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New Phone - Essentials?

Nyphur

Newbie
Oct 4, 2009
23
3
Hi all.

My Hero (Orange contract) should be delivered this Tuesday, and I'm excited about finally getting my hands on it. Have an iPhone as a company phone but I really wasn't impressed - all mouth and no trousers.

I want to be up and running on the Hero as soon as I can be, and was wondering what the "essential" steps were?

I've read a fair bit on these forums about lag etc when changing screns, and a lot of people are talking about upgrading firmware, or "rooting"? Do i need to do either of these? I don't really understand what rooting is, but am I right in thinking it'll invalidate my warranty? Maybe someone could give me a quick explanation?

Apps-wise, the folowing seem to be essentials, any other apps which you guys view as a necessity. Or any of the below which have better alternatives?...


  • Taskiller
  • 3G Watcher
  • Batterylife app
  • Silent Widget
  • Locale
  • MyBackup Pro
  • ATrackDog
  • WHERE
  • Useful Switchers


Thanks!
 
The first thing you must do is upgrade the ROM on your Hero. Mine is an Orange branded phone and I did the upgrade within an hour of charging it up. No problem with the procedure. It makes the phone VERY smooth. Without the Rom update you will notice some lag and this would become annoying very quickly.

Good luck and thoroughly enjoy the gadget of the year....official.
 
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Why Root - Android Wiki

Rooting is all up to you, your decision.

In my case I just download anything I find in the Market, currently have 170 apps and only 40mb used. :-D

Thanks for the link, and thanks for the ROM info Brigsteer - is it easy to update the ROM?

Hmmm, that why root article seems a little one sided though...

Is there a definitive answer as to whether rooting voids your warranty or not?

Thanks
 
Upvote 0
I disagree, its fairly one sided in favour of "rooting", but given that nothing else on the subject has been suggested, its my only source of info at the moment.

It was written to answer the question "why root?", not to conduct a debate on the pros and cons. There are countless links to other sources of info in posts here, try a forum search.
 
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It was written to answer the question "why root?", not to conduct a debate on the pros and cons. There are countless links to other sources of info in posts here, try a forum search.

Well it has a "what do i lose" section, and there's no mention at all of warranty; moreso poor attempts at humour, so it's not exactly giving all the facts unfortunately.

Thanks for the tip, I'll see if another search turns up someting with a bit more info.
 
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Slug's just trying to help you. He's pretty instrumental in the whole ROM upgrade process, so I'd take his advice with a bit less of a sneer if I were you.

You don't want to take the risk, then don't.

There's no "sneer", and im not trying to alienate yself on my first topic..

Just the suggested article clearly doesn't answer "why root" fully, when it doesnt give a full account of what you stand to lose from "rooting".
 
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