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ZTE Blade / Orange San Francisco

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    #182
    sombaht
    Registered Users Posts: 327 ✭✭sombaht


    Deaglan I'm on Vodafone PAYG so may not be of much help, but my contacts list is showing up as first name/last name. My contacts list was built from Google contacts, dunno if that makes a diff. As for MMS, I had to have 3G enabled before I was able to send/receive MMS, might be worth checking.

    Cheers,
    sombaht


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    #183
    t0mm13b
    Registered Users Posts: 607 ✭✭✭t0mm13b


    Hey all,

    If you have a windows box, and wish to make things easier for android, head over to codeplex.com's site and download Droid Explorer - it is a life saver and makes things so much easier - basically a custom windows Explorer that shares similar features to Windows' own explorer, i.e. a dual pane window with lots of plugins such as installing an app from there, drag and drop files directly into it...

    The really neat thing about this - its written in Mono C#, so it can equally work without fuss under Linux as well (provided you have the mono runtime installed) :D

    This of course requires the blade's drivers found at modaco. It will create a mobile phone identifier P729T from within my computer, and double click on that will launch droid explorer... it's a worthy addition to have in your toolkit....

    w007 \o/


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    #184
    MC_G
    Registered Users Posts: 231 ✭✭MC_G


    +1 for droid explorer

    Also, for anyone inspired enough to have the android sdk installed android commander is nice when on a windows box too.

    ADB Wireless is pretty handy when the USB cable's not around or if you have any usb driver issues. Info in the link and available in market


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    #185
    Khannie
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 37,485 Mod ✭✭✭✭Khannie


    ZTE released a stable 2.2 rom yesterday / today. Looks like we're going to get some stable 2.2 on the blade in the coming days / weeks which is nice. Just in the last day or so I've been noticing instabilities. Had to reboot it twice in the space of 24 hours which I'd consider poor.


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    #186
    t0mm13b
    Registered Users Posts: 607 ✭✭✭t0mm13b


    Khannie wrote: »
    ZTE released a stable 2.2 rom yesterday / today. Looks like we're going to get some stable 2.2 on the blade in the coming days / weeks which is nice. Just in the last day or so I've been noticing instabilities. Had to reboot it twice in the space of 24 hours which I'd consider poor.
    :eek:

    Which rom was it Khannie....?

    As a matter of interest, have you used wifi on it all the time - have noticed a huge battery drain on it with the "wifi blade fix" application... am getting a very short time on it with that....


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    #187
    shadowninty
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,654 ✭✭✭shadowninty


    Khannie wrote: »
    ZTE released a stable 2.2 rom yesterday / today.

    Thats for a different phone, sorry :/


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    #188
    MC_G
    Registered Users Posts: 231 ✭✭MC_G


    shadowninty wrote: »
    Thats for a different phone, sorry :/

    So is the Froyo ROM I'm using now...

    The guys at modaco already have a ROM that boots on our blades from the dump they got last night. RIL not working yet, but it didn't initially work on any of the leaked pre-production ROMs either, and as I pointed out above, I'm running Froyo!

    There are two versions of the blade, a Chinese and a Japanese, that were released last night as I said a few pages back. Between the Production ROM dumps, ZTE's obligation under the license (GNU/GPL??) to release the source and the guys/gals working through Christmas day on this, our OSFs will have a near perfect froyo ROM eventually.

    Sorry to hear about your reboots Khannie, hopefully it's something that works itself out, knock on wood I'm still stable, but I've had some issues with 2.1 roms I've tried for the gift phones.

    I haven't used the Blade wifi fix app, all I think it does is toggle wifi off and then on to reconnect when the phone comes out of sleep, try uninstalling and reconnecting wifi manually if the battery's that bad t0mm13b. I think the problem may be WiFi on all the time!!

    I heard people complaining about BladeVillians battery life though for some reason or other, you may want to see what others have done to solve it and possibly even change because it looks pretty much that development by BladeVillian and the Customised one at Modaco has ceased.

    I've installed nearly every rom now on one phone or another (I had three I gave as gifts, and two more I had to do for family that bought them a gifts too) for 2.1 the two I'd recommend are deorangenated r8 (will probably be posted tomorrow in modaco but already on the devs site) and Finnish Fillyjonk RLS4.

    Deorangenated is a little slower stock, but you can edit to enable hw acceleration (leaves slight artifacts on menu presses though - I fixed if anyone's interested) and change the vmheap size to increase performance.

    FF is smooth out of the box and the add ons/oc'ing can make the phone scream! Oc'ing causes decrease in battery and increase in heat, but some have found some good settings in setCPU that seem to mitigate it. The problem I had was the proximity sensor didn't work quite right when I pulled the phone away from my ear to end a call leaving me unable to hang up, the other person had to disconnect. I think they may have found a fix, but I haven't found time to investigate!!

    Happy Christmas to all and hopefully we'll have Froyo from the production dumps/kernel soon!


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    #189
    Woden
    Registered Users Posts: 6,560 ✭✭✭Woden


    Just ordered one from ebay off the back of reviews/discussion. Looking forward to receiving it now first decent phone ever!


