Unlocked HTC U11 receives Android Oreo

Aside from being free of any long-term contractual commitments to a certain wireless carrier, unlocked handsets have another great advantage: they get faster software updates. The unlocked HTC U11 is a flagship that gets Android 8.0 Oreo starting today, at least a week or two ahead of its Sprint variant.

Two days ago, HTC's Vice President of Product Management, Mo Versi, posted the following message on Twitter: "Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. The Oreo OS update will be available for download on the HTC u11 unlocked version starting on Monday! Enjoy!" However, the information he revealed in the comments section made this tweet even more interesting. Although he did not mention a specific time frame for the arrival of the update for the Sprint HTC U11, he said that HTC is working with the carrier "to get it out as quickly as possible."

Sadly, it looks like the HTC A9 will not get Android Oreo. Mo Versi also revealed three more handsets that are scheduled to get the Android 8.0 update in the future: the HTC 10, HTC U Ultra, and HTC U11 Life. 

The HTC U11 was released back in June, after a few minor delays. This 5.5-inch handset is powered by the top-of-the-line Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 and it launched with a slightly modified Android 7.1 Nougat-based firmware. The HTC 10, on the other hand, has been released in May 2016 with Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow on board, and it uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820. For it, Android 8.0 Oreo will most likely be the final major operating system upgrade released by the manufacturer.