Database Users

Wizard Overall Performance... are u satisfied?

I have a Cingular 8125. I bought it only a couple weeks ago, and I have to say that if it wouldn't have been for these forums and all the tips tricks and hacks that are being discovered here - I would have taken this devvice back to the store... I have days when I love it and days when I hate it - but overall I have to say that I just barely satisfied with the performance. It just feels like the OS (wm5) is to intensive for the processor in these devices.... and is it just me ... or does anyone else feel like they also are a BETA Tester for this devices and this platform in general .... cause let's face it - these things are not for everyone - it takes a über-geek like me and you to use one
Anyway, I am rambling, but - share your thoughts...

Yes i am, with it overclocked, upgraded rom and various hacks lol... Plus it gives this forum a boost - most problems are fixable

The 195 Mhz of the Wizard are enough for PDA/phone activities. But it's too little if you want to do more wiht your device. For example, when streaming mp3 via WiFi and then immediately encode to A2DP, the machine CRAWLS.
And it is getting worse with WMV video: it won't playback any QVGA WMV videos, too slow of a cpu (tried both WMP and TCPMP).
So, it depends how you use your device.

the 8125 processor 195/200mhz is just as fast as the Verizon/Sprints Xscale 400mhz process just different chips that clock speeds differently. it's like comparing a Intel Centrino 1.5ghz to a 2ghz mmx the centrino can blow past the mmx chip in a benchmark... but anyway the device is pretty fast being that it's small and can hold a decent battery life.
a lot of people add tons of plugs to there device that really slows it down. crappy coding in a plugin can make the 8125 really slow

I have to concur with phlojo on this: I migrated from a Himalaya (XDA2) & WM2003SE onto an MDA Vario. I was seduced by the prospect of built-in wifi, smaller footprint and WM5, but I have been severely disappointed by speed, memory space and stability. The poor stability is probably due to lack of memory, but there are other 'features' :x that infuriate, like a hit and miss alarm. Today I got 2 at the same time - but I have known it to miss alarms or to lose WEP keys, which is a PITA to type in as you can't paste the key on WM5; you have to type manually.
It was suggested in this thread that these issues were caused by additionally installed user applications. All I can say it that I'm only trying to run the same apps as I did on my xda2 (GPS map finding, opera & TCMP). At the moment I give it 6/10. If I find a smaller memory footprint rom to download, this might go up.
I think those considering the upgrade version of this phone need to check the hardware specs before taking the plunge. I've got this on a 18 month contract, so I'm stuck with it for a while.

running wm5 on a vario is like running winxp on a celeron 700
definatley needs more ram as well

Hi everyone,
I was quite concerned when I went from my Dell Axim x50v to the MDA Vario.
I was worried that the jump from 624Mhz to 180Mhz would be a bridge too far!
And it nearly was.....until I upgraded my ROM to 2.17.x.x, now it is reliable, doesnt randomly reset without warning and the performance is very good.
I use Tube 2 quite a bit and Tom Tom 5.21 and find there is little noticable difference to the Axim.
I am sure media encoding and streamng would be a totally different kettle of fish though - 180Mhz is just not enough for this kind of 'work', I am sure the Axim would struggle with this too!
The question is, is this really what you want to do with your Phone/PDA when theres such good 'tools for the job' such as the Sony PSP?
Mark

as a new user to the ppc scene. i dont really know what to expect. i should be receiving my 8125 very soon..
It set to come stock with whatever cingular puts on it..
any advice from the start? im really new to this whole rom thing so dont know what to do exactly..
ive read on here that overclocking boosts performance?

Im really impressed with mine, it works twice as good as i expected it to and thats with minimal hacks, its not even overclocked
im using the latest O2 ROM and i cant say i notice any slowdowns at all.
as i've said before, it performs so much better than my old XDA IIi and thats a 500Mhz WM2003 device!
i honnestly cant complain about it in anyway ... well 1 thing i spose, the stock headphones are horrible, but they work

Mediocre phone barely useable for business
I came from a kyocera 7135, treo 650 to this phone. I had two purchase 1 program and install 3 third party apps to get the functionality of the 7135 on the treo. As for the 8125 wizard this phone is a toy. I use my phone and pda functionality to the fullest and its just been extremely frustrating. DPAD navigation is a joke if it exists for the application. Phone integration with the PIM is worthless just try to copy a phone to the clipboard it only allows to save as new contact. MS made a big deal of respond to missed calls with an sms on the treo 700. Why exclude that feature on this version. Like everything they do nothing is consistent. My favorite flaw though is something that palm does very well. Hard reset the device and your screwed. Apparently not everything is backed up. You are required to reinstall many apps.
Performance the device has to be overclocked. Its performance isn't even acceptable out of the box.
To make the device usefull you need to overclock, install a few apps for menu navigation, a few progs for system maintenance, upgrade rom, make varios registry changes. If it this forum didn't exist I would have sold the phone bought another Treo.
The device or WM5 is good on two items. Wifi and web browser. Palm droped the ball on this big time although the newest version of blazer is supposed to be much better there is still no wifi.
MS needs to work on their PIM/Phone integration and the dpad for the device. the dpad hould navigate to all controlls and menus on the screen.
anyway just my gripes.
- Richard

I love my Vario. Everyone I show it to loves my Vario. That's even without google maps mobile, which I got working today.
Yes it is slow out of the box, I ran it for my first 2 months at default speed, I only setup overclock a few days ago, but now I have it overclocked 20% 24x7 and it's so much better.
I am totally happy with it. Of course I would love the faster CPU and UMTS and scrollwheel of the Wizard II, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

I am happy with the software side. Very happy. It is the first XDA that I can rely on for receiving phonecalls, which afterall is what its for. Hell, its the first one where caller display works properly.
An overclocked XD mini-s plays QVGA videos fine for me.
I bought it knowing it would need hacking, but yeah, were it not for these forums and me being a phone nerd I'd wanna take it back.
I am not happy with hardware. The gap between the botom of te screen and case is appauling. Stuff gets down there, then the touchscreen stops working and its an arse to get out. The stylus falls out and the black paint flakes off.
Also, it randomly fried my 2GB mini-SD card, something which I have never forgiven it for as I still have not managed to replace it. Using this device without a card is impossible. If you have more than 5 photos on it, it constantly comes up with low memory errors.

