ZTE Blade / Orange San Francisco

witnessmenow · 10-11-2010 10:51pm #1

There is a thread talking about unlocking this but i thought it deserved its own one.

The ZTE Blade or the Orange San francisco is about the cheapest (decent) android phone you can buy costing about £99 PAYG. The surprising thing although it defently a budget priced phone, the spec is actually quite good, the 3.5" Amoled capacitive screen being the main selling point. In a nutshell its only downfall its poor camera (It has no flash and it's not great other than that either) - See a full review here

So I got mine there at the weekend, its my first Android and I have to say I love it!

Buying the phone: The phone is sold exclusively by Orange in the UK and is currently not being sold by any Irish Carriers. So your only option for buying the phone is knowing someone in the UK or going to the North. As its a PAYG you can basically just walk into the shop and pick it up. They cost £99 plus a mandatory £10 top up. Orange offer a Student Discount of 10%. They are also on ebay but are priced around €170 or so.

Unlocking the phone: A Free Unlock code can be got here. Put your IMEI in, select ZTE, leave the default model as ZTE BLUEBELT

Thanks to slowlydownwards for the link!

Protecting the phone: There isnt actually any dedicated screen protectors or cases for the San Fran, but fear not. Nokia E71 cases fit very well, but will require a some small modification for the usb port and the camera is slightly blocked. Screen protectors for the Samsung i900 Omina area perfect fit.

Modding the Phone (probably not the right phrase) One the first things I did with mine is installed a custom rom to get rid of the Orange bloatware. Here are the steps I followed.

First thing i did was install the USB drivers

Next thing I did was install the ClockworkMod

And finally installed the r4 custom rom by modaco

at this stage you could alternatively install Froyo

Performance Improvements: Installing "Launcher Pro" (DL form market) made a huge difference to the smoothness of the whole experience.

I also upped my VM heap size to 32MB, apparently its better for those hungry hungry apps. Tool can be got here

Other Tips: SIP applications seem to have an issue with using the earpiece speaker (Fring, Linphone and Sipdroid all suffered the same issue, sound coming form loud speaker), but i found a patched version of sipdroid that works as it should. Link here or try this:

attachment%3Faid%3D8255316458644675964%26name%3DSipdroid-debug.apk%26token%3D3d1bb648ccbf46590fec90e0869f422b

attachment%3Faid%3D8255316458644675964%26name%3DSipdroid-debug.apk%26token%3D3d1bb648ccbf46590fec90e0869f422b

Some of the bad things: Dont have a lot to complain about, but i'm a bit disappointed with game performance. Angry birds runs much smoother on my 2g ipod touch.

If anyone has anything to ask about feel free and I'll do my best to answer.

ronano · 11-11-2010 11:04am

thanks for the review,very well done. I'm half considering buying one but i've got a love for my htc g1 even if its old.

Whats the battery like

Brian · 11-11-2010 11:20am

witnessmenow wrote: »

Some of the bad things: Dont have a lot to complain about, but i'm a bit disappointed with game performance. Angry birds runs much smoother on my 2g ipod touch.

The iPod touch has a faster CPU/GPU and less than half the screen resolution, so those are probably the main reasons. Installing Froyo should speed things up noticeably.

My review of the Blade: http://www.androidpolice.com/2010/10/28/zte-blade-orange-san-francisco-review-two-thirds-of-a-nexus-one-for-one-third-the-price/

TakeTheVeil · 11-11-2010 1:23pm

Also there is suggestions that putting the Froyo rom on it unlocks it too.

The Froyo rom from MoDaCo does unlock it but once you switch back to 2.1 (or perhaps future updates) it will return to being locked.

Froyo helped with the smoothness of Angry Birds. The only time is stutters is when there's a large about objects on screen (zooming out helps with that).

Only annoyances for me was the WiFi not reconnecting after a screen lock but I found an app that can fix that.

