[clug] Acer beTouch E130 (Android 1.6) smartphone

[Daniel Pittman]

On Wed, Jan 5, 2011 at 21:07, Michael Still <mikal at stillhq.com> wrote:
> On 1/6/11 3:33 PM, Daniel Pittman wrote:
>
>> Vendor updates are rare, but for most phones are the only option.  You
>> have to turn off the vendor security, typically by running some sort
>> of exploit to obtain root access.  (A handful of Google devices do
>> that and void the warranty if you ask nicely with software, most
>> don't.)
>
> I'm not sure what you're talking about here? I count 3 releases in 2010
> alone. How many do you want?

For which device?  As far as I know the HTC Magic on Three Australia
has not received a vendor upgrade past 1.6 - they certainly lagged an
awful lot in shipping updates until there was a root hole found, and
then they shipped a patch that fixed that, nothing else.  A quick
check shows at least a few confirming notes.

Do you mean "Android Releases from Google" in 2010, or are you
speaking only of the Acer phone?

Ah!  ...or are you talking about having purchased the phone outright
and entirely unlocked direct from the vendor, rather than through a
teleco?  In that case you are much more likely to obtain updated
software, at least for a little while, from the vendor - since you now
have two parties (Google, and the vendor) rather than the three
(...and the teleco) that most phones suffer through. :)

> I have several android phones, and have never been asked by software to void
> my warranty.

I think you perhaps misunderstood me: with several of the Google
devices it is *possible* to unlock the firmware and flash a custom ROM
by asking it nicely.  This will void the warranty, but only happens
through your deliberate (and impossible to perform accidentally)
action.

> Over the air updates however are complicated:
>
>  - your device needs to support them
>  - your telco needs to have approved the update (if you bought a handset
> from one)
>  - your device needs to be able to run the update
>
> You can check if updates are available via Home > Menu > Settings > About
> phone > System Updates
>
> If your device doesn't support them, then you're at the mercy of whatever
> Acer has done.

...er, traditionally that facility left you at the mercy of the same
teleco, since they were the ones customizing and controlling the ROM.
At least, on the phones I was familiar with.  I can't say for sure it
was true everywhere, and don't specifically know about Acer.

(Also, one of the purposes of rooting and/or disabling the security
through the provided tools was that it frees you from this binding to
Acer or the teleco :)

>>> 5. I have managed to upload images from and download ogg files to the
>>> phone
>>> thanks to its obvious compatibility with my linux mint but it took me a
>>> while
>>> to work out that I could mount the device from the phone. Can I issue the
>>> mount from the desktop?
>>
>> Not so far as I know, although there is probably some mechanism using
>> the adb debugging software bridge to achieve it.  The phone actually
>> has to unmount the SD card (and/or internal memory partition), then
>> export it as a USB mass-storage device.
>
> When you plug the device into USB a dialog should pop up asking you if you
> want the SD card to appear as a device on your desktop.

I don't think that was the question, since he already said that he did that. ;)

Regards,
    Daniel
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