Consult with you all on a good tablet?

It's safe to say I'm not on my feet. Midlife (to say the least) I had some heart problems two years ago and decided it was a good time to make a home cloud, from one pocket change to another. Knock on wood late this week I've got a birthday coming up, and it makes sense to try if humanly possible to get a tablet. This one looks decent, quadcore, but lacks wired networking and is only 16GB ROM. But has 32GB expansion (2GB RAM is a huge plus me thinks).

The idea is to RDP/TeamViewer the rest of the computers around here, watch a lot of tutorial movies and even listen to flac files instead of MP3. I don't want a phone. Furthermore if this is adaptable to some kind of batteries, this might be great camping, get out in the sticks. Good for the heart.

Additionally it's sort of an OrangePi with a screen but I'd love to be able to dualboot something else. Not a fan of Android but if I can get to root I could get rid of a lot of junk.

In conclusion, in gaining my health back somewhat, you've all really helped me take pocket change and make a very, all things considered - respectable home cloud, still a work in progress, but the end (and two backups!) are in sight. This is probably my last over-$50 purchase for a long time, and if you have suggestions or considerations, please don't hesitate. I could bug you less if I'm watching Linux tutorials out in the sticks you know :-)

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/27/2016 10:10PM by JoeyPogoPlugE02.

same processor as in a lenovo A3300.. its a capable mediatek processor. more than that i cant comment

I tend to not buy things I cannot "liberate" (= install Cyanogenmod custom Android firmware on), as I like all the features and privacy cyanogenmod gives, plus the root access, plus the fact that by default it does not suck like most stock firmwares I see on devices I have to fix.

Also, no-brand devices tend to have crappy firmwares, worse than Samsung (crappy= some apps don't work mysteriously, or you are forced to use THEIR media player app because it is the only one that can use hardware acceleration, or some of its hard-coded settings are done badly, like some fullHD tablets I saw that were set up as if they were 800x600, sound might be set too low, or whatever).

And of course, no-brand devices don't give me any kind of firmware nor recovery tools, so in case I get root access and I do something that bricks the device (more common than you think), you cannot save it. With all known brands you can find the factory-flasher software, and factory images. These are the tools used in factory to fill the devices when they were new (and empty) and I get it back to working state even if the whole storage space was erased.

The above is a bit extreme for day-to-day operation, most power users install modded recoveries to save themselves from that and to flash custom firmwares and so on.

Android devices have a partition used by a recovery operating system, used to flash updates (=rarely needed) and to do mainteneance. It is independent from the main system, and it is accessed by pressing some buttons (depends from device) when booting.
Needless to say that the standard one is usually useless, but there are custom recovery partitions that can do pretty much all you need, and have a GUI, and nowadays even touch-enabled interface (a few years ago only hardware buttons were usable).
With my phone I have a modded recovery (TWRP 2.8.7), so before any modification and also on a schedule I can just reboot into recovery and make a full system/data/whatever disk image, saved in the SD card. If the phone fails to boot again (bootloop), I just reboot to recovery with hardware buttons and I can restore the images.
But a modded recovery replaces the stock recovery, and is basically a tiny custom rom, so it needs an unlocked bootloader to boot at all.
No-brand devices can't usually be bootloader-unlocked (well, probably they can, but there is no documentation on how to do so) so I cannot install a custom recovery which is the first thing you want on an Android device.

For the above reasons (and some reasons I talk about below) I'd rather take devices of less-known-but-still-recognizable brands like Sony or LG (LG makes some fine cyanogenmodizzable tablets for around 150-200$, wifi+3G version) than no-brand ones. Samsung ones are overpriced as heck (250$ for the cheapo wifi-only version).

I always look about cyanogenmod support (official or unofficial) for newer devices, and about custom recovery support and so on before buying. I will NEVER buy an unsupported device. I MUST be able to service what I buy damnit.

If you are strapped for cash, buy used, devices of last year lose price fast, and aren't "old" hardware wise. You get less battery endurance (old, although not by much), but at least they are devices you can trust and service.

Now some more comments on the hardware itself

-Mediatek does not usually have large opensource following, that processor is indeed good.

-There is no information about screen quality. Most decent brands use IPS screens or high-quality TN panels, no-brand ones tend to use the same crappy screens you see on cheap laptops, and this is an issue for a tablet, as you want it to be lookable from wider angles than the 5 degrees or so that offer cheap TN panels.

-That tablet has a usb OTG port, which means that with a 2$ USB-OTG adapter you can connect a usb device to it (flash drives usually, also self-powered hard drives, keyboards and mice, in some cases even external soundcards).

