Database Users

Officially no longer iPhone fanboy... Software Progression of an Xperia Lover

When I first bought my Xperia, I HATED it! I was forced to give up my iPhone due to some of the “Call acknowledgement” programs that our hospitals use would not recognize the iPhone email format.
***skip to bold for what latest software progression is***
So I bought the Xperia and:
It wouldn’t play Youtube video AT ALL!
It was slow as hell.
It froze up constantly…AND WHAT THE HELL IS THIS 5 TO 15 SECONDS BEFORE THE SCREEN REACTS TO A BUTTON PRESS CRAP?!?!?!?
Video playback was terrible and it was a pain to convert movie in the first place.
Camera performance was slow slow slow and poor
Windows itself is clunky and unrefined.
Call signal was weak and volume low
Media panel volume was low and noisy.
Why in the wide wide world off sports would Sony use a resistive screen instead of capacitive glass covered in this day and age? With a stylus no less.
FIRST time round:
-So I found XDA and:
Installed Youtube.cab and Panel. – First problem down!
Found the Video with Hardware acceleration thread – there are my pretty decent results (not perfect but decent) video convertor.
Found the Turbo your X1 thread and my video was greatly improved.
Loaded Xperiatweak and changed a Bunch of annoying Xperia behaviors and setting
Loaded SDTuneup.cab and was nicely surprised by the improvement.
Found the benchmark posts and played with setting constantly improving the performance more.
Found all the different tips and tricks threads between Xperia and HTC forums….nice!
SECOND incarnation:
-Then loaded the leaked X1i_GENERIC_UK_CDF1215-1832_R2AA008 rom and loaded from the SD card.
Hey! Everything and I mean everything works faster!
Video looks better!
Installed all of my old programs and tweaks plus the simple battery colors cab. SHAZAM! This is nice!
It is locking up WWAAYY less.
Youtube videos look 90% as good as they do on the iPhone.
I am getting happy with the phone,
I am no longer switching sim to my iPhone on the weekends. I may carry it to have a movie on hand but that is it.
I get the Sony panel set up to my PERFECTION with 3 RSS feeds, Calendar, com managers, and launch icons.
By now I’ve found the stylus is much easier to use when surfing full web pages as the icons and links are tiny but usable.
I am finding myself constantly pulling our my Xperia to play with it now.
AND FINALLY!!!!!!!!!
-I loaded (via SEUS) X1i_GENERIC_UK_CDF1215-1832_R2AA010 rom
** HOLY CRAP! After 4 hours of use the Xperia is working as quickly was the 008 upgrade was after a week with tweaks installed**
-Installed sdkcerts followed instantly by SEX1cons "Q series v1.1”. WOW! This looks slick as hell! I mean really ‘effing good!
-Installed Youtube Panel and cab. I can’t watch and download “HD videos” at the same time without lag. But after loading, “HD” trailers and such look 95% as good as they did on my iPhone. (almost there guys)
-Installed Xperiatweak
-REMOVED Xperiatweak – found that the Memory tweaks actually reduced my overall speed and if even attempted the default Panel mode would lock up my Xperia Constantly until a hard reset was performed. The "memory tweaks" made by Xperia tweak would also be reset to original by the phone. (advanced configs would not) I don't think everyone has had these issue with it but I found Xperia tweak more of a problem than a help at this time.
-Installed advancedConfig.cab and did almost EVERYTHING (sms notice, security notice disable, ) than I could from Xperiatweak (default IE cache, pic/video location, pressure threshold, etc)
- Put my memory settings (except for glyph cache-32kb) back to Original rom (File system-enabled, system cache-auto, filter cache-disabled) and found my Xperia is fastest here (don’t know why yet)
-Installed tomtom7.9 –downloaded the free map and a voice. With the help of quickGPS info TomTom locks on in about 10-15 seconds.
-Overall media volume seems improved too. I am not hearing any of the noise between tracks or when searching for tracks.
-Installed Facebook panel and have not seen anylock ups at all from it. And it is nice and speedy now.
BOTTOM LINE:
When out to eat, I find myself throwing my phone up on the table with all of the other tards who throw their iPhones and Storms on the table to show off. I know I won't be embarrased by lock ups when they pick it up and start flipping through panels and programs. I am smilling by the "ooo's and ahh's" of having weather, calender, communications, launchers, and RSS feeds all on ONE screen. And TOMTOM (with Ozzy voice) seems to just blow everyone away. MY phone was crowned the new king of the hill and I am loving it!
Best of all, I seem to be installing programs for customizing looks and preferences instead of installing programs just to try and improve performance.
If you just want to be able to pickup your phone, load and ap or a song on and go, the iPhone is for you. If you want to be able to mold your phone to the way YOU want it.....the Xperia is it baby!

I,m Going the opposite way im afraid.. I am experiencing multiple crashes. my 2 week old xperia has a crack at volume button, its not very thumb friendly unless you install tf3d which i did. I really wish my operator O2 uk would stock htc phones becuse it appears this is a pig in a poke this model so its getting taken back to o2 and swapped for a ..iphone 3g i always insisted i would not get one, but now i am im going to jail break it etc hopefully by the time upgrade comes again o2 stock htc and i will know exactly where to come for all the help in the world bye people thanyou for all your help and advice during the short time i had an htc phone

respect kdspiv
i will send your text to friends who don't like the xperia hahhaa

The cracking thing scares me. I am planning on living with the crack when mine start to develope. But so far, even after two drops (I have to carry my phone and email 24x7 so my Xperia is CONSTANTLY being handled, slid into labcoat pocket, jeans pocket etc.) I haven't had issues yet.
The iPhone is kick butt. But there those of us (in a hospital setting for example) who live and die by enterprise business email AND have to rely on the phone to wake us up from a dead sleep. The lack of end-user settings (email format, hell..even email notification VOLUME) make the iPhone unusable.
The Xperia has it faults. And for those who like the "pick up and play" aspect of the iphone with movies and apps (like I did) the Xperia has a tough battle.
If sony would make a plug and play accelerometer (maybe internal to a class 8, 16 gig sd card maybe *i can dream right*) I would be a happy camper.

