After months of speculation, the Android Oreo beta program for the ZTE Axon 7 has opened up. The first come, first serve program is open to owners of the 2016 device with the US model A2017U. You can attempt to sign up here.
In the post announcing the program, ZTE indicated that as they get further into the beta program, more people will be added to it. So, for now, if you don’t get picked, don’t fret too much. You could get it later and frankly, being on the early builds of any beta is risky.
Not much is known about the build itself that will be going out to the ZTE Axon 7. It will, of course, have all of the features of Android Oreo but it isn’t clear if it is 8.0 or 8.1, which Android Security Update patch level it will be and so forth. It’s early days so I suspect that more information will come out as the beta actually gets to devices.
ZTE confirmed back in December that Oreo would be come to the Axon 7 but details then were sketchy as to when that would happen. While the beta is certainly a positive sign, there still is no indicator as to when the final build will be released. If the Chinese company follows the trend of most manufactures, you can expect the final build in a quarter or two – so likely this summer.