The main reasons for the dreadful performance are two.
first, the processor has very small data and instruction caches. second, wm5 has this great nifty trick where system calls from a user-space process gets intercepted by the os, run, and then the results go to the process. Or something like that.
Plus, a significant portion of the os and user interface must be .**** i mean .NET which makes it even slower.

I use the custom 2.17 rom available on this site and I'm quite happy with it. Granted, I don't use it's every available feature or play mp3s and video with it often, but I do now and then, either as files or streaming off the web, and it all works fine. I was overclocking for a while but found I didn't really need it and haven't used it since the 2nd or 3rd week I had it. It's definately slower than my old Blue Angel but WM5 is so much smoother in operation than 2003SE which makes up for it. Also, just like with a pc where the keyboard is faster and more convenient than a mouse, the keyboard is much faster and more convenient than the stylus and I avoid pulling out the stylus when at all possible.
I guess everyone's milage may vary but my experience has been a very good one.

Wizard Performance
I must begin by saying that I really love the Wizard after using the ROMs and hacks on this site.
My first Windows device was a n xv6600 with verizon's EVDO network. The xv6600 has a 400 mhz processor. It was very fast but had horrible battery life, poor reception, and had to be soft reset all the time.
When I first got the 8125 Wizard, I almost sent it back. it was slow and locked up often. Next, I tried the Qtek Test ROM which worked better and had A2DP. However, I was still resetting all the time.
Now I'm running Exelencin's 2.17 Custom ROM for TMO. It works very well. The unit performs all tasks just as fast or almost as fast as the xv6600 (Blue Angel) which I still have and use as a benchmark.
I'm hooking up to the Wifi at work and home between 900 and 1200 kbps. That's faster than the EVDO speeds on the Blue Angel. The Wizard streams video from the web very well on Wifi. I'm getting Edge connections through TMO in SLC from 60 to 95 kbps. Though the EVDO is supposedly 3 to 4 times faster, it sometimes takes just as long to download some pages.
I use a ton of BT devices, including but not limited to:
I-PHONO 450RX and MOTO BT820 stereo headsets; Jabra headsets, my HP laptop with BT, and my Audi A6. The Wizard works much better than the Blue Angel. The Wizard even transferred all my contacts directly into the Audi. The BT connections are clearer and work from a longer distance.
I use a variety of foreign language dictionaries, read my mormon scriptures on the wizard. These memory intensive programs actually run faster on the Wizard than the BA. I put all programs on the sd card except one's like voice command which must be in device memory to work well. I also keep all pictures etc. on the mini sd card. Voice command can also be activated with my jabra or moto stereo headsets.
All in all, the Wizard rocks with the right ROM and settings. The battery life is simply outstanding. I can go one to one and a half days without a recharge.
The only time I get the wizard running slow is when I have half a dozen programs running. I wish programs would close when closed. I'm tired of going in the memory settings and shutting down programs I've already closed.
All in all

I have an imate Kjam which I got in MArch this year. I have installed and removed TONS of software and only had to do one hard reset as a result of crap dictionary software. I only have a speed issue when opening large Word docs with tables in it. Otherwise I am a happy camper with my device. I will not use the overclock software as I believe you are looking for trouble.
I will never go back to a regular cellphone now.
I regularly use mortplayer, TCPMP with full feature movies, Media player and Real One Player, and I have NEVER had speed/memory issues.
Remember guys that this little sucker has a DUAL CORE processor!!! It handles graphics BETTER than other faster clock speed processors.
ENJOY!!!

Something else to keep in mind for those with issues with video playback is that the 1.0 version of TCPMP is basically built from the ground up. They are reporting a VERY large increase in speed all round.
Yes you may have to fork over some cash to get all the codecs but for a player like TCPMP I dont think that $20 or so is that big an ask.
Lastly - and something I think is overlooked often - The wizard is a pretty fair phone with good battery life. I bought the unit because it was reviewed as a useable phone, sure I wanted a PPC as well but the phone had to work and not die in 1hrs use.
If all I had wanted was a PPC I would have bought something else, but I hate single taskers and to me the wizard is a great multi-tasker.

Good and bad
After applying a bunch of the tricks available on this site, I am overall quite happy with the T-Mobile MDA, over the Treo 600. I also agree that this site is necessary, but treocentral's forum was necessary, too: every advanced device needs educated users to achieve full functionality.
The biggest nuisance to me is not the speed but the fact that it is not responsive for a long time, 20 seconds or even more, occasionally.
The second biggest nuisance is that I can't search my 700 contacts for a keyword and get an answer in a realistic amount of time. On the palm, that took a couple of seconds; here, even overclocked at 240, it takes 20 minutes. What is with that?
The third nuisance is caps/shift lock, which is mostly that I am used to the Palm method and partly that the palm method makes more sense (turn on sticky with a double press, turn off with a single press of the caps or shift key).
Better things about the MDA: multitasking. wifi. VOIP. Today screen with SPB weather and diary. Runni8ng programs from the mini-SD card. Sound quality (phone and music).

