Thanks to the mods for moving this. Sorry i posted it in the wrong place - oops!
Hey everybody. In a blatant and self serving attempt to try and cultivate interest and support in a phone that I have just purchased, I thought I would post a mini review here with a little bit of info
Seriously though, if, like me, XDA as usually your one stop shop for everything phone related and you're considering buying one of the many offerings available directly from China these days, getting the right info can be hard. Sure, some info is available on other sites, but often online translation tools are necessary and it's hard to get a clear picture of what you can really expect from a prospective purchase.
I've been reading about various Chinese devices for over a year now, quietly waiting until I was sure I could get a reasonable level of performance for my money before buying one, all the while nursing my ageing HTC Sensation through daily use. I have a Samsung Galaxy Note 2 as well, but that has a broken screen so it is purely used as a mini media PC connected to a TV these days. I also have an Nvidia Tegra Note that offers great performance at a very reasonable price.
I am uncertain how much waffle you guys will want to wade through so I'll list some basic specs and then provide a few pros and cons as I see them, plus a few very basic tips that I've stumbled on in the first week, some of which will apply to similar devices that use vey similar ROMs. If you want more info, please ask.
Forum member oxiroxt has had a fairly mixed experience with their G4S, including hardware problems. details are in post 1175 here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=59463919&postcount=1175
Here are the basic specs:
Jiayu G4S -
16GB ROM 2GB RAM - MediaTek Octacore A7 MT6592 SoC @1.7Ghz with Mali 450 GPU.
Dual sim card standby (one Micro SIM Card)
GSM 900/1800MHz (see screenshot below of MTK Engineer Mode which shows more bands available, including GSM850 - I haven't tested this band though)
WCDMA 900/2100MHz
Android OS: 4.2.2
4.7 inch, IPS multi points corning Gorilla II OGS touch Screen (I have my doubts about the Gorilla Glass as I have a couple of small scratches already)
Camera: Front camera 3.0 Megapixels. Back camera: 13.0 Megapixels with CMOS flashlight, auto focus
Stereo FM Radio
Gravity Sensor, Proximity Sensor, Light Sensor
3000mAh battery
Dimensions: 133×65×10(mm)
What's in the box:
1 x Phone
1 x Battery
1 x AC Charger Adapter
1 x USB Cable
Pros:
Price - Only £137 delivered to UK via DHL - price is falling all the time at the moment too.
Screen - Pleasing colours, better outdoor visibility than I expected.
Call quality - good, with noise cancellation microphone on rear of device (call quality better than HTC Sensation)
Performance - over 27,000 points in Antutu, nice and fluid in use. Not as quick as Tegra Note or Snapdragon 800 of course
Battery life - over five hours of screen on time in a sixteen hour period, with 37% battery remaining. I have hit eight hours of screen time twice.
Build quality - less creaky than my Note 2
Supports USB OTG
Supports USB Mass Storage when connecting to PC
Compact size - at only 65mm wide, one handed use is practical for most people.
GPU performance is not great - only two thirds of the Samsung Galaxy S4, but it's ok for Modern Combat 4. It scores 61FPS on in Epic Citadel on high detail setting (Ultra High setting unavailable).
Pre-rooted - Root can be toggled under Settings/Security (love this feature in a stock ROM)
SD card slot
Dual SIM
Removable battery
Notification Light - three colour, RGB
Cons:
Lack of developer support here on XDA for now
No MHL for TV out
Caller ID mismatch bug
Camera below expectations - certainly worse than tweaked HTC Sensation camera
Possible wifi bug - affects things like wireless streaming if the screen is off
Deodexing ROM to work with files not 'standard' procedure
GPS - connects quickly but accuracy is still behind Qualcomm's efforts these days (much better than the old HTC Touch Pro/Raphael though!!)
Internal SD only approx. 9GB with internal storage just under a further 4GBs (It should be possible to repartition this by altering EBR1 and EBR2, but I haven't tried. iOcean have done this on their latest ROM for the X7S, decreasing phone storage to 1GB and increasing internal SD card to about 13GB - May 2014).
Screen has some backlight bleeding around bottom edges - sensitivity slightly lower than I'm used to but by no means bad.
Most sites claim 64GB Micro SDXC support - this is wrong, exFAT is not supported so you'll need to format the card to Fat32 for it to work.
English US - if you're in the UK and you change the language to English, you'll be stuck with US English language and location. To get around this you will need to toggle root on in settings/security, download Morelocales2 from the Play Store and then use it to change over to EN GB. I've edited the build.prop too.
Xposed - doesn't work at the moment due to the way the ROM is compiled (if I've understood correctly). Head over to that thread for basic details of a workaround to deodex the ROM, or download one of the customs ROMs based on stock that has been deodexed.
No 4G
Buttons are not backlit
There were issues with Facebook and Whats App but apparently all is now OK - sorry I don't use these so I haven't tried. Earlier versions of Facebook apparently work.
Recovery, Drivers for PC, Flash tools etc:
Jiayu.es app - Recoveries and tools are available from several sources, but at the time of writing the easiest way now is to download the Jiayu.es app. This now has downloads for the stock recovery, CWM, Stock ROM (European version with ASOP keyboard as opposed to Baidu which comes on the phone if you buy directly from China) as well as drivers for PC and the necessary tools to flash the ROM from a PC.
Mobile Uncle Tools - I used this to flash CWM recovery and tweak a few things before I discovered the Jiayu.es app. You can use this to back up your IMEI (NVRAM) which I highly recommend as the loss of IMEI is something I have read about frequently when people are flashing similar devices.
ROMs:
Before flashing any ROMs, I recommend using MTK Droid Tools to create a backup of your device on your PC. This includes backing up your IMEI number and every other partition. If you hit trouble you can restore your device to factory fresh. Head over to gizbeat for a tutorial and video.
Unfortunately at the moment I don't have time to try lots of ROMs (boooo!) which is frustrating, but it's also a mark of the fact that I'm just able to use the Jiayu stock ROM without too many compromises.
As the device gains in popularity there are now more an more ROMs appearing in various forums around the web. At the moment, there are a few basic choices to make. First, there are the stock ROMs 'officially' released by Jiayu. The stock ROMS are installed using SPFlashtools. Secondly there are deodexed versions of the stock ROMs that will allow you to run the Xposed framework and mods like the excellent Gravitybox. Thirdly there are ports of other ROMs, such as MIUI of ColorOS. The last two types will be installed through recovery, for which you need a custom recovery such as CWM.
One of the stock ROMs as well as both a stock recovery and CWM Recovery are available through the Jiayu.es app.
For me, the main source of ROMS remains NeedROM. There are now several recoveries, the stock ROM as well as ports of MIUI, ColorOS, YunOS and so on. This is the place I usually check first as the site is well organised and in English which makes it easier for me: http://www.needrom.com/phone-roms/jiayu/g4s/
There are now a number of ROMs available here, including at least a couple of MIUI here:
http://www.592zn.com/ (use Google Translate to browse the site if needed and to find the threads relating to the Jiayu G4S
Jiayu forum:
http://bbs.ejiayu.com/forum-184-1.html
Some of mite_jan's posts with recommendations/ROM related links (press thanks if you appreciate his links):
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=52989103&postcount=50
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=53133246&postcount=90
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=53270549&postcount=134
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=53284249&postcount=141
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=53361043&postcount=180
Two Hidden Tweaks in ROM:
1. A limited set of developer options was already available in settings when I first booted my G4S (Stay Awake, USB Debugging, Allow Mock Locations), but if you want access to the whole lot you can repeatedly tap the Android Version section under Settings/About Phone. This will take you straight to the developer options page. By default all animations are turned off so I used this to turn them on. You will still only have access to limited developer options once you exit this page, so you will have to get tapping the next time want to go back into it.
2. An 'Advanced Settings' option in Settings menu will appear if you repeatedly tap the Build Number under Settings/About Phone. This new menu allows you to tweak the transparency separately for lockscreen, main interface and the status bar itself. There's also and option to toggle the volume key wake feature, but this doesn't do anything for me - the volume buttons always wake the phone.
