** ROM ** Polaroid AS8 ** ROOTED + TWRP**

[guessyet]

I didn't notice much of a performance difference on my S8 loaded with the Google image, but just went back to the pre-Google one...much snappier for me. Looking forward to modifications to reclaim some of those mystery partitions. Most apps I use are available in the Amazon App Store, with a couple exceptions.

The pre-Google image plays soundcloud.com audio, the southerntelecom and google ROM does not. Another problem I have with using the pre-Google image is that one of my apps is looking for Google Play Services. I installed the APK for Google Play Services but that didn't help the app. However I don't want to go back to the full on google ROM either. Is there an easy way to get the services 'on and detectable' by apps that need it, without the full on install with all the other google apps I don't use?

EDIT:
I tried the 'switch Extsd/Sdcard' Google ROM but it's just too slow for me.
I went back to the pre-Google ROM, and followed directions at (#30) to switch ExtSD and SDcard so I could use bigger apps.

http://www.freaktab.com/showthread.php?9011-Information-about-Polaroid-A-S8&p=128859&viewfull=1#post128859

For the problem Amazon Appstore app that complained about Google Play services, I sideloaded the Google Play Services and Google Play Store APK's and now everything is working....love it! Everything is usable, I just stick to what is in the Amazon app store. The performance difference is worth it!

im glad you were able to get it functional for your purposes.. my personal preference is also the pre-google for performance.. the google (complete) installation seems to bog the device down a bit from running the services in the background..

[demonsty]

UR THINKING AS YOU READ THIS NEXT POST: "who the heck is this new guy? look at all the stuff he doesnt know!? pfft. noob!"

what apps would you all say would be best to install to increase performance? ive got smart launcer pro, clean master, battery doctor, and entropy fixer all installed and seem to have really smoothed the tablets performace a fair bit. i got clean master and battery doctor closing apps runing in background whenever tablet goes into sleep mode as well as a disabled startup apps function that really helps out.

seem to be this tablets biggest problem is unnecessary backgrounding services running at really sensitive times causing it to have occasional lag but with those apps i just listed installed and working its pretty minimal now except for first few min after doing a cold boot up.

with entropy fixer does it really work or is it a placebo affect. i should rephrase: would something like entropy fixer be affective on with this tablet. it really helped on my samsung captivate galaxy s few years ago (that device stunk! horrible lag)

one last thing(s) from me the new guy who has been studying this thread particularly but am about to really get involved with "tablet freaking?' and eventually am going to attempt developing with this tablet. i figure if it will work well on this tablet it will run well on most anything thats out there although this is not really that bad of a tablet once u load the rooted google play enabled rom and enable developer options which is what i wanted to really ask about in this post.

under devloper options there are a few items that really have me interested in what their effects on performace with the A/S8 if at all any:

under "drawing" ive set window, transition,and animator scale to off. seems to have improved performance with maneuvering around screens. again when it comes to this kind of stuff unless its a fair performance increase its kinda hard to tell if its a real change or placebo effect.

also under "drawing" ive disbaled hw overlays. what does HW stand for? i figured if the gpu is always used to do screen compositing it take some load of the cpus and increase performance. seems to have a bit.

force gpu rendering right after disable hw overlays i have checked it to enable. says it will force gpu to be used for 2d drawing. that seems to have maybe helped. all this stuff is accumulative im sure.

would forcing 4x msaa in opengl es 2.0 apps be worth investigating. this tablet runs medium 3d grafx using games like pocket legends and dark legends fairly well but stinks on the heavy ones like avabel and order and chaos. 2d emulators run great though! nothing like oldschool game systems and mame arcade emulation on a tablet device! i got a mini hdmi to hdmi tv out able as well so if i want i can just use the tablet as the gamepad controller! nice!

okay the main stuff i curious about:

under developer options, APPS:

DONT KEEP ACTIVITIES... ... ive got this enabled. what does it mean exactly? when i close the app it is closed for good? doesnt seem like it does.

