If I buy a second hand phone, or handset only deal, how do I get Android updates, as they wont be pushed out by my provider (GiffGaff) presumably?

I dont want to root the phone, but need a new handset and dont want to take up a contract to get one. A £160 Desire X will do nicely.

My second hand Android phone still used to see updates when I checked for them despite being on O2 when it was originally on Vodafone.

It most likely looks to a central update site as opposed to carrier specific ones.

Try the manufacturers website to see if you can download updates that way?

It can also be worth checking whether you can root the phone. Can give the option to install lots of different versions of android

The updates are carrier specific; even if you unlock the phone from the original network, the phone has a CID (IIRC) – Carrier ID – which identifies it as (say) an O2 handset.

You -should- still get updates from the source network, I think anyway. The way round it would be to root it and then reset the CID to ‘generic’ so you can install anything, or get the carrier-specific RUU.

I think.

What about if you buy the phone sim free?
Having said that I’d rather keep my phone on an operating system I know works than upgrade to one it may not cope with.