Related
I know people have had just about enough of reviews of this thing, but I beleive every single one brings new perspective... so here is mine.
First a bit about myself and how I use the device... I am a power user, email phone, sms, very finicky tweaker, power internet user and moderate multimedia user on my mobile device. Devices I have owned in the past are iPhone, iPhone 3G, HTC Kaiser, HTC Wizard, SE T68i, SE P910i, Nokia N95. I also do mobile device testing at work because we develop a mobile phone application. However thi is more of a casual review.
So here it is :
Initial impressions : The HTC Touch HD, is a VERY good looking device. The moment it comes out the box it jumps out at you, the glossy finish, the sleekness, the minimlastic look is all very nice.
However, you begin to notice when the goodness when you turn the device on. When the thing comes up, and everything gets loaded up, what you see on the screen is ABSOLUTELY fantastic. Enough to take an average cell phone users breath away, the resolution is apparent and spectacular.
My apprehensions in getting the Touch HD were :
1) Keyboard.. I am a heavy email and SMS user and I wouldnt move away from my Wizard for the longest time due to the keyboard
2) Finger use... after using the iPhone, i realized what a pleasure it is not to pull out your stylus anytime you needed anything.
Having said that, let me tell you, that I can totally get used to using a keyboard on this thing. yeah i still miss my keyboard, but im sure in a couple of weeks, I will be very well versed to using the keyboard and ahrdly miss a hardware one. They keys are spaced out, goen are the days of the old WM keyboards and this is good. I make some mistakes but far fewer than I thought I would.
Finger use. The Touch HD is very finger friendly. I can do MOST things without pulling out the stylus (and I have BIG hands). Its also good to eb able to pull outt he stylus for those applications with small input boxes and highlihgting text and if you want to give transcriber a whirl (which works well btw)
Screen sensitivty : This is the one thing that really worried me as soon as i started playing with it.I had been used to a capacitive screen and in my opinion, out of the box it required double the pressure for gestures and just overall feel of it. Made me very anxious at first. But after a while (and a few tweaks) its growing on me. It still more pressure and things are still more quircky since I am not 100% used to the gesturing with that much presssure, (its no iphone) its still very very good. The problem happens if u lift ure finger above the threshold point while gesturing, the application/link gets triggered.
Video : I immideately launched youtube and saw a video.. it looks better than any other mobile phone I have ever seen i real life... and I go to CES... nuff said
Performance : I am very happy so far with it. keep in mind, im a tweaker, so ive got all kinds of junk on it already, and i havene experienced any slowdown or lock ups. I just watched Life using my slingplayer over edge (no 3g in the US.. ) and it was brilliant throughout, in full screen.
Camera : In good light, the camera is as delivered. ALthough even moderately low light, it is unusable, which is dissapointing. Outdoor daytime shots, the thing is a champ and can get decent shots easily.
GPS : Works well, I dont see any lag, I drove around 1 hour in San Francisco, with eyes fixed to the phone and didnt see much lag or loss. GPS doesnt lock indoors on the first floor, on my second floor it will lock within 45 seconds.
Other stuff : I am running ,
Diamond Tweak,
TF3D Config,
Advanced Config,
Background for all tabs (Annoying transparent bar at the top of all manila applications after this.. still very usable though),
Weekday mod,
Automatic Wallpaper changer,
TF3D main clock and alarm goes directly to SpbTime,
WIMP,
phoneAlarm for automatic profile switching (although my locations arent working .. ),
Friendmobilizer for facebook,
MusicID,
Gyrator 2,
SKtools and
Sprite Backup
Adobe Flashlite 3.1
... all succesfully without hitches.
There is other things that I probably missed. I will add to the review as I can.
All in all, the device is totally worth the $700 i paid for it from clove tech, who got the device to me in three days and Chris was very very helpful. People always do a double take on it and the screen is so lovely i turn it on jsut to take a look at the screen. I am very happy with it and keeping this one as my personal device for now.
Dude,
Solid review. I can see from your previous phones your a heavy user, as am I.
Keep us up to date.
G.
cool review from experience! definately keep us posted...
Great Review... Nice to hear good things about the device I spent a fortune on...
taimoorhusain said:
I know people have had just about enough of reviews of this thing, but I beleive every single one brings new perspective... so here is mine.
Other stuff : I am running ,
Diamond Tweak,
TF3D Config,
Advanced Config,
Background for all tabs (Annoying transparent bar at the top of all manila applications after this.. still very usable though),
Weekday mod,
Automatic Wallpaper changer,
TF3D main clock and alarm goes directly to SpbTime,
WIMP,
phoneAlarm for automatic profile switching (although my locations arent working .. ),
Friendmobilizer for facebook,
MusicID,
Gyrator 2,
SKtools and
Sprite Backup
Adobe Flashlite 3.1
... all succesfully without hitches.
QUOTE]
Hey, taimoorhusain
In your stuff-list, there is also a Automatic Wallpaper changer! Wich app do you use for this and is it also working under TF3D?
can you post a link?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm interested in the wallpaper changer too! Please post a link
Wallpaper Changer
Here is the link to it... and yes it does work with TF3D
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=435041
taimoorhusain said:
Here is the link to it... and yes it does work with TF3D
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=435041
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks taimoorhusain for your support ,
Where are you guys getting your Touch HD's from in the US??? I'm on AT&T and want one BAAAAD!
Bought mine on Amazon...took 3 days with 2 day shipping
Jizzay1 said:
Where are you guys getting your Touch HD's from in the US??? I'm on AT&T and want one BAAAAD!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are many usa HD sellers & stores on EBAY...
