[HD2 General] onslaught86:
Having gone through the Apache, Titan, Hermes, Samsung i325, Blue Angel, and i900 Omnia, the HD2 is definitely worth upgrading to. I was debating the Omnia II and X1, but decided that ultimately any investment I made would effectively be dead money if I got anything that wasn't the HD2, since it's the only handset currently on the market that has the full featureset I want.

Funnily enough, I've found the stock ROM to be fantastic. Tried a few cooked ROMS (Including Kumar's) and didn't find any of them to my liking, having just come from some REALLY nice lite Omnia ROMs. Once the stock ROM is cleaned of the unnecessary T-Mobile bloatware, it's great, even with the 6.5 UI vs. 6.5.3 and up.

Yes, SIM unlocking is retained regardless of which ROM you flash. Hard SPL depends on whether you're flashing cooked or stock.

Re: problems:

- Firstly, this is a WinMo phone. No kidding. I didn't buy this NOT to tweak practically every element in some form. If I'd wanted a phone that didn't encourage tweaking, I'd have bought an iPhone, and I'd have been bored with it in a month or so when I couldn't change the UI elements on a daily basis (And probably hurled it against a wall for making me taint my music collection through the use of the horror known as itunes). If people can accept WinMo for what it is, with both its weaknesses and its strengths (Mainly its strengths - I've messed with iPhones and Android, and I guess I'm just used to doing what I want with WinMo), then the HD2 gets my full recommendation.

But I assume you're the sort that likes to tweak everything left right and centre anyway, else you wouldn't be here. Heh!

- Sense UI! It's a new one for me, coming straight from Titanium, which I loved. Previously tried M2D and hated it, yet Sense has grown on me. I've not had any crashes (Except when I installed a few incompatible themes and tweaks), and it can be nigh-endlessly customised. While I like Titanium's 'everything at a glance' factor, the Sense tabs are more functional the the Titanium panels, effectively being applications in and of themselves. It's pretty too.

- Giant screen is pretty much unparalleled, it's excellent for browsing. Don't tend to watch videos on the go, so I can't vouch for its qualities there, but I'd imagine it's great. Bet it'd chew the battery tho'.

Don't think I could go back to a resistive screen now - as mentioned, they feel kinda 'muddy' and soft in comparison. Capactive's sensitivity takes a little getting used to, yet it's a winning trade-off when you don't have to press everything five times to make sure it's actually lauching.

- Music library is one of the few issues I have had. It'd take a while for the Sense music tab to open up with 10 gigs of music on the SD card - I've had zero issues with the SD card itself. Fixed it by putting a shortcut to Audiomanager in the Startup folder - just takes a minute after a restart to rebuild the library, which is a non-issue since I only have to restart if I've installed a application that demands I do so (Or if I want to look at my pretty BIOS/Windows Seven bootscreens!).

- Battery life! Well, what do you expect, with that huge screen and 1GHz processor? No real change there, I was used to charging my phone all night and being down to 50% after a day. It really helps to try flashing different radios, though, make sure you give each a full day's testing to find the best for your area. Selecting the right radio made a huge improvement to battery life and 3G speed for me.

The other factor that a lot of people seem to be basing their purchases on is the potential for the HD2 to run WP7. Now, I'll be honest, and say that was part of my reasoning - I don't 'expect' it to happen, but if it does, I want in on that action. ;)

"Hardly do any tasks"? Seriously? What tasks have you tried? And as for having apps, have you..checked the HD2 apps forum? This thing runs PSX games like a charm. :confused:

Used to take forever to open the Windows folder on my Titan and Apache, the HD2 loads in 1-2 seconds. No problems there. What do you have installed that could be lagging it that much?