I've been pondering making the switch, but I refuse to buy a smartphone that I am not in control of. (The current solution has been to not buy a smartphone.) Can someone who has done this share how practical this solution is? Does your carrier retaliate in any way? Is this a constant task to keep updated? Do you lose features? Or is this something so simple any techie should do it without any pause for thought as it is all upside and no downside?
Installing Cyanogen on basically any HTC phone is trivial. You don't lose features (though you might gain a bit of flakyness in the software, depending on the phone). Carriers wouldn't be able to retaliate (unless you need a warranty repair) and keeping it updated is trivial too as the ROM Manager comes with auto update functionality
The downsides are that you might lose your warranty and that stuff breaks a little bit here and there (at least on my SLCD Desirefor which sending mail via Gmail stopped working and which crashes here and then - the usual little things)
I started using Froyo earlier this year by loading it on my Droid. (I really wanted the chrome to phone!) It took about 30 minutes to do, mostly by reading guides ahead of time then giving it a whirl. No problem at all.
Functionality overall improved. Verizon releases a version that requires additional cash for a few simple things (like tethering) that using 2.2 allowed stock.
Some android apps developed problems updating. The cause was some apps were not appearing as valid/runnable for 2.2 in the market.
Wait, verizon's 2.2 for the droid requires additional cash in order to tether? I ask because I'm a droid owner using verizon's 2.2 on my droid. I see the tethering option available, but I haven't tried to use it yet, so I don't know if it requires extra cash.
