Category: Android Oreo

It looks like owners of the latest Samsung Galaxy devices have a bit of a wait before they see the Android Oreo update.  The company’s Turkish site has posted that the testing of the new Oreo build has begun and that it will begin rolling out next year.

Our work on our pilot model for Android 8.0 (Oreo) has begun. We aim to present the new operating system to you at the beginning of the new year.

The problem, of course, is when exactly it will be in the new year but this all-but confirms that the update won’t hit in 2017.  Samsung has been very quiet about a timeline on when the update will roll out and this is the only confirmation that has been seen to this point.

If it is indeed 2018 before the Galaxy S8 phones and the Note8 see Oreo, it will once again make Samsung one of the last of the major OEMs to get the update out to their current devices.  Huawei, OnePlus, LG, Sony, HTC and Moto have all confirmed that at least some of their devices will get the update prior to the end of the year.

Through a blog post made this morning, Sony has announced that Android Oreo has begun rolling out to the Xperia XZ Premium.  The update was released to unlocked devices today and it could take several days before everyone sees it.  It also makes Sony one of the first manufactures to get an Oreo update out to a device.

As you would expect, the update is big at over 1GB in size so you will want to make sure you have your phone connected to WiFi to download and that you have at least 70% battery life available (if not connected to AC).

In addition to Oreo itself, Sony has added several new features to the Xperia XZ Premium with this update.  There is a new 3D Creator app that lets you scan any object and render it as a 3D avatar or free form image.  The app can do this in less than a minute and can share it with friends, on social networks or even send it to a 3D printer.

Google has released this month’s Android Distribution Report and the latest version of the platform has finally made its debut.  Android Oreo accounted for .2% of the traffic to the Google Play Store for the seven day period ending October 2, 2017.  It was only one of two versions of Android that gained in the distribution report, joined by Android Nougat.

Nougat saw a 2% jump over the September report, accounting for 17.8% of the traffic to the Play Store.  All of the others either had no change or saw drops in usage.

As expected with it being the first Monday of the month, Google has released the Android Security Update for October.  While there are still two patches that were released per the norm, they contain far fewer patches and fixes than normal.

The first updated, dated October 1st, is general Android fixes and contains a total of 8 patches and fixes, three of which are considered critical.  The second patch, dated October 5th, has 6 total fixes with 2 of them marked as critical.  As a reminder, the Google Pixel and Nexus devices will be getting the October 5th updates, which are cumulative to the 1st, and is aimed at hardware specific driver fixes for those devices.

Today’s deal is on the compact, 4.6″ display Sony Xperia X Compact.  The 2016 phone packs a lot of punch and is down to $349 today on Amazon.  This is just about half of the cost of the new-for-2017 Xperia XZ Compact and you will still be getting Android Oreo at some point in early 2018.

I reviewed the Xperia X Compact in November of last year and it remains one of my favorite phones of the past year.  It’s compact size is great but the overall performance and camera quality is excellent.

The Xperia X Compact is powered by the Snapdragon 650 hexa-core processor.  It has four 1.4 GHz Cortex-A53 cores &  two 1.8 GHz Cortex-A72 cores.  The processor is coupled with the Adreno 510 GPU which provides good graphics performance.  The X Compact has 3GB of RAM onboard and has 32GB of built-in storage.  That storage can be expanded up to an additional 256GB thanks to the Micro SD slot that is built into the SIM tray of the phone.  With the smaller screen size, as you would expect, the X Compact is a pretty small device.  It measures 129 x 65 x 9.5 mm or 5.08 x 2.56 x 0.37″ in old money.  Weight wise it is 136g or 4.76 ounces.  The phone is comfortable to hold and very easy to slip into any pocket.

Nokia has been clear that all of their current line up of devices, the Nokia 3, 5, 6 and 8, would be receiving an update to Android Oreo.  The question, as is always the case with manufactures, was when that would happen.  Now we know and it is this year.

In an interview today, HMD Global’s General Manager for ANZ (Australia and New Zealand), Mark Trundle confirmed that the Nokia 3, 5 and 6 will get getting the Oreo update before the end of the year.  As for the Nokia 8, the Android Oreo update is already in a limited rollout.