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    #190
    MC_G
    Registered Users Posts: 231 ✭✭MC_G


    This is not a recommendation to install or download, but it sounds like the new dump is progressing nicely and nearly everything is functional and ZTE has said they'll be releasing the full source/kernel "at the end of the month!"

    I think a consumer/production quality Froyo for a production, rather than a dev phone will be on our SanFrans pretty soon and a release better than Alpha 4 could be up tomorrow!


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    #191
    Jovem
    Registered Users Posts: 53 ✭✭Jovem


    Any way of getting this without hopping in the car? If so, what site and what workarounds are needed? Tried the orange website, but wanted a British address.

    Cheers


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    #192
    Chet T16
    Registered Users Posts: 2,320 ✭✭✭Chet T16


    I got one on ebay, i paid more but i've always been one to place great value on not leaving the house!


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    #193
    t0mm13b
    Registered Users Posts: 607 ✭✭✭t0mm13b


    Jovem wrote: »
    Any way of getting this without hopping in the car? If so, what site and what workarounds are needed? Tried the orange website, but wanted a British address.

    Cheers

    Go on the train to Dublin, get the luas across to connolly, from there, get a train up to belfast, and you'll be able to pick up one - check on the store locator on Orange's website and pick out a few addresses, put on your best Irish accent and charm the ladies up there and they will guide you the right place ;)

    Been there done that and the trip was worth it!!!! :p


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    #194
    t0mm13b
    Registered Users Posts: 607 ✭✭✭t0mm13b


    There's a new clockwork recovery 2.5.1.8, which fixed up the upside-down screen glitch and works perfectly, grab it from here and overwrite the existing clockwork recovery 2.5.0.9 image.

    Will attempt modaco's custom rom alpha 4 and the japanese jellyfish release 1 (which had a dumped rom in which the devs managed to extract and rebuild froyo for the blade)...

    Here's the result of running Froyo 2.2...
    http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/14/screenshotad.png

    Image is upside down and is darn fast as fcuk.....

    Only thing right now is the led's for the buttons are not working....


    Phun times.... :)


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    #195
    slowlydownwards
    Registered Users Posts: 326 ✭✭slowlydownwards


    Which froyo image are you running?


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    #196
    MC_G
    Registered Users Posts: 231 ✭✭MC_G


    I installed Sebastian's DeSoftened r0.2

    It's nice and seems really stable so far for what it is. WiFi sleep policy is still a problem in that it disconnects during sleep (use wifi keep alive), but the problems that people have had with reconnection upon waking are reported to be gone(no need for "blade wifi fix").

    The Japanese network who released it took out native support for wireless tethering which is a drag, but barnacle seems to fix that.

    I had a couple of problems with superuser/root rights but installed universal androot and busybox and now it seems to be sorted.

    Quadrant scores aren't great stock, mid 400s but I edited build.prop the enable hwui and stagefright and got scores of 960, 955 and 980.

    I think that those things game quadrant, because I didn't really notice anything being any slower than Paul's alpha4 before I pushed the edits over.

    I've only had a little time to play around (phone mostly idle) so there may be some issues further down the line, but it's been about 30hrs and nothing negative so far and I don't think I'll be reverting to my alpha4 back-up anytime soon.


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    #197
    Khannie
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 37,485 Mod ✭✭✭✭Khannie


    Nice one. That sounds really good. Thanks for the update. I think I'll go to that later tonight when I get some flutin' time. :)


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    #198
    MC_G
    Registered Users Posts: 231 ✭✭MC_G


    It's worth a shot! Is Alpha4 still buggy for you?

    I've attached the edited build.prop. Give it a go stock first I'd say and then either push the file over to /system and reboot or do a little zip surgery and reinstall with cwm if you want the extra boost.

    The app drawer seemed a little buggy after the first boot, but has settled in very nicely.


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    #199
    t0mm13b
    Registered Users Posts: 607 ✭✭✭t0mm13b


    slowlydownwards wrote: »
    Which froyo image are you running?
    Japanese Jellyfish.... its blazing saddles all the way... but froyo is not primed yet for release.... this is alpha 1 rom..... :D


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    #200
    MC_G
    Registered Users Posts: 231 ✭✭MC_G


    I gave JJ a quick go to, and it's nice but a bit bloated, and I'm too lazy to rebuild boot.img to get rid of the logo!

    Overall, I think the dev went for performance first and there's been a few more reported glitches in the day to day aspects of the phone. I'm sure sure that everything will be sorted eventually, and it will be a real screamer!


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    #201
    t0mm13b
    Registered Users Posts: 607 ✭✭✭t0mm13b


    Guys... just noticed....

    Do you have led lights on for the keys?

    When I switched to Japanese Jelly, no led lights obviously as it wasn't there... reverted back to BladeVillain ROM, the leds are fcuked... :(

    Can anyone confirm this....?


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    #202
    The Freeman
    Registered Users Posts: 1,627 ✭✭✭The Freeman


    missus picking one of these up in Argos up north tomorrow, can't wait to unlock it, how do ye guys find the usage allowance with vodafone?(or should i post this in a seperate thread)


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    #203
    shadowninty
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,654 ✭✭✭shadowninty


    t0mm13b wrote: »
    Guys... just noticed....

