NOTE: THESE ARE REVIEWS TAKEN FROM MY OWN DEVICE, SO USER EXPERINCE MAY VARY A BIT.
NOTE2: Even if the overall rating of a ROM is high it does not mean that it’s instantly better than the other one. Also if it has a high rating it does not mean it’s a daily driver (CM9).
NOTE3: These reviews were correct at time of writing, if something has changed I’ll try to update this.
Note4: The ease of use rating is coming from what I expect a newbie to experience. Also, because this rating is a bit subjective, I’m not counting it in at the overall score.
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This ROM comes in two variations: Nightly and Stable.
Nightly
The main difference between Nightly and Stable is that the Nightly builds are (were) compiled every night, but didn’t necessarily work perfectly (although my personal experience is that, there were some “bad” builds, but most of them are pretty stable).
The nighties have stopped being compiled by the “build bot” and must be compiled by the user to get the latest ones.
One our phone the user “ErwinP” has been compiling nightlies, you can find them by going to the last page of this topic: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1015532 and going back a couple of pages sometimes.
Stable
Stable builds were only compiled every couple of months, so they were very stable, but didn’t always have all the latest “gadgets” in them.
Based on: 2.3.7
Customization:
This is the ROM for you if you want a lot of customization, because here you can change a lot of things from the inbuilt “CyanogenMod settings” menu (Different lockscreen types, status bar on the bottom, configure screen rotation, …). It also has an inbuilt screenshot function, that you can access from the power menu (long press the power button).
It also comes with an inbuilt theme-engine (T-Mobile theme engine) which can turn your phone into anything you want if you have the theme. They can also theme apps, so if you, for example, install an ICS theme, the dialer, SMS, search,… apps will be themed. The themes themselves comes as .apk files that you install (You can also find some on the market!) and then activate from the Theme Switcher app.
It is also the ROM that has the most developer support, so there are tons of tweaks and fixes available.
Performance:
When comparing the performance to a 2.2 Sense ROM, the speed decrease is quite noticeable some times. For example when you move to a different screen with a live wallpaper, the wallpaper will freeze for a bit while switching.
Apps:
By default it doesn’t come with the Android Market, because they had to make a deal with Google about providing Google Apps as a separate package, so you’ll need to install that as well if you want the Market.
The stock launcher it uses is ADW, which is open sourced and integrated into the settings screen if you’re using it for your default.
Other stuff: If coming from a Sense ROM, you’ll need to re-flash the radio or turn the GPS in the Sense ROM on then flash if you want your GPS to work.
Rating:
Customization: 10/10
Performance: 5/10
Stability: 7/10
Developer Support: 9/10
Overall: 7.8/10
Ease of use: 5/10
Stable: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1297764
Nightly: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1015532 (Search for ErwinP’s builds to get the latest ones)
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Based on: 2.2
Customization:
This one does also have an inbult theme engine, but here you need to flash a .zip file, then chose it in the settings and finally reboot your phone. It does have CyanogenMod Settings, but here they’re a bit less “expansive”, since a lot of the options were added later. Also a lot of options are hidden in the User interface settings.
Performance:
This ROM is quite fast, but it also doesn’t come with as many CM options as CM7 does. The notification pull down is still a bit stutter-y, but quite an improvement over CM7.
Stability:
I’d say that the stability of this ROM is pretty much on-par with CyanogenMod 7. Everything I tested worked (Including the camera and recording).
Apps: Just like CM7, you have to flash a Google Apps package to get the Market and other Google apps. Otherwise this is pretty much stock FroYo (Except for a few apps, like IO File Manager).
Rating:
Customization: 7/10
Performance: 8/10
Stability: 7/10
Developer Support: 6/10
Overall: 7/10
Ease of use: 5/10
(Download only)Link: http://download.cyanogenmod.com/get/buzz/update-cm-6.1.0-buzz-signed.zip
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Our Wildfire has been dropped from official CM9 support, so we will only have unofficial ones. This one is compiled by ErwinP as well. Otherwise the main developer that fixes CM9 for our phone is arco68.
