Android 2.1

[thelordharry]

In one of the videos in the link I attached yesterday, the guy showed the phone (the Desire Z) booting in like a few seconds. Now tell me, the Desire Z has a 800Mhz processor, the Desire 1Ghz. The Desire takes maybe up to 30 seconds to boot (haven't actually timed it yet....). Is the rapid boot on the Z down to Froyo2.2 or is it quicker because of the improved system architecture of the Z?

Whatever, the difference in speed between my old Tytn2 and Desire is like impulse and warp

[Reliant121]

It will likely be android 2.2. I had a HTC Tattoo running 1.6 and it took nearly 2 minutes from cold to power up.

[thelordharry]

That will freak me out if it's true. Imagine a phone, OK, a 'smartphone' being ready to use a few seconds after pressing the power button. Remember rebooting a Tytn2? It took a few minutes

[Reliant121]

The symbian S60 touch phones I've owned have always been around 30 seconds on boot up but then take another minute to "warm up".

[thelordharry]

So come on then Kieran, give me a list of fantastic apps for Anne Droid!

[Reliant121]

You're an avid tweeter, so i'd recommend Touiteur. Sure, HTC phones come with the Peep client on board already but its a personal preference thing I think. Again, I'd recommend either Handcent SMS or Chomp SMS to replace the standard messages app purely because you can customise and edit them to your liking. Handcent defaults to a style identical (almost) to an iPhone. It's pretty much critical you get a task killer, my suggestion would be "Systempanel". You can enter all the things to exclude manually (id recommend android system files and HTC sense) otherwise it will shut down unnecessary bull and extend battery life. A Barcode scanner is a must while scanning internets, since android apps have a unique square barcode picture. scanning it sends you straight to the market. if you want to experiment with different browsers (although i find the webkit based Chrome browser perfectly fine, give Opera mini or Dolphin a go. opera mini is designed to speed things up and make it all very simple, while Dolphin brings a plethora of feature rich add ons and swype movements.

[thelordharry]

Lovely job. Thanks Kieran! That's sent me in the right direction...

[Reliant121]

Oh Oh oh, If you DO go after the Dolphin brower, go for the Dolphin HD one. the other one is pointless :3

[thelordharry]

Following on from your advice about the messaging app, I thought I'd give Handcent a go first to see how I get on.......so all installed and configured. However, I notice that the 'default' messaging app still gets the message too? Is there any way to completely bypass the default one?

[Reliant121]

Go into the default messaging app, then the settings via the contextual menu button. Once there, turn notifications off. Basically, the messages are saved somewhere in the phone and the messaging applications allow you to look at them. The original messaging application will always be therem but you can set it so it isn't the preferred app.

[thelordharry]

Cheers K. I read somewhere that if you root the phone you can evict it but I just really can't be arsed to do that right now or probably ever....

Loving the intuitiveness of the device so far and the integration off new apps etc. So quick as well. Still, I'm really missing that hardware keyboard though. That's going to take a long while to get over...

[Reliant121]

That's one of the reasons I am considering abandoning android for either the dreaded blackberry or one of nokia's E series.

[kostmayer]

The Desire Z is getting good early reviews. I like a keyboard too, though I also need a bigger screen then I have on mine atm, so I might have to go with a touch screen only phonenext time.

[Reliant121]

Having had a sliding mechanism of that variety before, or at least of something similar, I will NOT go down that root. Besides, I actually prefer portrait qwerty phones to landscape because I have ridiculously long, but incredibly thin fingers.

[Tyyr]

I've got a slider with a full keyboard, landscape style and I like it conceptually. The problem is that the buttons are incredibly temperamental already. They won't accept a press then when it finally registers I'll get three letters in a row. Also, the slide feature is a bit too easy, I'd prefer it be a bit harder to get to open. Flicking it open is nice but not when it does it in my pocket. I think on my next phone I'll either be looking for a fixed keyboard or do without a hardware keyboard (as much as I like them) entirely.