Market on ME883

[esist]

Sorry if there is an answer for this, but I can't find it. I was wondering if anyone can tell me if the Chinese version (ME863) comes with the Android Market (and other Google Apps) or not?

I don't mean the version sold by China Unicom, I mean a generic one sold by a third party (say amazon.cn), unless of course the software is the same.

If not, how easy would it be to add (I have flashed/rooted other phones before, I just don't know about the ME863)?

 

[elodie01]

The generic one, sold in Hong Kong for a few weeks now, has the normal market. It's a normal Android phone, with all the Google apps, plus a few Motorola apps... I do believe the one sold in China must be exactly the same thing.

 

[esist]

Ok thanks for your reply. I might just buy a HK version anyway to be on the safe side: they're very easy to find and a tiny bit cheaper as well.

When I went to a Motorola desk in Xidan none of the phones had Google apps, but that could've been because they were the China Unicom/China Mobile variants even though it didn't say they were.

 

[TBBle]

My retail ME863's version code includes "SLNCU" so I suspect the hardware's identical. There wasn't any marking on the packaging except TSN (The HK Motorola distributor). I got mine through a website though, so I never saw it in-store.

Mine's running 60.1.103, while the known ME863 SBF image is marked 60.1.101, doesn't include Google Mobile Service, and doesn't offer an OTA upgrade to 60.1.103, so I guess it's a carrier-specific fork.

So checking the firmware version will tell 'em apart, and I _guess_ that if an SBF shows up for the HK Retail version (or potentially Taiwan, I guess) it'd be safe to cross-grade.

The other option would be to flash Google Mobile Service onto a China Unicom device. There's a link to the package in the ME863 SBF thread.

I hadn't realised there was an Carrier-branded ME863... I guessed that the ME863 was basically the UMTS version of the XT883, but I don't know where in China is UMTS and where is CDMA so I was assuming mainland is CDMA while HK and TW are UMTS.

 

[esist]

Thanks for the info. No I don't think there's a China Unicom branded device (AFAIK Unicom themselves don't offer the device but yes there is a PRC UMTS version). i.e. it's obviously for China Unicom and I believe it is customised to accomodate that, but its not branded for it.

I couldn't get a look at the actual one, and the service reps didn't know about the Google thing, but none of the other seemingly generic models included Google Apps (for example the Atrix 2 - whatever its Chinese name is).

One more question about the HK version (if you don't mind!): what locales does it include? I believe its en-GB, en-US, zh-CN and zh-HK, correct?

By the way: UMTS and CDMA are both nationally available: China Unicom uses UMTS for 3G while China Mobile uses some weird version of CDMA (one that only they use if I'm not mistaken). Both use GSM for 2G

 

[TBBle]

According to MoreLocale 2 I have English UK and US, and Chinese China + Taiwan... The Android locale settings simply offers English UK and US and Chinese Traditional and Simplified.

My ME863 is build SLNCU ("Solana China Unicom"? I'd been assuming that U was "Unlocked" or "UMTS") but product is SLNHK, where the XT883 is product SLNCT ("Solana China Telecom") and (at least in the first SBF thread I found using Google) the build doesn't contain a name.

This got me looking, and there's a couple of oddities here:
ro.product.locale.region is TW, although ro.product.name is SLNHK and ro.build.id is SLNCU-60.1.103

ro.build.config.version is GAS_ASIA_SOLANAUMTSHKTWN_P017 and ro.build.version.carrier is ChinaRetail. So the _rom_ is obviously shared between HK and TW.

So apart from the build branch, I can't see anything that indicate mine's built towards China Unicom requirements, but it might be that the only difference between the rom build in the HK Retail devices and the ones you're seeing in Xidan _is_ lack of Google Apps.

I hope that helps? It reminded me to tell my phone I'm in not in Australia anymore. ^_^