General Blurb:
So far, I feel like my money has been well spent, though I'm only a week into ownership. The screen in particular has exceeded my expectations with pleasant colours and reasonable outdoor visibility (better than HTC Sensation, but not great). Whites look 'white' as opposed to having the slightly yellowy hue that has affected all the devices with AMOLED screens that I've used, not to mention the poor offering on my Tegra Note. There's more backlight bleeding around the edges than I would like though which is a pity. This is certainly not the case with all Chinese devices - the iOcean X7S, for example, has a much better screen from that point of view. Call quality has exceeded my expectations and, as with other similar devices, the firmware offers various ways to manage the dual SIM functionality. As well as binding specific contacts to a particular SIM, you can also independently choose which SIM is used for SMS, voice calls, data and video calls. You can also be prompted to choose which SIM to use on the fly each time if you prefer. Only one SIM can use WCDMA at a time, but you can choose which SIM that is without physically swapping the SIMs or rebooting the phone. I thought battery life might be poor with two SIMs in, especially as I live in a marginal area for one of the networks I use, but so far battery life has been pretty good in general use. I was surprised to get over five hours screen time and still have well over 30% battery left. Intensive games and videos can drain the battery more quickly though of course.
Build quality also appears to be pretty good for a budget device. It's certainly less creaky than my partner's Note, my Note 2 and any other number of Samsung devices that I've used. The petite dimensions are also great. The thickness of 10mm simply isn't an issue for me, especially given the generous battery under the hood. For the first week there were no noises from it at all, though there is a tiny creak from one corner of the battery cover now after many many cycles of removing and replacing it as a result of messing about with it.
The main issues I've faced so far are the fairly weak 13MP camera that introduces a lot of noise and offers poor detail in spite of a wide range of tweaking options within the app itself and a caller ID mismatch bug revolving around MIN_MATCH criteria . The latter means that if you store a contact's telephone number in domestic format (e.g. 07707 123456) then send them a text message, any reply you receive from them will be prefixed with the international country code and will be put into a separate thread. If you store their number with the international dialling code, when they call from the same country, the phone will not recognise their number. So far the easiest bodge is to store both formats for each contact, then remember to send SMS to the number will international prefix. Both these issues are deeply annoying from my perspective. See here for an explanation of the caller ID problem: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2268120
There does also appears to be a bug with wifi - if you stream films wirelessly to your TV the screen will have to remain on, which is the first time I've had this issue.
Performance is genuinely fluid if not up to Tegra 4 or Snapdragon 800 standards, but it's certainly better than the Galaxy Note 2. The one area that confuses me is GPU performance. I very briefly had an iOcean X7S which has the same SoC but a 1080p screen rather than the Jiayu's 720p. To my surprise the Jiayu actually scores lower in Antutu in this area. My guess is that either this is a SoC from a different BIN compared to those going into the 1080p devices, or something else is going on to artificially limit performance. On balance, for the money, performance is fantastic and is better than other phones being offered in the UK from retail outlets at over twice the price. Personally I miss some of the features of HTCs Sense based ROMs, but not enough at the moment to shell out over £500. This is now my daily driver and unless it dies prematurely I think I'll have it for up to a year (dependent upon whether or not I get fed up with the camera). Within a year my gut feeling is that similar devices with 4G will be ready for main stream adoption In much the same way that sections of the motorcycling community enjoy having a flagship bike and a small capacity run around to hack, tune and mess around with, I kind of hope more XDA users will start to buy devices like the Jiayu G4S and mess around with them. I know MediaTek have been useless at releasing the source code which is a massive stumbling block, but we can still have a bit of fun with them, eh?
*UPDATES*
Battery life - on one occasion I reached just under 35 hours of up time, with 7 hours 52 minutes of screen time, with 9% battery left. Usage was a mix of a few phones calls, some text messages, two email accounts, web browsing, about thirty minutes of Shadowgun, around an hour of streaming music via A2DP and about two hours of listening to music on headphones.
Multi tasking is good when web browsing and listening to music (as it should be). Playing a game like Shadowgun whilst using a Moga Pro controller AND streaming music via Bluetooth is also absolutely fine.
Bluetooth - Bluetooth range is better than on my Tegra Note, HTC Sensation and Note 2 when streaming music. The actual quality of audio via Bluetooth is not the best. It's noticeably worse than the Note 2.
Audio quality out of the headphone jack is also not great. The built in equaliser helps a lot, but it really doesn't sound much better than Bluetooth to me.
Camera - somehow, I have dust inside the outer lens already (the outer lense being part of the sealed camera unit). UPDATE I hovered the dust out!!
As for the images themselves, I've found setting sharpness to maximum and turning off face beautification helps improve images a bit. User 'coffee' over at MTKForums.com reckons the Camera FV-5 app is great at getting the best out of the sensor in the G4S, especially if you save the images in lossless PNG format. I haven't tried it yet.
GPS - after using GPS Test to get the first lock (go outside, set the option within the app to keep the screen on and update AGPS data), subsequent locks have usually been very quick. Unfortunately accuracy in apps like Co-pilot has been very hit and miss for me. On a few occasions my location is shown on an adjacent road that is over 50 metres away. In one instance restarting the device solved the problem. I've recorded a few tracks whilst cycling using Endomondo Pro and these have been fine apart from one occasion where I stopped and went in a shop and it added a mile onto my journey!
Notification LED - this is a three colour red, green, blue unit, so you should be able to set the colour for different notifications using a third party app. I haven't tried this yet.
Charging bug - the LED will glow green when the battery is only 90% charged. The iOcean X7S has exactly the same issue.
Text/Font not being visible - if you can't see text in certain apps (Such as Titanium Backup), open the Themes app and switch to the 'System' theme.
Wired Headset - I don't have the official Jiayu Headset but I've tried Samsung and HTC's more recent offerings. The play/pause button on the Samsung headset works, but the volume buttons skip tracks instead. Play/pause works on the HTC headset, as do next/previous track, but fast forward and rewind do not. I haven't tried making calls with them yet. As there are a couple of different standards for four pole 3.5mm headsets that each have the 'ground' and 'microphone' in different positions, you will need to have the right type for the correct functionality.
USB OTG - In addition to flash drives and a small bus powered 80GB hard drive, I've also tried a 1TB WD Passport Ultra formatted to fat32 (also bus powered). Unfortunately the G4S was unable to power it. Some other devices such as a Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 are able to. If you connect the drive to a powered USB hub, then connect the hub to the phone it works fine.
ROM UPDATE 20140422-121442 - For me, the caller ID bug remains To be more exact, if I text someone using the national telephone format (e.g. 07707 123456), when they respond the message is sent with the international dialling prefix (+44 for example) and their SMS will be placed in a different thread.
This ROM uses the same format that original phones imported from China have, i.e. it comes with Baidu IME input as opposed to the one available from Jiayu.es which has the ASOP keyboard. There are a few other differences between the Chinese and Worldwide releases. The kernel and radio etc are the same as the last two releases. I used the ext4_unpacker tool available here on XDA to have a look inside the system.img of the new release and the old release, and I think many of the libs are the same too.
One small bug that seems to be fixed is that call history times in the dialler now displays properly, rather than being obscured by other parts of the dialer.
The volume key wake toggle option in the advanced setting area still does not work (you can't prevent the volume keys from waking the phone).
With most of the themes, the problem where text in some apps is invisible remains the same. Use the 'System' theme to get around this.
USB OTG.....continued - Sadly the CSL DVB-T mini Android TV Stick doesn't work with the G4S out of the box.
