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Lenovo t288 China Mobile

lenovo288

Lurker
Sep 28, 2012
8
2
I have just landed in Shanghai, lost my previous handset (an LG Optimus Black) and proceeded to the nearest China Mobile outlet.

A not-to-be-missed deal - practically RMB250 only - for a Lenovo A288t quickly turned into a small nightmare when I got back, charged the unit and powered up ...... it seems "locked out" of Google Play and instead links you to a host of locally-bred apps stores which is not of use for me as me-no-speak-Putonghua!!

I also cannot sync my Yahoo and GMail accounts - I have my entire CONTACTS list on GMail.

A quick check around cyberspace seems to suggest I can break this lock by getting a replacement operating system used for, say, Hong Kong handsets. It seems this can be done at the Xujiahui computer malls for about RMB100.

Has anyone had this experience?? Many thanks!!
 
I have also bought a lephone a288t several weeks ago and I am still looking for a solution on how to gain root access in order to install the google market app manually. So far it has been a real pain in the ass. None of the conventional rooting programs such as gingerbreak or z4root seem to work. I speak some chinese but the apps in the chinese app stor are absolutely worthless.
 
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I have just landed in Shanghai, lost my previous handset (an LG Optimus Black) and proceeded to the nearest China Mobile outlet.

That's exactly what I did when my Galaxy S broke. :rolleyes:

IA not-to-be-missed deal - practically RMB250 only - for a Lenovo A288t quickly turned into a small nightmare when I got back, charged the unit and powered up ...... it seems "locked out" of Google Play and instead links you to a host of locally-bred apps stores which is not of use for me as me-no-speak-Putonghua!!

No Google for Android in China sorry!

II also cannot sync my Yahoo and GMail accounts - I have my entire CONTACTS list on GMail.

Here's what you need to do, assuming you got the phone working in English.

Settings > Contacts & Sync > Add Account > Corporate or Exchange >

Enter your Gmail address and password > next

Domain: m.google.com\user...@gmail.com
Password: ********
Exchange Server: m.google.com

Use Secure Connection (SSL) Checked
Accept all SSL Certificates Checked

That should sync all your Google contacts, Gmail and Google Calendar to your phone.

IA quick check around cyberspace seems to suggest I can break this lock by getting a replacement operating system used for, say, Hong Kong handsets. It seems this can be done at the Xujiahui computer malls for about RMB100.

Has anyone had this experience?? Many thanks!!

Yes, but then I've been here four years now. :D

As for rooting and de-sino-fying Lenovo phones. I've not looked into doing that yet.
 
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You are truly a Certified Genius, MIKEDT!!! I have immediately rediscovered more than 300 friends and lovers ..... what you have shared in your post is absolutely priceless to everyone else caught in the same Chinese Android net.

Thank you so much for your time, and for caring. Android rules!!!

Four years ..... I admire and envy you
 
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You are truly a Certified Genius, MIKEDT!!! I have immediately rediscovered more than 300 friends and lovers ..... what you have shared in your post is absolutely priceless to everyone else caught in the same Chinese Android net.

Maybe we could make this information a forum sticky? I'm going to suggest that to the mods. Fortunately Google have made Contacts, Gmail and Calendar, MS Exchange compatible. Which is a great help for syncing non-Google Android phones and tablets.

Thank you so much for your time, and for caring. Android rules!!!

That's why we're here. :) Oh yeh Android rules OK!!

Four years ..... I admire and envy you

In the four years I've come to really love China. Become reasonably fluent in Mandarin, which helps immensely. I'm probably becoming more Chinese the longer I stay here. Applying for a Chinese driving license next month. :rolleyes:

Couple of things though, I got a Lenovo P700i, That I've had for a week now, got it tamed and pretty much as I want it. However the default AutoNavi sat-nav app is really crap here in Inner Mongolia, half the freekin' roads are missing. But apparently it's OK in Beijing and Shanghai. Only found this out during last couple of days, as I've on a bit of a road trip. Also the "English" keyboard seems to be missing the English auto-correct dictionary, even though according to Settings it's suppsed to be there. I've installed Swype, makes entering text so much easier, as I was using Swype on my Galaxy. And I do use some of the pre-installed Chinese apps, namely Youku, QQ and Weixin. The rest I removed.
 
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Maybe we could make this information a forum sticky? I'm going to suggest that to the mods.

Also the "English" keyboard seems to be missing the English auto-correct dictionary, even though according to Settings it's supposed to be there.

Yes, this is a great idea!! It will literally help "open up" many other previously locked Androids all over China.

Yes, my auto-correct is missing too - it has really made typing a chore because I do make sure my mails are all correctly spelled ..... I'll give SWYPE a try ......