Fantastic phone for the price

jimrad · 12-11-2010 1:38pm

Hi taketheveil..
What was the app you used for WiFi not reconnecting after a screen lock?
Cheers..
Jim

witnessmenow · 12-11-2010 3:52pm

ronano wrote: »

thanks for the review,very well done. I'm half considering buying one but i've got a love for my htc g1 even if its old.

Whats the battery like

No problem, I just wanted to post up the info as i spent a decent amount of time trawling through forums and didn't see teh point in anyone else having to do that!

Battery is fine, Its not somethign you'll be able to leave for days without a charge though. I've only had it since Friday but it has laster the day every day and I've been using it moderately heavily. Wednesday was the closest it came to running out of battery as I was listening to the TodayFM app for a 3-4 hours. I dont have screen brightness down or anything like that

Baza210 wrote: »

The iPod touch has a faster CPU/GPU and less than half the screen resolution, so those are probably the main reasons. Installing Froyo should speed things up noticeably.

My review of the Blade: http://www.androidpolice.com/2010/10/28/zte-blade-orange-san-francisco-review-two-thirds-of-a-nexus-one-for-one-third-the-price/

Probably helps that AB was initally built for the iphone, android may be a weaker port. if they move froyo to the Beta stage I'll jump, but seeing as i use the phone for work stability is an issue for me!

Great review btw.

mac09 · 12-11-2010 4:09pm

Very informative and well constructed post. I have also been thinking of getting this phone and during the research process have arrived at some of the sites you link to.

Couple of questions for you.

1. Did you root the phone to remove the orange bloatware?

2. What network are you with at the moment. Im wondering if meteor's text and internet bundel for €20 will be adequate. I dont see 250mb lasting very long really.

Cheers for any reply

witnessmenow · 12-11-2010 5:24pm

I didnt specifically root it no. the R4 mod comes with a "Superuser" app, when i was running the vm heap resizer it automatically opened with this app.

I'm with meteor. (I should post up my APN details actually)

It should be ok actually. Unless there is something wrong with my metoer account I have 985mb left out of my 1gb bundle. The phone is constantly syncing with gmail and gtalk and I downloaded at least a couple of small apps. When i'm at work or at home its connected to Wi-fi. I have the phone 7 days today, but my data plan started on the 5th of nov.

TakeTheVeil · 12-11-2010 6:26pm

jimrad wrote: »

Hi taketheveil..
What was the app you used for WiFi not reconnecting after a screen lock?
Cheers..
Jim

Its called Blade WiFi Fix. Free on the market

ooter · 13-11-2010 12:07am

sounds a decent phone,i'll be in the UK next saturday,might pick one of these up for an xmas present for the missus..

slowlydownwards · 13-11-2010 7:02am

According to this, free unlock codes here.

emo72 · 13-11-2010 5:27pm

slowlydownwards wrote: »

According to this, free unlock codes here.

it worked for me:D thank you slowlydownwards.

slowlydownwards · 13-11-2010 5:50pm

emo72 wrote: »

it worked

A while back there was a thread on modaco on car docks for blade. The one mentioned in the post is great value at £3.99, but that e-shop wants £16.45 for delivery to eire. :mad: Anyone spotted any better deals on this?

witnessmenow · 14-11-2010 12:03am

Try ebay. This looks like it would do the job. Comes with a case that might fit too :pac:

slowlydownwards · 14-11-2010 11:39pm

Thanks OP, spider-pig spider-foot looks the business.

Couple of questions:

Did you get the stock browser going over 3G? Haven't had any luck with it yet (mcr r3, mcr r4, froyo alpha and currently seb's r5). Any other browser from the market works fine over 3G.

Any idea how to get the blade (running any of the 2.1 based roms above) to see AdHoc networks? Google returns a lot of results on this, but I haven't had any luck with it yet. Many thanks!

witnessmenow · 15-11-2010 1:05pm

slowlydownwards wrote: »

Thanks OP, spider-pig spider-foot looks the business.

Couple of questions:

Did you get the stock browser going over 3G? Haven't had any luck with it yet (mcr r3, mcr r4, froyo alpha and currently seb's r5). Any other browser from the market works fine over 3G.

