Vodafone Branding - Grrrrr
I am angry at Vodafone today for making me tired. I got my wife a new phone as an early xmas pressie. A Sony Erricson K850i so she could take pics of Amy whilst they were out and about. The phone has been ok but was let down by some over sensitive soft buttons and a problem where the screen would fade to black at least once a day and then become unresponsive for a random amount of time before springing back into life.
As I hadnt seen too many posts about this problem I had a sneaking suspicion it may be a Vodafone branding issue so I decided to lookin into removing the Vodafone branding.
I did most of my reading on the expansys.co.uk forums. The people on there recommended using the tools from the website http://www1.davinciteam.com/index.html . Most people that had gone through the process seemed quite happy with the results.
I downloaded the client from the latest client from the website and paid my money for 10 credits. I didnt have to upgrade my USB drivers as the ones I had installed as part of the software that came with the phone seemed to work ok but a lot of people in the forms had to do this.
The client I downloaded connected to my phone and gave me the options to install some new firmware. I chose the Customized UK Blue firmware. It then went away downloaded the files and flashed the phone.
The firmware upgrade wipes all the settings in the phone. I had backed up the contacts to the memory card before I started to restoring these were easy. Setting up the WAP settings and MMS settings again for Vodafone wasnt so easy but after a bit of digging around I managed to get it all working again.
The phone acts like a different phone. Navigating around is loads faster, browsing pictures on the phone is really quick now and the over sensitive soft buttons werent an issue any more. I dont know how Vodafone manage to take a perfectly good working phone and make such a hash of it. The whole process took me about 3 hours from starting to read the forums to finally sending an MMS. If you have one of these phones that is Vodafone branded I would recommend you consider going through this process as the difference is well worth it.
Thank you vodafone for costing me £7.50 to remove your crap and 3 hours of my life. By all means add your logo to the phone if you must and pre stage them with GPRS / MMS settings but leave it at that please.