Based on: 4.0
Customization:
As of now, the customization is lacking a bit, since not even the “big” devices have left alpha builds of CM9. But as I’ve seen it already has a placeholder for theme settings, which means it’s going to have theming support, just like CM7
Performance:
This is where this ROM is lacking the most. Since ICS is heavily reliant on GPU acceleration it stutters a bit on our phone because it doesn’t have it. That is also the reason the CyanogenMod team dropped official support for our phone. One place where a performance decrease is really noticeable is when you change the phone from portrait to landscape (The screen goes black for a second and then it does the animation and switches)
Apps:
It uses a similar system with the Google Apps, as in you need to flash an additional packaged to get them.
The stock launcher it uses is the Trebuchet Launcher, which is their own modified stock launcher and it provides a lot of settings that the regular one doesn’t.
CM9 will also have a custom music player, made by the development team itself.
Other stuff:
I personally don’t recommend this ROM as a daily driver, because a whole plethora of stuff doesn’t work (yet?). Last I checked you couldn’t call because the phone activity would force close (Not sure about this!). Also the camera doesn’t work.
Rating:
Customization: 6/10
Performance: 3/10
Stability: 3/10
Developer Support: 6/10
Overall: 4.5/10
Ease of use: 2/10
Link: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1473344
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Rempuzzle is the continuation of Wildpuzzle, quite a nice ROM, which got discontinued.
Based on: Stock 2.2.1
Customization:
I'd say that the customization is mostly not as "deep" as, per say CM7, because it is still based on the stock ROM. It does come with some Sense Mods by stock (Custom “dock” in the launcher, custom Sense lockscreen, …) and it does also come with Sense 3.0 wallpapers. Oh and the clock in the Sense launcher flips!
Performance:
This is a very smooth ROM, especially when comparing it to CM7. For example when I swipe the notification bar up and down after I restored all my apps it doesn’t stutter or lag. One odd thing I noticed is that the phone seems to spend a lot more time at the splash screen when using this ROM.
Apps:
Comes in two versions, “lite” and “full”. The lite version is mostly stripped of HTC apps, but you can install them afterwards by running the What I Like tool from the author. Did come with some apps that I personally thought were a bit unnecessary like Plurk and OpenVPN. (This is where most Sense ROMs differ. Some have more apps and some have less.)
Other stuff:
Because of the new flip clock, there’s also an animation that’ll go of sometimes, but the problem is that the “clouds” that are supposed to show on a cloudy day are just grey squares. This is easily fixable by re-placing the clock widget and un-ticking "Show full screen animations" when given the option to.
Also it’s very newbie friendly (But aren’t all HTC Sense ROMs?), because it’s pretty much just modded stock, so a newbie coming from Sense won’t have problems adapting.
Rating:
Customization: 5/10
Performance: 9/10
Stability: 8/10
Developer Support: 7/10
Overall: 7.3/10
Ease of use: 8/10
Link: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=978197
Other very good 2.2 Sense ROMs:
DK Custom Froyohttp://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=878115
JokerDroid:http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=999899
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This ROM is based on AOSP. It does have some custom modifications that look like they came from CM7 (Status bar mods, inbuilt overclock), but doesn’t have as many as CM7. It does come with the stock launcher, but it seems to force-close every time I want to open it, so it has Zeam launcher as the replacement.
Based on: AOSP 2.3.7
Customization:
It doesn’t have support for the Theming Engine present in CM7, so I’d say it’s as customizable as 2.2 Sense ROMs. Otherwise this is not themed at all, the only changes done were a couple extra settings menus and Zeam launcher.
Performance:
It is fast! Almost as fast as the 2.2 Sense ROMs! Guess all the customization is bogging down CM7 a bit. Although I will say, the default launcher (Zeam) feels sluggish when opening the app-drawer and scrolling through the apps and just scrolling in general (Zeam launcher that is, scrolling in this ROM is very smooth).
Stock apps:
This is essentially very minimalistic; it only comes with 24 apps in the app-drawer. They have really been trying to keep it AOSP-ish with a few tweaks. It comes with the Google Apps preinstalled.
Other stuff:
It has a problem with the Camcorder, it force-closes every time you want to “stop” recording.
Rating:
Customization: 5/10
Performance: 6/10
Stability: 6/10
Developer Support: 6/10
Overall: 5.8/10
Ease of use: 5.8/10
Link: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1139259
Oxygen with the AOSP Launcher working: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1458749
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Post in the comments below if I made a mistake or if any of the problems got fixed.
You can also post your own reviews in the comments!
