Yet another which rom question!

[steven6282]

First I apologize for making another post of this nature as I'm sure the regular users of this website get tired of them. But reading through other posts and such I couldn't find anything explaining a few questions I had.

I just got my thunderbolt today because my original droid crashed. I'm not a newbie at roms and rooting as my original droid had been rooted with a custom rom since shortly after I got it.

I've already rooted my thunderbolt and installed rom manager and flashed clockwork recovery. Doing a backup of my stock rooted rom now. So that part is out of the way. (Speaking of Rom manger though, whats the point of it having a way to auto backup stuff if it's just going to reboot the phone into recovery and you still have to perform the backup yourself, bah.)

Now for the rom, I hate all the bloatware that came on this thunderbolt. Wow is there a lot of it. So definitely need a rom that is going to get rid of the bloat.

I hate the Sense UI.. I really don't see why it appeals to some people, but to each their own.

Things that are important to me:

• Useful buttons at the bottom of the screen (I don't need a darn quick access key to personalize, I mean just how often does one need to personalize their phone... *boggle*).
• 4G must work, that's the entire reason I decided to go with this phone (more on this below)
• Percent battery display in the notification bar
• No bloatware
• No sense UI

Now from what I've read it seems like AOSP is the way to go for a vanilla droid look and feel. However, it looks like all of the AOSP roms have issues with the 4G working correctly. One of the main reasons I bought this phone over the Droid 3 was for the 4G capabilities when I'm in a covered area (about 90% of my time that I use the phone I'll be in a 4G covered area). So I don't want to have to jump through a bunch of hoops to maybe get 4G working some of the time.

Looking on the forums and in the stickied rom list post I only see two Gingerbread deSensed ROMs and I don't see them being recommended by anyone anywhere. Seems like the ones I see recommended the most is das bamf 4.9 (has sense ui) and cyanogenmod (is AOSP and has 4G problems).

So with all of this stated, can anyone recommend a rom that they think would fit what I would like?

Thanks, and sorry again for another post of this nature when there are so many.

 

[Mbk]

You can just not use the Sense UI by using another home launcher like Launcher Pro... I've tried AOSP ROMs, and they work okay, but doesn't help really in battery life and yeah at times the 4g seems to drop for periods of time...

my personal recommendation would be Gingeritis 3D beta VI, and use Launcher Pro or the like.... battery life is about the best out of any of the ROMs, usually gives me a full day's battery even with my GPS, location, full brightness, and auto sync on at all times... and it is the most stable TBolt ROM I've tried to date, everything works as it should, although they do list delayed Voice Mail notifications as the only bug (but I use Google Voice so I couldn't say about that)... and 4G almost never drops

anyways give that a try, make sure you use MR2 MR 2.5 radio or later with this ROM

 

[steven6282]

Thanks for the reply.

Trying to read more about them, seems like battery life varies greatly between roms. Would not have expected that. But I guess I should run stock rooted for a few days so I can get a base idea of battery life to have something to compare to.

Would not want to pick the wrong rom that has bad battery life and end up thinking the phone has terrible batery life and go exchange it.

Still not sure if I'm going to like this phone, don't care much for the huge screen, but since my droid crashed I had to get something new. Was between this the droid 3 or iphone 4, I'm not crazy about apples closed system and the droid 3 would've taken a week to come in and needed a new phone now so decided to get a 4G phone.

 

[thelopenator]

the phone does have terrible battery life, but with the rom I'm running I can get 24 hours per charge

this was sent from my phone that is cellular

 

[steven6282]

Well, I got impatient and didn't wait hehe

But the battery life on this thing is indeed horrible and I'm strongly considering taking it back.

I haven't been able to get 10 hours out of a battery charge yet. The ROMs I've tried, Cynanogen 7, Das BAMF Stripped 2.1, and Das BAMF Stripped 1.8 is on it today, but it's already drained 10% only being off the charger for 1.5 hours.

Have tried radios MR2, MR2.5, trying the one labeled (Shipped) now, may try the MR1 to see if it gets any better life.

