Root Best ICS ROM for Rezound?

[obscuro]

Still waiting for the OTA, but as Scotty said, maybe people are overhyping the OTA since there are more full-featured custom ROMS available now based on the previous OTA leaks. So just thinking, what is the best ICS rom for the rezound in your experience?

To choose from:
--Newts OnE XxX RLS 3 (Sense 4 ICS 4.0.3) based on the most recent OTA release candidate
--[ROM 7/11 CONROMV5][4.0.3OTA Sense3.6+DeSense][DeBloated Root Aroma Tweaks][CDMA/GSM]
--[ROM] Ineffabilis Deus v1.1 [6/26/12] Sense 3.6 | Beats | Tweaks | 3.14.605.10
--[ROM][7/8][V5.7] Nils' Business ICS 4.0.3 Sense 3.6 (ICS Latest) (Aroma Installer)

I don't know if Sense 4 is better than Sense 3.6. Newt's is based on source from the Droid Incredible 4G and EVO 4G LTE, so that seems like it could add the latest "HTC experience." I wasn't crazy about the 3D effects of Sense 3.6 (looks nice but eats up the Rezound's somewhat-small battery).

I have bravia engine and xloud (to improve pictures, videos and sound output) already installed over stock GB, and want to keep those easily in a new ROM if I can. That makes Ineffabilis Deus attractive.

I take a lot of photos, both personal and work, on my Rezound, so I want to get the most of the Rezound's already excellent camera. I wonder if the software camera in one of these roms would be better than stock Rezound cam + bravia + Fast Burst Cam.

Scotty, anyone else, do you have any preferences?

 

[scotty85]

i am running news rom,its an inc 4g port,and is IMO the most functional of all the sense 4 roms. im excited to see nils working on a sense 4 rom,but its an evita port,and is not functional enuff yet for me(mainly becasue i need bluetooth)

conrom is based on our stock leak,and as such is extremely stable,as is nils business ICS. i personally really like the mild darkish-theme of nils roms,business sense is one of my favorites. you could not go wrong with either of these 2.

if youre an AOSP fan,there are a couple ohter senseless roms(not AOSP,but AOSPy feel) you may want to check out:
[ROM][07/11][SlimROM v1.7] Desensed/Tweaks/Rooted OTA 3.14.605.10 - xda-developers

[Rom] [7/15/12] Senseless Chaos RLS X1 [Senseless] [CDMA] - xda-developers

 

[thornev]

I've been using CleanROM 4.5 Standard for 2 months. Very stable. However, no updates since ICS leak 3.14.605.5 and none expected.

 

[obscuro]

Thanks guys, appreciate the feedback. Couple questions for scotty:

On Newt's rom, do you flash boot.img before or after flashing the ROM?

When installing ConROM, it says "reboot to bootloader to flash PH98IMG.zip." Which PH98IMG.ZIP is it talking about? The stock recovery or what? Also, do I need to do a GB firmware patch with either of those two ROMS?

I have been running Holo Launcher (based on ICS launcher) on stock GB, so Sense 4 doesn't really excite me other than the camera improvements and Beats integration in third-party apps.

EDIT: Never mind, I found scotty's post, How to manually flash ROMS which really should be made sticky IMO!

EDIT2: On Newt's ROM, is the boot image you have to flash in addition to flashing the old firmware patch? If so, what is the order of flashing? ON another thread, you said:

-make backup
-full wipe
-flash rom
-flash old firmware patch
-reboot

In this case, would it be
-- full wipe
-- flash ROM
-- flash old firmware patch
-- flash sense4_boot.img
-- flash newt ROM 3.21 upgrade

FYI: I am S-ON and I'm aware of your recommendation to use amon ra recovery via fastboot boot.

EDIT 3: Sorry, scotty, did some reading and found out the answer!! Scotty's instructions for installing Newts ROM while S-ON

 

[obscuro]

Successfully running newts one xxx 3.2.1 thanks to scotty's help!!

