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Just got a T-Mobile HD2? Read Jamie’s "New to WinMo and absolute newbie tweak guide"
I wanted to write this guide due to the number of “THE HD2 SUCKS!” threads I’ve seen floating around. Guys, what did you think you were getting into here? This phone runs Windows Mobile. The very core of running this OS involves tweaking it beyond recognition, but, however, once you do that it can run quite beautifully. I wrote this guide to appeal to beginners. I try to avoid things like, "Oh, edit this registry value...What does it do? No clue, but it saves battery life." Those types of tweaks are for a different guide.
About the phone and Windows Mobile
Windows Mobile is old. Really old. Try ten years old, and, sometimes, it really does feel like it's age is apparent.
The phone crashes. A lot. Get ready to soft reset a lot. Turning off Sense can help with the crashing, though.
The interface is called Sense. You can turn this off and revert back to Titanium, the default Windows 6.5 theme.
The HD2 is not like an iPhone. Get an iPhone if you want an iPhone. Apps that run on the iPhone do not work (and probably will never be ported) on Windows Mobile.
Yes, the screen is glass. It's scratch resistant, not scratch-proof. I hear mixed opinion on whether you can get away without using a screen protector, and plenty of people complain about how easy it is to scratch. It's your call, but keep in mind that glass is 6-7 on the Mohs scale of mineral hardness. Hardened steel is 7.5. Your keys will scratch the absolute hell out of it. Some partials of sand and grit can scratch it, keep that in mind. And a drop from only a few feet will completely spiderweb the screen. Don't drop your phone.
The phone ships with two browsers: Opera 9.7 and Internet Explorer. Yes, that is an older version of Opera, but I feel it works fine. Opera 10 does not support pinch-to-zoom, and to my knowledge there are no tweaks to enable it.
The HD2 comes with Voice Command. To activate it, hold the green call button until it beeps at you. Then speak your phrase. A guide to using it can be found here. Your phone can read your SMSes to you.
Don’t like a tweak or application you installed? Uninstall it, and it reverts back to how it was originally.
Please see the Flashing Rom section on the different versions of Windows Mobile (6.1, 6.5, 6.5.3, etc)
Contrarily to the desktop version of Windows, hitting the X button does not exit a program, it just minimizes it. Please see the section about task managers.
WAIT ONE MINUTE
Wait! Hold on. Before you complain about ANYTHING (especially about messaging, lag, a pink camera hue, etc.), please make sure you have the newest stock ROM. To check, slide all the way to the right to Settings, then to About Phone, then to Software Information. What does it say under ROM version? Does it say 2.13.531.1?
If it doesn’t, you owe it to yourself and your sanity to flash to the new ROM. It’s real easy, too. Just go here and follow the instructions. http://dl.htc.com/ruudownload/t-mobileUS/DeviceDownloads.aspx?pid=leo
If you notice some weird-ass screen sensitivity issues (I never did), you should try installing this cab. Hey, it’s the first sticky; you should know this.
How to install a .CAB (You’ll be doing this a lot): First, download it from wherever. DO NOT EXTRACT THE CAB. Connect your phone via Activesync (Or Windows Mobile Device Center) . Drop the file onto your phone somewhere. Open File Explorer on your phone, run the file and install it to the device or storage card. I normally install to the device because you have plenty of storage, and if you connect the phone via disk drive to your computer, you temporarily won’t have access to any programs on the phone if they are stored on the card. If you need more instruction on installing cabs, please see my post here.
Killer Apps (That means required)
Cookie’s mod: This is my favorite tweak for Windows Mobile, especially more so now that version 1.8 is out. Install Cookie’s mod and it makes your whole life easier. What is it? It contains a bunch of features, but its main feature is to customize your home screen. By default, it makes it looks kind of iPhoneish, but I don’t think that is a bad thing. You can edit the home screen with more icons, widget things like toggles and an MP3 player, different types of adjustable (in size and layout) clocks including analog ones, and so forth. But, the cool part is that if you swipe up on the home screen, it turns into this iPhone-like icon grid interface--actually--more like an amalgamation of the iPhone and Android. You can scroll left and right to access more pages. Fill up the 3+ pages with applications, contacts, toggles, widgets, and you have the easiest and most convenient way to launch them. You could fill up an entire page about Cookie’s mod, though, and it’s important to download the editor for the program. Without the editor there won’t be much editing going on.
Check out this picture for a basic example of what you can do with cookie's mod. Note: The top picture is what you switch to when you swipe down on the main home screen; the bottommost one is when you swipe up on the home screen, left screen is a swipe to the left, and so forth. That was kind of hard to explain. Please see the thread for all of the features, customization options, etc. This is what Sense should have been like from the start.
Any task manager: Okay, you really need a task manager to make multitasking useful while not slowing your phone down to a crawl. Touching the X on a program does not actually exit a program, it just minimizes it. Map one to a specific part of the screen or a button, and easily switch programs. Hey, it’s you real advantage over the iPhone here; stream some Slacker radio or Grooveshark while you edit that Word document. Personally I use Arkswitch, but there are other great ones like Duttys. Hell, here's another one. At least add the default Windows Mobile task manager to a quick link at the very least.
BSB Specific Tweaks
Okay, so you have the newest official ROM and Cookie’s mod and you still think this phone is a piece of junk? Don’t fear yet. My next recommendation is to install BSB Tweaks. Download it here. What is it? Basically a bunch of settings you can modify that you normally can’t edit without a registry editor. This program is literally a godsend as it allows you to change, like, 50 popular settings that you couldn't do easily.
Don’t like lock screen and wish you could turn it off? Slide the off switch on “Auto Lock”.
Want to access the Windows settings through the Start Menu? Slide “Windows Settings” to on.
This is my opinion, but you can turn off “HTC Vibration” to make typing on the onscreen keyboard a bit more accurate, and you probably save battery life, too.
If you don’t like the phone’s screen turning on whenever you get a text message, slide “SMS Wake Up” to off.
I recommend turning on “Album Close,” because I don’t see the need to always have it running in the background.
Do you feel that the back button is a bit too stiff, and backing out of texts with it is a little uncomfortable? Turn on “Manila Send Butt.” to get a nice graphical send button, and it changes the left softkey to “back”. Very handy if you’re a big texter.
I recommend adjusting the LED notifications to however you see fit. Personally, I like having it flash for SMSs, but not anything else. Your opinion obviously differs.
I hear turning on “Wifi N” apparently helps improves, well, everything. I’ve heard, “Oh man, it’ll load pages instantly,” “You’ll get a wifi connection faster,” and other stuff, but I haven’t really noticed a difference. But I hear enough clamor that it probably doesn’t hurt to turn it on.
I highly recommend turning on "Opera Tabs". By default, you are limited to 3, which is laughable.
You can tinker with the other settings. A lot of them are a matter of personal taste.
Touch Tools Specific Tweaks
You might be asking why you need two tweaking programs that are 90% similar, and the answer is that Touch Tools does some stuff that BSB Tweaks doesn't See this post for the differences. Beware that Touch Tools is a lot more powerful and not as user friendly.
