Gone are the days when Motorola was easily among the first OEMs to roll out software updates to its devices, but still, the now Lenovo-owned Company isn’t the worst in this department.
Despite being beaten to Android Oreo OTA update by several companies, including OnePlus, Huawei and Sony, Motorola has still managed to start rolling out Oreo before the end of the year. As at the time of this writing, it looks like the Moto Z is now receiving the Oreo treat, but so far, this has only been reported in Brazil.
Over the recent past, Motorola has had something with the Brazilian market. Most OS upgrades usually start rolling out in this market and it seems this won’t be stopping anytime soon – or at least with respect to this year’s Android Oreo.
Usually, Motorola rolls out soak tests to its devices before rolling out the OS to other users. This, in fact, is what the company rolled out last month to the Moto Z and Moto Z2 Force. For the uninitiated, soak tests are just what Motorola calls beta tests and usually, the OS would be rolled out to a few users first before spreading out to more handsets. At the moment, it’s not confirmed whether this is a soak test for Moto Z users or whether it’s a stable release for all users, but the latter is more likely since the same market had already commenced the soak test. Also, Motorola had previously mentioned that the stable Oreo for the two devices will be ready for download as from this month.
In addition to installing the new Android Oreo, Moto Z handsets will also be bumped to a new Android security patch under software version OPL27.75. Note that this is an update confirmed in Brazil and based on history, it should take some time before other markets get the same treat as well.
Update: Verizon users of the Moto Z2 Force are also reporting a new OTA update that installs the stable Android Oreo on their phones. This basically confirms that the earlier rollout in Brazil is a stable release and not another soak test. Apparently, the Moto Z2 Force is getting software version ODX27.109-34 which not only installs Oreo, but also the latest Android security patch for the month of December.
