FRENCH SFR QTEK v1640 upgrade report

[gaofi]

Hello,

For you french users of the SFR QTEK v1640, here is a report of my upgrade.

I was first deceived by the v1640, especially by the telephony subsystem, where the phone started to ring after two or three ring signals on the caller side... giving you only two more rings to hand off before routing the call to the voice recorder.

I was also upset by the necessity to install outlook, use windows etc.

As I am probably what you call a geek, I started my browser looking for others experiments, and found this (great) forum.

After a lot of reading, I decided that I'd go for the O2 EXEC Rom. (be warned that this rom is in english so the soft keyboard will be a qwerty and the menu, texts etc will be in english as well - if you are comfortable with that, then go ahead).

Also, the SFR rom comes with the 1.04.10 radio subsystem, whereas the O2 is 1.04.02.

Unfortunately, I was not able to make a backup of the shipped rom (1.13.65 FRE) which would have been useful in order to solve the soft keyboard problem, or even have a return path.

Nevertheless, given the number of successful upgrades reported, and the fact that even unsuccessful upgrades found a way to recover, I felt confident enough to take the risk.

And I did.

Well, it was not that easy, because I had to cheat here and there to use the no_ID utility to bypasse the country Id check, but finally it worked.

and... I can't stress too much on the difference !!

The telephony subsystem now works like a charm, the phone now rings without a delay

The switch of the screen orientation is way more responsive.

Only drawback : after upgrade, you have to install a registry editor to
- set the correct hard keyboard
HKLM/software/OEM/Qwerty
set layout to deciaml 66572
- set the battery icon to display :
HKLM/services/power
set show icon = 1

This upgrade (and downgrade for the radio, until someone find a way to get the 1.04.10 apart) definitely worth it, so if you feel like trying, just go for it !

Next, you can go and install a few other things like the skype cab found on the JJ extended rom.

Cheers
Gael

[Promethee]

I've read you post with a lot of interest. Did you easily put the sfr parameters for MMS and so on...
Were you able to finally get the azerty keyboard?
Thanks.

[Fabiolander]

Sound like good.

I will try this week-end and I will report what's happen here.

Thanks for this post.
Fabiolander

[adhoc]

Hello Could you please post a step by step method of upgrading the rom and solving all other problems like those related to Country ID error,the french azerty keyboard and all other tweaks that need to be applied to the Qtek 1640.

Thanks, Adhoc



Hello,

For you french users of the SFR QTEK v1640, here is a report of my upgrade.

I was first deceived by the v1640, especially by the telephony subsystem, where the phone started to ring after two or three ring signals on the caller side... giving you only two more rings to hand off before routing the call to the voice recorder.

I was also upset by the necessity to install outlook, use windows etc.

As I am probably what you call a geek, I started my browser looking for others experiments, and found this (great) forum.

After a lot of reading, I decided that I'd go for the O2 EXEC Rom. (be warned that this rom is in english so the soft keyboard will be a qwerty and the menu, texts etc will be in english as well - if you are comfortable with that, then go ahead).

Also, the SFR rom comes with the 1.04.10 radio subsystem, whereas the O2 is 1.04.02.

Unfortunately, I was not able to make a backup of the shipped rom (1.13.65 FRE) which would have been useful in order to solve the soft keyboard problem, or even have a return path.

Nevertheless, given the number of successful upgrades reported, and the fact that even unsuccessful upgrades found a way to recover, I felt confident enough to take the risk.

And I did.

Well, it was not that easy, because I had to cheat here and there to use the no_ID utility to bypasse the country Id check, but finally it worked.

and... I can't stress too much on the difference !!

The telephony subsystem now works like a charm, the phone now rings without a delay

The switch of the screen orientation is way more responsive.

Only drawback : after upgrade, you have to install a registry editor to
- set the correct hard keyboard
HKLM/software/OEM/Qwerty
set layout to deciaml 66572
- set the battery icon to display :
HKLM/services/power
set show icon = 1

This upgrade (and downgrade for the radio, until someone find a way to get the 1.04.10 apart) definitely worth it, so if you feel like trying, just go for it !

Next, you can go and install a few other things like the skype cab found on the JJ extended rom.

Cheers
Gael

[gaofi]

Here is the CAB used to setup the SFR connections (GPRS, MMS etc.)
Signed_Connection_FRE.CAB (you can download it from the FTP)

Next, I added this Registry editor (but use the one you like)
Registry_Editor_0.63_Arm_-iPAQ-.cab

And edited the Country registry key, plus the Show Battery Icon as mentionned :.

- set the correct hard keyboard
HKLM/software/OEM/Qwerty
set layout to deciaml 66572
- set the battery icon to display :
HKLM/services/power
set show icon = 1

The soft keyboard will NOT be changed so it will stay QWERTY. (Which I don't car, for I'm used to Palm's "graffiti" so I use block recognition.

I did NOT apply the BT patchs because they probably apply to the .10 radio rom, and I havent found the standalone upgrade yet.

The BT is not perfect, when sending my contacts from my old phone (one by one by the way, stupid MS can't handle vcard with multiple contacts !!!) I had to stop and restart the BT stack every 20-30 contacts (I had more than 300 :-( )

Stay tuned, I'll be back soon with more details :-)
++
Gael

[gaofi]

Well, not so related, but if you want to surf from your device, have a look here :

http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?t=32217&start=200

definitely worth the reading.
Gael

[Promethee]

I definetly would like to get the Qtek rom at least to have msn on the device.
The O2 rom seems to be ok but as I use the keyboard quite often if prefer to remain with a French rom (or if anyone comes up with a solution to get the azerty keyboard...)

[adhoc]

Please someone to upload it to the ftp.

Tnanks in advance, aDHOC.

I definetly would like to get the Qtek rom at least to have msn on the device.
The O2 rom seems to be ok but as I use the keyboard quite often if prefer to remain with a French rom (or if anyone comes up with a solution to get the azerty keyboard...)

[gaofi]

Promethee : read my post - the harware azerty is fully fontionnal with the O2 rom. Only the soft kb remains Qwerty.

As for pocket MSN, just browse the various Extended Roms of the FTP, you will find one cab that will make you happy.

Gael

[Fabiolander]

SO... I spent my saturday night to upgrade this UK ROM.

That works better but it doesn't transform my 2cv into Ferrari.

Trick for us keyboard works well, too. However everything is in english (suggested word, virtual keyboard, etc)

I'm waiting for a original qtek 9000's french rom.

Nobody knows where to find one ?

[Promethee]

Sorry I've been unable to find pocket msn in the extended rom.
For the keyboard I don't see your point. En français dans le texte est ce que tu parles du clavier apparaissant sur l'écran ou du clavier physique. Est-ce que quand tu appuies sur la lettre A, c'est un Q qui apparait?
If I don't have to guess where are located the keys on the keyboard because it's recognized as a qwerty one then I will upgrade...

[gaofi]

English speakers - the content of this post is already above.

le clavier physique fonctionne en AZERTY avec la modification de registry citée ci-dessus.

Seul le clavier qui s'affiche à l'écran (= soft kb) s'affiche en qwerty.

pocket MSN est inclus dans la rom O2 EXEC.
skype est fourni dans l'ext rom Jasjar si je me souviens bien.

++
Gael

[Promethee]

Thanks, just need to find a windows pc to do the upgrade... 8)

[gaofi]

@promethee : yeah, sure - that was my main concern actually !

hopefully, a linux based distro will soon be made available !

That would be the _real_ upgrade :-)

++
Gael