AndroidGood and EVO

ROM Picks: Swagged out Stock (SOS M) 1.8 for the HTC EVO 3D

2012 06 01 11.52.03 - for some reason we don't have an alt tag hereSwagged out Stock for the HTC EVO 3D is a ROM based off of the Sprintified leaked Virgin Mobile firmware that runs as a perfect hybrid of the best of AOSP and Sense. It’s absurdly customizable, and if you don’t like something out of the box you can probably change it directly from the Aroma installer.

If you’re looking for the closest to the pure Google/AOSP non-Sense experience but still want the 3D camera, video, and WiMax 4G features the HTC EVO 3D has that only work in Sense-based ROMs at the moment, this is probably the best ROM out there for you.

The only problem with the choose-your-own experience Aroma installs that I’ve noticed is that the experience can differ wildly based on what you choose. For testing SOS, I just went with the basics.

You have about three different startup animations you can choose, the stock is a fancy Android  in a striped shirt knocking an apple away with his cane. There are seven different launchers you can choose from, and most apps that are included with Sense have an AOSP ICS counterpart you can choose.

SOS includes the LeeDroid tweaks, which allow you to further customize your experience. There’s too much you can change to cover in this ROM.

SOS doesn’t score particularly high in Quadrant scores compared to other ROMs based off of the same firmware leak, but as stated many times: benchmarks test for what makes benchmarks run fast and not the general user experience. The user experiencing on this is smooth. Click something, it’s open. Press home and you’re there.

2012 06 01 12.17.11 - for some reason we don't have an alt tag hereSam, the author of the ROM states that some of the AOSP applications have bugs and if you can’t live with them switch to the HTC versions of the apps. I’d point out that some of the HTC flavored applications also have bugs, so you can choose your own bug trail.

Dock mode seems to have been de-prettified by the stripping of Sense, it still works but no billowing cloud background, and the car dock application seems to be missing, neither of which really matter to me but if you need clouds and six large buttons in a car, this may not be your ROM.

The HTC Music player has Beats enabled by default (at least on the path I chose) and an the HTC Sound Enhancement DSP. The Beats is the non-kernel-complete Beats, so it sounds a lot better than stock but is not the full experience. I installed the XLoud and Bravia mods as well, but did not crank the volume as it was fine as it was.

It’s a great ROM, can’t stress that enough. There may be some paths where it is not a great ROM as is the danger with all the Aroma-based choose-your-own-adventure ROMs, but mostly stock Swagged out Stock is a daily driver.

Although it is probably the case with almost any ROM these days, after install you’re acutely aware that there is nothing you can’t accomplish with this ROM. The potential for swagging the ROM is absurdly evident. I feel almost like an advertisement for Zombo.com when stating this, but it’s what my experience was. If yours is different, install again with different options.

[SwaggedOutStock]
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Paul E King

Paul King started with GoodAndEVO in 2011, which merged with Pocketables, and as of 2018 he's evidently the owner. He lives in Nashville, works at a film production company, is married with two kids. Facebook | Twitter | Donate | More posts by Paul | Subscribe to Paul's posts

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