-Any mobile device that is charged from the USB port can be connected to anything that is a power source in the standards of USB 2.0 (5v, cables should hold up to 3 amps I think, most devices need 1 amp or more to run AND charge at the same time). Look up "usb power bank" for pre-made battery packs, also "usb diy power bank" if you have some laptop batteries laying around and you want to use their 18650 li-ion cells to make a helluva lot more powerful bank on your own.

-Also, that device has two sim slots so it can be used as a phone, or just surf the net on 2G/3G. It does not seem to have 4G which may be bad (I had read that in some places in the US they were shutting down 3G relatively soon, please check your area, in EU it's wildly unlikely to happen in this decade). Remember to keep it in airplane mode to keep the 2G/3G modems shut down to not waste battery, wifi should work fine when in airplane mode.

-The "maximum size" of the external microSD is technically bogus, 32GB just means that the device does not have exFat driver so it cannot read sdcards formatted with exFat (all cards bigger than 32GB are formatted in exFat).
If you reformat the microSD in FAT or (much better) in ext4 it will read them just fine even if they are 64GB or more.
exFat is a slightly tweaked FAT so it does not have the 4GB per file issue and the max filesystem size isn't a few TB. You can live without, or just use ext4 that is just plain better.


> Additionally it's sort of an OrangePi with a screen but I'd love to be able to dualboot something else. Not a fan of Android but if I can get to root I could get rid of a lot of junk.

Forget about directly booting something else. Android devices are full of binary blobs and undocumented hacks, it's already an ordeal to get them to boot an Android firmware that isn't the one they shipped with.

If you have root access though, you can install Debian in a chroot, using apps that help you set up the thing. Then you can use Debian on an Android device. Will not run as good as natively, especially the GUI.

With Cyanogenmod-based ROM (still Android, but not crappy), you can have a pretty good Android system though, and there are quite a few good apps to do anything you do on PC.

If you buy a cheap Miracast (it's the name of Android's default screen casting protocol) dongle to attach to a screen, you can wirelessly screen-mirror your tablet on a bigger screen and with bluetooth keyboard and mouse you can use it as a normal PC.



Edited 8 time(s). Last edit at 03/28/2016 11:30AM by bobafetthotmail.

Thank you very much for the Wiki-grade analysis.

If indeed I'm limited to that unit then at least I know what I'm in for. And luckily I do happen to have two new laptop batteries that don't fit mine, got them at Goodwill for cheap.

I'll re-read this and let it sink in. I might even ask directly at the seller's site to identify the hardware if a person decided to void the warranty and root the box. Outside a familiar Windows BIOS I'm lost in the woods the way Linux can boot and whatnot.

We'll see, I'll keep my eyes peeled this week for used top shelf brands and if it doesn't work out for me I'm quite sure others benefited from you guys and again thanks :-)

-update- What would make all the difference is ability to stereo record audio at reasonable quality you could EQ later and have sound reasonable. Maybe I should give this up and think iPad way down the road... confusion confusion. Any ideas do tell!

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/28/2016 01:05PM by JoeyPogoPlugE02.

@joey
if you do go for a used tablet - heed bobba's advice on looking at custom roms *first*

> if you do go for a used tablet - heed bobba's advice on looking at custom roms *first*

this. It's unfortunate, but Android suffers the same fate of any firmware. Manufacturers do stupid things with it thinking it will be more attractive or sell better.
The only way is a good custom rom + recovery, just like we do with kirkwood devices in this forum lol.

The best place to look for custom ROMs is the forum xdadevelopers, which is where most things happen in the custom ROM world, although there are some other minor ones. There is also the Cyanogenmod wiki where you can look.

I am very sorry, but Android world is very complex, and needs you to spend a lot of time to find a good device that does not cost 500$ (and even then)

Apple and Windows tablets are much simpler and fool-proof products.
iOS isn't ever configured like crap, nor the hardware is ever cheap, Windows tablets are usually decent-quality, and run Windows 10, so they can do all a PC (with weak processor and graphics) can do.

> I might even ask directly at the seller's site to identify the hardware if a person decided to void the warranty and root the box.

I can tell you this too (while the seller probably won't even understand your question). The only way to detect it is by looking at the bootloader. Some bootloaders notice rooting (HTC ones for sure, others dunno, must check), while unlocking the bootloader (to load custom ROMs and custom recoveries) can usually only be done with a code from the manufacturer that voids warranty (and it's already very nice of them that they provide this code at all).

Depending from what device you are talking about, there may be ways of resetting the bootloader. On average if you flash with factory tools there is an option to reset the bootloader or reflash it or whatever, but "it depends" is always true.

In EU we have laws that force the seller to give you 2 years of warranty regardless of anything, so I don't usually need to worry about these things.

Still, one of the perks of not buying bleeding edge products is that you know (or can look up) if they have quirks or issues and avoid them alltogether.

> What would make all the difference is ability to stereo record audio at reasonable quality you could EQ later and have sound reasonable.

The average branded device can record audio as well as a PC does, which is "ok quality" for me, but if you work with music... heh.

If you look for one that has USB OTG, you can connect to a normal USB soundcard, and you can install apps like this to operate the external soundcard. http://www.gizmag.com/extream-app-usb-audio-android/25907/

Then the quality depends from the soundcard.

My cup overfloweth, much thank yous!

Just to mention, lady next door, standing there with her iPhone 6S (I'd asked about her iPad and she didn't mention selling it), said to keep in mind the benefits of buying locally at like Best Buy. This makes sense since they're good about price matching and may have an extended plan.

Worse comes to worse I could get a Blue Yeti microphone, a new laptop battery for my single core and try again for a tablet Black Friday.

My ToDo list has the same items, it's a matter what order to buy. But tutorials anywhere is a real need right now.

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@Joey

I concur with everything bobbafethotmail has posted above. a selection of the of the android devices i have

1st - 4 years old. Abandoned by the manufacturer. Still receives love from the XDA community
2nd - 2 years old. Abandoned by the manufacturer and unless i build a rom myself there isnt/wont be one
3rd - 1 year old. Abandoned by the manufacturer rom scene is "fledgling" at best.

dare i say that a cheap windows 8/10 tablet may be best suited for you if you want support and updates.

Or the new Ubuntu tablet?

===========================
Blog: https://rmkrug.wordpress.com/

1 x Pogoplug E02 (pink): Logitech media server

1 x Pogoplug E02 (pink): FTP server only (throw away configuration - quick to rebuild)

1 x GoFlex Net: running OpenMediaVault

Great stuff, a thousand thank yous. I emailed the manager at Best Buy and told him my concerns (edit-out humor but off topic)

His reply is this, an Insignia Flex 10.1
I'm just pasting it here for reference as I have some errands to run. biab

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/29/2016 03:38PM by JoeyPogoPlugE02.

JoeyPogoPlugE02 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> His reply is this, an
> [url=http://www.bestbuy.com/site/insignia-flex-10-
> 1-32gb-white-silver/4298700.p?id=1219732457046&sku
> Id=4298700]Insignia Flex 10.1[/url]
> I'm just pasting it here for reference as I have
> some errands to run. biab

Darn ..., I was hoping this is an octa-core system.

That and only 1GB RAM. Lots sold on Ebay used with screen line problems. The Boulevard of Broken Dreams is calling out to me, saying join us....

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@Joey

May be, this Lenovo ThinkPad X201 Tablet (3113-CJ5) Intel i7 2.00GHz 4GB RAM 128GB SSD, Webcam, GSM/3G (GOBI2000), WLAN, LAN, Linux Zorin 9 OS, charger & pen (refurbished?) is what you want?

Also, others may be interested in this Hitachi Ultrastar 7K3000 HUA723030ALA640 (0F12456) 3TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive (Enterprise Grade) (refurbished?).

Wow that Lenovo is hotter than a two-dollar pistol. Making me blush. Quite impressed but is out of my price range.

There's one other in my travels that looks perfect:

Oh well I'll take it day to day.

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-= Cloud 9 =-



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/30/2016 08:40PM by JoeyPogoPlugE02.

I bought a Trio Stealth G5 10 today and 2 year extended warranty. I have 30 days to have buyer's remorse and so far haven't charged it up.

Yes, I paid more for a bird in the hand: $80 on sale and I had two $10 coupons that took it to $60 hen I bought extended coverage for $10 and then lost a $20 somewhere between here and there. I should see if something else can be booted because too many people have boot cycle loops now that I've checked around a bit. And no manual really. So far. Is this rootable?

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JoeyPogoPlugE02 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I bought a Trio Stealth G5 10
> Is this rootable?


Probably as its going to be android 4.4.* - have a look at something like kingoroot,
https://www.kingoapp.com/

or oneclickroot
https://www.oneclickroot.com/

failing that ask over on the XDA forums.
http://www.xda-developers.com/

You sir have my sincere thanks not only for this but for a year of great progress. Wow if that doesn't get me going nothing will.
This thread qualifies as a Wiki reference and knock on wood someday maybe I can get a larger tablet or surface.

