Deja vu? No, I’ve written about this subject before, but I failed miserably to switch last time. In case anyone forgot, this phone runs Android while featuring the look and feel of a mid-2000s feature phone. It looks like a perfect compromise between wanting to be a digital minimalist while still having a few “smart” features within reach.
Why am I writing about this, especially since I already failed to switch to it once? Mostly because I have some updates.
Returning the Phone: Mission Failed
Would you believe I couldn’t even return the phone like I originally intended?
In my defense, I made the attempt. This wasn’t me just sitting around and waiting for the return window to run out or something. I went back to the AliExpress page to file a return in a prompt manner, and the seller was more than happy to comply. Soon after, AliExpress gave instructions on sending it back through the mail to get my refund and everything. There was no prepaid shipping label or anything of that sort, so I would have to pay for the shipping back.
I went to a shipping business near my place that I always use if I want to ship through FedEx or UPS. I usually just drop off the package with its label already on and leave. This time, I would have to use the address AliExpress gave me and purchase a shipping label.
However, they were unwilling to help me, simply stating that “We don’t ship to China.” They didn’t delve into why, so I left the business for the first time an unsatisfied customer. Soon after, I went to a local UPS branch office nearby and asked them to help me ship the product to China, and that’s when I was in for a nasty surprise.
Those who’ve bought something expensive from China and had second thoughts may know where this is going, but for those who haven’t: Shipping to China is expensive. It cost so much that it would have made more sense just to keep the phone. The woman helping me at the counter suggested I sell the product to recoup the cost on my own.
I left the phone and accessories in the original package to be sold at a future date, but it simply sat in the box without me disturbing it for months. I got rather busy until recently, and I noticed I still had it sitting there. That’s when I decided that maybe I could take the phone back out and give it another try.
Situational 4G Coverage Has Improved
I’ve started to work in different places since I first tried using the Xiaomi Qin F22 Pro, so my 4G signal isn’t quite as abysmal as it was last time. It does really dip in some places, don’t get me wrong, but I actually find it somewhat usable this time around.
“De-Chinafying” the Phone
However, before I was willing to throw all caution to the wind and use the phone again, there was still the matter of the Chinese nature of the phone’s software.
In short, I had no way to confirm or deny the possibility that telemetry was being sent to Xiaomi and, by extension, the Chinese government. While I know that the Chinese government may not have much interest or use in my personal info and that I use services or software (I use Microsoft Edge for work) that collect telemetry, I still want to protect something. I never understood the fallacious reasoning that somehow failing to protect a small fraction of my private information means I should simply give up protecting my privacy altogether.
But regardless, even if I didn’t mind the Chinese software, there’s the fact that I don’t really know how to read any Chinese. There’s also the obvious fact that the services are uninstallable in most instances and feature services or tools I’m not interested in, even if I were fluent in Mandarin.
Fortunately, it was XDA-Developers to the rescue! FlashTool was all I needed to install custom ROMs on the device. A Vietnamese fellow had done a rather impressive job removing the Chinese bloat from the app, but then he installed a lot of apps he liked along with many other questionable changes and branding. Instead of making a ROM that most people would want to use, he made something primarily for himself.
Not to knock the guy, of course, since he did do quite a bit of work at least removing the Chinese parts of the software, but a different XDA user continued his work and seriously cleaned everything, making it as minimal as possible, a blank slate for anybody who wanted to use a Xiaomi Qin F22 Pro. This did catch the attention of the Vietnamese dev and led to a small amount of drama, but things cooled off rather quickly. Honestly, what I found more notable was how utterly slow the download mirror for the cleaned up ROM was. It was linked by the thread creator several pages in, was hosted on some sort of “anonymous files” sharing site (which solicits Bitcoin and Monero donations to stay running), and took two hours to finish downloading at a complete crawl.
Outside of a few technical issues at first, it was top-notch and I had no major problems. I did have a hiccup with no working T9 keyboard (there was no keyboard input anywhere), as I guess the dev did such a great job cleaning up the software, but I easily fixed it by sideloading an apk from my Arch system. Magisk also didn’t prompt me to install it until a second or third reboot.
I suppose I didn’t really discuss this a whole lot last time, but there was something about the Chinese apps and bloatware that made me a little hesitant to do anything too sensitive or personal on the device. However, now that there’s none of that to worry about, I feel much more assured in signing into apps I know and love.
Going Without Before Launcher
I am an avid fan of Before Launcher. I love using it on my regular smartphone, the OnePlus 10 Pro, and it’s a phenomenal piece of software. In fact, they even added support for hiding the status bar at the top on the home screen a few months ago, and I’ve really liked the feature a lot.
Sadly, and I’m still not sure why, but Before Launcher is completely uninstallable on the Xiaomi Qin F22 Pro. Google Play simply won’t let me install it. Alternatives I had used before like Olauncher and Niagra Launcher do work on it, but I would rather use Before Launcher over the likes of those choices.
I’m not a developer and I can’t really confirm the actual reason this doesn’t work on it, sadly. The developer has been nothing but cool to me since we got in contact a while back, and I’m sure there’s an understandable or perfectly sound reason it doesn’t work on the Xiaomi Qin F22 Pro despite how it’s running Android 12. Still, I can’t help but miss my notifications being held aside for later.
I eventually settled on minimalist phone, which is fine, I suppose. It’s another launcher I could find that suppresses notifications, although it has a subscription model (Before Launcher is free and only needs a one-time payment for Pro), it keeps notifying me when I get a suppressed notification (the distraction defeats the purpose of “suppressing” notifications), and it doesn’t feel as easy to get to where my notifications are held aside for later. I’m just using the trial for the meantime, though I would much rather just use Before Launcher.
Beeper Works Great
I was originally planning to write about it in another blog post, but I was accepted to try out Beeper, a multi-platform messaging app that lets you consolidate just about every major platform together under one roof.
Would you believe I had signed up for early access in January 2021? The email welcoming me to get started with Beeper said I had signed up 860 days prior. I had to go out of my way to calculate what date that was. Until being welcomed by a random text telling me it was time to sign up, I had to stop and try to remember what the app even was. Even then, I had totally forgotten why I signed up for early access in the first place. That is, until I remembered that I really wanted to use iMessage from non-Apple devices (I owned an iPhone 12 Mini at the time, which was during my 1-year stint with iOS). Although iMessage is pretty useless to me now, it’s nice to have my Signal conversations and SMS text messages in one app instead of two separate ones.
The reason I bring this up is because setting up Signal to use on my Xiaomi device was annoying last time. Instead of having to set up Signal all over again, Beeper makes it painless. I know this may somewhat compromise on privacy, but Signal is still quite secure and private compared to the likes of WhatsApp. I only wish I could invite my girlfriend, friends, and family to use Beeper right now, but I’m not sure how soon I would be able to do that.
What’s The Point of All These Updates?
I’m glad you ask! Now that I’m here, I’m willing to give the phone another go. I want to try and switch again, but this time, I’m trying harder.
Instead of just going in without a clear goal this time, I’ve decided to set a more concrete time frame: I’m going to use the Xiaomi Qin F22 Pro as my full-time phone for one week starting today. Will I switch permanently this time? Let’s find out.
In an upcoming blog post, I will document just how exactly all of that went in a day-by-day breakdown.
Sudo Science 