FIX - First, turn on superuser/root access in settings/security. Then download Chainfire's USB Host Diagnostics from the Play Store. Run the app, then hit Start Diagnostics. You will be prompted to plug in a USB OTG device. I used a OTG adapter and a memory stick. After the diagnostics have run and you have been asked whether or not you want to upload the results, you will be prompted that USB OTG is not working and that it might benefit from attempting a fix. Let it run the fix and then reboot the phone. The CSL TV dongle will now work
I guess this will probably also help with other USB OTG problems you might encounter.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/CSL-Receiver-Smartphones-Interface-Smartphone/dp/B00DZR3OKS#productDetails
Sample photos courtesy of user ykassana http://mtkforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=842
Jiayu G4S Original Rom Caller ID Mismatch
Caller ID Mismatch is a common problem in chinese roms, for Jiayu G4S follow these steps:
1. Using root explorer to edit the build.prob file inside /System
add this line at the end of the file
ro.init.phonenumber_match= 7
2. Go to settings >> App >> All >> Contacts Storage >> Clear Data >> Reboot
Good Luck
nightcap79 said:
Caller ID Mismatch is a common problem in chinese roms, for Jiayu G4S follow these steps:
1. Using root explorer to edit the build.prob file inside /System
add this line at the end of the file
ro.init.phonenumber_match= 7
2. Go to settings >> App >> All >> Contacts Storage >> Clear Data >> Reboot
Good Luck
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks very much for posting. I stumbled on that suggestion a few days ago, but unfortunately it doesn't work on this ROM : (
How come the buttons are not back lighted? I've asked two sellers and they claimed that buttons are back lighted. Are you sure? Maybe there is an option to enable?
Can you make a memory test with AndroBench application?
Thank you for a little review anyway. Keep us up to date with your experience and more observations with this phone.
g4s software issues?
Hi,
I've bought this phone too and I'm facing some issues, http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=52629345
Specifically, incompatibility with the following applications:
Facebook (crash after less than a second of usage)
Firefox (crash after few seconds of usage)
Babbel (crash only after you've logged in, and once you've done it crash as soon as it starts)
google agenda
Have you tried these apps?
Any hint on this thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=52629345 ???
Doman said:
How come the buttons are not back lighted? I've asked two sellers and they claimed that buttons are back lighted. Are you sure? Maybe there is an option to enable?
Can you make a memory test with AndroBench application?
Thank you for a little review anyway. Keep us up to date with your experience and more observations with this phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The buttons definitely aren't backlit on my one. I've no idea if they will be in on examples made later on. I read somewhere that on last year's G4 basic and Advanced models someone found a way to get them to work. I honestly don't know if the hardware is even capable on this year's models.
I'll look into Androbench.
drpete_doyoubnb said:
Hi,
I've bought this phone too and I'm facing some issues, http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=52629345
Specifically, incompatibility with the following applications:
Facebook (crash after less than a second of usage)
Firefox (crash after few seconds of usage)
Babbel (crash only after you've logged in, and once you've done it crash as soon as it starts)
google agenda
Have you tried these apps?
Any hint on this thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=52629345 ???
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, no, I haven't used any of these apps so I can't give any feedback.
My partial review (in spanish), another bug, and a thankful message
Ouzo said:
Hey everybody. In a blatant and self serving attempt to try and cultivate interest and support in a phone that I have just purchased, I thought I would post a mini review here with a little bit of info
Seriously though, if, like me, XDA is usually your one stop shop for everything phone related and you're considering buying one of the many offerings available directly from China these days, getting the right info can be hard. Sure, some info is available on other sites, but often online translation tools are necessary and it's hard to get a clear picture of what you can really expect from a prospective purchase.
I've been reading about various Chinese devices for over a year now, quietly waiting until I was sure I could get a reasonable level of performance for my money before buying one, all the while nursing my ageing HTC Sensation through daily use. I have a Samsung Galaxy Note 2 as well, but that has a broken screen so it is purely used as a mini media PC connected to a TV these days. I also have an Nvidia Tegra Note that offers great performance at a very reasonable price.
I am uncertain how much waffle you guys will want to wade through so I'll list some basic specs and then provide a few pros and cons as I see them, plus a few very basic tips that I've stumbled on in the first week, some of which will apply to similar devices that use vey similar ROMs. If you want more info, please ask.
Here are the basic specs:
Jiayu G4S -
16GB ROM 2GB RAM - MediaTek Octacore A7 MT6592 SoC @1.7Ghz with Mali 450 GPU.
Dual sim card standby (one Micro SIM Card)
GSM 900/1800MHz
WCDMA 900/2100MHz
Android OS: 4.2.2
4.7 inch, IPS multi points corning Gorilla II OGS touch Screen (I have my doubts about the Gorilla Glass as I have a couple of small scratches already)
Camera: Front camera 3.0 Megapixels. Back camera: 13.0 Megapixels with CMOS flashlight, auto focus
Stereo FM Radio
Gravity Sensor, Proximity Sensor, Light Sensor
3000mAh battery
Dimensions: 133×65×10(mm)
What's in the box:
1 x Phone
1 x Battery
1 x AC Charger Adapter
1 x USB Cable
Pros:
Price - Only £137 delivered to UK via DHL - price is falling all the time at the moment too.
Screen - Pleasing colours, better outdoor visibility than I expected.
Call quality - good, with noise cancellation microphone on rear of device (call quality better than HTC Sensation)
Performance - over 27,000 points in Antutu, nice and fluid in use. Not as quick as Tegra Note or Snapdragon 800 of course
Battery life - over five hours of screen on time in a sixteen hour period, with 37% battery remaining
Build quality - less creaky than my Note 2
Supports USB OTG
Supports USB Mass Storage when connecting to PC
Compact size - at only 65mm wide, one handed use is practical for most people.
GPU performance is not great - only two thirds of the Samsung Galaxy S4, but it's ok for Modern Combat 4
Pre-rooted - Root can be toggled under Settings/Security (love this feature in a stock ROM)
SD card slot
Dual SIM
Removable battery
Cons:
Lack of developer support here on XDA
No MHL for TV out
Caller ID mismatch bug
Camera below expectations - certainly worse than tweaked HTC Sensation camera
Possible wifi bug - affects things like wireless streaming if the screen is off
Deodexing ROM to work with files not 'standard' procedure
GPS - connects quickly but accuracy is still behind Qualcomm's efforts these days (much better than the old HTC Touch Pro/Raphael though!!)
Internal SD only approx. 9GB with phone storage just under a further 4GBs
Screen has some backlight bleeding around bottom edges - sensitivity slightly lower than I'm used to.
Most sites claim 64GB Micro SDXC support - this is wrong, exFAT is not supported so you'll need to format the card to Fat32 for it to work.
English US - if you're in the UK and you change the language to English, you'll be stuck with US English language and location so you'll need to toggle root on in settings and download Morelocales2 from the Play Store and change over to EN GB. I've edited the build.prop too.
Xposed - doesn't work at the moment due to the way the ROM is compiled (if I've understood correctly). Head over to that thread for basic details of a workaround to deodex the ROM.
No 4G
Buttons are not backlit
Recovery, Drivers for PC, Flash tools etc:
Jiayu.es app - Recoveries and tools are available from several sources, but at the time of writing the easiest way now is to download the Jiayu.es app. This now has downloads for the stock recovery, CWM, Stock ROM (European version with ASOP keyboard as opposed to Baidu which comes on the phone if you buy directly from China) as well as drivers for PC and the necessary tools to flash the ROM from a PC.
Mobile Uncle Tools - I used this to flash CWM recovery and tweak a few things before I discovered the Jiayu.es app. You can use this to back up your IMEI (NVRAM) which I highly recommend as the loss of IMEI is something I have read about frequently when people are flashing similar devices.
ROMs:
In addition to the stock ROM in the Jiayu.es app, you can also find a recovery and ROM on http://www.needrom.com/
There are also various ROMs including at least a couple of MIUI here: http://www.592zn.com/
Two Hidden Tweaks in ROM:
1. A limited set of developer options was already available in settings when I first booted my G4S (Stay Awake, USB Debugging, Allow Mock Locations), but if you want access to the whole lot you can repeatedly tap the Android Version section under Settings/About Phone. This will take you straight to the developer options page. By default all animations are turned off so I used this to turn them on. You will still only have access to limited developer options once you exit this page, so you will have to get tapping the next time want to go back into it.
2. An 'Advanced Settings' option in Settings menu will appear if you repeatedly tap the Build Number under Settings/About Phone. This new menu allows you to tweak the transparency separately for lockscreen, main interface and the status bar itself. There's also and option to toggle the volume key wake feature, but this doesn't do anything for me - the volume buttons always wake the phone.
