Published February 18, 2011 | 
Since my last post about the ZTE Blade went down quite well, I thought I would post a little bit on the latest changes for owners of the Blade, in particular the first steps towards running CyanogenMod on the Blade.
If you’re not familiar, CyanogenMod (CM) is a ROM based on the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) which adds additional features, enhancements and overall improvements both to performance and reliability over the stock ROMs. What’s so special about Cyanogen, at least to Blade users, is that unlike the previous ROMs we’ve been used to which have been custom made and designed specifically for the Blade, CyanogenMod has been compiled for and run on numerous devices from HTC, Google, Samsung etc. From the CyanogenMod site:
CyanogenMod (pronounced sigh-AN-oh-jen-mod), is a customized, aftermarket firmware distribution for several Android devices […] Based on the Android Open Source Project, CyanogenMod is designed to increase performance and reliability over Android-based ROMs released by vendors and carriers such as Google, T-Mobile, HTC, etc. CyanogenMod also offers a variety features & enhancements that are not currently found in these versions of Android.
The most recent version of CyanogenMod is 7 (CM7) , which made ‘Release Candidate’ status a few days ago. This version is based off Android 2.3.2 so satisfies the demand for a Gingerbread ROM for the Blade.
Posted in Uncategorized | 
android, CyanogenMod, Gingerbread, Orange San Francisco, zte blade | 
Leave a commentPublished December 22, 2010 | As an introduction to the world of Android smartphones (and as a replacement for my aging Nokia N95), I treated myself to a San Francisco phone from Orange.
Although I’m not going to give a full review (I want to wait until I’ve had the opportunity to play with the phone a bit more), I’ve got a few thoughts and pointers to give to any new owners or anyone who is planning to get one.
First impressions
Although it’s only £100, the phone should still be pretty snappy when navigating through the interface. Despite only having a 600 MHz processor ( a lot of the higherend – more expensive – Android phones can be expected to have ~ 1GHz processors), you can expect it to perform admirably despite what you throw at it. In short: Angry Birds will work quite well.
The build quality is fine although the back cover and the power button could be a little sturdier. I wouldn’t want to push it by popping the back off too often or pressing the power button too hard. A turbosim / dual-sim adapter may work, but there’s not a lot of room to work with. Continue reading
