Stuck in customs

Literally, my 2nd unit of the THL T6S is now stuck in customs due to regulation/import duty clearance.

I was contacted by the forwarding company asking me to contact a person in charge of goods clearance and taxes. Well, this was unexpected since the first unit that I ordered was delivered without any fuss.

This will mean that I would need to pay some money for getting it through to me. Luckily, I learn that the fees are not that expensive but still, money is money.

THL T6S and OTG Support

This post might spark some debate but I had tried various methods and apps to get the OTG to work on the T6S but in the end - no joy.

I had even tried by pushing the required xml file (copied from the other phones) into the /system/etc/permission but it simply will not work. From my understanding, we need both OS and hardware to support OTG for it to work. The T6S seems to lack the required hardware.

Below is the screen capture from the T6S to conclude this post. Again, we cant get everything from such a cheap device. For me, its worth every Ringgit/Dollar/Euro we had paid for it.

 

Optimizing MIUI

Now I own a few phones with different specification and rom running on each one. The Lenovo A766, Xiomi Note and Xiomi 1S are running different version of MIUI, a highly customized Android.

Since 50% of my blog readers are from chinaphonearena, the chances of you, the readers are already or had or considering of flashing MIUI are very high. So, Im going to share one simple and fast method of improving the MIUI,which are known to be a little bit laggy (even with a quad-core processor and 1GB of RAM).

Disclaimer - As usual, you are responsible if anything bad happened to your phone. I had tested this methods on all the three models stated above with success.

What you need

1. A rooted smartphone running a MIUI rom (in my case, the 1S, with JHCMIBF37 firmware).
2. Any backup software capable of freezing apps (especially system apps) such as the Titanium Backup Pro (TB). I would recommend you to freeze the apps first before deleting them. If your phone behave normally (and with better performance), go ahead and delete the apps, if necessary.

I was inform that the App Freeze can also get the job done for free but untested by me.

Steps

Lets freeze so apps!

1. Reboot into your custom recovery (CWM or Carliv or TWRP) and do a nandroid backup. Safety first. You can fall back on this backup if anything goes wrong.
2. Boot into MIUI and launch the TB app.
3. If you are connected to the Xiomi Cloud service, go ahead and log out of the Xiomi account.
4. Search for "Mi Cloud Framework" and press on it. A popup menu will be displayed with various options. Select the Freeze option.
5. Repeat the freezing process for "Sync with Mi Cloud" and "Xiomi Assistant".
6. Reboot your phone.

Find and freeze those apps

Optional apps to be frozen

1. All the live wallpapers & live wallpaper picker (if you dont use them).
2. Home screen tips.
3. System (MIUI) launcher - make sure you have other launcher such as the Nova/Apex Launcher installed and set the them as the default launcher first!
4. Other apps that you dont really use (such as Google Play Movie, in my case, at least)

Before freezing the apps - 17+++ mark

Good luck!

MIUI for the THL T6S

I have a MIUI rom baking in the oven for the T6S. Its 90% completed. Lets just hope that everything will turn out alright.

Photoshopped.. :P

Don't put too much hope on this build as there are a few required files missing from the T6S source that I/we have. I borrowed those missing files from somewhere and kind of cheat on a file.

Cross your fingers guys. I will update the result in around 5 or 6 hours due to work commitment.

Update.

Well, not everything will work out the way we wanted. The whole installation was fine but it just stuck at a garbage looking screen.

Anyway, I had learned a 2 important things.

1. The wiping of data on the T6S is about 5 whole minutes.

2. The Carliv recovery works. It can create and restore backup succesfully. With that in mind, I will try again.

The loading/boot image of miui (in a non successful port)

Update : I had tried 5 different ports and none works. Until a kitkat MIUI is released on a similiar device, a port is impossible. Until then, download and install MIUI express launcher for a taste of MIUI on this device.. 

Xiaomi / Redmi 1S

Yup.. another phone to play with. Behold, the Xiaomi / Redmi 1S.

