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Building Andriod phone into laptop?

The other day, i was sitting with my trusty Thinkpad T60p and my Galaxy S and suddenly i got this idea... i want to build a Android phone into the palmrest! So now i'm just throwing thoughts out the get myself started.
It would be great to have everything Conky provides now, calendar, email and other stuff, placed on a small LCD on the laptop.
So i need to get a spare palmrest for the laptop of eBay, in case the idea doesn't really work out, and a Android phone i can play around with. It seems as Windows Mobile phones are cheaper 2nd. hand, and as i don't really need the phone part of the phone to work, it might be the way to go. So what WinMo phones are good enough to run Android to get: booting into Android without user interaction, touchscreen and hardware buttons, maybe wifi and 3G, but only it it's good enough to provide a access point, USB net and Android 2.x?
What native Android phones should i look for? I think i'll need the hardware buttons to be on a separate PCB, a small (2,8" to 3.2") screen. CPU and memory isn't really that important. Also the LCD and main PCB needs to be quite flat. If i had brought a screwdriver to school, i could have measured just how flat.
Is there a launcher that can do everything in landscape mode?
Have anyone done something similar to this? Build a Android phone into anything else?
I need to modify the battery circuit to make to phone run of the laptop battery, as i don't think i can find internal room for it and connect the USB port in the phone to the internal USB header where my fingerprint reader isn't going to be anymore.

[Q] MaPan MX319/JXD S9100 Help

As far as I can tell, the title says what the tablet's model is although I'm not 100% sure as it doesn't have any stickers or decals giving any clues as what it's exact model is other than it has 8GB of storage.
My brother found it in a house he was remodeling for someone. The last occupants of the house were long since gone and the owner (who my brother was doing the work for) said he could keep it and since he already has a tablet, he gave it to me.
The downsides to this are;
1. It has no SD card. But I can easily go out and buy one.
2. It's locked with a passcode and since it's original owners are long gone, there's no way to get the code.
The passcode can range from a single digit and above so guessing was obviously out of the question.
I tried looking up the recovery button sequence and after trying countless different ones that I've found, I've had no luck.
Windows 7 recognizes it as a USB Composite Device, I've tried the instuctions found in google to get it to recognize it as a tablet, but so far no luck there either. The tablet doesn't even show a prompt for USB Mass Storage when it's plugged in. It simply displays the passcode number pad.
I've considered flashing it but LiveSuite is a joke. After trying to decipher all the broken english, it wont even recognize the tablet. I found the firmware on the MaPan website after digging through all their tablet models and comparing the pictures until I found the exact match of the one I have.
Any idea how I can make this tablet usable? I have Ubuntu 12.04 in virtualbox as well if using that will make it easier.
Also, if anyone asks for pictures, I'm sorry as I don't have a camera. I have a cheap phone but it doesn't have one.

[Q] USB stopped working, can't see files on PC

Has anyone had the problem of USB no longer working? It charges the device, but PC will not recognize the device - no icon or ability to see it as a drive in the PC. I've tried different cables and laptops, but same problem. (And the old cables & laptops work fine with my other USB devices). The phone & USB worked flawlessly the first 4 days I've had it - no problems transferring files from PC to phone & back.
Bone stock Galaxy S6 128 GB on Verizon.
Win 8.1 on Yoga 13 and Win 7 on Latitude 6400.
Thanks for any guidance.

Check to make sure the drivers are on the computer and try a different USB ports

stantaur said:
Has anyone had the problem of USB no longer working? It charges the device, but PC will not recognize the device - no icon or ability to see it as a drive in the PC. I've tried different cables and laptops, but same problem. (And the old cables & laptops work fine with my other USB devices). The phone & USB worked flawlessly the first 4 days I've had it - no problems transferring files from PC to phone & back.
Bone stock Galaxy S6 128 GB on Verizon.
Win 8.1 on Yoga 13 and Win 7 on Latitude 6400.
Thanks for any guidance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Make sure USB debugging is checked. Go to about phone. Go to "build". Tap on it rapidly until it says you now are a developer. Back out of about phone and go into the new option "Developer Options" and check USB debugging. When you hook up your phone you may get a popup that asks if you want to trust this computer. Say yes. On your notification page, it might say you are connected as an installer. Change it to media. Sometimes you need to toggle back and forth from camera and media.

