Which ROM is best for a traveller?

[Guest unikid]

Hi. I have watched this forum with great interest over the Christmas hols. Took delivery of an Orange San Francisco with £10 topup just before Christmas essentially to look at Android and to see if this phone would make a good 2nd phone when travelling (often) in which I can use my numerous local SIMs. Have already unlocked the phone. My benchmark for comparison is my iPhone.

I do not want to be Blackberry man as too many friends are addicted and have no life any more. However I need as many easy to configure and use comms options as is possible - WiFi, 3G, etc. I need voice, SMS, email, Wifi and internet. In addition apps such as financial market data (e.g. Bloomberg) and maps are very useful.

I find the Orange layer on this phone unattractive and of no use so changing ROM is an interesting option - but which one of the numerous options would suit my needs?

I have successfully connected to my desktop (Windows XP) in normal mode so can see the SD card. I have not yet mastered how to get a connection in debug mode - just sits waiting for device.

One other niggle that you may have an answer to is the Contact app. Having taken my contact database through googlemail to get a vCard file I find that the San Fran sorts by given name rather than surname which is a pain. The Contact database on iPhone was a retrograde from the Synbian version on my previous Nokia 9300i where I could group contacts and thus keep my numerous hotel, restaurant, medic contacts away from my main business contacts, but is still much better than on the San Fran. Also do not like presentation of contact info, especially white on black. Is there a better contact app out there?

Hope you can help, Steve

[Guest spatch]

Hi. I have watched this forum with great interest over the Christmas hols. Took delivery of an Orange San Francisco with £10 topup just before Christmas essentially to look at Android and to see if this phone would make a good 2nd phone when travelling (often) in which I can use my numerous local SIMs. Have already unlocked the phone. My benchmark for comparison is my iPhone.

I do not want to be Blackberry man as too many friends are addicted and have no life any more. However I need as many easy to configure and use comms options as is possible - WiFi, 3G, etc. I need voice, SMS, email, Wifi and internet. In addition apps such as financial market data (e.g. Bloomberg) and maps are very useful.

I find the Orange layer on this phone unattractive and of no use so changing ROM is an interesting option - but which one of the numerous options would suit my needs?

I have successfully connected to my desktop (Windows XP) in normal mode so can see the SD card. I have not yet mastered how to get a connection in debug mode - just sits waiting for device.

One other niggle that you may have an answer to is the Contact app. Having taken my contact database through googlemail to get a vCard file I find that the San Fran sorts by given name rather than surname which is a pain. The Contact database on iPhone was a retrograde from the Synbian version on my previous Nokia 9300i where I could group contacts and thus keep my numerous hotel, restaurant, medic contacts away from my main business contacts, but is still much better than on the San Fran. Also do not like presentation of contact info, especially white on black. Is there a better contact app out there?

Hope you can help, Steve

Hi,

Google- "apps for travellers android" to see if there's specific apps you think you need B)

Also see in the Market to see if there's substitute applications (some are easier to use or have specific features.)

FYI I typed in Contacts in the Market and there's some free apps.

- I just downloaded an app called Contact Group Manager just to where in the settings you can show Family Name First and also you can Group Contacts together.)

The Orange stuff is ugly but just to get you started familiarise yourself with the process of removing apps-

http://android.modaco.com/content/zte-blad...-san-francisco/

This helped increase my understanding more.

There's a weath of info collated by one of the devs as a table on the ROMs. It very instructional-It just needs reading. :unsure:

http://android.modaco.com/content/zte-blad...-and-other-roms

For travelling -Maybe battery life as a criteria to choosing the correct ROM from the table?

ie no overclocking/HW acceleration-

(Whilst I am here- just to say thanks to all in this community! :angry:)

[Guest unikid]

Hi,

Google- "apps for travellers android" to see if there's specific apps you think you need B)

Also see in the Market to see if there's substitute applications (some are easier to use or have specific features.)

FYI I typed in Contacts in the Market and there's some free apps.

- I just downloaded an app called Contact Group Manager just to where in the settings you can show Family Name First and also you can Group Contacts together.)

The Orange stuff is ugly but just to get you started familiarise yourself with the process of removing apps-

http://android.modaco.com/content/zte-blad...-san-francisco/

This helped increase my understanding more.

