The original Nokia 2 is one of the devices that I took interest in during the first wave of Android devices that HMD Global pumped into the Kenyan market.
Besides the obvious appeal of its massive 4100mAh battery, something that my mum enjoys since she rarely gets to charge her phone throughout the week considering her usage patterns, in addition to running one of the simplest versions of Android software there is, another major appeal of the Nokia 2 is the promise of at least two major OS upgrades.
Back in September 2017, HMD Global committed to upgrading all of its then-existing and future devices with at least two major OS versions. At the time, the Nokia 2 had not seen the light. The phone was unveiled in November 2017 preinstalled with Android Nougat and like others before it, we expect at least two major OS upgrades.
Although pretty late, HMD finally released the Oreo update (Go edition) in mid-2018, but this was only in beta. As of this writing, there is still no stable version of Oreo for the Nokia 2 and the worst part is that HMD hasn’t given any reliable timeline of its official release whatsoever.
Even more frustrating is that in its official Android Pie update roadmap, the Finnish company doesn’t include anything to do with the Nokia 2, which leaves me asking: will too many phones affect HMD’s promise of timely software updates and at least two OS upgrades?
I still want to believe HMD will roll out Android Pie to the Nokia 2 and that the omission from the Pie roadmap was deliberate due to the unknown status of the device’s Oreo stable release date. Once the stable version of Oreo is released, the company should be in a better position to know when to begin Pie preparations.