Video of ten-year-old Samsung Galaxy S2 running Android 11 will remind power users of Android's glory days

Android is a flawed OS with quite a few shortcomings. Every so often, though, the perks of the OS shine through. The latest of such is a video published by Android Central showing the current version of Android, Android 11, on a Samsung Galaxy S2.

Yes, you heard that right—the Galaxy S2 from 2011. For some perspective, Apple's smartphone for 2011 was the iPhone 4S. Getting modern software to run on such hardware is impressive no matter how you look at it. Of course, there's no chance this is an official version of Android; Apple with its stellar support policy doesn't support the iPhone 4S anymore. LineageOS does the job here instead.

How does it perform? Well, decently enough for what it is. The Galaxy S2 technically runs LineageOS competently enough, with modern Android 11 features being present. That said, though, the hardware on the Galaxy S2's quite a tad ancient at this point, so simply getting around the UI places a lot of strain on the phone's Exynos 4210 and 1 GB of RAM. Installing the Google App suite made things even worse.

All of that considered, performance was always going to be an issue in a venture like this. Being able to do this in the first place—and rather successfully, at that—is what's worth celebrating. The Android custom ROM scene may have seen a steep decline over the past few years but this is a callback to what some would consider the glory days of the OS, and should put a smile on some faces.

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