I must say I was over the moon when Lenovo announced that they would be updating their Lenovo Yoga 8 tablet and Lenovo p780 to Android KitKat. I had high hopes for this move given that the word on the street is that KitKat was made to run on low memory android phones.
Alas the experience so far has been heart breaking to say the least. I rarely reach for my Lenovo Yoga 8 tablet these days as it lags a lot and the same applies to the Lenovo P780 which can lag for Africa as we say in these parts. This lag is the main reason I’ve been pining for a Nokia Lumia device for some time now and I’m glad I’m not the only person having this issue as some peeps have started complaining about the same at GSM Arena
The lag suddenly increased yesterday and I practically lost it with the phone. Apps like Whatsapp, Asphalt 8, Pocket, Google keyboard started crashing at random and I decided it was time to end the mess!
I downgraded my Lenovo P780 from Android KitKat to Android JellyBean and hours later when I had restored all my data etc, sanity was restored!
That my dear friends is the only fix to the whole Android KitKat Lenovo P780 lag issue. Aside from the less laggy experience, battery life has improved tremendously once again.
How To Downgrade 4GB Lenovo P780 Android KitKat to JellyBean
Backup up your data! For stuff like SMS, contacts and call logs i recommend you use an app like Super Backup so that you can be rest assured that you can restore them without issues in Jelly Bean.
In my case I backed up my SMS using the default SMS app and after the downgrade, I couldn’t restore the backup again as it wasn’t compatible with Jelly Bean. In the end, I had to restore the sms backup to my Yoga 8 running Kitkat, then backup with Super Backup and transfer back to the P780.
Download and extract the pre-rooted Jelly Bean stock rom (P780_ROW_S124_140403_rooted_twrp_gapps.7z) or the unadulterated JellyBean ROM ( P780_ROW_S124_140403) and flash it (How To Flash Lenovo P780 Firmware and Other Lenovo Phones).
NOTE: The S124_140403 is the final jellybean firmware for the Lenovo P780 and seems to be the most stable too.
Once you’re done flashing the device, check to make sure that your IMEI numbers are intact and there’s no NVRAM warning under WiFi settings. If these issues exist refer to these guides to fix them: How to fix Wi-Fi NVRAM WARNING: ERR 0×10 and How to Change /Restore IMEI no on Android phones and tablets?. If you backed up IMEI using Mobile Uncle Tools, just use the same to restore it.
To perform the above fix, you’d have to root your Lenovo P780 running Android Jelly Bean with Framaroot i.e if you installed the unadulterated stock ROM.
Just download, install, run Framaroot and select the Barahir exploit. Reboot your phone and update SuperSU via Google Play Store and you’re good to go.
Downgrading to JellyBean comes with issues such as lack of space for apps. You might want to read How To Move Large Android Games Like Gameloft To SD Card for help with moving apps with large database to SD card using Folder Mount.
How To Downgrade Lenovo Yoga 8 Tablet Android KitKat to JellyBean
I’ve done this in the past before and documented the process at How To Downgrade Lenovo Yoga 8 Android 4.4.2 To 4.2. As soon as I’m done reading all my downloaded Zinio magazine subscriptions, I’ll be doing it again.
If you anyone has a better, less radical way of dealing with the lag issues on the KitKat running Lenovo P780, do please share in the comment section.
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