As you'll have been aware, HyperX and his team have been pumping out various Samsung i8910 HD 'alternative' firmware updates for many months now. 'HX6-Speed', released today in 'Public beta' form, effectively gives you the fastest Symbian touchscreen experience available - at least until the Nokia N8 arrives to challenge. There's a feature summary below, plus links and other comments.

Here's a summary of the changes you need to know about (from the HX 4 and 5 firmwares):

• Integrated Dictonary
• NO kinetic-scrolling in app menus (on purpose - this significantly slows down the speed of response and also wastes power)
• Improved battery managment (so expect longer battery life, despite the 'speed' moniker)
• NO Samsung Touchwiz widget homescreen (it's just wasteful of resources)
• Kastor transitions included but OFF by default
• New JPG codec for better photo quality
• New 'turbo' app, with an “Eco-mode”
• Free space on disk C: now 109MB (the official latest firmware has only 18MB free!)

Flashing HX6-Speed involves downloading the firmware .RAR file onto a Windows XP PC (preferably a real one), unpacking it and running it. The i8910 HD has to be placed in bootloader mode and you will lose everything on both C: and E: - so make sure you back up first. Instructions are here.