Samsung has launched a new app called GameDriver for its GalaxyS20 and Galaxy Note 20 series smartphones. The GameDriver app aims to improve and enhance the graphical performance of select games on its flagship phones through standalone GPU driver updates.
For those who are unaware, the app uses Google’s GPU Inspector Tool to improve the gaming experience. GameDriver is available for both Exynos and Qualcomm Snapdragon versions of Samsung’s current-gen flagship models. The company has currently picked only the Galaxy S20 and Note 20 models, however, it may bring support for additional devices in the future.
Samsung’s GameDriver App Compatibility
The GameDriver app from Samsung is the result of a partnership between Samsung, Google, and various GPU vendors such as Qualcomm and ARM. If you don’t know, Qualcomm partnered with Google to bring updatable GPU drivers to various Android smartphones that run compatible SoCs. Some of these include Qualcomm Snapdragon 765, 855, and 865 chipsets. With the new app, the South Korean company wants to bring the best gaming experience with boosted performance.
Note that the GameDriver application currently supports only a few Galaxy devices. These include the Galaxy S20, S20+, S20 Ultra, and the newly-added Galaxy S20 FE. Alongside, the app also comes with the support for Galaxy Note 20 and Note 20 Ultra. Samsung’s GameDriver app is launched in two versions — one for Qualcomm Snapdragon and the other for Exynos — to updatable GPU drivers.
Apart from this, the app currently works for only three games — Call of Duty: Mobile, Black Desert, and Fortnite. However, Samsung has plans to add more games in the future, though there’s no clear word on exactly when.
To allow people to better emulate professional-looking portraits, Google recently released Portrait Light for the Pixel Camera and Google Photos apps for smartphones. The new feature enhances the illumination for the captured portraits by adding a simulated directional light source, with the directionality and intensity set to complement the lighting from the original photograph. Traditionally, professional portrait photographers use specialized equipment like off-camera flashes and reflectors to create such compelling photographs.
GIF courtsey: Google AI Blog
Pixel Camera on Pixel 4, 4a / 4a 5G, and Pixel 5 automatically applies Portrait Light to images post-capture in the default mode. Additionally, the feature also applies to Night Sight photos that include people (one person or a small group) automatically. It provides more dynamic lighting to Portrait Mode photographs while accompanying the already-applied shallow depth-of-field effect, thereby creating studio-quality portraits. On the other hand, in Google Photos, users can manually re-position and adjust the brightness of applied lighting.
Technology Behind Portrait Lighting
GIF courtsey: Google AI Blog
Google has presented the technology behind Portrait Light that uses machine learning models to imitate off-camera lights used by portrait photographers. “Portrait Light models a repositionable light source that can be added into the scene, with the initial lighting direction and intensity automatically selected to complement the existing lighting in the photo, said Google in a blog post. Machine Learning is bringing a revolution in every domain. Master this modern-day technology through dedicated Machine Learning Training to help you ace in this field.
The tech giant constructed a custom lighting rig containing 331 individually-programmable LED light sources and 64 different cameras with their own viewpoints. It then photographed seventy different people using the Light Stage computational illumination system to generate the training data. After enough training on these images, Google’s AI can now alter the lighting to appear from a myriad of different directions based on the head position of the portrait’s subject. The algorithms estimate the head pose using MediaPipe Face Mesh.
Image courtesy: Google AI Blog
You can try Portrait Light on your existing images with slightly underexposed faces in your Google Photos library. The feature especially benefits the images with a single individual posed directly at the camera. According to Google, Portrait Light is the company’s first step towards creative post-capture lighting controls for smartphone cameras using machine learning. To get deeper knowledge on how you can manipulate the reality of programming make sure check out the list of help with coding websites.
Samsung is all set to launch three models of its famous S-series flagship namely Samsung Galaxy S21, Galaxy S21 Plus, and S21 Ultra in early January. The date is not confirmed officially yet, but it will be most probably on January 14.
