(1/2)
1️⃣ In 2008, I bought my first smartphone, the Motorola Q9, while my colleague Pengfei bought the Q8. However, these phones were not sold domestically at the time, so we both had to "find tutorials on forums" to flash the Simplified Chinese system, install the nine-grid layout, change fonts, and modify the UI.
2️⃣ In 2011, I went to Guangdong and bought an HTC G11 at Huaqiangbei (I lost it later and bought a G10), both were grey market phones. By then, "forums like Gfan" had become much more mature, with lots of people sharing tutorials and experts sharing ROM packages.
(Weifeng forum was also good, iPhone jailbreaking was mostly discussed at Weifeng)
3️⃣ The point is, back then, as long as you "followed the tutorial step by step," you could definitely get it done because the tutorials were "completely unreserved" and "very detailed."