General Blurb:
So far, I feel like my money has been well spent, though I'm only a week into ownership. The screen in particular has exceeded my expectations with pleasant colours and reasonable outdoor visibility (better than HTC Sensation, but not great). Whites look 'white' as opposed to having the slightly yellowy hue that has affected all the devices with AMOLED screens that I've used, not to mention the poor offering on my Tegra Note. There's more backlight bleeding around the edges than I would like though which is a pity. This is certainly not the case with all Chinese devices - the iOcean X7S, for example, has a much better screen from that point of view. Call quality has exceeded my expectations and, as with other similar devices, the firmware offers various ways to manage the dual SIM functionality. As well as binding specific contacts to a particular SIM, you can also independently choose which SIM is used for SMS, voice calls, data and video calls. You can also be prompted to choose which SIM to use on the fly each time if you prefer. Only one SIM can use WCDMA at a time, but you can choose which SIM that is without physically swapping the SIMs or rebooting the phone. I thought battery life might be poor with two SIMs in, especially as I live in a marginal area for one of the networks I use, but so far battery life has been pretty good in general use. I was surprised to get over five hours screen time and still have well over 30% battery left. Intensive games and videos can drain the battery more quickly though of course.
Build quality also appears to be pretty good for a budget device. It's certainly less creaky than my partner's Note, my Note 2 and any other number of Samsung devices that I've used. The petite dimensions are also great. The thickness of 10mm simply isn't an issue for me, especially given the generous battery under the hood. For the first week there were no noises from it at all, though there is a tiny creak from one corner of the battery cover now after many many cycles of removing and replacing it as a result of messing about with it.
The main issues I've faced so far are the fairly weak 13MP camera that introduces a lot of noise and offers poor detail in spite of a wide range of tweaking options within the app itself and a caller ID mismatch bug revolving around MIN_MATCH criteria . The latter means that if you store a contact's telephone number in domestic format (e.g. 07707 123456) then send them a text message, any reply you receive from them will be prefixed with the international country code and will be put into a separate thread. If you store their number with the international dialling code, when they call from the same country, the phone will not recognise their number. So far the easiest bodge is to store both formats for each contact, then remember to send SMS to the number will international prefix. Both these issues are deeply annoying from my perspective. See here for an explanation of the caller ID problem: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2268120
There does also appears to be a bug with wifi - if you stream films wirelessly to your TV the screen will have to remain on, which is the first time I've had this issue.
Performance is genuinely fluid if not up to Tegra 4 or Snapdragon 800 standards, but it's certainly better than the Galaxy Note 2. The one area that confuses me is GPU performance. I very briefly had an iOcean X7S which has the same SoC but a 1080p screen rather than the Jiayu's 720p. To my surprise the Jiayu actually scores lower in Antutu in this area. My guess is that either this is a SoC from a different BIN compared to those going into the 1080p devices, or something else is going on to artificially limit performance. On balance, for the money, performance is fantastic and is better than other phones being offered in the UK from retail outlets at over twice the price. Personally I miss some of the features of HTCs Sense based ROMs, but not enough at the moment to shell out over £500. This is now my daily driver and unless it dies prematurely I think I'll have it for up to a year (dependent upon whether or not I get fed up with the camera). Within a year my gut feeling is that similar devices with 4G will be ready for main stream adoption In much the same way that sections of the motorcycling community enjoy having a flagship bike and a small capacity run around to hack, tune and mess around with, I kind of hope more XDA users will start to buy devices like the Jiayu G4S and mess around with them. I know MediaTek have been useless at releasing the source code which is a massive stumbling block, but we can still have a bit of fun with them, eh?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi Everyone, as this is my first post in this forum, I would like to say thanks to everyone involved for your efforts and good job, focused on helping the Internet Android community.
Second: I would like to thank Ouzo for pointing pros and problems actually ocurring to this model, maybe this helps on finding solution.
Third, i can say than spanish customers are finding problems with hands free during calls: The person at the other side of the line hears his own echo. Maybe it's easy to tune microphones, but still no solution here.
Also have big problems with gps acuracy and position "jumps" while using google navigation in big cities with narrow streets.
Last, i would like to share my review of this model, it's in spanish but you can easily translate it
http://bitsandriffs.blogspot.com.es
Regards.
salimeldjinn said:
Hi Everyone, as this is my first post in this forum, I would like to say thanks to everyone involved for your efforts and good job, focused on helping the Internet Android community.
Second: I would like to thank Ouzo for pointing pros and problems actually ocurring to this model, maybe this helps on finding solution.
Third, i can say than spanish customers are finding problems with hands free during calls: The person at the other side of the line hears his own echo. Maybe it's easy to tune microphones, but still no solution here.
Also have big problems with gps acuracy and position "jumps" while using google navigation in big cities with narrow streets.
Last, i would like to share my review of this model, it's in spanish but you can easily translate it
http://bitsandriffs.blogspot.com.es
Regards.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks very much indeed. I'm just updating the first post. GPS accuracy is one of my issues too. It locks quickly but it often gets confused about what road you are on (I use co-pilot), even in fairly open spaces like motorway junctions. This is exactly like Qualcomm devices a few years ago. Have you tried any of the tweaked files available in the Jiayu ES app? I haven't yet, but I will.
I haven't tried hands free calling at all yet, only stereo Bluetooth. Have you tried tweaking any of the values available in the MTK Engineer mode/app? If you are not familiar with it there are various descriptions of what some of the parameters do around here somewhere.
Great review - it's interesting that we're both finding the same issues.
For the camera, I found setting sharpness to Max and turning off the beautification feature helps a little.
Doman said:
How come the buttons are not back lighted? I've asked two sellers and they claimed that buttons are back lighted. Are you sure? Maybe there is an option to enable?
Can you make a memory test with AndroBench application?
Thank you for a little review anyway. Keep us up to date with your experience and more observations with this phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
AndroBench results:
Internal SD card:
Sequential Read - 57.35 mb/s
Sequential Write - 16.83 mb/s
Random Read - 11.97 mb/s
SQLite Insert - 62.03 TPS
SQLite Update - 76.33 TPS
SQLite Delete - 79.68 TPS
Browser - 250 msec
Market - 223.25 msec
Camera - 255 msec
Camcorder - 566.75 msec
Data partition (phone storage) ext4:
Sequential Read - 57.66 mb/s
Sequential Write - 21.33
Random Read - 13.17
Random Write - 0.77
SqLite Insert - 68.04 TPS
SQLite Update - 77.76 TPS
SQLite Delete - 78.61 TPS
Browser - 79 msec
Market - 256 msec
Camera - 135.5 msec
Camcorder - 310.5 msec
From a more real world point of view, when I copy large amounts of data from my MicroSD card to internal memory, it writes large files at about 25 mb per second, and large quantities of smaller files at about 12 mb per second. Not exactly fast.
Software and loudspeaker call issues
Ouzo said:
Sorry, no, I haven't used any of these apps so I can't give any feedback.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep, I imagine.
I've downloaded and re-installed the ROM provided by Jiayu.es, but the problems persists.
About Facebook: has anyone (or you, Andrés), tried to install it? Does it works smoothly to you or to anybody?
The suspect is simply that some libraries / platform are missing, it could be easily fixed just knowing which ones they are. Please, give a try to install facebook and let me know if it works fine for you, thanks!
Beside that, I can confirm that in Italy too (phone shipped from China) having a call in loudspeaker is giving the problem of echoing on the caller. As well, on this point looking for a solution.
Any hints on any missing libraries (for facebook, google agenda, firefox and other apps not working) and loudspeaker issue are welcome!:fingers-crossed:
Caller ID is fixed in new firmware (available on needrom).
avalanchej said:
Caller ID is fixed in new firmware (available on needrom).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Awesome, thanks for the heads up. Hopefully I'll get a chance to try it in the next few days
Updated the first post with some more info/observations
My bad, there is still a problem with Caller ID in SMS app. But when someone calls it's ok.
avalanchej said:
My bad, there is still a problem with Caller ID in SMS app. But when someone calls it's ok.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No worries, for a minute I thought the ROM had been compiled differently and the .jar.jex files had gone , then I realised everything is the same. Poop. No Xposed framework for us yet then.
