Vodafone Smart 858 Android 2.2 Phone €59

x0l0x

andrewire wrote: »

Can you use Skype with this phone?

Yes you can .... I installed it

andrewire

x0l0x wrote: »

Yes you can .... I installed it

Thanks x0l0x. Appreciated.

Wolfe Tone

Love the phone, my first android, and only cost me a tenner too

Moyglish

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

Love the phone, my first android, and only cost me a tenner too

Wow, bargain! Mind telling how you got it for a tenner?

Nice one!

Wolfe Tone

Moyglish wrote: »

Wow, bargain! Mind telling how you got it for a tenner?

Nice one!

I was with vodafone a few years ago and I got a letter in from them a few days ago asking for me to come back, with two vouchers offering 50 quid off 3 selected phones if I switched, the 858 was one

Dozen Wicked Words

Quick question, anyone let me know how much they get out of their battery, looking to get one for the missus.

Would you get a day out of it with minimal use, few texts, couple of short calls? Seems to be a few concerns on the reviews about battery life, It looks like a solid little phone otherwise.

Wolfe Tone

dooferoaks wrote: »

Quick question, anyone let me know how much they get out of their battery, looking to get one for the missus.

Would you get a day out of it with minimal use, few texts, couple of short calls? Seems to be a few concerns on the reviews about battery life, It looks like a solid little phone otherwise.

I charged mine friday morning, had to charge it this morning.


I made 2/3 calls, some facebook, bout 8 texts, and spent ages showing off the apps and stuff to my friends in that time.

Dozen Wicked Words

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

I charged mine friday morning, had to charge it this morning.


I made 2/3 calls, some facebook, bout 8 texts, and spent ages showing off the apps and stuff to my friends in that time.

Cheers for that, seems decent enough really, esp. for 40 quid when porting over, plus the 12.50 from fatcheese.

CourierCollie

Got one of these on Friday. Well impressed so far. Reminds me of my Xda Orbit from 4 years ago (Screen size is the same).
Not surprising that android 2.2 >> windows mobile 5:)

thewintermute

Hi, I managed to unlock this phone, and am really happy with it. great introduction to the android side. Has anyone figured out how to change the data settings to work on Meteor? I don't seem to be able to find where to change the mms and data access points. Any help is appreciated.

x0l0x

thewintermute wrote: »

Hi, I managed to unlock this phone, and am really happy with it. great introduction to the android side. Has anyone figured out how to change the data settings to work on Meteor? I don't seem to be able to find where to change the mms and data access points. Any help is appreciated.

How did you unlock it ?

Otacon

Are there any ROMs being worked on for this? I realise it isn't the most powerful phone out there but still.

thewintermute

x0l0x wrote: »

How did you unlock it ?

dc-unlockersimples. It costs €10, works very well and I could do it in the comfort of my own home.Now, if I could only get the data settings sorted I'll be as happy as a dog with two mickeys.

Baked.noodle

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=64010620&postcount=1987

thewintermute

Baked.noodle wrote: »

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=64010620&postcount=1987

Thanks baked.noodle, I have those from when I used the iphone on meteor, but what I cant find is where I'm supposed to input them on the phone itself. Its doing my head in. settings/wireless and network settings/mobile networks/data enabled is ticked on, but there's no option to enter any settings here. confusing.

Baked.noodle

settings/wireless and network settings/mobile networks/Access point names/menu/new apn

Tony H

After mobile network/GSM UMTS options then you should see add a new apn option

thewintermute

Baked.noodle wrote: »

settings/wireless and network settings/mobile networks/Access point names/menu/new apn

Nicely, Nicely, Vincent Pricely!Thanks for that, feel like a bit of a twonk for not spotting that now.

quinnd6

Do emulators like gensoid and psx4droid work on it?

Halve_ZOL

quinnd6 wrote: »

Do emulators like gensoid and psx4droid work on it?

I'm curious about that as well. If Snesoid works on this phone I am definitely interested.

Adyx

I had Snes9x EX installed to try it out. There was quite significant slowdown and with no multi-touch and small screen, the controls were all but unusable. Using a Wiimote worked pretty well though.

bk109

Adyx wrote: »

I had Snes9x EX installed to try it out. There was quite significant slowdown and with no multi-touch and small screen, the controls were all but unusable. Using a Wiimote worked pretty well though.

