[XPERIA X1 ROM Development] Howshall:
Impressions of Medium 2.3 with Rhodium dialer

Summary

Having extensively tested this ROM for 1.5 weeks I'm very happy to recommend Oobly's Medium 2.3 with Rhodium dialer on the following points:

- 100% Standby of Death (SoD) free!

- Otherwise very stable ROM in day to day use

- Extensively customised to be finger friendly throughout

- Fully functional built in Manila 2.5 with good stability

History with this ROM

Will update this post as I go along with this ROM, coming over from previous WM6.5 Valkyrie and previously EnergyROMs.

Please note: Liked/Disliked/Confused are solely used to help scan this review. I'm incredibly grateful to all chefs that cook for X1 as I don't have the skills or patience to do it! Hopefully these comments are useful Oobly and others.

Install:

- ROM image wouldn't flash from root of SD Card (Maybe ROMs fault) so had to flash via USB, but then did perform full Hard Reset (From off, hold both Silver face buttons and power then press R and then Space keys as prompted on gray background screens)

- Phone was already on Radio 1.16

- SD card was present and installed during flash and 1st boot

First Boot: - 25/01/10

- Liked Phoenix ROM start-up image - Liked

- ROM 1st boot does request standard WM6.1 Screen Calibration, Hints/Tips, Timezone/Date/Time and Optional set PIN before getting to customisation section

- Phone seemed to 'hang' a long time at end of customisation when bar was at 100% but wasn't hung as screen switched from portrait to landscape fine. Eventually OK button responded and/or device soft reset as expected

- Connection setup wizard correctly ran on second boot but didn't set Region (which is shown as part of connection setup) as some older ROMs used to, and so requires immediate soft reset of device - Disliked :(

- Set Region to UK but Time format to 12hr - Pleased to see white 'PM' clock display on Manila Home - Liked

- Pleased to find 'Actions' menu assigned to long Power Button keypress to allow quick Soft Reset, WiFi toggle, etc amoung other features - Liked

Initial Setup: - 25/01/10

- Set 30min Simple PIN lock (Could have been done as part of 1st boot) - Pleased to see Touch Input default software keyboard - Liked

- Set Owner Info - Pleased to see quick switch to landscape, responsive hardware keyboard entry and auto word suggestions working - 2x Liked

- Why are there 2x 'Device Information' icons within Settings > System tab? - Query :confused:

- Happy with default Auto Backlight and timeout values - Liked

-- But why no icon to this via Settings? (You have to go via top status bar) - Query :confused:

- Pleased to find full HTC Comms Manager inc 3G mode toggle - Liked

- Successfully connected to home WPA2 protected WiFi - Liked

- Successfully tested QuickGPS, Google Maps (inc GPS) - Liked

- Older v9 of Opera included, fully working with X1 hardware keyboard! - Liked

-- Opera v9 is not uninstallable from Remove Programs - Suggestion :o

-- If you start Opera 9 from Start menu icon default start page (file://localhost/windows/Sony Ericsson start page/index.html) is non-english version of Opera local start page - Confused :confused:

-- Opera v9 Help index and associated sub-pages are also in non-english even though path seems correct (file://localhost/Application Data/Opera9/help/english/index.html) - Confused :confused:

- Downloaded latest official Opera 10 Beta 2 from http://m.opera.com/mobile/

-- Opera 10 Beta 2 inc Hardware Keyboard support works great (Installs along side Opera9)

- Installed Weather Animation fix cab from Oobly Medium 2.3 known issues - Liked

- Installed Oobly suggested Disable 01:02 clock flip in Manila 2.1 and 2.5 which for Medium 2.3 ROM means this 2.5 WVGA cab - Worked great! - Liked

- Changed Task Manager to only fully close apps on 'Tapping and holding of X' - Although agree with default as better for better default performance for newbie users - Liked

First 36 hours - 27/01/10

Well first 36 hours with this ROM have been really great! Absolutely stable and no Standby of Death issues yet over two nights on mains charge!

Really impressed by how much work Oobly has done to integrate Manila 2.5 and recent version HTC apps including white big finger friendly soft key menus system wide. ROM has threaded Messaging, choice of HTC or WM SMS, Contacts, Calendar depending which way you go into them.

Having been a user of WM6.5 for quite a while I'm really impressed by how little you're giving up when using this 6.1 ROM.

Only major hope for improvement to this ROM would be a landscape compatible version of Manila 2.5 (which hopefully is already on Oobly's to do list since that was only recently released by rotastrain - http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=521227)

Other minor points noticed so far in addition to original Install items above:

- Connection Wizard didn't setup Voicemail number (used to in older ROMs - maybe under older Connection Wizard? - Query :confused:)

- 'My Contact Card' within HTC Contacts prompts that it's empty and do you want to populate, but won't open to allow this - Query :confused:

-- This means there doesn't seem to be any way to prompt Facebook to link contact profiles although this seems to be working as my contacts already had XML info from previous ROMS

-- Means you can't be asked whether you want to Save people's Facebook pics as their Contacts image?

- Can't click on Contact's Address in HTC Contacts to 'Show on Map' in Google Maps. Click effect happens visually in Contacts but Google Maps never opens - Query :confused:

- X1 Touch pad works really well throughout ROM, something that often doesn't work by default in most WM6.5 ROMs - Liked

- Shortcut icons on Home tab of Manila slightly lower quality than under 6.5 ROM but believe that's WM limitation as they only brought in higher res icon compatibility in WM6.5. They're still perfectly adequate and might run faster (and with less memory use) in this form, so just a comment for others.

Current System setup:

Currently running this ROM fully configured but with only CABs or registry tweaks being Oobly's recommended Weather and Disable Flip CABs.

In terms of configuration though everything is enabled to allow stress testing of this ROM's stability:

- Manila Location and Weather auto update with 4 cities

- Facebook, YouTube and Twitter logins all enabled

- 1x IMAP Email on 4hr sync schedule

- 1x Corporate Exchange Email + Calendar Push Email enabled (which triggered device encryption and strong password enforcement)

- Facebook Contacts sync, updates and events all seen working

- Opera 10 beta2u installed as only extra custom App at moment

- Pictures and Music tabs of Manila loaded and pulling content from installed 8Gb SD Card

- Have disabled some unwanted Manila tabs - Internet, Stocks, Footprints, Twitter

29/01/10 Update

This ROM continues to be great with only the minor query niggles listed above. Have it happily connected to both over the air Work MS Exchange push email and calendar + all except Email USB sync to Home PC.

No Standby of Deaths and no serious crashes, have had occasional glitch when swapping in and out of landscape while entering or leaving Manila UI, but to be expected when current baked in Manila doesn't support Landscape format.

Will continue to test and likely give further update in 1 week or when I next come across anything significant.

Overall a very very good ROM! Thanks Oobly!! :)

03/02/10 Final

After a full 1.5 weeks I'm very pleased to say that this ROM is rock solid for me. I think I've had 2 minor freezes, no full lockups and no Standby of Death issues with what I consider a fully configured and installed ROM.

Now adding short summary to the top of this post. This ROM may well be a keeper for me! :D