I know we said farewell last year, and Jason has been running, single-handedly, the excellent 88-bar blog, but we still get comments on Virtual China posts and this one was SO GREAT that I just have to post it for you.
In Oct 2007 I wrote a post called "need for Chinese mobile hacking blog in English." I had noticed an ongoing stream of comments at ChinaTechNews about how hard it was for people to find information on their CECT Chinese mobile phones. People were clearly desperate for info on help, hacks, software, and especially, English manuals.
We now have the same ongoing stream of comments on our blog. The space is wide open for someone to create services and information in this space, since Chinese phones are available in markets all over the world now. In fact, the "China phone" has since entered the vocabulary of a certain kind of user in places like India (at least for now), Nigeria, Brazil, Indonesia, and Pakistan.
I'm nominating Joseph Ramirez, who sent in a great comment today, as the one to start the China phone hacking blog in English. He lives in Mexico, so I'm guessing he could also provide the info in Spanish. I'm including his comment in its entirety below, but here's his summary of the lack of software and information to bridge these devices and their worldwide users:
Unfortunately, nobody has developed a software that allow you to deeply explore your Chinese mobile phone or a tool to make and update your own firmware and modify whit the components you wish, and really add java and other cool stuff. Or if you know some software that does it please share your information. I think it is matter of time, because these phones are not very popular like Nokia or Motorola, but offer cool things and good prices, for example the black list for those unwished calls, or the ambient sound while calling, the MP4 player, the dual SIM function, the free TV or de IP dialing, those things compensate the no java apps, the horrible message alert ring tones and the noisy unlock sound effect of your phone, by the way, IF SOMEONE KNOW HOW TO REMOVE THESE SOUND AND ADD NEW TONES TO THE MESSAGE ALERT PLEASE TELL ME HOW
I get the feeling that there are thousands of people around the world who are being driven nuts by these ring tones and sound effects. Please, someone, help them.
Joseph Ramirez
As all of you, I’m kind of disappointed of my Chinese mobile phone but it has a lot of things that any other mobile doesn’t has, that’s why I said ‘kind of’. I’ve got an AVA A518, but AVA is the name of the Mexican company that imports the mobile phones to sell them here, I suppose that in each country happens a similar situations, so if you are looking on the Internet your phone model by the name of the company that is reselling the mobiles you’ll never find it. I guess you should look the interior of your mobile, remove the back cover, remove the battery and bellow the IMEI it’s written in Chinese the name of the company. In my case, the Chinese characters are 吐号 so, the model is Jing Peng A518.
Even if you get the name of the manufacturer and the model of your mobile and try to find some information about it on the Internet it won’t be helpful. The only thing that you will find is more people asking for software, user manuals in their country language, how to install games and applications, how to access to Internet and send MMS or asking for a charger o any other spoilt piece but not any useful answer.
So this is where hope my own meandering experience helps you. First, for all of the people that is questioning how to install java, symbian, windows mobile, flash or *.pkg applications on your phone let me remember you something. As you know, in China there are no Copyright rules, so that’s why you can find very similar phones to Nokia, Motorola or even I-phone. Java and all Java-based marks are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Symbian’s software is licensed from Symbian Software Ltd., Windows mobile is licensed by Microsoft, Flash by Adobe and the pkg files by Linux. The problem with the Linux applications, even when it is a free code software, is that you need a more powerful engine in your mobile, for example the Motorola A1200 can execute the pkg extensions but it has an Intel processor. That’s why you can’t install java on your mobile, because it is kind of pirate phone. Some new Chinese mobile now can do it, so if you want to buy a Chinese pho be sure to get one of the recent generations, I could classify the mobiles in this order, 1st. generation, the mobiles without Bluetooth. Second gen. those who has Bluetooth, Third, those who allow you to play NES Roms and the latest one that has Java support.
Another questions that I read in this post it’s about the MMS and Internet Access. In both cases, you need to configure your MMS account and your Internet account. That depends of the service provider company of your SIM. Here in Mexico could be Telcel, Movistar, Iusacel, Unefon, Nextel or T-Mobile. The problem is that these companies only configure the mobile phone that they have in their sells catalogue; they don’t sell Chinese mobile phones because they are like pirate phones so they don’t have configurations for them. Two solutions could be the next ones. First, for example, Telcel has the accounts for each model that they have on their web page http://www.ideastelcel.com, so the Mexican users could try by trial and error each configuration of the models that Telcel has for your mobile, up to 300 configurations for each model if you have nothing else to do in a month you should try it. The other solutions is that people that work repairing and setting c configurations, (you know, that people that says that they configure your mobile to have unlimited Internet access, or they activate your mobile, or unblock it and that stuff) could do it for some money. Here in Mexico that people do it for 60 or 70 dollars, so it’s a good prove, if the things that they offers are true they set up your phone for some money or if they are lying you could agree not to pay because they couldn’t configure your Chinese mobile phone. Anyway, this is kind of illegal.
