Database Info

Custom Rom Questions

I have been using a FRD-L14 running EMUI 4.1 (B150) for a few months and while I love having such a long battery life, I am starting to get frustrated with how much of my apps the system automatically kills in the background (alarm apps, text delay send, etc). I am considering trying out a custom ROM but have a few questions before proceeding.
1. If I make a TWRP nandroid backup, can I just reflash that at any time and revert back to my current rom without any hiccups if I have regrets?
2. I remember reading somewhere that I have to first upgrade to EMUI 5.0 before using a custom rom, this will not cause any issue with potential rollback?
3. What is the best currently available custom rom to try if I am looking for longest battery life and fewest bugs? Will the battery life come anywhere close to EMUI 4.1?
Thank you in advance!

Aren't there any official updates for the premium H8s?
Also that's quite the lengthy question and I know it's been asked before somewhere, please use the search function.
(Plus i can't remember the exact details as well)
Also battery life is **** with custom,(won't last me a day so i went back to stock) especially compared to MM (Even stock nougat is a worse) and all of them are somewhat buggy, but it depends on what you use.
Sent from my HUAWEI FRD-L09 using XDA Labs

I'm a new user of the Honor 8 with the exact same problem...
Also have the FRD-L14... wondering if any improvements/insights?
Would love to root, remove bloat, and even install a custom ROM, but all I've seen is that it can be a complete clusterf*#@ to do so. I'm just about to return this phone, its quirks are really ruining it for me.

anoukaimee said:
...... Would love to root, remove bloat, and even install a custom ROM, but all I've seen is that it can be a complete clusterf*#@ to do so. I'm just about to return this phone, its quirks are really ruining it for me.
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i recommend that you return it asap! there are other phones that are way better. the good thing is that most new phones will have oreo and treble by default which is going to be mandatory in android from now on.
at worst, users will get AOSP. at best, custom ROMs that have much better functionality. i recommend saving for either a oneplus, or maybe a nokia.

thanks, I think you're right, just such a headache shopping for a bargain again. do you have any recs for phones that are similarly fast but without the intrusive bloat and which hopefully are easily rooted/support magisk mods etc? I wish the xiomi 5 series worked in the US, they sound great for the money. maybe another Chinese brand (Oppo, Meizu) that has better specs than the going rate here but can also be modded? I don't need to get it back to Amazon until the end of February (thank you, extended holiday returns), so I can wait for shipment from China. Or else a Motorola or even Nokia? need to keep under $350; significantly less would be much better.
appreciate it if you have any ideas.
---------- Post added at 03:20 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:12 AM ----------
droidbot1337 said:
i recommend that you return it asap! there are other phones that are way better. the good thing is that most new phones will have oreo and treble by default which is going to be mandatory in android from now on.
at worst, users will get AOSP. at best, custom ROMs that have much better functionality. i recommend saving for either a oneplus, or maybe a nokia.
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sorry, just saw that you HAD recs. kind of intrigued by Nokia because I think they're selling at a discount to get their name out there. is there a specific model?
and is there anywhere you can still buy a OP3?

anoukaimee said:
............. do you have any recs for phones that are similarly fast but without the intrusive bloat and which hopefully are easily rooted/support magisk mods etc? I wish the xiomi 5 series worked in the US, they sound great for the money. maybe another Chinese brand (Oppo, Meizu) that has better specs than the going rate here but can also be modded?.......... and is there anywhere you can still buy a OP3?
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okay, so now that you informed me about your location (US) it seems that you and i are in the same situation. i was waiting to get a 1+5t after buying a few 1+5s for various family members. they all needed updates. after thinking about it i decided to wait because 1+ lacks the one thing i desperately rely on.... EXPANDABLE STORAGE!
sadly, this is the one area where huawei really excels at. they include expandable storage on most of their phones. after htc decided to skip a US release of the U11+ it seemed that i would be forced to settle for the 1+ but thankfully there have been leaks of many new devices.
the one im looking forward to is the new redesigned sony line. from what i have read they will keep the 16:9 which i love and adopt a rear fingerprint scanner plus small bezels. the huge bezels are the only thing keeping me from buying a sony as they keep their android ROM clean with no horrible UI.
aside from sony, xiaomi is said to be releasing a few phones in the us as well. these combined with a redesign of the LG flagships. that makes for many options but, you will need to set aside a bit of money. imho, it will be worth it because all of these phones will come with oreo and treble.
for those devices that have a horrible stock rom, you can just install AOSP or any of the treble based custom ROMs. it will be great since all the latest phones have more longevity thanks to their hardware. the only limitation is software but treble will take care of that.
as far as a 1+3/t, you can find them on swappa. if bought 2 a few weeks back for $215 shipped. both were 64GB models that only needed the screen repaired. the total ended costing me about $170 each. if you have any kind of experience with repair, i recommend taking that route. i hope this helped, if you have any questions, dont hesitate to pm me. we gotta help each other out some way or another. cheers!

