In one of my previous posts I mentioned few interesting things that can be done with your Android phone. Well, if you wanna go ‘Droid’ you better know few of these things.

As of now - Tuesday, 11th of August 2009, 1.45 AM, few variants of HTC Magic phones are not rootable. Yeah, you cant root few models. No Root = No fancy stuff like your own distro or custom builds or Hero or Wifi Tether and many more things.

Android phone will just yet another phone if you cannot root it. It will be just pretty icons. And as boring as a regular Nokia crappy phone if you cannot root it.

So, remember these things before buying yourself an Android. This is especially for Indian folks, as Airtel is shipping HTC Magic in India.

• Don’t buy Airtel branded HTC Magic. I don’t hate Airtel too much, but the technical reason is the board on Airtel branded HTC Magic has SPL hboot version 1.33.0010 As of now, it is NOT rootable. The other SPLs which are not rootable are - 1.33.0006 and 1.33.0004. So, stay away from those Magic phones.
• Airtel branded phone doesn’t have Google applications in it. So - No Gmail, No Google Talk, No sync with Google contacts, No Google Maps/Latitude which S.U.X big time. I’m still not able to understand why would someone ship a half baked phone by crippling it without its basic important features. So, you are actually spending 25K INR on a phone which doesn’t do anything more than a regular phone.
• Android doesn’t support bluetooth transfer yet. Its a no biggie, but just for your information. Don’t complain later. People who share files over bluetooth, Sorry.

Well, just for recap - No buying HTC Magic with SPLs 1.33.0004 (HTC Magic Japan), 1.33.0006 (TMobile Mytouch 3G), 1.33.0010 (Many versions including Airtel HTC Magic) till they are rooted. You can check the progress at xda-developers forum. Google Ion is rootable.

In order to check the SPL of your mobile, turn off the mobile. Then turn it on by pressing the volume button down and power button together. It will take you to the fastboot screen. And you can find the board model in first line (32B, in this image). HBoot version in second line (1.33.0009 in this image). I think, if your model has SHIP S as OFF in the first line, thats a rootable model. So, if you can check, just check the SPL info before buying the phone.

So, what if you had already bought the phone with one of the dreaded Perfect SPL ? Well, by now you would have understood that your phone doesn’t do anything more than an ordinary phone. This is especially about Airtel branded HTC Magic phones. They don’t even have the awesome Google stuff (I’m not sure about other brands). This is what you can do.

As you have realized that there is no Android Market on your phone, there is no way of installing any applications on your phone. Actually, no. There is a method. But at the same time, there is a problem though, that you cannot install applications which require other libraries like PDF Apps or new IMEs or even applications dealing with Maps. For any installing any other app, you can follow this method. You will have to first goto Settings - Applications - Check install from Unknown Sources. And also, Enable USB debugging.

Now, there are two options for you. One is Open Market. Another is searching for the applications online and installing them using the ADB command of the Android SDK tools. The first option gives you something similar the Android market.

In the second option, you will have to download the application (Google is your friend) and install the application/the APK file by using the command adb install [Filename].apk

The second option can be made easier, if you can first install ‘Astro File Manager’ by using above command, then you can just copy the other applications to the SD card and install them using Astro.

Now, your phone is far better than the stock phone Airtel had rubbed on you. Of course, this is just until some one releases a hack for the so called Perfect SPL. When that happens, your phone can be magically made into an Awesome Droid.

Edit : Bala posted a nice illustration on how useful the current Airtel branded HTC Magic is to an end user. Check it here.

Update on 15 Aug 2009: For daredevils, Guys at XDA have released info on how to fix Perfected SPL. After that, of course, you can root your Magic. If you are not technical and daring enough, it seems HTC is going to release an update for Indian users next month, so wait for it.