When the Essential Phone was announced, one of its biggest selling points was an unlockable bootloader. This would make it much easier for users to flash custom ROMs, kernels, and even root their devices. Although the device shipped with an unlockable bootloader, custom development has been at a stand still, until now. The very first LineageOS based ROM for the Essential Phone is now available.

The very first custom ROM build for the Essential PH-1 comes courtesy of recognized developer invisiblek. The build is only a day old and is running Android 7.1.1, There are not many setbacks to using this ROM as everything is currently functional. It is unknown if the 360 camera with this build. Although custom ROMs have taken longer than expected to start up for the PH-1, it is a good start.

The biggest feature of this ROM is that it does feature seamless updates through the built-in Lineage updater app. No need to worry about continually flashing new builds via TWRP. One thing to note is that since the device uses A/B partitions, Google Apps are included in this build. That is unlikely to change and is why the PH-1 is unlikely to receive “official” status from LineageOS.

Are you going to flash LineageOS on your Essential Phone? Let us know!