[JASJAR, XDA Exec, MDA Pro Software Upgrading] Churchill:
Latest O2 ROM Review

OK Boys and Girls…

The new O2 ROM the 182 ROM with 188 EXT ROM is a in my opinion the best (I have not tried the Orange ROM and the Vodafone ROM). It is the fasted until now. I have been using it since the 23rd of December and I am extremely happy with it. I am using it in CORP mode (I hate the customizations). No freezes no strange behavior. When I was on QTEK ROM after week approximately the device was sooooo slow, no real issues but it reminded me of the T-Mobile ROM my device came with. Really slow. The only thing I had to do is to setup the MMS, since in CORP mode the MMS is not enabled, but that is quite easy, and change the hardware button shortcut for IE. Further, everything is running until now real smooth. By the soft reset I have 29 MB of program memory available, and when you use it I am running aprox 21-22, and that is after a 4 day usage without soft reset. The battery usage is a bit worse then the QTEK ROM, but that has to do with the radio version 1.04.02, QTEK still has the old radio version 1.03.00 and once I upgraded the version 1.04.02 the battery life is comparable. QTEK ROM has more storage memory available, but hey we install everything onto the SD card so that does not matter. It is true that the QTEK has more total Program memory 50 MB or so and O2 Rom only 49 MB, but usage wise O2 ROM runs faster and consumes less memory, thus leaving me with more free memory and that is what counts. As already mentioned I was able to us the device for 4 days without a reset, which I do believe is something, and that was mind you between Christmas and New Year when I was free from work meaning my main means of communications was my MDA-PRO. Pocket MSN works like a charm not the weird thing like QTEK that when you check the checkbox for keeping the password it keeps kicking you out and asking to sign in again (the solution for that was to uncheck the box for saving the password on QTEK ROM). WiFi seems also better since I have not moved my wireless router at home and in the office but I do have a better reception.

All in all this is the fastest and moste STABLE ROM till now, even after using is for 10 days.

Now I want to share with you all my thoughts about the ROMs OS etc, concerning Microsoft HTC and third party apps.

People always have something to say how bad the device is and always look for someone to blame for it, the first that comes to mind (since what we see on our screens is the Windows LOGO on the start button) Microsoft. I would like to strongly disagree with everybody, and absolutely everybody who puts the blame by Microsoft. Microsoft has shown us that they are doing their uitmost best to make the OS as stable as possible. Look at the difference between WM 2003 and WM 2005. On the WM 2003 and earlier the battery life was sooo important that when we were low on battery it was almost hysterical that we looked for a power outlet since we were scared to loose all our stuff, and then spend half a day installing configuring the device. Now with WM 2005 that is in the past, I have let my device already 4 different times completely drain the battery and leave it overnight like that and then just loading it and you have your device back as it was. You might argue that that comes at dear price of using flash memory which is slower, true it is slower but Microsoft solved that by letting everything be saved in RAM first and after a few seconds it gets written to ROM for safekeeping. It is slower then a WM 2003 that is a fact and I am not denying it, but when I come to choose then I choose for slower WM 2005, and between me and you the slowness is not that disturbing anyways (at least for me it is not).

Now further: Microsoft is responsible for the OS and making the code available to the developers, and they did that. The developers, most of them are writing software left handed, since they could not charge a lot of money for it (it is a pocket app) so there is much less effort is put in to optimize the software. The same story is true for drivers. The only thin we can blame Microsoft for and I repeat the ONLY thing is that they made the OS available only to hardware OEMs. It would be of course much better if we would get a CD with Windows Mobile 2005 on it just like we get a CD with Windows XP PRO or HOME when we buy a new PC. Then you can clean install the OS yourself and you are not dependent on the **** that is provided by the OEM or the operator you bought the device from. I would prefer if there were updates available via internet on Microsoft update site just the desktop version. Then you have it in your hand, and if you do not like the program you just do not install it. The same works for the drivers. I know a lot of bright programmers who write drivers themselves because they are not happy with the drivers the Hardware manufacturer wrote. There are enough examples when you can use the drivers from different manufacturers on the Desktop PC since the hardware used is generic (one of them is the Bluetooth dongles, if you have a BT dongle with the CSR=Cambridge silicon radio you can most certainly use Widdcom stack for it, and it does not matter who wrote the driver package. I have successfully installed DELL provided Widdcom stack on a Sitecom USB Dongle, since Sitecom has the worst driver programmers out there.

Anyhow this is getting a bit too long for now. I am happy to answer any questions you might have regarding the latest O2 ROM.

P.S. As we all know by now the AKU2 is not implemented in the latest O2 ROM either.