Reviving Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 (GT-P7500)

I bought a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 many many years ago. But recently, I am trying to revive it so that, it will be a possible solution to allow my son to watch cartoon on an old tablet, in future.

Reviving this Galaxy Tab (P7500) takes me so much time to try out those custom ROMs and the apps. But it is an interesting experience.

I tried several ROMs, flashed with TWRP.

  • Nameless ROM (Android 4.4.4 Kitkat) - Fast, but no MTP, I cannot transfer file.
  • AOSP 7.1.2 - Slow. Am not sure it is caused by gapps or what, it is slow and can’t run Firefox, Opera Mini or Brave. A device without a modern web browser is quite useless.
  • AOSP 5.1.1 - Flashed the ROM, but it doesn’t start. Not sure what’s the problem.
  • CyanogenMod - It is too old (Android 4.2.2 Jellybean). I flashed this ROM many many years ago.
  • AOSP 6 - Because AOSP 7 is too slow, I tried to downgrade. But I can’t find the P7500 related ROM to download.
  • Omni ROM - Also Android Kitkat. I installed, but I didn’t find the virtual keyboard (forgot to check the right-bottom corner), then I gave up.
  • AOKP - I think I tried this ROM before using Nameless ROM, but that’s many years before, not remember well.
  • /e/ (/e/ OS, eOS) - Lastly I tried this ROM. This is so far the best as it is based on Android 7.1.2, and the performance is good, far more better than AOSP.

/e/ OS (eOS)

I tries eOS, I am happy with it. But after I installed the ROM, I cannot install gapps , because not enough space. At the end I decided to continue Android without Google Apps (most importantly Google Play). This also means, I need an alternative app store.

I am currently using two app stores: F-Droid and Aptoide. F-Droid focuses on the free and open source apps. This is a good solution to exclude apps that contain ads, as ads are super distracting. Some useful apps can be installed from F-Droid:

Aptoide itself contains ads, but I still can bear it. I can find all the apps that I need in Aptoide.

Customization

There are several apps from eOS I have disabled them. Notably, eOS default web browser is Via. Then I tried FOSS Browser. It has built-in ads block, but it is lack of other features like remember last visit tabs. As a result, I tried Opera Mini again in eOS (failed to work on AOSP). And Opera Mini works good.

eOS default launcher is Bliss Launcher. It lacks features such as grouping, shortcut management, etc. Then I found a good alternative, and it is really good. Microsoft Launcher. It is ads free!!!!!!

Now I am using Simple File Manager and Astro File Manager. I am still looking for an ads free (I don’t mind In-App Purchase), with show hidden files feature. Looks like FX File Explorer can fit my requirement. By the way, those file managers/explorers naming are damn annoying: FX, ES, CX, FS, FE.

Video problem

After installing eOS, I tried to play movie. But found out it is choppy. Tried run with mpv, it is choppy; built-in Gallery, it has no sound; QuickPic has no sound as well.

At the end, I believe that it is due to the coder problem. So, I tried to use ffmpeg to convert the video into other format (mkv, m4v), and it works.

Besides that, I tried to use the Camera to record video, but then it crashed.

Audio hardware problem

Because the tablet was put on a rack for a long time. When I started trying it again, found that there is no audio, and the tablet thought that I have jacked in the earphone.

At the end, I found a forum discussed how to solve this. Yes, I tried with hair dryer. It didn’t fix immediately. But after few days, I tried again, the tablet sound works again!