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Tadi edited this page Feb 27, 2023 · 16 revisions

TP1803, known to the media as Nubia Mini 5G is an OEM-unsupported Snapdragon 855 powered engineering/concept device, distributed brand new in boxes in rather unspecified numbers, supposedly around thousand units. The most attractive characteristics are secure boot off state (the SEC_BOOT1 fuse that controls most of verification, except MBA, modem and Qualcomm-controlled bootchain parts isn't blown, the other fuses are confirmed to be clean too), 5G modem, compact size and low pricing.

For a device community group, refer to the channel above.

Official ROMs:

Specifications:

  • Dimensions and weight: 148.0mm 70.6mm 7.6mm 153g
  • Platform: Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 with X50 5G modem
  • Battery: 3450mAh
  • Screen: 5.7’ 18:9 1080p TFT-LCD panel from JDI - dsi_jdi_hx83112a_1080_2160_5p65_video_display - claimed 85% screen-to-body ratio
  • Touchscreen controller: Himax HX83112
  • Notification LEDs: Red and green only - no blue
  • GNSS: GPS/GLONASS/GALILEO/QZSS/Beidou (single frequency?)
  • 2G: B3 (1800MHz), B8 (900MHz/E)
  • 3G: B1 (2100MHz), B8 (900MHz)
  • LTE: B1 (2100MHz), B3 (1800MHz), B8 (900MHz)
  • 5G NR: n78 (3300-3800), n257 (26500-29500), n260 (37000-40000), n261 (27500-28350)
  • NFC: No
  • Fingerprint sensor: Rear-mounted Sunwave SW6161
  • Secure boot status: APPS: off, MPSS (modem): off, MBA: off
  • Audio amplifier: AWINIC aw87318
  • Sdcard: No
  • Storage: 64GB UFS 2.1 (SanDisk)
  • RAM: 6GB LPDDR4X 2133MHz
  • Rear camera: 48MP IMX586 – Sunny A48N02F
  • Front camera: 8MP OV8856

Sensors:

  • Gyroscope and Accelerometer (STM LSM6DSM)
  • Accelerometer (AKM AK0991X)
  • Proximity (TMD2725)

NOTE: Because this project is about dealing with a unique preproduction-like device and because our ideas towards it are rather clear, the following list is made to help you decide if you're willing to join in, especially while thinking about daily usage. It's aimed to be as comprehensive as possible, so if something isn't listed here, you may assume that it doesn't affect TP1803. If unsure, feel free to ask. We're doing our best to be clear and transparent, and over 30 units are already in people's hands globally over the world. The amount of Chinese users is said to be bigger. As of 2023 and earlier, any new units are unlikely to be available, but availability of pre-owned ones can be sufficient for interested people.

Currently found hardware flaws/characteristics that are more or less unit specific are:

  • Little scratch-like areas under the glass around the front camera, most likely caused by production process responsible for handling the camera hole cut. Doesn't seem to affect front camera image. Visible mostly in bright light at an angle. Confirmed 1 unit ~Tadi.
  • Supposed heating and dimmed, weird backlight brightness behavior that is observed while changing the brightness level by either the slider and the kernel node. Confirmed 1 unit ~SkyKing. Can be easily tested with root shell on the stock kernel: for i in $(seq 4095); do echo $i > /sys/class/backlight/panel0-backlight/brightness ; cat /sys/class/backlight/backlight/brightness ; sleep 0.000001 ; done; - on a proper unit it has to constantly increase the brightness, never push it down (make sure that backlight timeout is preferably 5 minutes in settings). This unit died, no other known unit had the same fate, it was a faulty PMIC.
  • Display white balance between units can differ a little bit (not really visible without a second unit in hand).
  • Rear camera focus behavior can differ, a given range can have a (typically small) "jump" that is best visible with slow swiping on manual focus slider, for example in Open Camera. The unit where it was really pronounced is owned by Wyroczen. This may be potentially solvable by applying actuator driver modifications, but currently known solution is to apply an extra material inside to press the module into the body more (and so give the actuator more space for movement), it seems to be a fully working solution.
  • Vibration sound between units can differ. It can also temporarily disappear, seemingly correlating with device temperature.

Currently found all unit sw & hw flaws/characteristics are:

  • The brightness difference between the value 1 and 5 in the linear kernel node starts at the value of 5. As much as this is trivial, it may cut a bit of usable brightness slider area. It can be possibly solved in kernel or mapped out in the framework.
  • Max display brightness creates a bit of warmness in the bottom.
  • Power button is acceptably wobbly (clicky and solid enough, but not as tight as volume and shortcut buttons).
  • GPS is picky. Fixed by updated GPS stack (non-stock vendor).
  • Default offline charging implementation can't run with custom system. Fixed on non-stock ROMs.
  • There's just two notification LED colors: green and red. Both are really dim, so not really reliable. Maybe an OC is possible?
  • Apps relying on DRM freeze on AOSP 10 GSI, including DRM Info app and Chrome. Widevine isn't present. Fixed on non-stock vendor.
  • Touch detection always stays at the same pressure and size levels, both 0.56. The minimal distance of detected initial movement is around 1-2 milimeters.
  • Sometimes (rarely) right after display wake up it can glitch itself (for example mirroring the lines). This state is connected with touch unavailability. Both events can happen at once or separately. This may be due to clocks, a mode, ESD or hardware design.
  • Sometimes the rear camera can unlucky boot, this seems to be connected with the ambient lighting. A phone booted in dim environment seems to be more likely to boot with an exposure time that stays no matter the settings or a black viewfinder. Fixed on non-stock (11) vendor.
  • The camera processing (at least the viewfinder) has an inbuilt form of tonemapping. By definition, it's a feature, but probably not the one that we'd like to have enabled by default. Fixed on non-stock (11) vendor.
  • For now, creating a 5 GHz hotspot seems impossible. Fixed on non-stock vendor.
  • Some people reported that clicking reboot in the system can actually boot to EDL at times. It's a rare occurrence and may be connected with freezes that may happen once in a while. Current knowledge suggests that it may be related to modem.
  • Low call loudspeaker volume, at least on matching stock CAF tag system image ~Tadi. Doesn't seem to be reported now on current vendors.
  • The default rear camera is extremely dim due to being forced to ISO 100. Fixable by renaming com.qti.sensor.nx629j_imx586.so file in /vendor/lib64/camera/ to com.qti.sensor.tp1803_imx586.so. Further exposure modifications are possible. Doesn't affect custom vendors.
  • IBootControl causes bootloops on non-stock system images. /vendor/etc/vintf/manifest.xml modification is required (the whole hal format section of IBootControl has to go away. Doesn't affect custom vendors.
  • By default, the phh's GSI doubles the logarythmic brightness changes. This requires a toggle to be clicked in the Treble App shipped with the GSI. Doesn't seem to affect custom vendors.
  • Stock ships with persist.radio.multisim.config set to dsds in vendor, so some systems may dislike it. This is fixed by changing this prop to ssss, as it's a single SIM device. Doesn't affect custom vendors.
  • Stock fastboot mode is really limited. This is solved by flashing custom abl.

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