Hey new here, some questions

[Guest Echo30]

Hey all, new Omnia II user here!

I live close to Toronto, so I'm with Bell. I just got my device a couple weeks ago. I'm a huge cell phone tech fan, but until now have never really been able to afford a good phone. I had the original HTC Touch (blechh, very slow lol) when it came out, but after that had to downgrade to a normal cell phone until now.

I went with the O2 basically for WM. My wife went with the iPhone, and while I think it's a fantastic phone, it's just not customizable enough for me. And nothing really in the Bell lineup stood out to me. Maybe the Legend, but more on that later. I love the fact that you can twist and turn WM upside down if you want to. I've had some fun with the ThrottleLauncher stuff (it's improved quite a bit since my Touch days). And here's where my questons come into play...

(I've lurked and read a bit, but haven't found definitive answers to these)

1) Can you flash Bell phones?

I like the Samsung style menus (wm menus are sooo dry looking), but I would like to do away with the cube and TouchWiz. Way too laggy and gimmicky. I've come to absolutely love the 6.5 homescreen, and the Customizer app let me fix it up perfect to my liking and use.

2) Do screen protectors inhibit the resistive screen performance? I've got a good one on, but the protector is not very smooth, so it's a little frictiony. I want to take it off, but don't want to ruin the screen (I'm not rough with my phones).

3) Android software intrigues me. But only in the way that I don't understand why everyone loves it so much.

When it first came out, I thought it looked more like Windows 3.1 than a modern smartphone OS. Just these bulky looking icons in random places. No schedule/daily info, etc. And the rest of the world can't be impressed with open source the way developers are. I mean it looks flashy with the animations, and 2.2's moveable backgrounds look pretty slick, but other than that it just looks so simple and basic. So an honest and NOT mean-spirited question of; what is making it so popular?

4) What is everyone's feelings on WM7?

I think it looks great, and has really good potential, however I'm worried it may be a little too simple. The one single long list of apps? Doesn't sound very organized or useful in day to day use.

5) spb shell

Can you change up the home screen? Are there different layouts and clock fonts? Is there an improvement with lag?

Just cause what I've seen of it so far just isn't my thing.

6) Does the "windows update" option do anything? lol

6a) Anyone know if MS is releasing an official 6.5 update? Or have they cut and run in preparedness for 7?

Sorry for the wall of text guys, but thank you for any help you can give! Either way I'm loving my O2!

[Guest Vostradamus]

1) Can you flash Bell phones?

I like the Samsung style menus (wm menus are sooo dry looking), but I would like to do away with the cube and TouchWiz. Way too laggy and gimmicky. I've come to absolutely love the 6.5 homescreen, and the Customizer app let me fix it up perfect to my liking and use.

Can't answer on this for I've never had a Bell phone, but I guess it should be possible

2) Do screen protectors inhibit the resistive screen performance? I've got a good one on, but the protector is not very smooth, so it's a little frictiony. I want to take it off, but don't want to ruin the screen (I'm not rough with my phones).

I think it could depend on the quality of the screen protector... I got some off ebay and I didn't notice any loss in performance on the touchscreen

3) Android software intrigues me. But only in the way that I don't understand why everyone loves it so much.

When it first came out, I thought it looked more like Windows 3.1 than a modern smartphone OS. Just these bulky looking icons in random places. No schedule/daily info, etc. And the rest of the world can't be impressed with open source the way developers are. I mean it looks flashy with the animations, and 2.2's moveable backgrounds look pretty slick, but other than that it just looks so simple and basic. So an honest and NOT mean-spirited question of; what is making it so popular?

I guess the main thing is that, seeing the direction taken by microsoft for the next OS, android will become the only choice to have a device with which you can do what YOU want instead of just being blessed with the chance of doing what their majesties the manufacturers decide you might be allowed to do....

4) What is everyone's feelings on WM7?

I think it looks great, and has really good potential, however I'm worried it may be a little too simple. The one single long list of apps? Doesn't sound very organized or useful in day to day use.

looks like a potential clone of the iphone os to me.... when my current device will get too old to be used I'll most probably switch to android (see previous point)

5) spb shell

Can you change up the home screen? Are there different layouts and clock fonts? Is there an improvement with lag?

Just cause what I've seen of it so far just isn't my thing.

plenty of customizations possible (not really thanks to spb though).... you might want to take a look at my MsM (link in my signature) :(

6) Does the "windows update" option do anything? lol

6a) Anyone know if MS is releasing an official 6.5 update? Or have they cut and run in preparedness for 7?

