$10 Android smartphone to hack running debiarm?

I noticed BestBuy currently has dropped some low-end 4-core Android smartphones to under US $10. I wonder if anyone out here wants to grab and start hacking it to run debiarm OS and uses it for something else other than a cell and/or WiFi phone.

1. Boost Mobile - ZTE Speed 4G No-Contract Cell Phone - Black (QUALCOMM MSM8916 Snapdragon 410 CPU + Android 5.1 Lollipop OS)
2. Boost Mobile - Huawei Union No-Contract Cell Phone - Black (QUALCOMM Snapdragon 210 CPU + Android 4.4 KitKat OS)

Personally, I prefer a 64-bit Android 5.1 OS.

%&£%"$)%

Now that's cheep, and snapdragons might allow linux to run theoretically.

But that's a major pain in the backside for little gain.


But really.... 10 bucks. Too bad I'm not in the US.

Nice little music players if nothing else. Bugs me to no end though how companies can have a quadcore + 1G RAM and not have more than bluetooth in and out of it. But on the other hand you could use it as a cordless phone to a bluetooth-enabled Pogoplug Asteresk interface too.

Maybe someday I'll get a cellphone, but I like the idea that when you're away, you miss the call.

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-= Cloud 9 =-



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/27/2016 05:01PM by JoeyPogoPlugE02.

if ony we knew someone in the US who could post them to us......

bobafetthotmail Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> %&£%"$)%
>
> Now that's cheep, and snapdragons might allow
> linux to run theoretically.
>
> But that's a major pain in the backside for little
> gain.
>
>
> But really.... 10 bucks. Too bad I'm not in the
> US.

One might want to couple any of the Android smartphones with this Google Cardboard 3D Movie Glasses VR BOX II 2.0+Bluetooth Remote Controller + Kodi to stream music and/or movies.

@GraveIrash,

I checked with the USPS and its cost to ship to UK is about US $22.50 (First-Class International Options). Definitely not feasible.

It's a shame that "staunch allies" such as the US and UK/France etc don't have reasonable shipping options. I'd have sent four ThinClients at one point if the rates were the same as China. On the other hand, mailing cellphones is great if you want your name on a watch list and a windowless van across the street. There was a University student here who spied a sale on burner phones at Wal Mart, and some strangers with badges payed him a visit, took his phones and played hero while the guy sort of went away and we haven't heard form him.

But the phones on sale, choice between WiFi or bluetooth, not both. Which is more important you think?

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-= Cloud 9 =-

> But the phones on sale, choice between WiFi or
> bluetooth, not both. Which is more important you
> think?

Both have bluetooth and wifi.

-bodhi
===========================
Forum Wiki
bodhi's corner (buy bodhi a beer)

bodhi Wrote:
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> Both have bluetooth and wifi.

By WiFi if you mean microwave cell tower access yes, but only one has b, g and n, unless I read that wrong. The other only had bluetooth.

If I'd have seen both features, I'd own one right now, as I had a extra pennies today but went with a couple of boring 2x10FT USB 3.0 cables. Same price. Boo, I feel like an idiot (shaddap) :-D

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-= Cloud 9 =-

JoeyPogoPlugE02 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> bodhi Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Both have bluetooth and wifi.
>
> By WiFi if you mean microwave cell tower access
> yes, but only one has b, g and n, unless I read
> that wrong. The other only had bluetooth.
>

Look at all info. Not just the specs tab!

-bodhi
===========================
Forum Wiki
bodhi's corner (buy bodhi a beer)

You're right, the Lolipop one does have bluetooth.How i missed that.

What do you think activation entails? I don't want a cellphone, but a faux OrangePi.

* Clearly I missed a great deal, but depending on activation I could get motivated.

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-= Cloud 9 =-

JoeyPogoPlugE02 Wrote:
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> What do you think activation entails? I don't want
> a cellphone, but a faux OrangePi.
>

Did you mean to convert it to an OrangePi?

habibie Wrote:
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> Did you mean to convert it to an OrangePi?

When I think of Orange Pi I mostly think of a LAMP server for the neighbors and/or useful things for personal LAN. And knock on wood, if/when I get a couple Pis I'd like to replicate Sync function that Firefox has. I was first amazed when that feature came out, bookmarks sync with one click. This could be real easy to implement, but go further and sync a lot of different things. I'd practice using the Android phone as central repository (small files).

But that phone deal, I'm feeling kind of bad right now, at least if I knew about bluetooth and WiFi co-existence I would have snapped one up yesterday if they had them. Just emailed them now to check. $10 isn't too high to borrow if worse comes to worse.

It could be a way to test DebiARM like you said too, as well as get to know Android Lolipop. I don't mind KitKat on the tablet so much as a consumer media player and one racing game :-) But, yesterday I screwed-up, maybe I don't deserve one :-( Boo, hiss...

