Android Need help with an old tablet

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becool773

Adept
Hi,

My friend has a very old cheap Chinese tablet. PFA

https://imgur.com/a/3Lom7IH

He wants it to be like a viewer for photos or to be used for YouTube But thanks to 4gb rom, I think around 256mb ram it is a mess. Lags way too much. When we tried to install apks downloaded from Google, we got this error There is a problem parsing this package. USB Debugging is on, installation from unknown sources is on. Any way out of this? Can someone help with a working custom rom link? Downloaded these from some link at xda, thread is like many many years old and files have now been removed from those links

https://imgur.com/a/ynRSRXd

What to do now?

@Kaleen Bhaiya @CapriAnupam @nRiTeCh @tech.monk @seshu @Emperor @TEUser2K1 @sandeepsachin @nick.knack91011 @Rezep

Thanks
 
I'll be fairly honest and direct with you. You cannot use it for YouTube videos even if you manage to install an APK. It's because it doesn't have enough CPU power or hardware decoders for modern video formats streamed by YouTube VP8/9/AVC etc. Videos will lag horribly and skip a lot of frames. How do I know? I have exact same hardware based tablet lying around, although on Android 4.1.1, doesn't really matter.

Can use it as a photo-frame (slideshow perhaps?) however.

Another use case can be a CentOS 7 based server (if device is rooted). Why that and not other distribution? Because Kernel is 3.0.x, way too old to run anything newer, it's barely minimum enough to run CentOS 7. I have used Linux Deploy app to run a CentOS 7 container with pi-hole on it to block ads network-wide. It runs 24x7 plugged-in, no issues.
 
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I had a Samsung tablet with A4. Gave it to my aunt for teaching purpose. Google has stopped support for lower Android versions, so anything related to OS, you cannot do it. Anything like a gallery is possible with stock file manager.
Regarding rooting, I would suggest caution. I was about to upgrade to A5 back in the days. Andy was the builder. But few tabs got their mobos fried after booting to A5 during testing. So he stopped the project.
As mentioned, not much can be done. My aunt too had to discard it as new files won't run on old system.
 
seshu said:
sorry, no idea. need to check in xda developers forum ...
Click to expand...
xda developers is like done and dusted from the last few years. No good dev is there. Old members are leaving or have already left.
enthusiast29 said:
I'll be fairly honest and direct with you. You cannot use it for YouTube videos even if you manage to install an APK. It's because it doesn't have enough CPU power or hardware decoders for modern video formats streamed by YouTube VP8/9/AVC etc. Videos will lag horribly and skip a lot of frames. How do I know? I have exact same hardware based tablet lying around, although on Android 4.1.1, doesn't really matter.

Can use it as a photo-frame (slideshow perhaps?) however.

Another use case can be a CentOS 7 based server (if device is rooted). Why that and not other distribution? Because Kernel is 3.0.x, way too old to run anything newer, it's barely minimum enough to run CentOS 7. I have used Linux Deploy app to run a CentOS 7 container with pi-hole on it to block ads network-wide. It runs 24x7 plugged-in, no issues.
Click to expand...
Can use it as a photo-frame (slideshow perhaps?) however.
How? The current os lags so much.
Kaleen Bhaiya said:
I had a Samsung tablet with A4. Gave it to my aunt for teaching purpose. Google has stopped support for lower Android versions, so anything related to OS, you cannot do it. Anything like a gallery is possible with stock file manager.
Regarding rooting, I would suggest caution. I was about to upgrade to A5 back in the days. Andy was the builder. But few tabs got their mobos fried after booting to A5 during testing. So he stopped the project.
As mentioned, not much can be done. My aunt too had to discard it as new files won't run on old system.
Click to expand...
Any custom rom that can atleast convert it to a photo viewer or something? How about the custom roms that I was able to download from some links?
 
becool773 said:
Can use it as a photo-frame (slideshow perhaps?) however.
How? The current os lags so much.
Click to expand...
Root it or install a known working custom ROM. Then uninstall most useless google apps and other bloatware you won't use using Titanium Backup.
Install some gallery app which might have such a feature with screen wake lock (this can be done with a separate app as well like wake lock).

becool773 said:
Any custom rom that can atleast convert it to a photo viewer or something? How about the custom roms that I was able to download from some links?
Click to expand...
You can't expect from someone else to know if a custom ROM which is device specific is good for your device or not. It's better you try it yourself. All I can suggest is to take a full backup using custom recovery (CWM or TWRP whatever you may use) before you try custom ROMs.
 
enthusiast29 said:
Root it or install a known working custom ROM. Then uninstall most useless google apps and other bloatware you won't use using Titanium Backup.
Install some gallery app which might have such a feature with screen wake lock (this can be done with a separate app as well like wake lock).


You can't expect from someone else to know if a custom ROM which is device specific is good for your device or not. It's better you try it yourself. All I can suggest is to take a full backup using custom recovery (CWM or TWRP whatever you may use) before you try custom ROMs.
Click to expand...
How to root and how to flash a rom? I was able to find these roms, don't know if these are right for the tablet or not
https://imgur.com/a/ynRSRXd
 
becool773 said:
How to root and how to flash a rom? I was able to find these roms, don't know if these are right for the tablet or not
Click to expand...
I'm afraid I can't help you with this part. It's a research work that you have to do on your device and then ultimately take the risk of rooting/flashing the ROM as well.
Your best bet is XDA forums and Youtube videos if there exists any.
 
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Ankit2306 said:
Would you be a bit more specific as to the Model and make of the Tab ? That surely will help
Are you referring to this model ?
yuhang18.en.made-in-china.com

[Hot Item] 7inch Boxchip A13 with Android 4.0 Tablet PC

Model NO.: HYH-MID7W CPU Core: Single-Core CPU Type: Boxchip, Boxchipa13 Battery Capacity: 2000mAh-3000mAh Hard Disk Capacity: ≤8G Memory: 512MB
yuhang18.en.made-in-china.com
Click to expand...
It looks something like that sort. A chinese tablet with some importer name on the tablet like tech point or something.
 
As a last ditch effort you can maybe try using an alternate client like Newpipe. I've been personally using this for ~4 years and can vouch for it.

The Youtube app and website is very bloated with ads and all sorts of bells and whistles and can further hog down your tablet. Newpipe is an open source alternate front-end for Youtube which basically takes the direct video link for Youtube and plays that without any of the additional bloat and ads. So comparitively it uses much less resources and you'll have a better chances of running YT. Of course it's not a perfectly identical clone to Youtube but it gets the job done.

That being said I still don't know if it would run on your specific tab but its worth trying. The crappiest device I have is an ancient Samsung tab with 16GB/1.5GB specs and it is able to run Newpipe alright but that's leagues better than your tab interms of specs.
 
No side loading of apps will work on older hardware as time passes the min. specs also gets updated for such apps which is way too frequent for mobile platforms than computers. Hence even force loading stuff wont yield any positive result as end result will flash some error or simply refuse to run or freeze the device!

Eg: I have few Kitkat/Lollipop devices with 3gb/4gb ram but they are simply sleeping in cupboards as they are useless...latest apps struggle or run while draining entire battery within few hours whereas without those apps I still get good backup. Can use it for light games or stock calling/sms phone but rest its useless!

Rest xda is your friend..but off late xda guys have shifted to random Telegram groups so xda is almost dead!
 
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