Slim Volume Tweak : Like the volume bar you get in apps like Youtube? You know, that transparent one that doesn't completely obscure whatever you're doing? Go into the Touch Tools folder, go to Slim Volume, hit Add, open the app you want to change the volume bar in, and shake your phone. I like doing this to whatever plays music.
Battery Life Tweaks
Tweak #1: Okay, I have no idea why, but the battery on this phone doesn't last very long. I recommend turning the backlight off automatic mode and setting it to a nice low, barely visible percent. Hey, you got to make it through the day, right? To do this, mosey your slider all the way over to settings, then to Sound & Display, then to Backlight. Joking aside, I feel it is perfectly readable indoors at 20%.
But there is a problem: once you go outside into the sunlight (the light, it buuuurns), your phone’s screen is nearly unreadable. Now you could take the time to crank up the backlight or turn it back to auto, but an easier way is to install this cab, map it to a Quick Link, and bam, you can quickly switch the auto backlight on and off.
Tweak #2: Turn My Location off. I have no idea why, but turning this off helps greatly--apparently it uses the data connection too much.. To do so, slide the slider to settings, and then click on Location. Make sure you turn off Location Service Settings and not AGPS.
Tweak #3: Turn off the various data synchronization. This phone can sync with various emails, Outlook, Twitter, the weather, your medical records, Facebook, the monolith, Youtube, and probably some others I am missing. Turn them to manual or put them to sync every couple hours to save battery. NOTE: It is extremely annoying to turn Facebook on and off (contacts pictures vanish, etc) so I recommend against turning it off.
Tweak #4: Web browsing takes a truly crazy amount of power. If you are going to do a lot of browsing, enable WiFi instead of using 3G, but be sure to turn off the WiFi if you're not using it, however. Also consider using Opera Mini 5 to browse the internet if battery is a concern. It uses less resources (bandwidth, processor, etc) than Opera Mobile 10.
Other tweaks: If you turn off Sense (Settings Tab > Right softkey > All settings > Today > Items) you’ll gain a huge battery life increase. I, however, feel that turning off Sense goes against the spirit of the phone. I like the Facebook integration and all the eye candy. And most of the tweaks have to do with Sense.
Useful Tweaks
HTC Flashlight: For whatever reason, the stock flash light does this stupidly infuriating demo where it scrolls through the flashlight settings. I have no idea why it does this; it conveys no useful purpose. It feels like this takes an eternity to do when you’re just trying to find something under your bed. Download this to fix that problem.
Lock Screen Icon at the Middle or Bottom: Okay, so our phone has a giant screen. I have pretty small hands and it was a bit of a reach to unlock the phone when the icon was at the very top of the phone. Install one of these and you can have it at the respective location. Very…handy. See what I did there?
4 Row Start Menu: By default the phone’s start menu ships with 3 rows. In my opinion, this is a huge waste of screen real estate. Install this CAB to fix it and make your Start menu so much more useful.
Power off icon: Want an icon to turn the screen off that you can put in the Quick Links? Check out post #3 here.
Turn off Weather Animation: Holy crap, it must always be cloudy in Kentucky or something as my home screen was always filled with clouds. A bit of a roundabout way to turn these animations off is to click on an empty Quick Link square, and pick "Weather Animation On/Off shortcut". Now you have a nifty icon to toggle the clouds (maybe sunlight in your case) on and off, and maybe even save some battery. Want less clouds? Install this .CAB. Wait, you said you want more home screen animations that aren't weather related? Bam and bam.
Is Activesync or WMDC annoying the absolute hell out of you by popping up on your computer? If you want to charge your phone via USB and you turn the phone's screen on for any reason, it starts syncing which can lag both the phone and computer. The simplest way to fix this is to start up Activesync on your phone (it's probably in your task manager already, damn thing's like a zombie) without it being connected to a computer, and then hit the Menu softkey, and then go to Connections, and unclick the check box for "Synchronize all PCs using this connection." Yeah, your computer beeps whenever you turn the screen on, but you won't get the annoying pop up.
A word about the WiFi's Power Save Mode (Com Manager> Wifi > Advance > Power Mode): Yeah, it probably does save you battery, but it does this by limiting your download speeds. I don't like slow page loads so I recommend setting it to performance, but the call is yours. I just don't think sacrificing page load times for battery is worth it.
If you hold down the red end key for a while, a handy menu pops up with some options. Make it even more useful with this thread. It adds a bunch more features like the option to restart Sense.
Mimic an iPhone or Android device when browsing. Guys, like mobile sites? Yeah, not many support Opera 9.7 and if you go to the m.website.com, you usually get the mobile website designed for your "niece's ****ty eight-year-old Boost mobile phone". An easy way to get the more feature rich website is to trick sites so it thinks you have an iphone or Android browser. I recommend doing this for Android because there are many Android devices that support 840x480 while the iPhone does not and many websites appear kinda busted.
To do so, fire up Opera. In the address bar type only "about:config" (not http://about:config) sans quotes. Scroll down to User Prefs and go to Custom User-Agent and type in whatever one you want. I recommend using the Nexus One user agent, even if the iPhone usually has better mobile page support.
Nexus One:
Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.2; en-us; Nexus One Build/FRF91) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1
iPhone:
Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/1A543 Safari/419.3
Hate mobile sites with a bloody passion and would prefer the desktop version no matter what? Try using the desktop firefox user agent:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.6) Gecko/20100625 Firefox/3.6.6
Commonly Asked Questions
I want to enable pinch-to-zoom in X program: BSB Tweaks can enable a few programs to work with pinch-to-zoom. You can also add your own application, but the caveat is that it literally zooms onto the screen like a magnifying glass. Not too useful in my opinion.
How do I take a screenshot of the screen? BSB Tweak can do this, too. Just go into Menu, pick screenshots, and shake your phone whenever you want to take a picture. Very handy....literally.
I am going out of the country. How do I easily disable data? BSB Tweak.
I want to add rotation to X program: BSB Tweak.
How do I change the softkeys: BSB Tweak.
How do I increase the number of tabs in Opera? BSB Tweak.
How do I watch flash videos? Internet Explorer has Flash, Opera 10 has a setting to enable it, too, but I recommend using the Skyfire Browser to view Flash Content.
Wait, what is the best browser then? Oh boy. It depends on the person. Why not try them all? I primarily use Opera 9.7 (the phone ships with this), and it does a great job of rending pages accurate and relatively quickly. Opera Mini 5 uses server-side page compression so pages load extremely fast, but you get some screwy pages (Engadget), and pages aren't fluid. Skyfire also uses server-side compression, I think the interface is god-awful, and I do not like how it renders pages. However, it has excellent Flash support. There are other browsers like older versions of Opera, Bolt, and Uzard--which I think has great potential if it would actually work. I recommend sticking with the first three.
Awesome Applications
First off, we have a subforum dedicated to Windows Mobile Apps and Games. You won't find the cool programs on the Windows Market Place; they're here on XDA. Another site with a huge repository of software is www.freewarepocketpc.net. It's hard to find the real gems. It seems like half of the programs are high schooler's computer app projects or something. What follows are my recommended programs. I mean, you have this nice phone and you need some applications you can show off, right?
