Polaroid PTAB7XC Ice-Cream Sandwich Tablet (Google Play Needed)

[NewTabGuy]

(i'd do a factory reset, but i've added so much stuff to mine in the past few days, I don't feel like redoing all the settings agian right now lol)

I understand, my SD card is not here yet so I don't have a bunch of stuff that is why I want to get it figured out before I do that.

So should I follow the steps from before like you did or should I try another way of putting it on?

Thoughts?

[diabls]

If you do a factory reset through the settings menu, then try like the steps I had above and see if the home buttons work, if not then maybe see about unistalling the google marketplace and see if they work if not, factory reset again and see if the home buttons work before you do anything and then maybe see if theres another way to install the marketplace and see if the home buttons work and then go from there is how I'd do it.

let me know what happens and we'll work something out!

[NewTabGuy]

Factory Reset = Home Buttons back and On Screen Volume Control Too!

Hey just to give you a quick update. Today has been a long day overall so I will be brief. I did the factory reset and because I did not have much on it, it did not take long. Ironically the little photos that were in the gallery (stock photos) are gone but BOTH home buttons are working great and I did not notice before but there are on screen volume buttons and they work too and apparently were gone after the Google Play addition the first time. I have not had time (and probably won't be able to tonight because I am beat) to try to reinstall the Google Play and see if that works.

I read in another forum that someone pressed the reset on the back and the home buttons came back...again these seem like weird fixes but I too am like "if it works, I'm not picky!" I liked your idea in the other thread about listing good/useful/cool free apps for people to use. I will keep you posted. I have heard good things about App2SD and I hope it works well on our tablet.

I wanted to type you something tonight because you have been so helpful. Once the Micro SD card gets here I will want to try to figure something out so I can start grabbing all the cool/fun/useful apps I can get my hands on. I said I would be brief...go figure. I am off to bed thanks again!

[diabls]

alright, good deal. I was hoping all went well for whatever you tried today.. I think the onscreen volume buttons are a "widget" So if they disappear later when trying the marketplace install again, if you go to the widgets area beside where the apps are located, there are other widgets you can move to your home page, some pretty cool stuff.. (there's also a brightness/wifi and power widget too. I have the weather channel widget and also ( f rom google marketplace) an inspirational quotes widget on my home page that updates every little bit with a new quote.

I'm guessing you did the reset through the settings menu right?

[NewTabGuy]

Yes I just went through the menus on the tablet to do the factory reset. It reminds you that you will loose all your apps, google account info, pictures, etc. and then it goes through the process. It shows the Android with his chest popped open and what looked like an atom/life force thing for a minute while working which was pretty funny/cool. I am hoping the card shows up today and I will probably try the market in some fashion to see if i can get it to work and if not, go back and do another reset. Doing resets...does that do any real harm...immediate, residual, or otherwise as far as you know? I like the quote thing. Do widgets download like apps and what about space? They have to be on the internal storage don't they? Sorry just not too familiar with widgets. It always seems like I have a question don't I...maybe that should have been my screen name!

[diabls]

No, it doesn't hurt anything.. its like redoing a computer back to factory.

You can just search for xxxx widget and find all kinds of widgets on whatever subject you want in the marketplace, they're usually pretty small, 5mb or less. I've noticed if you have apps or whatever installed to the SD card, if you boot the tablet without the SD card in the tablet, the apps just don't show up at all, so it doesn't make a difference, if you put in the SD card it will mount and then all of your app icons will show up again.

[ntab]

Yes I just went through the menus on the tablet to do the factory reset. It reminds you that you will loose all your apps, google account info, pictures, etc. and then it goes through the process. It shows the Android with his chest popped open and what looked like an atom/life force thing for a minute while working which was pretty funny/cool. I am hoping the card shows up today and I will probably try the market in some fashion to see if i can get it to work and if not, go back and do another reset. Doing resets...does that do any real harm...immediate, residual, or otherwise as far as you know? I like the quote thing. Do widgets download like apps and what about space? They have to be on the internal storage don't they? Sorry just not too familiar with widgets. It always seems like I have a question don't I...maybe that should have been my screen name!

