HD mini ROM upgrade (for South East Asia)

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HTC issued an upgrade today. I think this is what you guys have been waiting for. Check it out. I'm downloading it now.

ROM Upgrade for HTC HD mini
Release Date: 2010-07-08
ROM Version:1.36.707.3

Thank you very much , what the difference from old version?

thanxxx...

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thanx for notifying...

Officially, these are the improvements:

1. The trimmer bar will slide smoothly while trimming the mp3.

2. Enhance the system performance and stability.

3. Improves the ringtone sound quality.


For me, only #2 and #3 are important.

I've just finished flashing the phone. Have to wait for start up and bring all my personal setup and data back to the phone.

Then i'll give it a test run to check for any noticeable improvements.

From the outset, HD mini seems to run smoothly already before the upgrade. Although i have some basic complaints about the new os and/or htc custom software.

1. Calendar from the Manila tabs is seriously crippled. When you slide to the Calendar tab, or jump to it from the Home link, it takes half a minute before the week's schedule comes up. Unlike the old WinMo 6.1 calendar or old 3rd party calendars that jumps right up without any delays. Secondly, there's no way to make duplicates of schedules. For example, i have a "corporate meeting" scheduled for today. After the day is done, another one was set for the following week. Normally, i'd just copy from today, and then paste into 7-days after. But that's impossible to do in Manila Calendar. I'd have to resort back to the WinMo Calendar, which thankfully is still lay hidden in the sub-menus, to do this very basic task. Third, it's fixed to show 7-days schedules only. Can't add more days to it. I hope HTC will take a look at this serious draw back for the otherwise wonderful phone. (This disability will frustrate business folks.)

2. Text Messaging is eye-candy. Which is good. Except, there's a huge trade off. First, the Text tab shows only last 25 messages, and not intuitive at all. It's shown in the ancient per message style. No threading. Although, you can click All Messages to go into the threaded format. Which brings us to the second biggest problem. It's extremely slow. You click on a person, and the messages will build up slowly, taking several seconds to come up one by one, depending on the volume of the conversation with that person. Third, and the worst worst part??? The old trusty speedy WinMo's own versatile text messaging app was killed off. So you're left with no alternative.

3. Contacts/People app is also seriously crippled. This used to be WinMo's ugly but super versatile function. The very attraction that draws people to WinMo. New Contacts app is either broken or buggy. You can't use cut/copy/paste functions in most of the fields, except the very basic ones. As an example, you can do the cut/copy/paste with Mobile Number, but not the rest of it, ie. Car Number, Radio Number, Home Number, etc. So it's very choosy. Of course, if you dig deeper, you're thrown back to WinMo's own Contacts app. Saved the day? No way. It's the opposite. The new weird looking WinMo Contacts do not allow any cut/copy/paste at all, except for the Notes section. I wonder why do they have to axe this very useful core functionality. But the nightmare doesn't end there. If you change a tiny thing in a particular Contact field, saving it will take ages. Basically freezing up the phone for maybe a minute or so. Most people would have probably pried open the back cover and took out the battery. (Because mini doesn't have reset button.) It really looks like the whole phone has crashed. Until, if you're patient enough to wait, and realize it's just super slow to save an editted Contact.

Apart from these 3 nuisances. The rest of the phone works wonderfully.

So, for now, i can only resort to Outlook editting on my netbook, whenever i need to work on the contacts and schedules. Then sync.

But this means, i can't do these basic stuffs real time, as needed, whenever needed. I'll have to remember all the changes of contacts and schedules for the day. And then do my homework when i get home. It doesn't happen everyday. But still a big drawback. Information tends to get lost along the way.

New ROM brings more stability to text messaging. Still super slow, but error free now. Possibly no more bugs, or eliminated to the minimum.

I got around 2000 text messages and more than 1600 contacts in my phone. Probably the reason making the Messaging and Contacts app super slow. (In HD mini, all of them are linked. Updating something in a contact will be updated all across the whole ecosystem.)

But i had more than 20,000 messages and same number of contacts in my old trusty Asus P750 WinMo 6.1 phone. And there was no slow down in either Messaging or Contacts apps. Not even editting and filling up tons of data in the notes field of a contact can put a dent to it. The Calendar app was also fast. Both WinMo's own and third party apps.

I'm back again for more observations on the new ROM update.

Thankfully, HTC brought back the "Snooze to X mins/hours/days" options whenever a schedule reminder pops up. Really wonderful. I love this.

Thank you HTC, for solving one of my major gripes on HD mini.

I hope HTC can take a look at my other gripes (see above, plus a slight problem with excel), and incorporate solutions for the next update.

Another thank you note for HTC is that, my first unit, which seem to hang a lot, was quickly replaced with a brand new unit. Not much questions asked. Now, that's quality product coupled with quality service. Very good. No wonder HTC is rising so quickly.

just updated it yesterday from the HongKong HTC website(ROM Version:1.36.721.3), i guess it's the same as the one mentioned in this post.

Infact i haven't noticed any special change or improvement after upgrading my hd mini, the sliding between different different tabs seems to be smoother, but still it'll be lagged when moving from the home screen to 9-tabs screen.
Like bart3385 said, the "Snooze to X mins/hours/days" options makes the schedule more friendly and logical(so that i won't miss up any of the coming event).

But there're still some things need to be fixed.
1.G-sensor seems to be too much sensitive= =(not that sensitive in the previous rom. Not a big problem if u aren't interested in teeter)
2.Chinese font is still terrible(when compare to the Hong Kong CHT rom), not easy to read as there's no antialiasing when the chinese character is small.(still not a problem for those who dun read/type chinese)
3.Scanty ram!!!Need to keep killing tasks.

To prepare for the upgrade, I understand that the personal data should be backed up first. That itself isn't an issue for my friend cos her data is sync'd to outlook exchange, and SMSes can be backed up via microsoft myphone.

What about programs eg bsbtweak and other apps that I installed on her phone.. Do these need to be reinstalled? If that's the case I need to bring the various cab files along as well, when I begin the labourious task of upgrading the ROM!

What she really needs is a way to desensitise the touchscreen. She finds it too sensitive

SN to download...
HT04PPZ03245

Any Asian serial number can download the ROM upgrade. HTC is just making sure you don't use this on European units, which the ROM is not intended for. In other words, avoiding mismatch.

Although i have no idea what will happen if you install an Asian ROM in a European unit. Aside from losing all the European languages. Will it work?