interesting phone?!

the meizu m6 note is very interesting to me for the specs and price. I might've gotten it over rn4 if I knew about it sooner. there's a lot of sd 625 phones out there and this is the only one I heard about having really good battery life and camera at the same time for under 200. probably beats some 300-400 phones too in terms of battery and camera balance. a few problems atm could be the lte bands and no custom roms but still seems great for those who like to stay on stock. camera is already good from what I read so might not need the google one that badly yet and there's also root option in settings. I've been on miui 9 for a bit and don't mind being on it for a while longer. it makes me wonder how different flyme os is. if battery is similar for both on stock and camera for m6n is already good out of the box without any tweaks needed then I'd probably regret the rn4 unless my experiences with custom roms can make it a lot better but I heard miui has the best battery life compared to most of them. I'm also wondering how google camera on rn4 would compare to m6n stock camera. idk much when it comes to hardware vs software but I'm planning to try it on my rn4 soon. apologies if i've offended any rn4 users i'm still noob because its new to me. maybe i shouldn't have posted about it before trying things first but i did need a comparison with another similar device. support for m6n would be great! even though i haven't bought one yet..

Difference between EU and USA Pixel 2

Hi there people,
I've searched forum a little bit, but didn't found what I need. I want to switch from G6 to Pixel 2, and I can save 200€ by getting Pixel for USA market.
My question is: Is there any difference (except charger), can I use that phone in Europe (Bosnia), network frequencies, software or something is it all the same?
LG has different versions eg. H870, H873, US997, G600 etc..
Should I pay attention to something, and is it worth it? I've red that phone is amazing, best camera, amazing speed, OS up-to-date. All positive things, is there negatives?
P.S. I've googled and it seems that there is none, anyone maybe experienced that?
Thanks guys,

I have the UK version, which is the same as the US one (AFAIK) and no differences except for the charger.
Good to see there's still people in Bosnia who know what a good phone is

Is the S7 flat still worth it? 2019

As the title says, is the sS7 flat still worth buying as of today? I recently sold my phone and wanted to buy a new one, and found an s7 for $170, but I don't know if it's a good deal. What do you say?
Thanks.

I've not long had mine, maybe a month?
I came from an S4, had a moto x style (play in US) for about 6 months then I got a second hand S7 for £100. I think the camera was better on the moto but the development has all but stopped now
Getting an S7 though? I absolutely love it once you get it on a custom rom (or debloated stock) and get it tweaked just the way you like it, it runs like an absolute dream, I'm very happy with it

The price is good. Just make sure it is new and not rooted before buying.

Yeah I bought one in June after having a BLU R1 HD. S7 is much better
If you are curious I have a SM-G930W8

Nice nice, thanks everyone. I just bought it, it should arrive by Saturday or maybe Monday. I'll report back

Organics said:
Nice nice, thanks everyone. I just bought it, it should arrive by Saturday or maybe Monday. I'll report back
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Did you buy the international version or a US model? International S7s are absolutely better in almost every single way.

Been using mine since 2018, got it off my partner when she upgraded to a Note 8. Its currently running alexndr dev base rom and it never misses a beat! Besides, if it's good enough for DISA's DMCC-S network, it good enough for me.

billclintonwong said:
Did you buy the international version or a US model? International S7s are absolutely better in almost every single way.
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This is bad information.
No. Not every single way. And if buying for a US carrier, it's worse in many of the ways that matter: radio compatibility, and proper csc for function of wifi calling, VoLTE, and ViLTE, etc.

