Xiaomi has never behaved like a responsible producer. To understand this, you just need to dig at the surface. Constant interruptions in the quality of updates, secret surveillance of users and, of course, advertising in the firmware of branded smartphones. However, all these are trifles compared to the fact that Xiaomi equips devices that are quite attractive from a hardware point of view with processors that do not allow them to be manually flashed without warning the users themselves. Do you think this is impossible? It is very possible. Here's the proof.
Smartphones Xiaomi are not the best option to buy. And that's why
At the end of last week, the developers from the team Xiaomi. EU published an official list of devices that will receive MIUI 12. It includes 28 devices, whose owners can count on the update. They included quite a few frankly new and far from the most productive smartphones by today's standards: Xiaomi Mi 6, Xiaomi Mi 8, Redmi Note 5, Redmi Note 7 and others. That's just Redmi Note 8 Pro, which came out less than a year ago, on the list of contenders for MIUI 12 from Xiaomi. For some reason, EU did not enter.
What is Xiaomi EU
Xiaomi itself, of course, will continue to update Redmi Note 8 Pro, but don't wait for custom firmwares for it anymore
Yes Xiaomi The EU is an independent development team that adapts and localizes updates MIUI for the international market. It is thanks to them that users of global versions of smartphones Xiaomi can get access to beta versions of the firmware, which are intended only for the Chinese. Therefore, the end of support Redmi Note 8 Pro is not official and official updates MIUI will still be released for it, but this does not detract from the scale of the tragedy that happened.
The point is that Redmi Note 8 Pro comes with MediaTek Helio G90T processor. For all its performance, for which it was even called a gaming one, this chip was not suitable for flashing. As a result, any attempts to install even a legitimate firmware on a smartphone with this “stone” through recovery leads to the device turning into a brick. The reason for this behavior lies in the fact that when flashing devices on processors MediaTek, the utility MediaTek SPFlashTool is used, which only works with authorized accounts Xiaomi.
Firmware Redmi Note 8 Pro
Authorized accounts Xiaomi cannot be obtained by ordinary users or even developers, because they are intended for administrators and testers involved in software debugging. But neither Xiaomi nor MediaTek users were warned about this, thus provoking the scouring of more than one smartphone Redmi Note 8 Pro. But the original Redmi Note 8 does not have this problem, because it is powered by the Snapdragon 665 processor.
Redmi Note 8 Pro can turn into brick if you try to reflash it
So what does all this mean? And the fact that, firstly, Xiaomi extremely irresponsibly approached the issue of designing your smartphone, equipping it with a chip unsuitable for flashing. Secondly, Xiaomi did not warn users that installing even a legitimate firmware could lead to the device being turned off. Well, and thirdly, Redmi Note 8 Pro actually became a renegade in the market Android – smartphones, since now no development team would even think about creating custom firmware for it.
But custom firmware means a lot for Android smartphones. After the manufacturer stops updating their device – and, as a rule, this happens quite quickly – users get the opportunity to keep it up to date by installing custom firmware. However, in the case of the Redmi Note 8 Pro, this became impossible, which means that its customers, in fact, were left at a broken trough. We will also see if she herself will release Xiaomi for it MIUI 12. Otherwise, it is possible that she, having looked at independent developers, will also refuse to update it.