Related
Is there going to be any xda support on this? It's still trickling into Kmart stores right now. but if we are able to OC this, that would be great
Doubt it...
its a great little device for little cash. i bought one today after i heard. glad i did. was this or the bb chumby. this blows it away
Hey Pen --
Have you tried the Kindle app on it? I want an ereader that is bigger than my MT3G and I think one of these would foot the bill if I can find one. My local store only had one and it was on hold for somebody.
I am going to get a rain check today.
until they release the patch which allows the market to work i havent tried it. they should have the patch released by tomorrow
How is the screen?
How do you like the screen and how is its performance in general.
over all i like the device. im used to a resistive screen so thats not a problem. doesnt appear to have the auto rotate screen but waiting to hear back from them to find out what the deal is. the manual talks about auto rotating the screen so it should have it. lack of bluetooth is another draw back but i really dont need it. they also have a 2.5mm headphone jack on them instead of a 3.5 like normal but they are addressing that with an adapter i do believe.
power consumption wasnt too bad. i was using the device for 5 hours yesterday and only used a 1/4 reserve from what it said. so i was only down to around 72% charge after playing with it for 5 hours. was reasonably bright enough in a brightly lit room. the angle one can see is pretty good as well.
the microsd card slot isnt in line properly. so if you insert a card you will want to put a price of tape on the end of it so when you release it you can pull it out. i played hell getting the thing to pull out and it was dragging the top of the card so had to use a pair of tweezers to pull it out.
cant access the market yet so havent tried the nook or kindle apps but that will be my next thing. looking at pictures was good. just as good as my digi pic frame.
over all for what i bought it for i do believe it will work a treat. i was going to buy a chumby either the bb or the sony branded chumby and this will work so much better then either of those two devices.
Augen Tablet
Thanks for the info pen.
It surprises me that that it has a 2.5mm jack. I wonder how it ended up with that. You can get an adapter on Amazon or ebay for a buck or two. That would be important for me because I'd like to be able to watch movies on it when I am on the train to work. That is also why I am interested in the Kindle app.
Everything that I have read seems to indicate that it has an accelerometer to rotate the screen.
I get the feeling that Augen underestimated the interest this device was going to generate and put it on the market when it wasn't completely ready, thinking they could dabble a little and fix problems on the fly with the couple of people that bought them. oops.
My Augen Gentouch78 experience
I just picked up my Augen yesterday at the KMart here in Phoenix (KMart actually called me on my raincheck I had made over the phone! Kudos to them). I like the form factor but am quite disappointed overall. While I don't think it is sluggish in general, the resistive touch screen makes it seem that way. Using your fingernail or an old pda stylus helps considerably in that regard.
Couple of negatives:
1. Market download does not work, as others have pointed out (it just stays in the "Starting Download" phase.
2. Micro SD card is hard to insert/remove (you need to use your fingernail in both cases, and to remove you need to also flick it down a bit to slide out as it seems to catch on the lip of the slot).
3. The device could not "Mount" when connected to my PC via USB. I had better luck when the SD card was not in the device, as I was able to Mount it once then, and saw that I had 1.3GB of free space... even though the device SD card info showed only 246ishMB free... what's up with that? (documentation did say there was 2GB available, so the Mounted drive size was closer).
4. I lost sound twice.. had to power off to get it back (all sounds started coming out as loud white noise). Seems to occur when pressing the top front part of the frame... yup, near where the menu/home/back buttons are.
5. Percentage battery use shows that monitoring cellular network was using 57% of the battery, and suggested turning it off. However, you can't... network settings only have WiFi (I curiously did find a place where it prompted me to turn on Bluetooth, but I don't think it did anything).
6. I wanted to return the unit due to the sound problem, but wanted to clear out my google account info... the factory reset does nothing other than power off the unit, even though that is how they say to clear out all data including the google account data.
7. No auto-rotate. No rotate at all that I can see. Nothing in the setup relating to that, even though the manual says it should be there.
8. Non-US Standard earphone jack
9. No mic or web cam
10. Resistive touch screen makes typing on the on-screen keyboard a PITA. I did get somewhat use to it after a while, but still don't like having to press firmly.
On the positive side:
After manually copying a ripped DVD movie in mp4 format onto my SD card and inserting it into the unit, it played great.
So, first impressions are basically way down there for me.
Some other specs:
- Telechips TCC8900 ARM CPU (on an eval board no-less!)
- Android 2.1 - Update 1
- Build 2010-07-21 (boy did they push these out the door... likely with no testing!!)
Eric
whisper1980 said:
I just picked up my Augen yesterday at the KMart here in Phoenix (KMart actually called me on my raincheck I had made over the phone! Kudos to them). I like the form factor but am quite disappointed overall. While I don't think it is sluggish in general, the resistive touch screen makes it seem that way. Using your fingernail or an old pda stylus helps considerably in that regard.
Couple of negatives:
1. Market download does not work, as others have pointed out (it just stays in the "Starting Download" phase.
2. Micro SD card is hard to insert/remove (you need to use your fingernail in both cases, and to remove you need to also flick it down a bit to slide out as it seems to catch on the lip of the slot).
3. The device could not "Mount" when connected to my PC via USB. I had better luck when the SD card was not in the device, as I was able to Mount it once then, and saw that I had 1.3GB of free space... even though the device SD card info showed only 246ishMB free... what's up with that? (documentation did say there was 2GB available, so the Mounted drive size was closer).
4. I lost sound twice.. had to power off to get it back (all sounds started coming out as loud white noise). Seems to occur when pressing the top front part of the frame... yup, near where the menu/home/back buttons are.
5. Percentage battery use shows that monitoring cellular network was using 57% of the battery, and suggested turning it off. However, you can't... network settings only have WiFi (I curiously did find a place where it prompted me to turn on Bluetooth, but I don't think it did anything).
6. I wanted to return the unit due to the sound problem, but wanted to clear out my google account info... the factory reset does nothing other than power off the unit, even though that is how they say to clear out all data including the google account data.
7. No auto-rotate. No rotate at all that I can see. Nothing in the setup relating to that, even though the manual says it should be there.