BACKGROUND PROCESS LIMIT... ... i got it on standard limit but there are options to have 1 to 4 process allowed in background or none at all. i tried playing with it but doesnt seem to change how the tablet performs at all really. is this limit for all apps running in memory total or just system OS services or just limiting how many process the currentl app being used can have

SHOW ALL ANRs... ....why would i wont this. do apps in the BG that become unresponsive not get shut down automatically by the OS? would this be good to enable?

thanx for any response. this forum is awesome im really gonna get involved soon. especially thanx to all who have contributed the custom roms and info on how to install on here with this tablet. were it not for you there would be miniscule info on this tablet at the moment. would love to still find precise info on specs for it like what kind of wifi adapter does it use or how hard to change out the battery were it needing replacement.

does this tablet use any special virtual memory/ page file useage that could be tweaked to improve performance? VM modifying (after enabling!) dramatically helps on a jailbroken 4th gen ipod touch with memhog beast ios 6 installed on it.

P.S. would overclocking be worth attemp;ting on this tablet? i figure maybe 1.2 ghz might be safely possible what u guys think. havent even looked yet for an app to do it or whatever yet so would be cool thing to try. right now i got it to a good point, its running smooth with only occasional hang ups with ANR lag moments but usually hitting WAIT takes care of them because a sec or less after usually the app not responding does and everything conetinues normally. smart launcer seems to have made a good performance gain as well. are there any better launchers that'd be better to use for this tablets functioninhg better?

[guessyet]

what apps would you all say would be best to install to increase performance? ive got smart launcer pro, clean master, battery doctor, and entropy fixer all installed and seem to have really smoothed the tablets performace a fair bit. i got clean master and battery doctor closing apps runing in background whenever tablet goes into sleep mode as well as a disabled startup apps function that really helps out.

seem to be this tablets biggest problem is unnecessary backgrounding services running at really sensitive times causing it to have occasional lag but with those apps i just listed installed and working its pretty minimal now except for first few min after doing a cold boot up.

with entropy fixer does it really work or is it a placebo affect. i should rephrase: would something like entropy fixer be affective on with this tablet. it really helped on my samsung captivate galaxy s few years ago (that device stunk! horrible lag)

one last thing(s) from me the new guy who has been studying this thread particularly but am about to really get involved with "tablet freaking?' and eventually am going to attempt developing with this tablet. i figure if it will work well on this tablet it will run well on most anything thats out there although this is not really that bad of a tablet once u load the rooted google play enabled rom and enable developer options which is what i wanted to really ask about in this post.

under devloper options there are a few items that really have me interested in what their effects on performace with the A/S8 if at all any:

under "drawing" ive set window, transition,and animator scale to off. seems to have improved performance with maneuvering around screens. again when it comes to this kind of stuff unless its a fair performance increase its kinda hard to tell if its a real change or placebo effect.

also under "drawing" ive disbaled hw overlays. what does HW stand for? i figured if the gpu is always used to do screen compositing it take some load of the cpus and increase performance. seems to have a bit.

force gpu rendering right after disable hw overlays i have checked it to enable. says it will force gpu to be used for 2d drawing. that seems to have maybe helped. all this stuff is accumulative im sure.

would forcing 4x msaa in opengl es 2.0 apps be worth investigating. this tablet runs medium 3d grafx using games like pocket legends and dark legends fairly well but stinks on the heavy ones like avabel and order and chaos. 2d emulators run great though! nothing like oldschool game systems and mame arcade emulation on a tablet device! i got a mini hdmi to hdmi tv out able as well so if i want i can just use the tablet as the gamepad controller! nice!

okay the main stuff i curious about:

under developer options, APPS:

DONT KEEP ACTIVITIES... ... ive got this enabled. what does it mean exactly? when i close the app it is closed for good? doesnt seem like it does.

BACKGROUND PROCESS LIMIT... ... i got it on standard limit but there are options to have 1 to 4 process allowed in background or none at all. i tried playing with it but doesnt seem to change how the tablet performs at all really. is this limit for all apps running in memory total or just system OS services or just limiting how many process the currentl app being used can have

SHOW ALL ANRs... ....why would i wont this. do apps in the BG that become unresponsive not get shut down automatically by the OS? would this be good to enable?

thanx for any response. this forum is awesome im really gonna get involved soon. especially thanx to all who have contributed the custom roms and info on how to install on here with this tablet. were it not for you there would be miniscule info on this tablet at the moment. would love to still find precise info on specs for it like what kind of wifi adapter does it use or how hard to change out the battery were it needing replacement.

does this tablet use any special virtual memory/ page file useage that could be tweaked to improve performance? VM modifying (after enabling!) dramatically helps on a jailbroken 4th gen ipod touch with memhog beast ios 6 installed on it.

