[1]The ol’ Razr finally died. A death that might have looked something like this [2]. :) Anyway, on going to my online Cingular account to cash in on my insurance, I see I qualify for an upgrade. I just have to sell my soul to Cingular for another year.

After much deliberation and web hunting, I decided that the coolest of cool phones is the new AT&T Tilt 8925 [3], otherwise known as the HTC Kaiser.

[4]
The home screen with a live rss
news feed from the Tribune.

[5]
Live weather.

[6]
My favorite applications.

[7]
Goobertech on my phone!

[8]
Opera-mini zooming in on
full view internet.

Here’re a few of the phone’s kick-ass features:

• Runs Windows Media 6.0 - that means you can add nearly limitless applications and view any file type. Just like desktop windows. Unlike the iPhone which traps you with what it comes with.
• Built in GPS - coupled with google maps, an unrivaled direction system. No need for the Hudson Atlas anymore.
• Wi-fi and HSDPA - which means the internet is very fast and when near any wi-fi hotspot, free.
• Full QWERTY keyboard - with the nifty pull-out screen, texting is now that much faster.
• 3 Megapixel camera - although I hardly ever use my phone to take pics, it’s nice it’s there.
• micro SD card slot - never ending memory.
• Auto-updating - with the suite of apps I’ve installed, they all update themselves automagically. New emails, weather and rss news feed are all instantaneous.
• USB hookup is plug and play through Windows Explorer on my computer. And as a bonus, charges while plugged in.

The phone came bundled with all sorts of bloatware and free trial crap from Cingular, so the first thing I did was roach it and then a hard reset to clean it out. A couple of forums I found detail all the info needed for this process and are an excellent resource for tweaking the Tilt.

• AT&T Tilt Site [9]
• xda-developers: Kaiser [10]

Here’s how I modified the goober-phone…

After the hard reset I followed Jenn’s 10 step process [11].

• Clean out the Cingular branded junk as told above.
• Install a new home screen - Jenn’s right, the default is awful. The HTC Home Plugin [12] does a nice job of prettying things up.
• HTC Home Customizer [13] adds a clever little program to customize the layout of the new homepage.
• Skin the phone calling page with the Black Dialer Skin [14].
• Install KaiserTweak [15] in order to modify registry values.
• Install Opera-Mobile [16] to view webpages full size. Far more supreme than the default Internet Explorer packaged with the phone.
• Enable HSDPA - this is off by default and is definitely the connection to use if you’ve an unlimited data plan like me. Way faster than Cingular’s 3G network.
• Sync my gmail account. Since gmail supports imap, this was a snap. Now when I get a new email, my phone gets a copy too. And if I reply from the phone, gmail updates itself automatically.
• Install Google Maps [17] to work with the built in GPS.
• Install PocketCM’s Contacts [18] - this clever little bit threads conversations like the image below.
• Install PocketCM’s Calendar [19] - although new and not fully functional yet, this program is clearly the way to go since it’ll soon sync with my google calendar.
• Games! I downloaded and installed Aces Blackjack [20] and Championship 500 [21].
• Download MyMobiler [22] for my laptop and desktop PC. This nifty program let’s me fully run the program on my computer’s desktop and snap all these lovely screenshots. I dare anyone to text faster than I can when hooked to the PC.

[23]
File explorer.

[24]
Google maps with
real time GPS.

[25]
Sid in my phone!

[26]
500 card game.

[27]
Blackjack

[28]
Windows Media Player.
Music and videos - any format.

[29]
Threaded conversations.

[30]
And it makes phone calls.