The list of MTK devices which can be customised is as follows, although this list is by no means comprehensive, feel free to try these steps with other MTK devices.

• MT6589
• MT6577
• MT8389

There are a few precautions and prerequisites, make sure you have rooted your phone and have installed CWM on it. If you have not installed CWM then do not follow these instructions.

If you’re happy and have a rooted phone with CWM installed then let’s get started:

1) Backup your current ROM in custom recovery. 

2) Get the Xposed installer from Download section from the Xposed official site (the latest version is typically available at this link: http://dl.xposed.info/latest.apk).

3) Install and run Xposed installer

Now select ‘Framework’, then ‘Install’ and then reboot the device.

4) If the device does not boot that means that the Xposed framework is not compatible with ROM you are currently
running. You are unable to continue with the next steps in that case and will have to restore your ROM from the backup.

5) Download GravityBox and install it from here . Make sure the app is installed to internal memory, if it was installed to external storage then it needs to be moved to the internal memory before you proceed.

6) Run the Xposed Installer, go to the ‘Modules’ menu and then check the checkbox to activate GravityBox.

7) Reboot the device once more.

8) Launch GravityBox from app drawer or from the Xposed installer, and set the desired options.

The Xposed framework has opened up some interesting mods, some much more useful than others. GravityBox does a lot more than most. This module from XDA Developers member C3C076 seems to incorporate all the little tweaks that people generally flash a custom ROM for, but it’s built for stock Nexus devices and ‘clean’ AOSP ROMs.

You can do almost anything with GravityBox, highlights include: PIE controls that replace the on-screen navigation buttons. CyanogenMod-style expanded desktop with hidden navigation controls. Extra control buttons in the Jelly Bean Quick Settings menu. Right-side, single-finger pull down for the Quick Settings menu. Status bar tweaks including colour options, centre clock, brightness control, and even the ability to hide the cellular bars when you’re running the device without a SIM card. There are some added Reboot and Recovery options on the Power menu. You can even adjust the backlighting on your buttons, if your device has them. There really are options for absolutely everything.

Here are just some of the things GravityBox can do for you:

Fixes for bugs and issues such as:

• Date and Time settings crash
• Mismatch in caller ID
• Messaging  – split conversation
• Wakelock in calendar app periodically turning on the screen
• Wakelock in messaging app turning on the screen every time new message received
• Missing TTS settings in Language&Input
• Missing extended developer options

Mods

•  CyanogenMod Pie controls
• Expanded Desktop
• Statusbar QuickSettings tile management with tile reordering
• Lockscreen targets
• Status bar colour and transparency
• Status bar Brightness Control
• Status bar icon colours
• Additional QuickSettings tiles such as Sync on/off, WiFi AP on/off, GravityBox shortcut, Torch, Network mode (2G/3G/2G+3G switch), Sleep, QuickRecord, QuickApp, GPS on/off, Ringer mode, Volume tile
• Quick pulldown – switches to QuickSettings when status bar is pulled down near the edges.
• Auto-switch to QuickSettings when there are no new notifications
• Centre clock in status bar
• Battery indicator style options
• Navigation bar tweaks
• Low battery warning policy
• Disable LED flashing when battery low
• Disable LED while charging
• Auto-hiding of signal icons for empty SIM Slots
• Advanced power-off menu (reboot, recovery)
• Volume key cursor control
• Skip tracks by volume key long-press while screen off (thanks to rovo89)
• More volume levels for music stream
• Option to control safe headset media volume
• Button for clearing all recent tasks at once
• Fullscreen caller photo
• CRT screen off animation
• Minimal brightness setting
• Autobrightness level adjustment
• Lockscreen tweaks – show widgets maximized, lockscreen background style (colour fill or custom image)
• Lockscreen rotation
• Phone tweaks – flip action, disable vibrate on call connect
• Hardware key actions – menu long-press/double-tap, back long-press, home long-press
• MasterKey vulnerabilities patched
• Dithered Holo background
• Option to use solid black Holo background
• Expandable volume panel
•  Option to unlink ringtone and notifications volumes
• Notification drawer style (background color, image for portait/landscape, transparency)
• Button backlight modes (default, disabled, always on while screen is on)
• Button backlight notifications (for devices that lack Notification LED)
• Navigation bar ring targets
• GravityBox Actions shortcuts
• Lockscreen “see-through”
• Smart Radio
• Notification control (allows controlling notification lights/sounds/vibrations on per-app basis)

As you can see then, comprehensive isn’t the word, you really are spoilt for choice with this amount of modifications. You could spend weeks fiddling with it all.

The post Tweak your MTK Device with Gravity Box, here’s how. appeared first on Gizmochina.

Internal storage is key to the smooth running of a device, especially where it is not expandable. When a phone is overloaded with files and apps it slows the phone’s performance and causes that annoying pop-up reminding you your phone is ‘Running Low on Storage’. One method of increasing the storage capacity of your device without affecting performance is to partition the internal storage. What follows is a guide of exactly how this can be done on any MTK6589 device.

