The HD2 is outfitted with a huge 4.3 inch multi touch screen, a 1GHz snapdragon processor and the ability to hold the phone however you want to make phone calls. There is a laundry list of other really important features I should be mentioning, but oh well! Huge screen and 1GHz processor sums it up nicely.

Directly from T-Mobile, the phone comes loaded with the latest and greatest version of HTC’s Sense UI. I doubt most will ever understand how big a deal this is, but considering this thing runs windows mobile 6.5, a top notch UI like Sense is more than welcome!

Around here, we have a problem with running things “as is.” It’s just the rebel in me, the need to do exactly what they told me not to do. If I were to buy an iPhone, I would jailbreak it the minute I get home. If I were to buy some sort of android device, it would be rooted in the car on the drive back from the store. And so, my beloved HD2 has been Hard SPL’d and ready for war!

Hard SPL is a little firmware hack that allows us to load up custom ROMs on the device. This is where the real fun begins. Custom ROMs offer the absolute latest and greatest from all aspects, be it software updates from newer devices to new and improved radio drivers for the cell phone radio itself. It’s all available and waiting for you. But you will be warned! You can and will brick your device should you not read and follow instructions! Luckily, there is a wealth of information available on the forums and lots of people willing and able to help out.

After you’ve flashed your first ROM, you will never be able to stop. You will develop a constant need to flash. You will read things like “so much faster than the previous ROM,” and your instincts will get the best of you. And then your mind takes over, you start to tell yourself things like “man, this really is faster!” But its okay, I welcome you! I’ve been waiting for you! We will walk this sad road together! And we will discuss why we think the device freezes when it wakes up from suspend mode. And so on and so forth.

Mental issues aside, I am here today to discuss what I am currently running on my HD2. What ROM I am running, how it’s set up and even an app or two. Not that anyone cares, but I like to tell myself you guys love me, so let’s dig in!

Usually I stick to Dutty’s ROMs, but today I went back over to the NRG camp to see what was going on. NRG is just about the most popular chef there is, mainly because he cooks ROMs for a long list of devices. This is where I developed my love hate relationship with his ROMs. I remember having my Touch Pro II running NRG’s ROMs, and it wasn’t always a nice thing. Some obvious things would be missed up or missing or simply ignored because he didn’t have the time to devote a little more TLC to one device. But none the less, the ROMs for the most part were always stellar and always worked.

So coming home to a NRG ROM would feel very familiar. Then came the exciting part, which version would I select? He cooked so many it is almost over kill! I said almost! After running Dutty’s No frills strictly performance ROMs, I felt like it was time for some eye candy, so I went with the NRG GTX version. Boy oh boy what a choice!

Figure 1 My home screen after setup

GTX is a very attractive skin for HTC’s Sense UI. Just about everything has been retouched to pull together a beautiful white colored experience. It’s done so well, you could swear it came from HTC themselves. On first boot, it’s really a thing of beauty to look at. Even hours after setting up the phone, I can’t help but look at the theme in awe. But GTX shouldn’t have all the credit here, NRG has added some little tweaks and touches of his own as well. He really pulled it all together nicely.

Visuals aside, the NRG performance and stability is very much present here. This ROM is as fast and responsive as they come. There is no lag at all when navigating the UI or when using app in your everyday routine. Also present are NRG’s expert chef choices. Things like using the default text messaging method over HTC’s buggy offering, or the inclusion of ArkSwitch task manger to assist in multitasking.

Figure 2 NRG has included the new lock screen from HTC.

NRG even added a widget of his own that will display the change log in his newest rom, very nice! Because his cooking style and choices are so mature, there is very little tweaking I have to do after a flash. The first is to turn the backlight back to auto; NRG has the backlight set to full brightness by default. Second is to log in to MyPhone to pull down contacts, then off to marketplace to download my apps. And lastly, install the rest of my apps from the .cab files on my storage card. It may sound like a lot, but trust me, it really isn’t. NRG’s ROMs are very usable right from flash. Nice!

Figure 3 My quick links applications

From the marketplace I grab a few key apps I use every day. Personal Assistant from Page One is my first download. This app allows me to add just about all my financial accounts from bank accounts to phone bills. It has a very straight forward UI, and really keeps me in the loop as to where my money is going.

