Lost & Confused

[ScandaLex]

Not sure if this is the right place to post this.... If this is the wrong spot, my apologies in advance.

As many of you know, I just rec'd my brand new PPC-6700, and it’s not even a week old.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading in terms of making the decision to switch from the 700p to 6700. Yet, with all this talk of custom roms, kitchens, and AKU’s, for novices like me who has never used a PPC– all of this is so overwhelming.

Which takes me to why I am confused. After reading this thread - http://ppcgeeks.com/xda-to-pull-all-...ext-t2817.html - I dont know what it is I should download for my phone; especially since it was also mentioned somewhere (don’t recall the exact post) to get them while you can. There are SO many roms in these forums and I’ve read many comments where some work and some don’t.

I’ve done so much reading here that I’m dizzy and still lost. I don’t want to kill my PPC before I’ve had a chance to fully enjoy it……. HELP?!?

[chuque]

the advice I offer is to use the device for a few days or a week and learn how you are going to use it. If you aren't using it for music/video playback then no need tweaking it for that. If you find that the GPS and mapping functions are something you really like then gear it for that. If you don't need immediate notification of e-mail, then don't bother with finding a push mail solution.

There is a lot of software out there, and if you try to install all of it your PPC will run so slow (if at all) that it will be unusable. So take some time and define what it is you need from a PPC.

Also there is a lot of 'eye candy' software out there too, (I run a few of them myself) these programs often are the ones that are the biggest resource hogs.

[ScandaLex]

chuque, thanks for responding. I probably wont be using it for music / video playback; in fact, I know I wont be. I have a 80G video iPod for that.

I doubt that I need anything related to GPS & mapping, so I wont be looking into that.

As far as eye candy is concerned, I did purchase something (http://www.jgui.net/black/vistaspinterface/index.html) that was a waste of money. I don’t want to find myself purchasing a lot of useless stuff. After buying this program, I feel like I just gave money away.

[luv2chill]

If you're new to Windows Mobile then I highly recommend you don't flash anything you find here. As the other poster suggested, take a good amount of time to just use your device as-is, mess around with various software (most is shareware--you don't pay for it unless you use it), watch how various poorly-written programs (there are a lot of them out there) can really screw up your device, get used to hard resetting, etc.

I think this forum paints an inaccurate picture of what owning one of these devices is like. Most of us here have had a 6700 for a year or more, and we are tinkerers or developers trying to eek every last feature and bit of performance out of our devices. That may or may not sound good to you. But even if it does, don't rush into it! It will just cause you more grief, unless you're willing to have your new 6700 out of commission a large part of the time.

In my humble opinion, you can gauge it this way--don't upgrade to a custom ROM until you discover for yourself why you'd want to (it was the same advice I got when shopping for my first guitar). In other words, use the ROM that came on your device and find the bugs and problems first. You may find that the stock ROM is perfectly fine for your use (The community here represents a tiny fraction of all the 6700s out there--the vast majority of people using 6700s are using the stock ROM). But maybe you'll see some things that don't work properly or efficiently. If so, then maybe a custom ROM here can help you, but this process is still in its infancy for the 6700 so there are plenty of bugs in these custom ROMs. No holy grail here--yet.

But to answer your question, you don't need any of the stuff over at xda-developers. All the stuff for the Apache can be found here. Just take your time and learn what you do and don't like about the 6700 and maybe by then you'll be better able to understand the stuff you're reading about here (and maybe we'll have more of the bugs fixed).

[bacspasm]

Hey what a community huh? In the past year and a half of my PPC 6700 ownership, I have owned a Treo 700P, Treo 700W as well as the PPC-6700. Luv2chill has been a long time poster on pdaphonehome and has been a great help for many of us with the Apache.

I have seen you on the forums on TreoCental when I had my 700P. I would say that there is a great amount of similarity between the palm users who were participants in the forums as we tried to get the most of our 700's and the ones here now getting the most out of their Apache's.

Don't worry too much about the xda-developers stuff. Much of it is for the GSM Windows Mobile devices and the specific ROMS which Microdaddy wanted snuffed were for the 8125/MDA device and not for our CDMA apache.

I think the latest official ROM from HTC for Sprint is pretty good. You will find the big thing is the MSFP AKU 2.2 ROM is plenty good for most users. The push email feature was a fantastic add to the Apache when it came out. As we xtransitioned to AKU 3, it appears that the optimization of the device was realized. Claimed A2DP features are very desirable but as you say, your iPod is your main MP3 device so this is kind of a gimmick in your case.

Many of us had to deal all the BS in the extended ROM originally. We started playing with the extended ROM and it became a hobby/obsession to get the most out of the it.

Then the ROM Kitchen...wow, will wonders never cease of those who want to work on this thing all the time.

I have been pretty happy first with Hemi's 3.3 Rom, then came Colonel's beta 1 and beta 2. That one seems like one of the best.

Now I have been on Colonel's 3.3 Beta 3 for the past 24 hours and it seems pretty good.

One caveat is that all of these are cooked by individuals without a ton of testing resources. That said, new features for many of us outweigh any small nuisances like periodic errors or lock ups.

Bragging rights to the newest features are the main thing right?

I am sure my opinions are not the same as everyone elses' but I love the experimentation.

Good luck to you.

Gene