OnePlus One gets official Android 5.0 Lollipop update, but through alpha ROM

As a result of its controversy with Cyanogen, OnePlus has released official Android 5.0 Lollipop update for the OnePlus One smartphone through its own custom ROM. The custom ROM is currently available for download as an alpha build which means it has some major bugs.

The custom ROM released by OnePlus through a forum post is based on Android Open Source Project (AOSP) Lollipop and does not have any extra feature on the top of stock interface, similar to Google Nexus devices. However, the company says that it will add some of its customisations on the final build of its Android Lollipop release for the OnePlus One.

On the part of major bugs and issues, the custom ROM has unstable camera, video and Wi-Fi functionalities and has slower startup time on first boot. It is also worth noting here that users who opt for the custom ROM will also not be able to receive any Over-the-Air (OTA) updates after installing this ROM on their smartphones.

OnePlus advises its users that any issues which will be resulted from flashing the custom ROM will not be covered under official warranty and a backup of entire data should be taken before flashing with this new build.

To flash with this new build, users need to have TWRP recovery installed on their OnePlus One smartphone and a boot into that recovery is required to flash the custom ROM through holding the volume down and power button simultaneously. Thereafter, users need to go to Wipe from the recovery interface and then install the custom ROM zip file.

Shenzhen-based OnePlus had announced the release of its own custom ROM with Android Lollipop in November to answer the exclusive deal between Micromax and Cyanogen as the latter will no longer release any official CyanogenMod updates for the OnePlus One smartphone in India.