yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Galaxy S 4 Accessories] Gamer_Josh:
That's pretty interesting. Seems really useful for people who want to have an optical zoom available for pictures taken on their phone. It's also convenient that it screws on and off really easily, and you don't have to change cases. Although some may prefer a little more of a protective case. Maybe they should make another case variant that offers more protection over the standard.
[Galaxy S 4 Accessories] jax5ter:
i was actually looking at a couple of these on ebay but never really knew if these worked that good.

Is it possible you could post a couple of side by side pics like one without zooming in and one after zooming in? I was hoping to see how clear the pics are through this lens. Thanks for the review tho! :good::good:
[Galaxy S 4 Accessories] contrinsan:
Looks nice, i sure also wanna see some pictures/video's made with this, maybe a compare between maximum zoom with & without the extra lens to see the difference & to see if it can still make sharp pictures.
[Galaxy S 4 Accessories] ElZany:
looks really interesting hopefully you can (or somebody) post some pics and/or video using this
[Galaxy S 4 Accessories] zachpozniak:
I'm not good at taking pictures so I would be no help. Although at the end of the video I have two sample pictures. I wouldn't go by them though, I need to practice more. Lol
[Galaxy S 4 Accessories] Caferacer:
Oi, a zoom lens review with no pictures?

Never before has the saying 'this thread is useless without pics' been more appropriate.
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshootin] str8shot:
New i337 user here.

Had it rooted yesterday, using the ./pwn method.

I realize now - I was on AMF3.

Once rooted - I was trying to get TWRP installed via goomanager.

Now I'm stuck in download mode. When ever I try to flash via odin to MDL or MDB, I get a FAIL! (Auth) error.

Is there anyway to fix this? Is there an AMF3 tar out there that's flashable via Odin?

Or am I completely screwed?
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshootin] jd1639:
Sorry to say, you're screwed. There is no mf3 Odin file. And you can't put a custom recovery on mf3. That's what bricked you. You could try jtag. Talk to mobiletechvideos.com.
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshootin] str8shot:
Fail. :(

Other alternative is to wait for an Odin flashable file, I assume?
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshootin] jd1639:
Yes, but it could be a real long wait. I'm not even sure jtag would work. From what I've seen on xda it seems the mf3 is really causing problems. If you go that route talk to mobiltech and explain what happened as see if they have a fix before you send your phone in. Warranty might also work.
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshootin] xBeerdroiDx:
has anyone tried kies emergency recovery yet with this issue? i'm curious.
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshootin] str8shot:
I tried that, but Kies doesn't even register the phone as connected.

I'm really bumming. :(
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshootin] str8shot:
Even if there was a stock MF3 boot/recovery flashable via odin, that would probably work. All the other partitions should be fine...
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshootin] jd1639:
Huh

Man, I'm feeling your pain. I was thinking along the same lines. Some how you borked the recovery and if you could get that back on you might be ok. You might want to check with Aou or AdamOutler. They're wizzes at this type of stuff.

Edit, Just found this. http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=44431964
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshootin] maxshah912:
Call Samsung tell them your phone not working it is not turning on and send for repair [ PS free warranty for yr ] best they can do is tell you no after looking phone. Shipping is free as well.

I have bricked my s3 by flashing different Rom and they fixed it for me.

Also bricked my s4 AT&T same way as u did they fixed it for me lol

Most of time they be nice and fix it for you.
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshootin] Aou:
The closest we got was this:

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2374221 (see end of post #6 for tarball)

We managed to build an odin-flashable tarball with the MF3 recovery. If it worked, it would save your device.

Problem is, the only copies of recovery.img that we can get right now are refused by the phone because they are not signed. If we got a signed version, we'd be golden. Unfortunately we probably won't see this until Kies has MF3.
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshootin] str8shot:
It's a miracle!

I read through your thread; and for giggle - instead of letting it fail to boot and fall back to dl mode, I manually entered dl mode, then hit vol down to cancel and reboot.

It booted normally and all appears well...guess I have to delete goo for now. I'm missing CM10.1, though. :(

Thanks! And PHWEW! Thought I was screwed!
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshootin] Aou:
Congrats! Yes, you'll be without custom ROMs until we find a new exploit similar to Loki, or fully unlocked bootloaders.

