Ultra Cheap and Nice $50 Android Samsung Vitality

I have a "deals" app on my phone (SII Sprint)

it popped up a $30 android phone at best buy. I clicked out of morbid curiosity looking for the catch

NO CATCH. $30 flat (plus sales tax) no contract no catches. I paid $31.79 and 30 minutes later I picked it up at my local best buy !!!

its a 3.5" capacitive screen android phone from ZTE called the "Score" or X500

really really not a bad little gadget. WAY better than the prevail !! (about the same formfactor)

fast and responsive. Netflix even works !!

3.2mp cam but crap video.

its a cricket pay as you go phone. normally $70 on sale $30 no strings

I bought 2 more that I will pick up tomorrow.

you see I never plan to activate it or use it as a phone. I am going to use them as sem disposable portable computers to "do" interesting things with.

For example I will run ulyssess speedometer on one in the CAR and sit it on the dash so my "dash cam" can "see" it.

THEIR. I just embedded lat long gps data and velocity data real time into my $60 dash cam without having to spend $300 on a dash cam with it build in.

the other 2 (maybe 3 if I have enough money) are going to be cheap Timelapse camera's wherein if one gets "taken" I won't have a heart attack (such as if that were to happen to my SII)

there is SO much potential when you have "decent" android hardware at such a cheap price!

I rooted it STRIPPED it of pretty much ANYTHING I did not think would brick the phone even with netflix installed I now have 71mb memory available.

it came with a 4gb card but you only get 1gb 3gb is a hidden partition for cricket's muve music junk. (it might be possible to reformat the card to get the full 4g someone is working on that)

I just tossed a 16gb card in it so I can do hours of timelapse.

it memory fails when I try to do rapid timelapse at full camera spec but at 1080p 1 pic every 3 seconds seems to run just fine so far (will do long test tommorrow)

VERY neat device. I am impressed and loving it. at this price I am going to find all kinds of interesting uses for these gadgets.

Here is where to get it

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/searchp...p=&qp=&list=n&iht=y&usc=All+Categories&ks=960

here is how to root it (worked fine for me)

http://score.rockthatmobile.com/how-to-root-the-cricket-zte-score-x500/

simplified instructions.

download the two packages. I don't think you need the drivers one I THINK they are built into the phone.

plug it in right click the drive that appears (not sd card) and click install. it installed drivers.

run the zerglings through it and bingo its rooted. VERY easy.

install titanium and goto down deleting crap (use your head)

YOU CAN NOT BUY A USED ANDROID PHONE FOR $30 !!! even a broken one.

wiicked deal !

now we just need some fun roms for it. would love a SUPER minimal NOTHING rom for a minimal foot print and optimized for battery life.

that's right. GPS does not require a data connection.

so ahh wait your talking about mapping software.

google maps for example DOES require a data connection (maps)

there is 1 program I am aware of that does not require data at all.

Sygic

Navigon can be "modified" to not require a Data Connection. Once installed and if your rooted install permission denied (market) and DISABLE navigon's license check then it also will work without a data connection.

you see while navigon allows you to download maps it "checks" your license every time you start it up (IE they don't trust you and assume your a crook) if it can't check it crashes (unless your rooted and disable that function with permissions denied)

well lets look at it this way. for anything to connect to the internet it has to have an address. no two objects can occupy the same address at the same time.

I live at 123 Main Street America

nothing else can live at 123 Main Street America but me.

so what happens if I have more than one person or "gadget" at 123 Main Street America

I would need a SEPARATE address for each "THING" a separate IP ADDRESS

otherwise how does one device talk to another without cross chatter?

now we came up with a simply solution to this.

a router. when you connect a router you are "CREATING" a new "PLACE" from scratch.

a new "America" so to speak.

and that new america can have its own list of addresses.

think of this as subdividing your house into apartments.

you have the "external" address 123 Main Street America

but if you have 4 people living in 4 apartments how do I get mail to them?

well I create INTERNAL addresses.

