Samsung Behold II Smartphone Will Be Updated To Android 1.6 [Samsung Delivers The Bad News & Behold II Users Begin Planning A Revolt As They Will Never See Android 2.1]

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Samsung has delivered a little bit of bad news for any of the current Behold II users, and at the same time probably killed any chance at selling the handset to anyone from the geek crowd in the future.

The bad news — the Behold II will never be upgraded to Android 2.1, or even 2.0. In fact, according to the official statement that was released by Samsung, “the Behold II is not upgradeable beyond Android 1.6.” Of course, mixed in with that rather bleak statement is a bit of a silver lining. Granted its not much, but I guess any Behold II user will need to take what they can get. That silver lining — the Behold II will be moving past Android 1.5, which is where it currently sits at.

“Samsung Mobile and T-Mobile USA are planning to update the Behold II to Android 1.6 which provides access to Google Maps Navigation, Google Voice Search capability and quick search box for Android.”

Granted, thats only a small concession, but at least they will be able to take advantage of some of the newer apps in the Market that require Android 1.6 or later such as Google Maps Navigation as well as a personal favorite of mine — Google Goggles.

In addition to the usual Market support for Android 1.6, the update will also provide a few other perks such as the Swype keyboard as well as improvements to the media player and Bluetooth capabilities.

Sadly though, in the end we have to criticism the statement coming from Samsung and the fact they sort of imply that the Behold II is not capable of running anything later than Android 1.6 and what it really is, is that they more than likely just do not want to upgrade it past 1.6.

Still, at least the Behold II will not remain as an Android 1.5 device forever.