Originally Posted by APOLAUF

With this phone, I decided I wanted to do the most I could without effecting changes via the registry. Infact, all changes are done to the registry, but UIs usually stand in the way to make the changes for you (otherwise most device setting functionality would be awful.)

After tweaking the crap out of my 6700 via reg. hacks, and seeing modest returns, I decided that there must be better ways to get around things.

First things first: Keep it simple. There are many shells, managers, and interface modifying applications out there. Most of them make your "Today" screen look like someone barfed icons all over it. These apps, in many cases, are buggy, poorly written, and have a large appetite for RAM. Often what I've found is that the benefits of these apps are entirely outweighed by the problems they've caused. I therefore don't install any.

Remove any unwanted Today apps. These are memory resident. I just have the basics: HTC's info app (contains links to battery info, etc), owner data, time/date tasks, messaging, device lock, and voicemail.

End your programs, don't just minimize them. Use the memory manager to close your apps. HTC X button is a small program that closes your apps instead of minimizing them and can help this situation. However, reliability concerns have been voiced. (See "Keep it Simple.") I perform memory management manually. You may want to let Messaging run though - this app takes forever to load when not resident, and only takes about 300-500K of RAM. You will see an advantage when you try it.

Clear IE's cache frequently. This mostly affects storage, but can affect IE startup time.

Use WMAs as ringtones, but keep them short and simple. I keep mine to 30 seconds or less.

Get TCPMP for your video playback needs. You're going to have to obtain the proper codecs for WMV playback (see the TCPMP Problem thread), and you may want AAC playback support if you choose to encode as such. You can find the codecs on rarewares, selecting the BetaPlayer AAC codecs. Set your display output to display from the raw framebuffer. You should get great speed with this. Your sound will be out of sync (almost guaranteed.) I chose an offset of -400ms in the Advanced setup properties to correct this. Encode your video files in H.264. The MSM7500 chipset has native support for this, and yields excellent playback speeds. I encode at 384kbit/s with AAC audio. (Of the 384 kbit, 64kbit are audio). 320x240 of course.

Keep your Messaging attachments on your storage card. This may not improve performance so much, but will expand the flexibility of your messaging application.

GPS: Create an outgoing COM port when you pair a bluetooth GPS receiver. Get a good one too. I'm using the Holux M1000. Fantastic receiver, incredible reception (I can track 8 satellites indoors without any nearby windows.) Then don't forget to configure your hardware COM port to match the outgoing to the GPS. Set your software COM port to whatever you like, I suggest staying at or above COM 4. You basically won't need any software setup after this.

Install your apps to built-in storage/Flash. All of them. Have them store data to your microSD card if you need to save on space (I recommend this for caching maps in Live Search.)

Set your backlight preferences to something reasonable. I have mine set to a 2-minute timeout. While the LEDs are very bright, you'll still get plenty of runtime.

Sync as much as you can via Exchange if you have it.

When it comes to sync vs push vs automatic sync, select what makes sense to you. I always check my e-mail, but I'd prefer to do it myself. Not allowing push e-mail, and doing a manual send/receive via ActiveSync or my POP/IMAP clients in Messaging saves a LOT of battery.

At night, if you have your phone nearby, you'll want to place a postcard, or some other object over your phone. The LEDs are VERY bright. They can be disabled via registry tweaks, but do so at your own risk. People are reporting that it curtails other functionality.

Install applications that will work. You get what you pay for with a lot of them. I pay for a subscription to The Weather Channel. This is by far the best weather application I have ever used. The RADAR maps are accurate, easily navigatable, and a large wealth of information is available to you. It's well worth the few $ per month. Every other app I've used has either triggered an instability, or has been too clunky to have on hand.

Don't like IE? Try Deepfish. Pages are rendered on a MS server, allowing you to zoom in and click, much like the iPhone. Only better.

Contrary to what the Apple commercials say, do use Mobile versions of pages. They are much easier to read. Just do it. Set your browser to "Fit to Screen" when possible, using "Desktop" if it won't render properly.

GMail: You'll need a separate JVM. There are links in another thread on GMail Java app. I mostly use POP3 for that purpose.

Bluetooth: Many BT headsets, I'm sure, worked just fine with your previous phone. This will not be the case with this phone. I have found that many BT 2.0-compliant headsets work great. Many of my old ones, trusty units, do not work well at all with my new phone. Goto your Best Buy, buy a bunch, and return the ones you don't want. You cna even return them all and then order one cheaper online. I have settled in on the Plantronics Discovery 665. It was between that and a Jabra 5010. The 665 has better noise reduction, though is still not as good as my trusty old Plantronics Voyager E510, which is no longer reliable with the 6800. Bluetooth is a pain in the ass, and it looks like that's not going to change any time soon.

Learn intimately what works best with your phone. Learn the tradeoffs of using one app versus another, of using one setting versus another. When you run into trouble, there are many posts here to help you out. I'll edit this with more info, as you can see, absolutely nothing earth-shattering here. Just a few tips to keep things running smoothly. Almost no registry work is neccessary - the phone works really well, if you're aware of its weaknesses, and especially, of its strengths - and it will serve you quite well if you intimately learn how to work with it.