8. Non-US Standard earphone jack
9. No mic or web cam
10. Resistive touch screen makes typing on the on-screen keyboard a PITA. I did get somewhat use to it after a while, but still don't like having to press firmly.
On the positive side:
After manually copying a ripped DVD movie in mp4 format onto my SD card and inserting it into the unit, it played great.
So, first impressions are basically way down there for me.
Some other specs:
- Telechips TCC8900 ARM CPU (on an eval board no-less!)
- Android 2.1 - Update 1
- Build 2010-07-21 (boy did they push these out the door... likely with no testing!!)
Eric
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
they are pushing an update out should be out tonight or tomorrow to fix a couple of the things. i believe the eval board is not correct as someone has found the chinese version of this and it has been out for a while. i just think the cooking of this device wasnt the best. i am just hoping they push 2.2 out on it pretty quickly.
I also got one today
I can confirm the market is not working for me either.. Yes build date is really new. haha.. I'm trying to get apps installed by emailing myself APK's to Gmail but I need something like APKatcher to do it. So so far I've not installed anything, but going into settings, aplications and manage I was able to kill the running apps and speed it up.
So far it's a cool little device. I also lost sound once and a reboot fixed it. haha (interesting) I watched 20 minutes of avatar and it looks incredible and gets much louder than a cell phone.. My 16GB MicroSD card went in fine.
There's a Stylus if you guys didn't figure that out yet. Makes typing extremely easy.
Anyone know how I can install some APK's?
ES File Manager comes Pre Loaded.. you can add any app APK to the SD card. and use ES File Manager to install
Installing Quadrant, and some games right now.. I'll post back
Rainchecks
I got two rain checks tonight. I want to get one for myself and I know my wife will want one if it is cool.
If anybody really wants one and lives in Eastern PA, they have 4 of them in the Reading PA store. That is a little far for me to drive and I like getting a rain check because I can make sure they are going to put out an update to make the market work.
It seems like the early reviews are mixed at best but c'mon...they are $150. I mean, if I can get my 6 year old to watch a thomas the tank engine video on it for a few minutes of peace each day, I have gotten my money's worth.
Dev thread here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=7409528#post7409528
Well I got one yesterday and it is horrible.
I am hoping their support can help me get the screen a bit more responsive.
I mean I have to press on it like I'm trying to push through it.
The manual says there supposed to be a calibrations but there isn't.
The manual says there is an option to allow this to orientate according tot he direction held but theres not.
The manual says that when you charge the device the light should be red in color turning green when fully charged well I charged over night and its still red.
When I turn it on it says 100% battery...
Also I went into market which is like that on my Droid1, Incredible, Droidx... and chose to install a app like dropbox, weatherbug, MyMemo, SlingPlayer and it sis there saying downloading but its not.
I have my wifi connected to the device...
Anyone else with ideas???
I so wanted this to be a iPad alternative!!!
Thanks
I got one last night... I side loaded a bunch of apps from my Incredible... LauncherPro, Pandora, Quick Settings, Android System Info... Awesome Drop...they all work... The weird thing is some of the apps force the screen to Portrait, but i haven't found an app yet to turn it back.. (aside from rebooting)
I noticed the sound is wonky... sometimes it works...
I also noticed something installed called Dev Tools... It has a terminal, a bunch of dev settings, a package browser, sync tester, and some google tools..
I got one today as well. So far, all is not well.
Wifi seems to be an issue. I can connect to my network if I turn off security, but when I enable WEP, this thing just sits here and says 'Obtaining IP Address' and then shows 'Unsuccessful'. I have tons of other devices connected. The problem is not the network.
So, with security off, I played with it a bit. The browser seems to work fine. It defaults to mobile pages and I'd love to turn that off. No Flash as expected.
I also have a problem with sound. When anything produces sound (mp3, video, youtube, even clicking on something) all I get is horrible white noise.
I get constant alerts that things have failed to download. I assume that this is due to the Marketplace issue.
I threw in a micro SD that I had. I have no problems with it sticking as others have reported.
I will admit that this is my first taste of Android. I am a professional developer for other platforms though so I'm not a total knucklehead - just partial.
I hear that an update is imminent. Anyone have any info about this? Will it be done via the SD card? USB?
I REALLY want this to work
Greg
Update:
Looks like a reboot fixed a few things now. I am now connected to my secured network and sound is ok. So now I have a more or less functioning tablet.
You guys aren't having screen issues?
This is posted on the Augen website:
Patch for GENTOUCH78 Tablet (available 1700EST)
Dear Augen Customers (GEN Nation),
Thank you for showing your support and interest in our GENTOUCH78 Tablet. We became aware of the technical difficulties over the past 24 hours, and we will be posting an update for a patch to the software at the following link: http://augen.helpserve.com/ under latest download files within the next 48 hours.
Just to mention a few technical difficulties we have found and are patching are:
the memory size of 284mb not being shown as 2GB will be corrected as this is a glitch in the software.
Android Market place not being able to download apps will be fixed in this patch, as this is a glitch in the software. As of right now the operating system and pre-loaded applications are using .5 Gb so the available space displayed should be approximately 1.5GB.
To solve the issue with the headphone jack being too small for a 3.5 mm headphone connection, we ask you to send us an email to [email protected] with your Name, Adress, eMail Adress along with a proof of purchase. We will be sending you at our expense the 2.5 mm headphones to go along with the unit within 15-20 days. All future products that will be manufactured will have the new patch and a 2.5mm earbud to go along with the unit.
We want to make it a great experience for our customers. We apologize for disappointing some of you, and we are doing our best to make it a great experience at Augen.
Thank you for your support,
Daniel Gofman
Vice President
Augen Electronics Corp.
the screen sucks
Common ICS Problems
If you plug in USB while your tablet is asleep you will have a SOD
Installation Problems
Install tips from tlb1961 here and lyricalpapa in post #3
Try not to use any backup's as they cause many problems.
Make sure your using CWM 5.5.0.4 Beta 15 (comes with the nvflash in TeamDRH ICS thread)
On your first boot let it sit for 30-60min (the longer, the better) and then reset.
If all else fails try this
Th3DmaN's G-Tablet Tools for anyone who is having trouble connecting and flashing their G-Table
Speed Problems
Different launchers such as Apex or Nova or any compatible launcher may or may not increase smoothness. There is no problem with installing them on top of the stock launcher as only one launcher runs at a time.
Battery and Power Problems
Your tablet went to sleep and wont wake up, try pushing the power button a couple of times and wait 5 seconds inbetween presses.
Your tablet has completely frozen, try pushing the power button for 30+ seconds. If that doesn't do it, you can leave your tablet alone for a couple hours and try again (may or may not work) or you can wait till the battery dies or if your impatient you can open the tablet up and press the internal reset, it looks like this. Here are some helpful pictures and a video for opening it up. If you have no reset button you will need to disconnect the battery, here's what it looks like. If you do get a SOD do this to help the developers.
Connection & Browser Problems
WiFi not working, try to "forget" the WiFi and re-enter your password. Also can try resetting your router or changing the security. Some say ICS does not like high channels.
If your having market errors, try force closing and clearing the cache in settings\apps\all. If that doesn't work then find every market reference and force close then clear the cache and reset.
Your computer doesn't recognize your tablet, you will need MTP drivers read the ICS rom page again. For Windows XP you need to disable debugging. For linux try Th3DmaN's guide.
Adhoc does not work with this build.
Stock browser seems to lock up after a bit. Possible fix is to disable java. Thanks plastikman
Screen and Sound Problems
1080p on H/W? Use Handbrake and import this profile. Here's the high profile settings for 720p, for those wanting the best quality.
Videoplayers such as MxVideo player, can play H/W video but the sound will need to be changed to S/W.
Icons and text too small? Try using this guide. CAUTION Changing the DPI really messes with the Market.
DSP Manager has been causing slowness/audio problems. Try stopping it to see if that's the problem. You can delete it safely if causing problems.
Game and Apps Problems
Alot of games and apps are not updated for ICS yet so they won't work correctly.
Hulu flash hack here. It should work. Anyone with Hulu can you post your results.MAY NOT WORK ANYMORE
Bypassing Exchange Security Policy try this
Connecting the ICS Mail app to Microsoft's Cloud hosted Exchange services check here
Gamepad support - follow jazzruby's guide here
Miscellaneous Problems
Errors popping up constantly, you need to reinstall again and make sure this time you erase everything.
Nandroid backups, you need to follow this guide
Important Notes
The SOD (sleep of death) we talk about is when the device goes into a sleep mode and there is absolutely no other way out but by pressing the internal reset. This is also called a kernel panic.
We are always talking about roms on Bootloader 1.2 unless specified.
When installing or removing things from the system, it is always a good idea to reset and clean the cache, clean the dalvik cache and fix permissions.
USB problems sometimes are caused by your own computer, you may have to restart/change USB port/change USB cables/check your USB drivers
Windows 7 is the implied OS most are working on, if you have different then ask.
IF I'M MISSING SOMETHING PLEASE LET ME KNOW
Stuff that WILL cause a SOD (sleep of death) causing you to push the internal reset
DON'T DO THESE
If you plug in USB while your tablet is asleep you will have a SOD
If you do get a SOD please do this so the developers can help.
Use the reset button
Don't power the tablet off at all, just use the internal reset button
Don't touch the tab or do anything but logging into adb.
If for some reason you can't open adb, you can use terminal on the rom
At the prompt type:
Code:
su
Hit enter and then
Code:
cat /proc/last_kmsg
If this doesn't work, the easier way is to access it is with a root explorer by going to /proc and then copy last_kmsg to /sdcard (rename to last_kmsg.txt or zip it up in a file).
Copy and paste the results to a paste bin and post the link. If you don't know pastebin then just post the last 10 lines or so.
tlb1961 install guide
Howdy all,
Glad to hear most are having good luck with this newer revision. To those seeing odd issues after install, I would suggest start over from scratch and clean out the gTab prior to reinstall including repartition the internal SDCard. Run the ROM for a bit before installing anything else. If you have a lot of media files on an microSD card then let it sit for a little while. Once the ROM is running smoothly you should then apply the latest the3dman GApps package.
I know it's tempting to try and hang onto old configs and settings, but it will give you a better experience in the long run if all old data is cleared.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
lyricalpapa installation essentials
Here's some things I do that work for me:
1. Give my tablet time to boot - let G-Mail, Google Maps, and the other apps load in, talk to the mail server, etc. I watch the activity in the "broadcast" symbol and wait for the browser widget to display its bookmarked pages.
2. Follow the dev's install instructions and @serialplague's FAQ - goes without saying.
3. Have Patience - I give the cache driver's balancing and optimising routines time to do their work after I load a ROM, plus any time I add/remove apps or any time I make changes to the settings. Remember this is a Beta Test ROM and not a snapshot image of a fully tested, optimised, and balanced ROM that you would get if you were to buy a new ASUS Transformer or whatever.
4. Use the apps the Dev's gave us with the Beta ROM - I use the Elixir app regularly to check if the CPU and I/O activity levels have dropped down to near 0% for both. I check them after installing my ROM's, etc. (I also now use the Diagnosis app thanks to @oldtimer)
5. Remember the G tablet only has 512M DDR-2 RAM on board and was built to run with a 2.2 Froyo ROM, a cadged 2.6.32 kernel, and slow generic drivers. Google's minimum published specification for a system running Honeycomb or newer is a Nvidia Tegra-2 processor and 1G of RAM. So the challenge is to modify and tune the 2.6.39 kernel drivers and the ICS ROM to live within the available 512M RAM.
6. edit-no longer needed
7. Killing unnecessary apps sometimes frees up enough memory to stop the CPU and I/O churning. But I have to be careful which apps I kill using an app like Advanced Task Accelerator - it can shut down necessary services - although Android will usually restart them automatically (and kick up the CPU and I/O activity while doing so)
8. Remember that Google Apps come with a high overhead price - the standard Viewsonic set-up for the G tablet does not include GAPPs, and it runs very fast. The same for many other tablets that don't have a Tegra-2 and 1G of RAM. Game players might want to experiment with not loading GAPPs. In the past I've done this by downloading all the apps that I was interested in from GAPPs, then copying them all out to my PC using the "adb pull" command ("adb remount" to get in as root). Then I wipe and reload the ROM without GAPPs, and use "adb push" to put the apps in the right directories. Then on my G tablet, I find the apps using Root Explorer and "click" on them to install them.
Lyricalpapa
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How do I stop my tablet from downloading every app I have ever owned or used from the market when I log into my android account.
I suspect I am doing something wrong because the tablet is very laggy with ICS.
When you first install it will ask you if you want to use your backups, just uncheck that. Or you can let it sit for awhile, 30min to an hour, it sucks but once everything calms down its much better.
Android Keyboard
Good men of this forum,
It seems that with the new ICS rom, I am having issues with my android keyboard. If my tablet is vertical, I have the dialpad-looking keyboard with what seems to be Japanese characters on a few buttons. When my tablet is in the horizontal orientation, the keyboard disappears completely. I have searched the popular forums here and with Google. I'm terribly sorry if I have missed a tip somewhere.
I used the flashing procedure on the TeamDRH website to the letter, and I am no stranger to flashing custom ROMs to android devices. The keyboard continues to work beautifully under Froyo and Gingerbread ROMs, as well as the earliest beta of ICS. I only seem to have an issue with this version of ICS.
I'm also getting frequent Google Apps errors about the services stopping. After signing in with my account, Market crashed and disappeared from my apps menu altogether.
It seems that I have a fairly unique problem. I'm a linux sysadmin and I'm very handy with the command line if you need dmesg or kernel output.
Thank you in advance.
I've heard a couple of people are having problems with the GApps, have you tried installing with the lite 7b GApps?
No Luck
Thanks for the reply!
I have tried both the full and lite versions of 7A and 7B for this ROM with no luck. When I perform a first-time boot of the tablet after a ROM and Gapps, the very first message I encounter is "Unfortunately, the process com.google.process.gapps has stopped" for any version of Gapps, and it continues to pop up every several seconds that the tablet is in use.
I have also tried installing the ROM without Gapps at all and the keyboard is still nowhere to be found. Odd that the keyboard works in the first beta (1E), but this ICS (2B) is much faster than the old one
If anyone has a link to download the ICS Preview 2A instead of 2B I would be interested in trying it out, the links on TeamDRH's website all point to 2B now.
Other useful info: I know for certain that I am running the 1.2 bootloader and I'm using the newest Clockworkmod v5.5.0.4 Beta 15. I like to re-format before every flash to ensure a clean start.
Thats very odd it sounds like the download may have been corrupted. I've seen it happen a couple of people.
I still have 2A and some previous ones, kinda a catalog lol, just PM if you want to go that way.
I'm a newb
Thank you very much for the help you've provided me.
I tried downloading 2B a few more times with the same issue :/ so strange. Unfortunately for me, I am below the 10 post minimum to allow PMs. It's kind of ironic actually, I've been a member for years and always found my answers without having to ask because xda is wonderful about providing info
Thanks again.
Sent ya an email
simplyphp has a great writeup on an installation method you could try his way
SUCCESS!
Using the simplyphp method you referred me to, not only does the 2A ROM work, but the newest ROM and Gapps as well! I must admit that I'm a little embarrassed that I can't actually identify the original problem, but I believe it has something to do with my installation of Clockworkmod. I got it from a forum here that is trustworthy, but it didn't seem to work exactly as I needed it until I installed it with nvflash. I also had a strange problem with the first flash (out of the two that I am supposed to do) in that it wouldn't boot all the way into the TnT factory OS and was in an endless reboot. I simply turned it off, booted into APX mode once again, and continued with the listed steps and it worked flawlessly. I would thank simplyphp but I can't post on development threads yet!
So thank you and have a "Thanks!", I hope I've contributed to your wealth of knowledge on troubleshooting.
I just bought an Ainol Novo7 Tornados but the wifi reception is terrible, I've read that for other novo7 tablets it would help to change to a previous version but I can't find instructions on how to do this on a tornados, I can only find information about the flame, advanced, etc.
Does anyone know what to do?
jimjim1983 said:
I just bought an Ainol Novo7 Tornados but the wifi reception is terrible, I've read that for other novo7 tablets it would help to change to a previous version but I can't find instructions on how to do this on a tornados, I can only find information about the flame, advanced, etc.
Does anyone know what to do?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have an Ainol Novo 7 Aurora and I had several problems with the original ROM. I rooted and flashed a custom rom named Feiyu. Everything is working perfectly now and at last, I can enjoy my tablet.
Seriously, the original Ainol rom is rubbish... you should try that rom out.
tsironakos said:
I have an Ainol Novo 7 Aurora and I had several problems with the original ROM. I rooted and flashed a custom rom named Feiyu. Everything is working perfectly now and at last, I can enjoy my tablet.
Seriously, the original Ainol rom is rubbish... you should try that rom out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks alot! do you also happen to know where I can find a good guide to rooting and flashing? I can only find guides for other novo7 editions, or is it all done in the same way?
Hi Jimjim,
How to upgrade:
A bit late and you may have figured it out by now, but you just put the upgrade or feiyu mod on your external sd card. Boot the tablet by holding down the Vol down button and the power button. With the mod, you go through the menu (pretty simple to navigate, vol up and down for scrolling and home button for enter) and do an 'update from sd card' and navigate to the feiyu zip. With the firmware upgrades, it looks as if they get installed automatically if you put them in root (of sd card) but I wasn't sure so I still did the 'update from sd card' for them too.
My firmware that came with the tablet looked like "05/30" ie 30th may but I am not sure. I had intermittent wifi trouble too. I didn't go down in the firmware, I went up, bigger is better...supposedly.
The best spot to download the LATEST firmware (0619) that i have found is: spemall (google spemall tonrados firmware, not allowed to link it)
They also have the Feiyu mod.
Full instructions are on that page, further down, but I found all that fairly confusing and just winged it. It's not hard.
My personal/noob/non-l33t [email protected] experience was:
Stock/already installed - 30th May Firmware (I think)
Upgraded to 0601 Firmware
Touch screen was slow, whole thing very laggy (worse than what I had before) no wifi fix.
Upgraded to feiyu mod (based on 0526)
Lost the lag, wifi appearred fixed however leaving the screen on for more than 10 mins and the touchscreen would start clicking things by itself, I just sat there watching it for a while as it clicked widgets, emails etc. I had to stop it because the constant clicks were going to end up deleting emails or something.
Then I upgraded to the 0619 firmware.
Fixed all problems however I lost Google Play. I think this happened due to going from feiyu mod back to stock. Lots of apps were missing that used to be standard so I would recommend skipping the feiyu mod. I got the Play store back with Titanium and after a bit of stuffing around all is good again (Play store required clearing cache etc). The only bug that annoys me now (and I'm not sure if this happened in the previous versions) is that the touch screen is sometimes unresponsive on wakeup, mostly happens if I turn off the screen for more than a minute, with a game open.
Obviously the Tornados is not an $800 tablet however for the $115 I paid for it I am pretty happy now.
Hope that gives you a bit of direction on the upgrades.
OK so a bit further on in time and my tablet got insanely slow. I don't think I put enough junk on it to slow it right down, it got to the point where there would be as much as a 2 second delay between when I pressed the screen and when it registered.
I did a Titanium backup of all my apps and re-flashed the feiyu mod based on 0526 firmware, but the weird touchscreen issue returned, it would just start registering touches that never happened. Sooo I have flashed to the 0601 firmware and it is working, but I have once again lost my Google Play Store, I have tried restoring it from Titanium, and I have downloaded the apk, still no go. It is there now but it just crashes on opening. :crying:
On the plus side the 0601 firmware has returned the snappy, responsive speed but without google apps I am pretty limited. Most of the apps I need are installed from Titanium so it will get me by while I figure out the Play Store problem.
As they say, if it aint broke you haven't tweaked it enough yet.
My old faithful Archos 101 has serious problems and just bought Ramos i9s -> http://www.ramos-tablet.com/ramos-i...35f-quad-core-android-4-4-2gb-32gb-white.html
My version has 16GB memory and no 3G modem/sim-card socket.
Tried to find any info about this from xda, but not a single message found.. did i just order crap? :cyclops:
wow.. this must be rare tablet :laugh:
Not rare at all
Great tablet -heavy, but very classy design. It's a bit like a 9" iPhone 4s. Speedy intel chip. I have both the i9, i7, and i10 Pro. The last one is dual boot Android / Win 8.1.
Yep, this is heavy.. but I like heavy, better than feather-like
AnTuTu Benchmark scored 31472 and games looks awesome.
My first delivered tablet crashes after couple hours of use, maybe display cable disconnected or something.. because screen just went black and resetting/rebooting didn't never show anything else than backlight in screen. Got replacement unit next day and this one works fine.
There is one update from manufacturer downloaded, but previous unit crashed and that update might caused that also.. so waiting if others have problems with that update, before trying to install it again.
I have tried to find updates and root for this tablet, but seems there is nothing for this.
Manufacturer provides only chinese download page at http://ramos.com.cn/Download_list/List
I have tried to download from there, but after over 20 re-downloads.. all files seems to be broken and unusable.
Most likely my last china-cheap tablet ever. :/
Kingo ROOT works for root and is very straight forward. As far as updates go, I have not had any luck on that either.
pki101 said:
Yep, this is heavy.. but I like heavy, better than feather-like
AnTuTu Benchmark scored 31472 and games looks awesome.
My first delivered tablet crashes after couple hours of use, maybe display cable disconnected or something.. because screen just went black and resetting/rebooting didn't never show anything else than backlight in screen. Got replacement unit next day and this one works fine.
There is one update from manufacturer downloaded, but previous unit crashed and that update might caused that also.. so waiting if others have problems with that update, before trying to install it again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Was able to find firmware download at Ramos site but was not able to download. When I click on download button it takes me to another page which tells me all about the firmware and how to install but does not give me a download option. The file is [i9s] Blue Devils i9s Le Frog OS stable version of firmware. Have any clues as to how to download this file? Part of the instructions is to install, ManufacturingFlashTool_Setup_6.0.43.exe. Do you know where I might get this file?
WillyJo said:
Kingo ROOT works for root and is very straight forward. As far as updates go, I have not had any luck on that either.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just downloaded app, didn't read any intructions.. just installed app and hit Root-button, after some waiting got error message and rooting failed.
That Kingo Root needs windows application first.. right? and connecting to Ramos via usb-cable.. right?
I don't actually see any need for rooting this and after that, none of manufacturer upgrades probaply don't work here.. but.. it's hard to test, because they dont distribute upgrades. lol
Great device, How about battery life?
Thus far, the battery life has been very good.
New google Photo app crashes.
Somehow it almost starts if disconnected from internet, but asks google credentials and don't accept my correct account username and password.
If starting app when connected to internet.. Photo app crashes right after spinning Google logo.
pki101 said:
New google Photo app crashes.
Somehow it almost starts if disconnected from internet, but asks google credentials and don't accept my correct account username and password.
If starting app when connected to internet.. Photo app crashes right after spinning Google logo.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Google released update and now it works..
As I am sure all Alcatel Idol 3 owners noticed by now, Alcatel have, over the last year or so, released on Google Play "updates" for most of their builtin software - the launcher, file manager, radio player, photo gallery, calendar and more - with what is, if I can be blunt - malware, updates whose only intention is to show you ads and notifications (whereas the original applications, obviously, did not have ads) which you have no way of disabling, and who knows what else.
I avoided this crap by "uninstalling" the updated applications and getting back the preinstalled versions.
BUT, today I started getting on all my Alcatel Idol phones (I have 3 of them!), OTA Android update. And I'm worried what would happen if I click it. Will I get the "updated" (malicious) versions of all the builtin applications with no way to revert them?
