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How to install Android 16 custom rom on OnePlus 9RT

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Prabhat Maurya
Thu July 03 2025 12:39:08 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

As of July 2025 android 16 is the latest android release by google and it comes with a complete design overhaul with new expressive material 3, a new Quick Settings, and many security improvements out of the box. After release many custom roms have started working on the new android version and most of them like evolution-X and yaap are almost stable. This post shows how to install Evolution-X 11.0 based on android 16 on Oneplus 9RT.

Oneplus 9RT

Oneplus 9RT was released October 2021 with android 11 Pre-Installed and later got three major android version updates of Android 12,13,14 respectively and will get Security updates till October 2025. The phone comes with a Snapdragon 888 and 5G support. As of 2025 the phone still stands strong and don't feel out of date as compared to current lineup of phones. Therefore using this phone in 2025 is still a solid choice.

Android 16

The phone does not support Android 16 Officially so i took things in my own hands and Build Evolution-X 11 based on android 16 for this device. The rom feels stable but still has some bugs which will be fixed in later updates by me.

Is it Good?

The rom feels super smooth and super cool. I am using it as a daily driver and most banking apps work but as Play Integrity checks fail some apps which rely on it fail to work. Apart from this there are few bugs in UI which don't affect the daily experience at all.

ScreenShots

screenshots

Installation

Installation is exactly like other custom roms download the rom and flash boot.img, dtbo.img, vendor_boot.img and boot to recovery and then adb sideload the rom zip file. I wont be going into depth of installation like how to unlock bootloader as there are already tutorials filled with it so there is no point of repeating it. Just simple install steps.

Requirements

1. ADB and Fastboot 2. Oneplus 9RT with bootloader unlocked (if not then do a simple google search how to do it) 3. The Evolution-X Zip file can be downloaded from - Here

Note: This zip file contains boot.img + dtbo.img + vendor_boot.img + Actual Rom Zip. So you need to extract it.

4. Now good to go

How to install

1. Extract the Downloaded Zip
2. Open Console/Terminal in the extracted folder and attach the device with a USB
3. Reboot Device to bootloader
adb reboot bootloader
4. Flash the boot,dtbo and vendor boot
fastboot flash boot boot.img
fastboot flash dtbo dtbo.img
fastboot flash vendor_boot vendor_boot.img
5. Now select the recovery mode and enter recovery
6. Install the Rom
  • Select Apply Update
  • Then Select Apply from ADB
  • In the console/Terminal of your pc
adb sideload EvolutionX-*.zip

  • this would take a bit of time

  • when it is finished it would give option to flash some addons which you can decide by yourself (magisk/some other addon) as this rom don't requires any.

  • You should Factory Reset if you are coming from stock rom. It is not required if coming from some Other Custom rom but Recommended in case of bootloop.

7. Now reboot and enjoy

Conclusion

Oneplus 9RT still holds up as a solid phone after 4 year of release and still can be used as a daily driver. And its recommended to use a electronic device as long as it can hold as it reduces the e-waste stress on mother earth. This android 16 update gives this phone another life to match a new generation of requirements. I still remember using my Motorola G4 play which was released in 2016 with android 6 and later updated to android 7.1 but due to the community support it received unofficial updates through custom roms till android 12 and i was able to use it till 2022 which is about 6 years. After that it felt outdated and was unable to keep up with modern android versions. Still i am using it as a smart home control Remote till today which makes it solid 9 years and still counting. This shows how long a smartphone can be used without becoming a e-waste. Also this depends on the manufacturer of the device. Many manufacturers like Motorola, Sony, OnePlus, Samsung, Nothing, Google etc release their kernel source to public for community development which i really appreciate. But many vendors like Vivo, Oppo, Iqoo, infinix etc don't even care or try to comply with GPL to release the kernel source and I personally don't support these or suggest anyone to buy from these vendors.

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