I think it should be STELLAR - "stella" makes me think of veteran British comedienne Stella Tanner

Rebranding phones like this is just plain stupid, you get nothing extra and in fact HTC lose out, they make good phones but their brand will eternally suffer - HTC should take a leaf from Nokia and Sony.

I'm not sure which I prefer.

Stellar is an adjective so not very good for a name. (stel·lar (stlr)

adj.

1. Of, relating to, or consisting of stars.

2.

a. Of or relating to a star performer.

b. Outstanding; principal. - thank you freedictionary.com)

OTOH "Stella" is a god-awful name for a handset. Perhaps there is opportunity for some Streetcar Named Desire marketing tie-ins though?

Will the vanilla rom image be available to download so I don't get all the o2 bloatware?

I have to manually uninstall the o2Active GUI every time the battery dies. It was a resource hog when I got the phone, and it's a nuisance now.

Like the phone, though! Might grab this as my upgrade...

To avoid confusion with a certain lager AKA Wife beater.

After you've done the initial setup after you've lost power (i.e. screen alignment and all that), just hit soft reset immediately to bypass all the O2 crap getting installed.

Anyway, Microsoft finally sorted out the annoying lose-power-lose-all-your-data situation with Windows Mobile 5.

Have a look here...

http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?s=3242b1d802cc49cd8c56f94c49703edd&f=378

Haven't ready anything here but if there is a vinalla ROM for this then it will be here.

I was under the impression that xda-developers had been forced to remove all the ROM's they had available to download? They had a sizeable donation from me for providing me with the o2 rom for my Orange-branded Himalaya handset.

If they're still going, i'll start checking back again! Wonder if the ftp password is still the same... ;)

Thanks for your info all; maybe i'll arrange for the 5.0 rom to come into my ownership... :D

Why is rebranding HTC phones as O2 "just plain stupid"? HTC has virtually no brand equity here in the UK, whereas all the mobile operators are trying to generate some genuine loyalty by offering their customers something tangible (i.e. a decent handset), rather than just a pure service offering.

BT-branded home phones are a good example of where this has worked well in a similar industry.