Does anyone have an experience with the new OTA update that came out yesterday? Can you tell me if after the update, the "joy launcher", "file manager", etc., are decent versions or the crappy versions which show ads?
P.S. Alcatel, you guys are idiots. I love your phones, and in the past bought 5 of them, but I'll *never* buy another phone from you because of this malware issue.
i have been wondering the same thing, i was scared to even touch the notification to see if it is a large upgrade or just 1 or 2 megabytes, in case touching it forces me to download it. please note, i have no idea if the OTA is any good, but i'm going to continue this post to vent about alcatel idol 3.
i was a bit annoyed with the last system upgrade, which started flashing the screen on and off periodically when any notifications were left active... for me, i always leave some notifications going, so that i don't forget about them or just want to leave them up even if i never take any action with them...
so i'm sure this takes a toll on my battery, since the screen will be flashing on and off for a few minutes before it stops.
i was shocked when a few months ago (or even a year?) apps started sending ads to the notification bar, from reading some posts i figured out you not only had to stop auto-updates in the play store, but also go into the updates app and disable them there. i didn't even know ads on a stock system were a thing, until i saw my dad's BLU $50 phone and realized that's how they make a decent phone $50.
since my idol 3 4.7" was relatively cheap at $180, i could see how they might need to put ads, but if i got a brand new alcatel phone at over $400, i'd be even more furious, do they put ads on their brand new phones?
i see a lot of cheap phones on amazon now listed having versions with "lockscreen offers and ads" including idol 5s
as long as the ads aren't malicious, and if you can just block notifications in android (i dunno if they somehow disable that) then it's sort of worth saving the money
anyway, i've had my idol 3 4.7" for just about 2 years, it's still fine, but i guess i'm starting to think about getting something else. i'd love to get another small phone, right before this i had an xperia z1 compact which i loved but the the battery started failing and bloating after less than a year and a half, so i'm kind of thinking i should never spend over $200 for a phone again (that one was $350)
my android history has been
nexus one $529
galaxy nexus $435.50
xperia z1 compact $350
idol 3 4.7" $180
i've been looking at nokia's new androids lately, or some kind of honor maybe
but my idol 3 4.7" is still working fine pretty much
i just remembered one other thing i hated about the marshmallow updated, which is the adopted SD card storage...
from what i understand if your phone dies, everything that was on the SD card can never be read again, because it works only when plugged into your phone. i mean i guess that's good for security, but it should be optional. it'd be nice to just be able to take that SD card to a new phone and just have everything that was there on it again.
i just noticed someone's post about "semi-adopted" SD card, which i guess means making 2 partitions, which kinda makes sense, but it would be nice if android offered that as a preset option. i had just gotten an SD card a few weeks before the marshmallow update came out and moving apps to SD for apps that supported it, worked fine.
anyway, i don't think and kinda hope no one read this, i'm not sure why i wrote this
I know that feeling, bros
Actually, I managed to uninstall built-in apps using adb shell, which was described in the discussion about Debloater (the app itself did not work after Marshmallow update):
Code:
pm uninstall --user 0 com.package.name
(this uninstalls system apps for the current user, so that they cannot be launched, do not notify about their updates in Google Play, and this works without root)
nyh said:
BUT, today I started getting on all my Alcatel Idol phones (I have 3 of them!), OTA Android update.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dear nyh, what is your region and phone model (like, 6045K or 6039Y or with other letter in the end)? Here in Belarus (Eastern Europe), my 6045Y does not notify of any update (current system version 6.0.1-010 20).
Mankann said:
Dear nyh, what is your region and phone model (like, 6045K or 6039Y or with other letter in the end)? Here in Belarus (Eastern Europe), my 6045Y does not notify of any update (current system version 6.0.1-010 20).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the 4.7" model 6039S, and three more phones of the 5.5" model, I don't remember now their model number.
What I'm running now appears to be Android 6.0.1 build number "1BGD-UED2". I don't know how this relates to your number. I noticed the "update" program tells me the new version is "0100020" which is suspiciously close to the number you said, maybe it's the same. With your version, does "uninstalling" the "Joy Launcher" (and other) applications to get back to the preinstalled one, gets you a decent version, or one with ads?
nyh said:
I noticed the "update" program tells me the new version is "0100020" which is suspiciously close to the number you said, maybe it's the same. With your version, does "uninstalling" the "Joy Launcher" (and other) applications to get back to the preinstalled one, gets you a decent version, or one with ads?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah, I understand now. It seems that your phone wants to update to the version that removes fastboot commands (so I suggest you triple-think and triple-check before upgrading).
"Uninstalling" system apps does not revert them to preinstalled versions, it makes them completely unavailable until hard reset (they are only listed in Settings labeled with "Disabled for current user" and cannot be run). If you decide to do this, you should first install some alternative apps (like Nova Launcher, Google Calendar etc), or else you won't be able to boot and use your phone.
I have the Idol 3 5.5 6045l(USA) Android 6.0.1 Build number 7VGE-UEE1.
I am reluctant to install the OTA I have pending:
______________________________
System update available
010 01 (471.5 MB)
New in this version
Version 7VGS-UES6 includes a security update that fixes Android major security flaw.
Update info:
- Netflix service
- Gameloft games
- UE improvements& bug fixes
______________________________
I am baffled that Alcatel would include Netflix & Gameloft with a major security fix.
After the adware riddled system app updates(that I've reverted to original) I will wait for more information before updating.
I love my phone and was considering buying a back-up or an Idol 4s especially as it seems that the front-facing speakers have been dropped from Alcatel's 2018 lineup.
But the bond of trust concerning system & app updates has been broken.
[Not sure whether one will be able to revert adware riddled system apps after the update]
That's real bad
Maybe this "security update" is resolving BlueBorne vulnerability (actually I wrote Alcatel about this, and they told me not to have bluetooth on all the time, wait patiently and install an antivirus which of course I did not do). But Netflix or Gameloft as system (priv-)apps is a no way (I struggled with TWO hidden Facebook services preinstalled on my phone until I found a method to "remove" them, which I described above).
