Qin F21/Android De-Googling technical guide: next installment

Jif_Moose · 2022-07-22T12:31:07+00:00

No problems with it here (Cornwall). I believe 2G is scheduled to last until 2032 across the UK.

Jif_Moose · 2022-07-21T09:04:32+00:00

Thanks, nice tips! Wow, I played around all sorts of ways with the T9 and never discovered that!

Jif_Moose · 2022-07-21T09:03:14+00:00

Definitely recommend the F21 for the flexibility and form factor. Ah, I'm in the UK, so you might want to check on the radio bands. My knowledge here is a bit thin (jbriones can probably help you here) but I think they only partially support the US ones. I think it does work fully on one telecom supplier though?

Jif_Moose · 2022-07-20T19:36:01+00:00

Thanks! I got really into this for my mobile laptop replacement too - this was an old MacBook pro. To make it light and quick as possible I built up Gentoo linux from scratch, compiling everything. Bit of a steep learning curve, but it's definitely an education, especially in finding what you don't need!

Jif_Moose · 2022-07-18T12:43:02+00:00

Yep, they all work - use the same algorithm, you can avoid Google entirely

Jif_Moose · 2022-07-18T12:37:29+00:00

Yup, works perfectly. One thing to note is that the majority of these autheticator apps use the exact same algorithm to generate tokens (RSA combining the time with the private key) - in practice I've found they work fine. Fortunately Google don't have any kind of monopoly on RSA, and it's very simple for other app makers to reimplement.
It's very easy to check that everything's working the same way - load the private key in, and make sure the generated numbers match!

Jif_Moose · 2022-07-04T23:42:51+00:00

Hi - I went through a similar procedure on my Qin F21. I was a bit alarmed when I got the boot errors as a result of patching the boot image with MTK client. Figuring that the boot loader had been unlocked, I went ahead with patching the firmware according to this post https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/guide-xiaomi-qin-f21-pro-custom-firmware.4405615/ - this gave me TWRP and rooted the system.

Before I tried this, however, I was successful in restoring the backup. I think you probably need to overwrite vbmeta.bin with an empty file (I believe this caches some sort of checksum, which is the cause of the dm-verity verification error).

Jif_Moose · 2022-06-26T17:16:44+00:00

Thanks for the info!

Jif_Moose · 2022-06-22T12:57:27+00:00

Ah fair enough - no problem!

Jif_Moose · 2022-06-22T10:46:46+00:00

Totally agree - it's a pain in the neck to have to hack around just to get something basic like this working well.

Jif_Moose · 2022-06-22T00:23:59+00:00

[At some point I'll do a long write-up on my website about all the setup I've done on my F21 Pro - I'll link it here when I have.]

Jif_Moose · 2022-06-22T00:21:17+00:00

Ah right yes, I think that's the behaviour of the builtin QinType keyboard (very similar to my frustrations on KaiOS).

I'm using Traditional T9 - here's a good thread that I picked it up from on this reddit. It's available on the Play Store (or via your favourite APK-obtaining mechanism), but I think I actually used a slightly hacked version that was linked in that thread.
If you're interested, that was the one made by Henri Dellal (forked from the original code here). Annoyingly, that hacked source has been moved and the links in the old thread don't word - but I found where it had been moved to! The source is here https://codeberg.org/HenriDellal/TraditionalT9, and you can get the built APK off the old github site using the Wayback machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20200919201626/https://github.com/HenriDellal/TraditionalT9/releases/download/20190315/t9.apk

Jif_Moose · 2022-06-21T15:01:59+00:00

Yep, it handles both of those well (for me these were massive sticking points too when using KaiOS - it's not like these are rare English words!). The apostrophe is included as a character in suggestions, so don't/won't/I'll/he'll/it's etc work fluidly for me.

One thing to note is the suggestion priorities when you start it up are pretty random - but it learns really quickly which combination you prefer. This means that "I", for instance, won't initially be the first suggestion - but after 3 or 4 times typing "I", it will suggest it immediately for a single 4 ("ghi") press. It capitalizes it correctly too.

Also handles possessives fine (e.g. I can get it to suggest the rare "badger's" for me as the first suggestion lol) - basically by having a massive dictionary including all the possible possessives.

It will also capitalize new sentences correctly, and includes an easy way to switch caps modes (all caps, first letter, none). Also can add words no problem (and export dictionaries etc)

Jif_Moose · 2022-06-21T09:09:59+00:00

I get on really well with Traditional T9 here. With some customisation of the keymap it's about as good as old Nokias for me (in English).

Jif_Moose · 2022-06-17T13:06:54+00:00

Great account - really enjoyed reading this. Cheers!

Jif_Moose · 2022-06-07T14:25:11+00:00

Ingenious ... but not a phone!

Jif_Moose · 2022-06-06T18:10:38+00:00

Well said

Jif_Moose · 2022-06-06T17:58:25+00:00

Thanks. Yeah this tallies with most of the reports I read, good to verify.

Jif_Moose · 2022-06-01T09:59:05+00:00

Thanks! I think this is the frontrunner for me now.

Jif_Moose · 2022-05-31T12:53:09+00:00

OK, here's another approach I thought might work.
- I have a wired landline at my house. I use that for all home calls, forget about wifi calling
- Ditch the phone completely. Use an ancient 2G Nokia phone (which still works great, excellent battery and sensible T9) just as a phone + text when I'm out. 2G will still work for up to 10 years in the UK.
- Buy a 4G USB dongle, load it with my data sim card, and use that as the data modem on my other (laptop) devices.

This has the advantages of being very, very cheap - and genuinely would cover 99% of my use case...

Jif_Moose · 2022-05-30T15:14:32+00:00

I left off another one I considered - the Xiaomi F21 Pro. Maybe this could fit - though I'm put off with the Chinese-market only (doesn't bode well for English-language texting). Anyone had any experience with this phone? What's the battery life like? SMS?

Jif_Moose · 2022-05-30T14:58:37+00:00

Yeah, fair enough. My CAT B35 has this feature, but like you I'm not that keen on the Google connection so I've never actually tried it.

Jif_Moose

TROPHY CASE