I was due an upgrade from Orange, after having used a n95 for the last year or so, which was a device I liked. Works straight out of the box as a phone, with the features you would expect a modern phone to have aready implemented in a user friendly manner. Also has the capability to be updated and personailse as you see fit - mine had orange o.s. ripped out within a day of arriving.
Knowing an upgrade was due I spent an afternoon on the net wondering what to go for. Seriously consider decamping to O2 for an iphone, mainly because of the data tariffs there, but had my eye turned by this new Touch H.D. gizmo. Now partly because a few of my mates already have iphones, and partly because I enjoy being contrary, and also because I hate the way "Apple" are trendy and Microsoft hated, the H.D. it was.
Haggled away with Orange and managed to get 1200mins, 500 texts, 0.5gig data for 45 quid month. So in went my order.
The HD arrived the next day. I excitedly opened the very sexy packaging (I have a very sad affection for gadget boxes and keep them for years - even after the device has packed up!), had a quick read of the quick start, plugged her in and off I went.
Nice looking skin,quick to where you want to go. Seems good.
But then things got sticky. I wanted to find out how to bluetooth contacts over to the H.D. Nothing in the quickstart nor the pdf. I know, I know, I could of stuck me old sim in and copied the contacts over, but this is a new toy and we like to play, right? After a couple of hours got an answer over the interweb about how to do this. Phew. Then did the sensible thing of copying these contacts to the sim for safety. Uh oh - the dreaded duplicate contact showing problem.
Then I decided to try the browser. As per another post I could not connect to wifi for an age, then it suddenly started working. Furthermore, I was getting a constant "xml parsing error" when trying to connect via Orange Internet. Had had the phone six hours now, and had only managed to get duplicate contacts on! Arrggghh, fustration of the nation.
Sent a text to a mate, only had I? No sending confirmation. What is going on? Oh, all messages--->sent. Mmm, hardly immediately user friendly.
I was getting tired, so set the alarm. How primitive thought I. More primitive than I realised when I was awoken and finally worked out that three button presses were required to get the alarm into snooze mode. Three! And only then if you had randomly pressed the alarm icon in the top bar in the hope it would do something - couldn't see this advice in any instructions anyway.
So by my second day was getting very dubious about this hardware, even allowing for the mandatory new device learning curve. Happily I stumbled across this place. Installed all the recommended softwares.
Klaxon - hey, my alarm now works like all the other alarms on all other phones.
Adavance Config - hey now I get an sms sent confirmation, and my phone is faster.
Backup -copied my contacts from the storage card, after running this programme, to my pc, deleted the sim contacts and hey presto! No more duplicate sims, and a safe back up.
I then played around with the advanced connection setting and the connection wizard and bang - my browser now works!!!
Suddenly I start to like this phone. Nay love it. It appeals to the very big geek inside of me. Its hard to use, you have to batter away at it to make it user friendly. It's more like a p.c. than a phone - ding dong! It is more like a p.c. than a phone.
And here in lies a problem I believe for the majority of users who will gets this phone and will be flummoxed by it and bin it back to Orange.
It needs to be set up as a phone first if Orange are flogging it as a phone, and not a p.d.a. as they do Blackberry. Little things, like a decent alarm clock, sms confirmation, instructions for contacts, turn off sim contacts option. A much better wlan interface - akin to the N95 would help. On that device selecting the browser gives you a pop up which gives you the option of orange internet, or if one is available a wlan. A simple click on the wlan you want and you're in. All very easy, and in contrast to having to open up communication, wireless lan, wlan, advanced, to swap to a different wlan.
None of these things would take too much effort to implement, and would make the Touch HD excellent for a beginner out of the box.
Your average user though will find these irritatations unforgiveable in some circumstances, and if the rumours of high returns to Orange are right, I bet the above bug bears have a large part to play in this.
However, once the phone is personalised, and once it is accepted as a computer, then I think it is fantastic. It's gorgeous to look at and hold, there's lots of nice little features- cover flow in favourite contacts is good eye candy for example.
And now I realise Ive got another piece of Redmond in my pocket, I'm even happier. This phone is a geeks dream - the "chic of tweak" perhaps? After four days with it I love it. I'm going to love it even more in months to come when some clever peeps get Android running on it, or when WM6.5/7 comes out.
A fantastic computer that does phone calls, as well. But out of the box, not a fantastic phone.
Just my 2p's worth.
Interesting to read your experience. I'll keep some of those things in mind when I get my phone next week. Do you have links to the software you added from here? (like Klaxon, Advanced Config, Backup...) I know I can search the forum, but I thought maybe you had them handy to post.
Chris Cross said:
Interesting to read your experience. I'll keep some of those things in mind when I get my phone next week. Do you have links to the software you added from here? (like Klaxon, Advanced Config, Backup...) I know I can search the forum, but I thought maybe you had them handy to post.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Anything for our German friends ( 2-1 ;-) ) :
Klaxon:
http://www.koushikdutta.com/search/label/Klaxon
Advance Config:
http://julien.schapman.free.fr/touchxperience/advanced-configuration-tool.php
Backup:
http://www.dotfred.net/
Gyrator:
http://gyrator.brins0.net/
Remember also when you get your phone to add "file manager" to your list of programmes. The software is already on the phone, and you need it to navigate to your storage card to run new programmes.
Enjoy!
mooro1973 said:
Anything for our German friends ( 2-1 ;-) )
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
2-1 LOL
Thanks!
excellent review that provides a good insight for winmo newbies, and I sure recognize my first experience in this, winmo is an acquiered taste and it gets addictive with time because yes, this phone really is an ultraportable PC with a phone slapped onto it. I'm gonna send this to some people I know still sitting on the fence
It does not come with the latest .NET!