iPhone is a closed, locked room: WYSiWYG
Win is a crappy old room, but open, with potential, and inivting to paint & decorate
I had NEVER thought of tweaking a DLL or a system file in my whole life until this beauty came to my hands and stared at me saying: "make me yours, I will mod to your desires"
I'm happy
I LOVE xda-devs and I LOVE my SE-X1/HTC Kovsky

gtrab said:
iPhone is a closed, locked room: WYSiWYG
Win is a crappy old room, but open, with potential, and inivting to paint & decorate
I had NEVER thought of tweaking a DLL or a system file in my whole life until this beauty came to my hands and stared at me saying: "make me yours, I will mod to your desires"
I'm happy
I LOVE xda-devs and I LOVE my SE-X1/HTC Kovsky
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can happily say, without any exageration, your SE-X1 was a nice portion of me finally coming to love my Xperia.
And something people who pickup my phone for the first time immediately notice. (especially the blutooth/headphone icon for some reason)

orangedavie said:
I,m Going the opposite way im afraid.. I am experiencing multiple crashes. my 2 week old xperia has a crack at volume button, its not very thumb friendly unless you install tf3d which i did. I really wish my operator O2 uk would stock htc phones becuse it appears this is a pig in a poke this model so its getting taken back to o2 and swapped for a ..iphone 3g i always insisted i would not get one, but now i am im going to jail break it etc hopefully by the time upgrade comes again o2 stock htc and i will know exactly where to come for all the help in the world bye people thanyou for all your help and advice during the short time i had an htc phone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
O2 do stock HTC phones, they just call them O2 phones instead - check them out on their site, they're almost identical to the normal HTCs, but with a little branding.

For me its all about the journey.
The process of improvement and customisation is very satisfying. Its like the difference between givin a house which needs doing up to your tastes and your needs, which is Xperia, and someone giving you a brand new rented house,the same as everybody elses, but you cant change anything in it, apart from buying new stuff.
No 2 Xperias are the same, check out this thread to see the vast array of looks and UI avaliable for X1.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=459241
DIY-ing is very satisfying !
Good thread this !

So R2AA010 works good huh? I'm waiting for a chef to cook up a new Rom base on this build, it's tempting for me to load it up with SESU but I dont want all the crap with it. Glad to see your X1 running good.

man I could convince plenty of my friends by sending them this thread.
but I wanna stay the only one with a SEX1 (cool name by the way) in town
but just as mentioned in the first post, I really was dissapointed for the first 2 weeks.
this is my first winmo device, I had no clue what possibilities there are.
today I'm totally satisfied with it, and not longer jealous on iPhone users.
greez

romeo0119 said:
So R2AA010 works good huh? I'm waiting for a chef to cook up a new Rom base on this build, it's tempting for me to load it up with SESU but I dont want all the crap with it. Glad to see your X1 running good.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is working pretty well for me. The couple of issues I have seen are these.
XperiaTweak - did not work so hot for me with RA10.
-First, if I tried ever uning the "default" panel setting it would lock to the windows panel no matter which panel was selected in the program. And eventually would just lock up the machine all together.
-Second, when I tried the memory tweak the Xperia would actually slow down. And eventually it would revert itself back to stock memory settings.
second-Memory settings in general - Everything seems to work better at the stock settings. Maybe after the flash "breaks in" tweaking the memory via schaps advanced config will work better. Changing the glyph cache to anything besides 8 made no difference in the speed of movies or panels.
Also, for some reason setting the IE cache locations to the SD card causes IE to stop functioning. Opera still will at this time. I am not familiar enough to know if Windows doesn't clear out the history and cache when it is on the SD or not. So now I use the SD as default storage for pics and Xperia video only.
It takes twice as long to boot up as it did at RA8
Whether right or wrong, these are my observations so far.
Oops....forgot to say good things.
1. When opening up keyboard, landscape mode is instant. I mea it is complete by the time the keyboard open or closed.
2.Panel button still takes a good 5 seconds to deploy the panel navigation screen. BUT the screen are super fluid and the time it takes to completely implement a panel is 4 seconds flat from selection to fully functional with all my RSS feeds, weather, etc.
3. Menus are instant. All screens move much more fluid and programs start very quickly after selection now. EXCEPT for ANY program that changes settings such as Scheps Advanced Config or Xperia tweak. These types of programs seem to take almost twice as long to start up on my device as they did in RA8.
4. Phone Signal strength is very much better for me. I would lose signal in most areas of the hospital especialy Radiology (lead shielding) and anywhere in the Garden Cafeteria level (basement). But I have noticed today that I have had full strength everywhere and even half bars in Radiology with T-mo.
5. Over all system volume is better. Wired headphones is slightly louder, AD2P bluetooth is unchanged. But low volume movies are definitely louder and the Mp3 ringers are noticably louder too.
6. My wifi clicks on and off more often and doesn't seem to have a strong a lock as it did before. How ever internet speeds are a bit better when fully connected and my battery usage seems a bit better.
I DON'T KNOW HOW MUCH OF THIS IS JUST WHAT I AM EXPERIENCING!!!! It seems each Xperia varies depending on how clean the rom loads or softwares loads were. Someone may break down the software and find out there are no changes and this is all in my head. But these are my results so far.

I'm glad for you
However, you should check the youtube again, My X1i kicks iPhone's behind in viewing any video, just the 800x480 vs 320x480 killed all my iPhone friends.

