It’s not too easy to become the fourth largest phone maker in the world, specially when you go up against industry stalwarts like Samsung, Apple or HTC, but ZTE, the Chinese phone maker that has been releasing a string of new devices lately, did exactly that and passed HTC to claim that spot this year.

However, it seems that’s not their only achievement in the last two months – ZTE has also become the first manufacturer (and first Chinese company) to update one of their smartphone, the ZTE N880E, to Android 4.2, the latest version of Android Jelly Bean that so far has only graced Google’s Nexus devices, no doubt helped by the fact that the N880E runs on untouched and unskinned stock Android. The N880E was released back in May and was also one of the first devices to run on Android 4.1.

And if you’re thinking the N880E is some high-end smartphone, think again, as the device sports a single-core 1GHz Qualcomm MSM7627A processor, 512MB of RAM, 4″ WVGA display, 3 megapixel camera, 4GB storage and microSD slot, and a 1650 mAh battery, which makes me wonder what qualms Google had with updating the much faster Nexus S and Motorola Xoom to Android 4.2.

He Shiyou, ZTE’s Head of Terminal Division also said that the company will introduce more Android 4.2 models in the near future, and will continue “to make improvements to equipment performance and stability, ensuring that our handsets meet with the high expectations of today’s consumers.”

Well, here’s hoping big name manufacturers are seeing this and scrambling to push the latest Android update to at least their high-end devices, as it would be too much for us to expect them to look towards their low-end devices. Or can we?

Via: Unwired View | Source: ZTE