Still, I love the deals you spy habibie. Wish I had a daily email "The Habibie Report" every morning and I'd contribute weekly, rate the Thrift stores overall.
Example:
Salvation Army - smells like a lot of donations from cat lovers this week.
Goodwill - $1.00 80mm fans with dual power plugs @ 12v .1A
Women's Center - I felt alone being a man, a conspicuous man. They're nice to me but something is bothering them.
St Vincent De Paul - still #1 highest dollar-to-wow computer parts/router ratio - and closest to the *ahem* University.

So are any of you getting phones like this? We're all out in the cold now aye?

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-= Cloud 9 =-



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/29/2016 01:59PM by JoeyPogoPlugE02.

I went back to peruse my OP and noticed I screwed up in the CPU + Android OS. For instance, the Huawei is supposed to have a Qualcomm MSM8909 processor with Android 5.1 Lollipop OS. Sorry about that.

For me, I would prefer to get a 64-bit capable CPU that runs on an Android 5.1 Lollipop OS. In this case, it would be the Huawei smartphone sans a front camera. However, if you plan to use this Huawei smartphone [...] to stream music and/or watching movies, then I reckon it does not matter if the smartphone does not have a front camera.

--------------------
moderator edited.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/03/2016 01:15PM by bodhi.

I managed $10 and bought the one with LAN WiFi access, and it looks like Activation can be bypassed to get to the Lolipop shtick of it.

Well gents, my thanks to all of you. I've got me a nice little music player and even drop an exercise video in there. With my heart problems you never know, could have prolonged my life a bit. It also has nice signal to my main LAN router and will save wear & tear off the tablet. Who knows about long-term reliability, but for $10 it's a steal so far. Camera so far, meh.

** UPDATE ** and the price went back to $39.99 hours later. Don't feel bad, the speed is on the sluggish side but I'll see if I can carefully root it and prevent some apps from auto starting using the tablet as my guide.

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-= Cloud 9 =-



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 05/01/2016 02:23AM by JoeyPogoPlugE02.

@JoeY

I just checked and it's still $9.99.

I can't explain why, but it did price surge for 24 hours or so. These are hackable is anyone else is so inclined.

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-= Cloud 9 =-

@Joey

I have noticed this kind of sale behaviour. Just give it another 24 hrs and the price shall be back to normal.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/03/2016 03:33PM by habibie.

EDITED



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/03/2016 06:02PM by Gravelrash.

Gravelrash Wrote:
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> @habibie : that last post would have been better
> as a P.M. - this isnt "that kind of forum!"

I'd just perfected a CPU heatsink to make popcorn, and now this?

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-= Cloud 9 =-

JoeyPogoPlugE02 Wrote:

>
> I'd just perfected a CPU heatsink to make popcorn,
> and now this?

That i would love to see a write up on, that's worthy of "hackaday.com"

Please see Kodi announcement.

-bodhi
===========================
Forum Wiki
bodhi's corner (buy bodhi a beer)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/04/2016 12:17AM by bodhi.

Gravelrash Wrote:
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> @habibie : that last post would have been better
> as a P.M. - this isnt "that kind of forum!"

@Gravelrash: Thank you for your suggestion and I hope to have removed the offended statement.

@habibie - thank you for the edit

@all

Thank you for amending the posts - we want/need to keep this to a hackers forum.

There are better places suited to the benefits of third party applications on graphical user interfaces that deal specifically with Home multi media - its true that there is a place for a plug in the home network that can be used to store and stream your legally obtained audio / video and also used to legally distribute and obtain torrents.

Please, lets not drag this forum into the mud with discussions of questionable software and addons,

There are lots of "take down notices" from the powers that be happening at the moment, when "questionable" use of equipment is discussed.

We don't want to lose this forum as the great resource and friendly place of help and banter it is.

Peace and Respect to you all

Gravelrash




habibie Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Gravelrash Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > @habibie : that last post would have been
> better
> > as a P.M. - this isnt "that kind of forum!"
>
> @Gravelrash: Thank you for your suggestion and I
> hope to have removed the offended statement.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/03/2016 06:13PM by Gravelrash.

Thanks Gravelrash!

-bodhi
===========================
Forum Wiki
bodhi's corner (buy bodhi a beer)

This is a steal for $10! however, I've read somewhere the these 2 phones have CDMA (most likely with old Qualcomm chip). Is that true?

-bodhi
===========================
Forum Wiki
bodhi's corner (buy bodhi a beer)

@Gravelrash:
When I posted the offended statement, I never had such a thought. All I could think was everything OFF-Topic goes here. Regardless, I completely agree with your vision and let's all keep, not only this sub-forum, but all sub-forums clean like you said in your post above.

