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Andriod OS Question

C

cdmurray88

Lurker
Hey Guys!

My girlfriend and I are American's living in China, and we are both new to the Android community.

Anyway, my girlfriend just bought a Lenovo A520, which is a China specific phone as far as I can tell. It uses Android 2.3.

Like I said, I'm new to Android so my question is this:

Her phone has what I assume is a skin, but the English is translated from Chinese (read: Chinglish).

She wants to know if it is possible to put a regular English version of Android on her phone? She, however, likes the skin, just wants better English.

I told her it was probably possible to flash an English Android build, but it would be the default Android theme.

Any thoughts on this?
 
Im thinkin along the same line as u... my first thought would be to root it and flash an English ROM.
I can almost guarantee she'll find a skin she likes with whichever ROM u set her up with. Or she can just learn to speak chinglish
 
why dont you just change the language settings?

settings
language and input
language
and choose english.. that should put it back for you

let me know if thats not the case
 
Sounds like what you're talking about is something similar to HTC Sense (a skin) that is natively in Chinese but has an option for English, but the English is very poorly translated, right? If that's the case, I would see if I could root it and put a natively English ROM on it or just Vanilla Android. However, being a China specific phone, you may be out of luck regarding developer support for ROMs.

If what Voided said doesn't work, I'm afraid you may have to learn Chinglish.
 
@McNulty:
Thanks, we were looking into rooting it. It's 10pm Friday here right now, so I will look into rooting and finding a ROM tomorrow.

My only experiece with anything similar is Wii Homebrew and iOS jailbrake, so I'm sure I'll be able to figure it out after some research.

@VoidedSaint
We changed the language settings, but like svt_gEEk has since posted, the English translation of the default ROM is poorly translated.

@svt_gEEk
Thanks for the advice. Your assesment is right on the money. I will look into the process tomorrow. Hopefully if I can't work it out she will be able to exchange it for an internationally supported Huawei (I personally want the Honor for myself).

Only other thing I feel I should add is that her phone has a 3 touch-botton setup instead of the 4-button setup.

Her main reason for wanting to alter the software runs deeper than the poor Enlgish translation. Apparently her phone wants her to purchase apps through the Lenovo Store, and as far as she can tell (I haven't played with the phone much) there is no Android Market.

Thanks everyone for your responses. I'll let you know how it goes.
 
cdmurray88 said:
@McNulty:
Thanks, we were looking into rooting it. It's 10pm Friday here right now, so I will look into rooting and finding a ROM tomorrow.

My only experiece with anything similar is Wii Homebrew and iOS jailbrake, so I'm sure I'll be able to figure it out after some research.

@VoidedSaint
We changed the language settings, but like svt_gEEk has since posted, the English translation of the default ROM is poorly translated.

@svt_gEEk
Thanks for the advice. Your assesment is right on the money. I will look into the process tomorrow. Hopefully if I can't work it out she will be able to exchange it for an internationally supported Huawei (I personally want the Honor for myself).

Only other thing I feel I should add is that her phone has a 3 touch-botton setup instead of the 4-button setup.

Her main reason for wanting to alter the software runs deeper than the poor Enlgish translation. Apparently her phone wants her to purchase apps through the Lenovo Store, and as far as she can tell (I haven't played with the phone much) there is no Android Market.

Thanks everyone for your responses. I'll let you know how it goes.
Click to expand...

Hope it works out for you. From my quick search, I found no real dev support for a ROM for this phone. Also, if memory serves me correctly, there is something about China specific phones and tablets to where they do a lot to block you from getting Google apps on your phone. If I were you, I'd take the phone back asap and get the Huawei
 
@cdmurray .
If you are rooted ,check the framework-res.apk file from /system/framework/ folder.

pull/copy it to your computer

Decompile it using apk Manager


and check /res/values/strings or /res/values-en/ ...

I suppose you will have to use/copy a relevant translation as related to your phone (it differs phone to phone )

Thats roughly 1000 lines !!(arrays,strings and plurals)

You can modify the "broken" English in a day I think ...

the best way is to get a custom ROM of course :D
 
karandpr said:
@cdmurray .
If you are rooted ,check the framework-res.apk file from /system/framework/ folder.

pull/copy it to your computer

Decompile it using apk Manager


and check /res/values/strings or /res/values-en/ ...

I suppose you will have to use/copy a relevant translation as related to your phone (it differs phone to phone )

Thats roughly 1000 lines !!(arrays,strings and plurals)

You can modify the "broken" English in a day I think ...

the best way is to get a custom ROM of course :D
Click to expand...

you did read how they were both new to android?
 
Also checked on XDA...nothing about rooting or ROMS on that phone over there. I know it's not the only site, but it is pretty comprehensive.


Edit: not sure why I quoted for that...removed quote.
 
svt_gEEk said:
Also checked on XDA...nothing about rooting or ROMS on that phone over there. I know it's not the only site, but it is pretty comprehensive.
Click to expand...

Thats not uncommon for chinese Phones .However ,if Lenovo uses Stock Android Framework ,Translations can just be copy pasted from a generic android framework .

Even so it is really not recommended for a beginner ..
 
Thanks again for all the advice.

Right now I'm looking into putting Vanilla on her phone. I found a rooting program which claims to support her phone.

I'm still trying to convince her to try and exchange it. They aren't big on that kind of thing in China, but if we offer them a deal, as in she buys a more expensive phone and I get one too, hopeful they won't give us any problems.

I'll let you know how it all turns out.
 
Ok, so she ended up exchanging it for the Huawei Honor (I got one too ;))

It still has a Chinese version of the OS, but it is significantly better than the Lenovo.

So, now I want to put the American release OS version on the phone so that I have Google Play / no Chinese, hopefully, anywhere.

I know that there is an option to upgrade to ICS, but I think I'd rather stick with GB for now.

I assume rooting is the first step, where should I go from there?
 
Hey Everyone,

Again Thanks (my girlfriend wanted me to say thanks on her behalf too) for all the help, but after a few hours stumbling around on Google, I finally found Huawei's international firmware and my girlfriend and I are both pleased.

It's all English, and has standard Google apps.

I'd post a link for future reference, but I don't have that privilege.
 
cdmurray88 said:
Hey Everyone,

Again Thanks (my girlfriend wanted me to say thanks on her behalf too) for all the help, but after a few hours stumbling around on Google, I finally found Huawei's international firmware and my girlfriend and I are both pleased.

It's all English, and has standard Google apps.

I'd post a link for future reference, but I don't have that privilege.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the update and I'm glad it worked out for ya!! Welcome to the wonderful world of Android!! :D
 
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