Nexus 5 Android L Factory Image Now Available for Download

As promised, Google released the Android L Developers Preview factory image for Nexus 5 today. Yesterday, at Google I/O 2014, the officials of the Mountain View-based giant gave us a preview of the Android L (5.0 Lollipop?) release. No one knows yet what will be the final name of the new Android iteration, but given the large number of changes it will most likely go as Android 5.0.

Because we’re looking at the developers preview version of Android L, expect the builds to be quite buggy and to look rather unfinished. Google has released the Android L factory image for Nexus 5 in order to allow developers to mess around with the 5,000 new APIs included in the new release. Another reason is to allow developers and testers to report the bugs they encounter, so Google can solve them in time for the official launch of Android L.

Android L is definitely the most major update Google’s mobile operating system has seen since launch. The new version arrives with a new, even flatter design, ART runtime, enhanced notifications bar, better lockscreen notifications, improved multiasking, and the new Material desigh philosophy.

Besides announcing that they are releasing the Android L Developers Preview factory images for Nexus 5 and Nexus 7 today, Google also mentioned that developers preview builds available for older devices like Nexus 4 and Nexus 10 will not be released.

In order to install the Android L factory image on your Nexus 5 you will need an unlocked bootloader, the Android SDK, the Nexus 5 USB drivers, and to download the update file for your device (hammerhead) from here. Extract the .tgz file, then the .tar file, then execute the .bat script.

It’s also worth noting that the entire procedure will wipe all the data on your device. If you have no idea what you’re doing, we recommend you to return to Android.gs in a couple of hours when we will post a tutorial that teaches you how to flash Android L Developers Preview on Nexus 5.