Image Courtesy: LetsGoDigital
Earlier we have seen many renders and leaks of the upcoming Samsung flagship. However, this one is probably the biggest yet and is confirmed.
Samsungwill provide S-Pen with Galaxy S21 Ultra. As the Note series is known for coming with an S-Pen that comes in handy in plenty of ways, the same S-Pen will make its debut in S-series now.
However, the S-Pen will be sold separately as an accessory and will not come with the smartphone akin Note-series which has a separate slot for putting in S-Pen. The Korean tech giant will be selling two different phone cases separately that will have S-Pen.
This raises many questions like what will happen to the Note series afterward? However, the Note series will stay for some more years until all the variants of the S-series will have S-Pen. Note series is rather good in its own way and features some distinct features from S-series. So, Samsung will not put an end to it abruptly.
Moreover, here is the recap of the upcoming smartphones in the S-series. Samsung Galaxy S21 will feature three variants – Galaxy S21, S21 Plus, and S21 Ultra.
The Galaxy S21 the S21 Plus will come in white, pink, and purple color options having 128GB and 256GB storage options.
On the contrary, the Galaxy S21 Ultra will come in black and silver color options. The upcoming smartphone is also likely to have 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB storage options.
Today, almost every smartphone OEMs and carrier bundle their Android phones and tablets with bloatware. Unfortunately, even most of the flagship phones available in the market suffer from this problem. Bloatware is software or app that OEMs and carriers pre-install on your phone or tablet and you don’t have the privilege to remove them.
Generally, all smartphones and tablets have bloatware, the majority of which can be useless. Xiaomi has a tendency to put up more than a dozen bloatware that you would never use. When it comes to OEMs, they are either paid to pre-install an application from any developer or it could be to exercise higher control on the device such as in the case if the device is carrier-locked. Unlike third-party apps that users can uninstall, these apps cannot be uninstalled. Some of the bloatware can be disabled but you’ll find a hard way disabling all the unwanted bloatware.
Google Play Store is full of useful apps that you can employ. It has a catalog of debloater applications as well that help you uninstall carrier/OEM bloatware. However, these debloater apps require root access and thus, we aren’t going through with it.
Most of the other methods would require you to root and gain superuser privilege to get rid of unwanted apps. Perhaps there’s a way to uninstall carrier/OEM bloatware using ADB tools without rooting the phone. Here’s how it works.
How To Uninstall Carrier/OEM Bloatware On Android Smartphones Without Rooting?
Step #1: The first step is to download USB drivers for your phone.
Usually, the drivers are automatically installed on your PC when you connect your phone to the PC via a USB cable.
If it doesn’t download automatically, you can follow this procedure to update it right away.
Firstly, press ‘Windows + X’, click on ‘Device Manager’.
Search for ‘Portable Devices’, expand it, and right-click on your device name, for example: ‘OnePlus 7T’ or ‘Samsung Galaxy S20’, and so on.
Select ‘Update Driver’ and let it load and it is done.
Note: The process of updating the driver is different for Mac and Linux.
Step #2: Download ADB binary with respect to your particular OS (Linux, Mac, Windows). The downloaded file is in zip format that you will have to extract.
Step #3: Enable Developer Options
Go to Settings >> About Phone on your device. Tap on Build Number seven times and you’ll see a notification “You are now a Developer”.
Step #4: Enable USB Debugging. For that, you need to go to Settings >> About Phone >> System >> Developer Options >> Toggle USB Debugging.
Step #5: Connect the phone to the computer and when prompt the mode to select, you’d need to select ‘File Transfer (MTP)’.
Step #6: Open the directory where you extracted the downloaded ADB binary files.
Step #7: Navigate the cursor to a blank space and right-click on the mouse that will give various options. Click on ‘Open Command Window here’.
Step #8: Enter the command: adb devices on the command prompt and it will show if a device is connected or not.
Note: You will get a pop-up asking you to grant permission if you are using ADB tools for the first time on your computer. You have to click on ‘Accept’ or ‘OK’ to grant permission.