8125 Works Like A Champ
My Cingular 8125 Is absolutely Fantastic...
Previous History...
I had a Samsung x427m freebie Phone and a Used Hp1910 Pocket Pc Off ebay...(150bucks) Did everything I wanted at the time... Played movies encoded at 220bit just fine... Plus I'm Cheap... had games... NES Roms... Mobipocket.... mp3's Liked the 3.5 screen...Kept it for 3-4 years...
8125...MINE...lol
1gb minisd Card
Motorola h500 Bluetooth Handsfree
1 Delux Black aluminum Case...
Firest thing I did was Update the Rom...
Cingular_RUU_225111_BETA_Custom_A2DP_THMS_RNGRS.exe
I knew That I would need to do that Much before I started any Computer geek will tell you you to find the newest Firmware/Drivers...lol
added vjvolubilis.cab to use my motorola H500 Bluetooth Handsfree To listen to music...works good...
Did the Wifi Update so It would actually connect to my wifi... I like WIFI...lol
Kept Wisebar Advanced off... Decided that it Slows up stuff a little, and doesn't like landscape with the only theme I'd actually use...no big deal,
Installed Battery Pack Pro... A MUST HAVE... lets you setup custom little icons to quickly pick application or game to run.... and will let you endtask Without having Wisebar on there... also shows battery time left and memory...
Installed MS Voice Command...
Installed Sprite Backup Another MUST HAVE... Make a quick backup when everything you want is running perfect and everything is installed...
Mobipocket reader Pro.... BOOKS>>>>BEST PROGRAM EVER FOR THIS...
Full Screen, From TXT and other pda formats... Scrolls Best way to Read a book in the Known universe...
TCPMP --- VIDEOS --- Need I say More.... full lenght dvd is about 100mb an hour... at 248 bitrate
Age Of empires Gold ---- Works Good... Good Game.... Still Wishing for AOE2 on PPC
Pocket Tombraider... Works Good... Amazing....
OverClocking Utilities
I've Tested it with the defaults 200mhz 240mhz and 252mhz, seems stable with all haven't compared battery test with them yet
Cingular 8125... Finally SET ME FREE....lol
Music
I still need to Put Pocket Music Player on there... Don't care for Mediaplayer10 but media player 10 works ok...
Movies...
I encode movies from dvd using Lathe around 248 bitrate... Plays them Perfect... without needing to overclock over 200 don't know why anyone would want higher bitrate on such a small screen...
Games - Havn't tried NES yet, but SNES was still too slow...Oh well... I'm fine with Super Mario Brothers 3 --- I'm Still afraid to Remap the phone on and off buttons for games... don't want to miss a call...lol
Tested Battery at 200mhz... thats what I keep it at... looks like playing a movie 248 bit and music and movies, reading, with blutooth off, wifi off,
will give you somewhere about 6-7 hours... WOW... my old PPC only would go for 2h 35min... Oh... the Screen Brightness was at 50% which is what my old pda looks like at 100% and looks great... brightness could go Way higher but not Necessary (wow did I just say that)
Bluetooth... H500... number 2 Handsfree device Cost me 35 bucks including shipping on ebay... Works Very Well When Close to device... Like 7-10 feet...
I use a phone like almost never.... But using the BT to Voice Dial Numbers Is Great...
I was afraid to get this because of the suposedly slower 200mhz processor... what a joke... This is way faster than my old Pda clocked at 300mhz...
I'd say the only drawback is the 2.8 screen, but it seems no to make much difference...
Price... $400 bucks... I bought it New Off Ebay... Unlocked... payed about 50 bucks more than cingular sells it for but keeps me from their stupid 2 year contract... seems worth every penny...
a friend of mine returned hers after about 5 days because she didn't know any computer stuff... had lockup problems because she didn't update Rom... The usuall stuff...lol These arn't for the completely computer illiderate...(at least straight out of the box) But I'd be hard pressed to find a better Device...

I'm pretty happy with my 8125. It's zippy enough for me. I even have Wis Bar Advance 2 loaded along with a bunch of other today plug ins and it's fine at the factory 195mhz clock speed (Though I've recently up'd the clock speed to 228 just because I can, feels zippier w/menus and webpages). It's never frozen up on me, I use Explorer A LOT (3-4 hours a day minimum) for browsing email and webpages at work. I have my Motorola H700 BT headset with me at all times so bluetooth has been turned on since I've had the device. This is the best phone I've had so far. Kicks the **** out of my Treo 650. I was a hardcore Palm user (Owned many Clie's and a Treo 600+Treo 650) and it took me a lot of convincing to "try" the 8125 but now I'm just in love with it :wink:

Im so close to switching my Mogul out for a Touch

Help Before I make a mistake.
I Just picked up this 6800 2 weeks ago and im still within my 30 days.
In that 2 weeks I have went from the original 2.17, Beta 3.16, No2Chem5047, Dcd 2.2.6 back to No2Chem5048.
Basicaly I love the phone. I Love the GPS and RevA. I personaly don't use gps because I have a older PPC that I run TomTom6 on. The Keyboard is sweet and the Wifi Is Huge for me.
The problem is the Ram is giving me a huge headache. A clean rom boots for me at 20mb which is ok. I love the software the Touch has and once I start loading it up to make it feel more like a Touch the ram gets crushed. I have tried every Tweak in the book to shut down startup items to shutting down services. I have made compromise with the touch software I can and cannot load because of memory. Basicaly Im sick and tired of this and its giving me a huge headache. Its like I can't make it look the way I want without sacrificing the very limmited memory.
Maybe its me but after a while at 13mb free or lower with nothing running it starts to feel a little slugish.
What it comes down to the size of the phone doesnt bug me . The keyboard is a real thing I worry about but I use the touch keyboard on my mogul for 1 handed texting sometimes so im already use to it. The wifi is great but im feeling I would take more memory at this point I dont want to get rid of my mogul but if I dont I feel I may throw it out the window if I get one more memory error.

i have a htc kaiser (tytn ii) and at&t tilt (branded kaiser) and the sprint mogul. kaisers has 128mb of ram while mogul has 64mb. my mogul runs faster, smoother, and less problematic than the other two. at some point i felt like i needed more ram on the kaiser as well, but when i saw how the mogul ran, i even switched to sprint. so i too hope you wont make the mistake of exchanging it!

