I was not a smart phone early adopter. When I discovered Virgin Mobile had an inexpensive plan, I signed up for it in 2011-02. I bought an LG Optimus V VM670 for about $150 and have paid $27 a month since for unlimited SMS and 3G data, but only 300 minutes. I have a Google Voice account, so I rarely exceed my Virgin Mobile minutes. I make and receive phone calls through Gmail on my laptop with headphones and the built-in laptop microphone.
The LG phone came with Android Froyo 2.2.1. I just upgraded it to Gingerbread 2.3.7. If you look at the current distribution, Froyo has dwindled to 14% market share, while Gingerbread is at 57%. Upgrading to Gingerbread, brings me back up to speed with the majority. Rooting the device and switching to an aftermarket Android firmware has other advantages too:
- The phone only has 179 MB of internal storage. I kept getting warning about running out.
- The carrier bloatware is not installed.
- Link2SD can be used to move applications to the SD card, which conserves more than the built-in "Move to SD Card".
- You can backup your phone.
CyanogenMod is an aftermarket Android firmware. BobZhome made it work on the Optimus V VM670. It is what I installed on my phone. It has a an additional setting called "Fast Bluetooth connections". Once I enabled that, I was able to finally pair my phone with my car audio system.
It took me a few hours to figure out how to upgrade my phone. I hope to put some notes in a future post.