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I'm after a Samsung Galaxy S2 at the moment. I was initially after an unbranded handset, after having a branded HTC Hero which Orange took ages to get round to upgrading.
But then I read that an unbranded phone wouldn't run UMA / Signal Boost. I currently have a ropey signal in my house, so that could be handy.
On the other hand, it seems that Orange are already lagging a bit with the minor updates, and if ICS comes through, I can see them hanging onto it for months like they did with 2.1 for the Hero.
So, if I buy an Orange branded phone, is it fairly simple to back up the Orange ROM / Firmware and stick on unbranded if I like?
[url= http://androidforums.com/galaxy-s2-international-all-things-root/367935-samsung-galaxy-s2-root-guide-updated-09-15am-gmt-nov-02-2011-a.html ]Clicky[/url]
Or this [url= http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1055 ]clicky[/url]
TBH those threads boggle me a bit. Too many dire warnings and "Aaah, you'll be wanting the XY88TY" going on for me.
Are the Orange branded phones much different to Unbranded? A bit more googling suggests that some updates to the S2 have actually gone out on carrier branded handsets before the unbranded ones.
On the other hand, I could just worry about if Orange are dragging their feet when Ice Cream Sandwich comes out on the S2 and I'm potentially bricking a phone that's depreciated for a few months...
There isn't a huge amount of difference, with the Orange version you might get some 'bloatware' on the phone and one of their little badges. If you are looking to get Icecream sandwich then the quickest way will be to root the phone and get a new rom which should have ICS fairly soon 🙂
If it's any help,
It's really quite difficult to brick an Android phone. It's possible, but you've really got to make a concerted effort.
I've recently had a similar quandry about my SE Arc and debated for a month or so whether to root it or not.
In the end decided to do it so that I wouldn't have to wait for the lattest firmware to be deployed whilst O2 approved it and added their crap to it. Glad I did, as long as you follow the guides to the letter (I used XDA Devs) you'll be fine, you can also guarantee that if you do encounter an issue, someone else will have too and already posted a solution.
it took me about 3 minutes to root my Galaxy S2 (3 branded), then about 5 minutes to remove bloatware and branded start up animations. It is all very easy these days to modify your phone.
Dunno about Samsung (my views on Samsung + Android are well documented) but HTC have pretty much acknowledged now that rooting and modding are commonplace. They've announced that they're going to start making it easier to do, retroactively releasing official bootloader unlocks.
http://www.htcdev.com/bootloader
hi tron, are you just buying the handset? i'm looking at getting one at the moment and i wondered if you'd seen any good deals? is £375 about the going rate?