[myTouch 3G, Magic General] WoefulDerelict:
Gotcha Verification

So, I've been giving the updated Fender a bit of a run just to see how it works and I'd love some feedback from other Fender users using the stock upgrade on their own experiences.

Boot: Ridiculously long boots that are exacerbated by SD Cards. On average boots seems to take about 5 minutes without the card and up to 8 with it in... removing your SD card and inserting it post boot helps and the phone seems much more able to handle the FS check and read in apps on it once it's already running.

Browser: I actually managed to crash the phone twice just by starting up the browser and trying to enable instant results... Like... complete reboot kind of crash. Worked the third time but, I went super slow, let it grab my location and waited before enabling it to see if it was an outright bug... Browser seems OK after that. Would have been funny if it was a serious bug.

YouTube: HQ video seems totally unusable, the device simply can't manage to display the video, the audio seems fine but, the video channel is usually left blank as it's just not able to render it. Turning off HQ seems to fix it. I decided to give the new YouTube from the Market a shot just to see how it works... Mostly behaves the same.

Wi-Fi performance: I'd love to hear about data/network performance from someone who actually has an active data plan. My experience with the Wi-Fi and data has been rather painful. As I mentioned earlier the phone will not remain connected to Wi-Fi if you aren't actually using it, background applications simply get cut off. Adding insult to injury the overall radio performance and data throughput seem choked. Market downloads crawl (after a second, clean flash, just to see if I could improve things a bit, I'm still waiting on the silent update) at a rather painful pace and installs take an unprecedented amount of time regardless of app size.

Once the phone is up and running and its background services have finished their thing the basic features seem to work OK. Scrolling is jagged and framey but, the lock screen is at least fluid. Fade and zoom effects seem to work rather slowly but, the animation is generally smooth. Non-data apps seem to run quite smoothly. I have a handful of Hexage games and they all seem to run perfectly on the device. While finally being able to run the Twitter client is nice, it is a bit slow thanks to the crumby Wi-Fi data speeds it's pretty darn laggy. The first party messenger aps from AIM, Yahoo, and ICQ seem to handle the poor Wi-Fi data rates better but, I wager that is just because they are asking for less throughput.

I can't help but think pushing the CPU a little harder would have fixed a-lot of the general slow downs in the update. The Wi-Fi sleep is probably the most annoying feature, especially given that I can't seem to find any way to disable it. I haven't heard the same from original MyTouch and MyTouch 1.2 users nor have I heard quite so many complaints about how slow the update runs. Did T-Mobile just seriously **** Fender owners? I know their software update practices and device choices have left me rather sour on them but, REALLY? I can actually see why people who use the phone regularly want 1.6 back... I don't remember this little phone being such a POS when I was given it.

I think I need to hug me EVO now... at least it reminds me that outside of the android devices they made for T-Mobile, HTC does great work and supports their devices. I swear the HD7 is T-Mobile's only nice phone right now. (No, I'm wasn't impressed by the Fisher Price MyTouch 4G, the G2 or the Vibrant... actually... I ****ing loathe the Galaxy S platform and Samsung's take on Android... got rid of that POS post haste.)