According to the latest rumors surrounding HTC, the company is currently working on an update for their Desire 816, aiming to bring it up to Android 5.1 Lollipop. We don’t know when the update is supposed to be released officially, and there are various rumors about the supposed arrival date, but most rumors seem to be pointing to a release that’s right around the corner, so hopefully that’s not far from the truth.
It’s good to see that the company is still working hard to support a device that came out a year ago, and the Desire 816 still enjoys a fair bit of interest on the market as a whole. It has a good screen with a 5.5 inch size, 1280×720 resolution, and it’s powered by a Snapdragon 400 processor with 1.5 GB of RAM and GB of built-in memory.
The device originally shipped with Android 4.4.2 KitKat, and in April this year, HTC upgraded it to Android 5.0.2 Lollipop after popular demand from users to get the new version of the OS. We don’t yet know the details about the release of Android 5.1, but it’s expected to come with some special improvements from HTC themselves, such as their Sense 7 UI.
There is also some expectation that the update is going to be released for the Desire Eye along with the Desire 816, but this hasn’t been confirmed yet. For what it’s worth, the release of the new OS version for the Desire 816 is just a rumor at this point by itself, so the situation isn’t very easy to read right now.
Those who’re willing to dig a bit deeper into their devices already got the opportunity to get Android 5.1 on their Desire 816 phones earlier this year, thanks to the work of the CyanogenMod team, who have released a custom ROM for the device that sets it to Android 5.1 Lollipop.
Interested users who haven’t seen the update yet should check out CM12.1, which is already widely available for download all over the Internet, and it comes with the same features as the main Android version with the same number. Of course, as usual with CyanogenMod, there are also various subtle improvements by the developers that make the OS an overall better, more comfortable experience, and it’s definitely an update worth installing for pretty much everyone.
Of course, users need to keep in mind that flashing a custom ROM can be a bit of a risky procedure, at least for those who’ve never done it before and don’t know what they’re doing. It can also void the device’s warranty, but most Android users aren’t so concerned with that, as the operating system tends to be more open than others in general, and custom ROM flashing is seen as perfectly normal by most.
Those who’ve had a chance to try out the CM12.1 ROM have had a very positive impression of it, claiming that it runs very smoothly on the Desire 816, and there were no major issues or glitches with the OS overall. Some even reported that it felt better than the standard Android 5.1 experience, and this is actually not that surprising as it’s known that CyanogenMod occasionally comes with special improvements that have been implemented for certain devices in order to get even more out of their hardware. We wouldn’t be surprised if CM12.1 has something of this sort of the Desire 816 as well, as the team behind it has been working quite hard on this version in particular.
HTC is trying to push 5.1 update coz the 5.0.2 update was one of the worst update which had more bugs for desire 816.
lollipop damaged my phone, i hate htc, i hate android! I dont understand why they even bothered updating the 816 if it cant support the software, or even have enough space. out of my 8gb of space, 6gb is being used by the software. I can’t even download any new apps, the updates to the stock apps have drained my storage completely. It just makes my blood boil.
and not to mention the fact that it has ruined the camera too. the 816 used to take amazing crystal clear photos, now they are noisy and washed out. this phone is a nightmare. I am never using htc ever again, or android.
Need update