By I’m not even sure why this needed to be reported, but apparently someone needed a surefire confirmation: the HTC Droid Eris from Verizon will not be getting an upgrade to Android 2.2. After a lengthy waiting period for the upgrade to Android 2.1, poor sales, and the phone’s eventual death by being put on Verizon’s end-of-life list, no one should be surprised that the Droid Eris won’t be getting Android 2.2
Other phones you can probably expect to get passed on by: the HTC Hero, Motorola Devour and other BLUR devices still on 1.5 (or released in 2009 and recently upgraded to 2.1), just to name a few. While we’d love to live in a perfect world where every device will support every upgrade dished out by Google for ages to come, that’s just not realistic. The line has to be drawn eventually, and at least for the Droid Eris, that line is very clear.
[via Computer World]
It can barely handle 2.1.
I don’t know…my brother in law has an Eris and it runs great on 2.1…I think it’s nicer than my Moto Droid 1, but I must admit that I don’t use the Eris everday, so I don’t really know its limitations.
Lol my old eris ran kaosfroyos 2.2 rom
I’ve been running KaosFroyo for a long while now. The Eris can definitely handle Froyo.
The Eris HAS froyo, its just not from HTC. My Eris out performs the original stock droid right now with Froyo on it. After seeing what HTC has done for the Eris and the overall lack of support and issues. I will never buy an HTC product again.
On a final note, if unpaid hobbyist are able to create fully functioning Operating Systems for the Eris, why cant HTC?
The Eris can handle Froyo, just needs some good old root love.
It should be able to handle it. Manufacturers are releasing new phones with around the same specs so I don’t see why it wouldn’t.
because if you (consumer) could continously update old eletcronics there would be no need no buy new. If companies arent selling new they arent making money.
in short, companies kill old tech so that you buy new tech
“While we’d love to live in a perfect world where every device will support every upgrade dished out by Google for ages to come, that’s just not realistic. The line has to be drawn eventually, and at least for the Droid Eris, that line is very clear.”
I agree. The line should be two years after they stop being sold. I’ll never understand why people just accept on-contract phones not being updated for the duration of the contract.
As the former owner of an Eris I totally agree with Verizon on two fronts:
1. End-of-life: that phone is DOG-SLOW with 2.1. No matter what task killer I used, no matter how few apps I was concurrently running the phone was borderline useless since the upgrade to 2.1 the dialer app was unacceptable slow and laggish. Even though multi tasking is a central part of Android, the Eris just did not handle that very well unless the tasks were trivial.
2. Newer versions of the OS will likely have higher and higher hardware demands. The Eris’ hardware specs were outdated since it first went on sale last November. Let alone almost a full year later and a few major Android versions later.
Been running Froyo now for a while and have had no issues.. battery life is better.. fast .. everything is fine.. Yes when it’s time I will upgrade.. but for now I am very happy.
Root + OC + Compcache + Custom 2.2 ROM = WIN!
Toord, many don’t know, but task killers have negative effects on android phones. The OS keeps any apps open that don’t have an exit option running in the background constantly so they run on very little resources when not displayed but don’t take forever to start up. Using task killers kills your battery a lot faster because it makes your phone work harder because it automatically reopens a bunch of apps right after killing them.
I can’t get Windows 7 to run on my Commadore 64, can someone help me? Seriously, OS updates to match technology updates are nothing new. Hardware advances and software advances go hand in hand, and I’m sure few people would want a phone that crashed or ran slow because it was trying to run an OS that was beyond it’s capabilities of handling. Even rooting has it’s limitations.
I don’t think people here who comment have even used an Eris. I’ve been with Android since the G1. I’ve had the G1, MyTouch, Moto Droid, and the Eris. The Eris is the best when is comes to Rooting and Roms available. Froyo runs great on my Eris, and Runs faster and is easier to navigate(trackball). Root, Overclock to 768, Froyo 2.2, Cyanogen Mod..all make the Eris a contender to the new phones. Benchmark with Tazz Froyo is higher than the Moto Droid, only being beat by Nexus One and Galaxy S.
