Please help - new LG Chocolate BL40 OS??

**drkayign** · 11-18-2009, 06:30 PM

Hi, Canadian here and I've recently picked up a LG Chocolate BL40 from Telus. I feel like I've been running around in circles trying to get some information about this phone but due to it's current unavailability in the US help and support is scarce. I was trying to find out what kind of OS this phone uses. I spoke to LG and originally I was told 2G/3G by some confused tech support and then I spoke to somebody else and was told Android 1.5 - I also contacted my provider and they said 1.5 but not a single google hit confirms this. From what I understand there is no what to check what OS my phone uses via the actual handset itself. This is my first real 'smart phone' and I will be a little disappointed if I can't download any extra apps. Thank you for any insight you might be able to give me

**ggrant3876** · 11-18-2009, 06:43 PM

Originally Posted by drkayign

Hi, Canadian here and I've recently picked up a LG Chocolate BL40 from Telus. I feel like I've been running around in circles trying to get some information about this phone but due to it's current unavailability in the US help and support is scarce. I was trying to find out what kind of OS this phone uses. I spoke to LG and originally I was told 2G/3G by some confused tech support and then I spoke to somebody else and was told Android 1.5 - I also contacted my provider and they said 1.5 but not a single google hit confirms this. From what I understand there is no what to check what OS my phone uses via the actual handset itself. This is my first real 'smart phone' and I will be a little disappointed if I can't download any extra apps. Thank you for any insight you might be able to give me

Amongst the world of Android, iPhone OS, Windows Mobile, Symbian, webOS and Maemo, the BL40 might be expected to run any one of these smartphone operating systems. It doesn't, favouring LG's own S-Class user interface that was introduced in the Arena, incorporating many elements that make it look incredibly similar to an iPhone.

**drkayign** · 11-18-2009, 06:57 PM

So.... what does that mean in terms of Apps? Am I unable to download additional apps ? Sorry for the noobish questions but I'm new to the smart phone market and I never realized the variety of OS's and how phone specific they are.

**ggrant3876** · 11-18-2009, 07:06 PM

Originally Posted by drkayign

So.... what does that mean in terms of Apps? Am I unable to download additional apps ? Sorry for the noobish questions but I'm new to the smart phone market and I never realized the variety of OS's and how phone specific they are.

Not from the android market. Don't know what LG has for their smart phones.

**extorian** · 11-19-2009, 04:17 PM

While very common, I still find it very shocking that some people that are meant to be "technical support" for their own brand of phones not only don't know what an operating system is (i.e. confusing it with what generation of telecommunications standard it supports), but also confuse which of their phones run which operating systems. To me, this is basic knowledge that anyone who is given that type of job should know.

**ggrant3876** · 11-19-2009, 05:32 PM

Yes, that's appalling when technical support doesn't even know what operating system their phones run on.

**JEfromCanada** · 12-10-2009, 12:11 AM

As someone already pointed out, the LG Chocolate BL40 uses LG's own operating system.

I've had my new Chocolate for just over a week. I called tech support because I couldn't get some of the features to work properly, and even they couldn't get them to work. They ended up copping out and saying the feature wasn't even available (total BS!)

Issues as simple as putting different wallpaper on each homepage, setting ring tones per contact, and having a browser that can actually browse all but a handful of websites would be nice to do.

As far as I can find in my reading, there are no applications beyond what gets shipped on the phone, and right now, I'm trying to find out whether there are firmware updates available that might address some of those issues.

**spliffmonkey187** · 12-15-2009, 11:07 AM

Hi guys, I too own a BL40 chocolate 2, bought it here in the UK from carphone warehouse. I am glad to se i am not the only one that has fallen into frustration with LG's poor choice in using their closed ended generic OS rather than going with Android or something more open source and open to developers. Its typical of LG i remember them giving me stress just trying to get a bios update for a LG laptop some years back.

Well reason i am posting is i am first of all happy to see alot of BL40 owners share my view that Android should have been the way to go, as well as finding a way to getting it to work on this wonderful platform of a phone. I nicknamed mine "The dumb blond of the smart phone industry" lol no offence to you blonds out there.

