Well my contract finally allowed me to renew so thought i would take the plunge and retire the Nokia N85 after 18 months of heavy use from text and internet!

Decided to move to the Panther plan which gives 600mins, unlimited text, unlimited (read "500meg") internet, 50 mms messages for £37.50 a month - a huge drop from what i used to pay for all the services on the old contract.

Anyway, decided to go for the Desire as everyone i've spoken to reckons they're pretty decent phones. Anyone got any tips or apps or anything they find useful? Is it possible to access BBC iPlayer?

Thanks.

Rik.

Ive had my Desire for 4 weeks now and have been detailing new apps on my website www.djleekee.co.uk

Click on the TECHY tab to bring up all the phone related links!

Best of luck,

I have had my desire now for a month and it's a fantastic phone, but my tip is get a extra battery, because battery life is terrible.

My favorite app is radiotime, its a internet radio app.

Battery life can be extended if you switch things off when not in use.

Slighty annoying, but does save a lot of battery life.

HTC Desire info:

http://androidforums.com/htc-desire/

Tips: let battery fully drain and re-charge fully for a week or so.
Apps. I have one from the market place called beebplayer, which is a kinda watered down version of iplayer.

get handcent for messages. this gives u alerts that you can customize for missed messages etc.

Beebplayer has been removed from the market place by the developer

Try yamgo for bbc and other terrrestrial channels.

is Yamgo free?

I`ve got myself one today on o2 after being an iphone user,my first impressions are very good I like the feel of the phone and the functionality.I was suprised how many free apps you can get the market place,on the other hand Iam gutted I can not watch tvcatchup via skyfire as it just wont work for me and finally I for one are very much looking forward to android 2.2 bye bye iphone hello the future

Download a task manager to kill apps that work in the background, this will help your battery life. Also if your battery is really that bad then it could be because of the calender, more info here:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=666404

As one of the mods at tvcatchup loves his Desire and calls it sexy ... he insinuated in one post that the app for this is currently being beta tested - I would say its just a matter of weeks - especially as the Froyo is out for the nexus one .. hopefully for the Desire soon too ... fingers crossed on all counts

It's been pretty much confirmed by HTC that the Desire will get Froyo soon.

(I say "pretty much" because given the Hero's tribulations I don't want to be too hopeful!)

Yeah. Just need to signup though.

You should not be using a task killer on Android. The thread you link to is a bug with flickr, if you dont use flickr then it wont be an issue.

Android manages apps, so there is no need to kill an app. In fact it is discouraged. It is best to leave things to the operating system. Android will kill tasks when memory is needed, thus the user will not have to worry about memory management.

http://androidalot.com/applications/...ur-htc-desire/ this is very good. Just don't press the camera icon or the app will crash, it's designed for the nexus one.

Got my desire today .. bit of a steep learning curve in a way, but i'm getting there.

Adding contacts is bloody fiddly ..

Mine arrived at 2.53 but i am working til 6, can't wait to get home and try it out!

What are your first impressions?

Love it. There's a huge amount of stuff in there waiting to be worked out.

I get the feeling i've only really scratched the surface at the moment.

The qwerty keyboard on the texting is pretty fiddly and a teeny bit over-sensitive mind, but i might be able to adjust that.

Haven't even started on the apps yet .. first one i'm going to try getting working is the ZX Spectrum emulator.

My one came with a 4gb memory card thrown in, which was rather excellent

Sounds promising then. According to the reviews on gsm arena they all come with the 4gb memory card however you can currently only install apps to the phone memory and not the memory card which is something they hope to change with the android 2.2 update

If you want something to help typing, then use shapewriter keyboard. Also get the Appbrain market sync app installed, you can then use the Appbrain website. Makes installing/browsing apps a lot easier

How do you install apps from appbrain ?

It's not immediately obvious - i've navigated to the site on the handset, but there's no obvious option to sync or install ?

Heres some of my recommendations based on what I currently have installed:
[LIST][*]XiiaLive [DroidLive]
Great for listening to ShoutCAST streams, can accept most internet radio streams.[*]ASTRO File Manager
Must have for keeping your SD card clean of junk, moving files about etc[*]Gmail Unread Count
Handy widget for showing the number of unread emails on the highly customizable widget[*]Gowalla
Much better than Foursquare - seems to have a large iPhone user base too[*]Springpad
Quite a new app - handy for taking quick notes[*]Handcent SMS
This is a *MUST HAVE*. Much better than the built-in messaging app, which rather oddly doesn't show you the number of characters you've typed into a SMS..[*]WallSwitch
Neat automatic wallpaper switcher[*]Thinking Space
I use FreeMind for project collaboration, which this mind map app syncs with perfectly[*]Google Maps
Another must have - shouldn't need to explain why...[*]Barcode Scanner
And another must have, even if it just for using the QR codes you see some sites using to direct you to apps on the Android Market.[*]aCar
I use this for tracking fuel expenditure / usage. Also keep tracks on regular maintenance schedules. Really useful if you want to cut your fuel usage.[*]3G Watchdog
If you are on a capped 3G tariff (on T-Mobile I have 3Gb a month cap), then this app will track your daily usage and warn you if your going over. If you are on Vodafone with the forthcoming 500Mb cap then this will be of use to you.[*]Zedge Ringtones & Wallpapers
For getting those lovely wallpapers to use with WallSwitch[*]Google Sky Map
Great example of the capabilities of your Desire - uses GPS, accelerometer and compass all the same time to help you with spotting those celestial objects at night[*]AppBrain Market Sync
Another must have. Find your apps on the AppBrain site, mark them to download then simply sync with the app on your phone. Much easier than trawling through the market on your phone.[/LIST]

figured it out .. ignore me

Best to use the AppBrain site on your desktop, not on your phone. Sign in with your google account, then when viewing an app on the site, there should be a button marked 'Install' just below the download count.

I think you need to sign in with the AppBrain app on your phone first before you get the install option on the site.

i haven't even got the appbrain app itself installed yet

*edit*

yes i have .. i just didn't notice it

god i'm not used to this bloody OS !!