[HD2 General] wacky.banana:
Update

Well, since I wrote the short review above and read XDA LEO forums end-to-end so my initial thoughts on jumping in and buying the device faded a little. Part of the problem was the sheer volume of negative noise coming from a number of people on these forums plus the fact that I have been here before with the Tytn, taking a year before I had a device I could both trust and like.

Those painful memories made me think long and hard about jumping in and doing the deed. What I needed to do was to get a sense of perspective and balance which was proving difficult to find on XDA. Also being able to lay hands on a device at will to play with was proving very difficult as the limited stocks becoming available were flying off the shelves as fast as they were coming in. This was at odds with all the negativity I was picking up here.

Now don't get me wrong, I am not knocking people. Those that were brave enough to post their honest views about the device, albeit negative ones, did me a huge favour, despite the fact that most of them faced massive hostility from the masses. What this meant for me was that instead of going into any decision rosy eyed I knew that if I bought into the HD2 world there would be problems to overcome, over and above the usual tweaks that one does because its windows, don't you know?!

Some sense of balance was found via the following polls, which I found to be invaluable:

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=598900&highlight=polls (severity of grid display)

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=595655&highlight=poll (weird touch-screen behaviour)

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=591011&highlight=poll (earpiece and voice quality)

http://xdaforums.com/poll.php?do=showresults&pollid=2075 (HD2 speaker quality)

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=592375&highlight=poll (in search of balance).

So, approaching the festive season with the family nagging me to tell them what I wanted for Xmas, I rang a supplier, talked through all the known issues with them, which they were aware of. However the rate of returns on HD2's to them was so small as to be infinitesimal which meant one of 2 things:

- People were buying the device and either liking it or could live with it or

- The supplier wasn't telling me the truth (highly unlikely as I have been using them for a while now).

They were happy enough to agree to take the device back and return my funds if I did not like it either under the 7 day distance selling rules in the UK or by me ringing them up and indicating my preference.

Went back to the family, gave them the news and......a brand new HD2 landed in my sack on Xmas day via Santa Claus. What an amazing guy he is! Someone should offer to have his children for him. :)

Broke the box open last night, ie Xmas night and despite my anticipation, took time out to charge it up properly. Time spent now conditioning the battery correctly equals solid battery performance later down the line.

Tackled the beast in anger today. It is true to say that in the metal, this is a beautiful piece of engineering. Build quality on my version at least is excellent with none of the wobbly keys and ill fitting screen problems reported by others being noticable.

Went through setting up the device as I want it (yes, its been a long day and I have stopped now), made a complete backup immediately as my master backup, then installed tips no 8, 44, 46, 58 from the hints and tips thread and made another backup, separate from the original. This way if anything goes wrong I can simply roll back to the last successful change.

Points Worth Commenting On:

Keyboard:

The keyboard needs a degree of accuracy to use it successfully. I did not find the sensitivity out of the box an issue at all. Where I had to be absolutely accurate was in keying in my sim unlock code into the phone. Got that wrong too many times but practice will make perfect.

An even greater level of accuracy is required when trying to put ticks into selection boxes, e.g when installing Memmaid. This can prove frustrating as can the process of copying and pasting. I am sure that the capacitive stylus coming out of HTC will help with this "problem".

For me the keyboard works best without T9 switched on. However for sheer speed the Swype keyboard which I have installed is the way to go. Another version of this board (SlideIt) is readily available and I will be moving to that asap as Swype is NOT free-ware nor, as I have just found out, not officially released yet for the windows platform.

Weather Animations:

The weather animations are very good, just the sort of thing a chap needs to gain bragging rights down at the local pub. I have already seen most of the animations today due to the readily changing weather conditions we have had where we live.

Back Cover:

There is a serious but amusing thread on here where someone could not get their back cover off. Having already been through that thread I was not looking forward to my experience. However I can report that as long as you follow the instructions in the guide the cover is pretty easy to take off and put back on.

Overall First Impressions:

There is a hell of a lot to like about the HD2. There are things that I felt needed to change to suit me better. I have altered SMS to show in traditional mode rather than conversation mode as this works best for me.

Twitter and Facebook are of no use to me so these have not been configured.

I have yet to work out how to get the built-in picture viewer to pick up and show my pictures on the external SD card and there are a whole host of other things I have yet to get done. However day 1 has gone very very well indeed.

I will add to this post as I get to know the device a little better. In the meantime I am off to read the full manual to pick up on what else I need to know.

WB

PS: For those interested I am running Rom 1.48 straight out of the box. Not bothered with the SMS fix as I have not had any issues with SMS sending and receiving so far.

I am being meticulous about killing off apps not required but running in the background via the task manager. Also been straight onto the notification queue lock-up problem by installing Memmaid to sort that out.

Need to find a way of making sure that the X button really does kill off these open apps to save valuable memory space.

PPS: Really annoying niggle is after 10 goes I have not been able to put on the HTC screen protector properly. No matter how hard I try, even using a large cardboard piece to smooth it out, I can't get all the air bubbles out. I really want to use the protector but as it stands, I might have to take the risk and ditch it unless someone can pass on a full-proof method for putting the damned thing on properly. :mad:

I have never ever had this problem before in all the years I have had of devices that needed their screens protecting.

More updates soon.

WB