[Review] Mlais M52 Red Note running review

[wolfman7421]

I can live with it for now so I'll wait, had a reply to my email to the seller (Geekbuyer) though asking me to remove apps I can't install, clear the internal storage and reset to factory settings... They gave me a link for latest firmware.

[Only registered and activated users can see links Click here to register]

The installed FW is dated Apr 3rd 2015...

Think I'll give it a week or so though, as you say. The phone works, I can text, WhatsApp and share the data signal with the laptop when I'm out and about so it will do for now...

[WuddaWaste]

Eh, that seems kinda sketchy.

My KitKat firmware date is March 27. I think Gizbeat's was March 28.

The *latest* firmware was put out yesterday by Mlais and is dated April 30 (with other updates floating around out there dated April 27, and April 23.

Mlais is still claiming all of these to be "BETA" ROMs, so if you're lazy like me, I'd still recommend waiting.

[WuddaWaste]

Alright. Quick update here.

Mlais has come out again and officially released their Lollipop ROM in a number of different partition sizes depending on your fancy. People are reporting stability. YES!

Unfortunately, it also seems like the OTA to 5.0 might never come.

From what I read before, they want you to root your phone and manually update it to 5.0. Rooting will allow for the new partitions to be put on. After that, you might have to re-root it (not totally sure), and then you'll continue to receive OTA updates from Mlais.

[Only registered and activated users can see links Click here to register]

They are supposedly working on tutorials out there on how to do all this using their tools. We will see what happens.

I'm hoping to get a few hours of downtime at home to try this out. Sounds promising!

[wolfman7421]

Did a factory reset last night because I was bored ;)

So far, it seems to be behaving though, as long as when I've installed an app I shift it to phone storage before opening it so I've got all my normal stuff on, plus about 2Gb of music without having to touch the SD card...

Will check out the link from Mlais but I don't fancy messing about with half-baked stuff as if I brick it I'm stuffed ;)

[WuddaWaste]

Just did the update.

- Rooted 4.4 with Kingo Root (though I couldn't verify I was rooted)
- Downloaded the tools from Mlais website
- Followed official video on how to root

Total process, excluding ROM download time, took about 20 minutes. Not too shabby.

Things seem good now, but I'm running a clean ROM with no experience in Lollipop land. Will report back after a few days of using it. Confirming though, the update I installed does change the storage so it's no longer the huge problem it once was. Score!

[cookiedough]

Hmm. You rooted prior to installing Lollipop? What was their process?

[WuddaWaste]

There were reports that rooting 4.4 was required prior to installing 5.0, else the flash tool wouldn't properly recognize the phone.

Before upgrading to Android 5.0, Android 4.4 users should first root their phones. Rooting the system ahead of upgrading will allow the storage of the system to be correctly allocated.

Apparently if you'd already fixed the storage partitions and upgraded to a previous (buggy) version of 5.0, you could simply do OTA.

[WuddaWaste]

Around a week ago I received an OTA update to the Mlais M52 Red Note. The build number is now Mlais_M52_Red_Note_20150526 .

Of the things I noticed, the camera now takes much, much, MUCH better pictures in low light conditions. Before it was problematic. (I noticed since I was travelling and trying to snap photos. Hehe. This came as a godsend.)

The problem with Waze persists. Doing some research on the topic, I've found the Waze issue to be a common reported occurrence with Mali T760 GPU. Searching for the terms "Waze" and "distorted map" seemed to come up with several of these issues.

One of the threads I came across people kept reporting it to be an issue on the Samsung Note 4, but after a little bit of digging I suspect those people all had clone phones and not the real thing.

One solution that seems to work for me right now is rotating the phone several times to get it to change from portrait to landscape and back. It temporarily clears up the problem.

One thread suggests to uninstall the app, manually delete its directories, then re-install the app. One person reported this worked for them. A few reported it did not work for them. I will try it in a bit and report back.

Cheers!

[scrivz69]

A great review mate and looks like a good device, not to sure about the battery life.

[WuddaWaste]

Thanks @scrivz69 . I'll agree with you on battery life. I tend to charge my phone at least once throughout a day of normal use. Having the 8-core 64-bit processor certainly doesn't help the battery. I really hope the upcoming trend of mega-battery phones sticks around. I'd glady add another 2mm and 2 ounces to the phone in exchange for a longer battery life.

I just bought my sister the THL 4000 of her first Android phone on Monday. I'm jealous of it already. Ha.