I upgraded to Moto X. But something just didn't feel right. I think until I give my adios to Optimus One I can't really move on. So I wrote something about it. Here you go:
Every once in a while a piece of technology sets it's foot from inception to reality, that is perceived ahead of its time. It features tech which makes people awe in wonder. People dream of owning such a piece of technology that catapults them into the future.
One such device was my Optimus One P500 (O1 in short), an Android device manufactured by LG which featured specs which were uncommon at its price point. Granted it was not supposed to "take you to the future", but it was as close as you get if you were under a budget. The device had 512 MB of Random Access Memory, which none of the branded manufactures at the time managed to pull it of in a sub 10k phone. Quickly it became the most loved gadget by amass and also among the developers at XDA, a place where developers collaborated for the greater good.
O1 came with Froyo (Android ver 2.2) when it was launched in October 2010. With the curves and specs it had it looked a neat little Android gadget to admire. It was after 9 months of the launch that I came to know about O1, took me one month time to research, write a blog about it and to finalize that my next smartphone can only be "the One". After that it still took me 2 months to save money from teaching programming classes to school students, apart from doing 9-5 regular job. But it was a good phone and a gadget worth the hard work to own.
I remember when the delivery boy from "LetsBuy.com" came to my home and handed me over the phone while I was fiddling with my wallet to make it lighter. My dad was surprised by the way I handed hard cash to some stranger who just arrived at the doorstep. That was my first experience in online shopping but I trusted it. And it payed off well over the years.
As I unpacked my first Android phone, a rush of excitement was flowing through my body. I could hardly control my mental level which were overloaded from thinking about all the possibilities that the little gadget lay upon me. The phone also came with a good Leather pouch with "Google" label on it, a set of headphones and a charger with a long one meter detachable USB cable. I even created a video of the unpacking of O1. But partly due to the fact that I was doing that for the first time and partly because I was so choking up in excitement, the video came out pretty bad. I never uploaded it on Youtube. But now that I am sharing my experience I am prepared for a little embarrassment. Below is the video for your pleasure (along with soft coded subtitles). Apologies in advance for the out of focus video feed and terrible audio, but it does document how fluid the UI was when the O1 was running Froyo, and a thing which I solely started to miss when I upgraded it to advance versions. But I am getting ahead of time.
My experience of using O1 stretches to a long 3 years. Here's what happened in excruciating detail.
The stock Android "Froyo" was very fast and responsive. And I could have upgraded to "Gingerbread" easily. Yet their was something about being stock that didn't appeal to me. Getting on the O1 bandwagon later than most gave me an advantage of the cumulative experiences of various forum members who went through trial and error while experimenting on their devices. So I had plethora of options to choose from Custom ROMs, Kernels, Basebands and Recoveries. But using any of those customization meant I first had to root the device. Rooting the device for the uninitiated, means taking full administrative rights. I wholeheartedly thank [MENTION=88006]sam[/MENTION] in this regard since he was the one who saved me from drowning myself in the ocean of perplexity that came along with experimenting. Even when you have the plethora of experience from other members, when it comes to messing with your own device nothing can prepare you from the nerve wrecking moments that comes with them.
The phone was among the best in hardware but was filled with bloatware apps. Apps such as "Bollywoodji" were not only unnecessary but also made the phone a bit slow. So one fine day I decided that I must root my phone.
It was the start of new year, 2012. After a lot of research on XDA forums and (Think)digit forum I sat down to unleash true powers of my phone. I took a deep breath and installed an app which was supposed to root the device. Something was not right, and the process was taking too much time. I started to become nervous and thought I might not survive if anything happened to the phone. It was then when I saw sam online on Facebook. He talked me through the process. He cracked jokes to help me ease by eagerness to finish the process of rooting and installing custom ROM over the next several days.
Following in the spoiler are some of my conversations with him that I am glad to share today. It feels amazing to look back now and read them again:
13/01/2012 00:01 -- Vyom: I dont understand... if Android is open source, why we have to take so much pains!
Sam: so what do you get by open source? does it mean less pain? or it means free to use & brick your mobile? Vyom: From open source, I mean, why we have to take risks.. why can't be there full proof method, since every code is so clear... why patches are needed... such as gingerbreak..
to root.. why can't their be inbuilt mechanism to allow rooting... Sam: well open source mean free to use & free to share. but safe or not. its something else. gingerbreak? ask LG. Vyom: so even if Android is open source, LG don't want people to take full utilization of their handsets? isnt it? Sam: actually if you are given root on a stock mobile, most will get access to system files, fiddle with it & then brick, crash, etc
yup. kind of like that.
