[Sony Xperia 1 II Guides, News, & Discussion] amakuramio:
I sold all my Samsung devices [S21 U, S23 U] out of poverty and found a Xperia 1 II for a mere 160 $, I took the gamble and bought one.

Since all guides are buried, outdated, and ridden with dead links, Diari will provide you with a quick guide to unlock the bootloader, root, the status of custom ROMS, and benchmarks.

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First of all, the latest update for Xperia 1 II [PDX-203] is Android 12 June security update, with build 58.2.A.7.93 for XQ-AT51. My single-sim device does not support e-sim.

I have tried LineageOS 20 2023-07-27 PixelExperience Plus 2023-09 LMODroid 2023-12 and stock Android 12. The benchmark of all these roms are similar: 1170 for single core and 3400 for multi-core. The performance was the same on all of these roms with 1% difference. On LineageOS it is possible to install stock camera, photography, and cinema app, and they work like stock with one caveat: front camera takes slightly more time to capture pictures on custom roms.

Thus, the benefit of custom roms is the faster booting time of apps with the new android.art runtime, increased security what is a no-brainer if you are crypto trader, for example.

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Guide to install stock and root:

unlock bootloader by tapping build number in system info, then in developer options [enable oem unlock], write down IMEI, we will need this later

boot the phone in fastboot by holding up and inserting the usb cable and volume down and hold for flash mode a blue light or green light will appear in the right corner. Choose for fastboot for now

download Xperia 1 II driver, go to device manager, and install the driver by [have disk] and selecting the folder with the inf file

Unlock bootloader by inserting your IMEI, then download Android Google platform tools, open command line within it by holding shift, right click, then fastboot oem unlock 0x_______ (underscore is where you put the code)

reboot to flash mode, then either use Xperifirm + new flasher (guide), or Sony Flashtool Emma from Sony (recommended) to directly format

Using Xperifirm, download the same firmware as you currently have, and in the folder look for boot___.sin

Download Sony dump tool .\sony_dump.exe out boot___sin (just put the sin file inside the folder and open cmd from it)

Install mag. and patch the img file

now go to fastboot and flash recovery [optional, does not support decryption] twrp from here from adb.exe folder cmd line, then with mag. patched boot.img with command: fastboot flash boot boot_magisk.img, don't forget [direct install] from mag. app

done

Guide to install custom rom:

do step 1-4 from previous text

for LineageOS and PixelExperience, I could flash them from TWRP, but it is best to install from their own respective recovery, if flashed from TWRP it will flash on the inactive partition, select the partition you do not wish to flash in TWRP settings, ideally slot b should be chose so it flashed on slot a, then revert back to slot a after finishing the flash

- for now I will use the recovery provided by these builds themselves, you can use web archive link in Lineageos I posted to get there

boot to fastboot

in adb folder open cmd with shift right click, then fastboot flash dtbo dtbo.img, fastboot flash recovery recovery.img, fastboot flash boot.img, flash root, fastboot --set-active=a

boot to recovery by shutting down, then holding volume down and power, then adb sideload the rom and gapps and magisk, for rom it may

install the modded camera apps [only LineageOS has working camera pro, the other custom roms crash]

done