HTC Desire - What ROM to get?

[Guest Buchtis]

Evening all,

Had a thorough read of the guides on how to root and install ROM's but i'm still a bit confused and scared that i'll cock it up. I've been on the Orange San Francisco for ages and rooting and unlocking it was a breeze. So basically what I want to know is as follows:

• What's the best ROM to get for this phone? Not bothered about the Sense UI one bit to be fair, I want something smooth, fast and fault free if that's possible with the bare amount of applications installed as I like to get what I need off the Android App store.
  
• I've on a different forum (XDA) that you won't be able to unlock your Desire if it has the updated HTC ROM on it. I assume this is already installed on mine and everything is updated. :D
  
• I seem to get low FPS when doing HD recording with the video camera. It fluctuates between 18FPS in low lit areas to 26FPS when filming outdoors, is there any ROM/fix to get this to be capped at 25/30FPS for smoother video?
  
• So far it looks like you have to pay for an unlock code to unlock it on all networks. Is there a way of doing this for free yourself? If not, what's the best/cheapest service to get a code at?
  
• Once rooted i'd like to install setCPU to overclock. How well does this phone OC and will it make any impact on games/performance?
  

Apologies for the wall of text but I want to make sure I do everything right and get the best out of this phone. It's locked to Orange at the moment too if that helps.

[Guest freak69ize]

Evening all,

Had a thorough read of the guides on how to root and install ROM's but i'm still a bit confused and scared that i'll cock it up. I've been on the Orange San Francisco for ages and rooting and unlocking it was a breeze. So basically what I want to know is as follows:

• What's the best ROM to get for this phone? Not bothered about the Sense UI one bit to be fair, I want something smooth, fast and fault free if that's possible with the bare amount of applications installed as I like to get what I need off the Android App store.
  
• I've on a different forum (XDA) that you won't be able to unlock your Desire if it has the updated HTC ROM on it. I assume this is already installed on mine and everything is updated. :D
  
• I seem to get low FPS when doing HD recording with the video camera. It fluctuates between 18FPS in low lit areas to 26FPS when filming outdoors, is there any ROM/fix to get this to be capped at 25/30FPS for smoother video?
  
• So far it looks like you have to pay for an unlock code to unlock it on all networks. Is there a way of doing this for free yourself? If not, what's the best/cheapest service to get a code at?
  
• Once rooted i'd like to install setCPU to overclock. How well does this phone OC and will it make any impact on games/performance?
  

Apologies for the wall of text but I want to make sure I do everything right and get the best out of this phone. It's locked to Orange at the moment too if that helps.

That would all depend on whether yuor fone is GSM or CDMA.. Mine is CDMA and i run CyanogenMod 7. Theres alot more Roms out there for GSM models but alot of people seem to like LeeDroid. As for unlocking your fone i dont think theres a way to do it free.. you can ask your carrier to do it or pay an online service to do it.

[Guest bpivk]

As for unlocking your fone i dont think theres a way to do it free.. you can ask your carrier to do it or pay an online service to do it.

There is a way. Edited April 1, 2011 by bpivk

[Guest sSword]

I went with Cyanogenmod 7 too, I am not sure that 720p video recording is working with it tho...

http://forum.cyanogenmod.com/topic/14450-c...s/page__st__500

[Guest diamondgar]

if you dont want sense then CM7 is definitely the best way to go, ive been running it since the first nightlies and it rocks. I think HD recording is always going to be somewhat limited with the hardware to be honest on any rom.

As mentioned above you can unlock the desire for free thanks with a program available over at xda, i havent tried it myself yet but it seems to work.

[Guest Buchtis]

Thanks for the replies.

1st off, how do I find out what phone I have (GSM or CMDA)? If I over clock, will it make the HD video recording smoother at all?

[Guest EddyOS]

If you're in the UK you've got a GSM phone as GSM phones need a SIM card. As a first for a n00b I'd either go with the MCR on this very forum or take a look at LeeDroid. Seems to be good for n00bs

Otherwise, if you wanna get rid of Sense then look at Oxygen over on XDA - its built for the Desire from the Android source code. Very small footprint and very basic but it gives you a blank canvass to do what you want

Edited April 2, 2011 by EddyOS

[Guest M Brouns]

If you're in the UK you've got a GSM phone as GSM phones need a SIM card. As a first for a n00b I'd either go with the MCR on this very forum or take a look at LeeDroid. Seems to be good for n00bs

Otherwise, if you wanna get rid of Sense then look at Oxygen over on XDA - its built for the Desire from the Android source code. Very small footprint and very basic but it gives you a blank canvass to do what you want

In stead of calling you names ("noob") like Eddy loves to, I'd say you go to XDA and find yourself a decent ROM (links provided below).