Well,at least performance-wise you might want to OC the MSM7225 to 600MHz to get it to be a tad more responsive (I fished out the xda-dev version of SetCPU to do it)

VampiricPadraig

Picked this up today for €40 in King Communications in Monaghan Town. 1st time Android user and I LOVE IT!

Very snappy and even though it's a small screen, it is pretty awesome!

Although I have noticed that TeamSpeak does not work on it (What does it require to run?) but I am happy using Vent and Skype etc etc! Definitely recommend if you are a 1st time Android user.

bk109

Just a small update on the OC-ing of the Smart. I did find a nice lil custom ROM here that added real overclocking capability,so my lil bundle of budget awesome can reach 729MHz... Plus it's got Flash (Lite I think,but it might be the ARMv6 port of 10.1) AND two-finger multi-touch... Ah,and the camera turned out to be 3.1MPix (at least judging by the QXGA resolution on the pics taken). Either way,the Smart turned out to be quite the bargain

VampiricPadraig wrote: »

Although I have noticed that TeamSpeak does not work on it

Sorry,mate,but it just needs a different chip (ARMv7 or above instead of the ARMv6 in the SMART).

TM

bk109 wrote: »

Well,at least performance-wise you might want to OC the MSM7225 to 600MHz to get it to be a tad more responsive (I fished out the xda-dev version of SetCPU to do it)

Tried that but don't see any obvious speedup although I haven't tried to analyse this systematically yet.

I rooted it using z4root (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=833953) and then installed SetCPU (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=505419) so I presume that's the correct approach?

Must try that custom ROM that you mentioned although it's a little tricky to follow the original instructions Google translated from Italian to English and I'm wary of bricking the phone or not being able to restore to the original state if necessary...

bk109

TM wrote: »

Tried that but don't see any obvious speedup although I haven't tried to analyse this systematically yet.

I rooted it using z4root (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=833953) and then installed SetCPU (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=505419) so I presume that's the correct approach?

Must try that custom ROM that you mentioned although it's a little tricky to follow the original instructions Google translated from Italian to English and I'm wary of bricking the phone or not being able to restore to the original state if necessary...

To install that ROM,you should first install Recovery Manager, then follow the instructions here. This will install a recovery image,that'll allow you both to Back-Up(and restore) your current ROM,but also to install new ones.
After you've completed ^ this and you're still in the mood for that custom ROM,you just
1.Copy the SmartLuckyROM .zip file you downloaded from here to your microSD card. By the way,I used simply,but if you want you can experiment with the other one.
2.Turn off the device off and then start it,while pressing Power and Volume Up
3.Back-UP your ROM(if you haven't already)
4.Select Wipe data/factory reset and wipe cache from the recovery menu
5.Select install zip from sdcard and point it to the custom ROM
6.Choose reboot system now. (Don't worry if the initial start takes a minute or two,it happened to me the first boot with the new ROM)
7.Profit and customization. Give me a shout if you need any pointers on customization

Two things I sorta forgot:
1. A backup is around 400 megabytes,so you should probably check how much free space you've got on your microSD card
2. Installing a new ROM will delete all installed programs,so you might want to use an app like AppBrain to first sync your installed apps, so that you can perform a one-touch reinstall. (Or if you don't have that many - just write them down and use the Android Market to reinstall them after you install the new ROM)

TM

Brilliant - thanks a lot for the concise summary. I'll probably give this a go soon - maybe at the weekend. I have an 8GB microSD card which, even with a few 10s of apps installed is barely used so space is not an issue for backup.

Couple of (possibly dumb) questions

What, if any, user/application data is lost and does the like of AppBrain or some other backup/restore utility retain this?

I found it difficult to understand the difference between the "simply" and "color" ROM variants - is it purely that the latter has some cosmetic differences over the former?

Thanks again for your advice.

[Edit] PS - specific any tips/pointers on "customization" as you mention above? Even just good sites that you'd recommend for info.

bk109

TM wrote: »

Brilliant - thanks a lot for the concise summary. I'll probably give this a go soon - maybe at the weekend. I have an 8GB microSD card which, even with a few 10s of apps installed is barely used so space is not an issue for backup.

Couple of (possibly dumb) questions

What, if any, user/application data is lost and does the like of AppBrain or some other backup/restore utility retain this?

I found it difficult to understand the difference between the "simply" and "color" ROM variants - is it purely that the latter has some cosmetic differences over the former?

