• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Thinking of getting a Desire, what to do first?

R

rtr86

Newbie
Hi all,

I've been researching which smart phone to get for awhile now and it was a toss up between the desire and desireHD. I don't really need phone for videos and most important thing I need in internet whilst on move and sending emails.

I have a giffgaff sim ready here just need to get phone now.

Just want to get things ready guys,
What mods/settings should I be looking to alter first with a Desire to get the most out of it?

Any help appreciated.
 
Desire HD is getting ICS. Desire is end of life. You'll get slightly more longevity out of the HD both specification and software wise.
 
Thanks for reply SUroot, that is interesting.

I do like the bigger screen and quality of the HD but what put me off was that I thought the support was not as good for the HD. The resources for the Desire seems immense.

So you think it is worth spending the extra on the HD?
 
The reason the support for the HD isn't as good is because it doesn't need to be. A colleague of mine had an HD. He doesn't have any issues with internal memory size which is the main reason people root the desire.

For me though I prefer the size of the desire. The HD is just a bit too large.
 
Thanks for replies,

I notice with the HD there seems to be different numbers associated with it. For example, I just seen a Desire HD4 and then a HD7 for sale.
Is there a certain model to look out for or is it a case of higher/later the better?

Same as with the normal Desire, certain version to buy?

Thanks
 
Cant asnwer which versions on the HD side of things. Try asking in teh desire HD forum.

In regards to the desire, buy the GSM version that takes SIM cards. Ther EU is A8181
 
Hi all,

Thanks again for suggestions but in the end I opted for a very good but used condition normal Desire (unlocked) and it should be with me tomorrow.

I'll see how I get on with the phone first of all but rooting does sound like a good route to take. I hate anything which feels bloated and have always 'slimmed down' my operating system as much as possible so rooting with the Desire sounds ideal.

Still confused about a few things though:

I hear a lot of talk about how great 'ICS' or 'gingerbread' is, i take it this is the official releases from Android? If so, are these updates only for an unrooted unit?
 
There's an official (but for devs only) 2.3 gingerbread on HTCdev.com

Ics (4.0) is custom only and bit laggy on the desire
 
@ rtr86 My suggestion to you would be:-
Desire suffers from a lack of internal memory and installing half a dozen apps will have you running out of room. Therefore go for rooting and custom rom. I personally find sense bloatware eyecandy. Looks nice but for day to day go for an AOSP rom. Avoid roms that use dat2exe, they also tend to be laggy even on class 6 or 10 cards (Desire only supports up class 6 I know)

Partition your card using gparted and use a rom that supports apps2sd. personally I'd go a stage further and use a smaller rom as well, one that allows you to repartition the desires internal memory and use some of the space on the phone that sense roms use, freeing this up for the apps you want to use.

So after all that, IMHO the roms I'd recommend to you are:
Cyanogen roms - personally currently running euroskank. Everything works. Tons of apps. Still loads of free memory on my Desire. Rock stable and fast.
DGB - a rom from a SUroot on this forum. It is also an AOSP rom, stripped down even further, allowing even more memory on the phone to be move across to the data (for your apps) partition. This rom is so lean it virtually negates the need (for most people) to even worry about partitioning the sd card. Again, everything works and it is fast and rock steady too.

Of cause everyone wants something different from a rom, and the above is only my personally view. But you won't go far wrong with either Cyanogen or DGB roms. The people on here are really helpful as well. Read the guides first and then ask if anything doesn't make sense. People like SUroot, rastaman Hadron and others will help you. I know it sounds like a lot of work, it isn't really, and you will have a fab phone at the end of it, and learn a lot in the process.

Good luck.
 
Hi guys :)

Just wanted to say I received my Desire and all seems great, I've had a play and was able to connect to my router and use the web on my phone.

I have also just rooted it and that was a surprisingly easier thanks to the great guide.

I have not backed anything up yet as I plan to do some more reading first before I put a rom on it. DGB seems the ideal choice though as I like the sound of something small and fast.

At the moment I have a 4gb SD card - before I start with the above, do you think I should get a bigger card to future proof? Is 32gb recommended, is there a certain type I should get (i've herd there are faster sd variations)?

Finally, I never received a stylus with my Desire - is it not common to use one with smartphones?

Many thanks for help guys.
 
You can buy stylus but for capacitive touch like desire, not common.

dGB is an advanced Rom. So you know, it does not use sd card for apps so 4GB is fine unless you want to put loads of music on there.
 
Many thanks for reply,

Ahh I see, so the rom would be installed inside the internal memory meaning I could upgrade the memory card at a later date whilst keeping my settings.
So would the memory card be used mainly for apps, music, photos etc?

Is my HTC currently loading the default software from the card then?
 
The HTC sense software is on a 250mb partition within your phone. It supports native apps to sd which moves part of each app to the SD card. You will probably run out of internal memory quite quickly.

There are 2 ways around this. Partition your sd card and install a ROM which supports installing shops on the external partition (sd partition). Alternatively install a smaller ROM and change your internal partitions.

See Suroot's guide for how to do either of these.

DGB is less than 60mb in size and also supports native apps to as.
 