It's been a slow process with deaths in the family, but I've just started getting my s7 ready to use. Wanted to do the right research on what is safe or not to debloat for what I use, and that took a while. I'm 99% ready to use it [emoji846] my mom also has an s7. But I think the debloat process is helping mine run even smoother.
Once I have it fully the way I want, I'm gonna make a full backup. Then that way when I want to "reformat" I can just go back to that point. Seems like a good plan.
I plan to run it right down into the ground, lol. Some people upgrade every year. Me? I'll be upgrading from the captivate glide! S2 based. I still love that phone and it's in great physical shape, but the ram and compatibility just are not keeping up with it anymore even for a lighter user like me. I can use root to fool the play store about which android version, but if the app update coding doesn't support my older devices architecture it ends up with parsing errors and won't run. It took this long but this is finally starting to officially kill my s2.
I plan on running the s7 in exactly the same manner, until I just can't make it work any more! [emoji16]

what ROM is the best for S7? I have currently lineage OS 16 with nano gapps, I am considering to change it to something else. some features of the phone are not used(face unlock??), and few bugs I have noticed like the camera app is terrible slow (unable to take photos at night cause the flash is flashing and after a second the picture is taken LOL)

Well i just bought one, Canadian version with exynos in case i end up rooting it.
I did buy it just to use in the gym as an MP3 player but will likely end up flashing roms etc on it as well.
Doubt i could use it as my main device as its too small for me (im using a note 10 plus so big difference lol).

The lineage OS is good if you don't mind the camera photos being poor quality. If you want the best out of your camera you will need to run a Samsung stock based OS, because only those have the right camera drivers. SupermanRom is a good android version 8 debloated Samsung OS.

gruuvin said:
The lineage OS is good if you don't mind the camera photos being poor quality. If you want the best out of your camera you will need to run a Samsung stock based OS, because only those have the right camera drivers. SupermanRom is a good android version 8 debloated Samsung OS.
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well thank you for the reply, I like the pure android PIE feeling (currently crDroid), but some features are missing, and OFC, the camera (the most important) is way worse than my Xiaomi MI5 was, so I'll consider to flash a stock base ROM
-don't you know if any GCam is working good on ROMs like https://turbox.uk/pages/roms.html ? (no black screen death, and photo quality as good as samsung stock)?
...superman or DevBase v6.0 or....LightRom by TeamExyKings..... hmm, how to choose from these? /if the camera problem can't be solved on these aOSP stlye roms/

lulzor said:
well thank you for the reply, I like the pure android PIE feeling (currently crDroid), but some features are missing, and OFC, the camera (the most important) is way worse than my Xiaomi MI5 was, so I'll consider to flash a stock base ROM
-don't you know if any GCam is working good on ROMs like https://turbox.uk/pages/roms.html ? (no black screen death, and photo quality as good as samsung stock)?
...superman or DevBase v6.0 or....LightRom by TeamExyKings..... hmm, how to choose from these? /if the camera problem can't be solved on these aOSP stlye roms/
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I tried LineageOS for a while, because I really like so much about it, but the big downside was the camera, so I tried GCam versions until I found one that's stable. Best case scenario is poor compared to what it would be on a Google phone or what stock Samsung OS would do, because of the kernel-layer camera api that Samsung provides to hook into the cam hardware--you cannot drive the camera properly without these proprietary driver hooks. So I eventually wiped LineageOS and installed SupermanROM, and had a lightweight but very customized and stable experience, with the EXCELLENT cameras Samsung designed. Also, it was a big fight just getting gcam to work without force-close, and then some functions didn't work, and couldn't do high-def vids at fast framerates. It all just works with Samsung cam app + drivers.
So, no, GCam is the best you get for non-samsung OS, but not even close to what you get from Samsung OS.
I don't know about DevBase. SupermanRom was all I tried. It's been a year since then. I moved on to a Note9 phone. The S7 is now actually running LightRom, and is quite nice! (9.0 NFEPort JetBlack) Great cam too! But, I cannot comment about it beyond that, since it's not my daily driver and I have used any radios except wifi. Use TWRP and try em all! Start with the Note9 port and see if it just works. Check bluetooth first. (I like it mainly for the built-in dark mode).

