Should I change S5 to stock ROM to another country or root?

[Diego82]

Hi guys, I would like to get your advice / suggestion about the following:
All Android phones in China comes without Google Play or any Google services.
It seems the only option is to root and install the google apps, but I was wondering what happens if I change the stock firmware from China to another country (let's say Hong Kong for example). Will I loose network connectivity or anything else?
If anyone already tried this it will be great to hear from you.
Otherwise, if someone knows a method how to install google play leaving the rest of the phone as untouched as possible, it will be great
Note: There is a thread in XDA specific about the G9008V but unfortunately there is a missing file (s5rootkit.zip) which I can't get yet, so if anyone knows another way, will be great.

Thanks a lot to everyone for reading and answering

 

[jpatel3]

Re: change stock ROM to another country or root ?Galaxy S5 G9008V (China Mobile version)

I also had the same problem but found that towel root was able to root the phone so I didn't need the rootkit files.

Once the phone was rooted, installing google apps was quite straightforward.

 

[Diego82]

Re: change stock ROM to another country or root ?Galaxy S5 G9008V (China Mobile version)

On my G9008V towelroot didn't work, I had to root it using the recovery. It might been my mistake because I let my phone to update firmware before doing all the process...
The google part was the easiest one, but I also did it from recovery

 

[Catalin Stefan Udrea]

Re: change stock ROM to another country or root ?Galaxy S5 G9008V (China Mobile version)

need help rooting my s5 i have de sm-g9008v i used any metod available and no succes, i used towelroot, c.f and flash, using odin i get the fail message

 

[Diego82]

Re: change stock ROM to another country or root ?Galaxy S5 G9008V (China Mobile version)

What is the error message you get? Flashing through ODIN and installing a recovery and then from the recovery installing the root should do the trick.
If the issue is with the recovery that fails to appear, ,just go to recovery mode when rebooting the phone right after installing it. It worked for me.
Other way, use the chinese websites files for CWM or other root ways. Yeah they are in Mandarin but you can use google translate (with a vpn...) and most of them have pictures so is quite simple.
Dedicate a few hours just to do it, using the root methods from this forum, the ones in XDA and also the Chinese ones translated. I did that mix and it worked