Generally speaking, it is safer to do a reset or do a manufacturer firmware update since there is only a very slight chance that you might end up with a new paperweight.

As a rule do a backup before you do a tablet reset or a firmware install/update. Backup all your files, apps, and any other data that you might deem important that is on the tablet. If you saved your files on an SD card then remove the SD card before the reset. I learned from my experience with the Nextbook to backup and take note of settings before I do a reset or firmware install.

As far as reseting this tablet, it is from my experience that it will just put the tablet back into its original state with whatever was preloaded on it by the manufacturer. All user settings, files (stored on the tablet), and installed apps will usually be erased. Generally, manufacturer's pre installed files, apps and widgets will not be erased but the settings may have to be adjusted such as the Gallery Widget in which you would need to use the Gallery app to locate the pictures and then the widget will show the pictures.

Once the reset is done, you might not get the original look of the tablet and may have to adjust some settings such as the wallpaper, widgets, application permissions, wifi settings, etc.

Like you I am still learning. Fortunately, the forum members are patient and are great at answering our questions. Of course, it helps to do a search first because someone may have already asked our question and it might have already been answered.

[NewTabGuy]

Good News....I hope....

Just an update, Last night, after doing the factory reset and getting my home buttons back, I then went through the process just like last time of adding all the gapps 2.3.4 to my internal memory and putting market on my tablet and so far I have been able to keep my home buttons (both work) and the volume controls have stayed on as well. I have downloaded a few apps (Angry Birds, Flash, etc.) and they are working great. Now that it is working I am debating if I should dump Amazon Marketplace or not. I have turned it off and on a couple of times to make sure the changes have stuck and so far they seem to. I know one person reported that their home buttons just stopped working after a while and I really hope that doesn't happen.

Thanks for the heads up on the widget question, learning things all the time. If you have any suggestions of apps or widgets that are "must haves" or close to it I would be curious. Is there a clearinghouse site (like the deals sites) that lists all the free app of the days (normally paid) on different sites or do you just check out the ones you want? I saw when I logged into this forum from my tablet it talked about an app tappatalk or something? Any thoughts I have seen other use this in their signatures...makes more sense now.

As for backing up my system, etc....how exactly do I go about doing that? I have a mac so does that make a difference with Android? I will probably start downloading a lot of apps and such now that I have my SD card.

Which brings me to another question...my MicroSD card...do I need to do anything to it to make it work/compatible/etc with my tablet or just plug it in, make sure it mounts and go? I just did not know if I have to format it in some way or what exactly? It wouldn't be a post by me without a Question or two right?

Again I can't say thank you enough to everyone who have been so helpful and willing to answer question no matter how seemingly rudimentary.

[diabls]

Okay, when you get your SD card, pop it in and make sure it mounts, then go to the settings and go to your apps tab or something like that and it will show you the space available (internal and SD) The SD should show up and if it does, make sure it shows the FULL size if your SD card, if it doesn't go to the bottom of the settings menu and look for an option to erase or format your SD card, make sure its the SD card and not the internal.

You could keep the amazon marketplace too, it may have things the google marketplace might now have, it shouldn't hurt anything.. I haven't checked out the amazon marketplace yet. I did see that on the main page where you download the amazon marketplace, it mentions something about a free app each day. (full) I haven't checked that out either tho.

I will make a post of some other apps I find useful in my other thread that I made speaking of the " Airdroid " app, because I've found some great apps because someone else told me about them, otherwise I may have not found them.

[NewTabGuy]

Great and thanks. I will have my project for tonight. Little steps seems to work well for me...HA! I will head over to your other thread and check those out. Any word or thought on the Tapatalk thing? I put in FAQ but nothing comes up and the search pulls up any post that has ever had it and doesn't really point to anything real helpful.