P.S. would overclocking be worth attemp;ting on this tablet? i figure maybe 1.2 ghz might be safely possible what u guys think. havent even looked yet for an app to do it or whatever yet so would be cool thing to try. right now i got it to a good point, its running smooth with only occasional hang ups with ANR lag moments but usually hitting WAIT takes care of them because a sec or less after usually the app not responding does and everything conetinues normally. smart launcer seems to have made a good performance gain as well. are there any better launchers that'd be better to use for this tablets functioninhg better?

hey demonsty,
Welcome to Freaktab!!
Let me take a stab at some answers for you.. hope i do not miss anything..

Overclocking:
These tablets are overclockable.. The default clocks are min_freq = 600mhz, normal_freq = 720mhz, max_freq = 912mhz.. The device has 2 cores that run when the device is being used.. however, when the screen shuts off for sleep - one core is shut off to save power..

Just like any computer with a processor - the relationship between cpu mhz and cpu voltage is important. you do not want to ramp up cpu mhz without giving it enough voltage to run it.. the current voltage settings top out at 1.4v to 1.45v..

I have been able to clock the device at 1152mhz using the default upper limit of 1.45v and the device ran stable.. I have seen claims here and on the internet about going to 1200mhz but have my doubts about the stability of the tablet.. Basically, the cpu needs more power to make that jump...

The only way to get past the 1152mhz mark is to modify the kernel code for the cpu frequency. I have done this to, theoretically, allow running the cpu up to 1500ish while stepping the voltages up to match the need of the cpu.. I have not added any of my kernels into release builds yet. I am still tweaking odds and ends.. Currently, my testing roms which include the cpu frequency modifications are capped at 1008mhz.. I will step it up gradually when I have time to work on it - to find a decent limit.. There are factors involved when deciding on overclocking.. The biggest in this situation is that we are dealing with a tablet.. And even an underclocked cpu needs adequate cooling.. lol.. we dont have many options in that aspect.

Development options:
I have not messed with the options under development section.. The only thing I configure is adb..

VM & Entropy:
I have played with these settings to the extent of creating a default configuration for my ROMs. These settings are set when the ROM boots.. The current uploaded ROMs do not include them.. I added these after I uploaded these..

One thing to keep in mind is Google Apps include many background services that run.. I personally use the pre-Google rom because of this..

You can pm me if you want to chat further..

thanks..

[Sacariop]

poloroid s8 tablet

hey guys im new to the forum lol my question is this...i got my poloroid s8. tablet rooted i wanna use my 32gb sd card ad the default storage space im trying to download movies to it but it keeps saying permission denied...i have no problem with the app Tt torrent downloading files to my nexus 4 wats the problem guys? help lol!!!!

[guessyet]

hey guys im new to the forum lol my question is this...i got my poloroid s8. tablet rooted i wanna use my 32gb sd card ad the default storage space im trying to download movies to it but it keeps saying permission denied...i have no problem with the app Tt torrent downloading files to my nexus 4 wats the problem guys? help lol!!!!

Please look at this for switching SD cards..

http://www.freaktab.com/showthread.php?9806-**-ROM-**-Polaroid-AS8-**-Rooted-TWRP-Tuned-***

[tip_ex]

PhoenixSuit

Hello All.

I am new on this forum. I have 2 of this tablet for my kids, and they are awfully slow. I wanted to root it following the nice walkthrough on this forum, however I am not able to upgrade the PhoenixSuit to 1.0.8.

I have tried on XP, Vista and Seven, firewall Off, and it is still stuck at 1.0.6.

My question is, can I root the tablet using 1.0.6, or it is not recommended at all?

Thank you.

[guessyet]

Hello All.

I am new on this forum. I have 2 of this tablet for my kids, and they are awfully slow. I wanted to root it following the nice walkthrough on this forum, however I am not able to upgrade the PhoenixSuit to 1.0.8.

I have tried on XP, Vista and Seven, firewall Off, and it is still stuck at 1.0.6.

