CM13 for UMi Super (unofficial)

Localhorst86

ciccios replied at 2016-9-1 15:43
Company that use MTK obviously know about this....expecially after doing  the same experience on A ...

Yes, but the MediaTek chips are cheaper and so manufacturers can get a higher sales margin or can simply produce cheaper phones. There are obviously ways for the manufacturer to be able to provide source code (The Amazon Fire Phone used a Mediatek chipset as well, sources were available) but at a high cost which would drive up the costs for phones considerably.

dilip9892

Localhorst86 replied at 2016-9-1 17:59
Yes, but the MediaTek chips are cheaper and so manufacturers can get a higher sales margin or can  ...

well said i thnk they dnt wnt to upgrade its default rom so blaming on mediatek.....

Localhorst86

dilip9892 replied at 2016-9-1 18:28
well said i thnk they dnt wnt to upgrade its default rom so blaming on mediatek.....

Either that or they simply can't. I have heard (and I can not verify this, this might not be true at all so take it with a grain of "maybe") that some phone manufacturers don't even HAVE the source code. MediaTek provides them with the binaries and the manufacturer simply cooks a ROM from these binary blobs. Any fixes or improvements would need to be done by MediaTek. Now, just to re-iterate, I do not know if this is true but it is a scenario that I have heard of before.

The reason we buy these cheap chinese phones is because they are so ridiculously cheap compared to other devices I can buy in the store localy. I have learned to live with these devices as they are, sometimes having the option of finding someone in the community who tries to improve them but I have learned to live with the fact that the manufacturer has little to no incentive to maintain or actively support a device for longer than the few weeks after it is released. It's economics: We want cheap phones so someone has to make them. If they do, we have to live with what we get.

ciccios

Localhorst86 replied at 2016-9-1 19:17
Either that or they simply can't. I have heard (and I can not verify this, this might not be true  ...

but at the end we have a 200$ Phone without the GPS, camera,  ..... so is not so cheap, absolutly!
I prefer to come back to my old CHEAPER phone..... and in the future I'll never buy a phone with MTK and .....

USCanthony

\n\nIf you install xposed on your UMI Super that has the CM 13 ROM Installed (Grockmod is not required with the CM 13 ROM), then you can get the Harlequin lights to work. The xposed module called xled will light up the Harlequin lights with the color you assigned to an apps notifications (via the xled interface). So far this has worked very well for me. The one thing it does not do is it will not keep the light flashing all of the time even when there is not a notification to trigger it. That feature was handy because I was able to use the lit up middle button as a reference point when tapping the buttons that don't light up on either side of it. I did find a work around for that though. I was able to assign a color to display to one of the persistent (not clear-able) notifications that some apps permanently display in my notification shade. This did not work for any app that was displaying a persistent notification though. It is hit and miss and the first two apps I tried did not work. The app I use to secure access to individual apps called Applock - Fingerprint by the developer spsoft did work though. I was able to assign the dark blue color to that app and its persistent notification ensures that the Harlequin light is always flashing that color. If other apps that I have setup in xled trigger notifications, the Harlequin light will simply cycle through the colors of the pending notifications. When I clear a notification that color will stop cycling but the dark blue color will always display.

The stable version of the CM 13 ROM is not just a slight improvement over the stock ROM, it is a very big improvement. One thing I had noticed with the stock ROM was that the percentage of CPU usage never dropped below 18 to 21% within that range). Even when the phone was just sitting idle it still did not drop below that range. With the CM ROM the phone idles at a proper 3.2% of the CPU being utilized.

I almost forgot, I can actually hear the notifications with the CM ROM. No low volume issues at all.

Beatertech

USCanthony replied at 2016-9-8 07:40
Edited by USCanthony at 2016-9-8 07:46 \n\nIf you install xposed on your UMI Super that has the CM  ...

How are you finding the GPS ? are you able to install the GPS Test aplication from the playstore and report a screen shot showing distance accuracy ?
Thanks

USCanthony

Beatertech replied at 2016-9-8 08:05
How are you finding the GPS ? are you able to install the GPS Test aplication from the playstore a ...

I have a built-in gps unit in my car so I have never even used GPS on this phone with either the stock or CM ROM's. I understand that it did not work well with the stock ROM and have read posts on XDA where people have said that it is only maginallyt better (if at all) with the CM ROM. Since I have no reason or need to use it with my phone, this issue has not affected me. Still, if it was already bad with the stock ROM and is the same or marginally better with the CM ROM then that still makes the CM ROM way better. The camera is better, the volume issues don't exist, thge phone actuallyidles at an acceptable CPU percentage which in turn makes for way better battery life. I also do not have to use a hack to get xposed to work. Things are better all over the place.

fernandobrito01

Beatertech replied at 2016-9-8 08:05
How are you finding the GPS ? are you able to install the GPS Test aplication from the playstore a ...

The GPS is usable now. It's still bad but I can use it with no major issues.

fernandobrito01

And it seems the devs are working on releasing a source based CM13 ROM! Not sure how they will do it, but they are really working on it.