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[Q] Generic Chinese Clone Devices

Ok, so I'm pretty new to this whole Android thing, but I'm not daft and know a think or two about computers and software, so I'm not a complete 'noob'...
However, to spare me the drama of trawling through thousands of pages, I have a few quick concise questions, and would appreciate concise answers.
So I bought a generic handset, branded as an Onyx Dragon though AnTuTu benchmark app tells me its a Yusu... details and specs from Chinavision.com (search Onyx Dragon).
I initially bought it because I needed a new phone (been on a Moto V3 Razr for about 6 years!) so got this cos it was cheap and looked good. Runs Froyo on what I have found to be pretty **** hardware (MT6516, advertised as 416MHz but shown to be around 207MHz, but not sure if this is main CPU or radio core...) with not a lot of RAM. I installed an 8Gb SD card to save the apps and keep as much free internal space as possible, in case the OS supports disc memory (?). The wireless is good and screen works well, but the GPS, navigation and camera are rubbish, but they are not why I bought it; I have a decent camera and I can read a map. Its definitely 'entry level' so I'm not too bothered if I brick it.
Since I got it, and seeing the many cheap 'clones' out there, I'm keen to get into them a bit more and start developing. I already rooted it with z4root, BusyBox and Superuser all installed fine. ROM Manager is running but because I don't know the actual brand I'm not yet running ClockWorkMod (doesn't show up in the list). I'm keen to install Gingerbread or maybe even CyanogenMod 7, but cannot flash the ROM without CWM. Can anyone tell me what phone 'model' I should use for this particular handset?
I can't overclock the chipset, but have been looking at other clones to play with, such as htc Incredible G11i Pro clone from etotalk.com and 'CyberStar' 3G handset with MT6573 650MHz chipset (also from Chinavision).
Does anyone have any knowledge/experience with these clones? They look great and if they work as well as the budget model I have now then there is certainly potential. Sure, they may not be as good as a genuine Galaxy or Nexus, but then the price reflects that. However, as a cheap development platform you can't really go wrong! I'd like to see faster processors and more hardware mod ability such as clocking, just to see what is possible. Anyone tried ICS on one of these? I read elsewhere that if Froyo runs ok on a cheap device then GB should be better. My friend has GB 2.3.3 on a genuine $500 Galaxy S2 and I'd love to show him up with a rooted and clocked clone running ICS for a fraction of the price!!
Well, thats not as concise as I would like, but it covers pretty much everything. One last thing though, I cannot install ES File Explorer 1.6.1, it will download from Market and attempt to install but then fail. The latest version I have is the pre-installed 1.4.2.2. I've tried everything I can think of; downloading on my Mac and copying via USB to install from Astro making sure ES is not running, failed. Tried uninstalling ES with ROM Toolbox having root access and disabled AVG, failed. Tried to launch new version from package options, failed. I have installed ES Task Manager v1.2 but cannot use all the features as it says File Explorer needs to be updated, and needless to say updating it from the prompts failed as well... Any ideas? I'm thinking a flash to GB should include the latest version (or better alternative).
Thanks all in advance!

I don't think it's possible to run ICS on such a low spec'd device. This onyx dragon runs on a 416Mhz ARM9 processor with a 200 Mhz ARM7 GPU. Even the G1 that uses a 528Mhz ARM11 CPU can't run ICS well. I would suggest that you give up on theses crappy chineses devices. If you don't have money you can find a LG Optimus One for 100 bucks on ebay and it is A LOT better than any of these chinese crap phones
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App

For CWM, take a look at this site http://www.koushikdutta.com/2010/02/clockwork-recovery-image.html and the quote below
Don't see your phone? Email me if you want to help me get it working!
And of course, all the source can be found on Github.
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Please use the Q&A Forum for questions Thanks
Moving to Q&A