The "honeycomb" start menu is a display of idiocy gone rampant
No apparent way of altering icon-size
send to top - send down only options for arranging icons
send down only sends to where icon used to be
send to top sends ALL the way - an item in a folder is not sent to top of folder but to the very top!
Too big icons, with any "not small" amount of apps, prepare for thumb-sore, coz you'll be spending a LOT of time scrolling to get to something at the bottom
Titanium - it's ugly, and when you go to Today->Elements, it has no configuration options, honestly I couldn't be bothered to check it out further.
HTC aren't too bright either....
Thank God for
wkTask (which btw causes the honey-comb to stop working after some time - who cares?)
iPhonetoday - here's the deal: Apple has a good UI idea - steal it! But noooo we need to do our own stuff - HTC Sense (is there any) - Titanium (I had one look at it - it is ugly)
HD Tweak - fixing the poo
TouchPal - now THAT's how you go about making a keyboard , HTC I'm looking at you, MS you're not even in the class!
Opera, a decent browser YAH, too bad that HTC bungles it by integrating it an idiotic way.
OPERA default reg - one man hero fixes BigCorps poo
this list needs to be longer, I am just too tired from spending a whole day upgrading and the subsequent puking and the ongoing "get stuff back to sanity" procedure
Amazing that one-man armies like the guys who did most of this stuff, individually are brighter, smarter and more clever than the combined MS collective or the drones at HTC
acebone said:
It does not come with the latest .NET!
The "honeycomb" start menu is a display of idiocy gone rampant
No apparent way of altering icon-size
send to top - send down only options for arranging icons
send down only sends to where icon used to be
send to top sends ALL the way - an item in a folder is not sent to top of folder but to the very top!
Too big icons, with any "not small" amount of apps, prepare for thumb-sore, coz you'll be spending a LOT of time scrolling to get to something at the bottom
Titanium - it's ugly, and when you go to Today->Elements, it has no configuration options, honestly I couldn't be bothered to check it out further.
HTC aren't too bright either....
Thank God for
wkTask (which btw causes the honey-comb to stop working after some time - who cares?)
iPhonetoday - here's the deal: Apple has a good UI idea - steal it! But noooo we need to do our own stuff - HTC Sense (is there any) - Titanium (I had one look at it - it is ugly)
HD Tweak - fixing the poo
TouchPal - now THAT's how you go about making a keyboard , HTC I'm looking at you, MS you're not even in the class!
Opera, a decent browser YAH, too bad that HTC bungles it by integrating it an idiotic way.
OPERA default reg - one man hero fixes BigCorps poo
this list needs to be longer, I am just too tired from spending a whole day upgrading and the subsequent puking and the ongoing "get stuff back to sanity" procedure
Amazing that one-man armies like the guys who did most of this stuff, individually are brighter, smarter and more clever than the combined MS collective or the drones at HTC
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Go somewhere else to troll.
then stick with 6.1
I'm not trolling - and if you think it is trolling, why do you repeat the whole shebang?
And no I wont stick with 6.1, why should i? I never said 6.1 was better than 6.5. In fact I think that 6.1 is crappier than 6.5.
IT JUST SO HAPPENS that I am the owner of a Topaz, I had to go windows mobile due to Exchange at work.
Gotta say this though - Battery-life with 6.5 is amazing COMPARED to 6.1. It's right up there where it is supposed to be.
JeffHowden said:
Go somewhere else to troll.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you didn't need to quote his whole post...that's trolling in itself isn't it?
also, i don't see it as trolling. I got a very handy tip for a new keyboard i'm going to check out. (Thanks, acebone)
acebone said:
Gotta say this though - Battery-life with 6.5 is amazing COMPARED to 6.1. It's right up there where it is supposed to be.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So i'm taking this to be WM6.5 stock? and not some cooked ROM? interesting...what battery life are you getting currently on average?
Yes. He's right and not trolling. I'm disappointed with thw new official rom too and after a day i flashed a cooked rom.
There is NOTHING wrong with the official ROM, stop whine so f-ing much will you.
no f-ing here please
I must say after testing the official rom for cuple of hours i flasht the cooked rom again. Now I hope that the chiefs will improve the speed of the roms
I am using the stock Rom Danish ROM.
About the battery life, I am not so sure that I was right. I watched today as percentages just dropped away....
It just seemed to go on and on yesterday....
And yes - check out the TouchPal keyboard. The better your language-pack for the keyboard - the better it works.
Right now I am on a very crude Danish language version I brewed myself, and it still kicks some serious b...
titanium
to be honest i think i am the only person here who actually likes the windows default one lol
i cant get the weather app to work on it though, so i need to play around
and i have found that 6.5 is faster than 6.1 by a good 10% if not more, also my battery life easily lasts a day, where as before it would make it just to the end of my working day rather than my whole day
but yeah the honey comb, move to very top is a bit smegged, as i would prefere to place things where i wanted them,
Drag-On said:
you didn't need to quote his whole post...that's trolling in itself isn't it?
also, i don't see it as trolling. I got a very handy tip for a new keyboard i'm going to check out. (Thanks, acebone)
So i'm taking this to be WM6.5 stock? and not some cooked ROM? interesting...what battery life are you getting currently on average?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My battery life certainly feels much better. I've been messing about with WM 6.5 for about an hour. In the past, my battery would have taken a hammering. So far, it's at 80%!! That's *way* better.
