SE w800i - Downgraded to VLive

[RichardK]

I've recently taken out a contract which got me the Sony Ericsson w810i, obviously VLive branded, since it was a Vodacom contract. Oblivious to the full grandeur of what a w810i is supposed to look in terms of visual effects, I was happy with the phone for about a month, before I saw an unbranded version of the same phone. Disgustingly enough, the identical themes which I have on my phone, refuse to display flash menus, where unbranded phones do.

My question; am I at liberty to take my phone to any Vodacom outlet, and demand they flash my phone with the default Sony Ericsson firmware, rather than the horrific endeavour that Vodacom has made with their customisation of the phone?

 

[Gnome]

As long as the phone is NOT network locked you have no foot to stand on, they might do it to please you as a customer but you can't strictly demand it. If it's network locked they are in breach of SA law and therefore are legally obligated to unlock it, although I haven't seen network locked phones for a long time, the Cell providers don't really rely on that to stop people from changing network, but rather try and give you plenty of free stuff to lock you into a contract. Because lets face it by the time your contract expires your phone will be obsolete.

 

[Gambit]

I reflashed my SE K800i firmware to the latest unbranded Sony Ericsson firmware using software from WotanServer. Was fairly simple, only downside is it costs 7 euros. On the upside the unbranded firmware can do "over the air" updates on itself (which happend a couple of days ago). I also manually put the vodafone live settings back into my phone and can therefore still access vlive content without any issues. Unfortunately you may void warantee unbranding your phone. However I unbranded my SE v800 a couple of years ago and the camera packed up 6 months later and was replaced by vodacare without any questions.