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Hey,

for everyone who – just like me – bought a Samsung GT-I5510 (Galaxy 551) Android smartphone, updated to Android 2.3.6 via the official Samsung KIES software and subsequently had a nigh-flawless phone with the exception of the display not showing anything readable, please take a look at this video to see if you have the same issue.

My display had an extremely low contrast, you almost could not read a thing. The upper parts were better than the lower parts. There were stripes in the display (like being interlaced) and colors seemed to smear from the bottom upwards. The touch-sensitivity was fine and I was able to fully operate the phone (listening to podcasts, emailing, alarm clock, …), but did not get any noteworthy information from the screen.

As always in these issues, EVERYTHING YOU DO IS ENTIRELY AT YOUR OWN RISK. Neither Samsung nor me will be held liable if your phone stops working. Chances to brick it are low and it worked like a charm for me, but you are on your own risk.

Do not plug in or out any USB devices during the process. Make sure, the phone is fully charged. Make sure, you have the lastest versions of the used software. Make sure, your USB ports work fine, the cable is not broken and your computer does not shut down. Make sure, you have a backup of all your personal data.

I fixed this issue by:

• fully charging the phone
• installing the newest KIES on my Windows 7 (alternatively, you might try installing only the USB driver for the phone)
• killing all KIES processes via the task manager (!)
• downloading …
  
  • Odin 4.4.2 (Samsung internal OS flashing software)
  • Callisto.ops (Partitioning table, included in above link, 105 byte)
  • GT-I5510_XEO_I5510XWKPG_I5510XWKP1_I5510XEOKP5 Onepackage Firmware (Android 12.3.6) and extracting it
• starting Odin
• loading Callisto.ops under OPS
• checking the "one package" box
• loading the I5510XWKPG_I5510XWKP1_I5510XEOKP5_HOME.tar.md5 under One Package
• shutting down the phone
• starting it with POWER+Q held (USB download mode activated)
• plug it into a working USB port
• now, Odin should see the device, showing a COM port number in a yellow field
• pressing START and waiting for roughly 3 Minutes

After that, the yellow field should turn green. Odin should say PASS. Your phone should reboot with a refreshingly bright screen. This will take a few minutes (further reboots will be faster).

After that procedure, my phone works like a charm. All personal data survived. Still, my keyboard layout is QWERTY (I would like to have QWERTZ as depicted on my phone) and there are some (I found one, so far) unneccessary polish apps installed. Besides that, all works fine.

I hope, this will help you.

Thanks to k0k0 / email.filtering from http://www.android-hilfe.de and to blackozan for the solutions to this problem. Images are the official Android logo, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license by Google and GT-I5510 picture from Preisvergleich Services AG.