Cyanogenmod now include the ZTE Blade on Nightly Builds for CM7

[hecatae]

This might surprise a few people but you can now compile CM7 based on Gingerbread 2.3.2 for the ZTE Blade.

Nightly builds at present, no stable build released as of yet

[Hands0n]

Wow. I think I will have me some of that :)

[hecatae]

not been added to the buildbot as of yet

http://buildbot.teamdouche.net/waterfall

heard Midnight it will be which means 7 or 8 am tomorrow for us in the UK

[hecatae]

http://forum.cyanogenmod.com/topic/15844-cyanogenmod-7-for-blade-v700-rc1-2152011/

RC1 available

[Hands0n]

Thats it - this is my project for the weekend :)

[Hands0n]

Job done. Cyanogen Mod 7 installed to the San Francisco (nee ZTE Blade). It took all of about 15 minutes following the links and instructions on the Cyanogen site supplied by Hecatae above. Thanks for that fella. :) It is incredible how easily customisable the SF/Blade is really.

[hecatae]

http://mirror.kanged.net/nightly/blade/ mirror of the nightly builds of cm7 for the blade

[Ben]

How does this 'feel' in practice? Are we anywhere close to a level of usability found on the Nexus One in a handset that costs a fraction of the price?

[gorilla]

I bought this handset yesterday for £89 + £10 topup at Argos. Had it unlocked in a jiffy (thanks to Hands0n's links elsewhere on this forum) and rooted the phone using the UniversalAndroot method and upgraded it to the ROM above.

I bought this phone for my father in law to replace his lost nokia and who who wasn't going to replace it! but gratefully received this yesterday. I would say that this handset running gingerbread is a worthy contender to the likes of the HTC Desire and the Nexus One. It's slower than those two, but not by much and for a £100 I'd be happy to buy one as a replacement phone if I lost mine. It's also better designed than the Desire!
It also makes a great gift!

A little disclaimer: I haven't had much time to play with it, but the little time I had impressed me.

[hecatae]

the proximity issue has been fixed in the kernel, hopefully nightly 4 will have this fix

[Hands0n]

@Ben - The "feel" of the little ZTE is impressively good. This is a classy handset and don't let the cheap price fool you. It has no "Chinese" feel to it at all. Usability is governed by the OS and this is Android 2.3.2 Gingerbread as found on the Google Nexus S no less. As I have both handsets side by side I can vouch for the Blade/San Francisco. Of course, it is not a Nexus S in hardware terms, but there is nothing in it between the two as regards the OS, understandably so.

@Gorilla - I do suggest you keep an eye on the nightly updates and pop a later version on your father in-law's occasionally to make sure that you have all of the fixes as they come along. What you have on there right now is the release candidate (RC) that will be subject to some patches until it goes into full Stable version.

Also, make sure you install Blade WiFi fix from Android Market - this will make sure that the handset picks up WiFi when it comes out of sleep - a problem that afflicted all ZTE Blade devices regardless of version of OS. This tiny app installs itself and remains hidden away without requiring any user interaction.

Edit: I've just put Nightly-3 on the San Francisco and its working well. Fixes a couple of issues, one being the Camera auto-focus now works and an intermittent freeze up when coming out of sleep to unlock screen. So if you're getting these then Nightly-3 will calm things down a bit.

The updates of Android on this ZTE are very swift to install and start up after loading. It is a modest little processor and memory so I'm not sure why everything seems to work so much quicker than it did with more powerful handsets! Gingerbread definitely does this low-spec hardware some good :)

[hecatae]

I dont install the Blade Wifi fix, as I find it unnecessary. Nightly 4 is the same as Nightly 3, Nightly 5 will have the proximity fix

[gorilla]

@Hands0n Ha, I'm an old hat at this, but I will take the advice. At one point I was installing a different rom everyday on my Desire, just because, you know, I can :-)

[Hands0n]

@gorilla - My apologies, I had clean forgotten your HTC Desire reputation and skills :)

[Hands0n]

Nightly 4 is the same as Nightly 3, Nightly 5 will have the proximity fix

I put Nightly 4 on - will probably keep following each release as it arrives. But where do you see the changelog? I've been all over the Cyanogen website and cannot find it.

