Category: Android Oreo

Today’s Deal is on the Sony Xperia XA2.  The XA2 is one of the newest phones in Sony’s lineup, having just been announced in January at CES.  Right now at Amazon, you can pick up the 5.2″ mid-range phone for $319 in black.  That’s a savings of $31 off the regular price.  The special pricing is only one the black model.

The Xperia XA2 is powered by the Snapdragon 630 SoC, has 4GB of RAM and 32GB of storage.  That storage can be expanded thanks to the MicroSD card slot built into it.  It renders a FHD 1920 x 1080 on the 5.2″ IPS LCD display. The XA2 has a 3300mAh battery and runs Android Oreo out-of-the-box.

After being in beta for the last couple of months, the EMUI 8 update for the Huawei P10 and P10 Plus is now rolling out globally.  EMUI is Huawei’s own variant of Android and the version 8 build is based on Android Oreo.  The release has started but it appears that Huawei is slow rolling it for now.  It could be several weeks before the update gets to everyone.

The update for the Huawei P10 and the P10 Plus is build 8.0.0.360(C636) and this build appears to be for all variants of the devices (single-SIM, dual-SIM).  The update also comes with the February 2018 Android Security Update patch.

After several weeks of beta testing, the Android Oreo 8.1 update for the Essential Phone has been released.  The update, some 1.7GB in size, is available to everyone so you should be able to check for the update and download it.

The update comes after the announcement early this year that the company would be abandoning the 8.0 build of Oreo due to stability issues and would focus on 8.1.  That process, fortunately, did not take long.  In fact, the first beta of Oreo 8.1 for the Essential PH-1 was released just last month.

Asus continues its slow but steady rollout of Android Oreo to their devices.  The latest to get the Oreo 8.0 treatment is the Asus ZenFone 4 Pro.  The 5.5″ displayed phone running the Snapdragon 835 SoC is receiving firmware update V15.0410.1802.34.  The update is for the unlocked ZS551KL variant of the the phone.  That is the model that was sold here in the US via Asus’ Amazon store front.

According to the release notes, you have all of the benefits of Oreo coming to the phone but also improved power consumption through software optimization and Oreo itself.  There is also a new “Long Screenshot” function for taking screenshots of an entire scrolling screen on your phone.

Huawei’s sub-brand, Honor, has announced on Twitter that a beta program has opened up for Honor 7X owners to test the company’s Android Oreo build.  The new build is EMUI 8, Huawei’s variant of Oreo.

Interested in beta testing EMUI 8.0 based on @Android Oreo for the #Honor7x ? US residents sign up belowhttps://t.co/1IFAY2WFBG pic.twitter.com/ir1eYTBg84

— Honor USA (@Honor_USA) March 2, 2018

In order to apply to the beta program, you have to fill out this Google Form with your information.

While the Samsung Galaxy S9 is now available to pre-order, if you want to save yourself a bit of money, you can pick up a good deal on last years Galaxy S8.  Right now the Samsung Galaxy S8 is available in Midnight Black for $599 on Amazon.  That’s $125 off the regular price.  Given that the S8 has its Android Oreo update rolling out, complete with Samsung Experience 9 of the Galaxy S9, you really getting close to the same device for a lot less.

The 5.8″ Galaxy S8 is powered by the octa-core Snapdragon 835 processor running four cores at 2.3GHz and the other four running at 1.9GHz.  It is coupled with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage which is expandable up to an additional 256GB thanks to the MicroSD card.  The display renders at 2960 x 1440 QuadHD with an impressive 571 PPI.  Powering all of it is a 3000mAh battery which is charged with inductive charging.