Got an Intel Yolo

So I couldn’t resist… I picked up an Intel Yolo today:

I just happened to be at Sarit Center and saw that Safaricom had them on demo. I was pretty impressed, the thing is pretty snappy, the battery apparently lasts forever, and it was only 11,000 shillings ($125). It’s a very competitive phone for its price range given the specs:

  • Intel® Atom™ processor Z2420 (1.2GHz, with hyper threading, so basically dual core)
  • 5MP camera
  • 512MB RAM
  • 4GB internal memory
  • microSD card slot
  • 3.5″ capacitive display
  • FM Radio (lots of people like radio in Kenya ;))
  • HSPA+ (3.5G connectivity)
  • Android 4.0.x (Ice Cream Sandwich)

The Huawei U8150 / U8185 IDEOSes, both of which sold very well in Kenya in 2010-2012, don’t even hold a candle to this thing.

Port all the things!

Part of me was interested in the phone itself, seeing what it’s capable of, etc. But another part of me kinda wanted to be the first one to root it, port ClockworkMod Recovery, and eventually get CyanogenMod up and running. I mean, this thing is the first Intel-powered Android phone in Africa, in Kenya of all places! It’s like it was a sign!

Anyways, I’m hoping that Intel’s excellent track record with regards to open-source software on desktop/laptop Linux (wifi! graphics! kernel subsystems!) continues here in the mobile space. Here are a few things that need to happen for me to be able to hack all teh things on this phone:

  • Find a copy of a stock ROM (both to extract stuff from it, like recovery.img, boot.img, fstab, etc, as well as to go back in case I mess up flashing custom stuff), and figure out how to flash it
  • Root! A shortcut to getting copies of boot.img etc would be to dump them from the running device, which means we need root 🙂
  • Kernel sources (to compile custom kernels for CyanogenMod and future versions of Android)
  • Port ClockworkMod Recovery. You can’t do jack on the stock recovery, and CWM Recovery is more feature packed anyways (backups, adb sideload, etc)

Onwards and upwards! Oh, and goodbye, ARM!

Related posts (automagically generated):

  1. ClockworkMod Recovery for Huawei U8185
  2. ClockworkMod Recovery 6.0.1.2 for Huawei U8185
  3. Compiling CyanogenMod 9 for the Huawei U8185
  4. Custom kernel booting on CM7 on the Huawei U8150
  5. Compiling custom kernels for the Huawei U8150

33 thoughts on “Got an Intel Yolo”

  1. Lol you are such an impulse buyer.

    I would also like to get my hands on one too, seems like the best experimentation phone there is.

    Cant wait to see what will be ported to it. I bet Ubuntu phone people would be interested.

    1. Yeah, it’s nice. I haven’t done anything with it yet. I still need to find out how to flash custom files to it (boot image, recovery image, etc).

  2. dude!!! youre thinkin just like i was!!!! if you get root, and any ports, you have a willing guinea pig. (just incase i dont sell my phone). we need JB, and Key-lime-pie (when it drops)
    ubuntu phone sounds awesome…

  3. Hey!could you do me some screenshots of the device.I’m considering digging out one.

  4. The Greatest Advantage >> NO NEED TO PORT LINUX TO ARM 😀
    Hey did you root it ?
    If so please say how ….
    Any Exploits ? (I personally dont like Fast boot method which is unsafe )

    1. I haven’t found a way to root it… I don’t mind fastboot methods when we have stock images to flash back after fuckups… but we don’t have any stock boot.img or anything yet. 🙁

  5. I found Three Possible ways:

    1:Exploit Linux
    https://github.com/saurik/mempodroid
    This lacs some Offsets .. (You might be able to find them)

    2: Exploit Android os :
    Try Bin4ry FAKE BACK UP RESTORE method..
    Device RESTARTS after FAKE RESTORE but DOES not be rooted

    3: Flashing SU binary in CWM mode:
    adb reboot-recovery

    In recovery try to flash A VALID SIGNED SU BINARY from superuser.com.
    E: signature verification failed !!
    I made all the Tries but did not succeed ..
    Any leads you got ?

  7. Has anyone tried using SuperOneClick to root the device? I am yet to get my hands on that phone and I will try it as soon as I have it.

    1. Nope, I didn’t try SuperOneClick. Too bad I sold mine already, so I can’t try anything else…

    1. Nope, I sold mine. It was a decent phone, but after not finding any stock ROMs or kernel source I decided to just sell it.

  9. Won’t be getting one till am sure I will be getting a deodexed rom for this beast. Love my systems clean and lean.

        1. Ok, that’s the standard way in Android 4.0+. I got rid of my Yolo like 6 months ago so I can’t remember if it worked there.

  12. the fact that no kenyan developer hqs been able to root a local android fone….shows how uninteligent we are and where we are on the world map.

  13. if any1 has found out a way to root this intel yolo phone please share….

  14. Kind of Strange device it is..

    It supports WIFI Direct and WIDI , However There is No Apk provided On Asian Version (XOLO X500).

    Does Safaricom Provides such features ?

  15. Hi, would you happen to have any ideas on the first person shooter games this phone can run. Or a criteria I can use to tell if an app will run on the X86. I have tried a few but they wont run guess most of the games are for the ARMs.

  16. Hey guys, does anyone else hv a their LED indicate working on the YOLO. Mine doesn’t seem to work, yet I think I can see it right nxt to the proximity sensor.

  18. no root for this phone yet…..damn, al sell this thing in the next two months if no root options are found.

    anyway, some pakistani fella rooted his xolo 500 same architecture as BT210 using Bin4ry v30. anyone willing to try it….

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