We’ve been waiting patiently for Taiwanese tech giant to release the Android 7.0 Nougat update for its HTC 10, because we knew it was so coming soon thanks to screenshots leak, and today it has happened. Though, not exactly the channel you’d have thought in your wildest dreams: custom ROM. Ouch!

So, it seems developer j to the 4n, or the team Venom, over at XDA got hands on the Nougat build, software version 2.28.401.6, for the HTC 10, which has been used duly to re-base the already so popular ROM to Android Nougat. Of course, the ROM now runs on Android 7.0.

Now, we have seen Nougat firmware leak on XDA, which is normal, but this is what happens when it becomes available to a popular developer with a popular custom ROM in action: a Nougat based custom ROM comes up even before the firmware or official OTA.

Anyway, to us, all it means is that as previously expected, the HTC 10 Android 7.0 build is almost ready with HTC, and could launch anytime now — maybe the developer didn’t have as much patience as HTC for Nougat release.

If you have an HTC 10 in hand, and know your way around custom ROMs — which is not a difficult job on HTC 10 — you can give it a go at the link below.

→ HTC Nougat custom ROM, Viper10 4.0

Note: Know that this will void your device’s warranty, as you will have to unlock its bootloader first, then install TWRP recovery, and then flash this ROM. pretty amazing stuff once you’ve done it, and something we do on all our devices.