TL;DR
- The first versions of Lineage OS 20 based on Android 13 have been released.
- Custom ROM was created for Galaxy S7, S8 and Note 8.
- The ROM allows owners of these older devices to take advantage of many improvements found in Android 13.
Android 13 has been slowly rolling out to a handful of devices over the past few weeks. Although the Android 13 beta is making its way to newer Samsung phones, many of the company’s older phones will be excluded from the update. However, a new custom ROM might bring some hope to Galaxy S7, S8, and Note 8 users looking to jump on the Android 13 bandwagon.
If you still keep your Galaxy S7, S8 or Note 8 phone, developer Ivan_Meler has created the first Lineage OS 20 builds based on Android 13 for these phone models. According XDA Developersthe recently released ROM is surprisingly stable and key features such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, fingerprint reader, etc. all seem to work fine.
Once installed, users will be able to enjoy the vanilla experience of Android 13. This means you can use many of the exciting new features that come with Android 13, as well as regular security updates.
However, there are some important things to point out. First of all, it seems that currently the UI is missing some Lineage OS specific features because the ROM is an early version. Another issue to watch out for is storage encryption and some of the network-related features on the S7 have been disabled. Also, the Note 8’s camera is broken according to XDA.
Do you use ROMs? We asked users this question and found that only 22% of the 7,000 respondents said they use ROMs. Would being able to update to Android 13 be enough to convince you to install a custom ROM?