Hi folks, as a way of giving back to this community, I just wanted to share my experience of setting up an F21 Pro phone in the UK on Smarty and GiffGaff services. I guess O2 or 3 will also work as these sit on the back of those networks.

After spending a whole day on this, hopefully I can save you the time to get this working and also encourage more people to use these phones and get away from doom scrolling.

Personally, I thought they are the best of going 'dumb-ish'

The phone is a 4+64GB F21 Pro. Please check carefully if you are using the 32GB one that the firmware I have here works with that too! You can buy them here and get them delivered in about 10 days! https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003829459139.html - Go for the non google play versions as they are cheaper and you can just follow the steps below to add play store to it.

The below is an updated version of the guide from an original here : https://xdaforums.com/t/guide-xiaomi-qin-f21-pro-custom-firmware-root-playstore-certified.4405615/

I tried various different methods of using aurora app store but google apps didn't always work correctly. Using Google play store appears to be the best way to get all google apps you need working - but that is just my view.

This guide is from 28th July 2024. I have included all the recent apps in the zip that I used.

Link to zip file download: https://mega.nz/file/FU0zxSjA#tkPfpWnvCSowTN0q6AW2CKV4CkOJHwin0HFw2IVmG9U

Setup PC (windows) and Flash phone: Install DriveInstall.exe

Open "SP_Flash_Tool_V5/flash_tool.exe"

select scatter file from the Main Firmware folder = MT6761_Android_scatter.txt (this is the source to use)

turn phone off

unplug usb, then plug back in to the PC via USB.

click download to flash the phone.

Congrats! You now have chinese free apps firmware with TWRP Installed

Getting into TWRP Bootloader: Turn off your phone and boot into TWRP, you can do this by holding the heart key (top left) and the * (star, bottom left) key [then press the power button], you will see the Douqin Logo. Keep holding keys until TWRP boots.

Change TWRP language to English ...

https://droidwin.com/change-language-twrp-recovery/

Copy all files needed to phone -> boot to TWRP and plug in to computer and transfer from "All files to copy to TWRP Folder for installing off the phone" folder

FLASH IMAGE "boot_2.img" to BOOT partition

IMPORTANT! boot is an IMAGE FILE not ZIP FILE. by default, TWRP is set to check for zip file and will not see IMAGE FILES in the directories. YOU NEED TO TAP THE INSTALL IMAGE BUTTON so image files will appear).

I flashed it to both slots.

Reboot into main OS.

Install Magisk-v24.2.apk by clicking on the file. If you are having difficulty, install it from a plugged in USB into the phone to bypass any security blocking you.

Open magisk then click Install Magisk > Select a patch file > choose "boot_2.img" in your directory (path where you transfer it). This should generate a patched version of the magisk boot img. READ where it says it dumped the output file on the console data!

Boot back into TWRP

Locate the patched magisk file and flash it to the BOOT partition. Use the location from the console output.

Reboot to main OS

open MAGISK app go to settings and enable MAGISK HIDE

open MAGISK app, search module (bottom right button) and install "MagiskHide Props Config" (in the zip file provided) then reboot to main OS

Install the Android Terminal app.. so we can spoof our Phones Identity so Google Play works ok:

open Terminal emulator app

type "su" enter (grant permission)

type "props" enter (to run the magiskhide Props config app)

type "1" enter

type "F" enter

type "30" enter

type "25" enter

type "2" enter

type "y" enter

type "y" enter (phone reboots)

Before it has a chance to start reloading, hold the keys to enter TWRP.

Flash open_gapps-arm64-11.0-pico-20220215 to the BOOT partition.

(you may be able to install this earlier in the process but I did it at this point)

After reboot wait gapps to update (around 5-10 mins) then sign in to playstore. You may need to authenticate the login on another android app if you have 2FA.

==

Then install apps via google play so they are all official and working well on the phone:

gboard keyboard TT9 keyboard

Essential Apps you may want: Android Auto

Google Maps

Google Photos

Spotify

Gmail

Calendar

Contacts

Uber/Bolt Taxis

... done!

Hopefully this helps you too!

Some other things I will probably look at :

How to remove some of the stock call/message apps in favour of the Google ones.

Possibly a minimalist launcher... suggestions welcome.

I remember there used to be an option like this on the Reddit app..

On a post that contains a particular content type you could filter to show just that content type of posts.

On posts with a photo hit a filter option to show only posts that have a photo.

On posts with a video, hit the filter option and you can see just posts with a video.

I think there were options for the format where posts just contained text also.

The filter was available directly from the options on the post.

Is this a feature in Boost already?

Just wanted to drop a quick message in to say thank you to those who put in the news articles here... I was getting frustrated with the poor journalism across different mainstream news and really appreciate your efforts summarising everything here.

I felt like just a stat for websites like BBC news clicking up views to then guide them on what news stories to focus on publishing, and what to not publish... First world censorship at its finest. At least now I can just read the content here.

The autotldr bot also saves a lot of time from having to read extra non-value text that journalists pump in to make stories longer.

I do wonder what happens if feddituk is shutting down, hopefully this community and these news articles continue... I'd hate to have to actually go to the BBC news site again 😳

Thank you to you and all those growing Lemmy 🙏 2024... the year of everyone migrating to Lemmy.