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Android iPad-like list?

Is there any device list of Android anti-iPad devices which can be bought and really available on the market?
I'm looking for a programmable device which can, as we currently do with all HTC phones, be modified as preferred changing ROMs and so on..
Do you have any suggestion?

The only ones that exist are straight from china. I would recommend waiting for Samsung's Galaxy Tab or the Verizon/Moto Tablet

nbs11 said:
The only ones that exist are straight from china. I would recommend waiting for Samsung's Galaxy Tab or the Verizon/Moto Tablet
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Yes I also read about it but I didn't understand prices neither the day start selling..
China versions costs about 150€ and it could be a real intersting device even if I'd like to have also 3g module inside.

Stock Android Phone

I have seen extreme talent on these forums. I really like a stock android phone like nexus one with no options removed. I eagerly waited for G2 to only know that its not a complete stock android phone. It has its share of tweaks.
I have not seen any company even thinking of a stock android phone.
After looking the software talent this forum has, I felt that Y don't I find get few people together and discuss the idea of assembling a phone ourselves with stock android. It may sound crazy ... but I don't see any manufacturers or google thinking of a pure android phone ..... If successful, there is a decent market for a pure android phone and there is always a scope of a starup .....
We need right mix of people .. what do you guys think of it??? Anyone interested ... let me know your comments on this idea.

I'm afraid there are some problems with that. Suppose we build a phone and intend for it to have only unlocked Android with no sponsored programs, we would then have to work with a communications network to sell it. They would be the ones to impose additions to the phone. The G2 is actually the closest you can get to selling naked android and soon enough it will take just a couple clicks to have it completely unlocked and ready to go.
What sets the G2 apart from other phones, though, is that it uses the stock android user interface. In that important sense it is naked android.

What you say is the way the current market goes ... but there is a market where people don't want to stay in contract .... It may not be widespread .... just like how nexus one worked .... Google sold around 200,000 nexus one phones .. we may not see another nexus one again. The manufacturing cost of the mobile phone is between $60 - $180 depending on the specifications. We don't need to manufacture instead we need to assemble. 5 people together - taking a $10 per phone selling 10,000 phones would give $100,000 each (plus $100,000 for customer service operations). Even a phone priced at $350 with better than a Samsung Intercept standard would be a decent sell (10,000 phones - this number is 0.00001 percent of world market). The only place we will lack is Customer Service. Best examples are the china phones which are a decent success in world market today. The sales growth of branded phone market is on a decline if you check the sales for last 3 years. The main target customers will be people looking for a good genuine stock android phone users.

I like your boldness. If I knew more about this stuff I'd be right there with you. Good luck
Sent from my DI
Redemption Rom
King CFS #4 Kernel
2.15 Radio and .92 hboot
Removed Rosie - LauncherPro
8"

[Q] Looking for information

Hey, as of today I bought the Lenovo A880, I know this is an A850 forum but there doesn't seem to be any A880 forums. I looked at the specs and there are little differences between the two phone, same OS, processor etc. But different GPU (Mali-400), 8GB storage etc.
This is my first time buying a phone from China, or even outside of my home country (Ireland), but may I ask is there anything I need to do to the phone in order for it to work in the European market or even in Ireland?
I'd love some decent advice as I said, I'm a noob at this!
Thank you

MichaelCycleTheBycle said:
Hey, as of today I bought the Lenovo A880, I know this is an A850 forum but there doesn't seem to be any A880 forums. I looked at the specs and there are little differences between the two phone, same OS, processor etc. But different GPU (Mali-400), 8GB storage etc.
This is my first time buying a phone from China, or even outside of my home country (Ireland), but may I ask is there anything I need to do to the phone in order for it to work in the European market or even in Ireland?
I'd love some decent advice as I said, I'm a noob at this!
Thank you
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Click to collapse
Most shops sent the device ready for use (inside Europe). There are some people saying that they have signal problems (in USA for ex.) but generaly i think you will not have any problems
If the phone does not have a playstore, rooted and install it or flash it with a pre-rooted rom... most times all these are by default.