Hi all. Could you please check if your rearspeaker makes noise when you are playing games with low volume or even without sound enabled. The noise is starting and stopping with apps/games that should make sound (also with video players, if you make video sound to silent, speaker still make little noise at my end)
Thanks for checking
Gesendet von meinem JY-G4S mit Tapatalk
but-888- said:
Hi all. Could you please check if your rearspeaker makes noise when you are playing games with low volume or even without sound enabled. The noise is starting and stopping with apps/games that should make sound (also with video players, if you make video sound to silent, speaker still make little noise at my end)
Thanks for checking
Gesende von meinem JY-G4S mit Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mine makes a slight hiss before and after a sound. For example, if I have a notification sound that is quiet, the rear speaker hisses for a second or so before playing the notification. If this is what you mean, then yes, I have the same thing. i can't check if this happens when the phone is on silent because I'm in a noisy environment, but I think it does what you describe.
Notifications also sound from the rear speaker when headphones are plugged in which really annoys me too (Samsung devices do this too).
Thanks for the confirmation ouzo. Are you running the stock rom or any other (miui for example). Would like to know if this is software related or if the soundchip is just buggy
Cheers
Gesendet von meinem JY-G4S mit Tapatalk
but-888- said:
Thanks for the confirmation ouzo. Are you running the stock rom or any other (miui for example). Would like to know if this is software related or if the soundchip is just buggy
Cheers
Geseet von meinem JY-G4S mit Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm on the latest stock ROM available from Needrom. I think the same thing happened on the first two stock ROMs. Bear in mind that the kernel has been the same on all three versions, and possibly the various libs too. There are quite a few little bugs throughout the ROM, which is a shame. The biggest issue for me remains the performance of the camera. I'm still enjoying it though : )
Related
Just telling you guys the story first.
I have this spare HD2 lying around after getting the Sensation which also has a severely cracked screen (LCD working, and screen protector on top to prevent injured fingers when using ). A thought occurred to me: Why not build Android to function like an iTouch? I.e: Remove anything related to the SIM card/ remove everything that involves making calls, SMS, etc but retain the functionality of Android apps etc(As I will be using DATA SIM). Most importantly, I want it to be fully optimised for those (I believe that the phone/sms functions running in the background would affect the full potential for the HD2 running music, video, and other apps). I do know how to flash ROMS, and customise downloaded ROMS (e.g: Slipstreaming apps I want, remove some apps I don't want, customise build.prop, etc) and also some programming (a bit of obj-C, a bit of C#, and lots of VB.NET). However, I do not know how to build Android from scratch. Hence I would appreciate if:
-I can get devs to assist me in building Android from source code and customise it so it fits my expectations
-I can get support for this project as I plan to release my work to the public when its done
I will give credit to those who helped. Thanks.
Reserved for future use.
Reserved again.
arikyeo said:
Just telling you guys the story first.
I have this spare HD2 lying around after getting the Sensation which also has a severely cracked screen (LCD working, and screen protector on top to prevent injured fingers when using ). A thought occurred to me: Why not build Android to function like an iTouch? I.e: Remove anything related to the SIM card/ remove everything that involves making calls, SMS, etc but retain the functionality of Android apps etc(As I will be using DATA SIM). Most importantly, I want it to be fully optimised for those (I believe that the phone/sms functions running in the background would affect the full potential for the HD2 running music, video, and other apps). I do know how to flash ROMS, and customise downloaded ROMS (e.g: Slipstreaming apps I want, remove some apps I don't want, customise build.prop, etc) and also some programming (a bit of obj-C, a bit of C#, and lots of VB.NET). However, I do not know how to build Android from scratch. Hence I would appreciate if:
-I can get devs to assist me in building Android from source code and customise it so it fits my expectations
-I can get support for this project as I plan to release my work to the public when its done
I will give credit to those who helped. Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
arikyeo said:
Reserved again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
arikyeo said:
Reserved for future use.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sir, i seriously doubt your state of mental stability.
And as for your request, the best you can do is use in Airplane mode and switch on wireless. Works for me when i don't want to waste my battery.
Just so that you know, the Qualcomm processors have 2 ARM CPUs on the die, 1 for Radio(Wireless/bluetooth/GSM etc) and 1 for the General purpose/Logic etc... I don't think GSM functions and the phone app running in the background would even mean or translate into anything near a burden or even something which would affect the performace for the CPU in your HD2.
you're pretty much dead-end on this one mate.
android is built ground-up for use in mobile phones. look at those cheap shenzen tablets..they all have no network icon in top bar, and com.android.phone must be running. removing this will only result not working phone as these also include core services-market access etc
only hope you have for doing what you want is to somehow get honeycomb workin' on qsd8250 and tiny fingers to interact with it.
imho best bet would be to just install CM or MIUI, and hide phone etc from launcher.
refer to post above for "very exact explanation" of everything you are trying to do
New GNex user in big lines happy with it, some annoying issues and maybe you can give me a helping hand with them.
1. On my previous Galaxy S1, when something went wrong, and system frozen, if I hold Power button for a few seconds the device would restart. Yesterday I managed to make GNex stop responding and the only solution was to remove back cover and take off the battery. Is there any other way ?
2. Flash plugin in browser is horrible. I use the phone a lot for browsing and this is quite a big disappointment. I opened youtube.com and set the video quality to 1080p and the phone completely frozen. On most sites if I switch a video on full screen, I can't seek in it. Does this happen to you also ?
3. colors look too saturated, orange for instance is bad for eyes. I guess I need to flash a rom with custom color settings ?
4. I still feel some lag here and there specially when scrolling something. I exepected a more lag free experience from 1 GB ram and dual core cpu.
Right now I am on latest stock 4.0.4 image from google website.
Hi Guys!
I'm glad to make my first post here, since I've been overseeing this forum for 6 months to tweak my X10^^
Now I have a brand new Alcatel ot995 ultra!
GB 2.3.6, 4,3" screen at 800x480px, around 380 MB of ram only (512 in the specs and reviews on the web), adreno 205, snapdragon 1.4ghz, etc...Wonderful for emulation, surfing and watching movies. Take a 32GB class 10 micro sd card right from the start: for 210 euros it will be a great multimedia device.
Since I love to enhance and optimize my devices, I quickly looked how to, root it, tweak it or OC it.
Unfortunately, the device isn't yet mentionned at XDA, only a few threads mention it, and I am a NOOB according to the welcome video,
BUT
I am gonna give you some piece of info to avoid you to search for 2 weeks how to root and tweak your precious, but first ask my 1000000 $ question:
- When I play on fpse with 2d games (castlevania- certain scenes of FFIX), the framerate drops to 32 fps. I was so frustrated to get the same performance than on my X10, on N64 it kicks ass and almost all games run smooth. Being a PC nerd, I guessed it was linked to some kind of software limit ("project igi" game was limited to 30fps for instance), kinda bad managed vsync. After one week, I found the solution: in the build.prop, I have to change the property "swap-interval" from "1" to "0". But as in the PC world, desactivating the vsync result in ugly glitches when you scroll.
So here is my issue: is there any solution to set the fps caps at 60 fps, the refresh rate of my screen. Because playing at 32 fps and activating frameskip is frustrating, and playing smooth at 50 fps with glitches annoys me too. What's the point to have a good hardware if it is not exploited well?
Now I give some tips to my ot995's owners fellows. I know we can find them on google, but I gather everything so you won't take 2 weeks like me to make everything (for my defense, I am blond, and have a girlfriend who keeps me away from my PC)
1) OT 995 is easy to root, with the application "super one click". I advise you to do it quickly so you can install task killers, set cpu, etc...
It was a lot easier than on my x10. By the way, I advise you to create profiles with low cpu frequencies for power loading and screen of, you will gain precious hours of battery life! idem with open advanced task killer, a must have, you will obtain more free memory and cpu power.. don't forget to desactivate wifi-bluetooth-gps-data when you don't use them, you have a widget in the status bar. I also changed of launcher for "holo launcher". It is way lighter than the 3d stock one, sober and classier, ICS like.
2)No finalised rom is avalaible yet, but a bunch of guys are starting something with a CM9 base:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1731574
Updt from 08/03/2012:
I tried the CM9 version of fonix! it runs smoothly, but no cam, no data, no bluetooth.
However, wifi works. Only a few apps are avalaible on it, no play store, it was a bit of a pain in the ass to reinstall all my apps and run tests to see if I gain some perfs, so I went back to my beloved tuned up version.
