Some Sony devices will skip Android 5.1.1 and upgrade directly to Marshmallow

A good amount of H1 2015 Sony devices still have yet to get an update to Android 5.1.1 Lollipop, and it looks like that will remain the case for some time. According to Sony’s support pages, the Xperia Z3+, Z4 Tablet and a handful of mid-range devices such as the C4, C5 Ultra, M4 Aqua and M5 won’t receive another software update until Android 6.0 Marshmallow rolls out to these devices. All of these devices are currently running Android 5.0 Lollipop.

On one hand, this is bad news for owners of these smartphones and tablets. Android 5.0 has a notoriously irritating memory leak that can wreak havoc on non-beast-mode devices. Which is to say, exactly the kind of devices we’re talking about. Android 5.1.1 fixes these issues for the most part, so it would be nice for Sony to push out the updates as soon as possible. 

On the other hand, this means Sony will begin working on the update to 6.0 Marshmallow much sooner. Owners of these Sony devices will be able to run one of the latest versions of Android much sooner than they would previously.

For a while, it looked like Sony was holding off on rolling out the 5.1.1 update until after the Xperia Z5 came out. Owners of seemingly abandoned devices clung to the hope that 5.1.1 would arrive in the night shortly after the Z5’s release, but that date passed without a word from Sony. Although Sony has made no official announcement regarding this issue, their Mobile Support pages indicate that a large number of devices will move directly to Marshmallow.

Are you affected by this update skip? Tell us about it in the comments.

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