GreatApo said:
Most shops sent the device ready for use (inside Europe). There are some people saying that they have signal problems (in USA for ex.) but generaly i think you will not have any problems
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Click to collapse
This kinda has me confused, the phone is made for the Chinese market but I can use it in Ireland as if I walked to my local phone shop and bought any phone? Am I getting this much right?
GreatApo said:
If the phone does not have a playstore, rooted and install it or flash it with a pre-rooted rom... most times all these are by default.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Would you mind explaining this to me? I'm well used to working with computers, this will be the first time I having done anything technical with phones, I just generally used them for calls, texts and social media.

MichaelCycleTheBycle said:
This kinda has me confused, the phone is made for the Chinese market but I can use it in Ireland as if I walked to my local phone shop and bought any phone? Am I getting this much right?
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Click to collapse
Yes, most times it is like getting the phone from your nead store.
ZTE are chinese phones but you can go out and buy one from a near store. On the other hand, Lenovo has not expand its phone devices in europe, so there may not be your language in the phone (but good devs have cooked the officials ROMs so these things are available).
An other issue is when the phone is "locked" and this means that is ment to be for only specific companies (ex Vodafone) but most phones are unlocked
MichaelCycleTheBycle said:
Would you mind explaining this to me? I'm well used to working with computers, this will be the first time I having done anything technical with phones, I just generally used them for calls, texts and social media.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Root means gaining administrator access over your phone. Normally, when you buy a phone you are a user not an administrator. When we talk about android, root access is having administrators rights, on iPhone it is called jailbreak (also on playstation 3 or PSP ). Why to gain access? Then you will have the full control of your phone, which for a normal android user it is not so usefull BUT since you have an XDA account your are not a normal user
The Google Play is the largest app store on androids (most devices have it as a default) but if you do not have it you need root access to install it. Then you can download apps easily from there
Flash means sth like formating/changing the operation system (ex. windows) of your phone. There are ROMs (phone firmwares) made by some developers that may be better than the one you may have. Example: you may be able to move apps to SDcard, the google play will be installed and the phone will be rooted. Most chinese stores install such ROMs before they sent the phone to you
The difference with the PCs is that each ROM is specified for each phone (drivers issues). So you can't just grap a ROM from a850 and put it in a880. The flashing process is also defferent from phone to phone (most times between companies). Ex: if you want to flash a sony phone you do not use the same program you use for a MTK device (like Lenovo's), and yes you flash your phone while you have it connected with your computer.
I wrote you some general info, you can google anything for more details. I hope you got the general idea

GreatApo said:
Yes, most times it is like getting the phone from your nead store.
ZTE are chinese phones but you can go out and buy one from a near store. On the other hand, Lenovo has not expand its phone devices in europe, so there may not be your language in the phone (but good devs have cooked the officials ROMs so these things are available).
An other issue is when the phone is "locked" and this means that is ment to be for only specific companies (ex Vodafone) but most phones are unlocked
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Gotchya, I definitely made sure that the phone was unlocked before I actually bought it, I just can't get over the price difference between Chinese phone companies and International phone companies, for the A880 I paid in the region of €100-€150 I've done a bit of research and what not on it and it's a tad more powerful than the Samsung Galaxy S3 which would cost someone €600-€700
GreatApo said:
Root means gaining administrator access over your phone. Normally, when you buy a phone you are a user not an administrator. When we talk about android, root access is having administrators rights, on iPhone it is called jailbreak (also on playstation 3 or PSP ). Why to gain access? Then you will have the full control of your phone, which for a normal android user it is not so usefull BUT since you have an XDA account your are not a normal user
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Aha! :highfive: I know what you're talking about now, the word 'root' was throwing me off
GreatApo said:
Flash means sth like formating/changing the operation system (ex. windows) of your phone. There are ROMs (phone firmwares) made by some developers that may be better than the one you may have. Example: you may be able to move apps to SDcard, the google play will be installed and the phone will be rooted. Most chinese stores install such ROMs before they sent the phone to you
The difference with the PCs is that each ROM is specified for each phone (drivers issues). So you can't just grap a ROM from a850 and put it in a880. The flashing process is also defferent from phone to phone (most times between companies). Ex: if you want to flash a sony phone you do not use the same program you use for a MTK device (like Lenovo's), and yes you flash your phone while you have it connected with your computer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have a slight idea of it now, I nearly **** myself earlier because I thought I made a HUGE mistake aha! I'll definitely look into it more, thanks for the replies, really appreciated. I'll definitely let you know how I get on and how well the phone works, if you are interested

