Some of you have moved on from your original HTC EVO 4G, and there’s no shame in that. But you may still have your old phone laying around collecting dust, when you know there’s something that it could be doing right now. Ubersonic RC1 is made for these inactive EVOs, stripping out all the phone parts and turning your former heavyweight champ of a phone into a dedicated portable media device.
The ROM features Awesome BEATS v3.3 for sound enhancements, the Walkman app from the Xperia S, and Google Now. RC2 will be released and re-based on Deck’s ICS fairly soon, according to the developer, and it will also contain updated versions of everything.
It’s an interesting idea, and something that definitely is a way to keep your EVO in service well after the transition to another phone, but I do question how much bloat the phone processes takes up and why the removal of that is considered a good thing. Personally, I kind of dig knowing that on any of my four inactive phones, I can plug them in and dial 911 emergency services even though they’re inactive. (I guess if you have kids or people you’re keeping locked up in your basement, you might want the ability to disable that.)
It’s definitely something pretty cool to do with and old EVO, but as a ROM, it’s an interesting absence of things rather than a lot of neat additions. It’s probably great for keeping kids entertained on a car trip or bringing the party with you.
This is cool but I rather just put my phone in airplane mode and BOOM, it does the same thing
Plus like you said, if you want to call 911 or something, you can always take it off airplane mode and call someone.
BUT it is what it is, nice review Paul and I’ll at least give this ROM a shot, who knows…it might change my mind HAHAHA
I’ve decided this ROM is good for letting people you don’t trust with a phone play with it – IE 8 year olds. Woudl like to see stuff such as password protected applications if it’s going that direction though.
Will be interested when RC2 comes out as this is a fairly old product in ROM terms.
Yeah that would be a good addition! I know my 4 year old son is hooked on Fruit Ninja and I got to make sure to always put it in airplane mode before letting him handle the phone…lol
I’ll keep my eye on this and see what new things come in the updates
paul do you have any other recs for ROMs for inactive devices?
not at the moment. They’re about to release a re-based version of this one that looks like it will be a lot better.
Since the phone process isn’t a memory or processor hog, removing it doesn’t really gain much in terms of performance or anything, so my current suggestion would be slap a ROM capable of netflix on and lock the dialer if you’re worried using an application locker.
Thanks,
I haven’t left airplaine mode in about 6 months but it would be nice if someone paired an underclocking kernal with the removal of phone features/popups/apks to create a true wifi device
Its a small objection, but seeing “airplane mode” every time i turn on the screen (and permanently in the notification bar) is a tad unpleasant.
I’ve been eagerly waiting to see wifi dedicated roms for my old 4G… thinking the benefit would be battery life in standby. But if battery life is not improved, there really is no point to me.
If I still have my EVO I’d get this. It’d become an eVOD. But I sold it so I can’t do this. I do have 2 other phones I can work on that isn’t an EVO. I just need to go out and find roms like this.
I don’t need the Dialer and giving it to the kids would ensure that no errant calls would be made to 911.