vB Easy Archive - Is it possible to change hideous Vodafone red/white theme on GX30?

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Is it possible to change hideous Vodafone red/white theme on GX30?
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Posted by: luminarycrush

Hi, I own a used, recently unlocked Vodafone GX30. My old GX20 was not a former Vodafone and has nice, colorful menus and a pleasant theme. The Vodafone menus/icons (theme) are a horrible eyesore. Can I change this someone?

Also, there is a Vodafone-specific menu icon which I can't use and don't need. I understand that this replaced some functionality in the menus from the default Sharp firmware.

Is there a way to reset this to the default, or re-flash the factory Sharp firmware to remove the Vodafone junk?

Posted by: wai_lai416

the only way is flashing the phone, but the problem is i dun think there's a flash available for gx30/32 at least not one that's been tested

Posted by: luminarycrush

What about the Sharp factory flash image? That has to be non-Vodafone badness. Or, the GX32 flash for the Hong Kong market, which has the nice menus, color and also English language? Can either of these be obtained?

I'd be pretty happy with the standard image similar to what I have on my GX22, which came from HK.

Vodafone sure fscked up on their styling - and the poweron animation looks like something from my old Atari 2600.

If I'd have realized just how bad the Vodafone image was I'd have bought a GX32 instead.

Posted by: wai_lai416

lol i wish i can get my hands on the original flash too

Posted by: naimwslim04

Quote:

Originally posted by wai_lai416
lol i wish i can get my hands on the original flash too

I'm not entirely sure if there is such thing as an original flash.

According to a letter which was sent to sharp that you can find here, it states that Sharp merely manufacture the handset. I quote, this office does not actually have any involvement with the product. Instead it is imported, distributed and fully supported by Vodafone.

At the same time, there MUST be, or have been some original firmware by Sharp to test if the phone works, to which probably Smartone and Vodafone have implemented.

Posted by: naimwslim04

So there IS such thing as an un-branded GX series??

Go here: (note the site is in Japanese but you can look at the pictures

http://k-tai.impress.co.jp/cda/article/event/17153.html

Notice - no vodafone or smartone logo below the internal and external screens! The menu seems to be like Smartone's, though.

Posted by: luminarycrush

Quote:

Originally posted by naimwslim04
I'm not entirely sure if there is such thing as an original flash.

According to a letter which was sent to sharp that you can find here, it states that Sharp merely manufacture the handset. I quote, this office does not actually have any involvement with the product. Instead it is imported, distributed and fully supported by Vodafone.

At the same time, there MUST be, or have been some original firmware by Sharp to test if the phone works, to which probably Smartone and Vodafone have implemented.

Note that they say "this office" and "imported" - meaning, I think, for the Vodafone market in particular (EU?).

The flash for the asian market is definitely different, so I am relatively sure that Vodafone is not the sole provider of the software package.

Is there some way to 'download' the flash of the GX32 from a handset and then 'upload' it onto a GX30? Now that I think about it, I read somewhere else that someone had obtained the flash image and had tools to upload the GX3x image to the handset, but needed help hacking it....where did I see that...?

Posted by: luminarycrush

Quote:

Originally posted by naimwslim04
So there IS such thing as an un-branded GX series??

Go here: (note the site is in Japanese but you can look at the pictures

http://k-tai.impress.co.jp/cda/article/event/17153.html

Notice - no vodafone or smartone logo below the internal and external screens! The menu seems to be like Smartone's, though.

The menus do look like Smartone's, but, as you mention, no logo. SO, while this is a GX20, this seems to suggest that the Smartone image might be a fairly "generic" software image. I have this phone (GX22) & the only thing unique for Smartone is a couple of logos -- from what I can observe.

My guess would be that Sharp provides the phone and a generic set of software for it -- it would be pretty exceptional for Sharp to *NOT* provide an "OS" for the phone...I don't think Vodafone or Smartone are in the business of writing phone OSes. What probably happens is that they get some toolkit to customize the phone & obviously Vodafone took more of an "artistic" license approach than Smartone did.

I think what we want is out there, somewhere.

