[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Windows Mobile ROM Development] cajunflavoredbob:
Illuminati ROM Review

I use T-Mobile, so my setup is based on that. This review is based on the 6.5.3 (28245) version of Wild Child's Illuminati ROM.

The first thing you get when the device boots for the first time is a custom screen shot of the Illuminati splash screen instead of the generic orange Windows splash screen. Once the device boots, you are greeted by the stock Sense welcome screen which helps users configure their device for the first time. For advanced users who swap ROMs often, this may be an annoyance for you, but you can simply skip the screens if you choose.

Nearly all of my T-Mobile settings worked right away. I sent and received a couple of calls to myself from my home phone. I sent and received a few texts and MMS messages as well. MMS settings had to be applied manually, however, so my pictures wouldn't be scaled down. I installed the T-Mobile keyboard fix as well. I set up my Exchange account and allowed all of my contacts, events, and messages to populate. All Exchange syncing was done over wifi.

The ROM is based on the stock HTC ROMs with the addition of Sense 2.5. This means that CHT is not present on the ROM. I enjoy using CHT, so I felt the loss of this, but this ROM is not designed in that manner. It is basically for those who love the look and feel of stock ROMs, but wish they were updated more often.

All of the feature of Sense are included, such as a Twitter tab and Facebook integration. Animated wallpapers look very nice, but I chose to stick with the animated weather instead. All of the tabs are skinned just as the stock ROM is. There is no theming that I noted across the ROM. Most of it is in the stock black with green accents. This actually makes certain things, like the dialer, stand out quite nicely.

There aren't many included app with the ROM, but, again, this is by design. One thing that did strike me as odd, that I did not like, was that the ROM does not have the task manager mapped to the send key by default. Since there is no easy way to access it otherwise, I found this to be a bit of a hassle to set up manually. Personally, I would have liked to see a different task manager such as Arkswitch which can be mapped to the taskbar, freeing up the send key for MS Voice Command. Of course, this is a personal preference more than anything, as tarkim's key remapper can be used to gain additional functionality over the buttons anyhow.

Even though it is a stock ROM, I would still have liked to see the addition of some very common applications. Opera is absent from the ROM with only IE included for web browsing. Including a screen capture application is a good idea for any chef as it helps narrow down bugs that users find, or illustrate the problem better than words. <-- I found the screen capture app in the Tools folder after posting; please disregard.

EDIT: The chef contacted me and confirmed that, while Opera was missing from the build I tested, it is included in the ROMs available to download.

Battery life was below average for this ROM. This, however isn't the ROM's fault, per say. The Windows Mobile branch used in the tested build is notorious for unbelievable speed and poor battery life. Given this, the battery lasted me for one full day and died sometime during the night on a full charge with moderate use. The chef has assured me that the new build of the ROM will be using the 23148 build instead which offers comparable speed and far superior battery life.

I am not fond of the HTC messaging client that comes as an option on this ROM. I wasn't fond of it on any of the carrier/HTC ROMs either. The app is full featured, but ridiculously slow. It ends up hindering your experience across the ROM in my opinion. Thankfully, chef Wild Child has thought of this and offers an option of a separate ROM the the Arcsoft messaging client cooked in. This offers plenty of features for none of the performance loss. This one main change made the ROM considerably more pleasant an experience for me.

I experienced one lockup while using the ROM over a three day period. I was reading a mail message when it happened. I do use WinMoSpeed to overclock, but I am not sure what the problem was. It never occurred again and proved to be very stable throughout the remainder of the test period.

On startup, I saw that the free RAM was 89MB. This was very impressive for a ROM using Sense 2.5 as the UI. Moving between the various tabs and applications was very fast and offered nearly no delays. Overclocking provided an extra bump to performance while multitasking. Opening the Windows directory only took about five seconds.

I can't say that this ROM is for everyone, but I will say with certainty that it is a wonderful alternative to the Stock ROMs if that's what you're into. The ROM has been very stable in my testing and gives a better experience than any of the carrier's or HTC's stock ROMs. There are several versions of the ROM for different users whether you have the European unlocked version or not. If you like the stock look, then this is a ROM you're sure to enjoy. Screen shots are below. Happy flashing. :)