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HTC Mobile Phones Thread

Spunk_of_MJ said:
Got my phone.

Rooted it, sim-unlocked it, security-off'd it and installed Android Revolution HD ROM...

Wow! Wipes the floor with the iPhone 4...

My girlfriend now wants the (smaller) Desire to replace her iPhone...

Sent from my Desire HD using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Give it time...
 
what's with the hate for htc phones?

i can honestly say, having owned an iphone 2g, 3gs and 4, that i like my desire hd better.

at worst, it's 6 of one and half-dozen of the other when compared to the iphone 4, but i prefer the DHD. i already own a 3g ipad, and got bored with my iphone - any app worth having for the iphone isn't worth having if you also have an ipad. perhaps i'll bore of the DHD too - having already owned a couple of old SPVs, a tytn II (M3100), and a touch diamond, i'm sure it will happen.

at least now i'm on payg (giffgaff), so if i like the look of the iphone 5 better in a few months, or htc release a new flag-ship phone, i'll move on to one of those and flog the DHD on ebay...

it's finally good to be free from the shackles of O2 and their horrendously long contracts!
 
ignore the apple fanboys. android too complicated for some. they prefer to be bent backwards and told what they can and cant do on there phones.

fuck em. i fucking hate fanboys of any kind. they make me sick
 
Not a fanboy at all. You all seem to forget that I had HTC phones for a fair few months but then decided that when taking EVERYTHING into consideration, the iPhone is better.
 
I love my HTC Desire, it's a great phone. It's persuaded a few of my friends and family to go for Android phones when they next upgrade.
 
could somebody link me to a how to on unlocking and rooting the desire hd?

also, that mentioned revolution hd rom - any specs and where to get it?
 
Got a HD7 last night to use as my personal phone (leaving the Blackberry as a 'work' phone).

Very nice so far, the XBL stuff is well done and the games are really good - plus you still get achievements and GP in the games which is nice.

Would like to get notifications for tweets and FB updates, but its not a deal breaker.

Camera is good, screen is really nice, good sound and a stand on the back to prop it up for watching vids.
 
Tim7 said:
FB updates come to your email account surely?
Click to expand...

Good point... I use hotmail which isn't set on my phone - due to all the shite I get through on it!

I thought basic functionality of a phone now is providing push updates, hell blackberry even does it for fb.
 
I created a thread a few months ago asking for recommendations for phones, but it got no responses, so I'll ask in here.

I want a phone that looks nice, runs smoothly and is of good build quality.
I'm not particularly bothered about fancy features, apps, a great camera etc.

I'm looking for something around the £100 mark on Orange PAYG or unlocked/sim-free, I'm willing to go above that budget slightly but would prefer not to.

Considering the Sony Ericsson Xperia X8 which is £99.99 here;
http://www.mobiles.co.uk/orange-sony-ericsson-xperia-x8-pay-as-you-go.html

But I have seen somewhat negative reviews of it.

Any help appreciated :).
 
Second what Jonney said. Two of my friends have the Xperia and absolutely hate it. They have a dated version of Android (to force you to use their crappy one).

Only heard good things about the San Francisco.
 
Cheers.

I had considered the San Francisco, but the build quality didn't look great (power button was wonky after a few days of use for someone) and the GUI didn't look very nice or smooth.

HTC Phones, even the Wildfire, are ridiculously expensive.
I don't understand why some of them cost so much - I can do most of the stuff on my £20 Orange Vegas that can be done on these £150+ things - all they seem to do extra is play high quality video, games etc. which I don't need as my iPod Touch does all of that.

I suppose for my budget, the San Francisco and (seemingly crap) X8 seem like the only options that are actually an upgrade for me.
I just want something that looks nice, is well put together, runs smoothly and is reliable.

Thanks again for the replies :).
 
