When Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC launched its mid-range phablet, the HTC Desire 816, last year, it was primarily meant for the Chinese market considering its affordability, given its $200 price range.
Notwithstanding the smartphone’s better-than average specifications and features vis-à-vis its price, the HTC Desire 816 undoubtedly offered one of the premium smartphone deals in China last year.
With the warm reception of the phablet in the Chinese market, HTC was convinced of the device’s sales potentials in other countries where the Taiwanese smartphone maker has presence too.
True enough, when HTC brought the HTC Desire 816 to the retail markets in other countries, particularly in Europe, it generated positive response that the Taiwanese tech company was actually overwhelmed by its sales results.
Waiting for updates
When the HTC Desire 816 was launched last year, it had the Android 4.4.2 KitKat as mobile operating system onboard and out of the box.
So when Google launched its latest mobile operating system Android 5.0 Lollipop in November last year, many users of HTC Desire 816 have long been waiting for the update to finally roll out to their devices.
Since last month, HTC Desire 816 users from different parts of the world have been getting the Android 5.0 Lollipop and Android 5.0.2 Lollipop updates that they have been waiting for. Users of HTC Desire 816 in Europe were among those who got the updates ahead of the rest. Users outside of the region got their updates several weeks later. The updates are still being awaited by HTC Desire 816 in other countries.
HTC said that it will continue to support updates to the HTC Desire 816 for at least one more year, which may be an indication that the company will be launching an iteration of the phablet next year.
Special update case
Although the Taiwanese tech company will not be officially rolling out the Android 5.1 Lollipop firmware update to HTC Desire 816 anytime soon, users of the widely-lauded mid-range handset now have the option to do so through the Android open source project, the CyanogenMod 12 ROM!
The HTC One M9, the flagship smartphone of the Taiwanese tech company, which rolled out to the retail markets this month, is also coming out of the box with Android 5.0.2 Lollipop on it but users will have the opportunity to get a free over-the-air update to Android 5.1 Lollipop.
It is the only HTC smartphone thus far that can be officially updated to the latest firmware update to Google’s current mobile operating system.
Steps have been published on how users of HTC Desire 816 can taste the sweet goodness of the Android 5.1 Lollipop on their smartphones through a special update case.
Start-up procedures
The start-up procedures in prepping the smartphone for the update are typical. As is the normal steps in installing software on any device, users are advice to back up everything on their HTC Desire 816 for security and fall-back purposes.