Does euROM (Xiaomi.eu ROM) on Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro Lag?

So I instaled the euROM on my new Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro and rooted it. I did it without using the stock ROM, which is a global version, at all.

I did not find any problem with the euROM, partly because I had nothing to compare it to. But then I noticed some euROM users complain that it lags on Redmi Note 10 Pro. I thought about installing a different custom ROM (with the euROM being technically a custom ROM) for possible improvement in performance.

What was tricky is the timing: the latest Xiaomi official ROM MIUI 12 and thus euROM as well for Redmi Note 10 Pro are based on Android 11. However, Redmi Note 10 Pro is expected to receive MIUI 13 soon, which is based on Android 12. Whenever the major version of Android changes, they say it is safe to wipe your data and restart from scratch. I find that tedious, so I looked for an Android-12-based custom ROM.

Looking at “General – Comprehensive List of Every ROM for Redmi Note 10 Pro & Maintainance Status | XDA Forums,” I decided to give Development – [ROM][OFFICIAL] Pixel Extended ROM V4.0 Android 12 [Sweet][19.12.21] | XDA Forums a go.

“K20 Pro PixelExtended V4.0 Stable Android 12 Complete Review | Super Smooth & Decent Performance – YouTube” is a review video.

Pixel Extended’s launcher, with automatic icon theming applied

My thoughts on this custom ROM:

• Geekbench 5 do not report good scores (single core: 512, multi-core 1559); actually they are worse than those by either stock ROM or euROM.
• It may be snappier than euROM, but I might be imagining things.
• NFC appears to be not supported. The quick setting tile says “unavailable,” and I cannot find any setting items in Settings. This is a deal-breaker for me because I intend to use NFC.
• The camera app is very primitive. You can certainly install GCam, but you cannot get to have the stock camera app experience. ANXCamera by AEonAX currently does not support Redmi Note 10 Pro.
• Could not automatically assign the correct APN info for my carrier (OCN). Even with manual input, I could not have it connect to OCN, but it went fine with Povo 2.0.
• FM Radio can fully support Japanese FM frequencies. This is great because I want a fully-functioning radio app on my phone, but the stock app does not support Japan-specific frequencies. The stations it picks up seems to vary depending on the headphone/headset you use it with.
• Cannot get scrolling screenshots. Actually, you can.

This is more an Android 12 issue than Pixel Extended’s, but it takes a while to get used Android 12’s way of getting things done. I do believe the new Material You theming mechanism is a step in the right direction, from my short experience with it on the Pixel Extended ROM, I am not too impressed.

Pixel ExtendedのプリインFMラジオアプリでは87MHz以下の局も聴くことができる

As to the FM Radio app, the following seems to be what constitutes the app, so I made these files backed up.

./system/framework/oat/arm64/qcom.fmradio.odex
./system/framework/oat/arm64/qcom.fmradio.vdex
./system/framework/oat/arm/qcom.fmradio.odex
./system/framework/oat/arm/qcom.fmradio.vdex
./system/framework/qcom.fmradio.jar

I wanted to know if the euROM is indeed sluggish compared to the stock ROM, so I decided to re-install the stock global ROM on a second Redmi Note 10 Pro, so I can compare it against the euROM on the first Redmi Note 10 Pro.

Xiaomi provides the official stock global ROM, but its official flashing instructions assumes the use of the stock ROM, although probably it can be flashed with TWRP as well. The official way was to use XiaoMiFlash.exe tool with the device in the fastboot mode, which I did.

This process, however, relocked the bootloader! Arrgggh! How stupid of me! Thankfully, since this was a device that had been bootloader-unlocked before, the bootloader was unlocked immediately. Also I later feared this process ruined the modem, but probably I did not.

Someone commented that installing Development – [KERNEL](UPDATED)(25/8/2021) Epsilon 4.14 + (Sweet/SweetIN) fixed the issue. I installed this on top of the euROM on the first Note 10, but according to the Geekbench 5 scores, the performance improvement was pretty much non-existent. Installing the Epsilon kernel did not remove Magisk, despite the warning by the developer.

Here is the summary of Geekbench 5 scores of various ROMs:

• original stock global ROM (unupdated): 559/1772
• latest euROM (12.5.9.0): 549/1704
• latest euROM (12.5.9.0) with the Epsilon kernel: 550/1652
• latest stock global ROM (12.5.9.0): 561/1728
• Pixel Extended: 512/1259

where the number before the slash signifies the single-core score, and the one after, the multi-core score. The original stock global ROMs actually perform best among them. But the scores differ each time you measure. For example, the latest euROM (12.5.9.0) with the Epsilon kernel just gave me 561/1644. So except Pixel Extended, you could say stock global ROMs’ and euROM’ performance is all in the same ballpark.

So I have decided to keep the latest euROM (12.5.9.0) with the Epsilon kernel. At this point, I do not know if using the Epsilon kernel was a good idea or not. But soon I will have to update to euROM 13, at which point I assume the kernel will be overwritten anyway.

I am also going to install the euROM on the second Note 10 Pro too, which my partner is going to use. I chose Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro mainly for its camera. GCam is there, but I figure it’d be best to be able to use the stock camera app without the Chinese nonsense, even though it may mean slightly reduced performance.