2017's HTCU11 Life gets Android 9 Pie before this year's HTCU12 Plus

Various HTC U11 Life owners (such as this one) around the world are reporting that the OTA update to Android 9 Pie is rolling out now. This makes the U11 Life the very first HTCdevice to get the Pie upgrade.

The HTCU11 Life is an Android One-powered variant of HTC’s 2017 flagship, the HTC U11. Since the device is part of the Android One program, it makes sense that it’s getting the Pie upgrade first.

However, it is quite perplexing that the HTC U12 Plus — HTC’s most recent flagship — is still stuck on Android 8.0 Oreo, with no update on the calendar to look forward to (even the recently-released HTC U12 Life is at least on Android 8.1 Oreo). While an Android One device technically should get its updates faster than other devices, it’s strange to think that a cheaper phone from last year is now more up-to-date than the months-old flagship offering from the same company and the recently-released new model of the same phone.

HTC confirmed in a casual tweet back in August that four of its devices would receive a Pie update: the U12 Plus, U11 Plus, U11, and this Android One-variant of the U11 Life (the non-Android One variant was not included). However, the company didn’t give any dates or make any promises about the updates, so they could land at pretty much any time.

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