Lol!!
You said it..!!
A.
---------- Post added at 02:34 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:52 PM ----------
I'm from India.. Galaxy S2 wasn't available at the time when I decided to purchase one. So I had to get it from Nordic 3 Network with SIM Lock.
The phone was made available in India by the time I got it.. However I saved some money compared to Indian price.
I dropped bricks in my pants when I learnt that I have to unlock SIM to use it on any Indian network.
SIM Unlock Procedure involved "Rooting" the phone. So again, that wasn't an easy decision to make.
So be it, I decided.
- I simply downloaded Odin, SuperOneClick and Insecure Kernel (Windows)
- Got the phone into download mode (Vol. Down + Home + Power)
- Then Up button to confirm download mode.
- Connected phone using USB and Odin recognized it with yellow COM Box.
- Flashed the insecure kernel choosing PDA option
- Ran Super One for while the phone is connected to USB and clicked on Root
- It rooted the phone.
When I saw that yellow exclamation during boot, I was out of my senses thinking that I blew the phone.. A research said nothing to panic. Then I downloaded SIM Unlock software from Android Market using Wifi ran it, got the unlock code and unlocked the SIM safely. Now I got on to my cellular network.
I used Odin again in download mode to flash the Stock kernel back to remove that yellow exclamation!
The stock rom that I got with phone was 2.3.3 and now I'm running the phone at 2.3.5 and it's wonderful other than those junky stock apps.
I found a way to get that stuff removed. As I've already rooted the phone, I used Root Explorer app from Android Market.. Went into root (/) then to System and then Apps and removed junk by deleting apps and their related odex files. (using Mount RW)
It's operating just fine with the current ROM and have no complaints.
Compared to Kies, I found Odin as the best firmware flashing tool.
Till now, I used Kies only to back up stuff on my phone or to import videos and music to my phone.
When CyanogenMod 7.1 stable got released, I installed CockWorkMod Recovery using Heimdal by following the instructions under Wiki for Galaxy SII.
I downloaded the zip and installed the CM 7.1 ROM from ClockWorkMod Recovery. ROM looked fine, except that it's crashing some android processes.
So I had to go back to stock 2.3.5.
Bottom Line: Odin and SuperOneClick Rocks
Everytime you flash new firmware you have to root the phone except for CyanogenMod as it already comes sort of with SuperControl!
And XDA has abundant info. In a 20 days of time, using all the info available here, I went on to become shivering pants to confident in Android..!
Now I see my phone like a PC. I know how and when to flash and how to do stuff.
Cheers!
A.