Can't install SIM card and SD card on Specter 8 Tablet.

[Roger Blair]

I just got a QLink Specter 8 tablet. I'm trying to insert a SIM card and an SD card into the tablet. I've found the TF slot, and I've put the SIM card there, but I can't find a place for the SD card. I can't find a manual for the tablet, so I can't figure out where to put the SD card. I can't even figure out how to open the tablet to get to an internal slot for one of these two cards. Can anyone help me out?

Thanks.

 

[hallux]

The manual can be found here - https://support.qlinkwireless.com/phone-user-manuals-2/#tablet

Note - it's 'Scepter', not 'Specter'.

It appears that there is no SIM slot, based on some answers on the Amazon listing for the device. The SD card would go in the 'TF Slot'...

 

[B. Diddy]

Take a picture of the slot where you inserted the SIM card and post it here: http://forums.androidcentral.com/ge...ide-how-post-screenshots-android-central.html. I wonder if you inserted the SIM card into the microSD slot.

 

[Kizzy Catwoman]

Sounds to me as if SIM IS in SD slot. TF stands for TransFlash storage which is another name for micro SD card

 

[L0n3N1nja]

I see no mention of SIM compatibility in the brief manual and the Amazon listing I found shows WiFi as the only connectivity.

Does this tablet even support a SIM card?

 

[mustang7757]

I see no mention of SIM compatibility in the brief manual and the Amazon listing I found shows WiFi as the only connectivity.

Does this tablet even support a SIM card?

I only seen wifi , sd card capabilities though

 

[Roger Blair]

Find IMEI number on Scepter 8 tablet

I'm trying to find the IMEI number on my Scepter 8 tablet. The number doesn't appear in settings, and there's no phone app (or microphone, for that matter), so I can't use the secret code to find it. I can't locate the info on the QLink Wireless website, so how do I proceed?

 

[hallux]

Re: Find IMEI number on Scepter 8 tablet

that device does not support cellular connectivity so it wouldn't have an IMEI number.

 

[B. Diddy]

Re: Find IMEI number on Scepter 8 tablet

If you'll recall from your other thread, we don't believe your Scepter 8 tablet has a SIM slot, which means it doesn't have a cell radio. IMEI is for devices that have cell radios.

EDIT: Sniped by hallux!

 

[mustang7757]

[Merged Threads]

 

[LineageOS-Dev]

Your assessment of the QLink Scepter 8 tablet is 100% accurate. I was just given one of these tablets for development purposes. It is WiFi only; no SIM slot and no integrated cellular radio baseband. This may be the first ever carrier-branded mobile device that doesn't have a cellular radio, thus making it unsupported for the carrier that manufactured it. This would be closely akin to Chevron manufacturing a lawnmower that runs on battery power.

 

[Mooncatt]

This may be the first ever carrier-branded mobile device that doesn't have a cellular radio, thus making it unsupported for the carrier that manufactured it.

QLink is the U.S. Federal government's "free" cell service provider, so this isn't very surprising. We get this sort of oddball question in relation to them more than any other carrier, and they lock things down so much that it's hard for us to provide much help.

 

[LineageOS-Dev]

QLink is the U.S. Federal government's "free" cell service provider, so this isn't very surprising. We get this sort of oddball question in relation to them more than any other carrier, and they lock things down so much that it's hard for us to provide much help.

Yeah I just done some research on QLink and their nationwide 4G-LTE/5G network. I must admit, I wish I could qualify for the service. Subscribers get a free smartphone (or they can use a compatible phone of their own per the BYOP program), free unlimited calling, texting and unlimited data (with no maximum cap for exceeding a set amount). The unlimited data is being provided as part of the Emergency Broadcast Benefit (EBB) approved by good old Uncle Sam. Normally, 4.5 GB of 4G-LTE/5G data per month is the allotted amount per subscriber. The nationwide network is Sprint, which is now owned, maintained and operated by T-Mobile per last year's acquisition and merger. In turn, QLink subscribers have the option of either T-Mobile's traditional nationwide GSM coverage or their CDMA nationwide coverage . Here's the real good part: QLink does not officially provide allotted data in its monthly data plans for mobile hotspot or tethering. However, a well-known loophole -- a simple tweak of the APN parameters - allows users to enjoy high-speed, fully unlimited 4G-LTE/5G mobile hotspot as well. Some QLink subscribers at XDA recently boasted using in excess of 500GB in a month! So yeah, I've got to find some poor soul who will sell me his/her SIM card. My biggest question is how on earth is QLink not detecting such an enormous consumption of data by subscribers? Then I got my answer: they have more to worry about. On June 9th earlier this year, dozens of agents from the US Postal Inspection Police, the FBI, the Department of Justice, the Internal Revenue Service and the Broward County Sheriff's Department raided QLink's corporate office in South Florida. Several crates and boxes of documents were seized by the agents. While the root of the investigation has been very tight-lipped, it is known that QLink is being investigated for federal wire fraud and defrauding the US government under the terms of a federal contract (Lifeline and the Emergency Broadband Benefit I am assuming). https://www.freegovernmentcellphones.net/q-link-wireless-raided-by-fbi-irs-us-post-office-sheriffs
So maybe I should hold up on trying to buy a SIM ??