Well, in resoloution yes. Especially if you watch something like the NVIDIA HD demonstration video. BUT, I still have a bit of either lag or frame drop. I am not sure which is correct but they both equate to the Iphone still having smoother video both on youtube and on regular video.

kdspiv said:
Well, in resoloution yes. Especially if you watch something like the NVIDIA HD demonstration video. BUT, I still have a bit of either lag or frame drop. I am not sure which is correct but they both equate to the Iphone still having smoother video both on youtube and on regular video.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Remember: when in 800x480, the device has to move FIVE TIMES MORE INFO (pixels per frame) than running the same video over a 320x240 device
800x480 = 384,000 pixels displayed per frame
320x240 = 76,800 pixels displayed per frame
To be fair, better compare a QVGA video on both devices, sans resizing

gtrab said:
Remember: when in 800x480, the device has to move FIVE TIMES MORE INFO (pixels per frame) than running the same video over a 320x240 device
800x480 = 384,000 pixels displayed per frame
320x240 = 76,800 pixels displayed per frame
To be fair, better compare a QVGA video on both devices, sans resizing
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are exactly right. BUT!!!! 95% of the people who are going to compare them have a friggin CLUE about what you just said. They are simply going to look at it and say "Its not as good as my iphone" because they see the jerkyness before they seen the better resoloution.....
Maybe I am wrong about this on the larger picture. But in the people who have compared my Xperia to the iphone, this has deffinitely been the case.

I think both of you are right, but at the same time thats not point of the youtube issue, for me at least. Mine isnt working smooth anymore. It used to, when I was using the stock rom. So something definitely changed in the firmware that is causing problems. The X1 is definetly capable of pushing those HD youtube vides at the full 800x480 res-I know becuase mine used to. Not anymore

Welcome
A hearty welcome to the windows mobile community my friend.

kdspiv said:
It is working pretty well for me. The couple of issues I have seen are these.
XperiaTweak - did not work so hot for me with RA10.
-First, if I tried ever uning the "default" panel setting it would lock to the windows panel no matter which panel was selected in the program. And eventually would just lock up the machine all together.
-Second, when I tried the memory tweak the Xperia would actually slow down. And eventually it would revert itself back to stock memory settings.
Just a thought re the memory tweak slowing your x1 down... when I was fiddling after flashing to 010 from 008 I noticed that the glyph cache was at 128 instead of the lower 32 that I was using previously... so I made sure to keep the higher setting... perhaps the stock setting was higher?
second-Memory settings in general - Everything seems to work better at the stock settings. Maybe after the flash "breaks in" tweaking the memory via schaps advanced config will work better. Changing the glyph cache to anything besides 8 made no difference in the speed of movies or panels.
I see you already did the glyph cache thing, disregard the above then? I also set the file system cache to 8mb and noticed that it was already enabled (but on 2mb) unlike the previous ROM and finally I also set the file system filter cache to 16384 sectors... this worked nicely on the last ROM so giving it a try now..
Also, for some reason setting the IE cache locations to the SD card causes IE to stop functioning. Opera still will at this time. I am not familiar enough to know if Windows doesn't clear out the history and cache when it is on the SD or not. So now I use the SD as default storage for pics and Xperia video only.
It takes twice as long to boot up as it did at RA8
I am not sure if mine is twice as long but its certainly a bit longer, although the more times I reboot it the faster it seems to get... could be just me getting used to it though...
Whether right or wrong, these are my observations so far.
Oops....forgot to say good things.
1. When opening up keyboard, landscape mode is instant. I mea it is complete by the time the keyboard open or closed.
I found this too... was working very well before but now seems to anticipate the change and does it instantaneously...
2.Panel button still takes a good 5 seconds to deploy the panel navigation screen. BUT the screen are super fluid and the time it takes to completely implement a panel is 4 seconds flat from selection to fully functional with all my RSS feeds, weather, etc.
Same with my device... I count to about 2 or 3 before the panel is up and ready for action, much much faster there...
3. Menus are instant. All screens move much more fluid and programs start very quickly after selection now. EXCEPT for ANY program that changes settings such as Scheps Advanced Config or Xperia tweak. These types of programs seem to take almost twice as long to start up on my device as they did in RA8.
Blazingly instant... it seems much more responsive and the windows folder comes up in about half the time... progs start awesomely fast and even Advanced Config is quick, I dont use xperia tweak so cant comment there...
4. Phone Signal strength is very much better for me. I would lose signal in most areas of the hospital especialy Radiology (lead shielding) and anywhere in the Garden Cafeteria level (basement). But I have noticed today that I have had full strength everywhere and even half bars in Radiology with T-mo.
I agree with this also... now where I used to get the G icon I get the E icon plus better sig strength... (o2)
5. Over all system volume is better. Wired headphones is slightly louder, AD2P bluetooth is unchanged. But low volume movies are definitely louder and the Mp3 ringers are noticably louder too.
Havent tried the headphones or movies yet... but its on my list as I have to study for a presentation this thursday so transferred my mp3 files for that and will be using it later...
6. My wifi clicks on and off more often and doesn't seem to have a strong a lock as it did before. How ever internet speeds are a bit better when fully connected and my battery usage seems a bit better.
Have not tried the wifi yet, but edge etc works very well... I agree with the comment on battery power, perhaps they are using a new power management system? I was installing/playing/tweaking my phone for 3 hours last night and it dropped to 90, no big deal I thought but another 3 hours (how time flies when you are having fun) later it was on 80, went to bed and this morning still 80 even with texts and weather update through the night... great stuff...
I DON'T KNOW HOW MUCH OF THIS IS JUST WHAT I AM EXPERIENCING!!!! It seems each Xperia varies depending on how clean the rom loads or softwares loads were. Someone may break down the software and find out there are no changes and this is all in my head. But these are my results so far.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am very pleased you gave me the nudge to switch to the 10 ROM over the 08... it might be a list of little things but over all the experience is now much faster and smoother... well worth the change...

@shadowdh
WHOAAAA! I think you are right! I hard reset to revert back to stock RA10 rom. Even though glyph cache came up in advanced config as 8, when I used another program to to views "device settings and stats" .... glyph cache is set to 128. What?! Dangit, which one is correct? I am not sure how to look through the registry and find out the actual setting but that is next on my what-to-learn list.
Maybe a conflict of some sort was the factor slowing my configuration type programs down?
So now I am finding a good portion the xperia-video-stutter may be mostly to video conversion and finding the proper convertor. (I know some of it is a driver issue) Yes, I have used the video converter listed on here. And it IS easy to use, but dang it is finicky, for me at least, as to how well it converts from movie to movie.
I have downloaded the examples on the thread. But they have a tiny bit of drop too. If I view them on the laptop the video has the same fluidity as it does on my Xperia. Again, resolution looks GREAT and motion is almost there.....but I want it all!
Another Xperia owner and myself have been traded a couple of movies. His movies look a tad better. His suggestion is that I get a better video ripper. His is on Mac so he cannot share his with me.
Sidenote:
I also tried movies converted for my PSP through video vault for the sheer helluvit. They look pretty decent but the sound is ALWAYS off.