Hey all, thanks for the feedback. Basically, sure I don't want to spend a lot being a student, I don't have a lot, but I'm keen to get more out of what I can afford, hence the Chinese crap (yes it is crap but if it does what you need...) : ) just a shame I can't clock mine! Does anyone know if ANY MediaTec chips can be?
Sure, I think running ICS is a bit optimistic, but I'd still like to give GB or C-Mod a go, providing I can get CWM installed. I'd like to compile myself and even think about refining my own version, perhaps slimming down a newer version to run on low performance hardware. What's this about a special cable needed with a 3.5mm jack?
And am I right in thinking Honeycomb was only for tablets, not phones...?

droidscope said:
Hey all, thanks for the feedback. Basically, sure I don't want to spend a lot being a student, I don't have a lot, but I'm keen to get more out of what I can afford, hence the Chinese crap (yes it is crap but if it does what you need...) : ) just a shame I can't clock mine! Does anyone know if ANY MediaTec chips can be?
Sure, I think running ICS is a bit optimistic, but I'd still like to give GB or C-Mod a go, providing I can get CWM installed. I'd like to compile myself and even think about refining my own version, perhaps slimming down a newer version to run on low performance hardware. What's this about a special cable needed with a 3.5mm jack?
And am I right in thinking Honeycomb was only for tablets, not phones...?
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Yes you are right about honeycomb. As for the device. Without kernel source which will never be released due to copyright issues you may have a bit of trouble Modding it. CM only supports authentic devices and not clones as the hardware specs as you learned are faked and never true.

droidscope said:
Hey all, thanks for the feedback. Basically, sure I don't want to spend a lot being a student, I don't have a lot, but I'm keen to get more out of what I can afford, hence the Chinese crap (yes it is crap but if it does what you need...) : ) just a shame I can't clock mine! Does anyone know if ANY MediaTec chips can be?
Sure, I think running ICS is a bit optimistic, but I'd still like to give GB or C-Mod a go, providing I can get CWM installed. I'd like to compile myself and even think about refining my own version, perhaps slimming down a newer version to run on low performance hardware. What's this about a special cable needed with a 3.5mm jack?
And am I right in thinking Honeycomb was only for tablets, not phones...?
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Click to collapse
Hi droidscope,
Not all the Chinese phones are crap there are a few very capable phones now entering the market and they are catching up the bigboys rapidly.
For more info & reviews on the latest Chinese phones check over here http://www.gizchina.com/category/phones/ Try to stick with the branded chinese phones such as Zopo, ZTE, Newman etc because there is at least some support where as the direct copy/clones have no support at all. If buying try to get the phone pre rooted because some of the Chinese phone are getting more difficult to root. I would look here http://www.etotalk.com/ if buying and select the MOD ROM $4.99 for most phones then the phone will come pre rooted with working playstore language etc. They do not 1 to 1 copys although some of the phones have more than a passing look of some of the more famous brands. I have used them a few times and they have not let me down be sure to email them first to ask about stock levels though.

[Q] Is the Galaxy R I9103 still worth buying?

Do you guys think that the I9103 is still worth buying? This device caught my attention since it's one of the few that's supported by the "voodoo sound" application and at the same time is equipped with a tegra 2 chipset, but I'm kind of worried about the problems(Lag, unresponsive screen, reboots...) that seem to affect this particular model, were they all solved in the latest roms?

If you don't worry about not having NEON instruction support in the CPU (nowadays almost all devices support it), it's a good device to get. Unfortunately the lack of that support is a very big miss. There are apps that are built with NEON instructions and those don't work on the device. Google abandoned non-NEON devices support in 4.2.2 and few Google apps need tricking to get them working. Otherwise it's a very good device, stock rom is a bit laggy if not debloated, screen is only unresponsive if your fingers are wet and I've never encountered random reboots.
Sent from my OmniROM-powered LG Optimus 4X HD

@Adam77Root Thank you for your detailed reply! It's a real shame about the lack of neon support in the Tegra 2 devices. Could you tell me what kind of apps (Other than the Google now voice recognition and the Gesture keyboard that were mentioned here "https://plus.google.com/+CyanogenMod/posts/8wcuSVkr7zR") might not work on this device?

