[General Questions and Answers] Donphillipe:
Factory vs Recovery Menu

There is a slight bit of good news and that is I found an English recovery menu After the infamous iRoot2 install, I found that the English recovery menu can be reached on this device by pressing POWER + VOL UP (before it was POWER and VOL DOWN). The original Blu build Android Factory test (now brought to you in Chinese) is now on PWR+VOLDOWN and the Recovery manager (now brought to you in a bolder text, slightly more functioning version that the pure excuse that Blue provided) has moved to PWR + VOLUP.

If you are trying to escape the Chinese Factory menu, it's the option on the bottom. Watch about the 7th one down on the Chinese Factory menu, the nasty "factory reset"!

And what an odd apparatus the blu recovery options are (which could be "just and Android thing???". Although I now have found the iRoot2 did provide an English recovery menu with much larger print, the recovery menu still has the quirky behavior as did the old blu where to utilize any recovery function you have to go through hoops to move through a simple menu. To boot to recovery you must power up by holding PWR+VOLUP which unluckily also happens to be the same key sequence to select the top command in the list, which happens to be "boot the phone". So what happens is unless you hold down the 2 buttons and are able to release them at the exact instant that you see the spark of the recovery menu, the keys are then read over and over as a reboot request, and the loop continues for those not on their toes. You have to be quick on the draw and release the trigger when you see the whites of their eyes.

Then it is further complicated in how other options are selected. For example the option ADB sideload must be first selected with the VOL UP/Down moving up and down the available options, then after stopping on the option the PWR button serves as a "select". At this point the VOL UP button changed to becomes a return button to take you back to the menu of options, but in the mean time the function of the VOL UP has again changed to the new default key for "select". So ....... the sequence is, hold PWR+VOLUP until you see the first flash of the recovery menu and immediately release, then select ADB sideload with the VOL UP/DOWN, then click the PWR button, then click VOL UP to return, then click VOL UP again to actually select the highlighted function.

Now for those wanting to avoid the initial iRoot experience and its Chinese "Factory Menu", you may want to try installing the MTK Droid tools here and seeing if the button will root the phone. I also read of a cleaver method of zipping up the SuperSU and other tools needed for rooting, setting up the phone in ADB sideload status (and of course verifying that a command "adb devices" shows the device number followed by the text "Sideload", which means it is ready. I didn't try it but if you want to get root and avoid the changing of the boot factory test menu to Chinese, it might be worth a shot. Again if MTK tool don't work with a Root, you might try this to "chain" a zip to zap the device rooted: http://www.chinaphonearena.com/forum/Thread-Tutorial-use-sideload-to-install-root?highlight=fastboot .