If such an update comes to me (it may take days, weeks or months before it reaches all regions), and if no one installs it, I will do it and report here
I was stupid and sleepy and didn't fully check the update notes in depth when I saw it pop-up yesterday, I figured the majority of it was for security and maybe a couple of quality of life improvements like a new lock screen, even the entry about the Netflix app just sounded to me like they were fixing a problem people might have been having with it. suddenly I have and Netflix app I didn't want, a news app, some sort of Alcatel store front and two space wasting games (or at least one game and some gameloft "50 free games thing I have no use for).
I got rid of the apps that could be insta-deleted, and the netflix app can at least be disabled, but the filemanager is by far the worse offender. It's "boost" download and obnoxious UI, not to mention it clutters my notifications and lock screen. I've managed to quiet it down by canceling its access and whatever permissions I could. The fact that it restarts itself after a few seconds is just as irritating even before the reports that it actually may make my phone operate worse. I haven't experienced anything yet aside from the Google Play store crashing once while trying to figure out how to get rid of the update, but that was shortly after doing the factory reset and it's only been a day.
Whats mroe annoying is this now part of their most recent update on Idol 3. It's now impossible to revert or kill this as it's all baked in, not even factory reset will remove it. The new file manager app restarts at every turn, even after Force stop and will not allow you to disable it, and it seems to resist methods of hiding it from the user. I'm still seeking ways of getting rid of it that dont require rooting my phone but at this point it seems like the only possible answer, which is a shame because I was fine not rooting android, this was a really nice phone until they ruined it with this garbage. I know I'm pretty much screwed because My computer doesn't always seem to respond properly to Android stuff for some reason so any attempt to root will probably result in me bricking the thing, and even if I could root I'm not certain I'm comfortable with my phone being that open with other applications like this roaming around not to mention the questions of whether any of my desired apps will respond poorly to my doing it. But I wanted to at least add my voice to the rest that are complaining about this and telling Alcatel this is the last product of their's I'll ever own.
@PN04
Thank you for your very detailed report. Sorry to hear of the predicament you are now in. It goes without saying that I - thanks to you - will not be updating.
PN04 said:
I got rid of the apps that could be insta-deleted, and the netflix app can at least be disabled, but the filemanager is by far the worse offender. It's "boost" download and obnoxious UI, not to mention it clutters my notifications and lock screen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
have you held down on a notification and hit the (i) and then block notifications?
does it somehow disregard that? that was a new feature added in marshmallow
zxcvb2 said:
have you held down on a notification and hit the (i) and then block notifications?
does it somehow disregard that? that was a new feature added in marshmallow
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have, it takes you to the app notification section where you can reduce it's priority, stop it from peeking and "hide sensitive content" (not sure what that last one means but I turned them all off anyway). As far as I can tell it's teeth are pulled as long as I don't actually start the app or give it any permissions when it asks, but the fact that constantly force stopping it only gets rid of the menu bar on my lock screen for a few seconds and that little stupid broom icon is constantly showing in my bar at the top means it's still an ugly scar on an otherwise nice phone. also App memory usage claims it's used 27 mb in the last 3 hours and I havent' even touched it.
I'll probably be studying up on rooting this weekend.
ichmoimeyo said:
@PN04
Thank you for your very detailed report. Sorry to hear of the predicament you are now in. It goes without saying that I - thanks to you - will not be updating.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same here, no update for me either thanks to PN04's findings. I have managed to silence the Update app by uninstalling updates on the app and then turning off auto update and notifications. So far so good, no nagging messages about the update. Considering my latest security patch is from Nov 2016, I was not expecting to get any more anyway.
Shame on you Alcatel for ruining an otherwise perfect phone! Maybe i can get one more year on this one. The Xperia XZ1 Compact is looking more and more attractive, apart from the price (native Wifi calling, VoLTE and band 12 on TMO US, stuff that this phone didn't have and start to become more important for me).
Glad it helped. I guess I can take some measure of comfort in that at least.
The result of the upgrade.
nyh said:
Does anyone have an experience with the new OTA update that came out yesterday? Can you tell me if after the update, the "joy launcher", "file manager", etc., are decent versions or the crappy versions which show ads?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So, I was surprised nobody came up to talk about their experience with the upgrade, so I took a risk and updated two of my Alcatel Idol 3 phones (mine and my son's) to the new update. Like in the old movie, I have good news, bad news, and ugly news:
The bad news was that the application content of the update was just as lousy as I feared it would be. It has the evil file manager and a bunch of other crap applications which spew notifications all the time, spontaneously install applications you never wanted to install, and so on. The strangest thing is that the update claims to add Netflix support, but actually uninstalled the Netflix app that I already had installed, which was very annoying (I had to re-install Netflix, re-download my downloads, and tell Netflix that I don't have the "old" device any more so it will let me download on the "new" one).
Also, the last on the bad list: after using the new system for two days, I haven't found a single thing to be better than the old system. This update doesn't upgrade Android - it's still exactly the same release 6.0.1 as it was before. The "patch level" is listed as November 2017, so maybe it has some security improvements, but I can't really tell.
The good news is that with some considerable effort, I was able to get rid of all of the crap (at least, everything I found so far). There is a new application called "Apps" which installs random crap. You can't uninstall it, but you can "disable" it and it never runs again. The evil file manager you can't uninstall (or disable), but its menu has an option to not send notifications, and then it doesn't. Then I went to the list of applications and uninstalled (luckily, that's possible) a bunch of games and other crap that Alcatel installed for me. If Alcatel had a better track record, I might actually enjoy trying out the new games they installed for me, but as it stands, I was worried about what might happen if I run them - I prefered to uninstall them. Anyway, after doing all that (sorry I don't have more detailed instructions), I am running with the updated Android for two days, and I haven't seen another ad, unexplained notification, or unsolicited application being installed. Hallelujah!
The ugly news is that after two days, I'm starting to worry that this version is less stable than the previous one. In two days I had to reboot my phone at least three times, once it hung during taking a video, once when Netflix suddenly couldn't find my downloaded content, and once when another app suddenly couldn't use the SD card (and a reboot solved these problems). I can't say I never had to reboot my phone, but this seems to be more frequent than I used to do it. I'm not sure this a real new problem or just a string of bad luck - only time will tell.
