51 replies to this topic

[toogoody]

It's official now : Upgrade to Android 2.2 planned for Q2 2011

https://supportforum...oftwareupgrades

[Sorensiim]

toogoody, on Nov 23 2010, 19:57, said:

It's official now : Upgrade to Android 2.2 planned for Q2 2011

https://supportforum...oftwareupgrades

2.3 is just around the corner and we get 2.2 in Q2? Damn, if I wanted Sony Ericsson customer care and software development, I would have bought a Sony Ericsson phone!

[kibiwi]

dkSpook, on Nov 23 2010, 20:11, said:

2.3 is just around the corner and we get 2.2 in Q2? Damn, if I wanted Sony Ericsson customer care and software development, I would have bought a Sony Ericsson phone!

Don't wait for official updates the only way is to cook the roms ourselves. So it would be important to bypass the bootloader like the milestone. It's an hard work and I haven't the skills to help but I hope some Defy owner can give us some great news soon...

[twon]

2.3 will be out then so why dont they just wait till 2.3 is out and begin development on that instead?

[RickPinto]

twon, on Nov 25 2010, 00:11, said:

2.3 will be out then so why dont they just wait till 2.3 is out and begin development on that instead?

Probably, when they ended the development, there would be 2.4 or 3.0 outside...

[tdodd]

My girlfriend just bought a Defy on contract for £15 per month including 1GB of internet, 300 minutes and 300 texts. The phone was free and she should get £30 cash back from TopCashBack.

I helped her get the thing set up, since she has no interest or talent in figuring these things out, and I have to say that compared against my San Francisco it does seem to be the more polished device (unsurprisingly). I really like the soft touch keys at the bottom, although I hate the power button at the top. It seems to run smoothly and "just works". I'm intrigued by some extra touches that appear to be present in the settings, such as a data saver option that allows you to disable data and synch during specified periods such as overnight. This is all contained within the standard settings. I don't know why this feature is not in the San Fran, or how to add it. The phone also seems to keep tabs on data traffic, again within the "settings" dialogues, without the need for a third party app. It's too early to report on battery life, but it was charged on Saturday morning and has not been on the charger since. It's had a fair bit of fiddling with to set it up and explore, and to sync contacts, calendar, add ringtones and so on, and looks like it will comfortably last until at least the end of today. Not bad for a first charge.

If I was not enjoying such a bargaintastic time with my San Fran and almost zero cost service from GiffGaff I think I would grab a Defy for myself on this exact same contract. The contract is with http://www.buymobilephones.net, but obviously it is better to get there via a TopCashBack link.

[twon]

dkSpook, on Nov 18 2010, 09:49, said:

And I'm back! - So's my Defy btw  

Here's the skinny on rooting and modding the Defy...

First, rooting it is EXTREMELY easy. Get "Z4Root" from the Android Market, enable USB Debugging, run Z4Root, press the "Root" button. That's all. From here, I screwed up but at 1 in the morning, I had redeemed myself and revived my phone.

Long version: After rooting the phone, I installed Titanium Backup and started importing my apps w. data from my Desire. My locale setup is pretty complex and I've put too much time in Angry Birds to let that go to waste. Naturally I installed ADW.Launcher as well and used TB to get rid of that AWFUL pile of molasses that is Motoblur. I then continued to poke around in pretty much everything and everything on the Defy, knowing that I could always do a factory reset. Which I did, after a few hours. Now I wanted to do the "real" setup of my phone, just the way I like it. Come first reboot, I am greeted with the "Sign in to motoblur" and immediately press the "Skip setup" button. Nothing happens. I press it again. Nothing. I try setting up an account, but it never finishes. I have a friend call me, he is immediately disconnected...

Then it dawned on me: Using Titanium Backup to dropkick Motoblur the hell out of my phone, it was gone from the ROM. And some bloody nitwit had just done a factory reset, wiping all settings - and apps. Including ADW.Launcher. So now, that nitwit had no launcher on his brand new Defy... Crap. My head met my desk more than once when I realized that. Ah well, booting to recovery was the same procedure as my Desire: Volume Down, Power On, hold both. Now I was greeted with the Android "!" warning. And nothing else. No bootloader, no recovery, no nothing. Much yelling took place here.