Tulsadiver said:
Make sure USB debugging is checked. Go to about phone. Go to "build". Tap on it rapidly until it says you now are a developer. Back out of about phone and go into the new option "Developer Options" and check USB debugging. When you hook up your phone you may get a popup that asks if you want to trust this computer. Say yes. On your notification page, it might say you are connected as an installer. Change it to media. Sometimes you need to toggle back and forth from camera and media.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you. Yes, tried Dev mode and USB debugging, but no luck. Phone double-beeps when I connect the USB to it (and begins to charge), but no pop-ups on either phone or laptop in relation to storage / ability to manage files. No drive shown for the phone (whereas Thurs-Fri the phone showed up as an extra drive when I plugged it in.)
I also did a Factory Reset, just to see if going all the way back to square one would help. No luck there either. Phone still won't recognize laptop, laptop doesn't recognize phone.
That leads me to think something died in the hardware, firmware or something. This Win8.1 laptop works great with all my other devices.
I'm in the 10 day trial/return period (and coming from 2 yrs of flawless-except-****ty-camera HTC One M7 experience) - so if this is the "crap" quality people say is endemic to Samsung (srsly, 3 days and the phone does this? WTH), please let me know so I can get a G4 or Nexus 6 (can't go back to HTC M9 since the M7's camera was a 2 year prison sentence).

stantaur said:
Thank you. Yes, tried Dev mode and USB debugging, but no luck. Phone double-beeps when I connect the USB to it (and begins to charge), but no pop-ups on either phone or laptop in relation to storage / ability to manage files. No drive shown for the phone (whereas Thurs-Fri the phone showed up as an extra drive when I plugged it in.)
I also did a Factory Reset, just to see if going all the way back to square one would help. No luck there either. Phone still won't recognize laptop, laptop doesn't recognize phone.
That leads me to think something died in the hardware, firmware or something. This Win8.1 laptop works great with all my other devices.
I'm in the 10 day trial/return period (and coming from 2 yrs of flawless-except-****ty-camera HTC One M7 experience) - so if this is the "crap" quality people say is endemic to Samsung (srsly, 3 days and the phone does this? WTH), please let me know so I can get a G4 or Nexus 6 (can't go back to HTC M9 since the M7's camera was a 2 year prison sentence).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've read some horror stories but I love mine. I have two and no problems at all. See if you can get a new one with another trial period.

Tulsadiver said:
I've read some horror stories but I love mine. I have two and no problems at all. See if you can get a new one with another trial period.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Been on the line with Verizon Tech Support for 2 hours as of this writing. Re-did all the diags, reset, Kies, etc. that I did Sunday from the VZN and Sammy websites. Combined with the re-setting of folders, Peel remote, TouchDown, etc. I'd done on the first phone, I'll have wasted a full day just fixing the phone.
Wish the HTC M9 had a better camera, G4 had better battery life or Nexus 6 had a better audio chip. If they send me a new GS6 and it flops again, does anyone have a recommended fallback phone to get as a placeholder until something better makes it to market (M9+ with fingerprint reader, better CPU, better camera)?

