P7 ROM on an M9S?? What are the chances of this working?

[sawbones999]

I bought an M9S thinking that since it was newer, it might be better supported than the P7. However, this has not been the case and I believe it is likely due to low sales volume and/or the M9S never officially being marketed in English speaking countries (maybe not even outside of China?).

Anyway, from what I've read, the M9S was created so that the 3G version could be OEM'd in a partnership with a Chinese telco. Whether that is true or not, I don't know. What I do know is that so far no one has found or released anything past 4.4.2 for this device.

What I'm wondering is if the P7 hardware would be close enough so that the P7 lollipop ROM would work for the M9S.

The specs are nearly identical. There are only 2 differences on the spec sheets and they are screen size and battery capacity. The P7 having a 9.4" screen vs the M9S having a 10.1" screen. Also, the P7 battery at 6400mah vs the M9S battery at 7600mah.

What I don't know is if there are fundamental differences between the display drivers, if they use the same PMU, if the RAM is of a similar type, etc. Could someone with a little more knowledge of both devices help me out here with an opinion?

If not the P7, then does anyone know of a device which is the OEM equivalent of an M9S which may have better support for newer ROMs? I'm interested in Lollipop, possibly lightbiz OS, ChromeOS, or other Linux based fw.

Thanks and cheers!
-SB

[rrileypm]

My experience with Pipo...which is vast (I've made ROM's for just about every model through the P series) is that there are no two models exactly alike with regards to components.

For a noob, I would say "NO" don't even think about it. But for an experienced member such as yourself, I would say PROCEED WITH CAUTION.

First, you need to have a complete stock ROM Dump of the M9S before you flash anything. That would at least get you back to stock if you end up with a brick.

Then I would take baby steps.

I have a couple of P7's. I made some custom ROM's for a company who bought a ton of them for their business and paid me to to customize them. The trouble was that Pipo changed components each time they ran a batch, so I ended up with 3 or 4 different versions of the ROM. Then, Pipo decided to make an HD version of the P7...with the same specs as the M8 HD, but with a 3288 proc. So I ended up needing a sample tablet from each batch to make sure my ROM's worked.

Things you will run into are display differences, touch panel axis differences, wifi/bluetooth differences. You might get lucky and have MOST things working, but not EVERYTHING at once.

Stick with the M9S kernel and add the system.img from the P7 and see if it will even boot. Then you can try other files. Just remember that a P7 boot.img (unmodified) will contain the P7 kernel, and will try to boot from it by default.

I lucked out when I found that the M9 Pro and M7 Pro were virtually identical, and was able to interchange the entire ROM back and forth whenever a new firmware was released for either. I'm skeptical that you would find the same result between the M9S and the P7, but you might get lucky.

[sawbones999]

Thanks for the reply!

The ROM backup shouldn't be a problem, I have multiple stock ROM versions, also custom ROM (I use Oma's release currently).

About the kernel, I'm not sure that the KK M9S kernel will work with the P7 Lollipop system image due to KK/Lollipop differences. I suppose I'll just try the P7 ROM and see what happens.

Worst case scenario would be maskrom mode, right? I've dealt with having to short the NAND to enter it before(not with this tablet, though).

I will post back here with results when I get some time to try it.

Thanks again for the reply. I've had little luck with support on this. Sometimes I feel like I must be the only who bought the M9S :-) I am basically the only one who ever asks anything about it here and on crewrktab.

Wish me luck! Lol
Cheers,
-SB

[rrileypm]

I thought that the M9S was only sold in China. There wasn't much support from Pipo with it either.

Your best bet on a Lollipop version would be if Oma ever releases one. He's the only one I've seen who is ballsy enough to port to the next level of Android on some products.

That takes too much time....and you MUST have that model tablet to do extensive testing in order to make everything work right. I haven't had much luck with his ROM's, though on some of my Pipo's. I usually received early versions of each model....and components changed in later productions, which I think Oma has made his ROM's for. I'm not saying they don't work...they just usually don't on my tablets....because of hardware differences.

[sawbones999]

Does Oma get pre-release versions of ROMs from some companies? I noticed that he had (very buggy) unofficial lollipop ROMs for several rk3288 pipo tablets before the firmware was released. Sometimes it seems like he built those, but when I asked he acted like he doesn't have access to pipo's SDK. Also, as far as he has told me it's still a mystery as to how Pipo compresses the kernel. Which, as you know is the biggest hurdle to independent developers compiling their own kernel for Pipo's rockchip devices (probably others, too).

Cheers!
-SB