Remember the cute little phone from Xiaomi called Redmi 5A? The Chinese OEM literally sold millions of units of that phone since its release in 2017. In fact, it was one of the top selling Android smartphones of 2018 – surpassing even flagships from other OEMs.
The Chinese OEM launched this budget friendly phone with MIUI 9 on top of Android Nougat. They did provide subsequent MIUI 10 update via OTA, but the situation with Android Oreo update was a bit complicated.
After a brief amount of pilot testing, Xiaomi rolled out MIUI 10.1.2.0 update to Redmi 5A back in February of this year. However, the build reportedly broke VoLTE support and introduced tons of other issues, so the company was forced to pull it back.
Since then (February), Redmi 5A owners are craving for a proper, stable update. They got nothing so far, not even new monthly security patches.
Even after launching Redmi 6A and Redmi 7A in subsequent years, Xiaomi has not completely abandoned the Redmi 5A. Believe it or not, they are now pushing a new MIUI update with Android Oreo.
Besides bumping the security patch level to June, the new update also brings all the goodies from the MIUI 10.3 branch. The complete changelog is as follows:
System
– Optimization: Updated Android Security Patch to June 2019. Increased system security.
Phone
– Fix: Ending calls took longer time than expected
Lockscreen, status bar, Notification shade
– New: Introducing customizable Lock screen clock (Settings > Lock screen & password > Advanced settings).
– New Lock screen clock doesn’t work with third party themes.
– Optimization: Readjusted sensitive areas for the dots in the unlock pattern
– Fix: Call time bubble overlapped with notification icons
– Fix: Battery-related floating notifications weren’t displayed correctly in landscape mode
– Fix: Sync page couldn’t be refreshed whenever sync was turned on or off in the Notification shade
– Fix: Media volume couldn’t be restored after receiving a notification
Settings
– Optimization: Sorting principles for Wi-Fi networks
– Optimization: Big fonts are displayed better now
Game speed booster
– New: Floating windows for incoming calls during games
– Optimization: You can open the gaming toolbox by swiping from the top side of the screen
Mi Cloud
– Optimization: We redesigned Mi Cloud’s start page. It looks much better now!
– Optimization: Improved sync across multiple devices
As readers can see from the screenshot, VoLTE seems to be working fine in the new build. In case you want to skip the queue and update manually, here is the download link of the full package:
- Device: Redmi 5A
- Codename: riva
- Channel: Global Stable
- Version: V10.3.2.0.OCKMIXM
- Android: 8.1
- Type: Recovery
- Download: Link
- MD5: 7f399a7a04ce42c469d122f382a9464c
- Type: Recovery
Call it a coincidence, but Redmi 5 faced almost identical series of events in its lifetime. The Snapdragon 450 powered big brother of Redmi 5A also got Oreo update back in February, but the VoLTE issues plagued the device owners as well.
Unlike Redmi 5A, Xiaomi did not pull withdraw the update, but they decided to declare the last Nougat based MIUI 10.1.2.0 build for Redmi 5 as stable one. Now MIUI 10.3.2.0 is hitting Redmi 5 units as well, bringing Android 8.1 Oreo on board!
The changelog is quite similar to that of Redmi 5A, so we have decided to post only the Redmi 5 specific portion below:
Lockscreen, status bar, Notification shade
– Optimization: Battery percentage format for the status bar
– Fix: Couldn’t use fingerprint to unlock the device when it was locked during a call
– Fix: The earphone icon sometimes disappeared
– Fix: Scrolling screenshots didn’t always work properly
– Fix: The button that returns you to an ongoing call overlapped with time
– Fix: Notification shade went black on the Lock screen when new notifications were received
Camera
– Fix: Face detection frame didn’t appear after the age recognition option had been turned on
Settings
– Fix: Couldn’t turn on portable hotspot when device name was set to maximum length
Recorder
– Fix: Recording status wasn’t updated in the status bar when a recording was paused
As usual, the full download package can be downloaded from the following link. I like to thank my friend yshalsager and the Xiaomi Firmware Updater project for tracking the OTA update URLs.
- Device: Redmi 5
- Codename: rosy
- Channel: Global Stable
- Version: V10.3.2.0.ODAMIXM
- Android: 8.1
- Type: Recovery
- Download: Link
- MD5: c9235681be9dd09fbc29dc21fbe294d7
- Type: Recovery
Users can use the built-in system updater in MIUI to flash these update ZIPs on their phones, as shown below:
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Kingshuk De
896 Posts
I came from a mixed background of Statistics and Computer Science. My research domains included embedded computer systems, mobile computing and delay tolerant networks in post-disaster scenarios. Apart from tinkering with gadgets or building hackintosh, I like to hop on various subreddits and forums like MyDigitalLife and XDA.
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