Nokia has opened up a beta program for Nokia 8 owners to give the upcoming Android Oreo build a test drive. The news came via Twitter from HMD Global’s Juho Sarvikas. Mr. Sarvikas is the company’s Chief Product Officer.
Announcing Nokia phones beta labs! Be the first to test #AndroidOreo on #Nokia8 (physical Oreos not included!) https://t.co/91uhqstnnm pic.twitter.com/GNiNrK31B0
— Juho Sarvikas (@sarvikas) October 25, 2017
As a general rule, once these types of major updates hit the public beta realm, they are pretty well baked. But, the keyword here is “beta”. There are likely still bugs to be found and other issues so if you are not comfortable with that, don’t download the update. For those that do and find it unstable to the point of needing to revert back to Nougat 7.1.1, Nokia has confirmed that you will be able to do it.
Full details on how to join the beta can be found on the Nokia Beta Labs site.
For those who have other Nokia devices, you can expect the beta to open up soon for those too. In a subsequent Tweet, Mr. Sarvikas confirmed that the beta program for the Nokia 3, 5, 6 will be coming soon although no firm date was provided.
Nokia has long since committed that all of their current phones would be getting the update to Android Oreo by the end of 2017 and that all of their phones would be getting Android P too. If they can hold close to those dates and follow through, it will make Nokia one of the very few (if only?) manufacture to commit such a long term upgrade program.
While the Nokia 8 is not available here in the United States, the Nokia 6 is and is available for as low as $179 on Amazon.
