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Iphone 3g -> HTC Desire

S

sunna

Newbie
So Im finally taking the plunge into android. Ive been wanting to switch for a while but im getting tired of waiting for the next big phone to come out. Not to mention my Iphone 3g is within a few days of its life, its pretty beat up. I plan on switching to verizon when LTE phones start coming out so I need an alternative for now that I can drop my sim card in and go with a month to month plan until that happens. My company pays for my cell phone now so I figured this would be a seamless transition where I can just buy the phone and drop in the sim, then when i leave my company in a few months switch over to a cheap month to month plan from tmobile and still be able to use the same phone.

Does anyone have any recommendations on where to purchase the Desire in the US? Should I just get it on Amazon unlocked? Are there going to be a bunch of steps I need to take to get it to work on ATT then on T-Mobile or will it just be a matter of using the sim card from the respective carriers. Also can I purchase the phone with 2.2 on it now, or am I going to have to update it when I get it. Thanks for the answers guys. Cant wait to be on android!
 
The 3G won't work on the US carriers and I'm not sure if the 2G will work on AT&T.

Personally, I'd recommend you get the G2 from T-Mobile
 
For a moment I thought your subject was Iphone 3g > HTC Desire LoL. Welcome to the android revolution!
 
sunna said:
Does anyone have any recommendations on where to purchase the Desire in the US? Should I just get it on Amazon unlocked?
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If you buy the Desire from Amazon, it'll probably be the A8181 which is a European model with 900/2100 3G bands which will NOT work with the US carriers. Make sure you buy an A8182 model with 850/1900 3G bands. Note that the GSM bands cover 4 freqs 850/900/1800/1900 but that's only for voice and text and slower EDGE/GPRS coverage. For faster 3G data you MUST have 850/1900 in the US/CDN markets. Watch out for ads that say it'll work on AT&T - it's a half-truth as the voice/text will work, but you won't have 3G if the bands are not correct.
Are there going to be a bunch of steps I need to take to get it to work on ATT then on T-Mobile or will it just be a matter of using the sim card from the respective carriers.
Click to expand...
If it's unlocked and a North American A8182 model, then yes you can just drop in the SIM and start using it. You may need to adjust the APN settings to get full 3G/HSPA, but that's not a big deal at all and it's very simple to input the settings.
Also can I purchase the phone with 2.2 on it now, or am I going to have to update it when I get it.
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It depends what week the phone was made. If it's a recent edition, it may have 2.2 already installed. If not, you can install a generic Froyo v2.2 firmware yourself, either over the air (OTA) update or manually with a simple update file placed on the SD memory card. Check out this thread for details on updating:

http://androidforums.com/htc-desire/177907-froyo-2-09-405-8-update-windows-not-required.html

I used the RUU update in Windows method he describes in another thread, but it gets the same result. I'm in Canada and my Desire was bought from Telus and it was slightly branded. I updated to v2.2 manually, and it cleaned out the branding and works perfectly.
:D
 
awesome thanks for the responses guys. now does anyone have any trusted places I can buy one of these or do I just need to keep my eyes on ebay and the forums?
 
I was thinking about the evo but the battery life kind of scared me. Is it still an issue? Does it perform quicker overall?
 
There are alot of scary 'issues' with the Desire battery tbh, but its not really a problem on either phone if you overnight charge I imagine. Also maybe look at the Droid Incredible, tbh thats a similar phone to the Desire but with more storage? Plus if you're using T-Mobile would you be able to use a CDMA phone on their network? I thought they were a US GSM carrier, all Desire/DInc/Evo are CDMA based phones in the USA right? However, the G2 does look very impressive albeit no root solutions.
 
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