Last year, Google’s Android L preview was basically limited to its own line of Nexus devices. This year, Sony has decided to get in on the action, making the Android M preview available to users of most of its recent Xperia line of handsets. If you have one of the following devices, you can get in on the Android M preview:
- Xperia Z3
- Xperia Z3 Compact
- Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact
- Xperia Z2
- Xperia Z2 Tablet
- Xperia Z1
- Xperia Z1 Compact
- Xperia Z Ultra
- Xperia E3
- Xperia M2
- Xperia T2 Ultra
- Xperia T3
Unfortunately, though, it’s not quite as simple as it is for the Nexus handsets; you can’t just download a firmware image to flash. However, Sony has provided pretty good instructions to follow which will allow users to build the Android M preview for their selected Sony handset, and has provided the necessary software binaries to allow the handsets to function as fully as possible.
There are also some catches: the modem and camera are not implemented, so you’re really not going to want to use Android M on a Sony handset for anything other than development purposes. As a daily driver, it’s not going to be an awful lot of fun.
love the idea of preview builds from companies like sony, hope others will follow soon,