The HTC Desire Z Project

A 2010 Android phone, rebuilt around my own software.

The HTC Desire Z is a 2010 Android slider with a physical QWERTY keyboard. This series follows one bought for parts: from a first battery voltage reading, through CyanogenMod 7 bloat removal, black screens, a reflash, platform signing, a home-grown launcher and apps, to a battery-first kernel and a GPS fix that landed in the wrong place.

  1. HTC Desire Z bought for parts: S-OFF, SuperCID and 4202 mV
  2. Debloating Android 2.3 on the HTC Desire Z: use pm disable
  3. HTC Desire Z: three black screens and a brightness of 30
  4. HTC Desire Z boot hang, an innocent cache wipe, and a reflash
  5. Android test-keys: system UID with AOSP's public platform key
  6. HTC Desire Z Home button dead on CM7: nine suspects, no culprit
  7. A 22 KB home screen for the HTC Desire Z, built without Gradle
  8. HTC Desire Z launcher keys: ADW's Back trick and two wrong fixes
  9. HTC Desire Z screenshots on Android 2.3, the long way round
  10. HTC Desire Z journal app: 8 KB that would not fit in 900 MB
  11. A camera app for the HTC Desire Z, cut from 13,144 lines to 881
  12. Terraria on the HTC Desire Z: a DRM loop and a dead edge
  13. HTC Desire Z browsers: what still loads HTTPS on Android 2.3
  14. Desire Z undervolt: a battery kernel next to CONFIG_JESUS_PHONE
  15. HTC Desire Z custom kernel killed Wi-Fi: version magic and insmod
  16. Packing a battery-first kernel into an HTC Desire Z boot.img
  17. HTC Desire Z battery drain in milliamps, straight from sysfs
  18. HTC Desire Z battery tile: the SD card its launcher can't write
  19. HTC Desire Z GPS: the Ghidra fix that landed 235 km away