Lenovo Announces Android Marshmallow-eligible devices

Android Marshmallow is the latest sweet treat from Google, and it continues to make its rounds to Android devices worldwide. Sony, Motorola, Samsung, and LG are manufacturers we’ve seen that have already started announcing which devices will get Marshmallow and which devices won’t, but we’re not starting to see other smaller players such as Lenovo announce which devices of its own collection will see the next major Android update that has already arrived to Nexus devices. HTC has now started rolling out Android Marshmallow to its One M8 Google Play Edition (GPE) devices.

Lenovo has now announced that a handful of smartphones will receive the Android Marshmallow update: the A7000 and A7000 Plus will receive Marshmallow by September 2016. The Lenovo K3 Note will see Marshmallow in September 2016 as well, with the Vibe P1 and Vibe S1 to get Android Marshmallow by June 2016 (or Summer 2016, at the earliest). With these confirmations, though, Lenovo will go down in history as one of the slowest OEMs to update its devices. Google rolled out Android Marshmallow last month (October 5th), and Lenovo’s Android Marshmallow-eligible devices will wait until at least 8-9 months later before getting the update. By next summer, Google will be preparing the release of Android N (or Android 7.0) by then.

Some say that Android fragmentation is a bad thing, but that’s not the case; in some instances, fragmentation can be a blessing for those looking for something more than a vanilla Android experience Google provides. At the same time, however, Lenovo is an example of what many believe to be the dark side of Android: that is, unlike Apple and iOS, Android users can’t expect fast, quick updates unless they own a Motorola device or Google Nexus device. Google once owned Motorola and ensured quick updates, but since Google sold Motorola to Lenovo, it’s been downhill for Motorola. A company that once promised quick updates and delivered can no longer fulfill that promise. Motorola’s latest act was to announce that carrier-locked versions of the Moto X wouldn’t receive the Android Marshmallow update (to the anger of quite a few customers). Lenovo’s slow update promises here seems to confirm the worst suspicions about Motorola’s new slow update process.

We’ll be back to bring you more news on Lenovo’s Android Marshmallow-eligible smartphones.

Source