Fonix seems to be having some trouble and "lack of motivation and sources from alcatel", cheer him up guys!
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1731574&page=7
Also I don"t remember how I did "it was late", but I managed to change my boot animation!
3) I advise you to install a recovery on the phone, so you can go deeper into tweaking afterward. So, make a BACKUP of your system!
http://dump.pargon.nl/alcatel/cwm-recovery/
look here for more information
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=29534255
After having booted on recovery, backed up your system, flashed the recovery, you can now go further!
Now than you can access the recovery by pushing "power" and "vol +" buttons of the phone.
4) With a free soft like andromizer, you can tweak the build.prop!
I discovered that last week, and it is very powerful, reminds me the registry tweaks of windows. It can change drastically the behaviour of your phone, mine is way more responsive after the tweak.
Here you find a fine list:
http://androidforums.com/sony-erics...tweaks-power-boosting-your-android-phone.html
5) Don't forget to uninstall or freeze apps you don't use so they don't remain in background process (even with a task killer, you should cleanse the phone a bit, only a few apps are useful among the one alcatel provides). I use "Root Uninstaller", which can freeze the apps without uninstalling them, so you can activate them in case of mistake
6) I tried to change the boot animation in /system/media, replacing the stock bootanimation.zip by another one, and deleting former folders from alcatel, but I still have the original animation launching at boot. If someone knows, enlight me!
Come and feed this threads guys, on my side I'll try to complete those tips as soon as I find new stuff.
And I'll be glad to meet other OT995 owners, so express yourself
Hi and Congrats on your new Alcatel OT-995.
Which color you bought?
Don't forget to +1 for Alcatel Forum
I will buy this phone when it got ICS release or Custom roms! Lets hope the dev will consider this phone and get some XDA love
I will bookmark this thread and check it for updates :good:
PS: Moi aussi j'utilise le meme operateur "Orange" et c'est dans un Orange Shop que je vais bientot l'acheter
"Bonsoir" deadpunk! Other question about bluetooth devices.
Hi deadpunk!
I bought the red one, the finish and quality of the plastic is amazing for the price.
Okay, +1 for alcatel forum, I'll try to figure out how to do this to be effective. I found mine for 180 euros over the internet, it is a great deal for that price, even on stock rom.
What I can do is to make an .img of my rom and post it. So people could get a tuned up gingerbread rom. I am not a dev and have no pretention, but for sure guys who don't want to get their hands dirty could try it^^
ICS is announced for september, but well, to believe in santa claus would be more realistic than the phone builders. If I were richer, I would have bought the atrix, but the advantage of the tegra dual core at 1ghz is not so obvious.
Another question for xda allmighties:
I tried a few bluetooth keyboards on my ot995, and to connect a wiimote with blue imez on the phone, but I failed. Is it possible to connect any bluetooth KB and pads on Gingerbread? Or do I need to purchase more specific ones, like the phonejoy (I hesitate to buy it if it doesn't work neither, I am a poor geek).
Thanks!
Have you made all the steps in the link of n.4?
If so, did it improve the performance alot? Like in shadowgun?
Sent from my ALCATEL_one_touch_995 using xda app-developers app
Yeasis, try to write in build.prop or init.d file "debug.gr.swapinterval=0"
Hi yeasis!
I almost set everything except the video/movie/streaming tips. Ingame I didn't see any difference but the UI of my phone is way more responsive.
As I discovered today (I am just a padawan, more experienced guys are welcome to correct and complete me!), it is better to create an "init.d" file than edit the build.prop directly, the changes are easier to reverse so dig that option to avoid bricking your phone. Yet if you did a recovery backup and use andromizer you should have no issues, all went fine for me.
The most interesting option is to set the swap interval to 0, you can gain a lotta fps.Write in build.prop "debug.gr.swapinterval=0". if your are not allergic to the glitches this option can make a game previously unplayable smooth. On my side I keep it cuz it allows me to play to fpse with software plugin and no frame skip, opengl plugin remains to power greedy for the ot 995 on gingerbread
Have a try and gimme your feedback!
OT 995 owners, write to alcatel about ICS!
Well, I am quite present those times, since my girlfriend is 150 km away, I can now care about important matters, like my precious OT 995 and its supposed update to ICS in september.
So I sent a message to alcatel customer service, I will give you there answer (if they do) about a few questions and remarks I've found among the forums, here it is:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello Alcatel fellow!
I am the happy owner of an ot 995 ultra. I am really glad of this phone, its price/power/quality ratio is great, but a few things make me sad. I dunno if a lot of guys write like that to you, I hope you give me a detailled feedback
First, everywhere the phone is mentionned to include 512 MB of RAM and I have only 380 MB. Do you punish french people?! I am kidding, but well it is disappointing, those extra 132 MB are needed in case of gaming of heavy multitasking, or to install a future version of android.
Second point, what about an android 4.0 or 4.1 update? I've seen here and there rumours about an ICS update avalaible in september. Its competitor, the huawei honor already has it, and is really 512 MB of ram equipped, even if it is more expensive I know that a lotta people hesitate between these two devices, commercially speaking it would be wise to cell your flagship product with a newer, user-friendlier and more bluetooth devices compatible operating system.
If you prepare an ICS rom for the OT995, I would be glad to be a beta tester, assuming all the risks that it involves.
Otherwise, if you don't prepare officialy any update for ICS, try to help the few developpers working on that phone so the community can grow up and spread the good word about your phones!
Last but not least, I tried to connect some Bluetooth keyboards and a wiimote, without success. I'd love to use my phone as a gameStation or PC with my TV. Do you know any compatible BT keyboards and pads for this phone (for instance, the "phonejoy")
I love my OT995 ultra and think it is a great product which deserves to be known more.
I hope we keep in touch, have a good week end!
I wait for your response and send you my best regards!
Guigeek
Hey!! Got any response from Alcatel ?
Update:
Bought Mine Today ! Pure White
Answer from Alcate!
deadpunk said:
Hey!! Got any response from Alcatel ?
Update:
Bought Mine Today ! Pure White
Hello deadpunk! Yes I have an answer, I am a bit disappointed but the thing to know is that 128 MB of ram go to the gpu, it's huge according to me for an adreno 205!
Dear Guillaume,
Please note that ONE TOUCH 995 RAM memory is 512 MB ,but 512 MB divide into GPU running space and storage space, so that user cannot fully use 512 MB .
We have already set up plan to upgrade 995 to Android 4.0. But when will it be released and whether every 995 or just a part of 995 will be upgraded are not sure yet. Please keep an eye on our website
Sorry that Alcatel doesn't have BT keyboard and we can't guarantee other brand BT keyboards can be compatible with ONE TOUCH 995. We sincerely apologize the inconvenience!
Should you have another request, do not hesitate to contact us.
Thank you for choosing Alcatel!
Apparently you've got your alcatel and rooted, don't hesitate to post here if you find new stuff about it (rom, update etc...)
See ya!:laugh:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Guillaume.miossec.71 said:
deadpunk said:
Hey!! Got any response from Alcatel ?
Update:
Bought Mine Today ! Pure White
Hello deadpunk! Yes I have an answer, I am a bit disappointed but the thing to know is that 128 MB of ram go to the gpu, it's huge according to me for an adreno 205!
Dear Guillaume,
Please note that ONE TOUCH 995 RAM memory is 512 MB ,but 512 MB divide into GPU running space and storage space, so that user cannot fully use 512 MB .
We have already set up plan to upgrade 995 to Android 4.0. But when will it be released and whether every 995 or just a part of 995 will be upgraded are not sure yet. Please keep an eye on our website
Sorry that Alcatel doesn't have BT keyboard and we can't guarantee other brand BT keyboards can be compatible with ONE TOUCH 995. We sincerely apologize the inconvenience!
Should you have another request, do not hesitate to contact us.
Thank you for choosing Alcatel!
Apparently you've got your alcatel and rooted, don't hesitate to post here if you find new stuff about it (rom, update etc...)
See ya!:laugh:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah,Got mine and its really nice phone :laugh: didnt like the alcatel launcher, installed Holo Launcher and its pretty much like my SGS2 but there's one prob with this phone.Power button sometimes doesnt work, need to pull the battery out or reboot through terminal.