Kann-pei, bro!!! :beer:
 
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That's exactly what I did when my Galaxy S broke. :rolleyes:



No Google for Android in China sorry!



Here's what you need to do, assuming you got the phone working in English.

Settings > Contacts & Sync > Add Account > Corporate or Exchange >

Enter your Gmail address and password > next

Domain: m.google.com\user...@gmail.com
Password: ********
Exchange Server: m.google.com

Use Secure Connection (SSL) Checked
Accept all SSL Certificates Checked

That should sync all your Google contacts, Gmail and Google Calendar to your phone.



Yes, but then I've been here four years now. :D

As for rooting and de-sino-fying Lenovo phones. I've not looked into doing that yet.

Let me ask you, after these settings can you some how download and use google play? Because we made these settings on my friend's phone, but we haven't got google play and when we through a browser try to download apps then the system doesn't find the phone. Looks like it didn't success to syncronize. Do you have any advice? thx! :)
 
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Kewendi - nope, I still can't get to GooglePlay with this setup but managed to sync all my contacts which sit at GMail .....

I have since then tried a couple of technicians at Xujiahui but they seemed unable to understand what I really want to do with my handset - they could have been either ignorant or indifferent :(

I will be getting out of China next week, stick in my home SIM card and see whether it works - if it does, I'll report it here.

Good luck!!
 
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Xiaobolin - thank you for your very detailed instructions, and I must admit I was very excited the minute I read your post.

I have been trying the site for the last two days, and on my perhaps sixth or seventh attempt of downloading the ROOT zip, it did get ahead ..... to about 1Mb or so and I then got the message "The file you are downloading is not supported". On the earlier attempts, it just failed to even download at all.

Is this the only site for the ROOT file?

Again, many thanks!!!! :smokingsomb:

BTW, referring back to my own earlier post - I have since got home and stuck in my home SIM card, but the phone is still locked ...... so it is indeed clear that the ROOT needs to be dealt with, as pointed out above by Xiaobolin.

I will also explore whether someone can help me download a totally new and international Android OS onto the handset and replace the China Mobile version ......
 
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from my experience, installing the framework and Play Store APKs won't work. it will attempt to load then force close on you,

the only way i have succeeded in making Play Store work (say i deleted it--stupid mistake) was to flash a different recovery tool (such as Clockworkmod Recovery after rooting the device) and getting Gapps.zip from somewhere, then booting into Clockworkmod and flashing the gapps.zip file by choosing 'install zip from sdcard' and browse to the folder you placed it in on the card. then you should have Play Store and things like Gmail and other apps installed and working.
 
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Where are you downloading the file from? I am in Germany and in my experience Chinese websites are exremely slow here because of their firewall. Sometimes so slow that my downloads just break off. Maybe you could try downloading it through a proxy or VPN connection but I don't really have much experience with that. Mikedt, superoneclick is a great program but unfortunately it does not support the a288t :/
 
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hello! If the forum is alive, please tell me. can I make in my lenovo a288t Russian language?

Hi Veselko, welcome to AF. Yup the forum is very much alive. :)

About the A228t, I'm sure it's English and Chinese(Simplified and Traditional) only. It is a phone that's primarily intended for sale and use in China and SE Asia.
 
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Could smb please tell me how to reset the phone back to factory settings? I can't find it in the settings menu...
I connected the phone to PC and used "Charge only", and then accidentally pressed "remember my choice":( Now I need to connect is as usb storage, but I can't - the PC doesn't see it. Searched everything for this option already - to no result. No info about Lenovo phones at all...:thinking:
Help, please!
 
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I am seeing the same thing. In Device Manager I see a fastboot device of some sort with a yellow bang next to it but the fastboot tool being called by root.bat doesn't see it. If I run fastboot separately with the "devices" option, it sees nothing. I've run it as Administrator each time.

Note, this is on Win8.1. Haven't had a chance to try it on a Win7 or earlier box.

Any suggestions?

thx

XM

I have run the root.bat file and it is showing.....

< waiting for device >



from long time....................
 
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Solved my own problem. Found I had to get the Lenovo fastboot driver installed first. I followed the instructions here to do that and then had no prob running fastboot on Win8.1.

[HowTo] A2109 Fastboot - Lenovo Community

Note, the instructions are for a different product but it worked perfectly.

thx

XM

I am seeing the same thing. In Device Manager I see a fastboot device of some sort with a yellow bang next to it but the fastboot tool being called by root.bat doesn't see it. If I run fastboot separately with the "devices" option, it sees nothing. I've run it as Administrator each time.

Note, this is on Win8.1. Haven't had a chance to try it on a Win7 or earlier box.

Any suggestions?

thx

XM
 
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