Has anyone bought generic unbranded smartphones available on ebay etc?

1) I'm hoping someone can advise pls! I'm a very light user mostly for wsapp and sometimes maps/gps when walking (no gaming and occasionally watch youtube videos) so was hoping to find something £40-£50.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/M20-Pro-...var=564119885073&_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649
There are others I'm looking at but they don't mention anything about the processor (sometimes it'll mention the number of cores but no name)? The specs seem way better than even xiaomi phones for the same money, I know there's gonna be no support updates etc. how important is that? Couldn't I just search for a custom ROM, try to upgrade to higher android version etc? Would it be difficult/impossible to find roms for an unbranded phone?
Also I've read that there's a possibility they could just be sneaky re-brands so potentially could be getting a xiaomi etc. phone for less?
2) I'm also considering paying a bit more if unbranded is a no-go. Xiaomi Redmi 7 3GB/32GB around £100 vs Xiaomi Mi Play 4GB/64GB if it's £6 more?
I like the extra ram and storage for only £6 more but the battery seems better on R7 and larger screen

MTK devices
supashaka said:
1) I'm hoping someone can advise pls! I'm a very light user mostly for wsapp and sometimes maps/gps when walking (no gaming and occasionally watch youtube videos) so was hoping to find something £40-£50.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/M20-Pro-...var=564119885073&_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649
There are others I'm looking at but they don't mention anything about the processor (sometimes it'll mention the number of cores but no name)? The specs seem way better than even xiaomi phones for the same money, I know there's gonna be no support updates etc. how important is that?
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I've seen some advertisements (on wish.com or Ali Express) for devices with no apparent name brand that mention having 10 core processors, dual sim, Android 9 and more. These are all MTK devices which pose difficulties if you want to flash a ROM into them to upgrade or change something. RCA tablets are MTK devices and I, along with many others have spent a lot of time just trying to gain access to such devices. It's been done. However, it has been more than difficult as of yet to find any compatible ROMs and these devices are extremely picky when it comes to using other ROMs. For those of us that are currently still working on it, we have yet to find anything compatible. That's not saying they are bad devices, they are actually pretty good I've had mine (the RCA Maven, Viking and Galileo) for years with little problems.

Casper Young said:
I've seen some advertisements (on wish.com or Ali Express) for devices with no apparent name brand that mention having 10 core processors, dual sim, Android 9 and more. These are all MTK devices which pose difficulties if you want to flash a ROM into them to upgrade or change something. RCA tablets are MTK devices and I, along with many others have spent a lot of time just trying to gain access to such devices. It's been done. However, it has been more than difficult as of yet to find any compatible ROMs and these devices are extremely picky when it comes to using other ROMs. For those of us that are currently still working on it, we have yet to find anything compatible. That's not saying they are bad devices, they are actually pretty good I've had mine (the RCA Maven, Viking and Galileo) for years with little problems.
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Thanks for the reply. Any MTK processor devices are difficult/unlikey to have custom roms or tweak/upgrade in any way?

MTK devices
supashaka said:
Thanks for the reply. Any MTK processor devices are difficult/unlikey to have custom roms or tweak/upgrade in any way?
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Theoretically there should be, but many here would rather work on the newest devices most of which are not MTK (Media Tek). They're not built like Samsungs and if you open one up the whole motherboard is the size of today's phones or roughly one quarter the size of the tablet which could be the reason they're so cheap. The only thing I've been able to flash into mine is the original stock firmware, anything else led to bricking. And recovering from a brick is difficult the SP Flash tool is nothing like the Odin3 we use for Samsungs.

Casper Young said:
Theoretically there should be, but many here would rather work on the newest devices most of which are not MTK (Media Tek). They're not built like Samsungs and if you open one up the whole motherboard is the size of today's phones or roughly one quarter the size of the tablet which could be the reason they're so cheap. The only thing I've been able to flash into mine is the original stock firmware, anything else led to bricking. And recovering from a brick is difficult the SP Flash tool is nothing like the Odin3 we use for Samsungs.
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I have also bought uhans u300 and took a look at the Development & Support topic here, there's absolutely no way to upgrade it from Android 6.0?