I'm assuming you don't have a recovery at all now, right? Might want to check that out while you have everyone's attention here.

If it's borked, you might be able to manually use "dd" to flash the stock MF3 recovery back onto your device... You would use something like:

su
dd if=/sdcard/mf3-recovery.bin of=/dev/block/mmcblk0p21

For the love of God, don't get that partition number wrong (p21) - check your spelling before pressing Enter. There is some risk in this method, so check out any available options you might have in goo manager to restore a backup or something first.
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshootin] str8shot:
Using the unsigned recovery from the other post?
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshootin] Aou:
As a last resort, yes. It came from [MENTION=2811474]joeybear23[/MENTION] who dumped it using my instructions in post #2 of that same thread, or you could extract it out of the tarball if you wish. The image itself can be downloaded in the first part of post #6. Might need to rename it or otherwise change the filename referenced in the "dd" command.

Again, this is only if your recovery is currently borked and unusable.
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshootin] NMonster69:
I fixed mine using a dif file.

I found a file called MF3_BTL_FIX.tar.md5. Flashed it in odin and it fixed my bootloader issues. Everything back to normal. Found it used for a dif issue elsewhere on XDA. I thought I was screwed for the foreseeable future.
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshootin] jpaytoncfd:
Just wanted to give this a second thumbs up. Seems soooo stupid but it works, lol. Thanks!
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshootin] ardonie:
lol

after hours of trying every thing else thanx. it worked
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] imjustbeingian:
I switched over to a rooted phone about 3 months ago and had slight battery issues for the first week or so. I'm guessing I had about 7 hour battery life at the time and i just got used to it. I flashed CM10 onto it 3 weeks ago and everything has been fine except for the battery. it's completely sporadic. Sometimes it seems like a new phone. With battery lasting the whole day. But other times I can't even squeeze an hour out of it. I just woke up today, booted up Airdroid on a full charge, installed one app and the next time i looked down I had 20% battery. I check the battery page and it always says that the screen is taking up all of the charge even though I keep it less than 25% brightness all he time. Help?

Galaxy S3 SGH-1747

CM10
[Android General] toffzter:
Hello! I saw this cheap android smartphone Xiaocai X9 and I think it is a cool phone. It has a quad core MT6589 1.2GHz CPU, 1GB RAM, 4.5 inch QHD IPS-OGS screen. The full specs of the phone are here: http://www.budgetandroidphones.com/xiaocai-x9

What I like most, though, is its appearance, especially the variety of colors for the back cover:

I just hope the quality is good for this one. Please share your thoughts or experiences with this phone...
[Android General] Lindsay02:
Mobile phone looks good, don't know how the quality of mobile phone?

I found a problem, http://www.bicgate.com/xiaocai-x9-s...core-4-5-inch-1gb-4gb-8-0mp-camera-black.html description of this site have some place is not the same as you wrote parameters, who write wrong?
[Android General] toffzter:
I agree it's really attractive. I think this is one of the better phones in China because it has its own unique UI. Maybe they put some efforts in the development of their phones.
[Android General] ludoo:
Got one yesterday.

Pros: great screen, small(ish), very lightweight, snappy, good fast camera, lots of ROMs on the official Chinese forums (LeWa, MIUI, etc.), price

Cons: no notification LED, no button lights, awful skinned OS

Did not have time to test in-call audio and GPS yet.
[Android General] toffzter:
Thanks for the info ludoo! I'm looking forward for the rest of your impressions. Does it have the MT6589 1.2GHz CPU or the turbo version MT6589T 1.5GHz?
[Android General] ludoo:
The 1.2Ghz version, but given the (relatively) low display resolution, it's plenty fast.

On the official Chinese forum there are already lots of ROMs for this device, and on the Chinese MIUI forum there's a semi-official MIUI ROM. I tried MIUI and the latest LeWa, and they are both pretty good. MIUI has some bugs, but they are pretty harmless and it works quite well. The LeWa too is very good.

If you can get around the missing LED and button lights, need a smallish device, and are able to try a few different ROMs, it's a pretty good phone. I paid 120€ including DHL shipping from mixeshop, got it in 5 days. I don't think you can do better at that price.
[Android General] khoornix:
Hey ludoo,

reading your feedback it looks like you managed to make this phone work.

