It won’t come as much consolation to the faint of heart, but for what it’s worth, both custom kernels have been subjected to a two-part private testing phase, first with 80 testers on the 1.3.5.1 release, and then with 40 testers on the current 1.4.0 release. The developers claim no one has yet reported any freezing or bricking issues, either of which would be a tell-tale sign of an overclock gone bad. Remarkably, no one seems to be complaining about increased heat or significant reductions in battery life either, though there’s plenty of praise being thrown around in Pre Central’s forum where the kernels have been made available. One user described the performance difference as “night and day,” while another user posted a YouTube video (embedded after the jump) demonstrating just how snappy the Pre is with the custom kernel.
Keeping in mind that, at best, you can expect to toss any existing warranty out the window by applying one of these custom kernels, and at worst, you could brick your Pre even if no one else has yet done so, installation is fairly simple. You’ll need to have WebOS Quick Install up and running, which is a third-party utility designed to help with installing homebrew apps, and either the 720Mhz or 800MHz kernel. You can obtain the kernel direct from the developer here, and follow the instructions in the same thread. We're reiterate that we're extremely skeptical of overclocking handsets. This is a hack that would be more appropriate toward a product's end-of-life and not while it's still in it's prime.
If you own a Pre and decide to give one of these kernels a whirl, be sure to post your feedback. For everyone else, do you trust hacking mobile hardware?