I wanted an Android phone to replace my aged and broken SE w700i. Given the way I treat phones I did not want to spend big bucks on a phone. Samsung seemed to have pulled the plug on all its entry levels – the Galaxy Spica, etc. The lowest priced Android I could find in the Indian markets was the HTC Wildfire and even that was never in stock. It was then Spice Mobiles launched the Mi-300. I was a bit skeptical but the neighbourhood Hotspot dealer gladly let me boot the phone and get a feel for it. And at 9990 (before trading in my SE) it was a yummy deal. The phone came with Android 1.6 installed but Spice promised that a 2.1 update would be out soon.
I was flying to Australia in less than a week and I knew I would need a GPS enabled phone when I had to go house hunting. So traded in my SE and bought the Mi-300. The box contained a manual, USB connector, USB charging unit, USB extender cable, basic headset and the phone, of course. Initially I did find the battery life a bit disappointed but it seemed to have improved after a few charges. The camera was almost useless but at 9k I didn’t expect much. WiFi and GPS connectivity was brilliant.
Around end September, I got an email from Spice about the 2.1 update and I immediately grabbed it and put it on the phone. Installation was not completely hassle free and took a few reboots to get right. Android 2.1 looked slick!! Touch seemed more responsive and the keyboard was much easier to use. The browser worked better as well. What I didn’t realise then was that the update capped the processor at 400 Mhz to conserve battery. As a result, having more than a few apps open dragged the phone down.
I chanced upon boston-mania and realised that the Mi-300 was a clone of the Orange Boston (and other names). Excellent. So following up with this “discovery”, I decided that now would be a good time as any to try out a custom ROM and both firetrap 1.2 or CMLEclair 1.2 were supposed to remove the processor cap.
I first rooted the phone using SuperOneClick 1.5. XDA-Developers thread here. This was a straightforward hack.
1) Unzip SuperOneClick (SOC) on your PC.
2) Unmount and remove SD card from the phone. Connect the phone to PC.
3) Replace the file “adb.exe” within SOC with the adb.exe from the Mi-300 CDROM drive that appears.
4) Run SOC and click “Root”
5) Allow it to run until it hangs at a particular message (IIRC it reads something like “rage against the cage”). Exit SOC when it does not go further.
6) Run SOC again and click “Root”
7) You should see a message that the phone has been rooted. If SOC hangs again, exit SOC and retry.
Notes: If SOC hangs at “Waiting on device” even after retries- open a command prompt, change to SOC directory and run “adb devices”. If your phone is not listed, run Setup.exe in the Mi-300 CDROM and try again.
8) At this point the phone is rooted but the root is not persistent yet. Follow the below steps
9) Open a command prompt on your PC and change to the SOC directory.
10) Run the following command command “adb push su /system/bin”. “su” is a file that shoud be in the SOC directory.
11) Type “adb shell”. You should see a # prompt
12) Run the command “chmod 4755 /system/bin/su”
I got on a custom recovery first – “ClockworkMod”. Boston-mania carried a custom version for the Orange Boston. Again installation was fairly straightforward. Unfortunately, the RUT tool needed to install firetrap or CMLEclair does not seem to work with a custom recovery image. I will probably need to revert to the stock recocery and try. Alternately, I will wait for the CyanogenMod 6 (Froyo) version that boston-mania promises for the Orange Boston. Now, that would be awesome.
Will post further on how it goes!
Disclaimer: Rooting your phone may void your warranty. It may also brick your phone. Try it at your own risk.
Useful Links
1) SuperOneClick
2) ClockworkMod_z71 – ported for the z71 and clones
3) Flash_image or here – use to flash images to phone
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