PPCGeeks - Dr. Squishy's ROM Review Thread (Updated 2/4/09)

Dr. Squishy's ROM Reviews

First, I tried using the Sprint stock ROM. As many of you have noticed, it's a little sluggish, and I didn't want most of the programs on there.

I used to have a Mogul. One thing I hated about that phone is that the slowest app was the phone. I mean, what's the #1 use for a phone? When pressing buttons, I'd dial the whole number, then watch as the phone slowly recognized the digits and entered them one by one (sometimes missing a digit).

Imagine my delight when I fired up my Touch Pro and it just... WORKED. I was very happy. And for a while, all was good.

Then, my inner tweak monkey brought me back here to see what ROM's were out.

The first one I tried was just the Sprint Cleanup thingy:

http://forum.ppcgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=44583

That worked ok... but I wanted to see what else was out there.

So, first I searched... and searched... to see what ROM people really liked. Seems a lot of people like the Juicy 4.7 ROM. A google search for "juicy 4.7 herman download" revealed several torrent links that allowed me to get it. Apparently, Juicy's ROM wasn't put on this site because of irrational fear from the Mods or something. (Oh the irony... a bunch of hackers afraid of laws).

Before I could install my new Juicy ROM, I had to first unlock the phone. It was pretty simple- just followed the instructions here:

http://forum.ppcgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=43266&page=5 (see post #50).

One problem in these instructions is that the "hard reset" function has been changed by Sprint.

Old way (doesn't work any more):
While phone is on, press volume down, center d-pad, and stylus-reset until message comes on
New way (this works):
While phone is OFF, press volume down, cener d-pad, and power button until message comes on. Press volume up to complete.

So after putting on the HSPL (see instructions in post 50 mentioned above), I was ready to flash my Juicy ROM. I did it using Activesync from my PC and it was very fast/easy.

Here now, without further ado, are my reviews of various ROMS as I try them.
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JUICY 4.7
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PROS

I liked the Juicy ROM- I noticed it was definitely faster. No lag when scrolling, programs loaded faster, etc. It has a clean interface and is very lightweight.

CONS

Since Juicy went into exile from PPCgeeks (lol), the ROM hasn't been updated in a while. The last update was 1/8/2009 I believe, but compared to others who update their ROM's daily... Anyway, this ROM was missing a few programs that I like, such as Sprint NAV. Also, I'm not a big fan of the black/grey theme. I like the colored icons from Sprint. But, this may be a memory hog, and I much prefer performance to asthetics. Juicy seemed pretty stable... I didn't have to reset any that I can recall.

During my tweaking, I tried to add a tweak that includes the Calendar App to the TFlo interface. Unfortunately, the one I downloaded was for the Diamond, and I wound up screwing up my TFlo. So, I figured I'd use this ROM as a comparison standard, and try some other ROM's.

KK's 1.4
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PROS

I liked this ROM because it let me try a BUNCH of programs. It has a stock market tab on the TFlo interface, as well as the calendar app (which Juicy lacked). It not only comes with Sprint NAV, but a bunch of other cool GPS apps. (I really dig GPS stuff for some reason). Perhaps my most favorite program was the light saber program that made sounds when you swing your phone around. This pleases my inner nerd. The interface was fantastic- everything that I could want... battery with % meter on every page, pretty icon colors, wallpapers, etc.

CONS

All of that luxury comes at a price, however. The phone was about as sluggish as the stock ROM, despite other's claims that it ran fast on their phones. Perhaps the fact that I don't do a hard reset after every ROM upgrade may have something to do with it. But I've seen other ROM's that are faster right after flashing, so I don't think this is an issue. I decided to try the ROM out for a while despite the slight lag. (If it were really bothersome I would have immediately switched to another ROM). It did lock up a couple of times on me, and it wouldn't run my Monopoly game. (I gotta have my Monopoly fix). Another thing I didn't like was that the home screen couldn't make up its mind whether to flip or not when I slid open the phone. So, I wrote down the programs that I really liked on this ROM, and decided to try another one.

Programs I dig: Beejive (chat), In call recorder, light saber, smart phone tracker, stopwatch, ticker tape, hTorch, psShutXP.

Mighty ROM 4.9.3
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PROS

Of all the ROM's I've tried so far, this one seems the fastest and most stable. (Even faster than Juicy's in my opinion). Now, I'm not doing any "benchmarking" or clinical tests here. This is all subjective. Things I look for when testing speed:

- how long does startup take?
- how long to populate the windows folder in file explorer?
- how long does it take to scroll quickly in the windows folder?
- when switching to phone app, how long a delay is it between when I press a number, and a sound is heard?
- when typing with keyboard in a long threaded SMS, is there any delay in key presses and text appearing on screen?
- how long does it take to open & scroll the Programs window?

Based on these quick-and-dirty tests, the Mighty ROM is faster than all previous... hands down. But, it's also light on content (like Juicy's). Obviously there's a trend here. When using KK's ROM, I felt like I had a really feature-rich gadget that I wanted to show off to everyone. With Mighty ROM, I feel like I have a super fast gizmo that does everything I need, and fast (but without the curb appeal).

So that's where I am for now- I'll probably stick with Mighty for a while, uploading content I need (like Sprint NAV). Stay tuned for future reviews...

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UPDATE (2/4/09)

Using Mighty's ROM, I decided to see how it would behave with various themes installed. First, I tried the BBExtreme theme (from Showaco). A little confusing on how to install.... couldn't find the wallpapers folder. Then I found Showaco's Blue TF3D theme, and it had additional install instructions for Sprint. Apparently, I needed to install a few files first in order to get the theme to work. All of those threads are at XDA. (I won't post URL's here... not sure what the rules are). At any rate, the blue theme was very cool, and only slowed down the Mighty ROM a tad bit. I like the colors and effects, so it seems to give the phone the "flash" I was looking for without sacrificing speed. I did note that the CFC version (compressed) seems to work a lot faster than the regular version. Faster = Better as we all know. (So I don't know why the author still has the regular version available... but whatever). I did notice that this theme doesn't change the hideous green highlight color... so I just installed UItweak and played around with that until I found a highlight color (blue) I could live with.

So I got most of my applications installed... now I gotta figure out how to save this setup to a BIN file or something so I can go back to it later.