Many thanks! Will let you know how i get on :)

Another OT question (i am sorry for all of these),

I have signed upto GiffGaff and I am able to get internet without problem now, should I be concerned about safety at all? Is there some sort of firewall or antivirus I should be looking at?

I have an unlimited internet package but is it wise to 'turn off' mobile internet when not needed?
 
rtr86 said:
Many thanks! Will let you know how i get on :)

Another OT question (i am sorry for all of these),

I have signed upto GiffGaff and I am able to get internet without problem now, should I be concerned about safety at all? Is there some sort of firewall or antivirus I should be looking at?

I have an unlimited internet package but is it wise to 'turn off' mobile internet when not needed?
Click to expand...

I don't really know about anti virus. I haven't had any problems in 2 years. I just read the app permissions before I download. There is a thread on this in the apps section of this forum.

Turning off mobile data will reduce battery consumption. It depends how you find your battery lasts. There are other things you can do to save battery while lifesaving mobile data on line reducing the frequency that stops & widgets sync at either via settings>accounts & sync or via the apps themselves. You can also manually sync calendar and contacts as often our as little as you like.

For a real improvement in battery though install a more battery efficient ROM like dGB our oxygen.
 
Many thanks again :)

The thing I am finding a little tricky now is how to put the DGB rom on.
Finding and following the Root Guide was very easy, and I know there are equally good guides for pretty much all features.

Now my phone is rooted, can I start to put the DGB rom straight on? Is it presumed a backup is already done or do I even need to backup my phone in its original state?

Kind regards,
 
No! Don't put a new ROM straight on without first doing a nandroid backup!

It isn't presumed a backup is already done unless you consciously made an effort to back up your phone in recovery - a process which takes several minutes while it copies thousands of files before your very eyes so you would remember doing it if you had done it.

Do a nandroid backup of your phone in its original state, then you have always got this working base to return to if things go bad.

You can soon make an alternative backup once you have a new ROM up and running the way you like it. Eventually you can have a number of backups of different systems which you can swap between.

The restore completely returns the phone to the state it was in when you made the backup (apart from the hboot memory partitions, which you need to make sure are compatible with the backup you are restoring - i.e. the system partition is large enough for your ROM's system files to fit into).
 
If you have apps or data you want to keep when you change ROMs you should do other backups too. Remember that messages etc are data.

Titanium Backup is recommended for apps and user data. You need to reinstall it after changing ROM, then restore the apps and user data. Do NOT restore system data on a different ROM. For messages SMS Backup+ is very good. Contacts may well be backed up with Google, or you can just export them to SD from the contact app's menu then import them again after installing the new ROM.
 
Thanks guys, think I am starting to understand now :)

Am I right in saying though I needed to root the phone first before making a backup? I could not of used the restore program without rooting, right?

So, I need to make sure that however I partition my 4gb card, the system partition is big enough for this initial system partition to fit on? Is partitioning permanent?
 
rtr86 said:
Thanks guys, think I am starting to understand now :)

Am I right in saying though I needed to root the phone first before making a backup? I could not of used the restore program without rooting, right?
Click to expand...

Right. You can only do the complete phone backup because you have flashed recovery during the rooting process. One of the benefits of rooting :)

So, I need to make sure that however I partition my 4gb card, the system partition is big enough for this initial system partition to fit on? Is partitioning permanent?
Click to expand...

No! The system partition is in the phone's internal memory, not your 4GB microSD card. The phone's internal memory is split into three partitions: system/cache/data

system is where your system is installed, cache is used for caching purposes, and the data partition is where your apps get installed when you've downloaded them from the market (Google Play) and data is the partition that usually gets full up, causing you to run out of space for apps.

The thing is, stock htc Sense rom uses a system partition of 250MB which is HUGE, leaving hardly any space for the data partition and apps!

The default memory allocations are 250/40/147, so you can see that if you install a nice small rom like SUroot's dGB, weighing in at a whopping 60MB, you can shrink the system partition down to 60MB and increase the data partition by 190MB to 337MB, giving you 60/40/337.

The cache partition also doesn't need to be that big and you can happily shrink it down to 5MB which would free up another 35MB, giving you a total of 372MB if I've got my sums right.

I personally would give the system a little breathing space and allocate 70MB just in case at a later date you wanted to insert system apps of your choosing that needed more space.

But I wouldn't worry about the partitioning at first. Just backup your current system and then wipe the memory and flash a new rom. The tiny rom will be rattling around in a cavernous HTC Sense system partition, but it doesn't matter at this stage. You just want to see if it works. Then once you're happy and have installed your favourite apps and your contacts, etc., do another backup of your new system and then you can start playing around with the hboot partitions.

Remember. As long as you haven't changed the original hboot partition sizes, you can restore back to your original Sense system!
 
nah, 60MB - 65MB is fine. The only reason to put apps in /system/app is if they wont run from /data/app, just like GoogleQuickSearchBox.apk.

You can get around it like this though, in terminal emulator (if /data/app/GoogleQuickSearchBox.apk exists)...

Code: 
ln -s /data/app/GoogleQuickSearchBox.apk /system/app/GoogleQuickSearchBox.apk
Try it ;)
 
Thanks. What does that do? is it like a path command, telling the system to find it in the data partition?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom