Motorola’s life-proof phone, the Defy, is set to get the Android 2.2 Froyo update sometime in Q2 of 2011. We’ve seen Moto delay updates more than once before, but at least they are giving themselves an ample amount of time to get Froyo out the door.
The Motorola Defy is made for those who are rather rough on their phones, or people who are just plain clumsy. A lot of effort was put into their hardware, but the software, like many Motoblurred phones, has taken a back seat. The Defy ships with Android 2.1, and with its 800MHz CPU, it could benefit greatly from speed-boosting Froyo’s JIT Compiler and the faster web browsing JavaScript V8 engine.
By the time the Defy ends up getting Android 2.2 Froyo, Gingerbread and Honeycomb will have already been released. This may be frustrating to some people who’ve been hanging on to the Defy since it was released, but at least you know Motorola is planning to push at least one major Android OS update to your rough-and-tumble smartphone. Whether or not it will receive Gingerbread, or anything after the Android 2.3 Gingerbread update is anyone’s guess, but we certainly don’t see why it couldn’t handle it.
While the Defy is set to get some Froyo love in Q2 of next year, so far we only know of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East getting this update. As far as the US goes, we’re not sure if T-Mobile will stall the process by adding their own finishing touches onto it, making the wait even longer for users. Nonetheless, I’d imagine that most people who actually bought this handset purchased it for its hardware instead of its software.
Whenever the Defy does get updated to Android 2.2 Froyo, it’ll be a good day for the users. With the Cliq only just recently getting Eclair, we’re hoping we don’t see another repeat like this for the Defy.
[Via: Phandroid]