[HD2 General] ministersin:
I come from being an early adopter (day before release) on the android G1.

I have had several swings on the phone...when I first opened the box...AWESOME...BEAUTIFUL!!

When I first turned it on...Classy...Elegant.

After the first day of using it...my God is there even a battery in this thing...it only lasted 4 or 5 hours.

After the first week of using it...maybe I should return it before my 14 days is up. It keeps lagging and freezing and I have had to remove and replace the battery almost every day. Tried BsB Tweaks. Even worse.

So then I decide to switch to a custom ROM. Went to TOUCH X. Even worse than before. Decided stock ROM was working better. Went back.

After this period of time using the phone the battery life started getting better. After going back to the stock ROM it seems most of the lagging issues stopped. Only when paying music in the car it would start to stutter a bit (I think when it was syncing email or something) and sometimes the unlock slider would stick for a second or two before the home screen would come up.

I understand now that all of those issues are Sense related. Not WinMo which I had been taught to hate by every review in the world.

I installed some huge crappy game and hard reset the phone while it was uninstalling because I thought it was stuck. Bricked the phone. THANK GOD I had installed the HardSPL for that TouchX I didn't like, because I was ale to go right in and flash a new ROM with no problem.

Instead of going back to stock I decide to try another cooked ROM...went with NRG. Working AWESOME. All around. I think the actual X out and easy access to the task manager is what is really saving the day here. Can't believe Sense doesn't have that built in stock.

After reading some of the discssions on here and several other forums here is what I have come to believe...

iPhone is for people who just want to turn on the phone and do basic stuff (for a smartphone that is) without too much hassle. No tweaks. No personalization. It's pretty out of the box. It does what it does. Very nice for the majority of people.

Android is for people who are more advanced users. People who know how to use Google to do proper searches. People who know how to change their screensaver in Windows. Advanced...but not too much.

HD2 is perfect for me. I mean it as a standard windows registry for crying out loud. With Android you could do some cool things. If someone else set t up to do cool things. Cyanogen could do cool things. Not me. I could just ride on his coat tails.

With this phone...I can do cool things. I can make changes to my "rom" on the fly. I can control the interface. I can control the internal operations through registry settings (like jpeg compression...wow).

If I were an average user...out of the box...I would have loved the way it looked and been concerned about the way it performed.

I was a huge android fan, but after the HD2, I think Android is still not ready. When it first came out it looked like it belonged in 1998. Slowly they amped it up...adding basic featured like stereo bluetooth and video recording.

And even now it is getting prettier, but at the expense of performance. The new 2.1 changed the picture gallery from 24bit depth to 16bit. Moving forward going backwards. It's just not a fully realized OS yet. And there is nothing I can do to change it without learning to write code for it.

Even though WinMo combined with Sense is also not ready for prime time in my opinion...I was able to get it running fairly smoothly on my own with no "rooting" or jailbreaking or whatever.

Apps are easier to find on Android. And I miss Google Navigation being so integrated into the system. TeleNav and Copilot are great, but they just don't interact with the primary GPS and mapping system (Google Maps) the way I would like.

ANYWAY...after using it. After realizing I can Google just about any WinMo App I am looking for and the market should just be uninstalled. After getting a registry editor. After understanding that what I am dealing with here is a little computer running a stripped down Windows operating system I have to say this is the best phone I have ever used. Best phone I have ever seen.

If an android ROM comes out I will dual boot because I like to keep up with the technology and Android has a clear advantage in gaining market share. I may even dump the HD2 for an Evo, again because I like to keep up with the technology.

But...if you know anything about computers...if you are really looking for a phone that you can make uniquely yours without having to learn to much...

YOU CAN NOT BEAT THE HD2 right now.