An entry-level smartphone can turn out to be a really impressive device once you’ve gotten root access on it.  The Optimus Me P350 is no exception, as the device is truly a budget phone with minimal hardware specifications.  Featuring a 600 MHz processor and a minute size of 140 MB RAM, it seems that applications might just end up crashing down due to the phone’s limitations in terms of hardware capability.

But, thanks to our friends at XDA Developers, it is now possible to flash the AmonRA custom recovery on the Optimus Me P350. Rooting your Optimus Me P350 would be an exciting starting point for making it run faster, and with the help of the AmonRA custom recovery, flashing custom ROMs will be as easy as it can get.

But, before you start flashing, you need to understand what rooting can do to your device. First of all, rooting basically gives you administrative rights over your phone. This translates to full control of your phone’s hardware and software. Rooting can also make a slow Android device run faster, since you can overlock your phone’s CPU if you know how.

If you own a rooted LG Optimus Me P350, check out the rest of this guide for instructions on flashing the AmonRA custom recovery on your handset.

Requirements

• Rooted LG Optimus Me P350
• ADB installed in your computer (you can get ADB by installing the Android SDK)
• Download the AmonRA Recovery Package for the Optimus Me P350 (filename “recovery-RA-pecan-2.2.1-GNM-drap.img.zip”)
• USB cable
• USB Debugging enabled on your phone
• LG USB drivers for your phone installed on your desktop

Instructions

1. Extract the contents of “recovery-RA-pecan-2.2.1-GNM-drap.img.zip” to your desktop.  You should have 3 files namely:
   • recovery-RA-pecan-2.2.1-GNM-drap.img
   • flash_image
   • md5sum
2. Copy the first two files into the same folder where “adb.exe” is located on your computer.  This is usually inside the /tools or /platform-tools folder inside the Android SDK installation folder.
3. Open a command prompt on your computer and change directory to where “adb.exe” is located.
4. Connect your phone to your computer via USB cable.
5. Push both recovery-RA-pecan-2.2.1-GNM-drap.img and flash_image to your phone’s storage by issuing the following ADB commands at the command prompt:
   • adb push recovery-RA-pecan-2.2.1-GNM-drap.img /sdcard/
   • adb push flash_image /sdcard/
6. Login remotely to your phone, remount the /system directory with read/write permissions, and install “flash_image” on the phone.  To do all that, enter the following commands at the command prompt:
   • adb shell
   • su
   • mount -o remount,rw -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock1 /system
   • cat /sdcard/flash_image > /system/bin/flash_image
   • chmod 755 /system/bin/flash_image
   • sync
7. Reboot your phone to free up some of the virtual memory.
8. Now, it’s time to flash the recovery image.  Issue the following commands at the command prompt:
   • adb shell
   • su
   • flash_image recovery /sdcard/recovery-RA-pecan-2.2.1-GNM-drap.img
   • sync
   • reboot recovery
9. There.  It’s flashed.  And, the last command above will tell your phone to reboot into recovery mode.  AmonRA custom recovery should now be running, instead of the stock recovery.

Congratulations! You have successfully installed AmonRA-GNM 2.2.1 custom recovery for your LG Optimus Me P350. Enjoy the benefits of being able to install custom ROMs and custom Linux kernels on your phone.