OPM said:
could somebody link me to a how to on unlocking and rooting the desire hd?

also, that mentioned revolution hd rom - any specs and where to get it?
Click to expand...

i was in a similar situation a few weeks ago when i bought a desire hd on ebay, branded to virgin mobile. it was my very first android phone, after coming from an iphone. i wanted to use my o2 sim card in it, and also get rid of the horrible virgin stuff on the stock rom. here's what i did, after ALOT of reading...

goto xda developers forum, and have a read through the desire hd android development forum. link is here:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=765

in a nutshell, you need to:

1. if your phone is branded, you will need to create a gold card (essential if you want to revert it back to stock for warranty reasons) and upgrade to 1.72/1.75, which allows you to downgrade back down to 1.32.

see here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=905003&highlight=goldcard

1. once you're down to 1.32, you can then root the phone, and turn security off. this will allow you to flash a custom rom (i recommend 'android revolution hd' or 'leedroid hd' roms. it also simunlocks the phone, so you should be able to use a different carriers' sim card...

see here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=857537

3. if you want, you can also turn off the security at the 'engineer' level, which pretty much opens the phone right up. this step is optional, as far as i can tell, but i did it anyway and it will allow you to flash a new radio which helps with reception and signal etc...

see here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=855403

4. once you're here, it's time to install a custom rom...

see here for android revolution hd: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=840040

note: it is also recommended to flash the radio also, to match the software version of the rom that you are flashing. instructions are in the same thread.

see here for leedroid hd: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=842802

i am a complete novice regarding all of this, so please do this at your own risk, and make sure you READ the threads before attempting this. it ended up being pretty simple to do, just so long as you follow the instructions...
 
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I think I'm going to get the Orange San Francisco.

Is there anything I should know about it?
Should I look into hacking it in any way to use custom roms etc.? If so, how would I go about that?

Cheers :).

EDIT - Ordered it, £79.95 on Mobiles.co.uk

Found out that they have switched to using TFT screens instead of AMOLED, which is disappointing, but no biggie I suppose, still a great screen by the looks of it for the price!
 
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Missed the DHL delivery guy today :( Should arrive tomorrow morning.

Looking forward to getting it - the MoDaCo forums have some great looking ROMs/mods to improve performance and remove the Orange branded stuff :).
 
Wow, the phone is awesome! :SHOCK: Installed the Japanese Jellyfish Android 2.2 Froyo ROM.

Way faster/smoother than I expected, the text/picture quality is really sharp, the touch screen is on par with my iPod Touch (3rd gen), build quality seems superb too.
The Android Market seems very similar to the Apple App Store...

Overall, just a great phone and from my short time with it, would highly recommend it, especially for the price!
 
It's a bit overwhelming at times with the ROMs - I used a superb step-by-step guide on getting 2.2 on the phone.

Just ordered a Class 10 16gb Micro-SD card for £19.95 (think that's a good price!);
http://www.lowpricememory.co.uk/low-price-memory-16gb-micro-sd-card-class-10-c-29-p-868

I'm not getting many apps yet, as I'll have to format the SD card and start from scratch I think when I get the new card.

How can I back up my contacts so I don't have to enter them all in again after formatting?

Also, can you update to a later version of a custom ROM? Do you have to format it and redownload all your apps etc or is there an easier way?
 
Setup a Gmail account, Rob. Then sync your phone with your Gmail and it'll backup all of your contacts to there. Each time you format, it'll then drag down all of your contacts etc.
 
Ah nice one, didn't know the contacts linked to your Google Mail account :) Just logged into Gmail on the laptop and all of the contacts are there!
 
If you root your phone (I'm assuming your rom is already rooted) then there's an app named Titanium Backup which backs up all of your apps and settings. Then you can install your new rom, install TB and restore and it SHOULD be fine.
 
The SD card arrived (earlier than expected!), all I needed to do was copy the contents of my old SD card and then paste them onto the new one after formatting it.

Also got a leather-look pouch thing which fits nicely for only £3.50 :).

Great phone, great price, and Android has been very impressive so far!
 
Is it only available in the UK as an Orange San Francisco? i.e. could I find an unbranded ZTE Blade here?
 
As far as I'm aware, yeah it's just available as the San Francisco here.

It's easy to install a custom ROM to remove all of the Orange branding and unlock the phone though, but I suppose you still have the ugly "San Francisco" wording above the screen and the Orange logo on the back.

Any suggestions on a good PAYG provider? GiffGaff looks like the best one at the minute, my only worry with them would be the 3G coverage and signal quality - Orange is fairly good in that respect, especially now they've merged with T-Mobile.
 
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I'm with giffgaff and they're excellent...

They piggyback off O2's network. No problems here with a £10 goody bag... Defo recommend them in a flash.
 
Looking at getting an HTC phone again as my iPhone contract is nearly up so I'll sell it and go on PAYG as the deals are much better.

Anyway, looking at the Incredible S or the Desire HD... Or to wait for the Sensation, which is technically superb.
 
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