Xiaomi’s sub-brand POCO launched the POCO F1 smartphone in India back in August 2018 running MIUI 9.6 Global Stable on top of Android 8.1 (Oreo) and later updated it to Android 9.0 in December 2018. The device runs MIUI 10 based on Android 9.0 as of now, and should get MIUI 11 shortly as per the announced schedule.
POCO F1 is confirmed to get Android 1o update but the company has not shared any timeline for Android 10 rollout but POCO F1 has one of the most active developer community and as a result, we already have a few Android 10 based custom ROMs for the device. We tried Android 10 based Pixel Experience on our unit, and here is our post that may help you in deciding whether you should flash it on your unit.
Performance and Benchmarks
POCO F1 packs Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 which is a beast when it comes to performance, it obtained AnTuTu score of 226832 on Pixel Experience. It scored 2025 points in single-core test and 6275 points in multi-core test in Geekbench 4. In Geekbench 5 test, it managed to get a 515 points in single-core test and 1624 points in multi-core test.
Software, UI, and Apps:
As the name suggests, the Pixel Experience ROM aims towards providing a clean Pixel-like experience on the device. There is no bloatware pre-installed, only a few Google apps preinstalled.
Out of 64 GB internal storage, 8 GB is occupied by the system and users get around 56 GB of free storage. This ROM is based on the latest Android 10 and has October security patch.
Android 10 offers various choices for navigation, users can choose between 3-button navigation, 2-button navigation (Pill based, similar to Android 9.0 Pie) and Gestures navigation. Users coming from MIUI will find the Android 10 gestures very familiar.
Android 10 features a system-wide dark mode along with theming options such as accent color, icon shape, and body font, all of these features are also available on Pixel Experience ROM but you need to enable developer options to change these.
Pixel Experience offers Digital Wellbeing that will help you understand your phone usage better, including app usage timers, Wind Down and all-new Focus Mode.
Fingerprint Sensor
The fingerprint works flawlessly on this ROM as you would expect, users can add up to five different fingerprints to unlock the phone. The fingerprint animation is slow due to which the phone unlocking experience is slower as compared to stock MIUI Global ROM but during our usage, we found it accurate and reliable.
Camera
The inbuilt camera app is very basic, but you can install GCam apk mods to get the better results along with portrait and night mode. A working version can be downloaded from here, for more ported GCam mods users can visit Google Camera Port Updates telegram channel.
Battery Life
The battery life on the Pixel Experience is good, the device easily lasts a day even with heavy usage. There is a battery saver mode that restricts background activities to save some power and should help when the phone is low on charge.
Additionally, users can also restrict background activities for the app using the battery manager even when the battery saver mode is turned off. It also offers Adaptive battery similar to what you get on any Stock Android phone. The phone also shows charging information including the device temperature on the lock screen.
Conclusion
Coming for MIUI, Pixel Experience based on Android 10 certainly feels refreshing, if you want to stay updated along with vanilla stock Android, great performance, MIUI like gestures, and good battery life, Pixel Experience is worth consideration.
Pros
- Fluid day to day performance
- System-wide themes and accent colors
- Bloat-free UI
- Good battery life
- Cam2API enabled
- Gestures based navigation
- Banking apps work without any issue after flashing Magisk
Cons
- Face unlock isn’t available
Requirements
- POCO F1 with an unlocked bootloader – To Unlock the bootloader of your device, apply here.
- TWRP for POCO F1 – You can download the recovery file from here.
- Pixel Experience ROM– Download the latest ROM ZIP file from here.
- Magisk – Download here.
- GApps – Included with the ROM, no need to flash manually.
- ADB software (For Windows) / Android zip file (For Mac)
If you are on a Mac you need to
- Extract the Android zip and place the folder on your Desktop.
- Open Terminal
- Type cd Desktop/Android
- Enter ./ADB-Install-Mac.sh
Follow the procedure mentioned below to flash the ROM on the device,
- Switch off the phone and boot it into Fastboot mode by long pressing Power and Volume down buttons simultaneously.
- Connect your phone to PC by a USB cable, open command prompt on your PC and navigate to the folder where you have downloaded TWRP Recovery.
- Type ‘fastboot devices’ in command prompt and check if the device is detected by the system.
- If the system detects the phone, type ‘fastboot flash recovery twrp_filename.img’ and hit enter, the process will be completed in seconds.
- Now long-press the Volume up and Power Button to boot the phone in recovery mode.
- It will ask to allow modifications, Slide towards the right to allow Modifications.
- Select ‘Wipe’, click on ‘Format Data’ and type ‘Yes’. Go to ‘Advanced Wipe’, select ‘Dalvik / ART Cache’, ‘System’. ‘Data’, ‘Cache’ and then swipe towards the right to Wipe.
- Go back and click on ‘Install’, navigate to the location where you have stored ROM zip, and Magisk (optional), it’s better to keep these zip files on SD Card or USB OTG drives. Select the ROM file and Magisk zip and then swipe towards the right to flash.
- Click on ‘Reboot’ and then ‘System’, within 5-10 minutes device will boot with Pixel Experience ROM.
Warning Disclaimer: Bootloader unlocking and flashing ROM may void the warranty of Xiaomi devices, FoneArena is not responsible for any damage or loss caused to your device. Credits for Pixel Experience ROM, TWRP Recovery, and Magisk go to their respective developers.
Siva Bharani contributed to the post