 

[Mooncatt]

Yeah I just done some research on QLink and their nationwide 4G-LTE/5G network. I must admit, I wish I could qualify for the service. Subscribers get a free smartphone (or they can use a compatible phone of their own per the BYOP program), free unlimited calling, texting and unlimited data (with no maximum cap for exceeding a set amount). The unlimited data is being provided as part of the Emergency Broadcast Benefit (EBB) approved by good old Uncle Sam. Normally, 4.5 GB of 4G-LTE/5G data per month is the allotted amount per subscriber. The nationwide network is Sprint, which is now owned, maintained and operated by T-Mobile per last year's acquisition and merger. In turn, QLink subscribers have the option of either T-Mobile's traditional nationwide GSM coverage or their CDMA nationwide coverage . Here's the real good part: QLink does not officially provide allotted data in its monthly data plans for mobile hotspot or tethering. However, a well-known loophole -- a simple tweak of the APN parameters - allows users to enjoy high-speed, fully unlimited 4G-LTE/5G mobile hotspot as well. Some QLink subscribers at XDA recently boasted using in excess of 500GB in a month! So yeah, I've got to find some poor soul who will sell me his/her SIM card. My biggest question is how on earth is QLink not detecting such an enormous consumption of data by subscribers? Then I got my answer: they have more to worry about. On June 9th earlier this year, dozens of agents from the US Postal Inspection Police, the FBI, the Department of Justice, the Internal Revenue Service and the Broward County Sheriff's Department raided QLink's corporate office in South Florida. Several crates and boxes of documents were seized by the agents. While the root of the investigation has been very tight-lipped, it is known that QLink is being investigated for federal wire fraud and defrauding the US government under the terms of a federal contract (Lifeline and the Emergency Broadband Benefit I am assuming). https://www.freegovernmentcellphones.net/q-link-wireless-raided-by-fbi-irs-us-post-office-sheriffs
So maybe I should hold up on trying to buy a SIM ??

I'm not familiar with that investigation, but I was looking around trying to assist with another question about this tablet and just found nothing but complaints. Complaining either about the tablet being worthless (and the decade old specs on a 2021 tablet would bear that out), or complaints about the lack of customer service when things go wrong. Considering they are taxpayer subsidised, I'm not surprised if they played fast and loose with their membership agreements. If subscribers were bilking them out of 500 GB a month, QLink had little incentive to care. They could just bill the taxpayers to cover the extra overhead, which would be my suspicion on the investigation. Then again, I would be surprised if the feds actually cared enough to stop it. Being frugal isn't exactly one of the U.S. government's strong suits.

 

[LineageOS-Dev]

I'm not familiar with that investigation, but I was looking around trying to assist with another question about this tablet and just found nothing but complaints. Complaining either about the tablet being worthless (and the decade old specs on a 2021 tablet would bear that out), or complaints about the lack of customer service when things go wrong. Considering they are taxpayer subsidised, I'm not surprised if they played fast and loose with their membership agreements. If subscribers were bilking them out of 500 GB a month, QLink had little incentive to care. They could just bill the taxpayers to cover the extra overhead, which would be my suspicion on the investigation. Then again, I would be surprised if the feds actually cared enough to stop it. Being frugal isn't exactly one of the U.S. government's strong suits.

