The_Rev Posted June 4, 2010 Share Posted June 4, 2010 I have a Hero, does anyone else? If so, do you run custom ROMs on it? Does it improve the phone much and worthy of upgrading and finding the time in researching how to do it? I still have the original orange ROM and it's well... a bit pants. If it's rooted then it can run custom ROMs. Rooting a phone is something I have no idea how to do, and pretty much every guide I have read assumes a level of knowledge I just dont have, so I am running a HTC Hero with a standard Hutchinson 3G (aka "three") ROM on it. Its fine for me, though reading through other places on the internets it seems that Orange tend to **** up the phones with their ROMs, apparently the Orange Desire is the worst one by a mile, but I digress. The GSM version of the HTC Hero 2.1 update is finally being rolled out. The first one went live today on a Taiwanese carrier called OTA. Hopefully the UK carriers will have an update ready this month, so its probably worth waiting for that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darrenm Posted June 4, 2010 Share Posted June 4, 2010 I have a Hero, does anyone else? If so, do you run custom ROMs on it? Does it improve the phone much and worthy of upgrading and finding the time in researching how to do it? I still have the original orange ROM and it's well... a bit pants. I've got a rooted G1 and TBH they have to be rooted to get the best out of them these days. It's the original development phone so it's easy to build custom ROMs for. The only other dev phone is the Nexus one. With that in mind it makes sense that Cyanogen (the most popular custom ROM builder) only supports the G1, Nexus1 and Moto Droid. The other HTC phones have slightly less of a community following as most people don't bother rooting / putting a unofficial ROM on there. There are a few things you get: * Latest Android (currently 2.1, 2.2 being worked on) * WiFi tether (turns your handset into a Wifi router to share your 3G connection to a laptop etc.) * Apps2SD (sets a partition on your SD card to be the place apps are installed to so you can installs 000's of apps.) * Performance tweaks, theming support, command-line to the underlying Linux OS (if that's your bag) etc. However you do get a few of these things with Android 2.1 (eclair) that will be dropping to the Hero soon and is already on the Legend and Desire. Plus you will lose HTC Sense which really makes a big difference to Android phones and is really how Android should be by default. Generally if you want to do it then it involves: * Flashing a new recovery image (basically the BIOS) * Once that's done you are then able to drop into recovery mode and select a ROM to flash to the phones firmware. There is a possibility that you can get something wrong and end up bricking your phone. Not likely if you follow the instructions but you never know. If I had a Hero I'd probably leave it and wait for the official HTC OTA (over the air) update to eclair. 2.2 (froyo) is likely to be the one that stabilises everything and means you can get all the nicest latest things they come out with just from the app store without having to wait for a ROM update so hopefully HTC will just roll that out to everything then not have to worry about backward-dropping new ROMs for every phone after that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nigel Posted June 5, 2010 VT Supporter Share Posted June 5, 2010 Just ordered a desire from Vodaphone. Got a good deal too... 300 minutes (with the usual unlimited texts and internet) for £25 quid a month on a 18 month contract, and one of those sure signals thrown in. ...sure does pay to haggle! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limpid Posted June 5, 2010 Administrator Share Posted June 5, 2010 Are they related to Vodafone? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gringo Posted June 5, 2010 Share Posted June 5, 2010 So who's got the best deal for a Desire with unlimited interweb? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jamiebavfc Posted June 7, 2010 Share Posted June 7, 2010 Getting a Desire today. It was a toss up between that and the Iphone but as i have an ipod touch i thought i would go for the Desire after all the good things i have heard about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darrenm Posted June 7, 2010 Share Posted June 7, 2010 It was a toss up between that and the Iphone There's no contest IMO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MR.Smalljob Posted June 7, 2010 Share Posted June 7, 2010 Getting my sony ericsson x10 mini today.. Android is the future :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davkaus Posted June 7, 2010 Share Posted June 7, 2010 However you do get a few of these things with Android 2.1 (eclair) that will be dropping to the Hero soon and is already on the Legend and Desire. Plus you will lose HTC Sense which really makes a big difference to Android phones and is really how Android should be by default. This isn't true, almost all of the ROMs provided for HTC phones in rooting guides are the HTC default ROM, I looked through a few when I rooted my Desire this week (surprisingly easy, by the way, took me about 20 minutes, most of that downloading the necessary files), I didn't see a single non-HTC ROM. There may be some out there, but it's completely wrong to say you'll lose the Sense UI by rooting. The only thing you lose is the shit that your service provider sticks on there. I am with Orange, so that was a massive relief. Other than the risk (which is negligible if you look for a good guide, check forums for people who've followed them to make sure it actually works!), there aren't really any downsides to rooting. I'm not sure hopw pleased Orange will be if I ever have to send this in to them for some reason, though. Speaking of the Desire, it's fantastic, in a competition of how much I love something, this comes uncomfortably clsoe to my family. If it weren't for the battery, it'd be perfect, it's a pretty significant drawback. Luckily I can charge this at work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nigel Posted June 7, 2010 VT Supporter Share Posted June 7, 2010 However you do get a few of these things with Android 2.1 (eclair) that will be dropping to the Hero soon and is already on the Legend and Desire. Plus you will lose HTC Sense which really makes a big difference to Android