why so "less" development ?

as the title says i wonder why there is so "little" development for the i9lite going on
i thought a device with this great specs for such a little price would be very interesting, but when you look at similar devices as the 9t or 9t pro there is a lot more of development
don't get me wrong i really thank all the devs that work on the i9lite right now, but i am a little bit worried as the a2 lite i have right now is also a great device but without much development there are only a few custom roms and and a hardly working twrp for it
my i 9lite is actually on the way to me, but right now i am really afraid that i will get in the same problem as with the a2 lite that there is absolutely no interest for the devs to work for this device.
Maybe the 9t(pro) would have been the better decision regarding this, but i really do not like the front cam of the T devices
I wish i could do a little developing for custom roms myself but i do not have the skills :crying: -
what do you guys think about it or you you have no concerns in this direction and you are really happy with the i9lite an how things are at the moment ?

I'm the same as you, waiting for mine to arrive.
Moving from Moto g5 plus it looks pretty quiet here.
I hope we can get a decent gcam at least

I don't know about other countries but in France the Mi 9 Lite just started becoming available through carriers. It might be that there are just less people equipped with that phone for now. I will also get a Mi 9 lite, there is already Lineage and GSI, so the roms I'm most interested in are there already.

Just reading from telegram group. One developer (coderzs)is ready to make base tree(I'm not sure of the term),also a recognized developer of mia2 lineage and other custom rom fo a2. But they trying to raise fund to get the device. I think it's just a matter of time and we can see a lot custom here in xda. Just follow the telegram group,search for mi9t lite/Cc9 global.

For there to be active development and/or many developers, the device must be widely available and relatively popular. You can't expect all those things to be a fact barely few months after device release. Seeing as it has great specs and is reasonably priced, it's just a matter of time until the device becomes interesting to developers.
Also, a word of advice - nobody likes doing stuff for free for a pushy user base.

shhnedo said:
Also, a word of advice - nobody likes doing stuff for free for a pushy user base.
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that is absolutly clear, also i really apriciate all the work that the devs do in their freetime and for free, my opening post is absolutly not meant in this direction.
i am grateful that there is this great modding community that gives us a lot of opportunities that the manufacturers themselves do not even they get paid for it.
i am only worried as custom roms is the only way to have a long life for the smartphone as you still get new android versions when the manufacturer is only releasing security updates or nothing at all at a certain point.
so i hope you are right and that its only a matter of time
@Kadyo
a that sounds interesting i hope i can find this group as i am not so familiar with this telegram, i would also like to spend a certain amount to get the i9lite for the dev (maybe you can pm me the group if its not against xda's rules)

ilovebytes said:
that is absolutly clear, also i really apriciate all the work that the devs do in their freetime and for free, my opening post is absolutly not meant in this direction.
i am grateful that there is this great modding community that gives us a lot of opportunities that the manufacturers themselves do not even they get paid for it.
i am only worried as custom roms is the only way to have a long life for the smartphone as you still get new android versions when the manufacturer is only releasing security updates or nothing at all at a certain point.
so i hope you are right and that its only a matter of time
@Kadyo
a that sounds interesting i hope i can find this group as i am not so familiar with this telegram, i would also like to spend a certain amount to get the i9lite for the dev (maybe you can pm me the group if its not against xda's rules)
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MOD EDIT: Telegram link removed, read the STICKY!

