Asus leaves a few big names out of its official Android Pie update list

by Adrian Diaconescu / Feb 27, 2019, 9:05 AM

Asus leaves a few big names out of its official Android Pie update list

Nokia is inching closer and closer to concluding its comprehensive Android Pie update program, Motorola has recently started spreading the love to its budget-friendly mid-rangers, Samsung's early 2017 flagships are themselves embracing the newest OS flavor in a stable form, while Asus is... making a list.

We obviously never expected the company to be the fastest out the gate with official Android 9.0 makeovers for its extensive and often confusing ZenFone lineup, but surely it's a little late to share vague 2019 plans for a grand total of 16 smartphone models. Unfortunately, that's precisely what we're getting from a moderator over on the Asus ZenTalk forums. No specific release dates are provided and, worse yet, the list lacks a few names you may have expected to easily qualify for Pie-flavored UI enhancements and performance upgrades.

We're talking about the Asus ZenFone 4 and ZenFone 4 Pro (model numbers ZE554KL and ZS551KL respectively), which are among a handful of unlocked devices the company officially sells in the US through retailers like Walmart, B&H Photo Video, and Amazon. It would certainly be disappointing to see these two spending the rest of their days running Android Oreo after making their commercial debut on Nougat back in the fall of 2017.

The ZenFone 4 Pro packs a Snapdragon 835 processor, while a Snapdragon 630 is in charge of raw speed on the "regular" ZenFone 4, both chipsets being more than capable of sustaining the latest OS build in combination with 6 and 4GB RAM respectively. Oddly enough, several international ZenFone 4-series handsets do have Android Pie updates in the works, including significantly less powerful variants like the Snapdragon 430-based ZenFone 4 Selfie.

Hopefully, Asus simply forgot to list the two phones, which seems unlikely considering everything from the ZenFone 4 Max to the Max Plus (M1), ZenFone 5Q, Max Pro, Max (M2), and Max Pro (M2) is there. Even the Asus ZenFone 5 and ZenFone 5Z are listed, despite already receiving over-the-air Android 9.0 promotions. The ROG Phone should be next in line, by the way, but we have no idea when.

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1 Comments

1. blingblingthing

Posts: 770; Member since: Oct 23, 2012

Come on Android OEMs, it really can't be that hard to update these phones. You get the official Android update, you add your preferred skin, then test via a beta program and then publish the update for unlocked users and to carriers. From there, you tune the update for the older flagships and mid range phones. Should just be to swap out drivers/ binaries for the different hardwares and remove whatever hardware features needs to be removed. Boom. It should be essential just adding your skin to Google's implementation and changing out drivers.