At a time when the likes of HMD Global and OnePlus are almost done with upgrading eligible devices to Android 9 Pie, Taiwan’s Asus is only giving us a list of devices that will receive the said Pie update.
Not that the company hasn’t started rolling out Pie, but considering the timing, it’s quite strange to be coming out with a release roadmap at this point in time. Even so, it’s not like we expected Asus to lead the way in terms of timely OS updates.
According to a statement made by a moderator over on the company’s ZenTalk forums, the ZenFone 4 (ZE554KL) and ZenFone 4 Pro (ZS551KL) will not be among the devices that receive Android Pie updates. That’s a little absurd considering other lower-end variants in the ZenFone 4 series are on the list of Asus devices to receive Pie, which suggests that this could just be an error of omission.
As for the devices that will receive Pie, Asus has listed the devices below:
- ZenFone 4 Max (ZC554KL)
- ZenFone 4 Selfie (ZD553KL)
- ZenFone 4 Max (ZB520KL/ZC520KL)
- ZenFone 5Q (ZC600KL)
- ASUS ROG Phone (ZS600KL)
- ZenFone Live (ZB553KL)
- ZenFone Live L1 (ZA550KZ/ZA551KL)
- ZenFone Max Pro M1 (ZB601KL/ZB602KL)
- ZenFone Max Plus M1 (ZB570TL)
- ZenFone Max M1 (ZB555KL/ZB556KL)
- ZenFone Max Pro M2 (ZB631KL/ZB630KL)
- ZenFone Max M2 (ZB633KL/ZB632KL)
Once again, it sounds strange that Asus would release Android Pie for inferior ZenFone 4 handsets and leave out the two most premium variants. But then again, moderators and support people are sometimes clueless as to what the company’s plans are with respect to Android OS updates. Hopefully, this is just one of those cases.
As you can see from the listing, there is no definite release date for the Pie updates. Also, the ZenFone 5 and 5Z are missing from the list because they’ve already received Pie updates. Outside the U.S., the ZenFone 5Q is known as ZenFone 5 Lite.
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