04/02/2012 18:15 -- Sam: when optimus one started coming with Android 2.2.1 or 2.2.2, many ppls at XDA downgraded android. more than half of them bricked mobile. Vyom: Lolwut! Sam: downgraded to Android 2.2.0 as it was the only rootable android. i half bricked my mobile but successfully flashed second time. a big relief that everything went fine.
i was literally shaking when i clicked proceed button. even if PC shuts off for some reason, mobile will be dead
then I didn't have UPS in my PC Vyom: O.O
You are a gambler my friend!
05/02/2012 16:44 Vyom: Hi... Help me! Stuck at Oxygen logo! Sam: oops. so ur mobile is bricked? Vyom: NOOO. its not bricked! Sam: lol i know. just kidding Vyom: see what happened.. It took just 2 min.. to flash Sam: ok.... so tell me what u have done till now. step by step. everything.
05/02/2012 17:14 -- Vyom: MAN! I got scared a little... when I saw that even after removing battery... Oxygen logo was still there! Sam: !!! Vyom: Then I realized, that it (my phone) was connected to USB! Sam: ghost
rofl Vyom: My phone RUNS W/O battery TOO!!! Just like LAPTOPS!
O.O Sam: i'll try that too with my mobile
mobile runs on electricity, not battery. lol
Anyone seen new Android (Lollipop) adverts where they advertise Android as AND-riod? Well look who coined this term first:
05/02/2012 17:26 -- Vyom: Btw.. Arc retaines the ANDROID logo... Sam: haven't used arc yet
AND DROID logo sounds better
Phone was the same. Hardware was the same. And it was not supposed to run "ICS". But it was running it quite fluidly. A generation passed and then came "Jellybean". We thought we might not be able to enjoy the advantages of "Project Butter". But we were simply wrong. Due to efforts of developers at XDA we got a brand new ROM that was based on Jellybean. Our happiness knew no bound back then.
In the spring of 2014, "Kitkat" arrived. I remember how I started to eat Kitkat chocolates since I thought we can't have the flavor of Kitkat on our legendary P500. But destiny had something else in mind. Mukulsoni, a teenage developer had done the seemingly impossible thing. He ported Kitkat on our age old but smartest smartphone. Our devices had unofficially started to take advantage of "Project Svelte"! We were on ninth cloud.
Kudos to developers like Mukulsoni and hephappy and lupohirp and franciscofranco and fserve and more! Thanks to them we could enjoy things never in our life we had imagined. In total Optimus One saw five generations of Android development (and still counting).
But the 4 year old hardware can only bear so much. ROM's which were ported by extremely talented developers worked flawlessly. But the app industry doesn't have a generous bunch of people. Apps get bigger as time progresses. Be it feature addition or bug fixing, an app never stops to grow. Demands of requirement for playing games also kept on increasing. Due to this our beloved Optimus One had more and more bloated apps to run. But in the limited internal memory which it had it was becoming increasingly difficult to house. So as time went by we started to feel that the age of Optimus Prime is nearing its end. It was not due to any shortcomings of the device itself, but to the fact that app industry had grew up to a point that even basic applications needed a plethora of space to install.
The start of year 2014 marked a turning point for Android devices. Motorola's Moto G with its budget friendly but feature rich phone shook the mobile market for good. Devices with better specs and designs under 10k stared to emerge. Even companies never heard of before like Oppo, Gionee and Xiaomi started to bring out economical devices. Hence many of the people who originally bought P500 started to upgrade. Almost everyone upgraded to devices with higher specs and more features. In our very own forum, sam moved onto Moto G 2nd generation.
But there are people who are still using O1 and some who still want to use it for coming years. [MENTION=121890]kaz[/MENTION] for example wants to upgrade to Mi4 when it arrives but [MENTION=47131]happy17292[/MENTION] still wish to use his O1 for next 2-3 years. I for one decided to move onto Moto X, not because O1 wasn't a good phone, but because app industry needs people to upgrade their phone so that they can push more feature rich apps and games.
