Maemo enthusiast switching to Android

[tobylee]

Hi all, I'm purchasing a HTC Desire on Monday after 9 months of owning a Nokia N900 (you can read here why I'm switching) and looking forward to owning it.

Whilst owning my N900, I ran custom kernels, overclocked it, had tonnes of roms, used my ps3 controller as a control pad etc etc nothing too heavy but I invested a lot of time in customisation and evenhad 2.1 running on it thanks to the nitDroid project.

So my first questions to the android, what apps do you recommend and what "stuff" do you recommend doing to the phone to increase its performance and enjoyability and what things give you that "wow" factor?

Thanks for your time, nice to meet you!
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=820804#post820804

 

[Steven58]

Welcome to the Android Forums community! Glad you signed up! Feel free to join the conversations!

I'll move this to the desire section for you!

 

[jackie_jagger]

Hey there, good decision..

I too switched from n 900 to desire.. miss it at time s lol

Sense blew me away firstly.. thenrest will have to be nifty apps like dropbox etc

I'll leave the exploring to you

Oh and welcome to Android world

Cheers
Jackie

 

[denial86]

I would recommend either checking out the root section on this website or development at XDA forums, as there are HEAPS of roms available for the desire. Some completely overhaul the phone, like the MIUI one, and some keep all the basics, such as sense, but improve performance and just offer a method for you to customize as you like. I am still in between deciding to root or not, so can't give you any personal experience advise, but between this and XDA's forum, you should find an answer to most if not all your questions.

 

[tobylee]

Thanks guys!

denial, I've been looking at the XDA forums in prepartion, the rooting process seems a tiny bit daunting but nothing I cant handle so should be alright.

Hopefully getting the desire tomorrow so ill be around much more

 

[w.maddler]

N900 and Desire are two different devices. N900 is just like having a Linux box always with you. Being a sysadmin, I'm able to just run all my apps on N900, priceless!

On the other hand Desire is a LOT better as a smartphone. Calls and messaging is a lot more comfortable.

An hardware keyboard is way better when it comes to sysadmin tasks, on the other hand.

So, I ended up using Desire as my primary phone and carrying my N900 in my backpack, always with me. WiFi tethering solves any connection related issue!

I'm waiting for Meego final release... we'll see!

Have fun.

 

[CarsnGadgets]

If you like to fiddle and modify you can:
Root the Desire and flash custom roms.
Debrand the phone if you need to using an RUU file if rooting is too scary for you.
Run launcher alternatives like LauncherPro instead of the HTC Sense UI.
Use Widgetlocker to add widgets to the lockscreen and a separate wallpaper.
Run Emulators like Snesoid or Gameboid.
Use Folder Organizer to change Icons etc
Use the SDK and HTC sync to change the default location for app installation to the SDcard.