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Early adopters of Motorola Android smart phones may be feeling listless and abandoned right now, as it was revealed that the Dext and Backflip won’t be upgraded to Android 2.1.
Motorola can’t blame the limitations of the hardware, as its software upgrade screen also revealed that the Backflip and the Cliq (the US name for the Dext) will be getting the Android 2.1 upgrade in the US.
CNET UK asked Motorola for comment about why European owners are stuck forever on Android 1.5, but the company hadn’t replied by the time of publication. We’ll update if it gets back to us.
Motorola Milestone users are more fortunate, meanwhile — they’ll be receiving an upgrade to Android 2.2, the latest release, sometime later this year.
Motorola Dext owners on the company’s UK forums were understandably angry that they were being excluded from the upgrade in this way.
Dext owner Paul Edgcott wrote, “Your CEO Sanjay Jha said all Android phones will get an upgrade, now you are not doing this. I expect you to replace this handset with one you will upgrade.”
Fellow Dext owner ‘Mani 2010’ wrote, “That’s it, my Dext is going on eBay. I’m going to get the T-Mobile G2. This can do more than the Dext and considering HTC’s reputation for Android updates, it will most likely get Android 3.0 when that’s out!”
‘Chimpaudio’ added, “Moto have managed to anger even the most reasonable of us… Moto knew what the backlash would be like but still won’t upgrade because for the same reason large corporations write off small losses. We the Dext users are insignificant.”
Some posts advise owners to ‘root‘ their phones, stripping the OS to the most basic version and upgrading that. Of course, this will void the warranty.
Android’s bumpy upgrade path is proving an exhausting road with manufacturers and networks alike. They all add their own customised skin to the basic Android OS, but find
supporting that software more trouble than it’s worth when savvy users
expect updates with the latest functionality. HTC apologised to Hero owners after they waited months for the 2.1 upgrade, for example, while Vodafone recently said sorry to HTC Desire owners for a disappointing ‘bloatware’ update.
Are you a Motorola Dext owner? How do you feel about the company ignoring you Brits while providing US owners with Android 2.1? Let us know in the comments.