I just received mine and i'm pretty dissapointed as the terrible cai os doesn't even let me enter my pincode so i can't even use my phone atm.

That's why i wanted to ask you where you found romds, flashing tool, drivers etc.... i'm pretty bad at flashing (i have windows 7) but i don't have a choice i guess.

For the rest the phone is fast indeed, good screen, way to thin cheap backcover that is making creaking noise and gives it an afwull cheap feeling compared to the faea f1 of my girlfriend. Camera is good (and better then the faea), psp emulation also fast (faster then faea's with snapdragon). Still need to test gps and calling functions...

If i manage to change the rom i guess i'll be a little happire with it so i'll be very happy if you can help!

thx,

Thierry
[Android General] ludoo:
Yes, "caios" is pretty awful.

Flashing tool for official roms is SP Flash Tool, the same as for all other phones based on the same processor. There are threads here on how to use it if you need to.

Custom ROMs are flashed through recovery, and to install recovery you can either use flash tool with the attached files, or more simply root the phone (motochopper autoroot works ok), then install mtk droid tools (thread here on xda) and flash or create a new one from there.

Once you have done that, ROMs are here. You will need to register a user account, but it's pretty easy with google translate. LeWaOS is the one I prefer of the custom ROMs on that site.

CWM recovery and boot image attached below
[Android General] ludoo:
If you get stuck send me a PM :)
[Android General] toffzter:
That's great ludoo! I never liked it big anyway when it comes to phones, so Xiaocai X9 seems to be a good choice. Most new phones coming out recently are 5-inchers, which is a little too big for me.

How about the performance of GPS and calling?
[Android General] ludoo:
The X9 is smaller than most 5", but it's not a huge difference if you compare it to slim ones like the THL W200. It's substantially lighter though. The feel is a bit plasticky, but the important bits (apart from the missing notification led) are all there.

Calling is ok, audio quality is not the best I have heard nor the worst, average and perfectly usable. I only tried GPS in unfarouable conditions: no SIM card (thus no A-GPS), no WIFI, in the courtyard of a 5-story building. First lock took a few minutes, after that things were pretty fast. Signal is good, my THL W200 gets slightly stronger signals but the X9 is better than all other Chinaphones I had (except for the W200).

GPS lock from the X9, Murphy's law in action: precision was 3m except for the nanosecond I took the screenshot :)

GPS lock from the W200
[Android General] ludoo:
I just finished porting the THL W100 ROM to the X9. I'm testing it and it seems to work well, not surprising given that the two device share mostly the same hardware. It has to be installed from CWM, download it here

http://www.needrom.com/mobile/xiaocai-x9/
[Android General] zurpher:
Hi guys,

Where did you order your Xiaocai X9 from? I am looking into ordering one given the good reviews and its value-for-money.
[Android General] mfernan80:
Xiaocai X9 or THL w200?

Hi ludoo,

I will buy on Tuesday Supernova Sale on Aliexpress one of these phones(my last choices after several days searches): Xiaocai X9 or THL w200. First of all, i know these 2 are different price range phones, so the first question is: does w200 worth $50 more? I'm not an intensive user, just mail,messaging and calls, some news/web browsing and video/photo camera use rarely...

There are 3 issues I'm concerned about:

1) OS image and language quality. I'm Spanish, so i know it is more difficult to find a good Spanish interface. Is it really needed to flash a new ROM in X9 instead of CAI OS?? I'm a newbie with this, so i will thank you if you recommend me some tutorials or similar

2) Battery life, 1800mah in X9 and 1750mah in w200, does this really last a day at least?

3) Quality/Endurance of the materials and components, screen specially...

Any issues(pros/cons) between both phones to consider?

As you are one of the few i have found with both phones, your opinion will be great for me!! Anyway, any other phone recommendation in that price range($150-200)?

Thanks a lot in advance!
[Android General] ludoo:
By all means, get the W200. It's a different class of phone:

* hardware is complete (sensors, notification led, button lights)

* build is much better, feels like a premium phone while the X9 feels a bit like a plastic toy

* larger screen, more internal memory

Yes, on the X9 you only get Chinese and English and would need to flash a new ROM. The W200 instead is multilanguage (Spanish included) and is plain Android, which works very very well. You can use it out of the box, or root (very easy with framaroot) and install xposed+gravitybox to customize lots of things in a very easy way.