Thanks again for your advice.

[Edit] PS - specific any tips/pointers on "customization" as you mention above? Even just good sites that you'd recommend for info.

There's no such thing as a dumb question,y'know
As for your questions - I'm pretty sure AppBrain just syncs the list of installed programs,so if you reinstall or change devices it just downloads and installs them from the app market (so probably it doesn't retain any app/user data whatsoever)
Some backup utilities may backup data,but the one I am using at the moment ( this only saves the program itself)

As for the difference between Simply and Colour - The only difference as far as I could find was that Colour has some additional icon packs.

And finally the tweaking tips - well,mostly google is your friend (if you know what you want from your device), but I was mostly referring to stuff like from the several app-launchers bundled with that custom ROM,that I found LauncherPro to be the best one,or to freeze/remove the bundled CPU manager in favour of SetCPU... stuff like that Aaaah,and you might want to get(if you haven't already) MarketEnabler if you have stumbled upon geographically locked apps (like Google books)

Edit:The referenced app manager is kinda useful if you want to freeze programs so they don't use up system resources without deleting 'em

TM

Thanks a lot - again! :-) I already use LauncherPro and would be inclined to stick with it. Must see if there's any app AND data backup option out there.

Re SetCPU did you notice or benchmark any specific/significant improvements in speed when using it to allow 600MHz (or more?!)? Without SetCPU what is the max speed?

I thought I saw undervolting mentioned in connection with SetCPU but couldn't see any options to configure it. Just wondered if overclocking and undervolting might leave battery usage around the same as without such tweaks?

TM

TM wrote: »

Without SetCPU what is the max speed?

Oh - is it 528MHz?

http://www.gsmarena.com/vodafone_858_smart-3955.php

bk109

TM wrote: »

Oh - is it 528MHz?

http://www.gsmarena.com/vodafone_858_smart-3955.php

Yeah,the stock speed is 528MHz,with default kernel + SetCPU it's as you've seen 122 to 600MHz and with the custom kernel in the rom(with undervolting and overclocking) it's 30 to 729MHz and I read somewhere that it might support up to 800MHz in a couple of releases if some bugs get resolved.
And no,I haven't played around with benchmark apps to sure how much faster does the Smart work with this ROM,but it certainly feels snappier than before (and I can feel the difference when my low battery SetCPU profile kicks in at 15% charge and locks it at ~the default CPU frequency)

TM

Thanks yet again.

TM

bk109 (or anybody else) - I'm a bit confused about this...

I use "App 2 SD" (free version) from the Market to move some apps from the phone to SD card. Before I backup (either apps only, or apps + data, or a full system image backup etc.) should I move the apps back from SD to the phone first since it seems to me that backing up to SD will not also backup stuff that is already ON the SD? (Hope that makes sense?!?!).

Since it looks like the SmartLucky custom ROM has built-in support for App2SD functionality I presume that this would render the standalone App 2 SD app redundant?

I've also seen suggestions for manually partitioning the SD card before moving apps to it - is this necessary, advisable, optional ... ?

bk109

As for moving them back to the phone or not,to be honest,I'd just wipe everything (except music/pictures) from microSD after I make a full backup of the ROM (and if you want SD,so you can restore your stuff to a 'last known good' combo). This way you can (re)install what you want,without wasting space on the card.
About Apps2SD - Err,the functionality was there in the stock vodafone rom - under Settings/Applications/Manage Applications , so I haven't bothered with it.
About the partitioning tips... You might be better off without playing around with the partition table of your device or microSD

TM

bk109 wrote: »

As for moving them back to the phone or not,to be honest,I'd just wipe everything (except music/pictures) from microSD after I make a full backup of the ROM (and if you want SD,so you can restore your stuff to a 'last known good' combo). This way you can (re)install what you want,without wasting space on the card.

OK - thanks for that - I'll have to think about how best to approach the backup, ROM upgrade and reinstall so.

About Apps2SD - Err,the functionality was there in the stock vodafone rom - under Settings/Applications/Manage Applications , so I haven't bothered with it.

Duh! Never spotted that and assumed App2SD was needed!

About the partitioning tips... You might be better off without playing around with the partition table of your device or microSD

I'd prefer not to bother but again I'll research a bit more to see what looks most appropriate for my needs.