I don't know lol. Maybe its just the fact that I dont know these new devices very well and how they are suppose to run. Before this phone I was on several palm treos for 4 + years. The only thing I can compare it to is my old ipaq 2200 and that thing is 5 times faster then my mogul. Maybe its just WM6 is a memory hog.
I guess it feels like its a little sluggish when its running 13 mb or lower. If there was something I could overclock with that might help me a little thro the rough parts.
What I cant Figure out is out of 45.2mb of program memory and usaly 60% or more is gone. where is it all goin lol? I have alot of the services shut down and only my startkey is loaded at startup . I can sit there and watch everything running and the math just doesnt add up to 25+ of ram. Maybe i just not understanding how these things run.
I thought a touch would be the quick fix that i needed since it had 128mb. I dont know I guess ill think about it for a few more days or whatever

I've seen ROM's on the Upgrading forum that have 30 MB free at startup. That's huge, and it makes me wonder why the more popular (no2chem, dcd) ROM's don't have that much free.

Don't do it!
I did just what the OP is thinking about and what a mistake. Although the Touch runs very well, the lack of a physical keyboard is too frustrating for words. Also, the touchscreen is nowhere near as responsive or accurate as the iPhone or iPod Touch. Beware!

For me, the most important feature of the Mogul is the wifi. If it wasn't for that, I'd have a Touch.
Are you using the Oxios memory program? That helps a ton! And you have to be diligent about actually closing out programs and not just minimizing it. Sure it takes a bit of diligence, but having wifi is well worth the effort IMHO.

I dont know if you are, but if you are running the HTC Home today screen plugin, try your phone without that. It slowed down my phone so much, just by having that one plugin on my today screen. I have replaced it with UltimateLaunch and now my phone seems to run twice as fast

I went to the 2.3 DCD rom yesterday. Every other rom had a ton of memory leaks and connection problems.
Tip:Try Spb mobile shell and Spb pocket plus. They do just about everything you can hope for out of HTC mods and they use almost no memory, dont lag up the phone, make your Mogul very touch friendly and look a ton cleaner then anything I have seen anyone make so far. You can make your phone so you almost never have to use the menue ever. I have everything on my desktop and the stuff I dont use constantly is one touch away no stylus needed.
I have tried every cab on the web that I could find and any and all roms I can get my hands on. The only rom that runs well is the latest DCD with Spb mods on it. I will never go back to the HTC stuff untill they can get there **** together. ATM there software sucks HUDGE! Honestly the HTC stuff always stinks imo and always has but thats just my 2 cents.

I feel your pain man... was in the same boat as you... I just got my 6800 a few weeks ago and it really took a lot of playing around with software combinations to find a set that works well...
The wifi and keyboard are really really useful the more I use this thing and I know I wouldn't be able to do without them so I pained into trying to work around this memory problem.
The main thing I found that eats the hell out of memory is today plugins. I had good luck with SPB Mobile Shell but recently just went back to plain jane today options with weatherpanel which seems to be very solid memory wise. That combo'd with Quickmenu for quick-launch ability, I can usually stay around 20mb at all times. Today plugins also lag the heck out of switching between apps... like going into a text message from a notification... no flashy today plugins make a much faster and cleaner operating system.
Very disappointed to see all these memory problems but I don't think it's the device... it's the software..... os and apps.

Well after a few more days of thinking about it and going to best buy to try out the touch. I relized how much I would miss a nice keyboard . Yea the ram was nice but it felt just as sluggish as mogul . Im seriously thinking a small overclock would help both of these devices. Its just to bad theres nothing out there.
I tried the Dcd 2.3.1 the memory was great best rom I seen yet for memory . After a day of useage out of the new dcd I noticed the rom was alot more sluggish of all the wm6.1 roms I tried. Today I went to No2Chem5049 and all I installed was pocket plus and mobile shell.
I had enough of messing around with roms for a while. I am running at 14-15mb free and 17.8 bootup. It feels somewhat responsive and im just gonna sit back and enjoy my phone for once

blahhhh
blahhh

I wanted to switch to the touch too. After the new DCD rom I have about 6 more mb than I had before the other ones. I used to have to reboot it about twice a day. Now I could probably do it every other day just to keep things fresh. Right now I'm cooking some roms and testing out NexVision roms to see what one fits me better. Just testing out different things to get it to where I like it.
Is the phone perfect? No but it seems to get better every month. I think it just frustation for me when I want to trade it because it takes forever to get the things you want it. With the UC or cooking your roms, it takes a lot less time to install the programs. I don't notice the ram too much unless I'm down really low. I don't use wifi much and keyboard I'm' fine with either that or touchpal. I would rather have those things than not have them. It doesn't take too long to reset to get my ram back and it is holding better than ever.

