I couldn’t be happier with my new AT&T Tilt. It’s an upgrade to my old Cingular 8125, and it’s:
- Fast
- Sleek
- More user-friendly
More on “user-friendly” in a moment. But first, I want to share my experience flashing a custom or “cooked” ROM, which I learned about via the xda-developers forum. The ROM I chose was “Dutty’s TouchFlo ROM Final 2 [Fixed]” — these things rev faster than just about anything I’ve ever experienced — and it’s a mind-blower. First of all, it has the HTC TouchFlo-style interface with finger gestures, including the Cube interface. This is somewhat similar to the iPhone and is spectacular. Second, it’s fast. Third, it looks very, very cool. Fourth, it’s even more usable than the default WM6 interface, which I was used to with my old phone.
Here’s a screenshot of my new phone home page:
The installation was surprisingly easy. There were basically only three steps:
- Flash HardSPL to the phone. This is (in the words of pof):
Same features as SSPL, but flashed on the phone and with bootloader version 1.04 (hex edited to be shown as 1.10.Oli), that is:
- Ability to bypass signature in NBH files (friendly for cooked roms)
- Ability to access radio bootloader (no more corrupted CID bricks)
- Shows itself as SuperCID when doing a rom upgrade (but it internally isn’t)
- Can be uninstalled by just reflashing a shipped SPL, so no warranty is lost
…which of course I don’t understand. It’s basically a way to ensure safe loading of cooked ROMs. It also allows you to get back to the “stock” AT&T ROM should you ever need to return the phone.
- Install the cooked ROM. This comes from a 51 MB .zip file you can get from the forum link I mentioned above.
- Install a quick 21 KB update to fix some keyboard mapping issues. This is specific to the AT&T Tilt, from what I gather.
A couple phone hard resets (which happen automatically), and presto! you’re in business.
Let me get back to the “user-friendly” part I mentioned above. The Tilt has more buttons than the 8125, and they are grouped at the bottom, not spread out on top and bottom. It also has a scroll wheel on the left side, similar to the Blackberry, and is very usable. It has not one, but two OK buttons — one on the front and one on the left — which is great and helps usability without the stylus. I can’t say much yet about the actual tilting feature for which this thing was named, but at worst it’s a wash.
Next posts will deal with my experiences setting up tethering for the occasional time I might need to connect where there is no WiFi available; setting up GPS; playing with the music & video features; and hopefully much more.
Oh joyous day!
could you please write a very simple step-by-step tutorial on how to do this, I am very new to this “custom rom” thing and I just got my tilt and would love to make it look like that!!!
Hi Max!
I’m crushed under a project right now and have zero time. Sorry! I would recommend you cruise the xda-dev forums via the links provided in the post. They’re very helpful over there.
ok, thanks, I’ll check it out. Thanks for replying so fast!
Hello, I am new to this. I got a Att tilt, I was wondering that if you ever wanted to change the rom back the way it was could you able to?
Hi Nick!
Sure. Check out http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=335568 for info.
Does your phone still have 3G connectivity? I’ve read on the xda-dev site that some of these roms lose it.
@Brandon: Sure - no problems with 3G after cooking it.
I’ve since moved to an iPhone, with no 3G, and that’s the one thing I miss. Everything else about the iPhone is much better IMHO. Luckily the 3G iPhone is coming out next month!
hmm, it looks like we cannot flash back to the at&t rom unless we send it in to at&t? Is that right?
BTW, great article, sad to hear you got an iPhone, but at least you’re happy with it
@max: No, I think HardSPL will allow to flash the stock ROM without having to go back to AT&T. Check the xda-dev forums, there are a lot of smart guys there.
I am stuck trying to decide between the tilt, iphone 3g, or waiting on one of the phones just over the horizon. You stated you made the switch to the iphone, why? Are you still happy? Now that 6.1 is out does that change anything?
I’m super happy with the iPhone. It’s just so incredibly usable. And it does what I want - phone, e-mail, web, camera - better than any device on the market.
If you’re a feature-chaser, the iPhone may be missing some things, but it does everything it does amazingly well.
Best device I’ve ever owned. I’m going to upgrade to 3G when it comes out.