While there’s not much you can do to about Xiaomi’s decision to go with better camera hardware in Chinese units of Redmi Note 5 Pro, there’s now a fix to get its Android 8.1 Oreo ROM on the Indian models.
While India got the disappointing Android 7.1.2 Nougat-based MIUI ROM, you can now flash the Android 8.1-based MIUI 9 ROM on your Redmi Note 5 Pro in India.
First posted on XDA Forums, the user community has discovered the latest MIUI 9.5 China Stable ROM for the Redmi Note 5 (a la Redmi Note 5 Pro in India) on Xiaomi’s website. The senior member, who’s posted the ROMs for installation by anyone, says that you must use TWRP Recovery to flash the ROM he’s posted in the forum.
Note: You’ll need to have an unlocked bootloader and TWRP installed on your Redmi Note 5 Pro to flash the Android 8.1 ROM.
But if you’re wary of doing the same, you can also choose to download the complete ROM file from the Chinese website and install it via the Mi Flash tool. This might be the simpler approach, however, you should go ahead with the installation at your risk.
Hidden Treble Surprise?
One of the forum members has already installed the Android 8.1 MIUI ROM on their device using TWRP (while others faced bootloop issues) and it seems to be working perfectly fine. They have, however, discovered a surprising tidbit of info in this build and it’s that Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro’s latest China ROM brings along Project Treble support. While we cannot confirm this ourselves, it could be possible that the Chinese smartphone giant may finally be able to include full Treble support.
