How To Install Android 10 on Pixel.
On March 13, 2019, Google launched its Android Q beta. It is now only available for Pixel devices from the Pixel 3 to the original Pixel. But this is a beta version of Android Q and I would not recommend that you install it on your primary device. If you have a spare Pixel phone or if you know what you are doing, then here are the ways to get them installed on your Pixel phone.
Warning: if you install the beta version, you will not be able to unregister and revert to a lower public version of Android without first clearing all locally stored data on your device. You may also run into problems when restoring a backup.
Read: Android Q – Top 10 Features So far
How to install Android Q
1. OTA update
This is the easiest way to install the beta update. All you have to do is register for the beta on the Google Developer website. First, you must be signed in to your Pixel device with a Gmail account. Go to the Android beta testing program website in a browser and sign in with the same Gmail ID. Now, on the web page at the bottom, you should see your Pixel device under your eligible devices section.
Click the “Opt-in†button and you will receive the update via OTA. After that, go back to the phone and check for updates. After a while, you will receive the Beta 1 update. You can install it as a regular update and your device will reboot in the meantime. Before applying the update, make sure your phone’s battery is over 60%.
2. Flash manually
Unless you want to participate in the Google Developer Program and are good at phone firmware. You can do this manually by flashing your phone. Here are direct links to Android Q Beta 1 for various Pixel devices.
- Google Pixel 3 XL
- Pixel 3
- Google Pixel 2 XL
- Pixel 2
- Google Pixel XL
- Pixel
Now the firmware of the standard ROM is different from the firmware of a custom ROM like Lineage OS. It’s much easier with minimal effort. We need three things to get started:
- Pixel device
- USB C cable
- computer with ADB and Fastboot (Android ADB Install Link) installed
Now that you have ADB or Android SDK installed on your device. We need to reboot the phone into the bootloader. To do this, turn off the device, long press the power button and click “Turn off”. After turning off the device, simultaneously hold the power button and volume down button until you see the following screen.
Now that you are in Fastboot mode, connect your device to your PC with a USB Type C cable. Next, we need to open ADB in the command line. To do this, go to the folder where you extracted ADB. In my case, this is C: / ADB. It doesn’t have to be the same, you can put ADB files in any directory. Now copy the path to the ADB folder.
Once you have copied the ADB path, open a command prompt and change the current directory to the copied path with the following command. cd C: / ADB
This now allows the command line to run ADB commands.
Once this is done, check if ADB can detect the phone in bootloader mode by running the following command. fastboot devices
This is a Fastboot command that runs in Fastboot mode or bootloader mode.
Now paste the beta 1 of the Android Q zip file into the ADB folder. The zip file contains 6 files and you need to unzip them to the main folder.
It is important to store these files in the ADB folder. In my case, these 6 files are located in C: / ADB. Now it’s pretty simple, you just need to run the “flash-all.bat” script and press the following command flash-all
After running this command, the Pixel will reboot many times. Wait and make sure it is connected to the PC at all times. If the device connection is interrupted, it can lead to soft brick.
Now the whole process will be executed by the script and the device will automatically reboot. The first boot screen should show that you have installed the Android Q beta.
In case of errors like “cannot find file”, etc. Make sure your ADB version is higher than 1.0.38. If not, download the latest version of ADB from Google. The latest version of ADB supports Android multiple slot firmware.
Closing words
This is a beta version of Android Q and is not stable enough to be used in an everyday driver. This beta update will run for another 5 cycles and you should receive an OTA update if you opted for the beta program. To learn about the new features in Android Q, read our article on what’s new in Android Q.
If you have any questions about flashing and custom firmware, let me know in the comments below. I’ll catch up with you there.