The Droid X is not getting 2.2 either.
the eris runs 2.2 better than 2.1
Yes that was expected but it is still wrong! The apple is much better with updates than ALL android phone makers. I think this is the final big advantage the iphone has over android.
Not surprising coming from Verizon. My Droid X is not getting 2.2 Froyo either
poor says really? I don’t know the stats, but from seeing them in the wild, they my not be as popular as the Moto D1, but they aren’t a no name like many phones.
There were two many hardware tech issues, I think that is part or the reasoning for Verizon EOLing it sooner that some others.
As far as an OS, HTC+Verizon bloated it a little much from the start, the 2.1 was too much for some of the Eris’, but if you get a decent ROM it runs fantastic. I’m on xtrSENSE, 2.1 OS but with all the 2.2 features baked in, plus more, even with OC off, the phone runs faster and smoother.
Its all about sales, no reason to support a phone when you can pressure people to buy the next new thing.
I’m also running froyo on my eris with no issues. Actually faster than my girls droid. Don’t really know why Verizon can’t just update it officially. Eris is definitely capable of running 2.2/
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! lolz, jk. Errybody new dat.
The Eris has the same specs as the HTC Hero, and my Hero is rooted and running Froyo very well, better than HTC’s official 2.1 update. On the other hand, I certainly didn’t expect HTC to issue a 2.2 update. I think one has to be realistic and look to the modding community instead.
@BobErt Post a reliable source or be quiet. No one has said 2.2 isn’t going onto the DX.
i upgraded to 2.2 yesterday on my hero, as asq said same specs, and now i have dropped the lag issues when typing, i no longer have to hit “dial” then play the waiting game to see how long it will be before a phone call is actually made, and dang it, it just LOOKS sexier. oh, and i can also run a few live wallpapers, and use all the 2.2 google apps.
the problems you all are having with 2.1 are problems with 2.1 not with your phone.
Be clear about who has made this decision though: Verizon
Okay, so root it!
Where are you guys getting the no froyo for Droid X from? Everywhere I’m seeing shows it ready for release now, and there are already leaks of the Froyo beta for the x out there..
the eris is probably one of the best designed phones of the DROID line, it’s just sexy and functional
now, i’d like an Eris with a Droid X screen, a slide out keyboard like the G1, and the internals of the Incredible
@James – Exactly, HTC released the Hero on Sprint and the Eris on Verizon at the same time. As far as I have heard, the Hero owners have been basically satisfied; and, they got 2.2 upgrade, the Eris owners have not been as satisfied. I now have an HTC EVO and it is a great phone, I don’t believe HTC is to blame.
The Droid Eris is missing from the HTC support site.
I think the key complaint is that people with the Eris who bought it on a two-year contract at launch are still not even through /one/ year, and their phone has been end-of-lifed and support for it ended.
The Android lifecycle’s neat and all, but the iteration is SO fast, your phone ends up feeling outdated right after you buy it. We can all probably envision that early next year, there’ll be people complaining that the phone they bought this summer — one only 7 or 8 months old — isn’t getting upgraded to Gingerbread, or something similar.
@vertig0730 Feel free to post benchmarks, I want to see how it does s my slighly overclocked D1 running CM6. Only overclocked to 1.2Ghz :)
it’s funny that everywhere i see someone stating that HTC, Samsung, LG etc.. doesn’t support their phones with updates so they’re not going to purchase one of their products again..
I mean if this is the case then some of these people are going to run out of options pretty soon.
I mean i know it sucks though to buy a NEW smartphone only to quit getting NEW OS updates less than a year out, but maybe the manufacturers are looking at it like 2.1 as good enough for some devices, i mean look how many new devices they keep releasing, it would be hard to steadily bring ALL NEW & Older devices up to the newest OS, you would basically have to hire more and more people just to keep phones up to date.
While some may look at this as a bad thing (which it kind of is) atleast Android has xda and others keeping older devices fresh!!!
@ Steve,
ONLY overclocked to 1.2Ghz lol Isn’t it 600Mhz from the factory?