MichaelCycleTheBycle said:
Gotchya, I definitely made sure that the phone was unlocked before I actually bought it, I just can't get over the price difference between Chinese phone companies and International phone companies, for the A880 I paid in the region of €100-€150 I've done a bit of research and what not on it and it's a tad more powerful than the Samsung Galaxy S3 which would cost someone €600-€700
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Price differences are true. Lenovo a850 (my phone) costs 120€ from china and 240€ in Greece. This is because of the taxies, some stores order these phones (since lenovo has not open its phones in Europe) so there are more taxies.
On the other hand, there are some good choises made by Lenovo to hit the market with a lower cost. Your screen is not the same with S3, it may have twice the pixels your phone has, with a better screen quality. Is this so important? For me, no, but it is for sure more expencive.
The phone's camera most times is lower, and most people (people that do not know anything of computers) search for a new phone based on the camera and the logo on the phone, plus it is more expencive to have a better camera. Less RAM is an other feature of Lenovo phones, based to other devieces you can compare them...
From my stand point, you take what you pay. The trick is to take the phone from China, its half the price. Since i want to have a fast phone, i am ok with a lower camera, i do not care. About the screen, MY TV IS FULL HD, why the hell should my phone also be??? This is far too much...

GreatApo said:
On the other hand, there are some good choises made by Lenovo to hit the market with a lower cost. Your screen is not the same with S3, it may have twice the pixels your phone has, with a better screen quality. Is this so important? For me, no, but it is for sure more expencive.
The phone's camera most times is lower, and most people (people that do not know anything of computers) search for a new phone based on the camera and the logo on the phone, plus it is more expencive to have a better camera.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've always had an under-powered phone compared to family and friends, and being into computer I'd much rather have processing power, RAM and the likes. The screen on the A880 will be probably be the best screen I ever had as well as the camera. The most pixels I ever had is probably 2.5 haha
GreatApo said:
Less RAM is an other feature of Lenovo phones, based to other devieces you can compare them...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Really? The A880 has 1GB of RAM I thought that was good since the bog standard desktops at work have 2GB of RAM
GreatApo said:
From my stand point, you take what you pay. The trick is to take the phone from China, its half the price. Since i want to have a fast phone, i am ok with a lower camera, i do not care. About the screen, MY TV IS FULL HD, why the hell should my phone also be??? This is far too much...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah and you could buy a half decent camera for €50/60 and still save a couple of hundred Euro!
I just found out that the phone comes already rooted with Google Play installed, sweet!

MichaelCycleTheBycle said:
Really? The A880 has 1GB of RAM I thought that was good since the bog standard desktops at work have 2GB of RAM
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Click to collapse
Lenovo A850 is a cheap edition of Samsung Note 2 (no in the appearance). Note 2 has 2 GB of ram... i do not know if is is too much but i know 1GB is good enough for me
MichaelCycleTheBycle said:
I just found out that the phone comes already rooted with Google Play installed, sweet!
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Click to collapse
I told you, most sellers take care of such things.

Canadian buys brand new US model Axon 7 mini for $109.99

I have the PC Mobile version of the Axon 7 mini, and I am disappointed with the lack of support for this phone. It looks like it will be stuck on stock 6.0.1 forever.
I will be visiting family in the US for a few weeks, and I don't have roaming, so I went to bestbuy.com to get a 30 day US plan. I noticed that they are clearing out the gold Axon 7 mini for $159.99, probably because ZTE is mentioned as one of the companies to avoid if you're worried about Chinese spyware. They also have a special deal of $50 off a phone if you buy a Simple Mobile SIM card for $1 and a 30 day plan for $40. A perfect storm for me, so I got the phone for $109.99 with the deal. I will pick up the phone in store when I get there to avoid shipping cost to Canada.
Hypothetically speaking, if there is spyware on this phone, would installing Lineage fix that?

Y
E
S

RFrancis said:
Y
E
S
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Are you saying yes installing Lineage would get rid of any possible spyware?

qzjxk said:
Are you saying yes installing Lineage would get rid of any possible spyware?
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Click to collapse
In the OS? Yes.
In the firmware (which operates in parallel with the OS and regulates its ability to access certain hardware features such as the cellular radio)? There might still be some risk.

