Next Wednesday,We will get a perfect ROM.

[Guest rjm2k]

bit OT, but I am completely confused as to why ZTE would do this

Makes no business sense :(

it makes sense because they don't need a different production line / board config / testing etc, all blades are the same basic design with software making the difference, it's much easier to put different software on than different hardware.

[Guest oh!dougal]

it makes sense because they don't need a different production line / board config / testing etc, all blades are the same basic design with software making the difference, it's much easier to put different software on than different hardware.

The Hungarian "update" to unlock the full installed ram was not part of anyone's business plan.

I think ZTE accidentally crippled the Hungarian product.

IIRC, the Hungarian product was pre-advertised as having 512, and the 256 delivered was an unwelcome surprise.

Greece might be different ... !

[Guest olionair]

Yes, I am in China. I will upload the rom as soon as possible, if I get the Chinese ROM. :(

i <3 the above

[Guest samjam]

it makes sense because they don't need a different production line / board config / testing etc, all blades are the same basic design with software making the difference, it's much easier to put different software on than different hardware.

It's also quite easy to do a production run with different/missing chips.

Like a 5MP camera (to pick a real example) or a different WLAN (as Belkin liked to do for their PCMCIA WLAN cards), or a different screen.

[Guest nitsy]

will flash work on this??

[Guest Lew247]

will flash work on this??

NO - the same answer as all the other threads/posts with that question in it

[Guest targetbsp]

bit OT, but I am completely confused as to why ZTE would do this

Makes no business sense :(

firstly you need to know that the cost of products is mostly research, development, support and setting up for manufacturing etc - and not the actual manufacturing of an individual product. It's likely to be more expensive to change manufacturing to 256mb chips than the cost saving between 256mb and 512mb - which won't be much these days.

The reason to do it at all will be to make it more of a budget device than it is. Presumably either because ZTE or the carriers don't want other models looking such poor value as they do in the UK.

It's fairly common practise in electronic devices (at least in computing - especially graphic cards and CPU's) to make one product and cripple it at various levels to provide the budget models the general public needs and the expensive performance models that will recoup your development costs.

[Guest Rotmann]

Not meaning to sound like an ass, but what does Seb's 2.2 Jap Rom offer that Kallt's doesn't in your opinion?

Offtopic: it is not so bloated and modified (i know, you can remove the apps and change the boot animation), it's very clean and no one reported screen freezes like at the JapJelly. With HW_UI and Stagefright enabled I get around 1000 Points in Quadrant btw. I just love it stable and tidy that's all :(

Ontopic: if it is as Flibblesan says that the Chinese version and the Orange San Francisco have so many things in common, why did the whole problems exist at the first chinese leak?

[Guest jurrasstoil]

Ontopic: if it is as Flibblesan says that the Chinese version and the Orange San Francisco have so many things in common, why did the whole problems exist at the first chinese leak?

the first chinese froyo leaks came from a betadevice iirc

[Guest cartierv]

firstly you need to know that the cost of products is mostly research, development, support and setting up for manufacturing etc - and not the actual manufacturing of an individual product. It's likely to be more expensive to change manufacturing to 256mb chips than the cost saving between 256mb and 512mb - which won't be much these days.

The reason to do it at all will be to make it more of a budget device than it is. Presumably either because ZTE or the carriers don't want other models looking such poor value as they do in the UK.

It's fairly common practise in electronic devices (at least in computing - especially graphic cards and CPU's) to make one product and cripple it at various levels to provide the budget models the general public needs and the expensive performance models that will recoup your development costs.

I suspect this, just like all the 256 models, is just crippled. The Hungarian case sounded like a slight cock up where they meant to cripple it but advertised it differently. The ones in the UK sound like Orange just pushing their luck and seeing what they can get away with.

[Guest Stryke69]

will flash work on this??

No, as this is a hardware issue. The CPU of the Blade is not compatible to flash

[Guest The-One]

What we really need is that those "not very smart guys" from ZTE release the .32 kernel source without messing it up like they did with the .29 one.. because seriously, no one does that kind of a mess.

