INC roms

[kramer56]

How do you know what rom to use. what are the greatest benefits to getting a new rom, yes Im rooted and so far have not seen anything noticeably different. My main reason to root was wifi tether and to really see the potential of my phone. But the rom thing I have no idea about lol.

[Ads]

[markargente]

Well, the devs for each ROM usually do something different for the ROM. For the lot of the ROMs, the changes/additions are pretty subtle, you'd have to read what the dev puts in the description. A few things on the top of my head are:

1. Power Control widget in the notifications tab
2. Last used applications in the power control tab
3. Different lock screens (Rotary, swipe across)
4. Lockscreen gestures (I haven't seen this in any Sense-based ROMs, but I've been on CM7 for awhile so I wouldn't know)
5. Different stylistic elements (notification bar mods, fonts, colors, themes)
6. Most of the ROMs are deodexed and zipaligned to provide enhanced speed
7. Most ROMs remove the bloatware (However, You can do this yourself as well on stock while rooted)
8. Some ROMs incorporate newer android versions (i.e. Gingerbread)
9. The Desire Z ports incorporate the newer Sense.
10. Some ROMs use the EVO framework (I don't like these, but you have the ability to flash EVO themes on your phone, of which there are a lot more)

That's all I can think of at the moment. Hope that helps.

[kramer56]

What roms out there change the notification bar and things like that?
What one(s) are good for battery life too? Does anyone run astro, last time i did it wiped out a bunch of my pics, maybe i did something wrong. Also Do i need all these rom manager things and file manager and does that stay on laptop or in phone?

[markargente]

The styles of the notification bar are generally just themes, you'd have to look around. I know CM7 has the power control widget in the notifications pane. Most of the newly updated ROMs contain it too.

Astro is just an file explorer application and is not dependent on any ROM. I personally like ES File Manager better, but that's just preference. I don't know about it wiping the SD Card, but I'd make a backup on your PC just in case it happens again.

ROM Manager is just an application to make it easy to download/flash SOME ROMs. Some devs don't incorporate their ROMs on ROM Manager. However, ROM Manager is the easiest way to keep up to date with ClockworkMod Recovery. I'd definitely recommend keeping it on your phone.

All the stuff you mention resides on the phone.