Realme C2 Product Review

Purchased a Realme C2 Android Phone today for 4,990 pesos. It only comes with a charger and charging cable, unlike other smart phones I've bought before which include earphones and a protective case. I even had to shell out an extra 250 pesos for a protective case. Specs are as follows:

• Model RMX1941
• ColorOS Version V6.0
• Android Version 9
• Processor Octa Core
• RAM 2.0 GB
• Device Storage 16.0 GB
• Front Camera 5 Megapixels
• Rear Camera 13 Megapixels

According to the seller, the Realme brand is a sub-brand of OPPO. The device has a 1-year warranty so if I need to have it fixed, I just have to bring it to an OPPO service center.

I am excited to explore how this device will perform compared to my last phone, an SKK Hyper X Core. Too bad, the SKK brand is no longer available. Hope the Realme brand lasts longer since it is connected with OPPO.

The only concern that the sales person told me about was that this product likes to do automatic updates frequently. And true enough, as soon as I connected with our home wifi network, it already wanted to download the latest Android OS update. I appreciate that apps like Chrome and a File Manager are already installed. Had to add Grab, Viber, etc. and these installed seamlessly, too.

The screen is a bit longer than my last phone. Specs wise, I think that the only difference is that this phone has an Octa Core processor and Android 9 for the OS.

I'm still trying to get used to the (X) button for closing apps. I'm not really sure if it closes all the apps that are open, or closes all but the one on the screen when you press it. But other than this small annoyance, I think that the phone is performing well.

Will try to update this article if I find more things I like or dislike about the phone.

Transfer Multiple Photos from Alcatel U5 to Windows 8 Laptop

For some reason, Windows 8 wasn't recognizing the Alcatel U5 Smartphone when it was being connected to any USB port even after swapping USB cables.

There's also the option of transferring files from the Alcated U5 to your Laptop via Bluetooth, but I haven't been able to do this for multiple files after the devices were paired. So, I kept looking for a multiple photo transfer solution.

Device Manager was showing the Alcatel U5 under Portable Devices with a yellow question mark. This means that the device was not properly recognized.

Tried updating the drivers automatically by searching online. It found an MTP driver, but was saying something about an INF error.

Looked for an alternative solution and found a video which was recommending that the MTP USB driver be installed manually from the C:\Windows\inf folder.

Changed the browse directory option and then chose the "Let me pick a list of drivers on my computer option".

Was looking for an MTP or MTP USB device option but initially, there were none. If you see a bunch of numbers with a USB icon, try that. I guess I got lucky. The next time I tried this option, it now gave me two options, MTP and MTP USB device. Choose MTP USB device.

If all goes well, you should now see the Alcated U5 as a portable media device along with your drives on Windows explorer. Right click on it and select import pictures and videos. There are settings which you can configure to streamline this process, but basically, what happens is the PC searches all the android phone folders and directories for all photos and videos and imports these to the computer. I initially found 1000+ pictures on the phone, and this might seem inefficient. But if you are using the same directory on your PC to store all photos, you can skip copying duplicates the next time you go through the process. Yes, searching through all the photos the second time or nth time around is inefficient, but it should only import the new ones.

Personally, I still prefer the old way of going through the DCIM folder and only selecting the photos that are new based on the date they were created. But this wasn't possible in my current situation, thus the workaround above. Hope it helps you out.

Google Play Error 194

If you're having an Error 194 issue on your Android phone, don't worry. It seems a lot of people have been affected by this issue. If you don't believe me, check out the link below.

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/play/hIIJ1nauNf4

Sometimes, the error changes to 927.

If you're planning to do a factory reset of your phone, let me save you the trouble. IT WILL NOT WORK. I had to learn the hard way.

Neither will clearing cache, data, etc. on the app you are having trouble with. The difficult thing about this error is that it has affected Google Play - the gateway to all other applications. It just shows how dangerous it is to be dependent on a single service provider.

Even if the phone is still able to browse the internet via wifi, the error will still come up. People have suggested modifying the date and time settings, turning the phone off and on, turning the wireless router off and on, turning your ISP's modem off and on. I've even watched a video advising modifying the host file using a root browser.

But I believe the problem is really with Google's service. It simply resolved itself. I, like other users, went through the easy troubleshooting steps above. With so many things I've done, I don't know if any of them helped since the last step I did, rebooting my modem, was what I did before the issue was resolved. But some users on the Google product forums claim that they did this step, too, and it did not resolve the issue. So it might just be coincidence, and Google's tech guys have finally been able to fix the issue after my last troubleshooting step.

If anyone has a clear and logical solution to this problem - something that has repeatedly been verified to work by other users, please drop a comment below and help others out. Thanks.

Till then, resist the temptation to do a factory reset on your phone, and wait a while.