NOTE2: Even if the overall rating of a ROM is high it does not mean that it’s instantly better than the other one. Also if it has a high rating it does not mean it’s a daily driver (CM9).
NOTE3: These reviews were correct at time of writing, if something has changed I’ll try to update this.
Note4: The ease of use rating is coming from what I expect a newbie to experience. Also, because this rating is a bit subjective, I’m not counting it in at the overall score.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CyanogenMod 7
This ROM comes in two variations: Nightly and Stable.
Nightly
The main difference between Nightly and Stable is that the Nightly builds are (were) compiled every night, but didn’t necessarily work perfectly (although my personal experience is that, there were some “bad” builds, but most of them are pretty stable).
The nighties have stopped being compiled by the “build bot” and must be compiled by the user to get the latest ones.
One our phone the user “ErwinP” has been compiling nightlies, you can find them by going to the last page of this topic: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1015532 and going back a couple of pages sometimes.
Stable
Stable builds were only compiled every couple of months, so they were very stable, but didn’t always have all the latest “gadgets” in them.
Based on: 2.3.7
Customization:
This is the ROM for you if you want a lot of customization, because here you can change a lot of things from the inbuilt “CyanogenMod settings” menu (Different lockscreen types, status bar on the bottom, configure screen rotation, …). It also has an inbuilt screenshot function, that you can access from the power menu (long press the power button).
It also comes with an inbuilt theme-engine (T-Mobile theme engine) which can turn your phone into anything you want if you have the theme. They can also theme apps, so if you, for example, install an ICS theme, the dialer, SMS, search,… apps will be themed. The themes themselves comes as .apk files that you install (You can also find some on the market!) and then activate from the Theme Switcher app.
It is also the ROM that has the most developer support, so there are tons of tweaks and fixes available.
Performance:
When comparing the performance to a 2.2 Sense ROM, the speed decrease is quite noticeable some times. For example when you move to a different screen with a live wallpaper, the wallpaper will freeze for a bit while switching.
Apps:
By default it doesn’t come with the Android Market, because they had to make a deal with Google about providing Google Apps as a separate package, so you’ll need to install that as well if you want the Market.
The stock launcher it uses is ADW, which is open sourced and integrated into the settings screen if you’re using it for your default.
Other stuff: If coming from a Sense ROM, you’ll need to re-flash the radio or turn the GPS in the Sense ROM on then flash if you want your GPS to work.
Rating:
Customization: 10/10
Performance: 5/10
Stability: 7/10
Developer Support: 9/10
Overall: 7.8/10
Ease of use: 5/10
Stable: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1297764
Nightly: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1015532 (Search for ErwinP’s builds to get the latest ones)
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CyanogenMod 6
Based on: 2.2
Customization:
This one does also have an inbult theme engine, but here you need to flash a .zip file, then chose it in the settings and finally reboot your phone. It does have CyanogenMod Settings, but here they’re a bit less “expansive”, since a lot of the options were added later. Also a lot of options are hidden in the User interface settings.
Performance:
This ROM is quite fast, but it also doesn’t come with as many CM options as CM7 does. The notification pull down is still a bit stutter-y, but quite an improvement over CM7.
Stability:
I’d say that the stability of this ROM is pretty much on-par with CyanogenMod 7. Everything I tested worked (Including the camera and recording).
Apps: Just like CM7, you have to flash a Google Apps package to get the Market and other Google apps. Otherwise this is pretty much stock FroYo (Except for a few apps, like IO File Manager).
Rating:
Customization: 7/10
Performance: 8/10
Stability: 7/10
Developer Support: 6/10
Overall: 7/10
Ease of use: 5/10
(Download only)Link: http://download.cyanogenmod.com/get/buzz/update-cm-6.1.0-buzz-signed.zip
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CyanogenMod 9 RC-0 (unofficial)
Our Wildfire has been dropped from official CM9 support, so we will only have unofficial ones. This one is compiled by ErwinP as well. Otherwise the main developer that fixes CM9 for our phone is arco68.