Then I grab my favorite twitter app MoTweet, followed by my second favorite TouchTwit. Please don’t ask me why I feel the need to use two twitter apps, because I don’t have an answer for you!

Lastly I grab Wordy. This is a highly addicting word game, and just in case you want to know, I suck at it! Go figure.

From my storage card, I install my SPB wallet app, which keeps a digital copy of all my cards for reference should I need them. EverNote for all my notes. There are a few more apps, but last but not least I install IMAP Pusher. This is a neat little app to enable push on all my Gmail email accounts on the phone. I simply cannot live without this, and kudos to the developer who took the time to make it happen.

All in all, my setup of this ROM took about 5 minutes, and it was a very worthy flash. My only complaint really isn’t a complaint anymore because I am used to it. For whatever reason, NRG’s ROMs just seem to have some sort of vendetta against the battery. This rom is no different; it eats through the battery like you would not believe. But because it’s so beautiful, I really don’t care! To combat this I have an extra battery with me at all times, so eat away pretty little ROM…eat away! Besides, it could be worse, I could be using a Sprint EVO.

I highly recommend this ROM to anyone running a HD2, or any NRG supported device for that matter. It’s simply a thing of beauty. Now, if you’ll be so kind as to excuse me while my HD2 and I go off to fight crime!

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So instead of just swiping upwards on the Sense home screen once for a list of quick shortcuts to applications you can keep swiping up or down to reveal fully customizable screens that you can populate with anything from app grids, clocks with/without weather, tasks (new feature), notifications, etc.  Touchflo was a pain in the ass to modify to your liking but with Sense we’ve seen a lot more effort to make these changes functional in the hands of the average smartphone user (well, average WinMo user anyway.)  If you’ve never used this before then it will be easy to get going.  Just go HERE and HERE and install both (XDA username required). 

The first is the actual home screen modification and the second is the editor that makes all the difficult changes for you.  If you’ve got this cooked into your ROM then go ahead and install as well.  If you’ve installed a previous version the author wants you to uninstall, soft reset, then install for best results.  Don’t be lazy and mess up your own phone when you’ve been warned.  Both programs integrate into one another so well that I doubt you’ll be able to tell when you’re switching between them.  The whole package works nicely, although the lock screens are a little glitchy and slow.  It could be my incredibly old Fuze or the fact this was made for the HD2, but I just don’t use them and it works like a charm.  Here is the change log for the new CHT:

Changelog:
#v1.8.0
-[new] many lockscreen improvements
-[new] new quick link types: switches, notifications and misc
-[new] wallpaper controls: home, all tabs, lockscreen
-[new] wide scrolling home wallpaper
-[new] 4 home levels and landscape are customizable
-[new] tasks
-[new] new list control for appointments and tasks (unlimited item count)
-[new] anything will hide behind the expanded app/tasks list (not just quick links)
-[new] music player with 3 layouts
-[new] text color settings
-[new] analog clock is x-axis movable and resizable
-[speed] significant boost to quick links animation speed/smoothness
-[change] tab slider is now always visible on white submenus (related to retractable slider)
-[fixed] many lockscreen related problems
-[fixed] highlights that stick
-[fixed] second hand freezing
-[removed] animated wallpapers (not weather wallpapers, just the 3 animated ones)

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Version 3.5.4 (May 14, 2010):

• Changes in the Internet search widget
• Fixed a couple of issues around logging into Facebook and Twitter
• Backlight support for new devices
• Other bug fixes and optimizations

Doesn’t look like a few people in the forums are happy about the Internet Search Engine Widget getting changed from Google to Bing, but I have sort of warmed up to the new version of Bing. Nothing else has been disclosed about the optimizations but it looks like the SPB Forum Team indicate that they are subtle and not directly for Windows Mobile. In any case, it also appears that Twitter is also not fixed but that is something that has been on the burner for a while now.

Head on over to the SPB Forums for more information or download it HERE. We will keep you posted if there is any further information released by SPB.

(read)

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Between many other improvements it includes:
- Speed improvement (up to 40% on some devices).
- Live wallpapers!!
- New widgets
- Tap&Hold to move widgets.