stantaur said:
Been on the line with Verizon Tech Support for 2 hours as of this writing. Re-did all the diags, reset, Kies, etc. that I did Sunday from the VZN and Sammy websites. Combined with the re-setting of folders, Peel remote, TouchDown, etc. I'd done on the first phone, I'll have wasted a full day just fixing the phone.
Wish the HTC M9 had a better camera, G4 had better battery life or Nexus 6 had a better audio chip. If they send me a new GS6 and it flops again, does anyone have a recommended fallback phone to get as a placeholder until something better makes it to market (M9+ with fingerprint reader, better CPU, better camera)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
NO HELP FROM VERIZON "TECH SUPPORT" OR "WARRANTY" having spent 3 hours on tech support with Verizon...
Our Samsung GS6 failed Saturday (USB won't connect to any laptops using any cables) and I spent Sunday doing Verizon's online fixes (including safe mode, factory reset, Kies, etc.) and 3 hours with Verizon tech support this morning with no resolution.
Verizon is calling Samsung and "will get back with me later this week" if and when they find or make sense of other field failures that match my phone. (Really? And how would Zappos, Amazon and other customer service benchmarks handle it? Yep, overnight a new one after 5 min call and issue RMA for the defective item to be overnighted for tear-down / fault analysis). And by the way, my wife and I are paying for "next day" replacement and within the 14-day trial period...
So one would think Verizon would overnight ship a new GS6 out to me immediately and have me ship the defective GS6 to Samsung for tear-down analysis.
That's not the case. How Verizon is handling this frankly has us spooked that Verizon does not in fact stand behind either their products or "warranty" services.
I'd hope that our 14-day return-policy time-clock be reset and a new GS6 black 128GB be overnighted to me, or find some way of extending the return window (since the device, and its "warranty" and the customer "service" have all failed within 2 days of receiving the phone).
Think I'm going to be stuck with the LG G4 or maybe even swapping carriers.

Go to a store. If they can't do anything ask for a refund.

stantaur said:
Has anyone had the problem of USB no longer working? It charges the device, but PC will not recognize the device - no icon or ability to see it as a drive in the PC. I've tried different cables and laptops, but same problem. (And the old cables & laptops work fine with my other USB devices). The phone & USB worked flawlessly the first 4 days I've had it - no problems transferring files from PC to phone & back.
Bone stock Galaxy S6 128 GB on Verizon.
Win 8.1 on Yoga 13 and Win 7 on Latitude 6400.
Thanks for any guidance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's not a work/corporate PC, is it? I had a similar issue, and turns out that USB storage devices were disabled by Windows policy.
Have you tried to use ADB with the phone? If you install ADB drivers, you could verify that you can at least connect...

VZN and Samsung tech support / customer service FTL
jimbobtexas said:
It's not a work/corporate PC, is it? I had a similar issue, and turns out that USB storage devices were disabled by Windows policy.
Have you tried to use ADB with the phone? If you install ADB drivers, you could verify that you can at least connect...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
One of my laptops is personal Win 8.1, the other is corporate Win 7. Neither laptop recognized the Samsung GS6 after day 2, but worked flawlessly up until that time.
Still nothing back from Tech Support / Samsung "researching" the problem. Total WTF with those yaboes.
Monday I engaged the team who originally sold us the GS6 at our local store, and they're saying my new phone (replacement) will be in the store by Sat 6/27. 5+ days without a phone, but if this replacement doesn't suffer any issues, great.

Have you solved this issue? My wife's meet the same issue. And we did a lot ..... But it still no work.

This happened to me today. Computer would not recognize device. I toggled USB to camera mode then back to media device in phone settings and my pc recognized it again.

i9300 repair or retrieving internal storage if phone is not detected from computer?

HI
My wife's phone (i9300 galaxy S3) has gone wrong and it went off without battery.
I found a new battery, but it lasted only one day. I thus decided to take it for repair,
as I think that this is the charge connector that is broken, but actually, the tech told me that it was probably the motherboard,
as when it used a tool to plug it to the direct charge ports on the side, the phone only bootlooped.
Thing is:
My wife's phone wasn't using cloud or external SD,
it was not rooted.
I tried some android toolkits to connect it, but odin or adb don't detect it, so I have no chance to try and put some new kernel on it.
It has no recovery mode, and when in download mode (1st screen), it actually doesn't last long before it reboots anyway.
Choosing some option will also make it reboot.
So I think it is failed beyond software repair.
But if you have suggestion for this (the tech was at a small street stall and I don't expect him to be high level, no offense, but he seemed to only perform two repairs, screen and charge flex boards, so not much more able than me if he can't go beyond this), feel free?
So my second question is :
Does anyone know how to retrieve the internal storage of the phone without breaking it, and reinstall it in a working way on a new motherboard?
Or alternatively, on an emmc reader such as those used for raspberry cards and so on? (I don't want to put some link, I don't want my message to be filtered)
The photos on this chip are priceless for us, and I would even pay professional to retrieve these (I would prefer not having to, because money doesn't exactly come cheap to me, but I guess I won't be able to make it alone.
So if you know some repair service in Europe that would be able to perform such task, I would be grateful for your sharing of such knowledge.
I saw an alternative in malaysia, but it feels a little too far for being able to do something in case of problem.
Thanks for your attention and time.