Another thing with the MMS I red here is the space in the memory. That space occupied in the memory that says 5/10 is occupied by the templates, you can delete these templates by the option Restore Factory settings on your configuration menu on your phone, the code usually is 1122.
For the last, some people is asking for the user manual in the forum, I’m working in scanning my user manual, it is not very useful so I’m working in one written by myself, when it is ready I’ll link it, but for those who think that the manual could bring some help you could read some of the manuals that have been posted her, believe me, the firmware is the same in almost all of the Chinese mobiles.
For those who wants so sync their mobile with the PC, you should try ‘PC Sync Manager by MediaTek Inc.’ You buy it or down-load it from a lot of sites, just type PC Sync Manager on your favorite Web finder Install it, it comes with Controllers for your PC, the COM port is the number 7 to sync it with your SIM card. It has some problems by installing stuff, but it’s very useful to manage your messages and contacts. To use Bluetooth you could use Blue Soley, but only to transfer files, not to manage your data on your SIM, because you need to install java on your phone to do it. On your Bluetooth/Settings/FTP settings modify the access right to transfers files, also My device/Inquiry new device option must be modifies to use the Bluetooth.
For those who are questioning about the videos, you could use Super ©, it is freeware and is very useful for short videos like music videos, but if you want to convert movies, you need a PC with good RAM to do it or the videos will be cut. The settings for the Super © are: Output container MP4, Output Video Codec MPEG-4, Output Audio Codec AAC LC, Video Scale Size 320:240, Aspect 4:3, Frame/Sec 15, Bitrate kbps1248, Sampling Freq 44100, Channels 2, Bitrate kbps 64, High quality and Top quality must be checked on. You could increase the audio quality from 64 to 128, but sometimes de audio do not matches with the video.
Unfortunately, nobody has developed a software that allow you to deeply explore your Chinese mobile phone or a tool to make and update your own firmware and modify whit the components you wish, and really add java and other cool stuff. Or if you know some software that does it please share your information. I think it is matter of time, because these phones are not very popular like Nokia or Motorola, but offer cool things and good prices, for example the black list for those unwished calls, or the ambient sound while calling, the MP4 player, the dual SIM function, the free TV or de IP dialing, those things compensate the no java apps, the horrible message alert ring tones and the noisy unlock sound effect of your phone, by the way, IF SOMEONE KNOW HOW TO REMOVE THESE SOUND AND ADD NEW TONES TO THE MESSAGE ALERT PLEASE TELL ME HOW, because my phone can’t remove the preloaded message alert tones and does not have more space to add my ones like the incoming call ring tones. Hope these commentaries help you and if you buy another Chinese thing be sure to get a manual in your language and check that it has all the things you like or need. If someone sold you one of these Chinese phones for an original, it’s a fraud and you can make some legal action but if you buy these phones just for their TV and dual SIM and then get disappointed, you could resell it on e-bay or with your family or friends, some people doesn’t care about the games o the Internet buy really like to watch TV, specially sports, And if you sell it or resell it, tell the true, these kind of phones do not open java apps or games, are hard to configure with the MMS and the Internet and if they break down there’s no Client Service Attention or Costumer Warrantee in your country, unless you live in China.
Even if you get the name of the manufacturer and the model of your mobile and try to find some information about it on the Internet it won’t be helpful. The only thing that you will find is more people asking for software, user manuals in their country language, how to install games and applications, how to access to Internet and send MMS or asking for a charger o any other spoilt piece but not any useful answer.
So this is where hope my own meandering experience helps you. First, for all of the people that is questioning how to install java, symbian, windows mobile, flash or *.pkg applications on your phone let me remember you something. As you know, in China there are no Copyright rules, so that’s why you can find very similar phones to Nokia, Motorola or even I-phone. Java and all Java-based marks are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Symbian’s software is licensed from Symbian Software Ltd., Windows mobile is licensed by Microsoft, Flash by Adobe and the pkg files by Linux. The problem with the Linux applications, even when it is a free code software, is that you need a more powerful engine in your mobile, for example the Motorola A1200 can execute the pkg extensions but it has an Intel processor. That’s why you can’t install java on your mobile, because it is kind of pirate phone. Some new Chinese mobile now can do it, so if you want to buy a Chinese pho be sure to get one of the recent generations, I could classify the mobiles in this order, 1st. generation, the mobiles without Bluetooth. Second gen. those who has Bluetooth, Third, those who allow you to play NES Roms and the latest one that has Java support.
