Upgraded my HTC Incredible S to Nik ROM with Sense 4.1 Lite and Sense 5 visual

My 2 years old HTC Incredible S Android smartphone with official HTC ROM was last updated to Android 4.0.4 (Ice Cream Sandwich, ICS) with Sense UI 3.6 in July 2012. Since then, it didn't receive any new ROM update from HTC anymore.

Since its 2-years warranty period is now over, I upgraded it to a custom ROM called Nik Project X Rebirth v3.0 with Sense 4.1 Lite and some Sense 5 visual (a.k.a. Nik's ROM). This custom ROM for HTC Incredible S is also running on Android 4.0.4 but bring us the Sense 4.1 UI experience found in HTC One X and some Sense 5 visual found in HTC One (M7).

Although there are some other HTC Incredible S custom ROMs running on newer Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) or even Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean), but they don't include HTC Sense with the ROM.

If you are still using HTC Incredible S, you might probably also want to try out Nik's ROM because it brings new Sense experience as in HTC One series of smartphone, and it runs faster, smooter and more battery efficient than the stock HTC ICS ROM with Sense 3.6. This ROM will also upgrade your phone's filesystem to EXT4 too.

It really makes your HTC Incredible S remain fit and fun for use for quite some times.

In order to upgrade your HTC Incredible S to Nik's ROM, you need to get your phone rooted and S-Offed. There is a detail instruction in XDA developers forum to guide you through the process.

Click here to get the detail instruction to root and S-Off HTC Incredible S.

Note that you need to follow the instruction exactly, including flashing the CyanogenMod 7.2 ROM. This is because you might not be able to install Blackrose HBOOT with some other ROM.

At the end of the process, when you boot your phone by pressing Volume Down and Power key together, your screen should show the information as below.

Once you are done, you can proceed to download Nik's ROM, put it in your SD card, and flash it into your HTC Incredible S with ClockworkMod Recovery.

Click here to go to the download page of Nik Project X Rebirth v3.0 ROM.

After successfully upgraded to Nik's ROM, you can find the 4EXT Recovery Updater app in your app drawer. You can use it to replace your ClockworkMod Recovery with 4EXT Recovery Touch then.

Nik's ROM uses AROMA Installer for its installation. Along the process, you can customize your installation and choose whether to include or exclude the Sense UI, select the looks and feels of the icon style, battery icon, font, etc.

You can also exclude some of the "pre-install" apps that you don't want to install into your phone.

What are the new things and experience you can get in your HTC Incredible S after upgraded it to Nik's ROM? Well, here are a few of them...

The weather lock screen (among the available lock screens in Sense 4.1):

The home screen with Sense 4.1 looks and feels:

Press the phone's Power button, and you can see more options, including taking a screenshot:

The Quick Settings menu:

Now your HTC Incredible S can also have HTC Sense input with trace keyboard:

Long press the Home button to open this Recent Apps screen:

And you also get a faster, better, more feature rich Camera app with HDR, panaroma, show motion video, etc.

In addition, you can just swipe your finger from left to right (from Home button to Search button) to wake up your phone from sleep, and bring it to sleep mode by swiping your finger from right to left (from Search button to Home button). Therefore, you no longer need to use your phone's Power button as often as before.