ZTE Blade / Orange San Francisco

Khannie

Two great posts. Thanks.

shadowninty

Gah I am in two minds
Do I take a Buy It Now off eBay for €165 (£140) + €15 shipping or do I wait longer for more of the Swiss ZTE Blades to come up on eBay
Only Swiss one I saw ended at €125
+ €35 shipping

fed up of waiting, wanted an Android since August, Symbain is bleurgh

It looks to be a decent phone overall and a great one for the money. I wouldn't mind one just to add to the collection and have a relatively slower device to test things on.

Riesen_Meal

Thinking of heading up to Newry to grab a couple of these as christmas presents, just wondering, is it an extra £20 credit needed to activate them or is it £10?

It will make a difference if im buying a couple of them....

pelemcg

If you get them in Argos it's an extra tenner.

ronano

is there any way to tell which screen you have?

Go to the Settings Menu > About Phone > Build Number.

OUK_P729BV1.0.0B08 – TFT Screen
OUK_P729BV1.0.0B05 – OLED Screen

Fnz

Deleted User wrote: »

Go to the Settings Menu > About Phone > Build Number.

OUK_P729BV1.0.0B08 – TFT Screen
OUK_P729BV1.0.0B05 – OLED Screen

Last I heard, it's not quite that straightforward. See this earlier post:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=69454752&postcount=84

Brian

ronano wrote: »

is there any way to tell which screen you have?

Easy. Go into a pitch black room and open the app drawer. If you can see the "black" background, you have LCD. If it just looks like icons hovering in the air, it's OLED.

bogman

Fieldog wrote: »

Thinking of heading up to Newry to grab a couple of these as christmas presents.

All gone im afraid

MC_G

Khannie wrote: »

Two great posts. Thanks.

No Problem! Have you gotten your phones yet?

About the screens for anyone interested..

I had to pick up two more as gifts from others to others and the only ones they had were the white lcd models. TBH, you can tell the difference in the screens, but there's not much in it (and that's even with the cheapo manufacturer protector still on it). It's most noticeable in the dark as mentioned and the viewing angle on the OLED is better but straight lines on the LCD are crisper and not jagged due to the pixel offsets in the oled.

Both screens are impressive and the size and resolution is what's most important and I would have easily paid double and probably closer to triple for this or a similarly specced phone regardless of lcd or oled.

I personally prefer the OLED and the black phone over the white, but as I was typing this one of the gift recipients came in and asked if they could have the white over the black and when I pointed out the difference in screens they weren't dissuaded in the slightest when showing them the app drawer side by side.

I've been looking at all the custom roms at MoDaco for the gift phones (really I think Paul's 2.2 is stable and I've suffered no problems except the FM doesn't work, but I'm waiting to hear if that's considered a deal breaker for anyone on my list) and one of the 2.1 roms has been overclocked to around 700ish Mhz and it's getting better scores in quadrant than the Nexus 1/Desire on 2.1 running at 1Ghz!! Obviously the Nexus 1/Desire has more features overall but the fact that a 99stg phone is even mentioned in the same breath is an accomplishment both by ZTE and the custom rom community's support for this phone.

Any way, anyone getting this be sure to have a look at the forum on Modaco (not affiliated but damn impressed by them) for a wealth of information or post in here and if there's anything I can do to help I will.

Khannie

MC_G wrote: »

No Problem! Have you gotten your phones yet?

Not yet. Not looking good for this side of Christmas either really. I ordered mine on the orange web site and two of them went through and two got flagged (the middle two of four). I had to do four separate orders because you couldn't have more than one in your basket at a time, which was weird but I went with it. Anyway, long story short they're out of stock in the mean time so I'm left waiting.

MC_G wrote: »

I've been looking at all the custom roms at MoDaco for the gift phones (really I think Paul's 2.2 is stable and I've suffered no problems except the FM doesn't work, but I'm waiting to hear if that's considered a deal breaker for anyone on my list) and one of the 2.1 roms has been overclocked to around 700ish Mhz and it's getting better scores in quadrant than the Nexus 1/Desire on 2.1 running at 1Ghz!!

That's pretty sweet. I think I'm going to go with their 2.2 rom myself when the phone arrives. The FM's not a dealbreaker for me by any stretch.

MC_G wrote: »

Any way, anyone getting this be sure to have a look at the forum on Modaco (not affiliated but damn impressed by them) for a wealth of information or post in here and if there's anything I can do to help I will.

