Flashing Android firmware on BQ Aquaris M10 Ubuntu Touch FHD

In this post we flash the latest Android firmware available for the BQ Aquaris M10 Ubuntu Touch FHD. Prerequisites is a PC with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS connected to the tablet with a USB cable.

Download the Android firmware

Head over to BQ's support site and download the latest Android firmware available. Be careful to download the correct version - there's both a FHD and HD version. I got the Firmware 2.6.2 (Android Marshmallow) for Full HD. Hit the Terminal CTRL-ALT-T and unzip the firmware:

$ cd Downloads
$ unzip 2.6.2_20180126-1035_bq_aquaris_m10_FHD_-FW.zip -d ./firmware

Install the SP Flash Tool

Download the flashing tool called Smart Phone Flash Tool for Linux from https://spflashtool.com/download/. At the time of writing the latest version is v5.1824_Linux. Unzip the tool, make the binary executable and run it as root:

$ unzip SP_Flash_Tool_v5.1824_Linux.zip 
$ cd SP_Flash_Tool_v5.1824_Linux
$ chmod u+x flash_tool
$ sudo ./flash_tool

Flash the firmware

Flashing the firmware of your device could brick it! This is the last chance to backup data from the device.

In the SP Flash Tool click scatter-loader file->Choose. Select the file ~/Downloads/firmware/MT8163_Android_scatter.txt.

In the drop down menu select Firmware upgrade.

Power off the Aquaris M10 and disconnect the USB cable now.

Click Download in SP Flash Tool.

Connect the device to the PC with the USB cable while the device is still powered off. You might get an error if you connect it too quickly after clicking Download. If so then just retry.

When SP Flash Tool reports "Download OK" then disconnect the USB cable and power on the Aquaris M10.

At this point your should see the "Powered by Android" logo. I had to reboot the device the first time it booted because it seemed to get stuck. If you need to do the same then hold the power button for approx 10 secs to stop booting and then hold the power button again for about 3 secs to restart.

At this point it starts optimizing apps and after that you go through the dialogs to setup Android.