Does anyone hate as much as me "Branded Phones"

[Kouen Hasuki]

I'll explain what I mean by "Branded" as im the Network Operator Branding the handset software and/or actual physical handset itself.

Does this sometimes put you off buying a phone as much as me? this is something that has bugged me for a very long time as I feel its rather intrusive and makes the phone itself little more than a mini advertisement for the network itself, Amusingly the one who will see this the most is the person who bought the thing in the first place.

Now there are MANY offenders but I will use a phone I recently got given to me (and one I have been messing with as an example)

Here is RIM's Blackberry Bold 9700 but branded with Logo's from the 3 UK network



This one is not the WORST offender I have had or seen but it is one of those larger scale ones.

Right off the bat you can see the "3" logo under the space bar, what you cant is the networks changes to the software side which include there logo for Startup and Shut Down after the BlackBerry load screen if you pulled the battery or hard reset it otherwise its there logo when you turn it off or on.

They also put there own theme in there but most annoyingly and I am not sure why... Disabled the ability to use 2G Mode Only... Many other and Non Branded Bold 9700's (I Think AT&T BB 9700's are like this too) can use 3 Network Modes "2G", "2G & 3G" and "3G" This handset is locked to only have "2G & 3G" and "3G"

Many argue that why would you want 2G only, Well for one thing signal is better so is battery life, Unfortunatly there is no way to remove the Network Branding or Restoring the Network modes as its contained on another ROM all together and tampering with it will brick the whole phone.

This is a practice that has gone on for many, many years now and it has bugged the hell out of me even from my very first phone the "Vodafone MN-1" (Rebranded Maxom)

Some have said, "What does it matter? It's not like (insert manufacturer of handset) put there logo on it" Well I understand that, They made it! The network on the other hand just put there Sim Card into it and provide the service.

So I am curious as to others thoughts on this!

[Rok124]

aren't they all branded?

[Roux!]

They also put there own theme in there but most annoyingly and I am not sure why... Disabled the ability to use 2G Mode Only... Many other and Non Branded Bold 9700's (I Think AT&T BB 9700's are like this too) can use 3 Network Modes "2G", "2G & 3G" and "3G" This handset is locked to only have "2G & 3G" and "3G"

Many argue that why would you want 2G only, Well for one thing signal is better so is battery life, Unfortunatly there is no way to remove the Network Branding or Restoring the Network modes as its contained on another ROM all together and tampering with it will brick the whole phone.

IIRC, the OS and other such items tend to be modified, which ends up being a pain whenever you need to create 50 variations of a given app/game for a single family/series of phones... But last time I actually got into that was years ago; pretty sure everything's all nice & dandy nowadays in mobile-developer-land, eh?