I like it - it's so much more responsive. Okay, so it's not a radical change and there are still far too many "non-touch-screened" applications in there that means you still need to get the stylus out.
But for nothing, I'm happy - so far!
Cheers, Rob.
edoftech said:
to be honest i think i am the only person here who actually likes the windows default one lol
i cant get the weather app to work on it though, so i need to play around
and i have found that 6.5 is faster than 6.1 by a good 10% if not more, also my battery life easily lasts a day, where as before it would make it just to the end of my working day rather than my whole day
but yeah the honey comb, move to very top is a bit smegged, as i would prefere to place things where i wanted them,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I like it too.... but why not make it customisable? Seems bonkers to me
And why no in-built weather plug-in?
Tony
Regarding battery,anyone tried the Andida 1700 mAH which fits topaz with no external cover:
http://cgi.ebay.com/1700mah-Spare-B...wItemQQptZPDA_Accessories?hash=item518d58d4ab
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=572890
Please give us your feedback
What I really meant is this:
The user interface in WM is OOOOOOOLD - anyone who has seen an iPhone or and Android phone knows this.
MS knows this
HTC knows this (and have jumped the Android Bandwaggon)
WM 6.5 is a joke, because it tries to convey the idea that WM is ALSO about new intuitive fingerfriendly interfaces - and what does it have to show for it? Well 'honeycomb' which might be a nice idea, only it's implemented so stupidly that it is a joke.
Titanium also - is a joke. Eyecandy with no real benefit in my opinion. And btw. it's no candy to my eyes - more like cabbage
Now some may like HTC Tou... ooops its HTC Sense now - and it is better in my opinion than titanium, but it's just not good enough.
Actually my boss explained it to me this way:
Acebone, you see the diamond2 as a computer that can also make calls, but most people see it as a phone that can also do documents and calendar
He might be right, I just don't think that WM6.5 or Sense is good enough, that's why I spend ours installing and configuring wkTask, iPhone Today, TouchPad (commercial) etc...
With these often FREE and often ONE-MAN produced tools, I am able to put together a user-interface that is
Easier to navigate
Requires fewer clicks
Takes up less memory
Reacts more quickly with less errors
the thing here is yeah its not finger freindly as android of iphone, however it has a huge range of apps behind it which have been working for ages and will still work on for a while yet, the os is old however it is that great to adapt, there are that many different type of ui that can be installed over the top, to make it suitable for people that want things their own way, android, is great, however after using it more any lenght of time, it becomes a bore, its only really a gimick rather than a work phone, which is what windows has always been aimed at,
iphone, and android are only half a phone, and expect users to buy the features that they want the phone to do, where as with windows you get a working phone, from the time, you turn it on
WM 6.5 doesn't work with old software?
Unless I have some odd problem, my Touch Diamond 2 on which i just reflashed ROM with WM 6.5 is not recognizing the entire screen in some software. It seems like the ssoftware screen goes below the bottom of the physical screen.
Also, the TouchFlo appears to be inhibiting the touch features of screen in expand/contract +/- menus.
- Email when you choose folder the expand/contract +/- menus don't respond with one press, but require a sustained hold before they expand/contract.
Some software is is not happy in WM 6.5:
- PHM RegEdit is not happy in WM 6.5 I have to hold registry keys for long time to select them and the + - to expand/collapse keys aren't working properly. I have to hold, then i have to tap the menu bar on bottom to get them to expand/collapse. Really weird. Also, the input keyboard also needs to be held long time to popup. It seems like the ssoftware screen goes below the bottom of the physical screen. Very strange.
- I noticed similar issues in WM 6.5 with Advanced Configuration Tool by Julien Schapman. It seems like the ssoftware screen goes below the bottom of the physical screen. Selecting +/- menus requires sustained selection of folder, then i have to tap the menu bar on bottom to get them to expand/collapse. Really weird.
I wonder if these are .NET issues with older software or something like that?
Also, is anyone else noticing the new TouchFlow finger swipe direction is reversed from before? For example, in Email and PIE you have to swipe finger down to make page scroll up. Before you swiped finger up to make page scroll up! its different and is taking some getting used to. Its counterintuitive!
I am too am seriously thnking of going back to 6.1 .. now if I can just figure out how to do that ..... (anyone?)
sounds like an issue to me with the software, try and reflash it, im not getting any of those issue, but i haven't used touch flo/sense for that long
it was something I installed
I did some experimenting adding software one at a time after fresh ROM flash.
Looks like "Zoom Bar & Scroll" is the culprit ...
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=518367
Too bad bc this was a great little tool .. it worked beautifully in WM 6.1. BUt in 6.5 it screws up +/- expand collapse of menus (eg in Email, or PHM Regedit, etc) and also appears to reverse the scroll inside PIE, Email, and other windows.
I'll leave the same message on the Zoom Bar & Scroll thread to let the developer know.
6.1
if you are wanting to go back to 6.1 i still have the stock rom saved on my hard drive incase i needed it
I got a bit suckered by all the good reviews for this phone on so many websites and bought it yesterday. I've had a long time [misplaced] affection for windows phones. I say misplaced because every single model I've owned has let me down.
The sense interface is great. Windows is not. I've just made 16 attempts at trying to login to windows live, struggling each time to input a 20 char secure password on the dinky keyboard and when i finally got the password right, i succeeded in invoking the 'too many failed logins' mode of windows live. Nice.
why is this stuff so difficult for windows mobile phones? why does the phone not go into landscape mode for EVERY application? why is that so difficult to implement? Why did HTC not put a bloody switch for landscape mode? you have a wide screen which would make an onscreen keyborad far more friendly yet you're still stuck trying to hit the 'sweet spot' on a portrait-mode keyboard!??! Not only are you stuck in portait mode but you no longer have a stylus to help you hit those keys!