I can see only around 300MB(200mb for gpu???really?) which is weird.My SGS2 which is 1GB RAM shows 830MB(170MB left for GPU).
For ICS update,Alcatel One Touch Fr (facebook) said that it will be for september and I'm pretty sure it will be release as its a very popular phone in france.
btw: On XDA portal today, i saw this Create-your-own-flashable-zip-via-clockworkmod-recovery/. If someone can port this CWM to the OT-995, it will help us to create an update zip which user can share with all modification/tweaks/etc... :good:
C ya ++
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
good tutorial for me,thank you
Sent from my ALCATEL_one_touch_995
Hey Guillaume.miossec.71 !
Can you tell me what are the tweaks you have done in the build.prop ? Can you post your build.prop here so that i can compare
The only thing i dont like: I got blurry pic when opening it in gallery.
Did you try camera360 on your OT-995 ? Great app with many features and i'm getting better shot than the default cam app :good:
Guillaume.miossec.71 said:
6) I tried to change the boot animation in /system/media, replacing the stock bootanimation.zip by another one, and deleting former folders from alcatel, but I still have the original animation launching at boot. If someone knows, enlight me!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe try to replace the animation in /custpack/JRD_custres/media/, too. I think this one is used instead of the one in /system if it is there (never tried).
Guillaume.miossec.71 said:
5) Don't forget to uninstall or freeze apps you don't use so they don't remain in background process (even with a task killer, you should cleanse the phone a bit, only a few apps are useful among the one alcatel provides). I use "Root Uninstaller", which can freeze the apps without uninstalling them, so you can activate them in case of mistake
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Or you can recover them from the backup which you definitely should make before rooting!
deadpunk said:
I can see only around 300MB(200mb for gpu???really?) which is weird. My SGS2 which is 1GB RAM shows 830MB(170MB left for GPU).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I see 344mb (352984 kB) so it's about the same.
Guillaume.miossec.71 said:
I bought the red one, the finish and quality of the plastic is amazing for the price.
Okay, +1 for alcatel forum, I'll try to figure out how to do this to be effective. I found mine for 180 euros over the internet, it is a great deal for that price, even on stock rom.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agree (got the black one).
this device has same specs as galaxy s plus i9001 so can u port a rom?
Hey guys, sorry to answer 3 months later!
Hi everybody! Since My life has been quite busy I have not posted anything in the last months...
For the build.prop tweaks be cautious, some were counter efficient on my phone and 90% of them have proven to be useless.
You can give a try to "pimp my rom" which will guide you well through various menu full of parameters to tweak your rom yourself .
Nevertheless, I've tested several rom for the OT995 like CM10, PA 2.52 and 2.55, H1N1, PACMAN rom, etc..
These are all very smooth and pleasant to use.
I like a lot the work of BENETNATH, he surely is the guy who involves the most in the OT995 rom process,
providing update frequently. Even if I'd rather use the simplier cm10 than PA on my phone,
I follow with interest the job he's doing.
Unfortunately I can't comment his posts yet since I am a newbie on XDA with 6 posts
Alas,I have a big complain/request and hope some of you guys can transmit it: DATA and network browsing are not working with my phone on the last PA 2.55, cm10 and PAC Rom!!! I'm in France, using a B&You sim card
I really want jelly bean on my phone, to enjoy project butter smoothness for instance, please work on it guys, I'd be so grateful!!:good:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Otherwise, I've solved my fpscaps problem, everything is goddamn smooth (50fps+) with the last release of fpse. It's a very good app, but I also
advise you to try EPSXE. I've been using it for ages on PC, and the android version is pretty sweet. Although it lacks of parameters to enhance
graphics/sound, it's working really fine (even better than FPSE) on my favorite rom (FFIX: sound is now perfect!!! and castlevania SOT.Night).
If you wanna test it, you can grab your fpse memcard files, rename them and paste them in EPSXE "memcards" folder (not working for the
sstates).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I've also bought Chainfire 3d, mainly to use the EGL driver with the antialiasing option. I don't see anything on EPSXE (surely cuz I don't use the
opengl plugin, not playable on this hardware), but I observe a great bump of quality under "chaos ring", the square Enix RPG. It was pixellised,
now it renders perfectly without losing any FPS. So if like me your device is more like a nomad game station, give it a shot
Don't hesitate if you wanna discuss on these topics
Is there someplace people can go to make requests for new Android features? (Someplace were developers might actually see it and perhaps implement the requests?)
I have had ideas for several features that I think would make my Android devices (I have owned about 6) far better...
- One of my ideas was the ability for more than one Bluetooth device (ie: wireless headphone/earphones) to be able to connect to a single Android device at the same time. I go running, hiking, etc... When I go alone, I often listen to music. It would be great if when I run with someone else, if they could listen to the music I am playing on my Android device at the same time I am.
- I have changed ROMs many times, but when I do, it is always a pain to have to setup (or recreate) my music playlists on the new ROM. Many (not all) Android music players seem to allow users to import music playlists that have been created on PCs or whatever. None of the music players or the Android OS itself seem to allow me to save a music playlist as a file (ie: export) that I can reload later, use on another device, or give to someone else.
- None of the Android ROMs I have come across seem to provide a (relatively easy) way to change the the the resolution (LCD density) so that I can make images and text larger or smaller on my display. This is something that is very easy to do (change a setting and hit save/apply) on every PC I have ever owned, but the few ROMs that seem to allow this seem to have a complex procedure for doing it.
- Ability to put Widgets in folders (on the desktop). I like widgets. I sometimes even like the UI of a widget better than the associated app. (Sometimes widgets provides a nice condensed view of the information/features, or provide simple capabilities like a switch to turn on/off a feature without launching menus and digging through them.) Unfortunately the Android OS (or the "Home" apps that currently exist) does not (do not) allow widgets to be put into a folder on the desktop. I would like this feature for many reasons. 1) The folder could limit the widget from consuming battery or system resources until the folder was opened. That way widgets would not use up my battery or CPU cycles until I opened the folder and looked at them.
- It would be great to have a "magnifying glass" (zoom feature) that I could use to make any specific area on the display larger (so that if I'm having trouble seeing something small on the display, I can magnify it large enough to see it).
I have more ideas, but those are just a few of the things I think would make Android devices better. Feel free to add your own suggestions to this list.
Pretty good ideas as far as magnifying just pinch to zoom in that specific area or double tap. I believe there are apps to backup a music playlist the bluetooth idea is actually kind of cool
Sent from my SPH-L900 using xda app-developers app
mediawiz said:
Is there someplace people can go to make requests for new Android features? (Someplace were developers might actually see it and perhaps implement the requests?)
I have had ideas for several features that I think would make my Android devices (I have owned about 6) far better...
- One of my ideas was the ability for more than one Bluetooth device (ie: wireless headphone/earphones) to be able to connect to a single Android device at the same time. I go running, hiking, etc... When I go alone, I often listen to music. It would be great if when I run with someone else, if they could listen to the music I am playing on my Android device at the same time I am.
- I have changed ROMs many times, but when I do, it is always a pain to have to setup (or recreate) my music playlists on the new ROM. Many (not all) Android music players seem to allow users to import music playlists that have been created on PCs or whatever. None of the music players or the Android OS itself seem to allow me to save a music playlist as a file (ie: export) that I can reload later, use on another device, or give to someone else.
- None of the Android ROMs I have come across seem to provide a (relatively easy) way to change the the the resolution (LCD density) so that I can make images and text larger or smaller on my display. This is something that is very easy to do (change a setting and hit save/apply) on every PC I have ever owned, but the few ROMs that seem to allow this seem to have a complex procedure for doing it.
- Ability to put Widgets in folders (on the desktop). I like widgets. I sometimes even like the UI of a widget better than the associated app. (Sometimes widgets provides a nice condensed view of the information/features, or provide simple capabilities like a switch to turn on/off a feature without launching menus and digging through them.) Unfortunately the Android OS (or the "Home" apps that currently exist) does not (do not) allow widgets to be put into a folder on the desktop. I would like this feature for many reasons. 1) The folder could limit the widget from consuming battery or system resources until the folder was opened. That way widgets would not use up my battery or CPU cycles until I opened the folder and looked at them.