@bodhi:
The Huawei HUAY538ABB specs from CNET clearly indicates it has a support for CDMA2000 1X / GSM / WCDMA (UMTS). TBH, I don't bother with this mainly because I use mine as a WiFi PBX extension. Considering a WiFi connection is not a full duplex, the audio quality is not bad at all, especially if you have several WiFi nodes within your environment to hop around covering a larger area where any cordless phone can't do, i.e. large offices and/or warehouses.

As with the QUALCOMM Snapdragon 210 CPU, I believe it is one of the low-end 4-core 32/64-bit entry level SoC from QUALCOMM. I just wanted to pass along the savings everyone here and did not bother to buy it mainly because I already had bought a Verizon Wireless Prepaid - Motorola Moto G No-Contract Cell Phone - Black (MOTXT1528BFPP) also under US $10 (also from BestBuy over the last 2015 Black Friday). It uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 8916.

Regardless which any inexpensive Android smartphones, my hope here is to motivate anyone to hack it to run a Debian ARM distro. For under US $10, I believe it probably has all the necessary hardware needed to host many services as a low-end server. FYI, I am particularly interested in turning any inexpensive 64-bit 4-core smartphones into a PBX system using either Asterisk, FreeSWITCH (my preference of choice, especially with FusionPBX GUI), and/or Yet Another Telephony Engine.

habibie Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
I already had bought a
> Verizon Wireless Prepaid - Motorola Moto G
> No-Contract Cell Phone - Black
> ([url=http://www.phonearena.com/phones/Motorola-Mo
> to-E-2015_id9252]MOTXT1528BFPP[/url]) also under
> US $10 (also from BestBuy over the last 2015 Black
> Friday). It uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 8916.


That lady I talked to yesterday, a Best Buy employee who lived in the world of cellphones for a couple years, told me the Motorollas are easiest to root and most fun to hack around.
I hope for the same price I paid I can tame mine, but - too late for me - yes you're likely better off with a Motorolla, price/performance considerations.


Here's what I said before the edit:


HUAWEI kindly showed me to the link where they'll give you the boot unlocker:

[quote="HUAWEI Support"]
Hello.

Thank you for your inquiry today. To request a bootloader code for your device, please send an email to: consumer@huawei.com. Please allow time for a response and be advised this department releases bootloader codes at their discretion for North American devices. Please include your IMEI and serial numbers in the email. Both can be found in Settings >> about phone or underneath the back cover. You may also visit the link below for bootloader requests and availability.

[url]http://emui.huawei.com/en/plugin.php?id=unlock&mod=detail[/url]

PLEASE NOTE: Huawei can not assist you with the process of unlocking the bootloader after receiving the code, and that any modifications to the device has the potential to void the manufacturer warranty on the device.

Best Regards,
Huawei USA Device Support
[/quote]


So I await the code, but if anyone else has $10 for neat hardware, this has the potential to be a really cool non-cell media device and even mate for Asteresk server in a pinch.

=========
-= Cloud 9 =-



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/04/2016 11:36AM by JoeyPogoPlugE02.

I thought BestBuy just wanted to get rid off these old stocks. Apparently, I was wrong. The fact is these two smartphones are now on sale again for under $10 for this Memorial weekend sale. I was hoping to see other brands, i.e. Motorola, LG, etc., would be on sale under $10.

habibie Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I noticed BestBuy currently has dropped some
> low-end 4-core Android smartphones to under US
> $10. I wonder if anyone out here wants to grab and
> start hacking it to run debiarm OS and uses it for
> something else other than a cell and/or WiFi
> phone.
>

>
1. 
   > [url=http://www.bestbuy.com/site/boost-mobile-zte-
   > speed-4g-no-contract-cell-phone-black/2178004.p?re
   > f=199&loc=*7WaaTN6umc&acampID=1&siteID=.7WaaTN6umc
   > -5Re3piuWW_fRd9nrpNv1qQ]Boost Mobile - ZTE Speed
   > 4G No-Contract Cell Phone - Black[/url] (QUALCOMM
   > MSM8916 Snapdragon 410 CPU + Android 5.1 Lollipop
   > OS)
   > [*]
   > [url=http://www.bestbuy.com/site/boost-mobile-huaw
   > ei-union-no-contract-cell-phone-black/4281300.p?re
   > f=199&loc=*7WaaTN6umc&acampID=1&siteID=.7WaaTN6umc
   > -8V_W6VFXbg2SY8fUjKwkkQ]Boost Mobile - Huawei
   > Union No-Contract Cell Phone - Black[/url]
   > (QUALCOMM Snapdragon 210 CPU + Android 4.4 KitKat
   > OS)
   > [/list]
   > Personally, I prefer a 64-bit Android 5.1 OS.