[EVO 4G Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] fachadick:
Nandroid isn't the same thing as titanium, think of nandroid as an image, sort of like a disk image or a windows restore point. Once restored, it will take you back to exactly where you were at the time of the backup.

The numbers that you see in Rom Manager represent the recovery version. You currently have clockworkmod version 2.5.0.1 installed.

It's been spelled out above, and elsewhere through the forums, but I'm bored and I want to clean up this post anyway (I tried that new 8whatever keyboard again - still hate it. And before I cleaned it up, this post was three paragraphs of broken english), so here are some basic steps spelled out on what to do immediately after rooting, along with some terms.

The first thing you want to do once rooted is go into rom manager, and towards the bottom, hit the option that says "Flash Alternate Recovery". Once you do this, you'll notice at the top where it used to say Current Recovery: ClockworkMod 2.5.0.1 it will now say Current Recovery: Ra Recovery 1.8.0.

Now close out Rom Manager, and turn off the phone. Turn it back on while pressing down on the volume. The screen with the skateboarding Andy's will show up - this is the hboot screen. Among other things, this screen will tell you the version of hboot you're running, and whether you're S-ON or S-OFF. There may be a few different options listed here, but we're only interested in the one that says Recovery.

Select Recovery. The phone will reboot, and you should end up on a screen with green text. At the top it will say Android System Recovery, and all the way at the bottom, it will say Build : RA-evo-v1.8.0 From here select Backup/Restore. There are a few options, but note the two important ones - Nand backup, and Nand restore. Select Nand backup. It will ask if you're sure, so say yes. It will take awhile and the bottom of the screen will fill with dots. When it's done select Return then Reboot System Now. Congratulations, You just performed your first Nand Backup using Amon Ra recovery.

When you can, mount your phone as a drive, and go into folder inside the nandroid folder on your sdcard. You'll see a folder with today's date. Copy it somewhere safe on your computer. If you're interested, you can look in that folder and note the wimax.img file - this is where you're backing up the infamous RSA Keys (I'm not explaining what that is here, just know that you REALLY want to have this backed up, and kept somewhere safe). once the copying is done, unmount as a drive, and disconnect from your computer. Congratulations, now it's playtime. :D

Use either Titaniaum Backup or MyBackup Pro to back up all of your apps and data. Mybackup Pro will also backup call logs and text messages and things like that - I'm pretty sure Titanium does also, but I'm not sure. Your contacts should be backed up to google for easy restoration later.

Head over to the dev section and find a ROM that appeals to you. You can go with completely stock rooted if you want (which is essentially where you are now, but stock rooted would have the latest OTA updates when they come out), or stock with some tweaks to Sense, or non Sense at all (the most popular of these is CM, which rebuilds Froyo from the ground up.) Sense refers the stock launcher called Rosie, as well as some buried functionality in the phone - for example the mail, calendar, and dialer apps look and act different between Fresh and CM roms. Sense is a UI developed by HTC to go over what is commonly referred to as vanilla android/AOSP. AOSP stands for Android Open Source Project and is what google released on the n1, CM is an AOSP rom. Also, you're looking for a Deodexed rom (as opposed to odexed) so you can theme it later if you want.

Once you find a rom you like, download it to the root of your sd card (you may want to download it on your computer and move it to your sdcard). Refer to the above to get back into recovery, but this time instead of selecting Backup/Restore, select Wipe. Select Wipe data/factory Reset and let it do its things, then select Wipe cache, and let it do it's thing, then select Wipe Dalvic-cache, and let it do it's thing. What you've just done is erased all of the personal and superfluous data that was in the phone - you want to make sure that when you load the new rom, you're loading it on an empty slate, and that there's nothing of your old data left that could possibly corrupt something in the new rom. Some people say to wipe all of those options 2 or even 3 times each - I don't buy that though. Also, don't worry about the other wipe options you had there. Not needed now.

So once you've wiped, hit return, and select Flash zip from sdcard. It will pull up a list of .zip files found on the root of your sdcard. select the rom you just downloaded, and let it install. This may take a while. Don't freak. Once it's done, select Reboot system now. This will take a while too, maybe even a few minutes. Don't freak. Once it eventually boots up, restore all of your stuff with either Titanium or MyBackup Pro. Congratulations, You just flashed your first rom.

Now head over to the themes and apps section. Find a theme that interests you. Make sure its compatible with your rom (either sense or cm) and download it. Flash this the same way you flashed your rom, but you may or may not need to wipe first. Always refer to the op of those threads for specific instructions.

Finally and most importantly - head over to the thread in my sig and find a new font you like. All the cool kids are doing it. When you find one you like, copy it to your sdcard and flash it the same way you've been flashing everything else. You don't need to wipe anything for those though.

Tips;

1: never forget to wipe. As a rule, when flashing roms, you'll be wiping what people refer to as all three - that means wipe data/factory reset, wipe cache, and wipe dalvic cache. When flashing kernels or themes, you'll generally just be wiping cache and dalvic cache. Again though, always refer to the instructions in the op in which you found whatever it is your flashing.

2: if you'll be flashing both themes and roms, and possibly kernels, never flash in the same recovery session. So rom first, full reboot, then kernel, full reboot, then theme, full reboot. In that order, wiping and rewiping as needed.

3: give you're rom at least a few days before you give up on it, most need time to settle into your phone so to speak, and need a few battery cycles to get to peak performance, which brings up to

4: You should wipe your battery stats whenever you flash a new rom. Remember you saw that option under Wipe back in recovery? Well now you get to use it. I posed the link and process above in the thread.

5: At this point most people use Amon Ra instead of clockworkmod because there seems to be uncertainty as to weather or not clockworkmod correctly wipes. ONLY Amon Ra backs up the wimax.img, clockwork does not.

6: rom manager is a graphical front end for clockworkmod. A lot of people still use it to flash, becasue it's so easy to use, it can be used to download roms directly in the app, and doesn't require the zip file to be on the root of the sdcard - it van be anywhere on the card. Don't forget though, you can download the rom through the app if you want, but still switch to amon ra to flash it.

7: you cannot restore a nand backup you make with amon ra with clockwork, and you cannot restore a nand backup you make with clockwork with amonra.

8: on the off chance you need to change your hboot version for any reason, you can only restore nand backups with the same hboot version that they were backed up with. NOTE, were talking about hboot here, not recovery.

Damn, that was a lot of of text. Sorry about that.