There's a weath of info collated by one of the devs as a table on the ROMs. It very instructional-It just needs reading. :unsure:

http://android.modaco.com/content/zte-blad...-and-other-roms

For travelling -Maybe battery life as a criteria to choosing the correct ROM from the table?

ie no overclocking/HW acceleration-

(Whilst I am here- just to say thanks to all in this community! :angry:)

Thanks for your interest and the information provided. I will pursue your input and report back on results. Having played some more with the embedded Contact app I am staggered with the lack of quality (like going back to basic computers in the 1980's). Having made some updates to my Outlook database I went through google mail to create a new vCard image and loaded onto my SD card in the expectation that it would overlay the existing contact database with the new data. No such luck - just added the new info at the end of the existing info thus doubling the size but not showing the new info on the screen. Who writes this stuff? Surely the Andriod team realise that essentially the Zte-Blade is a telephone!

[Guest spatch]

Thanks for your interest and the information provided. I will pursue your input and report back on results. Having played some more with the embedded Contact app I am staggered with the lack of quality (like going back to basic computers in the 1980's). Having made some updates to my Outlook database I went through google mail to create a new vCard image and loaded onto my SD card in the expectation that it would overlay the existing contact database with the new data. No such luck - just added the new info at the end of the existing info thus doubling the size but not showing the new info on the screen. Who writes this stuff? Surely the Andriod team realise that essentially the Zte-Blade is a telephone!

Hi- its actually a Smartphone!! :unsure:

Ok I reckon this to getting the telephone part sorted to the phone.

Export your vcards and then save these to the SD card of the San Francisco.

There is an application in the Market called Import Contacts.

This app reads your SD vcard info and transfer the vcards to the android phone etc.

More info from the developers here which explains the functions.

http://www.waxworlds.org/edam/software/and...import-contacts

Also you can make a widget on your homepage with Google search which only shows your contact list- like you would in a google search.

(note it spans across the width of the screen so have space)

Press on on a blank area on your home page.

Widget>Google Search then select Contacts

Here you can search within your Contacts list by letter.

[Guest unikid]

Hi- its actually a Smartphone!! :unsure:

Ok I reckon this to getting the telephone part sorted to the phone.

Export your vcards and then save these to the SD card of the San Francisco.

There is an application in the Market called Import Contacts.

This app reads your SD vcard info and transfer the vcards to the android phone etc.

More info from the developers here which explains the functions.

http://www.waxworlds.org/edam/software/and...import-contacts

Also you can make a widget on your homepage with Google search which only shows your contact list- like you would in a google search.

(note it spans across the width of the screen so have space)

Press on on a blank area on your home page.

Widget>Google Search then select Contacts

Here you can search within your Contacts list by letter.

SmartPHONE it is supposed to be - defacto it should be a phone with lots of other goodies.

Contacts already has an Import/Export function.

However your valuable input has prompted me to look at a number of options in the Market. I found a free app called Contacts GroupU which does allow me to organise my contacts (692 in total) into easily structured groups. However, as an addon to Contacts the sorting is still not useful, we still have the sync problem, and GroupU is full of adds.

Further exploration revealed Companionlink (not free) which works with DejaOffice (free) to provide a totally integrated solution for contacts, diary, tasks,etc and can be synced with Outlook directly.

www.companionlink.com/android/outlook/

As I can trial this for 14 days FOC before handing over my US$39.95 I will rid my phone of the Orange stuff, download Companionlink and try it on my trip to Switzerland next week to test it in the field (SwissCom SIM). If it performs as described on the tin we may have a result.

Will keep you posted.

[Guest unikid]

SmartPHONE it is supposed to be - defacto it should be a phone with lots of other goodies.

Contacts already has an Import/Export function.

However your valuable input has prompted me to look at a number of options in the Market. I found a free app called Contacts GroupU which does allow me to organise my contacts (692 in total) into easily structured groups. However, as an addon to Contacts the sorting is still not useful, we still have the sync problem, and GroupU is full of adds.

Further exploration revealed Companionlink (not free) which works with DejaOffice (free) to provide a totally integrated solution for contacts, diary, tasks,etc and can be synced with Outlook directly.

www.companionlink.com/android/outlook/

As I can trial this for 14 days FOC before handing over my US$39.95 I will rid my phone of the Orange stuff, download Companionlink and try it on my trip to Switzerland next week to test it in the field (SwissCom SIM). If it performs as described on the tin we may have a result.

Will keep you posted.

Have now tried DejaOffice. Looks great until you use the Category function. Easy to duplicate entries into a category, not so easy to remove the duplicates. Also tried it on iPhone - same problem. Note: DejaOffice creates a separate contact database to the Contacts App. If CompanionLink can resolve the problems then this is a nice package, especially for free, even if you do not need the sync capability.

Could not get CompanionLink to sync properly with Outlook, and now I cannot sync anything with Outlook Contacts or Calendar. Tried contacting support at CompanionLink but no answer to date. Will keep the credit card in my pocket until I see this work as described.