Hermitkrab
Lurker
My tablet is running android 6.0. Is it possible to upgrade to the latest OS? I'm a Windows person and fairly new to android. Thanks for any help.
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upgrade OS on my RCA Viking Pro tablet?
- Thread starter Hermitkrab
- Start date
Have a dig through this XDA Devs thread about this tablet, there might be something, however it's 100+ pages long. Of course I don't have the time to look myself, and I don't have this device.
Usalabs
Lurker
If RCA haven't pushed an update, then there isn't one, it's the same with ALL large manufacturers, they want you to dump you current device and buy a new one that has that upgrade. I have 3 Android devices and neither of them have any updates from the manufacturer, I have an LG Stylo 4 (Android 5), an Onn (Walmart brand) tablet (Android 9), and an RCA Viking Pro (Android 5), and every time I check for an update, it says my device has the latest firmware.
Oh, and going to XDA forums, they will tell you to install a custom loader and firmware that is rooted, DON'T, I tried it on an RCA Viking II and it not only ruined it but it dragged the working of it down to a snails pace,,,, I would have to wait 10 minutes just for an app to open, and as for booting? It would take 15 minutes or longer just to boot from power on to the home screen, and then the battery would be eaten up, the battery would go from a full charge (100%) down to 70% during that boot, and as a result I had no choice but to put the tablet under a sledge hammer and went out and bought a Viking Pro, so NO! DON'T! use a custom ROM or any custom firmware, either use it as it is or dump it and pay out for a newer model (which is what the manufacturers want you to do in the first place).
Oh, and going to XDA forums, they will tell you to install a custom loader and firmware that is rooted, DON'T, I tried it on an RCA Viking II and it not only ruined it but it dragged the working of it down to a snails pace,,,, I would have to wait 10 minutes just for an app to open, and as for booting? It would take 15 minutes or longer just to boot from power on to the home screen, and then the battery would be eaten up, the battery would go from a full charge (100%) down to 70% during that boot, and as a result I had no choice but to put the tablet under a sledge hammer and went out and bought a Viking Pro, so NO! DON'T! use a custom ROM or any custom firmware, either use it as it is or dump it and pay out for a newer model (which is what the manufacturers want you to do in the first place).
i agree mostly with your statement except for the rooting part. if there is a community of devs that is supporting this tablet, then the op is good to go, if rooting is something the op wants to do. if there is no dev community, then that is different. custom roms will vary as far as performance goes. as long as you have a custom recovery, it is very easy to restore back previously or you can just flash another rom to try out. and by the way there is no such thing as a custom firmware.....basically a custom firmware is just a firmware that is rooted with nothing added by the developer.....so it's basically just a custom rom with no bells or whistles.
main thing is before you flash a custom rom, you need to read the info provided on xda. the op will have instructions on how to flash it as well as what is in the rom. the many pages there after should also be read. you can get tips and troubleshooting that might help out with the rom as well.
i'm sorry you had a bad experience on the tablet while rooting it. but rooting can be very fun on most devices.
Usalabs
Lurker
The reason it slowed down the tablet, was because the stock RCA ROM was designed and built primarily for that particular model and make of tablet, but a custom ROM may work on the tablet, but it wasn't designed and built specifically for that make and model of tablet and therefore, when the boot sequence starts the OS, tried and fails to enable certain features that maybe present in other devices but are not present in the tablet, and thus waits for a timeout, causing slow sluggish operation, whereas, the stock ROM, only enables modules that are present on the device, also, when someone flashes a custom ROM, there is no stock ROM available anywhere to revert back to, the manufacturers do not support users that flash their devices, and therefore do not have their stock ROMs available to re-flash, plus unlike a PC, there is no way of literally backing up a devices entire stock ROM, so that it can be restored later if anything goes wrong, and in that case, the only solution is the sledge hammer.
That's why I advise people that want to replace their stock ROM with a custom ROM which is already rooted, instead of actually rooting their device, NOT to flash a custom ROM, because as I said, there is no way of backing up the entire stock ROM, also if something does go wrong with the custom ROM and the device is literally 'bricked' and the custom loader doesn't work either, then it's back to the sledge hammer. And that's why I'm never going to flash any of my devices I have now and may get in the future with a custom ROM, unless that ROM was designed and built specifically for a particular device, such as , if there was a way to download a device's stock ROM, then a way to create such a custom ROM would be for that stock ROM to be 'ripped' from the device, modified, then re-flashed, that way the custom ROM would only be for that device.
The problem with custom ROM's is that the ROM developers try to make them as generic as possible, but there is no such thing as 'generic' when it comes to Android devices, as differing manufacturers build their devices differently and as such their stock ROM's are also different too.
That's why I advise people that want to replace their stock ROM with a custom ROM which is already rooted, instead of actually rooting their device, NOT to flash a custom ROM, because as I said, there is no way of backing up the entire stock ROM, also if something does go wrong with the custom ROM and the device is literally 'bricked' and the custom loader doesn't work either, then it's back to the sledge hammer. And that's why I'm never going to flash any of my devices I have now and may get in the future with a custom ROM, unless that ROM was designed and built specifically for a particular device, such as , if there was a way to download a device's stock ROM, then a way to create such a custom ROM would be for that stock ROM to be 'ripped' from the device, modified, then re-flashed, that way the custom ROM would only be for that device.
The problem with custom ROM's is that the ROM developers try to make them as generic as possible, but there is no such thing as 'generic' when it comes to Android devices, as differing manufacturers build their devices differently and as such their stock ROM's are also different too.