Coming from rooted stock GB, my process was:
-- Make nandroid backup
--use fastboot boot to launch amon ra recovery
-- flash RLS 3.1.2 ROM
-- flash old firmware patch
--flash newts 3.2.1 update
--reboot system from recovery and be patient during boot animations and first time Sense bootup!
-- as soon as you can, get into HTC Sense settings, Display, and disable transition animations (to prevent ROM from freezing up)

 

[scotty85]

just got home from work... looks like youve got everything figured out. excelent job researching and making use of available info

holler if you have any other questions

if you like 3rd party launchers,also check out apex,and nova. i typically use apex unless the rom comes with something else. (in wich case i may or may not change it )

my biggest complaint with sense launchers was always that you couldnt chage out anything... you were stuck with 3 spots,and could have anything you wanted in them as long as it was app drawer,phone,and personalize since ics lets you customize the launcher, there is less reason for me to mess with it. im not by aNY means a fan of sense,but i do like sense 4... this rom is defiantely "pretty"

ive been wanting to run the latest business sense,and check out a couple of the senseless roms,but this one has grown on me to the point i hate to change it! (unless we started getting cm9 nightlys!)

 

[obscuro]

I am liking newts rom so far. Running nova launcher, but kept sense lockscreen (it has cool sms and music player widgets inside the locker).

Having the HTC EVO 4G camera, beats, bravia engine and xloud mods and the Volume+ app built into the ROM definitely turns the Rezound into the multimedia powerhouse it was intended to be.

I am noticing some fast battery run-downs and some heat as other posters on this forum have claimed. When the phone is sleeping, it holds charge pretty good but playing music on spotify or browsing net with chrome runs battery down 20 percent within about 15 minutes. I am not convinced it's the ROM itself, could be nova launcher too I suppose.

I wiped the battery stats and am going to try putting the battery through a few full charge cycles to see if that improves things. I have juice defender ultimate helping me save some juice in the meantime. And I may have to invest in that 1920 mAH slim extended battery from mugen-power.

 

[esmith818]

Successfully running newts one xxx 3.2.1 thanks to scotty's help!!

Coming from rooted stock GB, my process was:
-- Make nandroid backup
--use fastboot boot to launch amon ra recovery
-- flash RLS 3.1.2 ROM
-- flash old firmware patch
--flash newts 3.2.1 update
--reboot system from recovery and be patient during boot animations and first time Sense bootup!
-- as soon as you can, get into HTC Sense settings, Display, and disable transition animations (to prevent ROM from freezing up)

So obscuro tempted me into flashing an ICS ROM (from rooted stock GB).

I followed his process almost exactly (I made the backup AFTER booting into recovery and wiped data/dalvik/system/factory reset prior to flashing the RLS3 ROM. When I reboot, I sit at the boot screen for 10 minutes of looping before giving up.

I returned to recovery and tried the process a 2nd time and now am sitting (again) at the looping boot screen.

Can anyone tell me how long to give it before throwing in the towel, and (more importantly) where I am going wrong in getting this ROM to work correctly?

 

[scotty85]

Did you boot to a permantly installed recovery?

 

[esmith818]

Did you boot to a permantly installed recovery?

Nope. I learned my lesson with those and now use a temp recovery.

I think I may have been using flashing the wrong file -- the choices are somewhat confusing on mikmik's site IMHO. I'm going to try once more with the following files, in order:

NeWts-OnE-XxX-RLS-3.1.2-Odex-signed.zip
Old Firmware Patch.zip
Update-OnE-XxX-3.2.1.zip

On the plus side, I had restored my rooted stock backup and everything restored fine so I'm not too worried about a brick.

EDIT: It worked! I was originally using "NeWts-OnE-XxX-RLS-3-signed.zip" instead of "NeWts-OnE-XxX-RLS-3.1.2-Odex-signed.zip" as my first file.

 

[scotty85]

awsome! glad you got it working.

i didnt mean to make assumptions,but i have to ask the basic questions first

let us know how you like it!

 

[obscuro]

So I've worked out my heat issues on newts, it never really got super-hot, just 116 when it was charging. Now after doing a couple of full battery cycles, it feels the same temp-wise as GB Rezound.

