37 replies to this topic

[Sebastian404]

My contact back in the UK has managed to get hold of one of these devices for me....

Unboxing pictures

From the look of it, its a nice little device, is physicaly smaller than the ZTE blade, but about the same thickness, my contact says that it is surprisingly heavy, apparently it is still plastic but has a much better build quality than the Blade.

Vodafone are going to be selling it for 60GBP (with 10GBP top up if bought in store) and an extra 10GBP if you want your own customized back cover.

I managed to get ADB working to a macbook, and we managed to get a ROM Dump.  Z4ROOT worked quite well with it.

More technical stuff in the follow up post...

Edited by Sebastian404, 08 June 2011 - 12:48 PM.

[Sebastian404]

Partition Layout:

dev:	size   erasesize  name
mtd0: 00500000 00020000 "boot"
mtd1: 00500000 00020000 "recovery"
mtd2: 00140000 00020000 "misc"
mtd3: 00060000 00020000 "splash"
mtd4: 0aa00000 00020000 "system"
mtd5: 04900000 00020000 "cache"
mtd6: 0a6a0000 00020000 "userdata"
mtd7: 01400000 00020000 "userdata2"
mtd8: 01400000 00020000 "cust"

Mounted:

rootfs / rootfs ro,relatime 0 0
tmpfs /dev tmpfs rw,relatime,mode=755 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts rw,relatime,mode=600 0 0
proc /proc proc rw,relatime 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs rw,relatime 0 0
tmpfs /mnt/asec tmpfs rw,relatime,mode=755,gid=1000 0 0
/dev/block/mtdblock4 /system yaffs2 ro,relatime 0 0
/dev/block/mtdblock6 /data yaffs2 rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime 0 0
/dev/block/mtdblock8 /cust yaffs2 ro,relatime 0 0
/dev/block/mtdblock5 /cache yaffs2 rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime 0 0
/dev/block/mtdblock7 /data/HWUserData yaffs2 rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime 0 0
hwvefs /data/hwvefs fuse.hwvefs rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=0,group_id=0,allow_other 0 0
/dev/block/vold/179:1 /mnt/sdcard vfat rw,dirsync,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,uid=1000,gid=1015,fmask=0002,dmask=0002,
llow_utime=0020,codepage=cp437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro 0 0
/dev/block/vold/179:1 /mnt/secure/asec vfat rw,dirsync,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,uid=1000,gid=1015,fmask=0002,dmask=0002,
llow_utime=0020,codepage=cp437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro 0 0
tmpfs /mnt/sdcard/.android_secure tmpfs ro,relatime,size=0k,mode=000 0 0

Reccovery/fastboot stuff
-There is a standard Android recovery that can be accessed by holding down both the Volume up and Power buttons during boot mode
-Holding down Volume Down & Power gets you into Fastboot mode.


Firmware Update  Mode/FTM Mode

-Holding down both volume buttons & power gets into a firmware update mode.

Firmware updates can be found here


Locked
Yes it comes locked to Vodafone, the device will prompt you to unlock it if you have a non vodafone SIM, but there seems to be some issue with the keyboard that stops you inputting a NCK code, to resolve this, remove the SIM card totaly, boot up the device change the default text method to Android keyboard and the insert the SIM and try again.

Edited by Sebastian404, 12 June 2011 - 11:42 AM.

[Sebastian404]

Interesting the boot and recovery partions have the wrong page size in the header, so the regular split_bootimg.pl will not unpack correctly. the device itself seems to ignore whatever value you put in there.

My build of ClockworkMod Recovery can be found HERE.

And the Stock ROM can be found HERE.

And for good measure here is a nice unbranded and rooted ROM.

Edited by Sebastian404, 04 June 2011 - 05:16 PM.

[daponte]

Looks good:)

I assume it's a replacement for the 845? Maybe I should have waited for this one instead of going for the 945 hehe.

[Sebastian404]

In case anyone is still following this, I tried building a kernel today..

Using the 'general' kernel source from Huawei's support site (kernel-2.6.32-FROYO.tar.bz2) and the devices .config file there seems to be a lot of missing stuff in the .config, and no matter what options I picked I could not get a kernal to boot.

I thought I'd give the U8150's source a go (kernel-2.6.32-U8150-Froyo.zip) and it would build perfectly fine, but still no go in the booting stakes...

