My review of the controversial Ultimate Droid ROM

WARNING: Dragons ahead

I want to say this right off the bat: I don’t, nor did I ever, take a side in the WWIII-resembling forum war that occured between Ultimate Droid and Cyanogen and his team of developers. For those of you that don’t know what happen I’m not going to go into too much detail. In summary, Black Droid (the developer of Ultimate Droid) created a ROM called Ultimate Droid that gathered a large following. The developer got in a big fight with a CyanogenMod developer and all hell broke loose. Cyanogen showed that Black Droid had essentially copied their ROM and gave no credit for it (his full account can be found on his blog, here). Black Droid was banned from several forums and blacklisted by all but his followers (which is still a very large community).

So that’s the back story of why this ROM is controversial, but how does it run? After looking for something to bide my time until CM7 RC 3 became official, I asked one of my buddies what ROM he was running on his Droid. He told me he wasn’t sure. I took it, checked out the phone info, and was surprised to see Ultimate Droid. I’d read and witnessed so much carnage over this ROM that surely no one used it, right? Well, the ROM has still kept it’s following, and with the addition of credit being given to Cyanogen and the other developer’s work that’s been used in the ROM I figured what the heck.

Author’s Note: I am not going to review this ROM with any bias. I largely ignored the CM vs UD fight when it happened, and I had no stance in the matter; I, like many, just let it blow over. I’m reviewing this ROM based on its performance, not on its morality.

Customization

From the beginning, UD feels A LOT like CM7. Both are AOSP based ROMs, and UD was originally based off of mostly CM code. Both are fast (very fast). Both run Cyanogen’s Kernel. Both have that tweaked, stock Android feel. And both can be set up to look the exact same. In fact, if I showed you my screen shots you would not be able to tell the difference between my CM7 setup and my UD setup. This is because they both have the Theme Chooser app and largely have the same things to tweak in settings. Ironically though, this is where I feel like UD has an advantage over CM7. There are actually more options in UD than there are in CM7. Crazy right? While I wouldn’t say any of the newer ones are game changers, having more options is never a bad thing (and some of them actually are quite useful). The ability to do a hot reset in UD is fantastic, and the thing I’ve missed the most since I departed Myn’s Warm ROM. For those of you that don’t know what that is, it’s essentially being able to reset your phone but have it take a third of the time (it starts the reset from the boot animation instead of turning the phone off and beginning at the splash screen). This is great for people like me who theme a lot and need to reset their phones to see the effect. The other two big ones for me are God Mode and the option to speed up the Market. God Mode allows you to have root access using any file explorer you have. This is great for users without Root Explorer as you can essentially have the same permissions but without paying for it (however, Root Explorer is a GREAT application that I recommend for any root user). Other options include a Dalvik-Cache clear, the ability to enable/disable camera sounds and the Bootanimation (which drastically shortens boot up time), mount SD controls, the ability to change your font without flashing anything, the ability to change your bootanimation without flashing anything, the ability to change how much memory the native task manager will alot, and a few more. While I don’t want this review to be comparing this and CM7 (especially since they are nearly the same), I would actually say that this has more options than CM7…and I like being able to customize.

One thing I don’t like though is how the lockscreen has “Ultimate Droid” branded across it. not a big deal, but the option to turn it off would be greatly appreciated.

Performance

As to be expected, this ROM is very, very fast. While in my personal, unscientific tests it’s not quite as fast as CM7, the difference is nearly negligible; only the hard core performance junkies will notice (and they wouldn’t stray away from CM anyway). One thing that I do like about this ROM is that there are far less force quits and reboots than there are on CM7. Granted, CM7 is still only on release candidates, but CM has never been known for it’s stability anyway. This ROM has not rebooted on me once since I’ve flashed it, and I’ve not had a single force quit either. So in terms of stability this ROM is very good… even if it sacrifices a little speed to achieve such. Another thing that I also noticed with CM7 is that Wimax is faster than it is on Sense ROMs. I don’t know what kind of magic shenanigans Cyanogen’s team is, but they know their stuff. On the downside though, I’ve noticed the range on my wifi isn’t as good as it was on the ROMs that my phone was shipped with (Stock HTC Sense). While this isn’t really a big problem, there is one area of my house that gets limited wifi access with any device I try, and I get no wifi when I try to get it with my phone  (and the same occurred with CM7). So the difference isn’t really all that big, however if your only way to get internet is by getting a wifi signal that is occasionally disconnecting you should: 1. Probably not use this ROM 2. Tell you neighbor he needs a better router.

My Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Using an all ROM rationale, I would recommend this ROM to anyone. It’s fast, good, reliable, and is a great alternative to the people that have problems with CM on their phone (I know several people who said that they started on this ROM because CM didn’t work well with their device, but they wanted that feel anyway). However, it’s up to you if you think this ROM is “right” or not. Do know that Black Droid has given to Cyanogen and his team for what he’s used (and everyone else) and that a lot of those bridges have been repaired. If this still bothers you I couldn’t blame you for not installing it. If all you care about is how your phone runs I would recommend this ROM. I don’t know if Cyanogen and Black Droid have made up or if they still want each other dead. Honestly, I don’t care. Facebook was supposed to be a stolen idea but so many of you use it everyday; your morals are for you to decide. I will get flamed for even putting this review here, and to you I say open up your horizons. I will get praised for giving Black Droid a shot, and to you I say he did steal several people’s work.

-To each his own-

To download this ROM, visit Ultimate Droid’s official website.

…Now…when the heck is CM7 RC3 going to be released?!?!