Thanks a lot.

bk109

Just a quick tip for those,that find the need for a second battery (for some reason) and don't feel like paying that much for a budget phone's accessories- There's a compatible one for ~4€ here with shipping

The_Thing

I bought one recently as a cheap and cheerful introduction to the world of Android and so far I'm fairly impressed with it for the price. I haven't actually been using it as a phone though, mostly for playing *.mp3's \ *.mp4's and in that respect it's more than capable. I've also installed a few "productivity" apps from the marketplace.

I would like to get rid of the Vodafone branded version of Android that comes installed and use a generic non-branded version of the OS if there is one available somewhere. Any advice, links, etc would be appreciated.

As I understand it the phone's firmware and OS are two seperate things - is this correct? In this respect I suppose its similar to how a PC operates - the Bios kicks in first, then proceeds to boot the OS from a HD, etc.

I don't have a sim card in it at the moment, do I need to have one installed to unlock the phone?

Thanks for reading.....

bk109

The_Thing wrote: »

I bought one recently as a cheap and cheerful introduction to the world of Android and so far I'm fairly impressed with it for the price. I haven't actually been using it as a phone though, mostly for playing *.mp3's \ *.mp4's and in that respect it's more than capable. I've also installed a few "productivity" apps from the marketplace.

I would like to get rid of the Vodafone branded version of Android that comes installed and use a generic non-branded version of the OS if there is one available somewhere. Any advice, links, etc would be appreciated.

As I understand it the phone's firmware and OS are two seperate things - is this correct? In this respect I suppose its similar to how a PC operates - the Bios kicks in first, then proceeds to boot the OS from a HD, etc.

I don't have a sim card in it at the moment, do I need to have one installed to unlock the phone?

Thanks for reading.....

Can't help you with unlocking your device (never had to do it,because I'm content with the network),but I'm fairly certain you can do it for 10-20quid via DC-Unlocker. Now the ROM,well.. there are several ways to debrand it.
Door 1 - the least invasive method,but it's also the one with the least gains - use one of the Android marketplace apps that can change your boot animation to something else (or in my case I'm using live dmesg lite for the sheer geekyness of seeing a real-time dmesg output at boot). For the rest of the Vodafone Bloatware crap I used AntTek App Manager to freeze and remove the stuff (and thus freeing resources). Important - You need to have a rooted device to use it (I think I wrote a simple howto several posts above)
Door 2 - Install the debranded ROM from here. This way you can receive the same benefits of Door 1,but with a slightly smaller initial system image
Door 3 - Custom tweaked ROM (Check a couple of posts above for a howto) - this way you get the highest rewards for playing with the device - it works faster,you can further tailor the OS for your own liking AND get multitouch and a 3Mpix camera

As for Firmware Vs Software - you'd be surprised how often both terms are used interchangeably and in many threads OS=ROM=Firmware,but in general firmware controls a specific part of the hardware,whereas the OS controls the whole device.

The_Thing

bk109 wrote: »

Can't help you with unlocking your device (never had to do it,because I'm content with the network),but I'm fairly certain you can do it for 10-20quid via DC-Unlocker. Now the ROM,well.. there are several ways to debrand it.
Door 1 - the least invasive method,but it's also the one with the least gains - use one of the Android marketplace apps that can change your boot animation to something else (or in my case I'm using live dmesg lite for the sheer geekyness of seeing a real-time dmesg output at boot). For the rest of the Vodafone Bloatware crap I used AntTek App Manager to freeze and remove the stuff (and thus freeing resources). Important - You need to have a rooted device to use it (I think I wrote a simple howto several posts above)
Door 2 - Install the debranded ROM from here. This way you can receive the same benefits of Door 1,but with a slightly smaller initial system image
Door 3 - Custom tweaked ROM (Check a couple of posts above for a howto) - this way you get the highest rewards for playing with the device - it works faster,you can further tailor the OS for your own liking AND get multitouch and a 3Mpix camera

As for Firmware Vs Software - you'd be surprised how often both terms are used interchangeably and in many threads OS=ROM=Firmware,but in general firmware controls a specific part of the hardware,whereas the OS controls the whole device.

Thanks for the helpful reply, bk109.

I shall let you know how I get on.

TM

bk109 wrote: »

For the rest of the Vodafone Bloatware crap I used AntTek App Manager to freeze and remove the stuff (and thus freeing resources).