Slacker Radio: One of my favorite music applications, which comes with the phone, however, you probably need to update the software anyways. So make an account and enjoy streaming internet radio. It actually has, you know, working buttons unlike the Pandora application.
SciLor’s Groovemobile: This is an interesting one. Typing in the name of a song and it starts playing. Ridiculously cool. Guys, I promised myself I wouldn't post any registry edits as I feel they are beyond a beginner's level, but the music stops playing when you use the hardware key to turn the screen off. For people who know how to edit the registry, follow this post to keep the music playing in standby until I can find a .CAB for this.
Bing: So HTC finally decided to start making phones where the GPS actually works (I did a side-by-side comparison with the Touch Pro 2 and I felt like crying for the TP2). Take advantage of this with free turn-by-turn navigation courtesy of Microsoft.
Opera Mini 5: Yes, the phone comes with the full-fledged Opera Mobile 9.7 which I like a lot, but Opera Mini is ridiculous with how fast it loads pages. Very useful when you’re on an Edge connection, or if you want to web browse for a few hours because it is much less resource intensive.
Deluxe Moon: Want an application full of eye candy that you can show off like all those annoying-ass iPhone users? You want this. It shows the phases of the moon. It has very good aesthetics.
FpseCE: The famous PS1 emulator. While it only runs about half of the games I throw at it, nothing will wow people like playing Metal Gear Solid on your phone. Snake? SNAAAAAAAKE. Though, you have to donate to get the better version with multitouch for the HD2.
Morphgear: Not a fan of the PS1? Want to emulate nearly everything else? Download this modular emulator to get started. By default it only plays SNES games, and you have to pay for the other modules to emulate other system. It can get rather expensive, too. It is also a little difficult to set up. Check this post for a how-to.
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"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
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Sporty Pal: While I advise against bringing your HD2 cycling or running, this is an extremely nifty application to play around with. Walk around your neighborhood and it’ll give you a map of the area with a line of where you walked, various stats like top speed, and so forth.
MyMobiler: Install on computer. Hook up phone via Activesync, control phone from computer screen. Pro Tip: Select “zoom 50%” to actually have it fit on your computer screen. This makes texting your girlfriend with the slide-out qwerty keyboard soooo much easier.
My recommended MP3 player: I still haven’t found one that is as good as the iPhone’s. iMulator comes close to its feature set, but it crashes a lot for me. Yes, Sense does come with a built-in music player, but I think it is pretty terrible. Tweaks for this is for another episode--guide, I mean. Another great one is Nitrogen, which I tried out due to a suggestion. It is incredibly finger-friendly, but finding that one song you want to hear can be a chore. I also keep hearing this clamor for Pocket Player, but it is not free. I took that trial for a spin and it performed admirably. Finding a specific song was a breeze too. Lastly, don't forget that Windows Media Player does come with the HD2, and it's not that bad, honestly. You have to tell it to cache your library, but it performs rather well. It even works with voice command and all that cool stuff.
Dude, my phone still sucks. It lags, freezes, whatever.
My last suggestion is to flash a custom ROM. These are where people pretty much customize their own ROMs with newer builds of the default software, programs they personally like, their own tweaks, etc. You’ll find a lot of these are much more stable and responsive than stock ROMS. However, there is a small chance of bricking your phone, and it voids your warranty (although you can flash "to stock" and no one is the wiser. Get started reading about it here. And I mean read the damn thing. Don’t flash the wrong thing to your phone, brick it, and then make a new thread talking about it. If your SOP is to glance over the red, bolded text, maybe flashing ROMs isnt' for you? It really isn’t that hard if you just carefully read the directions, though. I guess there is always the option to wait for Android to be ported over.
Just for your information, the HD2 ships with Windows Mobile 6.5. There are newer versions out, namely 6.5.3 and 6.5.5, and these pretty much make the OS more finger-friendly (but you are using Sense which also tries to correct this). 6.5.3 has the bigger, more finger-friendly buttons and the remapped Start button. See this page for a picture. Personally I like this layout better, but it involves flashing a custom ROM to get. You also have your people who prefer 6.1, a really un-finger-friendly version of Windows Mobile.
I need more tweaks and applications!
Check out these threads here and here.
Part 2: Custom ROMs.
I really wanted to stay with the stock ROM, I really did. It worked pretty damn well out of the box. It was miles ahead of the Touch Pro 1. I appreciated nearly everything working without me having to immediately flash ROMs. I, however, began to get fed up with it more and more, mainly with the keyboard. As always, it just didn't seem to be able to keep up with me. Plus, the phone was freezing now and then. So I finally broke down, hard SPLed my phone, and flashed a new ROM only because I saw that a new version of the soft keyboard was much improved. And you know what? The keyboard finally worked how I wanted it to work. So on that reason alone it was worth flashing a new ROM. But there is another thing about flashing custom ROMs:
They fix things but break others.
Yeah, you'll hear people say nothing is wrong with their ROMs, but I think that is always nearly a lie. When I flashed that ROM a while ago I had several other weird bugs pop up. Like, if I received a text while in Opera, the keyboard would pop up with no way to remove it from the screen. Yeah, it seems like bugs are just the norm with Windows Mobile. It would also freeze frequently, sometimes several times a day, and picture messages would work with one build, but not the other. It seemed like community efforts to get MMS working completely failed. I flashed a few more ROMs, some older, some from different people, but I have finally settled on one I really like.
The newest ROMs seem to fix most of the freezing issues due to that new Tilt Sense version. I recommend getting one with that. Eventually these chefs will put newer Sense and Winmo builds in that are prone to freezing. That is nature of ROM flashing--you have to do it until you find a good one. I still have to put up with the keyboard popping up in Opera, but it's worth it to having a fast keyboard and it not freezing all the time. If I flash a new ROM, it may fix that, yes, but it will probably break something else.
Afraid to flash?
Yes, it does void your warranty. Yes, you can brick your phone. Yes, you can end up with a ROM that may be more buggy than you were led to believe. You, however, have been gifted with the ability to read and comprehended. It really isn't that hard if you read the instructions on how to do it. The T-Mobile USA specific ones.
I reccomend Nitrogen for playing music. Runs perfect on my HD2 running Energy Rom, with no stutters or skipping, or stopping once the screen turns off.
http://nitrogen.wmskins.com/
For some reason, unlike the older versions of Windows Mobile where you could have the option to make hitting the X-button permanently closing the program, Stock 2.13 only minimizes it. So I think you should either make it a good hint for people running stock to add the Task Manager to the shortcut on the homepage to check it from time to time.
Cheers.
PoisonWolf said:
For some reason, unlike the older versions of Windows Mobile where you could have the option to make hitting the X-button permanently closing the program, Stock 2.13 only minimizes it. So I think you should either make it a good hint for people running stock to add the Task Manager to the shortcut on the homepage to check it from time to time.
Cheers.
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Click to collapse
+1 on that, esp for people new to the phone
This is still a great guide Jamie, thanks for the effort! Maybe we can get it stickied, or at least added to the "start here" list already at the top of the forums.
Stickie
sirphunkee said:
+1 on that, esp for people new to the phone
This is still a great guide Jamie, thanks for the effort! Maybe we can get it stickied, or at least added to the "start here" list already at the top of the forums.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I 2nd that!
awesome!!!! great post.
