Another ROM recommendation? - Thunderbolt Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I'm still running the original stock VZW/HTC ROM. I know, I know, slow adopter... I'd like to root and go with a ROM that delivers better battery life and a basic debloat. However, nearly every ROM I read about seems to have a major (in my humble opinion) flaw. A non working camera or video camera, non working voicemail notification, malfunctioning signal strength bars, no 4G, etc., etc.
Is my only choice really a Froyo ROM? I'm not willing to stomach any major loss of functionality (or apps), be it phone, camera, calendar, GPS, navigation, various google apps, Bluetooth, WiFi, 3G and 4G, working signal strength bars, etc. I guess I am also in the "I prefer Sense" group but also have not given non Sense ROMs any time.
If responding I kindly request a few sentences of explanation/clarification rather than just saying "Get ROM X, it rocks, it is the best". Thanks in advance.

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Everything works on most the gb roms, with some needing certain fixes to fix certain things. Gingeritis 3d, with chingys new radio is tits imho
Sent from my TBolt using my f***king thumbs...

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Well, I'm not going to give you a few sentences, but I can tell you that I use Gingerth3ory (link in my siggy) and everything works, including vvm as long as you apply the bootable zip fix for that. Before, vvm was the only thing not working.
Camera, videocamera, wifi, 3g, 4g all work. I switched to youmail for vvm because I wanted netflix over stock vvm so that meant a GB ROM.

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I highly recommend Droid Theory's latest Senseless Rom. This is the smoothest and quickest ROM of his yet and that is saying something. There is a large mod community if you're interested in that. Most importantly, DT is very responsive and provides great support. He will be coming out with an update very soon to fix the market issue.
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA App

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http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1176922
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1187545
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1187545
Just showing there's been 3-4 other similar posts in the past few hours, just to avoid fragmenting answers or not getting the answer you wanted.

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Just follow my link in my signature.
Synergy is the way to go.

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Thanks folks.
OK we have votes for Gingeritis 3d, Gingerth3ory and Droid Theory's latest Senseless Rom. Has anyone ran more than one of these? Any important compare/contrast between them? I care much more about stability and battery life over eye candy. Those are my top 2 concerns. If those things are improved over the stock VZW/HTC ROM I should be happy. The biggest problems with this stock ROM for me are maintaining a data connection when switching from 3G to 4G and back. Also the speed of the GPS lock is very slow. How are these things in these recommended ROMs?
(yareally: You posted 2 identical links but mentioned 4 threads. Yes the questions in some of these were related to mine but certainly were not identical request.)

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I'm going to venture a guess you haven't actually looked at the threads or the dev's pages. Most have a thread for bug reports. GB ROMs are about as solid as any OTA these days. If you're new to flashing DO NOT, DO NOT use Synergy. It's a frankenstein project with no official stable release and a constant onslaught of nightlies with no end in sight. STAY AWAY FROM NIGHTLIES. Try BAMF. Try Gingeritus. Try Eaton. Try GING3R3DTH3ORY. Try something that's known to work and isn't revised several times a week. From the sounds of it, Eaton might be what you want. It looks and works very much like stock.

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swamp2 said:
Thanks folks.
OK we have votes for Gingeritis 3d, Gingerth3ory and Droid Theory's latest Senseless Rom. Has anyone ran more than one of these? Any important compare/contrast between them? I care much more about stability and battery life over eye candy. Those are my top 2 concerns. If those things are improved over the stock VZW/HTC ROM I should be happy. The biggest problems with this stock ROM for me are maintaining a data connection when switching from 3G to 4G and back. Also the speed of the GPS lock is very slow. How are these things in these recommended ROMs?
(yareally: You posted 2 identical links but mentioned 4 threads. Yes the questions in some of these were related to mine but certainly were not identical request.)
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last one was a miscopy, there was another one at least on the front page, but I was half asleep at the time. I said 3 to 4 btw, not 4. There have been lots though of rom reccomendation postings though and felt you would get a better idea by reading what other people had asked already.