What you need to get started:

• A rooted MTK6589
• Meteos MTK6589 Application available here:  http://ge.tt/api/1/files/8yzn27k/0/blob?download
• Working CWM on your phone.

If you have met all these conditions, proceed with these instructions.

1. To start with you need to make a full copy of all the ROM. You need to go to ‘Recovery’ and then ‘Backup’ to do this.

2. Install and Run the Meteos MTK6589 app and run it. You will then see a screen like this:

3. Select the best option for your device. If you have a 4GB storage capacity, choose the third option in the list to increase the stock storage from 1GB to 2.77GB, making a big difference to your running speed but this of course will come from the internal storage memory, so it is best to do this only if you have SD-card support.

4. After selecting the option you require, boot into ‘Recovery’, choose the ‘Wipe’ section and then ‘Wipe Data/Factory Reset’. Select ‘Wipe Data’.

5. Now you can restore the backup you made earlier. To do this select ‘Backup’ and then ‘Restore’ and finally ‘Select Restore’.

6. Next you need to reboot your device, which you can do from the recovery menu.

Once your phone has rebooted, you can check your phone’s increased inbuilt storage out and marvel at the new smooth running performance you just achieved thanks to the developers of this really useful app.

The post How to make more storage space in your MTK6589 device appeared first on Gizmochina.

GPS is a very handy tool, making sightseeing easier and brilliant for those who work away a lot or people who travel regularly. Mediatek-powered devices can struggle with this feature but the service can be improved by tweaking the setting on your phone. If you have one of the following  running your device this tutorial can help you get the most out of your phone’s GPS: MTK6592, MTK6582, MTK6589, MTK 6577 and MTK6575.

Before you start you need to make sure you have a ROOTED Android phone, uninterrupted internet connection and the GPS Test Application (available from Play Store).

Once you’ve got what you need and you’re ready to get started, these are the steps to a better GPS.

1. First of all enable the Internet Connection on your phone

2. Next go to ‘Settings’ then tap on ‘Google’ then select  ‘Location Settings’ and make sure ‘Let Google apps access your location’ is set to ‘ON’.

3. Choose the option of ‘Location Access’. Make sure that All the options available there are Checked “ON”. as you can see in the image: You can also do get to the same stage by choosing ‘Settings’ and then ‘Location Access’ if you prefer.

4. Next, in ‘Settings’ go to ‘Location Access’, and open  ‘GPS satellites’. Then you can enable ‘GPS EPO assistance’ as shown in the picture below.

5. Next go to ‘EPO settings’, which looks like this and set the EPO data to download.

6. Now Enable AGPS GPS.

This should mean you have GPS enabled on your MTK device. To check all is well, however, you can test the feature. To do this you need to Install ‘GPS Test’ from the link in the initial instructions at the beginning of the article.

7. If you have it, in the GPS Test App, tap Menu/Settings and check screen always on.

8. Be in your home and start the application and see the bar graph going up and down. You will see something like this

But if this doesn’t work then try going out and moving around, if these graphs start to move, all is well and you’re good to go. After you’ve completed these steps you should have a capable GPS system and be confident enough to actually rely on it.

The post Fixing GPS issues for Android MTK devices. appeared first on Gizmochina.

Although no formal eight-core MTK6592 available to Mediatek, of course, is that many brands smart phones will be scheduled to using this processor, which means that will be an eight-core smartphone out there. Following the other smartphone manufacturer, Jiayu is representation a smaller brands that ready to release the new eight-core smartphone, and now TCL also recently announced that will be released MTK6592 products son.

And is expected to become a starter. Visible MTK6592 high degree of concern, from the announcement of multi-core strategy began, MediaTek’s products linupe has been very clear, the official said that at the end of some time ago MTK will launch true eight-core products through the new MT6592 chipset.

The one of Chianese smartphone vendors, TCL has been cooperation with MediaTek, they ready to build the new TCL smartphone that powered by MTK6589 quad-core platform, followed by the launch of new products, more than 90% of MTK solution, including the recent popular The four core products TCL S950.

The TCL S950 is equipped with the upgrade version of MT6589 (is now they already adopt the MT6589T chips), but also belong to TCL, another smartphone vendor Alcatel is also used MTK chipset intheir products. From the analysis of the relationship between the two, TCL smart phones launched true eight-core smart phone can be of not the slightest bit, become a starter manufacturers also high probability.

MT6592 is MediaTek positioned as the flagship product, using 28-nanometer process technology, built-in eight A7 core, main frequency up to 1.7-2GHz, may use MALI quad GPU, because using a heterogeneous multi-tasking technology, eight core may achieve synchronous operation or idle shut down part of the intelligent core to reduce power consumption.

This is the position of domestic manufacturers will release more than N MTK6592 of smart phones , and sent at the end of MTK6592 officially released.

The post TCL is ready to using Mediatek MTK6592 processor appeared first on Gizmochina.