Rom Review: The EVO Classic; The Fastest Sense ROM Out There?

When well known xda member tommytomatoe decided to put together a ROM I (and a lot of other EVO users) were curious. Tommy is often looked at as one of the most innovative and creative developers out there. From his masterful themes, to his guides, to his work on changing the HTC Sense Rosie without root (yeah, he was the genius who came up with all of this); he's been known to think outside of the box and be damn good at putting those thoughts together. Staying true to what we expect, he decided rather than follow everyone and bring out another bleeding edge Sense 3.x ROM, he'd try something completely new. In fact, he's stepping back. The EVO Classic ROM is based off of Sense 1.0. Yeah, Sense 1.0. The Evo originally shipped with a version higher than that. So you might be wondering how I might possibly recommend a ROM featuring software that's seemingly over a year old? Just wait until you learn about this ROM. Amazing things happen when you make things from scratch.

Author's Note:

So after taking an educational hiatus, I have returned! While this may not mean much to you, this drastically helps me appreciate this ROM and notice its flaws. When this review was originally planned I had only been running it for about a week. I now get a chance to review this ROM after using it exclusively for nearly a month now. That being said, it's hard to put this ROM precisely into words. You're using a Sense 1.0 ROM but feels more complete than newer Sense ROMs. I've always loved ROMs because they allowed me to run the latest in bleeding edge Android goodness. This ROM doesn't do that, but it feels like it is. This is hands down the hardest ROM review I've ever had to write. You would think the *spoiler alert* fastest and most stable Sense ROM I've ever used would be easy to review. It should just be raving recommendation, right? But this ROM does have that super new x-factor list of features that I can impress you with on paper. The only thing I can do is try and describe the experience, which is something you need to do for yourself for you to truly understand.

Pros

Speed

In case the title didn't directly give it away, this ROM is fast. Very fast. Tommy claims to have optimized just about everything for speed and it shows. I haven't seen a ROM this responsive since I was last on CM7. How's that for a comparison? Apps seem to open with no more lag than the quick transition animation. Even running multiple apps I never once saw my phone slow down. The lock screen has never “hung” on me (something I can't say about any other ROM). The home screen pages never seem to lag. Simply put, this ROM apparently runs on magic unicorn blood. I didn't think I'd ever see the day where I felt my Evo felt as quick on a Sense ROM as it did on a non-bloated AOSP ROM (it is important to note that a lot of useless Sense apps have been removed, and the others are removable). And most importantly, unlike other Sense ROM it doesn't slow down over time. I love the stability of Sense ROMs, but what usually convinces me to switch to AOSP is how sluggish Sense begins to feel after a while.

Look/Ability to Customize

While I'm currently sporting EVOlvedAndroid's custom full theme, I can assure you that this ROM looks great stock. While Tommy left most of Sense as it is, he definitely added a few of his own goodies in there. Even more important is the ability to change how the ROM looks. Whether it be changing the lockbar, utilizing the community's themes (and there are multiple), configuring your rosie, there's a lot to change if you don't like the stock Sense look.

Tommy's Magic

It's the little things about this ROM that I've fallen so much in love with. The built in force roam option was fantastic when I'm in those few places where the Verizon signal is just better than the Sprint one. The built in app to change your status bar around. The amount of AOSP/Sense alternating you can do (keyboard, dialer, lockscreen, and more). It'd be impossible to mention all of the little things he added that would be full features in other ROMs

Battery Life

Running this ROM with no additions to the kernel, I was pleasantly amazed with the battery life. You're all probably aware that I'm the biggest battery stickler of all time, and will go to what seems like great lengths to protect that precious charge. With my schedule how it was over the past few weeks I found looking back at how well my phone lasted despite the fact that I didn't have the time to tweak it like I normally did. I forgot about the V6 Supercharger script, I think it's still on auto brightness, I've left 3G on almost all of the time, and sweet lord have I abused the GBCoid while on several long trips. And guess what? My battery life is absolutely phenomenal. I've forgotten to charge my phone overnight on multiple occasions and still found myself surviving the next day. I can't wait to see what happens when I finally dig my tinkering claws into it.

Cons

Missing some newer Sense options

While you'll rarely notice the fact that you're not running the most recent version of Sense, there are a few times where it does seem to show up. I'm not entirely sure what the keyboard is based on, but I found my auto correct to be much worse than my past Sense ROMs. The Camera also lacks a lot of the newest Sense additions that I've grown to love (panorama notably). The bright side is that many of these things are planned on being added in the future.

If you have a problem with Sense, this won't fix it

Someone said they didn't like what Sense has “evolved into” over the past few years and asked me if I would recommend this ROM. If you have a beef with Sense, then this isn't the ROM for you. While it is packing a lot of “older” Sense goodies, it still honestly feels like a current release of Sense. Aside from the Sense 3.0 lockscreen, you'd be hard pressed to tell it apart from much more “recent” ROMs without having to do some digging.

Final Word

It's really hard to point out the pros and cons of this ROM. And I love that. This doesn't feel like a ROM. This feels like how you phone should be shipped to you. There aren't any “workarounds” that the community has decided to live with. There aren't any “it occasionally misses calls.” There aren't any reports of rebooting. This ROM simply put feels like it belongs on your phone. It'd be like me asking you to describe the pros and cons of the house you grew up in. If you thought about it really hard you could probably name a few of each, but it's so comfortable it just…is. There's not really a way to describe it. If you want to try something different yet creepily familiar, I'd strongly urge you to try this ROM. I'm serious. This review, nor any opinion of it that I've read can really do this justice. There aren't screaming cries of “BEST ROM EVA” or “THIS IS LEIK SO FAST BRAH” in the community, there are just lots of “I really like this. I think I've found my driver for a while.” You know what? Maybe that's the way a ROM is supposed to be.