The initial WOW factor has disappeared for me and I've only had the phone for a day!
can someone help me with some tips on landscape mode? is there some way i can map one of the hard keys to be a landscape mode switch? or some software that does something similar?
thanks!
Install BSB Tweaks this allows landscape for any appplication
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=589305
I tried but didn't seem to work for me. maybe i was doing something wrong?
i enabled the tickbox for IE and after the soft reset i tried running it but it did nothing when i rotated the screen. Am I missing something here?
try using Gyrator .. It works on every application
aloms said:
can someone help me with some tips on landscape mode? is there some way i can map one of the hard keys to be a landscape mode switch? or some software that does something similar?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've just made an app that does just that. Have a look at PLToggle in my sig.
Calm down mate, trust me, windows mobile is by far the best OS out there for mobiles. The only reason everyone prefers the iphone is because of its usability, apart from that theres not much you can do but 'get an app for that', however thanks to this forum, you can do almost anything with a windows mobile device, especially one as powerful as the leo. You just need to get used to it, if sense is bugging you, get spb shell or another ui. And of course theres gonna be loads of problems with it, its pretty new, but its good points strongly outway its bad points (oh and might I add, you'll be getting all your tech support from this site, not htc, trust me), so just give it some time and you'll realise, after 'making it yours' how awesome a phone it is.
If the keyboard isnt doing it for you, download a new one! (thats the great thing about winmo) the two popular ones at the moment are swype ( a completely different style of keyboard) or finger keyboard. I personally like the one htc supply you with, heres a tweak taken from this thread which will lower the sensitivy of the screen which makes typing much easier. Alternatively, bsb tweaks can do this all for you from its menu.
Oh and about the rotate thing, on xanny tech's pandora rom, he has a little execuatable file in the start menu with rotates everything, and its mapped to a long press of the send key, so thats pretty useful, im not running his rom anymore but if you know anything about flashing, flash his first, its very good indeed and has lots of tweaks and useful stuff preinstalled.
Hope that helps a little, if not just ask
thanks for your help mate. having bought into a 24 month contract I'm pretty much stuck with getting to learn the phone whether i like it or not.
aloms said:
thanks for your help mate. having bought into a 24 month contract I'm pretty much stuck with getting to learn the phone whether i like it or not.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree with [★]. Once you know it better, you'll get to love it. There's so much under the hood of this thing that yes, you'll find a few things that you don't like, but they'll be outweighed by the things that you do
aloms said:
The sense interface is great. Windows is not. I've just made 16 attempts at trying to login to windows live, struggling each time to input a 20 char secure password on the dinky keyboard and when i finally got the password right, i succeeded in invoking the 'too many failed logins' mode of windows live. Nice
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You, Sir, need to check out my thread, which would surely have come up if you had used the search function. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=5197442 Windows Live/Hotmail etc seem to only take 16 characters. Anything after that is ignored. But the Windows Live application on mobile accepts more than 16 and will try and authenticate with everything you type in. 20 character password will not work. Reduce your pass to 16 characters or less and it should work. Post back in this thread to let me know if this sorts your issue out.
If it's a keyboard you're after then try Swype. Have a search for it. I too had a lot of sensitivity problems with the keyboard and it would take ages to type a simple email. Swype solved that. It's a lot less sensitive than the native keyboard and I used SIP to make it my default. In terms of landscape mode, try using Opera instead of IE (although Opera lacks flash). BSB Tweaks will handle the rest although I don't use it myself.
Trust me, stick with the phone and, with a few tweaks to have it running how you like it, you won't look back!
Just return the darn phone, smack it to the floor and trample it good, or learn to use it since you've bought it. Please save yourself over a high blood pressure leading to a stroke, my friend. It's only a phone.. (but then there's always iPhones for usability's sake, whatever it means)
aloms said:
The initial WOW factor has disappeared for me and I've only had the phone for a day!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, you need to calm down a tad. Ok, the phone is not perfect. However, there is endless configurability for the phone. The best thing you could ever have done was to come to this site where there is a tweak for almost anything.
Sit down, fasten your seatbelt and take a look around. You need an open mind. The HD2 is no iphone. It's the iphone killer. Just needs a little tweaking that's all.
Alternatively, you could ditch it and join the bandwagon, I mean iphone!
Try Swype, best KB I hve used on a phone, my mate with an Iphone thought it was great and was going to look for it for the Iphone, once tweaked the HD2 is the best mob by far!
I was doubtful when I first had it like you say I thought I should have gone for the Iphone but now I am so happy with it
Windows is rubbish because of the HTC keyboard?? Ok...
Isnt the whole ADVANTAGE of winmo that if you dont like something you can change it?
The advantage of WinMo is the tweaking and Office Mobile My wife had a HTC Hero for 2 months and at the end she begged me to get her a new Windows Phone because the freaking Android won't open rich text format files (unfortunately in her job she is obliged to use rtf as standart file format) without great hassle even with all possible office replacements I cound find on the net. Not to speak of that, that even the enhanced HTC mail client for Android can't open messages that are sent from mail.bg (a very popular bulgarian web mail service). That was the end for Android
Hotmail mail on the HD1 was a pain, same on the HD2. Gmail is working perfectly though which is very annoying when like me, you use Hotmail on your desktop to access your Gmail emails...
aloms said:
I got a bit suckered by all the good reviews for this phone on so many websites and bought it yesterday. I've had a long time [misplaced] affection for windows phones. I say misplaced because every single model I've owned has let me down.
