Paranoid Android Sapphire ROM arrives on Xiaomi Mi 8 and three other phones

Corbin Davenport

XDA Developers


Paranoid Android Sapphire ROM arrives on Xiaomi Mi 8 and three other phones

Paranoid Android is one of the longest-running Android custom ROM projects, with official and unofficial builds for dozens of phones and tablets. The Paranoid Android team is currently working on a new update based on Android 12, called ‘Paranoid Android Saphhire,’ and now the alpha release is available on four new phones.

Paranoid Android Sapphire, which is currently on its second alpha release, is now officially available on four more phones: the Xiaomi Poco F1, Xiaomi Mi 8, Xiaomi Mix 2S, and Xiaomi Mix 3. Those are all based on the Linux 4.9 kernel and code from the Code Aurora Forums. The new wave of devices comes after the addition of several other phones, such as the OnePlus 7T Pro, OnePlus 9 Pro, Xiaomi Mi 10, and Poco F2 Pro/Redmi K30 Pro.

This is still an alpha release, so there might be more than a few bugs — the forum post for the Mi Mix 3 says slider gestures aren’t working, for example. Paranoid Android Sapphire is based on Android 12, and previous releases included navigation bar customization, per-app options for cellular data/VPN/Wi-Fi, a screen recorder (before Android had its own), extended screenshots based on code from the Pixel Experience ROM, and other improvements. Unlike LineageOS, Paranoid Android has Google Mobile Services built-in, which might be an upside or downside, depending on how much Google-made software you want on your phone.

The installation instructions vary by device, but generally, you need a recent version of the stock firmware and Fastboot installed on your computer. Check the links for your specific device for the full instructions.

Other custom ROMs have been hard at work to release new versions based on Android 12. The LineageOS team announced earlier this week that official builds for LineageOS 19 will start soon, which also means updates for device still stuck on 17.1 (such as the original Google Pixel and OnePlus Nord) are sadly ending.

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