Step #9: In case you had to grant permission, enter the command “adb devices” again to check if the device is connected or not.
Step #10: Enter the command “adb shell” and that should give the command prompt a way into your smartphone via ADB.
Step #11: Next up, execute this command “pm list packages | grep ‘<Carrier/OEM/App Name’>” to find package names.
Note: If you want to get rid of MIUI apps, you can enter this command “pm list packages | grep ‘MIUI’” and this should find all the packages with ‘MIUI’ mentioned on it.
Step #12: You need to be extra cautious while selecting the package names as you are about to disable the said package from user zero. Here, an app available on Google Play Store called App Inspectorcomes in handy. Here’s how you can use it.
Go to ‘App List’ and you’ll see the list of apps installed both third-party and bloatware.
Click on any app and you should get ‘Package Name’.
Keep a note of which apps you want to get rid of and note their package name as well.
Step #13: Execute this command on Command Prompt “pm uninstall -k –user 0 <name of package>” and press enter.
For example, the package name for Mi Launcher is com.mi.launcher. Similarly, the code to execute to get rid of Mi Launcher would be “pm uninstall -k –user 0 com.mi.launcher” without the quotation mark.
Remember, you should delete any system applications as it will surely hinder the system’s performance and overall functionality. Moreover, delete that bloatware that you wouldn’t be needing. There’s always a probability that deleting bloatware will actually hinder the performance so keep account of these aftermath effects too.
Wrapping Up
After going through Step #1 to Step #13, you have successfully deleted the ‘n’ number of apps from user 0. Note that the apps are still available but not visible to you. Once you perform a factory reset, it will return. Removing a system application may ease up with the memory, but it will surely interfere with the overall performance of the smartphone since system apps can be interdependent. Thus, make note of bloatware that you don’t need such as TikTok or Facebook. We recommend never to try and remove a system app unless you exactly know the aftermath and your plan of action in the future.
Also, cache and other data remain idle along with the app (hidden from user 0) in the background. A user would require root access to get their hands on the app and delete it truly, otherwise it would return. But this bypasses our title which includes uninstalling bloatware without rooting.
How To Re-Install Bloatware?
We are wondering if you made a mistake removing a particular bloatware or system app somehow. Apparently, the app you used to detect the package name, App Inspector, can be used to keep a backup of the package. When you are searching for the package name on the app, take a backup of the package file.
You can install any package simply by going to the Downloads or whatever section you have assigned for downloaded files. Click on the package, tap on Install and bingo.
Another cool method to install any package is to open the command prompt on your computer and enter the command “adb shell cmd package install-existing <name of package>“. It translates as “adb shell cmd package install-existing com.mi.launcher” without the quotation mark if you want to re-install the Mi Launcher app. This method won’t require you to backup the application package as the package isn’t deleted in a true sense but rather hidden from user 0 i.e. you.
What If Something Goes Wrong?
Now, here comes the most crucial question. What if something goes wrong? Since we are talking about deleting/removing bloatware, things can go south. If that happens, you can simply perform a factory reset on your smartphone via the recovery mode. First, you need to take a backup of all the data before proceeding. Now, proceed to the recovery mode where the method might change depending upon which model and OEM you use. Once you proceed to the recovery mode, perform a factory reset by selecting ‘wipe data/factory reset’ and it is done. Doing so will restore all the apps and services on your device as it was before doing so.
Conclusion
Hope the ADB method to uninstall carrier/OEM bloatware on Android smartphone without rooting helps in your favor. For anything, you must be cautious with the methods listed above. Although the ADB method works for our Google Pixel, Samsung Galaxy S8, Moto G, and other devices, user discretion is needed. Do it on your own responsibility as AndroidFist isn’t liable for any negative outcomes after going through this guide.
Google on Thursday announced that macOS users can now use Secure LDAP on their macOS devices. When enabled, users will be able to log in to their macOS devices using their Google Workspace or Cloud Identity login credentials. According to Google, this will would help simplify access management by using a single directory, the IAM or Workplace Identity and Access Management platform, to manage access to macOS devices.