Man what kind of battery life do you have with that?
Agree with others: Kaos Froyo ROM (based on CyanogenMod 6) runs great on Eris. I OC to a modest 710mhz, my phone is snappy, and get better battery life than I did with Cupcake. I suppose if you are too lazy to root your phone, you will have to upgrade every year. You are at the mercy of Big Red and they will squeeze you dry.
I would like to upgrade my Eris eventually, but the phone has been out for less than a year! With the great support of the ROM building community out there, I expect to update my Eris to Gingerbread and whatever dessert starts with ‘H’.
A $400 dollar (off contract of course) phone is not a throwaway item.
I feel these manufacturers need to slow down with realeasing all these new phones just after they released a phone a month ago or they need to warn us. It pisses people off cuz they give their attention to other phones except there’s. IOS has the upper hand on Android do to the OS update. I’m going to get the G2 because I want a phone I know they will support for a long time. Its runs Stock so it shouldn’t take too long for updates. I’ve learned my lesson wit my Motorola Cliq no more Moto for me. They gave all their attention to the Droid, when the Cliq was there first Android phone I mean WTF. They only had 2 Android phones so how fxckin hard is it!
The laggyness, for me, was not the reason I got rid of it, it was the battery, other than that I actually kind of liked it. But my Droid is much better. Kinda sucks for eris users though.
@MVTom the Hero did not get 2.2. It was announced over 2-3 months ago that it will not get 2.2, less than nine months after it came out. This is ridiculous not upgrading phones that are less than a year old. It’s not in environmentally sound. I called sprint to complain about this and they said to blame it on HTC. I think it’s really both of them.
People, people, you don’t understand. The implementation of 2.1 on the Eris was indeed horrible. I know, because I suffered through it. However, 2.1 was not the problem. HTC Sense was. For the final month before I got my Fascinate, I rooted it and ran the KaosFroyo ROM. The developer of that ROM combined the best of CyanogenMod and AOSP, and created a masterpiece, a Froyo ROM that’s actually optimized specifically for the Eris. Between the speed boost from Froyo, the default overclocking of the CPU (these phones run quite stable at 710 MHz, if not higher), and other optimizations, my phone was running faster than ever, and had much better battery life too. I could regularly get a score of over 400 in Quadrant, and while that’s far less than the top end Android phones, it’s more than twice the typical score of stock Eris phones.
No, the Eris can run Froyo just fine. HTC just decided that it wasn’t worth their while to put the development effort into it. Technically, the phone was already obsolete before it was released, so I’m not surprised. Anyway, if you root and run KaosFroyo, I think you will find that your phone just got a new lease on life. Oh, and btw, while I believed that HTC Sense was the best interface last year, there are now other options that are far better. My rooted Fascinate is sporting LauncherPro Plus, and is simply flying.
VERIZON IS THE PROBLEM!!!! THEY GO THRU PHONES LIKE I GO THRU UNDERWEAR THEY ARE ALREADY READY TO END LIFE THE DROID 2 FOR THE DROID WORLDPHONE AND ITS ONLY A MONTH OLD
IF THE G1 CAN RUN 2.2 SO CAN IT SUCCESSOR THIS IS ABOUT MAKING YOU BUY THE NEWEST AND GREATEST! $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
@ Z-Liberator – They are a business, of course they want you to spend money on getting the latest and greatest. Every business wants you to. They all want your money. Don’t blame Verizon. Blame the consumer for having to have the highest version number the bigest specs, and the shinier look.
If they can’t increase their bottom line, they won’t do it.
Dominick the droid x has had 2.2 it may not be official but u don’t have to root to get it either and I’m deciding on tradeing my moto droid for a eris and 50 dollars mainly for the money
Alot of you are saying the Eris isn’t up to running Froyo. The truth is the HTC bee has basicly the same specifications and will be launched with Froyo. So I don’t belive anyone saying the Eris isn’t capable of it.
Sure it won’t be the fastest one, but it does what I need for now. Besides I have a year left on my contract. I never expected Verizon to drop suppporting the phone so quickly.