Just curious - what specifically would you classify as Vodafone bloatware that can/should be removed?

(P.S. Still haven't had a chance to try the upgrade to the SmartLucky custom ROM but real soon now... )

bk109

TM wrote: »

Just curious - what specifically would you classify as Vodafone bloatware that can/should be removed?

(P.S. Still haven't had a chance to try the upgrade to the SmartLucky custom ROM but real soon now... )

Well,I disabled Vodafone's music shop, My Web and I think a couple of others from the preinstalled Voda apps (pretty much all 360 apps) + I axed the Facebook client from the default Andro apps. That did wonders on the stock ROM,but it's incomparable to some of the custom solutions. Btw, with the program I mentioned you can also remove them,but if you do,I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be able to receive OTA upgrades (not that we're gonna see one I think)

Update!-Lucky's his new ROM here if someone's interested

Adyx

bk109 wrote: »

Well,I disabled Vodafone's music shop, My Web and I think a couple of others from the preinstalled Voda apps (pretty much all 360 apps) + I axed the Facebook client from the default Andro apps. That did wonders on the stock ROM,but it's incomparable to some of the custom solutions. Btw, with the program I mentioned you can also remove them,but if you do,I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be able to receive OTA upgrades (not that we're gonna see one I think)

Update!-Lucky's his new ROM here if someone's interested

I was using the de-branded rom already mentioned but I switched to Lucky's just for something new to try out. Is it just me or is it impossible to un-install apps that are bundled with the rom? I had no issues doing this with the de-branded rom. Also the back button seems a little unresponsive at times. Again only something I've noticed with Lucky's rom.

bk109

Adyx wrote: »

I was using the de-branded rom already mentioned but I switched to Lucky's just for something new to try out. Is it just me or is it impossible to un-install apps that are bundled with the rom? I had no issues doing this with the de-branded rom. Also the back button seems a little unresponsive at times. Again only something I've noticed with Lucky's rom.

As for the bundled apps - err, of course you can uninstall or disable them with that App Manager I mentioned (I wonder if I should start charging those folks for the adverts ) or similar like Titanium Backup
As for the back button,yeah - I noticed something like that and I think I read somewhere that it's a known bug,which can't be solved without losing multi-touch support.

The_Thing

Thanks again for all your help in this thread, bk109.

I'm up and running with the debranded ROM you linked to earlier

bk109

Just a heads up,guys,that our lil budget wonder now has its own CM7 port

Adyx

bk109 wrote: »

Just a heads up,guys,that our lil budget wonder now has its own CM7 port

Just tried it out, looking good so far. Performance is great. According to the Market though I don't have any devices. Despite my paid apps showing up in the Market app itself.



Edit: Never mind, reinstalling gmail seems to have fixed it.

bk109

Well,that's good to hear (especially since I was kind of stumped why you got that error and I didn't ). By the way, is it me,or this CM7 port feels faster than both the stock 2.2 and SmartLucky?

Adyx

bk109 wrote: »

Well,that's good to hear (especially since I was kind of stumped why you got that error and I didn't ). By the way, is it me,or this CM7 port feels faster than both the stock 2.2 and SmartLucky?

It's really fast. There also seems to be a lot more internal storage left than with the stock and debranded roms. SmartLucky was similar. Battery seems to be running down quicker though. I wonder is it overclocking the CPU. Do you know what the default CPU speed is?

bk109

Adyx wrote: »

It's really fast. There also seems to be a lot more internal storage left than with the stock and debranded roms. SmartLucky was similar. Battery seems to be running down quicker though. I wonder is it overclocking the CPU. Do you know what the default CPU speed is?

If you haven't touched anything - 600 MHz and the device runs on a constant 'on demand' CPU governor. Btw, how much did you manage to squeeze out of your device with the stock settings?I'm asking because mine managed 16 hours (WLAN on, 2G network, Normal usage including ~40 mins of Angry Birds) with some fairly basic CPU profiles
Edit:16 hours,but I had 22% battery remaining when I plugged it in to charge

The_Thing

bk109 wrote: »

Just a heads up,guys,that our lil budget wonder now has its own CM7 port

Thanks for the update, bk109.

I've been happily running the debranded ROM since the last time I posted here.

What enhancements will this ROM bring to my device? Does it include the Vodafone bloatware I got rid of by using the debranded ROM?