I can't have a phone that only gets 10 hours on a charge with moderate use. Yesterday a 15 minute phone call drained 25% of my battery, that's ridiculous. I need it to last for at least 16 hours because some days thats how long it is before I get home. So it really needs to last longer as I can't be sitting there borderline not able to use the phone because it'll go dead before I get home.

 

[gary73]

Extended battery your only options

Sent from my ADR6400L using DroidForums

 

[steven6282]

I just went and picked up an extended battery today to try out for a couple days. If it gives me 20 hours off charger I might keep the phone, not crazy about the bulk though.

 

[jeberger2007]

First, extended battery is amazing. I get beyond a full 24 hours of extremely heavy use with it.

Next, I don't know how the rom effects the 4g connectivity. I thought how it works is the radio does the connectivity so as long as you had the proper radio everything should work fine. I don't know still kind of new, but my feet are more than wet in the rooting/rom area.

 

[craigboy]

Extended battery is a must. I was like you and didn't want the extra bulk, but believe it or not, I have totally gotten used to the extra size.

I've tried most of the sense ROM's, the one's using sense 3.0 are the nicest, but the added RAM usage kind of sucks. I'm currently using omfgb and am liking it. I had some issues the first day but they have calmed down. As far as the 4G connectivity goes, it does seem to drop off now and again (particularly when coming off of a wifi connection). When it does I go into wireless settings switch it to CDMA / EvDo only, then switch it back to CDMA / LTE and that takes care of the problem right away.

It really is a nice phone, but it does take some getting used to.

*ps* I'm using the 2.5 radio

 

[teknotronik]

You can just not use the Sense UI by using another home launcher like Launcher Pro... I've tried AOSP ROMs, and they work okay, but doesn't help really in battery life and yeah at times the 4g seems to drop for periods of time...

my personal recommendation would be Gingeritis 3D beta VI, and use Launcher Pro or the like.... battery life is about the best out of any of the ROMs, usually gives me a full day's battery even with my GPS, location, full brightness, and auto sync on at all times... and it is the most stable TBolt ROM I've tried to date, everything works as it should, although they do list delayed Voice Mail notifications as the only bug (but I use Google Voice so I couldn't say about that)... and 4G almost never drops

anyways give that a try, make sure you use MR2 MR 2.5 radio or later with this ROM

I must say this rom is the greatest. I have the stock battery and I am getting about 26 hour per charge with the MR2 radio. The Extended battery is great but its entirely too big. (It makes some people return their phones) Put Gingeritis on your phone and you will love it! Best rom I have ever used (Well since Ultimate Droid on my OG Droid) And the GPS locks in under 8 seconds! This has made my phone perfect.

 

[steven6282]

I doubt the battery is going to vary that largely from one rom to the other. I don't think I'm going to go from 10 hours on one rom to 26 hours on another, wish that were possible but I just highly doubt it. Other than that I don't want a sense rom, even with another Launcher I found there were plenty of other elements of Sense still in the rom. Also all the Gingerbread roms apparently have the voice mail problem, and I can't have that. I tried setting up Youmail as an alternate voice mail but it's not very good either. Unless you let it notify you via either email or text (which results in double notifications) then it can take up to 30 minutes to notify of a voice mail as well.

I think most battery estimates completely depend on the user. If your phone sits on your desk for 25 hours 40 minutes of the 26 hours then yeah I can see it lasting that long.

When one 15 minute phone call uses up 25% of my stock battery, then that's just bad.

I'm really beginning to question if my stock battery was defective though. Today is my first day on the extended battery, and after being at work for 7 hours, using wifi hotspot for 2 hours straight, browsing the web a bit on the phone, display has been on with auto brightness for 45 minutes, the extended battery is at 64%. I expected the extended battery to be twice as good as stock, this thing is about 4 times as good as my stock battery was.

I'll have to decide if the extra bulk is worth it though, and may check with Verizon to see if I can get the stock battery exchanged under warranty without having to exchange the entire phone, just to see if my stock battery was defective.

