Let’s get the obvious out of the way, shall we? No, not that Nougat is a terrible, terrible name and that the next version of Android was supposed to be named Nutella, but the two sides couldn’t come to an agreement on licensing the name. What I’m talking about is the fact that Sony’s Xperia Beta program was always going to come back, despite being shuttered last month.

For those unfamiliar, the Xperia Beta program allows the community the beta test early builds of Android as Sony works out their kinks. Last month, Sony concluded the program as they internally began to transition from Marshmallow to Nougat. Now that Sony is ready with an early build that will eventually make its way to the Xperia X line, they’re ready to deploy it to the public for further testing.

According to XperiaBlog:

 Sony is currently taking sign-ups across a few regions including the Nordics, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Iceland, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Netherlands. 

As for the beta testing, it’s currently limited to Xperia X Performance, which is an odd choice. Sure that might be the most powerful phone Sony currently has, but it’s also, by definition, due to its cost and more limited regional availability, their lowest selling one as well. Hopefully this is just a way for Sony to ease back into beta testing before they open the floodgates and allow more Xperia X models into the program.

As of right now, it’s unclear when Sony is targeting to release Android Nougat, though hopefully when they release their new slate of phones that’s expected to be revealed at IFA, they’ll be coming with the new Android OS.

Those interesting in testing Android 7.0 Nougat can download the Xperia Beta program app via Google Play.

Discuss:

Will you try to sign up for the beta program?