Ditching the X1, getting a new phone

Well after 3 weeks of use I have had it with my X1. It is the slowest phone I have ever come across.
Here are the problems im getting and I have just had enough of them
Phone can freeze when switching between landscape & portrait. Can take up to 2 minutes to figure out what its doing, sometimes its a hard reset
Fidilly interface, I use the SPB panel because of this which is great but everything else is just useless. Tried setting an alarm by rotating the hands? Its so fidily
I get a new message while im on my inbox and sometimes the message takes up to 2 minutes to load. Last night I was waiting 1minutes 43seconds for the message to open (yes I timed it) It just had that piechart icon rotating
Sometimes I cant open the messaging section. I click messaging and nothing happens. I can try to open it as many times as I want but nothing happens. I have to remove the battery..
By screen went green once, everything was green so I had to remove the battery to sort the problem
Doesnt always sync with my PC, no idea why
Cant remove hotmail contacts or sort the contact list because it just adds all my email contacts when I go online
Opera & IE are clunky and full of bugs. IE is slow as hell and cant open some websites. Opera keeps opening the virtual keyboard and changing between fullscreen and menu mode
Panels take a lifetime to load and freeze when switching between view modes
The crappy external speaker, who wants to hear a song full of white noise when you phone rings?
Battery icon - sometimes I have one, sometimes I dont
My signal on my phone seems poor compared to my old LG Viewty. Where I had a decent 3g signal I now get a poor standard signal, if a signal at all
Phone seems to have gotten slower and slower since I first started it up
There are a lot of things I do really like about the X1 but most of these are hardware such as the keyboard, the screen resolution, build quality, wifi, gps etc
I am seriously considering either swapping my phone via o2 or selling it and buying a new phone. I dont understand why interfaces and phones cant be as fluent as the iphone/ipod.
It does a lot of stuff yet the interface is as fast as hell. I am not a fan of the iphone itself due to its rubbish hardware specs but you can't knock the interface. Also I just got an ipod touch so there isn't much point in me having an iphone.
Personally i think the problem lies with WinMo as its very bloated and slow compared to proprietry operating systems or Android/iPhone.
Can anyone recommend me a good phone to get, I was looking at the Samsung Omnia but it doesnt have Wifi or GPS so its a no go really

Dude you must have a faulty phone, I've had mine for a couple of weeks now and haven't had most of the problems you have raised. However it was laggy and slow when I first got it and I still don't think the panels work fast enough to be really usable but once I changed the ROM it was MUCH better, more responsive, Opera actually makes browsing online a good experience!

ukguy said:
Dude you must have a faulty phone, I've had mine for a couple of weeks now and haven't had most of the problems you have raised. However it was laggy and slow when I first got it and I still don't think the panels work fast enough to be really usable but once I changed the ROM it was MUCH better, more responsive, Opera actually makes browsing online a good experience!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The only faulty thing about it is the firmware, and when I went down that road with my Viewty being buggy as hell I got into the biggest of arguements with my network provider.
They didn't get what I was saying, they keep offering me the same phone as a replacement etc etc and I was nearly thrown of the network as they just winded me up so much.
This phone had high expectations from me and I have to say, it failed miserably. I decided to go back to SE after my LG as they were some of the best phones I had. But this phone just doesnt compare and I personally think its WinMo thats letting it down

i never experience any of the problems you mentioned above. May be it is a faulty unit.

Either a faulty unit, or filled with network bloatware! In short... not a problem of Xperia. When switching landscape to portrait it takes a second for me usually... at most 2-3 seconds. Same goes for other stuff.
I wasn't impressed with my Xperia at the beginning either... but after applying a few tweaks here and there and installing applications and stuff, it is by far the best phone ever! (and i am using the original rom - no cooked rom)
Maybe you should try installing a cooked ROM?
Either way... good luck with whatever phone you do decide to go with. I can, however, say with 99.999% certainty that most problems that you are facing are either due to a faulty device/firmware or is due to bloatware or something...

I did have the exact problems here, also did 3 of my friends who baught the phone.
It is crashing alot and is slow. However I think I will wait till the first firmware update.
But even if they didn't fix these problems, I don't really have an alternative phone, no phone has the specs I want except experia. I mean ofcourse other than win mo, because if it is a win mo phone you are seeking then know that all the win mo phones have the exact same problems, maybe less because they have been around in the market for a longer time, but they still do crash.

celinelust said:
I did have the exact problems here, also did 3 of my friends who baught the phone.
It is crashing alot and is slow. However I think I will wait till the first firmware update.
But even if they didn't fix these problems, I don't really have an alternative phone, no phone has the specs I want except experia. I mean ofcourse other than win mo, because if it is a win mo phone you are seeking then know that all the win mo phones have the exact same problems, maybe less because they have been around in the market for a longer time, but they still do crash.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's kinda shocking to hear. Have you tried tweaks and stuff? Maybe hard-reset the phone to remove all bloatware....

Feel free to give the phone to me

[email protected] said:
Feel free to give the phone to me
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh crap! I forgot to ask that...

this is strange, my xperia is the best winmo phone I've had. stable like a rock, fast, no lockups, nice batt life... everything works great (and would do better once they update the rom with a better one)

cursor said:
this is strange, my xperia is the best winmo phone I've had. stable like a rock, fast, no lockups, nice batt life... everything works great (and would do better once they update the rom with a better one)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same here...

Wth...
Im going to flash my phone and see if its any better.
Anybody got MSN and want to guide me through it?

Evostance said:
Wth...
Im going to flash my phone and see if its any better.
Anybody got MSN and want to guide me through it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good luck with that. I hope you get it working perfectly! This is definitely a wonderful device and the fastest WinMo device.
I've never had the need to flash my set, so afraid don't know anything about it... otherwise would have offered to guide you through.

