Soon I started realizing that there were many issues with important features like Wifi, Browser and compatibility with apps. Which ever mobile phone devices had been with me, I had always used all of their features, and with this Smartphone I wanted to do as many things as possible.
What I did eventually is upgraded from WM6.1 to WM6.5 that too sitting at home and obviously without paying a penny..
For those who have been using Smartphones and lately touch phones from few years this might not be a big deal to know but for me it was!! I had many doubts in my mind before flashing new ROM on the phone which I had bought after lot of research and after paying much more than any of my previous handsets.
I googled for options and finally found a way by which I was going to upgrade the ROM of my phone. The first and very risky step was to flash the SPL* of the phone. There are people all over the world who contribute and share their knowledge at XDA but I couldn't find a detailed step by step method to perform HardSPL.
What is HardSPL and why it is required:
In Europe and UK most of the times the phones are sold by network operators (e.g. Orange, Vodaphone, T-Mobile to name a few), and are locked to their networks, similar trend is also there in India for High end phones. In my case HTC Touch 3G T3232 was available with Orange network. Further these operator also force the mobile phone manufacturer to put software which favors their network and is designed to make more profit. In my case, Network Operator had added an extremely annoying thing called Unique to the handset software which was basically used to access internet. Because of this, the user was never allowed to use any WiFi network but had to use 3G or other data connections (GPRS/EDGE) such that whatever browsing user does will count in terms of money for them. I wanted to get rid of this useless Unique and thus was left with no option other than "putting another ROM". Now SPL is responsible for running ROM for the phone and with the factory SPL, I would have never be able to Flash another ROM.
Using HardSPL a new SPL can be programmed which then allows you to flash whatever ROM you want and that too whatever number of times, now its up to you what features you want and based on that there are many cooked ROMs available, so you can simply choose the ROM which is having good combination of features, performance and simply give a try!! No worries if you don't like the ROM, now you can simply flash any other ROM in minutes as you have already performed HardSPL.
People are more concerned about warranty and its really important when you go for these mid to high end equipments. Even I would want to share one of my experience where device warranty turned very helpful in an extremely difficult situation.
So you might think what in case you get some problem in the device, not because of this flashing but may be something different, no need to worry in that situation as well! You can preserve the factory ROM that you had and if required you can reflash the same hence nobody will understand that you were using Non-factory ROM.
What I could achieve by upgrading from WM6.1 to a cooked WM6.5 ROM.
- Very handy and beautiful User Interface.
- Enjoy seamless WiFi at home as well as in office.
- Use Google Maps (for mobile) to find out the directions.
- Use Phone's internal GPS to track if I am on correct way or have lost using Google Maps.
- Use Landscape mode which is best for using Opera and reading documents.
- Take backup using a special app.
- Use Footprints to memorize special locations..
and many more... remember I was not able to do anything mentioned above because one or the other reason before upgrading to WM6.5
I have even used Skype to call India for free using Wifi. Which I could not have done before because of the heavy charges I might have to pay for 3G or data connection..
Here is a YouTube video, pretty much shows the process and what you can expect to see when doing it but the phone is different than the one under discussion, even though the process is the same, dont go flashing any software you see in the video because it might not be for your phone.
Thats all for now :) I have given the example for HTC Touch 3G, Just to add a note, the phone to be HardSPL need not to be Sim-Unlocked! Also there are such upgrades available for most of the Windows Mobile phones, the list can be found here if their ROM is under development or not.
I will surely update in this blog if I come across something worth sharing!!
*For those who need a basic information regarding all terms related to SPL, please refer here. There are such many more acronyms normally used which will all be found on wiki here.
Disclaimer: If you are going to perform above mentioned steps for your device that you will be doing on your sole discretion, Author doesn't take any responsibility if the device is damaged.
