What are latest top 3 recommended ROMs for HTC Hero?

[xevious]

While I've done ROM upgrades in the past (did a lot of seem edits and flash ROMs on Motorola phones before coming to Android), I never got around to upgrading the ROM on my HTC Hero. I rooted it, but then life got complicated before I could spare the time (and risk) in ROM installs. Now that I'm prepared to upgrade from the Hero, I want to give the ROM update a try for my final few weeks/months of using the Hero as my primary phone. I do plan to keep the phone as a back-up once I upgrade, though.

So, given how the HTC Hero has been retired from new ROM development, what have been regarded as the top 3 ROMs in the final days? I know CM 7.1 is highly regarded, but I know very little about the others. If anyone here is familiar with the choices available, can you list them and what you consider their advantages/disadvantages? Thanks!

 

[KitsapAndroid]

Once I installed CM 7.1 on the HERO, there was no going to another ROM for me. It was, by far, the most funtional ROM I ever used on that phone. The AOSP ROM was good, but CM blew it away IMO. Search around, there is a thread here somehwere that has some alterntive HERO ROM's and what people liked or didn't like about them.

 

[LBPHeretic]

There are nightlies for CyanogenMod 7.2 for now for the Sprint HTC Hero. From what I gather, it brings some Android 4.0 features to Android 2.3, and adds some other functionality.

There are a couple of HTC Sense 3.x based ROMs available for the Sprint HTC Hero now. The Zero Hero Sense 3.5 ROM comes to mind immediately and you can check a couple others out over at xda-developers.

 

[xevious]

Thanks, guys. It's good to see that it's fairly easy to go from one ROM to another. I'll probably start with CM 7.2 then.

One related question... I've used Titanium Backup to back up all of my apps and made a nandroid backup for the system and user data. But, how do you distinctly backup and restore all of the text messages and voicemail recordings to load onto a newly installed ROM?

 

[KitsapAndroid]

For texts I use SMS Backup Pro. For VM, I just know that Sprint has them backed up for me. Plus, I don't like to keep them stored on my handset, so not having them DL'd is NBD for me.

 

[xevious]

I ended up using My Backup Root to backup all of my SMS text messages. As for voicemail, the Sprint VVM application updated to provide an option to copy the sound files to the SD card (very cool).

I ended up going to CM 7.2 and so far it has been great... although I really miss HTC Sense. I know that Sense is generally regarded as a poor Android implementation, as they supposedly took a lot of liberties outside the Android specification (which is why you can't load Sense onto any ROM). Fancy Widgets makes a great clock/weather widget that looks surprisingly like the Sense version, so the phone feels a little more comfortable visually.

As for backups, I use both Titanium Backup and My Backup Root, in addition to Nandroid. I think it's a good idea to have a couple of different backups, just in case.

Anyway, once I finish getting comfortable with CM7 I'll take a look at the Zero Hero Sense ROM. Hopefully it has some promise.