Flashing from K750i to W800i

I've never been much of a mobile phone kind of guy. In fact up until last week I was using a 6 year old Nokia mobile. Last week I upgraded to a Sony Ericsson K750i, a very nice little phone. It's got all the usual features of a modern phone but also it has a number of features that would normally only be found in a PDA or an iPod. A number of contact and calender functions as well as MP3/4 audio and video playback. Surely everything a boy could ever need?

There were a number of features missing from the K750i that would cover all the bases for me. Not after reading this blog post I discovered that it would be possible to flash the firmware in my K750i to that of the W800i Walkman phone (this is possible due to the hardware of the two phones being identical). Obviously I wouldn't have the funky exterior of the W800 or the improved headphones but I would have the ability to run the phone in 'Flight Mode' thus enabling me to use the phone while travelling by plane. Also the Walkman features of the W800i extend the functionality of the media playback as compared with the stock K750i.

My Sony Ericsson K750i before modification:


After switching off the phone, connect it to your PC via the USB cable.

Download and run the update software (I chose to use Davinci Team).

You select the firmware that you want to flash the phone with. Then after purchasing a flash credit you're ready to begin the flashing process.

After about 10 minutes the phone's firmware is now updated. If you by chance select the wrong firmware the flashing process will not complete (I know from experience!). Now you have the heart stopping moment waiting for the phone to power up with the new firmware.

Now that the K750i has W800i firmware you're asked if you want to "Start Phone" or "Music Only". (Something weird happened the first time I powered on the phone, if I selected "Start Phone" it would load up as "Music Only". After trying again I worked out that selecting "Music Only" would start the phone in phone mode. Subsequent power on selection is fine, just seems to be during the initial power on.

Now my K750i is running with the advance features found in the W800i Walkman phone. The pause play button will now function even without the headset attached. Also the shortcut button now loads up the Walkman player. Within the Walkman player is a graphic equalizer not found in the K750i software.

The menu now looks slightly different (as shown below). The first option is now "PlayNow", taking you to the Sony website. The Media Player button is replaced with a Walkman button. Also the firmware includes the Walkman themes, which are pretty cool.

Overall I'd say this is a worthwhile upgrade, especially if you want the 'Flight Mode' option. The added functionality of the Walkman software is very useful too. On the down side you will no longer be able to connect your phone to the Sony Ericsson update service since it sees that your phone has been flashed. I don't think that's a major problem now since the firmware in this phone is mature enough that most if not all the bugs are worked out.

There is only on thing that bugs me on this phone. When you're watching a video and you want to fast forward you use the joystick and push it to the right. The problem is that right and up are not so far apart so you end up skipping to the next video. Trust me it's very annoying. If anyone knows a way around this I'd love to know about it!

In conclusion I'm satisfied that this was £7 well spent. All I need now is an adapter so I can use so better headphones and a nice 1GB Memory Stick Duo.