A huge factor in ROM development is the geographic area in which the device is popular. Most developers for Xiaomi phones are from India which is an incredibly competitive market where, frankly, this phone makes little sense: the Mi 9T with basically the same specs is only marginally more expensive, and the latest Redmi is waaaaaaay cheaper. Now, in Europe the Mi 9 Lite makes more sense for the price bracket it's in, but for some reason the developer scene in European countries is lackluster at best. Fortunately, Russia is another country famously active for Android developing and, apparently, this phone is doing fairly well there.
As someone mentioned early, we're currently trying to buy and send a Mi 9 Lite to a ROM developer, so depending on how this ends we may be able to get this forum moving a bit
In the meantime, my standard response is the usual: if you really can't stand MIUI, give GSIs a shot! They're far better than I thought!

iuliusdeblobbis said:
Most developers for Xiaomi phones are from India which is an incredibly competitive market where, frankly, this phone makes little sense: the Mi 9T with basically the same specs is only marginally more expensive, and the latest Redmi is waaaaaaay cheaper. Now, in Europe the Mi 9 Lite makes more sense for the price bracket it's in
As someone mentioned early, we're currently trying to buy and send a Mi 9 Lite to a ROM developer, so depending on how this ends we may be able to get this forum moving a bit
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It's not yet released in India, is it? That might also be a reason for why there's not a lot going on yet. I do think it is weirdly priced in Europe as well. It's a bit disheartening to see there's not a lot going on (yet, hopefully!) in terms of custom ROMs, but I've never used a custom ROM before on either of my phone and I don't intend to play around with ROMs anyway.
But nice to hear you guys try to get a phone to a ROM developer!

thanks for all your suggestions and opinions so far, will try to get onto telegram this weekend and see how this works.

I've Purchased Mi9Lite About 2 Month Ago(Iran- From Abu Dubai) , Device is Great For Price (350-400$ In My Country! ) in Compare to other devices like RN8P
But development???
There's Even No Ported Gcam For Mi9Lite and Stock Camera Quality is awful
Custom Roms? Hmmn I'd rather to use more stable versions
But there's still a hope, In Russian Forums (4pda) some devs r developing kangaroo kernel for this device
MIUI Rom Are So Smooth but have little bugs and they're annoying like app freezing while using VPN!

amirinjast said:
There's Even No Ported Gcam For Mi9Lite and Stock Camera Quality is awful
Custom Roms? Hmmn I'd rather to use more stable versions
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https://forum.xda-developers.com/mi-cc9/development

we have the basics, which is TWRP and a way to flash GSIs, there's not really any need for anything else tbh, the days of specific devices development are behind

I bought mi 9 lite for 217$ month ago. This is the best choice of Mi9/Mi9T because of its price and card slot.
This smartfon had working LOS 2 months after world release! Now LOS is ebought mature for use it as daily driver. With ported gcam is absolutely amasing. My old xperia z3c waited years for first LOS, and up to 5 years for OFFICIAL version of LOS.
If Mi9 will sell itself very good, we will see many other custom roms.
I will stay with LOS, because is the best for me.

VyktorJonas said:
we have the basics, which is TWRP and a way to flash GSIs, there's not really any need for anything else tbh, the days of specific devices development are behind
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Even with GSI, I could not make the camera work satisfactorily and rom to pass the safetynet, and the statusbar does not display the icons properly ...

I have the mi a3 and I'm looking at the 9 lite for the bigger and more high res screen. But yeah there's definitely more development for the a3 though it was officially launched in September vs July (according to gsmarena). I do hope we get more devs for this phone, because it seems like a good one. I'm already stretching my budget with the 9 lite. I don't want to stretch more with the 9t

It's just not that popular as other devices are right now..
I just purchased it though, looking nice, when I get it first thing I'll do will be unlocking BL.

I think this phone has not released yet (or released very recently) in India, this will boost activity a lot.

Just kinda surprised custom recovery is not at the official twrp site yet.

xzn1 said:
It's not yet released in India, is it? That might also be a reason for why there's not a lot going on yet. I do think it is weirdly priced in Europe as well. It's a bit disheartening to see there's not a lot going on (yet, hopefully!) in terms of custom ROMs, but I've never used a custom ROM before on either of my phone and I don't intend to play around with ROMs anyway.
But nice to hear you guys try to get a phone to a ROM developer!
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Mi Cc9 was released in India 9 months ago or so. The Mi9 Lite is a rebranded CC9. The specs are all the same afaik.
I made a mistake. See the next reply.