Coolpad F1 8297w

[Guest Maringer]

Well, I've taken the plunge and ordered from the Aliexpress vendor I linked to earlier in the thread (Shenzhen Matrix). I ordered a tablet on Aliexpress a couple of years ago and didn't encounter any problems with the payment Escrow service so, fingers-crossed, all will be well this time too.

I sent a query to the seller asking him to confirm availability and he responded promptly in good English. He also volunteered the information that 1st to 3rd May is a public holiday in China so they probably won't be able to despatch until next week. They don't claim despatch for a few days in any case so I find it good service that he warned me there would be a delay.

I did ask about them obtaining a Nillkin case for me but was told it might take a few extra days to obtain one so I haven't bothered for now. My wife is planning to get a Galaxy S4 this week (she's not as adventurous as me when it comes to phones!) so I'll perhaps look for a specialist seller and buy her a case and one for myself at the same time.

I'll report back to this thread about how long the phone delivery takes. I paid for DHL delivery so hopefully I'll have it before too long! When I ordered my tablet I was stung for duty so I'm hoping I'll get away with it this time!

Edited April 30, 2014 by Maringer

[Guest bryfly]

Passed that one onto the wife, not sure whether to get another or the thl w200s nearly the same but a big following on the Xda forum. All these decisions☺

[Guest dakok]

Crossed the border now, but I doubt I'll get it until next week

 

2014-04-30 08:38, CROATIA, 10805 Zagreb CUV, Record item customs information, Retention reason : Invoice missing

2014-04-29 09:32, CROATIA, 10805 Zagreb CUV, Send item to customs

2014-04-29 09:32, CROATIA, 10805 Zagreb CUV, Receive item at location

2014-04-29 08:57, CROATIA, ZAGREB 10003, Send items to customs (Inb)

2014-04-28 19:54, CROATIA, ZAGREB 10003, Receive item at office of exchange

2014-04-24 16:33, SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE S05, Insert item into bag  

 

Pretty fast :)    

It was slow at beginning, since ET from Aliexpress had it in stock actually 2 days after they told me it is there.

Then few days of holding (flashing multilanguage rom perhaps ?) - about 14 days in total to reach Singapore.     

 

If someone looks for another reliable Coolpad F1 seller, take a look at this one: Value in Action        

Edited April 30, 2014 by dakok

[Guest dalyer]

If someone looks for another reliable Coolpad F1 seller, take a look at this one: Value in Action        

 

No PayPal option.

Is that not a risk for buyers...?

Or is AliExpress buyer protection OK?

 

http://www.aliexpress.com/buyerprotection/index.html

 

I'm tempted to buy and to do so from this seller... :)

Edited April 30, 2014 by dalyer

[Guest Maringer]

As mentioned earlier, I had no problem when I ordered a tablet via Aliexpress a couple of years back. Played around with the tablet and tested it for a couple of days after it arrived before confirming I was happy and the payment was then taken.

I'd always make sure that I ordered from a reliable seller if ordering from Aliexpress. If you get one with hundreds or thousands of transactions but few negatives, you ought to be OK.

[Guest dalyer]

OK - thanks. That's reassuring.

Now - do I order from Value in Action now or not.... :D

[Guest Ascend]

Mine arrived yesterday after quite an eventful journey! It got caught in the disruption at East Midlands airport when a planes undercarriage collapsed on landing and the runway was closed for nearly a day. 20 hours from Singapore to UK and 3 days from England to Northern Ireland !! No customs duties etc. which made up for it.

 

Not really had time to play with it yet but it does seem very smooth and fast. Great screen.

 

Couple of things. The back is quite difficult to get off. Very tight fit.

Secondly I nearly had a heart attack when it wouldn't switch on ! When I eventually got the back off I found that the battery contacts has been taped over ! Panic over but worth watching out for. Must be part of the new regs on transporting batteries by air.

 

Any questions please ask.

[Guest dalyer]

Who did you order from and what shipping option did you choose?

I take it from your earlier post that you ordered from this seller?

 

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Original-Coolpad-F1-mtk6592-octa-core-mobile-phone-android-4-2-os-5-0inch-IPS-HD/1619172497.html

[Guest Ascend]

Who did you order from and what shipping option did you choose?

I take it from your earlier post that you ordered from this seller?

 

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Original-Coolpad-F1-mtk6592-octa-core-mobile-phone-android-4-2-os-5-0inch-IPS-HD/1619172497.html

Yes, thats the one. I chose DHL 

[Guest Maringer]

Just a warning that DHL often send an invoice for VAT/duty at a later date. That's what happened with the tablet I bought from China a couple of years back, in any case.

 

Thought I'd got away with it for a week or two but then had to pay up!

[Guest dalyer]

Thanks Ascend for the info.

And Maringer for the warning! :)

[Guest Ascend]

You were lucky Maringer. Only time it happened to me DHL wouldn't deliver until I had paid the Duty/VAT.

 

As I've said before it is the luck of the draw but even if you do have to pay some of these phones represent good value for money. I did an Antutu on my F1 last night and it registered above a Samsung S4 and probably a third of the price. 

[Guest Maringer]

Oddly enough, the DHL driver actually left the package containing the tablet round the back of my house next to the bins! Not entirely sure what he was playing at as a signature should have been required on delivery. I actually got home and found it by chance when putting something in the bin when it was teeming down with rain! Miraculously, the seller had wrapped the package well enough that it was water-tight so no harm done.

[Guest dakok]

Eternal Team from Aliexpress dropped the price to 180 USD today

[Guest dalyer]

Thanks dakok - still mulling over it...

