**** The Official Chinese Phones Thread ****

[King4aDay]

Amazing; just managed a perfect first time installation of my Nillkin 9H screen protector. That never happens!

And one hour later I dropped the phone and cracked the screen protector

Either the best or the worst $8 I ever spent depending on whether or not the screen would have gone... going to leave it on until my clear case arrives at least.

 

[King4aDay]

Oh dear. Elephone have only just released the p7000.. but already the p8000 is on the cards according to gsmarena.

http://www.gsmarena.com/elephone_p8000_packs_a_4200_cell_and_3gb_of_ram_for_210-news-12343.php

it'll cost roughly $210

Looks pretty similar spec wise... slightly lower cpu clocks and slightly lower res camera but bigger battery and full global LTE about sums it up?

 

[King4aDay]

ps. you're lucky you didn't break the screen on your phone!

Heh yeah, screen longevity is my major concern really. I must have dropped my Xperia T a hundred times and never suffered any damage beyond some paint chips to the corners.

 

[King4aDay]

Where did you pick up the screen protector for the K3 note ?

From geekbuying... they're only about £4-5 if you don't mind waiting for postage from China. Couple of quid more on ebay also from China.

 

[King4aDay]

My cheapy Imak Air II transparent case arrived today. Fits really well, looks nice and hopefully won't be too scratch prone. Good protection on side and corners and raises the screen ~1mm off any surface that you put it face-down on. Top and bottom protection is a little lacking however (corners only).

 

[King4aDay]

I want to order the Elephone P7000 from GearBest. http://www.gearbest.com/cell-phones/pp_147582.html

What is shipping like to the UK? I'm reading they send it via the Netherlands, so there is no customs charge?

thanks.

I ordered my K3 Note from them, using PostNL(sf). Took 2 weeks with decent tracking once it had left China. I didn't have to pay any customs charges although no guarantees I guess.

 

[King4aDay]

Can you trust me the steps you went through to root and which apps removed please? I'm considering this phone but have read the software contains virus/spyware


Many thanks

It was pretty straight forward, although I wasn't terribly organised in the way I went about it.

Root guide here - http://gadgetunlocker.com/how-to-root-lenovo-k3-note-k50-t5/

Then installed ESET anti virus and Jumobile system app remover and uninstalled anything that ESET flagged after doing a full scan, and anything else that looked like bloatware and basically anything that had Chinese characters in the name. Then installed a new launcher, dialer, etc etc but those are obviously personal choice.

There are still one or two system apps that I'm not 100 percent sure what they do, but ESET isn't finding anything to complain about and I'll look at them more closely when I can be bothered.

 

[King4aDay]

GPS on my K3 Note is fine too, done a few trips with it.

 

[King4aDay]

The Note K3 looks really good. Is there only one version? With the octa-core and 5.5 inch display? Any major downsides to this phone?

Yeah. There's the smaller non-Note K3, and some special version with the funny ceramic speaker blob on the back which'll cost more if its actually been released. But any 'K3 Note' should be the same version.

Downsides... no gorilla glass (definitely spend a few quid on a tempered glass screen protector). I don't like the big lenovo branding on the back, or the fact that the power socket is on the top instead of bottom/side. Other than that I have nothing to complain about yet really. You could probably find something with 3gb ram for not much more money I guess. Camera is a bit slow to focus... if you want a fast and responsive camera I'd probably look elsewhere but that's about bottom of my list of priorities. Front facing camera works fine for skype calls though.

You have to spend a couple of hours rooting and cleaning it up as it comes with a moderate amount of Chinese bloatware.

Battery seems fine... I generally only have 2-3 hours a day of use (and don't game or watch videos often), rest is standby with wifi and data turned on, and I generally have about 40-50% battery left when I go to bed.

 

[King4aDay]

what is the audio/volume level like on the Note K3? I have a mediatek chipset based tablet and the volume on it is dire both via internal speaker and earphones.

Fine, if not amazing. I generally use it with the volume about one below max for calls and that's loud and clear. It's not going to blow your ears off though or win any audiophile awards.

 

[King4aDay]

Rubbish. The seal was also broken on mine, but I had the protective cover still and was otherwise fine. Hard to tell from your photo but it looks like it's got a screen protector of some sort fitted? Or is that just the flash playing tricks?

 

[King4aDay]

Does the Root method on K3 allow Banking apps to work ?

No. At least, my Bank of Scotland app doesn't work. There are some apps out there that can bypass it but they rely on Xposed or other frameworks/substrates which aren't compatible with Lollipop yet.

 

[King4aDay]

My bad there was a protective cover

Hah, awesome. So the phone is OK underneath?

 

[King4aDay]

Jumobile system app remover. Just don't remove IncallUI or Lenovo Safe Centre. The first is needed for making calls and the second for managing apps with the VibeUI rom. Theme Center is worth keeping if you want to change the lock screen wallpaper or ring tones without downloading alternatives.

The K3 doesn't have all the LTE bands, which might be why your 4g isn't working. Depends on which bands O2 use.

 

[King4aDay]

Thanks I am liking the phone, but 2 days messing about has left me drained

Annoying any way to get rid ?

[/IMG]

Hmm, I don't get that. Is that the bootup screen? What rom version are you running? The only place I get Chinese characters is one small set in the Incall UI.

 

[King4aDay]

Stock dialer/Ringer for incoming calls is rubbish. I changed over to the Ex-Dialer for dialing out. But Incoming calls still ring through on the lenovo dialer screen. Can this be changed ?

AFAIK the in call ui is built into the rom and therefore can't be changed. Having said that it does rely on a standalone app (IncallUI) so I guess someone could theoretically make a replacement but I doubt anyone outside of Chinese forums will bother. Custom roms might eventually change it if we get some good ones.

 

[King4aDay]

Maxx seems to work fine for me. AudioFX. EqualizerFX or Viper might be worth a look? I haven't used any of them myself however.

 

[King4aDay]

Yeah having to unroot for OTA upgrades then reroot and install cwm is a bit of a pain. I'm on 1522 stable version, going to stick with that until a decent 5.1 rom turns up I think, I've got no issues with 1522.

 

[King4aDay]

That should work, but normally you'd also do a factory reset and wipe the normal and Dalvik caches and format the system partition (all within cwm) beforehand to make sure it was a clean install. Apparently old system files, kernel fragments etc can potentially cause issues or reduce performance otherwise.

 

[King4aDay]

Hmm. Might need to re-flash the rom?