Tag: Android Oreo

While the company continues to get their Android Oreo build ready for the Essential Phone, Essential has made the process of getting the beta build and updates to it far easier.  They have no enabled a new OTA update mechanism for beta testers meaning that you don’t have to sideload it.

The option for an OTA update is now listed as an option on the Essential Beta Builds site.  Once you select the OTA option, you will need to sign up with your name, email address and your device’s serial number in order to be fully registered and to receive the latest beta build.

Today’s Deal is on the Sony Xperia XZ1 Compact, the company’s 4.6″ Android phone that was launched in September of last year.  The XZ1 Compact is the follow up to the popular Xperia X Compact from 2016 and has some mighty impressive specs for its small size.  Right now on Amazon you can pick up the phone in any color for $449, a savings of $150 off the normal price.

The  Xperia XZ1 Compact has a 4.6″ full HD display (1920 x 1080) and is powered by the Snapdragon 835 SoC and coupled with the Adreno 540 GPU.  It has 4GB of RAM and has 32GB of storage.  That storage can be expanded up to an additional 256GB thanks to the MicroSD slot.

For those enrolled in the beta testing program for the Essential Phone, it is time to check for a system update.  The first beta of the company’s Android Oreo 8.1 build has been released and testers will be receiving the update via an OTA download.  As you may recall, Essential pulled the Oreo 8.0 build last month, citing issue with stability in the build, and decided to scrap it to move straight to 8.1.

The build has the February Android Security Update patch included and also has a fix for a common problem for users of the Essential Phone:  Slow scroll jitter.  Users have complained that the phone has a lot of jitter when slowly scrolling up or down a patch.  This beta has a fix for it and appears to be working well.  All in, the OTA update is just over 500MB in size so WiFi downloading is a must.

In an unexpected move, it looks like Samsung has pulled their Android Oreo update for the Samsung Galaxy S8 lineup.  The update to the latest version of Android began rolling out to beta testers in Europe last week but according to SamMobile, the build has been pulled from Samsung’s update servers.

The news likely means that a show stopping bug or other install issues was discovered after the limited rollout began, forcing the South Korean company to halt the updates to prepare a new build to address the issue.

HTC Vice President of Product Management, Mo Versi, has once again taken to Twitter to announced a new update for one of the company’s phones.  This time it is for the HTC 10 for customers of Sprint here in the United States.

Sprint HTC 10 customers! We have received the Oreo OS approval from the carrier! OTA to start from tomorrow. Thanks!

— Mo Versi (@moversi) February 12, 2018

The release of Oreo on the Sprint variant of the HTC 10 comes literally a month to the day after the build was released for the unlocked variant of the 2016 flagship phone.  That update just over 1.5GB in size so those of you who have the 10 on Sprint, you can expect a similarly sized update for your phone.

While the Android Oreo update is in the process of rolling out to the Samsung Galaxy S8 lineup, and is confirmed for the S7 series, there have been rumors to suggest that the 2016 Galaxy S6 series would also be getting the update.  Samsung, for their part, have not indicated one way or the other but thanks to T-Mobile, it looks like the S6 lineup along with the Note 5 will be getting updated.

Over the weekend, T-Mobile updated the support page for the Galaxy S6, S6 Edge, S6 Edge+ and the Note 5.  The update is titled Phase: Complete: Version 8.0 Oreo with the following statement:

T-Mobile and the device manufacturer have agreed to support a new software update.

This is the most clear indication yet that the S6’s and Note 5 are going to get updated to Android Oreo.