[ZTE Z7, Z7 Max, Z7 Mini] marcin420:
My thoughts on 1.60 and freaking LTE and Xposed on Nubia z7 mini

Hello Everyone,

I was so happy to see the OTA notification that an update is available and thus I will be able to "originally" update my Nubia Z7 mini.

Yeah, that didn't happen, OTA has failed with a checksum error.

I have downloaded the update directly from their website, and since I don't care for any other languages it didn't bother me that Chinese and English were only options, even not having GAPPS (quite frankly I didn't believe that it would be impossible to get GAPPS on 1.60 and it turns out I was right), but something was telling me that the update would be beneficial, and I was mostly concerned with LTE speeds and changelog indicated improvement in it.

The reason I wanted better performance in LTE BTW is cause the best I ever got was 40Mbps which would be nice (still not great in my coverage area of 3 different operators, all operating on the same frequency though) except the realistics average is 7-9 Mbps.

Also, my WIFI speeds never cross 45Mbps threshold which is nice, but how come I cant get better?:)

Well, to sum it up:

I installed 1.60 by flashing it manually.

Same with Gapps.

Wifi actually works BETTER! I noticed a slight improvement in speed but honestly the phone is so freaking fast that the difference might have been purely psychological as I didn't run any tests.

*** BUT *****

LTE does *NOT* work at all. The "Telecom" menu has changed and now it chooses my provider as "others" and modes are listed as simply 4G/3G/2G as opposed to LTE/EVDO/CDMA/WCDMA/GSM and most importingly it does not work.....

As I write this I am in the process of bringing back my apps because I was forced to go back to 1.42, thankfully rooting the phone and installing CWM was a breeze but I have wasted 3 hours of my life for nothing....

I have noticed on the NeedRom forum that there is another post in regards to LTE so I'm guessing there is quite a few more people having this issue, does anybody have any idea what might be causing this, and by some chance knows where the issue is and how it can be fixed?

Aside from this, I absolutely recommend this phone and would give it almost 10/10, almost because some genius figured the battery should not be removable and, no, the phone will NOT work for 8+ hours running simple tasks as playing music, occassional SMS/Hangouts, reading news and email, nothing intensive such as games, constant GPS (which BTW gets a fix in avg. of 3 seconds), or is searching for WIFI (I use Mobile Data almost exclusively as data plans in Poland have become ridiculously cheap). But honestly, compared to many other phones, NOTHING I have seen in person or read about in this price range or even a lot more expensive models have the following:

5", durable (yes, unfortunately this has been accidently tested;-]) screen with as high PPI as HTC ONe m8.

2GB of memory (and 16GB of really fast internal SD)

Dual Sim

Slim and nice to hold in your hand.

EXTREMELY fast. Yes I realize that many phones outperform it but not a single one that comes even close to this cheap price (it cost me about $340 with taxes, S/H and a cover from oppomart who even though might be few bux more than other vendors has worked with me when I had an issue with customs beautifiully and if they didn't I'd be without the phone cause customs wouldn't change a small thing on the bill of lading) and most importantly it [thankfully sometimes] has LTE.

To sum it up, does anyone get LTE to work at 1800mhz frequency with 1.60? If so, what did I do wrong? I have found the following:

But I'm afraid to try it because the settings in the phone are set to 4G, and I have tried both "choose by network" and manual with no success. Since I spend some time bringing apps back, can anyone verify that the above trick makes LTE work on 1800mhz, or preferably all of them as I am moving to the UK soon:)

Also, is it possible to somehow make the above permanent or has to be done every reboot?

Lastly, does anyone see any REAL improveements over 1.42? Is it worth the hassle or maybe start messing with custom roms (any advice? My main thing is battery life and the fact that xposed does not work on the stock rom:( ).

Have a great weekend everyone!

---------- Post added at 09:54 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:50 AM ----------

I'm happy to hear you say that, I just wish I had an idea how to get it to work next door to you (Poland, as in 1800mhz everywhere)? Did you have to :

"To activate 4G jn v1.60

1. Enter code *#*#4636#*#* on phone.

2. Go to Phone information.

3. Select LTE/GSM/CDMA auto (PRL) or other if this not work.

This work only up to rebooting

"

Or does it work with "out of box"? And lastly, what kind of speeds are you getting now, compared to before?

Thanks!:)