The sense interface is great. Windows is not. I've just made 16 attempts at trying to login to windows live, struggling each time to input a 20 char secure password on the dinky keyboard and when i finally got the password right, i succeeded in invoking the 'too many failed logins' mode of windows live. Nice.
why is this stuff so difficult for windows mobile phones? why does the phone not go into landscape mode for EVERY application? why is that so difficult to implement? Why did HTC not put a bloody switch for landscape mode? you have a wide screen which would make an onscreen keyborad far more friendly yet you're still stuck trying to hit the 'sweet spot' on a portrait-mode keyboard!??! Not only are you stuck in portait mode but you no longer have a stylus to help you hit those keys!
The initial WOW factor has disappeared for me and I've only had the phone for a day!
can someone help me with some tips on landscape mode? is there some way i can map one of the hard keys to be a landscape mode switch? or some software that does something similar?
thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First of all get rid of that IDIOTIC iPhone imitation keyboard and replace it with the divine fingerkeyboard from xda.
And then deactivate the utterly unpredictive xt9 "predictive" (more like vindictive) text input.
I did these steps and now I can FINALLY type.
An $800 phone and it takes a donationware sw keyboard to make it usable
Aloms - I had the same problem with my Ipod Touch in the beginning. Don't worry, you will get use to it. BTW HD2 keyboard is better especially in landscape
I will join this thread with my three questions.
I have converted to the dark side and bought iPhone 3GS after having gone through a lot of phones and OSes. I have given up on WinMo (using HTC Pro) basically because of 3 issues:
1. Phone app in the sense of its responsiveness. I mean, someone is calling - first 2 seconds the hardware buttons light up, next 2 seconds the phone starts to vibrate, next 2 seconds there is a sound. Is it happening on the HD2 too? How responsive is it? Plus does it have a good gsm reception? With my HTC Pro I had to keep on testing different radio roms and have not been satisfied ever...
2. When you use HD2 say 4-5 days or longer, does it slow down over time. I mean especially when you use contacts with 1000 entries etc, or is it instant?
3. On a brand new HD2 just charged, when you load in your 1000 contacts, does it have an instant search of a contact in the contacts app? Or an email address in the "To" section when you want to write an email?
Frankly speaking, HD2 looks very tempting, but I am afraid mainly of the 3 above areas and am thinking to wait for Windows 7 or something?
PS. HTC Pro is still with me, but in the drawer...
OliveUK said:
Hotmail mail on the HD1 was a pain, same on the HD2.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've had a Diamond, a HD, and now a HD2 and I can say with 100% confidence that I never had 1 single problem with Hotmail. I've seen a very small number of users on here with issues and every single one of them has turned out to be user error.
I suggest the same in this instance as it works flawlessly when set up correctly, which 99.9% of users do.
I *love* it.. don't get me wrong.. but these are my gripes after one day, and I can't find any clear answers searching the forums.
the flipping clock.. literally.. it is annoying. how do you disable the clock animation? (I found a thread for this with a .cab file, but it wasn't proven to work on the Tmo USA version)
Opera will not let me click on links. this sucks all the way around- I can't go anywhere online on this huge beautiful screen. I refuse to use IE cuz.. well, it sucks on any platform.
the facebook app blows. (the only thing I miss about my iphone- so far) and I don't care for the touch.facebook.com or m.facebook.com cuz I can't click on links in Opera.
my earthlink and gmail emails were up and running in no time. but I had one hell of a time setting up my work email. we have our own domain- I had to set up the email through my t-mobile.com and then set it up on the device. as far as I know, it's all working fine now.
I have a mac. I used syncmate- I don't use activesync, but can't figure out a way to disable it- always running in the background. I do run XP through Parallels- but I don't use Outlook, so activesync is of no use to me.
why can't All Messages be the default screen for sms/mms tab? same for email- inbox list please?
typing- I don't like xt9 cuz I don't want word suggestions, but I do want spell check. I enabled the spell check with abc, but it doesn't do it.
I un-checked the box for "notify of open wifi networks" but it still tells me all about them.
whenever I restart, I have a voicemail and txt notification- but no voicemail, and some random txt message, and it takes the led notification a few minutes to clear out.
after coming out of a locked screen, apps are open and active that were not when I locked it.
anyone know of updates or easy fixes? I don't have the opportunity to start messing around with different ROMs for a few weeks...
I find the phone to be a buggy mess, wait for an update from HTC/Tmo hopefully or flash it.
fociz said:
I find the phone to be a buggy mess, wait for an update from HTC/Tmo hopefully or flash it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You'll be waiting a loooong time. The best option (for the adventurous) is to simply flash one of the TMOUS compatible ROMs found here.
the clock flip cab will work.the only thing that will work on all other hd2s but not on yours is the ..51.. radios. in all other respects the phones are identical.
I know what you mean man. Previously to this phone, I had a iPhone 3GS 32gb which I traded for this phone. I had a lot of the same gripes as you have now. 95% of them probably can be fixed by HSPL'ing your phone and then flashing a different ROM on it. I am on the ATT network and so a lot of the apps that were on the phone I didn't need or use as they were meant for TMO users. So I flashed my HD2 with Kumar's lite rom. Not only did it stop a lot of the bugginess (stalling, freezing, random closing of apps, etc) but it made it a lot quicker. Might want to try that and see if it helps. The clock flipping was annoying as all hell so I just installed the cab to disable it.
