[twilk]

Long? Yes! If you haven’t tried CM6 and you want to know what it’s about, read ahead. If you tried CM6 and you are very familiar, just skip.

First CM6 is the only rom fully based off of AOSP. Other roms include AOSP in them however they are not AOSP they are in fact sense roms with bits of AOSP added in. AOSP doesn’t have any HTC Sense and the CM6 rom will probably never have HTC Sense because it’s not open source. CM6 is all about open source because it’s legal to mod and use. A plus to no HTC sense means a lot of extra space on the internal memory. Now here is a list of CM6 features.

- CM6 has a different blue tooth stack (one that works with the Wii remote).

-Tethering and Hotspot is unlocked (you don’t need an extra app to make it work, the option is unlocked).

-There is a power widget that is far better than the stock power widget and it’s got a lot more customization then the stock power widget.

-YouTube parental settings are unlocked.

-Wireless N is unlocked (most roms have this unlocked already).

-There are options to have battery % inside the battery.

-You can turn the clock off in the status bar if you want.

-There is an option to monitor your cell phone signal strength.

-There is the option to change the color of the notification bar and the drop down menu individually.

-There is the option to place the phone down, or turn it over to silence the phone when getting a call.

-Haptic feedback can be tweaked.

-When you long press the home key you can bring up more recent apps (8, 12 or 15) or even change it to open an app instead.

-You have the option to set music controls on the lock screen when music plays or you can set it to show the controls all the time. The controls also work with Pandora.

-You can set the menu key to unlock to phone so you don’t have to slide to unlock.

-There are Performance settings that allow you to change whether JIT is on.

-You can set surface dithering (this improves image quality) and you can change the VM heap size.

-Sound settings include the options to focus notifications, this allows the running app to quiet down and let the notification sound play. You can set the notification, ringtone or alarm to a higher then default sound level. Meaning if notifications aren’t loud enough for you on the loudest setting then you can change it with CM6 to be louder.

-There is a render effect option that allows the screen to be all one color. Its similar to sepia or negative in the camera options where as if you choose negative for the camera it makes a black and white photo. The difference here is that the render effect has options for various colors like red, blue or lots of colors. It works with the whole phone though not with the camera.

-There are tweaks for the automatic backlight. These settings go beyond the standard backlight settings.

-FPS is unlocked to almost 60.

-You can set the screen so that it will rotate with almost any app, including the home screen. You can set the screen to have the ability to rotate 90, 180 or 270 degree’s.

-You can set how long the screen takes to turn the lock screen on. Ever turn off the screen or the screen shuts off and you go to turn it back on only to see the lock screen. Turn it back on before say 5 second and the lock screen won’t be there.

-Also this rom has the 3D gallery which I like.

-I think this rom pushes my Gmail, whenever I receive a Gmail its instant.

If I missed anything feel free to add.
One thing to remember this is not a sense rom so if you load it for the first time it might be overwhelming at first. You’ll notice the message and phone look way different. Also there is no voicemail standard you have to add it. Another thing the camera does have settings and yes you can change them. When you click on an icon on the right of the camera screen a box or window opens up, that window is scrollable. It’s not something that is obvious to most. I personally get excellent battery life with this rom and I have been running it since RC1. It’s as good if not better then the stock rom battery life. If you are noticing shorter battery life with any rom it’s probably your phone and not the ROM. I think that goes for all roms. However there are a few roms out there that are really geared towards getting better battery life. Also this rom is running very smooth and stable for me.

There are downsides to this rom and they are all pretty well known. There is no 4G (yet), no FM radio, no HDMI out. If you try to send a text over 160 characters it fails (this doesn’t happen for everyone). Some people also have issues with the 3D gallery (I do not have these issues). I think that’s an issue with all roms though. This rom doesn’t have a VVM app. You can load the Sprint one but if you do you will get a text as well as a VVM whenever you receive a VVM. Also HTC widgets don’t work on this rom, obviously.