I have phoned Three UK customer support trying to get some sort of eta regarding the HTC One firmware update from 1.28 to 1.29.

I didn’t want to root and use a custom rom, as I really wanted stock and some apps when rooted don’t play ball.

So I phoned Three UK support, since on twitter they had announced the update was live and would appear over the air. Sadly that advice was wrong. So I phoned Three UK just to get some estimates. After chatting for a while, the guy turned round and said, you sound technically minded, just unlock the boot loader, add a recovery, do a nandroid backup, root and flash the updated rom. Unbelievable advice. So as the call was recorded, I had nothing to lose.

I setup an account at HTC Dev, followed the instructions to unlock the boot loader, and continued with all of the above. Fortunately, on the HTC One forum within XDA Developers there is a guide to flashing and some helpful people. I borrowed a windows laptop. I then had to download a lot of different files and the custom rom. I got stuck a few times but thanks to my twitter buddy Paul and a few people on XDA I managed to complete everything. Actually now it will be so much easier to flash anything.

So what’s the difference. I’m still using as the base on the custom rom stock HTC One, but the latest firmware. This improves the camera so much. New widgets, and lots more tweaks. I am using a custom rom called Android Revolution which is very good. I can turn the phone back on just by pressing volume down. No more stretching for the power button. I have system toggles in the notification area. The battery life is much better so far.

This has really transformed my HTC One into a more friendly to use, powerful machine.