new OS on a Sonim XP5s phone

[keeney123]

Re: new OS on a Sonim XP5s phone

Took phone apart last night to see if anything could be done there. Also, disconnected 5 connectors in the phone and pressed power button to see if there was a volatile memory I could drain. 3 of the connectors where difficult to disconnect. Actual broke one of the speaker connectors. I just then soldered the wire to pads above the connector pads. To open the phone, I needed a t-5H tool. All screws are t-5H and they are just finger tight. This tool I got out of my security tools that I bought from Harbor Freight many years ago. After putting the phone back together it was still lock device on the start screen menu.

[keeney123]

Re: new OS on a Sonim XP5s phone

This is what I believe happened to these Sonim phones. They were being made in China and the Chinese started selling them in the thousands to anyone who would buy the phones. Sonim then decided to move their operations to Texas. Instead of honoring their 3-year warranty to the unsuspecting customers who bought these phones they just simply told the customers they don't honor a third-party seller and they allowed the buyer to pick up the cost of Sonim's ill-fated decision to have these phones manufactured by a Chinese Company who sold the phones to anyone. If you go to the Chinese market, you mostly like could buy one of these phones for less than $47. However, their real worth I will leave up to the buyer.

[keeney123]

Re: new OS on a Sonim XP5s phone

The problem with putting a custom OS on this phone is the secure boot program. This phone has a QUALCOMM 430 Snapdragon processor with Cortex A53 chip set. The model number of the processor is 8937. Many places will tell you that you can put on the custom OS when booted to EDL mode. I have not tried that. The Secure Boot has redundancies that if the secure boot fails it will go to another location to load the boot program. Qualcomm has a tool for loading ROMs called QPST tool. It will look for a hex file to load the Rom. It will show one the hex files on your phone but, it cannot open them. I think this is the only tool that has promise of loading either a rom or an application on the phone. One needs to have a back up of the original rom if anything goes wrong. This is not possible because one can not read the Rom on the device and as yet I do not believe that Sonim has published a stock rom. Perhaps if a person was a software programmer familiar with C++ they could get into the kernel of the processor and rearrange the kernel. The kernel is Linux 3.18 with gcc of 4.9x(prerelease) Still one would have to use Qualcomm Complier from their Developers site.

[keeney123]

Re: new OS on a Sonim XP5s phone

Correction on: Actual broke one of the speaker connectors. I just then soldered the wire to pads above the connector pads.

Correction is: The pads above the connector pads do not go to the speaker. What I actual had to do is solder them to the connection pads which are just little dots. I use 60/40 lead solder with flux in the solder. First the conformal coating has to be burnt off by tinning the pads. Then they are able to solder too. Of course, my luck the other speaker wire had broken off of the speaker at the speaker. I was able to solder it on the speaker again. Now everything is back to normal making good sounds out of both speakers.
I do not think the connectors to the speakers are actually soldered to the board by Sonim Chinese manufacturer otherwise when I had lifted the connector when trying to disconnect the pads I would have lifted the pads

[keeney123]

Re: new OS on a Sonim XP5s phone

Just sent a form to Qualcomm tech support. We will see if they stand behind their product. Or like Sonim they just pass you by.

[keeney123]

Re: new OS on a Sonim XP5s phone

Here is the response I received from Qualcomm. It was what I thought it would be.

Per agreements with our product licensees, Qualcomm is not able to provide direct to consumer technical support for devices that use our chip products or technologies. This includes questions about Qualcomm components that are chosen by our licensees as part of their designs. The information on qualcomm.com is what can be disclosed to the public.

Qualcomm does not sell finished goods on the retail market, nor provide device drivers, software updates, debugging hardware, software tools, warranty/out-of-warranty recommendations or direct technical support of any kind to consumers of commercial devices that are manufactured by our technology licensees. Qualcomm and the manufacturer of your device agree that support for all components of your device must come from the device manufacturer and not from Qualcomm. Qualcomm does not provide recommendations or guidance on self or 3rd party repair options if you have already contacted your device's manufacturer and they have determined your device is no longer serviceable under their warranty terms.

Your support inquiry must be sent to the company you purchased your device from or the manufacturer of the device you have. Features and capabilities chosen or implemented by our licensees into their products will vary.

The manufacturer or licensee can reach out to Qualcomm through approved support channels if they need assistance from Qualcomm to address any technical issue with our chip products or technologies.

If you have already reached out to the manufacturer of your device, we will forward this email to our Sales and Technical Account Management team as feedback. Any details you can provide regarding your correspondence with the manufacturer's support channel would be useful to pass on.



Thank you,
Qualcomm Support

[keeney123]

Re: new OS on a Sonim XP5s phone

My last hope is going to see if my Great Nephew would look at the phone. He lives for programming. I will see if he is interested.

I just want to get rid of the system apps that I do not use and any other problems that come up. I use a phone for voice and voice mail and contact numbers. I only need the phone to work in outdoor mode. I want all the volume set to high all the time. I do not need push to talk, emergency buttons, internet browser or any other option. I do need the screen to have very large characters so when I dial a number, I can see what number I dialed. If real telephone wired phone was not as costly as it is here, I would get an old two wire phone. If the phone company still has the two-wire system. I could get my old answer machine. It is like $39 dollars here and that does not include long distance. One person I know said he was quoted $139 a month with included long distance.

[keeney123]

Re: new OS on a Sonim XP5s phone

As a last note here, I gave my sister the phone tp see if the programmers in that part of the family can do something with the phone. My friend who bought a new phone for me and sent it back was told by the seller that it was damaged and would not refund his $200. UPS, who was the shipper, would not pay anything towards the phone. UPS has a $100 automatic insurance on any item that ships. However, if your phone cost more than $100 then the auto insurance become null and void. Even the Attorney General asked him if Insurance was put on the phone. When my friend said no then the Attorney General said there was nothing he could do. I offered to compensate my friend for is loss. He refused my compensation. What my friend did is to go out and buy me another phone with sim chip already in it. I am amazed at my friend's kindness his compassion towards others is amazing. He does this sort of thing for many people. I guess as long as I am around him, I better make sure I have phone service otherwise, he will make sure I do, and I do not want to put him through this anymore. Even though, I believe the cell phone company failed to honor their warranty and the cell provider caused me to have to spend money by discontinuing 3G I have to keeps phone service because of my friend.