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Once unbranded always unbranded?

W

westbros

Android Enthusiast
I am hoping to get a Desire in the near future. For me it will need to be unlocked and unbranded, because I may be moving abroad and therefore would not want a UK network's bloatware conflicting with the overseas network's SIM card.

My question is - if I get an unbranded phone (probably with a Three SIM from CPW) is there a chance that Three (or whichever network) can bring a software update that will then brand the phone? Or will the phone remain unbranded?

I realise that rooting is an option to get rid of branding, but I really don't want to go down that route (excuse the pun :D) if I can help it.

Thanks for any advice.
 
Yep, factory resets restore the handset to its out of the box state, which in your case will be an HTC generic ROM & not some bloated ROM from a carrier.
 
If I remember correctly Vodafone rushed the release of the Desire on there network to get it out as one of the first. With this all the Vodafone 360 apps/bloatware were left off, to be added at a later date. This update was the later date and happened to coincide with the 2.2 release meaning everyone in there excitement upgraded to the bloated vodafone ROM, which was originally supposed to be on the Vodafone Desire, thinking it was 2.2.

So as far as i'm aware Vodafone handsets looked like they were unbranded but actually weren't
 
Your updates are never based on which sim is in your phone. An unbranded phone will only ever receive unbranded updates unless you decided to flash a branded ROM onto it.
 
westbros said:
Thanks for the swift reply. That's good news. But the main reason I asked this was because of what I read in the following thread:

http://androidforums.com/htc-desire/140467-odafone-customers-beware.html

Here someone with an unbranded Desire reported that he installed a software update that he thought was 2.2 and ended up getting Vodafone bloatware splurged all over his phone. How did Vodafone manage that if his phone was indeed unbranded?
Click to expand...

I was lucky enough to have checked this forum first when I received that piss take of an update alert, very lucky, the reason most people thought their phones were unbranded (as did i) was because the only "branding" was a voda-sham scene in the menu options, that's all we had to go on to say the phone was branded, absolutely nothing else on the phone. again, luckily I checked here first and as soon as I realised what the update was I unbranded with the goldcard method then manually installed the fro yo rom, so glad I did.....lol @ voda-sham, they should feel disgraceful for doing that to people and their phones, anyway in answer to your question, if your phone is actually unbranded then the only updates you get are from HTC direct, best way to be aswell. sorry for my ramble, do carry on :p
 
Thanks again everyone for the replies. This is such a helpful forum. :)

From my meagre understanding the carrier identifier in the software version number is the 3rd set of numbers. Am I right? So judging from the Vodafone bloatware issue the Vodafone identifier is 161. Correct? If so, can someone tell me what the identifier is for Three...and more importantly for an unbranded phone? From my research unbranded might be 405?

One other thing. I'm looking for specific language capabilities on my phone - both keyboard language and phone language. Different phones seem to have different languages available. Is that determined by the software version? And is it possible to obtain a specific ROM to get the languages you need?

Lots of questions there...sorry...:eek:
 
If your phone is unbranded and on Android 2.1 you will have 1.21.405.2. If you upgrade to froyo you'll have 2.09.405.8.

I'm not sure why you want to know other releases, as you'll never receive updates to these.
 
The reason is that I've seen what is purported to be an unbranded phone on demo at my local Three store. More recent updates have visibly branded Three's Desires though. So I wonder whether the demo phone was actually branded in the same way that the Vodafone one was. I'm just off to check this afternoon what is on this demo phone, as that has the language capabilities I'm looking for.

Thanks for the info!
 
westbros said:
Thanks again everyone for the replies. This is such a helpful forum. :)

From my meagre understanding the carrier identifier in the software version number is the 3rd set of numbers. Am I right? So judging from the Vodafone bloatware issue the Vodafone identifier is 161. Correct? If so, can someone tell me what the identifier is for Three...and more importantly for an unbranded phone? From my research unbranded might be 405?

One other thing. I'm looking for specific language capabilities on my phone - both keyboard language and phone language. Different phones seem to have different languages available. Is that determined by the software version? And is it possible to obtain a specific ROM to get the languages you need?

Obviously this list is not definitive and might not include what you are after.

Lots of questions there...sorry...:eek:
Click to expand...


Done a but of digging & come up with this list of software builds for 2.1

HTC Desire
(Android version - ROM Version - Operator or Country & District)
2.1 - 1.15.110.11 - T-Mobile UK
2.1 - 1.15.405.1 - Europe
2.1 - 1.15.405.3 - Europe
2.1 - 1.15.405.4 - Generic
2.1 - 1.15.841.14 - Telstra
2.1 - 1.15.1600.5 - Fastweb IT
2.1 - 1.16.841.1 - Telstra
2.1 - 1.18.762.2 - SoftBank JP
2.1 - 1.19.707.6 - Asia
2.1 - 1.19.707.7 - Asia
2.1 - 1.19.911.4 - SKT KR
2.1 - 1.20.207.1 - O2 UK
2.1 - 1.20.771.3 - 3UK
2.1 - 1.21.405.2 - Generic

Hopefully these will help answer your question.

As for languages I have no idea, perhaps language packs are available of the market!!
 
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