Okay Geek Farm
EVO 4G Froyo Update: Taking One for The Team
Darryl Cobb
Against HTC’s wishes and my circadium rhythm (biological clock that tells you when to sleep), I decided to update my EVO 4G to the unofficial OTA Froyo build that was in the wild yesterday. It was an adventure because this was my first manual update and let’s just say, it was a lot of smiles, cries and Angry Nintendo Nerd-like fits that would’ve been comical to see on video. But alas, you’ll never see it. So let’s delve into some of my impressions early on and I’ll update this as I continue to test throughout the day so I can tell you what to expect.
First thing is first, I noticed my EVO is faster. I mean, it’s grease lighting, it’s chasing-a-chicken fast. Surfing is amazing with the stock browser and even apps like Twitdroyd Pro and Engadget update like crazy when you open them. They weren’t slow before but they are amazingly fast now. And clicking on the 4G (one of the perks of living in Philadelphia!) it goes into overdrive.
And of course, the first thing I had to try was Chrome-to-Phone. I have been using LinkPush (great app by the way for non-Froyo users) up until then to send links to my EVO and it worked well, very well. But Chrome-to-Phone works better giving you the choice of having the page you push automatically load or waiting until you click the notification to bring the page up.
Second thing is the Flash support isn’t what it’s cracked up to be; every website I loaded up with flash seemed to close the browser immediately. I tried the native browser and Dolphin HD, both fail immediately when I loaded Bigthink.com and Movieweb.com. I even tried it with Chrome-to-Phone and it still failed. This doesn’t affect the Youtube HQ app that’s natively on the phone but it looks like browser’s use of Flash was one of the things that have yet to be tweeked in this build. Hopefully this is something that will work itself out soon.
And speaking of things that aren’t yet tweeked, that brings me to number 3; the camera. Neither the camcorder nor the camera worked for about 1 hour after the update. I don’t see any noticeable difference in picture quality, but for many early rooters I know you’re happy just to have the camera back.
But back to the good stuff, I may just start using the EVO’s native message app again. The text area is a lot better and clean, and I also do like the slideshow option for MMS. Corny as it may be but I enjoyed seeing my brand new niece Kiara Cobb and all her bundle glory. However, this fourth thing may need to work a little harder to pull me away from Handcent.
So far so good with this update - I’ll be adding to this list over the next few days as I try different things. As with all things unofficial, if you don’t know what you are doing then don’t try this at home. The official update is only 4 days away. But if you don’t mind a little risk, give it a shot. So far it’s worth it.
Keep T3chH3lp.com locked in for updates on my experiences and if you have any please post them up for all to see.
