HTC Desire advice?

[ciphergoth]

On Sunday night I actually had a dream about buying the HTC Desire. On Monday morning, eating my breakfast, I heard an ominous clicking noise that told me my hard drive was about to die. Putting these together, and with BiCon on the way, I finally stopped resisting temptation and went and bought one.

So, those of you who already have them - any advice? What applications should I be installing? What games do I need? How do I play videos copied to the memory card? Anything else I should know?

Looking forward to seeing lots of you at BiCon!

Update: I would have thought this was obvious, but: since I've just bought the phone this isn't a thread for advocating which phone to buy. Just had to screen one comment that had no purpose but to say I should have bought a different one!

Comments

[pir.livejournal.com]

http://docs.google.com/View?id=dc3vdjtr_0fqd6p6c3

Welcome to Android!

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

The ASTRO app allows you to browse stuff from your drive and play around with it, I've not played video much myself.

Suggested apps:
Astro: Useful file manager
Advanced Task Killer: Android is pretty good at managing memory, but this stops stuff if you need to.
ColorNote: Nice little app for quick notes
Jewels: Ubiquitous game
Meebo IM: All your IM in one

Re: Welcome to Android!

[shadowdaddy.livejournal.com]

I've found the ES File Explorer is better/lighter than ASTRO so it's worth a try as well.

And I use NoteMe, but will have to explore ColorNote.

[sweetcyanide.livejournal.com]

Desires are awesome, have had mine a couple of months and I still love it :-)

For videos, something like doubletwist is good. Or you'll need a file explore (es explorer is a good one) and then you can select the file to play with the inbuilt video player. They will all need to be in mpeg 4, but I think there's a few players out there now that do other formats.

I couldn't like without Swype- I think you still have to have to download from the web rather that the market, but it makes it so much easier to to type!

For a newsreader, newsrob is good. Twicca is the best app I've found for twitter. I use the kindle and last fm apps lots too. Launcher pro is the best home screen replacement I've found.

Evernote is brilliant for note taking, and the gtasks app is useful if you use google tasks.

Have lots of fun! :-)

[pir.livejournal.com]

The swype beta has closed, unfortunately.

[sweetcyanide.livejournal.com]

Oh no, that sucks :-(

Am sure it's been so successful it'll be let launched properly soon though!

[pir.livejournal.com]

The problem is they're going for easier markets; being preinstalled on a phone range rather than purchases from individuals. It's unclear if you'll ever be able to buy it from the Market.

[sweetcyanide.livejournal.com]

Glad I downloaded it when I did then! :-/

[andrewducker]

K9 - a fork of the original mail client that supports IMAP IDLE/Push.
Google Gesture Search
Google Maps
Flixster movie app - does Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB, plus local movie times
Wapedia - Wikipedia reader.
Spotify (if you're willing to pay £10/month for music)
Facebook app
3G Watchdog - keeps track of your download/upload usage.
xbmc remote (if you use xbmc to watch tv)
barcode scanner - vital for downloading things from web pages that have one of those cool 2D barcodes.
LJBeetle occasionally for LJ posting
Delicious plugin for the browser
Quick Save plugin for the browser to allow me to save items to ReadItLater (which I can then read in Firefox when I get home)

Edit - and seconding Swype. It's a keyboard replacement, and you have to get onto the beta list to get access to it. But it's vastly superior to the built-in keyboard.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

Sadly:

http://beta.swype.com/

The Swype Beta is CLOSED

June 2010: Thanks for your interest, the Beta is now closed.

Please register here and we will notify you when the beta re-opens.

[andrewducker]

It said that (only with "April" in it) when I first registered. I recommend leaving them your email address.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

OK, thanks - done!

[simont]

I don't have an Android phone myself, but on general principles if someone asks about Android games I have to plug the Android port of my puzzle collection :-)

[alexmc.livejournal.com]

> I heard an ominous clicking noise that told me my hard drive was about to die.

This happened to me a few minutes ago. Waaaaaah.