No point staying here and even less a point to pay for an ad free version of Modaco to get access to the ROM Kitchen.

Just take you time reading through a few tutorials and try a few ROMs from this perfect overview that is kept up to date frequently.

Overview of ROMs - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=809328

Video tutorial - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1016084

Writter tutorial - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=696189

Have fun ;-)

[Guest bigdan35]

Hey, well to be honest mate it all comes down to personal preference. Here's my story to see if it guides you in to just having some fantastic flashing experiences.

When I started out, there wasn't as much AOSP as there is now unfortunately, but on the upside I just wanted to unlock my phone and debrand it from the dirty Orange branding as fast as possible, so where did I come? I came here! I found Paul's kitchen ROMs absolutely fantastic, customisable, generally fun to use and bake and there wasn't really anything wrong with them, the only downside is, is that after a while, Sense became redundant once LauncherPro Plus took over my life.. So I started searching elsewhere in order to find some ROM which wasn't as bloated as, you guessed it, Sense. As nice and as smooth as Sense is, I personally didn't find it useful for me, it's not as customisable as let's say Open Source ROMs. So I found, yet again, Paul's ROMs without Sense, they were fantastic. I was (and still to this day) use LauncherPro Plus. I checked out a lot of ROMs at the time, which most of them still dwell somewhere on the XDA forums (my home now!).

Once I realised that getting away from Sense made a whole lot of sense (pun!), I delved in to Open Source ROMs, such as OpenDesire, DeFrost, Cyanogen etc. All of these were good, but the one thing which still puts me off AOSP to this day, and that is the camera.

I'm currently running Oxygen 1.0.4 (Froyo) as I'm not keen on the look or feel or battery life on Gingerbread. As I can get near on 26-30 hours of battery life on the ROM I'm currently on, even with GPS on tracking my Grid Reference locations as I go on a hell of a lot of field trips, I need to know where I've been and the altitude that I've been in order to map precisely.

All of that and I could've just said "open source is best", though I'm really not happy about the irritable, awful camera app which comes with it. If there was the ability (or if I could actually code, port, what-have-you) then I would try my very best to get the Sense camera/gallery on to AOSP, I think I would be classed as God.

But yeah, down to personal preference. Do you want good battery life? Do you want something which has the "wow" factor? I'd say AOSP for all of that, if you can cope without the 720p recording, and the somewhat dire picture quality at times on the camera, then go for that! If you want something which hogs the battery so much you might as well carry a mains charger with you 24/7, Sense is definitely for you - and the gorgeous camera and gallery app which it holds so proudly.

Sorry for the rant, it's almost a blog!

Dan

[Guest bpivk]

Snip

I agree with everything except the looks. It comes down to personal preference. I like Sense but it does use a lot of resources so I'm using an AOSP rom with SPB shell. It looks really slick.

And the battery life (I don't notice any difference at least not on Cyanogen's rom).

Edited April 13, 2011 by bpivk

[Guest buttonsandzips]

I've been running Oxygen for the last few months, really fast and reliable, I highly recommend it. Doesn't have Sense but that IMHO is a good thing. Used to run CM6 but not tried 7 yet.

[Guest lucier]

Hi!

I prefer CyanogenMod7 than Oxygen2. But it could be really good to have a kitchen about these ROM.

Bye!

[Guest Mike Rew]

Hi!

I prefer CyanogenMod7 than Oxygen2. But it could be really good to have a kitchen about these ROM.

Bye!

+1

Cyanogen 7 is the business. I'm a happy ROMer. :)

[Guest Buchtis]

Thanks very much for all the replies guys. I've used a video tutorial to root it and all seems well though like i've said i've just come off a San Fran and the Clockwork version on that was 3.+ while the one on my HTC Desire is 2.5.0.7, is this the latest one or will I need to update Clockwork?

[Guest bpivk]

3.x are the latest versions but I still use the 2.5.0.7 because it can use the old update scripts that some roms use. THe 3.x version don't have the support for old scripts so I'm playing it safe.