Is it realistic to install Android on a 2021 Kindle E-reader ?

Hi !
I'm considering buying an Amazon Kindle E-reader because reading on my phone really hurt my eyes on the long run but I'm worried about being jailed in the Amazon environment. I'm aiming for the cheapest recent model, the Kindle 10.
I was wondering if it's possible to replace the proprietary firmware with Android or a lightweight derivative.
I did some googling but the only result I got was this thread with removed responses : https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/closed-guide-install-android-os-on-kindle-8-gen.4449977/
I'm kinda new so I don't really know what could make it possible or impossible to do it so here's my thoughts :
- Is the Amazon Firmware flashable like I would replace the OS on a computer ?
- Will the hardware be sufficient to run Android or lightweight ? (512MB of RAM, a 1Ghz ARM CPU, 8Gigs of storage, from Wikipedia)
- I know e-inks displays are really slow to refresh so I'll be disabling fancy android animations etc...
I'm not against doing it myself if no one already did, I think this could be a good experience, I just want to be sure I'm not doing something impossible from the start.
Thanks in advance for your help !

hollowww said:
Hi !
I'm considering buying an Amazon Kindle E-reader because reading on my phone really hurt my eyes on the long run but I'm worried about being jailed in the Amazon environment. I'm aiming for the cheapest recent model, the Kindle 10.
I was wondering if it's possible to replace the proprietary firmware with Android or a lightweight derivative.
I did some googling but the only result I got was this thread with removed responses : https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/closed-guide-install-android-os-on-kindle-8-gen.4449977/
I'm kinda new so I don't really know what could make it possible or impossible to do it so here's my thoughts :
- Is the Amazon Firmware flashable like I would replace the OS on a computer ?
- Will the hardware be sufficient to run Android or lightweight ? (512MB of RAM, a 1Ghz ARM CPU, 8Gigs of storage, from Wikipedia)
- I know e-inks displays are really slow to refresh so I'll be disabling fancy android animations etc...
I'm not against doing it myself if no one already did, I think this could be a good experience, I just want to be sure I'm not doing something impossible from the start.
Thanks in advance for your help !
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It might be feasible but pointless because android will be limited due to the fact that an E-reader doesn't have the hardware to take advantage of many features built into android.

Droidriven said:
It might be feasible but pointless because android will be limited due to the fact that an E-reader doesn't have the hardware to take advantage of many features built into android.
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Click to collapse
Thanks for the feedback
Ultimately the goal isn't to get a full fledged working android, it obviously won't play videos or take pictures, I only want the ability to use whatever reader app I want and a lot of them are android apps...
Do you maybe have some advices on how to attack the problem ? I never did something similar so I'm actually learning how to replace android with lineage on a regular android phone to better understand how it works to begin with.

hollowww said:
Thanks for the feedback
Ultimately the goal isn't to get a full fledged working android, it obviously won't play videos or take pictures, I only want the ability to use whatever reader app I want and a lot of them are android apps...
Do you maybe have some advices on how to attack the problem ? I never did something similar so I'm actually learning how to replace android with lineage on a regular android phone to better understand how it works to begin with.
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Click to collapse
First, it requires an android ROM that has been specifically built for the device. It isn't like changing the OS on PC you can't just install any android software on it. Unless someone else has already built android for it, you would have to build/port it yourself, then you'd have to work how to get the device to allow installing it. You'd also have to build a custom recovery such as TWRP for the device in order to install the ROM and installing TWRP on the device requires an unlocked bootloader, which is another thing you'd have to figure out.
In my opinion, not worth it, better to buy a device that you can install your reader apps on.

Question Does the P11 Plus have any stock roms available for it?

