Review - Upgrading 2.3 to Android 4.1 jellybean - HTC Desire

CyanogenMod was my favorite OS from the day one it was installed. The beauty of the CM7 helped me to behave my phone same way (almost) like ICS. Now my cousin shared me news last week that jellybean is available on HTC desire

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3MCoYpgSoU
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/376575/20120823/upgrade-htc-desire-android-jellybean-cm10-install.htm





But I was reluctant to move away from CM7 since I‘ve read about the issues after upgrading, though downloaded the ROM and kept things ready.

The next day my phone was fully wet in heavy rain and it was vibrating badly and in a bad shape when I saw it. Removed the battery and kept the phone in a bag of rice (not cooked) for whole night. This had helped me last time when the phone fell in a bucket of waterJ. As expected the phone was working without much issues – whole display had marks and the power button was jammed, still the phone worked perfectly. Unwillingly took the phone to service center after doing a factory reset and it was perfect after 1 hour (spent 50$).

Now I have options since my phone has no user data and tried CM10.

CyanogenMod 10 alpha 1.2

The steps followed are given below
  • Download the CM10 ROM file (link provided above).
  • Google apps are not included in the update (link provided above).
  • Place the downloaded files to the computer.
  • Then, connect the Desire with the PC via USB cord.
  • Select and copy-paste the downloaded files from the computer to your phone’s SD card.
  • Remove the USB cable.
  • Turn off the handset.
  • Hold the Volume Down and Power button simultaneously for entering in recovery mode.
  • Next, you should be in recovery mode menu.
  • From there select “wipe data factory reset” and “wipe cache partition”.
  • Return by selecting “+++go back+++”.
  • Select “install zip from sd card” followed by “choose zip from sd card”.
  • Pick the ROM file first, flash it and then do the same for installing the Google Apps package.
When the installation procedure is over on your phone select “+++go back+++” and “reboot system now”.

It took around 15 minutes and got Jellybean in my HTC. Here’s my review




Overall experience - good – you've got data usage, stylish menu, BrailleBack, Google Now, Wi-Fi tethering (all that comes with 4.1)
Media Player – called as Apollo – crashed initially – started working after restart
Camera – No default camera app – Installed custom app – works and crashes sometimes
Gallery – Not so good – hangs up – Installed lightweight Quickpic – works fine
Performance – very slow compared to CM7 – may be the internal memory and RAM is not enough
File manager – No default file manager – Installed custom app – looks okay
Applications – most of the apps cannot be moved to SD card – can be solved using Link2SD
CM7 features – many features are missing – Theme chooser, CyanogenMod settings, Spare parts
Battery – felt its better than CM7 - 71% remains even after 11 hours (same usage as before)
Task Manager - No Android task manager that comes with ICS and Jellybean
Recent Apps - This is also another beauty of latest Android and is missing - I found an alternative :- installed Apex launcher and it has a feature to view recent apps
Videos - Not impressive !! no default video app - tried MX player and the video lags and crashes sometime
OTG - disappointing... OTG did not work in CM10, no response after attaching the cable
Keyboard - default keyboard is not impressive and my favorite Switkey keyboard is very slow
Nearby devices - could not see an option for wifi direct or nearby devices too.
Notifications - notification panel is very cool, you can swipe to remove them.. but no LED notification for SMS and missed calls

Final verdict – Good one if you can operate your phone slowly and okay with the camera, may be things will be good once official CM10 version is out!!! Sad part is - I have downgraded back to CM7 after a week's experience...I'm happy with CM7 !!!

What about upgrading 2.3 to 4.1 of other models ? Get the ROM specific to your model and try out the same !!

9 Mar 2013 - another ROM - Evervolv

Tried another ROM "Evervolv" today with same steps mentioned above. Here is the link - http://dl.evervolv.com/

Feedback - ROM looks very stable compared to CM 10 alpha and overall experience is great as of now. Data Usage, 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth works without issues

Issues faced - 
1) Android Clock was throwing error with message "Clock stopped unexpectedly" and alarm was not working. Found solution from one of the developer forums - Go to Settings - All Apps - Clock - Reset Data - This resolved the issue

2) Default Camera - Unstable - Replaced with CameraZoom - Works fine

3) No File Manager

10 Mar 2013 - CyanogenMod 10 4.2.2 - Unofficial

Replaced Evervolv with another CM10 Jelllybean. 
ROM is available in XDA site - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=809328

Feedback - This ROM seems very stable compared to the Alpha version I tried few months back. HTC Desire became smoother after the flash and it has most of the features of Jellybean. 

Here are the powerful features of Jellybean after update

Quick Notification panel - Notification bar is simply awesome
Profiles - Similar to windows users:- multiple users can customize their profile
Daydream - Similar to screensaver:- screen saver widget will be shown while dock or charging
Data Usage - view and limit internet usage
Google Now - powerful voice search and cool Google cards
Camera Panorama feature - needs fix the screen fluctuates

Also it has default File Manager and Theme support. Another awesome stuff about this ROM - More free space compared to Evervolv

Issues faced -
1) Playing music via headphone - Music player Apolo crashes on connecting headset. Replaced with another music player - Looks okay now


Screenshots


Comments

  1. Thanks for the review.. I will wait for some more time..

    ReplyDelete
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