It's stuff like this that makes me really appreciate this forum. Thanks!
Absolutely brilliant post!
great post.
that's all.
This thread saved my life
I just bought my Tmobile HD2 on craigslist everything was fine until i rebooted it. I had never seen an HD2 lag the way it did like i mean where is the snapdragon when u need it my friend's HD2 on the other hand ran circles around mine. I don't think i've ever had a more painful experience of htc sense but thanks to this thread i found the answer to my problems it was running the older version of the stock rom
SD Card
For those people having lag problems with the HD2. Try formatting your SD card i noticed a great difference in speed when i formatted my card then did a hard reset also i would advise you to get a better memory card like a class 6.
Thank's very helpful and excellent tuto.
thanks
thanks very informative but I still dont know what to do with this phone
Thank you for taking the time to make this, its very informative, and a fun read.
super helpful post! thanks a million!
hmm
Quick question, (I apologize, I am new to the HD2 and winmob)
I have installed and set cookie + editor along with bsb tweaks and noticed that while texting, I dont have the ability to rotate the phone into landscape mode, in other applications (photos for instance) it works just fine.
I've looked over both tweaks a few times to see if I missed anything and cant seem to find the reason why.
Any thoughts?
Thanks!
Robbie
QUICK FYI for you all. I just tried to download and install the RESET BUTTON...ranster_reset file downloading off of rapidshare. Sent my firewall virus program and about every other red flag jumping off my PC screen saying the file is infected with a trojan virus.
FWIW
BatVette said:
QUICK FYI for you all. I just tried to download and install the RESET BUTTON...ranster_reset file downloading off of rapidshare. Sent my firewall virus program and about every other red flag jumping off my PC screen saying the file is infected with a trojan virus.
FWIW
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I removed the link until I can investigate further.
Edit: okay, so I found the .CAB here, a bigger tweak guide for the HD2.
Edit 2: Okay, I ran the file through http://www.kaspersky.com/scanforvirus and it came up completely clean. I also ran it thorough 19 scanners here and it totally came clean: http://i49.tinypic.com/2wd3n9s.jpg. I honestly have no idea why it tripped. Can you share more details?
In conclusion, Anyone who is using it is probably safe. Check it out yourself, it's been in another guide forever. I think someone else would have said something about it if it really is a virus. Maybe the advertising on rapidshare tripped your scanners? Anyone else is free to try and verify, however.
I'm new to the T Mobile HTC HD2 phone how do I download the apps onto to my phone? I can't seem to figure it out
So tomorrow I'm going to be getting my first ever smartphone (HTC HD2) and I had a couple questions.
1.) Do I need a 3G SIM card to obtain 3G speeds?
2.) What exactly is a ROM? Anybody know of really good ones for the HD2?
3.) Does the phone freeze often? If so is there a fix for this?
4.) If Windows 7 ever comes out for this phone will I be able to upgrade to it.
5.) Same as above but for Android OS
6.) Are there good apps out there? Like Last.fm, twitter, etc.
7.) Would Android apps work on the HD2?
Sorry for all the questions, just wanted to make one big post so that I didn't have to constantly nag and make other threads.
1.) Do I need a 3G SIM card to obtain 3G speeds?
I don't know the definite answer but I've had my SIM card forever and I get 3G speeds.
2.) What exactly is a ROM? Anybody know of really good ones for the HD2?
It's like installing a new operating system on your computer. But all of the ROMs are about the same, but are customized for different aspects (different versions of Sense (or not at all), what programs the Chef likes, etc). See the ROM section.
3.) Does the phone freeze often? If so is there a fix for this?
Sometimes. No.
4.) If Windows 7 ever comes out for this phone will I be able to upgrade to it.
Officially: No. Unofficially: unknown; don't count on it.
5.) Same as above but for Android OS
Being worked on, could take a looooooooooooooong time.
6.) Are there good apps out there? Like Last.fm, twitter, etc.
That guide in my sig has some decent apps. I know there's a Last.fm app and a good twitter one, but their names escape me.
7.) Would Android apps work on the HD2?
No. Same goes for iPhone apps.
Thanks for the quickly reply, also what do you think of the phone?
I only got to handle it a little bit at the store, should I return it and wait for something else or should I keep it?
I got the phone because I'm stuck on T-Mobile and I like Windows Mobile, and I absolutely love it from a hardware standpoint. Windows Mobile takes a while to grow on you, and if you've ever played with an iPhone it can be quite jarring to use.
If you like tweaking stuff and having more control over your phone, I definitely recommend it. If you like apps, ease of use, and eye candy, not so much..... It's a hard choice I know.
ETA: Personally, I think the keyboard kinda sucks on it, so if you like composing long emails or texting an insane amount, you might want to rethink your choice.
EDIT: Nevermind, I just saw that jdwrrzmm already pointed you to the same place I was anyway
jdwrrzmm said:
I got the phone because I'm stuck on T-Mobile and I like Windows Mobile, and I absolutely love it from a hardware standpoint. Windows Mobile takes a while to grow on you, and if you've ever played with an iPhone it can be quite jarring to use.
If you like tweaking stuff and having more control over your phone, I definitely recommend it. If you like apps, ease of use, and eye candy, not so much..... It's a hard choice I know.
ETA: Personally, I think the keyboard kinda sucks on it, so if you like composing long emails or texting an insane amount, you might want to rethink your choice.
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Click to collapse
im withJDWRRZMM, i think thought the keyboard sucked, but i like a ton of things about it. ive only had mine for a few weeks, and honestly my first thought was there is not nearly enough to do on this phone (speaking from a non-developer stand point).... but i decided to let it try to grow on me, and the more i read through these forums, the more i like the phone...
like stated above, its not ANYTHING like an iphone(which i jumped from).... but in hind sight, the iphone had to grow on me too... i diidnt like aapple very much, so....
id say give it a few weeks, learn more about it, then make your mind up wether you like it or not...
sorry so much writing
1.) Do I need a 3G SIM card to obtain 3G speeds?
No
2.) What exactly is a ROM? Anybody know of really good ones for the HD2?
ROM is the OS. Good custom roms are energy and englencia stock roms is the latest one
3.) Does the phone freeze often? If so is there a fix for this?
Stock ROM-Yes ; Custom ROM- Yes/No Depends on how stable the rom is
4.) If Windows 7 ever comes out for this phone will I be able to upgrade to it.
If a chef can port it, but it will never be officialy released.
5.) Same as above but for Android OS
Same as above
6.) Are there good apps out there? Like Last.fm, twitter, etc.
Plenty. Liked the apps on the HD2 better than the blackberry's but not better than the iPhone(prob would get killed for this one ) or Anroid
7.) Would Android apps work on the HD2?
Not that anyone knows of
Cool apps I've found while using a Custom ROM
-Wireless Tether (makes your phone a wireless router for your laptop) most custom roms come with this pre installed
-Klaxon ( great custom alarm, Stock alarm sucks. It will shut off fully after a couple snoozes which is bad for me haha)
-BSB Tweaks (great app that lets you tweak your phone without doing it manually)
Hope this helps
Why do people hate the keyboard on this phone? I personally love it a lot better than Androids and Iphones keyboards.
