The Samsung Galaxy S II can now be upgraded to Android 11 thanks to LineageOS 18.0

Samsung has improved the longevity of software support for its devices of late. However, few people would expect the South Korean company to continue upgrading a device as old as the Galaxy S II. The 4.3-inch handset arrived in 2011 on Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread before being discontinued and ending on TouchWiz UI 4, Samsung's custom version of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.

Now, a developer on XDA Developers called rINanDO has brought Android 11 to the now nine-year-old handset. Built for the GT-I9100 of the Galaxy S II, the developer has made an unoffical port of LineageOS 18.0, although one that is in alpha at the time of writing. Nonetheless, the ROM is bootable and many elements are working. We would not consider the ROM stable enough to run as a daily driver though, as the following elements are currently broken:

• Can't make calls, only receive
• Magisk support (misses some frameworks patches I guess)
• FM-Radio (using Spirit2)
• Screencast (Chromecast)
• Voicecall audio control (libsecril-client.so not working)
• Sometimes black screen hang after shutdown or reboot
• After about 12 hours, phone hangs/won't wake up
• GPS

rINanDO adds that LineageOS 18.0 for the Galaxy S II will never support HDMI via MHL as the feature has been broken as of CM 10. If you are interested in trying Android 11 on an old Galaxy S II, then you can flash the ROM via Odin. The full flashing guide can be found on the ROM page.