Since I bought my new phone 4 weeks back I’ve discovered something new about it each day.

To anybody looking at my phone the biggest thing they will notice is the customisation that I’ve done. I like the default blue theme that O2 sells the phone with, but the bubbles on the O2 background doesn’t quite work with all the text and I wanted to put my own touch to it. I probably spent about 2 evenings (and one lunch hour!) trying to find a suitable to replace it, how ever all the different themes I tried didn’t look as good on the phone screen as on my pc screen. The colours were either too bright or too dull and boring. The only one that came close had a very nice background, but the rest of the scheme was bright pink, ew! In the end I learnt quickly how to create a theme and used the default blue colour screen with the one nice background. Since I’m not sure on the license yet I’m not posting it here.

The other customisation to the main screen was to remove the Owner Information, I know who I am and don’t need to be reminded. I then added Spb Weather (and excellent little app that displays the weather for the next 5 days), and Spb GPRS Monitor which acts like a little monitor program with some shortcuts that I use often. I also have a list of running programs at the bottom of the screen.

Other stuff that I’ve installed includes Smart Map and WM5torage. Think of Smart Map as like a TomTom, it shows you where you are on a map and tracks you, but it doesn’t guide you to a location like a TomTom does. It’s not something you can really use around town as there isn’t enough detail, but when I’m travelling and on the hills it will be good to see where I’ve been. It doesn’t cost that much ($24.95) and the maps are fairly cheap ($4).

WM5torage is the answer to my Linux compatibility problem. In a nut shell this little gem presents your phone as a usb stick to the computer. What the means is that you can plug it into any computer that understand usb mass storage (i.e. any modern pc), then it appears like any other usb stick. No need to install ActiveSync, and of course no need to be running Windows. I’ve done a quick test on my main pc (Ubuntu 7.04) and not only does it work a treat, but it’s faster than transfers through ActiveSync.

At the start I played quite a bit, installing and uninstalling different applications. Using the WiFi and GPS frequently. The battery life held up quite well but still need charging every other night. Since then I did a total reset, reinstalled favourite applications, set it up as things are now, and now it only needs charging twice a week or more if I hammer it one particular day.

From the start I knew that O2 didn’t make the Orbit, but now I’ve discovered that it’s actually a rebranded HTC 3300.  Now I can get some accessories.