Samsung Galaxy Express I8730 Q&A

[rjlouro]

It seems there is very little information on this device so far, and it's spread across several threads. Here's what I found so far:

NOTE: This is for the international version I-8730 and AT&T model I-437. Since I have the I-8730 will add my personal experience on this model only.

Rooting

• Using Motochopper. Worked fine in my Vodafone branded I-8720 with 4.1.2 --> http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=40770093&postcount=2
• Using Unlockroot.com, reported to work with I-437 --> http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2037692

Original Samsung Firmware

• List of european firmwares for I-8730 (only tested I8730XWAMC4 / OXXAMC3 and I8730XXAMB8 / OXAAMB8 so far) --> http://www.tsar3000.com/Joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=856:samsung-i8730-galaxy-express-firmwares&catid=55:samsung&Itemid=82

Unlocking

• A member reported the S3 method works. Did not work on my phone. --> http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=38971203&postcount=15

CWM

• Working CWM reported by user jjchico, see thread for instructions -> http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=46521596&postcount=121
• OUDHS Touch CWM-based Recovery for I-437 (Not tested in I-8730) --> OUDHS Touch CWM-based Recovery
• Initial work, no reports yet that it works --> http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2285898

Custom ROMS
Nothing yet...

Open Source Code (Thanks to tanrsquare)
The following files are available for GT-I8730:

• GT-I8730_JB_Opensource.zip
• GT-I8730T_JB_Opensource.zip
• GT-I8730_HK_JB_Opensource.zip
• GT-I8730_LATIN_JB_Opensource.zip
• GT-I8730_SEA_JB_Opensource.zip

The following files are available for GT-I437:

• SGH-I437Z_ATT_JB_Opensource.zip
• SGH-I437_ATT_ICS_Opensource.zip

Other info

• Biggest thread yet on I-8730 and I-437 where I got most of the information -->http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2037692

If you have any other info just post a reply or send PM and I'll update this list.

 

[tanrsquare]

Jus Some Developments Info

Hey, source codes is available... Just for a heads up for interested devs!

I had browse the web and found that the source codes for i8730 for various models of i8730. These are all available on Samsung open code release center (OSRC) at opensourcesamsung(dot)com. They are as follows:

Classification Model Version Source Code
Mobile Phone GT-I8730 GT-I8730_JB_Opensource.zip
Mobile Phone GT-I8730T AMD2 GT-I8730T_JB_Opensource.zip
Mobile Phone GT-I8730_HK GT-I8730_HK_JB_Opensource.zip
Mobile Phone GT-I8730_LA GT-I8730_LATIN_JB_Opensource.zip
Mobile Phone GT-I8730_SEA GT-I8730_SEA_JB_Opensource.zip

Me am not developer but a user and owner of this model! As a user, there are just much restrictions from stock OS such as carriers limitations, limited features, and all official roms available are according to respective countries carrier and lack of lots of great tweaks and apps. Although root is available, but its limited as few tweaks that I can play with like V6 Supercharger, link2sd etc. That's why I'm always looking forward to customs! They are great! I know that why me nv grab hold of one that can be customized is due to of course simple, cost restriction. This is jus a great, budgeted, with potential (underclocked), fast, 4G device available in market.

To keep things short pls devs just look alittle in this device, and if customized eg, roms, kernels , I believe that other models with the same chipset and GPU can benefit as well! Models like the new Mega 6.3 and also unreleased S4 Mini! They are all using the same Qualcomm MSM8930 Snapdragon 400!!!

Yeah! Go mid-range devices!!! :fingers-crossed:

 

[rjlouro]

Thanks tanrsquare, will add that info to the inicial post.

 

[doarmga]

What about CWM?

I suppose you know that without a working (backup, restore) custom recovery, flashing any rom may permanently brick our phone, so, the next step after root shod be CWM Recovery.
Any news about a working one? Saw that the i-437 has one already...

 

[tanrsquare]

Info about CWM for i8730

Hey, doarmga... I'm quite agree with u. A CWM is quite an essential for customizing ROMs, without it, ODIN will be needed if there are going to be problems, and that's bad as it increases the binary counter... omg.

Me too, am one of the guys looking ard for i8730 recovery which is stable and usable, but I can predict tht none exists yet currently. I have search the web as well as XDA and I came to this site: builder(dot)clockworkmod(dot)com/ ...