With light use it lasts a couple of days. It all depends on the app you install and your usage patterns. I'd root it and install greenify. But one day is pretty easy.

If you want a long lasting phone buy a major brand phone with a 2-yr warranty. :) But the W200 feels sturdy and very well built. It's probably the best price/quality ratio on the market right now. I got mine from mixeshop, fast service and no customs duties (with dhl shipping of course).
[Android General] ephumuris:
Just ordered mine as a spare phone it's not shipped yet but i'm eager to look for people who also own the phone. Is there a CWM or TWRP for it? Is that the recovery linked on the first page?
[Android General] mfernan80:
Thanks a lot for your quick and good answer.

As i see you are a great defender of w200, i guess the answer to the following question, but i will give it a try ;)

The other candidates(secondary choices) were:

FAEA F1

LENOVO A820 OR A830

ZOPO Z910

HDC S4 PRO

Jiayu G3S

Any comments on those compared to THL w200?

Thanks a lot again ludoo! I hope this will be my last question before purchasing...
[Android General] ludoo:
Hah, my first reply is to not sweat it too much looking for the perfect phone, as it does not exist especially with Chinese brands. Each one has some faults, you only need to pick one with no serious faults, then it all depends what you are prepared to live with. But for what they cost, you can plan on keeping the one you buy for 6 months / a year then replace it, you would still have spent much much less than a tier one brand phone.

I had the G3, and would not buy it again. It was a good phone at the time, but Chinese technology has progressed a lot in the past few months: its screen while good by last year's standards pales in comparison to the OGS (One Glass Solution) tech used in later models, where the distance from the front glass to the actual image is so tiny that it looks like the image is almost painted. On the Jiayu, it feels like looking through an aquarium window.

The HDC I would discount on principle, being a clone of another phone. There are Chinese brands good enough to have their own design without needing to look like something Samsung or Apple made, and I'd stick to those.

Of the Faea, I read that its camera has only fixed focusing. I might be wrong though.

The Lenovo and Zopo are more expensive without offering anything more, the Lenovo I seem to remember is QHD, so it actually has lower features. That said, I think you'd be pretty happy with those too, I just prefer the W200's design, and its GPS works pretty well compared to most Chinese models.
[Android General] mfernan80:
I agree with you... i start searching for a perfect phone: NO WAY! I want to substitute my last HTC One S (it wanted to swim in a pool... ;)), just want someting similar...

I have seen in Xiaocai manufacturer website that X9 definitely has OGS screen, but what about THL W200, same or better/worse than X9 screen? Also OGS?

Regards,
[Android General] ludoo:
Yes, both have OGS. In fact, the screen is the best thing about the X9, all the rest is ok but has a kind of cheap feel.
[Android General] ephumuris:
Anyone please?
[Android General] ludoo:
Yes, the two files attached to one of my posts are the boot image and cwm recovery image. I edited the original post so it's clear what they are, thanks.
[Android General] ephumuris:
Ahh right thanks! I'm guessing the boot loaders on these phones are already unlocked so it's only root an custom recovery. Then install what you like?
[Android General] ludoo:
Well, boot loaders don't make much difference as the only kernel you'll find is the original one compiled from Mediatek sources, which are not fully public. So yes, it's install what you like as all ROMs share the base kernel and libs. There's plenty of ROMs on the original forum here

http://bbs.coko.com.cn/forum.php?mod=forumdisplay&fid=49&filter=typeid&typeid=96

and there's also a MIUI port on the official MIUI forums. My personal favourite is the LeWa (or LeFrog if using Google's translation) ROM, lighter and faster than MIUI, with similar visual appeal.
[Android General] ephumuris:
I'm a big fan of MIUI so will try that first when it finally ships and arrives!
[Android General] ludoo:
It's already here, go here

http://www.miui.com/extra.php?mod=download/rom&fid=350

and look for the X9 ROM.
[Android General] mfernan80:
Ludoo,

Do you find a big inconvenience the extra 30g in weight of THL w200?