Wow, I am really glad for you. With XDA-devs around you never have to fear any software problems/bugs/insufficiency.
With dedicated developers who don't ask for much other than thanks and occasional donations, you will be really fine and happy on the software front
God forbid the following, but wait until the paint on your device start peeling off, wait until your keys decolorizing, wait until scratches appear on your keyboard, wait until pieces of your keyboard fall off, wait until your d-pad start cracking, wait until your device crack without any agitation on your part AND wait until your keys GET UNRESPONSIVE(you get tactile response but no character appearing).
I am being a wet-blanket but fret not, the telecom/service centre will show you love by giving you free-repair/exchanges.

wishlist for this phone...

i love this new phone and new os but some things are really annoying and i hope they will be fixed in a future software update
no custom ringtones and no seprate volume control for ringtones this really sucks cause if i turn down the game or music volume it turns down the volume for everything.
playing a game like need for speed and hitting that stupid search button will kick u out of a game ur playing.
setting wallpaers u cant set a full wallpaper u always got to crop the image first i hate this.
no turn by turn directions for maps.
the dialpad and message theme kind of sucks i hope this can be changed
i would like to be able to set a wallpaper for the main screen just not the lockscreen
headphone volume output need to be way louder
the phone tile when u miss a call or get a message would be cool if it would show u who u missed a call from and if u got a text message it would show who text u and half of the message or something like that kind of like what the me tile does when u post something new
putting contact tiles if it would show messages and misssed calls alerts on there tiles that would be great
the top menu bar should always show battery lift signal if u get a txt message etc.
improvment on loading time for games etc..
cant think of anything else i want changed right now
other then that i love this new os i been using iphone since the 2g iphone and this is just way diffrent i also use a android device

I'd like more options within text messaging. I'd like the ability to initiate a call from a text message, and the ability to add a contact from a text message.

I've been a Windows mobile user for quite a while, and made a switch to Android, now to Windows Phone 7, it's great, but I agree with everything you posted, but adding a file explorer it a must. The ability to select or hide different photos that show on the picture tile, an option to hide/show the keyboard while typing (so you can see the whole screen), and the ability to turn on/off wifi, Bluetooth from the main screen instead of digging into the settings each time. Plus a few more settings, like wifi rules, (turning off Wifi automatically after unused, if you like). It would also be nice to be able to remove that little white arrow in the upper right corner of the main screen, it takes up so much real estate on the main screen. Landscape mode on more screens would be nice too.
Oh, and the option to remove an account, I already have a Windows Live account that I don't use stuck on the phone. I don't see a way to remove it, and cant' change the email address or log in id info, only the password.
I'm sure updates will be rolling out to resolve some issues, or possibly apps.....??

surround
you can just add a second windows live acccount and disable the first one by unchecking everything effectively disabling it. I wish you could delete the main one too. However, I posted this somewhere else, the phone got corrupted and after i did a hard reset and connected to my computer, the Zune software restored all my programs (in the backgrouind without my knowledge) and all was good again. There are some bad reveiws of this phone on youtube, but some of the reviewers got it all wrong. For instance the screen resolution for movies is EXCELLENT. It takes the zune software a long time to convery and copy some movies but worth the wait. There are some bugs and some things could use improving. I would say the one thing that bugs me the most is when you zoom in on a net page...the text could be sharper. But I can live with it. All in all the phone is a pleasure and I look forward to the updates.

Thing i dont like about video watching is Netflix over 3G is good quality.. but youtube is crap over 3G. There NEEDS to be a setting for this. Its just a hub extension, but hopefully something gets fixed.

A lot of your suggestions are for the OS, not the physical phone.
It would be nice if the OS could utilize the awesome speaker on the phone a bit more. For example, speaker phone is pretty weak. I also dislike how if the speaker is not slid out, everything is muffled. I guess they expected the sound to reflect better, but it just doesn't.
That's really all I can think of besides the lack of a microSD slot that's visible anyway. I'd take my phone apart to see if there is one, but I don't have a torx bit small enough.
Besides the OS limitations, I think the phone is awesome.

I want to be able to set the notification LED to blink for new texts, emails, etc

dccorona said:
I want to be able to set the notification LED to blink for new texts, emails, etc
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I second this. One of the things I miss most from my Tilt2 and all other winmo phones have been the blinking notification light.

Need more from microsoft
I want to be able to block unwanted call, more options in the settings menu and better functions for the camera.

definitely need to be able to explore the phone. more wifi options would be nice as well. also the speaker seems to be a bit lacking. ( sure thumps when i hook it up over the cd deck in my truck though!) I had the htc tp2 prior to this and i became completely addicted to the wifi router utility, so for me personally that would be the most important thing. if anyone knows about anything like this under development let me know. i'm always willing to donate to a good cause.

One of my teens got his old LG upgraded to a Surround for Christmas yesterday. I'd been thinking when my Tilt 2's upgrade time comes this summer I'd do the same -- but not after spending a frustrating afternoon helping him with it!
We played with it in the store several weeks ago. I think the slideout speaker is a gimmick but he's 16 and thinks it's great. We both agree the WinMo 7 tile thing is a bit silly but is FAST, and he loves the HTC Hub UI. The hardware is very good (though I'm not sure I agree with no micro-SD slot).
But using Zune software to sync is a PAIN!!! My Vista laptop took 1/2 hour to download the device drivers, then insisted on a reboot before downloading the Zune software (another 20 minutes). Then the Zune install insisted on checking for an upgrade (yet another 20 minutes) before going thru a rather painful 10 minute install.
Once installed, it was very unhappy when I changed the monitored folders, and took several attempts before it would sync with the folders I'd copied off the kiddos old micro-SD card. Of course what I was most amazed about was the lack of drag-n-drop support in Windows! What kind of lame-brained, Steve Jobs-style of engineer would nix that? (I did find the reg hack to renable that just a few minutes ago, but haven't verified it yet.)
Lots and lots of lockdowns in WinMo 7 that I don't like, as have been mentioned by previous posters. This whole thing reminds me why I disklike the iPhone's OS so much!
Maybe my next phone is gonna have to be an Andriod phone instead...

