Huawei G300 £65 from Tesco

sillygoose

Fairwinds wrote: »

I go the G300e for my wife at Christmas after seeing this thread and am quite impressed with it, and am slightly considering changing my Desire which has been great for 2 and a half years now.

Would you say that this is a better phone than the Desire ( id so why) - I would stick with T Mobile as the deal i got way back was the 3GB data and as many mins and texts as i need for £15/month which i still think is pretty competitive

Surely your in the best position to judge that as you have both to hand.. unless your wife won't let you touch hers

discountmummy

sillygoose wrote: »

Are you after the V940 ICS update? originally on the Modoco thread it was uploaded on someones server but they took it down, probably as too many people were using it!

Anyway, I saved it on a download site just in case.. THIS IS IT..

Now I am not going put down any other versions of software, I can't without trying them and I have used 'Modoco Specials' on other phones with good results. But I would add that V940 is an 'official' clean version from a phone operator and is simple to install, stable and with few vices. Its a good route for newbies wanting to upgrade, debrand and just use the phone. Rooting is useful as the next step as it lets you fix all known small issues.

Other ROM's from places like Modoco can take more advantage of the phones abilities (such as overclocking) but require more work, have more risk as they are only produced by enthusiastic amateurs (although many are very, very clever cookies indeed!!!)

Its up to you, as a techie I would love to be able to play more with the phone but I depend on it for my work so I opted for simplest version. By all means try special ROMS but my advice would be to pick one and wait see how other people get on with it for a few weeks before installing, let others find any bugs!

Thanks SG managed to install ICS no problem, all working great, and unlocked with a code brought from ebay seller recommended on OP.
Now just having fun playing around with it.

Just one small question when downloading apps are they going on the phone or SD card? I cant see an option to change to either in manage apps?
I also couldnt work out how to change the camera setting to save to SD card? many thanks

sillygoose

discountmummy wrote: »

Thanks SG managed to install ICS no problem, all working great, and unlocked with a code brought from ebay seller recommended on OP.
Now just having fun playing around with it.

Just one small question when downloading apps are they going on the phone or SD card? I cant see an option to change to either in manage apps?
I also couldnt work out how to change the camera setting to save to SD card? many thanks

:cool::cool::cool:

There are issues with ICS in general not 'remembering' the selection you make in setting to use internal/SD and it tends to default back to internal - the good news is... the G300 has buckets of internal memory so you can install massive amounts of apps and they will run faster on internal memory anyway, so worry not. The SD card really comes into it for storing data - photos, movies, tons of albums and so on.. The better the SD card the erm..better. I have a 16gb class 4 but have just ordered a 32gb class 10 (quickest) - Amazon £19.

In the camera app, pull down the top menu, select the setting icon (a gear wheel), scroll it down, preferred save location, set it to 'memory card' pictures will now go to SD card - DCIM - Camera folder. I suggest you use free Quickpic app from market, better than the stock photo browser.

Now there can be some confusion as in some places the phone calls internal memory 'SD card' and the SD card, 'SDcard2' !!!

Basically it is mounting the usable internal memory as a virtual SD card drive. So when you install an SD card it mounts it as another drive, SDcard2.

SDcard2 is where to store the big stuff. Enjoy.

macman

MillicentBystander wrote: »

Good call from sillygoose; it could be the ancient SD card. Have to say my G300 never ever locks up and the battery life is superb (I have Easy Battery Saver app installed and on Intelligent Mode). If removing the card doesn't solve the issues I suspect you may have a 'dud', macman.

Update: following installation of the Easy Battery Saver app (also running in Intelligent Mode), the battery life seems to have improved markedly. Thanks for that tip Millicent. However, I've invested in an extended 1800 mAh battery (a tenner on ebay) just in case. Since removing the old SD card I've not had any lock ups either, so a new one is on order.
Final question: the phone is offering me a Vodafone firmware upgrade to version B936_F (currently running B895). Should I install this upgrade?
I'm unclear if this is actually the path to an upgrade to ICS, if so does ICS run OK on the G300? I've read conflicting reports that the phone will not run at all well with it installed?

luci

I installed the ICS firmware upgrade and hated it, as it many others on here and other forums. It had even more VF bloatware than GB.

Fortunately I found details of how to revert to GB, which I posted in this thread, and it was a massive relief to get rid of that version of ICS.

If you want to upgrade to ICS I would recommend Sillygoose's version and not the firmware update.

I didn't like that you couldn't turn off and on Background Data in ICS so am happy to stick with GB.

I had problems with Easy Battery Saver switching off the data, but not switching it back on at the end of the period and ended up uninstalling it.

macman

Thanks-so firmware upgrade B_936F is in fact ICS (or a required upgrade to then install ICS)?

sillygoose

macman wrote: »

Thanks-so firmware upgrade B_936F is in fact ICS (or a required upgrade to then install ICS)?

Yes. Voda released it, promptly withdrew it, then recently re-released with an 'F' added on (F for Fixed? it seems not entirely.

I have not seen what Voda customisation is on it so can't comment, the only way to do much about that is to root it.
(its worth adding that the official update should keep your warranty fine if your worried about such things)

The G300 was always intended to go to ICS and Huawei had versions of it for the phone long ago. Personally I think it much better, its more tunable to how you like it and I think its battery and memory management are more advanced, most the people (like me) that were getting way more battery life than you were on ICS - I don't need to use any app killers or battery saving apps on ICS but they are essential on GB. (ICS was a major ground up rewrite by Google in fact)

I agree with Luci about the daft decision to remove the mobile data toggle on the homescreen widget..annoying. Fortunately a completely free app called power toggles lets you define your own, including mobile data and many other things as you wish and you can simply replace the ICS one with that. You can even tune the button icons and colours to match your theme.

People report various preferences for one or the other and the jury is out either way. ICS or GB. when we had a go at running mixed benchmarks the results were pretty even so performance aside it comes down to what your comfortable with.

Daz2009

macman wrote: »

Thanks-so firmware upgrade B_936F is in fact ICS (or a required upgrade to then install ICS)?

Isn't that an older version ? I'm on B952 and have been since I bought the phone in November

sillygoose

Daz2009 wrote: »

Isn't that an older version ? I'm on B952 and have been since I bought the phone in November

Its sequential, he will probably get pushed B952 afterwards. 936 is the main meat of the move to ICS. B952 (how they managed to jump up so many numbers!!) is just a mini topup update in reality. Basically they finally fixed the spell check!

Also updated a few of the included apps. Pretty pointless as they put them in the system folder where they can't be updated, so as soon as an update comes through, android ignores the previous app and reinstalles the newer one elsewhere. Leaving the old copy like driftwood in your precious system folder.

(The best part of rooting a phone is you can chuck out the dead system apps manually.)

I heard they may have added a bit more Voda crud into the update too, and it benchmarks no quicker than other versions of ICS.

doublee

discountmummy wrote: »

Thanks SG managed to install ICS no problem, all working great, and unlocked with a code brought from ebay seller recommended on OP.
Now just having fun playing around with it.

Just got the G300. I am new to ROM's can you advisehow to install?