Rooting and ROMing is sadly declining in popularity these days, but Pixel devices remain a popular option for those that still honor the practice, given their unlockable bootloaders. For folks with that inclination that picked up the brand new Pixel 5a, Google has just published the full suite of OTA and factory images that can both make recovering from an accident a little easier and potentially offer a means for some future fun.
Formal retail availability for the phone was August 26th, just yesterday, and the images were published promptly to coincide with that release. In all, two sets of images were published this time around: a build for Japanese carriers and a build for “everyone else.” Given Google’s super-limited availability, that last bit pretty much just means the US — sorry, rest of the world.
The images also only have June 2021 security patches, but that actually matches the current release for the Pixel 5a. That’s a little unusual. Last year, for the Pixel 4a, Google released a set of images covering a wider range of patches up to the current release, but we assume the Pixel 5a will get an update with more recent patches on September 6th.
Last year, Google also released Android Beta Program support for the Pixel 4a before Android 10 factory images were released, so this year has things turned around a little bit — though arguably, this order is better. We assume the Pixel 5a will pick up support when the upcoming release candidate build lands.
