randomTingler

One thing to note, it will become very difficult to unlock the bootloader once the device is updated to HyperOS. There is no way to unlock it if you have purchased the china version.

What made you choose crdroid over stock lineageOS?

When the google photos became a paid service crdroid was giving an option to do unlimited upload of photos by spoofing the device as pixel. It started like that and it gives more customization compared to lineageOS, so I stuck to it. I used both lineage and crdroid, there is no notable performance difference.

BTW, I'm not longer using Google photos for backup, I setup a homesever and use immich as my backup solution.

I'll take this advice when I have the money 😀

I hope your gf device code name is sweet. There are latest versions available as you can find here. https://xmfirmwareupdater.com/miui/sweet/

If you want the latest version of Android with recent security patch, try lineage os or crdroid. But you have to unlock the bootloader and spend little time tinkering on it. You can find a lot of YouTube videos with step by step instructions. I have a device that runs on crdroid with Android 14.

I may keep 1m, that's way more than what I need to live this life and donate the rest to hospitals and education institutions.

I have no knowledge on wood working.. but I can say it's amazing for the first try.

I write code. When I look at the code/logics that I have written years ago, I would amaze by myself that how did I really do it. Hope you would have similar feeling in few years