[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] fllash:
Hi there!

It's been ages since i got my Desire, and I am still satisfied - Your Bro made a good choice :).

For the recovery, I use Clockwork-MOD. Now, people have reported USB bricking when using the latest version (and I can attest to that, as it bricked me, and it is a pain in the arse to fix). However, the convenience of nandroid working from rom manager, and verification disabled by default make it worth the risk IMO. You would probably want to go for AmonRA-2.0.0 GSM which is feature packed and has not had reports about usb bricking. UnrEVOked will root and flash your recovery, but if that doesnt work, you can always use FASTBOOT. I recommend that you disable Security, and use AlphaREV to S-OFF the desire, as it will allow you to ues FASTBOOT and give you R/RW permissions in android.

In terms of the MicroSD card, I am using a Class 2, and have no troubles. the CLASS is only its minimum sustained write, some Class 2 cards exceed Class 6 cards, just luck of the draw.

Regarding a stable rom, you will get a billion and one different oppinions.

If you like Sense UI, I suggest AuraxTSense or LeeDroid (for the old version of Sense), or ReflexTSense or RCMixHD (for the new version of Sense - Sense HD).

Sense vs Sense HD: Both have different benefits. For example, HD roms have a more intuitive interface (in my opinion). However, in terms of performance, I find that the Old Sense roms are much smoother and reliable. Again, just my opinion. However, Sense Roms (both old and new) have less battery life than competing roms.

You then have CyanogenMOD type roms. These roms are built from the source, and are updated all the time. They have a very complete feature set, and have lots of users to help with. Oh, and Bluetooth HID works out of the box (it will not work on Sense Roms). Battery life is good too. However, the interface is not consistent, and some of the stock applications (such as the dialer, or the music app) have (in my opinion) a downright ugly look about them. But again, everything works very well, and they are very speedy roms.

Finally, you have (my recommendation) MIUI. MIUI is based on the Source (like CyanogenMOD, kinda), and adds a very very well implemented interface. The dialler, for example, is better than the Sense one, I recon. Prettier, lots of functionality (recording calls is two button presses away). Everything that works in CyanogenMOD roms works in MIUI (except the newest camera features and Bluetooth HID (but are workarounds for both)). MIUI comes stock with a brilliant music application, custom lockscreen (with music controls and spectrum vis), File manager, Contacts, Messaging and FM radio (the FM Radio that is found in CyanogenMOD based roms came from here).

So that is what i recon; MIUI is a great rom to start with. It has good battery life, it is one of the fastest type of rom on the block (faster than other roms build from the source, in some cases) and doesnt require you to install many applications to add functionality that you would expect it comes with.

Also , it is updated every friday (and translated version are usually released the same or the next day).

I use the Au-MIUI version (www.miui-au.com) created by S-Murpyh, who keeps a very well rounded release, and great support.

Just my opinions, though.

Josh.