Xiaomi MIUI custom ROM is one of the few Android-based custom skins offered in more than two versions. OnePlus also launches more than one Custom ROM versions. Hydrogen OS For China market and Oxygen OS for the market outside China (Global Market). If you dont know between these two, you can check our article about MIUI diffrences here
MIUI Xiaomi
Xiaomi recently expanding its company rapidly into new markets outside China; India, Indonesia, Spain, Russia and others. Most Xiaomi phones sold outside China run MIUI China ROM. Because of Google services banning in China, manufacturers usually remove them before shipping.
Before Xiaomi’s phones were sold by the company itself and / or authorized agents, in most areas they were sold by third-party retailers who reinstalled Google’s frameworks and applications. Then they sometimes flash the China ROM to replace it with the Global ROM themselves so as to get regular updates. And now the practice still continues, this is might be one of the indication why then they create 2 versions of ROM as stated in MIUI Forum :
- Mi Phones manufactured for (the) Chinese market are not able to run MIUI Global. They’re using MIUI China Stable Rom. This kind of ROM has been pre-installed on Xiaomi phones imported from China and they exclude Google Services like Google Play Store etc. They add their own store for downloading apps.
- Mi Phones made Global markets are not able to run MIUI China.
The official statement then recommends that buyers should buy Xiaomi phones through authorized store or official sales channels. It also urge users to double check the system information before flashing or updating. Because if you guys not verifying the system information then you could be bricking of the smartphone.
There might be a way to tackle this by first unlocking the phone’s bootloader before flashing, but we cannot confirm that flashing between China and Global ROM will work with an unlocked bootloader.
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