Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Hero on HTC Magic - three weeks in and still loving it!

I have to say I'm still enjoying this Hero ROM.
I'm using the Rogers conversion of Fatal1ty's Hero 1.4 as linked from here for my PVT32A handset: (use the original Fatal1ty rom if you have a PVT32B)

Collection of ROMS for Rogers (well.. any PVT32A phone really...)
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=534464

Please people.. learn which handset you have and install the correct rom - the two phones have different boot methods and wlan drivers - so if you install the wrong one it won't boot - simple.

Read the XDA Sapphire Wiki!

So back to what this post is about - Hero.. so the first thing I did was switch TouchFlo off - the widgets and everything are lovely, but it's far too slow and just not ready for primetime.
I've applied the Camera fix to this and that's about it really.

Once you have the rom installed you can turn TouchFlo off by going to Settings->Applications->Manage Applications->TouchFlo->Clear defaults

Then press the Home key on your phone and when it prompts you first select the checkbox to Always use this or set it as defaults, then press 'Home' and not touchflo.

Okay.. got Android Home back in! yay. speed!

Actually.. it'll probably still seem a bit sluggish for a while until all of the touchflo stuff gets moved out of the cache. You could prolly reboot the phone to speed this up, but I didn't bother. I'm also not using Apps2SD/Swapper/Cache2SD or any of that stuff - but then I also have the 288MB HTC Magic, not the 192MB crippled one.

So what's so great about this if you don't get TouchFLO? What's the point of getting Hero?

Well.. the applications that also come with Hero are excellent.
Lemme explain why...
  • HTC Peek - if you're a twitterer then this is cool - built in support for twitter with nice notifications. URL Shortening, Image posting, even Geo support!
  • Facebook/Flickr built in. No need for third party apps - it'll automatically grab pictures for your contacts that are also on facebook with the same name, provide you with Status updates and even links to the latest pictures they've uploaded on flickr. And you can now take a photo and Share on Flickr/Facebook/Twitter/etc too.
  • The new 'People' app is awesome - this is a huge revamp of the Contacts that came with cupcake and has lots of other neat stuff like Google Maps support (click on contacts address and it goes straight to Google Maps) and what not - you can also update your own facebook/flickr status through your 'My Contact Page' - you can also click on contacts and see THEIR facebook/flickr status and updates.
  • HTC Keyboard comes as default - no need to install it. Highly recommended though I'm looking forward to playing with CooTek's TouchPal when it's out as that looks nice too.
  • Hmm.. what else.. Power button held down now has extra options including Vibration Mode toggle and Mobile Network toggle.
  • You can set a separate wallpapers for Lock screen now too which is nice.
  • Footprints App lets you post geo-location info - so you can mark your favourite spots, take photos, etc (never used it tho tbh)
  • Other apps that come with it are a nice Weather app, Stocks app, Music app
  • Multitouch Browser - this is awesome and works pretty well - the browser has Flash support too - though I wouldn't bet on it being perfect just yet.
  • Smart Dialer with favourites and call history - I forget whether this is much improved.. but the StarContacts crap that came with that ION rom has nothing on this.

So what are the issues?
  • Broken Bluetooth Headset support. You can listen to music fine over A2DP, but you can't use the microphone for calls. It's broken.. no one has figured out a fix for it yet. And yeah.. no bluetooth filesharing yet either - but then no rom offers this yet as it's not been implemented fully (though there are third party apps that apparently offer it.. kinda)
  • LEDs are mapped incorrectly - no more orange charging LED (just a green light when fully charged) and other LED colour changes won't work in some apps. You still get green flashes and trackball glows for notifications tho! ;)
  • Camera is screwed up out of the box - just need to grab the old camera package and reinstall it to fix this. Takes all of five minutes to fix this.
  • TouchFLO is pretty useless and slow still.. this will improve I'm sure.. but for the moment.. steer clear of it!
None of the above really bothers me much.. the advantages far outweigh the negatives for me really. I tried testing out nk02's ION rom recently and couldn't believe how backward it seemed - StarContacts sucked, Task manager included had expired and it just seemed really lacking.
Within the hour I had reinstalled Hero and was instantly happier.

So I'm on Hero for now.. and here to stay! ;)

9 comments:

  1. +1 I'm very happy with 1.4, the integration with facebook and twitter is awesome. Its much easier to go to Albums > Facebook > Contacts and view their photos than through any other application.
    Is it possible to wuickly tell us how you pushed the old camera files? Cheers

    ReplyDelete
  2. I did have an issue with touchflo initally as well, found it very laggy and unusable. But after switching to the 1.2 ROM by RedGlass, performance has been spectacular!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I grabbed this Camera package from the Roger's ROM as it was conveniently uploaded for me:

    http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?mx1wgj2otm3

    I just saved it on the SD card and then used ASTRO to install it. You could also save it on your PC, hook up your phone using USB and use:

    adb install Rogers_Camera.apk

    ReplyDelete
  4. Is music over A2DP the same as the magic rom or fixed (mine skips a lot if it's actively searching for wifi networks and still once every few minutes if wifi is disabled)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks for your views on the fatal1ty Hero ROM. I'm a very happy user myself, allthough being a very fresh owner of a PVT32A.

    I've read several complaints about TouchFLO and lagging. I don't see this as a problem myself. Maybe I'm just not critical enough, having used a SonyEricsson W810i for years..

    I'll definately follow your blog, looking forward to more Android and Magic stuff.

    All the best.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi, is there a way to just intall the Hero theme's on the HTC magic without using the Fatal1ty Hero ROM?

    ReplyDelete
  7. HI Hero on HTC Magic yeah im loving it two for more that tree week beutiful. also i love to Buy viagra and get that feeling so i can relax and be happy.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Wow.. good for you your HTC works well with you.. having the latest gadgets today seems fun then..

    ReplyDelete