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A phone ideal for 4G/5G testing?

Network signal guru is the best that I have found, you can use it for free but some of the features are paywalled which is £50pm but gives you access to things like earfcn locking, viewing SIBs to find out mast vendors, pausing and rewinding on the information, ability to produce signal maps, dual SIM support + more that I haven't used yet
Is NSG still Qualcomm only or will it run on a Mediatek?
 
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Is NSG still Qualcomm only or will it run on a Mediatek?
I've not tested it on a mediatek device myself, but the following chipsets are listed on their website as supported

MediaTek Dimensity Devices:
  • Diemsity 700/800/900/1000/1100/1200
  • Dimensity 8100/9000 R16
  • Device Brands, such as OPPO, Xiaomi, Samsung, Oneplus, Realme devices
 
Do you still have to wait 7 days for the boot loader to unlock on Xiaomi?
its not always 7 days, mine was a week and a half on my old RN9. I didn't even end up rooting it as some apps I needed would stop working
 
OK Bubbles.

What do you suggest to replace my S8. I have stayed loyal to Samsung as I felt (rightly or wrongly) it helped with the migration of apps. But maybe this is a myth and there are better value phones around.
I would honestly recommend the Xiaomi, but if you are wanting to stay with Samsung I'd reccomed an A52s 5G or an A53. If you are wanting a top of the range Samsung, I would probably go with the S21 or S21+ if you want a bigger screen. The A52s is usually enough for most people however.
 
OK Bubbles.

What do you suggest to replace my S8. I have stayed loyal to Samsung as I felt (rightly or wrongly) it helped with the migration of apps. But maybe this is a myth and there are better value phones around.

It's still getting updates though?
 
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I'd avoid Mediatek and brands that aren't modding friendly.

To root, you need to unlock the bootloader and then flash Magisk. Brands like OPPO often don't let you unlock your phone and modding (recovery, ROMs, etc) is often worse or nonexistent for Mediatek SoCs.

A Xiaomi with a Snapdragon SoC is probably a good choice from a price and support point of view. The main downside is that you'll need to wait some time to unlock the device (I believe the Poco line is 1 week). Not everyone likes their Android skin (MIUI) either.
 
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Any OnePlus phones worth looking at?
 
I have a OnePlus 8 Pro and it works well. Anything after the 8/8 Pro should be fine. Be careful with the OnePlus Nord line as they use Mediatek for some of the models.

On a side note, I wouldn't upgrade to a flagship right now. The last 2 generations haven't been that good because of "bad" processors. On top of that, there's the modem situation.

On one hand we have the affordable and efficient phones with the Snapdragon 865/870 that use the very popular X55 modem. On the other, we have more expensive phones with the hot and power hungry Snapdragon 888 and "Snapdragon 8 Gen 1" (terrible name) with newer and more capable modems.

Now, while the X55 is good, as far as I know it's not capable of aggregating some of the lower bands (it's one of the first 5G modems). This doesn't affect the crazy Three speeds that rely on band 78 alone, but EE for example is already deploying 5G on different bands...

The X65 is better, but then you have to deal with a bad processor because Qualcomm picked Samsung to manufacture the 888/8 Gen1... and Samsung's 5nm node is sh*t when compared to TSMC (they make the 865/870, processors for AMD, Apple, Mediatek, etc). So if you want a better Qualcomm modem right now, you'll need to use a phone with a processor that runs hot and drains your battery.

By the end of the year we should have a few phones available with the "8+ Gen 1" (made by TSMC, not Samsung). Better performance, less heat, better battery life and a modem that should be better at aggregating different bands and provide better speeds.
 
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Personally, I use a Xaiomi Mi11 Lite 5G (original, not the NE) - it's got the x53 modem, which can be considered as a cut-down x65 rather than a newer version of x52 (x55 based). It can aggregate n78 with either n1/n3/n28 (2 NR CA). CPU is 780G, so a step down from the top and so not as power hungry/hot
 
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But of a bump I know but I think I am ready to root my Redmi Note 10 5G now.

I have been using Cellmapper, G-Net Track and LTE Discovery for a good few months but want more signal information now.

What is the safest way to root them?
 
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