Amen to that. Excellent points. While pretty low spec, the QLink Scepter 8 tablet does have some positive attributes: Android 11 Go Edition, Project Treble supported, Dynamic partition scheme and developer friendly. The bootloader is easily unlocked and root can be attained using the latest stable Magisk. The actual manufacturer of this tablet is an obscure electronics company called Hot Pepper, Inc. i have sent them a formal request for their compliance with the GPL and to release the kernel source code. In the meantime I have dirty ported a working TWRP recovery to backup the firmware, flash scripts, etc. The chipset is the Allwinner-A100, clocking at about 1.43 GHz stock, although it can be safely overclocked to about 1.68 GHz. It comes with very little bloatware and only the standard Google Go Edition apps. With 1 GB RAM it can be a bit laggish. Although, partitioning another 1024 MB zRAM SWAP memory to your external storage helps greatly, along with setting your kernel OOM to very aggressive and making good use of Kernel Samepage Merging (KSM). It definitely performs best using a preset OnDemand CPU governor versus the default Interactive governor. So, all in all, with root and some tweaking with Kernel Adiutor-Mod, and the little tablet runs pretty decent. I look forward to hopefully getting the source code from Hot Pepper soon. I'd really like to compile LineageOS from source for the Scepter 8. But I'm not holding my breath. With the feds breathing down their necks, supplying me with the kernel source is not going to be a priority. I will stay on them though.

 

[Mooncatt]

Amen to that. Excellent points. While pretty low spec, the QLink Scepter 8 tablet does have some positive attributes: Android 11 Go Edition, Project Treble supported, Dynamic partition scheme and developer friendly. The bootloader is easily unlocked and root can be attained using the latest stable Magisk. The actual manufacturer of this tablet is an obscure electronics company called Hot Pepper, Inc. i have sent them a formal request for their compliance with the GPL and to release the kernel source code. In the meantime I have dirty ported a working TWRP recovery to backup the firmware, flash scripts, etc. The chipset is the Allwinner-A100, clocking at about 1.43 GHz stock, although it can be safely overclocked to about 1.68 GHz. It comes with very little bloatware and only the standard Google Go Edition apps. With 1 GB RAM it can be a bit laggish. Although, partitioning another 1024 MB zRAM SWAP memory to your external storage helps greatly, along with setting your kernel OOM to very aggressive and making good use of Kernel Samepage Merging (KSM). It definitely performs best using a preset OnDemand CPU governor versus the default Interactive governor. So, all in all, with root and some tweaking with Kernel Adiutor-Mod, and the little tablet runs pretty decent. I look forward to hopefully getting the source code from Hot Pepper soon. I'd really like to compile LineageOS from source for the Scepter 8. But I'm not holding my breath. With the feds breathing down their necks, supplying me with the kernel source is not going to be a priority. I will stay on them though.

Much of what you said is over my head, so I'll just say good luck with your endeavours. Lol

 

[Ross Beverly]

Yeah I just done some research on QLink and their nationwide 4G-LTE/5G network. I must admit, I wish I could qualify for the service. Subscribers get a free smartphone (or they can use a compatible phone of their own per the BYOP program), free unlimited calling, texting and unlimited data (with no maximum cap for exceeding a set amount). The unlimited data is being provided as part of the Emergency Broadcast Benefit (EBB) approved by good old Uncle Sam. Normally, 4.5 GB of 4G-LTE/5G data per month is the allotted amount per subscriber. The nationwide network is Sprint, which is now owned, maintained and operated by T-Mobile per last year's acquisition and merger. In turn, QLink subscribers have the option of either T-Mobile's traditional nationwide GSM coverage or their CDMA nationwide coverage . Here's the real good part: QLink does not officially provide allotted data in its monthly data plans for mobile hotspot or tethering. However, a well-known loophole -- a simple tweak of the APN parameters - allows users to enjoy high-speed, fully unlimited 4G-LTE/5G mobile hotspot as well. Some QLink subscribers at XDA recently boasted using in excess of 500GB in a month! So yeah, I've got to find some poor soul who will sell me his/her SIM card. My biggest question is how on earth is QLink not detecting such an enormous consumption of data by subscribers? Then I got my answer: they have more to worry about. On June 9th earlier this year, dozens of agents from the US Postal Inspection Police, the FBI, the Department of Justice, the Internal Revenue Service and the Broward County Sheriff's Department raided QLink's corporate office in South Florida. Several crates and boxes of documents were seized by the agents. While the root of the investigation has been very tight-lipped, it is known that QLink is being investigated for federal wire fraud and defrauding the US government under the terms of a federal contract (Lifeline and the Emergency Broadband Benefit I am assuming). https://www.freegovernmentcellphones.net/q-link-wireless-raided-by-fbi-irs-us-post-office-sheriffs
So maybe I should hold up on trying to buy a SIM ??