Thanks!! Tomorrow i will be buying any of these... i will let you know!
[Android General] ludoo:
Not really, and the W200 shape makes it really comfortable to hold, but then I have large hands. The X9 is very light, but as I wrote above it feels a bit plasticky. As for screens, there's a very minor difference: on the X9 if you put the screen under string direct light and angle it you can see very faintly the touchscreen grid. It makes no difference in real use though, you notice it faintly only in very particular conditions.
[Android General] mfernan80:
An additional good point for THL so?? Sorry for my English and/or my ignorance, but see the touchscreen grid is not a good feature,is it?
[Android General] ludoo:
It makes almost no difference in use, but is the sign of a cheaper manufacture.
[Android General] ephumuris:
Thanks but I knew that I mean when my phone finally ships then arrives! :)
[Android General] mfernan80:
I finally ordered 2 THL w200, one black, one white (for my wife ;)). How do you manage with the 2 batteries in the packages, how do you charge the spare one? I have searching for a wall battery charger, but only find this one:

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/New-...00-Famous-brand-YiBoYuan-High/1216841723.html

Do you have any charger for this spare battery?

Regards.
[Android General] ephumuris:
Well threatened to cancel my order after 3 ignored emails and all of a sudden it had been shipped! Can't wait to have a play on this Xiao Cai X9 only concern may be battery life but it is just a spare phone after all!
[Android General] azeus90:
Hello guys, i recieve my xiaocai x9 couple days ago, at this moment i use rooted stock firmware. What do you think about third button on the right side of the phone? Can we bind something for this button, dunno maybe camera, or screen unlock?
[Android General] ludoo:
It's bound to media play/pause in the stock firmware. Pretty easy to remap, I remapped mine to camera.
[Android General] azeus90:
how can i do this?
[Android General] ephumuris:
Got my tracking number for my x9 and it doesn't work so guess my parcel will just be a surprise when it comes. Just over a week now I expect maybe another two?
[Android General] ludoo:
Tracking usually starts working after one or two days.
[Android General] ephumuris:
So mine will never work as it's been about 4 days now! Oh well! As long as it actually gets here.
[Android General] ephumuris:
I get what the attached recovery is for as it's obviously CWM recovery but what is the boot.img for? Is it an insecure boot.img? Do i need to flash that when my phone comes?

I thought all i needed to do was root, install cwm then flash away?

Also is it possible to backup the stock recovery partition or are there stock roms available to flash with sp flash tool?
[Android General] ephumuris:
Anyone know why the boot.img is for?
[Android General] ephumuris:
Just an update my phone came today and it's better than I could have expected really happy. Deals prime from order to arrival took less than 3 weeks!
[Android General] tiket:
Can someone help me?

I have tried enable face unlock but I receive an error that say that is impossible initialize the camera, so I have tried to do a videocall with skype but this use the back camera.

If I use the camera app I can select only back camera to make photo is normal this?

Is my front camera dead or the stock rom has a bug?

Your X9 camera work correctly?
[Android General] ephumuris:
Try going to apps and clearing data for camera app. Then reboot. Try camera app front camera and see what happens? Maybe dead/faulty hardware!
[Android General] tiket:
I have reset the phone to the factory default but nothing change.

In phone info I read the build: G800_Z5_YG_C1_V0.2_20130718 what version of Cai OS is this?
[Android General] ludoo:
Try MIUI, it' s much much better than the original ROM, and it's updated weekly

http://www.miui.com/extra.php?mod=download/rom&fid=350
[Android General] ephumuris:
Except any apps on sd card rearrange on homescreen after a reboot. Other than that it's pretty damn bug free.
[Android General] ElbertB:
Well, since yesterday i have de XiaoCai X9 in my pocket.

The first problem arrives, the phone doesn't boot correctly anymore since i putted a simcard in it. Now i try to install an other ROM on it, but i only can use CWM and some ROMS (THL100 port and LewaOS ROM gives me a symlink error.)

I have now MIUI running but the chinese bloatware is not nice, now am i searching for a stock Android 4.2.x ROM with multilang support (dutch).
[Android General] ludoo:
Install adb drivers, after CWM has started connect with adb shell, and check the log in /tmp while installing the ROM, the symlink problem is fixable.
[Android General] ElbertB:
Could'nt find the log on SD or internal memory, but made a photo of it:
[Android General] ludoo:
Try installing the w100 port, and check in /tmp for the log.