Time and again, HMD Global continues to impress us with well-built smartphones and excellent software support for said devices. All Nokia devices receive timely software updates regularly, which is a lot rarer than one would assume. HMD Global joins the ranks of industry bigwigs such as Samsung and OnePlus when it comes to the Android P Beta program, with the Nokia 7+ receiving the latest Android P Beta 2 build recently. Additionally, the company also promises Android P to all Nokia devices, regardless of cost. They’ve also promised to support face unlock on the Nokia 6.1, Nokia 7 and Nokia 8 Sirocco. Today, it gets even better with the three devices being a part of the Android P Beta program.
HMD Global seems to have beaten Chinese behemoths at the software game, as companies such as Xiaomi and Huawei struggle to provide timely updates to most of their devices. With the addition of the Nokia 6.1, Nokia 7 and Nokia 8 Sirocco, there are now 4 Nokia devices that can potentially run Android P in China. It is unlikely that more Nokia devices will join the list, solely because they may not pack the necessary hardware to run the beta build of Android.
Related Today in Android: NVidia Shield Oreo Rollout Resumed, Redmi Note 5 Finally gets Oreo and more
The signup process is a lot simpler too. All one needs to do is reply to HMD’s Baidu post with their handset model, the network provider (the lack of IMEI number is scary, but that’s China for you) and mention previous beta testing experience. Devices with unlocked bootloaders and rooted devices are not eligible for the program, though. Hopefully, international variants of the three devices will get to participate in the beta soon.
The Android P Beta 2 is intended for developers only and is not daily driver material. Bera builds are buggy and some apps almost always never work as expected. In some cases, you might end up losing all your data too. If you absolutely can’t wait and have to know what Android P is like, we’d recommend installing the beta on a secondary device that you may have lying around.
Source: XDA developers
