Yesterday I put a phone accidently in washing machine - k800I - it is dead. Ordered a GTC Desire form mobiles.co.uk and has arrived. Great service.

However, I now have the HTC Desire HD in a nice box smelling of newness

Anyone got any tips for HTC Desire HD in terms of first starting it, charging first time etc? This is my first time with smart phone.

I would plug it into the mains and charge it fully. When you first plug it in, the LED in the top left will be orange...when its fully charged it will be green. Once the light changes to green I would let it charge for another 30mins or so.

I dont think there is any harm in using it whilst charging...its what I did...couldnt resist it.

Ensure you do a charge/discharge cycle at least 5 times. That is charge the phone fully, then use it until the battery dies, then charge it fully etc. This will help in the battery lasting longer.

Apart from that enjoy the phone....its a great piece of kit. The best phone on the market, until the Galaxy S 2 came out.

What is a charge / discharge cycle?

Charge the phone fully, then use it until the battery dies. Do not charge the phone until the battery dies. Do this at least 5 times.

Once you have done this, then you can charge as and when you want.

Brilliant, thank you.

Any tips on anything to disable when I first start it up?

When you turn the phone on, it will go through a setup process. Set, time, location, language, gmail account etc.

I would connect to a WIFI network if you have one. Then it will save your 3G data allowance. Visit the market and start downloading. If you do have a gmail account, it will sync your contacts and calendar for you. There are plenty of threads in this forum on suggested apps, just have a read.

I wouldnt necessarily disable anything....especially once you are connected to a wifi network. The phone will use the wifi network if there is one, if there isnt one it will then use the 3G network.

Re. battery I found a great little charging/battery conditioning cycle to try and it improved my battery life by almost double.

Charge it from empty for 8 hours while switched on
Disconnect from charger and switch off
Charge for 1 hour unplug from charger and wait 30 minutes
plug back in and charge for another hour.

Then after this try to run battery down to empty before charging about 5-6 times to keep the battery in top condition.

I also bought a spare battery for mine and did the same thing with this.

Also try lookinghttp://www.techradar.com/news/phone-...rove-it-697772 here

This is called bump charging and is considered harmful to your battery in the longterm.