Ha ha,
thanks for the pep talk Calach. I'm a new man this morning
.
So, last night I managed to fix the kies issue, and used it to update my official firmware. So now at least I have a working version of the firmware the phone came with. To me this means I haven't ruined the phone, and I can live with this.
The problem being, though, is that in order to use android market, you have to register your phone with your gmail , which I can't do, and I don't think it's a VPN issue. I've seen videos of other android formats on the same phone and the first thing they ask you to do is to input your gmail address and from there you can freely download apps. My phone just doesn't have that function.
Now, I'm quite happy to go around with my China phone if I can just download a few apps that I like and be done with it.
How can I do this?
Is there a way to register a phone on my laptop? Or a way to work around it with my VPN on? (my VPN hasn't been working since I updated, but I'm sure I'll be able to get it going)
Is there a way to download apps onto my laptop and from there transfer to my phone?
If it comes down to it, I will root again, but I'm loathe to do it as it seems hit-and-miss, and many of the links to firmware that are provided by sites have been closed... the question is root to what? I just don't know. I don't understand enough.
If anybody (I DO appreciate your help thusfar Calach, I really do
) know of a simple way to reach my simple goals of downloading apps onto my Sinofied phone, then please enlighten me.