Questions about the Polaroid series of tablets

[denali]

Howdy y'all:

Am I correct in my belief that all of Polaroid/ST's tablets use the Allwinner A10 design? Or, is there one or more that use a different design?

Share your thoughts. I've got some ideas in my head and I'm doing some preliminary research to see if it'll work.

Thanks in advance!

Denali

[root]

Howdy y'all:

Am I correct in my belief that all of Polaroid/ST's tablets use the Allwinner A10 design? Or, is there one or more that use a different design?

Share your thoughts. I've got some ideas in my head and I'm doing some preliminary research to see if it'll work.

Thanks in advance!

Denali

I thought someone found the more recent units w/o HDMI use the A13 chip, the little brother to the A10, which eliminates HDMI and SATA support and reduces the cost. I think my PTAB7XC has that chip.

[denali]

I thought someone found the more recent units w/o HDMI use the A13 chip, the little brother to the A10, which eliminates HDMI and SATA support and reduces the cost. I think my PTAB7XC has that chip.

Interesting... I may have to look into this. Thanks!

[smarcin]

Interesting... I may have to look into this. Thanks!

I'm new here, but I bought a PTAB7XC at Kohls yesterday. I read what root said about some using the A13 and went searching on the net for info about it. Does anyone have any idea how to verify which chip is actually in the 7XC, short of doing a complete teardown?

I checked the Southern telecom website. The firmware for the 702c, 703c and the 7XC are all the same size, but have different md5sums. Of course all 3 models have the camera, which the 701c/i don't have.

So, my question is, is there any chance the ROMs for the 701c/i might work for the 702c, 703c and the 7XC? I suppose I could try flashing one, but I only found 1 of these tablets after stopping at 2 different Kohls. I'm sure I could return it if I bricked it, but Kohls doesn't even sell them online. (I should say that I have a Sprint Evo 3D which I have rooted, and have flashed many different ROMs to it. Fortunately the techs at my local Sprint store would probably take my 3D back if I bricked it, though it's really hard to brick them. Also, there are methods for unbricking the 3D.) Unfortunately, I don't see that anyone here has figured out how to unbrick these Polaroid tablets.

I guess I could get RootExplorer on it and take a look at some of the files.

I do have the Android sdk on my netbook and can use adb.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

Sally

[sabercatpuck]

You might look at this thread

I'm new here, but I bought a PTAB7XC at Kohls yesterday. I read what root said about some using the A13 and went searching on the net for info about it. Does anyone have any idea how to verify which chip is actually in the 7XC, short of doing a complete teardown?

I checked the Southern telecom website. The firmware for the 702c, 703c and the 7XC are all the same size, but have different md5sums. Of course all 3 models have the camera, which the 701c/i don't have.

So, my question is, is there any chance the ROMs for the 701c/i might work for the 702c, 703c and the 7XC? I suppose I could try flashing one, but I only found 1 of these tablets after stopping at 2 different Kohls. I'm sure I could return it if I bricked it, but Kohls doesn't even sell them online. (I should say that I have a Sprint Evo 3D which I have rooted, and have flashed many different ROMs to it. Fortunately the techs at my local Sprint store would probably take my 3D back if I bricked it, though it's really hard to brick them. Also, there are methods for unbricking the 3D.) Unfortunately, I don't see that anyone here has figured out how to unbrick these Polaroid tablets.

I guess I could get RootExplorer on it and take a look at some of the files.

I do have the Android sdk on my netbook and can use adb.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

Sally

Look over this thread:

http://www.freaktab.com/showthread.php?912-how-make-livesuite-img-with-dumped-rom

One thing you can do to check if it is an allwinner tablet without popping the case is see if you use LiveSuite to flash. To the best of my knowledge the only CPU's that use it to flash are the AllWinner chips. The good news is that having the AllWinner and LiveSuite combo makes them virtually brick proof. The flash bootloader (FEL) is actually embeded into the CPU chip. Long story short is it handshakes with the LiveSuite program which then downloads the routines it uses for flashing as needed while in the process of flashing and those are kept in the image on the Windows PC that you downloaded from here on FreakTab, Southern Telecom, Onda, etc. That is why it is possible to make an image using images that are DD'd (full image copy of the Root, Recovery, and System partitions made with ADB) off of the tablet. So far the Polaroid tablets that have been tried have all been able to be recreated this way using the bulk of the files from the SoTel or Onda sites and the DD imags taken from a working tablet and then cooked up in the A10 Kitchen.
The next thing will be working on mod's to help clean up the ROM's a bit, but that has been running into time and hardware constraint problems for most of the folks that have been working on it. Hopefully I will get more time to get back into it soon, though I have much to learn before I am likely able to put out something useable that is more than a stock copy.

[smarcin]

Look over this thread:

http://www.freaktab.com/showthread.php?912-how-make-livesuite-img-with-dumped-rom

One thing you can do to check if it is an allwinner tablet without popping the case is see if you use LiveSuite to flash. To the best of my knowledge the only CPU's that use it to flash are the AllWinner chips. The good news is that having the AllWinner and LiveSuite combo makes them virtually brick proof. The flash bootloader (FEL) is actually embeded into the CPU chip. Long story short is it handshakes with the LiveSuite program which then downloads the routines it uses for flashing as needed while in the process of flashing and those are kept in the image on the Windows PC that you downloaded from here on FreakTab, Southern Telecom, Onda, etc. That is why it is possible to make an image using images that are DD'd (full image copy of the Root, Recovery, and System partitions made with ADB) off of the tablet. So far the Polaroid tablets that have been tried have all been able to be recreated this way using the bulk of the files from the SoTel or Onda sites and the DD imags taken from a working tablet and then cooked up in the A10 Kitchen.
The next thing will be working on mod's to help clean up the ROM's a bit, but that has been running into time and hardware constraint problems for most of the folks that have been working on it. Hopefully I will get more time to get back into it soon, though I have much to learn before I am likely able to put out something useable that is more than a stock copy.