But if I can get 20 hours of tutorials watched it's worth the price and can turn my attention to Orange Pis and hard drives this summer.

And finally something to stream off Pogoplugs and check performance and bottlenecks.

Rooting the box in 3, 2, 1.....

--update- seems like success, Kingo Root and Super Battery. Not sure how to reboot this thing, but power button will work for now.
Here's hoping I find my lost $20 because that's definitely/probably worth the $73 with tax and 2-year extended warranty.

I don't plan on being adventurous, just take some stuff out that's too google-centric and maybe add Team Viewer just for kicks. But if somehow a Windows install is possible on the extra SD slot I'd jump straight on it. Windows 8 is a nasty spyware OS but with days of TLC is a beautiful efficient OS.

Video tests tomorrow and that'll determine....

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/02/2016 02:32AM by JoeyPogoPlugE02.

JoeyPogoPlugE02 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I don't plan on being adventurous, just take some stuff out that's too google-centric and maybe add
> Team Viewer just for kicks.

Dont remove the core google apps unless you know exactly what you are doing - its better to use a "root app freezer" or you risk making the device unstable.

>But if somehow a
> Windows install is possible on the extra SD slot
> I'd jump straight on it. Windows 8 is a nasty
> spyware OS but with days of TLC is a beautiful
> efficient OS.

No chance of windows install - wrong chip architecture

> I don't plan on being adventurous,

Then don't root it. As simple as that. You don't need root to use browser and install teamviewer and 99% of the apps of the store.

Remember gents I have 30 days to return it, and it's possible it can be rolled back to factory state if I mess something up.

Gravelrash's advice about core apps is the one for my concern. I forget Android means every possible Google integration. Yes I'm really liking search using your voice, it likes my voice apparently with no glitches.

So yes I can remove root and turn on two malignant app guards that I changed to install that rooter.

If anyone remembers Norton or Symantec on the Windows side, I was called many a time to a family's new computer where we would carefully rip that out, and once that was done to perfection with worthy replacement, the comptuer would run great. But you HAD to know how to do that correctly. And that took a lot of time and every manner of resource.

So I'm not that interested in ROMS unless you really feel it's for the best - and I'll do it if you say so - but if any bad apps are out of mine then like I said, not motivated for more apps, under 10 added for sure and I can only think of two at the moment. And TeamViewer would probably be a drag from a tablet anyway.

So if it breaks in the near future, cool!

And update: store realized one of my $20s was stuck to another and was honest enough to return it to me :-)))))))

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/02/2016 11:08PM by JoeyPogoPlugE02.

@Joey - full credit to the store for there integrity. If it was me i would send a thankyou note to the store and if you can remember any names that dealt with you thank them personaly. a little appreciation never hurts and knowing someonethat works in retail i can tell you its very rare to get a thankyou, more common to get a complaint

Only apps that i could recommend to you are Kodi / Mxplayer / Adaway (from the fossdroid team) and 360security.

If you have no special need for a custom ROM then dont!

:) Other than that enjoy your new toy and dont lose track of the time when you play angrybirds :)

>Only apps that i could recommend to you are Kodi / Mxplayer / Adaway (from the fossdroid team) and 360security.

Kodi might not run well depending on how well the device exposes hardware acceleration.

I don't agree with the use of an antivirus on Android. The OS was designed with security in mind already, as long as you don't install pirated apps from shady places, you are fine.

Antivirus programs are needed/useful in OSs that were born ages ago, evolved into what we use today, and aren't updated very regularly (pre-win10 windows, osx).

Almost there gents, and one thing...

Regarding that $20 - I don't know the name of the woman who rang up the register in the first place, but will find out, and make sure it's known it was an honest mistake and the two bills were hours fresh from the bank and stuck well. No payback of good favor is too big me thinks.

If anyone still checking the progress, maybe can ask one more and I should be finished.

We rooted the box and added Ice Box - Apps freezer and immediately added the 15 limit :D

I can take it off root, but no idea about what happens to the freezer. There is said to be a version that doesn't require root, and if so mind sharing what order you'd do it?

I freaking love this tablet. For me it's like a good idea what an Orange Pi will do, and it motivates me that much more to get some when the next windfall hits. Single core for behind-the-scenes torrent and SMB, but quadcore for the user end of things!

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-= Cloud 9 =-