Orange San Diego hasn't been discontinued

[Guest Simon O]

Some of you might remember rumours on the forum about the San Diego being discontinued by Orange. Well I spent some time speaking to an Intel representative this afternoon who assures me that the phone hasn't been discontinued and also gave me a bit of information:

1) The phone was unavailable due to stock shortages caused by a slow-down in sales. Once ICS rolled out and sales picked back up, Orange basically ran out of stock quicker than expected

This I believe. As a locked-down Gingerbread device it didn't really appeal to many buyers at £179.99. However, once ICS was made available and we found a method to obtain root, interest in the device peaked on the forums and other websites.

2) The phones will continue to be manufactured and sent to Orange/EE with Gingerbread. No plans to preload ICS on newly manufactured devices

This I find disappointing and rather strange. Surely it would be more profitable for Orange/EE and Intel to sell the device as an Ice-Cream sandwich device rather than a Gingerbread device?

3) An update to Jelly Bean will be made available by the end of the year

As always I'll take this with a pinch of salt, however - Intel DID keep the promise made about ICS coming in October so we could see Jelly bean soon.

4) Intel are actively pushing sales of the San Diego in many EE stores until Christmas. Representatives are not advertising the Motorola Razr i to potential customers - only the San Diego due to it's status as an Intel reference device and it's low price.

This makes sense. The lower price will be more desirable to the general public and the high specs means the phone does stand up well against other devices in the same price range. The Intel representatives will be informing customers that an update to Ice Cream Sandwich is available and each representative has an Orange San Diego device running the Orange ICS update to demonstrate to potential customers. Sadly the in-store demonstration units are staying on Gingerbread (Why why why??)

Oh as a final note: Bootloader. The representative knows that many users want to unlock the bootloader and has been asked about it already. He doesn't know if Intel have plans to open it up like Motorola have done so with the RAZRi but he has given me some contact details for Intel which I will be following up with regards to the bootloader situation. In the interests of privacy I cannot provide these details to anybody else. Sorry.

[Guest]

Well done flibblesan some good info there, and some sounds promising too :D

[Guest Pondlife]

Interesting read, agree that it's odd to not run the instore demo units on ics and to not upgrade the production units. Good that they are talking JB too, be very nice if they can skip straight to 4.2. Hope there's good news in the bootloader follow up.

[Guest Simon O]

Well 4.2 is still Jelly Bean so who knows. Could happen

[Guest shootomanUK]

surely it would be up to orange to request the bootloader be unlocked by intel ?

[Guest BlueMoonRising]

surely it would be up to orange to request the bootloader be unlocked by intel ?

But Intel could release a boot loader unlocked ICS or JB ROM? :)

[Guest shootomanUK]

tbh i think if they wanted the bootloader unlocked they would have let us by now imo

Edited November 10, 2012 by shootomanUK

[Guest rickywyatt]

just got m new phone today and it has orange ics preinstalled

[Guest shootomanUK]

just got m new phone today and it has orange ics preinstalled

what happend to your old one did you blow it up lol ?

[Guest rickywyatt]

it brick lol

[Guest geoff1951]

it brick lol

WHAT !!!

(Further to flibblesan's post about his chat with orange, the comment on JB is interesting. Since another company - Lava/Xolo - is also involved with this phone, there may be some substance to this remark. It's in orange's interest to keep their word, in view of their financial investment in an Intel handset. If they don't, those (us) who've bought a San Diego will think twice about putting money orange's way next time they bring out something as interesting as the SD. Also Xolo might get JB out before Orange...)

Edited November 13, 2012 by geoff1951

[Guest glossywhite]

Nothing is new under the sun

[Guest punjabi]

Nothing is new under the sun

Oh please... I thought you had gone!

[Guest glossywhite]

Oh please... I thought you had gone!

Where would I go?

Perhaps you shouldn't allow simple comments to wind you up so much. I mean no harm, I have an opinion :)

[Guest skidvik]

Where would I go?

Perhaps you shouldn't allow simple comments to wind you up so much. I mean no harm, I have an opinion :)

but you took money from people, including myself. so in summary your opinion doesn't count.

[Guest skidvik]

Oh please... I thought you had gone!

wishing....

[Guest glossywhite]

but you took money from people, including myself. so in summary your opinion doesn't count. so bog off..

I "took money"? No, you gave me money, I definitely thanked you - I wouldn't just grab it. I never raised the total. Why didn't you ask for it back? Do you want it back?

You've obviously got an issue with me, so instead of making bitter comments, let's sort it out and get things straightened out shall we? Or would you prefer to hold a grudge?

Thanks.

Edited November 13, 2012 by glossywhite

[Guest TouchyAndalou]

I "took money"? No, you gave me money, I definitely thanked you - I wouldn't just grab it. I never raised the total. Why didn't you ask for it back? Do you want it back?

You've obviously got an issue with me, so instead of making bitter comments, let's sort it out and get things straightened out shall we? Or would you prefer to hold a grudge?

Thanks.

LOLOLOLOLOL.

Please tell me you're joking. He donated money, you didn't use it for the intended purpose, and you're questioning him on why he didn't ask for it back? Why on earth didn't you give it back, or at the very least offer it back? That's certainly what any reasonable person would do.

[Guest geoff1951]

Meanwhile, I was wondering what was meant by saying" nothing new under the sun" in response to my post!

I feel that flibblesan's conversation with the Intel rep contained enough substance elsewhere to give some reasonable validity to the jelly bean comment. Intel will want their products to gain market share asap and after a cautious start (understandable) they'll want to show they can beserious front runners. IMHO. And I do have some experience of sorting wheat from chaff.

As I said on an earlier/different thread I believe if the San Diego had been branded Samsung it'd be a huge seller. Regardless of the version of Android on board. IMHO.

[Guest Simon O]

I can understand a phone coming back from repair with ICS installed as they would had updated with the latest image available. Would be nice if they accidentally left the updater on the phone ;)

ricky: How long did you have to wait in total before getting the phone back? I'm currently on 17 days so far and the online repair tracker isn't being updated. Calling SBE (the repair guys) up is useless as they make you wait in a queue then just direct you to the website or tell you to email them :(

[Guest rickywyatt]

it's a new phone as I sent my partner to the shop and thay sent be a new the next day the women she rang at the shop said thay have stoped sending new phones for broken phones but as the women on the phone told my partner to remove the battery she did and it totally bricked it because as you no the battery can't be taken out she had no choice

[Guest BlueMoonRising]

Back in stock on the Orange store now. Although still advertising it as GB with no mention of ICS update already available which is just weird and surely must hurt sales. Don't Orange WANT to sell these things?

[Guest Pondlife]

Guess they don't want to sell them. Was £169.99 last time I went in store and £179.99 this weekend...

[Guest BlueMoonRising]

Guess they don't want to sell them. Was £169.99 last time I went in store and £179.99 this weekend...

Still £169.99 online. I suspect your local store couldn't find it's backside using both hands, not unusual for a mobile high street store of any flavour.

[Guest Pondlife]

Cheers, makes it more tempting again then. I looked in both the stores, the ex-orange and ex-t-mobile one and both had £179.99 this time.