Android Updates

[wicked]

moved from Off-Topic to Android Discussions/Forum

[Dorian]

Google Android engineers have come forward and publicly stated there are no CPU frequency requirements for Gingerbread or Honeycomb. It all comes down to the CPU architecture. A single core Cortex A9 CPU could run Honeycomb at 600MHz because at that frequency it's faster than most other Cortex A8 CPU's that run at 800MHz.

That's why Tegra 2 is so beast. Per-clock, a dual core Cortex A9 provides up to 200% more performance than A8 CPU's like the Hummingbird or 65/45NM Snapdragon.

[aaf709]

As far as installing the updates yourself: Assuming you are just going to buy the phone and leave it as is, YES you will have to wait for the manufacturer to release an update.

Adding to that, you generally get the updates Over The Air (or OTA). In other words, you'll see an announcement on your phone there's an update available and would you like to download it. Hitting "Yes" will start the download and installation. Now, when the OTA updates come out, they are RANDOM. Back in December '09, when the first Droid came, a Google map was set up so you could put a "pin" on where and when your update came. No rhyme or reason; even if you bought two identical phones there was no guarantee that both would get the update at the same time. That being the case, sometimes on these forums you'll see a post on where to get the update. This means you can install it yourself and get it quicker than if you waited for it.

As for the requirements, while an older (read slower) unrooted phone may be able to run Gingerbread, it may not run as well as a newer (read faster) phone.