[Angmorr]

Hi!

Is there any solution to unlock this mobile phone.


Regards,

Angmorr

[blueled]

Sebastian404, on Jun 2 2011, 23:58, said:

Vodafone are going to be selling it for 70GBP and an extra 10GBP if you want your own custom back cover.

Just rolled out, 60GBP
http://shop.vodafone...ne-smart-black/

[Sebastian404]

Angmorr, on Jun 6 2011, 15:07, said:

Hi!

Is there any solution to unlock this mobile phone.
Regards,

Angmorr

I'm looking into that, but not as yet...

[Angmorr]

Sebastian404, on Jun 7 2011, 20:30, said:

I'm looking into that, but not as yet...

Thanks! That was my thought so!

Angmorr

ps.: If someone knows anything about the unlock please let us know!

[Sebastian404]

blueled, on Jun 7 2011, 19:15, said:

Just rolled out, 60GBP
http://shop.vodafone...ne-smart-black/

There is a White version available too...

Eurodroid has a review if your into that sort of thing

[avilella]

Any chances cyanogenmod will work on the Huawei U8160?

[Sebastian404]

avilella, on Jun 7 2011, 20:39, said:

Any chances cyanogenmod will work on the Huawei U8160?

It seems people have ported it to other Huawei devices without too much issues, I'm sure its only time before someone does it

[avilella]

Sebastian404, on Jun 7 2011, 19:54, said:

It seems people have ported it to other Huawei devices without too much issues, I'm sure its only time before someone does it

Awesome! Any particular github users I should be watching?

[MOD-C500]

Any idea's on time scales to create a carrier unlock for this device? Wanting to purchase, but Voda with make it unusable for me.

Loving the affordability aspect of a quality android phone. If manufactures and Google keep this up it truly will be the mobile platform.

p.s does this phone have Spanish support?

thanks
MOD

[frenchy77]

liking the photo link.. doesn't look bad at all.

saw the racer in 3 the other day for £50 if anyone is still interested in that one; will post in the racer forum if not done already.

[Sebastian404]

I actually physicaly have a device now, one of the guys in my office was in England at the weekend I got him to bring my sample back..

After the ZTE Blade I'm really surprised at how solid it feels.. its still plastic but it has a very nice heavy feel to it.  the screen is nice and bright but just a shame they had to go for such a small one, the Vodafone logo at the bottom of the device really makes it unbalanced, a good 3rd of the front is just useless space...

For 60GBP its an amazing little thing tho, I'm looking forward to O2's attempt to beat this  

It seems to have full support for all European languages and looking at the custom partition it seems Vodafone have plans to release it in other European countries.


I was hoping to be able to hack phone.apk to ignore the SIM lock since it was so easy with the Blade, but it seems huawei have been a bit clever with that, tho I'm really not sure what was going through thier mind with the parition layout..

There are two userdata areas, 1st is mounted as /data/ and then the 2nd is mounted as /data/HWUserData  

the first data is for your Apps and the the like, the 2nd is where your pictures and videos go... an interesting way of doing it...

They also seem to of allocated a new big Spash partition that is then never used, and infact the splash logo is in one of those hidden  MBN partitions...


I have managed to replace the horrible hour glass icon with the regular Android logo, and am looking into some other things, there might be an update to my de-branded ROM later today

Edited by Sebastian404, 10 June 2011 - 10:53 AM.

[avilella]

This is pretty cool info, I'm happy to see one could get that far in just a few days. Keep up the good work!

[MOD-C500]

Went into the Voda phone store today, very impressed with the handset too, the voda logo does unfortunately take up half the screen, but the price for a real android phone is simply amazing. defiantly one for me once the sim unlocking is available. Android is nice is its pure'ist form, why do carriers mess with them turning them into poor UI's and sorts:(

[despod]

edit: PEBKAC

Edited by despod, 11 June 2011 - 06:25 PM.

[Angmorr]

@Sebastian404

I hope you will find some solution for unlocking, because I need to put a foreign card to my phone in an other country, to have some internet there. I bought that phone for only, to have a very useful wifi access point in my pocket, when I am abroad. (It was really cheap, and it is nothing for the services!) But I don't know that nobody has an unlocking solution for it now!
If I can help you anyway, please let me know!

@despod

Thanks that word! I've never heard that before!

Angmorr