[T-Mobile HD2 Windows Mobile 6.5 Development] Snarksneeze:
V4.0 Review

This is the review post for v4.0. For screenshots, see previous post.​

Pros:

Very Fast

Light Footprint

Battery-Friendly

Aesthetically Beautiful

Latest Drivers & Updates

Fast Install

Cons:

The HTC Messaging "Send" button seems to be in Chinese?!?

~~~~~~~~REVIEW~~~~~~~~​

*disclosure* First off, I should state that I have been a fan of b16b since my Kaiser days. He was the first chef I ever donated money to on xda-dev, though others were just as deserving. If you click on my profile, you will notice that b16b and I are listed as friends. If you believe that this influences my review (you would probably be right), I suggest you skip it and write you own :D

Okay, so the very first thing I noticed was the black-and-white theme. I looked for color and found it in the tabs. Selected tabs are shown in color, deselected tabs are in black and white. This theme makes any kind of color at all jump out at you. On the flip side, there are only two built-in weather wallpapers that will go well with this theme. You can choose other wallpapers, but it kind of negates the whole effect. Anyone wanna convert some of the others to b/w?

Next up, I installed Shake-And-Save to take screenshots as I went along. You can view my screenshots in the post directly above this one. As you can see there, this is a beautiful ROM.

At the home screen (Home Tab), you will see that there is an "Explorer" button just to the left of the Windows logo. The chef has mapped this to the Total Commander application that he cooked into the ROM. This increases the usability of this ROM by a factor of 70%, for me!

Scrolling through the tabs, you'll notice that they flow and snap very quickly. This ROM is unbelievably fast; this is what I expected from this phone from the very beginning. The reason this is faster than other sliders you ask? Read on!

As far as speed goes, the black and white icons actually increase your speed. How you ask? Each image is much smaller than a colored counterpart, meaning that the system can load it and show it much faster than a color icon. Smaller images also contribute to a smaller overall ROM, leaving you more room on the phone for extra apps :D

See my screenshots above for a full list of installed apps, but I would like to mention BsB Tweaks. It is built-in and is an awesome way to make your phone work the way you wanted it to in the beginning. My favorite part of BsB is the way you can force any app to landscape (Rotation) when you rotate your phone to 270-degrees (turn the phone counter-clockwise to the landscape view). I'm still waiting for a decent app that will follow along to the 90 and 180 views as well, but for now this will work :)

If you have used the T-Mobile Shipped ROM, you may notice the lack of Swype. The WWE versions do not come with Swype installed and the chef has decided not to add it here. I'm not sure if this was to save on space or speed, but I keep a cab on my SD card just in case, so it's not a big deal for me.

You may notice that there is a new tab for Facebook on here. This is a great addition that some of the other chefs have been adding as well and I'm glad to see it cooked in. I have the cab, but cooked apps are nicer ;) Remember to save your facebook contacts in your Favorites tab so that this app will keep you updated on their statuses! I've had to fake some phone numbers to get at least one of my Facebook friends in the FB tab.

When adding your email accounts, you may notice that "Microsoft Hotmail Account" is missing. It is the same with other 23xxx builds I've tried as well. Not to worry though, just put in your hotmail address and password and the system will automatically find the right settings to use.

Once again, all bloatware has been removed and the essentials remain. Overall, this ROM is beautiful and fast and I am going to stop writing words of praise about it so that I can go play with my new toy!

Have fun and don't forget to tip the chef!