Hisense A5

[nystagmus]

Originally Posted by orebmur

Actually bought this phone because it expressedly didn't have any Google Play on it due to privacy concerns. Unfortunately the phone appears to be "equipped" with the chinese equivalents for these services and i'm not sure if this is a good thing either...

If you only require to access the Google Play Store, than i'd recommend installation of the alternate app store https://f-droid.org/FDroid.apk which in turn offers https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.aurora.store that allows to access to and installation from the Google Play Store.

But if you actually do require the whole Google Framework then this would probably not suffice.

the phone calls home A LOT (alibaba, taobao, tencent etc... ). You can deactivate many system apps using adb. I removed most apps.
https://www.dev2qa.com/android-adb-i...-app-examples/

Still, even the System UI and Android System packages call home and continuously for some reason. You cant remove these Packages so I blocked them, see below.

I also bought netguard (VPN based firewall for rootless devices) then blocked most apps. The free version allows only blocking whole apps connections and not the individual connections. It costs only few euros so it reasonable.

Other than that I am using Fdroid and Aurora store.

Be aware, that without google play framework, many Maps based apps do not work properly, like bike sharing apps or anything with maps. The maps just do not load (blank)

Do not upgrade if you want to uninstall system apps without adb, as it changes many apps to system apps which are not uninstallable.

Can someone try to unlock the boot loader before upgrading? unfortunatly I upgraded by mistake and it cannot be unlocked.
https://source.android.com/devices/b.../unlock-trusty

[pazos]

Originally Posted by nystagmus

the phone calls home A LOT (alibaba, taobao, tencent etc... ). You can deactivate many system apps using adb. I removed most apps.
https://www.dev2qa.com/android-adb-i...-app-examples/

Still, even the System UI and Android System packages call home and continuously for some reason. You cant remove these Packages so I blocked them, see below.
https://source.android.com/devices/b.../unlock-trusty

Yup, that happens on most android e-ink devices (and crappy phones/tablets). Normally they route the traffic from one process to another using android binder IPC and the service that sends the traffic is buried in one of the core apks, like SystemUi.

I don't have that specific device but I got a friend's Likebook during a few days for testing and cleaning it up. It shows the same behaviour. In principle they seem like affiliate links that try to trick these sites, by hiding a window so the user cannot see it but the site thinks it can and flags "yet another impression for this referral". I doubt it has the wanted effects.

But, from user pov, they seem not too harmful, as they're not sharing user sensitive data and the traffic received is a lot more that the traffic sent.

Originally Posted by nystagmus

Can someone try to unlock the boot loader before upgrading? unfortunatly I upgraded by mistake and it cannot be unlocked.
https://source.android.com/devices/b.../unlock-trusty

fastboot is not a bootloader, is a protocol. And devices can implement it or not (for instance samsung devices do not implement a fastboot compliant bootloader).

Your link goes to OEM / vendor information to implement a device based on AOSP following google best practices. Not final user info.

Anyways, unlocking the bootloader just makes the system to skip partition signatures, so it can boot with a modified boot.img.

In my experience most crapphones don't implement any kind of boot verification and will happily boot with a modified boot.img (with an added service to run Chainfire's su daemon). Even more, most of these craps use AOSP test keys to sign updates, so it is possible to sign you own updates and flash them from stock recovery.

The difficult part of the process is getting a dump of the original phone flash. Without this (which most vendors don't provide) messing with low-level stuff is a quick way to get a brick, and since the "community" for these devices is kind of 0, the way to recover from a brick is 0 too.

[patjee]

Hi all,

I've just received my Hisense A5 and I'm really happy with the display and the feel of the phone. I've installed Fdroid and Aurora and that allowed to to set up quite a few things.

Still, I am stuck with a really annoying issue: for an unknown reason I can't get my Exchange account to be fully working. I've set up my mail on Typeapp but it won't access to the calendar. Outlook just gives me an error message when I try to log. For me to have this as my only phone I'd really need to be able to have my calendar and contacts (both of which are on the Exchange server). I'm using a Mac so I guess I could set up a dummy gmail account but then not sure it would work on the Hisense. Any idea or help would be greatly appreciated!

thanks a lot.

[Thepilator]

How to have notification icons shown on the bar and the lock screen? Thank you

[cartz]

Originally Posted by patjee

Still, I am stuck with a really annoying issue: for an unknown reason I can't get my Exchange account to be fully working.

I have no experience with Exchange but have done some research. It appears that Microsoft Activsync is part of Google Play Services and that most email apps need that to be able to do Exchange.
However there is one email app called Nine that apparently has the activsync built in. I tried downloading it from the Aurora store and it will run but I don't have an account to set up on it. I suggest you install this and see if it will work.
While it gives you 2 weeks full features after that you have to pay and it seems to be via an in app purchase. I don't think there is a paid version on the store. As you won't be able to do in app purchases without Google Play Services you might be stuck with what the free version provides after 2 weeks.

