CyanogenMod on HTC Desire on Orange UK

I installed CyanogenMod on my HTC Desire about a week ago in an attempt to get rid of some of the crapware that Orange UK are notorious for installing, and get a snappier, cleaner phone. I won’t repeat the excellent CyanogenMod install instructions, which you can find here. However, here are some points that might help you if you’re doing something similar:

As a result of upgrading it, the phone is a lot faster and smoother. Much of the jerkiness has disappeared from the user interface - even third-party apps such as Twitter work more smoothly. The most astonishing thing is the battery life, which seems to have almost trebled - whereas previous the phone would struggle to last a day, it now lasts over two. This is quite impressive - I’m not sure what was dragging down the phone before (HTC Sense, perhaps), but kudos to the guys at CyanogenMod.

In summary, CyanogenMod seems like a way of getting a clean, modern, Android build onto your phone. Some of the menus do stuff from a plethora of options, but the defaults are fine, so it’s a great way of getting a “plain” Android phone. Recommended.