Another questions that I read in this post it’s about the MMS and Internet Access. In both cases, you need to configure your MMS account and your Internet account. That depends of the service provider company of your SIM. Here in Mexico could be Telcel, Movistar, Iusacel, Unefon, Nextel or T-Mobile. The problem is that these companies only configure the mobile phone that they have in their sells catalogue; they don’t sell Chinese mobile phones because they are like pirate phones so they don’t have configurations for them. Two solutions could be the next ones. First, for example, Telcel has the accounts for each model that they have on their web page http://www.ideastelcel.com, so the Mexican users could try by trial and error each configuration of the models that Telcel has for your mobile, up to 300 configurations for each model if you have nothing else to do in a month you should try it. The other solutions is that people that work repairing and setting c configurations, (you know, that people that says that they configure your mobile to have unlimited Internet access, or they activate your mobile, or unblock it and that stuff) could do it for some money. Here in Mexico that people do it for 60 or 70 dollars, so it’s a good prove, if the things that they offers are true they set up your phone for some money or if they are lying you could agree not to pay because they couldn’t configure your Chinese mobile phone. Anyway, this is kind of illegal.
Another thing with the MMS I red here is the space in the memory. That space occupied in the memory that says 5/10 is occupied by the templates, you can delete these templates by the option Restore Factory settings on your configuration menu on your phone, the code usually is 1122.
For the last, some people is asking for the user manual in the forum, I’m working in scanning my user manual, it is not very useful so I’m working in one written by myself, when it is ready I’ll link it, but for those who think that the manual could bring some help you could read some of the manuals that have been posted her, believe me, the firmware is the same in almost all of the Chinese mobiles.
For those who wants so sync their mobile with the PC, you should try ‘PC Sync Manager by MediaTek Inc.’ You buy it or down-load it from a lot of sites, just type PC Sync Manager on your favorite Web finder Install it, it comes with Controllers for your PC, the COM port is the number 7 to sync it with your SIM card. It has some problems by installing stuff, but it’s very useful to manage your messages and contacts. To use Bluetooth you could use Blue Soley, but only to transfer files, not to manage your data on your SIM, because you need to install java on your phone to do it. On your Bluetooth/Settings/FTP settings modify the access right to transfers files, also My device/Inquiry new device option must be modifies to use the Bluetooth.
For those who are questioning about the videos, you could use Super ©, it is freeware and is very useful for short videos like music videos, but if you want to convert movies, you need a PC with good RAM to do it or the videos will be cut. The settings for the Super © are: Output container MP4, Output Video Codec MPEG-4, Output Audio Codec AAC LC, Video Scale Size 320:240, Aspect 4:3, Frame/Sec 15, Bitrate kbps1248, Sampling Freq 44100, Channels 2, Bitrate kbps 64, High quality and Top quality must be checked on. You could increase the audio quality from 64 to 128, but sometimes de audio do not matches with the video.
Unfortunately, nobody has developed a software that allow you to deeply explore your Chinese mobile phone or a tool to make and update your own firmware and modify whit the components you wish, and really add java and other cool stuff. Or if you know some software that does it please share your information. I think it is matter of time, because these phones are not very popular like Nokia or Motorola, but offer cool things and good prices, for example the black list for those unwished calls, or the ambient sound while calling, the MP4 player, the dual SIM function, the free TV or de IP dialing, those things compensate the no java apps, the horrible message alert ring tones and the noisy unlock sound effect of your phone, by the way, IF SOMEONE KNOW HOW TO REMOVE THESE SOUND AND ADD NEW TONES TO THE MESSAGE ALERT PLEASE TELL ME HOW, because my phone can’t remove the preloaded message alert tones and does not have more space to add my ones like the incoming call ring tones. Hope these commentaries help you and if you buy another Chinese thing be sure to get a manual in your language and check that it has all the things you like or need. If someone sold you one of these Chinese phones for an original, it’s a fraud and you can make some legal action but if you buy these phones just for their TV and dual SIM and then get disappointed, you could resell it on e-bay or with your family or friends, some people doesn’t care about the games o the Internet buy really like to watch TV, specially sports, And if you sell it or resell it, tell the true, these kind of phones do not open java apps or games, are hard to configure with the MMS and the Internet and if they break down there’s no Client Service Attention or Costumer Warrantee in your country, unless you live in China.