Android 11 officially started rolling out earlier today, and now the factory images for the Pixel devices are now available.
This means that those that want to download the factory image, instead of waiting on the OTA to hit their device, can update to Android 11 right away. Instead of waiting.
The OTA links are also live, so if you want to update your phone without losing all of its data, you can do so. Make sure to check out our tutorial on how to update your phone using the OTA link as well as the factory image. It’s somewhat easy, but if you’ve never done it before, it can be a bit tricky.
For most people, it might be better to just wait for the OTA to hit your device. As you only need to hit update, and you’re good to go.
What is a factory image?
A factory image is essentially the entire factory image that is flashed onto the phone before it goes on sale. So if you were to flash the factory image onto your Pixel device, it would make it like its brand new. That includes erasing all of your data.
This is why this is not the method we recommend, unless you are impatient and want Android 11 right now. Because it takes a lot of effort. Using the OTA links is a lot better. As it basically only changes the files that were changed. So it’s 1.58GB instead of over 3GB. That’s a much better experience.
Where can I download these factory images?
You can download the factory images and the OTAs from Android’s Developer site.
On their site, there are some instructions on how to flash the factory image and sideload the OTA. But they are pretty vague, so our tutorial is still a really good option for updating your device.
These factory images have to be uploaded by Google, since Android is open source. So that people can look through the code if they wish. Sometimes, they can find some hints about what’s coming in the future though, with these factory images, which is pretty neat.
Android 11 is a somewhat large update to Android, even though the feature-list is pretty short this time around. Google is focusing on messaging and privacy here. As well as some changes to media controls, which is really nice. There are some much needed changes here, and now you can get it on your Pixel.