Rogers HTC Dream(G1), First Impressions and Guide for other Rogers Users

[AmaruPhoenix]

Good day to the Android Community

Note: This is for the non-rooter user. I don’t believe we are able to root as of yet anyways

This will be a guide for other Canadian users and also all other Google users who may be interested in what the Custom Firmware had in store for us.

So Rogers Wireless released the phone on June 2nd 2009, and I received my HTC Dream White on the 15th

Rogers was generous enough to supply us with a 2GB MicroSD card, opposed to other carriers where I’ve read that they only received 1GB, not a big deal especially when 4GB is $13.99 and 8GB is $23.99 @ CanadaComputers

As many of you probably already asked and may know, the Canadian G1 and G2 phones are not Google branded, Rogers actually requested that a custom firmware was from HTC and this is why our Google phones are called HTC Dream(G1) and HTC Magic(G2)

Now what did Rogers actually do with their custom firmware?
-They incorporated Exchange ActiveSync, a program I have yet to use because it is meant for business users who want to sync their corporate email/information on the phone.
-They disabled the Virtual Qwerty keyboard from the HTC Dream’s Cupcake Update 1.5
Apparently there are methods around it
1. “Better Keyboard” not available yet(paid app)
2. http://www.androidincanada.ca/news/h...ers-htc-dream/
I have no issue with this because I purchased the Dream FOR the qwerty board

-They disabled the native IM(Instant Messaging) software
-They added some Roger’s Weblinks and shortcuts like Ringbacks, Shop, My Account. *pretty useless and memory wasteful*

Now to get down to the nitty and gritty, After taking a week to troubleshoot all the issues that I had because every user is different and has different needs. I decided to post what my problems were and how I overcame them.

The first big issue and major flaw that the G1 had was the battery life, and on the first day that I had it, I’ve used 60% of the battery within two hours. I however was prepared and during my wait (ordered the phone on the 3rd, it arrived on the 15th) I purchased a SEIDIO 2600 mAh battery off their online store.

The SEIDIO 2600 mAh battery with extended backcasing is $54.95 USD and it is much bigger than the 1100 mAh stock battery, it is also makes the phone much chunkier and wider by 5mm in length. But with a 2.36 times greater capacity, I’ll learn to live with my brick. *last note* the bigger back case is easier to hold and type on, and I’m not a really big guy either, I’d recommend it, this is coming from a person that is 5,8” I believe there is a 1700 mAh battery that doesn’t have the extra bulk, I’m not 100% sure but you can look into it

The second thing I was looking for was instant messaging, because I wanted to be on MSN, this is where I found out that the native IM was disabled, and I mean disabled because it is taking up space on the phone, but we Canadian users just cannot access it… Thanks Rogers [/End Sarcasm] Do not fear, after trying out a few apps from the market, I found Meebo, and I’ve been happy with that, it allows you to log in to all your major messaging services, eg AIM, Yahoo, MSN, it even offers Facebook chat.

Known issue: that I found from using Meebo: download and status notifications from the android market takes much longer and is slower when Meebo is running in the background, My advice is to log off from Meebo or any other programs that can run in the background when in the market.

The third thing I had Issues with is Widgets, I use the Retro Clock, Battery Status and 1 or 2 Picture Frame Widgets, I found that the clock is sometimes off by 10-30 minutes, and often times all the widgets don’t load properly right when you boot up your phone.

This is caused by one of two reasons, your memory is low and like any computer, when the internal memory is low the computer lags, a good way to counter this is by not downloading a bunch of apps that you don’t use and wait to root so you can place installed apps and cache on the SD card. Our HTC Dream has 256 megs of internal memory however after adding the Android OS and what-not, we are left with 50-70 megs of free space for apps, and other goodies. One program that takes up loads of space is the Browser, it’s Cache can take up 10-20 megs of space and that’s like 10-30% of your phone’s memory.
How to clear the Cache
1. Going into Browser > Settings > Clear Cache
2. Going into Phone Settings > Applications > Manage Applications > Browser > Clear Cache
The second method actually shows you how much memory is being taken up by the Browser.