[hecatae]

http://android.modaco.com/content/zte-blade-roms-rom-customisation/332692/cm7-nightly-discussion-thread-nightly-4-22-02-11-no-nightly-5-yet/

[Hands0n]

Doh! I didn't think of looking at Modaco :) Thanks for that.

[hecatae]

now running nightly 6, oh and I got honeycomb booting over on modaco on the blade

[Hands0n]

Isnt the screen going to be a bit small for Honeycomb?

[hecatae]

honeycomb has a couple of interesting requests in build.prop, you can state phone tablet sdcard nosdcard etc

http://android.modaco.com/content-page/332504/honeycomb-port/page/120/#entry1616228

helped get the kernel booting, honeycomb on blade has working ril, touchscreen and a few other things, more a curiosity than a wish for a honeycomb rom

[Hands0n]

Phooh! A week goes by adn CM7 is up to nightly release 12. Cumulatively, this is what is in CM7 so far ...




[FIXED] Data no longer turns on when wifi is disabled
[ADDED]Update to Android 2.3.3
[BETTER THAN NOTHING]Proximity Sensor
[FIXED]Repeat Ringtone for Incoming Calls
[FIXED]Volume Fixes - controls work whilst asleep
[FIXED]Headset fixes
[ADDED]Éclair User agent in browser
[FIXED]Autofocus on Camera
[FIXED]Autobrightness Values have been fixed
[ADDED]Overclockable Kernel has been added
[FIXED]CyanogenMod CPU settings now work.




I am still waiting for the WiFi Hotspot to be implemented and all will be complete (for me).

[Hands0n]

now running nightly 6, oh and I got honeycomb booting over on modaco on the blade

I just tried Honeycomb on the San Francisco. It was very interesting. The UI is very different from stock Android. The OS on new Android tablets is going to take a little getting used to.

Now restoring the backup to CM7.12 that I had backed up before loading up Honeycomb.

[hecatae]

beauty of a Honeycomb sdk port is it gives you an idea if you could use it, there is no telephony stack in the framework, so the HC port cant go further than looks pretty and data working.

Anyway, RC4 has been released for CM7, wifi tethering included

[Hands0n]

Ooh, wifi tether, just what I have been waiting for

[hecatae]

there's an official froyo upgrade here http://android.modaco.com/content-page/336102/official-2-2-upgrade-for-swedish-comviq-and-teliasonera-phones/

it changes your blade to a zte libra, updates the radio chipset and you wont be able to use cm7



Ok, ONLY do this if you are aware of the risks involved. Worked on my phone (OLED Orange San Francisco)
Put a Gen2 ROM on your SD-card (as of writing the only one available is Swedish Spring)
Restore a stock ROM or at least a stock recovery image. I used the recovery.img from TFIN_P729BV1.0.0B04: http://www.mediafire.com/?d469m6qvn13ae6c
NOTE: If are allready on Gen2 you MUST use a Gen2 recovery image.
Download this package and put the sysdy folder into c:\windows : http://www.mediafire.com/?kog53g7ikb6lii7
Power off phone, remove battery.
Run c:\windows\sysdy\download.exe as Administrator (it's the hacked download.exe posted erlier in this thread)
When told to, hold down volume-down and connect USB cable.
Wait for FTM to appear on screen and for the application to say it is ready.
Press Start and it should start flashing...
When it get's to 98% or something like that it will start Clockwork recovery on the phone but if you wait another minute or so it will reach 100% and say that it is finished.
Here I told clockwork to reboot which means it will run reboot and run boot.img which happens to also be Clockwork so Clockwork will start again.
Use Clockwork to install Swedish Spring RLS4b and reboot when finished.

[hecatae]

2.6.35.7 kernel has now been merged, breath of fresh air for the device