Windows 11 mobile phones: running Mi 8, OnePlus 6T, Microsoft Lumia 950 XL

Would you like to try it on?

As we all know, Microsoft has worked hard to go to the mobile terminal and launched Windows Phone. Have you ever thought about the recent official announcement of Windows 11 running on mobile phones?

An engineering student from abroad, Gustave Monce, was curious about this. It coincided with Microsoft's launch of the Windows 11 preview version for Insider, so he tried the Lumia 950 XL (Lumia 950 XL was the first batch of Microsoft equipped with Windows 10 mobile version 5 years ago. One of the last Windows Mobile phones) runs on Windows 11. The result is really successful!

01 Windows 11 runs on Lumia 950 XL

Gustave Monce's ability to run Windows 11 on the Lumia 950 XL did not happen overnight: "It all started 5 years ago, when Windows 10 Mobile was almost out of date."

Facts have proved that this view mentioned by Gustave Monce in an interview with THE Verge is correct. With the proliferation of Android and iOS devices, Windows 10 Mobile’s market share has long been negligible.

At that time, Gustave Monce and Bingxing Wang, who also wanted to run a desktop operating system on Lumia's 5.7-inch screen, launched Lumia WOA, a project that brought Windows desktop operating systems to Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL.

"Over time, a discussion group for this project has gradually formed. In other words, people who are interested in running Windows 10 on Lumia 950 have formed a community." Gustave Monce also pointed out: "We are basically about A team of 15 people and has made a lot of progress."

According to Gustave Monce, to make Windows 11 run on Windows Phone, his team has ported and reverse-engineered the driver, and even wrote its own driver, which finally succeeded.

Although Windows 11 can run on Lumia 950 XL, because it is not a mobile operating system, it cannot run completely. The effect presented on a mobile phone is naturally not as good as Android and iOS: double-click the screen, start the file browser, and click There is a delay in the start menu and other tasks, and the screen rotation is troublesome.

In addition, Gustave Monce also admitted that the Lumia 950 XL camera under Windows 11 is not working properly, battery life is affected, and calls/messages are occasionally interrupted. If it is to be used as a mobile operating system, the current Windows 11 is naturally unqualified.

But despite this, his research also gave us an idea of ​​how Windows 11's drastic UI looks on smartphones and how functions such as Snap Layouts are implemented on small screen devices.

(Lumia 950 XL under Windows 11)

Regarding this result, Gustave Monce said modestly: "I won't say that we did it very quickly, because it took us four years to reach our current state." Gustave Monce explained: "All Windows 10-based Work and our previous work to support Windows 10X, running Windows 11 on the Lumia 950 XL is a natural way forward, and it really doesn’t take much time to get started."

02 Android phones such as Mi 8, OnePlus 6T can also run Windows 11

With the example of Lumia 950 XL, I believe many people will start to think: Can the Windows 11 system also be ported to Android phones? Xilin Wu, a great god from the First Affiliated Middle School of Central China Normal University, told us: Yes.

As the lead developer behind the Renegade project (a project that attempts to port edk2 to different mobile phones), Xilin Wu said that Windows 11 ARM64 can be ported to mobile phones equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 chips.

Since Qualcomm UEFI's XBL (UEFI firmware, responsible for core application functions such as chip drivers and charging) and ABL (required to load the Linux kernel) cannot be modified, Xilin Wu's team created their own tools/drivers to enable the Snapdragon 845 Customized UEFI environment.

Thanks to the efforts of the Renegade team, some developers have ported the Windows 11 system to Xiaomi 8, OnePlus 6T and some Snapdragon prototypes running Qualcomm Snapdragon 845:

(OnePlus 6T under Windows 11 system)

(Xiaomi 8 under Windows 11)

However, unlike the Lumia 950 XL's LTE modem, which can be recognized by Windows 11 for calling functions, the developer clearly pointed out that Windows 11 currently ported to Android phones does not support calling, and most of the system's functions cannot be used normally in phones.

In addition, foreign research teams have realized that Windows 11 can be started and run on Rasberry Pi 4. Although there are also certain limitations, this early-stage Windows 11 preview version itself has many problems, so there is room for improvement in the future.

However, we don’t need to expect too much, because Microsoft’s Windows 11 is not really optimized for mobile devices. Porting Windows 11 to mobile phones is only an experimental operation or interest of some developers. It is far from enough as a mobile operating system.

Reference link

https://www.windowslatest.com/2021/07/01/devs-start-bringing-windows-11-to-android-phones/

https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/1/22558999/microsoft-windows-11-windows-phone-port-developer-engineer

https://github.com/strongtz