In June 2016, ZTE released the Axon 7, a powerful high-end smartphone that came with a beautiful price tag compared to most of the competition, but as at the time of this writing – over one year later – there’s still no word on the phone’s successor.
When asked about the possibilities of a ZTE Axon 7 successor, the company confirmed that it has plans to release one, but the date is still unknown. In fact, rumors and leaks of the possible Axon 8 are nowhere to be seen, but this hasn’t deterred the Chinese OEM from giving it all for Axon 7 users.
With the hardware changes expected on the Axon 8 still unknown, the only other change that can come to the ZTE Axon 7 is through software. The phone was launched with Android Marshmallow out of the box and earlier this year, it was upgraded to Android Nougat. Just this week, fans of the phone took to the company’s official forums to find out details of Android Oreo’s release date with respect to the Axon 7 and to their surprise, a company representative said that the software is already being tested.
This was exactly what ZTE Axon 7 users needed to hear, but unfortunately, there was no mention of specific dates. Well, it didn’t take long for this to show up and thanks to ZTE Germany, we can now be sure that Android Oreo will be ready for the Axon 7 in April 2018. Even though this seems too far, it’s, in fact, a little early when compared to the time it took for the same phone to be upgraded to Android Nougat.
In addition to installing Android Oreo, the update will also bring a new Stock+ UI to the ZTE Axon 7. At the moment, it’s still unclear what this actually means, but looking at it, it’s possible that ZTE is coming up with a new skin that is probably near stock and a significant improvement over what came with Nougat.