Based on: 4.0
Customization:
As of now, the customization is lacking a bit, since not even the “big” devices have left alpha builds of CM9. But as I’ve seen it already has a placeholder for theme settings, which means it’s going to have theming support, just like CM7
Performance:
This is where this ROM is lacking the most. Since ICS is heavily reliant on GPU acceleration it stutters a bit on our phone because it doesn’t have it. That is also the reason the CyanogenMod team dropped official support for our phone. One place where a performance decrease is really noticeable is when you change the phone from portrait to landscape (The screen goes black for a second and then it does the animation and switches)
Apps:
It uses a similar system with the Google Apps, as in you need to flash an additional packaged to get them.
The stock launcher it uses is the Trebuchet Launcher, which is their own modified stock launcher and it provides a lot of settings that the regular one doesn’t.
CM9 will also have a custom music player, made by the development team itself.
Other stuff:
I personally don’t recommend this ROM as a daily driver, because a whole plethora of stuff doesn’t work (yet?). Last I checked you couldn’t call because the phone activity would force close (Not sure about this!). Also the camera doesn’t work.
Rating:
Customization: 6/10
Performance: 3/10
Stability: 3/10
Developer Support: 6/10
Overall: 4.5/10
Ease of use: 2/10
Link: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1473344
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Rempuzzle (and most 2.2 Sense ROMs in general)
Rempuzzle is the continuation of Wildpuzzle, quite a nice ROM, which got discontinued.
Based on: Stock 2.2.1
Customization:
I'd say that the customization is mostly not as "deep" as, per say CM7, because it is still based on the stock ROM. It does come with some Sense Mods by stock (Custom “dock” in the launcher, custom Sense lockscreen, …) and it does also come with Sense 3.0 wallpapers. Oh and the clock in the Sense launcher flips!
Performance:
This is a very smooth ROM, especially when comparing it to CM7. For example when I swipe the notification bar up and down after I restored all my apps it doesn’t stutter or lag. One odd thing I noticed is that the phone seems to spend a lot more time at the splash screen when using this ROM.
Apps:
Comes in two versions, “lite” and “full”. The lite version is mostly stripped of HTC apps, but you can install them afterwards by running the What I Like tool from the author. Did come with some apps that I personally thought were a bit unnecessary like Plurk and OpenVPN. (This is where most Sense ROMs differ. Some have more apps and some have less.)
Other stuff:
Because of the new flip clock, there’s also an animation that’ll go of sometimes, but the problem is that the “clouds” that are supposed to show on a cloudy day are just grey squares. This is easily fixable by re-placing the clock widget and un-ticking "Show full screen animations" when given the option to.
Also it’s very newbie friendly (But aren’t all HTC Sense ROMs?), because it’s pretty much just modded stock, so a newbie coming from Sense won’t have problems adapting.
Rating:
Customization: 5/10
Performance: 9/10
Stability: 8/10
Developer Support: 7/10
Overall: 7.3/10
Ease of use: 8/10
Link: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=978197
Other very good 2.2 Sense ROMs:
DK Custom Froyohttp://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=878115
JokerDroid:http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=999899
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Oxygen
This ROM is based on AOSP. It does have some custom modifications that look like they came from CM7 (Status bar mods, inbuilt overclock), but doesn’t have as many as CM7. It does come with the stock launcher, but it seems to force-close every time I want to open it, so it has Zeam launcher as the replacement.
Based on: AOSP 2.3.7
Customization:
It doesn’t have support for the Theming Engine present in CM7, so I’d say it’s as customizable as 2.2 Sense ROMs. Otherwise this is not themed at all, the only changes done were a couple extra settings menus and Zeam launcher.
Performance:
It is fast! Almost as fast as the 2.2 Sense ROMs! Guess all the customization is bogging down CM7 a bit. Although I will say, the default launcher (Zeam) feels sluggish when opening the app-drawer and scrolling through the apps and just scrolling in general (Zeam launcher that is, scrolling in this ROM is very smooth).
Stock apps:
This is essentially very minimalistic; it only comes with 24 apps in the app-drawer. They have really been trying to keep it AOSP-ish with a few tweaks. It comes with the Google Apps preinstalled.
Other stuff:
It has a problem with the Camcorder, it force-closes every time you want to “stop” recording.
Rating:
Customization: 5/10
Performance: 6/10
Stability: 6/10
Developer Support: 6/10
Overall: 5.8/10
Ease of use: 5.8/10
Link: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1139259
Oxygen with the AOSP Launcher working: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1458749
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Post in the comments below if I made a mistake or if any of the problems got fixed.
You can also post your own reviews in the comments!
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