ROM Picks: Nocturnal Xi36 (Sense 3.6, Android 4.0.3, Beats) for HTC EVO 3D

Team Nocturnal's Xi36 ROM is a very stable, fully functioning CDMA Sense 3.6/ICS 4.0.3 offering based off the leaked Virgin Mobile EVO 3D code from last week.

It features include Beats audio in the stock music player, the Sony Bravia photo engine, the Sony XLoud engine for increased volume, Beats and Sense 4.0 skins, and a host of working ICS enhancements that come standard.

I've been a fan of Team Nocturnal's ROMs since I first ran across their EVO 4G one. This ROM is good, but I think it will be much improved in the coming days.

One of the niftier features of this Xi36 is the use of the Aroma Installer. I realize that's not so much a ROM feature as a ROM package delivery system, but it is nice to get to choose what you want installed and what you don't when you reach the first boot screen.

You do not need the Virgin Mobile firmware upgrade or to be S-OFF to flash this ROM. As a matter of fact, you should never flash that firmware. There are various threads now devoted to figuring out how to fix the problems it caused, so stay away from it.

After playing with the R102 version of this ROM for the better part of a day, I came away with a couple of observations. It's faster than the leaked stock ROM by about 50% without overclocking, undervolting, etc.

As far as I can tell, the Beats Audio does not function. I think a custom kernel is going to be required to cajole it into doing anything or perhaps this is a bug in release 102. You can select Beats or SRS effects in the stock music app, but the audio does not change noticeably. There's also no Beats indicator logo like I've come to expect to see when it's on and running. I tested this by listening to very repetitive audio, so I'm pretty sure any change would have been noticeable.

Also a bug I've started noticing with things based off the Virgin Mobile leak is the WiFi signal strength indicator will stop updating at some point. With Nocturnal's Xi36, it did that right off the bat, but went back to normal after a reboot.

The Nocturnal Tweaks look like a themed version of the Leedroid tweaks for the EVO 3D. I doubt they are, but they function about the same.

Chrome works but seems to have some of the same video corruption that other ROMs have been seeing. Nothing major, and it can be cleared by switching tabs and switching back.

All in all, it's a solid offering. It's on its third update in five days, each adding features, and already far exceeds the stock base. Xi36 is actuallly quite solidly in the daily driver category for me. Assuming they get Beats working properly, it'll be a far more feature complete ROM than what the EVO 4G LTE is expected to ship with.

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