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i'm using Synergy with the "06275r" radio and the dreamKernal. i also have SetCPU on set to "performance". it runs really smooth and the battery life is better then stock.
i've tried pretty much every ROM out there and have had this running for several days now. i like it and will keep it for a tad bit longer(why just a tad? i can't help it.. i like to keep trying new ROM's)

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loonatik78 said:
If you're new to flashing DO NOT, DO NOT use Synergy. It's a frankenstein project with no official stable release and a constant onslaught of nightlies with no end in sight. STAY AWAY FROM NIGHTLIES....Try something that's known to work and isn't revised several times a week.
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I have to disagree. Just because Synergy is updated every night does not mean you must flash reflash every day. The nightlies have very minor revisions (adding HTC Car Panel, changing the host file for better ad blocking, changing the Market icon color, changing the email splash screen, etc). If you don't need the newest revisions, then don't flash the latest nightly until something comes along that you really want/need. Synergy nightlies aren't released because it is an unstable rom. Quite the contrary. I have tried roms from 4 other devs and Synergy is the fastest & smoothest of them all. The only time I've had lockups or reboots is when I overclocked too much, which would have happened on any rom.
Don't be dissuaded from trying Synergy because there are nightly updates. If anything, that should tell you the devs are committed to making it better.

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sublimaze said:
I have to disagree. Just because Synergy is updated every night does not mean you must flash reflash every day. The nightlies have very minor revisions (adding HTC Car Panel, changing the host file for better ad blocking, changing the Market icon color, changing the email splash screen, etc). If you don't need the newest revisions, then don't flash the latest nightly until something comes along that you really want/need. Synergy nightlies aren't released because it is an unstable rom. Quite the contrary. I have tried roms from 4 other devs and Synergy is the fastest & smoothest of them all. The only time I've had lockups or reboots is when I overclocked too much, which would have happened on any rom.
Don't be dissuaded from trying Synergy because there are nightly updates. If anything, that should tell you the devs are committed to making it better.
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I don't agree with that and I'll tell you why. Let's say I tell Joe Bob to go try synergy. He does, and downloads who knows what on whatever night. Then he has a problem... Now what? Try to decipher Ziggy's advice? Try another nightly version? As far as I'm concerned nightlies are for developers. I think that because that been the whole point of nightlies from the beginning. I'm pretty sure CM was the first, but even they did that in support of a release candidate aiming towards an official release. I wouldn't tell someone "Go try a CM nightly!" even if they were looking mostly solid. I've read almost all of the thread for synergy. It's hardly a work without error. I don't believe that project is dedicated to producing reliable ROMs. They show no sign of such in any form, be it a release candidate or a final release. It appears to be a few developers tinkering and experimenting, in many cases against the law, and I cannot in good faith suggest someone fresh on the scene jump into one of the most convoluted ROMs for the Thunderbolt.

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I've been using nightlies for INC and they've all been stable for the past several months. They just keep adding features. At first it sort of bugged me that I never had the most updated version but then I just lived with staying with my version for several months until I got bored enough to flash the latest.
If nightlies isn't your thing then that's fine but I don't see a reason to tell other users to stay away from them. Generally they *will* have more bugs because the dev's don't thoroughly check the ROM's before they release - they expect the people who flash to find the bugs and then they fix it in the next releases, but after a while all those bugs are gone- then they move to adding a new feature and that may have a bug, and the cycle continues.
But in most cases these bugs are very minor and overall the ROM is superior in performance / battery / features than other ROM's.

