[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Windows Mobile ROM Development] redpoint73:
Finally broke from the ATT stock ROM, and so happy I did. Here's a little report, which will hopefully be useful to somebody (and not too long & boring for others!). I had tweaked the heck out of the stock to get it usable. Even so, it still had issues with lag and stability. And these issues seemed to get worse over time, despite no changes to the system and periodic soft resets to clear the program memory. Seemed like the same way that Windows on the PC just seems to get slower and more buggy over time, and needs to get re-imaged. But I was still debating on flashing. The process was slightly intimidating. It looked simple, but any virgin has the "am I gonna brick my phone?" anxiety. I was also wary of various random issues that some seemed to have on cooked ROMs, that affect my everyday use of the phone (such as the speakerphone).

But the ROMs just get more stable and less buggy over time, due to the constant updates and tweaks by the cooks. After reading some very positive feedback from ATT users on this thread, I finally decided to take the plunge. First flashed to May 13 | 21903, and now updated to May 16 (both times using the CHT, GTX themed version). Both are stable and much smoother, faster than stock.

All went pretty well for this flashing n00b. I followed the instruction closely, and did task29 before flashing the Energy ROM. Slight hitch, Task29 hung/froze on the splash screen after wiping the memory (phone unresponsive). Minor panic. But I read through more of the Task29 thread, and found out what to do. I took out the battery and put it back, to power down. Then got into the bootloader by holding volume down, power button, and hitting the reset button with the stylus. The phone was no longer connected to my PC, so I flashed over the MicroSD card. Another minor panic, I was planning on flashing via ActiveSync, so I had not loaded the ROM onto my SD card. I have a MicroSD-USB card reader/adapter, but for some reason it just stopped working a couple months ago. So how to get the ROM onto the SD card? Luckily, I still had my old Tilt, which i was able to hook up to my PC and basically use that as an SD card reader. After getting the ROM onto the SD card, all went well by flashing from the card. I also hard reset after flashing the ROM, just to be safe (like some have suggested).

Lesson learned, have the ROM on your SD card regardless of what method you plan on using, or have a means to put in on the SD card in a pinch. I also learned NOT to have the ROM on your SD card (with the card in the phone) when you go to run Task29, otherwise it will install the ROM instead of running Task29. Simple fix, once the ROM loaded, I took out the SD card and ran Task29 again.

There is always lots of discussion on what is the best ROM based on personal requirements and preferences. And this one seems great for me. I'm loving the Sense 2.5 interface, and the customization allowed by CHT. I've always preferred Opera 9.7 to 10 due to the scalable zoom on the older version. Love the cooked-in software, lots of stuff I would have installed anyway. Some would probably consider them obvious ones to have; but its still handy to have things like Total Commander and Advanced Config already cooked in. And the cooked-in version of TCPMP on the Energy ROM works much better than CorePlayer on the stock ROM. Much less stutter, and I seem to be able to play some higher resolution videos that were previously unwatchable (I have lots of TV shows and movies on my PC that I don't intend to convert to lower resolution).

I was always wondering what the big deal about Sense was (compared to the older TF3D interface), and now I'm impressed. I love the design of the home tab, as it has so much useful info, and allows one-touch access to most everything I use on a daily basis. And the other tabs are just all-around improved over TF3D.

Battery life seems pretty good. Although its really hard to say for sure at this point, since I've been messing my phone non-stop since I flashed it, lol. I haven't noticed any significant bugs or issues so far, like other ATT users have been having (like speaker phone, GPS). Only thing I've noticed is that when typing in a few fields (such as Opera favorites), the hardware keyboard doesn't seem to work right. But this is really minor. I just used the touchscreen keyboard. All other daily uses of the hardware keyboard seem fine.

Big thanks to NRGZ28 for all the great work! For other folks on the stock ATT ROM, wondering if they should flash a custom, I would highly recommend the Energy ROM.