I kind of agree with all of you. Microsoft might have come into this having windows phone shut a little too tight.
However, that only means that there is more room for improvement.
Multitasking would be nice, especially ones that resonate when you dont have to see them, like streaming music. or at least faster app switching.
File Explorer is kind of important and Bluetooth file sharing too.
Tethering is not that important, but on my fuze I used to use it whenever I went on trips and the hotel tries to give me wifi for $30 a day...but eh... the screen is so much bigger, and it goes a lot faster too that I dont see any need for it, (besides plugins like java, or flash)
Oh and a definite must is the camera settings STAYING THE WAY I LEFT THEM. Whenever you exit the camera, it goes back to default. and on my phone at least, video recording goes to vga, so i would have to set it to 720p if i wanted it.

would love the call blocking and please a flash player!!!!!!!

Improvements
After Multi-tasking and copy and paste are added in the soon to be released update, I would like to see a few more additions. Flash player, Pandora, LED indicator light options for notifications, ringtone options beyond what they have allowed so far, the ability to send videos as MMS messages and a battery % remaining would make me ecstatic.

heh.... guys you will never see multitask like it was on 6.5 ..
as multitask they say - future CLOUD infrastructure update .. which will allow run signed apps on cloud infrastructure .. that means = you will be allowed to create ICQ client .. part of client will run on MS servers . that part will collect ALL YOUR ICQ EVENTS .. and then send to phone via PUSH notify .. on phone side nothing will be rly changed ..coz multitask goal does not collaborate with main WP7 idea - ISOLATED ENVIROMENT FOR APPS

Keyboard directional arrows
Is anyone missing keyboard up, down , left and right arrows? I sure miss them. Lifting your fingers off the keyboard to position the cursor on a particular spot in the sentence is really time consuming and not very precise.

Correct, I will really appreciate arrows in the keyboard
Sent from my Samsung Focus using XDA Windows Phone 7 App

My only feature request for all WP7 devices is gapless music playback. I really, really hate the two seconds silence between tracks, especially on electronic music or The Dark Side of The Moon (man, I love that album.)

Wi-Fi Router
The most important thing that is missing on Windows Phone 7, no doubt, is the wi-fi router function. Today I have to walk with two phones, because of the missing of wi-fi router.
Another important things are:
- File Manager
- Send photos/files via bluetooth
- Outlook Notes synchronization
- Office docs synchronized on the Windows Live could be open on a computer and vice-versa
Main software that I wish to be developed for WP7:
- Log Me in
- SQL Server Client
- Olive Tree Bible
- Google Maps (Oh Google Maps, you don't know how I miss you and your amazing Latitude)
- Auto CAD WS
- Skype
- MSN Messenger
I agree with everything else you published.

MMS Settings
Be able to customize the MMS Settings, some carriers have differnt tier's of internet with different APN's and it is a Necessity to have that option!!!!

2.2 Review

*** True Story ***
I am a member on Dell's community forum and have watched Dell's mouthpiece, Amy-B, post the lies and put up the smoke and mirrors regarding this for a while now. When she first announced that the update would begin on 11/15, I paid closer attention. By the end of the week when there was no update, I commented that users may have a potential class action suit. With that, I got a scathing email from Dell saying I violated their terms of use, some left handed subtle threats, and my post was deleted. I still laugh about that.
End True Story, my ongoing review below
I put 2.2 on last night and played with it for a little while before bed, then really started putting it to the test today. here's what's happened until now.
First, when I applied the update, it kept a lot of previous settings and applications rather than clean wiping. It also bypassed forcing me to login to google account, so when I tried to use the market, it couldn't. With that, I used my credentials to login to my google account and immediately started having some google calendar syncing error. It became a loop, each time asking me to report it, then asking me to force close the app, and then over and over the same thing. So I rebooted the streak, and it came up with the same exact issue not allowing me to do anything with it. I had to pull the battery to shut it down this time and when I get it all together to power up, I simply held the up/down volume keys and told it to do a factory reset.
The rom cooks itself into the streak as the factory install and 2.2 came up on the next boot, this time asking for google credentials. It worked that time, and I was ready to put the phone through it's motions.
Issues I've found
1. Voice Dialer via Bluetooth crashes each time I try to use it. It crashes to the point that it tells me to restart my phone. This is without fail.
2. swiping to unlock the phone, or pattern unlock are flaky. it will start then stop as if I've taken my finger off. I have to do it multiple times and crazy ways to make it work. Pattern lock same thing. Especially after coming out of my pocket... as if the heat from my body makes my finger not be recognized on the whole screen. This build makes the touchscreen no longer responsive as it was in 1.6... update, I've tested this over and over and over. yes, it seems to be the temperature, because if I blow on the screen to cool it, or something similar, the screen becomes instantly responsive to my touch. I never had this problem with 1.6 regardless of when I pulled it out of my pocket.
3. sometimes, changing screens gets choppy or laggy.
4. No widget bar or tray/drawer that allows you to turn BT or Wifi on or off. You have to get something from the market to do this (updated, this is available as a widget, I should open my eyes a bit)
5. Can't change the number of screens; can't add or subtract screens, stages, rooms, or whatever you choose to call it. You're stuck with 7, the center one being the default.
6. Multiple FC's for variety of reasons, many are while simply browsing the market. With that Microsoft-esque error reporting thing always popping up, I think they anticipated feeding garbage to the masses.
7. Have tried a few alternate launchers. Some are better than others, more functional etc.. .but no matter how weak an alternate launcher appears to be, they pretty much ALL beat StageUI
Likes
1. Have always liked the live wallpapers that we were introduced to in 2.1
2. landscape mode rights itself regardless of which side is facing up. could be a caveat since it puts the home/back/menu buttons upside down on the left instead of right with the hard buttons on the bottom, but still kind of cool nonetheless.
4. Support for Exchange is native and doesn't require additional software/applications.
the long and the short of it.. Dell is useless as an OS developer/tweaker and StageUI blows.
Samsung hit the homerun with it on its Galaxy S series. I was just at best buy, and the Galaxy Tab is pretty sweet but the price tag is ridiculous. Comparing 2.1 of my Vibrant with 2.2 on my streak, the Vibrant wins. no contest.
Day one of having the new 2.2 update on there and it's clear that this OS needs some patching already. I can only imagine what the people on O2 in the UK had to go through with their 2.1 fiasco
more to follow...

