Shortly after receiving my Elephone P8000 smartphone, I left it to charge overnight and woke up to find that the screen was flashing and flickering like a lighthouse. After a trying to remedy the problem by switching the phone off and on to no avail, I did a bit of googling to find that this was a common issue with the P8000.
People had posted comments into a number of forums with a few solutions.
Most solutions required going into the phone’s recovery mode which I believe is possible on all Android devices by following the following steps.
Entering Android Recovery Mode
1. Hold down the power button while repeatedly pressing the volume up key. This results in a tiny fonted menu giving options for
[Recovery Mode]
[Fast Boot Mode] and
[Normal Reboot]
2. Use the volume up button to point the arrows to [Recovery Mode] and then press volume down to select it.
3. At this point a dead Android icon may appear. If it does press the Power button and the volume up button to display the recovery menu.
From the recovery menu I tried a number of options as recommended by various users posting to forums
Recovery Menu Options
1. Reboot system now – Did not work : Selecting this option resulted in a white box appearing with the text Android is starting. A counter in the box incremented as each app loaded on the phone was Optimised. This took ages and as the counter got to the end i.e. 107 out of 107 it just stayed there indefinitely.
2. Clearing the cache then Reboot system now – did not work. : Same result as 1
3. Wiped data/Factory reset – Worked but did not fix problem permanently : Selecting this option allowed me to use the phone again however all of the apps and pics and any other data was wiped off the phone which was annoying as I’d spent ages setting it all up. Even more annoying was the fact that after charging my phone overnight again, the flickering screen issue re-occurred.
4.Loading the factory ROM – I didn’t try this as it seemed too complicated and time consuming for most people to bother with.
5. Run Nova launcher – Worked WHoo hoo! : After going through the whole factory reset hassle for the second time, I decided to install the Nova Launcher. I also installed the Google Launcher just to have a look. As I preferred the look of the Google Launcher, I used that instead of Nova but did not set it as the default launcher which I should have done. So I left the phone to charge overnight and alas, I awoke to a flickering screen. This time instead of going through the rigmarole of resetting the phone, I got into the list of applications and stopped the default launcher. The flickering immediately stopped. I then set Google Launcher as the default and fingers crossed I have not had the problem again.
You may be wondering what a launcher is exactly? Well, on Android smartphones including the P8000, the launcher is the application which runs in the background that displays all the icons on the phone’s home-screen that allow you to launch all of the various applications. The P8000 just like all Android smartphones comes with a pre-installed launcher which unfortunately don’t work.
So here are the steps to install and run a non-default, non-Elephone launcher to rid you of your Elephone P8000 flickering screen woes.
Installing an Alternative Launcher to resolve P8000 Flickering Screen
1. While your phone is still usable go into Play Store and and search for Launcher.
2. Select a launcher with decent ratings. I went for Google.
3. Install the launcher of your choice.
4. Press the home button on the phone which will prompt you to select either the default launcher or the newly installed launcher.
5. Make sure you tap Always and not Just Once to set the launcher to the default
If your phone is already flickering, there’s no need to worryas you can follow these steps…
Installing an Android Launcher while the P8000 Screen is Flickering
1. Swipe the screen down from the top which will display the notifications screen.
2. Swipe down again to show the basic settings page.
3. Tap the settings icon at the top of the screen to enter the proper settings page.
4. Scroll down and tap Apps
5. Swipe across to All and scroll down to Launcher with the Elephone logo
6. Tap that and hit Force Stop. The screen should immediately stop flickering.
7. Go back to the list of apps and select Google Play Store and follow the steps above.
From this point on, you should be able to charge your P8000 for as long as you want without having to worry about having to reset your phone and losing all your data. Let me know if this works for you too.