    Do you have led lights on for the keys?

    When I switched to Japanese Jelly, no led lights obviously as it wasn't there... reverted back to BladeVillain ROM, the leds are fcuked... :(

    Can anyone confirm this....?

    Did you perform a clean install?


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    #204
    t0mm13b
    Registered Users Posts: 607 ✭✭✭t0mm13b


    shadowninty wrote: »
    Did you perform a clean install?

    Yes, I wiped data/cache before re-installing... the only one that has LED is the return key.... :confused:


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    #205
    MC_G
    Registered Users Posts: 231 ✭✭MC_G


    t0mm13b wrote: »
    Guys... just noticed....

    Do you have led lights on for the keys?

    When I switched to Japanese Jelly, no led lights obviously as it wasn't there... reverted back to BladeVillain ROM, the leds are fcuked... :(

    Can anyone confirm this....?

    I don't have a 2.1 back up at the moment, but I'll try when I have a chance.

    Do they light up when you have it on charge? I also think the auto brightness settings can affect their operation.

    I don't know how there could be permanent effects like that. Did they work on BladeVillian previously? I know that was based on the Hungarian ROM, did that device have the same functionality as the OSF (I know there are some RAM differences currently being addressed)


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    #206
    MC_G
    Registered Users Posts: 231 ✭✭MC_G


    Installed Seb404's de-orangenated 2.1, booted, lights worked on lockscreen and went off. I then turned of the light in my office and the lights went on!

    Check your auto-brightness settings and that your ROM supports it or try the above ROM.

    I didn't use AHB overclocking when I gave JJ a go, did you? I doubt that would have any effect on the LEDs but it's another variable to consider and if you can rule out that your phone isn't defective it's an issue you need to make the Dev aware of.


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    #207
    t0mm13b
    Registered Users Posts: 607 ✭✭✭t0mm13b


    MC_G wrote: »
    I don't have a 2.1 back up at the moment, but I'll try when I have a chance.

    Do they light up when you have it on charge? I also think the auto brightness settings can affect their operation.

    I don't know how there could be permanent effects like that. Did they work on BladeVillian previously? I know that was based on the Hungarian ROM, did that device have the same functionality as the OSF (I know there are some RAM differences currently being addressed)

    Am back on Bladevillain, strange though (I swore there was no led lights for home and menu, the battery was flat)... the leds came back on when I fully charged it up (from 1% to 100%).

    When on JJ, had that fully charged and the thing drained the juice to such an extent that I had to recharge it again - the battery life on the newer ROMs is something that needs to be dealt with IMHO...I reckon its because the hw acceleration was on and thus drained the battery fast as fcuk.... well it's good to be back on BladeVillain for now... only time will tell...
    :D


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    #208
    peejay1986
    Registered Users Posts: 1,741 ✭✭✭peejay1986


    Installed Modaco 2.2 Alpha 3 on my new San Francisco. Had to. The Orange software was horrible! The phone is twice as fast now without it. Finding the overall usability much nicer and the interface performs smoother than before. Can't recommend it enough. All that Orange **** is destroying the phone.


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    #209
    t0mm13b
    Registered Users Posts: 607 ✭✭✭t0mm13b


    peejay1986 wrote: »
    Installed Modaco 2.2 Alpha 3 on my new San Francisco. Had to. The Orange software was horrible! The phone is twice as fast now without it. Finding the overall usability much nicer and the interface performs smoother than before. Can't recommend it enough. All that Orange **** is destroying the phone.

    What's the battery like on it? Keep an eye on it and report it back to modaco... ;) That's what modaco wants to hear to keep improving on it.... :)

    As for the battery, there's a very good widget that I use, called Gauge Battery Widget v1.6.0, use that and it will install itself into the notification bar and keep an eye on it.... :D


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    #210
    MC_G
    Registered Users Posts: 231 ✭✭MC_G


    tomm13b, I think it's recommended to do installs on a full battery as I've heard it keeps the meter more accurate. Also, the leds should work while on charger so thanks for checking that before posting on two forums...

    Peejay, Alpha 3 is a step up from stock definitely, but I wouldn't be surprised if that particular ROM is no longer developed as it will most likely be done from kernel source when it's released and the more recent dumps.

    In fact, just to get rid of that lockscreen and be on more recent footing, I'd consider the desoftened 2.2 or JJ and contribute to their development by making observations on them rather than pointing things out on a older version of a likely dying firmware.


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    #211
    Khannie
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 37,485 Mod ✭✭✭✭Khannie


    MC_G wrote: »
    Quadrant scores aren't great stock, mid 400s but I edited build.prop the enable hwui and stagefright and got scores of 960, 955 and 980.

    Just installed quadrant. I'm getting 911 on the alpha 4 rom. I'm guessing that's largely because they're using the same kernel.

    Glad to hear the wifi issue is sorted though. I'm delighted with that. I like to use a static IP on the phone while I'm in the house and that wasn't working at all with the alpha 4 sleep issue.

    I think I'm going to hang on until they release the source and those boys flute around with it though. I'm expecting big things. :D


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