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Back in October, Motorola published a list of smartphones that were to receive the official Marshmallow update from the company. Conspicuous by its absence was the 2015 edition of the company’s entry-level Moto E smartphone, which was launched with Android 5.0 Lollipop out of the box. The fact that the phone was only launched a few months before the list was published gave rise to concerns that much like most other manufacturers, Motorola too, is starting to abandon its devices the moment they leave the factory floor. Of course, technically, the Lenovo-owned company only promised one software update, meaning, the Android 5.1 rollout was going to the very last major version update the phone will ever see before being EOL’d.
Thankfully though, the company now appears to have updated its previously published list of devices slated to receive the latest and greatest version of Android. While that may sound like music to the ears of all Moto E owners, sadly, there are multiple caveats that one would have to account for before starting to celebrate the impending rollout. For starters, users only in certain regions will ever receive the new software, and the US isn’t on the list as of now. While that may change in the future, American owners of the gadget would do well not to bet on that. As for the regions that will get Marshmallow, Motorola says that those in Canada, Latin America, Europe and Asia will see their Moto E handsets getting Android 6.0, although, those in China will miss out. There’s no explanation given at this point in time though, as to why users in the two largest smartphone markets in the world will miss out on the much-awaited update.
Another important point to note is that the update is only meant for the LTE version of the device, which is powered by the Snapdragon 410 SoC, and not the HSPA version, which comes with the Snapdragon 200 chipset under its hood. Either way, it’s still a positive development, although many Moto E owners in the US and China may not share that sentiment. In any case, it remains to be seen how long the company takes to rollout Android 6.0, as it categorically refused to give an ETA for the same, saying, “we’ll work fast but we won’t push the upgrades out until we know they’re ready”.