This allows people to build recovery but then there are details tht are required and catch me no balls haha... Example lik recovery.fstab, graphics.c which I think this should somehow that are needed for the tool to work properly before the CWM recovery can be generated. I think this is similar to the thread -> showthread.php?t=2285898tht someone has tried.

 

[aureljared]

Hey, doarmga... I'm quite agree with u. A CWM is quite an essential for customizing ROMs, without it, ODIN will be needed if there are going to be problems, and that's bad as it increases the binary counter... omg.

Me too, am one of the guys looking ard for i8730 recovery which is stable and usable, but I can predict tht none exists yet currently. I have search the web as well as XDA and I came to this site: builder(dot)clockworkmod(dot)com/ ...

This allows people to build recovery but then there are details tht are required and catch me no balls haha... Example lik recovery.fstab, graphics.c which I think this should somehow that are needed for the tool to work properly before the CWM recovery can be generated. I think this is similar to the thread -> showthread.php?t=2285898tht someone has tried.

You can obtain a recovery.fstab when you create your own CWM online then snooping around inside the downloaded zip file. Also there is the existence of a vold.fstab but I don't think that would be of any help.
About the binary counter, why don't you use TriangleAway? I can confirm it works.

P.S. LOL I never knew someone would actually read my recovery thread, let alone quote it. Heh. Thanks, people.

Sent from my GT-I8730 using xda app-developers app

 

[petraru1]

hello, in a couple of weeks i will get this phone, i have one question, how is the display? i`m asking because of the low resolution on a big screen.
Ok, now some serious talk... we can get a temporary CWM recovery, sadly some samsung phones have the recovery partition on the kernel, so you need to build a new kernel with CWM, sadly i am not a kernel developer, and i don`t have to much knowledge. For overclock we need a custom kernel... the only thing i know is to build roms, but first we need a custom recovery like CWM or TWRP. I think i can make a temporary CWM but more tests i will make when my phone will get to me

 

[tanrsquare]

About the screen

hello, in a couple of weeks i will get this phone, i have one question, how is the display? i`m asking because of the low resolution on a big screen.
Ok, now some serious talk... we can get a temporary CWM recovery, sadly some samsung phones have the recovery partition on the kernel, so you need to build a new kernel with CWM, sadly i am not a kernel developer, and i don`t have to much knowledge. For overclock we need a custom kernel... the only thing i know is to build roms, but first we need a custom recovery like CWM or TWRP. I think i can make a temporary CWM but more tests i will make when my phone will get to me

For the screen, overall looks Ookaayy is what I can say. It may not be as sharp as those high def display n colours looks better with higher brightness I felt. And yup for videos using stock player, mostly able to stretch fully, covering the whole screen except for some with weird resolution. Youtube videos mostly can cover the whole screen except for some old music videos with low resolutions, a little borders at the sides may be notice, but the top n bottoms doesn't have any. For high res like 1080p is able to cover the screen. Words n Clock n widgets seems to appear a little bigger n stretched. Gaming still fine n temple run 2 is really quite sharp that I love its graphics... :cyclops: But, then when open up a SWF game or app using an SWF player, some are unable to output full display, show only mostly the center and sides surrounding it being cut off... That's my experience about its screen but yup looks okay though. :silly:

 

[aureljared]

hello, in a couple of weeks i will get this phone, i have one question, how is the display? i`m asking because of the low resolution on a big screen.
Ok, now some serious talk... we can get a temporary CWM recovery, sadly some samsung phones have the recovery partition on the kernel, so you need to build a new kernel with CWM, sadly i am not a kernel developer, and i don`t have to much knowledge. For overclock we need a custom kernel... the only thing i know is to build roms, but first we need a custom recovery like CWM or TWRP. I think i can make a temporary CWM but more tests i will make when my phone will get to me

Yay! Now we have another reason to not sell the phone.
P.S. )If this info helps in any way, haha) The Express I8730, like some Samsung phones, follows an mmc format. The recovery partition is /dev/block/mmcblk0p18 (so if I want to flash a custom recovery.img, all I have to do is pull up a terminal and type

su
dd if=/storage/extSdCard/recovery.img of=/dev/block/mmcblk0p18

* In this example, I located my img on the external SD. If yours is on the internal then use /sdcard instead.
Resolution is 480x800.