If you want apps check out Omarket, there are a ton of free apps there. Few apps I would recommend would be co0kies home tab for great home customizing and clean RAM for keeping your phone running smoothly.
Coming from a g1, I did not think I would like not having a hard keyboard. I really like the keyboard on the hd2. I also have not had any freeze ups and any of the known lags. Cookies Home Tab is awesome. I would also recommend a good task manager. I use Dutty's and like it.
So I got the phone, I'm liking it so far and I have no freeze ups yet and the keyboard seems very nice.
Just one more thing, I saw that there was ROM update from HTC itself, how do I get the update?
SecrtAgentMan said:
So I got the phone, I'm liking it so far and I have no freeze ups yet and the keyboard seems very nice.
Just one more thing, I saw that there was ROM update from HTC itself, how do I get the update?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried the swype keyboard..that is what I use and it rocks...not many phones have swype so that is nice showoff feature..
Here is the link for the ROM update but you might want to check to see if your phone already has the updated stock ROM installed. But here is the link for the ROMs..you are looking for the 2.13 Go to START/SETTINGS/ABOUTPHONE/SOFTWAREINFORMATION then you will see the ROM version!
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=655653
Hope this helps
Yea i have 2.13, what's the swype thing you're talking about though?
SecrtAgentMan said:
Yea i have 2.13, what's the swype thing you're talking about though?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you have 2.13 you should have swype so you can check it out. Open up a text message and hit the keyboard icon on the bottom and once it pops up hit it again but a little to the right of the actual button and a list will pop up and you should select swype.
swype allows you to drag your finger from letter to letter without lifting to spell a word.
Check out videos on youtube by searching swype keyboard
I find Sense is a resource hog... I mean a real hungry hog on this at$t Tilt2 and their latest rom. Read in a few other posts where I'm not the only one that experiences this. gwes.exe grows and grows and grows....and memory just will not release when closing programs. The phone comes to a crawl, down to 20mb left of memory, phone starts closing programs on its own so no multi tasking….time to restart. Even then, there is over FORTYmb of memory difference between running it over Windows default! I don’t even have to open any programs, just navigate Sense’s menus and memory drops like a rock!
Trying Mobile Shell now and the difference is night and day. Sense IMO is still a better looking, more intuitive interface. Mobile Shell is too complicated and over down. Great features there, but too much IMO. But it looks like I gotta stick with SPB Mobile Shell because my phone is so unreliable with Sense running, and it runs like it is suppose to with Mobile Shell.
OK... rant over...
Flash a custom ROM. I like Sense, run it with Cookies Home Tab (which is also a resource hog, but love it too) on the newest Energy ROM, and typically have 60-70 mb (or more) Program Memory free after using the phone all day.
redpoint73 said:
Flash a custom ROM. I like Sense, run it with Cookies Home Tab (which is also a resource hog, but love it too) on the newest Energy ROM, and typically have 60-70 mb (or more) Program Memory free after using the phone all day.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't want to flash a custom rom as of right now. This phone is my business line, so I can't afford to get that deep into customization. I've done it with the old Tilt, but right now a custom rom is not an option.
I am using Cookies, and the icon pack. Found they do not effect Sense's appetite for memory. With or without those two, Sense will gobble 40mb regardless. And cause gwes.exe to grow from there.
I've also noticed my battery life is 'about' 25% better with Sense turned off.
True. I experience the same thing. But you have to remember why it's there in the first place. Sense is almost a replacement of WiMo(Not hiting towards the OS part)
The entire UI is redone and every single click is done in sense with no direct interaction with WiMo. And we can both agree, HTC did a good job with the sense. I myself was on a 1st Gen Samsung Omnia before i got my HTC TP2, and that was with a stock WiMo and only included stuff like a dial-app, and a mp3 player and stuff like that. Everything else including SMS was done directly in WiMo and i will take A Memory hog over that any day.
That being said, there is stuff HTC or Developers here could do:
Isolate the biggest RAM-Sink. You mention gwes.exe yourself(Which is actually not HTC but Microsoft)* And try to find out why they continuesly take up more and more ram and try to fix it.
Split up sense so different tasks are handled by different applications, which after you are done can be killed with easy to save RAM(Composing Email/SMS, Weather Check, Contactlist, Music player, ETC ETC.) I know some of this is already done, but there more could be done more.
Work on how do decrease RAM usage for different parts of Sense. Maybe even contact some Developers from this community or other communities(A_C of S2 would be a great place to start)
*)
Random Quote from a random forum
"Gwes is the Graphical Windowing and Event Subsystem. It’s one little program that draws all the controls on the device like scrollbars, buttons, and checkboxes. It also handles passing window messages back and forth between applications and manages the WndProcs of all of the programs on the device that are displaying UI."
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The WinMo 6.5 Start Menu is the biggest memory hog of all. You can improve things dramatically by disabling the standard start menu and using either QuickMenu or OCMan's start menu replacement.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=621800
http://www.modaco.com/content/i8000...8000-modaco-com/318725/free-up-even-more-ram/
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=7937478&postcount=16392
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=711914
To disable the start menu, use one of Arto's Start Menu Remove cabs.
To restore your start menu use one of Hayami's Start Menu Restore cabs:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=7690749&postcount=43
Use the ControPanel_shotcuts download to activate Settings in QuickMenu.
I start up with 94MB Ram on a Tilt 2 with dozens of apps installed, and it's typically at 75MB after a week.
goncrack said:
You mention gwes.exe yourself(Which is actually not HTC but Microsoft)*
*)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am already familiar with gwes.exe. Been in the WinMo world long enough to know by now it is part of the OS.
goncrack said:
WiMo and i will take A Memory hog over that any day.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't mind a resource hog myself, makes for faster operation... if... you have enough resources to go around. But this phone just doesn't have enough memory to multitask with Sense running too.
goncrack said:
Sense is almost a replacement of WiMo(Not hiting towards the OS part)
The entire UI is redone and every single click is done in sense with no direct interaction with WiMo. )
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would agree, or better yet, Sense is an effort to make some of the WinMo apps finger friendly and intuitive. For the most part they succeded. I would take exception to some, like Contact editing. While their contact editor is FF, I still find myself clicking the more button to enter data, and back to WinMo's contact editor it goes.
Edit: and another waste IMO, is the drop-down menus. I like the look and feel of the WinMo menus better.
rete said:
The WinMo 6.5 Start Menu is the biggest memory hog of all. You can improve things dramatically by disabling the standard start menu and using either QuickMenu or OCMan's start menu replacement.
<snip>
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the links, time for some more reading.
Sometimes I wish I could just be a noob tho... have someone hold my hand and guide me... step... by... step.
Quickmenu was mentioned above. One user, colossus_r has gone the extra mile and included all the settings in his version of Quickmenu. I used to use his version before NRGZ28 started cooking it into his ROMs.
If you do decide to use any version of QuickMenu, it would behoove you to increase the distance between the items in the menu. This give a better look to the menu as well as making it more finger-friendly. Do do this (after installing everything, of course), bring up Quickmenu, and tap QuickMenu > Option > View tab, and then set Menu item edge to 16.
Bookmarking this.