My question is, can I root the tablet using 1.0.6, or it is not recommended at all?

Thank you.

hey..
1.0.6 should be ok for flashing the roms..

[PMisYMMV]

Please look at this for switching SD cards..
http://www.freaktab.com/showthread.p...TWRP-Tuned-***

I have this current ROM on my S8. But when ever I try to write files to ext sd, it gives me following error
Can't write to file: open failed: EACCES (Permision denied)

Is there something I am missing?
I was on the switched cards ROM before this, but it keeps deleting apps when ever I move them to sd card. so shifted to this ROM.

It looks like its just an issue with my favorite x-plore browser, but not with ES file explorer, so not a ROM issue, thank you for great ROM OP.

[Azeekersp]

Experiences with these images and Polaroid A8

hey demonsty,
Welcome to Freaktab!!
Let me take a stab at some answers for you.. hope i do not miss anything..

Overclocking:
These tablets are overclockable.. The default clocks are min_freq = 600mhz, normal_freq = 720mhz, max_freq = 912mhz.. The device has 2 cores that run when the device is being used.. however, when the screen shuts off for sleep - one core is shut off to save power..

Just like any computer with a processor - the relationship between cpu mhz and cpu voltage is important. you do not want to ramp up cpu mhz without giving it enough voltage to run it.. the current voltage settings top out at 1.4v to 1.45v..

I have been able to clock the device at 1152mhz using the default upper limit of 1.45v and the device ran stable.. I have seen claims here and on the internet about going to 1200mhz but have my doubts about the stability of the tablet.. Basically, the cpu needs more power to make that jump...

The only way to get past the 1152mhz mark is to modify the kernel code for the cpu frequency. I have done this to, theoretically, allow running the cpu up to 1500ish while stepping the voltages up to match the need of the cpu.. I have not added any of my kernels into release builds yet. I am still tweaking odds and ends.. Currently, my testing roms which include the cpu frequency modifications are capped at 1008mhz.. I will step it up gradually when I have time to work on it - to find a decent limit.. There are factors involved when deciding on overclocking.. The biggest in this situation is that we are dealing with a tablet.. And even an underclocked cpu needs adequate cooling.. lol.. we dont have many options in that aspect.

Development options:
I have not messed with the options under development section.. The only thing I configure is adb..

VM & Entropy:
I have played with these settings to the extent of creating a default configuration for my ROMs. These settings are set when the ROM boots.. The current uploaded ROMs do not include them.. I added these after I uploaded these..

One thing to keep in mind is Google Apps include many background services that run.. I personally use the pre-Google rom because of this..

You can pm me if you want to chat further..

thanks..

First, I want to thank Guessyet and the other folks here for all the hard work they put in to help us out.

Brief background: I am a newbie with android; earlier this year I picked up one of these Polaroid A8 tablets at Walgreens just to keep in the living room to see online tv schedule, ebooks, and some light blog browsing, and also to get to learn tablets/android before buying something more expensive.

1. I followed the instructions in the box and updated the sw at the Polaroid/Southern Telecom site. The tablet ran ok for about 5 months, but then it suddenly froze up when I was traveling. I went back to the site and installed the then current image.

2. It ran OK for a few months but then I started getting error messages like, unfortunately process.media stopped, gapps stopped, UI stopped, etc, etc. Then it got stuck in a boot loop. Spent hours online looking for a solution. could never get it to reset buy just using the buttons.

3. Once I found this thread, I flashed Guessyet's google-updated image (12-24-13). This ran well for a few months, but then started the same system error messages. I think I reflashed this a second time and that also eventually had errors too.

4. Next I used the later image that has Google and tuned, with the internal and external sd cards swapped (I have a 32 gb ext card). Again it was stable for a month or two and then similar errors and a boot loop came up.

5. A few days ago, I went back and flashed Guessyet's pre-Google version. This seems the best -- faster smoother, and no error messages so far. I also did not download the chrome browser. I found that I don't need the Google playstore, I found Amazons and some other appstores to use.

6. In summary I agree with the above statement about Googles many background services. I just don't think this tablet can handle them stably without choking and getting corrupted. I think it was designed to run without the google services.

Anyways, I am real happy with the tablet now. Thanks again.