(via: WMPU)

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  As you can see there are four different versions of HTC’s Sense UI and then the last is Microsoft’s UI answer in Titanium that comes in the Windows Mobile 6.5 ROM. Titanium is always present on all NRG’s ROMS and all that is necessary to have a look is to disable HTC Sense by: Start/Settings/Home/Items and uncheck HTC Sense and Check Windows Default (Titanium) With Permission from NRG, here is a great breakdown that he wrote:

Standard Sense 2.5:

• Retains the stock functionality of the Sense UI. The files have been compressed by "CFC" compression. making the UI lighter and faster.

MaxManila Version:

• The hometab layout has been changed to add 4 notification icon (calls, calendar, texts, emails). Easy access to those functions by just tapping the icons.
• Dual clock array
• The ability to turn different panels/icons on or off, by accessing a hidden settings screen (swipe down to show)
• Automatic locking ability
• Link to the original thread for this mod is here > Click <

Cookie HomeTab:

• This is probably the best version and the way Sense should have been designed by HTC.
• Offers the biggest customization ability out of all versions. You can drag items on the screen to your heart’s desire, add/remove bars or items etc
• Three built in locking screens. "HD Mini" style, Manila style or Windows style.
• 3 pages of quicklinks with configurable amount of shortcuts displayed
• So much more…
• Link to the original thread for this mod is here > Click <

GTX Themed:

• This is a white themed Sense 2.5 with an older version of the Cookie HomeTab mod, built in.
• Android styled taskbar
• Matching dialer
• Matching start menu background and Action screen background
• Link to the original thread for this mod is here > Click <

Titanium Version:

• This is a minimal version without Sense in it. It’s used primarily for people that like to customize the default 6.5 homescreen (Titanium)
• You can use it to install alternate homescreens like SPB Mobile Shell, etc
• Very low memory footprint and good battery life, but very simple and lacks a lot of features that you would otherwise have available in Sense..

I know I am a little long here but I could not bury this on the second page. But there you have it, a great breakdown between the current ROM Versions available for the TP2 and many other HTC Devices currently being cooked for by NRG over at XDA. So head on over to his TP2 ROM Thread for more information or any one of his many other Device Platforms he currently cooks for here:

Touch Pro 2/AT&T Tilt 2:

 (¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.- ‘Energy’ |Apr 18| 21899|23559 –.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯)

HTC HD2:

(¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.- ‘Energy’ |Apr 18| 21899|23559 –.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯)

HTC Touch Pro/AT&T Fuze:

(¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.- ‘Energy’ |Apr 18| 21899|23559 –.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯)

There are many more including CDMA Versions as well as the T-Mobile HTC HD2. just check out any of NRG’ threads for more information and don’t forget to buy him a coffee if you like what he does.

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The XDA thread is located here and make sure to install the contacts and picture fix located here. If you like the project make sure to donate to both the developer for the theme and ThrottleLauncher.

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Back to ThrottleLauncher. The change log is as follow:

Core changes:

- Speed improvement (FPS limited to 60). – Solved weather not showing images problem.

- Weather can now be taken from Accuweather, ConflippersWeather (using accuweather code preceded by ‘#’) and Google weather (with ‘City, Country’ format).

- Weather now tries to geolocate by IP address to get the correct weather when the locations is ‘auto’ (without the quotes).

- Solved Stocks plugin loading issue.

- Solved issues when texts contain non ASCII characters (they will not show, but they will not make TL crash).

- Background item issue when row is not scrollable.

- Added text images scale to scale the text images (wasn’t supporting high dpi screen graphics).

- Solved an issue when calling age action inside threaded procedures without OpenGL.

- Improved Haptic Feedback.

- Solved running applications updating issues.

- AppToDate support

Light3D theme:

- Contacts now works with both kinetic and direct scrolling.

- Icons now show pressed event.

Improved widgets:

- Weather widget not showing pictures problem. Now should work Out of the Box, even showing the correct location by geoip. (Remove all cities to go back to default values).

- Includes a search widget plugin for google (just launches the browser).

- Changed appointments graphics.

- Month calendar widget now allows 2 sizes for both week view and month view.

- Includes a NitrogenControl widget.

The XDA thread for ThrottleLauncher can be found here. The WP7 theme should run on all resolution devices with a touchscreen.

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You should load this to main memory for speed purposes and it supports all screen resolutions.

For complete release information and download instructions head here to the developer’s website and here to the XDA thread. Of course, remember to use the donate link if you like APBilbo’s work.

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