OnePlus has started to roll out the Android Pie beta for the OnePlus 5 and OnePlus 5T to some users in China.

This suggests it could be coming to users in other countries in the near future.

OnePlus originally said it expected the stable version of Pie to rollout to these devices by the end of the year.

The first Android Pie beta for the OnePlus 5 and the OnePlus 5T has begun to roll out in China. Screenshots shared on the OnePlus forums and spotted by Piunika Web show the download comes in at more than 2GB and contains Hydrogen OS 9.0.

Only OnePlus phones in China use Hydrogen OS, which differs slightly from Oxygen OS that OnePlus uses in the rest of the world (the main difference being Hydrogen’s lack of Google apps). However, the fact OnePlus is rolling out the Hydrogen OS 9.0 beta to 5 and 5T devices suggests it probably isn’t too far from making Oxygen OS 9.0 available too.

To put the release into context, OnePlus released the Hydrogen OS 9.0 beta for the OnePlus 6 in mid-August and the Oxygen OS beta for the same phone at the beginning of September. The stable version of Oxygen OS 9.0 began to roll out just over a month after the first Hydrogen OS beta rollout

It has long been thought that the OnePlus 5 and OnePlus 5T would get Android Pie by the end of the year. However, back in October, OnePlus CEO Pete Lau said the update was taking longer than expected. Assuming nothing goes wrong with the beta, it now seems pretty likely that OnePlus 5 and OnePlus 5T owners could be using the stable version of Android Pie by the end of the year as originally planned.

Editor's Pick 15 best free Android games available right now! We all know that free Android games aren't always free these days, but many of them are very close if you have a little patience. Most free to play bottlenecks occur when players get impatient …

The stable version of Android Pie for the OnePlus 6 came with features such as gesture navigation, an upgraded “do not disturb” mode, and a new gaming mode. According to a translation of the changelog for the Hydrogen OS beta posted on XDA Developers, the Pie update for the older devices will have similar features, although the OnePlus 5 may not get the new full-screen gestures.

Next up: Android Pie update tracker: What we know so far