I have loaded all the major custom ROMs on my Sprint TP2: Sprint Lovers ROM, Sharkie's ROM, MaxSense ROM, and VINdow's Plutonium ROM. All of them have phone dialer issues. On the Plutonium ROM, sometimes the phone dialer does not come up when someone is calling me or the phone freezes
. This problem occurs with or without CHT 2.0 installed.
In the Plutonium ROM, a bunch of apps are installed without anyway to remove them: AutoCallRecorder, ArcSwitch, IconChanger, PHMRegEdit, SIPChanger, SpbScreenShot, nueBattery, TarkimKeyboardController, and many more. In particular, I had nueBattery and Tarkim Keyboard Controller installed on my Touch Pro and TP2 running on the stock ROM for a long time. When I went to areas of low signal strength where the phone would constantly switch back and forth from Home and Roaming modes, the phone would slow down severely and not soft reset would remedy the problem. A hard reset was the way to go, and this was on the stock ROMs. I figured out that problem were these extra apps because they require much CPU and RAM on phones with limited capacity. Let's face it: these are things that if the manufacture does not build into the software the right way, we should not put it in there because they will cause fundamental problems for the device. Unfortunately, there was no way to remove these apps from the Plutonium ROM
.
I know that VIN has worked very hard on this ROM, but if the dialer is not working properly, the device is not capable of its primary function, which is to make and receive calls.
The volume keys also do not work properly on the Plutonium ROM: they do nothing when I press and hold them to put the volume all the way up or all the way down. Instead, you have to click on the volume up or down repeatedly to make the volume go all the way up or down. The lock screen volume is also not connected to the dll of the HTCVolume program in the Window's folder, so the native MS volume control comes up if the user clicks on the Volume button of the lock screen when a call comes through.
I decided to do a task29 and go back to the HTC/Sprint stock ROM and not make any major modification to my TP2, and I will never try another stock ROM. It is just too time consuming to install everything, and I know developing the ROMs are even a greater time consumer. I have also learned that Microsoft and HTC just suck: there is no talent thus no good design in their product, and they don't do enough research to know what their customers want. Otherwise, so many people will not have to flash custom ROMs to try to remedy the deficiencies of their software and hardwares.
I am so disappointed in Microsoft and HTC because there were so many things that they could have easily fixed or developed that they did not. I will wait for the next generation of the SnapDragon chips,
which are rumored to be multi-cored and to have 2 GHz clock speed to be released over the summer, and then I will fully divorce myself from both HTC and Microsoft (or should I say MicroSuck) despite having to pay full price for my next phone--I was stupid enough to use my discounts on buying TP2 last summer before EVO came out. I just hope Apple releases the iPhone 5 on Sprint in the summer, and I will go with that.
So far HTC/Microsoft phones have been a headache for me. I wanted their features, but they often malfunctioned. Oh well, Microsoft and HTC are old technology and bad thinking; it happens when you are a monopoly. And that's why the new Windows Phone is a loser. I don't think that Microsoft will make it in this market, and by next year they will stop their mobile software line. Before the iphone revolution, Microsoft had no competition: the other guys like blackberry were geared toward people that mainly wanted a good push email service not a pocket size computer. Well the iPhone changed that and the Android expanded on it. But the good thing is that the iPhone is well built and regular updates keep coming unlike Microsoft Window Mobile operating system.
So long custom ROMs
! I hope you guys can find a fix for the phone dialer issues, but I recommend everyone to divorce himself from Microsoft Mobile operating system and move on. The software never worked well
.