Maybe it's just perception, because of how newts shows the actual percentage left, but I am still running through battery life like crazy.

Any tips on how I might see which apps are taking up the most battery? I have a lot of verizon/HTC services frozen already. When I go to HTC Sense power settings, it just says like Screen taking up 70-90 percent, followed by phone calls then call idle. Clicking on Screen doesn't get me a break-down. I tried looking at the memory usage/CPU time in Manage Apps, but no one app seems to be eating up, other than music and browser, which I would expect.

Today my phone got on 9 percent when I was about to go to lunch, so I put it on airplane mode and almost an hour later, it still was on 9 percent. This makes me think it's just the data usage that is killing the battery.

Oh, and btw, I am on nova and not even running any home screen effects :/

 

[scotty85]

you might try turning down the brightness,if the screen is taking up that much. one way you can find out whats running is to simply look in settings/app/running. you can prolly even set a shortcut on one of your home screens to take you right there.

heres my useage today:

that was a couple hours ago,i havent messed with the phone since i got home,and im still at 8% and now at 15 hr 44 min

for comparitive purposes,also heres what ive got running:

im running the sense launcher,no sense widgets except flip clock,and ive actually not deleted any vzw bloat yet(im a slacker)

 

[ezflip]

For what its worth at this point, I am running Nils newest version of business sense ICS 4.0.3 and Sense 4.0 (actually, he just posted another version, so Im flashing that later today) But he has fixed the BT phone issue it had. Everything works flawlessly on this rom. And Im getting between 25-30 hours on a charge with light - moderate usage. Basically I send about 40-50 texts a day, listen to about an hour of music a day, receive about 20 emails a day. As well as a good 2 hours of web surfing. That is what I would consider moderate usage. Here is the link to his newest version.

[ROM][7/20][V2.2] Nils' Business ICS 4.0.3 Sense 4.0 (Aroma Installer) - xda-developers

 

[Mtraider23]

Team Venum came out with a new Sense4.0 Rom that is ABSOLUTELY incredible. Everything runs very smoothly and I have had zero problems so far. I definitely recommend it. I havent really paid that much attention to battery life but I will tomorrow and if youre interested I can let you know how this one is doing in that department. Seriously though you cant go wrong with it from what it seems.

 

[DroidPhreak]

Team Venum came out with a new Sense4.0 Rom that is ABSOLUTELY incredible. Everything runs very smoothly and I have had zero problems so far. I definitely recommend it. I havent really paid that much attention to battery life but I will tomorrow and if youre interested I can let you know how this one is doing in that department. Seriously though you cant go wrong with it from what it seems.

Have you had the trouble of waking up your phone after the screen being off, only to find that it does does NOT wake up?

Also, do data arrows work on this ROM?

 

[DroidPhreak]

Have you had the trouble of waking up your phone after the screen being off, only to find that it does does NOT wake up?

Also, do data arrows work on this ROM?

Just checked this post
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1780275&page=63

So still no data arrows working

 

[obscuro]

Data arrows do work on newts one xxx 3.2.1 so its not all sense 4 Roms. Not sure about nils sense 4 rom

Edit: no apparently data arrows not fixed, at least on 4g. Not a big deal to me since data actually works

 

[johndawg57]

Still waiting for the OTA, but as Scotty said, maybe people are overhyping the OTA since there are more full-featured custom ROMS available now based on the previous OTA leaks. So just thinking, what is the best ICS rom for the rezound in your experience?

To choose from:
--Newts OnE XxX RLS 3 (Sense 4 ICS 4.0.3) based on the most recent OTA release candidate
--[ROM 7/11 CONROMV5][4.0.3OTA Sense3.6+DeSense][DeBloated Root Aroma Tweaks][CDMA/GSM]
--[ROM] Ineffabilis Deus v1.1 [6/26/12] Sense 3.6 | Beats | Tweaks | 3.14.605.10
--[ROM][7/8][V5.7] Nils' Business ICS 4.0.3 Sense 3.6 (ICS Latest) (Aroma Installer)

I don't know if Sense 4 is better than Sense 3.6. Newt's is based on source from the Droid Incredible 4G and EVO 4G LTE, so that seems like it could add the latest "HTC experience." I wasn't crazy about the 3D effects of Sense 3.6 (looks nice but eats up the Rezound's somewhat-small battery).

