X

HTC One V and Desire C will never get Jelly Bean

HTC has confirmed that several of its recent phones won't be updated to the latest version of Android.

Katie Collins Senior European Correspondent
Katie a UK-based news reporter and features writer. Officially, she is CNET's European correspondent, covering tech policy and Big Tech in the EU and UK. Unofficially, she serves as CNET's Taylor Swift correspondent. You can also find her writing about tech for good, ethics and human rights, the climate crisis, robots, travel and digital culture. She was once described a "living synth" by London's Evening Standard for having a microchip injected into her hand.
Katie Collins
3 min read

Many of the phones HTC has released in the last year and a half will not be updated to Android Jelly Bean, the company has confirmed in the FAQ section of its website. Among the casualties are the HTC One V and the HTC Desire C, both of which are fairly recent offerings from the Taiwanese manufacturer.

HTC is currently concentrating on pushing out the Jelly Bean update to the One X and One S, according to the statement, but while rumour has it it's been bursting onto screens throughout Europe, it's yet to show its cheery face in the UK.

Whether your phone will receive the update is dependent on a number of criteria, but is primarily reliant on your phone's innards. HTC has said it won't be Beanifying any of its blowers with 512MB of RAM, as their cogs are too antiquated and weak to cope efficiently with the new software.

That rules out the One V and the Desire C, not to mention many of last year's phones. From there, it's said it will work backwards, prioritising 2012 models first.

Things are looking good for those who've bagged themselves a Desire X or a One XL, both of which pack enough of a punch to not work themselves into a tizz if and when the benevolent Android cloud rains down Jelly Beans upon them.

Other devices which would be stoic enough -- on paper at least -- to handle this sugary meteorological miracle, include the HTC Rhyme, the Evo 3D, the Desire S, the Incredible S, the Sensation, the Sensation XE and the Sensation XL.

Best not to hold your breath though, as many devices are still waiting on the last update to Ice Cream Sandwich and HTC doesn't have a perfect track record at sticking to its word where updates are concerned.

Even HTC's new top-of-the-range 4G model, the One XL, doesn't arrive with Jelly Bean on board, giving the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S3 LTE -- which is all up to date straight out of the box, thank-you-very-much -- a huge advantage in the software stakes.

Similarly, the newly released Desire X has arrived running Ice Cream Sandwich, with little more than a pledge from HTC to "review" the possibility of updating it at some point. And it doesn't get much more vague and non-committal than that.

I've reached out to HTC for an update on exactly which phones can look forward to having Jelly Beans float across their screens, and I'll be sure to keep you posted if I hear anything new.

HTC is the latest company to slip this less-than-welcome news into a sub-section of its website. Only the other week Microsoft confirmed in a sneaky support note that its 32GB Surface tablet had less than 16GB of usable memory available. It seems press releases and public announcements are going the way of the town crier as methods of breaking news.

Is HTC falling too far behind with its Android updates? Has your One X or One S got Jelly Bean yet? Let me know in the comments below or over on our Facebook page.