Vodafone UK and Blackberry firmware

Hi there,

New to the forums, so 'hello'!

I'm contemplating a Blackberry come my upgrade date next week. I've never owned one before and am thus torn between the heart screaming 'Storm' and the brain quietly suggesting that maybe the 'Bold' might make a better choice.

However, this is not the main though hampering my decision making. I have run several phones on Vodafone UK and have been somewhat flabbergasted, not to mention disappointed at their firmware tampering. My current phone is a Sony Ericsson K850. Imagine my horror on its arrival when I saw that Vodafone had changed the beautiful original menu icons for hideous 2/4 colour jobbies of their own creation. It was so bad that for the first time I ended up downloading software and flashing my phone to remove it.

(It was so ridiculous - a game, Marble Madness, was included to show off the accelerometer on the phone; a key feature if you will. Vodafone, in their wisdom, decided to remove even this).

However, I'm getting a wee bit sidetracked! My main concern is this: do Blackberrys running under the Vodafone UK network suffer similar hindrances or should I be able to exploit all the phone's loveliness unfettered?

Oh, and of course the perennial question, the Storm or the Bold?:D

Sorry, a wee bump:o
Is there no-one here who can tell me how much Vodafone in the UK play with BLackberry's appearance and menus and things?

WHat about other networks, do RIM allow them to change a lot and very much put their own stamp on things?

ANy info much appreciated.:)

hey

I'm a newbie too, and I dont know if this even answers your psot but I got my Storm off a friend and on Vodaphone. I Didnt like any of the firmware stuff that came with it so simply unlocked it, registered it to Orange my carrier, and then dloaded and trialed several newer OS systems (yuch to the original out of box OS get rid of it now!!!) finally settling on .122

Now I pretty much do what i like to my phone in terms of customising it - including getting rid of the Voda wallpapers, icons and and other guff that i dont need and kills the memory.

Using the fantastic tutorials here you can pretty much do whatever you like to the BB so read those mate!

Good luck!

Dil

Cheers for that - I'll have a look at the unlocking stuff here!

Try carphone warehouse or phone 4 u for your upgrade you will get unbranded phone

Carphone Warehouse don't offer Vodafone tho, and Phones 4 U sell locked phones. I had a vodafone sony ericsson from them previously and it was locked.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

I'm new also but on voda and will tell you my experience. I have got rid of everything voda pretty much but but still kept all the settings. You don't see much of the vile coloured icons. Voda Live and Voda help starts from an icon and you can just stick those icons in some folder you make called 'stuff I don't want'! No Vodafone violent colours on the home screen just and silver vodafone on the very bottom on the handset, quite discreet. As for Strom v Bold I have a Strom and it is lovely but not the quickest to keyboard to use. My husband and son both heavy users have bolds, they both tried the Storm but sent them back and are waiting for the next new model. They both nearly went flying across the room. Also Bold has wifi and Storm doesn't, I miss wifi as no mobile signal is great where I live/work and wifi would make life easier.
There is new os out but I think the jury is out on whether voda have messed too much with it. Doesn't matter you can download non voda from here, just read ask ask questions. I went from .78 to .131 with help and it works well. Bold you won't have to mess with.
Hope this helps and if I were you I'd go with your head not your heart unless you are very patient! I use the Storm mainly for email and games I still use my old SE for phone and texting.

Thanks very much for that synopsis. I guess it's kind of what I've decided to do anyway - but it is very re-assuring to know that the Vodafone branding is not too intrusive anyway and can fairly easily be removed if desired.

Wednesday's my 'allowed to upgrade' day; I'm sticking with Vodafone partly because I can't wait until my current contract fully expires (only another 2 months:rolleyes:).

So, maybe by the end of the week or beginning of next, I should be a Bold user:)

Incidentally, 3 rang me a couple of days ago and tried to persuade me to take a Nokia E63. I explained I was interested in a Blackberry but they said the only suitable alternative would be an E71. Nice phone, but as I was speaking to the guy, I looked up 3's website which was offering the Bold on the same terms as he was offering the E63:D

He should get the sack or was he was actually on Nokia's payroll!! I'm sure you'll be delighted with the Bold but if you held out a month or so more there will be a new BB I think. You can find details about that on here just search new model or something, I think it's code name was Niagra. Good luck and I'm sure you have made the right choice especially if you only have one phone. Enjoy it.

Originally Posted by BlackAbou27

So, maybe by the end of the week or beginning of next, I should be a Bold user:)

Incidentally, 3 rang me a couple of days ago and tried to persuade me to take a Nokia E63. I explained I was interested in a Blackberry but they said the only suitable alternative would be an E71. Nice phone, but as I was speaking to the guy, I looked up 3's website which was offering the Bold on the same terms as he was offering the E63:D

You will be very welcome to join us in the Bold forum here on CB.

It wasn't really 3 which phoned you, but a phone spammer. I used to get calls from them all the time as end of contract arrived. What they didn't know was my number was ported from a different proivider, so the opening line about "your contract with aaa is about to expire" when the phone was on bbb. Click!