www.chinaphonearena.com

- Will the user data area be cleared when I root that phone? I heard most do, but some keep the data and installed apps.

- is there any fix for a non-rooted S5 to get rid of that f*cking MAC change behaviour (sorry, usually that is not my language, but try to use an S5 in a WLAN that does not allow "new devices" and you will understand why I am angry)? My WLAN router is flooded with all these new MAC addresses.

- is there a fix for the very short backlight time behind the soft buttons? In the night, it goes dark too fast! The order of the buttons is totally different from my tablet, that's why I would prefer a much longer time because sometimes I just need to look at the buttons to find out which button is supposed to do what.

- is there a way to speed up GPS? The simplest Huawei X3 (at least that's how it's called in Germany) is much faster. When there's a fix, it's precise, but it needs a lot of patience.

Otherwise, I really like that phone. But I don't understand some of the decisions of the manufacturer (glass is like a mirror, no notification LED, no flat back, MAC address "variability", slow GPS pickup, ...)

I am considering it as I want to get rid of chinese-only apps (no way to understand what they are doing) and possibly the MAC problem.

See you,

Christian

Just for the record: I successfully rooted it (thanks, folks here!), but after nearly half a year the display gives up (flickering, not updating, ...). And I'm not alone here with this problem.

Definitely a no-go. Though I did like it (very good screen, until that problem appeared - was something people looked at).

Problem points:

- the softkeys stopped working 2 months ago (but for a rooted phone, there's an app replacing them, so no big harm done)
- the front camera became unusable due to dust
- the GPS is nearly unusable (takes extremely long for a fix, loses contact quite often, and is imprecise)

So: not only a non-recommensation, but now a word of warning: do not buy it.

Christian