Breaking: You can now try out Xiaomi's MIUI on select Nokia phones

Asian Android OEMs usually ship heavily skinned Android with their phones. The skins often try to imitate iOS look and feel. Among them, Xiaomi’s MIUI is probably the most known one to international users.

MIUI started its journey as an alternative ROM for phones from other OEMs. Later on, Xiaomi created their whole ecosystem and MIUI became the integral part of Mi smartphones.

Due to the huge demand of Xiaomi phones, MIUI itself gained a wide popularity. Several Android enthusiasts across the world want to try out MIUI on their non-Xiaomi phones – either for the unique appearance or for the extra features like gestures.

Now that is a giant leap. MIUI is evolved from merely a collection of framework patches to a full-fledged operating system. You just can’t take a copy from one Xiaomi phone and dump it on a random phone – it will brick!

The underlying infrastructure of Android has got a vast overhaul with Android 8 Oreo. Google has started to modularize Android and separate out the vendor specific changes from the actual core os.

The initiative is dubbed as Project Treble and it brought the idea of GSI (Generic System Image) in plate. One can, in theory, boot a generic image on any Treble compliant phone without messing with it too hard.

After the demise of Windows Mobile, HMD pulled the Nokia brand from grave. Nokia chose Android One platform for all of their phones, following the initial release portfolio (Nokia 3, 5, 6) in 2017.

Most of the Nokia phones comply with Project Treble out of the box. In China, they come with a different flavor of Android without any Google services.

However, there is no official bootloader unlock mechanism for these phones (except Nokia 8). While some of the phones share many common components, an unlocked bootloader with Project Treble certainly make things easier for custom ROM lovers.

FYI, we have covered these topics in details in one of our previous articles.

Famous modder Hikari Calyx stepped in and fulfilled a long-requested desire (from Chinese users in particular) – he ported MIUI 10 based on Android 9 for multiple Nokia phones!

Hikari hinted about his ongoing experiment via Twitter:

Couple of hours ago, he unveiled the secret.

The port is tested on Snapdragon 636/660 platform based Nokia phones. The complete list is as follows:

• Nokia 7 (TA-1041, C1N-347C-0-00CN-B04)
• Nokia 7 Plus (TA-1062, B2N-347C-0-00CN-B04) *For Global Version, please ensure you’re using B2N-339B or newer
• Nokia 6.1 (TA-1054, PL2-347C-0-00CN-B04) *For Global Version, please ensure you’re using PL2-3350 or newer
• Nokia 6.1 Plus X6 (TA-1099, DRG-347C-0-00CN-B04) *For Global Version, please ensure you’re using DRG-3390 or newer

Nokia 7.1 CTL should be compatible with the port, but it is not tested.

A surprising amount of elements are working, using complex ones such as VoLTE and fingerprint sensor. Xiaomi and Google account login are also available.

The default language is set to Chinese, but it can be changed easily:

Since the default language is set to Chinese, How to change the language to non-Chinese?
– Open “设置” (Settings)
– Tap “更多设置” (More Settings)
– Tap “语言和输入法” (Languages and Input)
– Tap “语言” (Language)
– Choose your own language

In terms of bug, stock camera app and flashlight toggle in notification bar are not working. Third party alternatives for those, like ported Google Camera and Godly Torch respectively, are recommended to use.

Brightness control and USB debugging are finicky, thus you need to live with that for now.

Detail flashing guide is available here. The developer also posted a guide written in Chinese.

An unlocked bootloader is mandatory to play with this mod. In case you need to revert back to stock firmware, the guy has you covered.

Both of the above topics are little bit controversial. Wait for the second part of our article to know more about them.

What is your favorite genre – stock Android or MIUI? Comment below.

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