Intended to help improve security, the new ability aims to reduce users’ dependency on legacy identity infrastructure by providing a single place to set up identity and access policies. Admins just need to configure macOS clients to the Secure LDAP service. However, end-users will have no impact until enabled by an admin, said Google in a blog post.
Release Date and Availability
Image courtesy: VentureBeat
The Secure LDAP service for macOS is following a gradual rollout for both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains starting from December 10, 2020. The feature visibility may take up to 15 days. Note that this new feature is currently available to the following Google Workspace customers/users only: Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, G Suite for Education, Enterprise for Education, and Cloud Identity premium customers.
Users with Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, and Enterprise Essentials won’t get this at the moment. Also, Secure LDAP service for macOS is not available to G Suite Basic, Business, and Nonprofits customers.
Google has introduced Macro Converter, a Google Workplace add-on for Google Sheets, that will help users convert Microsoft Excel files with Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) code to Sheets files and Apps Script.
To automate processes, many organizations use macros in Sheets and Excel. Using the Macro Conversion add-on, Google Workspace Enterprise customers can determine the compatibility of Excel files and help convert them where possible. This new add-on can help teams to recreate Microsoft Excel macros in Google Sheets, thereby helping them save time through automation — at the same time reducing the work needed to convert files.
Macro Converter Roll-out, Usage, and Availability
Image courtesy: Twitter
To get started, and begin converting Excel files to Google Sheets files, end-users need to download the Macro Converter Add-on from the Google Workspace Marketplace. Admins can manage how users can use add-ons in their organization. Note that the add-on is already available for all users with Google Workspace Enterprise Plus and G Suite Enterprise for Education customers.
However, the Macro Conversion add-on is not yet available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, and Enterprise Standard customers. Also, users with G Suite Basic, Business, Education, and Nonprofits customers won’t receive the feature at the moment.
Google has announced that it is making working with Microsoft Office files sent over an email even easier for Gmail users. People can now view, edit, and collaborate on the attached Microsoft Office documents in Gmail easily. The company has said that Office files sent and received in Gmail can now be edited in Docs, Sheets, and Slides directly with just a single click. As per Google, users will now see a new edit icon that they can click on to open the document directly in Docs, Sheets, or Slides — all without losing the original format.
Previously, Gmail let users only view the emailed attachments and not edit them. To edit or modify them, users had to import those documents into Google Drive first. This is identical to opening a native Office file, but this time without converting them into Google Docs, preserving the original file format instead.
New Editing Feature and Roll-out Details
Image courtesy: Google Workspace Blog
The new editing ability for Office documents coming to Gmail is also bringing a few other features along with it. One of them is the ability to reply to the email from within the file. What this means is that Gmail will now allow its users to respond to the original email from the document itself. They can do so using the new options from the File menu in Docs, Sheets, and Slides. This will allow you to reply to the original email and include the now-updated document without even re-uploading the file.
Image courtesy: Google Workspace Blog
Note that there is no admin control for this feature, and end-users will have this feature turned ON by default. Available to all Google Workspace users, except Workplace Essentials and Enterprise Essentials customers, the new feature has already started rolling out for both Rapid and Scheduled Release domains from December 10. However, it may take up to 15 days for this feature to be visible for all users.
Google Chrome extensions have become a part of our daily usage while browsing the Internet, however, privacy and data security have always been a concern. But now, Google seems to be working on this and has said that Chrome extensions will have limited data access from next year. Through a blog post, the company announced that it is making Chrome extensions more private and secure from 2021. To make the web browser more secure, there will be a change in how permissions work when a user installs an extension on Google Chrome.
According to Google, the company will bring new changes on how extensions access data and how permissions work when an extension is installed in the coming year. In 2021, Google Chrome users will get to determine which websites the extension can access when they browse the web. Currently, the extension decides which websites it can access. The tech giant said once the user grants an extension the permission to access a website’s data, the user can save that preference for that particular domain.
