You may have heard of the Microsoft Nokia Lumia 525. Or not, we wouldn't blame you. It's a humble little device, with a 4" 800x480 IPS display powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 SoC, 1GB of RAM and 8GB of storage.

The device also came with Windows Phone 8 (updated to Windows Phone 8.1) and was oriented towards the budget segment. On the software side of things, a developer has found away to free the phone from its shackles of abandoned Microsoft software towards greener pastures. Microsoft did not update the device Windows 10, so developers did what was the next best solution: they sideloaded the latest Android!

XDA Senior Member banmeifyouwant worked out how to run Android on the Lumia 525. And not just any Android, it still is the "latest" officially available Android version for the public, Android 6.0 Marshmallow (unless Google decides to release Android 7.0 Nougat tomorrow). The phone that Microsoft abandoned now runs a software that several Android phones do not!

The developer completely removed the Windows Phone and UEFI elements from the device, and flashed Little Kernel bootloader, TWRP and a port of CyanogenMod 13. This allowed the dev to boot into Android and show us the video as a proof of concept.

Next, banmeifyouwant also posted a video in which he runs AnTuTu benchmark on the device whilst running CyanogenMod 13.

The ROM is still in the early stages and nowhere near the stability that an average user would expect. The Display and Touchscreen work but need slight calibration, but outside of these, several key areas like WiFi, Modem and more do not work. But that is expected from what is essentially developer-oriented Alpha grade software.

The ROM and modifications work for the Lumia 525, but they have not been released yet. The software set could be modified to work with the Lumia 520 as well, which is the same phone but with lesser RAM. The developer wanted to release an installer and relevant source codes for the Lumia 525 first, but the eMMC on his device has given way, and hence, some delay is to be expected.

Will devices other than the Lumia 525 and the Lumia 520 get it? The same developer has not mentioned of his plans for the same, so we request readers to not inundate the forum thread with requests for the same. If you are a developer, you can pick up the project for your device once the source codes are released.

Even as a proof of concept, this is an incredible achievement for a budget Windows phone device launched two years ago. We hope that the development continues and spreads across devices.

What are your thoughts on this development? Let us know in the comments below!