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Tuesday, October 18, 2011

The state of Verizon HTC Thunderbolt Android ROMs - my very biased perspective

If you like HTC's Sense skin for Android, which I do, and you don't want to be months behind current phones, which I don't, you really only have a few options:


  • Run one of the leaked RUUs for the Thunderbolt that includes Gingerbread
    • This will unfortunately still leave you running Sense 2.1, back in the "dark ages" technology timeline speaking
  • Run one of the Sense 3.0 or Sense 3.5 GB-based ROMs ported to the Thunderbolt
    • Thanks to the unique nature of the 4G RIL, TeamBAMF is really the only team to have working GB Sense 3+ ROMs. If you're running a Sense 3+ ROM on your TBolt, even if it's not an official TeamBAMF release, you likely have @adrynalyne and/or @erishasnobatter to thank for it...
Now, for the goods:
  1. Grab and flash a GB radio (I prefer the actual latest from the last leak/almost-but-pulled-official release: MR3 GB radio from 2.11.605.3, 1.48.00.906w_1, 0.01.78.0906w_2) from this TeamBAMF.net thread: http://teambamf.net/showthread.php/242-Radios! you can also find separated CDMA and LTE radios at this RootzWiki thread: http://rootzwiki.com/showthread.php?2937-RADIO-HTC-Thunderbolt-Radios-PG05IMG.zip-(Updated-24-Sep-2011)
  2. Try one of these three great and stable ROMs:
    1. BAMF Forever (Currently 1.0.8) - Sense 3.0, been around the longest of the 3
    2. BAMF SoaB (Currently v1.02) - Sense 3.5, ported from a Bliss RUU, been around fairly long, lots of activity
    3. Touch my BAMF (Currently 1.0.4) - Sense 3.0, Ported from the Touch 4G Slide, claim to fame is that it is the only (that I know of) GB Sense ROM with working landscape mode!
    4. Update: TeamBAMF just doesn't stop - Touch my BAMF Remix (currently 1.0.4) was just released, I guess I know what I'm doing this evening:
If you've had a good experience with a different Thunderbolt GB ROM, please leave a comment. I haven't yet been adventurous enough to try @LayherDaddy's CyanogenMod not-quite-official releases (e.g. http://rootzwiki.com/showthread.php?392-ROM-Not-fully-Official-CM7-for-Thunderbolt.-7.1.1-Updated-10-2-1-25AM-EST )

Happy ROM-ing!