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New Desire owner, a few questions.

N

nano404

Lurker
Hi everyone.

I just bought a used HTC Desire as a second phone (alongside my BlackBerry) and hopefully it should be here on Monday. It's my first Android phone (but after seeing the S3 and One X, there may be another horse in the stable before long!).

1.) I've found some great tips on the forum but I haven't noticed any suggestions on must-have tools and apps for first-time owners. Are there any?

2.) What's the latest operating system that can be installed on the Desire? I'm technologically inclined, and this isn't my main/only phone, so I'm open to trying operating systems that may not be officially supported.

3.) How high is data usage? I'm not used to worrying about my data limit. I have 500MB/month with the sim that I bought for it. I'll be using it at home on wifi a lot. Is that enough?

Thanks!!
 
Hi nano, and welcome to AF :)

The latest OS that will come with it is Android 2.2 (Froyo). There was an upgrade to 2.3.3 which HTC released as a download. It's not available on their servers any more, but you can get it from shipped-ROMs (near bottom of the page). For anything later than that you'll need to root and install custom firmware - see the faqs and guides from the Desire All Things Root forum's "All Things Root Guide" sticky post.

Data usage depends on what you do with it. I mainly use WiFi, don't do social networking, only have a low-traffic personal email account linked to it, so my typical usage is much less than 500MB. If you stream music or watch videos using 3G your usage could be much higher than that. Stick a widget called "3G Watchdog" on it and you'll be able to keep an eye on how this is going.
 
I am running ICS on mine, Android 4.0.4. Search for Sandvold's thread on xda developer's forum, the latest verison I installed was Beta 0.14 but it runs as well as any full release, amazing!
 
Welcome aboard. I'm sure you'll find all the available information on your phone here on AF. :)
 
Hadron said:
Hi nano, and welcome to AF :)

The latest OS that will come with it is Android 2.2 (Froyo). There was an upgrade to 2.3.3 which HTC released as a download. It's not available on their servers any more, but you can get it from shipped-ROMs (near bottom of the page). For anything later than that you'll need to root and install custom firmware - see the faqs and guides from the Desire All Things Root forum's "All Things Root Guide" sticky post.

Data usage depends on what you do with it. I mainly use WiFi, don't do social networking, only have a low-traffic personal email account linked to it, so my typical usage is much less than 500MB. If you stream music or watch videos using 3G your usage could be much higher than that. Stick a widget called "3G Watchdog" on it and you'll be able to keep an eye on how this is going.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info!

diggerbucket said:
I am running ICS on mine, Android 4.0.4. Search for Sandvold's thread on xda developer's forum, the latest verison I installed was Beta 0.14 but it runs as well as any full release, amazing!
Click to expand...

Really? Cool. Looking forward to trying it! Thanks :)
 
I don't know what others think but in my opinion I would recommended rooting straight away and therefore removing the risk of running out of space. Theres plenty of ROMs out there, ICS isn't really ready yet, still got a lot to do before it'll ever be as quick or stable as GB.
 
Honeycomb is tablet only. There are some very refined Gingerbread ROMs for the Desire, and the more experimental ICS ROMs.

Have a visit to the Desire All Things Root subforum. The All Things Root Guide sticky post contains many guides and faqs for root-related matters, and the "What ROM type are you using" thread will give you people's impressions of different ROMs.
 
Hadron said:
Honeycomb is tablet only. There are some very refined Gingerbread ROMs for the Desire, and the more experimental ICS ROMs.

Have a visit to the Desire All Things Root subforum. The All Things Root Guide sticky post contains many guides and faqs for root-related matters, and the "What ROM type are you using" thread will give you people's impressions of different ROMs.
Click to expand...

Re: Honeycomb, shows how much I know about Android :o

Thanks for the suggestion, great info! If only this phone would arrive...
 
I would not bother with the Desire go for the Sam S3 some apps you cannot download for the Desire (2010 Model)it is not powerful enough my phone has had two Mobo's now out of guarantee and is still rubbish with overheating if you use certain apps for to long...great phone for making calls on though no problems there
 
The only apps I've found that it won't download are ICS-specific, though to be fair I am running 2.3.5, while most unrooted Desires will be on 2.2, which may be the difference. Probably some games require hardware we don't have as well, but I'm not a big mobile gamer so don't know.

And I think you must have been unlucky with the overheating. Many of us, even with the original PVT1 models (which are the main sufferers) have never had this.
 
casarosa said:
I would not bother with the Desire go for the Sam S3 some apps you cannot download for the Desire (2010 Model)it is not powerful enough my phone has had two Mobo's now out of guarantee and is still rubbish with overheating if you use certain apps for to long...great phone for making calls on though no problems there
Click to expand...

As stated, I already bought the Desire. The S3 (or One X) will come later. I have it rooted and updated to 2.3.7 and everything seems fine. The 1 app that I was interested in that wouldn't work is Instagram and it's working now so I don't have any app problems as yet. :)
 
I'm using Sandvold ICS ROM and i'm finding it so far so good. Just make sure your using the most recent version of Sandvolds ICS release.
 
I ran Cyanogen 7.1 on my Desire for months and it was great. I also tried a rom by SUroot, which is very minimal but gives you loads of free memory. For the last month I have put Mildwild V5 on it. My wife now has my Desire with this rom on it and actually prefers it to her iphone (now left lying on the piano)

I personally prefer the Non Sense roms, such as those I have mentioned. I found Sense to be bloatware and think repartitioning your internal memory and devoting room to your apps rather than sense is a much better use for your hardware.
 
MarmiteX1 said:
I'm using Sandvold ICS ROM and i'm finding it so far so good. Just make sure your using the most recent version of Sandvolds ICS release.
Click to expand...

I saw your post a while back and meant to try it but I was travelling and didn't want to put on something new.

togger161 said:
I ran Cyanogen 7.1 on my Desire for months and it was great. I also tried a rom by SUroot, which is very minimal but gives you loads of free memory. For the last month I have put Mildwild V5 on it. My wife now has my Desire with this rom on it and actually prefers it to her iphone (now left lying on the piano)

I personally prefer the Non Sense roms, such as those I have mentioned. I found Sense to be bloatware and think repartitioning your internal memory and devoting room to your apps rather than sense is a much better use for your hardware.
Click to expand...

Mildwild looks good! Think I'll try it today actually
 
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