMS Fix M2.1 Sprint) which seemed to work. Then I had to put in another cab to increase the send size to 5MB.
Next, the keyboard maps were wrong, so I had to install a cab to fix that.
The ROM didn't seem to come with a tether hack, so I had to find a cab for that... there were about 3 I found. I installed them all and I hope that one will work.

Everything seems ok, except that my indicator light blinks nonstop, and the menus are large enough to read across the room. You have to scroll 5 or 6 times to find the "Mark All As Read" to get the damn light to stop blinking. Used to, there was a tweak installed called "Finger Menus Off" that gave you nice, single spaced menus so you didn't have to do all that scrolling. Alas, that luxury is a thing of the past, and we're all stuck with big blimpy menus. yay.

Then, NinjaDuck posted a possible fix I hadn't found in my exhaustive search (you are ridiculed so bad for asking simple questions, that the forum conditions you to search for 5 days before asking politely. Then amongst the banter you eventually find your solution). There are not one... not two.. but SEVEN cabs to try and fix the menu problem. Wow. So I grabbed five of them in hopes one would work. Turns out the one that works the best is "HTCMenus1.1.Updated_ExtraSmall.cab by Cookie Monster. I owe somebody a beer.

The light issue isn't going away any time soon- despite installing a few cabs that claim to fix it. I noticed it wasn't an issue with other ROM's, so after using Energy for a day or so, I decided to try another ROM to compare. Boy was that a mistake.

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Mighty ROM
-----------------------------

Next, I tried the latest MightyROM. And when I say latest, I got to choose from:
* War Sense 2.5
* Impact Sense 2.5
* Love Sense 2.5
* Windows Phone Sense 2.1

Well. I like the fact there's less to choose from. From what I can figure, War is unstable, love is a little more stable, and Impact is in between (read: unstable). ok... so I just picked the one with the prettiest wallpaper (impact). Hey, I like planets and stars and stuff... I'm a nerd.

So, I downloaded Impact (THANK GOD it wasn't on Hotfile) and installed it. First thing I noticed: no planet wallpaper. Hmm. Did I download the right one? Seems like it. SO where's the pretty planet wallpaper? I searched all through the wallpaper folder, no planet. I searched online in the forums. Apparently, I'm the only schmuck that wanted the ROM to look like the picture. It's like going to a restaurant and ordering the succulent filet mignon on the menu, then they bring you a dry piece of rump roast on a paper plate.

But, oh well, with all these people downloading it, it can't be that bad, can it?

--------------------------------------
It's that bad... and then some.
--------------------------------------

First of all, it is a stripped down ROM. This time, your new car doesn't come with tires... or a transmission... or an engine, doors, seats, or sheet metal. It's a frame, and you get to build it yourself. yay. If I wanted to do that, I'd cook my own ROM.

So, I installed the tether fix... then the MMS fix... then I had to update Opera because it was the old version. Then I had to try and figure out where the pretty notification icons were (still can't find them). Tried to disable that god-forsaken T9 word completion thing.. but when you click the keyboard button, there's no small "up arrow" that allows you to set the text input options! JC on a popsicle stick! Next, the task manager is gone, I can't soft reset the phone, and there's no regedit or total commander installed. This damn thing is going to take all day!

So, before I give up, I see that there's this "MaxManila" thingy that is supposed to improve the UI. That's it. No other description. Just install it and pray I guess. So I install it, and now there's a grey rectangle over part of my clock, and the menu button doesn't work anymore.

Sadly, I never even bothered transferring my contacts into Mighty ROM, because it seemed that it was going to take a "Mighty" long time to get it the way I wanted.

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Time to move on
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Stay tuned... my search for a good ROM isn't over yet. Still more to come.

LOL.....this review had me dying! nice read. For everyone else that want to flame him for his OPINION need to lighten up......CHEFs: keep chefing it up....we appreciate the work that you do