Debranding and Unlocking Orange San Francisco

My advice
Beginners in unlocking and debranding the ZTE Blade Andriod phone will find this site more educational first.

Once you more familiar with flashing the Andriod phone, you probably may feel more confident knowing the process and to re-flash as much as you like or have a go at installing cyanogenMod (Stable Aftermarket firmware Andriod 2.3 rom).

And if you don't like the looks you can always go back to the original stock roms.

My experience
The ZTE Blade (Aka Orange San Francisco) is probably the most affordable Android on the market at the time of release, I have helped a friend and my dad get this phone.

Why unlock and de-brand?
No disrespect to Orange, for some people their packages could be beneficial. Yet for these two unlocks I knew they didn't want to use Orange deals and want to stick with their original Mobile network for good reason. Well for a start my Dad rarely uses the phone and probably still has lots of credit next month and doesn't need to top up for months.

Also that I think Orange over branded that phone mobile way too orangey.

Pulling hairout moments
Thanks to the open community there are lots of helpful tutorials in unlocking and flashing in various ways. I can see they practically almost perfected it with the combination of ClockworkMod Recovery Image and Rom Manager. I found various tutorials in many flavours all aimed at unlocking and debranding in different ways.

Both times I spent hours at being careful and going through loops on and off and eventually succeeding with different tutorials used for different stages.

In the end I found these steps the least probmatic and easiest. In these detailed steps I found that are certain builds of the phone require different steps. The steps help explain how to identifiy your phone build model.

After doing the first initial custom rom change, I have a small feeling that I should be able to do the more easier way of flashing the andriod rom.

The Stages Explained
There are five stages, unlocking, identify build model, root phone, install flash recovery, and install new custom rom.

Unlocking the phone network I followed chapter 'How to Unlock the ZTE Blade / Orange San Francisco'.

Indentify build model of the phone so you know what guides to follow I installed, 'Ask Mr Pigfish' from the 'Andriod Market' explained here The model I found was a 'GEN1'

Root phone, so your phone can do more super user (system commands) in the background. This is you can start flashing your phone.

Install flash recovery, installs a special image in the phone so you can reboot your phone in a special developer mode. So we can start flashing the phone rom.

install new custom rom, install the rom of choice that seems good at the time :)

Further reading
Unlocking ZTE Blade Phone
(See chapter 'How to Unlock the ZTE Blade / Orange San Francisco')

Orange San Francisco Guides

ZTE Blade USB Driver

CyanogenMod
Flashing CyanongenMod on Andriod Phone

I am voting YES on AV

Why?

My reasons are in this video clip (plain and simple)



Further Readiing
reddit.com : Pros and Cons links
reddit.com : What it is and why you need to vote on 5th May 2011
Yes to a fairer vote

Moving to another county!

Having traveled to work for over 9 months I knew I had to stop this. £200 a month for season ticket (which included unlimited bus travel in Reading). 1 hour journey there and hour back when finished work, too knackering and living over my means....

So thanks to some close friends and family saying the benefits I finally did it. You cannot believe how long it took mentally to convince myself it is the best thing for me to do, what a mind job that was. I was like, 'Yes I will do it, second thoughts maybe sometime later' and I was this for months!

I couldn't believe how busy I turned in doing this move and I still have to do my inventory check which I was meant to of done over a week ago (Hopefully I get it done tomorrow). Yup I picked a hell of a time to move too as I picked it during a really busy period at Websushi too yet enjoy it still anyways (cuz its my career and I enjoy developing anyway)

A little surprise url to my Facebook friends who will get first viewing and then later down the road I will display the surprise here :)

Now my next goal for this flat is think clever about conserving space and donating old stuff... Hamnes day sofa bed with 3 drawers (from ikea) is one of my things i need to help conserve space. Oh and a special tall thin cupboard with a few drawers and then I will be cooking .... Oh the bullet express!!!!....[click]