[Zeke65]

Rooted, with TWRP Don't remember howI did it

I have TWRP without flashing guessyet's Rom. Just don't know if I can flash the modified Rom. New at this, but willing to learn.

[guessyet]

@ zeke65 - i did not make a twrp package for this device to flash.. i did not get that far in my work.. well - i did get far enough, but, i was working on adding a lot of options and extras..
i was actually working on too many things at one time.. it killed me with the workload to where i was unable to get to milestones.. between that and helping administer freaktabs website
and related services it was very hard to move forward on this tablet..

its not hard to make a package for twrp to update the tablet.. you can use my pre-google rom as a base.. it already has the needed files for root.. someone needs just to dump the contents of a fresh phoenix
suite flash or de-compile the rom in order to package it in a nice update.zip.. they also need to learn the basics on how the update script works and file permissions.. there are guides on the net on how to
set them up.. since this is 4.2.2 (if memory is correct) you will not have to worry as much with the file permissions as one would with android 4.4(selinux).. however, i do not remember right now if you
will need to use an updater script or update script - it depends on the recovery version installed..

good luck if you intend on making one..

[Zeke65]

Thanks for the help on my tablet. My 4 yr old grandson thought it was a trampoline. May find a screen for it in the future. Got a Asus tablet several months back.

[CadillacPaul500]

Hi everyone! I just joined this forum. Sorry I skipped right to the nuts and bolts without introducing myself (I feel like this site doesn't differ from others with an intro thread). I've done a bit of systems building and WRT54g series router roms, and I just got into the notion of modding Androids. And what better droid platform to start with than this unbelievably horrible little paperweight! =D If it bricks and dies... who cares!? I'll just have to find something else to keep my receipts from falling off the desk. I've flashed this thing before with the updated google revision, but it turned into a frozen nightmare, and no play store = no fun, so no-go. I just did the rom you provided here, and it runs smoother. I'm going to have to play with it more to fully realize it's performance on the given firmware, and I'm hoping for the best. I really have to thank all involved who took the time out of their lives to give this little ice cube tablet the firmware it so desperately needed. One thing is for certain... it's not locking up like it was before this... so that's a positive sign. Like many others complain about, the partitions are wasteful on space. What I'm curious to see is if it can handle full duplex VoIP... and dare I say... video. This is the A/S8 we're talking about, after all. Really, this thing sat on the floor in my bedroom where I abandoned it years ago... hating it with a passion. This ROM was certainly a gem. I mean... does this tablet have GPS? G Maps seems to know where I am exactly, and this is the first time this thing was able to run it. Amazing how bad the original firmware was! What were they thinking!? This is good. My tablet is now usable. Thank God for this.

[elektrik]

Hi everyone! I just joined this forum. Sorry I skipped right to the nuts and bolts without introducing myself (I feel like this site doesn't differ from others with an intro thread). I've done a bit of systems building and WRT54g series router roms, and I just got into the notion of modding Androids. And what better droid platform to start with than this unbelievably horrible little paperweight! =D If it bricks and dies... who cares!? I'll just have to find something else to keep my receipts from falling off the desk. I've flashed this thing before with the updated google revision, but it turned into a frozen nightmare, and no play store = no fun, so no-go. I just did the rom you provided here, and it runs smoother. I'm going to have to play with it more to fully realize it's performance on the given firmware, and I'm hoping for the best. I really have to thank all involved who took the time out of their lives to give this little ice cube tablet the firmware it so desperately needed. One thing is for certain... it's not locking up like it was before this... so that's a positive sign. Like many others complain about, the partitions are wasteful on space. What I'm curious to see is if it can handle full duplex VoIP... and dare I say... video. This is the A/S8 we're talking about, after all. Really, this thing sat on the floor in my bedroom where I abandoned it years ago... hating it with a passion. This ROM was certainly a gem. I mean... does this tablet have GPS? G Maps seems to know where I am exactly, and this is the first time this thing was able to run it. Amazing how bad the original firmware was! What were they thinking!? This is good. My tablet is now usable. Thank God for this.

I was never into the AS8 sadly so I can't comment on any of the custom ROM's..but it sounds like you got it running. the Polaroid hardware wasn't bad, it was always the software..:-|