PX5 USB & SSD setups -working situations

Just wanted to know what people have got running on thier systems now adays..
I had a 128g sdcard and a 32g USB in the PX3 that did the trick. But now I have changed cars and upgraded the unit.. am looking at using a few SSD's I have kicking around.
There was old threads on guys setting up external powered USB hubs and running 1t 2.5 drives when these units first came out..
But with the advent of low powered SSD's almost a dime a dozen.. (well 250gb for under $50).. with luck there is not too many barriers to plug and play..
I say that tongue in cheek as I know about the limits of Android previously seeing anything over 32gb & 64gb..but as it has matured it has been getting better with the storage situation..
So what is max people have got going at the moment?

While I am at it..
(And I didn't think it was right.to clutter up the ROMs threads with this question)
Split screen ROMs..
Just had a look at both devolopment ROMs and couldn't see if any had the ability.
I remember seeing a few units with this ability around the traps as I was searching for mine.. ( maybe just a sales gimick)
But the old transformers had this ability via the very talented Tim's rom work and I am surprised it hasn't become the norm in Android..
I do understand that we have 'draw over top of other apps' permission.. and that gmaps does do it's little minimizer thing..but it's kinda crude in that it is taking re-estate on top of say the music app..
A better look on these bigger screens would be GPS on one side and music on the other..
I mean they have the CPU and GPU memory to handle this..

The Android 8.0 ROMs do have split screen (even stock). With an app open, just press and hold the "recent apps" button and you can then select another app to run and they will run in split screen mode.
However, not all apps support this - and some will force-close as well. It's a nice feature to have, but it's a little limited right now.
Give it a try though...

Thanks for that will try it and report back.
Understand that it's also a safety issue while driving..
(Lol and that is another conversation ).
But seriously it would be better to set this up before hitting the road. i.e GPS navigation on one side and selection of music playing on the other..and or radio stations..
That way your not trying to reach across playing with it while driving.
I know, I know and it's been debated a tad in another thread. Thus the reason they are supposed to be locked down from driver interaction via motion sensors.
Which if a named brand, is a good idea to migrate liabilities.. you don't want to be held liable if some fool crashes and kills themselves and or others while using a entertainment system that comes stock with a car.. (nanny state type scenario).
This also brings up good steering wheel key mapping especially now that many of these units are going down the path of being knob less..and we are going for the full screen experience.

dgcruzing said:
Just wanted to know what people have got running on thier systems now adays..
I had a 128g SD card and a 32g USB in the PX3 that did the trick. But now I have changed cars and upgraded the unit.. am looking at using a few SSD's I have kicking around.
There was old threads on guys setting up external powered USB hubs and running 1t 2.5 drives when these units first came out..
But with the advent of low powered SSD's almost a dime a dozen.. (well 250gb for under $50).. with luck there is not too many barriers to plug and play..
I say that tongue in cheek as I know about the limits of Android previously seeing anything over 32gb & 64gb..but as it has matured it has been getting better with the storage situation..
So what is max people have got going at the moment?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
128GB sd card, formatted Fat32 (by android unit itself)
Works fine except
Oreo want to "check CF card for errors" each time it comes out of sleep, or on boot.
With and 8GB or 16GB CF card, that does not take too much time, but a 128GB CF takes about 45 seconds !!!
Maybe a USB SSD (as opposed to a USD Flash Drive stick), would not require this error Check. I suspect a USB Flash drive will.
This alone might be the justification for a USB SSD

Haven't been able to test it as yet .
Seems I got the slow boat from China on this supplier of SSD and M2 housings..
With luck they are here this week and can run some tests and report back.
Pretty sure these are not USB 3 connections we have but USB 2?.. need to check the specs..do know there is 3 USB inputs on the unit..

dgcruzing said:
Haven't been able to test it as yet .
Seems I got the slow boat from China on this supplier of SSD and M2 housings..
With luck they are here this week and can run some tests and report back.
Pretty sure these are not USB 3 connections we have but USB 2?.. need to check the specs..do know there is 3 USB inputs on the unit..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Might do better to actually measure the speed with a 3.0 USB device.
They can say anything in the spec !!!
It may be 3.0, but it also may be slow !!

