Custom ROM on an MiPhone
MIUI is a heavily modified Android ROM developed by Chinese electronics manufacturer Xiaomi for its smartphones. This is a fork of the Android OS. MIUI includes various features such as theme support. (Wikipedia)
I have been using an MiPhone for quite a long time. One of my first phones was Mi4i, the then Octa-Core beast, after that I moved to a Motorola Moto E4+ for quite some time, followed by an iPhone 6s for a few months and then to a Redmi Note 6 Pro. Just like the MiPhones, their highly customized MiUI has come a really long way. After moving from a stock Android experience on my Moto to a highly customizable MiUI, I was initially in love with it, but things took a turn.
Xiaomi not only makes really good budget phones but also flagship phones. Xiaomi’s phones are perfect in terms of their hardware, their look and feel, but it’s their software where they lag behind. People will happily go and buy a budget Xiaomi phone without a second thought, but the same they won’t do for the flagship ones, reason being the software. Let’s face it, MiUI is full of bloatwares and ads, I was even shocked to find their official Music Player app giving me popups and ads. This is the reason that MiUI is referred to as MemeUI in the developer worlds of XDA, Reddit and Telegram. Another major concern is about privacy because Xiaomi apps are infamous for taking unnecessary app permissions, for instance, their Security app takes all the permissions in all the phones, even if you haven’t opened the app once, and yea, you guessed it right, you can’t remove those permissions. Same case is with the Cleaner app. And, worst of all, it doesn’t matter if you buy a budget, mid-range or flagship phone, you will get the exact same MiUI experience. Xiaomi is taking on Samsung and OnePlus flagships with it’s Mi 11 Ultra, which costs around ₹69,999, so on a flagship phone like this, software plays a very important role. Because, let’s face it, an average user doesn’t buy a phone for its specs, s/he buys it for the experience.
Okay, enough blabbering about the MemeUI, let’s just jump right into the topic at hand. Last month I took the leap of faith and installed Corvus OS on my Redmi Note 6 Pro, and here is my experience so far.
I wasn’t much into custom ROMs, as of now, I mean, the last time I rooted a phone, it was around 2012 and it was my mom’s Micromax Canvas 2 A110. Rooting and flashing a custom ROM back in those days was a piece of cake. But, nowadays, it is a whole different story. Rooting is a complex process and can even brick your device permanently if you aren’t careful of the steps. Being a noob at this, I sought help from the unofficial Redmi Note 6 Pro Telegram group and had to admit, the lads there are very very helpful, brownie points to the group. I am not gonna talk about the installation process, because it was quite long, but in case you wanna know about it, let me know, and I will prepare a proper instruction manual on that too. However, if you want a quick grasp of it, you can simply check this link out.
Android Version
The device was running on Android 9, with MiUI 12.0.1 Stable. I was getting security updates and MiUI updates but it has been on Android 9 for quite some time. However, now my device runs Android 11, with Corvus version Mutate. I am planning to Android 12, once it’s out.
Camera
The official MiUI camera app was really good, but since Corvus is based on stock Android, it comes with a Pixel-standard Google Camera API app as the primary camera. I am not much of a photography guy, but I found out the camera quality almost the same, with GCam having the upper hand in low-light photography. Corvus’ camera app even has a built-in Google Translate.
Sound
Corvus’ settings app is insane. I can manually control the amount of volume that flows out through my phone’s speaker, headpiece and earphones. It’s not just about the volume rockers, it’s an explicit way to control the high and low ranges of your phone.
Benchmark
I used Geekbench5 to run the benchmark tests. The test took 3 more minutes to complete on MiUI as compared to Corvus. Here are the results on both the devices.
Gaming
MiUI comes with Mi’s Game Turbo, which is sort of an overlay indicator, where we can check the CPU and GPU usages and the FPS count. Corvus comes with a built in Gaming Mode, where it silences all the ringtones and notifications, enables DND and shows an overlay FPS counter while enabled. I ran PUBG Mobile and Call of Duty Mobile on both the phones and the performance was almost similar. The device running Corvus heated less and performed better than the MiUI one. I am planning on installing Hydra Kernel on my Corvus device, to boost the gaming performance.
Other than these, I found Corvus OS more user-friendly and better as compared to MiUI. Having the choice to install only the required Google Apps was really good, I seriously don’t understand who still uses Google Play Movies and other apps. Now, YouTube Vanced runs as a Native app, and I don’t need to keep the default YouTube app. Corvus has 0 bloatwares and this in fact gives me more storage space. The device heats less, it performs fast and the battery lasts longer. It even has a built-in app lock. I can install KWGT and other root required apps. The best one is that now I can finally use AdAway. I am not saying that popup ads are a bad thing, being a developer myself, I know that Google ads is a big source of income to developers. The Always-On Display is another thing to boast about, yes, it consumes a little bit of battery, but it can be a really good thing to show-off.
After having a rooted phone with sucha powerful ROM, it feels really cool, TBH.
However, there are some things that I miss about MiUI and there are some things that Corvus needs to implement soon.
1. I miss the MiUI AppLock, it was quite good and Corvus doesn’t have sucha good one. I can no longer use Face Unlock to unlock my Apps.
2. Mi’s super wallpapers were really beautiful. There are ways to implement the super wallpapers in any phone but in MiUI it felt more native.
There are many more things to talk about and everything can’t be said in the same post. I will be writing more posts about this in the future, if any more interesting changes evolve. For now, I am waiting for Android 12, and/or planning to install the Hydra Kernel.