Whatever phone we use in future, one thing is for sure, I can never forget the importance that it had in my life. The immersion it gave to me. I would never forget the thrill of trying out new ROM's and the risk that came along with it. LG's P500 was my first smartphone and it gave me a chance to see how software can have no boundaries. The device also brought many people together, from forum members to developers at XDA, we came together to explore new horizons and uncharted territories. No matter if LG's P500 was your first smartphone or second, one thing is for sure, we can never forget the things it taught us.
On a personal note, even after I have bought Moto X, the P500 won't just fade away from my memory any time soon, and will still be a secondary phone to which I can rely on. But when it comes to daily driver now, I say my adios to the almighty legend. And hope the best for many other people who still would be using the Optimus One, a gadget one of its kind!
Our thread crossed 1 lakh views . Kudos to everyone who visited and posted in this thread
@krishnandhu - Thanks once again for the screenshots and hope u r enjoying a good battery life .
Looks like you are desperate for the prices of O1 to be reduced.
I am too. Don't know what's the motive behind LG for not reducing the price is. But I am guessing it has got something to do with it's undeniable success.
Btw, if O1 doesn't reduce it's price, I think I am gonna buy a dual sim phone along with Aakash Android Tablet.
Well, at the moment, the cheapest rate on which you can get O1 is Letsbuy. The current cost if Rs 8999 including a bluetooth. Trust me, I just placed an order for the same, after two months of planning. Although Flipkart is more reliable but they are selling it for Rs. 9700, and that too w/o Bluetooth. But their service rocks. So decision is yours.
Also, can't say about others, but sellers like Flipkart and Letsbuy usually sell for free shipping. Which means, you would have to pay the exact amount as quoted in final transaction, and not a single rupee more.
You can try. Although AMEXLB is "supposed" to work with only American Express Card, many claims it worked on other cards too.
But, it didn't for my ICICI Net banking, when I had tried.
Edit: I am now a proud owner of an O1 !
And I am on ninth cloud!
Now, I wish my name must be included in the Current O1 users, in 1st post!!
Kudos to developers like Mukulsoni and hephappy and lupohirp and franciscofranco and fserve and more! Thanks to them we could enjoy things never in our life we had imagined. In total Optimus One saw five generations of Android development (and still counting).
I remember them too... They were awesome developers... Worked hard to bring great versions of android on the Optimus One... I will always be thankful...
looking back it surprises me too how i supported and finally bought a mobile from a brand that people know for making fridge, tvs and washing machine. everyone said this mobile will die in a year as LG was not a phone brand, showing new Android OS running on a phone from a "TV" brand was the best way to shut their mouth. it was because of this mobile that i decided to join Android development and thats kind of helped in the long run. more importantly, getting up close and personal with such an advanced OS, fiddling with the files, semi-bricking it, revival taught a lot. it was because of the community at xda as well as here gave me a headstart and encouraged us to try new things specially experimenting with stupid ideas.
now most of us have switched to different, smarter and way faster phones but it was only because of Optimus One & the devs that we can say are experienced with anything Android instead of being another simple user.
Sam: downgraded to Android 2.2.0 as it was the only rootable android. i half bricked my mobile but successfully flashed second time. a big relief that everything went fine.
i was literally shaking when i clicked proceed button. even if PC shuts off for some reason, mobile will be dead
then I didn't have UPS in my PC Vyom: O.O
You are a gambler my friend!
05/02/2012 17:14 -- Vyom: MAN! I got scared a little... when I saw that even after removing battery... Oxygen logo was still there! Sam: !!! Vyom: Then I realized, that it (my phone) was connected to USB! Sam: ghost
rofl Vyom: My phone RUNS W/O battery TOO!!! Just like LAPTOPS!
O.O Sam: i'll try that too with my mobile
mobile runs on electricity, not battery. lol
had to say i (or more like we) took some serious gambles with this mobile. but that paid off. we enjoyed new Android release for 3 years while most prefer sticking to "stock".
On a personal note, even after I have bought Moto X, the P500 won't just fade away from my memory any time soon, and will still be a secondary phone to which I can rely on. But when it comes to daily driver now, I say my adios to the almighty legend. And hope the best for many other people who still would be using the Optimus One, a gadget one of its kind!
well my O1 no longer works thanks to non functioning rom but it'll be fun to check if it can run Android Lollypop. chances are it'll just like Kitkat, out of the box.
Ahh yes it does mark 4 years of our beloved O1.
Dammit.. Gives me chills thinking about how I got my beloved O1.
I can remember how I was unsure about buying a touchscreen phone. My head was filled up with so many questions:
- will I be able to type properly or not
- One handed use will be possible?