Finally the bits and pieces arrived today and had a quick play with it..
So far not looking good.
Will document it a bit more and report back..
But it seems the same old story as with the PX3 machines..and the limitations of Android.
While this is being addressed in newer versions of phones and Android version upgrades.. i.e the phones with 128 and 256g ..
These units are still limited to the lower end spectrum.
But with that being said..
The 180g SSD and housing through the machine into a tantrum.. as in pulling to much power through the ports it seems. As lost GSP ability..
Yes truely.. could not get a satellite fix . Pulled the drive and it worked.. put 32gig USB in..not drama..SSD back in and same..
Dropped the 256g M2 in.. formatted as Fat32.. and it was seen via that machine..but as I was in a hurry..I didn't get time to copy anything across to it..
Had a quick play tonight and was thinking about transfer from internal memory to it..but now it's not being seen..
Will put it through the format again and see if it works..
Got to be noted I am using generic Chinese housings..and thus anything could be up with these..
As even with the formatting..there is a bit to play around with..as in..my win10 machines are not seeing them but when I plug them into the Synology they are showing up fine..
Once again.. what have others been successful with or is it just the 128g USBs sticks that are going to have to do?.
And from reading..most are only loading up 1x of the USB ports due to the problematic USB board/port burn out?..
Seems a waste to have 3x USB ports and can't use them.. have tested all 3 with the 32g USB..and they are seeing it and playing music and video off it..

Personally, I'm happy just using the SD card slots. With a custom ROM, 128GB NTFS cards work great (read and write). I recently just tried disabling the filesystem check as well and now they basically mount almost instantly. Since i never remove them, I don't see the need to check the filesystems every time the unit comes out of sleep. So far, I haven't had any issues. If I ever do run into issues, I'll re-enabled the filesystem check since it only took a few seconds with NTFS anyway - even with fully-loaded 128GB SD cards.
For me, with (2) SD cards slots and 128GB SD cards (never tried 256GB cards) - that is plenty of storage. Plus, you can always switch SD cards as well. I just don't have the need for more that 256GB of storage on my head-unit. I'm guessing that you could use 128GB or 256GB NTFS USB thumb drives as well (so 3x128GB or probably even 3x256GB). You just need to root and/or install a custom ROM. It's really easy to do - with all of the effort you are putting into trying to make things work with stock un-rooted, you can have easily installed a custom ROM and went that route. You can always go back to stock un-rooted if you want/need to.
Or - maybe you can connect a powered USB hub if USB power is the issue? Obviously, you'd need to figure out how to power it, but I'm sure it can be done...

Yes.. chances are I will go down the custom rom route.
Just haven't had the time to sit in the car for the afternoon and flash it.
The unit I have got hasn't got sdcard slots.
(Or it may have but from some reading there is a possibility that there is one hidden behind the facing they put on to suit each car... I did have a check before install on how that is put on and seems it's just a set of screws.. and I suppose I can just send an email to the team and ask..lol)
That was the setup on the PX3 unit just had a 128 sdcard and it worked fine..
Only reason I grabbed the housing for the SSD's and M2 was they where sitting doing nothing so I might as well use them for something and or give them away.
Anyway will book an afternoon in for a play as the after market reversing cam wiring harness turned up today.. with luck it's just plug and play..
Might flash a rom and upgrade the MCU..
As per banter in some of the other threads..once the setup is done and I am a happy camper with stability.. then won't be a flashaholic as don't see the need to flash for flashing sake..just want to jump in and GPS, music, Radio or watch porn with the girl in the car..
Lol..I. Saying that just to get a chuckle from you know who...?

@jtrosky
 @dgcruzing
How did you manage to disable the filesystem check after sleep?
I use tweo 128gb sticks on my PX5 MTCE device and they took about 30-40s to be mounted, because they're checked for errors each time.
This is very annoying - could you tell me how you disabled it (or any workaround)?
Thank you!