Here's a couple of things that I like in this build but before I list the items I wanted to address the comment you made about being able to turn of BT, wi-fi, GPS, brightness, etc. Under apps you can select Power Control and that will give you those options in a form of a widget. You do, however, will have to delete one of the Stage widgets to free up the room. Or you can just open the widget via apps. For my use, I currently prefer a different launcher than Stage. I am using the LauncherPro but there are a lot of other free choices like ADW, Zeam and so on.
Here are the things I like about this build:
1. Ability to hang up the call by pressing the power button ( you have to go to Settings-Accessibility-then check the mark for that option)
2. Radio feature - is absolutely great. The thing I don't like is the web ad that seems to pop every time I start listening to a station. If anyone knows how to turn/block that pop-up you would make me very happy )
3. Keyboard is awesome. Love the size, the options to switch to symbols, just love it. Haven't messed with SWYPE but I love the Andriod KB right now.
4. Flash - yes it works and it works well.
5. Speed - significantly faster. Whether navigating or downloading. Wi-fi speeds are faster than 1.6 or 2.1 I use to have.
6. Bluetooth volume is louder. This one was high on my priority list.
7. Music widget - looks nice and clean.
8. Camera works fine. I don't see an option for 720p though.
9. Security is beefed up by adding the option for PIN or password on top of the normal sliding lock. My slider works without any issues. But I prefer the pattern lock which also works great.
10. Haptic feedback can't be completely turned off, or you can turn off certain features alone like keyboard. I have mine off so the three main buttons don't vibrate any more. I don't think that option was available in the previous builds but I could be wrong.
These are the ones that I can think of right off the bat. I may add more as I remember them.

streak4m3 said:
Under apps you can select Power Control and that will give you those options in a form of a widget.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Long press home, then under widgets, then power control... thanks tons. that's what I was looking for.

So my quick review:
The good:
Loving the out-of-the-box Exchange support. Yay. Mobile e-mail/calendar/contacts without having to use Touchdown and the hassle of 'pushing' Touchdown contacts to the phone's contacts.
w00t. Ability to grab requiring apps from the market which require 2.x.
2.x features like portrait home screen, better multi-touch, etc.
The bad:
The Stage UI is just lame. Giving it a few days before I toss it in the bin.
I miss the old video playing app. I dunno what it was called, but there isn't even a shortcut for the new one. I installed ASTRO File Manager, browsed to my video directory and the file launched with some less-than-basic video player. What I liked about the old one was the order-by-date view which I have become used to but isn't the end of the world, the resume where you left off feature, and the delete from within the app feature. I guess Rock Player is the video player most people seem to be recommending, so I hope it has this.
For all its faults, I liked the old keyboard. I suspect it's still there, but I have yet to look. Using 2 (To/two/too) and 4 (For/four), etc in txt/IM/tweets now takes extra keypresses.
I never really knew how handy the Dell notification area was for 1.6. I'd turn off the cellular data and run Wi-Fi only, with just a couple of presses and it wouldn't interrupt the app I was in. Now I have to go to the home screen, press the menu button, and that's only to turn off wireless. I have yet to find the equivalent enable/disable for 3G.
Yet to check:
I've found the Streak's camera has taken pretty lame photos. I'm not photophile, but our 5 year old, 4MP camera takes better photos than the Streak. I've had the Streak set to the best quality (Lowest compression or whatever it was) and if you zoom in on a picture while viewing on a PC, it gets pixelated very quickly, while our 4MP pics are much nicer looking and they are twice the file size (4MP pic twice the file size of a 5MP pic?), so I'm interpreted this as 'The Streak takes crappy pics'. Been waiting to see what, if anything, the upgrade to 2.2 does for this.
So I guess it seems to lack polish, BUT, I think the reason for this is because it's actually near-to-bare Android, so I'm not going to criticise the roughness when the other option is more polish (Which one may or may not like) from Dell that means OS updates take 6+ months. I'm sure I'll be able to overcome anything I'm not liking with apps or through tweaking some options somewhere. Isn't this why we have Android?
But yeah. Stage is coming off pretty quick I suspect.
PS - You all might laugh: http://i.imgur.com/ULMLx.png

This build was far too laggy for my tastes. 1.6 was faster on some of the processes for me. I'm happily back on DJ Steve's build which is soooo much faster and has virtually the same features.
Sent from my Dell Streak using Tapatalk

Something I'm surprised is:
2.2 doesn't have separate sounds for incoming:
E-mail
Texts
Reminders
...I dunno if iOS does, but my old Windows Mobile device did. I'd like a different sounds for these events, as I'll respond to them differently. Now I don't know if it's a calendar reminder which I can't ignore, a text which I might ignore or an e-mail that I can ignore...

streak4m3 said:
8. Camera works fine. I don't see an option for 720p though.
.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I got fooled by this. check 'Custom' for 720p. I can verify it is 720p too. pretty good quality.
Edit: Check it out. cant post link so you'll have to type the youtube code in manually
watch?v=Xm-jbOqIUiU
Enjoy! pretty sweet.
Format : MOV
Dimensions: 1280x720px
Video codec: MPEG4
Audio codec: AAC

htnprm said:
I never really knew how handy the Dell notification area was for 1.6. I'd turn off the cellular data and run Wi-Fi only, with just a couple of presses and it wouldn't interrupt the app I was in. Now I have to go to the home screen, press the menu button, and that's only to turn off wireless. I have yet to find the equivalent enable/disable for 3G.
PS - You all might laugh: http://i.imgur.com/ULMLx.png
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try "Quick Settings" which puts an icon in your status bar so when in an app, just drag down the status bar click on it and all your settings are there. Or, try "QuickDesk". Not sure if this is out of beta yet but its also an awesome app for doing exactly what you are talking about.....and much more.
Cant wait to get my Streak and to start rockin this 2.2. Would love to have vanilla 2.2 though.