Image courtesy: Google Blog
Note that the user will still have an option to grant an extension the access to all websites he visits, if the user decides. However, the extensions will not have the access to all websites by default.
Google Chrome Extensions to Be More Transparent
Image courtesy: Google Blog
Apart from the permissions, Google is also working on improving its developer policies to make extensions more transparent. The company said that starting January 18, every extension will publicly display its privacy practices. These will use simple language and clear visuals to explain what data they collect and use. Additionally, the web search giant is also limiting what extension developers can do with the data they collect.
Image courtesy: Google Blog
Next, there are more safety updates coming to Chrome with more protections through Estimated Safe Browsing. Google stated that if a user installs malicious extensions, Chrome Safety check will tell him/her how to remove them. Also, the company once again assured that it’s priority is to continue developing features that protect users’ data and keep them safe, while they choose extentions that help them get the most out of Google Chrome.
Spotify, the world’s largest music streaming service has finally rolled out a feature that will allow users to add a custom cover and description to their playlists.
Starting today, Spotify users everywhere will be able to upload custom covers and descriptions to their homemade playlists—using their phones. Just in time for gift-giving season 🎁 https://t.co/xEkX6jF62t
This feature was limited to PC users only, but things have changed for good now. Not only that, but Spotify users can also set a description for their custom playlist.
Thankfully, this feature is available for both free and premium Spotify users so everyone will be able to make use of it.
This comes in handy and gives more of a “my playlist” kind of vibe as you have full access to customization of your playlist.
Here is how to add a custom cover to your Spotify playlist
This is fairly easy to do just follow these simple steps.
Head to your existing playlist (or create the new one if you want)
Click on the three dots on the top right corner.
Tap “Edit”
Now, click on the default cover or tap on “Change Image” and choose the new image you want from your phone gallery.
Click on “Use Image” when you are done.
Additionally, you can change the title if you want and underneath that add some description if you would like.
Tap on “Save” and you are done.
Besides that, Spotify also seems to be working on a new feature that might roll out soon in the coming updates. The new feature is ‘Trim Silence’ that allows users to skip pauses in podcasts. As per the tweet below we can see that the upcoming feature was toggled on from the settings.
Spotify is working on “Trim Silence” for podcasts !!!
The OnePlus 8 Series and OnePlus 7 series support 5G but they do not support all frequency bands under the ‘5G’ network. It means unless you don’t support the specific band available in any given region, you won’t be able to access 5G. But unlocking 5G bands is a pretty straightforward method. Phone users have been doing it for 4G+/LTE+/LTE and other networks as well.
Although unlocking and adding 5G frequency bands currently not supported by your OnePlus device is not difficult, it’s not easy as well. You need to know that you can configure 5G frequency bands with the instructions given in this guide only if they are tied with software-defined limitations. There’s no doubt that you cannot toggle and turn on 5G on a specific band if not supported by the hardware-defined combination. Here are detailed step-by-step instructions on how to modify/configure 5G and bands on OnePlus 7 and OnePlus 8 series, enable 5G NR, 5G SA and DSS.
How to Enable 5G on OnePlus 8 Series and OnePlus 7 5G
First thing first, you need to check out the supported combos on your OnePlus 8 / 8 Pro / 7 Pro 5G / 7T Pro 5G. This should give you a clear idea of what bands your OnePlus device supports be it for LTE, LTE 4×4, NR NSA (5G), and NR SA bands (5G).
Caution: Note that using this guide, you will be enabling or disabling both 4G carrier aggregation and 5G EN_DC combinations and band support. This works only if the hardware supports it. For example, if your phone doesn’t support the 4G anchor band which is used in the USA even though it supports the 5G band, you won’t be able to enable or disable it due to hardware limitations.
Disclaimer: Going through with this guide will put a bullet in your device warranty and it will void. We aren’t responsible for any ill-effects your OnePlus device might suffer after going through this guide. Thus, user discretion is needed.
