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You can already run early unofficial builds of Android 7.0 Nougat on your Nexus 5

When Google began rolling out Android Nougat earlier this week — and began distributing factory images for the update just yesterday — one long-supported device was notably left out: the Nexus 5. Android developers across the web saw an opportunity with this omission, though, and have already begun distributing early builds of Android 7.0 Nougat for the LG-made device…

But let me make this crystal clear: All of the builds that have been released in the last 24 hours are in the earliest stages of development and you probably shouldn’t install them if you need any amount of stability. This means that — if you can even get them to install — they’ll be missing the ability to use Bluetooth, the camera, and likely many more crucial features.

Basically, you almost certainly don’t need to be messing around with these. We’ll let you know when stable builds become available.

But it’s still impressive nonetheless that developers have already gotten this thing to boot ROMs based on the first official release of Nougat. Perhaps the most notable among them is recognized XDA-Developers member Santhosh M, whose release has already garnered more than 1,000 comments (and who knows how many installs). As Santhosh says, though, this build is “not a daily driver by any means.” There’s also a build of CyanogenMod 14 (based on Nougat) floating around.

I think these early builds are perfect for cases where you have a dusty old Nexus 5 sitting in a drawer somewhere and you don’t care if it’s almost completely unusable. To get started learning the basics of how to flash these ROMs, you can read our guide for installing Android 7.0 Nougat. But just note that each of these builds will have their own instructions and requirements. The one over at XDA for example requires that you install TWRP.

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Avatar for Stephen Hall Stephen Hall

Stephen is Growth Director at 9to5. If you want to get in touch, follow me on Twitter. Or, email at stephen (at) 9to5mac (dot) com, or an encrypted email at hallstephenj (at) protonmail (dot) com.