as you are on 2.2 now , can you check something for me ?
- can flashled from camera be used as torchlight ?
- it should have usb tethering now, but does it also do wifi-tethering ?
- can the flashplayer play activescript ?
- is activesync (not exchange) working ?

da_jojo said:
as you are on 2.2 now , can you check something for me ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah. I was wondering about many of these. Hopefully I get the first real sit-down with the phone sans-children jumping all over me, so I'll get back to you.

htnprm said:
Yeah. I was wondering about many of these. Hopefully I get the first real sit-down with the phone sans-children jumping all over me, so I'll get back to you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
cheers, appreciate it

da_jojo said:
as you are on 2.2 now , can you check something for me ?
- can flashled from camera be used as torchlight ?
- it should have usb tethering now, but does it also do wifi-tethering ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes the led can work as a flashlight. I used the N1 Torch app and it worked fine.
Yes it does have wifi tethering.
I really miss the 1.6 menu bar/notification bar. Stage blows compared to the old ui. The swype keyboard is great. I have mixed feelings about the update mainly because of the ui changes.
Sent from my Dell Streak using Tapatalk

Spectre51 said:
Yes the led can work as a flashlight. I used the N1 Torch app and it worked fine.
Yes it does have wifi tethering.
I really miss the 1.6 menu bar/notification bar. Stage blows compared to the old ui. The swype keyboard is great. I have mixed feelings about the update mainly because of the ui changes.
Sent from my Dell Streak using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thnx for the info
yeah me too, but you can allways install one of these :
http://myandroidworld.in/posts/android-launchershome-replacement-apps

da_jojo said:
as you are on 2.2 now , can you check something for me ?
- can flashled from camera be used as torchlight ?
- it should have usb tethering now, but does it also do wifi-tethering ?
- can the flashplayer play activescript ?
- is activesync (not exchange) working ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. Yes, I use StreakLight from Market (free)
2. Yes, there´s an option for this and I checked it, and it seems to work. But I haven´t connected a device yet.
3. How can I check this?
4. Dunno, cause I use Exchange and some Imap

gavelis said:
1. Yes, I use StreakLight from Market (free)
2. Yes, there´s an option for this and I checked it, and it seems to work. But I haven´t connected a device yet.
3. How can I check this?
4. Dunno, cause I use Exchange and some Imap
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thnx
ad 3 : http://www.playerversion.com/ and http://jrgraphix.net/research/flash-dock-mx-2004.php and http://flowplayer.org/plugins/streaming/rtmp.html

da_jojo said:
as you are on 2.2 now , can you check something for me ?
- can flashled from camera be used as torchlight ?
- it should have usb tethering now, but does it also do wifi-tethering ?
- can the flashplayer play activescript ?
- is activesync (not exchange) working ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Alright. Others have answered, but I'll pass on what I know. If you're talking Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) not talking to an Exchange server, a la Hotmail, I'm getting a "cannot connect to server" error... My EAS to work's Exchange is working flawlessly though.
And USB/Wi-fi tethering are working grand. I'm tethered by Wi-fi as I write this, so I can pass my 3G USB modem on to a colleague. w00t.
I am a little concerned about battery life. I haven't done that much with the phone today, unlike a normal day where I might squeeze in a few calls, texts, tweets, bit of web browsing, and three+ hours of video and have the battery at 20% at the end of the day. I'm at 20% left now, and I haven't done any of those things.

thnx
have you tried hotmail through POP3 ? it worked with k9 client.
what i meant is activesync on windows 7 64bit with office 2010 32bit.
yeah batterylife concerns me also. i have a habit of draining these in godspeed (A)

You can create a shortcut to the wifi & networks popup from launcherpro activities.
1. Long press on the desktop bsckground
2. Select shortcut
3. Select Activities
4. Select wireless & networks
You now have access to the old dell popup to disable data, 3g etc.
Sent from my Dell Streak using XDA App

this is exactly what people where missing , thnx

rodjordan said:
You now have access to the old dell popup to disable data, 3g etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Kinda. You still have to go from the app you're in out to the home screen, turn it on/off, and then go back to your app. But thanks for the info.

[Q] What do these do now?

Now that all the services are shut down, what exactly does this device do?

rosser725 said:
Now that all the services are shut down, what exactly does this device do?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This device serves are a cellphone, MP3 Player, Web Browser, E-mail Client, and an Alarm Clock. For me at least..

ditto
Same here - I would say my favorite software feature is the email client. You can set up multiple email accounts, so I have my personal gmail account and my work email account, it's super convenient for me. The slide out keyboard is great - it did take me a couple days used to it (never typed on anything smaller than a netbook before), but now I really like it & I'm able to type emails pretty quickly.
On a recent trip I used the camera a lot. The pictures are decent - on par with photos I've seen from iPhones - and much better than most cell phone cameras. But, I will say this, it's not replacing my Sony Cybershot digital camera or my Flip Video camera. Phone makers love to tout how many megapixels they have, but until you can put a better lens on there, your photo quality is severely limited. As for video, you are limited to recording very short clips, I think it was 1 minute? I was annoyed when I tried to record my brother playing a song on his guitar and I had to record it as 4 separate clips.
I use the web browser to check the weather in the morning. I did a Bing search for "weather 90210" (replace 90210 with your real zip code), then bookmarked it and I usually check that every day before I hop on my bike. In case you don't know, the result returned from that search is a lot like when you search it in Google, it tells you the current weather and the forecast for the next few days (Temps, wind, rain/sun, etc) in a pretty compact format.
I really like twitter on the KIN web browser. Most web pages I have tried work fine on the KIN browser, but I don't like having to scroll so much - you can only fit so much readable text on small screen. So aside from weather & twitter updates, the browser is mainly a novelty for me - hence why I am so happy with this phone and why I didn't "need" a Droid/iPhone w/ a Data Plan.
Which brings me to the best feature, in my opinion, which is what this phone doesn't do: it doesn't require you to pay for a Verizon data plan. For me, this is saving me $60/month (2 lines). The high cost of data plans has been the only thing keeping my from getting a smart phone over the past 3 years, so when I found the re-released KIN w/o a data plan, I was sold instantly.
Hope that helps

I have to agree with you there. I am glad that with getting 2 of these I dont have to buy those stupid Data plans

As for video, you are limited to recording very short clips
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You do realize that you can only record one minute in email quality to keep the file under the size limit? You need to record in HD to record longer and I believe you will find the quality of video much higher.

