T-Mobile Pulse


The T-Mobile Pulse is an Android-powered phone manufactured by Huawei and rebranded by T-Mobile. It is available in many markets including the UK and The Netherlands. Compared to many Android phones released at the time it was relatively low cost - originally selling for £185 in the UK, the Pulse achieved a minimum price of £19.99 + £10 top up on PAYG before being discontinued in April 2011. This made it one of the cheapest Android powered smartphones available at the time. The Pulse was also marketed as being the first Pay As You Go phone running the Android OS.

Technical specifications

Operating system Android, officially 1.5, can be upgraded to 2.2 via Custom ROMSPower 4.2 V 1150 mAh Internal rechargeable removable lithium-ion batteryCPU 768 MHz ARMv6-capable processor, Underclocked to 528 MHzStorage capacity Flash memory: 256MB with microSD slot supporting up to 16 GBMemory 192 MB DDR SDRAM Display 320 x 480 px, 3.5 in, HVGA, transflective TFTInput "Capacitive" touchscreen display without multi-touch feature, on-screen QWERTY keyboard, volume controls, 3-axis accelerometer, 4 front-facing physical buttonsCamera 3.2 megapixel CMOS Sensor with auto focus.Sensors A-GPS, 3-axis Accelerometer, Magnetometer (Compass), Battery Temperature SensorConnectivity WCDMA or GSM telephony network, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, Micro USB, A-GPSDimensions 116 mm ; 62.5 mm ; 13.6 mm Weight 135 g

Firmware / ROMs

The Pulse was originally released with Android 1.5 heavily customized and branded by T-Mobile. It came with its own Home screen app, as well as various non-stock applications, including Documents To Go and RoadSync from DataViz.

Official firmware

Official firmware from the manufacturer, have been independently released by
As of June 2010, T-Mobile has provided some firmware releases for the Pulse:November 2009 Open Source Code releasedNovember 2009 Pulse firmware downloadDecember 2009 Increased stability; Improved audioMay 2010 2.1 available in Hungary as an updateAugust 2010 2.1 available in the UK as an update September 2010 2.1 Source Code releasedFebruary 2011 2.1 available in the UK as an update

Unofficial firmware

It is possible to root the Pulse, using software developed by the Android community. A custom recovery image is also installable.
Several custom ROMs have been created adding various features, including EXT2/3/4 file system support and Busybox pre-installation.
The firmware from the Huawei u8230 has been ported to the Pulse to remove the T-Mobile branding, as well as other changes.
On 12 May, 2.1 was released on the Modaco Forums.
On 8 October, Tom G from the Modaco Forums ported a 2.2 beta of CyanogenMod 6. Latest available version is CM6.1RC2 0.40 Beta.
The highest supported CyanogenMod version is 7; it is based on Android 2.3.7.