Xiaomi / Redmi 1S

Specification wise, it's almost the same as the THL T6S. In the next few days (If I can resist myself not to do it sooner than that), I'll be comparing it with the T6S.

My early observation are the Redmi wins in terms of screen quality & after sales support. In terms of stock OS performance & value for money, the T6S wins.

Image of Masjid Zahir, Alor Setar taken with the 1S

Porting MIUI Rom

Im a bit disappointed with the quality of the custom roms available for my son's Lenovo A766.

They are either very laggy or unstable enough to be a daily driver. As a result, he was stuck with the stock rom, which are not very responsive.

I had read numerous articles on porting miui roms. To be frank, i wasn't sure that I can accept the idea of bricking a phone. But enough is enough, I need to brave myself and take the first step forward.

I went ahead and downloaded a miui rom for the Lenovo S820. Why that one? a. Its the same manufacturer so, there must be some kind of similiarity. b. They're both have almost the same hardware specificatios, especually the chipset used.

After about 15 minutes if getting the stock rom dump and another 30 minutes or so copying file between the base and stock files, I flashed the new rom onto the phone.

After a long 5 or so minutes at the boot screen, I was greeted with the familiar welcome screen of miui V5. What a relief.

The default home screen & wallpape

With everything working good (signal detection, Wi-Fi, screen size and touch feedback), I decided that I should stop thinkering too much with the rom. There are still some minor ignorable glitches, but overall its far better than the other custom roms available out there for the A766.

 

About phone information. Need to edit the build.prop

Download link on Mega. This is a trial rom for me, so dont expect miracles. Flash it on your own risks. Normal procedures, wipe data, cache, system & dalvik. Flash rom, gapps for 4.2, UPDATE-SuperSU-vX.XX.zip and reboot.

Next, porting miui for the THL T6S.. maybe..

Graphic rendering glitch. But, I'll use it as it is.

How to flash the cwm recovery and root the THL T6S

DISCLAIMER: DO this at your own risk. Using incorrect scatter file, or incorrect CWM/Carliv can brick your phone. I won’t be responsible or liable if anything bad happened to your android device.

What’s you need to have.

• USB Cable & PC
• SP Flash Tool software ver 3.1304
• ADB VCOM Drivers
• Scatter file for the THL T6S
• CWM recovery img for the THL T6S (rename it to recovery.img after you had download it)
• UPDATE-SuperSU-v1.99.zip or newer version of it (copy it to the phone's internal memory)

The SOP aka instructions

1. Download all files above and install the drivers.
2. Download, extract and run SP Flash Tool.
3. Click scatter loading on right side of SP Flash Tool and browse to where the scatter file is.
4. Uncheck all the boxes except for recovery.
5. Click the recovery line and browse to where the downloaded CWM is stored.
6. Click download at the top of SP Flash Tool.
7. A warning will pop up letting you know that not all items are selected. Click OK.
8. Remove the battery from the phone. If you attached the battery, SP Flash Tool will not be able to detect the THL T6S.
9. Connect the THL T6S to PC via USB – At this point, you will see the preloader  at the bottom of the SP Flash Tool is communicating with the PC. The bar at the bottom of SP Flash Tool will start to move indicating that the file is being transferred. At the end of the flash process, you will see a green circle indicating that the flash process had finished successfully.
10. Disconnect the USB cable from the phone and Put the battery back into the phone.
11. Boot into cwm recovery by holding vol up + power button for a few seconds. 
12. You will see a boot selection menu. Press the vol up button navigate to the Recovery Mode option.
13. Press the vol down button to enter the newly flashed cwm recovery. Take note that the cwm will be upside down. Navigate through the options by using the vol up & vol down button.
14. Select Install Zip From SD and then select the UPDATE-SuperSU-v1.99.zip.
15. Confirm the installation and then reboot the phone.

* For my friends from htcmania who are having problem streaming youtube videos, i would suggest for you to go to advance wifi setting and turn off WiFi optimization. See if that will help.