Thanks for the tip! I hadn't played with the video much, and just thought that was a built in limit. I will need to check the menu and switch to HD.

List all the new features in 3.1

I'm downloading it right now. So all who have updated it, please say something about the new features in 3.1.... Trust me, it will help a lot of people.

It now has exchange email setup!

Youtube 720p video playback has greatly improved. Using the test video prior to 3.1 I was getting around 9-12 fps, now I'm getting 29-32 fps.

USB mouse works now;
Two new readers (Kobo and Zinio)... Extra bloatware... Awesome! :s
In the browser options, you can switch between tablet or desktop mode (I don't know if this was in 3.0 or not, but I didn't see it)
Also, in the browser, if you use quick control, you now have more options, including switching tabs right from the quick control, and closing tabs from the quick control) You can also choose to enable/disable google instant through the labs option.
** also, the list of open apps is bigger now.... not just the last 4 open apps show up

bangali bhai -
a quite notable feature is that now the widgets are resizable

ps3 controller support
new keyboard sounds
GPS fix locks in 10 sec without wifi

Many Changes
List of changes below
Wifi shows upload download
Additional support for other video formats
speed and performance is improved
lots of bugs cleared
auto reboot and shutdown bug not there atleast from the last 12 HRs.
Settings - Storage shows more in depth info
Browser improvised
Movie Studio added
Kobo Reader and Zinio Reader added
No Lags while Scrolling from other than standard landscape mode
Social Jogger widget and Nemo player Widget added
Wallpaper picker updated and setting wallpaper shows landscape and portrait optimization

Not sure if there is an actual measurable difference, but the whole tablet feels 'snappier' and more responsive, at least in my informal testing. We'll see if this is just me feeling optimistic and wanting to see things improved or if there's a legitimate boost in performance, though.
I just really hope that Acer managed to handle the issues I was having with frequent hanging with the screen on (but on the lock screen) when charging, and with the tablet powering down completely (rather than the usual 'sleep') when left to charge overnight. Having a device I can just pick up and use without waiting for a boot sequence is the bulk of why I went for a tablet in the first place...
They seem to have been pretty good about addressing issues with updates, it's just the question of when said updates show up.

Also, Android Movie Studio (think iMovie or something- very basic at first glance, but seems quite functional so far) and Videos are new to the app list.

Also got my update just in the last hour. Overall device seems snappier and USB mouse support is nice. I can also confirm that the Youtube Video Rental app comes with the update.
Sent from my A500 using XDA Premium App

Small point I know but it now appears that if you update apps in Market, once they are updated you now have option to uninstall the update.

The official new features list for Honeycomb 3.1 (outside of Acer updates)...
http://developer.android.com/sdk/android-3.1-highlights.html#UserFeatures

I still cant see a safe way of removing from USB other than powering down?

Differences/Improvements I noticed.
1. When you are in Market and you enter an app to download or view and you go back to previous page you go back to were you were in app selection instead of the top of the app page (which sucked ass in 3.01)
2. UI transitions obviously, but except from vertical lag it is also pretty 'laggy' when you turn it upside down.
3. Faster startup of albums thumbnails and zoom and double tap is lightning fast.
4. Website scrolling and 2 pressure point zooming is lightning fast.
5. GPS locks faster
6. Emails come instantly, dunno if anybody noticed but in 3.01 the emails would not appear as fast they did in example hotmail tray.
7. Youtube plays videos flawlessly, 720p smooth as **** thru a goose.
8. 720p MP4 can be played but not VERY smooth, MKV can be played too but with no sound. The other HD videos that I usually play I encode with Handbrake using zoom setting but it sux ass to have to convert 720p movies that should play smooth.
9. I may be dreaming but sound seems better, louder and clearer. May be my imagination.
Then there is all the obvious changed of course. I'll add more when I remember more.
Cheers!

WMA's play in the stock player!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Couple of Differences in 3.1 Update
Got the update this evening in the UK
Couple of things I've noticed:
Acer Lumiread application has improved interface. This may be considered bloatware by the masses but I really like this compared to the alternatives.
As well as this the Landscape mode now allows 2 page reading something similar to ipad Also seems a lot smoother which actually is a massive improvement. There were a few bugs with this with the leaked chinese build that came out last week but these all seem to have been remedied in this version 4 build.
Improvement in GPS lock speed. I didn't really have a massive issue but now seem to be able to find around 10 sats vs 8 indoors with 3.01 stock and leaked build. .
Desktop Mode on Browser settings. Is it just me or does this actually do anything?
I've only tested it on the bbc website but it's still recognising my device as a mobile device even when desktop mode is set or when UAString is changed. All this mode seems to do is break bbc iplayer . Anyone else in the UK notice this?
Market shows incompatible apps: I've noticed quite a few gameloft games now showing up in the app which upon trying to purchase I get a "your device is incompatible" message. Previously i wasn't shown applications and games that were incompatible.
web browsing is a lot smoother. no fc so far (fingers crossed)

Pictures are much sharper in Picture Frame widgets !

Thank God they took out Cell Standby My Battery Last Longer.
Sent from my SCH-R910 using XDA Premium App

Johnny0906 said:
9. I may be dreaming but sound seems better, louder and clearer. May be my imagination.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree. Much less distortion at the highest volume setting.

saeba said:
I agree. Much less distortion at the highest volume setting.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Then I wasnt dreaming, awesome!
The sound is better yup yup!