The Galaxy S2 (stylized as Galaxy S II) was the successor to the original Galaxy S. Samsung unveiled this smartphone at the Mobile World Congress in February 2011. The handset debuted with Android 2.3 Gingerbread and was updated up to Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean. Because of its popularity in the developer community, over 9 years after its release, interested owners can now try Android 11 on this device.
Android fragmentation is a known issue for years. It has reduced to a certain level with the introduction of Project Treble but the problem is yet to be solved fully. Recently, Google and Qualcomm announced that certain high-end Snapdragon SoCs starting with Snapdragon 888 will support up to four years of software updates (3 years of Android updates and 4 years of security patches).
Though the announcement sounded big, actually it wasn’t. Because Samsung had already promised three generations of Android updates for select devices earlier this year and Google has been providing the same for Pixels since their inception. Anyway, the improvement is better than nothing.
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Hence, learning that Galaxy S2 from 2011 can run Android 11 after 9 years from its launch is big news. Owners of this phone can try the latest version of Android, which is yet to hit many flagship smartphones released this year.
The Android 11 for Galaxy S2 comes as an unofficial port of LineageOS 18.1 by several XDA Senior Members such as rINanDO, ChronoMonochrome, and others. Since the ROM is compliant with Isolated Recovery (IsoRec), it can be directly flashed via Odin. However, users will have to re-partition and wipe the internal storage of their handset for the installation process.
Anyway, if you are still owning this phone, it may be mostly lying around somewhere without any use. Therefore, if you are interested in modding, flashing Android 11 on this smartphone is not a bad idea.
According to XDA Developers, this ROM port is only applicable for the Galaxy S2 with model number GT-I9100. As of now, the screen, Wi-Fi, camera, and audio are working properly. But RIL is still a work in progress as users can only receive calls and cannot make one. Similarly, GPS, FM Radio, screencasting, and other features don’t work yet.
You can find the steps to install Android 11 on the Samsung Galaxy S2 by visiting this link.
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