RaspAnd Project Now Lets You Run Android 10 on Your Raspberry Pi

Android 10 on Raspberry Pi

Arne Exton released today a new version of his RaspAnd project that lets you run the latest Android 10 mobile operating system on your tiny Raspberry Pi computer.

For $9 USD, RaspAnd 10 promises to make it easier to install Google’s latest Android 10 mobile operating system on your Raspberry Pi computer, but let’s take a look at the new features and improvements it brings over previous versions.

First and foremost, RaspAnd 10 is compatible with several recent Raspberry Pi models, including the recent Raspberry Pi 4 with 8GB RAM, but also older models, such as the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B and Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+.

Second, RaspAnd 10 uses its own App Store, namely the F-Droid free and open-source Android app repository. It doesn’t include Google Play Store, but you can easily install apps using the built-in Aptoide package manager.

RaspAnd 10 also comes with several popular Android apps pre-installed, such as the Mozilla Firefox web browser, Spotify music player, Aptoide App Manager, ES File Explorer, F-Droid, as well as the Aida64 system information, diagnostics and auditing software.

While all these sounds pretty good, some things don’t work in RaspAnd 10. For example, Bluetooth and HDMI don’t work at all. You’ll have use the 3.5mm audio jack to connect your Raspberry Pi to speakers.

It’s also not possible to watch Netflix, which might be a show stopper for some.

Other than that, RaspAnd 10 appears to work very well on the recently announced Raspberry Pi 4 with 8GB RAM, according to the developer, and it works pretty well on older Raspberry Pi 3 models if you use a good quality and fast micro SD card of Class 10 and write speeds of up to 95 MB/s.

Under the hood, the new RaspAnd release uses the Linux 5.4.51 LTS kernel, which offers excellent Wi-Fi support on all supported Raspberry Pi models.

Now, why would you run Android 10 on your Raspberry Pi computer? I don’t know, maybe for fun or maybe if you’re an Android app developer. However, it’s always fun to try new things, so why now give RaspAnd 10 a try.

As I said before, RaspAnd 10 is not free so you have to buy it for $9 USD from developer’s website. If you don’t want to buy it, the sources used to create RaspAnd 10 are available on GitHub along with build instructions to help you create your own Android-based OS for Raspberry Pi.

Images: Arne Exton

Last updated 4 years ago

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