It has been a year (or thereabouts) since I obtained a Vodaphone SmartFirst6 to replace my dearly-beloved Motorola L7 when it finally died after ~15 years due to the central bevel suddenly detaching. That caused me to come across OSM & OSMTracker & hence the last 12 months updating the map.

The Vodaphone SmartFirst6 was only £20 GBP together with a PAYG SIM. It was a good intro for an Android newbie who doesn’t play games, although a little slow & with a limited camera. Although the SIM was locked to Vodaphone, the phone allowed a £25 GBP 64GB microSD card to be fitted (which could be mounted via USB connection to Linux/Windows) plus allowed .apk files to be transferred to the SD-Card & then installed into the phone. So, it would have been £100 GBP a couple of years ago and really, at £20, who can complain?

F-Droid supplied OSMTracker 0.6.11 FoC (2015-08-21 & still the latest ready-compiled version) (see the wiki for compile instructions on the latest update). I make use of the GPS breadcrumbs (basic tracker feature), voice-notes & photos, and that is it.

The SmartFirst6 runs Android 4.4.2 (custom Kit-Kat) and I was worried about the lack of security updates in addition to a lousy camera. The SmartPrime7 runs Android 6.0.1 (Marshmallow) and should be good for now (it was released last December 2016) (£65 GBP + £10 GBP for PAYG credit). Here are a couple of issues I’ve managed to overcome:–

1. Unlocking Vodaphone Locked Phones
   No problem if using a phone on at least PAYG for at least 30 days. I got a code back the same day.
2. Copy Contact details from old SIM to new SIM
   Fiddly, but possible (in short: export as a .vcf file; copy via computer to new phone; import .vcf file)
3. Transfer files between Linux & Android-6
   This boils down to:– install gMTP under Debian & use MTP in the phone. My main problem was the very short (5 secs) time that the phone display was on before then cutting off my connection. The Android-4 method is much, much simpler, but this allows full access to the phone storage as well as the SD-Card.
4. Parse error – there is a problem parsing the Package
   I’d lost the original OSMTracker APK used in my SmartFirst6. The site I re-downloaded it from turned out to have a badly-compiled download, and I only got clear of the error when I downloaded from F-Droid (links above).. I also needed to set:–

Settings | Security =
Unknown Sources, allows installation of apps from unknown sources

First photos (7 March 2017):

The SmartPrime7 camera is >2x the resolution of the SmartFirst6 (8MP cf 3MP). I’m using the camera in 16:9 (6MP) mode and here are 2 large buildings — new & old — from near the Nottingham City Centre to show how (to my eyes) the new camera is stunningly better than the old (cf any of my previous diary entries):–

Union State student accommodation:–

Christ-Citadel Christian Centre; former St. Catherine’s Church:–

The one downside is that it now takes twice as long to upload the pictures (each is ~2MB). In addition, whilst the SmartPrime7 is able to both acquire & show the Heading (compass bearing) whilst tracking (the SmartFirst6 was unable to do either), it does NOT add that into the photo EXIF meta-data, which is damn annoying.

Contra-Indications 18 March 2017

The phone seemed good & I was pleased with it… until I used it in the rain.

The battery was bigger & thus I could track for longer (the SmartFirst6 only lasted for ~2 hours whilst tracking; tracking sucks the battery harder than any other activity with the phone). Only the 4th outing with the SmartPrime7 & the damn thing stopped taking photos & recording sound after 3 hours, the last 2 of which were hard rain. There was plenty of battery left but no notification of a problem. I found out only when I downloaded everything.

Life went downhill after that. Every function began behaving strangely. Taking the back off, it was wet inside. Now another problem became apparent…

The battery is non-user replaceable. A notice inside says that “This is a non-removable battery. Attempting to remove this battery will damage your device & invalidate your warranty.” The Internet says there are water-detection strips below, and I’m sure that the whole arrangement is to detect false warranty-claims for non-water damage after someone drops it in the bath. However, the danger with water is of thin-film transfer (the method by which water gets to the top of 250-foot trees) and a non-removable battery increases that enormously.

1 day of de-humidifying within a plastic takeaway box with rice (that is a cleaned-out box & fresh, uncooked rice, you understand) improved it a little, but not a lot. Another day of the same treatment almost completely fixed it. I’m giving it another 24 hours and then hopefully I’ll get a fully functioning machine back.

A smartphone that cannot function in the rain is useless in England.

Slow Recovery 22 March 2017

An actual field test showed that it will work and produce useful results, but still has fundamental problems. These are mainly that the screen will not show at full brightness; clicking on functions is a guessing game. Trying to use the camera in daylight is an exercise in frustration since the preview is almost invisible.

I cannot find any examples of folks removing the battery for this model on YouTube, and am put off by clips of other non-removable batteries being removed! The brightness keeps flickering, and I’m convinced that the issue is of water trapped in thin-films that needs removing, so the camera is back within a sealed box with more rice. What a PITA.

Got a Replacement 25 March 2017

The key here was the Consumer Rights Act 2015 (a UK act governing rights on goods purchased), plus to take the smartphone back (with the receipt) within 30 days, which gives an automatic right to a refund on the purchase price (or, as I asked for, a new replacement - a bit of a faff to re-setup, but the original had an odd display problem — very dark in daylight; previous screens showing underneath as if the top screen had an alpha applied; OSMTracker stopped working at about 4,000 GPS tracks, whereas it easily went >10,000 on the SmartFirst6).

The techie at the store had verified the day before that the moisture meter had not been triggered (it is a very small circle in the plate above the battery, but below the external plastic back, which turns pink if water is detected). I did not even need to quote the legislation. I took in the phone together with original box & receipt & he immediately offered me a refund. Sorted, just as long as there is not an endemic issue with this model.

PS

Vodafone are very naughty with their Data charges.

Settings | Data usage allows Mobile data to be switched OFF, which means zero high-charges for data (Vodafone charge £2 GBP per day per 50MB, although they offer monthly plans which are better value). However, just switching on the new phone with a SIM inside means that it will make contact with the internet & download 30MB, whether you want it to or not.

Leave the SIM out until you set it up with data switched OFF if you are as stingy as me.

Update 7 July 2022

Mapillary has changed it’s download URLs & therefore all links within my diaries that used photos stored in Mapillary in the old format are broken. I’m slowly going through to update them. The new URLs are terrifyingly long, but show OK on my screen (and I hope also on yours).