I know a guy at Sharp...he works in coroporate LCD sales, but he might have connections. *shrug*

Posted by: naimwslim04

Quote:

Originally posted by luminarycrush
Note that they say "this office" and "imported" - meaning, I think, for the Vodafone market in particular (EU?).

The flash for the asian market is definitely different, so I am relatively sure that Vodafone is not the sole provider of the software package.

Is there some way to 'download' the flash of the GX32 from a handset and then 'upload' it onto a GX30? Now that I think about it, I read somewhere else that someone had obtained the flash image and had tools to upload the GX3x image to the handset, but needed help hacking it....where did I see that...?

I'm no expert, but I know there's such thing as "flash readers" which can read the flash off the phone, in the same way I have a flash "writer" (unfortunately GX30 is not supported yet), which can write the flashes to the phone.

If you go here, you can find a whole range of flashes that have been pulled. The one you are looking for has "GX30n" at the end. Unfortunately, it has not been uploaded yet, but someone is bound to upload it soon. When that happens, you just need to wait for the flasher to be available, and then, hey presto!

It should be available soon, the GX30 is still a relatively new phone.

Posted by: naimwslim04

Quote:

Originally posted by luminarycrush
The menus do look like Smartone's, but, as you mention, no logo. SO, while this is a GX20, this seems to suggest that the Smartone image might be a fairly "generic" software image. I have this phone (GX22) & the only thing unique for Smartone is a couple of logos -- from what I can observe.

My guess would be that Sharp provides the phone and a generic set of software for it -- it would be pretty exceptional for Sharp to *NOT* provide an "OS" for the phone...I don't think Vodafone or Smartone are in the business of writing phone OSes. What probably happens is that they get some toolkit to customize the phone & obviously Vodafone took more of an "artistic" license approach than Smartone did.

I think what we want is out there, somewhere.

I know a guy at Sharp...he works in coroporate LCD sales, but he might have connections. *shrug*

It is out there, somewhere, definately. Maybe if I search some Japanese pages, we might find what we're looking for!

only problem is, I can only read a tiny bit of Japanese! Lol

Posted by: luminarycrush

Well, considering that I can only look at the pictures, you are way ahead of me!

Posted by: naimwslim04

LOL!

hehe...

Well, look on the bright side, Sharp's menus shouldn't stay like this forever, as if you read in this thread here, Sharp are going to use Symbian OS in their future phones, just like the Nokia phones!

Posted by: ManBeastLove

Theres a GX30f flash on that site
http://crux.mados-technology.com

Whats that about?

Will that flash away the gay vodafone colour scheme?

Posted by: luminarycrush

Wow! Cool... I think. I grabbed it, but have absolutely no idea how to use it. It's one big file (".MOT") in that zipfile, no 'readme', no notes...

Does this file look familiar? Anyone know how to flash this puppy and recognize if this is a valid image?

There are actually two images there: a GX30 and GX30f - I wonder if the "f" is the French version?

It would be great if there is a software emulator out there somewhere for the Sharp GX30 so we could 'boot' this image in a window on a PC... (like you can for, say, Palm OS machines, etc).

Posted by: naimwslim04

I'm not too sure if the GX30f will remove the voda branding - I think this because the French version is still European, and European GX phones are still Vodafone branded - that is IF the GX30f is French.

The one that I am certain will have no voda branding is the GX30n, obviously that flash, although it exists, no-one has uploaded it from their phone yet.

At the same time, the Flasher I have only works on GX10-20. Support should be included soon though hopefully for the GX30.

The flasher, btw is Unisoft's Mobile Repair Tool 2003-2004 (60MB) found here. You can also find Update 56 for it on the same site. More updates are to be released, hopefully including the GX30.

Posted by: naimwslim04

Quote:

It would be great if there is a software emulator out there somewhere for the Sharp GX30 so we could 'boot' this image in a window on a PC... (like you can for, say, Palm OS machines, etc).

Check this out - Openwave Phone Simulator Version 6.2.2:
http://developer.openwave.com/dvl/t...e_sdk/index.htm

I haven't downloaded this (actually I'm downloading it now) I'll report back whether it works or not!

Posted by: cnwk64

any updates??

Posted by: naimwslim04

Well, if what you want to do is access WAP Pages on your PC, then this is a great tool! If you want to emulate the *.mot files, there's no luck