The rest is pretty easy of making.

[Guest londonmax]

bit OT, but I am completely confused as to why ZTE would do this

Makes no business sense :(

Wasn't this already talked about when somebody found the FCC documents for the Blade: https://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/oetcf/eas/reports...=%27Q78-003Z%27

and specifically the 003Z FCC declaration cover letter states that "003Z’s GSM 850 band was disabled by software control"

I guess if you can unlock the 850 band it becomes quad-band??

[Guest 大猫脸脸大]

i don't think so :(

[Guest samjam]

firstly you need to know that the cost of products is mostly research, development, support and setting up for manufacturing etc - and not the actual manufacturing of an individual product. It's likely to be more expensive to change manufacturing to 256mb chips than the cost saving between 256mb and 512mb - which won't be much these days.

The reason to do it at all will be to make it more of a budget device than it is. Presumably either because ZTE or the carriers don't want other models looking such poor value as they do in the UK.

It's fairly common practise in electronic devices (at least in computing - especially graphic cards and CPU's) to make one product and cripple it at various levels to provide the budget models the general public needs and the expensive performance models that will recoup your development costs.

if you are stuffing boards for a specific customer that only wants to pay for 256M, then for sure you can save money by missing a chip out or using cheaper lower capacity chips WHEN they are cheaper.

100,000 boards multiplied by a dollar is 100,000 dollars and well worth the engineering time to re-program the board stuffer even if you weren't already prepared for this sort of thing because it was your business and - well it pays to know your own business.

That sort of flexibility lets you source whichever parts are (cheapest/available) at the instant your customer needs them. Often boards are designed to take a choice of parts in order to avoid being held to ransom by one source - who might prefer to sell all inventory to a bigger customer like apple just when you need it.

When you buy a lot of chips you distort the market and the different between 512M and 256M chips can vary, depending not least on the excess inventory and sales targets of the suppliers; but also depending on other customers requirements.

[Guest rjm2k]

if you are stuffing boards for a specific customer that only wants to pay for 256M, then for sure you can save money by missing a chip out or using cheaper lower capacity chips WHEN they are cheaper.

100,000 boards multiplied by a dollar is 100,000 dollars and well worth the engineering time to re-program the board stuffer even if you weren't already prepared for this sort of thing because it was your business and - well it pays to know your own business.

That sort of flexibility lets you source whichever parts are (cheapest/available) at the instant your customer needs them. Often boards are designed to take a choice of parts in order to avoid being held to ransom by one source - who might prefer to sell all inventory to a bigger customer like apple just when you need it.

When you buy a lot of chips you distort the market and the different between 512M and 256M chips can vary, depending not least on the excess inventory and sales targets of the suppliers; but also depending on other customers requirements.

You are assuming the boards were made with a specific customer in mind each time, in fact they probably did a large production run all the same, it maybe that ZTE themselves don't even make the boards. I think ZTE are more of an integrator so they will be getting a bunch of boards, a bunch of screens, cameras etc and integrating them. Anything which is modular they can swap for something else, but base components like a finished board can't be modified by them.

Then in negotiations with the retailers, they found they were being asked to lower to a certain price, the only way they could do it without upsetting other customers was artificially by reducing the memory through software.

Edited December 30, 2010 by rjm2k

[Guest Phoenix Silver]

should be a good thing to have the 850 band

would be usefull for me when i go in canada and usa

850 is used for the 3g in usa

[Guest rjm2k]

should be a good thing to have the 850 band

would be usefull for me when i go in canada and usa

850 is used for the 3g in usa

I think to unlock it we would need an update like the hungarian memory fix, which overwrites low level firmware we don't normally get access to. Maybe once someone figures out how to dump this stuff using QPST or PSAS it may be possible.

[Guest samjam]

You are assuming the boards were made with a specific customer in mind each time, in fact they probably did a large production run all the same, it maybe that ZTE themselves don't even make the boards. I think ZTE are more of an integrator so they will be getting a bunch of boards, a bunch of screens, cameras etc and integrating them. Anything which is modular they can swap for something else, but base components like a finished board can't be modified by them.

