The LG V20 - Hardware & Why

In the process of trying to get my identity verified to collect $20 in exchange for assistance with FreeBSD, because my front camera didn’t work I had to buy a new phone in order to collect the $20 from upwork, which of course cost about $45. In the process, I learned modern root is dead, android blows goats, the entire Android ecosystem is fucking dumb and basically a money-extracting racket (tell me why it’s constantly made more difficult to: replaceable batteries and expandable SD Card Storage? Because sales and planned obsolescence. God forbid someone get a stable device, learn how to use it effectively and be allowed to continue using it into the future they might get some work done and we can’t have that because capitalism.

Rant aside – wait, I’m not done yet. Have I ever told you how painful the rooting/ROM scene is? Very, extremely painful. What I want is a straightforward guide that says which instructions are for which versions, which ROMs and kernels are appropriate for which versions of Android are appropriate for which model of phone and 90% of the time it’s people throwing software at the device until it lights up and calling it a day. It’s nuts. Then, how do I learn how to do this delicate procedure which is highly complicated and may destroy my new device permanantly and void the warranty? A confusing jumble of a video with a single giant download (ok thanks for that - and for the video, it’s way better than nothing) but maaaan, I consider myself technically savvy and maybe it was the blaring techno soundtrack but I started glazing over about 30 seconds in.

How about the software? There’s always like 10 versions and you’re never told which one to use. You’re forced to download the software from places like fucking softonic and Russian/Chinese forums (which I actually trust more than softonic, I think). Half of the time the one file you need is 404’d and there’s no solid repo, no solid reference, you get the drift. This is my attempt to remedy this - not for everyone (sorry) but for 1 DEVICE that I have chosen. It should also work for other V20 variants and hopefully my actual explanation of what these tools and utilities are (instead of “click this” “then click this” “put this file here” “run this random BAT file”) will help you figure out what you need for your device.

Why use a 9 year old phone?

The V20 is a veritable HW beast for A/V

I’m poor, it’s available cheaply on the used market and it’s amazing. Every once in a while there’s an amazing piece of hardware that’s either rock solid or full featured or easily hackable that defies time. This is one of them, and it’s not for everyone, but it’s my A/V wet dream.

The Audio Output Stage

It has 4 ES9218 DACs up to 32bit 192kHz (!), which is kind of gimmicky, but I love the Sennheiser HD580 headphones and intend on one day acquiring another pair. They’re notoriously hard to drive and need an amplifier – unless you have 4 DACs designed to drive high impedance headphones. This also saves me $1-200 and the bulk and shopping research necessary to get an amplifier and power it. It sounds amazing, from what I hear, and although analog is old school, headphones rock and most awesome cans are not bluetooth (although why doesn’t anyone make a bluetooth aptX with an amp to turn headphones into bluetooth – wait, I found one, but I’d like a generic one). It can also obviously output to a DAC with USB or BT with APTx.

The speakers/sound is also tuned by Bang and Olufsen, who do a pretty good job on shitty hardware, tbh.

The Audio Input Stage

It has 3 - 3 - microphones that are designed to handle up to 132dB without clipping. They’re no replacement for external mics, but guess what, you can always use those with this, too. You can also do all the USB-C USB3 craziness, of course.

The IR Blaster

IR remotes are also kind of falling out of style, but how about being able to control over 1,000 devices without every buying another stupid universal remote? Sign me up.

Removable Battery

YES!!! GODS YES!!! Oh no my device is hard froze and I’ll open it up and beep boop 15 seconds later I’m completely fresh with no memory resident virii and no hung up apps. What if my battery turns to shit? Oh I can just buy a new one and put it in in like 5 seconds. What if I want 1TB removable drives - oh, sure, it has those, and it’s just as easy to swap them. What if you want a mega 4600mAH battery upgrade – I got you, bruh. Once I get this fucker set up I’ma buy 10 spare batteries and use it for the next 20 years and never have to upgrade again FUCKO YUO.

Video

1440p screen contrast 1097 3.402 sunlight, displayport video output, secondary 1040x160 screen (what? yes) 515ppi (higher than every apple device!), 720p @ 120 fps

CPU & RAM & Other shit

4-core 2.1GHz & 4GB RAM, not amazing, but good enough. Fuck, 8.4Ghz of computation in your goddamn hand running on a battery give-me-a-break! Qualcomm Adreno 530. Color Spectrum Sensor, accelerometer, gyro, compass, proximity, barometer

The Build

OK so first issue: I find out (I was told otherwise, and the android ROM/mod scene is a giant clusterfuck of contradictory information, let’s be honest it takes hours and hours of searching to find obvious shit that should be in a fucking wiki per model, but I digress. Lupa tells me that I might lose the uber-DAC and IR Blaster if I custom ROM, instead I have to DirtySanta (pseudo-root on stock firmware). I used to have a Sidekick and went so far as to download and compile a kernel on my own so I’m sure I’ll be getting all up in this, but it looks like we’ll be exploring stock ROM first (I know, booooo).