Any idea how to get the blade (running any of the 2.1 based roms above) to see AdHoc networks? Google returns a lot of results on this, but I haven't had any luck with it yet. Many thanks!

I didnt know what you were talking about there for a second :P

Thats strange, mine works ok. I don't see anything in the browser settings that would effect it either. which provider are you with it?

I got my metoer settings from here

I dont know do mms work, never tried.

Quick question for people, does anyone know if orange will mind me buying more than one phone at a time? Two people have asked me to pick them up one when im over in the uk in a couple of weeks.

ooter · 15-11-2010 4:27pm

slowlydownwards wrote: »

According to this, free unlock codes here.

there's no orange san francisco option..

witnessmenow · 15-11-2010 4:47pm

ooter wrote: »

there's no orange san francisco option..

From first link:

Put your IMEI in, select ZTE, leave the default model as ZTE BLUEBELT, pop in the not-a-robot code. In the box above the IMEI you'll receive your code.

For the craic i tried my IMEI and it generated the same code i got off ebay

emo72 · 15-11-2010 4:56pm

ooter wrote: »

there's no orange san francisco option..

and i can also confirm it works. ahhhh the glory of boards, solves all lifes little problems:D

ooter · 15-11-2010 6:22pm

witnessmenow wrote: »

From first link:

For the craic i tried my IMEI and it generated the same code i got off ebay

Ah right,my mistake,I only opened the 2nd link.
Thanks

slowlydownwards · 16-11-2010 7:19am

Just a little alert to another froyo (android 2.2) build.

witnessmenow · 16-11-2010 1:15pm

Things seem to be picking up on the Zte Blade scene ok, with the release of it to the french market.

I'm so so tempted to go with Froyo, but im scared!

I'd nearly buy a second one :P

bruschi · 16-11-2010 1:25pm

picked up this phone on the back of recommendations on here. just de-oranged it now and it looks the biz. first android phone so was a bit wary of fastboot and clockwork things etc, but there is a good thread on that modaco site that goes through a step by step drive through to get everything done.

TakeTheVeil · 16-11-2010 3:07pm

@witnessmenow

Definitely go for 2.2. Like Bruschi said, there are very good guides on MoDaCo on how to do it, and its difficult enough to feck it up. 2.2 with launcher pro makes its a very smooth android phone

witnessmenow · 16-11-2010 3:41pm

Its not the install Im scared about at all, its the unstability!

I'll see how things are looking at the weekend and make my decision then!

TakeTheVeil · 16-11-2010 3:53pm

I found it much more stable that the stock 2.1 was for me. The only unstablity i found on 2.2 is that the touch screen has become unresponsive 3 times over the last month which means you have to whip out the battery to reboot. Thats the only thing I can think of.

RichyX · 17-11-2010 2:04am

TakeTheVeil wrote: »

I found it much more stable that the stock 2.1 was for me. The only unstablity i found on 2.2 is that the touch screen has become unresponsive 3 times over the last month which means you have to whip out the battery to reboot. Thats the only thing I can think of.

Any improvement in battery life?

witnessmenow · 18-11-2010 11:41am

Used the GPS yesterday for a 2hr 15 min journey and battery was almost completely dead when i got there!

Car charger is essential for sat nav it would seem.

TakeTheVeil · 18-11-2010 12:13pm

The battery improved after the first few weeks. Think it was just a case of battery warm up though.

BatteryFu (turns off wifi, 3G, etc when screen is off) and SetCPU (set Max and Min mhz of CPU) helped me a lot with battery life too.

witnessmenow · 20-11-2010 4:53pm

So i stuck Froyo on my blade this evening, and it seems really good!

Seems to make a big difference to speed of everything

slowlydownwards · 20-11-2010 9:55pm

witnessmenow wrote: »

So i stuck Froyo on my blade this evening, and it seems really good!

Seems to make a big difference to speed of everything

+1

Which one did you install? The latest build by fibblesan seems most stable / complete. Wish he kept it bit leaner, not that I'm complaining or anything. Its easy to slim it down, as described in his first post.

ZTE Blade / Orange San Francisco

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