Wow! Thanks for the link. Yes, from what I see on Southern Telecom, the 7XC also uses LiveSuite to flash the firmware. I'll try my hand at dumping it. I wasn't disputing that the 7XC has a Allwinner chip. Just not sure which one it is, the 13 or the 10. Just because it doesn't have video out, IMHO, doesn't necessarily mean it's got an Allwinner 13 in it.

The other thing is, if I were to flash a ROM from the 701i, I wonder if it would have drivers for the video camera in the 7XC?

[jimates]

just for the heck of it, I tried to flash a 701i x10 with the firmware for the 7xc. The same version of LiveSuite is used, different rom chosen. The procedure difference is how to put the device into FEL mode. Using the directions for the 701i (and the rom for the 7xc), it just would not pass that final step and recognize it in FEL mode. I had to back up and select the other firmware and then it would do the flash. Tried several times without success.

[denali]

Look over this thread:

http://www.freaktab.com/showthread.php?912-how-make-livesuite-img-with-dumped-rom

One thing you can do to check if it is an allwinner tablet without popping the case is see if you use LiveSuite to flash. To the best of my knowledge the only CPU's that use it to flash are the AllWinner chips. The good news is that having the AllWinner and LiveSuite combo makes them virtually brick proof. The flash bootloader (FEL) is actually embeded into the CPU chip. Long story short is it handshakes with the LiveSuite program which then downloads the routines it uses for flashing as needed while in the process of flashing and those are kept in the image on the Windows PC that you downloaded from here on FreakTab, Southern Telecom, Onda, etc. That is why it is possible to make an image using images that are DD'd (full image copy of the Root, Recovery, and System partitions made with ADB) off of the tablet. So far the Polaroid tablets that have been tried have all been able to be recreated this way using the bulk of the files from the SoTel or Onda sites and the DD imags taken from a working tablet and then cooked up in the A10 Kitchen.
The next thing will be working on mod's to help clean up the ROM's a bit, but that has been running into time and hardware constraint problems for most of the folks that have been working on it. Hopefully I will get more time to get back into it soon, though I have much to learn before I am likely able to put out something useable that is more than a stock copy.

If you don't mind, let me get you (and the others who are working constantly to help improve this platform) to think about something. Do you think it would be possible to build ICS for the Allwinner platform using the Linaro gcc tool chain? The reason I ask is I'm curious to see if the same speed increases can be obtained on this chip.

[sabercatpuck]

If you don't mind, let me get you (and the others who are working constantly to help improve this platform) to think about something. Do you think it would be possible to build ICS for the Allwinner platform using the Linaro gcc tool chain? The reason I ask is I'm curious to see if the same speed increases can be obtained on this chip.

Unfortunately, I am more of a hardware guy and just learning the software stuff. At this point I couldn't even tell you what a Linaro tool chain was. I can direct you to http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/pipermail/arm-netbook/. I have been reading these and I am starting to pick up some of the things I need. One problem is that they are mostly working with the Mele 1000/2000 set top boxes that also use the A10 processor so some things transfer well, others do not. The same people working through this mailing list are also updating the WIKI over at http://rhombus-tech.net/allwinner_a10/. They have debian/ubuntu working on it which means we will likely be able to get something going for the tablets if we get all the pieces together, but I have not gotten one of these puzzles put together right yet. Work in progress

[smarcin]

just for the heck of it, I tried to flash a 701i x10 with the firmware for the 7xc. The same version of LiveSuite is used, different rom chosen. The procedure difference is how to put the device into FEL mode. Using the directions for the 701i (and the rom for the 7xc), it just would not pass that final step and recognize it in FEL mode. I had to back up and select the other firmware and then it would do the flash. Tried several times without success.

Well, that's interesting, that it wouldn't flash. I wonder what would happen going the other way? I'm a little worried about bricking my 7xc.

I saw one reference in this thread about the 7xc having the a13 chip, but no real evidence was given. I wonder if the failure to flash was hardware related, like different chip, or software related?

[root]

Well, that's interesting, that it wouldn't flash. I wonder what would happen going the other way? I'm a little worried about bricking my 7xc.

I saw one reference in this thread about the 7xc having the a13 chip, but no real evidence was given. I wonder if the failure to flash was hardware related, like different chip, or software related?

I don't think I've seen any teardown of the 7XC, but this thread shows the A13 chip in the 701i that someone opened.

[Vandrvekn]

Pmid703

According to Target's web site. the Pmid703 uses a Rockchip 2918 processor instead of the Allwinner A10 or A13. I suppose that why it costs $139.99.

[lrmahon]

702C & 703C Firmware

According to Target's web site. the Pmid703 uses a Rockchip 2918 processor instead of the Allwinner A10 or A13. I suppose that why it costs $139.99.

I just flashed ny 702c with the 703c Firmware, it's just the same no problems at all.
I only did it to see if it was the same. But I'll keep it unless something goes wrong.
So, it looks like it's the same hardware and chip.