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Help I9508... need help

Q

qiuyue

Lurker
Sooo............. I wound up trusting a taobao shop and regret it bitterly. The I9508 was sold to me as the european version- my thought: I can find a factory image in English with Google Play.
WRONG!
I9508 is 100% Big Brother China.

Now, I'm trying to negotiate with them to exchange for the I9500- the closest thing to an international version that they have on hand... but assuming this doesn't happen, this is where I'm hoping to find help:

Would I be able to use a factory image from a I9500 to change my phone? Or a factory image from any other S4 for that matter?

Any input would be welcomed. Last time I did something like this was on a very old samsung phone- one of the first affordable smartphones actually... and it was easy to do back then but things seem to have changed a lot and the whole process of rooting makes my head spin a bit, so a massively dumbed down explanation would be very welcomed.
 
In a word, no. You cannot flash another s4 variant firmware I'm afraid. Attempting to flash say a GT-i9505 (or any other variant) S4 firmware will almost certainly render your GT-i9508 a 'brick'.
 
The i9508 is a China Mobile TD-SCDMA only version AFAIK. Don't think you're going to do much with that phone in Europe. Yup, it's 100% Communist Party of China approved. If you can exchange it for a i9500, that's the proper international S4 for Europe and much of the world, provided that's what the TaoBao seller has got.
 
I guess I can thank my smarts of only shopping in reputable taobao shops... The shop is exchanging for a i9500, and they've confirmed they have the i9500 on hand.

Thanks for the info @mikedt and @dynomot, it confirmed that I needed to exchange the phone as I bought it in the perspective of heading home soon-ish.
 
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