2021/02/08 Update: The article lost its images during the migration.
(I have to say, it's really troublesome to flash an LG phone.
Why buy another phone?#
I gave my previous Xperia XZ Premium to my dad, so now I only have an iPhone XR, Xperia XZ1 Compact, and a spare Redmi Note 4X. Although it seems like a lot, there are many inconveniences:
- My iPhone XR uses a Japanese Apple ID to subscribe to Apple Music. Every time I switch Apple IDs to install a game, I lose the downloaded songs, which is very troublesome.
- The screen of the Xperia XZ1 Compact is too small. It's fine for daily use, but not for gaming.
- What? You're saying that the Redmi Note 4X's Snapdragon 625 can still handle gaming smoothly? Dream on.
Therefore, I now need a phone that can handle gaming. Since my budget is limited, I have to consider getting a "foreign garbage" phone. The price of the LG G7 is a bit high, and I don't want to consider the XZP that I was scammed with before, so LG is the only option left.
Preparations#
My requirements are not high. It just needs to be able to smoothly run mainstream games at medium to high graphics settings. I happened to see that the LG G7 with Snapdragon 845 is only a little over 700, so I decided to go for it (manually chuckles).
The first step in flashing a phone is definitely to check if there are any third-party ROMs available on XDA. There aren't many third-party ROMs for the G7, only one that already has an official version, which is better than nothing.
Then there are the tutorials from the experts. Now there is a complete set of tutorials available: g7.lge.fun
Where to buy#
To avoid any conflicts, I directly bought it from a Taobao seller. It was listed as a brand new US version, and after asking some detailed questions, the seller was honest and told me it was flashed with the ULM firmware from the V version. The bootloader has been unlocked and it comes with root.
After receiving it, I carefully inspected it and it seemed fine, except for some scratches, but I didn't find any other issues. (By the way, I heard that there are many refurbished Korean versions.)
Stock ROM#
Just like Sony, LG also makes terrible stock ROMs. Although it has many more features than Sony's, it is not user-friendly at all. It even lags visibly when swiping on the home screen. So less than an hour after receiving the phone, I was already planning to flash a third-party ROM.
Flashing TWRP#
The stock ROM version sent by the seller was ULM10, and the experts didn't provide a TWRP boot image for this version. So to avoid unnecessary issues, I decided to first upgrade to the ULM20d version and then use the boot image provided by the experts. Here's what I did:
- Install and crack LGUP, a software that allows cross-version flashing once cracked.
- Flash the ULM20d firmware package.
- Boot directly into fastboot mode and start TWRP.
- Flash Evolution X.
Everything seemed fine. However, the reality was that I clearly underestimated LG. After flashing the ULM20d system, I found that I couldn't enter fastboot mode at all.
After carefully reading the other tutorials from the experts, I came to the conclusion that LG's V version of fastboot is useless, and even if you manage to enter it, it serves no purpose.
Later, I thought about directly flashing it from within the system since it has root access. However, when I actually entered the system, I realized that the previous firmware flash had overwritten the boot partition, so root access was lost.
I had no choice but to use the low-level tool QFIL to flash the boot partition image. Fortunately, this process went relatively smoothly.
Flashing Evolution X#
Q: Why flash this ROM?
A: Because it's currently the only official one available.
With TWRP, flashing a ROM is simple. Just boot into TWRP and flash it, and you can also change to the F2FS file system and install Magisk.