I have original rom and I think the phone is great! fast and solid!

101% something's wrong with YOUR phone only... althought i have my grumbles, but not so bad at all

Get O2 to reflash it, they will do it for free if you complain about lockups

Evostance said:
Wth...
Im going to flash my phone and see if its any better.
Anybody got MSN and want to guide me through it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's easy, just install hard-spl and then choose from the xperia rom forum one that you like (my preference for now is Itje's HD v2.1).
Follow closely the instructions on the Hard-SPL and rom thread you choose and it will be a breeze.

I just flashed it to IT-Xperience 2.1 and the phone is a hell of a lot faster.

good for you . I am planning to buy Xperia so it will be nice to hear what problems still occur after the update

Evostance said:
I just flashed it to IT-Xperience 2.1 and the phone is a hell of a lot faster.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What is "IT-Xperience 2.1"? Google has 0 hits.

Why I've stopped using my X2

After buying an X2a in the USA in May and putting up with it's quirks, I've finally gone back to my old phone, a humble Nokia N95.
I thought I'd post a log of why I've made such a giant leap backwards in case it might prompt S.E. to do something about the X2 and the damage it has caused their reputation (I would never touch another S.E. phone again after this experience)
Here we go:
* The N95 gets reception in places the X2 doesn't.
I was happy to live with this and swap the sim card to the N95 about once a week when I was going to a poor coverage location, but that had problems:
X2 forgot all my ringtones assigned to people etc.
Battery on X2 would report as about 10% at the end of the day even though it was 98% when I turned it off and left it off all day.
* X2 is picky about how it charges
If you plug an X2 into a PC with no X2 device drivers etc installed, it chews the battery. You can literally watch it go down 1% every minute or two. I ended up taking a power pack to work (cos I can't install software on the work PC)
* X2 is slow
Worst manifestation is: phone rings, "answer screen" comes up, you hit answer - after 2 seconds nothing happened.
You think "touch screen must have missed my tap" so you tap it again.
In the mean time it's got the first tap and answered the call.
The "Hangup" button goes to the same spot as the "Answer button" - you've just hung up on your caller
In general though, you often hit a button and wait seconds for it to react.
Really poor user interaction design.
As a comparison, the N95 can sometimes be a bit slow (not as slow as the X2), but it shows a little animation or similar so you know that something is happening and the phone has heard you.
* X2 is unstable
I was using it a lot as a media player. Often it would just hang (normally when jumping to a new track)
- sometimes it would come back, other times you had to reboot.
In the last few weeks it was happening more and more and I found that I had to reboot twice to see the media.
(First reboot could see it in file manager, but not in media player. Second reboot was all good. This happened at least 3 times)
* Memory card issues
Like everyone, I had the memory card problem (and applied the fix).
Raised it as a support issue with S.E. - was told buy a new card.
Thanks to whoever found and made the fix - it certainly fixed my issue with the disappearing memory card.
* Volume level quite low.
It's usable, but now I, back to my N95, I'm amazed how much louder it is compared to the X2!
* 3.5" jack software driven.
Quite often I'd connect to a car system by a 3.5" plug, but the X2 played out of it's speakers.
Had to plug and unplug several times to make it work.
N95 works instantly everytime (although it always asks you what you just plugged in which is annoying...)
* Bluetooth
My handsfree can see the X2, but I cannot make or receive calls, so it's 100% useless to me!
* Video camera
I don't use the video camera much (only used it once) - result was very jerky. The couple of times I've taken video on the N95 I was impressed with the quality.
<edit>
* Voice control
X2 has no voice control at all. Vito voice dialer worked nicely, and their more general voice control app was ok, but no way to launch it with a single press.
N95 has voice control but it's crappy - you don't record your own tags, you have to try to imitate how the phone thinks things sound. It works ok, but I'd prefer to record my own tags.
</edit>
* Pro (just to even things up a little bit)
Reason I got the X2 is that the N95 kept rebooting itself when I visited New York.
The X2 (actually an X2a I guess) worked fine there and back home in Aus.
That's all I can think of right now.
Anyone want to buy a slightly used X2A?

Same experience about X2. But not anymore. I already change to X10. It is much better. Android is really different. Love it so much. Especially sending file via WIFI (Hoccer), chatting(Hanashi), WIFI tethering (Barnacle). Push email (Shangmail) and much more. Trust me, you will never bore with Android,especially X10.
Gunawan, GN Mutimedia & X10i

Those are the exact same reasons why I'm switching from the ****ty X2 to the Blackberry Torch. The X2 is simply obsolete and useless - can't even phone people or text message smoothly with the crazy lag. Requires you to reboot sooooo many times. I had to wait 10minutes to load a text message from the inbox...10 minutes...ridiculous. SE customer care doesn't or pretends they don't anything about the bugs that's evidently plagued this phone. SE and X2 can go screw themselves.

I might think about buying, depending on price I've wanted one to mess with for a while, not to use

What's everyone got with the X2? i scored mine pretty much new for $170US with a 16gb card, i just installed all the same fixes on this as i did on my x1 like the sms lag and no sms sent fixes as well as the memory card fix, also got it running at 1ghz and the phone runs great, hasn't crashed since i have had it and lasts a couple of days without charge on my mugen battery. Also the design is the best i have used the arc slider beats any other slide phones and the screen is pretty much flush and looks great perfect size at 3.2", x10 is too big for my hand end up having to use both hands to text, and doesn't actually feel like a real phone plus still on android 1.6. X2 has my vote.

