I am looking to buy a phone that has very good performance and great camera. I have found the Xiaomi 12t pro for less than 300€, do you think it’s a good purchase? Any phones you would recommend on that prixe range that are better?
I am mainly looking for hardware here, as if I don’t like software I can just change it, but having a good os with good features is never bad.
Xiaomi is making it almost impossible to install ROMs on your phone. They also have had ads shown through their OS (I don’t know how prevalent it is). I love my Xiaomi hardware with another OS, but won’t buy any more since the software is so bad.
I’ll probably look at Motorola next.
Google phones supposedly take good photos, but don’t have an SD card or 3.5mm jack if those are important to you.
Sorry I don’t have any better advice. I thought I saw a Xiaomi account posting on an Android community. You might ask them about ads on the OS and your ability to change the software if you don’t like it.
Edit: sorry, it wasn’t a Xiaomi account, but a community: https://lemdro.id/c/xiaomi
I am still using a Xiaomi 7 with a custom rom, I used the tool in their webpage to unlock it. Are current gen Xiaomi phones making it impossible to unlock the bootloader?
Xiaomi starting 14th with HyperOS will have stricter regulations on unlocking the bootloader. But that only applies to those devices that sold in China, if you purchased your device outside of China, it wouldn’t make any difference (unless you purchase a Chinese model).
Aside from having a L5 community account (much more harder to achieve than previously), you also has to pass an exam which you have to schedule and according to those that took the exam, said it’s equivalent to an college entrance exam.
There are people who is selling their unlocking previllages on second hand markets for roughly 90USD.
Cool, no Xiaomi for me then, I can’t even bother with that much bureaucracy when I can just buy another phone that’s easier to unlock
Sorry, I can’t find any original sources, but here is a Reddit post:
https://old.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/18ni90y/its_the_sad_end_of_custom_roms_on_xiaomi_devices/
I’ve seen it posted in several places. It isn’t impossible, you just have to go gain and level on their forums and, in and cases, write an essay, in order to unlock your phone. Really idiotic.
Not an issue with global ROMs according to XDA
https://xdaforums.com/t/how-to-unlock-bootloader-on-xiaomi-hyperos.4654009/
I had a 9t pro. Great hw, but the sw was so bad l moved to a pixel 7 pro with graphene. To give you an idea, when installing tailscale it won’t work (my gut feeling is that it didn’t honor the added route table). I did install lineage (and the unlock process was a pain too) but then banking apps won’t work (and they do work on graphene). Also I didn’t appreaciate the constant “phoning home” for telemetry.
Tl, dr: software was so bad it put me off hardware
