Reviving Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 part 2

In my previous post, I mentioned about reviving old Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. Today continue some extra customization works.

Firstly, the problem of the headphone mode emerges again. I tried to clean with cotton, but it doesn’t help. At the end, I found a page recommends an app (Disable Headphone(Enable Speaker)). I tried to install the app, and it works. It really works. That solves the most critical problem of my tab.

Other than that, I have installed several useful apps. They are

(from F-Droid)

• DNS66 - Block ads. Not sure how efficient it is.
• Just (Video) Player - Simple video player.
• QR & Barcode Scanner - Useful to scan QR code.
• Simple Gallery Pro - Android built-in Gallery replacement

(not from F-Droid)

• FX File Explorer - Very useful
• Opera Mini - Modern web browser, lightweight with built-in ads block. (Not yet test the performance of video streaming)
• Google Pinyin Keyboard
• Microsoft Swiftkey Keyboard - Replace AOSP keyboard
• Microsoft Launcher - Replace eOS default launcher (Bliss Lancher)

Therefore, the tab basically is functional enough: file operations, view image, watch video from internal storage, and surf net. And there is one more thing remain: gaming!

RetroArch

I tried to install RetroArch. The best to work on my tablet is the F-Droid version.

The modern games, especially mobile games, in my opinion, they are just wasting our time (converting our time to their money through ads). The use erotic drawings (yet not offending the terms and conditions), in-app purchase, and they usually require us to watch ads in order to recharge playing point (usually called “energy” in the game). These “free” apps is free without us to pay the money, but we are being used to earn the money without knowing it.

Instead of spending 30 seconds to watch an ad, it will be better we use the 30 seconds to implement “Kaizen”.

Back to RetroArch, the old school games are designed to play! The game design focuses on the gameplay, in order to achieve the sales. Modern game design (especially mobile games) focuses on earning money, in order to make the project sustain. To earn money, it requires to attract more users. As a result, erotic design of heroine is most attractive (in my opinion).

Back to RetroArch again, it contains various emulators. My favourites are GBA, NES, and SNES. Since I am born in 80s, NES games accompanied my childhood most. Though I played SNES games as well, that’s only when I was teenager and played through emulator as well.

After installed RetroArch, there is a zip extraction issue happened. I don’t know what is the exact solution, but I created temp folder in .retroarch. (this results .retroarch/temp to be created). Note that, there is another folder, RetroArch/temp exists. Then the zip extraction issue is solved.

I have tried RetroArch with some games. But tablet or mobile, the touch screen is worst for playing games. I have ordered a gamepad with bluetooth support, it is way to come. Will try on RetroArch with the gamepad. Hopefully this old tab will be a retro gaming “station”. 😊