Then in negotiations with the retailers, they found they were being asked to lower to a certain price, the only way they could do it without upsetting other customers was artificially by reducing the memory through software.

I'm not assuming that - I prefixed my post with "if you are stuffing boards for a specific customer". I don't believe ZTE or any of there suppliers have around 100,000 (the number I used) of stuffed boards sitting around waiting for a buyer. If a buyer comes and they have to stuff some more boards specifically to meet that order and they can save a dollar a board by using a different chip then they will do that; don't think they won't. Likewise, if they want to use some existing above-spec boards they will - and they may (or may not) use firmware to hide the difference. Better to make a dollar less on a pre-stuffed board than have it sitting around indefinitely wasting space and tying up capital.

[Guest oh!dougal]

if you are stuffing boards for a specific customer that only wants to pay for 256M, then for sure you can save money by missing a chip out or using cheaper lower capacity chips WHEN they are cheaper.

100,000 boards multiplied by a dollar is 100,000 dollars and well worth the engineering time to re-program the board stuffer even if you weren't already prepared for this sort of thing because it was your business and - well it pays to know your own business.

That sort of flexibility lets you source whichever parts are (cheapest/available) at the instant your customer needs them. Often boards are designed to take a choice of parts in order to avoid being held to ransom by one source - who might prefer to sell all inventory to a bigger customer like apple just when you need it.

When you buy a lot of chips you distort the market and the different between 512M and 256M chips can vary, depending not least on the excess inventory and sales targets of the suppliers; but also depending on other customers requirements.

+1

However, rjm2k also has a point -- there is a "small production" point where hardware customisation is uneconomic.

The question under discussion is only what that production volume might be - and how that number might compare to the order quantities for different customers.

Many of ZTE's customers would seem to be buying in sufficient quantity to make hardware customisation VERY viable.

The plastic-mold-tooling for the Portuguese device must have involved much more cost than varying a component on the main computer board.

Skimping on the leds behind the buttons (for some markets) is going to be a tiny saving compared to halving the installed ram.

However the Greek market would be relatively small, and I could understand how an operator there might perhaps not want to upset the price points in their market, and therefore request a spec with 256mb. For a small order, software crippling might easily prove the simplest/most economic way to go.

IMHO, ZTE's software version control screwed up, and the crippled software accidentally got installed in product that went to Hungary (at almost the exact same time as the Greek introduction). Perhaps some went elsewhere.

Hence the software ram-unlock for Hungary -- and no such initiative in Greece!

[Guest rjm2k]

Whatever the reason, it's a fact that they have produced over spec but crippled products which can be brought upto scratch through a simple software update (at the moment anyway!)

[Guest zerosignull]

I suspect this, just like all the 256 models, is just crippled. The Hungarian case sounded like a slight cock up where they meant to cripple it but advertised it differently. The ones in the UK sound like Orange just pushing their luck and seeing what they can get away with.

Given Orange's advertising about the phone costing pittance but going like a Ferrari I would guess that they had nothing but 512mb in mind. The phone would limp along, like the Pulse, with 256 MB of ram.

[Guest Phoenix Silver]

Whatever the reason, it's a fact that they have produced over spec but crippled products which can be brought upto scratch through a simple software update (at the moment anyway!)

yes you are right

i think hungarian memory hack is a good start to make SF better (already an excellent phone)

it's like a super car blocked electronically at 340 km/h

[Guest JBSCARFACE]

V880, One More ZTE Phone with Android OS Froyo

Another Android phone made by ZTE which will be present and had seen several days ago in Communication Expo event in Beijing. Android phone from China that one has a code ZTE V880 and have been equipped with Android OS 2.2 Froyo.

Other specifications include processor is only 600MHz Qualcomm MSM 7227 chip-based, capacitive touch screen 3.5-inch WVGA, Bluetooth, support multi-touch, WiFi, 3.2MP camera, GPS, and comes with 3D hardware acceleration.

Edited January 4, 2011 by JBSCARFACE

[Guest Rotmann]

2.1 Blade from October, what's the news?