Confirmed. Same thing here. Already have mine submitted for replacement.
In fact already edited the root guide stating such fact.

 

My son just gave me this Kyocera and this morning I saw a "firmware update" window...not knowing anything about this stuff, I figured that it was normal/safe to accept it...and now all I get is a continuous "powered by Android" screen, and it vibrates off and on. What happened? Is there no hope?

 

If you were rooted, then its a coster now. There no proper recovery options on it. so there no way for like one of us to link you to anything to download and reflash the phone.

While its very unlikely to help pull the battery. put it back in, hold vol down, then power try to clear your cache and user data, there not hard to miss the factory recovery is rather featureless, and I am not aware of a way to change it. maybe if the phone was working ok. I have some ideas but i only have one phone and its not what i want to risk. like if someone had one with a problem but still powered on and booted. i would play with some ideas and if i brick i brick. would turn it into a parts phone.

so your only option is to contact the carrier and see if they will honor a exchange. Virgin Mobile did for me anyways, but not sure how your carrier is set up.

 

Thank you for trying! I did read about the procedure you outlined, and have tried it all morning to no avail.

Was this a virus or something? Did I do something wrong by accepting the firmware update? I wish I'd have left it alone. My son is going to think I'm an old, confused person. Lol

 

Am i guessing right the phone was rooted? If not might of just been just a lucky while at same time unlucky glitch that just happens.

If it was rooted. The Root makes changes to your system directory. Which just simply compatible with the update. While I have not had a chance to try. someone reported unrooting and then updating worked ok. But they never rerooted last i checked. but i dun know if that works for everyone and even if its safe. I am sure rerooting should be ok.

but no virus. The update is just not meant for the phone with those kinda changes on it.

in any case. the results of this issue are the same.

 

If i get one new would i be about to root it?

 

Should be able to long as its Jelly Bean and not Kit Kat. Which i dun think they ship them out with KitKat at this time. only jelly bean.

but if you update or it has KitKat. it wont root at this time.