How to downgrade a Mediatek Android phone



Its usually thrilling to learn that a major update / upgrade has been released for your Mediatek (MTK) Android phone. The excitement however begins to wane when you discover serious bugs (lagging and overheating being one of the most unbearable) and just wish you were back to the times when your phone was – at least – stable. The good news is that you can easily downgrade your MTK Android phone to a more stable Android OS.

Why would I want to downgrade?

Its actually a good idea to downgrade when you just can’t cope with the bugs in an update. If other builds of the update still aren’t any better then you might want to downgrade and wait out the ‘Guinea Pig’ phase of the Over The Air (OTA) update.

How do I downgrade a MTK Android phone?

First, you need to know what version of Android the phone was running on before the update / upgrade; this is the firmware you’ll need to download then flash to the phone. To downgrade:

Note:

If you encounter any problems then post your questions as a comment here or at the Hovatek Forum and we would gladly assist you.



18 thoughts on “How to downgrade a Mediatek Android phone”

  1. Can this be used for downgrading a Chinese Mediatek MT6582 tablet from Android 9 to 8? The tablet works, but some of the apps I use in my LG Android 8.1 won’t even populate on the tablet.

      1. Apparently some apps won’t populate on Android 9’s Play Store, but work’s fine on Android 8. You get a message saying “Your device isn’t compatible with this version.” Installing each app separately the apk route is a step backward considering Android 9 is supposed to be an upgrade, and that’s if you can find an apk file that actually works. That’s why I was trying to downgrade to 8.

        1. Thanks for your post on your issues with downgrade or flashing Roms on your MTK vs. LG.

          I present have both an LG k6 and an MTK pretty new device but don’t like the pre installed Android 13 and it’s bootloader.

          Also working on my Gmail account and Google. Thanks for reaching me.

          TT

      2. Are all the apps that can run on the original Version of Android 9 run on an MTK phone?

        I must have the proper restore image to downgrade to before I use a SP flag firmware image. Thanks.

    1. Exactly. It sounds contradictory but that’s how it’s done in SP flash tool. Firmware upgrade is simply a flashing algorithm, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s for only upgrading

  2. can I downgrade a mediatek Android phone that have anti-theft on and device protection on to lower OS that doesn’t have any of those security features

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