If a handset comes with 2.2, can it be upped to 2.3? How?

It can if the company who make the handset release an upgrade for it and your service provider approve that (Orange are pretty awful for approving new firmware and take ages).

You can also look at xda developers and see if anyone has developed a rom for the handset too.

Depends entirely on the handset. Which phone?

and your service provider release that

So long as the manufacturer actually releases an update, the branding can usually be circumvented so this is less of an issue.

If the manufacturer doesn’t release an update, then there may be a community project to update it (eg, GOASP for the Galaxy) but these are usually ‘beta’ quality.

There’s no one size fits all answer though, it does depend on the device.

Thanks, thought so 🙁

quite often it can only be upgraded once.. certainly this appears the case some of the motorola phones

so if it came with 2.1 it might get a 2.2 update… but never a 2.3

a couple of the motorola have no update at all .. XT720 IIRC has no update

Be careful, my HTC Magic was upgraded and now runs much worse. Mine auto-updated, it is Voda branded tho.

You can root most and install a custom rom. I did that to my old htc hero today and its now running 2.3. 😀

You can root most and install a custom rom.

And in English it means what exactly?

Rooting is the process of giving you more privileges on your phone. It’s needed in order to install a ‘custom rom’.

You will be using the ‘stock’ OS, which is the one that comes with the phone. A custom rom is just a customized version of the stock one – developers will add things, optimize things and sometimes break things 🙂

Ideally most non teccy people could just wait until the phone company releases the standard update (there’s an option in Android to check for updates and download them), but they take ages, and may not ever release them at all – hence some people go down the custom rom route, and get the latest OS earlier.

It still seems a bit risky rooting and adding the custom rom – part of the process will mean wiping the data of your phone.

The rooting part can be done by downloading an app form the market.

The custom rom part is a bit more tricky, there are apps that let you do it in a ‘one click’, but if that doesn’t work, your’ll need to be a bit more teccy and download the Andriod developer toolkit, and use it copy files to your phones sd-card, then run a few commands ‘n faff about a bit (lots of howto’s on the xda-developers site).

This is what I’m running on my htc-hero.

http://www.cyanogenmod.com/

I’m also running 2.2 on my new Motorola Defy, but I won’t bother attempting to install a custom rom on it, because I still think there’s some risk involved, and it’s new and shiny and works great as it is 🙂

HC > if you tell us what device you’re asking about, we might be able to give you more specific advice.

There are some 2-SIM jobbies on ebay, my brother uses such and likes it but I’ve been told by many people 2.3 is far superior to 2.2. Curious more than needy. Sort of anal sex-like for many 😉
Thanks guys, I don’t want to be learning it, if I were to go for such a handset I’ll stick to the original software.

nickname

how did you update your defy to 2.2? I checked for updates earlier today (on the phone itself) but it didn’t find any

you don’t need root to install a custom ROM, I didn’t on my Desire anyway. Still trying to make up my mind whether to root or not.

woops, sorry my defy is actually 2.1, mt bad 😉

I’ve been told by many people 2.3 is far superior to 2.2.

The problem you’ve got there is you’re talking to halfwits. There are a couple of tweaks, slightly better power management and such.

@ nickname – how are you finding the defy? Currently have a hero and looking at the defy. Seem to be some decent deals around. Hear the Motorola UI is a bit pap. Have you installed launcher pro or similar?

There’s an official update to 2.2 due very soon for the Defy

The simple answer is that pretty much any android phone can be upgraded / downgraded / sidegraded to any version of android, if you are a little tech savvy. If not, you’ll have to wait for your manufacturer to release an update.

If you want to do it yourself:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/

jeffl – so far I really like it.

– It’s *a lot* faster than the Hero. I’m already using it a lot more for things like browsing because it’s so much faster and nicer to use. I don’t get the annoying lag that I used to on Hero when I had several apps in use.

– It’s lighter

– It’s about the same width as the Hero, but about 5mm shorter, however it has more screen space (about 1cm more vertical screen space)

– The screen is much better

– The camera has a flash

– It comes with swype. This is such an awesome app and makes keyboard input so much easier!

The only thing that is annoying me so far is the volume control seems harder to press than the one the Hero 🙂

The UI is fine. I’m not using the launcher app (I’ll give it a try), but I don’t have a problem with it.

I’m not that fussy with the UI, they all seem rather similar to me (apps on desktops, widgets, home screens etc).

There is a downside to the defy though, and it’s quite a big one if you’re into custom roms.

The bootloader is locked, which means it’s not likely to get any custom roms at all, and if motorola don’t release 2.3 for it, then we’ll be stuck on 2.2. It doesn’t make a big difference for me, if you have a short contract you can always upgrade to something better later on.

edit – I think I’m wrong about the custom roms on the defy anyway. It looks like they are available, but maybe the kernel version is locked, which means the developers will still be limited in what they can do…I guess.

There’s an official update to 2.2 due very soon for the Defy

Ye I saw this yesterday.. and checked for update, but it came back saying no update available

http://www.androiduknewsetc.com/2011/04/22/motorola-defy-gets-android-2-2/