This part of the guide helps you connect to 5G since the OEM didn’t add 5G to the carrier policy on your OnePlus 8, OnePlus 8 Pro, and OnePlus 7T Pro, OnePlus 7 Pro 5G. This also aids in connecting to 5G in case if your phone isn’t able to connect to 5G in a region where 5G is available. This could be due to various issues including the fact that your phone might not be supporting the available frequency band.
Requirements
These are the things that you would require beforehand. To make things easy for all your readers, we have listed the links so that you can simply download the required files and programs right away.
EngineerMode
Earlier, OnePlus allowed users to toggle to the EngineerMode simply by tapping *#801# on the phone. However, it no longer works. Thus, you can download the EngineerMode apk available here and install it.
OnePlus Driver
This is crucial. You’ll need an OnePlus driver installed on your PC or computer which helps recognize the device and carry out further operations. Here’s the link to download the driver.
Install QPST
Next up, you need to install a QPST application on your computer which is Qualcomm’s terminal that allows tweaking the frequency bands among others. You cantap here to download the QPST application.
Download two XML files with enabled 5G network for carrier policy
Next up, you need these two XML fileswhere we have already ‘enabled 5G network’ onto the carrier policy. You are required to remove the existing carrier policy and replace it with these two XML files.
A USB cable
This is but of course. You’ll need a USB cable to establish a connection between your phone and the computer.
Diag-Driver Installation
This is the next step. When you connect your OnePlus 8, 8 Pro, and OnePlus 7 5G, it should automatically install the diag-driver if it runs on Android 10. But for Android 11 and others, you may have to install the driver on your Windows PC. Check out our Requirements section and you’ll find the link to download the latest driver. Also, you have to do it manually if you are running Android 11 and thus, the aforementioned.
Once you download it through the link mentioned above and install it, as usual, launch it. Assuming that you have connected your phone with the computer as per our previous step, you’ll find that Device Manager will detect two devices connected to it. OnePlus 8 Europe as IN2013 and IN2017 as its model number. OnePlus 8 Pro has model numbers N2023, IN2020, IN2021, and IN2025. Just check your phone model number beforehand to avoid any confusion. These model numbers change w.r.t. the region they are being sold in.
Step By Step Guide On How To Enable 5G On OnePlus 8 Series and OnePlus 7 5G
Part 1: Ready it ready
Step #1: First up, you need to enable ‘Engineer Mode Toggle’ or ‘Rndis, diag switch’. If you have a built-in EngineerMode, you can simply dial *#801# to enable it. Since OnePlus has gotten rid of the EngineerMode, you have to install the APK and enable it.
Note: If you have Android 11, you need to enable EngineerMode (Engineer Toggle). If you are still running Android 10, you need to enable Rndis, diag switch.
Step #2: Connect the OnePlus device to the PC or computer via USB.
As mentioned in the “Diag-Driver Installation”, you already know that your Windows PC will automatically install the driver. If not, you have to install it manually. You need to check if you have installed the updated driver or not. We have posted the link to download the USB driver in the “Requirements” section for ease. The downloaded file will be in the zip so unzip it and then, install the same as usual.
Part 2: Using the QPST
Step #3: Next step is to launch the QPST application you downloaded earlier as seen in the “Requirements” section.
Step #4: Click on the menu ‘Start Clients’ and then, select ‘QPST EFS Explorer’. You will see the files active i.e. devices.
Step #5: You must see a list of two devices connected with the state as ‘Enabled’. You need to select the device SDX55M which stands for Snapdragon X55 Model and it handles all the 5G connections and aspects on your device.
Remember: Whatever you make the changes to, it will be with the device with the phone model ‘SDX55M’. Don’t manipulate the SM8250 (OnePlus 8 series) or other devices with SM prefix as it is the processor.
Step #6: Next step is to go to ‘Policyman’.
Step #7: In the Policyman directory, you’ll find two files with the names “carrier_policy.xml” and “carrier_policy.xml_Subscription01”. Make sure that you have a copy of these two XML files on your computer in case if required for later use.
