Jun 19 2009

Hurricane With Windows Mobile 6.1

Category: Personal,Windows MobileChrisM @ 1:17 am

For any UK readers, you’ll also find it listed as an Orange C550 (HTC often sell their models on via other networks, and so often each model has a lot of alternative names).

Anyway, despite the down direction on the joystick being a little wonky, since installing WM6.1, I’ve grown to like the phone again. I have learned that EITHER using WM5torage (a tool to enable the phone to be used as a mass storage device, thereby avoiding the need to install ActiveSync on a PC first) OR OMAPClock (a tool to overclock (or in my case attempt battery life improvement by underclocking)) on this particular model, with this particular ROM (selang09’s wm 6.1 – a breeze to install thanks to ubrdave’s helpful instructions here) caused some sort of corruption, leaving my phone convinced that all EXEs were not valid Windows CE applications! I’m assuming it was the underclocking that did it somehow. Anyway, lesson learned, phone NOT bricked, so re-flashed it, and carried on guessing what some of the included Chinese language programs do.

With 6.1 installed, I was able to start using apps that required .NET CF 3.0 or above, like PockeTwit, though live access to the camera does seem to not be possible – don’t know if this is a hardware limitation that the developers haven’t been able to work around, or whether this is related to the non-standard ROM I’m using. I’ve yet to try Barcorama on the Hurricane (a barcode scanner application), but I can imagine the ever present security guards in Kazakh supermarkets getting their knickers in a twist if I attempt any price comparisons/uploading 🙂

Here is a quick screenshot of how the phone looks right now, I miss the ability to easily add/remove components from the equivalent of the today screen, compared to the Kaiser with its WM6.1 Pro, but I haven’t yet had to fall back to my v.old Sony Ericsson K700, so I can’t really complain. Editing homescreens on WM2003SE involved plugins and XML files for the main config, so I’m hoping I can bluff my way through customizing the interface a little in the future.

Orange C550 HTC Hurricane Windows Mobile 6.1

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10 Responses to “Hurricane With Windows Mobile 6.1”

  1. Oleg Frantsuzov says:

    I thought about installing WM6.1 onto my HTC Vox, but then thought that threaded text messages do not worth it. BTW, I love the old (6.0) today screen better.

  2. ChrisM says:

    Have you looked into 6.5 at all? I agree 6.0>6.1>6.5 isn’t such a critical upgrade path to consider, but 2003SE>6.1 (non-pro obviously, in my case) skipping out 5 along the way has helped with a few things.
    What differences are there with the 6.0 today screen? The one above isn’t the default, but a sliding panel thingy. To use the technical term ;>

  3. Oleg Frantsuzov says:

    Haven’t heard of 6.5 yet, anything really cool there?

    Sliding panel is what I dislike, it lacks the recent programs bar, which is put to Start before the actual list of programs. This drives me nuts (I used a 6.1 phone for a while). I guess it can be switched off, cannot remember.

    On the other side, threaded messages are cool.

  4. ChrisM says:

    The sliding panel interface is just the default one with the ROM I used, I believe the older style is still there, and it should be relatively easy to create your own – I remember I used to hack about with other’s work on the C500/C550 in WM2003SE days.
    Re. 6.5, I’m not sure myself, I’d recommend heading over to http://forum.xda-developers.com/ to get info from knowledgeable fellow users. Just search around old threads before asking any questions – some of the long term members have newbie fatigue 😉
    Threaded messages are cool, except when you send the same msg to a block of friends, then continue a topic of conversation from a previous thread with one person, but from their reply to your mass message. Can’t really blame the technology there I guess.

  5. joseph says:

    I thought this post was about Hurricane Windows

  6. ChrisM says:

    Your short comment made me laugh, so despite it scoring fairly high in one of the spam systems on this blog, I’ve approved it.
    Adding nofollow to your link certainly helped swing the vote, though you might want to stick to either having your url in the appropriate field, OR within the text, at least with such a short comment, if you want many blog owners to approve them. I’ve stripped the url out of the website field, and left it in the comment.

  7. Oleg Frantsuzov says:

    With all these SEO spamming people leaving their comments, I sometimes feel it is inappropriate for me to enter my blog’s URL in the website field. 🙂

  8. ChrisM says:

    Oleg, you are always welcome to promote any site you like at this blog – real life friends have (virtually) carte blance 🙂 And I can’t really complain about SEO activities on other’s blogs – I’ve done the same myself when promoting my other sites.

  9. Oleg Frantsuzov says:

    Hey, if Joseph left a link to, say, a blog post about installing WM6 on a Hurricane, I wouldn’t call it spamming. But the windows on windowpros.net are hardly mobile in any way. 😉

  10. ChrisM says:

    Like I said Oleg, it made me giggle, so the comment / 1 link was approved. I think we have previously agreed to disagree vis a vis promoting sites 🙂