Ah! finally a unlocked phone with an open OS that seems to be going somewhere. First, impressions are impressive. No branding of any kind on the phone. No mention of the word Google or HTC on the outside of the phone, except for the Android robot on a polygonized terrain. Opening the cover reveals HTC mentioned on the battery. For a first cut OS release, Android rocks.
Functions are intuitive and has very good integration with Google applications. One can't initially start the phone without creating/having a Google account. Plethora of applications are available on the android market place. And, I think a lot more will be coming soon. Apart from the default applications I downloaded the following free applications from the market place and gave them a try. Decent...
http://www.android.com/market/free.html
Compare Everywhere: Barcode scanner which returns comparative pricing of the items scanned.
GPS Status: Shows the satellites the GPS has connected to. Also, shows other information from the Compass and sensors on the phone. Pretty decent to have.
GpS Tracker: Can track GPS coordinates real time. Also, has a functionality to get activated by SMS sent to the phone.
Homer Soundboard: DOH!
Barcode Scanner: Another barcode scanner.
Last.Fm: Yups they already have an official application for Android.
Opera: I will make this clear. The default browser Chrome on Android sucks on Edge connection.
Phonalyzer: Various statistics one always wants to know from one's call history/log.
SkyMap: This tool is awesome. It uses the phones GPS, compass etc. to show you the starmap with the names of the stars and constellations in front of you.
SMS Backup: One needs this. Backs up the SMS'es to gmail.
Updating to Android 1.1
Recently, update 1.1 was released. Below is my summary of how to update Android. Don't follow these without first going through the complete official instructions here. Then again consider yourself warned.
http://www.htc.com/www/support/android/adp.html
download fastboot
download the SDK
download the radio image
download the system image
sudo ./adb devices
connect device using USB. But, DONOT mount from phone
sudo ./adb push ../../ota-radio-1_22_14_11.zip /sdcard/update.zip
sudo ./adb shell sync
start phone in recovery mode:
press HOME button while restarting
Alt+l
Alt+s
HOME + BACK
done!
enter fastboot mode (hold the BACK key while starting)
sudo ./fastboot erase cache
sudo ./fastboot update signed-dream_devphone-img-130444.zip
NOTE: I wanted to keep the data in the user partition so ignored the option -w