Something similar to LineageOS, with minimal bloat and lag. I'm thinking of buying this, but seeing people having issues with performance just from switching apps and rotating orientations, which shouldn't really be happening considering the specs on this thing.

Sorry to not quite answer your question, but as a P11 Plus owner I'd advise against purchasing it.
Software support is atrocious. It should be much smoother with the hardware it has, but feels overall laggy. We're still stuck on A11 and they should only begin to roll A12 soon(TM) now that A13 is already out, and that's probably the end for this device's support. Not even 12L.
There's very little in the way of custom ROMs or I'd already have flashed mine.
I'd pick whatever I could afford from Samsung if I were shopping for a tablet today. Even the A8 seems better.

It's THAT bad? would it really be worse than my 2015 Nvidia Shield K1?
Does the P11 Plus not have any stock roms at all?
Does the A8 have stock roms?

I mean all I want to do on it is watch video files, streaming, basic web browsing, read comics... just absolute bare bones stuff. how bad could it be for that stuff?

MultiKoopa said:
I mean all I want to do on it is watch video files, streaming, basic web browsing, read comics... just absolute bare bones stuff. how bad could it be for that stuff?
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It's ok for watching videos and reading comics. I use Mx Player and Tachiyomi.
Browsing is overall sluggish. I tried using a bluetooth mouse to help but it feels laggy. It's just better to browse on whatever smartphone you have.
Flashing custom ROMs is a bad idea if you want to stream anything as you'd lose widevine L1.
MultiKoopa said:
It's THAT bad? would it really be worse than my 2015 Nvidia Shield K1?
Does the P11 Plus not have any stock roms at all?
Does the A8 have stock roms?
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If you care about software, it's bad. Not worthless bad, but annoyingly bad.
Video decoding and rendering works well. Network, storage, audio, bluetooth works good.
There's nothing too wrong with it that makes it unusable. It's just slower than it should be for the hardware it has and software is outdated despite being a relatively new device.
Not sure about the situation of roms on the A8. Samsungs are bad for flashing in general. I wouldn't flash it anyway as losing Widevine L1 is a big no on a tablet used for watching videos.
I checked now and it also seems to still be on A11, so it's also bad over there.
Eh, Android tablet landscape looks ugly.
If you want it go for it, but be mindful software support (either official or custom) isn't great, is all.
I wasn't and ended up a bit disappointed.

danannnn said:
It's ok for watching videos and reading comics. I use Mx Player and Tachiyomi.
Browsing is overall sluggish. I tried using a bluetooth mouse to help but it feels laggy. It's just better to browse on whatever smartphone you have.
Flashing custom ROMs is a bad idea if you want to stream anything as you'd lose widevine L1.
If you care about software, it's bad. Not worthless bad, but annoyingly bad.
Video decoding and rendering works well. Network, storage, audio, bluetooth works good.
There's nothing too wrong with it that makes it unusable. It's just slower than it should be for the hardware it has and software is outdated despite being a relatively new device.
Not sure about the situation of roms on the A8. Samsungs are bad for flashing in general. I wouldn't flash it anyway as losing Widevine L1 is a big no on a tablet used for watching videos.
I checked now and it also seems to still be on A11, so it's also bad over there.
Eh, Android tablet landscape looks ugly.
If you want it go for it, but be mindful software support (either official or custom) isn't great, is all.
I wasn't and ended up a bit disappointed.
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Click to collapse
Uh, there are definitely custom roms with Widevine L1 support

As a p11 plus owner .I think it's a great tablet..does everything I need from it..just received android 12..

Aß a Xiaoxin pad plus owner I can say ZUI Rom (Chinese version) is much more fluent then international rom
If English is just fine for you, then go with that xiaoxin, it's a subbrand of Lenovo. Yes it has playstore. But don't buy the one that has a global rom preinstalled, the are ****ty according to some posts here

Hmm. Lenovo has a 1 month return policy. And there's this tool: https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/...mate-app-manager-debloat-tool-tweaks.4147837/
I'll see how it is.
Are there no really no roms for the US Plus version?