Yeah, modaco's a really good spot for SF support I have to say. I think I'm gonna shell out the tenner for their ad free / kitchen access given we're going to have 3 SF's in the house.

deaglan169

been keeping a close eye on this phone for a while and have finally deceided to get one luckily enough argos in dungannon had 1 grey one left so i have it reserved, i check the other stores around NI some have 1 or 2 white ones left but only one has a grey one that argos in omagh so if you want one before christmas reserve the last one now. im also hoping is the OLED version, also i really want the FM radio to work so will i need to load a 2.1 rom

Wertz

Picked up the last one of these in Argos, Newry on friday. It's an LCD version (which is hugely impressive, can only imagine what the OLED must be like) web pages are very legible on it, even when zoomed out, the touchscreen is very responsive.
Cracking phone even with all the orange stuff tacked on. My first smartphone and first experience with android...haven't had time to start messing about with hacks and mods yet (been reading up a lot about it and am a bit wary, don't want to brick it).
Having a bit of a time getting used to onscreen keyboard (or maybe it's just the stock one the phone is using) and not 100% sure if this is a keeper for me, or whther I might try and get soemthing with a slide out keypad.
Pity about the camera, not that i'd use it much but when you do need one, this isn't going to cut it.
GPS is strong on it and so far the battery life is great (admittedly not getting intensive use just yet) and the wifi is quick to connect and no drop outs.

Have to find a decent PAYG plan now...meteor or three?

Riesen_Meal

Wertz wrote: »

Picked up the last one of these in Argos, Newry on friday. It's an LCD version (which is hugely impressive, can only imagine what the OLED must be like) web pages are very legible on it, even when zoomed out, the touchscreen is very responsive.
Cracking phone even with all the orange stuff tacked on. My first smartphone and first experience with android...haven't had time to start messing about with hacks and mods yet (been reading up a lot about it and am a bit wary, don't want to brick it).
Having a bit of a time getting used to onscreen keyboard (or maybe it's just the stock one the phone is using) and not 100% sure if this is a keeper for me, or whther I might try and get soemthing with a slide out keypad.
Pity about the camera, not that i'd use it much but when you do need one, this isn't going to cut it.
GPS is strong on it and so far the battery life is great (admittedly not getting intensive use just yet) and the wifi is quick to connect and no drop outs.

Have to find a decent PAYG plan now...meteor or three?

Id say a lot of these will be back in stock after xmas, so ill leave it til then and head up, weather is too bad at the moment for a car journey up!

Chet T16

Mine turned up today, currently rooting with custom 2.2.

Nice looking phone, bit cheapy feeling (its a white one) Screen is tft and very nice. I'll have a proper poke around shortly and see how it stacks up against the desire

flutered

weather permitting santy is bringing me one, no postage from the uk for some time.:mad:

Khannie

Mine just arrived in the post. Still waiting on two more to be shipped by Orange. Very, VERY impressed. Super crisp screen. Very easy to read text from. Much nicer than the iphone 3gs.

I wasted no time. Clockwork mod installed. 2.2 modaco rom installed. Just waiting on it to boot now. Very excited.

The stock rom felt slightly less responsive than iOS on the 3gs. I'm hoping the move to 2.2 will change that....I will report back after more flutin'.

MC_G

Just wait until 2.2 boots, serious improvement!

I think you'll find that the tenner for add free was well spent.

Happy tinkering!

Khannie

I installed the alpha 3 because I hadn't paid for the ad-free and was too impatient to go through the purchase process before installing it. Seems no different to the stock rom speed-wise. Gonna pay up and move to the alpha 4 now....

MC_G

Try installing either adw launcher or launcher pro (what I'm using) from the market and fiddling with the settings/preferences in those and also there are some animation settings to be tweaked in the included spare parts app.

I found the animations, especially in the stock launchers app drawer to be a little laggy, and the ones in launcher pro to be simpler, more fluid and aesthetically pleasing even though they're not quite as "fancy."

Khannie

Nice one. Did that and it's a very nice improvement. Feels much nippier now. I'll move to the alpha 4 after work. Must. Stop. Fluting.

Chet T16

Alpha 4 is very nice, i'm mightily impressed with the whole phone tbh.

Wrapped up now until chrimbo for herself

MC_G

The Alpha status really doesn't seem warranted, although it's necessary in the strictest sense due to the FM problem. I find it easily as stable as any of the other roms I've tried and far more capable overall.

I don't think I've ever been more impressed with anything I've owned when compared to other options at the same price point.

It may seem counter intuitive, but the launcher/transition/appearance settings I've had the most joy with is with the speed settings maxed out.