(Luckily it was just my media external drive so nothing that is important, and it is all backed up)

[purplerabbits.livejournal.com]

Am sorry, have no advice, cos am ded of envy...

[barakta]

IAWTC

[lovingboth]

How much, where from and will you be letting people have a play at BiCon? :)

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

I suppose if I didn't have a netbook, I might consider a smart phone.

How much was it? Did you get it locked to a network? Which one?

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

I daren't go into that sort of thing here - I will certainly hear that I went for the wrong deal and I really don't feel like it. I'll tell you all about it when I see you!

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

*laugh* Fair enough. I have to say that potential cost (either initial payment or contract payments) are one of the biggest things putting me off smartphones at the moment. I can't justify either an outlay of a couple of hundred quid, or being locked into a £30+ a month contract.

Hopefully see you at BiCon on Friday?

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

The potential cost is what stayed my hand for a long time, as it should.

Yaay! Looking forward very much to seeing you!

[andrewducker]

I'm paying £25/month for my HTC Desire. I'm fairly sure you can't get it any cheaper than that.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

See, since I'm currently on a PAYG contract and paying out less than £10 a month and getting free text messages and a reasonable wodge of free web acess for that (more than I ever use, anyway), I don't see the appeal of changing. I suppose if I were using web applications a lot I would, but really I don't feel the need.

[juliet]

FWIW, you can currently get the HTC Wildfire (the slightly-less-shiny cousin of the Desire) for £20/month from TMobile. 2 yr contract though. (I have just done this; dithered between that & the Desire but the cost difference swayed me in the end!) If one *can* afford the extra tenner a month I think the Desire is shinier (better screen, slightly better specs in various ways) but for me personally it wasn't worth it.

Apps: the one I use most (on my current G1, which is about to die & which [insert billing nonsense here] thus the switch to the Wildfire) which hasn't already been mentioned is ConnectBot which does SSH, & apparently VNC. I also love Evernote across many devices. And there's a cute thing called Google Sky Map which does STARS. And a London City tube app. I use Twidroid for Twitter but doubtless there are other options.

[xanna.livejournal.com]

I see simont has already plugged his Portable Puzzles. It's the first thing I install anywhere and I couldn't live without it.

TopSETgame also for puzzly goodness.

Connectbot is a terminal

Aldiko is a great ebook reader, that I also couldn't live without.

myPlayer for BBC iplayer, streaming, but also downloading, and live streaming TV.

They messed with the brightness stuff in the last Android upgrade, so now my Hero needs Dimmer, which takes the brightness to below the lowest you can set manually.

I second what people have said about Astro.

Those are all free.

Have fun in the store.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Wow. Loaded Aldiko, looked at the most popular free books, accidentally downloaded about two dozen. Coolness - thanks!

[self-etcetera.livejournal.com]

just done the same! :)

[self-etcetera.livejournal.com]

I've been really happy with my Desire, found it occasionally needs to be switched off to clear some errors. Apps that I like are google sky map, colour note and goals to do (based on GTD system).

[ephermata.livejournal.com]

Congrats on the new phone!

I've enjoyed Layar and the game "Zombies, Run!" Layar overlays points of interest on your vision, such as geo-located tweets or locations of recent muggings. Zombies, Run! asks you to actually physically run from zombies that chase you as you go from point A to point B.

Layar review:
http://gizmodo.com/5292748/layar-first-mobile-augmented-reality-browser-is-your-real-life-hud

Zombies, Run review:
http://www.androidapps.com/t/zombies-run

[shadowdaddy.livejournal.com]

The budget app I've been using is in the market and at www.financisto.com

[http://users.livejournal.com/_lj_sucks_/]

Obviously my calculator (http://www.appbrain.com/app/com.ath0.rpn) :-)

[skullculture.livejournal.com]

Google Sky Map. Choice of Broadsides. I also second Layar, Connectbot and Aldiko.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Think I'm doing it right - I have all but the second already!