I know the problem you speak of, and my solution was to use cleanRAM.exe. Great little program, you can choose how "deep" it cleans, is fast, and it does the job quite well. After a run, it has brought RAM usage down to ~%50, or about 90mb, with Sense on. It's the one program I brought over from my old Q9, and I'm glad I did.
I really liked Sense/TF3D (or what ever you call it), till I tried to run 3rd party apps. A few games would not even run, others would start after a few min.
NFS shift will not even run with it running but, with Sense turned off, it runs fine on my TP2... Stock rom (well, Mr. X's fixed stock rom), with no Sense (just 6.5) I will boot up my phone with 90mb+ free.
It's just too bad that apps don't run right under it..or I would use it.
Without flashing a custom rom your limited... however if you download the htcAddicts.com cleanRam and run it after you open and close 2 or more apps, you will find it will free up alot of memory as your correct the stock sense rom leaks and uses memory like a monster.. Hope ya try this im sure you'll be pleased.
The 15 day trial for Mobile Shell ran out for me. Decided I didn't wanna use Mobile Shell, so uninstalled it. Ran Sense again... and within 15mins phone is lagging and or locking up. Memory dropped below 20meg..
Time to load a custom rom... or learn to cook my own. Me tinks the at$t rom would be just fine, if I can unload all the gawd dam bloatware.
GWelker62 said:
The 15 day trial for Mobile Shell ran out for me. Decided I didn't wanna use Mobile Shell, so uninstalled it. Ran Sense again... and within 15mins phone is lagging and or locking up. Memory dropped below 20meg..
Time to load a custom rom... or learn to cook my own. Me tinks the at$t rom would be just fine, if I can unload all the gawd dam bloatware.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you don't want a custom ROM, the easiest way to reclaim memory is to replace the Start Menu. It, by itself, eats about 20MB of RAM ALL THE TIME!
QuickMenu is a favorite of mine. There are several Start Menu replacements, though. NRGZ28 has 5 options cooked into the Energy ROMs.
Also, check \Windows\Start Up folder to see what you can remove from there. The stock TMoUS ROMs were easy to clean up that way.
cajunflavoredbob said:
If you don't want a custom ROM, the easiest way to reclaim memory is to replace the Start Menu. It, by itself, eats about 20MB of RAM ALL THE TIME!
<snip>.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Working on that option this week to see how it works.
I haven't done a hard reset yet either and started over. I normally install apps and tweak a lot after installing a new rom, then hard reset and only install/tweak what I liked. Haven't done that yet with the latest at$t rom.
GWelker62 said:
I don't want to flash a custom rom as of right now. This phone is my business line, so I can't afford to get that deep into customization. I've done it with the old Tilt, but right now a custom rom is not an option.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was the same way with my old tilt, roms,roms and more roms ..then i got the new tilt2 , kept it stock for the first year , i played with several add-on's even had Mobile Shell which i loved but the phone was a bit too laggy, i then bit the bullet this past month and installed the lastest rom upgrade from AT&T reinstalled Mobile Shell , still was not happy about performance, so I finally broke down Hspld and then found basically a stock rom with all the garbage removed.. .wowsers finally it was fast and stable with Mobile Shell (disliked sense) . So what i am getting at, is to go ahead and make the plunge unlock it flash the simplest rom ....I am a business user so my phone is very important to me in keeping my wallet supplied with greenbacks..
the biggest reason i like Mobileshell is it is easy to use and has as many favorite people that i want listed...have about twenty manufacturers on the that page ..
GWelker62 said:
. Haven't done that yet with the latest at$t rom.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not much of a difference, the boatware kills the upgrade..not really worth it IMO
rofl
Ok look as much as I do agree with you that on a stock rom with very little fixes and alterations the sense ui may take up tons of memory. BUT!!!!!! On a custom rom with minor adjustments it works great, I use it to on a day to day bases with the energy rom and it completely keeps up with me. Battery life is great I get live update for e-mails, use it to do some research on the net and i utilize all that sense brings together. In other words all I'm really trying to say is, HTC made a great job consolidating all these tools that we use on a day to day bases into a single ui. If u were to run individual programs to do everything that sense brings together, ur phone would be as slow as Forest Gump from lack of memory.
Try flashing EnergyROM! NGRZ added some different start menu options than can save 20-30 mbs or ram, it makes using SenseUI snappy!
Thread updated 17/01/2011 (d/m/y) to include FlyKernel 12a and a download for AngryBirds 1.3.5 for those who needed it. thread has also been cleaned up and old content removed. Instructions have been updated accordingly. Please let me know of any bugs or tweaks that need to be made.
Install for fully working Android Gingerbread Keyboard and newest Market at the bottom of this post!
This is a collection of packages that can be found around these forums that I believe amounts to the perfect Hero Setup. I am NOT a developer (although I have been known to make some themes and do some graphics work in the past), and I do not claim to have created any of this content. Instead what I am bringing you is a kind of gathering of the choicest picks from the Hero development forums, as well as the CyanogenMod 6.1 Final base. Most of this post is entirely optional, so this will allow you to build your own device, based on your preferences. Leave out things you feel you do not want, or add in extra steps if you feel you need them. Either way this will allow granular control of your Hero, for you to set it up just the way you want.
If nothing else this should be treated as a learning experience, if however you are unsure, and the post below looks a little daunting, you should consider flashing Floyo (created by the very talented erasmux) which is a complete packaged ROM. A lot of the content here has been taken from offerings that he has made available.
I take no responsibility for you destroying your phone. But for ME, my Hero is now the fastest it has ever been, with much better signal (and hugely faster browsing speed) with a theme I really love. So, presuming your Hero is already rooted, do a FULL wipe of everything, and then:
1) Flash Cyanogen Mod 6.1 FINAL in recovery (no need to reboot yet).
2) Flash Cyanogen Google Apps Addon.
3) Reboot your phone, log in and go through the initial setup. Once this is completed, reboot into recovery again.
4) (UPDATED) Flash Flykernel 12a (HUGE thanks to erasmux, this kernel is amazing). The version linked here is the one I have found to work best with this particular Hero setup (352-576, as such this is not overclocked, but performs exceptionally on my hero and doesn't have the annoying wake up issue, info on how to rename the file to overclock the kernel can be found at the erasmux flykernal post if you wish to do so). NOTE: Do NOT use the "-noatime" switch as this caused reboot loops for me in CM6.1.
5) Flash this notifications fix (provided by erasmux) which should fix some slightly hinky notification issues (jogball etc). This should now not be required with the newest Cyanogen build, I will do more testing and completely remove this section if this is confirmed.
6) Boot phone and let it get to the homescreen.
7) Reboot into recovery for the final time.
8) Flash The Latest Radio from this thread.
9) Reboot the phone (this may take a while after the radio installation).
OPTIONAL SETTINGS!
10) If you like using the HTC_IME mod, you can install it by manually installing the Clicker and then THIS version of the HTC_IME mod created using the AMAZING theming tool provided by gIMpSTa. I have created a theme that suits the feel of this CM6.1 based ROM using his tool, and it is working perfectly on my phone.