 

Any more feedback/updates from those who already received theirs and have played with them?

[Guest bryfly]

Passed that one onto the wife, not sure whether to get another or the thl w200s nearly the same but a big following on the Xda forum. All these decisions☺

Finally decided to get the THL w200s, so my wife is now the proud owner of the coolpad f1, Although it looks the business I was not so keen after a fair few crashes, compared to my vowney v5 it is much faster it looks like the screen is clearer but overall I preferred the V5 even if the GPS and Compass were non functioning.

@ dalyer

In terms of problems the settings crashed on entering "data usage", settings crashed if I went into "system update settings" , "email" would crash from the lock screen if I wanted to read it, "email" crashed when in email and I select the inbox or other functions, I believe grabster has settings crashing as well when selecting display settings, unless he has fixed it, expect some or not all of the concerns will be fixed by a new / modified ROM, if they are fixed then I feel for just over a £100 it is a great phone.

Edited May 3, 2014 by bryfly

[Guest dakok]

Regarding feedback - here's few numbers from China

JD is a respectable china e-shop with huge sales numbers

 

Coolpad F1 (white cover)

95% of 2477 buyers rate it as good

1.5% rate it as bad.

 

Coolpad F1 (silver cover)

95% of 680 buyers rate it as good

1.6% rate it as bad

 

See it for yourself http://list.jd.com/9987-653-655-0-1269-8866-0-0-0-0-1-1-1-1-1-72-2799-33.html

[Guest grabster]

Still crashing when selecting display settings.

Raised dispute with eternal team and waiting for dispute to be resolved.

I am not after the partial refund that they are offering,just a link to a stock rom will do.

The phone is rooted so a stock rom can just be flashed over and hopefully any niggles will be history.

I assume that a vanilla rom must exist for this phone ?

[Guest dalyer]

Thanks for the feedback on the phone guys.

[Guest dakok]

Roms are here, as mentioned before

m.forocoches.com/foro/showthread.php?t=3671980

[Guest grabster]

Thats the stuff from the needrom site.

 

I am a bit puzz;ed over which one to go for .

[Guest bryfly]

Thats the stuff from the needrom site.

 

I am a bit puzz;ed over which one to go for .

Which ROM or which Phone, either is a puzzle, I am now wondering whether to cancel my THL W200S, just been reading about it crashing with you tube and facebook, these Chinese phones represent good value against what you pay in the UK for a similarly specified phone, however i'm begining to wonder is there is such an animal as a bug free Chinese phone in this price bracket.

With the V5 bugs, people thought they would be cured by an update to the ROM, turned out not to be, the coolpad now has various crashing reports and my next choice the THL the same, just as well we have the experts / dev's in various forums to fix bugs as any support from Chinese companies is pretty rare.

Having said all that expect I will still purchase another one :), which one in a similar price bracket is the question, another coolpad f1 I wonder.

[Guest Maringer]

If Mediatek and the OEMs would release the source code (as they are obliged to do under the GPL), these bugs would be fixed by the enthusiast dev community.

After my FAEA F1 was left bug-ridden when FAEA failed to fix the issues in the ROM (or provide the promised upgrade to 4.2), I'm sort of hoping that the better-established company Coolpad will be a bit more diligent!

[Guest bryfly]

With the V5 bugs, people thought they would be cured by an update to the ROM, turned out not to be, the coolpad now has various crashing reports and my next choice the THL the same, just as well we have the experts / dev's in various forums to fix bugs as any support from Chinese companies is pretty rare.

Having said all that expect I will still purchase another one :), which one in a similar price bracket is the question, another coolpad f1 I wonder.

Just Cancelled the THL w200s, what do I try now?

[Guest dakok]

In the meantime take a look at MIUI development for Coolpad F1.

If I got that right, it seems that someone made a patch for WCDMA version so you can flash TD-SCDMA rom and that patch it to WCDMA...

http://www.miui.com/thread-1649600-1-1.html

 

Here's resourceful ydss website, too

http://bbs.ydss.cn/forum.php?mod=forumdisplay&fid=612&filter=typeid&typeid=2295

 

Chinese roms at YDSS:

http://bbs.ydss.cn/plugin.php?id=ydss_rom:index&a=post&u=547&t=612&p=1&s=1

 

Spanish forum resource

http://www.forocoches.com/foro/showthread.php?p=160513774#post160513774

 

Spanish forum resource

http://www.movilesdualsim.com/forums/coolpad-f1-8297w-mtk6592.421/

 

Russian forum resource:

http://4pda.ru/forum/index.php?showtopic=535435

 

USB driver and firmware

http://drivers.mydrivers.com/search-29-2107/h61331-0-0-1-0-1.htm

 

Unbrick guide & tools 

http://pan.baidu.com/share/link?shareid=3727302810&uk=1295327927 (eb3q)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pUxaT4XYbxu6f980_jrlIPZQYd72L_HvDxzMHySt9yk/edit?usp=sharing

http://www.movilesdualsim.com/threads/coolpad-f1-8297w-mtk6592-2gb-ram-8gb-rom.63413/page-15#post-643297

 

ET firmware:

http://pan.baidu.com/share/home?uk=3225097610&view=share#category/type=0 (ET)

 

Coolpad F1 WCDMA original rom & Tools:

http://pan.baidu.com/share/link?shareid=3056014989&uk=2601023930 (vwdp)

http://pan.baidu.com/s/1jG7L7Ky

 

 

 

 

 

Could you move this links to the first or second post, please? :)

Edited May 10, 2014 by dakok