First step is to try it anyway.

[cartz]

Originally Posted by Thepilator

How to have notification icons shown on the bar and the lock screen? Thank you

Notifications on the lock screen will only be for the system apps like SMS messages and missed calls.

If you're not getting notifications for f-droid apps like K-9 Mail then make sure they are white listed from Memory Cleanup in System Settings.

If you're expecting notifications from Google Play apps installed via the Aurora store then you won't get them without Google Play Services. If this is important to you I suggest you look at the reddit thread on the previous page as you may find that installing the mentioned app (or microg as another poster in that thread mentions) allows you to receive notifications for those apps. I haven't done this so I don't know.

[Thepilator]

I thought about apps like WhatsApp and messenger. I have no icons on the bar. Can anyone help with it?
Also how to set up Aurora to automatically update my apps?

[derula]

Originally Posted by nystagmus

the phone calls home A LOT (alibaba, taobao, tencent etc... ). You can deactivate many system apps using adb. I removed most apps.
https://www.dev2qa.com/android-adb-i...-app-examples/

I tried to use ADB, but my phone isn't listed as a device by ADB. (I did enable USB debugging in the phone settings beforehand.) Do I need a specific driver for my phone? If so, where can I get that?

Also, do you have a list of apps you could safely remove?

I posted this same question yesterday, but it appears my post got deleted. @mods: if you delete this post again, please at least inform me why it was deleted, so I can make better posts in the future...

[nystagmus]

Originally Posted by derula

I tried to use ADB, but my phone isn't listed as a device by ADB. (I did enable USB debugging in the phone settings beforehand.) Do I need a specific driver for my phone? If so, where can I get that?

Also, do you have a list of apps you could safely remove?

I posted this same question yesterday, but it appears my post got deleted. @mods: if you delete this post again, please at least inform me why it was deleted, so I can make better posts in the future...

try the tool in this thread:
https://forum.xda-developers.com/and...ndows-t3999445

I deleted any app I do not need. Also I deleted any app, which needs an internet connection without a valuable reason for it e.g. preinstalled Gallery. Also I removed most Hisense stuff.
It is a trial and error, I think I messed up something, because sometimes the devices freezes on unlock while using password, so I removed the lockscreen anyway but I can live with that. Furthermore, you can get netgaurd and look which apps is connecting unnecessarily to the internet.

[cartz]

Originally Posted by derula

I tried to use ADB, but my phone isn't listed as a device by ADB. (I did enable USB debugging in the phone settings beforehand.)

Make sure you go to Developer options, Default USB configuration and set it to
Transfer Files.

It will then appear as a device.

[cartz]

Originally Posted by Thepilator

I thought about apps like WhatsApp and messenger. I have no icons on the bar. Can anyone help with it?
Also how to set up Aurora to automatically update my apps?

As I suggested above, try the suggestion in the reddit thread of the app in the Hisense store. Maybe it will work, I don't know. Otherwise you will be out of luck.

You'll need manaully update apps on the Aurora store.

[Thepilator]

I haven't found it, can you tell me how to have WhatsApp and messenger icons in notification bar?

[underscore]

Originally Posted by patjee

Hi all,
Still, I am stuck with a really annoying issue: for an unknown reason I can't get my Exchange account to be fully working. I've set up my mail on Typeapp but it won't access to the calendar. Outlook just gives me an error

I have my work outlook/exchange calendar synced on my k1

I installed on my computer's outlook "caldavsynchronizer" .
With outlook opened, it's periodically syncing a cardav/caldav account that you should have (i didn't tried with a gmail one).

On my k1 i installed DavX5 from f-droid.
DavX5 will feed contacts and calendar events from the cardav/caldav account to the phone related apps.

[afainber]

Originally Posted by nystagmus

try the tool in this thread:
https://forum.xda-developers.com/and...ndows-t3999445

I deleted any app I do not need. Also I deleted any app, which needs an internet connection without a valuable reason for it e.g. preinstalled Gallery. Also I removed most Hisense stuff.
It is a trial and error, I think I messed up something, because sometimes the devices freezes on unlock while using password, so I removed the lockscreen anyway but I can live with that. Furthermore, you can get netgaurd and look which apps is connecting unnecessarily to the internet.

Could you please explain how you removed the lockscreen?

[nystagmus]

Originally Posted by afainber

Could you please explain how you removed the lockscreen?

Sry I meant the password security. I still have to slide or press power to unlock