LeapFrog Epic

LeapFrog Epic
Developer: LeapFrog Enterprises Publisher: LeapFrog Enterprises Released in US: 2015 This console has unused cinematics. This console has revisional differences.

It's a LeapPad tablet, now with Android technology. Also, those games cost a ton.

Epic.

Unused Videos

A bunch of MP4/3GP test videos were left dormant within KidLauncher.apk in /system/priv-app. They appear to be test or placeholder content, with two of them being a crudely-done music video for the song "Most Beautiful Girl" by Flight of the Conchords, most likely by either LeapFrog employees or the studio that was contracted to develop the Epic's user interface.

• Demo.mp4
• DemoH264.mp4

DemoMPEG4SP.3gp	Media-Convert_test5_ 3GPv4_H263_xbit_352x288_AR1.22_30fps_ KFx_162bkps_MPEG2_Stereo_22050Hz_64kbps.3gp

Revisional Differences

Hardware

To do: There exists a sub-variant of the second-generation LeapPad Academy internally referred to as MIPI. We need a firmware dump of it for comparison with the other sub-variant as firmware for the latter will not work on the former.

• On September 2015, the original Leapfrog Epic was released. It has a MediaTek MT8127 clocked at 1.3 GHz, and runs a customised Android 4.4 "KitKat" distribution. This hardware revision would be re-released as the Epic Academy Edition and LeapPad Academy with updated firmware and silicone bumpers.
• On August 2021, the second-generation LeapPad Academy was released, which features a slightly faster clock speed (1.5 GHz), a new Rockchip RK3326 system-on-chip as well as Android 10. The switch to a newer system-on-chip also made it compatible with Google's Project Treble, allowing generic system images (GSI) to be booted thus effectively converting it into an ordinary Android tablet. The second-generation revision also came with a different touch panel with ten-point multitouch as well as a newer LCD screen with a wider pixel aspect ratio.

Demo vs. Retail

To do: There are application stubs on the demo unit meant for demonstration purposes. It would be prudent to document most if not all of them. The preloader/bootloader also appears to be an earlier build as well.

The ROM used for store demo units has a smaller partition allocated to user data, around 4GB, unlike retail units which come with 9GB user-accessible storage. Contrary to what LeapFrog wants its users to believe, it is possible to convert a demo unit to a retail one using a dump of the ROM extracted from said demo device, a scatter file from a retail Epic, and a signed retail ROM.

Demo scatter file

Retail scatter file

- partition_index: SYS19 partition_name: ANDROID file_name: system.img is_download: true type: EXT4_IMG linear_start_addr: 0x5D00000 physical_start_addr: 0x5D00000 partition_size: 0x200100000 region: EMMC_USER storage: HW_STORAGE_EMMC boundary_check: true is_reserved: false operation_type: UPDATE reserve: 0x00 - partition_index: SYS20 partition_name: CACHE file_name: cache.img is_download: true type: EXT4_IMG linear_start_addr: 0x205E00000 physical_start_addr: 0x205E00000 partition_size: 0x40000000 region: EMMC_USER storage: HW_STORAGE_EMMC boundary_check: true is_reserved: false operation_type: UPDATE reserve: 0x00 - partition_index: SYS21 partition_name: USRDATA file_name: data.img is_download: true type: EXT4_IMG linear_start_addr: 0x245E00000 physical_start_addr: 0x245E00000 partition_size: 0x13ED00000 region: EMMC_USER storage: HW_STORAGE_EMMC boundary_check: true is_reserved: false operation_type: UPDATE reserve: 0x00

- partition_index: SYS19 partition_name: ANDROID file_name: system.img is_download: true type: EXT4_IMG linear_start_addr: 0x5D00000 physical_start_addr: 0x5D00000 partition_size: 0xC0000000 region: EMMC_USER storage: HW_STORAGE_EMMC boundary_check: true is_reserved: false operation_type: UPDATE reserve: 0x00 - partition_index: SYS20 partition_name: CACHE file_name: cache.img is_download: true type: EXT4_IMG linear_start_addr: 0xC5D00000 physical_start_addr: 0xC5D00000 partition_size: 0x40000000 region: EMMC_USER storage: HW_STORAGE_EMMC boundary_check: true is_reserved: false operation_type: UPDATE reserve: 0x00 - partition_index: SYS21 partition_name: USRDATA file_name: data.img is_download: true type: EXT4_IMG linear_start_addr: 0x105D00000 physical_start_addr: 0x105D00000 partition_size: 0x28A300000 region: EMMC_USER storage: HW_STORAGE_EMMC boundary_check: true is_reserved: false operation_type: UPDATE reserve: 0x00

Parent Mode Master Key

Starting from Version 1.8.xx of the Academy Edition ROM and v1.9.88 of the regular Epic, the master key to open Parent Mode, 4-1-9-[backspace]-2-7, has been removed. The only other way to reset an Epic, short of phoning LeapFrog customer service, is to boot into Recovery Mode and use the Wipe Data option.