Bad News

I’ve always wanted an IR BLASTER (I mean it even sounds awesome). It can, with an app that you pay for control literally any IR device, or even IR devices that don’t exist yet. Yes, you can turn off all the TVs, too. Lineage may or may not support the IR Blaster (maybe in 19 – they said “everything works” – except the awesome DAC that’s worth $200 in audiophile bucks and the IR Blaster that’s better than every universal remote combined GETTHEFUCKOUTTAHERE). I like FOSS but I want shit that works – now. So I’m going to filthyEasterBunny this bad boy.

Worse News

It doesn’t work with Android 8, which I have, so I need to downgrade, hmmm…here’s maybe an old ROM I can flash…

If you aren't running Verizon firmware you MUST do a factory reset. You might be able to get away with dirty flashing over VS99520c if you are running NotYetADev's ROM. If you are running Leamon Drop I think you are going to have to factory reset also. I always wipe cache and Dalvik when presented the opertunity.
...
 Are you on Alpha Omega now? If you went from a Nougat based ROM straight to Oreo, then you need to make sure the Oreo firmware gets flashed 
 ...
 Also, from a thread here I see it may be better to start by downgrading to US99610f to solve the vibration problem. Is the idea US99610f --> root --> any VS995 custom ROM (eg Lineage)? But then a friend is telling me, "You'll have to activate your V20 while it's still on stock fw, after you root it via DirtySanta." So perhaps the procedure is US99610f --> root --> VS99512a --> activate --> Lineage?

I know a lot of these developers are foreign and I’m really genuinely appreciative of the work, I don’t mean to call this guy out but the Android ROM community has terible speling.

Better News - Actual Files

So, after searching for nearly 30 minutes (it helps to do stuff while you’re doing this, like file transfers) I finally found the verizon ROM version I needed and ROM I needed. The files “shared” in the video were on MEGA and I reached my limit before downloading them, also they weren’t the right version for doing nastyelf, anyway.

You need (this file - VS99512A_06_1114_ARB00.kdz)[https://androidfilehost.com/?fid=11410963190603847053]. It is the 12A release of the VS995 kdz file. MD5SUM: 9802a7ab443288e83c2dd47ada14d836

These are the files that go with the video

Then you have to try to find the ROMs on AndroidFileHost and hope to GOD there’s an active mirror.

First you have to install the LG drivers - makes sense, right.

Then hold volume up and connect the USB to the phone to put it in download mode.

OK so it’s really not clear whether I can use uppercut with this special modified version of the LG app.

First, I’m going to paste the contents of the LG zip into the LG program folder, C:\Program Files (x86)\LG Electronics\LGUP it will warn you, you want to overwrite the files.

I tried uppercut…and of course Microsoft Defender thinks it’s a virus. I’m going to try the LG app and I got an error saying the DLL is wrong. Then I tried uppercut, I even copied it to the LG folder, gave an exception for defender and got the same error.

I copied the common folder again and then it worked!? antirollback version is bigger than device version

Welp, looks like I’m fucked.

I’m tired, I’m going to play with the thousands of dollars of software that was generously donated to me.

oh man, my dreams of making a leica-lite themed A/V experience that’s a haptic treat to use are being dashed. not even fonts!?

Haudio - had an issue logging in to the play store, but it went away magically. I linked up to wifi easily and updated youtube successfully. Bluetooth - when I went to pair, it didn’t pop up the pairing code on the screen, but once I accepted it blindly it linked with my PC right away.

Retrospective and prospective

So it turned out I couldn’t root my phone (yet) but I actually didn’t want to anyway (because I’d lose features that aren’t in Lineage…yet). The screen is AMAZE-BALLS, I got a screen testing app and it nailed everything. Even at full brightness, it doesn’t look ‘blown out’ and you can see all the slight contrast variations. The blacks are black, the whites are white, and the colors are beautiful. Did I mention the ppi is higher than apple?

I got a USB dongle that does 32-bit 384kHz and has a built-in amp and I hate to admit it, but it sounds better and gets louder than the V20. It even has mic input. No big deal, though, I can use it with the phone. Sound quality on the phone is great, as expected, although I thought it would get a bit louder (the other DACs aren’t activated with my low-impedance cans).

A lot of things I want to do on Android I can’t, because of Android limitations, lack of source, and locks locks locks. I own the device, let me do what I want with it!

I’m playing with apps and I’m going to see how far I can go with getting it loaded up with a barrage of quality, useful apps, making it a portable A/V beast and high-tech companion device. I want it to be simple, preferably self-explanatory, intuitive, utilitarian, reliable workhorse that I can use for a long time. My goal, with replacement batteries, is 20 years. If I’m still alive in 2045, I’ll be 61 (!) and sitting in a chair listening to great music on my HD580/600 phones (unless something better comes out) on this device, which I set up and set up so well that I didn’t have to fuck with it and it worked for 20 years. Tbat’s my goal, and there’s really no reason it wouldn’t be possible.