But Sony has been offering experimental AOSP builds for some of its phones for some time, and today the company has surprised and delighted owners of the former flagship Xperia Z3 with a custom Android N developer preview.
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Sony Xperia Z3 owners will likely already have the Xperia Companion PC software which makes the installation process pretty straight forward. If not, download the latest version from here.
Google launched the Android N developer preview recently.
Every year Google releases a developer preview of the upcoming Android release.
What do you think about the news that the Android N Developer Preview is being made available for non-Nexus devices? Just plug the device into a computer, hold down the ALT key and then click “Software fix”. The previews are nearly always limited to Nexus devices so if you don’t own a Nexus smartphone or tablet you can’t flash the beta firmware. Sony has been working closely with us to bring you the N Developer Preview on Xperia™ for early testing and development.
It’s not clear why the Xperia Z3 was chosen over more recent Sony devices; it came out in the fall of 2014, and the Z4 and Z5 and their variants are newer. It offers multi-window (split-screen) multitasking, improved Doze mode, better notification handling among others.
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You can return to factory settings at any time by connecting back to Xperia Companion and following the Software fix. Bugs and issues may and will occur, so it’s not recommended to use an Xperia Z3 running on Android N as your primary phone.