It was a sms era and typing was important.
and so many other things came to my head before taking the leap.
Anyhow took the leap of buying a phone which had a thing called "android". Got online news that P500 would be launching in india [No TV Advert no promotion] but I couldn't resist myself from using android so bought Samsung Galaxy 5.
I bought the phone without even knowing what android was capable of, I remember that moment I was so zapped when playing car racing game, tilting my phone would steer the car. Well that's how I was introduced to android and it was effin amazing.
Month after I bought Galaxy5, O1 was launched sold galaxy 5 to my friend and bought the love of my life.
Me and my 2 other friends bought the phone together we all were so psyched to use the phone I couldn't believe.
I could see the brilliant screen it had in 10k budget, able to run all top apps & many games. Was happy and extremely satisfied for the money I had spent.
Looking for ways to what more O1 or android could do, I stumbled on xda and started to read what people were already exploring the possibilities of the phone and pushing the hardware to the max. Heard the terms "rooting" "recovery" "Kernels" "ROMS". Slowly & steadily started reading and understanding all the terminologies and getting a hang of it. I bet if I had studied this much for my college would have excelled.
Finally understood that to unlock the potential of device I would need to ROOT it, let me tell you it was the most scariest thing I ever tried at the point of time. Fearing the phone to get bricked I literally peed my pants while waiting for phone to get rooted via adb. Then on it was no looking back, I rooted my phone. Installed ROMs bricked it many times but it never disappointed.
I correctly recall where some of the guys on XDA were trying to get controller working on O1. Devs tried whatever they could think of to get it working on O1. Thats how versatile our device was.
It has been such a long journey since. I moved on to Xperia series and the legacy of O1 was passed to my younger brother. Who then further explored the phone and used it to its maximum potential, he literally ripped apart every piece of the phone and assembled it back for f**k sake to get the back button working.
He moved on to Samsung Note series and the legacy was passed onto my Dad who is happily using the phone.
Started off this thread thinking that is would be a normal discussion of the features of the phone and how we could help each other. BUt this became a sort of legend and it was also featured in magazine as well.
It has been a long journey and thanks for being a part of it.
but the biggest issue is going to be system space as runtime got switched to ART which requires more space for all applications. currently the rom isn't working as it fails to get past the boot screen logo.
Sorry for bumping this, but how can i connect my O1 to windows 8.1 laptop? i have tried LG usb drivers and model link driver that came with p500 but it didn't worked. Phone is not getting detected so i can't use USB tethering or USB storage. It worked fine with windows 7
ps: am i the only O1 user left here? its been more than four years and its still going strong.
I am not using P500 as primary phone, though there's a SIM in it and the phone is being used in family.
IMO, you don't need any special drivers to use USB tethering or even USB storage. If you can, try your phone on Linux, or on another OS, or at friend's PC if possible.
Also try to use other USB pots (rear if you were trying the front).
I am not using P500 as primary phone, though there's a SIM in it and the phone is being used in family.
IMO, you don't need any special drivers to use USB tethering or even USB storage. If you can, try your phone on Linux, or on another OS, or at friend's PC if possible.
Also try to use other USB pots (rear if you were trying the front).
Sorry for bumping this, but how can i connect my O1 to windows 8.1 laptop? i have tried LG usb drivers and model link driver that came with p500 but it didn't worked. Phone is not getting detected so i can't use USB tethering or USB storage. It worked fine with windows 7
ps: am i the only O1 user left here? its been more than four years and its still going strong.
AFAIK you don't need any driver in Windows 8.1 or just in case it doesn't detect, install from here: LG Driver 3.14.1. You may need to Storage > USB computer connection and untick media device (if already ticked).
BTW i still use the mobile but sim doesn't get detected and wifi literally kills the battery. so more or less dead.
AFAIK you don't need any driver in Windows 8.1 or just in case it doesn't detect, install from here: LG Driver 3.14.1. You may need to Storage > USB computer connection and untick media device (if already ticked).
BTW i still use the mobile but sim doesn't get detected and wifi literally kills the battery. so more or less dead.
I have tried two different cables, after i uninstalled stock LG drivers, i am now being able to get into usb storage, but USb tethering isn't working. Strangely, wifi tethering is also not working. I get 'limited connectivity' message in my laptop when i try wifi tethering with my phone.
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its been more than four years and its still going strong.