PAYG phone for internet and texting.

benjus

Unlocking the San Francisco is dead easy and free - have a look here: http://www.chrislowthian.co.uk/how-to-unlock-de-brand-and-root-the-zte-blade-orange-san-francisco/1824/ I'm using mine on T-Mobile.

Once you've unlocked it you can either just uninstall the nasty Orange apps - http://android.modaco.com/content/zte-blade-blade-modaco-com/321479/remove-orange-apps-on-san-francisco/

...or you can go the whole hog and replace the phone's operating system with an unbranded Android build (first link again). Just be careful which version you install, as there are at least two versions of the San Francisco in circulation (the early ones with OLED screens and the later ones with TFT screens) and I think you need to install a version that matches the phone you have.

The only downside is that you have to buy £10 of PAYG credit from Orange to buy the phone, but there are various things you can do with that...

Cash-Strapped.T32

Yes mate, ideally I will manage to find an OLED version.
Cheers for the links, I actually happened upon that Christian-whoever site last night, very good stuff!

I'm fairly au-fait with flashing custom ROMs, I currently use a win-mo 6 phone (HTC s620) which is still going strong, having had a couple of custom roms in it's time, but I've never used android before, & while I will certainly got the 2.2 route when I get the chance, it might not be for a while yet.

(in fact the only reason I'm thinking of replacing the HTC is because the screen is too small for excel work, the lack of GPS or an FM radio (I always have the radio on while commuting & carrying separate devices on a motorbike is a pain).

Here's hoping some crop up for cheap after crimbo..