I think the first thing us BL40 owners have to do is pool our resources and probably consult with some of the Android devs out there on the possibiltiy of finding ways to first Root the phone. My guess would be that is th e first palce to start , i am guessing we would be looking at a cycle of

1. Root .
2. Get Android to run .
3. Then tailor Android to BL40 (on board functions like the fm transmitter and other stuff) .
4. Then a final Rom being made available to all to play with at their own risk of course.

That being said lets start with the basics and try find out from LG themselves if there is a way to Root the phone and if they wont talk we mught have to turn to the online community to help us out in finding a way to do it.

**extorian** · 12-15-2009, 11:24 AM

Welcome to the AC forums JE and spliffmonkey.

Unless I'm missing something, you're very unlikely to find anyone who can, or will, make a custom Android port to a non-Android phone. It is a huge undertaking, and may not even be possible.

Firstly, the hardware would have to be capable of running Android. Does it have 128MB or more of ROM space? Google says it does... OK.

Do Linux driver exist for every item of hardware on this phone - ROM, RAM, Memory access, storage, camera, interface to telephone and SIM card, battery, buttons, etc. No - so someone would have to make such drivers.

Do external API specifications or other documentation exist for this hardware so people can make drivers? I couldn't find any.

Once you have the drivers, you then need to find a way to install custom operating systems on the phone. Usually, phones protect themselves against incorrect firmwares being installed. With Android, it was possible to gain root (i.e. super user) access, and bypass this protection. However, Android sits on top of Linux, which has a variety of known exploits as it's commonly used for a PC operating system. LG uses its own OS, so common rooting methods applied to Linux simply won't ever work on this phone. It probably isn't possible to install specialised firmwares without special hardware like, with most Nokias.

Assuming you get past all of those hurdles, you then need someone to port Android to the phone. This person would need to be extremely knowledgeable of Android, Linux, coding in both C and Assembler (for Linux and drivers), and Java to port Android itself. As the LG uses a processor I've never heard of, knowledge of Assembler programming on that processor will be extremely limited.

A few years later, if someone gets it working, then who's going to use it? Not many. So is it worth it? Would anyone take the risk of undertaking this challenge knowing they may be just wasting their time if they can't get it to work?

Finally, there will be very few apps that work on it. Apps, these days, have to be built to run on specific handsets because they have different screen resolutions, etc. The SDK from Google allows for this, but as the LG BL40 will not be a standard build target for apps, so developers won't be able to build their apps to work on the BL40. Some will work, but the best ones won't.

The final nail in the coffin would be that when an update for Android comes out, you'd have to go through half of the above process again.

I don't mean to be rude, but how come people are buying non-Android phones and expecting them to have Android on them? Why not buy an Android phone in the first place? There's looooaaaaaaads of choice now (some 30 odd handsets from various manufacturers), and it's a lot less work to just buy a cheaper Android surely? For example, the BL40 is £400 on Amazon, but you can get an HTC Dream for £250, or a HTC Hero for £350.

**JEfromCanada** · 06-12-2010, 10:26 PM

It's been several months since I last posted to this forum/thread. Ironically, I found this thread AGAIN while searching for some way to make my crappy LG BL40 do something useful.

So, thanks to all that replied since my last post. In the intervening months, I've discovered that while there is no significant app market for the BL40, I have found that Opera Mini will run on the BL40, which at least makes browsing something almost useful on this phone.

I cannot wait until I am allowed to upgrade this phone to something that works. As far as why I bought this instead of an Android device, it came down to only one thing... the Telus website indicated the BL40 could do voice dialing, whereas the HTC Hero (the other phone I was considering) could not. It turns out that although the BL40 can technically do voice dialing, it can only do so when the headphone jack is used, and that's not what I wanted to do. Here in Ontario, where there are "hands-free" laws in effect, I wanted to do voice dialing via bluetooth.

So, it turns out the neither phone can do voice dialing, and therefore, I would have been much happier with the HTC Hero. Hindsight is 20/20, don't you know!