Orange San Francisco 2 The Orange San Francisco was the smartphone bargain of 2011. For £99 you got a solid little handset with a 3.5in 480 x 800 screen, Android 2.1 and a 3.2Mp camera. The fact it was falling-off-a-wet-log easy to root and change ROMs – even I managed it – was the icing on the cake. Orange San Francisco 2 budget Android smartphone …
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I blame the BBC - when they withdrew Listen Again and Listen Live feeds in Realplayer, zillions of devices imho became obsolete. I think they partly did it to raise the price point of Listen Again access way above the cost of a digital radio - what would have been the cheapness of such access, probably imperilled continued takeup of DAB according to their projections.
Which now I reflect on it is quite an elegant case for a complaint to the BBC Trust - if not the EU Competition Commission - on the grounds of anticompetitive price-floor maintenance.
Orange could have had the armv7 version of the same phone (With the same case even). They just chose not to for whatever reason. (Softbank Japan has that phone for sale already). You can swap out the msm7227(or MSM7227T) for MSM7227A with 100% software and pin compatibility. (Even extending to support of the legacy arm abi).
I am almost certain the choice was Orange's not ZTE's
Apart from the wallpaper, that home screen doesn't look too bad. I do like the clock, with alarm indicator, though the day text could be bigger. Does anyone know of a good looking analogue clock with day/date (one that doesn't need internet access or permission to send SMS messages, etc)? I ask because I can't use the HTC analogue clock when I use Launcher Pro on my Incredible.
http://android.modaco.com/forum/578-zte-crescent-crescentmodacocom/
I flashed a new ROM onto mine on day 1 & repartitioned it to allow for more app space.
I'm happily running an ARMv6 version of flash also, can't remember where I got it from now but likely on the modaco forum somewhere.
I noticed this alongside the Orange Monte Carlo. Although it's £119 in the Orange stores, is currently on sale at Argos for £80 (if you can still find any in stock that is). I'm a little confused at why Orange has released this model, unless the Monte is too "big" - the screen does look rather huge alongside it.
Agree totally with Tapeador - the engineered-in inability of IPlayer to work - even for RADIO the purpose I want - is what blocks me from purchasing this phone, or it's T-Mobile equivalent, or any budget Android phone for that matter, tomorrow.
So I stick with Symbian.
I'm too lazy to lodge a complaint with the BBC Trust, but wish someone would!
iPlayer is filtered from the Market for ARM6 devices but it will happily sideload if you can find the APK. It works (for certain values of 'works') on our OSF so it should on OSF2 or any other ARM6 device.
...after trying it you may decide it was right to filter it from the Market. Even on minimum bandwidth it's struggling on the OSF and OSF2 is only a little faster.
A 1GHz ARM7 performance much better than 800Mhz ARM6+25%. A year ago the OSF was a good deal, times change, prices fall, specs improve and OSF2 now looks like a distinctly average phone for its price.
re: Iplayer - the iplayer Android situation is terrible yes (Doesn't even support offline or 3g or honeycomb). i.e all the use cases when you would actually want it.
re: ICS - Don't bother Qualcomm has not even finished off the armv6 support and I dunno if they ever will. (Without proper ICS graphics drivers it is unlikely it will ever be working 100%). The manufacturers are lazy (Especially ZTE and Huawei).
It is not certain either that such as Motorola / Sony Ericsson / HTC will do the job properly for ICS (i.e full new style audio not the dodgy hack that Qualcomm uses for most right now).
(Not even sure it will work that well on my Xperia Play that is supposed to have SE provided ICS).
If you just want BBC radio stations, you don't need iPlayer, just install the Tune In Radio app. This also gives you access to just about any radio station you can think of from anywhere in the world.
I have unlocked and rooted my SF2 and installed a custom ROM (Fish & Chips - available on the Modaco forums). It runs so much smoother without all the Orange bloat. That ROM comes with Flash and iPlayer included, but I removed them as I would prefer not to have flash on my phone.
Just get the Sony Ericsson live comes with music, aka WT19i, Orange do it in the UK for £129 (argos) plus topup, three do it for £99.99 plus topup and this has the same cpu/gpu as the Xperia play just the lower 3.2" 480*320 screen, but does flash and has xloud stereo speakers. great little phone and runs most games too. it was able to run gta too but that was pulled for this phone as the makers made the mistake of allowing it to be installed on any handset wether it worked or not on the launch day but it did work and yet they still pulled it, also Sony's launcher is pants launcher pro is better and faster. Only sold mine because I got a used open Atrix for £175
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