Custom Windows Phone Tango ROMs arrive for the HD2 and Omnia7

By Daniel Rubino
last updated

Just a few weeks before it officially hits, Windows Phone 7.5 Refresh aka "Tango" (build 8773) has managed to be dumped onto XDA for the world to see (and use). Wasting no time, some chefs have already cooked up some custom ROMs for the HD2 (which will evidently live until the year 2031 with updates) and the Samsung Omnia7.

More ROMs will be expected to follow soon for first generation devices, notably HTC ones and the Samsung Focus. Since there are no custom ROMs for Gen 2 devices (due to a locked bootloader), we're not expecting this Tango ROM to help too much though perhaps some folks at XDA will find a way.

Tango is thought to a "refresh" of Windows Phone 7.5 with only minor, under the hood changes including support for lower-spec'd devices (256MB of RAM) as well as some MMS improvements and a fix for the SMS bug. Like all previous updates, this is expected to trickle out for current phones but only at the discretion of the carrier.

Source: HD2, Omnia 7; via XDA

Daniel Rubino
Daniel Rubino
Editor-in-chief

Daniel Rubino is the Editor-in-chief of Windows Central, head reviewer, podcast co-host, and analyst. He has been here covering Microsoft since 2007 when this site was called WMExperts (and later Windows Phone Central). His interests include Windows, Microsoft Surface, laptops, next-gen computing, and for some reason, watches. Before all this tech stuff, he worked on a Ph.D. in linguistics and ran the projectors at movie theaters, which has done absolutely nothing for his career.

20 Comments
  • Is there a list of new languages that were supposed to come with Tango?
  • Pang of guilt / regret no.1 for selling my HD2 to upgrade to Nokia Lumia 800.  Miss my old slab.  Sigh.
  • It's sad that the only way to get bugs fixed in a timely manner is to flash on cooked ROMs.
  • I have a HTC HD2. Does anyone know how to activate the Live ID functions on the phone? I read about that in several forums but could get it work. THX for helping me out :D
  • couldn't get it work, of course :/
  • 2031 is an understatement. I think the thing will easily make it to 2050.
  • If I sell my HTC HD7S and buy the HD2 would that be considered an upgrade or a downgrade?
  • Downgrade. I had the hd7s (now I got the titan :) the HD2 is slower and runs windows mobile 6.5 (not 7) so you'll have to hack the rom on. But if your into roms, the hd2 runs android, wp7, meego, Ubuntu, and wm6,
  • Jep, but do you know how to enable Live ID functions on the HD2 with WinPhone? I am getting an error everytime I want to login =/ plz help...
  • Sorry Fantasian, I don't know anything about the internals of the OS. Do you mean you can't sign in to your account on the phone (XBOX Hub and Hotmail)?
  • jep, if you "upgrade" your HD2 to WP you can not use Live Services like downloading apps or sign in to Xbox. You need an activationcode for that, but Microsoft can not help me, they said...
  • Damn my wife dropped my hd2 and cracked the screen. I miss that phone.
  • I still have mine, but my screen is crack also...i loved that, other than the freezing issue it was great...( I just might fire that baby up this weekend.)
  • I just got my HD2 back from repair. Firing it up now to update to tango. Awesome phone, still!
  • So whats new?
    From what i'm getting of the recent Tango news it seems that it isn't really a big update and more like a small bugfix update. Tango is new, but that seems to be the only big new "feature".
    I'm guessing that MS is going for the same update strategy as they now do for the Xbox 360. 1 big update per year and some small bugfixes in between. I don't really think Tango is going to shake worlds and hope that Apollo will bring more new features to the table in order to improve the competition with Android and iOS. The recent updates for the last 2 OSses also weren't that big of a deal so i don't expect Windows Phone to fall behind but i'd like to see some unique features/selling points in order to get my friends over to this OS.
  • Xbox Live support moves people over for me.
  • As a Dell Venue Pro owner, I can already bet that Dell and TMobile will shaft us on an update.
  • T-Mobile has been the one doing the shafting. The unbranded DVPs have gotten timely updates. I do fear that my unbranded DVP may not get another update, though as Dell has seeming dropped out of the phone game.
  • Long live HD2!
  • I am very tempted to pick up a cheap HD2 on Craiglist.