The El Portal Cell Phone: Upgrading to Windows Mobile 6.5

By Michael Wong

The El Portal is one great Smartphone. Actually it’s even better now that it comes preinstalled with Windows Mobile 6.5!

If, however, you’re one of our customers who purchased The El Portal with the previous OS version – Windows Mobile 6.1, I’m going to show you how to upgrade your El Portal to Windows Mobile 6.5.

Things You Need…

• A 2GB or under microSD card with 2GB of memory or less (NOTE – It must be 2GB or less. These steps won’t work with larger microSD cards. No I don’t know why. they just don’t. 😉
• This file: sharingmatrix.com/file/9200373/SMART.UPR . It’s the relevant Windows upgrade file which we’ve uploaded to a sharing site so you don’t have to waste time looking for it. It’s roughly 60 MB so if you have a slow Internet connection it could take a while.

1) Format to FAT

Our first step is to format your microSD card. Once your PC recognizes your microSD card, right click on the corresponding drive letter and select FORMAT.

Choose the FAT format (not FAT32, but FAT!)

Click OK, and once formatting is done please move to the next step.

2) Load SMART.UPR into your microSD card

Assuming that you’ve already downloaded the SMART.UPR file (it’s sharingmatrix.com/file/9200373/SMART.UPR here if you haven’t got it yet), copy it from your PC onto the TF / microSD card.

3) Load microSD card into the phone

Now that you have your SMART.UPR file in your TF / microSD card, it’s time to load the card into your phone.

4) Flashing The Firmware

The next step is very important. It may sound tricky but it’s not. It’s just very, very important that you get it right.

Just pay attention and do exactly as written.

Simultaneously hold down the VOLUME UP button on the left side of the phone and CAMERA SHUTTER button on the right side of the phone with your right hand.

While still holding down both buttons with your left hand, use your left hand and press the POWER button to boot up your Smart Phone.

If you do it right you will see this screen.

…and then upgrading will proceed…

…until you are successful!

At this point, don’t power down manually with the POWER button.

With the phone still on, remove the battery cover and remove the battery. This is called a hard POWER OFF.

Wait 10 seconds, put the battery back and then power up the phone as you would normally do.

If done correctly you’ll see this!

There you have it folks! Congratulations on upgrading your El Portal Smartphone from Windows Mobile 6.1 to 6.5!!

Now stay tuned because next week we will be looking at how to install skype onto your windows 6.5 mobile.