11) Enable JIT by going in to Settings > CyanogenMod Settings > Performance Settings > TICK "Use JIT" - And then reboot your phone (You can turn this off if you have issues with it turned on). In the latest Cyanogen 6.1 FINAL JIT is working perfectly, so unlike with RC1, I would now recommend having this turned ON!.
12) If you have issues fixing GPS sats, or if GPS does not update correctly when using it to navigate etc then you can try flashing THIS FIX (GPS libraries taken from FroydVillain and provided by erasmux as a fix for his Floyo ROM). If you are having issues actually fixing satellites you can also try flashing either the Europe, US or Asia sat-packs which can help GPS lock speed in your continent (if everything is already fine, you might want to avoid flashing these). Personally, I DO NOT use GPS on my device, so I can't comment on how well any of this works, but erasmux really knows his stuff, so I'm sure it will work if you are having problems.
13) CM6.1 comes with the NEW (official) Apps2SD built-in. However, the app needs to support this method or it will not allow you to move the app to the SD card. For those of you that prefer to use the OLD STYLE Apps2SD you can download it and flash it separately to enable this feature on this build of CyanogenMod.
That's the main setup sorted. You MAY have an issue with the Market following the radio installation (I did). If this happens, follow the instructions in this thread, the first fix (clearing the data) worked for me.
OK! Now on to apps. There are a few apps that really are a must if you want your Hero to both look and feel smooth as silk. So head over to the market, and download the following:
1) LanucherPro (Cyanogen comes with ADW, but I MUCH prefer LauncherPro). I use the XTG mod created by signals23 which has much more attractive widgets (if you have purchased the LP-Plus edition (I strongly recommend you do). You can, of course, use ANY homescreen, but LP is definitely my choice for beauty and speed. I actually DELETED ADW using: adb shell - rm /system/app/ADWLauncher.apk once I had LauncherPro installed, so it was no longer on the phone at all.
2) Beautiful Widgets - You have to pay for this, but trust me, it is absolutely worth the small amount of money. Once you have it, you can install any clock theme you like, such as SwirlClock made by yours truly
3) SMS Popup. Seriously, this app is amazing. Go into the default messages app, and turn off notifications. then head into the SMS Popup settings, and go into additional settings, turn ON "Quick Reply" and turn OFF "Screen on for Popup".
3) Youlu Address Book. I no longer recommend DialerOne on the Hero, as I find it too slow, especially when using the T9 "Dialer Search" function to call contacts using the numeric keypad. I find Youlou to be much faster, with a nice interface with an easy to navigate tabbed UI.
4) Advanced Task Killer. Once installed, open it up, turn off the notification bar icon in settings, and add your most frequently used apps to the ignore list (so the killer always leaves them running for speedy access). I usually leave: Messaging, Email and DialerOne in the ignore list.
5) SyncMyPix. Lets you properly sync your facebook contacts pictures so that they show up in DialerOne and LauncherPro.
6) Facebook app, or, whatever
7) Photoshop Express. I only add this here because there is no way of uploading multiple images to Facebook using the standard "Gallery" app, but you can do this using Photoshop Express, pretty nice little app, but this feature makes it worth having.
8) THEME! If you want to change the stock theme from white to black, go to: Settings > CyanogenMod Settings > User Interface > Tweaks Extras > Select a Theme and change your theme to STOCK_Black and then reboot your phone. This makes all of the theme a very nice gloss black effect WITHOUT having to flash a seperate theme ROM over Cyanogen (which is a much better way of doing things, as you are not replacing the newer .apk's with older, themed ones... Yes, I know the browser icon kinda sucks, but you can always download the nicer icon .png from here
9) Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) Keyboard. If you want to install this keyboard, it will overwrite the existing Android 2.2.1 Keyboard (and currently there is no way of going back). The Gingerbread keyboard is FULLY FUNCTIONAL, this version now has working dictionary and autocorrect. You CAN still use the HTC_IME keyboard with this installed though, so if you hardly use the stock Android keyboard anyway, there shouldn't be much harm installing it and giving it a shot. HERE it is for those of you that just can't wait
10) The newest Android 2.2.6 Market. Flash in recovery, tested working great on my Hero, very lovely interface and nice and fast
11) (NEW) Angry Birds 1.3.5. for those of you who were wondering how I got angry Birds to run pretty well on the Hero, use this version rather than the latest one available on the market
DONE. Of course, you can modify this in any way you like, but after completing all of this you will have your own, pieced together ROM, without any strange extras or crap you don't really need. On top of this, you can head in to the ROM manager that comes with Cyanogen and install ClockworkMod recovery (if you are still using an older Amon-Ra or something), which is nice and easy.
Also, I'm not joking. It's fast... The screenshot below is with common apps (messages, emails, dialerone) running, and I still have 86mb of free memory. The battery life is fantastic, signal is great, call speed, wifi locking etc all seem faster than I have had them before. So, let me know your results (I have not tested GPS!).
And there yo go, your own freshy squeezed Hero, complete with all the trimmings. Baste lightly in your own choice of apps and serve.
Zeb
This post will be updated as newer packages are released.
</walloftext>
interesting, thanks. There's also an ADW-remover script on the Floyo page.
I didn't realise people were theming LauncherPro widgets to that extent, will have to investigate!
m8 you have done about 90% of the changes that i have put to my hero.
definitely is the perfect setup for me too.
Can I just flash this kernel over VR12 ? And do I have to flash radio if I flash new kernel? What radio really does? thanks
p.s. great work
Dark Emotion said:
Can I just flash this kernel over VR12 ? And do I have to flash radio if I flash new kernel? What radio really does? thanks
p.s. great work
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you are coming from VR12 you will have to do a FULL wipe of everything (nand, battery setting, dalvik etc) in recovery before flashing all of these packages. So make sure you have backed up everything you want to keep before starting! I have no idea what effect flashing this stuff over an existing ROM will have as I did it all from scratch with a blank phone.
The Radio is possibly the riskiest aspect of this setup, and you can choose to leave it out alltogether if you wish, but for me this made possibly the largest difference, as everything from connecting to Wifi, switching back to 3G/HSPDA is much faster. Signal is better, and small things like initialising the dialler (the time it takes from me choosing to call a contact, to it actually ringing) feels much speedier, so I personally do recommend it! You don't need to use this Radio to use Flykernel 11c, so feel free to leave it out if you wish.
Zeb
Edit: I just noticed, do you mean, can you use Flykernel on it's own with VR12 without any of the other stuff? Yes, I believe you can, check you the Flykernel thread for more information, but I think it works for most ROMs.
Dark Emotion said:
Can I just flash this kernel over VR12 ? And do I have to flash radio if I flash new kernel? What radio really does? thanks
p.s. great work
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you flash only the kernel, you don't need to do anything else - No wipe at all necessary. Updating the radio is not related to the update of the kernel but still recommended as usually it also improves the hero experience and if there are problems you can always go back
I just received my refurbished hero (the digitalizer was dead) and am trying your setup. So far everything on the setup side was fine though I had a random reboot after flashing the kernel.
I will update with my feelings on this setup, thx for the guide!
