[hardan]

Hello everybody, two weeks ago i purchased in Pandawill one cheap tablet, the Dropad A8x Basic. VIsually is exactly an A8x, but the tech specs are different. The screen, battery and case ara identical, but the processor is a Rena3, 512 MB RAM, 4GB flash memory without bluetooth, GPS, 3G or HDMI.

The Android version is 2.2 with kernel version 2.6.29 and the compilation number is renesas_emev-eng 2.2 frf91 eng.root.20111202.135313 test-keys.

My problem comes with the firmware, is unstable, the sleep wakeup with WIFI hangs the system and the market is locked to a little apps. I tried to update the Market but even making some tricks i can't see all the apps.

Could be possible to upgrade this tablet with the firmwares for tne standard Rena tablets?? Any idea to unlock the Market?? The tablet includes Z4root, i can modify the system files if needed.

Thanks in advance.

[dryster]

Can you put up some pictures of the tablet here please?

This post has been edited by dryster: 16 May 2012 - 02:17 PM

[hardan]

Yes, i have done some photos comparing with the original A8x from Saayi.

The only external differences are the Dropad name in the front, The Saayi and A8x name in tha back of the tablet and the absence of the mini HDMI conector.

Here we have the tablet photos:



An this is the OS version:



Looking for in internet i found an upgrade for this tablet in Pandawill forums, but unfortunately is the same version that i have installed. The Market is completely unusable and upgrading to a new version doesn't solve the problem or give an FC. The upgrade files are completely different from the original Rena tablets.

The most important for me is make work the Market. The tablet works well and the wakeup problem isn't very annoying.

Any idea??

Thank you.

[hardan]

Sorry, repeated.

This post has been edited by hardan: 17 May 2012 - 06:35 AM

[dryster]

Hi, yes, more than likely attempting to use Rena firmware could be explosive, no HDMI and three soft touch buttons instead of four.

Ok, Market, two suggestions for you, first one requires that you root your tablet.

You said you are running 2.2 which is confirmed by that last photo. I would ignore the build info in relation to what your tablet actually is inside and do some investigation using the various benchmarking and system information programs available, more on that in a minute.

So, if rooted, change the following lines in your build.prop (make a backup) and very important, check syntax before rebooting.

ro.build.id=FRG83
ro.build.fingerprint=google/passion/passion/mahimahi:2.2/FRG83/60505:user/release-keys
ro.build.description=passion-user 2.2 FRG83 60505 release-keys

(notice I changed 2.2.1 from the original link to 2.2 for your version)

That was from a user here called fatesausage, here is full link :

http://www.slatedroi...-market-access/

Now, as fatesausage says and I repeat, "Danger Will Robinson!" as editing the build prop right at the start of a tablets career when you do not have a reliable backup of any sort can result in a boot loop. I would think unlikely if you only change those three lines, but sometimes users accidently insert a carriage return or type a comma when it should be a period, as we have indicated, hilarity normally ensues.

The second option for you is to initially install the CNET market, which has 200,000 apps available and most of the ones we usually want. Just navigate to their website download.cnet.com and you'll find it there.

If you are brave, then open the tablet carefully and see what hardware is in there, I've found benchmarks and system info can be misleading at times, some of the information is a mirror of what is in the firmware and not the hardware and as we are all aware, the massive fragmentation of our Android world, especially with spoofing, tweaks and tricks to enable market access, results in false info.

Keep us posted. Thanks for the pictures.

This post has been edited by dryster: 17 May 2012 - 11:48 AM

[hardan]

Thank you for the help, the Market isn't complete but at least have very much more apps than before. I did the changes correctly and worked since the first time. The CNET market will be a great help to find some apps when the Google market won't show it.

I dismantled the tablet and made some more photos. Some of them aren't great but shows all the internal components.

This is the opened tablet, the main PCB in front and back:



One photo for the processor, the RAM chips and the NAND chip.



The WIFI module isn't embedded in the mainboard, is a separate USB module. And the battery is a 4100mAh unit.



The test like Antutu or Quadrant reports 10 to 15% less performance than an standard RENA3 tablet. Maybe the low optimized firmware, but i can't complain for a 70$ capacitive tablet with a Rena3 processor.

One more time, thank you.

Edit: I can't make work youtube, the app wasn't installed in the tablet, i innstalled two different versions but FC is the only answer. The most strange thing is that the internet browser can't open the Youtube page. Maybe one chinese limitation???

This post has been edited by hardan: 18 May 2012 - 05:24 PM

[hardan]

Well, trying different configs and looking for in internet i haven't found any way to use Youtube, only i loaded the page with Opera Mini, but this browser doesn't support flash or HTML5 and is unable to play it.

I think it's a regional config in hosts or similar file, but i haven't enough knowledge to find it.

Any help???

Thank you.

[lanosalf]

hosts file is located in
/system/etc/hosts

Pd: see here for example, how it is used to block ADS.
http://forum.xda-dev...ad.php?t=664532

This post has been edited by lanosalf: 21 May 2012 - 11:35 AM

[dryster]

A 4100 mAh battery too, if you can get stable firmware you should have good battery life.

[hardan]

One thousand thanks for the help, the problem was the hosts file, had hundreds of sites blocked, almost all was from google.

I imagine this tablet was initially created only for China where the Google apps are restricted. Fortunately i found the way to eliminate this restrictions and now the tablet have full access to Youtube and another Google sites.

Now i try to improve the general performance, this model have a bad optimized firm and i'd like to make it better. Do you have any idea??

One more time, thank you.

[ffxx68]

Not much, but here's what I could get from my contact at Renesas about this pad:


"this device is designed by a Shenzhen comapnay, which called “Hongkong Pengxin Tech”. It’s a long time from last information about their product, I don’t know their current status. I guess renease pad is no longer developed by them. And unfortunately, we don’t have the schematics. Its very difficult to support this product."

[hardan]

Ok, i understand. I knew was impossible to make a new or custom firmware, this is the reason i try to find some tweaks to improve as possible the performance.

If you know some tweaks, system file modifications or similar let me know.

Thank you.

[hardan]

Well, after looking some forums and blogs about tweaking Android i made some changes to make it work better. The problem is still the lag in Youtube and the slightly choppy sound in some games, but is better than initially.

If someboy can help i would appreciate.

Thank you.

[pspman1313]

hardan, on 26 May 2012 - 08:36 AM, said:

Well, after looking some forums and blogs about tweaking Android i made some changes to make it work better. The problem is still the lag in Youtube and the slightly choppy sound in some games, but is better than initially.

If someboy can help i would appreciate.

Thank you.

Could you point me the direction about tweaking the tablet I cant seem to get youtube to work or Google play

[hardan]

For the Market i followed the instructions given by Dryster some posts before. The only thing i did to eliminate the Google restrictions (Youtube included) were sometehing simple: erase all the lines which point to any google service or web page in the hosts file. In the A8x Basic there is a lot of lines which cut or stop the Google services.

[pspman1313]

hardan, on 26 May 2012 - 02:05 PM, said:

For the Market i followed the instructions given by Dryster some posts before. The only thing i did to eliminate the Google restrictions (Youtube included) were sometehing simple: erase all the lines which point to any google service or web page in the hosts file. In the A8x Basic there is a lot of lines which cut or stop the Google services.

alright thanks if I find anything useful for this device I'll post it here

[comtec]

Hi everybody, i need some help, i have a ax8 basic tablet and i can not do a factory reset. i've tried from the privacy menu and turning the tablet with the volume button down and nothing, any ideas? i need to delete google account that I set up and will not let me

thanks