 

[craigboy]

The extended battery is about four times better for me as well.... just sayin.


Oh and Google Voice transcribes every message to text, which is both emailed to you and on the GVoice app.

 

[teknotronik]

I doubt the battery is going to vary that largely from one rom to the other. I don't think I'm going to go from 10 hours on one rom to 26 hours on another, wish that were possible but I just highly doubt it. Other than that I don't want a sense rom, even with another Launcher I found there were plenty of other elements of Sense still in the rom. Also all the Gingerbread roms apparently have the voice mail problem, and I can't have that. I tried setting up Youmail as an alternate voice mail but it's not very good either. Unless you let it notify you via either email or text (which results in double notifications) then it can take up to 30 minutes to notify of a voice mail as well.

I think most battery estimates completely depend on the user. If your phone sits on your desk for 25 hours 40 minutes of the 26 hours then yeah I can see it lasting that long.

When one 15 minute phone call uses up 25% of my stock battery, then that's just bad.

I'm really beginning to question if my stock battery was defective though. Today is my first day on the extended battery, and after being at work for 7 hours, using wifi hotspot for 2 hours straight, browsing the web a bit on the phone, display has been on with auto brightness for 45 minutes, the extended battery is at 64%. I expected the extended battery to be twice as good as stock, this thing is about 4 times as good as my stock battery was.

I'll have to decide if the extra bulk is worth it though, and may check with Verizon to see if I can get the stock battery exchanged under warranty without having to exchange the entire phone, just to see if my stock battery was defective.

steven6282. I use my phone very very much and I am in 4G turf. Don't have so much doubt. I had an hour and 18 minute call yesterday and only dropped my battery life by 8%. I am a previous employee from Verizon Wireless and I speak the truth. Instead of bashing the idea try it out and post your results. Using Google Voice is a great voicemail replacement. And it's FREE!

Good luck!

 

[steven6282]

steven6282. I use my phone very very much and I am in 4G turf. Don't have so much doubt. I had an hour and 18 minute call yesterday and only dropped my battery life by 8%. I am a previous employee from Verizon Wireless and I speak the truth. Instead of bashing the idea try it out and post your results. Using Google Voice is a great voicemail replacement. And it's FREE!

Good luck!

Even with the picture I still find that hard to believe for a stock battery based on what I've seen. Maybe I've got a really bad phone, or you got a really good one. 12% display, how much time was it on? What is your brightness set to? My phone can barely do better than that on the extended battery. On the extended battery right now I'm at the 1d 0h 35m my battery is at 32% mark and my display has used up 49% of that with it set to auto brightness on for 58 minutes. 6m 8s of voice calls is 8%. I don't even have Dialer in my list.

Perhaps if you have it on Wifi more often that is one of the things that eats up less battery for you. I hardly ever have mine on wifi.

 

[steven6282]

In the interest of completeness, I tried gingeritis just to see if it had the battery life being raved about in this thread.

My results were less than stellar.

Under normal usage, after being on battery for 8 hours I had 10% battery left, display on for 1 hour 45 minutes used up 38% at around 10 - 20% brightness. 20 minutes of voice calls used up 45%. And the rest was distributed among the normal stuff.

Just as pathetic, possibly more so than all the other roms I've tried. So it isn't the rom that is the problem here. Either my stock battery is defective, my phone is defective, or these phones just plain suck for battery life no matter what you do.

On a good note, I did discover that Wifi does draw tremedously less power than 3G or 4G. On another test (back on damf stripped 1.8) using Wifi exclusively (can only do this on the weekends when I'm at home most of the day), after being on for 18 hours the battery was at 40%, display at 10 to 20% brightness on for 1 hour 15 minutes used 45% of that, wifi used 16%, but I didn't use the phone for any phone calls during that time. I imagine if I had though based on other results it would've eaten up a lot more battery. Phone conversations seem to eat the battery faster than any other thing on this phone.