Mankann said:
Ah, I understand now. It seems that your phone wants to update to the version that removes fastboot commands (so I suggest you triple-think and triple-check before upgrading).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What is "fastboot commands", and why should I be worried if they are removed?
Mankann said:
"Uninstalling" system apps does not revert them to preinstalled versions, it makes them completely unavailable until hard reset (they are only listed in Settings labeled with "Disabled for current user" and cannot be run). If you decide to do this, you should first install some alternative apps (like Nova Launcher, Google Calendar etc), or else you won't be able to boot and use your phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is not my experience... In the Google Play app. For most applications, "Uninstall" lets you really uninstall an app. But for built-in applications, when you "Uninstall" it asks you if you really want to revert to the pre-installed version, and that is actually what happens. This is why I did on my Alcatel Idol 3 for a year before this latest update. In application tray, when you long-press an application, it lets you "uninstall" regular applications, but for built-in application, the uninstall operation is simply missing. I never found any way to do what you describe - "disable for current user". Somebody above suggested this can be done through adb, but I never saw a way to do this in Alcatel's normal UI.
I wrote above my experience from the upgrade, which you can read, but I have two small comments about your experience:
PN04 said:
I got rid of the apps that could be insta-deleted, and the netflix app can at least be disabled,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's hilarious (or more accurately, sad) how people who already had Netflix installed (like me), their installation got deleted - but for people who never had Netflix, it got installed and made unremovable. Great job Alcatel!
PN04 said:
but the filemanager is by far the worse offender. It's "boost" download and obnoxious UI, not to mention it clutters my notifications and lock screen. I've managed to quiet it down by canceling its access and whatever permissions I could. The fact that it restarts itself after a few seconds is just as irritating even before the reports that it actually may make my phone operate worse.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What I did to solve this was to reduce its permissions and more importantly, go into the file manager, go into its "settings", and ask it to stop its notifications. Luckily, it worked, and I never heard from the filemanager again. I don't know if it continues to do evil stuff in the background. It appears it is still running (my app info tells me it has used memory in the last 3 hours), but using "0%" CPU.
PN04 said:
this was a really nice phone until they ruined it with this garbage.
I wanted to at least add my voice to the rest that are complaining about this and telling Alcatel this is the last product of their's I'll ever own.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, I wonder if someone in TCL lost their marbles with these adware updates... As I said, I bought *five* of these phones - for me, my wife (two phones), mother-in-law and son, and I would have continued to recommend their phones if it weren't for the tricks they started to pull off last year.
nyh said:
What is "fastboot commands", and why should I be worried if they are removed?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
One of the Alcatel's OTA updates (IIRC, it was from Lollipop to Marshmallow) removed the ability to send fastboot commands to the phone, so that it became very hard to unlock bootloader and install root or custom ROMs. Actually it was already discussed here many times.
nyh said:
Somebody above suggested this can be done through adb, but I never saw a way to do this in Alcatel's normal UI.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can either use adb shell or you can use shell directly on your phone via apps such as Terminal Emulator (Google Play, F-Droid). Of course you cannot do this within "normal" GUI, because it is designed not-to-be-able-to-break-things
I work from home/am self employed so most of the time so my phone doesn't get outside except for a few occasions a week otherwise it's usually connected to the home wifi so that I don't waste data. But this weekend I had to run a few errands and in a single hour outing using mobile data, I force quit the file manager maybe 26 times as opposed to 5 - 8 times just connected to wifi so I feel like it's constantly trying to ping servers unless you restrict it to mobile data. I also noticed that number dropped by half to maybe 3 or 4 times in the house when I had a few apps like AIMP or one of the games I do play on it to pass time idling in the background. As I said before I did cancel every permission I could find for it and it still manages to crawl out of the grave every so often but maybe those apps had a high enough priority level so having them active an in memory pushes it down the list.... Literally while typing this just now I was charging the phone and got the signal that the battery was full, woke it up to check if file Manager was running, saw nothing on the lock screen, unplugged it and File manager popped up again.
This update is a cancer. I haven't had to restart yet, but I've definitely noticed a few more app crashes. The loss of Fastboot might explain why my first attempt to hide the offenders with ADB failed. after installing every thing , switching to developer mode and connecting it to my computer the phone just refused to show up in the program (again, this might still be a computer issue because I've had trouble with minor developer tools in the past). I may not be an Android developer like some people on this side but feel like I fiollowed the instructions correctly. I get the feeling this is bad news. We might not be able to even get a different rom installed on it at this point.
Is it possible someone has an older version of the firmware that can be reinstalled over top of this some how? ugh, I really can't afford to have to buy a new phone right now.
PN04 said:
This update is a cancer
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree. People, please try to avoid this update. If you can find a way to stop the "update" process from notifying you, great, if you don't, learn to leave with them - it's better than doing the update.
After another day experience with this update, I figured out that:
1. The "Google Play Services" processes takes 30% of the CPU all the time, and causes my battery to run out after 6 or so hours. This was not the case before the update. I can't figure out what is calling the "Google Play Services". I see the evil "File Manager" running, but it's not taking up CPU, and nothing else takes CPU except the "Google Play Services".
2. Every once in a while - several times each day (!) - something "hangs" in the OS, and applications start to hang: sometimes they can't start, sometimes they can't read their data (!?), sometimes they can't connect to the network (!?), and other bizarre phenomena. Rebooting the phone solves the problem, and I've been doing this several times each day now. Before that I rarely had to reboot the phone (maybe once a week).
Avoid this update. Like the plague. Shame on Alcatel / TCL.
Mankann said:
Code:
pm uninstall --user 0 com.package.name
(this uninstalls system apps for the current user, so that they cannot be launched, do not notify about their updates in Google Play, and this works without root)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Doesn't work for me:
pm uninstall --user 0 com.jrdcom.filemanager
Error: java.lang.SecurityException: Package null does not belong to 10096