I tell my friends who know me pretty well as being an iPhone addict that if the iPhone and HD2 were weapons, the iPhone would be a surgical knife. From the sleek look of the case to the smooth transitioning of the OS makes using it so easy. It doesn't have a lot of speed but with the thousands of apps and fluid movement within the phone, it feels great.
Now the HD2 on the other hand is like a broadsword. You have to put a lot of effort into getting it to do what you want it to do. With the 1ghz processor and 576mb of ram, it can do maul down anything you need it to. The HD2 you can't just pick it up and expect to use it to its fullest potential. It takes a lot of patience to learn your way around the phone. With the iPhone, you jailbreak it and modify it to be more aesthetically pleasing to your eyes and to your fingers. If you have ever just cruised cydia, you will notice not much is there in the way of performance modifications. Mainly just apps and packages that let you change how the phone moves and works for you. The roms, cabs, and registry tweaks you perform on the HD2 are more performance based I have noticed. Yes there are some cabs to help you disable or enable things but right off the bat it seems like you have to modify it. I attribute this to Microsoft's laziness in creating an OS that can perform as well as not crash at the same time.
But while you are waiting for that "oh so needed" port of Android, try kumar's rom. It might just be what you need.
I knew what I was getting into as far as WinMo is concerned... I've been reading the forums on many different sites getting ready for this.
the one thing I am not finding: absolute n00b, specific, clear, step by step instructions on how to do the hspl. I've jailbroken and rooted before- I was as nervous then and just don't wanna mess up. (I have to run anything like that with XP through Parallels on my mac, and I don't do it enough to know wtf I'm doing)
solace.discord said:
I knew what I was getting into as far as WinMo is concerned... I've been reading the forums on many different sites getting ready for this.
the one thing I am not finding: absolute n00b, specific, clear, step by step instructions on how to do the hspl. I've jailbroken and rooted before- I was as nervous then and just don't wanna mess up. (I have to run anything like that with XP through Parallels on my mac, and I don't do it enough to know wtf I'm doing)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As I recall, you cannot flash via Parallels. You can with Bootcamp. I do it all the time on my MacBook Pro via XP sp3.
As a Mac user, I find that Missing Sync is great, but the iTunes integration is not the best. To transfer music, I use doubleTwist. I disabled the music sync plugins in Missing Sync, as I found that they did not do as good a job as doubleTwist. The two together has been fantastic.
I had the same opera problem here is how I fixed it
Download this on your windows computer
http://ceregeditor.mdsoft.pl/
Do this
HKLM/controlpanel/pen and change the value of 'Hide' from 1 to 0.
Soft reset, then go settings tab - menu - all settings - system and you should see screen settings icon.
Then go to screen settings and enable "clear type"
that makes the fonts look better
now do this
Enable Clickable Links in Zoomed Out Opera
This reg edit allows you to tap on a link without the need for zooming in first.
HKLM/Software/Opera/Info/az_overview_threshold
Change value from 64 to 32
thats why you can't click the links, it wants you to be zoomed all the way in, the above fix, fixes that problem easily
Also search for the cab, duttys task manager, its excellent
Where is the clear type setting, is that in Opera... just for 9.7? I'm running 10 anything comparable there?
solace.discord said:
I *love* it.. don't get me wrong.. but these are my gripes after one day, and I can't find any clear answers searching the forums.
the flipping clock.. literally.. it is annoying. how do you disable the clock animation? (I found a thread for this with a .cab file, but it wasn't proven to work on the Tmo USA version)
solace.discord said:
Opera will not let me click on links. this sucks all the way around- I can't go anywhere online on this huge beautiful screen. I refuse to use IE cuz.. well, it sucks on any platform.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Use Opera 10. Its a lot faster and easier to use overall (click links included). If you can live without pinch to zoom, it blows the iPhone browser out of the water.
solace.discord said:
the facebook app blows. (the only thing I miss about my iphone- so far) and I don't care for the touch.facebook.com or m.facebook.com cuz I can't click on links in Opera.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Use the facebook full site. Its very much useable on the HD2 thanks to its screen size and processor speed. Plus if you use Skyfire with it, you have full flash support and will be able to use all of the facebook fullsites functions! (can't do that on the iPhone)
solace.discord said:
why can't All Messages be the default screen for sms/mms tab? same for email- inbox list please?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The energy ROM I'm using has the option of defaulting to the classics SMS view. There are cabs out there that allow you to do the same.
solace.discord said:
typing- I don't like xt9 cuz I don't want word suggestions, but I do want spell check. I enabled the spell check with abc, but it doesn't do it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The XT9 keyboard sucks hard. It doesn't auto correct nearly as well as the iPhone. I turn it off. Fortunately for me, 3 years on an iPhone has made me proficient enough at typing on a touchscreen, and I hardly make mistakes on it anymore. There are alternative keyboards out there that people are using, but I haven't tried them yet. Swype apparently works really well, but again, I'm accustomed to typing on a touchscreen.
solace.discord said:
I un-checked the box for "notify of open wifi networks" but it still tells me all about them.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't have that problem, although I keep my wifi off. T-mobiles 3G network is really fast and stable in Houston. If you can keep it off, that might be your best bet.
solace.discord said:
whenever I restart, I have a voicemail and txt notification- but no voicemail, and some random txt message, and it takes the led notification a few minutes to clear out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
after coming out of a locked screen, apps are open and active that were not when I locked it.
anyone know of updates or easy fixes? I don't have the opportunity to start messing around with different ROMs for a few weeks...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I haven't had any of these problems. Most of the problems you're having are attributable to the stock ROM. Once I flashed the rom, things started running perfectly. Its a pretty easy process...just as easy as updating the firmware on the iPhone, and it only takes about 10 minutes. Its A LOT easier than jailbreaking an iPhone.
