[General Topics] clewis.it:
Hello. I'm planning to use this thread to document modifications and development for the Ulefone Armor 20WT.

I recently purchased a Ulefone Armor 20WT. It is an "upgrade" to the previous Armor 3WT that I had before, that is a little worse for wear over the years (fingerprint broken, microphone doesn't work, belt clip ripped off the back of the phone accidentally...that kind of stuff).

Improvements

So, the nice thing is this phone doesn't suck, at least not as a phone. It's not 5G unfortunately, but as long as LTE is still available in my area, I'm happy with it. It is faster, it has more memory, it has more storage. VoLTE and VoWifi both work well. It is updated to Android 12, but still has the split screen system from Android 11 (much better in my opinion). It has the same form factor as the Armor 3WT, so if you already have that one, your significant other wouldn't notice the new phone.

From the walkie talkie side, there is one huge improvement that I can see: You can still use the USB port for data connections while the walkie talkie/DMR module is active. The older phones like the Armor 3T and 3WT and the Atom XL all disable the USB port for anything besides charging when the walkie talkie app is active. I assume this is because the DMR module on these phones is directly connected to the USB port, and when the application starts it switches the USB data connections over to the DMR module. The Armor 20WT uses a different method.

Also, this phone comes with Android 12 and Linux kernel 5.10. This means we can take advantage of generic kernel images (GKI's). I believe this means we are no longer hindered by the manufacturer refusing to provide kernel sources. Please correct me if I am wrong.

What sucks

FM Radio. It has one, but you still need to connect headphones to use it. Unfortunately, Ulefone doesn't believe phones should have a headphone jack. So, you need to use USB-C headphones or use a USB-C to 3.5mm adapter. If you purchased this phone or watched their unboxing videos, you will notice that headphone adapter is nowhere to be seen. It doesn't come with one. So, you either have to buy one (BTW, Ulefone doesn't sell them), or use one from another phone if you happen to have one (I used the one from my Armor 3WT). I don't know why they did this. They had options. The dang phone comes with an antenna, after all. Their other new phones have gone to headphone-free FM radio. Why didn't they make the same change here? Ulefone, what's up with this?

DMR Radio/Walkie Talkie. It works, but the app is horrendous. The app looks like they suddenly lost their old supplier and had to cobble something together to release the phone. There are spelling mistakes, missing information on the screen, and broken processes that should be standard on any walkie talkie. Here are my biggest complaints:

* reboots if a bluetooth speaker or bluetooth headset is connected and you try to transmit.

* Repeater split frequencies don't work. The screen shows separate transmit and receive frequencies, but they are only sending the transmit frequency to the hardware.

* It's 2023. Nearly all DMR repeaters use 2 time slots. I'm certain the hardware supports 2 time slots in this phone, but the app doesn't show it.

* missing the channel name on the Intercom page. Sure, we have the channel number and frequency, but I'm never going to remember which channel number belongs to which repeater, or what frequency that repeater is on. This is why we give names to the channels.

That being said, this is my daily driver. I'm going to start experimenting and documenting what we can do with this. Hopefully Ulefone fixes the Interphone app issues soon.

To-Do List

Root phone with Magisk - Done

Custom Recovery (TWRP and/or OrangeFox)

Custom ROM (GSI install)

Walkie Talkie app on custom ROM

Custom walkie talkie app. I'm serious, the walkie talkie app on this phone is garbage. This should be so much better.

All said, there is so much potential for this phone if the software could have been done better. I'm hoping I can make use of some of the wonderful resources and expertise that XDA forums users have to offer.