APT1 APT2 APT3 APT4

so MY address is 123 Main Street APT 1 America.

now with your apartment the HUMAN BEING is the "router" we realize APT1 is a "subset" of 123 Main Street.

you can not send mail to APT1 Main Street America. thats a fictional invalid address. its a SUBSET of a "real" address so you have to INCLUDE the real address.

you have to include the RIGHT real address and real SUB SET to get to the person you desire.

your ROUTER does this.

right now your router does this intelligently.

when you goto www.xda-developers.com did you ever wonder why it does not "pop up" on your other computer's screen?

when the data COMES BACK from the internet how does it know where to "GO" ?

that is where your routing tables come in. the router knows 192.168.1.4 (think APT 2) made the request.

so the router goes to the internet and says HEY I want xda.com

the DNS servers go ok XDA.com is xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx and sends the request.

xda.com has NO IDEA that APT4 wanted its data. it just blats the data back to the EXTERNAL IP address that requested the data (123 Main St)

123 Main street has a router. it REMEMBER that APT4 ASKED for this data so it ROUTES the data requested BACK TO APT4 or 192.168.1.4

that is how you form a link.

the problem with a WEBCAM is that your router recieved "NO" outgoing request for the incoming request from YOU to ask for the camera feed.

so when YOU send a 8080 request to 123 Main St the router has NO IDEA where you mean to go.

SO we have to manually PROGRAM the router. we "TELL" the router OK if you get "ANY" requests to port 8080 I want you to forward those requests to 192.168.1.4

now any INCOMING unassigned request to 8080 at 123 Main Street is automatically routed to and delivered to 192.168.1.4

and now the link is complete.

dyndns.org is free service (there is a free option) that handles the NUMBER translation for you.

my IP address is 68.84.121.212

I need to get my camera request to 192.168.2.115 (my droid phone on wifi)

so in my ROUTER I say anything going to 9001 (the port I chose) please forward to 2.115

this means I have to type 68.84.121.212:9001

but thats annoying AND if my modem reboots I might not BE 68.84.121.212 tomorrow.

so I also programmed my router with dyndns.org information. dyndns assigned me grrhome.homeip.net

the software built into my router (or software on your computer) checks and see my IP is 68.84.121.212

it TELLS dyndns.org HEY YOU my IP is 68.84.121.212

so now dyndns can associate grrhome.homeip.net with 68.84.121.212 now they are ONE AND The same.

if my router or software see's that my IP 68.84.121.212 changed to something else say 68.84.121.213

then it reports BACK to dyndns HEY new ip update your records.

so now i only need to remember grrhome.homeip.net to get to my home network.

so I put in grrhome.homeip.net:9001

this goes to dyndns.org dnydns says OK I recognize that you mean 68.84.121.212:9001

the 9001 request goes to 68.84.121.212 my modem forward that to my router at 192.168.2.1

my router checks the routing table and goes AHA I know what you want your want 9001 that means shunt you to 192.168.2.115

this gets the request to my ZTE 500 which says HEY here is your camera feed.

make more sense now? hehehe just read it carefully it all makes sense. YES it is complicated but that is because routing traffic "IS" complicated.

we just take it for granted because our brains do a lot of this "processing" subconsciously you don't even realize your doing it.

DOGSofDOOM said:

Root isnt working. Trying with drivers doesnt work and i deleted them and still cant run the zurg batch file? Wtf

Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

The easiest way to root these, at least for me(I just did 5 of them), is:

1. Plug phone into computer and install the drivers when prompted
2. Enable USB Debugging on your phone
3. Do not mount the SD card
4. Download Super One Click
5. Switch exploit to "zergRush" up in the top right hand corner
6. Press Root and watch it go.
After it finishes it may or may not install superuser.apk. If it doesn't, just download it from the market.

There may be an easier way, but I really don't see how it could get any easier than this.

Have fun!

I bought 4 of them today and after a bit of research I successfully rooted and installed recoveries to all 4 with no bricks

Made this as hopefully a quick reference/fix for us. (grr its not uploading over my 4g, I'll upload in about 9 hours when I get to work.

I might actually try to make a rom for this thing that disables the cdma radio all together and try to integrate google voice/talk/ect into it as the default dialer/sms/mms/ect.

Just need to get my laptop running again so I can have an ubuntu box