Other than that, most of the problems I've encountered were fixed with cabs (even prior to flashing the ROM). Hopefully people will chime in on other fixes, but if not, search is your friend.
SEscobedo said:
I know what you mean man. Previously to this phone, I had a iPhone 3GS 32gb which I traded for this phone. I had a lot of the same gripes as you have now. 95% of them probably can be fixed by HSPL'ing your phone and then flashing a different ROM on it. I am on the ATT network and so a lot of the apps that were on the phone I didn't need or use as they were meant for TMO users. So I flashed my HD2 with Kumar's lite rom. Not only did it stop a lot of the bugginess (stalling, freezing, random closing of apps, etc) but it made it a lot quicker. Might want to try that and see if it helps. The clock flipping was annoying as all hell so I just installed the cab to disable it.
I tell my friends who know me pretty well as being an iPhone addict that if the iPhone and HD2 were weapons, the iPhone would be a surgical knife. From the sleek look of the case to the smooth transitioning of the OS makes using it so easy. It doesn't have a lot of speed but with the thousands of apps and fluid movement within the phone, it feels great.
Now the HD2 on the other hand is like a broadsword. You have to put a lot of effort into getting it to do what you want it to do. With the 1ghz processor and 576mb of ram, it can do maul down anything you need it to. The HD2 you can't just pick it up and expect to use it to its fullest potential. It takes a lot of patience to learn your way around the phone. With the iPhone, you jailbreak it and modify it to be more aesthetically pleasing to your eyes and to your fingers. If you have ever just cruised cydia, you will notice not much is there in the way of performance modifications. Mainly just apps and packages that let you change how the phone moves and works for you. The roms, cabs, and registry tweaks you perform on the HD2 are more performance based I have noticed. Yes there are some cabs to help you disable or enable things but right off the bat it seems like you have to modify it. I attribute this to Microsoft's laziness in creating an OS that can perform as well as not crash at the same time.
But while you are waiting for that "oh so needed" port of Android, try kumar's rom. It might just be what you need.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
An analogy that I used in another topic is that if the iPhone and HD2 were cars, the iPhone would be the automatic, the HD2 would be a stick-shift.
The 'automatic-iPhone' appeals to a wide variety of people because its a simple, intuitive device. Most people can pick it up, and figure it out right away. If people find something is lacking on the iPhone, they can easily access the App store and hopefully find what they need. Having gone from a windows mobile phone to the iphone and back to a windows mobile phone, I realized eventually that a lot of the Apps on the iPhone are adding functions that are innate in windows mobile...and while the iPhone Apps are prettier, they usually don't have as much function/utility as they would on WM.
The 'manual-transmission HD2' appeals to power-users who want to get a lot of use from there phone, are somewhat technical, and those who realize that by tinkering a little bit, they can customize the experience completely to suit their needs. Windows Mobile is more cumbersome to use initially, and isn't as intuitive, but once you get the hang of it and learn how to manage your resources, you can capitalize on how much more quickly you can jump between tasks, and flat out how much you can do on this device. Sense does a great job of streamlining your core functions (phone, text, email, twitter etc) and I really like how you can check these things very quickly. Its also nice to know that if I ever need to 'pop the hood' and tweak some things underneath it, I can.
The point is, it may not work perfectly for you initially, but you can tweak it to work perfectly. With the iPhone, a lot of functions are kinda half-assed, and I missed the 'mobile PC' functionality of the HD2....my main gripe with the old Wm phones is that the hardware couldn't keep up with the software...not an issue with the HD2.
if this were a BlackBerry, I wouldn't have started this thread... but it's a WM device, I've only had a Treo before, and didn't really get into changing anything about it, and then gave it up for BlackBerry, which I did tweak, and the MT3G, which I did root and tweak and ROMs and everything.. I never did anything but jailbreak and unlock the iphone so I could use it on TMobile
I don't know how to do the hspl or change registries... install a .cab? no problem.. but I can't find clear instructions on how to do the hspl and the install a new ROM.
and- I'm on a mac... running XP through Parallels for all purposes.
if someone can point me in the right direction, I would really appreciate it.
solace.discord said:
if this were a BlackBerry, I wouldn't have started this thread... but it's a WM device, I've only had a Treo before, and didn't really get into changing anything about it, and then gave it up for BlackBerry, which I did tweak, and the MT3G, which I did root and tweak and ROMs and everything.. I never did anything but jailbreak and unlock the iphone so I could use it on TMobile
I don't know how to do the hspl or change registries... install a .cab? no problem.. but I can't find clear instructions on how to do the hspl and the install a new ROM.
and- I'm on a mac... running XP through Parallels for all purposes.
if someone can point me in the right direction, I would really appreciate it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You won't be able to safely/effectively flash ROMs via Parallels. I would not do it, because there are reports of bricked HD2s via VM flashes. It's safer to use Bootcamp. That's what I do. I have an XPsp3 partition with all my phone stuff there (Radios, ROMs, MTTY, HSPL, etc.) and it works like a charm.
so I found a thread with noob instructions.. looks like I'm gonna have to fire up the old HP in the corner.
solace.discord said:
the facebook app blows. (the only thing I miss about my iphone- so far) and I don't care for the touch.facebook.com or m.facebook.com cuz I can't click on links in Opera.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Go to marketplace and download the new version - it's really good.
solace.discord said:
so I found a thread with noob instructions.. looks like I'm gonna have to fire up the old HP in the corner.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Would you mind posting a link to the instructions you mention, so people who find this thread in the future can get to it easily? Thanks