Help Various questions from non-techy

Hi Pan,

As far as I know you wont get any updates over the network - all the info I read on the galaxy before it came out suggested that you'll have to update from a computer.

What network / country are you in? I've heard that places like Italy have updates via the PC studio, but in the UK you're stuck with older versions unless you 'unofficially' update it.

Having said that, unofficially updating it (thanks to kam187's instructions and files) is actually really easy - but my phone's not tied to a network so I'm not too worried about updating and the network getting annoyed.

Hope that helps a little.

ZeeToo.

Hi Pan,

Things like the G1 and G2 are full 'google experience' phones, and as such they can be updated over the phone network, however the i7500 isn't a full google experience phone so doesn't have the update over the network feature (I think I prefer the not full google experience phone as I like the freedom, but that's me..).

I didn't mean to say that you could never have an update officially, it's that the NPS (new PC suite thing) hasn't been updated for us in the UK yet.

When that updates you'll be able to update the firmware, the Italians have it already (which is where we can get things like the H7 firmware - it's literally a copy of the file sent to the Italian phones) - I believe they have a better version because it's been around in Italy for a month or more.

I don't know how to get around it with a mac, but if you happen to be around hampshire I can give you a hand when they finally update NPS, but I suspect you may be able to find someone you know with a PC you might be able to connect to for a while.

I'd rather use the official updates because it's just easier and doesn't wipe the device (as far as I know) but my choice was no android market or data vs an unofficial H7 update..

As I said, NPS doesn't handle the H6 version that's come with the O2 phone, or the H7 version I'm using yet but it will in the future, and hopefully the device will only get better.

If you're sticking with the device I'm sure samsung eventually (and hopefully soon) will remember us in the UK, but until then...

Btw, if you update your phone with the H7 firmware, (kam187 is the person to help there) you can go back to the H6 firmware that comes with O2 as easily I believe (loss of settings again).

Anyhow, hope that helps.

ZeeToo.

Hmm, I have to admit I don't know the difference between firmware updates and android updates.

The firmware (as far as I can tell) appears to be android with the handset specific drivers and config.. But I'm not expert on that just what I've seen with my phone and what I read on the looong wait for the phone to turn up So I don't think there's anything really different between android updates and firmware updates - but that could be totally wrong.

Things like apps obviously you can get from any network source, mobile, wifi even from an SD card - but I'm pretty sure you don't mean that by android updates.

I think (and again, I've only just installed the software - had the phone about a week) but you kind of use an online updater (and based on other's mentions as to how they get the firmware), so you run something in NPS and it'll download the latest firmware for the phone.. You'll probably need an updated NPS (and I believe that'll search for updates too) as it doesn't recognise anything but old firmware phones (I tried to update mine in NPS but it said no updates available and now it doesn't recognise my phone - known if you have a new firmware).

Edinburgh is cool - been to the fringe festival before, but have to admit I don't normally take my PC so wouldn't be able to help there

Sorry I don't know about macs, I've got a mac laptop I might try and see what I can do on it, but loads of projects and never enough time

ZeeToo.

What was it you meant by Android updates? Things like the cupcake 2.0 version?

I believe that will only be available via a firmware update (or a custom rom, which is just a firmware update not from samsung).

Firmware on this phone isn't exactly the same as the firmware you'd think of normally (although it might be - if this is all wrong ).

Looking through the phone and the space it reports available we have:

• - about 200meg for ram
• - 1 gig for the android system 'bit', I think that might be some chipset flash
• - An internal flash card with about 6.5 gig on it (I believe the missing 500meg is the recovery partition and the update stuff) mounted under /sdcard/
• - Another SD card from the microSD slot mounted under /sdcard/sd/

You can see all the filesystem on your phone with something like the astro file manager.

I believe the system image that goes on the 1gig bit (I don't know if it's a partition on the internal SD card or a flash chip on the motherboard or anything) is considered to be the firmware, I'm pretty sure that's what I updated when I switched firmware.

I could easily be wrong (most of this is gleaned from other users and poking through the system on the phone itself) but if I'm not then firstly there should be an update to the NPS software so it recognises the phones, and then there should be new firmware available with fixes for the problems. This hopefully will happen at the same time, and in less than a month (my hope - based on O2 UK making them update).

Hope that helps

ZeeToo.

for updates you can use and windows in a virtualbox and in the virtualbox install new pc studio.

Just FYI, I believe the H7 firmware will solve your original issues (at least it appears to have on my phone).

I've got the I7500XXIH7 'baseband version' and interestingly according to the phone I've got the 1.5 firmware version... Ahh for specific names for things that don't change

I don't know if other's still see the issue but I don't see any odd screen locks whilst I'm using the phone (it can be speedy, but never whilst I've been touching the screen)..

And my screen stays off, without the flashing you were reporting... I know this doesn't help you massively right now, but I think samsung will catch up soon and when they do it hopefully will be solved.

ZeeToo.

P.S. spupuz, hadn't thought of that will it work with the drivers etc? Ie can you still grab USB drivers via a virtual machine (assuming that's what virtualbox is)?

Well they've released the H8 firmware now... Although don't know how well it works I probably won't update till the UK catches up now, it works well enough as is, and a full reinstall would be a pain...

Interestingly samsung's UK site now has press releases about the i7500 (at last!) so maybe they're starting to move....



ZeeToo.

Yeah I'd seen that post but lost the URL before I posted here

I think that if you use the NPS to update your device you won't lose anything (but please backup everything on there first anyway, even if it's not meant to lose anything it can always go wrong) and I know that if you use the MutliOdin thing I've used in the past you will lose all your settings.

I can't imagine that NPS will wipe all your settings, that's just too crazy to believe... Although I've seen odder things I guess

I've had a search on UK based posts, but nothing so far, so I guess it's not for us yet

ZeeToo.

P.S. I wouldn't necessarily bother emailing samsung uk - I did that to ask about the I7500 before it was released in the UK, and I was told:
"Thank you for youremail regarding the i7500 handset.
With regards to your email, we do not expect the i7500 handset to be
released in the UK in the coming months & do not believe the unit
will go on general release on the UK market." - 2 days later O2 announced they were going to carry the phone I mean, seriously? Just saying we can't announce anything would be better.