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POQbum said:
I've been using nightlies for INC and they've all been stable for the past several months. They just keep adding features. At first it sort of bugged me that I never had the most updated version but then I just lived with staying with my version for several months until I got bored enough to flash the latest.
If nightlies isn't your thing then that's fine but I don't see a reason to tell other users to stay away from them. Generally they *will* have more bugs because the dev's don't thoroughly check the ROM's before they release - they expect the people who flash to find the bugs and then they fix it in the next releases, but after a while all those bugs are gone- then they move to adding a new feature and that may have a bug, and the cycle continues.
But in most cases these bugs are very minor and overall the ROM is superior in performance / battery / features than other ROM's.
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Please read what I wrote. I would not tell a NEW user to try a nightly. That would be stupid. The last thing some virgin flasher needs is to flash some nightly that got some new test kernel cooked into and its quirky as hell, or some jazz like that. We ALL wanted our first flash to work and not freeze or crash. I'm telling a NEW user to stay away from nightlies, not the experienced guy. I don't care how stable one night's version might be, or if almost all of them are. They are test beds and you don't know what you're getting night to night. And NO nightly I've ever used has been quirk-free.

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loonatik78 said:
Please read what I wrote. I would not tell a NEW user to try a nightly. That would be stupid. The last thing some virgin flasher needs is to flash some nightly that got some new test kernel cooked into and its quirky as hell, or some jazz like that. We ALL wanted our first flash to work and not freeze or crash. I'm telling a NEW user to stay away from nightlies, not the experienced guy. I don't care how stable one night's version might be, or if almost all of them are. They are test beds and you don't know what you're getting night to night. And NO nightly I've ever used has been quirk-free.
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Well.. I've had plenty quirk-free. But the Incredible nightlies are more polished than the thunderbolts.
I think you shouldn't tell them not to flash a nightly, just warn them of possible issues and explain to them what they are (and they would see this anyway because every nightly thread I've been to explains this)

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POQbum said:
Well.. I've had plenty quirk-free. But the Incredible nightlies are more polished than the thunderbolts.
I think you shouldn't tell them not to flash a nightly, just warn them of possible issues and explain to them what they are (and they would see this anyway because every nightly thread I've been to explains this)
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if someone is starting a thread like this, reading threads probably ain't in their game plan. I don't give advice to strangers I wouldn't give to a friend. You run something like a version of BAMF and you're running something a dev has hung his hat on. Not so with a nightly because there will be another tomorrow night! Telling a noob to try a nightly, regardless of stability, is like telling your kid to learn to drive behind the wheel of a Kenworth. If something goes wrong, its going to become a bigger deal than it would be if the guy had flashed 2 or 3 ROMs. This seems real obvious to me. Are you forgetting your first experience rooting and flashing ROMs? I'm not gonna warn someone of the dangers of doing something I consider stupid. I will say "If you want to do something stupid, go flash a nightly for your first ROM. If your LUCKY it will all work right. If it doesn't, go fly a kite because you're own your own, bro."

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Thanks for the further comments. Let's not try to get too side tracked on one ROM with many nightlies. I definitely prefer to steer clear of a ROM with nightlies. I'd like to let others do all that valuable beta testing and simply benefit from their work. Selfish - sure but uncommon - no.
Just to clarify some personal details that may help with recommendations. I've read many of the posts here from the devs themselves on their ROMs. However, slogging through hundreds of pages on a small handful of ROMs is not my idea of fun... I'm quite computer/phone literate but have not done programming in years. I also work in the software industry. After years of crappy and unstable WinMo devices and plenty of random freezes, resets and data loss, I've found a pretty nice new home with Android. I'm not afraid to experiment, trouble shoot, etc. However, I want a phone to USE much more than to constantly tinker, repair, troubleshoot, etc. I'd like a really mature, stable bulletproof ROM along with the ability to have GB and keep Sense. It is incredibly difficult for me to read the oftentimes massive features lists on the first page of any given ROM thread and distinguish it from other competing offerings. Despite being pretty computer literate, most of those pages are nearly entirely "greek" to me.
Perhaps there is no single best ROM or recommendation but I am going to continue to read all the replies here and hopefully get my choice narrowed down. Of course I realize no ROM choice is permanent. I'll just say again I like to USE my device rather than constantly "tinker".
Cheers.

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InfuseTh3ory ... Try it.

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Since you like Sense then check out Gingeritis
http://www.themikmik.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=271
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA App

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gingertheory is a nice solid build that I've been running the last couple of weeks. No big deal breakers as far as bugs.