This whole spyware business is confusing to me. If there was spyware on Chinese phones, wouldn't Google or Symantec or someone/anyone have discovered it by now? Has malware become so sophisticated that it's undetectable?

qzjxk said:
This whole spyware business is confusing to me. If there was spyware on Chinese phones, wouldn't Google or Symantec or someone/anyone have discovered it by now? Has malware become so sophisticated that it's undetectable?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The weirdly named 'TouchPal' virtual keyboard may or may not be spyware. I installed Gboard and totally disabled all Touchpal software, but various language packs, (also disabled), keep showing up as using the battery. It cannot be uninstalled without root access.
Do a google search. It is considered malware by many.

Global Rom or Global Version, What would you do?

I want a New phone and I would be using it in Canada. I have been looking mostly on Aliexpress
because I can save quite a bit of money. I am looking for a Motorola because suppose to be clean android and
little or no Bloatware at least the version from Canada. I know nothing about downloading Roms and don't know the meaning of what Rooting is
so I have to keep things simple. My dilemma is do I get a Global Version because I will get OTA updates with no hassle or a Chinese Version that the seller has flashed a Global Rom on? The Chinese with the global rom may or may not get OTA updates but is cheaper than a True Global Version from Aliexpress.
The seller says I can update the phone myself? I don't mind updating if the phone notifies me of an update and I just have to Tap to install
but I don't know if it is that easy? What should I do?
Also Motorola doesn't have any Global Version I can find like Xiaomi has but even they do not have all models in Global Versions.

I would never buy a phone off AliExpress because this seller is known to sell fake produccts.
Generally, AliExpress is a great place to source your merchandise only if you know how to find genuine products on the site.

redrooster62 said:
(...) I have been looking mostly on Aliexpress
because I can save quite a bit of money. (...)
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Click to collapse
By looking for cheap buys and not knowing anything about the device, you really won't save anything.
In my opinion, it will be better for you if you buy on the local secondary market a phone from a year or two ago, which was categorized as mid-range on the day of its release.

Be careful with any to good to be offer's! Do your homework while shopping...

Yes I know about that. A genuine seller has the money back guarantee protection through aliexpress. The sub par ones do not. I bought a Redmi Note 8 Pro 3 years ago with no problems.

Done lots of homework. When I see a Samsung S22 for $200 I know it's a fake.
The sellers with the guarantee are what I look for.

So now we have got past about shopping on Aliexpress
Is anyone going to comment if the Chinese with a global rom be ok given my skill level or forget it and only buy a true "Global Version"?
My only problem about the CN/Global Rom is getting system and security updates.

Updates get rolled by OEM if they deem it necessary. Has nothing to do what ROM initially is flashed. Providing updates causes enormous costs, which OEMs naturally try to avoid because it reduces the profit margin.
Only with Google devices ( AOSP based ) you can be sure to always get latest updates.

So why then if you buy a Chinese phone flashed with a Global Rom the sellers says OTA updates not supported?

1. My understanding: Global ROM, as also Chinese ROM, is software, whereas Global Version is hardware. But I may err as always.
2. OTA stands for Over the Air ( FOTA – Firmware Over the Air ). It refers to the wireless delivery of new or updated software or firmware to devices such as smartphones and tablets.
The OTA process is self-explanatory in that it delivers updated software wirelessly or ‘over the air’. These updates are distributed over Wi-Fi or mobile broadband using a function built into the smartphone or tablet’s operating system or through a special OTA app that’s given root access. The update goes out to all the designated smartphones or tablets from one central control panel.

I am following you sort of. I know that updates are sent OTA.
What I need to know is how will I get these software and firmware update if the seller is saying "OTA updates" not supported after they install the Global Rom?
My experience so far with pervious cell phones is this process happens automatically with maybe the hardest thing to do is accept it by a Tap.
If this process is complicated because it is not supported I can't continue about thinking to buy as I am not a Tech Savvy cell phone guy.

the answer is very simple: you have to take care of possible updates yourself

No Problem but is it easy like a matter of Tap Yes to update or is like loading another updated Rom?

I don't know if you figured it out or not but in my opinion if you are saving a good amount go for Chinese version and you can simply flash a global one and root your device to get your device certified
Updates will not be the issue you can install the updates the only issue will be after every update you have to root your device again
As you said you don't know how to root. root is something you should have at least basic knowledge to do soo otherwise you may brick your device
So facts are Infront of you if you still think it's worth buying and you can manage the struggle