Essential Phone Oreo beta 3 now available, includes Spectre and Meltdown patches

It’s been about a month since the Essential Phone has received an Android Oreo beta update, and unfortunately it’s still not time for the official release. To help tide you over until the final version is ready, Essential is releasing a third Oreo beta with some security patches and performance improvements.

The third Oreo beta build arrives as version OPM1.170911.254 and weighs roughly 1 GB if you download from Essential’s website. If you’re already running beta 2, you should receive an OTA that weighs approximately 106 MB.

This isn’t a feature-packed update, but it’s an important one. The new build brings Google’s January security patch that includes fixes for the Spectre and Meltdown exploits, as well as miscellaneous stability and bug fixes.

Alright, enough beta talk. When can we expect a stable version of Oreo for the PH-1? In Wednesday’s Reddit AMA, Essential said it’s working to finalize logistics of the Oreo public release, and that its development and Q.A. teams are working hard to get the release to meet the company’s quality and performance standards. In other words, we still have no idea when it will be released.

Remember, this is beta software, so you might experience app crashes or shorter battery life if you choose to download this new beta. With that said, this is the last maintenance release before the final build, so it should be pretty stable. If you’d like to grab the update for your Phone, head to the link below.