Metropol

The ideal solution would be for HTC to offer a clean Android install which could be applied as easily as the Gingerbread update that I installed. I think that actually made things worse...

Oh I know but the clock spins round to the right time when to return to the homescreen. Surely that was worth it...

I'm going to give http://wiki.cyanogenmod.com/wiki/HTC_De ... date_Guide a shot

I can definitely recommend CyanogenMod, used it since version 4 on various phones.
I upgraded to the Galaxy Nexus in December and am very pleased with it so far. The size was putting me off but as it's so light and thin I think I've got used to it very quickly. ICS is definitely a marked improvement.

Pete wrote:Oh I know but the clock spins round to the right time when to return to the homescreen. Surely that was worth it...

I'm going to give http://wiki.cyanogenmod.com/wiki/HTC_De ... date_Guide a shot

Good luck. The ROM Manager way appears to be the most straightforward.

All of the forums and guides I've seen are badly written and appear to assume you have more than a basic knowledge of what people are talking about - I don't even mean technically - just in terms of names of software or systems, and many of these are cryptic.

Those who ask for explanations seem to be treated in a manner of "if you don't know you shouldn't be here".

Another question: if I manage to root to Cyanogen and don't like it, can I reinstall the current HTC Gingerbread 2.3 build?

Having followed those instructions I now have Cyanogen. Don't have the google apps yet though, going to try and install those again after I've whacked a bit of charge into the phone.

First impressions though, seems snappier.

Very courageous, minister.

marksi wrote:Very courageous, minister.

that instruction i linked to worked very nicely actually and was surprisingly easy. Also interesting that i seem to have a far more modern version of the market app than I ever had with the official rom.

I don't think App 2 SD, the app, works with it though, so its manual moving fun later.

This is going to sound very Apple fanboi-esque but I don't care.

I love tinkering with technology but all this Android stuff sounds a little bit too much like hard work. I love Android phones - every one that I've played with has been absolutely fantastic but when I start hearing about having to clear out files and rooting the device, all of a sudden a certain Apple device becomes very appealing in the fact that it just works.

However I want a strong Android competition else how else will the rest of the industry innovate?

Pete wrote:

marksi wrote:Very courageous, minister.

that instruction i linked to worked very nicely actually and was surprisingly easy. Also interesting that i seem to have a far more modern version of the market app than I ever had with the official rom.

I don't think App 2 SD, the app, works with it though, so its manual moving fun later.

You could manually add the more modern Market.apk file to the build (which I had done) but actually downgraded it yesterday to get 4MB back - the only things the new version does is add more marketing opportunities and makes the app larger.

I think the issues we're talking about here are more down to this particular phone's lack of internal storage as opposed to a problem with the Android system itself. The Desire has 147MB of available internal storage, where the newer phones have 16 or 32GB (though HTC seems to lag behind Samsung in this area). Other half has just ordered a Galaxy S2.

Yes indeed, which i why I'm now investigating the delights of partitioning the SD card to trick it into thinking it has more internal memory.

DO YOU KNOW HOW TO DO THIS NICELY JAKE????

Would love a Galaxy Nexus but Orange don't do them, and as much as I'd like to go with giffgaff I also want a new phone with the delights of subsidy / payment over 18mo that contract gives you.

Pete wrote:Yes indeed, which i why I'm now investigating the delights of partitioning the SD card to trick it into thinking it has more internal memory.

DO YOU KNOW HOW TO DO THIS NICELY JAKE????

Would love a Galaxy Nexus but Orange don't do them, and as much as I'd like to go with giffgaff I also want a new phone with the delights of subsidy / payment over 18mo that contract gives you.

This seems to be the best guide I can find about it, not done it myself though so I can't vouch for how well it works.
http://www.addictivetips.com/mobile/tra ... 7-android/

Got my Nexus on T-Mobile through an online seller, it has 16GB of internal storage which can be used for anything, but no SD card slot which is a bit disappointing.