Moto Z Play spotted running Android 8.0 (Oreo); update is coming soon?

With this being the most festive time of the year, it wouldn't be unusual to see young children sitting at the kitchen table, dunking some Oreos into a tall glass of milk. Seeing children powered by Oreos is a lot more common than seeing Android phones running on Oreo (Android 8.0), at least according to the latest Android distribution figures. But that would lead us into a discussion about the "F word," and no one wants to discuss fragmentation during the holidays.

And that leads us to a Geekbench benchmark test  performed recently on the Moto Z Play. How the device fared in the test isn't as important as the build of Android that was on the phone for the test, which in this case was Android 8.0. Thus, we can assume that Motorola is getting closer to pushing out Android 8.0 on selected phones. Just the other day, we told you that in Brazil, Motorola is looking for owners of the Moto Z and Moto Z2 Force to participate in a soak test for Android 8.0.

In addition to the Geekbench test, a screenshot allegedly shows the "About phone" menu with the Moto Z Play powered by Android 8.0, and carrying the December Android Security patch.

Android 8.0 will feature a new Picture-in-Picture capability allowing users to watch video while using another app in the background. There will also be adaptive icons, new notification and settings panel, an autofill feature for blank information fields, and more. The Motorola handsets expected to receive the update include:

• Moto Z
• Moto Z Droid
• Moto Z Force Droid
• Moto Z Play
• Moto Z Play Droid
• Moto Z2 Play
• Moto Z2 Force Edition
• Moto X4
• Moto G5
• Moto G5 Plus
• Moto G5S
• Moto G5S Plus

We'd expect to see Motorola employ the time tested LLFU process to decide which models are first to be updated. The "Last Launched, First Updated" method would mean that the 2017 Moto Z2 models would be first to receive Android 8.0, followed by the 2016 Moto Z series.

source: Geekbench, Techdroider