Who would have predicted that Barnes and Noble’s new Nook Tablet would be rooted? Oh, everyone? Well, it still happened, and that’s good news for modders who are looking forward to hacking the bejeezus out of these low-cost tablets. More »
The tireless tinkerers over at XDA have assembled a definitive guide to loading the Hero’s custom-baked Android build onto G1s. It’s fairly involved and a little risky, but hardly unfamiliar territory to HTC fans. [XDA, GetYourDroidOn—Thanks, Patrick!] More »
HTC has always known their biggest weakness: Windows Mobile. They’ve done their best to hide the aged interface in glossy costumes and bolster performance, but they can only do so much—the OS is slow, buggy and can drain battery life on certain hardware. Luckily, Windows Mobile responds well to per-device modification. A dedicated community of hackers called XDA has built a collection of streamlined, debugged, turbocharged OS builds (or ROMs) to resuscitate your flagging HTC phone, along with some less daunting smartphone tweaks for the weaker stomached.
The Xda “Helen” from O2 has made its way onto the forums and it’s looking HOT (yeah, we thought we’d go all summer car commercial on you, turn things up a notch). A slider running Windows Mobile 6 Pro, the Helen clocks in at 520MHz with 64MB of RAM. Micro SD compliments a handy 256MB of built-in memory, the 2MP/3MP cameras are nice, and the quad band GSM and EDGE with limited 3G support and Wi-Fi is necessary. The FM tuner? Maybe overkill.
The only uncertainty is whether we’ll see a stylus to navigate WM6 Pro. Slider+stylus=evidence that smartphones are getting way more/less geeky every day.
