The HTC Charmer has been considered to be the newer version of the Magician. It has the same body with slight modifications (reset and microphone places exchanged). It is available in varying colors (Graphite Grey and Baby Pink). You can tell if the unit is a Charmer or Magician by just looking at the face plate as Magician is (without any modification) only available in Silver grey and Magician's face plat is made of alloy (e.g. metal-ic material) while Charmer's face plate is made of plastic.
WiFi can be done via a WiFi-SDIO card (refer later section for instructions)
Performance
Some performance test led to disillusioning results. Compared to former HTC devices, the Charmer seems to be the slowest device by far. This is possibly due to the different CPU architecture and does not necessarily mean that normal usage has to be affected significantly. In an attempt test the performance of a Charmer against two other older devices, a Blue Angel and a Magician, on a video play back based benchmarking, the Charmer fell at the bottom. Summary of the result. For details, refer to (related page)
Video play back benchmarking result (higher is better)
Magician - 273%
Charmer (Overclocked to 276MHz <- Risk burning your Charmer) - 171%
Blue Angle - 157%
Charmer (standard 195MHz) - 105%
An SPB Benchmarking has also been done to determine the performance of the original ROM and new ROM, in both default and overclocked conditions, in comparison with other units as well. In general, the Charmer is a generally slow device, except for the graphics processing power. Details here
Magician - Since the core chip changed from an Intel PAX272 to the Texas Instruments OMAP850, all hardware registers have changed both their location and how they work. Hardware related software will most not be portable between the systems.
Prophet - Prophet is perhaps the most similar/compatible unit to Charmer. Update: Newer version of the ROMs (eg. new Prophet ROM and/or new Charmer bootloader) are NOT compatible with each other anymore. Prophet ROMs are NOT compatible with Charmer. Read the ROM upgrade section below.
Wizard - Most Wizard ROM editing tools work on Charmer as they seems to have similar ROM locations. However, Wizard ROMs are NOT compatible with Charmer. Read the ROM upgrade section below.
Not all WiFi-SDIO cards are compatible with Charmer. Few SanDisk WiFi-SDIO cards have been confirmed to work with Charmer with extra drivers. Refere to the thread for drivers and instructions (related thread)
Overclocking
The OMAP processor can be overclocked with the omapclock software. Note: As a general rule, do not overclock your Charmer beyond 240MHz (although there are reported safe case of 276MHz). There are confirmed cases of burned/damages/'wounded' unit over 240Mhz. No fatality on any Charmer yet. Some reported improved performance overclocking the Charmer on certain software. However, under-clocking the unit does not seems to improve battery life significantly.
omapclock - general overclocking software (related thread)
omapscaler - overclock the unit based on the CPU load (related thread)
How to change HTC Charmer Splash and probably Wizard too (related thread)
Extended_ROM unlocking
The HTC Wizard's Ext.ROM Unlocker can unlock the Extended_ROM (related thread)
New Use Total Commander PPC to view/edit the Extended ROM without unlocking it. To do so, just open Total Commander and type (manually) "\Extended_Rom" on to the location bar on top (of Total Commander PPC) (related thread)
ROM Upgrades
The Wizard's aWizard ROM flashing/upgrading software can be used to flash/upgrade the Charmer's ROM. However, there isn't many Charmer compatible ROM. Prophet ROM can be used in Charmer (Dopod 818 Pro's ROM has been successfully tested). However, Charmer's camera seems to have compatibility issues with Prophet's ROM (e.g. Charmer camera will not work with Prophet's ROM).
WARNING! Do not attempt to use Wizard ROM to flash a Charmer. There is at least one confirmed case of dead Charmer by doing so. (related thread)
WARNING! Do not attempt to use Prophet ROM to flash a Charmer. There are cases of dead Charmer by Prophet ROM. (related thread)
For disassembling your Charmer, you need the Torx T6 screwdriver (star-shaped screwdriver, not hexagon). Make sure it is size T6 (small). You can get Torx screwdrivers on some car kit shops, but their size are usually much bigger than T6. Check the size! Preferably bring your Charmer along. T6 Torx drivers are also given away on Ebay when you bid for replacement housings etc.
You also need other common tools as well (e.g. precision screwdriver). There is a nice PDF here for Magician (33MB), showing detail steps how to disassemble the Magician, for clearnign the ear piece. Similar method can be used to disassemble the Charmer too, for whatever reason.
(related thread)
FAQ
How to hardreset
The pages in the Charmer's user manual are clones of the Magician. Such that, the hardreset method of Magician is stated in the manual, hence does not work in Charmer. For Charmer you have two methods of hardresting your unit:
Hold down the 2 left side buttons, camera + voice, then poke the reset, while still holding the 2 buttons wait for display to prompt for reset.
If you have a working window, just go to Setting->System->Clear Storage
How to enter Bootloader Mode
You will only need to do this procedure if your device is unresponsive, cannot create an Active Sync connection and you need to flash to another ROM.
Hold down the camera hardware button, and press the soft reset with your stylus and wait few seconds then remove the stylus, release the camera button when you see the 3 rows of colours indicating you are in bootloader mode. You may now run the Update utility of an unpacked ROM file to reflash your device.
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