I like this post ... what are the advantages of elelinux or floyo over the standard CM 6.1 release though? I tend to go for one of those instead for some reason!
mdon874 said:
I like this post ... what are the advantages of elelinux or floyo over the standard CM 6.1 release though? I tend to go for one of those instead for some reason!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I believe that the authors of these releases make modifications to the kernel, as well as making theme changes, adding packages of their choice etc. Some distributions are modified more than others (and not ALL of them use Cyanogen as a base I believe). You'd have to look at the specifics of those other ROMS to see exactly what is different (sometimes it's small things, such as the way the jog-ball flashes or how the LED behaves, and sometimes it's bigger, like having hacked settings, or adding otehr keyboards like the HTC_IME mod (which Cyanogen doesn't have as standard, but I prefer the android keyboard anyways). You can always add these things in yourself later if you know how, which is what I have chosen to do using this setup. this way you have complete control over what is added to your phone.
Also, Flykernel, and the Radio mentioned here have serious performance benefits over other offerings as far as I am concerned. you COULD just flash those two over the ROM of your choice, but doing things the way I have mentioned above just gives you a larger level of granular control, if thats what you really want that is
Also, I have wanted to use Cyanogen as a base for a while to see how it was, but I found it very hard to find decent documentation on how to set it up correctly, that is why, once I worked it out, I decided to post the method I used here for other people to try.
Zeb
thanks for the quick reply I kinda like flashing and starting from scratch on a clean install and adding things bit by bit so I'm guna follow ur guide and set my hero up myself.... also thanks for pointing me in the direction of the alternate launcher pro mod ... looks pretty cool!
mdon874 said:
thanks for the quick reply I kinda like flashing and starting from scratch on a clean install and adding things bit by bit so I'm guna follow ur guide and set my hero up myself.... also thanks for pointing me in the direction of the alternate launcher pro mod ... looks pretty cool!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No problemo! Just as a side-note, the kernel that COMES with Cyanogen 6.1 seems good enough, but I had problems with waking the phone up (sometimes I had to push the power button 3 or 4 times to get to the unlock screen). This is a pretty standard issue with a lot of kernels where the minimum clock speed is a little too low and the phone doesn't quite rev up enough when waking up. So, if using CM6.1 as a base (as posted above) Flykernel is a must (using the clockspeeds I posted above), as it removes this issue entirely and boosts overall performance.
Zeb
agree for the configuration, is the best(for now )
however,instead of sms popup i use handcent sms, the application is very similar to the application of the iPhone, and has a built-in sms popup...try it!
magokh said:
agree for the configuration, is the best(for now )
however,instead of sms popup i use handcent sms, the application is very similar to the application of the iPhone, and has a built-in sms popup...try it!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nice addition, thanks! I have used ChompSMS before, but I really like the messaging app in Android 2.2, so I prefer to stick with that and use SMS Popup to handle the quick reply (which is an awesome feature). Also, the theme I posted skins the SMSPopup notification screen to fit with the rest of the device, to it looks extra good and as though it was really all put together into a proper ROM package.
I haven't tried Handcent myself but I have heard good things about it, so yea, probably worth a try if you aren't keen on the stock SMS app!
Zeb
Thread moved to General.
thanks for this, very useful especially the sms popup thing
Hello to all and thank you for the great topics on whatever is needed to tweak the Hero to full potential. I would like to flash a new rom (from VR12). Should i flash CyanogenMod 6.1.0 RC1 or wait for a custom rom based on CM 6.1 like Floyo or Elelinux's ROM. What would you suggest?
HTC_ime simply does not work. every time i try to to start it it force closes. I followed instructions as i usually did every single time before. help?
marcinr said:
HTC_ime simply does not work. every time i try to to start it it force closes. I followed instructions as i usually did every single time before. help?
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Honestly, I don't use HTC_IME mod so I haven't even tried installing it! I will try tomorrow and let you know if I make it work.
Sent from my HTC Hero using XDA App
vladsk8 said:
Hello to all and thank you for the great topics on whatever is needed to tweak the Hero to full potential. I would like to flash a new rom (from VR12). Should i flash CyanogenMod 6.1.0 RC1 or wait for a custom rom based on CM 6.1 like Floyo or Elelinux's ROM. What would you suggest?
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Personally, I much prefer this method! That's why I made this thread! Give it a try, if you don't like it you can always wipe the phone nice and easy and install Floyo!
Sent from my HTC Hero using XDA App
Settings
Any chance you can add some of the settings you use, like cyanogen or spare parts settings? I followed your guide completely and its pretty fast but i think enabling JIT might help but im too afraid to try. Thank you
I ask because I'm always on the hunt for my perfect ROM and I have yet to find it.
My perfect ROM would contain only what was needed to boot the phone, connect to the network and connect to wifi, and it would contain a good phone app as well. Nothing else, the bare minimum.
I don't need an SMS app, I use PulseSMS and I like it a lot.
I don't need an email app, I use Nine Mail.
I don't need a music player or an equalizer, I don't listen to music on my phone.
I don't need a browser, I use Chrome.
Everything else I do need, Contacts, Calendar, Camera, Clock etc etc, can be installed from the Play Store.
Yes, I know all about the ways to uninstall apps. The problem is if the ROM I am using upgrades, all of the apps I uninstalled come back so I have to uninstall them again.
Yes, I know how to disable apps I don't want. Several reasons why that doesn't satisfy me.
First, some ROMs include apps that can't be disabled. So if the SMS app can't be disabled and I install Pulse, now I've got two SMS apps on my phone which is a waste of space.
Second, even if the unwanted apps can be disabled, they are still there. Still taking up space that can be used by things I do want.
Yes, I know I can build my own custom ROM. I've tried it and I don't understand the process well enough to debug the myriad of problems I always run into.
Yes, I have a bare minimum approach to things like this. But consider how small the download would be for a ROM like this.
So far, Slim ROM comes the closest to what I want, but even that includes some apps I'd prefer not be included. Also, I'm not sure how active Slim is these days. There hasn't been a lot of activity over the last few months.
So, that's my perfect ROM. Active and minimal.
How about you?
What type of platform/base are you looking for? In terms of bare mobility versus stock? I can take most ROMs strip them down to the point of being functional is easy. The hard part is keeping up with kernel and platform changes.
You might want to try Velocity Rom... it's almost as bare minimum as possible although you get a messaging app(you can't avoid that since all roms out here will definitely have a messaging app and it's fine). On top of this you get all the customizations. Though I'm not currently on it, but you will like it's bareness:silly:
Just Google for Velocity rom.
Cheers!
Rondeau79 said:
What type of platform/base are you looking for? In terms of bare mobility versus stock? I can take most ROMs strip them down to the point of being functional is easy. The hard part is keeping up with kernel and platform changes.
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The base doesn't matter much, as long as it works. Maybe aosp, if such a thing is possible.
For the platform, the latest and greatest, of course.
jayadev01 said:
You might want to try Velocity Rom... it's almost as bare minimum as possible although you get a messaging app(you can't avoid that since all roms out here will definitely have a messaging app and it's fine). On top of this you get all the customizations. Though I'm not currently on it, but you will like it's bareness:silly:
Just Google for Velocity rom.
Cheers!
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Yes, I tried Velocity. It looks good but the SMS app can't be disabled. At least in the one I tried. At least with Slim it can be.