[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] da_gud_guy:
Hi,

I live in Shanghai, China. Everyone who lives here knows that any phone you purchase here , even good brands (such as Samsung etc..) will not any have google applications installed. It's almost impossible to get these phones fixed without changing their roms, which is inconveneint and dangerous. From my personal experience once you change the rom of your chinese phone to a foreign one, you will never get the optimum performance. I first purchased a Samsung Galaxy S5660 in China. It worked perfectly expect for the fact that I couldn't use any google app. After being unable to add these applications, I finally flashed some rom from Europe. Then the market etc , all google apps worked fine but the performance was bad. Battery life was really poor. Also I changed several roms after that , none of which gave me the same performance which I had with the original chinese rom.

Now I have got a new Galaxy Note (not N7000), in China it's called I9220. I ran in to the exact same problem. No market, no google , absolutely nothing!! After a lot of research I was able to fix it this morning. If you have got the same problem then follow the steps. Here is how you do it!..

(But I must warn you that I am not responsible for any damage to your phone. Please do it at your own risk).

First use this video guide below :

URL DELETED

//Since this is my first post, I am not allowed to post any links. Please go to the website rootgalaxynote.com and search for the article "how to root ics on galaxy note gt n7000 no computer required".

All credit for this vdeo goes to the guys at rootgalaxynote.

In the above guide follow both recommendations. I mean root your device and then also change your kernel to FrancoICS. Both worked on my I9220 without any problems. My phone started and it was already rooted. Also I got the Clockworkrecovery as the default recovery.

Once you have finished this task, the final task is adding all the google applications. This is quite easy and I did it myself.

1. Go to the website goo.im/gapps and download the latest ICS gapps zip file, currently it is gapps-ics-20120429-signed.zip.

2. Save it to your external SD card.

3. Reboot into Clockwork recovery mode (you should know how to do this if you have already succesfully rooted your device using the above method)

4. Choose "install zip file from external sd"

5. Find the Gapps file and install it.

6. Done, and restart your phone.

You now have your Original Stock Chinese rom, but it's rooted and you have installed all google applications. Just make a google account and you can use the android market. :)

Even with the google market working , you cannot access many application since you are in China. If you want to be able to download all applications available in the USA for example, then you must also install marketEnabler.

Here's the link :

URL Deleted.

//Just google search market enabler, you will find it very easily.

1. After you install it, run it and choose T-Mobile (USA) and then click Fake this provider now.

Now if you use Google Market, you should be able to install or download almost any app (such as youtube, facebook, skype etc...)

I hope this is helpful to all the foreigners in China who are tortured by Chinese android phones that only come with Chinese bloatware and doesn't allow you to install any English app or access google stuff..

Good Luck!

Note : When I got my new phone today, it already had ICS so this whoe process worked for me. If your chinese I9220 isn't ICS, it's gingerbread, then don't attempt it, because it might not work.