[Android Software/Hacking General [Developers Only]] meltwater:
Topic One : Show Me The Droid

Method Three: Using your existing phone

You might just have that elusive Android device already, you just don't know it yet!

Clearly this option will vary wildly on the type of device you have and how in-depth you are willing to go. I’ve not managed to find a full list of devices which do support running android but it is safe to say that the “list” is growing all the time.

For me, my Phone is a Windows Mobile Phone, the HTC Blackstone, it’s quite an old device (in relative terms) but it has a good screen (3.8", 480 x 800) and modest processor (528 MHz ARM 11).

Fortunately for me, the XDAndroid group support this device, so I was able to make use of one of the many Android builds on the forums. I’m not quite sure what the current status is of this project, it seems although device specific threads have stopped, there are Android builds going up to 2.2.3...which I’ve had working on my device.

For the blackstone, running android is fairly pain free, since you install the files to your sd-card and if things don’t work out, you just delete them. One key component I required, was ditching (swapping) my class-6 SD card for a slower one (yes, slower!), once I’d switched to a class-2 one, android was up and running nicely.

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However, don’t get too excited yet, as many of the builds will have features which don’t work yet, such as Bluetooth support, camera and in-call voice (you can spend a long time getting the right mix of files for your device to get all these working) and many 3D accelerated games won't work. A lot of progress is being made here (I’ll go into this in more detail another time). Some issues you can live with and some you can’t. Also, if your device (like mine) is not a total powerhouse then you can expect things to run at less than optimal speed. Overall, don’t expect to be replacing your OS with an all singing all dancing Android one this way, unless you have decent device to start with.

All is not lost! By using one of the many dual-boot apps (they simply show a splash screen as soon as possible on power up) allow you to quickly select between your normal Windows Mobile OS and the Android one.

i.e. Gen.Y DualBoot by yozgatg

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This means you can keep a build of Android (or several if you wish) on your SD card and have a play with Android from time to time.

Personally I think this is an excellent option, even if the results aren’t perfect and it’ll probably cost you a fair bit of time experimenting, but the results are totally worth it.

I might revisit this in more detail if people would like me to. Hopefully I can learn a little more about the internals of how it fits together and provide a post on that.

For HD2 users (and some other phones), who are just too spoilt for choice, they can also install Android to their NAND (internal memory). This means they can totally replace the Windows Mobile OS on their system with Android, and because the device is fast, it apparently runs well enough to do so.