I scoured the net and finally dug up a complete rom dump, got a hold of it, renamed it to "Update.zip", put it in the root of my SD card and booted to recovery, fingers crossed. Nothing happened. Even more yelling took place. After A LOT of googling and surfing forums, I found a set of .SBF files, the original ROM for the Defy and a program called "RSD Lite" that I needed to use in order to actually load that ROM onto my phone. Success! Joy! Dancing in the streets! I plug my phone into my pc, watch as the drivers are installed and RSD Lite recognizes my phone. I start flashing the .SBF to the phone and it reboots to "USB Flash Mode", looking all sorts of spooky in the process. And then RSD Lite tells my that either my phone is no longer connected or the flashing failed. Much yelling again. Looking in my Device Manager (Windows 7) showed an unknown device: "S Flash OMAP 3630". Great. Moto's own drivers don't recognize the phone when it's in USB Flash Mode. Many more hours were spent googling and plowing through forums and Android developer sites before I found the winning combination: Just the EXACT right drivers, RSD Lite 4.7.1 + a mysterious patch and BAM - My Defy was now being spoon fed a stock rom.

Naturally, I rooted the phone the second I had wifi connection again after setting it up. This was now 12 hours after first unpacking the phone...

So in case any of you screw up as bad as I did; here's the files you need. I'm hosting them myself, so please post mirrors if you can:
The stock UK rom for the Defy: Http://siimnas.dyndns.org/stuff/defy/JRDNE..._Service1FF.sbf
The *only* drivers you need:  Http://siimnas.dyndns.org/stuff/defy/Motor...nect_1.1.31.exe
The *right* version of RSD Lite: Http://siimnas.dyndns.org/stuff/defy/RSDLite-4.7_patch.zip

And just because I would LOOOOOVE a custom modaco rom:
The SBF Depacker: http://rapidshare.co...alpha3.rar.html
Go ahead Paul, download those roms and start poking around - You know you want to

Don't let my experiences scare you away from the Defy, it is an AWESOME phone as soon as you replace Motoblur with ADW.Launcher. Just don't screw up as badly as I did

You should of just pushed adw to /system/app then when you did the factory reset you would of still had a lanucher. Factory reset only wipes the data and cache partitions.

Handy guide! I used it to flash mine back to stock so i could send it back because my speaker broke

Edited by twon, 13 December 2010 - 12:28 PM.

[heliosone]

Im new to all of this (defy / 2days) and I already screwed up (trying to get rid of motoblur) (no launcher/system stuck after unlocking)

so I downloaded RSDlite 4.8 and the stock rom and flashed the defy (nothing else was necessary),worked like a charm and after that everything works fine again
BUUTTTT => shouldnt all (user) installed files/... be gone after a flash ?

all my stuff is still there,only the root seems to be gone.

[Sorensiim]

heliosone, on Dec 16 2010, 16:35, said:

Im new to all of this (defy / 2days) and I already screwed up (trying to get rid of motoblur) (no launcher/system stuck after unlocking)

so I downloaded RSDlite 4.8 and the stock rom and flashed the defy (nothing else was necessary),worked like a charm and after that everything works fine again
BUUTTTT => shouldnt all (user) installed files/... be gone after a flash ?

all my stuff is still there,only the root seems to be gone.

The original roms are "Service updates" which means they don't wipe your settings. Quite nice, really

But now that clockworkmod is out, you can do a Nandroid backup and have *everything* backed up properly.

[heliosone]

dkSpook, on Dec 17 2010, 09:36, said:

The original roms are "Service updates" which means they don't wipe your settings. Quite nice, really

But now that clockworkmod is out, you can do a Nandroid backup and have *everything* backed up properly.

thanks a lot for the info !
Im stunned by so much userfriendly-ness :-) As I found my way from the iOS world to Android,I only know full reset&firmware restore ,which is especially great if you dont have a recent backup ....

I just googled around (again) so I dont ask stupid questions (all the time ) ,and if Im not wrong, a clean (deblurred) custom rom is around the corner,so I guess I stop screwing around to get my defy deblurred with my trial&error methode

[add.thebad]

dkSpook, on Nov 23 2010, 19:11, said:

2.3 is just around the corner and we get 2.2 in Q2? Damn, if I wanted Sony Ericsson customer care and software development, I would have bought a Sony Ericsson phone!

haha this was the only thing putting me off this knowing how cack that are at updates but comparing to SE is hash lol

ordered one any way and cant wait this thing should fly with 2.2 and as for gingerbread.... lets pray!

[onlinejobwork]

ZootHornRollo, on Nov 8 2010, 20:45, said:

what are the chances of a Modaco review of this phone?

Hi 'PAUL' can you listen? are going to Publish Review for Motorola DEFY or I Should have to publish my own  


The best of the best review pulished at , you still need 'Modaco' to publish Review


http://www.gsmarena....-review-546.php

and here too

http://www.mobile-re...a-defy-en.shtml

cheers

Urvish