I have bravia engine and xloud (to improve pictures, videos and sound output) already installed over stock GB, and want to keep those easily in a new ROM if I can. That makes Ineffabilis Deus attractive.

I take a lot of photos, both personal and work, on my Rezound, so I want to get the most of the Rezound's already excellent camera. I wonder if the software camera in one of these roms would be better than stock Rezound cam + bravia + Fast Burst Cam.

Scotty, anyone else, do you have any preferences?

Maybe a stupid question but when you flashed Newts Rom do you also flash the boot.img file? And if so why? The ROMS (cleanrom) that I have used before do not have that boot.img file listed in the instructions, I am a little confused about the purpose of boot.img. Thanks for helping the noob

 

[obscuro]

If you ran the command "fastboot boot [custom recovery filename]" on adb before you flashed ROM, then no, you don't have to flash boot.img

Coming from rooted stock GB, my process was:
-- Make nandroid backup
--use fastboot boot to launch amon ra recovery
-- flash RLS 3.1.2 ROM
-- flash old firmware patch
--flash newts 3.2.1 update
--reboot system from recovery and be patient during boot animations and first time Sense bootup!
-- as soon as you can, get into HTC Sense settings, Display, and disable transition animations (to prevent ROM from freezing up)

 

[johndawg57]

Haven't done anything yet but that is how I was planning to do it, just like you wrote there. Well almost...kind of confusing on the page which is the latest release? A little confused now, what is the "old firmware patch"? I see the 3.1.2 download and the "update 3.2.1 patch" but it looks like you flashed 3 files total, what is the other? Thanks

 

[obscuro]

Its the patch you use to run ICS Roms on the rezounds factory gingerbread firmware. (ie you have never run the ics leak).

You can find the patch download on some ics Rom threads, like cleanrom, its the same file u need to install any ics Rom. After flashing the newts 3.1.2 file, then flash the 'old firmware patch.' U don't need to install the 3.0 file, just 3.1.2, and the 3.2.1 update. Will try and find u that link but if u search for it on this forum u will find it. Good luck!

Edit: Gingerbread firmware patch to run ics roms

 

[obscuro]

Just an update: I've been using newts one xxx 3.2.1 nonstop since July 17. It is fine as a daily driver, I use it for my work as a newspaper reporter as well as being a multimedia freak. I personally have had no issues with the camera even with face detection turned on. Newts combines the awesome screen of the rezound with the software and most of features of the HTC one x. Until an HTC-Tegra phone is released in the States, I feel like I have the best phone on the planet, that's how good ICS and the HTC experience work together. Try out newts or nils sense 4 Rom today, u won't regret it! They are much better than the OTA that is MIA

 

[johndawg57]

Thanks oscuro, I got everything I needed to be up and running with Newts, liking it so far...

 

[NEXTLOVER]

Just an update: I've been using newts one xxx 3.2.1 nonstop since July 17. It is fine as a daily driver, I use it for my work as a newspaper reporter as well as being a multimedia freak. I personally have had no issues with the camera even with face detection turned on. Newts combines the awesome screen of the rezound with the software and most of features of the HTC one x. Until an HTC-Tegra phone is released in the States, I feel like I have the best phone on the planet, that's how good ICS and the HTC experience work together. Try out newts or nils sense 4 Rom today, u won't regret it! They are much better than the OTA that is MIA

Sooo obscuro, now that some of us are getting the OFFICIAL ICS OTA... thinking about going back to bone-cold stock (unlocked, unrooted) to install the new ICS OTA?

I'm just wondering if we can install Newts one xXx again over the this new OTA. I really like xloud, TuneIn, all the other amenities

I'm gonna try digging through newt's mikmik forums to see what ppl are saying over there. Sometimes they can get so off-topic I lose track lol