Vodafone was kind enough to roll out their repackaged version of Android 2.2 to my HTC Desire overnight, saving me from having to root my phone to upgrade it to Google's latest offering.  I was politely presented with a message asking if I wanted to wait until I'm in a WiFi zone or just go ahead and install the system update over 3G and risk grossly exceeding my data allowance.  Being impatient to see what the new version would be like, I went for option 2.

The actual installation took about 15 minutes, including a backup of the existing settings to the SD card, the actual installation and then a reboot.  It was immediately obvious that the font-smoothing has been improved.  The edges of the text on-screen are much clearer.  The graphics have been tweaked too and definitely for the better.  The unlock combination screen has a slightly different and more pleasing hue to it when you try to swipe your password shape (I said 'try' - it still usually takes multiple attempts, particularly when walking) and it also doesn't require you to enter your combination if you entered it within the last few minutes, which is a nice feature.

The sought-after 3G over WiFi sharing functionality has also been enabled - allowing you to connect other WiFi enabled devices to the Internet via your phone.  This seems to work well but until I have a truly unlimited data plan, or at least one that I don't get so close to exceeding every month, I'm probably not going to use this feature a great deal.  That said, if I had an iPad without 3G, it would be seriously useful.

There were also a few surprises when I tapped on the 'show all apps' icon.  I now have 'Flashlight', which can turn your phone into a torch using the camera's flash bulb.  'Google News and Weather' also appeared unannounced and the 'Google search' application has had a bit of a makeover in the form of a new icon and widget.

On the down side, I was kind of hoping that some of the phone's minor inconveniences might cease to be so.  Anecdotally at least, the keyboard prediction 'feels' a little better but in a very unscientifically tested way.  The bundled PDF viewer still crashes with particular PDF files and I haven't yet figured out why.  Google's direction voice 'Navigation' beta still crashes randomly and reboots my phone with permission or explanation.  Curiously, its generated voice has the same vocal idiosyncrasies as the auto-announcer in Kings Cross train station.

Clearly I will not have noticed all of the new features just yet and I'll try to tweet about any cool things that I notice about it over the next few days.