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Root Evo Retrospective - Apps/Roms/Kernels

MizzouBrent

Android Expert
Feb 13, 2011
2,852
2,518
Olathe, KS
Well, official as far as I'm concerned :D

As my upgrade draws near, here is what I think all Evo owners should have installed on their phone. I'm upgrade eligible tomorrow, but depending on what kind of sweet talking I can do with the wife, it might be another week or two before I officially pull the trigger and upgrade.

Here we go...

1) Titanium Backup Pro - I know it's like $6, which is kind of expensive for an app, but bear with me. This app backs up all your apps, SMS/MMS, call logs, bookmarks and probably more stuff that I'm not even aware of. You must have it if you are a root user. You can even create a flashable zip file that can be flashed in recovery, so you can just flash it with the rom install.

2) ROM Toolbox Pro - I mentioned this recently, but it customizes a LOT of different things and renders several other apps useless. You can customize CPU clock speeds, governors, profiles. You can change fonts, tweak build.prop values, tweak kernel settings. It has a built in file browser and terminal emulator. It has ad blocker. OOM Values. It does a lot. You should own it.

3) Google Voice - I mention this so high on my list only because I constantly get tired of people switching roms and complaining about voicemail issues. I have constantly flashed roms over the last two years and never once had an issue with Google Voice. It works 100% of the time, and if you want, you can even set up your texts to work with GVoice. Pretty nice.

4) Tapatalk - Again, a paid app. If you're a forum junkie, then you need to buy this. Access basically any forum anywhere with the same app...you get basically full ability to edit/mod/thank that are sometimes lacking in standalone apps. Plus it's just nice being able to swing from this site to XDA to rootzwiki in 2 seconds.

5) Root Explorer - There is no better file explorer. I once extracted the Team Dirt CM9 v1.5 zip file, deleted an undervolt script that was causing me problems, and then rezipped the file and flashed all from my phone.

6) Tweetcaster/Plume (tie) - These are both great twitter apps. You're not on twitter? You should be. You can follow a bunch of android sites and get information much quicker than you would normally be able to. I like both of these apps a lot and struggle to pick one. So I'm picking both.

7) Fancy Widget Pro - Some might say that Beautiful Widgets is better, but I disagree. Both are good, but I think Fancy Widget has a better selection of skins for clocks and weather, specifically the quality of the HTC copycat widgets. They are amazing on FWP if that's your thing. BW is good, and I still use it sometimes, but if I had to choose one, it would be FWP.

8) Quickpic - I never use the built in gallery for any rom. There is a reason for that. Quickpic does the same job, but it does it faster.

9) Zedge - Great selection of wallpapers, ringtones etc. I check it every couple of weeks and always manage to stumble across something new.

10) GoLauncher EX - It's the best launcher that is free...it's not really up for debate. It is the most customizable and the fastest that is out there. I like the style of Apex when I'm running ICS, so I probably won't be using Go for very much longer, but it's been a great launcher.

11) Google Music/Spotify/Podkicker/PlayerPro - this takes care of all my music needs....cloud, streaming, podcasts, sd card. Nuff said.


Those are the 10ish I can't live without. (I tried to keep it to 10 but can't)

And just because I have time to burn right now, the three best roms I have ran on the Evo

1) Decks Reloaded - Run it and you'll see why it's the best. If you MUST have Sense, it may not be for you, but it's still the best.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1661605

2) MikG 3.11 - This has to be my number 2. I have flashed it over and over again and always come back to it every month or so even though the ROM is exactly the same.

http://themikmik.com/showthread.php?10338-MikG-v3-11-3-9-2012

3) DigitalKarma 777 - I give this the nod over Tommy's Evo Classic but many would probably disagree. When I ran it for the first time, I was legitimately blown away by how fast it was for a Sense rom, and I have not felt that way about a Sense rom in ages. I urge everyone to give it a try.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1561680

Honorable Mention:

Deck 1.3d - probably spent the most time running this on the OG. Totally rock solid, but obsolete now.

http://d-h.st/oznpv6hqf4m9/gingerbread-evo-deck-1.3d.zip

Evo Classic - crazy customization for a Sense rom. Smooth as butter.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1312414

CM7 - I have to mention it, although admittedly I have not ran an official CM7 rom on my Evo for longer than a few hours in quite a long time.

Kernels:
For AOSP, it's Mason or bust. Tiamat had a great run, but Mason is king, as many others have said.

http://atyoung.blogspot.com

For Sense, Anthrax kills for speed and sound quality. If I'm not running that, I would run Underworld V8 for SBC and EXT4 partition support.

Anthrax
http://www.androidfilehost.com/main/EVO_4G_Developers/Chad.Goodman/KERNELS/

Underworld
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1570308
 
So the big question is, what'd you decide on? Nexus or the s3?


I personally can't wait for JB goodness. Google now seriously kicks butt. We have cm10 thats nearly daily driver status, only issue is it has wakelocks right now.

Heh, I'm about 95% certain on my decision but obviously haven't purchased anything yet
 
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Great post!!! I will be eligible n a few months but with all of the evo development still going on I have made a firm decision to stay on evo as long as I can or until late comes to me...then I will get the latest and greatest phone...I should have lte in phase 2...or so I hear...and I agree with RX...jelly bean rocks!! Even in its infant evo stages
 
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Great post Mizzou! I'm glad I didn't end up making a departure thread because this would have blown mine out of the water. Great post!

As far as the nexus is concerned, I don't think the next one has been announced yet, and when I was at sprint, they said that they had no plans of any new phones coming out any time soon... but I mean, they are not the ones making that decision.

Again, great thread!
 
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