Hello all. I just received one of these tablets. No. There is no sim slot it's wifi compatible only. The customer service agent told me as much
It's issued because of the governments E.B.B (Electronic Broadband Benefits) grant. Every U.S. Citizen is supposed to receive $100 to go towards a communication device and $50 off internet service every month. The tablets cost $110.67. The reason you have to pay a one time $10.67 fee is because it only covers $100.00. You gotta pay the balance. $10.67. Assurance wireless gives unlimited talk, text and data (up to 35gb) then they have 15 gb of hotspot too. Qlink does not have hotspot. They sent me a sim card and I put it in an unlocked phone I had. The phone service is the worse ever. Qlink and Assurance wireless have the worse phone service. I have to go outside to get signal. I can NOT use the phone inside at all.
F.Y.I. YOU CAN GO TO METRO, CRICKET, AND ANY OTHER SMALL ASSOCIATE CELLPHONE SERVICE AND DO A PORT IN WIYH THAT #. I WENT TO cricket this past weekend and I got my account number and went and bought a phone through Cricket wireless.. now I have a real phone with that # and I'm happy. It would have cost closer to $200.00 if I hadn't been able to port that #. I did! Anyways, the tablet is cheap as hell, true, but it has its pros and cons but he'll $10.67, for a new tablet? It's definitely better than the other tablet they offered.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone..

 

[Kellie_kells]

Yeah I just done some research on QLink and their nationwide 4G-LTE/5G network. I must admit, I wish I could qualify for the service. Subscribers get a free smartphone (or they can use a compatible phone of their own per the BYOP program), free unlimited calling, texting and unlimited data (with no maximum cap for exceeding a set amount). The unlimited data is being provided as part of the Emergency Broadcast Benefit (EBB) approved by good old Uncle Sam. Normally, 4.5 GB of 4G-LTE/5G data per month is the allotted amount per subscriber. The nationwide network is Sprint, which is now owned, maintained and operated by T-Mobile per last year's acquisition and merger. In turn, QLink subscribers have the option of either T-Mobile's traditional nationwide GSM coverage or their CDMA nationwide coverage . Here's the real good part: QLink does not officially provide allotted data in its monthly data plans for mobile hotspot or tethering. However, a well-known loophole -- a simple tweak of the APN parameters - allows users to enjoy high-speed, fully unlimited 4G-LTE/5G mobile hotspot as well. Some QLink subscribers at XDA recently boasted using in excess of 500GB in a month! So yeah, I've got to find some poor soul who will sell me his/her SIM card. My biggest question is how on earth is QLink not detecting such an enormous consumption of data by subscribers? Then I got my answer: they have more to worry about. On June 9th earlier this year, dozens of agents from the US Postal Inspection Police, the FBI, the Department of Justice, the Internal Revenue Service and the Broward County Sheriff's Department raided QLink's corporate office in South Florida. Several crates and boxes of documents were seized by the agents. While the root of the investigation has been very tight-lipped, it is known that QLink is being investigated for federal wire fraud and defrauding the US government under the terms of a federal contract (Lifeline and the Emergency Broadband Benefit I am assuming). https://www.freegovernmentcellphones.net/q-link-wireless-raided-by-fbi-irs-us-post-office-sheriffs
So maybe I should hold up on trying to buy a SIM ??

Could you tell me that hotspot apn tweak? I had a older qlink phone for the last few years and for the last year, hotspot has been a option on it and my kids were able to connect their school laptops and tablets to my phones hotspot. But qlink told me i had to order a new sim and put it in a 4 or 5G compatible phone. Ok so i did that yesterday and everything works except my hotspot. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[LOLA ANDUJO]

Could you tell me that hotspot apn tweak? I had a older qlink phone for the last few years and for the last year, hotspot has been a option on it and my kids were able to connect their school laptops and tablets to my phones hotspot. But qlink told me i had to order a new sim and put it in a 4 or 5G compatible phone. Ok so i did that yesterday and everything works except my hotspot. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Did you get the tweek info for thr Qlink Septer 8?

Will you please share the info on how the qlink septer 8 can be tweeked to just work well