Under Settings > Display - I have all animations shown

In Spare Parts, both Window and Transition Animations are at Fast

And in Launcher Pro: Preferences > Advanced I have Scrolling, Drawer, and Opening set to fastest.

The only things I have off are 3D Drawer and High Quality Scrolling.

I notice absolutely no degradation with High quality scrolling off, but my wallpaper is fairly simple.

I have pretty much everything else enabled or high quality and I find Alpha 4 smooth as silk. I "only" have 5 homescreens, maybe 7 would dercrease performance?

Anyway play around a bit and I'm sure you'll find a perfect balance of performance, appearance and behaviour.

ronano

I have it running 2.1 atm is 2.2 stable enough to update? any benefits in term of speed or battery time

MC_G

Alpha 4 is running perfect for me and I seem to get similar if not longer battery life.

FM radio is the only thing that doesn't work for me or anyone else. There's a workaround of playing a silent mp3 file mentioned, but I haven't been bothered enough to download the mp3 to try it.

Some people have reported a non responding touchscreen after sleep, that hasn't affected my phone or probably a large majority of the people that have installed it.

Just back up your existing install in clockwork, that way if you have any of the problems you can go back to exactly how you have it set up now.

My only problem was moving some apps and data back via Titanium Backup, but that was more user error than anything else. Back up your contacts to your google account or sim and reinstall any paid apps from the market.

If you're ad free at modaco, I'd recommend baking your own rom with the apps you want and also selecting the stock froyo lockscreen rather than the zte one.

If it goes tits up or you don't like it, just revert to your backup and nothings lost and you've just gained a little more experience.

My benchmark scores went up from 350-400ish to 950-1000 and angry birds is a helluva lot smoother anyway!

ronano

nice

im gonna give it a go and check out paying for modaco

i cant find anywhere selling cheap battery as a spare online,anyone know of place?

Chet T16

Modaco is worth paying for, its great having so many options

Khannie

Still on alpha 3. Seems rock solid. I've installed a load of stuff at this stage. I'll do the alpha 4 upgrade at lunchtime.

Stuff I like:
The screen is flipping brilliant. Even very small text is very readable.
Angry birds is just as smooth as the 3gs. That was the first real "test" for me.
I got quicksshd and busybox installed. This means I can transfer files to / from the phone over wifi and flute around with the command line. Win.
As expected, everything is super configurable.
Clockwork is a great piece of kit.
Google maps is significantly better than the iOS equivalent.
Facebook has caught up with the iOS equivalent (not that I use it very often).


Stuff I didn't like:
The extra buttons are a pain in my bum, though I'm getting used to them.
The UI experience is less intuitive because the different buttons are dealt with in slightly different ways by different applications.
The alpha 3 lockscreen is terrible. Makes the phone feel really clunky it's so slow (and I can't quite figure out why).
When I lock the phone with the lock button, I can't press any other button to bring up the unlock screen. I dislike this a lot.
I'm not convinced that there aren't a load of apps in the background killing my battery. I know there are managers for this. I'll get to that I suppose.
The built in browser is not as good as safari.

MC_G

I'm not 100% certain either way, (I've conditioned myself to be a little process neurotic!) but it seems here and in a lot of other reading I've done that task managers and killing apps and services can do more harm than good for very little (if any) benefit to battery or performance.

The lock key is a PITA. I have WiFi Keep Alive installed to keep my WiFi connection and email notifications active during "sleep" and screen lock, but this allows waking/unlocking from home/menu/back when I have the app running.

I think that there are other apps like NoLED that do the same, but they would obviously be somewhat detrimental to battery life because whatever function that the app serves is keeping the phone from entering it's deepest form of sleep.

I assume you'll have gone with the froyo stock lockscreen on you're Alpha 4 so that's sorted and there are a lot of browsers in the market of which one will fit your needs (opera, opera mini, dolphin hd or mini, and skyfire come to mind)

You're right about the UI and buttons, but it's something that I've just had to learn. I think in one of the browsers I tried the Home key went to the Homescreen and Back went to the browsers home page and in another one it was the exact opposite! That's something that could possibly become more standard in the future or not.

Also, after you install make sure you check that you have the latest version of maps from the market, unless the Kitchen's been updated there's an even better version than the one you've seen so far!

Ronano, there was a thread at modaco about a group purchase/importing of spare batteries. I'm not sure how it went of if another one's planned but a quick search there could put you in touch with people that may be planning something again. I'd be interested as well!