For the screen, overall looks Ookaayy is what I can say. It may not be as sharp as those high def display n colours looks better with higher brightness I felt. And yup for videos using stock player, mostly able to stretch fully, covering the whole screen except for some with weird resolution. Youtube videos mostly can cover the whole screen except for some old music videos with low resolutions, a little borders at the sides may be notice, but the top n bottoms doesn't have any. For high res like 1080p is able to cover the screen. Words n Clock n widgets seems to appear a little bigger n stretched. Gaming still fine n temple run 2 is really quite sharp that I love its graphics... :cyclops: But, then when open up a SWF game or app using an SWF player, some are unable to output full display, show only mostly the center and sides surrounding it being cut off... That's my experience about its screen but yup looks okay though. :silly:

I agree. But how in the world did you get SWF games to play? Adobe says Android 4 onwards are not supported by Flash anymore.

 

[petraru1]

Yay! Now we have another reason to not sell the phone.
P.S. )If this info helps in any way, haha) The Express I8730, like some Samsung phones, follows an mmc format. The recovery partition is /dev/block/mmcblk0p18 (so if I want to flash a custom recovery.img, all I have to do is pull up a terminal and type

su
dd if=/storage/extSdCard/recovery.img of=/dev/block/mmcblk0p18

* In this example, I located my img on the external SD. If yours is on the internal then use /sdcard instead.
Resolution is 480x800.

I agree. But how in the world did you get SWF games to play? Adobe says Android 4 onwards are not supported by Flash anymore.

you can still install adobe flash player apk, just search here on xda
on my s advance Kernel and recovery (stock or custom) are in the same partition. So they must come in package, some other phones can install it separatly, because it is not connected to kernel partition. Until i get my hands on the phone i can`t be sure, but a temporary recovery is posible on stock kernel, what temp recovery means? after you reboot you lose the CWM, but for example if u make a back-up after you reflash CWM you can restore your backup.
Don`t get your hopes too high about CM, it requires allot of knowledge, in my s advance is a team of 8 developer... and they dont have yet a stable release. I can look into it but it will take time. What i can develop more easy? a ROM based on stock witch will have 0 bugs , but first CWM
Regarding CWM could someone provide me recovery.fstab? using root browser it can be found in the etc folder.

 

[doarmga]

Flash on JB; about the screen.

I've searched google about flash on android 4.1 and there are quite a handful of tutorials about it. Can't post links yet but if you google it, it will show up. Basically you have to download a flash apk located somewhere on xda and install it. Also, you need a browser with flash support such as Boat browser, Dolphin or Firefox. (Chrome and the standard android 4.1 browser don't allow flash at all.)
About the screen i can honestly say that even though it has the exact same resolution as my "old" Galaxy S Plus, it looks crisper on the 4.5 display on the Express. Don't know how they managed to do this, maybe something to do with the updated pentile matrix found in SuperAMOLED Plus (3 subpixels per pixel vs. 2 subpixels and a shared one between two adjacent pixels in the "old" SAMOLED).

 

[aureljared]

I've searched google about flash on android 4.1 and there are quite a handful of tutorials about it. Can't post links yet but if you google it, it will show up. Basically you have to download a flash apk located somewhere on xda and install it. Also, you need a browser with flash support such as Boat browser, Dolphin or Firefox. (Chrome and the standard android 4.1 browser don't allow flash at all.)
About the screen i can honestly say that even though it has the exact same resolution as my "old" Galaxy S Plus, it looks crisper on the 4.5 display on the Express. Don't know how they managed to do this, maybe something to do with the updated pentile matrix found in SuperAMOLED Plus (3 subpixels per pixel vs. 2 subpixels and a shared one between two adjacent pixels in the "old" SAMOLED).

Thanks a lot, I managed to find the APK. It does look crisper, but the only reason i have for Flash is Flash games. And Opera Classic has built-in Flash, so I don't need to worry about my browser.

Sent from my GT-I8730 using xda app-developers app

 

[tanrsquare]

Regarding recovery.fstab

but first CWM
Regarding CWM could someone provide me recovery.fstab? using root browser it can be found in the etc folder.

