As a hobby, I like buying broken phones off the internet, fixing them up, play with it for a bit, then resell. Recently, I bought a Redmi 8A from Facebook Marketplace. The phone in question has a corrupted firmware/operating system. I’ve resurrected phones (mostly Samsung and older Xiaomis) with such issues before, so I thought it was an easy fix.

With my past experience with resurrecting a bricked Xiaomi phone, I would normally just disassemble the phone, short out some pads on the motherboard, flash the firmware, and off I go… This time though, you have an extra step. Before the computer even starts flashing the firmware into the phone, it will ask for an authorized Xiaomi acccount (that has special permission to flash devices using EDL).

Older Xiaomi phones: Disassemble phone > Short out pads > Connect phone to PC > Flash firmware > Done

Newer Xiaomi phones: Disassemble phone > Short out pads > Connect phone to PC > Log-in to authorized Xiaomi account > Flash firmware > Done

It’s not as simple as creating an account and then logging into it. You have to buy a special account for around $30 from some sketchy sources, and that would only allow you to flash one time. If you made a mistake, that’s $30 down the drain. Another option you could do is use a special software, but requires a subscription. Which is $20-30 for three months. I went with this. At least, I can flash as much as I want.

Now the phone is question is now fully functional. Which is good, but imo, I shouldn’t have to pay for anything in the first place, like I did in the past.

You might be saying, you should have just went into fastboot and flashed the firmware that way. Or even unlock the bootloader, and then reflash. Well, it’s not that simple. In order to flash anything using fastboot, you have to unlock the bootloader. And in order to do so, you’ll have to boot into Android, then enable OEM unlocking in the settings. Which isn’t possible in my case.

I believe, most Android phones are gonna be like this if you have to unbrick it. Had this happened on a Motorola, Huawei, and on a Pixel too (with a locked bootloader).

Samsung and LG phones are easier to recover, which has a download mode, which allows for recovering/unbricking regardless of the bootloader status (just hold the volume up button, the connect to PC). Even iPhones are also easy to recover. You just have to hold down the home button, connect to the computer, and then let iTunes do the rest. All three manufacturers makes it easy, that an average Joe can do it at the comfort of their own homes. They don’t even have to take the phone apart. I wish all Android manufacturers would make it that easy.

TL;DR: It used to be that Xiaomi (and most Android phones) are easy to recover/unbrick, but sometime down the road, they made it a bit difficult by requiring an special account, which you’ll have to get through sketchy sources. Or use a special subscription-based software. LG, Samsung, and Apple are the exception since they make it easier.