The Smartphone conundrum

I'll admit the talk about SPs and the mpx200 have me interested, very much so.

My ISP is still crap so finding the SP2002 rom image is a moot point for now. When I do is there anything I need to know before I try to flash it into my Moto?

My MPx200 originally came with SP2002 installed - I haven't tried to flash the ROM to anything other than SP2003, and certainly not from WM5 to SP2002, so I'm not sure I'm much help. Your best bet would be on the Modaco forums where there is an entire forum devoted to the MPx200!

For what it's worth, my experience with flashing from SP2002 to SP2003 was a relatively painless experience, although I did worry about bricking the phone!

Just watch out for which ROM inage you have because there are non-English ones out there. Also, the process itself takes longer than you expect (40 minutes?) so you need to have a fully charged battery before you do it. When you reboot for the first time, be very patient because it takes a very long time (five minutes?) to reinitalise and get to the desktop.

The SP2003 ROM is great for me because I feel it runs more stably than SP2002, and there is also much more software available. You do sacrifice the ability to send MMSes, however, although there is a workaround for this (which I have not used), and I believe there are other quirks as well. SP2002 may be a better bet depending on how you use your phone.

not so misleading in my experience, i used a couple of vga ppc's and most of the software needs the hack.
the only ones i tried that didn't need it were opera 8.5 and the ts client for rdp sure i didn't try too much software only the ones i wanted to use. so maybe the situation has changed in the last few months though i doubt it.. but if it did, that's very good news.

Just an update.

Yep, I'm still willing to give my Moto a fair shot so I found the 2002 and 2003 images. I tried to flash in the 2002 image with no luck. I thought I'd bricked the Moto but a hard reset/pull battery solved things.

I'm off to Modaco to get some insight on why flashing backwards is a tough thing to do. Hopefully someone there has been down that road.

In the meantime, I find the Moto is always at my side for a quick card game

Why not try the 2003? 2002 is CE3, 2003 is CE4.2, so it should be somewhat faster. It sure is for XScale processors. I never had a TI OMAP tho.

Well, experience has taught me to go back as far as possible and work forward, hence the shot at flashing 2002.

I've googled till my eyes are square I have all the images and tools I need (I think). I couldn't flash 2002 in, I got an error message with no resolution.

So when I feel like bricking my Moto I'll give 2003SE a shot. Overall, it looks the most appealing. I don't like the idea of WM5 using the SD card as an extension to the OS. I'd like to swap cards at will hence 2003.

Tak, what OS is on your SP? 2003? BTW, I do see the value of a tiny CE machine with a phone. If this flashing stuff works my W may just become my backup phone even though I love it dearly. But for travelling light with music the Moto sure is tiny.

Mine is 2003

I've never actually seen a 2002 SP. The Mio 8380, which is the predecessor of my Mio 8390, is 2002, but otherwise has similar specs inside (looks quite different tho). Users who have used both phones have reported an improvement in speed and stability in the 8390.

I'm not sure about the speed increase in the MPx200 2003 upgrade, but IIRC users did find it more stable as well.

I'm having no luck reverting my mxp200 back to 2003se. I need to read and ask some more ad Modaco. I keep getting a "Bad news, ROM update failed. irritating.