Errmmm... I had jus send my phone for repair becos of some gyro issue... I wonder anybody encounter this is tht about the 'Motion' feature in the Settings. When I activates it, the sensor jus keep moving to the right that I dun even have to move the device haha... This cause the pic in Gallery to move constantly and icon in main menu to jus keep moving. Strange thing is that it happens occasionally like let's say 1 wk, 7 days, about less than 3 days hav this prob, then the rest of the days works normally, in other words functionable n this keeps repeating. It makes me cracking my mind if it's a hardware or software issue n tis is jus weird... I tried lots of times on calibration n restarting device but still no luck. Or maybe jus for a short while haha... I heard of no sound after flashing another stock rom, but mine's jus the original stock. Ok... Sry about the nagging but mayb jus to share abit. :crying:

And for recovery.fstab file, I'll retrieve n upload it after collection of the phone... maybe in a few day's time sry abt that!

 

[petraru1]

Errmmm... I had jus send my phone for repair becos of some gyro issue... I wonder anybody encounter this is tht about the 'Motion' feature in the Settings. When I activates it, the sensor jus keep moving to the right that I dun even have to move the device haha... This cause the pic in Gallery to move constantly and icon in main menu to jus keep moving. Strange thing is that it happens occasionally like let's say 1 wk, 7 days, about less than 3 days hav this prob, then the rest of the days works normally, in other words functionable n this keeps repeating. It makes me cracking my mind if it's a hardware or software issue n tis is jus weird... I tried lots of times on calibration n restarting device but still no luck. Or maybe jus for a short while haha... I heard of no sound after flashing another stock rom, but mine's jus the original stock. Ok... Sry about the nagging but mayb jus to share abit. :crying:

And for recovery.fstab file, I'll retrieve n upload it after collection of the phone... maybe in a few day's time sry abt that!

thanks, i managed to find it
if someone can test temporary CWM http://d-h.st/OBd
just put update.zip to sdcard, reboot to stock recovery, flash update from external storage, then reboot and hold down buttons for recovery.

tomorrow morning i will finish negotiating with my carrier, if all ends well, next week i will have the phone the only down side is after next week i will go on holiday with my family for 10 days
p.s how does this phone performs on high end games like modern combat 4, nfs most wanted, gta vice city, the dark knight rises?
from what i read on the internet the Qualcomm MSM8930 Snapdragon 400 Dual-core 1.2 GHz Krait and Adreno 305 is very good, it can beat some quad core CPUs i saw a benchmark and the scores are allmost like the S3 (because of screen resolution, but still, pretty slick )

 

[Fire98251]

Are there any current WIP roms for this specific device. I remember searching the entire forum for this phone a couple months back and there was little to no information, though the motochopper guide existed besides for the obvious root privileges there were no custom roms for the phone.

 

[petraru1]

Are there any current WIP roms for this specific device. I remember searching the entire forum for this phone a couple months back and there was little to no information, though the motochopper guide existed besides for the obvious root privileges there were no custom roms for the phone.

not yet...

 

[Fire98251]

not yet...

Do you own the phone?

 

[aureljared]

thanks, i managed to find it
if someone can test temporary CWM http://d-h.st/OBd
just put update.zip to sdcard, reboot to stock recovery, flash update from external storage, then reboot and hold down buttons for recovery.

tomorrow morning i will finish negotiating with my carrier, if all ends well, next week i will have the phone the only down side is after next week i will go on holiday with my family for 10 days
p.s how does this phone performs on high end games like modern combat 4, nfs most wanted, gta vice city, the dark knight rises?
from what i read on the internet the Qualcomm MSM8930 Snapdragon 400 Dual-core 1.2 GHz Krait and Adreno 305 is very good, it can beat some quad core CPUs i saw a benchmark and the scores are allmost like the S3 (because of screen resolution, but still, pretty slick )

Yay! Am trying it now.

Sent from my GT-I8730 using xda app-developers app

 

[adityapathak1733]

SO it seems there is no custom recovery for the device... I just got it a few days ago thinking WOW what a good phone and it also looks like the S3.. All of my phones have either been jailbroken or rooted. Turns out the phone has no recovery section. It's in the Kernel, so therefor you will need to build a whole new kernel.. I would love to have this device rooted with a recovery to install roms and such. I will also love to donate for the project if anyone does it.

 

[petraru1]

ok, good news, i signed the contract with my carrier so the phone will get to me next week