Onda v701 Presentation and Initial question

[prozak]

Hello Folks! i just got this nifty little toy. The Onda v701 i basically have (still) out of the box version:

Android 4.0.3
Baseband 1.5.5
Kernel 3.0.8-g94fab5b-diry
Build ICS.g12refM708A2.20121022

Here comes a couple of questions:

1) I have seen the guide and have files to update to 4.1.1, but was wondering if the update is actually worthy, what are your guys experiences? is the battery drain that bad? what about overall performance?

2) Are any of you guys aware if there's any other "cooked" rom for this? if there's none that actually make the device works better, i'd be willing to learn/work on to getting one specifically for us, as there seems there's a lot of users but... well, the Rom sucks (chinese apps, really??)

Here's a tip that i have seen in some other devices, probably you guys may want to check and leverage

Sometimes the Developers commit a very simple error, leaving the Radio services on, you can identify this if in the battery usage app within settings, you identify that the main consumption of batter is the Standby radio service (or something like that). If this is the case, you can go into the File manager (root) and rename the following files:

telephony provider.apk
phone. apk

Just leave the file names, but the extension change it to .bak restart the device and you should see an improvement.

Dont forget to disable the Data Enabled setting within the wireless & networks settings.

These type of "features" (bugs, actually) are the ones i'm not fond of, however the hardware is pretty solid, i think is a good device to toy around and learn from it.

For those of you with the battery drain issue, pls check this workaround and leave your comments with results.

Thanks

 

[Red7]

Hey Prozak,

I upgraded to the 4.1 jellybean and really like it over ICS. Everything is much smoother and nicer running. It also starts up faster and wakes faster too. My battery life is short but I don't know if it is any better in ICS, I didn't measure before updating and I don't want to go back.

I installed Battery Monitor Widget and it records mAH usage pretty well. Sitting at idle, reading a book or something low intensity, I get a draw of right around 400mA per hour when the cpu is running between 96Mhz to 336Mhz. I've seen the drain as high as 1051mAH when downloading apps (1200MHz) and even 1225mAH running a benchmark and the cpu hit 1500MHz. A full charge using a 1000mAH charger takes 2:20 from dead, so I am getting somewhere around 2400mAH of battery power.

For a rom, use DiabolusZz's root guide and file: http://www.androidtablets.net/forum...ing-play-store-google-apps-root-explorer.html
It removes the chinese apps and everything works like it should afterwards.

I checked the tip about the Radio. I had already disabled mobile networks in the settings before, and the battery monitor showed only 3 things, idle- screen- and wi-fi. I still went into the settings and renamed the two files to .bak and restarted. No change for me though, still reporting the same battery usage.

 

[prozak]

Thank you mate! i will upgrade to 4.1.1 and keep you guys in the loop for any finding.

Let's see how the battery manages, the thing is that the 4.0 rom had this weird issue where the icons will not align properly on the screen and is REALLY annoying

 

[iiDiabolusZz]

Thank you mate! i will upgrade to 4.1.1 and keep you guys in the loop for any finding.

Let's see how the battery manages, the thing is that the 4.0 rom had this weird issue where the icons will not align properly on the screen and is REALLY annoying

Hi, welcome to the forums, the battery drain only seems to be reported by members using v711/v712 tablets i myself have a v701 and have not noticed any difference in the battery performance and would recommend going to 4.1.1 as it sorts out the icons and like red7 states makes it a lot smoother, as for the Radio services we don't have 3G built in so there is no Ariel to run, all firmware is built with the drivers but most tablet require the connection of a dongle to use the phone services. Custom firmware ie the CWM 10 should be compatible with the onda tablets as there using Arm processors but personally i think once these tablet are rooted and chinese apps removed etc there is no need for a custom rom.

 

[prozak]

Hi, welcome to the forums, the battery drain only seems to be reported by members using v711/v712 tablets i myself have a v701 and have not noticed any difference in the battery performance and would recommend going to 4.1.1 as it sorts out the icons and like red7 states makes it a lot smoother, as for the Radio services we don't have 3G built in so there is no Ariel to run, all firmware is built with the drivers but most tablet require the connection of a dongle to use the phone services. Custom firmware ie the CWM 10 should be compatible with the onda tablets as there using Arm processors but personally i think once these tablet are rooted and chinese apps removed etc there is no need for a custom rom.

And i can vouch for what you just said. I installed the 4.1.1 rom yesterday and tested it intensively, i can only say, that you are completely right. as of now, i dont feel there's a lot to do here, i ran several benchmarks and the performance is up to par with my Asus transformer prime, which for the price tag, i'm more than happy.

This Rom also improved the video driver somehow, the screen seems crispier and i have no complaint at all, battery life is adequate.

Thank you for your inputs iiDiabolusZz, really appreciate what you do for the community.