- It would be great to have a "magnifying glass" (zoom feature) that I could use to make any specific area on the display larger (so that if I'm having trouble seeing something small on the display, I can magnify it large enough to see it).
I have more ideas, but those are just a few of the things I think would make Android devices better. Feel free to add your own suggestions to this list.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great ideas. I use Google Music to set up my playlists with my music on my desktop at home. No matter if I'm at work, over a friends house, or switching roms on my phone, as soon as I download google music, all my playlists and music is right at my fingertips.
As far as resolution changing, I would suggest Carbon Rom as you can change your density in less than a minute, and that's mostly because you have to reboot twice, but there are no force close issues or any of that.
As far as features go, I would like to see recovery feature addition:
The thing I hate the most about switching roms is having to log in to 15 different accounts again. I wish TWRP would construct a feature that allows me to carry over my sign in information for standard apps (Facebook, Webex, GroupME, etc.) that most people use.
Or perhaps, a ROM that offered three different login slots that attempted to log into every app that I restore using those slots first and if login is unsuccessful, THEN prompt me to enter login information.
Just a suggestion that would allow the end-user to streamline setting up his/her rom. What do you guys think?
PS: I think the multi-bluetooth device feature would be sweet as well. I have a couple of computers at home that I use my Note to control, it would be nice to have the option to control any given device in an instance.
As for resolution, that's much more easier said than done, since some apps would have to be rebuilt from the ground, or at least would have to individually be written and flashed for said resolution.
However, if there are a few apps that you really want to change (like for me, G-Mail, Chrome, XDA, gReader, etc), you really need to check out XPosed, honestly, I don't know if I'll ever buy a device that doesn't support it or something similar. It features on the fly resolution/DPI adjustments per app, one of the greatest MODs ever brought to Android, hands down.
The Note2 does what I need it to once rooted. I would like to see better prices and data first. Why have the next great thing when you pay out the ass and don't have equal speed?
I would like to see Android updates that actually make me want them, like better codex, performance, UI functions, etc. Some updates don't really seem like updates, like when Ubuntu releases a new version but you do the same thing as before, and you are left wanting more.
daswahnsinn said:
The Note2 does what I need it to once rooted. I would like to see better prices and data first. Why have the next great thing when you pay out the ass and don't have equal speed?
I would like to see Android updates that actually make me want them, like better codex, performance, UI functions, etc. Some updates don't really seem like updates, like when Ubuntu releases a new version but you do the same thing as before, and you are left wanting more.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree somewhat. However, I think that the 4.2.2 roms with Linaro are noticeably faster than other 4.2.2 roms without it. Carbon is much faster without me having to use apps like Pimp My Rom and Lag Reducer without compromising my battery performance.
Halo is also another great custom feature that may one day rival the stock multi-window feature.
I also like the profile triggers built into Carbon, bluetooth and wifi triggers are wonderful, hopefully we can get some GPS triggers, then we will really be in business lol.
All in all, I agree with you though, we need some REAL POWER behind these updates. But I'm sure devs would say "Let's get some real CASH behind the devs and you guys will see some POWER!!" **Gotta look at it from both sides**
Great input guys. Let's keep it going!!!
lightning launcher has the widget in folder capabilities. It's my daily launcher
just saying.....
Sent from my SPH-L900 using xda premium
Need the Android equivalent to iMessage.
Desperately needed and no, Google Hangouts (in its current state ) is not the answer.
Sent from my SGNote 2!
[email protected] said:
I agree somewhat. However, I think that the 4.2.2 roms with Linaro are noticeably faster than other 4.2.2 roms without it. Carbon is much faster without me having to use apps like Pimp My Rom and Lag Reducer without compromising my battery performance.
Halo is also another great custom feature that may one day rival the stock multi-window feature.
I also like the profile triggers built into Carbon, bluetooth and wifi triggers are wonderful, hopefully we can get some GPS triggers, then we will really be in business lol.
All in all, I agree with you though, we need some REAL POWER behind these updates. But I'm sure devs would say "Let's get some real CASH behind the devs and you guys will see some POWER!!" **Gotta look at it from both sides**
Great input guys. Let's keep it going!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
See I like Touchwiz and the stock UI bs and want more of these mods to make into a stock ROM, sometimes I wish Sammy read these types of forums.
The long awaited Lollipop update for Samsung Note 4 is here. For some of us. Maybe it could have waited a bit longer; especially the Developer Edition group who suffers some minor setbacks at the moment... But developers are hard at work trying to snuff out a bug dealing with the brightness control, affected by the reflash of the aboot.mbn (the file we use to put the Note 4 in Developer mode - a.k.a. unlocked), as well as fighting the new Lollipop architecture and compatibility of some applications, including but not limited to xposed framework / modules, and some other not-ready-for-Lollipop-prime-time applications (requiring root, and some not...)
But, while there are a few approaches to getting LP on those devices and keeping the developer option - I wish to report at least my take on Lollipop. I like it. I like it very much. My initial "road test" seems to be quite positive...
I will list the no-so-good items I found so far, which are just a few;
1. As stated above, yes I suffer the lack of brightness control too, where the device stays @ 100% brightness all the time. the other part of that is, if you try and adjust the lighting profile like dynamic, cinema, and or photo etc, it also does not work - I think from the same issue.
2. I also want to report that even with the battery cover off, during all the flashing, my unit got quite hot and reported overheating... but, since the flashing completed, the unit get's a tad warmer (that's my perception) now and then, but in either case, the battery life seems unaffected by it - which is good....
3. Lastly the app installations go a bit slower than KK in my opinion, sometimes a lot slower. But, once installed, and running, all is ok...
So, the "road test" - this is based on a developer version, with the OTA of LP, which hit our devices, just like non-developers - same day.
The noticeable benefits:
1. The phone boots quicker. definitely an improvement over KK
2. Major change in Hardware GPS performance and accuracy. The acquisition is similar to KK, but the accuracy is far better than KK even JB, for sure - Using GPS Test Plus, I get consistent 10ft accurace, whereas before, in KK / JB, it'd get to 10ft every so often, yet seemed to bounce between 13ft and 16ft most of the time... I'm very happy bout this.
3. Bluetooth sync / paring - It was like I had a whole new phone, faster sync, it actually found my speakerphone without me having to make the unit visible, nice...
4. Using TWRP, backups to the internal sdcard0 were 94 seconds to completion, and that was with TWRP, SuperSU, and Root Explorer installed. The best time, after I de-bloated the phone, removing a bucketload of Samsung apps, Some Google, Some Verizon, Virtually all Location Service Software (I'll explain briefly later) and a great handful of applications - brought the TWRP backup time to just 72 seconds - just amazing!!!!
5. DE bloating went smooth, no app stoppages upon reboot, pretty dang clean... Aside from SuperSU and Root Explorer, I was down to about 18 visible apps - "The Naked Lollipop!!"
6. I think I am seeing an improvement on fast charge, if anything, it's not getting worse, which is great...
7. I like the whole UI / UX of Lollipop better than the other OS's, more ergonomic, more notifying, flatter look n feel - but, maybe it's me, cause it's new...
8. Native Call Recording works great (have to be rooted) - this is an app flashable if rooted, not associated w / xposed. General phone use seems to be cool - still getting used to the end button in the middle of the screen...
I have not tried a full audio / video / media test yet, on fidelity etc... that will be a bit later on...
What is everyone's experience with LP, rooted / non-rooted etc.?
The talk in the other Lollipop Threads is that battery life is a lot worse. Do you think that might be a Retail Edition problem that doesn't affect DE's? Maybe caused by the OTA flash? When I tried it I found an unacceptable problem that I may have missed the fix for. Possibly it'll be OK the next time I try. The real problem was I was unable to restore my KK backup in TWRP 2.8.5.0. I ended up having to start fresh. Another real problem is the inability to turn down the screen brightness on all of the white backgrounds gives me a headache. I'm probably going to wait for the fix for that.
Starting from scratch isn't a real problem because I usually think of improvements for my new installation. I am concerned about not being able to restore though. I'm going to replace my last back-up but I was wondering if TWRP 2.8.6.0.might be better. Are there any thoughts on that matter?