Android 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich” is now available on the first non-Nexus phone in the world, but it’s not from Samsung or HTC, as you might expect. Instead, Huawei can lay claim to the honour of being first out of the gate, while almost everyone else was stuck showing off new Android 2.3 “Gingerbread” phones at CES two weeks ago.
The rather charming Huawei Honor, with a 4-inch display, 1.4GHz processor and 8-megapixel camera is the first phone to ship with Android Ice Cream Sandwich out of the box, apart from the Google-backed Samsung Galaxy Nexus (The older Nexus S has also already received the update).
The Honor will only be on sale in China for now, but nonetheless, that’s quite an impressive feat: Huawei didn’t get any early access, and the source code for Android Ice Cream Sandwich was only released in November. For Huawei to tinker and tweak, then ship it before the giants of the Android smartphone world is quite a coup.
Samsung and HTC have yet to announce a phone running Ice Cream Sandwich, which boasts many new Google services and a refined user interface, but both are expected to at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona net month.
The perceived delay between a new version of Android being “released” and actually arriving on mainstream handsets several months later has caused customer frustration, as many simply expect an instant update, as Apple delivers for its iPhone and iOS devices.
But this move begs the question: if Huawei can do it so quickly, what are Samsung, HTC, Sony and Motorola doing with all their resources, especially now that Huawei is making inroads in the West?
(via Electronista)
