( 2021 October ) Sharing My Experience With Micromax IN Note 1 | Android 12 GSI, GCam, Build Quality

micromax in note 1 pro new smartphone android 12 update

This Diwali there was a need of a smartphone for my mother and to what her uses currently I felt that a device which we know as the IN Note 1 by Micromax will be best suited and also more than enough. So I bought the same during the Big Billion Days Sale when it was perfectly priced at ₹9499 for the 4 – 64 GB Variant.

I had options like Poco M3, Samsung F12, Infinix Hot 10 Series and Realme Narzo Series too but I chose IN Note 1 above them as I had already used the device a couple of months back from a relative who bought the same device who had a battery drain and charging pin issue in his Nokia 6.1 Plus.

The Delivery of IN Note 1

The device I got had the same things which I wanted a good camera ( which indeed is ) as Micromax has given Samsung’s skgm1st 48MP Back Sensor coupled with a 16MP front camera from Omnivision which had a better picture quality when compared to my own Samsung Galaxy A50s.

I enjoyed the clean UI which is worth mentioning that is not a stock android and Micromax does say that only “Stock Android Experience”.

The Speaker Drama

All the happiness of my successful purchase were shattered when my cousin noticed that the speaker of this device produced cracky sound, it’s good to mention that the device has a average speaker only and you shouldn’t expect more in that range, but this issue was some more like the speaker membrane was torn as it produced cracky sounds on higher tones, which was not welcome. After a couple of tries of what companies say restarting, updating and resetting didn’t fix the issue then I had made my mind to request a replacement from Flipkart.

And the drama went on Flipkart sent a Jeeves guy to whom I explained the issue cleary to which he acknowlegded that yes, there was a manufacturing issue with the device itself. Surprisingly within 10 minutes of his departure after he did his software diagnostics ( you know that software won’t detect the faulty speaker hardware which was producing sound but not what is expected ) my replacement was cancelled. Calling Flipkart didn’t work where they said we will reach me after 4 days I had to use the social media gun.

I took it to Twitter and tagged the Official Micromax and Flipkart Support Handles where I wrote about the experience I had. To which Micromax said to call their customer service and Flipkart said it will call me within a hour. I called Micromax CS to which I got a reply that I will have to go to their service center which is about 30km from my home and said if I want a replacement then I will have to contact Flipkart. 

Then again I tweeted raising a complaint that both Flipkart and Micromax were blaming each other and none of them were resloving my issue to which Flipkart called me and said we are approving your replacement request ( evidently this time I wasn’t asked to perform a restart, etc when I explained in detail ) . Micromax too had replied me asking about my pincode and some other details to which I said that Flipkart has already accepted the request.

Next Day, the same technician showed up.. but this time there wasn’t any technician approval thing on my replacement request and hence I got the replaced product within a few days.

The speaker was fine this time but the wide angle camera gave foggy images which wasn’t the case with first device but who uses wide angle camera in daily life. Moreover if by chance it will be needed I have my A50s. So I skipped the replacement this time :p

Micromax IN Note 1 Software, Battery and Camera

The IN Note 1 had some issues which were shown by tech youtubers on D-Day but the device had two updates which solved the issues and the software is clean and running smoothly.

As the update said it had solved out the heating issues, bought Raw Camera support, LTE Carrier Aggregation was enhanced,etc. So I was loving all these features.

The Battery of the device is 5000 mAH and yes it sufficient enough for 1.5-2 days of medium-to-high usage. The charging times are good given the fact that it has a 18W charger only and gets fully charged from 10- 100% in less than 2 hours.

The camera from the device is exceptional and performed above expections, but some changes in the software like better HDR processing, and human skin texture reproduction in the front camera ( will show the skin not being smooth which isn’t the case ) should be improved through cumulative software updates.

The dynamic range as seen in both front and back camera performs well under a working GCam. Finding a GCam that works with your device is a real pain. 

Software Updates and IN Note 1 Android 12 Experience

Micromax had responded to the issues which were faced by its users by providing quick 2 updates to its IN Series devices, but lately after the Android 10 beta update there wasn’t any activity seen in the public domain. 

Many users are demanding and waiting for the Android 11 updates but it seems Micromax either stuck in the pandemic or making their new device as didn’t find any Android update officialy from Mmx devs for 5-6 months and even more.

Android Updates and Flashing GSI Beta A12

When Google is set to release android 12 updates Micromax IN Note 1 users are egaerly waiting for MMX devs to release the android 11 update for their device. 

I was pretty tempted to use Gcam with this particular device there were some which worked but as we know HDR+, Night Sight and even more features work well when GCam is ported for a particular device and some GCam work well with Android 11 and higher then it felt an urge to try install the Android 12 GSI on IN Note 1.

And I did the same I installed the A12 GSI which was posted by google and the flashing was successful. IN Note 1 had got Android 12 see below video for what were some the bugs which I faced.

The first issue which I got to see was the layout of notification menu. I wasn’t aware of what had caused it. But here’s a quick fix the given issue can be solved by deleting the vendor overlays as it had a sure conflict with the notif tab.

Secondly Volte issue Volte wasn’t present and to fix that there was a workaround which I didn’t try that was to copy the required files which are important for IMS and hence VoLTE to work from the system folder from Stock rom.

Third issue You can’t call anyone neither receive one as there was some app required to show to notification and call screen you couldn’t call anyone. That was although fixed by installing the Phone app from Google and rebooting the device which got rid of no voice during call.

Fourth isssue During calling you will face echo of your own voice ( you will be able to hear the other person’s voice though ). This particular issue can be solved by flashing a call_echo fix of Dot OS ( Credits : OG Devs And Testers on telegram )

Now when I discussed the above problems with some other users of the same devices who were into installing Custom ROMs they suggested to flash the A12 GSI build from phh and I flashed the same when he released the the beta 3 A12

Gag4n
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