[diabls]

Tapatalk is nothing too useful for me, probably not you.. But it seems to be an app to keep all of your forums together in one app. Web forums like this one and others. The free app today on the amazon marketplace is some game I believe, I finally installed the amazon marketplace here earlier and downloaded the free "normally pay app" today I'll check it out later.. I added other apps to my other thraed.

[jimates]

I suggest to install the newest firmware from Southern Telecom, then install the Market Fix from LiquidLimex. Of course you will still have some bloatware.

Not sure of everything the newest firmware has other than a new home screen, which I like better, and default links to the ST site and firmware pages; but it seems to have fixed a few problems I had. It also has links to download the Amazon Market, 1Mobile market, Opera12 Mobile market & the SlideMe Market.

I had problems with the location services working for maps and nav. Now it finds my location accurately right away.

The Market fix from LiquidLimex adds the full Play Market, Google Maps, Gmail, Latitude, Navigation, Places, Google Search, Google Talk & The You Tube app.

Link to their firmware download page:

http://southerntelecom.com/polaroidsupport/firmware/

You can download LiquidLimez's fix here http://thejmart.com/polroot.zip

[jimates]

If I purposely use the ST firmware for the PTAB7XC on the PMID701i x10 and get negative results, will it be possible to flash again to the correct firmware?

I suppose if it is lifeless I won't be able to get it back to the correct state to install the correct firmware.

[NewTabGuy]

I am not sure about the different firmware as I have not needed to do anything with that yet but I agree, if it won't boot then you don't really have anywhere to go from. I now it is not particularly helpful but I wanted to let you know I would help if I could.

Regarding Apps, I found the Golden P G Quotes widget downloaded it (from G. Play) installed it but I can't seem to find the option in my widgets and when I clicked on it in App Manager it doesn't give me any options other than to uninstall. I would like this one as it is seems pretty cool but I am not familiar with widgets and thought I would ask. Is there a certain place you found it or have any recommendations?

One other question, when it says move to SD card, after I have downloaded an app, when I select that, my SD Card doesn't seem to really be adding anything to it, I am worried it might be storing it on the partitioned part of the built in memory. My SD card (the one you recommended earlier) shows the starting amount of (around 29.71 or 27.91 can't remember right now) when I first put it in and has not seemed to change. I looked for the option to format like you mentioned but it says it is mounted, its at the bottom after the approximate 2gb partitioned internal storage, so I think that means I'm in business. Am I missing something, or not doing something right? I have not downloaded App2SD yet because I thought I had figured it out but do you think that would fix my issue?

And so far both home buttons seem to be working still which is a plus.

[diabls]

With the widgets, you have to Drag and Drop them to the main page, hold your finger over the widget for a second and then you should be able to slide it up towards the top of the screen and it should jump to the home screen and you can place it where you want.

Also, when you "move to SD" I think all it does is store teh data the app generates once you do that. Atleast that's what I've seen so far while messing with mine.

I am not sure about the different firmware as I have not needed to do anything with that yet but I agree, if it won't boot then you don't really have anywhere to go from. I now it is not particularly helpful but I wanted to let you know I would help if I could.

Regarding Apps, I found the Golden P G Quotes widget downloaded it (from G. Play) installed it but I can't seem to find the option in my widgets and when I clicked on it in App Manager it doesn't give me any options other than to uninstall. I would like this one as it is seems pretty cool but I am not familiar with widgets and thought I would ask. Is there a certain place you found it or have any recommendations?

One other question, when it says move to SD card, after I have downloaded an app, when I select that, my SD Card doesn't seem to really be adding anything to it, I am worried it might be storing it on the partitioned part of the built in memory. My SD card (the one you recommended earlier) shows the starting amount of (around 29.71 or 27.91 can't remember right now) when I first put it in and has not seemed to change. I looked for the option to format like you mentioned but it says it is mounted, its at the bottom after the approximate 2gb partitioned internal storage, so I think that means I'm in business. Am I missing something, or not doing something right? I have not downloaded App2SD yet because I thought I had figured it out but do you think that would fix my issue?

And so far both home buttons seem to be working still which is a plus.