Sorry for the wall of text guys, but thank you for any help you can give! Either way I'm loving my O2!

lol good question.... don't really know, looks quite pointless to me :(

[Guest nutpantz]

bell phones can be flashed. just like any phone you have to unlock it first.

bell will unlock it for 75$

dont forget flashing your rom VOIDS your warrenty

i have been having problems with my wifi not working after a soft reset. i almost have them willing to unlock it for free. which is the least they can do im on my 4th phone.

i have the same phone from bell and will flash it a day after my warrenty runs out.

[Guest xaznxplaya]

I'm with Bell as well and have flashed my phone many times untill now, never had an issue.

[Guest Echo30]

Cool thanks for the thoughts guys. Still not sure if I'll attempt to flash or not. I'm starting to get pretty frustrated with how s...l..o..w.. ...th..e ...sa..msu..n.g... key....b..oa..rd.. is. And the SMS they give you is terrible.

Also, I tried the SlideIT demo and it was even slower than the Samsung keyboard, and on top of that, didn't even register my "slides" half the time.

Here's a question I wanted to post in another thread but didn't want to hijack it.

What tweaks are recommended? I keep reading "spend a couple hours tweaking", but what exactly should those be??

[Guest msra6la2]

Hey all, new Omnia II user here!

I live close to Toronto, so I'm with Bell. I just got my device a couple weeks ago. I'm a huge cell phone tech fan, but until now have never really been able to afford a good phone. I had the original HTC Touch (blechh, very slow lol) when it came out, but after that had to downgrade to a normal cell phone until now.

I went with the O2 basically for WM. My wife went with the iPhone, and while I think it's a fantastic phone, it's just not customizable enough for me. And nothing really in the Bell lineup stood out to me. Maybe the Legend, but more on that later. I love the fact that you can twist and turn WM upside down if you want to. I've had some fun with the ThrottleLauncher stuff (it's improved quite a bit since my Touch days). And here's where my questons come into play...

(I've lurked and read a bit, but haven't found definitive answers to these)

1) Can you flash Bell phones?

I like the Samsung style menus (wm menus are sooo dry looking), but I would like to do away with the cube and TouchWiz. Way too laggy and gimmicky. I've come to absolutely love the 6.5 homescreen, and the Customizer app let me fix it up perfect to my liking and use.

2) Do screen protectors inhibit the resistive screen performance? I've got a good one on, but the protector is not very smooth, so it's a little frictiony. I want to take it off, but don't want to ruin the screen (I'm not rough with my phones).

3) Android software intrigues me. But only in the way that I don't understand why everyone loves it so much.

When it first came out, I thought it looked more like Windows 3.1 than a modern smartphone OS. Just these bulky looking icons in random places. No schedule/daily info, etc. And the rest of the world can't be impressed with open source the way developers are. I mean it looks flashy with the animations, and 2.2's moveable backgrounds look pretty slick, but other than that it just looks so simple and basic. So an honest and NOT mean-spirited question of; what is making it so popular?

4) What is everyone's feelings on WM7?

I think it looks great, and has really good potential, however I'm worried it may be a little too simple. The one single long list of apps? Doesn't sound very organized or useful in day to day use.

5) spb shell

Can you change up the home screen? Are there different layouts and clock fonts? Is there an improvement with lag?

Just cause what I've seen of it so far just isn't my thing.

6) Does the "windows update" option do anything? lol

6a) Anyone know if MS is releasing an official 6.5 update? Or have they cut and run in preparedness for 7?

Sorry for the wall of text guys, but thank you for any help you can give! Either way I'm loving my O2!

1) don't know

2) nope, mine does not anyway

3) Visual Effects are just as great as those on the iphone, GUI is much better on the Android than it is on WM, Mulitasking and it's improving as I write

4) s***

5) haven't used it in..... like half a yr, so have forgotten bout most of its features so don't know (I had SPB v3)

6) nothing at all, it is basically there to waste RAM and Storage on every WM device that has WM installed. So evil of M$ to think up such ingenious idea to make WM shitter than it should never have been

[Guest nutpantz]

What tweaks are recommended? I keep reading "spend a couple hours tweaking", but what exactly should those be??

its personal preference.

i like camera self portait

sms remove the skin

sms threaded

5 grid for menu

i stopped touch wiz

no clear type

no error reporting

removed camera sounds

and a bunch of other things i dont rember.

nutz