NEW Verizon TP2 ROM update available

Verizon Touch Pro 2 gets second ROM update--MR2

http://www.pcdphones.com/phone_downloads.aspx?bid=128&cid=1&mid=356&carrier=VerizonWireless


Full list of changes--Thanks NightRaven!
   ROM: 4.01.605.15/Radio: 2.35.00WV
   Operating system has been upgraded to Windows Mobile®
   6.5 COM2.5.
   The HTC Sense™ user interface has been improved.
   Visual Voice Mail (version 1.1.12.11) now comes preloaded on the device.
   GlobalAccess Connect support. For international Internet access, you can tether your smartphone to a notebook.
   Enhanced VZ Navigator® performance.
   Improved auto-configuration of Daylight Saving Time.
   Improved word prediction and autocorrection.
   Enhanced on-screen keyboard layouts.
   New, compact QWERTY keyboard option.
   When composing email or text messages, type the first few letters of the recipient’s name in the To field to see a list of possible matches.
   Quick setup of common email account types and an option to set up an email account manually.

Anyone installed it yet?  I have a few hours of free time in the days ahead, will probably toss it on if it seems stable and worth it.

Hi there,
1 - Do you need to load MR1 before MR2?
No, just load the latest one, since it will wipe out everything that was on there before anyway.

To flash back to the original ROM, you'll need to have the exact original ROM - and then just flash over it again. You CAN NOT!!!!! flash a custom ROM without unlocking the phone first.

What kind of email account are you trying to delete (hotmail, gmail, other POP3/Imap, Outlook)?

The Verizon Stock ROM
is found here: (direct download link)
ftp://up.ppcgeeks.com/Touch%20Pro%202/Stock%20ROMs/RUU_Rhodium_W_VERIZON_WWE_1.18.605.12_RS_1.88.07WV_NV_VZW_1.65_0811_PRL58002_Ship.exe

which is in this post: http://forum.ppcgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=91940

You have to become a (free) member at ppcgeeks to download from them.

This is the ROM the phone originally came with.
After you do the official update, all your email accounts are gone and you will have a brand new phone. So make sure you sync or back up your phone, if there's anything on there, that you want to keep.

You know, I never knew or saw anything about MR1 (unless that's the original 'stock' version).  The 'stock' along with Spb is working great for me right now ... I'd like the update especially for the FM radio 'activation' lacking in the 'stock' version, and any little tweaks they've made to improve overall performance.  Depending on the interface I might load Spb over it since I've gotten used to it.

Ahh, then I guess I'll be staying put with what I've got.

Okay, here's what happened:

I flashed MR2.  Right off the bat, I could tell things were running slower.  Not terribly, but it was confirmed once I got battery clock working and could see what the system was doing.  CleanRAM never got me below 60%, even after startup.  Installing CoOkie's Hometab Editor only slowed things down more, which was tragic, since the homescreen interface wasn't to my liking at all without the modifications that program offers, which are completely incredible, I need to say.  The fact that that much customization is available but not accessible speaks poorly of HTC, I think. 

Anyway, here are the changes I noticed from my couple of days with Sense 2.5 (which is what the upgrade is primarily about, aside from the new radio and all that, since we didn't get WinMo 6.5.3):

Homescreen Tab:
You get quicklinks below the clock where the agenda used to display.  Three with the big clock, and six more below it when you swipe away the clock.  And they're huge, which I didn't care for visually, particularly on my homescreen, since now almost all of your wallpaper is obscured by the clock, these links, and the useless solid call history/date bar between them, which was transparent with MR1.  CoOkie's editor lets you, among a slew of other things, remove those huge links, remove the call history bar, expand your calendar agenda to fill the whole screen below the clock, modify the clock, make unused quick links invisible, assign links to contacts and toggles (such as airplane mode and hometab weather animations), and you get dozens of link spaces.  It does loads of other stuff as well, and really makes the UI something I'd want to use, if it weren't for the increased lag on top of the already slower UI.

Mail Tab:
I was really excited about this, because it replaces the envelope setup with pieces of paper laying flat, which let me preview more of the message.  Also, the flicking animations were faster and easier to discern.  Also, Outlook loads the messages I select much faster than MR1 (this was one of the only things I wasn't satisfied with when I originally flashed MR1 from the stock ROM: the lag when opening emails).  Also, (and this addressed one of the failings of that entire UI element of being able to preview messages) you could delete messages under the menu button on the Mail Tab.  At first, this made up for the Hometab issues, and was really practical and logical, until it turned out that deleted messages would reappear when I checked for new messages.  What the hell?  Why would I want to do that if it was only temporary.  Major failure.

