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My question is related to this community wiki. I found an affordable white-label Android tablet for €99 a few days ago and I'm considering buying it. Its specs seem fairly decent for its price range, especially given that I'd prefer a 10-inch tablet. Unfortunately it's a very generic brand (IT WORKS), so I don't think that I'll get any OS updates.

Is it possible to install the latest version of Android on an off-brand tablet? I'm fine with vanilla Android or a popular custom ROM like Cyanogenmod. I'm asking specifically about off-brands because there's a big chance that the modding community doesn't have a ready-made solution for that specific tablet. The device comes with Superuser already installed, so I'm assuming that it is pre-rooted. I'm not familiar with the ROM flashing process and I've never done it before.

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  • I started writing an answer and then realised I was only reiterated what's already in the answer you linked. What exactly do you need that's not already mentioned in that question?
    – Dan Hulme
    Commented Jul 4, 2014 at 14:22
  • The question I linked to seems geared towards brand-name devices. Those resources probably won't be able to help me with a generic brand of tablet, so I need to know if there's a general procedure to install the latest version of Android on off-brand tablets.
    – Pieter
    Commented Jul 5, 2014 at 8:03

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There's no special procedure that works with unbranded tablets. As the question you've already found describes, if there's no official upgrade from the manufacturer, you need to look for a custom ROM based on a newer Android version. Where can I find stock or custom ROMs for my Android device? gives you some places to look.

There's only one feature peculiar to unbranded tablets and phones. Often, several apparently different unbranded tablets or phones will contain exactly the same hardware, because they're based on the same "reference design". In this case, it may be possible to use a ROM for another unbranded device with the same hardware. It's quite hard for an end-user to know whether this is the case: it's not enough that the tablets are all based on the same SoC, but if all the spec-sheet specs are exactly the same, it might work. Flashing a wrong ROM can have bad side-effects, potentially bricking the device, so I wouldn't recommend trying this carelessly, but it may be that you can find a post on a forum such as XDA developers from someone who has already found a ROM that works on your device.

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  • Sounds like flashing unbranded devices is a risky endeavor. Thanks for explaining the procedure!
    – Pieter
    Commented Jul 5, 2014 at 16:32

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