If Sony Xperia has been your smartphone choice in the recent past, the news of the company’s Android 7.0 Nougat Beta Program shouldn’t be, well, news to you.
In this program, the company welcomes willing parties to register for the pre-release version of Android OS, but only for a select number of devices. It happened with Android Marshmallow where the likes of Sony Xperia Z3 were part of the program. The phone went further to feature in the latest Android 7.0 Nougat beta program, but it did not make it to the final stages of the developer preview version.
As a result of this, it seems Sony is ready to make up by allowing more subscribers to the Android 7.0 Nougat Beta Program, but this will only involve those on the Xperia X Performance. This does not come as a surprise since the Japanese tech giant had promised to avail the OS on this flagship as soon as it could.
Even though the news of Sony Xperia X Performance joining the Xperia Android 7.0 Nougat Beta Program might leave many people excited about the prospects of having the new OS installed on their phones, a larger portion will be disappointed in the fact that the registration is limited to certain regions across the globe.
For starters, signing up doesn’t guarantee immediate selection into the Android 7.0 Nougat Beta Program. Secondly, you must be living in any of Italy, the Netherlands, Iceland, Spain, Denmark, Portugal, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Sweden or Norway. Sony also warns that it will not be taking in every Xperia X Performance user, rather, the slots are limited and it will consider the first applicants only.
Before jumping onto the Android 7.0 Nougat beta program with your Xperia X Performance, be warned that this program will install software builds that haven’t been seen or installed by other users of the same phone. There may be issues with performance, but fixes follow up sooner than later in newer builds. This goes on until the right balance is achieved and a public version of the software is made available.
It’s worth noting that users of Sony Xperia X Performance in the U.S. and the UK will not be part of the program. But this doesn’t stop English language from being the official communication language when it comes to feedback and user experiences’ comments. There is more detail here.