Step #8: Next up, delete those two XML files mentioned above.
Step #9: Remember we posted a link to two XML files in the “Requirements” section. These files have a 5G enabled network already. Simply download those two files on your computer.
Step #10: Use its drag-and-drop functionality to drop these two XML files to the Policyman directory one by one. This won’t take more than a few seconds.
Step #11: Make sure you get the valid XML syntax before jumping on and uploading the files to the phone.
Step #12: Finally, reboot your OnePlus 8, 8 Pro, or 7 5G, and bingo, your 5G is enabled now.
You need to enable 5G NR (New Radio) on your OnePlus 8 and 8 Pro. For that, simply hit this code on the dialer app *#*#4636#*#*. Proceed to ‘Phone Information’ and then, select ‘Preferred Network Type’. You need to choose between these two options to get a 5G NR setup on your device.
“NR/LTE/TDSCDMA/CDMA/EvDO/GSM/WCDMA” or “NR/LTE/TDSCDMA/GSM/WCDMA”. You choose either one of them depending upon which carrier you have and what types of network it supports among others. If you don’t understand which option to select, it is better to call your telecom service provider and get the required information.
Caution: We are assuming that you have the 5G SIM on the SIM 1 slot. Changing the SIM card or swapping it will cause the modifications to undo.
To confirm if you have 5G reception or not, you need to find a 5G region to get the 5G support on your device. TheCellMapper appavailable on Google Play Store displays information on 5G/4G/3G/2G (SA and NSA) availability among others.
This method works in case if your carrier policy is not updated to support 5G or if you aren’t able to connect to a 5G network even though you are in a 5G hotspot.
How to Enable 5G SA for Android 11 on OnePlus device
The Chinese smartphone giant OnePlus keeps the 5G SA disabled by default. It remains disabled unless you are using a certain telecom carrier such as T-Mobile in the US pushes 5G SA (Standalone) by default.
Here, you have already added the line <nr5G_nsa_bands base=”hardware”/>. You need to add the line <nr5g_sa_bands base=”hardware”/>
Next up, you will have to use “Network Signal Guru” on your OnePlus smartphone to change the NR5G mode from NSA (Non-Standalone) to NSA/SA or SA (Standalone). This will force the system to connect to 5G SA on OnePlus smartphones by default.
How To Enable DSS on OnePlus smartphones
In simple words, Dynamic Spectrum Sharing or DSS allows telecom carriers and operators to use the same existing spectrum bands for different radio technologies. The best example would be carriers using existing spectrum bands speedier 4G to support 5G networks. Here, DSS allows operators to tweak frequency bands to sustain both 4G and 5G on the same spectrum and adjust it as per the needs.
Now that you know where to find the policyman directory, spot the file titled “lte_feature_restrictions.xml”. Take a backup of the existing file in case required.
Look for the section “dss_plmns”. These are the networks that support DSS on your OnePlus devices. You can see the said section below.
Search for the MCC-MNC codes for your telecom carrier. For example, Verizon Wireless in the US has MCC-MNC codes 311-286, 311-270, 311-275 among others. Similarly, T-Mobile has MCC-MNC codes such as 310-250, 310-160, and so on in the U.S.
For example, if you wish to add Verizon Wireless MCC-MNC code, you can add ‘ 311-286’ in the list before the angle brackets close.
Next up, you need to go to the “NR_DSS” section where you’ll see ‘ </all_of>’ just after the dss_plmns is called. You need to change it to ‘</any_of’ without the quotation mark and it is done.
Make sure the XML syntax of the file you edited is correct and save it.
Reboot the phone and bingo, it is done.
There you have it. This guide details step-by-step instructions on how to enable 5G on OnePlus devices that support 5G. Using this guide, you’ll also know how to add bands and configure or modify it to subscribe to more bands. Also, you get an easy how to enable DSS on your OnePlus device. We have also listed step-by-step instructions to enable 5G NR and 5G SA on your OnePlus smartphone as well.