phones and is really how Android should be by default. This isn't true, almost all of the ROMs provided for HTC phones in rooting guides are the HTC default ROM, I looked through a few when I rooted my Desire this week (surprisingly easy, by the way, took me about 20 minutes, most of that downloading the necessary files), I didn't see a single non-HTC ROM. There may be some out there, but it's completely wrong to say you'll lose the Sense UI by rooting. The only thing you lose is the shit that your service provider sticks on there. I am with Orange, so that was a massive relief. Other than the risk (which is negligible if you look for a good guide, check forums for people who've followed them to make sure it actually works!), there aren't really any downsides to rooting. I'm not sure hopw pleased Orange will be if I ever have to send this in to them for some reason, though. Speaking of the Desire, it's fantastic, in a competition of how much I love something, this comes uncomfortably clsoe to my family. If it weren't for the battery, it'd be perfect, it's a pretty significant drawback. Luckily I can charge this at work. Being a non-techie that may have well been written in Chinese Why would you want to re-route a new peice of kit? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leviramsey Posted June 7, 2010 VT Supporter Share Posted June 7, 2010 Why would you want to re-route a new peice of kit? Because you can. Why else would you want to do it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nigel Posted June 7, 2010 VT Supporter Share Posted June 7, 2010 Let me put it another way, what is the benefit? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darrenm Posted June 7, 2010 Share Posted June 7, 2010 However you do get a few of these things with Android 2.1 (eclair) that will be dropping to the Hero soon and is already on the Legend and Desire. Plus you will lose HTC Sense which really makes a big difference to Android phones and is really how Android should be by default. This isn't true, almost all of the ROMs provided for HTC phones in rooting guides are the HTC default ROM, I looked through a few when I rooted my Desire this week (surprisingly easy, by the way, took me about 20 minutes, most of that downloading the necessary files), I didn't see a single non-HTC ROM. There may be some out there, but it's completely wrong to say you'll lose the Sense UI by rooting. I've not really had any experience with ROMs outside of the ones for the G1. I'm pretty sure you used to lose it but I noticed the other day that most of the Hero ROMs keep Sense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darrenm Posted June 7, 2010 Share Posted June 7, 2010 Let me put it another way, what is the benefit? If you don't already know then you don't want to Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davkaus Posted June 7, 2010 Share Posted June 7, 2010 Why would you want to re-route a new peice of kit? The reasons are in this thread. The main ones for me are being able to install applications on my SD card (this won't be necessary when the new Android version is released), being able to use my phone as a WiFi hotspot, which is by far the most important for me. In addition to this, I'm not at the mercy of HTC when the new Android versions are released. As the Rev has pointed out on this thread, he's waited months for the new version, because they keep dicking around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jamiebavfc Posted June 7, 2010 Share Posted June 7, 2010 Just had an update on my Desire to 1.21.405.2 any idea what this does? After having a few hours messing with my phone i must say i'm very impressed and just wondering if anyone has any recommendations on decent free apps and widgets. I have downloaded Rev's list from a few pages back and also tried Swype which i couldnt get to grips with Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheDon Posted June 7, 2010 Share Posted June 7, 2010 Stick with swype, once you work it out it's awesome. There's no way I could type as fast on my phone as I can without swype. It's one of those things that once you've used it, you just can't see yourself going back. I've spent far too long this week playing bonsai blast, it's a decent time killing game. If you listen to music a lot and have wifi access pretty often then subsonic is awesome, you download the server app on your pc, add your music to it, then install the android app and you can stream your music to your phone. You have to pay (well donate) for the server app, but you get a 30 day trial so it's worth downloading to see if you like it. Astro is worth a download if you need a file manager as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MR.Smalljob Posted June 8, 2010 Share Posted June 8, 2010 Got my x10 mini yesterday,and WOW best fon I ever had!! so cool and small 8) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CVByrne Posted June 10, 2010 Share Posted June 10, 2010 I'm going to root my x10 when android 3.0 is released at the end of the year. I had a look at a nexus running stock android and it's not very nice. You need the sony or htc modifications at this stage. But from what I've read android 3.0 will be what we have been waiting for. I see a playstation and nintendo 64 emulators are being made for android too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leviramsey Posted June 12, 2010 VT Supporter Share Posted June 12, 2010 2 GHz phone from Motorola Apparently during his speech to Execute Club, Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha talked about more than video calling in future devices. According to ConceivablyTech, Jha also said that before the year’s end his company plans on launching an Android superphone powered by a 2GHz processor. While this alone is more than enough to whet our appetites, Jha wasn’t too keen on saying more. So it’s a good thing then that a different Motorola exec was willing to talk under the condition of anonymity. According to the mysterious one, the handset Jha was talking about will feature an NVIDIA Tegra GPU, camera with “more than 5 megapixels” and HD video recording, HD display, 720p out, Flash 10.1 and gyroscope. This might sound like a bit of a fanboy’s fantasy phone, but we’re willing to keep the faith. How about you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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