Root New to Android, Some Questions

[werkkrew]

I have been a long time Cell phone modder, and I have just gotten my first Android Phone, the HTC Evo 4G.

I have been reading xda-developers.com and these forums for about a week now trying to get my head wrapped around things, but I still have some lingering questions.

I feel I have a good grip on how to get my phone rooted/nand unlocked, but its the what to do after that, which bothers me.

What I would like to accomplish:

• More customized look and feel
• Better battery life (without disabling half the features of the damn phone)
• Free Wifi Hotspot
• Removal of the pre-packaged crapware
• Froyo

What I would not like to lose in the process:

• Any of the phones functionality, including GPS/4G/Camera/Video/Bluetooth/etc.
• Nice features that Sense has, such as Facebook contact syncing
• Reliability or usability of the phone in general

As I have gotten older, my desire to mod has become less and less, and I get more tempted to just leave the phone alone and wait for OTA updates to come out, but when I just tried to do the wifi hotspot and learned I would have to pay an additional $30 on top of the $10 "premium data access" I made the decision to root. That being said, I don't want my phone to be something I am flashing every day. I want it to be as stable as possible so that I can get it all set up how I want without having to worry about re-flashing and losing all my data week after week to keep up with bugfixes and such.

What I don't understand is the differences between all the roms. The opinion at large seems to be that CM6 is the way to go, but it seems a lot of stuff is broken in CM6 atm, like 4G among other things.

Since this is my first android phone, I am already getting used to the Sense UI, but I have seen some other peoples home screens that just look amazing.

I guess what I am looking for is some advice, or a bit of a rundown (since I cant find all of this information in one place) about what is the best course of action to get from point A(stock phone) to point B(customized rooted phone which is "stable") over a path of least resistance.


Thanks in advance!
[also making this same post on xda-developers.com]

 

[puckpack]

Perfectly stated and my situation exactly, except I have never modded my phone.

Any response at the other forum?

Thanks!

 

[lloydcabraham]

I'm also new to android. I've been an avid overclocker/modder in the PC world but as you, as I've gotten older I pretty much leave things stock. I liked my evo but just wanted to remove some bloatware. I ended up doing the OTA simple root (4 step process) and it was the easiest process for me. I then proceeded to try the different roms. As of today I've got 4 roms backed up on my phone. The one I use as my daily is the Damage Control 323 with the Netarchy FPS fix with HDMI. This has been absolutely stable and everything works (I already had the latest radio build from OTA). It was pretty much identical to stock (Also have a stock rooted rom) with a few battery saving widgets thrown in for good measure under their DCconfig tab. I like FreAks (Not as strong Wifi and doesn't have FMRadio) for the screen and CM (no 4g and doesn't use Sense UI)for Frodo but some things don't work well and they seem to need a little more tweaking to get what I really want.