[Global variant] BREAKING: Xiaomi Mi 8 Pro & Mi 8 Explorer Edition Android 10 stable updates up for grabs (Download links inside)

New updates are being added at the bottom of this story…….

Original story (published on January 10, 2020) follows:

Shipping a ‘Pro’ variant of a particular device is a common practice nowadays. While Samsung recently broke the pattern by introducing a ‘Lite’ SKU for their existing flagships, other OEMs continue to embrace the ‘Pro’ model to lure the customers.

Back in 2019, Xiaomi did something quite unexpected in this regard. Their standard flagship, i.e. Mi 9, received a ‘Pro’ sibling several months after the release. The Chinese OEM made some fundamental changes, such as introducing 5G support in the new model.

Rewind back to one more year, and you could find Mi 8 Pro alongside the regular Mi 8. Xiaomi opted for an under-display optical fingerprint scanner for the Pro model. Aside from this, the internal configurations are more of less the same for both phones.

MIUI 11 landed on the phone duo in November, albeit the underlying Android layer was based on Pie. A recent change on the kernel source confirmed that Xiaomi’s preparation regarding Android 10 rollout was finalized. Matter of fact, Mi 8 received the update earlier this week.

Mi 8 SE, the budget oriented model in this series, got the taste of Android 10 as well. No need to worry though, as the update has at last arrived on the Pro variant.

It is worth mentioning that the stable update is tagged as MIUI V11.0.1.0, and applicable to the Chinese Mi 8 Pro units. It is technically possible to cross-flash the build on global units, but the details are out of scope of this article. xiaomi.eu maintainers have yet to include the support.

Changelog:

System

– Stable MIUI based on Android 10
– Updated Android Security Patch to December 2019. Increased system security.

Lockscreen, status bar, Notification shade

– Fix: Couldn’t open notification settings in the Notification shade in Second space

Data usage

– Fix: Errors occurred after switching SIM cards

Other

– Fix: Images overlapped in scrolling screenshots

Thanks to our collaboration with yshalsager and the Xiaomi Firmware Updater project, PiunikaWeb readers can download the full update package from the following section:

• Device: Mi 8 Pro
• Codename: equuleus
• Channel: China Stable
• Version: V11.0.1.0.QECCNXM
• Android: 10
  • Type: Recovery
    • Download: Link
    • MD5: b1c2953aed215ac1f306526c9c23f0fc

After the Pro variant, the Explorer Edition of Mi 8 (China exclusive) is also getting the stable Android 10 update with December 2019 patch.

• Device: Mi 8 Explorer Edition
• Codename: ursa
• Channel: China Stable
• Version: V11.0.2.0.QEHCNXM
• Android: 10
  • Type: Recovery
    • Download: Link
    • MD5: 39fcb8e8f671e17edeafa082c2008d18

The global variant of Mi 8 Pro is now receiving the stable Android 10 update from Xiaomi.

• Device: Mi 8 Pro
• Codename: equuleus
• Channel: Global Stable
• Version: V11.0.1.0.QECMIXM
• Android: 10
  • Type: Recovery
    • Download: Link
    • MD5: 39bed68d55df9496491343de7cc68c77

This is a gradual rollout. So Xiaomi needs to verify the MIUI account designation and only allow the update if the account is whitelisted for early beta testing. However, you can bypass the check by flashing through TWRP.

The build is not given green light for broader rollout yet, but it would be the same exact binary (unless there is a major showstopper bug) which is going to be released a few days later.

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