Messages Tab:
SMS maybe flicked a little faster, but it was no big deal.  The threading style was a little different, but that's about all I noticed.

Calendar Tab:
This really just keeps on getting better.  Year view is now added, and HTC skinned the entire appointment entery system.  The way you set the time of events is particularly amazing, with these oversized wheels with the digits on them.  It was all very slick and about time.  That said, they did limit Outlook's functionality in at least one way that I encountered: You can no longer edit an appointment's Repeat Pattern.  In order to make this change, you need to turn off Sense, go into Outlook and do it.

<RANT>
I'm actually pretty okay with this last change.  My primary gripe with iOS and WinMo7 (and Android?  I'm not familiar enough with it yet to say) and plenty of other phone OS's is that I don't control everything.  This access to the OS was one of the only things which got me on board with WinMo.  I decided that it was worth what I'd lose in stability and support and intuitiveness.  What HTC did here is a compromise with which I'm comfortable, in principal: Sacrifice some functionality in favor of accessible UI elements, while still allowing the End User to access those hidden elements in a reasonably straightforward way.</RANT>

My Favorites Tab:
This was a complete failure as far as I'm concerned.  The new setup is just a grid of links (and not that many of them, though I assume there's a .cab for that) through which you can access one - and only one - element of a contact.  This means that one tab can be to email your mom, but you'll need a second and third one if you want to call or text her.  This takes up space quickly and is soooooo much less useful than the previous setup, where the Tab view lets you call or text or whatever, and tapping the person takes you to their contact card.  Tapping the contact in MR2 executes that one - and only one - command.  To see their card, you need to search All Contacts and find them like they're anybody else.  I can't see how any of these changes were a good idea.

Photos and Videos Tab:
The thumbnails were a stack, and maybe they flicked through faster.  That's all I noticed.  I never even opened the camera.

Weather Tab:
The Weather Tab only gets more intense with this version.  Animations in different places and nicer animations and all of that.  I loved the animations for a while, but by the time I finally figured out how to get them on the Home Tab with my wallpaper of choice, I decided that the system lag was more than I wanted to deal with.  They are very pretty, though, and they're the default with this new version of Sense.

Music Tab:
The player and browser for this was reskinned, and Sense now looks up album art for you.  Oh, and while I'm on that subject, Facebook integration into contacts was much improved in this version.  So yeah, the music player nice and different, but I didn't have enough time or interest to get into it. 

Settings Tab:
Things were shuffled around here, but I was able to find everything eventually.

Other Changes:
Menu animations changed.  Whereas with MR1 there's the scroll past the end or begining and bounce back.  Now, it's definitely a jump or a snap.  The animation on the reverse end is pretty much gone.  I think this accomplishes two things:  First, it reduces the system drain on menu animations (which can be an issue in MR1) by cutting them in half, basically.  Secondly, one of the patents Apple is suing everyone they feel like getting their hands on over concerns that exact bounce back animation trick in menus (I'm serious here.  Some of the infringement claims are over really mundane things like this), so I wonder if this doesn't cover Microsoft and or HTC in that department.  Who knows...

Also, the Task Manager is freaking removed!  It's just a black space up there on the taskbar.  It's only a .cab away, but really.  I couldn't figure out how to switch between programs, and I think this was the intent.  If I don't do it, WinMo will, and it'll do it earlier than I might in order to maintain a certain level of performance.  In the end, I think it's another attempt (like the above animations) to compensate for the system drain Sense 2.5 is on our wee little computer.

The Sleep of Death was more pronounced for me with this ROM as well.  This has apparently been cooked out of custom ROMs, but the newest legit one on the market has it worse than ever.  This is seriously disappointing on HTC's part, as is the fact that it ships with out of date versions of little things like the .Net Compact Framework, Marketplace (really? Really?), Facebook, Opera Mobile, and Bing (really? Really?).  I could see Opera Mobile 10 requiring a new agreement or something, but the rest of those programs are in house, for crap's sake.  Microsoft makes them!  Why wouldn't they ensure that they're up to date?

So, that's about it.  I gave up on it and flashed back to MR1.

The epilogue of this adventure is that, after flashing back, I lost data and voice access.  My phone found the network just fine, and was even 3G when I'd expect it to be, but I couldn't communicate with it on any level.  I tried flashing it again, but no change.  I brought it into the Verizon store today and the guy said that he tried all his tricks, and that they next thing would be to do a hard reset.  I told him I'd just do it at home.  It did the trick, and I'm back up and running and not messing around with it again until my warranty's up, at which point I'm going to look into custom ROMs and booting Ubuntu and Android at the same time.

Are you still reading this?  Nice...

Beautiful!  Thanks!!