The second reason that I found from the Retro Clock Widget, is it would update once every 30 minutes when not in use or something, thus to save on system resources. I have no idea what the main reason is. I also have issues with the Picture Frame “Pictures” not displaying after a Boot-up, A quick flick of the screen to open the qwerty keyboard refreshes the all the widgets and problem solved.

The forth thing I had an issue with is turning off 2G/3G networks, I signed up for the $30/6GB dataplan and so I have no issues with keeping 2G/3G on, however sometimes when you need to conserve on power or for my case, I don’t see a need for keeping it on constantly at night while I’m sleeping, for other users who have a smaller dataplans, you may want to be able to know how to disable it so that applications to control yourself and to stop background apps sucking up all your bandwidth that you may not know about *saving you money*. If you thought that just simply unclicking the 2G/3G button, you’d disable it, sadly this is not the case. It will magically help itself back on in a few moments, I asked the forums and with the help of other great members, I was suggested to get APNdroid one toggle and your 2G/3G will be disabled.

NOTE: the application itself informs the user not to uninstall the app when
having the function disabled, you may have an problem turning it back on manually.

Lastly is that we don’t have Paid Apps yet, some of the better phone apps reside in that category, thus we’ll have to be patient, apps like “Advanced Task Manager” seems to be a must get, but it cost $0.99. We’ll just have to wait. My speculation so far is that many people are calling into Rogers and constantly asking when paid apps are coming out, they also blame Rogers for being stupid for not releasing paid apps at launch. I also called in one time to technical support and the topic came up, I was under the impression that Google is the one in control of the situation whether or not to give a specific region the option for paid apps, then again this is all speculation.

A few other apps worth mentioning is AK Notepad, since the phone doesn’t have a native notepad type of app installed, this is honestly one of the best I’ve seen out there, It has much more setting options than the “Notepad” app that I first found on the market, one good example is the ability to Import/Export notes to the SD card and other cosmetic settings.


Any Cut is a great program to place shortcuts on your phone’s desktop, when I first started using it, I had the right pane mainly for settings and I used Any Cut to make shortcuts like “Sound & Display”, and “Network Settings” but I found a Widget that does all this, it’s called “Battery Status - Free” the widget not only tells you the status of your battery, one tap on the widget, it will allow you to toggle and change all the settings that we’d use most often eg, “WIFI & Bluetooth, GPS & Network, 2G and 3G, Screen & Sound” a one stop shop, enjoy. Another thing that Any Cut is nice for is it allows you to place a shortcut like call/text directly on the desktop, I used it to place a button on my desktop to call my sweetheart with one simple tap.

Backgrounds is an app that allows you to download from their library of wallpapers, just wanted to note it for all you wallpaper fans, it doesn’t require an ounce of strength to do so, compared to searching on the web yourself by phone or by PC and than uploading it, etc.

AppManager allows you to store apps on the SD, and also reinstall from the SD as well, we’re stuck for now, since we can’t root and have the option to use the SD card like internal memory and store installed apps and cache just yet… sorry.

And after fixing up all these problems I had, I actually feel satisfied for the moment with my phone.

Well I hope you enjoyed reading this wall of text as much as I enjoyed writing it, my main reason to do so is because this I would have appreciated reading when I first started. Views and issues from another Canadian who has been through these problems and not feel so alone especially when most threads are T-mobile based, it’s nice to have the new kid speak up too.

Even though I am new myself to this forum, I’d like to shout out to all the other Canadians who have “Joined the Revolution”

I’ll try my best to be a contributor for the Canadian division, See ya around.

~AmaruPhoenix

[CiscoGeek]

how did this little gem get no attention? it has some useful information!

[Calab]

Another Rogers Dream user here... Quite a helpful post!

[scruff]

I don't know is this is the place to ask, but here goes. Just got my rogers dream. I want to view all my websites in the browser as full websites instead the the crappy mobil sites. For Eg. I go to CNN.com and I get a CNN Mobil. is there a way to set the phone to only view full websites? Thanks