Bruce Irons said:
What's everyone got with the X2? i scored mine pretty much new for $170US with a 16gb card, i just installed all the same fixes on this as i did on my x1 like the sms lag and no sms sent fixes as well as the memory card fix, also got it running at 1ghz and the phone runs great, hasn't crashed since i have had it and lasts a couple of days without charge on my mugen battery. Also the design is the best i have used the arc slider beats any other slide phones and the screen is pretty much flush and looks great perfect size at 3.2", x10 is too big for my hand end up having to use both hands to text, and doesn't actually feel like a real phone plus still on android 1.6. X2 has my vote.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's a shame SE didn't manage to push one more FW for X2.
Definitely with some fixes it would have been one of the best WM phones ever.
But the stability issues kill the pleasure.
I use it and will do until I decide which future platform will be my choice.
It has the best design ever and SE custom interface somehow resembles... WP7 concept.
But there's no WM alternative for me.
P.S. However HTC Droid Z looks almost exactly like X2 now!

The X2 hardware is great - no question.
I even put up with the software for about 6 months.
The thing that made me consider going back to the N95 is that I got sick of swapping the SIM card between phones, coupled with the X2 losing all my ringtones for different people when I did switch the SIM.
The thing that finally pushed me over the edge is the media player freezing up then needing 2 reboots to get running again - this was happening too much.
I'll be on the N95 for another 6 months or so and then see what OS is flavour of the month...
In the weeks since I've moved back to the N95:
Good things on the X2
* Really miss the QWERTY for texts etc.
* MediaGo software was actually better than the Nokia equivalent. I'm just using WMP and MP3Tag which is a but painful.
* I had CoPilot on the X2, but I don't have nav software on teh N95 (might bite the bullet and subscribe to Nokia's service)
* X2 was easier to navigate. N95 has lots of stuff, but are they under "Apps" or "Utils" (or somewhere else...)
*Default N95 calculator is rubbish (used to have a 3rd party one that was much better - need to install that again)
Good things on the crusty old Nokia
* N95 has been rock solid (not one required reboot)
* Really love the fact that plugging a 3.5" plug in gets a predictable result. Straight away. Every time.
* Love the N95's dedicated media buttons.
<edit>
* It just works.
I thought of this getting out of the car after using the phone as a media player.
With the N95 I slide it open and push the stop button.
With the X2 I push the button to get it out of standby, push stop - wait a few secinds to see if it's going to stop (repeat until it actually stops)
</edit>
Other interesting things (probably tells you something about me ;-)
* Have not set the N95 bluetooth up again - but keep thinking "must do that"

I get the feeling you might have got a bad batch xperia x2 because i have never experienced the problems you have stated apart from the memory card issue which i resolved with a patch, i mainly use windows media player anyway when i listen to music, i very rarely use slide view as i am fine with titanium. Good that you like your n95, i had one recentl but sold it and bought the x2 for pretty much the same price as i sold the n95 for (not bad resale for a 4 year old phone), but n95 looks really dated next to the xperia and the screen size being too small and non touch made me change, although it is very practical and bullet proof, but i am a sucker for new tech and sony phones

[Q] Bringing redundant Touch HD out of retirement! Q&A.

Ok so my first and main question is, are people still using their old blackstones, if so what for?
I'm EXTREMELY interested. I don't want to be another consumer who throws redundant tech away every 18 months if I can find a use for it. Besides it feels like a part of mobile history, the last of the resistive touch screen era, the new windows phone is too tiley, rigid and related to the disaster that was and is windows 8 and as a techie I like to tinker with things as such windows mobile 6 is just nostalgically beautiful. I could even still see myself developing an app for it in the future even now if I thought of something worth having because it reminds me of my beloved iPAQ which unfortunately I no longer have!
At the moment I'm running a Note 3 which is brilliant and HIGHLY recommended, in between I've had an S2, another good phone so as a phone the touch HD's days are well and truly over, It is however still a fairly decent pocket PC with GPS so at the very least I could still keep it in the car as a backup tomtom.
I first got my hands on an iPAQ 4150 (my reason for joining XDA!) a decade ago, I was 15 at the time and I'd coveted iPAQs for years so when I finally got one I felt like the king of kids along with my 5 friends and younger brother who also had various flavours of pocket pc (his Axim X5 - ironically now worth about £5 is sat on the desk next to me). While I used it for many things including videos, playing monopoly, universal remote, bible, reading ebooks and taking notes in class its main purpose was as a fancy MP3 player with that wonderful bass boosting app called Pocket Music!
On this basis and for old times sake I've decided that I wish to resurrect my Touch HD as a Pocket PC and second mp3 player.
This brings me to my next question, whats the largest/fastest micro SD you've managed to get yours to recognise? I just tried the 64gb sdxc from my note 3 and unfortunately no luck there.
One thing that has disappointed/shocked me somewhat is how difficult it seems to be to find all the millions of programs that used to be, handango was packed, and I've long since deleted all the things I used to have fortunately I did manage to torrent a copy of pocket music! Wahoo! :victory: guilt free it was paid for a long time ago.
So far, I've removed my 6.5 Energy ROM and swapped it for Duttys 6.1 XT turbo for the sake of speed (it was the ONLY 6.1 ROM I could still find - the original orange one having long since disappeared from their (and seemingly any other) website. While the energy home was beautiful it was laggy and drudgerous to use (im sure its fine on LEO) which brings me to my third question.
Does anyone know how I can keep touchflo but still use the default windows mobile 6.1 start menu? I like the touchflo homescreen with the clock and I would still find the weather tab useful over wifi so I would like to keep that if possible but I haven't found a way to have that with default start menu on dutts rom. Alternatively, could anyone point me toward the Orange Rom?
Last question, overclocking, if I remember correctly 670 mhz is easily achievable but at the time I fiddled with this (many years ago) we could only do it while plugged in. I'm certain that has been answered elsewhere but while I'm here, I might aswell add it to the list. Is it now possible to have the OC running on battery power?
To summarise; I want a mininmalist almost iPAQ like OS, windows mobile 6.1, few fancy bits, no social media, no crap, if I could remove facebook from this version of duts rom and other things I deem unnecessary I shall, I want it as fast as possible (my iPAQ was fast and simple with a 400mhz processor so there's no reason this can't be), with the biggest SD card I can find. I want to overclock it, and I'd love to know if there's anywhere that we can still find all the thousands of interesting old apps and games that seemingly used to be out there. I've even toyed with the idea of asking about windows mobile 5 although I dropped the thought when I realised I'd probably lose camera functionality.
And remember first and foremost, I also want to know.. How do you eat yours? :silly::laugh:

Quick update, this rom looks absolutely delicious in 6.1 guise:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=460640
Download links here:
http://www.4shared.com/dir/elwe84Mo/Kwbr.html#dir=Lj5MJ7Y2
Had to sign up for 4 shared, flashing now.

Works brilliantly and after flashing 10 roms in a day its my favourite by a long way, only thing is that the weather function won't work via wifi (not tried gprs), any ideas anyone?

So from what I've been able to garner the Touch HD takes micro SDHC but is not compatible with the newer SDXC. While this limits us to 32GB it's still good news because the old walkman mp3 player I have been using was 16GB and these days the fastest top class 32GB micro SDHC card can be had for as little as £12.99! That means I can essentially double the capacity of my mp3 player for £12.99! Clearly, there's still life in the old phone yet!
http://www.mymemory.co.uk/compatible-memory/Mobile_Phones/HTC/HTC+Touch+HD_Memory_Cards

I still use mine as my mobile phone and for Tom tom and storing passwords. It's gone through a few batteries and a new stylus and a new screen. It constantly gives me the shixs because it's a slow ass phone. I'm just waiting for that perfect unicorn rainbow encrusted replacement phone. Thanks for recommending the rom, I'll try it out to see if I can be bothered putting up with this hunk of junk a bit longer.

joshwuk said:
Works brilliantly and after flashing 10 roms in a day its my favourite by a long way, only thing is that the weather function won't work via wifi (not tried gprs), any ideas anyone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
weather works on mine with wifi.
Holy crap the touch hd is a slow phone. Everything takes at least 3 seconds to respond when clicking. THere must be a quicker rom... I did install the sense 2 version.

I installed the 6.1 weather one. and I overclocked it using http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=747813
The weather didn't work at first. I dunno what fixed it, but I turned off location awareness in settings on touch flo. then i went to weather deleted all the extra cities, then i updated and turned on location services when it asked and it worked. may be a fluke.

AvocadoBaby said:
I installed the 6.1 weather one. and I overclocked it using http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=747813
The weather didn't work at first. I dunno what fixed it, but I turned off location awareness in settings on touch flo. then i went to weather deleted all the extra cities, then i updated and turned on location services when it asked and it worked. may be a fluke.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
"all settings" fix in settings tab
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=5507019&postcount=6328

geez the touchhd was a dumb phone. I still am using it because i'm too cheaparse to buy a new phone. But damn... iphone killer it was not. Slow piece of rubbish with a bad camera.
Spent ages trying different variations of manilla and boy are they laggy. A bit better with overclocking. so tried winterface, point ui, spb mobile shell, cHome. Finally the today screen with resco plugin is the quickest. I can't believe i've been putting up with spb and touchflo all this time instead of the today screen.

I bought my Touch HD in december 2008. I have been using it until september 2015. Reason for replacing it was a standy time of only a few hours. (I ditched my Motorola A780 for the same reason btw.) I bought a new battery, but that didn't solve the problem. I was running the WM 6.5 Energy ROM, which made it more touch friendly than the original WM 6.1.
The Moto X Play I have now looked ridiculously big at first, but now I am used to it the Touch HD seems ridiculously small .
I liked using it, but noe I have more reasons to not want the Touch HD anymore: speed (or lack of it) and the non-capacitive, scratch sensitive touch screen.
I am not into replacing a phone every one or two years. I think 7 years is a nice lifetime for a smartphone. So my Moto X Play has at least another 6,5 years to go.
I know I am kicking an old topic, but it's an old phone too. I wonder if there are still people who use it as their everyday phone.

It is permanently in my car always on the charger, serving as music player and backup phone.

I'm still using mine
I've tried the modern Windows phone and Androids but they just don't have the functionality that ~I need. I like being able to use my fingernail on the touch screen for better accuracy than a great big fingertip. I like having a full QWERTY keyboard like the Resco keyboard without constantly having to shift from numbers to characters to symbols. I like the drop-down menus and I like the fact that I don't have to search for the phone app to use my phone as a phone.
The only downsides are the reception in poor signal areas is not as good as my wife's Samsung and the OPERA browser doesn't work very well but then I have a laptop for serious work.
I somebody would bring out an updated version of this phone running Win 6.1 mobile then I'd bite their hand off and upgrade but as it is I'll stick to my Touch HD as long as I can keep it running.

Use all the time
I use mine every day for telephone, email, calendar/diary syncs with OUTLOOK, contacts, word, excel, as a clock, as an alarm.
I use it occasionally as a SatNav, read the Bible on it.
It's now getting a bit long in the tooth and with 2G/3G starting to get switched off I'm now looking for a way to migrate all my stuff including Win Mobile 6.1 to and Android phone. If anybody has a good way to upgrade an Android phone to Windows Mobile 6.1 then I'm all ears.