HTC Desire - Newbie advice

[Mattbot2]

Hello guys,

HTC Desire should be here on Monday. Entirely new to Android, coming from a Nokia E71 running Symbian, so this is a bit of a monumental leap forward.

Would like to hear about some good applications please, don't mind paying if it's THAT good but free is preferable.

What sort of settings should I use to get the most out of my phone?

Are there any websites you could point me to that have compiled lots of information like the above?

Thanks a lot,

Matt

[Robin]

i went from a N85 to a Desire. Installed a lot of free Google stuff. You will be amazed at some of them.

Never underestimate the power of http://www.google.com/mobile/skymap/ My g/f loves it :D

Oh and Angry Birds ftw :)

[Spaceboy]

i went from a N85 to a Desire. Installed a lot of free Google stuff. You will be amazed at some of them.

Never underestimate the power of http://www.google.com/mobile/skymap/ My g/f loves it :D

Oh and Angry Birds ftw :)

Are you stalking me ? :eek:

I went from a N85 to a Desire, google apps are very good - especially the maps - free turn by turn SatNav for your car :thumb:
In-built music player is reasonable, facebook app is a must for me, angry birds absolutely rocks, and as Robin mentioned the Skymap is great :cool:

The only app I have paid for is SwiftKey... it replaces the keyboard with a slightly different layout, and does predictive text like you wouldn't believe - it scans previous messages for common phrases and will suggest entire words :thumb: If you do a lot of texting, this is simply superb - but see how you get on with the default first :)

Other than that mine's pretty standard tbh... took me a while to work out widgets and get a decent layout but that's down to personal preferences... I do have on my home screen individual buttons to enable mobile data, wireless, and GPS - mostly because I'm paranoid :ninja: :D

Other Apps I use include:
Quick Settings : handy app giving you shortcuts to phone settings
NetCounter : displays data useage
Advanced Task Killer : Most apps don't "quit" and stay running in the background which can potentially drain battery life. This kills them, no harm done - a must have.
AppBrain : App that connects to the AppBrain website - online management of apps
Twidroid : If you twitter
Last.fm : If you use it
Battle.net : free WoW authenticator
Flashlight : Part of 2.2 and absolutely brilliant - your phone is now a torch, and a pretty decent one at that :thumb:
Dolphin Browser : Nice alternative to the default, but the default is pretty good on its own too
ES File : File management if you like poking about
WiFi Buddy : saves previously known wifi spots, and scans for new wifi - handy when on the move / stopping off in starbucks ;)

[Snakedoc]

My phone remebers all wifi I connect to anyway and reconnects.

Angry Birds
Sky maps
White Noise
Tappatalk
App Brain
Barcode Scanner
Jewels
pvz
Quadrant
Snake
Winamp
Flickr Free

[SilveR_172]

I came from the E71 too in white =) Android is soo much better the E71 i had kept putting down calls , what about yours any bad experiances with it ?

[Mattbot2]

I came from the E71 too in white =) Android is soo much better the E71 i had kept putting down calls , what about yours any bad experiances with it ?

Yeah has generally been very slow and clunky.

[Joey Propane]

For games i'd vote the following:

Radiant - Great retro style shooter that is beautiful to play and look at.

Speedx 3D - Incredibly difficult but addictive gyro based game thats easy to pick up and play and have a quick 5 minute blast on.

Angry Birds - It's just awesome.

GameBoid and SNESoid (with ROM Buddy) - Turns your phone into a fully functional GBA and SNES, pretty much the summit of epicness.

[Aaron]

I'd advise against using a task killer... With the way Android works, if you or the phone isnt running a program which is in the foreground or doing something in the background (at which point, you need it running!), it isnt using any cpu power. Using a task killer just means that the phone has to launch the app again when its needed, which increases cpu usage and decreases battery power. RAM is also unaffected as android auto kills off apps that you havent used in the order from oldest to newest when it runs out of ram.

Some good ones are (that I use for amusement and also work!):

Angry Birds
Sky maps
Tapatalk
Barcode Scanner
Tweetdeck
Netcounter
RAC Traffic
myPlayer (BBC iPlayer for Android)
Paper Toss
Shazam
Sound Meter
Guitar Solo Lite
Talking Tom Cat (just a bit of fun :D)
Unified Remote

[Mattbot2]

So used to having to do it on my E71 so may be being an idiot here.

Do I have to quit apps? Always had to on my E71 but I can't see any options on apps to quit them?

[Aaron]

No - just let android manage it for you :)

[Spaceboy]

just hit the "home" button when you've finished using it :) Hold the home button for "alt+tab" :D

[Aaron]

Yeah, holding the home button will display the last 8 apps you ran, even if they aren't running any more. Quite useful!

[Mattbot2]

Ahh very nice! I'm loving this!

How about tagging people in Facebook status updates? Anyone know anything about that?

[Aaron]

I don't really use the facebook app very much.. If you find out, let me know! :lol:

[Spaceboy]

Ahh very nice! I'm loving this!

How about tagging people in Facebook status updates? Anyone know anything about that?

same as normal facebook? Just write the status update with a @name in the update ?